29.rushing
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[00:00:00] Hey sibling. Welcome to the Unmasking Unschool podcast. I'm your host, Louisa Shaeri. AKA solar flare. We are all solar flares. Defying the gravity of group think, beaming frequencies that disrupt the airwaves. And in this podcast, I share perspectives and reframes from the solar system. A liberatory framework for creative autistic folks who are seeking another way to see, know, and be yourself.

[00:00:30] You are not here to fit in. And the radical reimagining of how to honor all of who you're here to be begins within. Hey, sibling, are you? Are you rushing? Are you going nowhere fast? This is what I wanna talk about today. Um, rushing. Rushing suggests that we are going somewhere, and what I wanna talk about is the kind of rushing that is like your wheels are going, but you aren't.

[00:01:01] You're in one spot and you're using all your energy to get nowhere. You're in a hamster wheel you are doing, but the doing isn't effective, and you're not seeing the kind of progress you want, or you're not getting the things done that you want to. And you're in a rush. You're in a rush about it. And I see this a lot and I've worked on this a lot myself and I've, I've mentioned before, this sense of always feeling like I am in catch up, catch up mode because other people seem to be able to do things faster or expect things faster, and I've also had that expectation in this thing I've created, this business I've created on how fast I'm supposed to have been able to build it.

[00:01:50] When really there are so many learning curves involved in switching and creating a new vocation and gaining all of the skills involved in, uh, in having a business or self-employment or anything like that. Right. I've heard it said that skills education, learning is the number one ingredient or factor in.

[00:02:17] Building something like a business that it's like building a bridge and that each part of the bridge is the acquisition of a skill, right? And so building a business. Uh, is like building a bridge and but skill, one skill at a time and that money doesn't cross it until you've got enough of each skill in place to connect one side to the other, right?

[00:02:42] When it's actually built as a full on bridge and the value that you're creating can flow and the value can flow to you as well. So anyway, for me. Visionary dreamer, I download entire visions of what I wanna do in one go. Right? And this was the same for what I'm doing now. And it's doing the, doing that is always my challenge, right?

[00:03:08] I know what I'm creating. I can see the vision in like completeness and it's applying myself and like. Dealing with the material, material reality that is, is always the challenge. Astrologically speaking myself, node is in Sagittarius, which is a very expansive philosophical sign, right? So I'm very comfortable sitting on the mountain meditating and surveying this like big picture view, this big vision, but there's no growth there for me if, if that's my self node.

[00:03:45] Um, where my growth is in moving towards my Gemini North node, which is like coming down off the mountain into the valley, being with the people and learning to create something and be in the culture and being in the hustle and bustle. So for safety, I retreat to big picture visions and like fantasy and the like, aloneness.

[00:04:10] But my growth is in the doing and the translating of. Spiritual principles, I would say into, okay, but how does that actually look in the messy everyday hustle and bustle and imperfections that you see when you're close up and you're in the midst of it and you don't have the bigger picture and you just have to start to trust, okay, what's the next step?

[00:04:29] Which is the next turning? Um, what's in front of me anyway, so coming down the mountain and being in the hustle and bustle, I'm like, everyone moves so fast. Everyone talks so fast. There's groups I can't keep up with. There's so much to process. And so my response has been to rush to right, to pick up the energy of getting things done and thinking that the doing.

[00:04:54] Is, is what I need to focus on, and that how I do the doing needs to be by rushing because I need to catch up. So anyway, to translate this into something helpful for you, I want to invite you to consider for a moment whether you have any of the following thoughts about doing things on a regular basis.

[00:05:15] So any of these sorts on a regular basis. So I don't have enough time. Is that a familiar thought? Another one, I have too much to do and another one, I can't fit in all the things I want to do, so I have to fill up every moment that I have with all of the doing to get it all done, familiar. And then consider if you have any of the following experiences sitting down to get work done or something that you need to get done, and you go into freeze mode.

[00:05:51] Or you go blank and it's like you're doing the action or maybe you're not even starting and your body, your mind, uh, your spirit is left the building. Like, no, we are not doing this. And you can't focus. And like there's zero flow state and you are in refusal and you're like, I can't focus, I can't do it. I don't get why familiar.

[00:06:17] Or maybe you're thinking about. All of the things involved in doing the thing that you wanna do, and you get so overwhelmed by them that you can't even start or you don't know where to start. It's like this massive, big conglomerate of all these tiny pieces that makes you kind of go, ah, this is too much.

