For a long time, urgency was a primary part of how I survived. Not only did my ability to adapt and produce under the most intense deadlines make me a prized employee in the world of corporate exploitation but because of my trauma, urgency was how I kept moving in order not to feel or process the things that would literally overwhelm and flood my system.

This constant, chronic urgency from within my body and in the world around me resulted in intense stress and crushing anxiety. Panic promised if I just moved faster, decided quicker, pushed harder, I could juggle one more thing, and then one more, and yet another. It felt like if I dropped one thing, my entire life would crash down around me.

I identified so intensely with being the yes person, rushing from one thing to the next, that rest and slowness felt unbearable. If I wasn’t doing SOMETHING and with intensity, who was I?

I also saw urgency playing out in my closest relationships. Things needed to be resolved NOW, discomfort had to be relieved immediately, even if it meant over-giving, over apologizing, pushing past others’ boundaries, or abandoning myself.

I know now that this was not a personal failing. It’s the water we swim in.

Urgency is prized by both capitalism and white supremacy. (It’s one of the key characteristics outlined by Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones in their work on white supremacy culture.)

Most of us feel it. The urgency to heal our trauma, to fix our problems, to post on social media, to be online & responsive all the darn time, to get to Inbox zero, to fall in love, to love our bodies, to produce produce produce.

It’s also there in the urgency to call people out, to point out why others are wrong, to escape our shame, to prove we’re “not like them.” Even the urgency to position ourselves as an authority or an expert when the only thing we really know is our own experience.

Urgency demands action before thought and reflection. It demands boundarylessness in ourselves and from others because we need to know and we need to know right now.

And… the cultural normalization of urgency prizes quick thinking, neurotypical responses, and able-bodies who can keep up with the crushing demand of more with less.  

It took a long time for me to realize that I had internalized this intense urgency to “get better” and to get over my trauma. I was always learning, always enrolling in something, always reading and reaching and striving and processing.

But in that urgent need to not be how and who I was, I was abandoning myself and my body. It was yet another way to leave, to not feel, to turn away from the reality of now. It was another tool that kept me moving away from my power and from my voice because in order to know our own edges, we have to be able to feel.

Sometimes we need urgency to survive.

And sometimes we do it because we think it’s the only way to be and we can’t tolerate letting others down.

This isn’t to vilify urgency. Urgency serves a crucial role in our lives.

Urgency says, “This is an emergency. Shut down all non-essential processes and push all of our resources to getting out of this crisis.” And that skill matters when we’re in a car accident or an earthquake or a life-threatening situation. (And yes, sometimes urgency is a brief flare of need we enjoy – burning hot and fast…)

But what happens when our bodies feel that crushing urgency all the time? What happens when that urgency becomes a weapon we use to crush the humanity out of ourselves and each other? What happens to our body when we’re in a constant state of hurrying and rushing so our digestion and our emotions and our nervous system never get to just… be?

When we begin to question the worship of urgency, we often begin to find that moving at a more human (& humane) pace means we have to also feel all of the messy things that come from being alive and in relationship with other messy humans: uncertainty, discomfort, grief, frustration, disappointment, and the unresolved.

Urgency also has us sacrificing our pleasure in grotesque and heartbreaking ways. Because pleasure invites us to arrive in this moment and to savor what is being offered to us. 

Pleasure only ever happens in the present moment. Where urgency asks that we’re always focused on the distant horizon, racing towards some invisible finish line, pleasure invites us to notice turn our attention towards what’s happening now – to notice the color of those flowers, the wrinkle of a loved one’s nose as they laugh, to soften into a loving touch and delight in that burst of tart sweetness as you bite into a fresh strawberry.

Part of what I’ve been practicing for the past few years is increasing my capacity to be with the unresolved for just a little longer as an active resistance to urgency and knowing. My pleasure practice helps to resource me for this uncomfortable work.

Instead of pushing to immediately talk about the thing that’s agitating me, I pause and ask if I and this person I love may need some space and time to move through our feelings before we’re ready to discuss what happened.

Instead of rushing to pat things into place when someone is sad or disappointed, I’ve started practicing how to feel my feet on the ground and how to sigh on my exhale as a way to connect with my body before jumping in to fix or solve or over-promise.

Consciously resisting urgency invites us into stronger boundaries – the things we do want and the things we don’t. Which in turn connects us more deeply with our bodies and where our yes and no live.

Moving away from urgency also means disappointing people, and sometimes in really big ways. If I take my time, if I really give myself a chance to reflect and consider, people are going to get mad.

This is especially true on social media and in many community spaces that are full to the brim with trauma. Some people get so angry at feeling disappointed that they’re willing to write you off or kick you out so that they don’t have to feel that feeling any longer. And if we really actually want to disrupt supremacy culture, we have to find ways to be OK with that.

I can’t speak for the futures you’re dreaming for yourself, but when I think of a world that is liberated and rooted in care, community, and relationship, it looks like a lot more slowness and pleasure.

Embracing slowness may mean taking months, maybe even years, to resolve certain conflicts or disagreements. It may mean having the time and the space to really be with the land and my body and people I respect as I work to figure out what needs tending. It may mean collaborating and sharing and releasing outcomes all while feeling supported and prioritizing joy, delight, and satisfaction along the way.

The antithesis of urgency, for me at least, is presence and being able to feel more fully: the nexus of where pleasure lives.

The antithesis of urgency is rest, and contemplation, and play, and trusting that some answers will come simply from living rather than reaching, striving, pushing, and demanding.

Resisting urgency is deeply unsettling for most of us, but it’s also a big part of how we can begin reconnecting with our bodies, our voices, and each other in humanity-honoring ways.

What is your relationship with urgency? And what would it look like to begin investigating opportunities for slowing down even if it means leaving some things unfinished? Could you set aside your healing practice and your self-improvement quest to explore who and how you are in this moment, in this body?