Awareness + Range = Choice: The Embodied Equation That Changes Everything
“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
If there’s one equation I come back to again and again in my work, it’s this:
Awareness plus range equals choice.
Simple, right? But deceptively powerful. This little formula underpins nearly everything I do in embodied coaching, and it continues to shape how I show up in my life, my relationships, and my work.
Let’s start with awareness. Of course, awareness is important. If I’m not paying attention, if I’m not aware of my habitual patterns—how I tend to react, where I default under pressure, what shapes I take in familiar situations—then I can’t notice when I’m doing them. And if I can’t notice, I can’t interrupt them. I can’t choose something else.
But awareness on its own? Not enough.
There’s this idea floating around in some self-development spaces that “awareness is everything.” That once you see it, you can change it. I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s dangerous, even. Because in my experience, the most frustrating place to be is when you’re fully aware of the pattern and still can’t do anything different. Watching yourself walk down the same well-worn path, over and over, and feeling completely helpless to choose another route.
So yes, awareness is crucial. But it’s not the whole story.
That’s where range comes in.
Range is where you start to unlock real choice.
Expanding your range means developing more options, more ways of being, more tools in your kit. It’s not about fixing yourself. It’s not about becoming someone else. It’s about adding to what’s already there. Saying yes to the parts of you that have served you well and then growing beyond them.
Because your habitual patterns? They’ve been useful. Of course they have, or you wouldn’t have developed them. They’ve probably kept you safe, helped you succeed, got you through some tough moments. But if they’re the only way you know how to respond, you’re limited. It’s like the old “if all you have is a hammer…” analogy. That hammer might be excellent. But not everything is a nail.
So range is about developing new skills, new ways of being, new shapes to inhabit. Still you. Still authentic. Just more of you available.
For me, that means being able to show up in front of a room full of military officers one day, and in a heart-open authentic relating circle the next. Or at a metal gig. Or teaching in Bali. All of those are me. And I feel at home in all of them, because I’ve developed the range to meet each moment without abandoning myself.
This is true in facilitation, in leadership, in personal growth. The more range you have, the more choice you have. And choice is freedom.
It also means recognising the difference between knowing about something and being able to do it. Developing range isn’t an intellectual exercise. It’s embodied. You need muscle memory. Practice. You need to feel it in your bones, so that when the pressure hits—when you’re activated, when the pattern wants to take over—you’ve got another pathway available.
And here’s the other thing I love about this model: it makes everything welcome.
Because when you focus on range, you’re not making your existing patterns wrong. You’re just saying, “Cool. That’s one option. What else might be possible?”
For me? My go-to is seriousness. It’s not wrong. It’s actually useful a lot of the time. But sometimes, I want to access more playfulness. And developing range means I can start to touch that, too.
So. Where are you in relation to this equation?
Do you have a sense of your habitual patterns? Do you know the shapes you tend to take under pressure?
Do you have practices that help you develop range, not just in your head, but in your body?
Because that’s the bit that makes it stick. When it’s not just a concept, but a lived, felt experience.
I’d love to hear how this lands for you. Drop me a message, comment below, or get in touch if you want to explore your range and build more choice into how you show up. This is the work I love doing with people.