“Are you in a hurry?”
We were speeding along, my hand casually gripping the arm rest as we passed a car on a tight two lane road.
“No, I just don’t like to stay behind people.”
“How about we just take our time? Enjoy the ride.”
I even shocked myself with that one. Who had I become? Take our time? I constantly feel like I’m in a rush. I wake up and immediately feel like I need to get moving.
I think of all the things that need to happen - the baby needs to be fed first, I need to make food for the toddler, I need to get myself ready and clean up the house, and make sure everyone else has everything they need to start the day.
And if I need time for myself, I need to get up earlier, no matter what time I went to bed or how well I did (or didn’t) sleep last night. No doubt, this mindset comes from a long line of mothers who believe fully sacrificing ourselves and our wellbeing for the betterment of everyone else is what makes us good mothers.
But what if it’s not? What if what makes us good mothers - good people - is our inherent worth as human beings? Would that be enough?
A problem arises for me here. I don’t like to show the messy process of things. I like to announce my intention - “Hey! I’m going to do this cool thing!” - and then disappear until that thing is done. I reappear with the finished, polished product like magic.
And if I feel like I’m taking too long, like someone might call me out or walk in on me before I’m done, I start to get anxious and I rush. I try to control the process and push to get things done because I don’t want anyone to see me fucking around with a mess that doesn’t look like it’s not going to work or make sense or be good enough.
The process stresses me out. It’s lonely because I can’t ever let anyone in. I allow it to appear easy from the outside. And if no one knows how hard it is for me, they’ll just keep expecting more of the same, while I act like I didn’t just run face first into a brick wall to make it all work.
This is the problem with not letting anyone in, with worrying so much about what something looks like, with wanting everyone to think you constantly have your shit together, with not trusting the process, and ultimately not trusting yourself - not believing in yourself.
What would it look like to slow it down? To allow people to see you, mindfully moving from one thing to another, working through a process of creation. To show people that it is hard for you - that even if you’re good at this, it still takes effort and it still takes energy and that you’re not a fucking superhero.
It feels vulnerable. It feels scary. And fears show up, screaming, “They’ll think you’re lazy! They’ll think you don’t know what you’re doing! They’ll think you aren’t good enough! They’ll laugh at you! They’ll shake their head and think you’re ridiculous, that you’re wasting time and should be doing something else or doing it differently. They won’t approve of you or what you’re doing or how you’re doing it.”
And there it is, right? They won’t approve of this. They won’t approve of you. Of me.
My biggest fear is disapproval. I’m a people pleaser and have always thrived on other people’s approval of me. But different people expect or want different things from me in order to approve of me. So I end up constantly morphing into something or someone different based on who I’m around, who I’m trying to garner approval from.
That’s how I’ve lived my whole life. And it’s landed me in this place where I’m not even sure who I actually am. It’s been a long journey but I’m working to unlearn those behaviors, to find approval within myself and to rewrite the narrative that tells me I need anyone to approve of me in order to actually be worthy and valuable. I am enough no matter what people think or need or want from me.
It’s a process. And I'm trying to let other people in to that process, as messy and vulnerable and as scary as that feels. It’s how I break this cycle of rushing and hustling and busting ass to get people to like me.
Is that just me?
Does anyone else feel the drive to hustle and rush and be productive in order to prove their worth and value? Am I the only one who has a deep need for other people’s approval in that way?
The thing is, all that rushing and pushing to be perfect and productive causes our nervous system to be frazzled. It’s stressful, right? Even if it’s not the-world-is-ending kind of catastrophic stress, it’s still a source of stress to our nervous systems.
We begin to operate in a constant state of anxiety. Our nervous systems are perpetually trying to function in this low grade stressful state. And at some point our nervous systems will say enough! Our bodies will signal to us that it’s too much. And most of us probably either ignore that until we can’t any more or we attempt to treat the physical problem without changing anything that led to the problem.
Or, we completely deny the fact that we’re stressed in the first place. But unless we are carving out time for intentional rest and allowing our minds to take breaks, we are stressed. We have to get to a place where we function in a way that allows us to de-stress on the regular. We need to get tuned into our bodies so that we can feel the stress, anxiety, the frazzledness and respond to it in real time instead of waiting until it morphs into a bigger issue.
And that is where moving slow and mindfully and being quiet enough to listen to ourselves comes into play. If we can do that, and trust the process enough to let it play out, then we can be productive and move mindfully at the same time. And it becomes sustainable. We get just as much done while also feeling good in the process.
I’m trying to allow enough space to move mindfully and to listen to my body, to myself. I’m trying to let my guard down and be vulnerable enough to let others into this process. I’m learning to trust the process and to trust myself so that when and if people do judge me in that space, I can rely on my own knowing that I’m doing what’s best for me, that I deserve that, and that I will come out just as productive at the end of the day.
I’m also giving permission to those around me to slow down, too. I’m creating a safe space for people around me to let their guard down, to be vulnerable, and to find rest and ease. I’m allowing for true, authentic connection that leads to a sense of community, belonging, and joy. In that way, we all fear less about the judgement of others and maybe start to realize that it was our own inner judgement and fears that we projected onto others and even back onto ourselves in the first place.
When we can love ourselves enough to allow for these things, that love spills over and allows these things for others, too. It starts internally but does not end there. Self-care is community care. A deep sense of care is what ends hustle culture and allows us all to move in our own way, at our own pace, and to see the beauty of it all. This is how we work together in harmony.
It starts in me.