Urgency Without the Rush: Moving Quickly with Presence and Purpose | Men’s Work Podcast

Welcome back to The Circle, the podcast where we go all in on men's work, embodiment practices, and personal growth from our queer perspective. If you're enjoying the show, please be sure to share your favorite episode, leave a review, and subscribe. And if you have a question about anything you heard us talk about, please send us a message. We'd love to hear from you. And now on to today's show.

Today, we're exploring urgency, how it can be the spark that calls us to action or the gust that blows us over. Where is that line between moving with purpose and rushing? And how do we stay steady when the pressure to move arises? Tim, are you ready to go all in?

I'm ready. Alright.

So something I've heard you say to me multiple times in the course of us working together is that you really dislike feeling rushed. Mhmm. And I can totally relate because summer is right around the corner and I'm in the middle of a move, so I totally get it. But what I've also seen is you move very quickly. Thank

you. So I'm curious.

Thank you very much. So I'm curious,

what's the difference between the two for you?

Thank you for that question because I was thinking about this earlier and I recognized that urgency was a tool that I would use as a closeted queer person for safety and protection. I could use urgency, and this is, I think, I was the perfectionist, the good guy, the person trying to be excellent, and then I could use urgency to avoid some really intense conversations. Especially if I was giving urgency to the things that the people around me thought I should value. This is not a real example, but, oh, I have to I I can't I can't talk about that right now. I have to go to football practice.

Would be, oh, well, an easy out, a way to go. So I do wanna start by saying I think that urgency can be a thing that we learn, a tool that we use to keep us safe, to keep us hidden, but not hidden in in the moment it makes sense. We're doing it so that we don't get called out or discovered or you know? And then we have to reimagine our relationship with it when we start to recognize, okay. I used it used to be this for me.

Now what is it? Because urgency can also be a tool for perfectionism, a tool for needing to be excellent in every way and and a way of getting out of things that we can all sort of agree on. And then as an adult, that may not, that may no longer serve us. We have to reconceptualize our relationship with it.

Heard in your earlier story was leveraging, creating a sense of urgency and creating a stimulus that can tip somebody else into a behaviour. So, by saying, Oh, I can't talk to you right now. I have to go over here. We're creating a sense of urgency, manufacturing a sense of urgency, bringing in that breeze of an urgent stimulus that then somebody can react to. And so that reaction, in that case, could be, oh, I'm creating this sense of urgency both for myself and that other person, and now I get to escape out of here.

Right? But urgency being the external stimulus.

Right. Yes. So you heard me correctly. And I believe that urgency can also be a thing that we employ in the pursuit of our purpose and passion. So now I feel personally like I'm hiding less, that I'm using urgency less to avoid a tough conversation or revelation about me.

And now my life because as you said, I do move quickly. I also, full disclosure, lived in New York City for twenty five years. Like, I move quickly. It just feels comfortable to me to move quickly, and I I sometimes feel annoyed when people don't move quickly. But but the reason I'm moving quickly now is because I'm running often running from one thing to another thing that I really love, that I care about, or that I think is adding value.

And, yeah, there is part of it that's like, have to pay my bills. I have to, do the things to make it all work. But there's another part of like, I'm running to these things and I'm doing these things because I think they make the world a better place.

Right. So you can move quickly and are moving quickly with a sense of purpose that has been created through urgency versus it being I am rushing to something, I'm hurrying to the next thing where I've maybe lost presence, I'm not in the moment, and I'm just trying to get to the outcome and trying to get to the desired thing, right? There's a difference between moving quickly with purpose, passion, and pursuit of something, which urgency can be that catalyst for that movement. It can be that spark that calls us to action. Urgency can also tip us into rushing, hurrying, missing out.

Well, guess so.

And both can be quick. Right? You can move quickly.

Sure. So there was a moment a few weeks ago where I was feeling very rushed, and something had popped up. Like, I think I was leaving the house or leaving the gym. Something had popped up. Suddenly, had to I had to be somewhere with less time than I thought.

And I started moving really quickly, and then my actions got unskillful. And I'm like, oh, I'm actually taking longer now because I'm trying to move so fast that I'm not tying my shoes correctly or putting things in my backpack correctly. And I had to say I'm like, Tim, you have to slow down to be able to move efficiently because there is probably a cap. There's no science around this that I know. Probably a cap around how quickly I can move and have it still be skillful versus haphazard.

