Episode 73: Why do we rush and what does it cost us?

Episode 72: Why do we rush and what does it cost us?

Nature never rushes, yet everything gets done. So why do we?

In this episode, Becky and Laura explore the deeper drivers behind our constant sense of urgency. From patterns of self-worth and people-pleasing, to always placing ourselves at the bottom of our own list, they unpack why rushing has become such a normalised way of living.

They also explore how rushing isn’t just a habit, but a nervous system state — one that keeps us in cycles of stress, disconnection and overwhelm. And perhaps more importantly, why slowing down can feel so uncomfortable, even when we know we need it.

This is an invitation to reflect on your own pace of life, and to consider what it might look like to move with more awareness, intention, and trust.

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You can check out our respective websites and social media here:

Becky:

www.instagram.com/therosealmanac

www.therosealmanac.com

Laura:

www.soulsanctuarystudios.com

www.lauraclaytonwellness.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 1:02

So welcome back to the podcast today. It's Laura and me together, and we are gonna be talking about rushing today, which we thought was a nice follow-on from the topic that we recorded on last week, which was joy. So yeah, I think there's a book actually called The Rushing Woman. I haven't read it, but yeah, I feel as women we are just always rushing because of everything that's on our to-do list. And when we talked about this episode last week when we were sort of feeling into what to have conversations about, I think the analogy of like when you do your speed awareness test course, if you've got a speeding fine, you said this, didn't you? That like they always give the example that if you drive five miles an hour faster over a certain distance, you only arrive like three minutes earlier or something like that. But it's like while you're in the car, your nervous system is totally paying the price for the fact that you're rushing and trying to, you know, get past cars or pull, you know, pull out at junctions and all of that kind of thing. And yeah, I think that's really interesting to think when we have this mindset of rushing and that we have so many things to do and this sort of limited amount of time to do things, the impact of that on our nervous system and the way that we interact with people uh is interesting, isn't it? You know, you're trading your piece for what getting somewhere five minutes earlier. It it seems madness when you sort of think about it through that lens, doesn't it? And one of the things that we will talk about on this podcast today is well, kind of how time moves on earth, and how really, you know, time is just such a human con construct anyway. So yeah, what what do you think about rushing Laura? What would you add to the conversation?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah, I think you've summarised that so beautifully. It's like that is the the thing that we can kind of chuckle about, isn't it? Is that yeah, how many of us are like speeding around trying to get somewhere and like for the sake of saving seconds? And yeah, I felt like when I was thinking about this like the past few weeks, it's like a spiritual speed awareness course, which is the same thing, right? Which is just going, you know, it does fall off the back of the last episode where I was like, oh, joy, right? Okay, I'm gonna make joy my top value, and like what can I do to bring joy into my day? And the fear of that was like, oh god, I'm gonna slow down, I'm gonna get less done. And it that just hasn't been the truth, and it's been such a revelation to me that, like, you know, less haste, more speed, it's all these classic phrases. It's like I haven't got anything less done. Like, if anything, I've like thought more creatively, and like, you know, three jobs have been done in one because I've just gone for like a more interesting idea, or you know, I've had the capacity to think that way, the results are different because it's more creatively interesting rather than just like a to-do tick-the-box process. So it's really shifted things. Um, and yeah, I just the most important thing is like the tone of the day. Like, I don't get to the end of the day and I'm like, oh god, another day, hell of a day, another day tomorrow, like slogging away at the to-do list. I'm like, I genuinely notice Adam's like, How's your day been? I've been like, yeah, it's been lovely, like really nice day. And like, I can't remember the last time we would say that about like my days, and it's it isn't because I'm doing less, it's just because my energy and my tone and the lens that I'm viewing the day in is different, and I haven't achieved less either. So it's been a really interesting, like I suppose it was a bit of an experiment for me, and now I'm like, gosh, this is like revelatory that you know you can kind of experiment that and go, yeah, like the truth is, you know, in the results, like nothing's the world has not stopped spinning, and I think that's a really important like thing to remember, isn't it? I mean, I remember when I was at university, I actually went for counselling when I was at university, I was like my you know, 19 or something ridiculous. And because I was, you know, trying to do my degree and I wanted to pay through myself for university because I don't know, I just wanted to do that, and so I worked in a gym, and a gym would stay open until as they do like midnight, those like you know, they were like international Olympic gyms at the university. So I could start my shift after my degree and work full-time. Um, and I remember like obviously got a boyfriend at university, and like all my uni friends, like a lot of them didn't work, and they would just like go shopping, go to the cinema. I could not sit in the cinema. I could not sit in the cinema because I was just like, what a waste of time. And I was like, Oh my god, like my boyfriend one day shot me like because I was so poorly, I was so tired, I was like emotional, I was exhausted. He was like, We are gonna stay in this room and we're gonna watch films all day, and you are gonna realise that no one cares. And he did that, and no one cared. And I didn't turn up to my job, like I told them that I was sick, I went back the next day, and they were like, nothing happened, no one cared, no one cared, and it was just mind-blowing. I was like, right, I need therapy on this, and that was like when the perfectionist thing became really obvious. So, like, even at 19, I've been taught like, don't be like that, and it's taken me until what am I gonna be 36 this year to actually embody it. Isn't that mental? Um, so yeah, I'm just really blown away by the experiment again, you know, over 10 years later, that it's really true. Like, you don't have to rush, the same amount gets done, but my goodness, everything is so much more joyful. And it was interesting what you said about like what do you gain and what do you lose? And it's for me as well, like on a bit of a more serious note, it's not just that it's like funner and happier, it's like a safety thing. You think about like when you're rushing, like how dangerous that is, like you increase the risk of danger, right? So not only do you not enjoy the journey, and joy is really important, but you increase the risk of danger like significantly for yourself and others, right? I mean, what a parallel. So, like rushing all day, like your nervous system is exactly rightly put, like your risk of illness, your risk of burnout, your risk of autoimmune disease is like significantly increased. The risk of the damage on others because of how you speak to them, because of what you're modelling to your children, like all of these things massively increases. So, like, what is what is what do you gain? What do you gain from rushing?

