She was in her early fifties.
Busy.
Capable.
Respected at work.

Her days were full,
emails, meetings, decisions,
responsibility that never quite switched off.

By late afternoon,
something in her would tighten.
Not hunger.
Something else.

On the drive home,
she would already be thinking about it
the salty crunch of crisps.
The sharp, satisfying snap.
The way the first handful felt
like relief.

At first, it felt trivial.
Just a few packets of crisps.
But over time, it became an issue.

She told herself it was just a silly habit.
It should be easy.
A small weakness to overcome.
Not a big deal.

But, surprisingly to herself,
she failed the first few times.

So she tried harder.
She made rules.
She broke them.

Every attempt to control it
only made the urge louder.
The craving didn’t whisper.
It demanded.

Each time she gave in,
she felt two things at once
momentary relief
and quiet disappointment.

Her behaviour became a mystery to her.
And more importantly,
she couldn’t change it.
She felt stuck. Weak. Helpless.

A small, almost trivial habit
had grown
into something much larger than itself.

She sensed
there was a lesson folded inside her weakness,
waiting to be seen.
But what?
She couldn’t see it.
Not yet.

Then one evening,
something small happened.

She was about to reach for the packet.
The familiar tension was already there.

But instead of fighting it,
she paused.
Just for a moment.

She noticed the pressure in her chest.
The slight clenching in her jaw.

And then, almost by accident,
her awareness widened.

She looked around and noticed the room.
The space around the table.
The sound of the refrigerator humming.
The quiet distance between her
and the packet.

Nothing dramatic happened.
But something softened.

The craving didn’t disappear.
It simply stopped demanding.
There was space.

For the first time in years,
she felt a craving
that didn’t require action.
It was just a sensation.

When attention widened,
the urge quieted on its own.

She hadn’t forced it.
She hadn’t controlled it.
She had simply stopped tightening.

Over the next weeks,
she began noticing small things first.
A pause.
A craving that felt less urgent.
A few seconds of space
she hadn’t deliberately created.

And in those small spaces,
she felt something unfamiliar,
choice.

Not the harsh kind.
The calm kind.

—

Nothing was wrong with her.
Her attention had simply been trained
to stay narrow and tense for too long.

Widening it felt like opening a window
in a room she hadn’t realised
was closed.

The crisps were still there.
But they were no longer in charge.

And she knew now
that whenever she needed to,
she could widen her attention again.
And everything would begin
to settle on its own.

Just stay aware of space,
Tomasz