[00:06:37] This is overwhelming. I'm just going to not, right? So this idea, this sense of I don't have enough time. There's all these things to do. Can get us into this very anxious space of trying to control ourselves or control the doing or um, or you disconnect from self, like your body feels like, who am I anymore?

[00:07:03] And in the doing, you abandon yourself. So all of this, if you do any of this on a regular basis or you have any of these thoughts, if you recognize what I'm talking about with like rushing and not being able to focus, not being able to do things on purpose, feeling like you never have enough time starting things, but not finishing them.

[00:07:25] All of that is also then going to give you results of like a bunch of unfinished projects and things around you that you're avoiding. That is going to contribute even more to this sense that there just isn't enough time and there that you are overwhelmed and that you're surrounded by things that are asking you to finish them.

[00:07:46] So what do we do today? I'm gonna offer you a few reasons why this might be happening and what to do about it because it can be really tempting to go. Oh, it's because of this. It's because I'm autistic. It's because I'm A DHD. It's because I don't have executive function. It's because of this, this, this, and this, and therefore there's nothing I can do about it.

[00:08:10] This is just who I am. This is just the way it is. Full stop. Right? It's very tempting to do that. And my goal here is to help you see how you might be contributing to this and how maybe some of it doesn't have to be your experience. Okay? And how we're going to do that is just to become more aware of what's at the root of this.

[00:08:35] And the main thing that I wanna suggest to you. That I think is the most powerful thing, but will seem like the most insignificant, the thought itself. I don't have enough time that it's the thought that is actually the problem. What? So it's gonna feel true. I don't have enough time, but it's the having that thought that will put you in a relationship with doing that actually.

[00:09:04] Makes the problem worse and creates the experience of not having enough time. It's not the fact that you don't have enough time, it's the fact that you are thinking, I don't have enough time. Whether it's true or not, it's not helpful. Now, if you feel triggered by this, I get it. Um, but I'm also here having started a business in a pandemic with two kids at home and being in a relationship and doing all of the things, extended family.

[00:09:34] Like, I have a lot of things that I need to do, and I, it'd be very, very easy for me to say I don't have enough time. And so what I've had to do is have a completely different relationship with doing and to really, really get rid of the thought that I don't have enough time. Because of the impact that that thought had on how I would relate to everything that I was doing, which would mean that I wasn't being present with my kids, I wasn't being present with what I was building in my business.

[00:10:08] I wasn't being present in my relationship and was always trying to do two things at once, trying to rush everything, trying to squeeze as many things in, and none of that helped me do any of it effectively. Yeah. And what happens when we start doing things with that thought is that we do them as if that is true, and then we react to everything that we are trying to get done with a type of urgency that is really un unhelpful and ineffective, but also means that we start going into, um.

[00:10:47] Stress modes or even trauma responses in our nervous system. So the rushing the thinking, we don't have time. The going nowhere fast comes from a few different places that are underneath that thought that I don't have enough time and I want to unpack them with you. Okay, so number one is past experiences of being rushed to do things or transition between doing things.

[00:11:14] At a pace that doesn't work for the way that you process. So lots of experiences in your past of overriding your own pace, your own boundaries, your own wants, your own needs. And chasing normal, right? Chasing the typical way of doing things, chasing normative expectations, normative standards, and pleasing other people.

[00:11:40] Fitting in with time schedules and ways of doing things that don't fit you. And so your habitual expectation and association around doing is that you have to rush. And that you don't get to process and that your boundaries don't count and that that is how you have to be. Okay, so let's just look at that.

[00:12:04] Let's just acknowledge that that might be part of the picture that might be playing out, that might be having you think that you don't get to slow down, that you don't get to process and move at the pace that you need to move and that you need to be doing. Things through rushing. So this, this habitual expectation that if there's something that you have to do, that you have to do it through self negation, through rush, through overriding your natural pace.

[00:12:37] Okay? So if that's true for you, just just be present with it. Just become aware that this is something that you're doing. And the more and more you become aware of it, the more and more you start noticing it. Eventually you can start to find another way. Awareness is 95% of it. Okay. Number two, trying to see all of the steps ahead of doing them.

[00:13:02] This is one I've had to also work on. My visionary brain can see a result in an instance. So the work of actually doing all of the steps always feels like it should be faster. Like, like I just downloaded that and it's amazing in my head. So why do I now have to like, do the doing in the material world?

[00:13:20] It's so much slower than the rate that my brain goes to try and, um, get to what I see in my head. And so what happens is I start thinking. Instead of doing, I start going through every single step and every piece of it in my brain, and then I'm gonna do that. And then when I've done that, I'm gonna do this bit and then I'm gonna do that bit.