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, when I think about rushing, like through that lens, I wouldn't say I'm a big rusher, like I move through the world not at a massive pace, you know. Even my yoga, I prefer doing yin and things like that. But what I do is create the conditions that make me feel like I'm rushing, because it's like I'll totally always overestimate my capacity in a day. Like, and I think that's just an optimistic bias that oh, I'm gonna love like getting all these things done. Um, and then it's not that I'm rushing, it's then that I can't tick everything off, so I feel like disappointed. Um, and then I definitely have that thing of like, yeah, I'm just gonna do one more thing before I leave the house, which again is about well, it's probably like dopamine, isn't it? Of like, yeah, I can tick something off, like completion. Um and the other thing, sometimes I can be a bit time blind as well. Like I don't I've never liked wearing watches. Um because I just like the freedom of not having deadlines and and I don't need them because I'm yeah, I'm intrinsically quite driven. So but I think time blindness I think is quite common in like more creative people as well, and so it's not for me, it doesn't show up as like rushing and like trying to get from A to B. I think it's more of a fear that I won't have time in my life to do all the things that I want to do. Do you know? And it's just quite quite strange, really. So I wonder if that underpins for like people who do like literally rush, you know. You see like people walking to school, there's me, like I'm very leisurely, and then there are other people that are like, you know, manically walking to school, whereas I'll just be two minutes late and it's fine, you know, the world doesn't end, you know, Zoe's the last one left or something, but it's fine. Um so yeah, what do you think drives your like when you are rushing? What drives your rushing?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Uh it's funny because when you were saying that, I was like, we're so we are so different in that way. Yours does feel like it comes from quite a joyful place, and maybe that is like your placement of like, you know, yeah, your joy being like in your work, like you're you're wanting to get more done. That feels like quite a positive reason to to like rush or do more. Mine does not feel positive. Mine feels like there's like a if you don't do this, then you're not good enough. Like there's like like it's like the failure thing. It's like if you can't achieve all this in your day, then like you're pretty useless. Like it's very highly critical, my voice, rather than an expansive, like, I'm gonna do all these wonderful things before my time's up. Mine's like useless if you don't get that thing done. It's quite quite vicious. Um, so I think mine comes, yeah, from a more like self-worth place. Um, but oh my god, I mean, I like I I feel like a cartoon. Like, if I even if I go and get petrol, I'll pay and then I'll run back to the car. Like, I'm always running. I mean, we actually had we had a girl on the training actually in our assisting training, and she would run from where she was to like grab a cup of tea and then run back to where she was, like always running. She was like, I'm always running. I was like, I'm like that too. What is this thing about? And it's just, I mean, I think part of it, you know, we know I have Vader, I know Pitta, like I I'm like a, you know, a sort of fire, high-paced vatter. Like, yeah, that's my natural constitution. But there is definitely uh like I can get more done, I can get more done thing. Um, I mean, me, you would laugh, me and you running to the school gates together would be hilarious. I'm just chaos, sweating most mornings, most afternoons, like just trying to fit that last thing in my to-do list. But do you know what's really funny is when we talk about rushing and being late, I mean, we have this on the teacher training, don't we? It's so interesting. We have it with leaders, we have it with participants. So, like, I'll sort of be late for myself, like I'll squeeze stuff in and then I'll sprint, like, you know, because sometimes I walk to school, so I actually end up running to school fast to get him. But when it comes to training days, like I'll be an hour early. At least. Like the thought of being late for a teacher training makes me feel physically ill. Like, there's just no way I'm gonna put myself in that position. Like, I have to deliver, I turn up. So, for other people, I would say like reliability is one of my like top traits. Like, there's there is no way I'm not gonna be there, and I'm gonna be there early, and it's gonna be tidy, handles on, go time. And there is so I will put others before myself in that way. Like, I'll be excellent at time management when it comes to like providing something, but for myself, I'm like, oh, we'll just deal with rushing because you can cope with that. Like, so I think it's really interesting. You know, we've had people arrive, we say on those trainings before they sign up, 7 45 arrival, eight o'clock start. And is it 20 20 to 200 hours, 10-hour days, 20 days? And by day 20, they're still arriving half an hour late, and you just think, what? So that's not something, it doesn't feel like that's really within their control because they absolutely would have been there on time. Like they want to be and they're mortified and they're embarrassed every single time, but they can't do it. Now I know neurodivergence comes into this too, and that's been really interesting when people then start saying that's why we're letting they're late, etc. But I think there is definitely a self-worth thing that goes on around like having to achieve more, provide more. I mean, you're right, I think with the women leaving the house, it's like I can't just put my coat on and leave. Like, I'm like, is the pat lunch done? Have they got their waters? Are the shoes out? You know, are the clothes out? Is the fridge full if I'm going on a weekend train? There is so much to organise for everybody else. You can't just go. So I do think it for women, you know, and it will be some men, of course, um, but putting other people first and putting yourself last means that you might be late because you're at the bottom of the list. Um, and that is something what we get to on training, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 14:39

