I am a rusher, I always have been. In school I was nearly always the first to finish my tests. I rushed into relationships, into home buying, minivan buying, major life decisions like deciding to go to physical therapy school and opening a business. I walk fast. I hate being late so I stick to the schedule. I write short posts on social media. I once had a PT student rotating with me who told me to slow down- “Libby, you just think too fast for me!” The really funny part about this, is that I married someone who is even faster and in more of a hurry! In fact, my mom nicknamed him “hurricane!” 🙂
We’re working on finding a balance between making fast decisions and slowing down. In a lot of ways, this ability to think fast and make quick decisions has served us well over the last 10 years we’ve been married (we got married 10 months after we met. In Vegas!) At the time maybe they seemed like impulsive decisions, but if we hadn’t made those big decisions quickly (home buying, car buying, getting married, dropping easy classes applying to PT school because a professor told me to), we might still be in situations that weren’t right for us because here’s the thing, If we think about things for awhile, it often ends up being the wrong choice.
Finding the Balance Between Trusting Your Instincts & Taking Your Time
Let’s take paint colors, for example. It took me over a year to choose the paint colors in our living room and once they were up, I despised them (but of course, I told myself they were FINE- there’s a word I’m trying to reduce in my vocabulary). We lived with these colors for 6 years because the prospect of looking at paint, painting it again, and thinking too hard about it was too much. I didn’t trust myself to make a quick decision about paint. I’m learning to follow my instincts and trust my gut decisions, all the while, “slowing the f down”. Instead of thinking about the paint for a year, I went into Sherwin-Williams, looked at one of the paint cards where they had a bunch of coordinating colors, and knowing I wanted a shade of blue, picked the shade they suggested with a complimentary color and didn’t look back.
Then, I went to the big box store, bought new lights, the ones I liked first, without overthinking it. And you know what? I LOVE MY LIGHTS AND THE NEW COLORS!! I love them! I lived with other colors for 6 years because I was too afraid of making the paint color decision again. When I went with my gut, the way I have made so many other big life decisions I got the right thing! Now, our living room/kitchen is beautiful and light where before it was kind of dark and depressing.
We Are Living the Life of Our Dreams
You know what spurred the decision to paint again, rearrange, buy some new lights? A mantra card I put up in our bathroom about 6 months ago that says, “We are living the life of our dreams.” We see it every morning. It has created discussions about what the life of our dreams looks like. About what we need to do to make it happen. We started looking at other houses with more land and another bedroom. We talked about how spending more money on a house would actually put us farther away from the life of our dreams. So, we spent a tiny fraction of what we would have on a new house to freshen up our current house.
Bringing Us Back To The Beginning, Rushing Can Be a Detriment To Your Health
About being a rusher. Being in a damn hurry all the time leads me to hold a lot of tension in my pelvis (some people hold it in their neck and shoulders or jaw, and I hold it in my low back and pelvis), which leads to pain. Since living the life of my dreams means not dealing with even a low level of pain, like I have been, I’m doing something about it. I’m going to physical therapy and I’m physically “slowing the f down”! I try very hard not to be late because I do think it is disrespectful to the people who are waiting for you, but if I am late, I get into my head and tell myself not to worry about it. I can’t change it now. I am late. There is nothing I can change about this situation so I will relax.
I was in line at the grocery store and I was supposed to be home in 5 minutes. I was already late but then I chose the checkout line with the elderly woman who didn’t know how to run her debit card and the checker who was on her first day at the job. I could feel the anxiety in my chest and the tension in my pelvis. But then, I smiled at the checkout girl and told her she was doing great. I patiently helped the elderly woman with her debit card. My children did not whine. And when we left 10 minutes later, I was proud of myself and my kids! I felt relaxed and was looking forward to the evening with friends, even though I was later than I wanted to be. Guess what? It made NO DIFFERENCE that I was later than I wanted to be. None.
Slow Down, You’ll Be Fine
So. What is the balance between rushing and making relaxed decisions? I’m learning to follow my instincts and make a decision QUICKLY if it feels right, but slow down in other ways. If I’m a little late, I will apologize, but I will not let the anxiety build. My pain is going away. I can envision a time when it will be gone. My anxiety is melting away. I can envision a time when it won’t impact me nearly as much.
Let the Team at Breathe. Guide Your Journey To Mental & Physical Wellness!
Maybe for you it isn’t pain or anxiety. Maybe it’s depression, or a hormone imbalance, or cardiovascular disease, diabetes, headaches, infertility, endometriosis, bowel or bladder problems, or a host of any other lifestyle diseases that are holding you back. Improving your health means improving your mindset to Bad. Ass. It means not let your brain hold you back from decisions that feel good. It means slowing down and enjoying things (or speeding up a little, if that’s your problem!)
You have tremendous healing power within you. You may just need a guide.