And I was definitely out of skillful. That's one thing. But the other thing I wanna mention is, you know, in the yogic tradition, in Ayurvedic tradition, in Chinese medicine tradition, I think in a lot of traditions, there are also constitutions. So I'll talk about in yoga, there's tamasic, rajasic, sattvic. And mirrored in in Ayurveda, this sort of like, are you sort of like earthy and wet?

Are you like fiery? Are you airy? You know? I'm a very fiery person. Kind of universal over all these systems.

I'm like totally fiery. And so it is in my nature to move more quickly. So when we talk about urgency, we also have to recognize, well, urgency for me and how it presents in me is probably really different than if you are a more Thomassic person from one perspective or if you're a cold, damp person in the Chinese medical perspective. I am not cold and damp. So and by the way, it's funny because we use these terms and they can sound like a judgment.

They're not. They're observations of the world and different qualities. But a cold and damp person will typically move slower, and I'm dry and fiery. I move quickly. I also can then burn out more quickly, and my teacher told me I would die earlier, which was like a really sweet, shocking moment, but I appreciated it.

So there it's not like none of these are good or bad. They just recognize what is and then how you wanna work with it. So when we talk about urgency, urgency comes easy to me. And it probab I suspect there are other people for whom it is more uncomfortable, more challenging, feels farther away. And I'm actually interested now to hear what is your relationship to urgency?

How does it feel for you when you feel like you have to move quickly?

Yeah, I think urgency, again, my personal take on this is urgency is a neutral catalyst, an external catalyst. It can also be internal, I guess. We can create a sense of urgency within ourselves. It's how then we respond or react that can be skilful or unskilful. And so, what I like to say is that urgency can tip us into rushing, hurrying, being sloppy, being unskilful, Or we can take it and we can move with purpose.

So, I actually love the fire example because urgency can be a spark. It can be a spark that lights you up and says, Oh, I need to take action. And that action can be quick. The difference between quick, purposeful action and sloppy, haphazard rushing is the intention of which we're doing the thing. Are we rushing to a finish line and we're so out of the present moment that we can't see that we're fumbling with our shoelaces because we're like, Oh, my brain is not here on my shoelaces.

My brain is at the thing that I'm trying to get to. Versus, Oh, I know that I need to move quickly, and so I'm going to ground myself in the present moment, and I'm going to move with purpose and intention and passion, and I'm going to do things that way.

And you've had both experiences.

Yeah, totally.

Are you open to talking about the physical embodied experience of each and how they differ?

Absolutely. When I'm in a rushed experience, I can actually There was a time that I was training as a bartender that I was trying to keep pace with the other bartenders. And so the environment around me was creating this sense of urgency in me, and I didn't have the skills to bartend at that velocity. And so instead of grounding myself and moving through the process at my speed, I was rushing and I was spilling drinks everywhere. And so the feeling that I was experiencing was there was such a constriction in my body.

Was like my hands were shaking, everything was like fumbly and stumbly. Like my motor skills were lacking because I think I was just so in my head and heart was anxious and tight that I was unskillful in my movements. Right? And then there are other times that, like even coming here to the podcast, right, I was running a couple minutes behind because I realized that, Oh, my Jeep wasn't in my driveway. I had parked it a couple streets down because I had a friend staying with me who was using the driveway.

I didn't account for that, and so that I needed to move quickly in order to pick you up on time, in order to be here on time. And so I didn't rush. I wasn't in this mindset of, Oh my gosh, hurry, hurry, hurry, where I'm like fumbling when grabbing my keys and all this stuff. Moved quickly. I grabbed my cell phone.

I grabbed my bag. I grabbed my keys. I grabbed my water and I moved. And I just took it one step at a time. And I recognized that, like, oh, I can move fast and still be here in this moment.

I understand my destination, I understand where I'm trying to get to, but I'm not letting it completely cloud my vision of where I'm at.

I went one time to an Al Anon meeting. I've only gone to one. But it's a great example because I was younger at the time and running late, And so I was biking really quickly. Oh, I was on a city bike, and I couldn't find a dock. Actually, because I'm really good with time, had given myself plenty of time, but then all the docks were full.

And it ended up making me late, and and so then I ended up running to this meeting and getting there right on time, which mattered to me because I was told you're supposed to be on time, and time integrity matters to me. But then it was like a rainy, like, cold spring day, I think. And I get to this meeting, and then I cough, like, loudly through the whole meeting. And in my share, which I had never done before, I said I kind of explained. I'm like, I'm so sorry.

You know? And I talked about with my therapist later and realized, oh, right. I had this idea of what was important, which was I show up on time. Would it have been better for me to arrive two minutes late and not cough? Because I coughed through the whole thing.