I think there is truth in that that, you know, as women often we have to put ourselves at the list. But what I thought was interesting that you were just saying is like how you'll be an hour early for training, right? And it is like I'll get there 45 minutes early, half an hour early, and you're like you've done everything. Um and it is about other people, but actually it's still about you because it's like you're wanting to give a good impression, you're wanting yeah, you want your training, which is a reflection of you ultimately, to be perfect, right? Um and so I think that can also apply to you know having to do one more thing when you leave the house, which I do this too sometimes, is yeah, what what are we afraid of not being done or being judged on, or you know? Um it's funny because there are days that my mum gets the kids from school and and she's got a key to our house, so she'll pick Zoe up and then she comes in and waits for Hannah. And on those days I'm like, she's gonna come in this house and be like, what on earth has gone on in here? And those days I am rushing and tidying the house before I leave in the morning because I'm like, I don't want the you know, and I don't want the judgment, but also I don't want her to think, oh like I should do that, because sometimes she like she would. Uh so it's really funny, isn't it? The thing like those external factors that really it's not, it's about us and not wanting to be judged or feel, you know, feel a certain way.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

You're exactly right. I'm the same with my mother-in-law. Like, sometimes we're like, Oh, she's gonna pop over and help the kids, and then I'm like, oh my god, it's four minutes to get out the door to let Lenny, and I'm like, no, it's the day when she's coming around and the house looks like chaos, and sometimes she's like, Oh, Blimey, you must have been busy. Yeah, I didn't have time to do it, and I'm not gonna be late for Lenny, so that you walk into it like so. It's interesting, it's like it's a really interesting setup, and like we can we can use it to really look at you know where we're placing ourselves on our list, where we're placing others. Um, because ultimately that's what it is, isn't it? It's it's prioritizing. Um, and can you prioritize yourself, you know, to give yourself the chance to be somewhere early and not put yourself at the bottom of the list, maybe. So, all of that I think is interesting when we look at rushing in time. Um, yeah, and and like perfectionism, something I was gonna say, which was part of my um therapy actually when I was training to be a counsellor, they made us do to get rid of perfectionism, some of the things you had to do with half-do stuff. So you'd have to half make your bed, you'd have to half hoover the house, you'd have to like half wash half the dishes and leave the other half. I mean, can you imagine? Oh and that is that do you know what a really useful thing? Because it what it constantly trains you is like, it doesn't matter, it just doesn't matter, just go. And that was really healthy. I mean, one day this our leader brought in a donut, and we had to, it was a really sticky, sugary jam donut, and we had to like mush the donut in our hand as much as we could, and then we put the donut down and we weren't allowed to wash our hands the rest of the day. And it was about it was a lesson of getting messy.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Oh god, it still makes me like the back of my hairs on my neck go up.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Um, they're all really useful because now when I find myself trying to do that thing, I'm like, you know, get messy, like half-do stuff, you know, the world doesn't stop spinning. Um, so all of those may be useful practices if you feel the perfectionist is really like crippling you in some ways or making you run from the petrol station. But Becky, what do we think then about time anyway? Because what we're talking about here is rushing, like trying to beat the clock. But the clock is just a human construct, isn't it? Or is it what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Well, if you go back before we had clocks, it would have been the moon cycles and the movements of the planets, right? That people would keep time by. That's how civilizations lived, and it's why when we look at religions, you know, all of their um kind of festivals and celebrations coincide with the moon. And moon cycles are a beautiful way to look at things, aren't they? Because they give us that expansion of time. Um and the other thing that I would say about being human and time as well is like things are almost meant to be like time, is part of the experience of being human. So you know, the the fact that we measure minutes, hours, days, etc. etc. And how much we can achieve in a certain amount of time like is all part of the experience. We know that like growth as a human can be quite slow and healing and things like that. Um, and when we want to create and build things, we have to do that over time. So, yeah, I always say like earth is like a school, but it's