In short: Rushing doesn't just become a habit.. it becomes an identity. Over time the mind quietly wires speed to being useful, being liked, being loved. So when you try to slow down, the threat isn't to your to-do list.. it's to who you think you are. Of course there's fear. That fear makes complete sense. The way through isn't to force it. It's to give the pieces time and space to settle.
Watch the full satsang above.
There's something almost paradoxical about the rush habit.
You know rushing isn't good for you. You've probably told yourself to slow down a hundred times. And yet the moment you actually try.. something in you resists. Hard.
Someone in a recent satsang put it beautifully: "I feel conditioned to rush and do things quicker than they need to be.. what am I afraid will happen if I slow down?"
That's such an honest question. And most people who rush would recognise themselves in it.
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Rushing stops being a habit and becomes an identity
Here's what I think is really going on. What we do consistently becomes a habit. And a habit we practise long enough becomes so normal that it stops feeling like something we do.. it starts feeling like who we are.
Rushing is often that. And if you follow the wiring underneath it, it usually goes somewhere like this: rushing meant productive, productive meant accepted, accepted felt like being loved. Take out all the middle steps and join the line straight, and for a lot of us it reads: rushing equals feeling loved.
That wiring happens quietly, usually in childhood, and by the time you're an adult it's just.. running in the background. Some of it we practised consciously. A lot of it we absorbed without ever choosing it. Either way, it's had years of repetition, so of course it feels like the truth of who we are.
So when you try to slow down, the threat isn't about your calendar. The threat is to your identity, and to the love you've unconsciously attached to it. Of course there's fear. That fear makes complete sense.
Slowing down is stepping into the unknown
The other thing that makes it hard is simpler: you've never done it this way before.
You've rushed your whole life. Suddenly not rushing is new. Unknown. And no one really wants to step into the unknown.. we all want some part of the known to come with us, something predictable to hold onto. But the moment it's predictable, it isn't the unknown anymore. The unknown is exactly where the fear lives.. and it's also exactly where the growth is.
The discomfort is pieces resettling, not something going wrong
When a child grows, we call the ache "growing pains." The body is expanding, and expansion isn't always comfortable. Something similar happens inside when you change a long-held pattern.
The image I keep coming back to is a snow globe. When you shake one, everything goes cloudy and chaotic before it finally settles. That unsettled feeling when you start to slow down? That's not a sign something is wrong. That's pieces resettling into a new, more rested configuration.
So the invitation is a gentle one: give it space. Give it time. Don't try to rush your way through learning how not to rush.
If you'd like to explore a question like this in real time, I hold a live satsang every Friday inside the free Elevate Community.. come and be in the room. And if you'd like a gentle place to begin, the free 7-Day Inner Work Challenge is a good first step.
Big love, Dylan