04/01/2026
When is the last time you had an evening without carrying a sense of urgency?
There is implied pressure with the clock counting down the hours until bed time, the hours until we wake up to go to work and do the same thing all over again.
Our society boasts hustle culture, masking it as productivity and success. We think that running kids, holding a job, tending to chores, and running ourselves ragged gives us our worthiness. We wear homemade cupcakes baked at midnight for tomorrow's school party like a badge of honor. We zip from place to place and task to task, eating meals on the go and managing life with to do lists and calendar reminders. And then when night comes, we doom scroll to decompress, or fall asleep reviewing the activities of tomorrow in our minds.
Oh, by the way -- by we, I mean me. I lived in a constant state of urgency my entire life -- even showers and bathroom breaks were not sacred territory. I was programmed to hurry up, even if there was no where specific to be.
But there is a more gentle way to live your daily life. The world is not teetering on the brink of disaster held in place only by your overwhelm.
There is a middle ground waiting for you to explore it. Take the time to sit with yourself, distraction free. Ask the body what it feels, and stay still long enough to listen.
This is really hard at first. I literally couldn't make it 2 minutes (I know because I set a timer). But like anything, good things take time and p.r.a.c.t.i.c.e.
Learning to slow down the body and the mind is a skill. And it is very much worth developing.