really like getting your masters or something like that, you know. Uh and the reason that we have time is yes, for healing and um evolving as well, but also yeah, to experience what it is to to be a human. Um, and then kind of more of the theory of time. I don't know if you know this, but time moves more slowly uh when you're at sea level, and if you're on a mountain, it moves faster. Did you know that? I've heard that, but I've never really understood it. Because of gravity. Okay. Because time moves differently depending on because what we're doing is measuring something against a backdrop of time, and that is influenced by gravity. So time is like this flexible thing depending on your frame of reference. Um, so yeah, if you want time to move faster, like go and live high up. Um so I think I'm I'm saying all of that because we can get so fixed on the absoluteness of time, where even on our earth at different uh altitudes, time is going to move, you know, at a a different, slightly different rate. And even satellites that move around the earth have to, um, I don't know how they do it, but part of the programming is that their their clocks are shifted, otherwise we'd be looking at our sat nav and it wouldn't be correlating uh because they are not so influenced by gravity. So yeah, on Earth we experience time in this linear fashion. Because we are human and we're in flesh, like there's density there. So it's said that we live in the third dimension, and so because things are slow, if we weren't in a body, we would be able to experience everything simultaneously, but because we're in a body, we have memory, so the past exists, the present exists, and like our imagination and our mind are always creating the future, so it feels like we're moving from point A to point B, like we've got a direction of travel in our life, but that's just our frame of reference in a in a human body, and what our birth chart is showing us is like that one moment that we incarnated the sort of the the ripple effect, if you like, of that incarnation. Um so yeah, in spirit form when we're not in a Human body there's kind of this deeper idea that all timelines exist at the at the same time, so like our past lives are all happening concurrently because in spirit form we're not in a human body, we're not in the third dimension, maybe we're in the fifth or the seventh dimension. Um and so we're experiencing all of those things simultaneously.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

And that's what I found so fascinating and like funny about it all is that we can get so attached to our human experience, can't we? And we can think like, oh, you know, I can just save a few minutes here and a few minutes there, but ultimately, like that is just a human construct anyway, and yeah, it that's only if you believe in a linear passage of time, right? Which is just one iteration of how time works.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yes, exactly. Um, when people are talking about different dimensions and being in spirit form, you know, we're just just sort of describing realities where time doesn't behave like this. So think about when you have a dream, you know, your soul and your consciousness is existing outside of your body in the astral plane, and you can do like all kinds of things in like a five-minute dream, can't you? Like it's crazy. So, and that is us existing in a different dimension, or yeah, in the in the astral field or wherever we might go. Um and you know, going back to one of my challenges, which is oh my god, there are all these things that I want to do, will I get them all done, you know, in this lifetime? Uh I think it's about also taking the pressure off yourself because yeah, we're only here in in human form, and you know, we are bound by time in the same in a totally different way than we are outside of human form. And the fact is, like, there's probably multiple lifetimes going on at the same time, um, where maybe we are like living different lives, and so it's said, you know, if if you make, if you do something in this lifetime that's like a really big, I don't know, like you heal something massive in your lineage or you achieve something that your soul really wanted to achieve, that the ripple effect of that goes back through your other lifetimes because when you're not in this body and your you know spirit or soul, then yeah, it's affecting all lifetimes at the same time, which is kind of like you can't get your head around it. I don't think I think it's impossible for the human mind to actually understand it. But if people are interested in this, um something that I watched a while ago, it's on Gaia TV. If you ever uh get the Gaia subscription, there's uh series on there, and it's the guy who presents it is Stefano De Mateus or something like that. But yeah, he does a whole series about like the different dimensions and how time really works. And I think I watched it about three times and I was still like, yeah, I can like I would not be able to summarize this properly, so that's a good a good one to watch as well.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