And I'm I have a loud cough. You know, like, I I can't demonstrate it right now. That would be real. But and I I reflected later and thought, oh, I might it might have been of greater service for me to make a different choice. But in the moment, I was I'm the good boy who shows up on time.

That's that's who and what I am. And so I showed up on time and then coughed through everybody's share, including my own. Yeah. What was of greatest service.

Yeah. In that case, would you have classified that as rushing? You were rushing to get there.

Oh, absolutely. And you know, I designed my life in a way to prevent rushing, as you mentioned earlier. I really, really don't like it. And so I remember with my ex husband First husband. My first husband.

Yeah. Thank you. I said to him, because he and I have very different travel approaches to how we travel, and I basically said something along the lines of, you can do whatever you want when you're doing it by yourself, but when you're traveling with me, this is how I need to do it. And so for anyone listening, if you wanna travel with me, and by the way, invite me on trips and I'm available for that, I will want to arrive at the airport early. I would rather be at the airport bar for an hour having a chardonnay, and yes this is chardonnay, I love it, than for me to be trying to rush through security to get to the gate on time.

That feeling of rushing is so uncomfortable, uncertain, that I I go to lengths to avoid it. Yeah. I've got

a story on that in the airport security line. When we were coming back from retreat in Puerto Rico.

So we went on the seven day, six night retreat in Puerto Rico earlier this year.

And we took a flight from Vieques, an island of Puerto Rico, to the main island of San Juan. And we did not account that the airport security in Vieques would not secure us to go through San Juan.

And so Oh, we didn't Yeah, you're right. We didn't know that. And what's interesting, just a quick side note, because we live in Provincetown where they do have security, from Provincetown to Boston, you're You're cleared. You're behind the security line, and you just move from one gate to the next. And so I think we assumed it would be that same idea.

When I booked It was not that idea. I booked the flights, I thought that, oh, there's plenty of time in between us leaving Vieques and getting to San Juan and having enough time to do whatever we wanted in the airport.

Well, were to sit down and go to a restaurant.

Yeah. Did not do that. That was not the case. We arrived after a delayed flight from Vieques to San Juan to a security line that was incredible. I had never seen a security line that large and also chaotic.

It was very disorganized.

I mean, had pre check and you didn't. Yes. And I wasn't sure you would get through.

Right. So I looked at that and there was a moment, the urgency was real. That external stimulus created such a sense of urgency and I was like, Oh my goodness. And there was a moment that I started running, rushing. Like, I in my body.

I was in my head trying to get to the destination and going through every doomsday scenario that was present in my imagination. And then I took a moment and I said, hold on, Let's ground ourselves. I just came off of seven days of being on retreat. I have a bunch of tools right now. And so I steadied myself and I thought strategically.

And I moved with purpose and I moved quickly and I made quick decisions that ultimately resulted in me getting escorted through the security line, through the back way, and to an open line.

So urgency was the catalyst, and then from that place, we can go into skillful or unskillful. And I your story demonstrates beautifully how that can be a thin line, and we oh, I'm on the verge of either. Right? So urgency isn't bad. In the same way that stress isn't bad.

Correct. Right? Judgment's not bad, right? These are just like

Yeah, yeah, right. And so then how do we work with them? How do we experience them? How do we metabolize them? How do we?

Become aware of them?

Yeah. Right? This is a stimulus that has started to create something inside of me. And now I get to either react if I'm unaware of what's happening or I can respond because I've brought in attention to it.

Yeah. So what did you do? You talked to a security

I talked to a security agent who I could see was at her wits end as well. And I wasn't pleading, I wasn't begging, I just was calm with her. And I just told her the situation and I asked if there was anything we could do. And in stark contrast, I will say, was a couple right next to me who had their two little chihuahuas that were Chihuahuas? Chihuahuas.

Chihuahuas. Chihuahuas. Chihuahua? Chihuahuas. I don't know.

I'm I'm from Upstate New York with a very small population, so I don't say all the words.

Well, last name is Baumye.

Baumye. Chihuahua. Yeah. Chihuahua. Chewbahua.

Chewow wow. I've always called them chihuahuas, but now they're chihuow wow. So they a couple two chihuow wows Yes. Wowing two

service animal chihuahuas, mind you. Wow. Wait. Do you remember it is? Wow.

Who the couple did not realize that they had to go through some extra security for, and they were about to miss their flight. And they were rushing. They were in such a reactive state. I could feel it. You can just you can feel when somebody's rushing.