[00:13:39] And it's so much detail without having even done anything yet that it just takes me into mental overwhelm. And then I don't even wanna begin. And then it feels like that vision is impossible and I've overthought it into oblivion. And then I also start thinking that I have all of this massive amount of things to do and I don't have enough time.

[00:14:04] Notice that. Yeah. Okay. Number three. Not actually giving each thing that you have to do enough time. So this is always an art of approximating, guesstimating, how much time something's gonna take, right? And it's why living with simplicity, building a business or a practice with, or vocation with simplicity.

[00:14:33] Is key, right? Because we can then be doing the the simple things over and over and get so familiar with them that we start to get good at estimating the time that they take and aren't surprised and taken aback by how long certain things take. Another part of this is that I used to give a certain amount of time to, for example, if I was gonna meet up with someone.

[00:14:59] I calculate, okay, it should take me 40 minutes to get to, to the place to meet them, but it would be like 40 minutes on an ideal day with no transport delays and nothing going wrong. And so I would just give it just that amount of time, right? And so as soon as there was any delay on the way, I'd be in rush mode and I'd be berating myself for getting late, for taking too long.

[00:15:28] Or like, I'd only give myself 20 minutes to get ready and it would take 25 minutes and then I'd be rushing. So this is really about having a new relationship with what if I gave it more time? What if I started being early and allowing, what if I gave time for the things I don't like doing, like packing.

[00:15:48] What if instead of trying to fit it in and get it done in an hour, what if I just slows down and said, you know what? I'm going to enjoy this and take the time that it requires, and then I'm gonna have a rest. What this means, what estimating the time things takes means, and giving it ample time means that you can get into the sense that this is, that ample time is normal, that going at a pace that is friendly for you means that you can ease into the transitions between things.

[00:16:18] In a way that works for you. So where in your life are you squeezing things in trying to fit things in between, and how can you give them way more time or just get rid of them? Another aspect of this is learning curves, so the time and effort and energy and like conscious focused attention that something new, a new skill.

[00:16:46] Requires in order for us to get to a place where it's more automatic, right? So sometimes we underestimate the necessity of doing learning curves one at a time. So I'm gonna use my business as an example. Again, I've had to learn each step of the bridge one at a time, and when I start trying to learn all of it at the same time, is when I get nowhere, right?

[00:17:15] When I'm rushing past, allowing myself to be in the fullness of a learning curve and master a particular element of it. If I'm rushing past that and not allowing that to happen, then it drops when, as soon as I go to a different one. So some examples are like, I've had to learn how to host a Zoom call.

[00:17:37] That took time, right? It wasn't just quick Google it and do it. It was like, what does it feel like? Where are the buttons? What happens when this goes wrong? What settings do I like? Um, how do I want to feel when I'm beginning? How much time do I wanna give for setting up the, the laptop and the, the microphone and all of the things?

[00:18:05] How much time do I wanna have beforehand before seeing people on a call to get myself in a head space where I can be fully present? Right. So it's, it's like allowing that to be a learning curve and doing that one at a time. So once I've. Uh, once you've kind of got the hang of and got really familiar and super comfortable with a particular element, that's when to add another one.

[00:18:34] I started TikTok away back, and when I started it, my podcasting dropped. So I had to go back to podcasting, make that a learning curve that I'd fully. Move through so that it's like an engine that can run itself on autopilot. I have a system for it before adding a new learning curve. Right. Podcasting used to take days, many, many, many rerecord, a lot of frustration, a lot of, um, self admonishment, self-judgment, and a lot of unfamiliar processes.

[00:19:11] Like, okay, unpacking the tripod, putting the microphone on top, all of those elements, right? So. And then how do I do them? What do I, how do I do them best? For me, it's a, it's writing it out first and then reading it live, but then I will kind of ad-lib, ad-lib a little bit as I go, but it took time to get there.

[00:19:31] Right now I can just whip all the stuff out and do it quick and. But I've only been able to get to it being a thing that I can do quickly. And I, by quickly, I just mean without a bunch of resistance, like with ease and flow. But to get there, I had to have it be a learning curve that I was consciously moving through and being really clunky and bad at for a long while.

[00:19:59] And only then can I then add another thing, right? So where are you trying to do lots of learning curves all at the same time? Or recognize what learning curves are you on right now and which one will make the most difference to master? And maybe just do that one and get to a place where you are really super comfortable with it before you add another learning curve.

