Do more, go faster, hurry up, brace yourself!

I'm sat at my desk, writing an email. My shoulders up by my ears, my chest caved in, my body constricted, hard. My fingers typing like there's a ticking time clock. My breath shallow, irregular, held for long moments like i'm waiting for something to happen.

This is how I used to function.

White-knuckling my way through my business.

Everything feeling urgent. That mounting internal pressure to RESPOND IMMEDIATELY to everything. To tick-off my never-ending to-do list and ignore the fact that no matter how much I did, how quickly I responded...there was no nourishment of satisfaction. That urgency and pressure was still there - tapping incessantly on my back...'do more, go faster, hurry up, brace yourself!'

Over-delivering in an unconscious attempt to soothe myself and prove that I AM GOOD (I am, aren't I??).

It was exhausting. A constant drain on my vitality.

These same patterns would be there in my client work too. Over-focusing on others at the expense of myself. That disowned feeling of the pressure to fix other people. To ask the next perfect question. To give them a really great session.

Completely unaware of the constant efforting in my inner process. Unconscious of all the ways my body was trying to protect itself and find safety in the way it knew how; by becoming harder, by constricting, by speeding up.

White-knuckling our way through our business.

No space to stop and breathe.

No moment to pause and check in and ask 'what do I need right now?'.

No choice to soften in the way we do the things we do.

No chance to stop and make a new choice.

No quiet to hear the longing of my body; slow down...take your time...be here...feel the space you exist in. Soften.

Do these words resonate with you?

I'd love the answer to be a sure 'no'. I'd love to imagine you sassily shaking your head side to side, hands on hips, pouting affirming 'nuh-uhh!'. Yet my understanding of humans and our society tells me that somewhere in the recesses of your body (if not tingling everywhere) - there is probably a resonance with what I share. Perhaps it even sounds like 'oh god, yes that's me!'.

If so, can I ask you something?

Are you knuckling your way through these very words? Through this entire email? Is a part of you here reading as the words lay out in front of you...yet another part pulling in the direction of NEXT...come on! Hurry up! I'm busy!

Are your shoulders tight? Your jaw clenched? The muscles deep inside your eyes constricted? Your breath held, irregular?

If so...here's 1 invitation and 1 reminder:

Invitation:

Notice where you are tense, hard, fast....and then s-o-f-t-e-n and s-l-o-w down. Perhaps using your next exhale to support you in doing that. (Just for a moment. And then another one. To feel yourself just a little softer in the way that you do things? Please??).

Reminder:

Your life is not so urgent that it requires your chronic absencing. There is nothing that is worth the price we pay for that. The space, sweetness and expansiveness of life you crave is on the other side of the strategies you are currently using to create 'safety' in a state of on-going survival and urgency.

(Ok - so technically that was 3 reminders...but you have time...and they were good, weren't they?)

So my dear one...If your version of success involves you feeling like you’re white knuckling your way through your business, I would lovingly ask you to check in with yourself about that. 'Check in' isn't another word for 'shame yourself'. Instead - it's an opportunity to recognise if this is your experience and if it's something you consent to.

Do you like this experience?

Do you feel the benefits of it?

Does you soul say 'yes I want to live this way'

Or is it something you want to change?

For so many of us our 'success' is at the expense of our bodies, our health, our vibrancy.

We push ourselves too hard for too long.

We embed within our business our own patterns of disconnection and dysregulation.

And then what happens?

Our relationship with our business becomes one that is driven by our trauma responses, by fear and scarcity rather than by feeling a sense of grounded connection and safety in ourselves.

Which one do you think yields a higher potency, more nourishment and success?

If this is something you want to change then - amazing. (If not, that's fine too - white-knuckle to your heart's delight my friend).

Remember that white-knuckling is a pattern. A learned pattern. One born from disconnection and a lack of inner safety.

And it is a pattern that we get to change so that we can consciously create an experience that we do consent to.

In order to change this pattern we need to learn how to work with our nervous systems and move away from living in chronic survival stress and urgency…to resource ourselves at deeper levels and find a greater sense of inner safety that allows us to expand into softness, slowness and space.

My love, you have time.

You don’t need to rush through your life.

You get to be here. To live it.

To know who you are beneath the patterns of stress and pressure.

This is your birthright.

Will you reclaim it?