You can feel when somebody's in a hurry and not mindfully moving. Right? They're not with you, they are somewhere else. They are trying to get somewhere else. And it was really interesting to see how they interacted with the security agent and how I was reacting.

You could almost feel the energy between them. This security agent was pushing back. She was like, woah, this is a lot coming at me right now. Versus mine was like, I was still moving at the same velocity as them. My speed was still up.

My energy was down though.

Yeah. Yeah, it's different. And by the way, if you're listening, I think it's really tricky. Think it Razors are thin. I think it requires having tools.

So for an embodiment podcast, embodiment practice, shamanic yogic practice, can provide you with tools when you're in that moment. And I can't tell you, by the way, how many times I've been in line doing breath work because airports are a really fascinating part of human culture. It feels a little competitive. It often feels rushed or then very delayed. You know, all kinds of feelings that aren't great.

And it's one of the places in real life when I'm, like, meandering through my day where I'm practicing the most because, oh, at any moment, I could start to feel overwhelmed with urgency or delay or powerlessness or whatever. And so having tools and trying to meet the moment and also being gentle. Oh, something might happen and you might get a surge of anxiety. So the goal in that moment wouldn't necessarily be to not look like you are impacted by it at all, but rather make a choice so that while it's impacting you, you're still choosing from a place of awareness. So for those of you, I'm sure if you've watched, I sometimes get really red.

I I often get really red. I get red for a lot of reasons. I'm a person who blushes. It gives me away a lot, And I might get anxious and then get really red, but what ultimately matters would then be can I use my tools and still make choices, or do I start to kind of crumble under it? And the practices help me to crumble slower or to not crumble.

And I think the more we practice, the more we get there. So a thing I've done now is wrap my head around, I might miss my flight. And I I let that be, I'm gonna do what I can and go as I can go. And then if I miss my flight, I'm gonna make new choices at that point.

I love that. There's urgency, but the choice has been made that it's less about the destination now. It's more about being in the moment. Rushing to me is like I'm rushing to something. I'm rushing to an expected outcome to a destination, and that's where my head's at.

My head is laser focused on that, that I've missed out on where I'm actually at. And so by saying, oh, I could miss my flight, now the destination is still important. I'm not saying the destination doesn't matter. I'm saying the destination matters maybe a little less.

Well, it sounds like what you're talking about is attachment because when I'm rushing, I'm attached to one particular outcome. I get on this flight to arrive at this time because I have this thing to do at that place with these people. And I have definitely felt that. And so the practice I brought up about I might miss this flight is a practice of non attachment. And it's helpful if you can do it because the truth is some of these things are gonna be outside of your control.

And you can be as prepared as you want and still like the bike example at Al Anon. I went with plenty of time. I didn't factor that it would take me such a long time to find an open docking station. So that was outside of my control. We have to try to use our tools and recognize what we can do and then what we can't do.

And what I can't do is change how quickly the security line is moving.

Exactly. There is so much that can create a sense of urgency inside of us that is outside of our control. I actually really love the bike example because cities, you painted this picture of being in the environment and you also spoke of developing a quickness by living in a city. And our environments have such an impact on us because all of that is stimulus that could be creating a sense of urgency. And then it's how do you move with that that I think is really, really interesting and powerful.

Yes. I think New York City, as an example, does lend itself to a quicker pace. And for any number of reasons, I feel comfortable in that pace. I recognize that there are other places that have a different pace, and I have enjoyed other paces. But it all comes down to purpose, mission.

In New York City, I was moving quickly because I was running from one thing to the next that I loved or had to do, but mostly that I loved, because it's a very ambitious place. If we go back to the yogic, Ayurvedic, I have to imagine that New York City is probably a very Rajasic place to be. A lot of people go there with ambition, goal, purpose, desire. And so, yeah. Then I moved to a small town, and I'm like, why is this taking so long?

Or like, why are you walking so slowly? And I've actually had to check myself. Like, well, they're in Provincetown right now. And and they might just be on a walk. A walk like play, like an activity you do with no purpose other than Yeah, to enjoy the And here I am being like, well, we should get where we're going.

Last night at the Embodiment Circle, I brought walking meditation to help people study that, where I demonstrated I set up two candles 10 paces apart, and I also set up a set of candles at the midway point. And the instruction was walk from candle one to candle two, turn around, and walk back to candle one. And notice as you're walking how your pace changes and what happens as you approach your destination. Notice you have a desire to get to the end. What are you rushing to?