If you can't summarize it, Beck, I hate to think what I'd do to it. Um oh yeah, I think it's just you're right, like it's a it's complex and it's hard for us to get our heads around, but I think the important message is probably just loosening the grip on yeah, trying to control it in in any way, or or feeling the need to be more productive in this construct of time that we create. Like it's just I think it's perspective, isn't it? You're right, like ultimately we're not we're not here for a very long time, and you know, I there's this brilliant Instagram reel, I'll share it, which is like we all shuffle around trying to do the right thing, trying to get to the right place, and like not make a mistake, and then it's like, but what's a mistake anyway? No one knows what they're doing here, like and just keep the perspective and loosen the grip on on that. I'll remind myself next time I'm sprinting back to my car from the petrol station.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Um if time is not as rigid in as we think it is, like outside of the human experience, like rushing through it doesn't give us more of it, so it just changes our experience when we're in it and yeah, um makes us perhaps not enjoy things as much. So, yeah, I think slowing down uh whenever you notice you're rushing.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah, yoga has some really interesting frameworks for this. So it talks about uh sattva and rajas. So it's like they've obviously been speaking about for thousands of years, but it's in the gunas. So the gunas are like the qualities of energy that exist in both nature and the mind. And one of those qualities is rajas, which is the energy of movement, activity, striving, and momentum. And it's not a bad thing, it's the energy that helps us act, create, move forward, and build things in the world. But the idea is that when it becomes excessive, then it turns into restlessness, agitation, or constant striving, that sense of like not being enough unless we do something. Um, so the mind becomes busy, the nervous system becomes tense, and we start rushing through life. So the balance to Rajas is sattva, which represents clarity, harmony, and balance. So it doesn't mean doing nothing, it doesn't mean giving up ambition. It simply means that action arises from clarity rather than urgency, which I feel like kind of summarizes what we've been speaking about this episode and also with the one that we did on joy as well. So interestingly, like when we act from a place of clarity, the quality of what we do often becomes like more effective. Um and yoga philosophy talks about Santosha, which is one of the niyamas. Um, it translates to contentment. So rushing comes from the belief that what's happening now is like not enough, that we've been talking about, and that fulfillment lies somewhere in the next achievement. You know, like you said, when I do this, then I'll be happy. Um, but Santosha invites something quite different, which is experiencing this sense of enoughness just as we are right now, right? Um, and that doesn't mean that we stop creating or growing or doing, it just means that we don't postpone our sense of satisfaction or joy until some future moment when everything is finally done, because we know that that day is never going to come. Um, so yeah, I think just some of those concepts you've got are a parigraha as well, which is the non-grasping. Um, rushing comes from grasping, from like trying to capture time as we've spoken about, trying to control outcomes, accumulate more, achieve more, produce more, more proof that we're doing enough, that we're good enough as we are. But that grasping creates tension in the mind. And so when we soften the grip, we can actually start to flow more easily. And ironically, as we said, often then when things are flowing, we're open to receiving, they come more easily to us anyway, and that is the universe sort of rewarding us from not grasping. Um, and I know what we've got planned for one of our future episodes is something that's spoken about in the Gita, which is this idea of like we have the right to action, but not to the fruits of the action. So a bit like you with your work, you know, work because you love it, not working because you think that you're owed whatever the result of the work is. Um, and that's when we start talking about karma yoga. So that's something that we can look at another time because I think it's a really, we're kind of moving on to a separate subject, but I think it's a really hard balance of trying to live where you are, like achieving, striving, wanting to raise your standards, you know, maybe sort of legacy work. I often see that for me with my children, like, what can I do to make huge shifts for like their their life, right? Their quality of life, and yet at the same time practicing like contentment and gratitude for where we are, you know, for how lucky we are, and how do those two things live together? Because they do, they're not exclusive of each other. So, yeah, there's some there's definitely some more we can share around that in another episode, isn't there?

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Yeah, I think hearing you talk about all of that as well, I think my closing reflection would be like we're so worried, aren't we, about trying to get somewhere and achieve things, and whether it's legacy, whether it's work, whether it's whatever it is. But if we just stopped worrying, because if we believe like all of these multiple timelines exist and time is infinite, really, when we're not in a human body, like everything we want exists somewhere along that time timeline. Like there's n there's lit there's actually nowhere to rush to because you can't run out of time.