[00:20:24] Another one, number five, that you might be. Experiencing is that in learning new things or doing like scary aspects of things? Like for me, showing up on social media, it still involves a certain amount of nerves and my brain will offer up a lot of reasons why not to do it. Like, nah, you don't feel good today, or, uh, there's something wrong with your hair today, or, no, I don't have time, or I don't, no, I don't feel like it, or people will think this or I don't have anything to say.

[00:20:59] Right. So I'll have a lot of thoughts about recording a live video on Instagram, for example, and so that discomfort sometimes if we are uncomfortable in a particular activity, either 'cause it's new and we are learning it or because there's just elements of it that are going against our animal instincts to not expose ourselves to harm.

[00:21:24] Right. And vulnerability. Sometimes if there's, there's discomfort. If you don't make that discomfort conscious like this is part of the experience of doing this thing, and if you don't move towards that discomfort on purpose and embrace it and feel through it, and just allow that to be where you are at.

[00:21:43] What happens instead is distraction. Like, I don't wanna feel that uncomfortable. So instead, I'm gonna scroll on my phone or I'm gonna go and eat something. I'm gonna get really into that thing that I haven't touched for three years. That is now gonna be my new like focus, and I'm gonna forget that I had plans to do something else, right?

[00:22:05] And then guess what? You end up not having enough time. Number six is rushing from lack of belief. I don't really believe I can do this, so I'm just gonna do it as fast as possible so I don't have to sit with that. I'm gonna run faster than my thoughts, right? Quick, get shit done instead of, alright, I'm really not feeling confident.

[00:22:27] I dunno how to do this. I dunno if it's gonna go well. I dunno if I can do it. This is how I'm supposed to feel before I've done it. Confidence comes afterwards. I don't have any proof yet. I'm in the work of creating proof and then I'll feel confident. Instead, we like to avoid feeling that way and we just try rush through it.

[00:22:51] Number seven is self abandonment because of getting attached to the end result. So what I mean by that is very close to the. Buddhist notion of attachment, right? When we start to attach extra meaning and our worthiness to something that we're trying to make happen. So like if I'm doing a podcast and I have a thought that this podcast being good will mean that I'm an okay person.

[00:23:23] Or will mean that I will then be successful, right? If we layer on a bunch of extra meaning and weight and things at stake on that particular activity, then we get attached, right? We get attached with our. Worthiness and our sense of self and our self-esteem also being in the balance, right? But then if we throw ourselves in along with the result that we're trying to create, what this means is that there's such an enormous amount at stake, like our whole selves, like that.

[00:23:59] It becomes a battle. It becomes, uh, my ego might die. It becomes something that our nervous system is going to react to in a very extreme way. This is why we go into freeze or stuck. This is why our intuition goes offline. This is why we can't access our creative problem solving. It's because we're in survival with something.

[00:24:19] Because we've made it mean way more than it actually means. Like nothing really means that much in terms of when we are doing. Unless you're maybe a brain surgeon, that's a whole other story. But for most of us, the day-to-day stuff that we're trying to get done, it doesn't carry a life or death situation.

[00:24:41] Right? And it doesn't. But if you've attached your worthiness and your self-esteem to it, your ego thinks that it is a life or death situation. And so you might. Experience self abandonment in the trying to get it done. So just trace it back to where am I making this mean? Something that it doesn't need to mean that where am I attaching my own, um, being an okay acceptable human being to me, being able to get this done right.

[00:25:14] This is often something that comes with living in a particularly. Um, extractive capitalist productivity. Brownie points like your only worthiness if you're com, if you can produce type culture, that makes it feel like if I can't get stuff done, I must be a failure. I must not be a full human being. I must be just bad at life.

[00:25:39] There's something shameful, right? So. None of that needs to be there, and it's not gonna feel good if you are throwing your own self into the result. And it's a judgment on you whether you can get the thing done or not, and it's gonna take away your ability to access all of the useful parts of your brain, like intuition and your body as well.

[00:26:06] Number eight, being okay with being bad at something is a really important thing. So this is a little bit of the a continuation, but it's more about expecting ourselves to be really good at doing something when we haven't had a lot of being bad at it. So where are you expecting yourself to be good at something straight.

[00:26:26] I am epically bad at certain areas of my business and I'm okay with it, and people have written to tell me what I'm doing wrong or maybe I need to improve this bit and uh, that's fine. But I know, and I trust myself that those are not my, that's not the current part of the bridge. I'm working. I'm gonna get to it in good time, in my own time, but right now I'm over here tinkering away at mastering one particular piece and every piece I've mastered, I've been epically bad at for a long while, but it's not using that as a reason to stop.