What is your sense of urgency here? Or are you mindfully moving? And so in the example of now taking that out into the real world where somebody might be mindfully moving through their walk, right, regardless of the pace, right? It could be really fast. It could be a fast paced walk.

And they're still mindfully moving from it because they're moving with purpose and passion from one thing to the next, they're still present in the moment. They are just moving quickly. And then there's other ways of doing that where it's like, Oh, I'm moving at a slower pace, but I'm still here, still present. The interesting comparison of what did that bring up in you to see somebody moving slowly while you were trying to move quickly. Did you get a sense of I'm rushing someplace and they're not rushing someplace?

Or what was the

I will share an example. I was flying back to Boston, and there was a connection in Atlanta. And Atlanta is I don't know if this is regular, but you land if if from an international flight you land, you have to go back through security. Is that typical? I don't I it's wild to me.

I don't understand why that's true, I guess, unless you don't trust the international security. Anyway, so it just so happened that on this flight, I had already started feeling the symptoms of the flu. I felt really bad. And it was all the strength I could muster to get on this first flight. Well, turns out our flight was delayed, and then so we had, like, a a very short amount of time in Atlanta to run to security, go through it, and then find our gate.

And I remember getting off the plane, and there was this couple, this older couple, and the woman was sort of it felt entitled to me, but I didn't feel well, and I wanna be generous. He's like, well, like like, aren't we all going to the same place? And I remember me and my travel companion, my ex husband. First husband. Yeah.

My first husband. No. We're not. Like, do you do you think I would be moving like this? Now she didn't know I didn't feel well, but, like, do you do you think that I'm moving like this for no reason?

Now it is possible I could have been. But no. I'm like, if I could if I could do this slowly or casually, I would absolutely have done it. I had to be moving that fast. And I can promise you in this particular moment, I was not loving it.

And one of my it's actually one of my favorite stories about my marriage was that almost always I was the faster walker. I'd be like, can we hurry up? Can we go? You know, whatever. And I remember in this particular moment, because there was urgency, we were gonna miss our flight.

Brian turned around and was like, Tim. He was like he's like, can we go any faster? And I remember I looked up at him, and I was like, this is all I've got. Like, I am I am giving you 100% of what I've got to give. Mhmm.

And it was really diminished. I was, like, in the throes of the flu. Fun fact, I got on the flight and immediately threw up into one of those bags. The guy next to me moved his seat. We flew home.

Thank god. And then I found out later from a friend who works in the airlines, they're like, I can't believe they let you fly. Because apparently, if you get sick like like that, they can take you off the plane. Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

I didn't know that either. And I feel really grateful because I would have either because then I got home and I laid in bed for, I think, three days of just in bed. And then, like, another two and a half weeks of I'm fine enough but don't feel well, I would've done that in an Atlanta hotel. Anyway, urgency.

Yeah. Okay.

Was a long story.

Yeah. Urgency in that case, there was two things creating urgency from what I heard. One, the external of destination, of, oh, trying to get home, and there's a bunch of things creating this urgency. I might miss my flight. People are moving slowly.

We're a long ways away. We have to go back through security, etcetera, etcetera. There's also the internal urgency of sickness. Like, what is my body about to do? And I think this goes back and less about the biological part of it.

I just want to go back to the first story that you shared about being able to create urgency in self. We've talked a lot about external factors, the environment having that impact. How can our internal dialogue and our internal systems create urgency? How can we use that in our favor?

I think through care, through investment, through some kind of connection. I the example I'll give is when I have a really busy day and my dog has been home, I bike quickly back home to her. Not because she's texting me, why aren't you home? Or, you know, what have you been up to? But I love you.

And I I just want to I want to get to you as quickly as I can so that you can have the things that you need because I love you. So I think care, passion, purpose, mission, discipline, commitment. So here, responsibility. Responsibility can create

a a big urgency in us.

Yeah. It can. It can. Right. And but I think the difference is if we're gonna create it from the inside out, it'll be responsibility we've given to ourselves.

We can get responsibility from other things. Oh, I have to go to work or my boss is gonna be mad or I'm gonna get a written up or they're gonna fire me or I won't have a paycheck. You know? But and that is also totally valid, by the way. Like, if you have a job, go to work and don't get fired and you know?

But if we wanna create it in a healthy way from within, well, what do you really care about? What matters to you so much that you are willing to and in this case with, like, the dog, I'm willing to bike home quickly even if I've been teaching fitness and yoga all day long and I'm tired. I'm willing to ask my legs and core to do more because that love, that care. So if you haven't if we haven't considered what it is we care about, what it is we are passionate about. And, you know, we talk a lot on this podcast about mission and purpose.

