The Problem Isn’t That You Can’t Commit — It’s That You Were Never Meant To
Reclaiming your non-linear nature — and what it changes for you and your child.
The Moment I Realised I Was “Too Much”
For most of my life, I carried a quiet suspicion that something about me wasn’t quite right.
Not unstable. Not chaotic. But inconsistent. Hard to pin down. Too changeable. Too intense. Too much in some places, not enough in others.
No one sat me down and declared me defective. Outwardly, I often looked capable and high-functioning. But there were moments — sharp, visceral moments — when the message landed in my body all the same.
One of the clearest was in my early twenties, living in a shared student flat in London. It was a Saturday night. We were gathered in the lounge with pre-drinks, watching Pop Idol. Everyone was relaxed, laughing, invested.
I couldn’t help myself. I began commenting — on the obvious scripting, the emotional manipulation, the ego of the judges, the way something manufactured was being packaged as “real life.” I wasn’t trying to provoke anyone. It just came out.
After a while, one of my friends snapped:
“Gem, can you just shut the f*** up? Some of us are enjoying this. You’re spoiling it.”
The chatter continued. Just not mine.
I felt that familiar heat of embarrassment and something deeper beneath it — a sense of misfit, of being slightly out of step. The message was clear: it would be easier if I could just go along with things. More palatable if I softened my edges.
I shut up.
But I also knew, in a way I couldn’t articulate then, that I couldn’t pretend not to see what I saw.
The Narrative of “Flaky”
That pattern repeated in different forms throughout my life.
I’ve been called “flaky.” I’ve been asked countless times, “Do you not do that anymore?” — dancing, singing, songwriting, running, climbing, crocheting, mindfulness, yoga, yoga teaching, cloth nappies, online retail, Lego clubs, children’s yoga therapy. There is a long list of things I entered fully and later walked away from.
No one usually said outright that I couldn’t commit. But the implication hovered. People were baffled when I left friendships, communities, paths. “I thought you loved that.” “Why would you give that up?”
Inside, it never felt random.
I would begin something with depth and enthusiasm. I would immerse myself, learn everything I could. And then, at some point, something would shift. A subtle friction. A certain emptiness. A sense of falseness creeping in. I would notice myself performing enthusiasm rather than feeling it. Masking connection rather than experiencing it.
It created tension in my body — anxiety, self-doubt, spiralling self-critique after social interactions. When I was less authentic, the shame was louder.
And yet I have always been deeply principled and fiercely loyal. I do not walk away lightly. I walk away when something no longer feels balanced, when values are crossed, when nourishment turns to depletion.
For years, I couldn’t reconcile these two narratives: unreliable on the surface, uncompromising underneath.
How Linearity Became Moral
From the moment we enter school, we are steeped in linear thinking.
We move through information in structured sequences. We are praised for sticking at subjects even when they dull us. We internalise the idea that maturity means endurance, that success means stability, that a “good life” moves in recognisable progression.
School emphasised my mental, intellectual learning — linear, structured, measurable — while sedating the bodily, experiential, dynamic parts of me. Teachers valued grades, not the inner chaos of bullying, divorce, body image struggles, binge drinking. I learned to offer the parts of myself that fit the line and hide the rest.
Later, careers were described as ladders. Income progression equalled success. Cultural messaging reinforced that sticking at something was responsible and moral, while creativity and non-linearity were risky or indulgent.
The programming was subtle but pervasive: a stable, upward trajectory equals worth.
There is a passage in the Gene Keys describing how the mind can only think in linear time, placing everything into a temporal framework. To live entirely within that framework is, in some sense, to live superficially — inside an illusion that reality should unfold in straight lines.
But life does not move like that.
In the natural world, almost nothing travels in straight lines — rivers meander, trees spiral toward light, and growth often happens in quiet cycles before sudden transformation rather than tidy trajectories.
Mutation, Not Failure
Another Gene Keys concept describes mutation as a break in continuity — something that disrupts established patterns and brings uncertainty. Mutation often looks like a mistake at first. Yet it is the engine of evolution.