[00:27:02] Or start rushing to another bit of bridge 'cause suddenly that seems more interesting, or I might get a quicker win over there. And it's like allowing myself to be bad at something for a long while in order to get good at it. Number nine is about compressing time by removing self-doubt activities, right?

[00:27:22] How much time are you spending in self-doubt in, you know, when you spend hours? Wording an email just right, so as not to be misunderstood, only for the recipient to completely misunderstand your over-explaining email as you being difficult, not what I'm talking about. So one of the best things that you can do is a time study.

[00:27:47] Keep track of where am I actually doing something and where am I just stressing about the doing, about how I'll be read or interpreted or other people's thoughts. Or how they might see me, and we can't control other people's thoughts by changing ourselves. It doesn't work. It's not effective. But you can change your own thinking so that if they don't understand you or if there's a misunderstanding that you're not experiencing that as a rejection or judgment on your character.

[00:28:19] Right. So where the work is, is what are you thinking? Where have you added meaning of your own self-worth into how someone else receives your work? Um, this needs a whole other podcast, I think, but where are you spending time in other people's heads, imagining their idea reviews, scripting, rehearsing, practicing, going over and over and over, one piece of work trying to perfect things.

[00:28:47] And imagine the amount of time you free up when you are not doing those things. Like what's probably huge. For me, it was huge, right? Lots and lots of time stressing about trying to do it perfectly and make sure that everyone will be pleased and that used up a ridiculous amount of time, right? So. To finish, where are you making things mean Way bigger things than they need to.

[00:29:20] Where do you need to set a new boundary to protect your time and your focus and your and your brain space? Where are you avoiding and rushing from feelings or a lack of belief or lack of confidence? Where are you judging yourself against dominant standards of productivity or timeframes, or how you're supposed to be doing it?

[00:29:40] Where are you accustomed to thinking that you need to fit everything in? Uh, instead of like, reduce, reduce, simplify, and, and where are you telling yourself thoughts that are putting you in rush when maybe what you are seeking is self-trust and that that self-trust can come from? Doing three things on your list really well and feeling good as you do them, instead of trying to do 10, feeling in a rush and doing none of them effectively, where are you imagining that you need all this extra time when most of your time is spent in drama or distraction or resistance or rushing?

[00:30:27] So I hope this has been helpful to maybe illuminate some of the ways in which you might be. Rushing yourself out of time where maybe you can be more gentle, where maybe you can find enoughness, sufficiency, completeness, satisfaction in any result, like even it going wrong badly. Knowing that that's going to be the step that takes you that much faster forward towards being good at it and knowing that it means nothing about your validity or your lovability, or your worthiness.

[00:31:02] Where can you slow down? Master one thing, be on one learning curve, and use that to build up the self-trust in your own word. That when you decide to do something, you're gonna do it slowly with ease. Feel your way through the resistance or the feelings that come up and do it at a pace that allows you to see.

[00:31:24] Oh, this is how I'm reacting. This is a sensation in my body that I'm trying to avoid. What's the sensation? Why is it there? Let me feel through it so I can learn what it's telling me and find the root of it. So when you slow down and you stop rushing, when you start coming into your body is when you can notice, okay, this is what's really happening.

[00:31:49] This is the underlying anxiety. Or the thought that I've had or the belief that I should be this or that, that is propelling this motor, making me go fast, but I've also got the brakes on because I've got a sensation in my body that I'm scared to feel. So when we slow down the motor, spend time where we are really at and feel through it.

[00:32:12] Notice where we're judging ourself, what we're experiencing that is hard, what we are not good at yet, what we haven't created a system for yet. What isn't automated in our nervous system as a familiar process. Allowing that piece to happen first before you go hard and try and go fast and hit the accelerator.

[00:32:32] Now that time will come. You know the feeling when you are so fucking good at something or into it that it just flows and it's like magic and there's no internal resistance. There's just ease and like deep dives. And, and it's just all like pouring out of you that comes, right, that that's coming. But first you've gotta slow down and allow the learning curve and the discomfort.

[00:33:01] Can't rush those tunnels of uns. Alright, so I hope this has helped you. Let me know, uh, are you rushing and what you're doing to slow down and help yourself notice what's really going on for you and I'm gonna talk to you very soon. Alright, sibling. Bye.