Why Slow Feels So Unbearable (But Changes Everything)
1:30 AM.
Why did I even look?
My body was alive—not tight with anxiety, but electric. Alert. Awake. Sleep was no longer in the cards.
For an hour, I tried everything: hands on heart, long exhales, belly breaths. Because nothing’s more important than sleep, right?
But earlier that day, my mind had cataloged:
17 podcasts to record
Weekly newsletters to write
Program copy to finish
One website and two landing pages to build
A team to coordinate (and hire!)
Affiliates to connect with
Plus summer. Plus kids. Plus family, friends, life. Plus plus plus.
And though my mind was quiet at 1:30am, my body knew action was needed. Apparently.
That’s when the thought dropped in:
Sometimes activation energy doesn’t need to be soothed. It needs to be moved.
ALSO:
“Am I feeling urgency while creating a program called Opting Out of Urgency?”
Touché, universe.
2:30 AM.
I slipped out of bed, grabbed my bag, tiptoed through the rain to my car (I was at a networking retreat and had a roommate). Once cocooned in my car, I grabbed pen and paper and wrote—old school.
Words poured out, messy and wild.
Genius or delirious, I could not tell.
Emergency. Urgency. Agency.
“-gency” feels like time-bound pressure with doom attached.
But the prefix a- means “without.”
Without doom, agency becomes empowered choice.
Maybe the power isn’t in escaping time. It’s in dropping the doom and keeping the choice. What happens when we activate agency within urgency?
Did I lose you? It makes total sense to me. lol
The Crucible of Focused Pressure
Chronic urgency steals.
It steals your choice. Your clarity. Your creativity. Your capacity to change. It's exhausting.
But could there be another kind? One that doesn’t burn you out—but refines you?
Not a trauma response.
Not a panic spiral.
But a crucible. A focused pressure that leads to transmutation.
3:00 AM.
This felt focused, not frantic. There was choice here.
I wanted to keep the launch date and shape my calendar to support
that choice. I was acting from love.
With nothing to prove.
And space to change my mind if reality shifts.
That’s agency within urgency.
I felt devotional focus, and open to being shaped by the process.
The timeline is sacred—but not precious.
I felt urgency—but I was not lost to it.
5:00 AM. Time for a nap.
Body, I’m listening. But also… let’s sleep tonight, ok? 😅