Looking back, my life has been a series of mutations.
I left my first secondary school after bullying eroded my sense of safety. I dropped out of stage school, despite earning a scholarship, when I realised success there would depend on appearance and extreme discipline at a time when my relationship with my body was already fragile.
I immersed myself in mindfulness and yoga, travelled to India for training, wrote my master’s thesis on yoga for children with autism — only to let much of that formal identity fall away once I became a mother, integrating the wisdom rather than clinging to the role.
I started an online cloth nappy business out of conviction and later closed it when it became misaligned. Years later, I chose disposables for my second child when I could see more clearly the disproportionate burden placed on individual consumers within far larger structural systems.
And then I left my “good career.”
Each time, externally, it may have looked inconsistent. Internally, it was refinement. I entered, learned, extracted what was essential, and moved when something tipped from nourishing into draining.
Had I forced myself to stay in those spaces, I suspect the cost would have been severe — quiet inauthenticity at best, serious mental health consequences at worst.
Who Benefits from Straight Lines?
It took me years to see that my so-called inconsistency was actually non-linearity.
Rigid commitment serves certain structures well. Productivity culture relies on sustained output. Capitalism depends on predictable labour and consumption. Institutions function more smoothly when people stay put, comply, and produce.
This does not make those systems evil. It simply reveals their incentives.
But when we internalise their values as moral truths, we begin to judge ourselves harshly for not fitting them.
The 8th Gene Key speaks about mediocrity — not as lack of talent, but as suppressing uniqueness in order to remain safe within the collective. Fear keeps us married to external authorities. We follow well-trodden paths rather than inventing our own.
Reading that felt like recognition.
I was not broken. I was misaligned.
Reclaiming Responsiveness
Through discovering the Gene Keys and later Human Design, alongside the upheavals of recent years, I gained language for what I had always sensed.
When I stopped pathologising myself, something settled. The anxious inner voice softened. I stopped replaying every conversation in self-critique. I developed trust in life’s unfolding — in responding rather than forcing.
I began to see that my nature is responsive. Not built for straight lines, but for movement. Not unreliable — but migratory.
And once I saw this in myself, I could no longer ignore it in children.
Children are profoundly non-linear. Their capacity fluctuates. Their interests intensify and dissolve. Growth unfolds in leaps and plateaus. Yet we place them inside systems that demand steady output and sustained focus on imposed timelines.
When a child pivots, resists, or appears inconsistent, we often interpret it as deficit. But what if it is responsiveness? What if it is intelligence protecting coherence?
Commitment Reimagined
Some people are here to deepen roots. Others are here to migrate.
If commitment is measured purely by duration, migratory people will always appear deficient. But if commitment is measured by depth, integrity, and alignment with one’s inner compass, the story shifts.
The problem may not be that you cannot commit.
It may be that you were never meant to commit in the way you were taught.
Reclaiming your non-linear nature does not mean abandoning responsibility. It means redefining it. It means staying where there is life and energy, and allowing yourself to leave when that energy has genuinely run its course. It means trusting mutation instead of fearing it, recognising completion rather than labelling it failure.
This shift alters more than your self-perception. It changes how you choose work, how you navigate relationships, how you respond when something that once felt alive begins to feel performative. It changes how you respond to your child when they suddenly abandon what they “loved,” or resist a path that seemed so promising. Instead of asking, “Why can’t you stick at this?” you begin to wonder whether something here is simply complete.
When we release the shame of not fitting the line, we become far less likely to force our children into it. We become more attentive to coherence than to consistency, more interested in alignment than appearance.
And perhaps that is where the most meaningful commitment of all begins.
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If this piece felt uncomfortably familiar — or quietly relieving — I’d love to hear.
Have you ever been labelled inconsistent, only to realise you were actually responding to something deeper? Or are you watching this tension play out in your child?
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There are many thoughtful, capable people quietly carrying shame about not “sticking at things” — or worrying about a child who doesn’t follow a straight path.
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Whether you’re untangling your own non-linear path or seeking to support your child without forcing them into one, these sessions create space for clarity, confidence, and coherence.
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