Like, what is your mission? What is your purpose? Like, what are you doing? We can create healthy urgency when we connect to, well, what is it you're trying to create? Lots of people are disconnected from that for any number of reasons.

If you want to create momentum and urgency in your life in the direction of your purpose, like, you have to know your purpose. You have to know what what you wanna create. And that process can be a bumpy one, but start simple. I love my family, so I'm willing to be urgent for them. I love, you know, fill in the blank.

My dog. Love my dog. Care for my dog. I care for my dog.

And I'm going to use care in connection with a responsibility to create urgency that is a spark, that is a call to action for my body to move quickly. Yeah. To then be able to get to the destination and accomplish the thing that we're responsible for.

I also wanna tell a story. I'm gonna tell a story. Please do. It's a podcast. We're gonna tell stories.

I remember being in a dance class in Pittsburgh.

For all of you that didn't know, Tim was a professional dancer.

Thank you. There's a now there's like the circle drinking game where apparently you have to drink. I mentioned that I was a dancer. Was a Or little tea

or any other beverage of your choice.

Yeah. Well, any drink you want, but you

have to do a shot of it.

Mhmm. I was in an academy, the Civic Light Opera Academy of Musical Theater in Pittsburgh. They're an incredible school. And there was this teacher that there were, like, two or three teachers that were, like, the big deal teachers, and these were the teachers that were gonna get you where you needed to be to get into college or into a dance company or whatever. So deep, deep, deep appreciation for the the staff at at the CLL, Pittsburgh CLL.

And I remember this teacher said he's like, okay. So all of you tall, leggy dancers, like, congratulations. You look so good, and people are gonna love that. He's like, now you have to move faster. He's like, the movements don't change.

The counts don't change, but you are longer and you have farther to go. You have to move faster. And I remember that being a really interesting teaching because you have to be able to fit into that. You can't both be leggy and long and then also move slow. You're gonna be off the count.

And so it gave me a perspective on urgency, which was by your nature, all of this is gonna feel a little faster. It's not good or bad, but if you wanna do it

If you have a lot of care for it, you've got that passion. Yeah. If I've got longer legs than somebody else and I still have to hit the movement at the same time, I gotta move a little quicker. I'm not gonna rush that movement. I'm gonna move very purposely for that movement.

Right. So I can consciously move fast without rushing. And then I think any dancer at that level then is if you rush a movement, that's when you're likely to get hurt. Right? So I have to be modulating my movement to fit the music and the choreography without yanking myself around.

Actually, brings up something for me, which is my the sense of urgency that's created inside of me at fitness classes and how I rush in fitness classes. I don't mindfully move most of the time because I think that I have to keep up and don't have the I'm going to

pause you. You've talked about fitness classes as a challenge for you, but this is the first time you've talked about it from an urgency pace perspective.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because exactly what you just said, I'm rushing through the movements and I'm doing so unskillfully, and I've hurt myself so many times because I think that I have to do it like them, which is fine to aspire to.

And it's tricky because I'm in the front of the room and I'm doing it quickly and excellently. Right.

And like, I'm light years away from that. Okay. That was Right? Like, I'm light years away from mimicking that movement. That's, for me, it's like, oh, that's created an urgency.

And now instead of me mindfully moving and saying, oh, I know where I'm trying to get to, so now let me be in my body and work to getting to that place. Yeah. I'm rushing into that movement.

I love that you brought this up because I think fitness is a great example. You know, we do imams every minute on the minute or AMRAPs, as many reps or rounds as possible. And in our culture, I believe and I have observed that people think faster is better. So if you finish first, then that means something. And when, as a person who designs workouts, I never care.

There's never you know, in an EMOM, for example, you get to it's really about your rest. Well, how much rest do you get? If you wanna take 55 to do this, then you only get five seconds rest. Is that enough rest for you? And then you know, so they oh, probably not.

Then we need to change your reps. But I think culturally, we have an idea of more is better and faster is better. And so we're kind of striving for that. And I think embodiment practice and yogic practice and mindfulness practice and all this is letting us know that it isn't faster isn't necessarily better, which is why I say in Vinyasa all the time, this practice isn't actually fast. It is continuous and linked.

And then, yes, when you get to more advanced asana practice, it can feel fast if you're moving into warrior one and then into chaturanga. Right? That's a lot to do and a lot to know. But the intention isn't because I need you to go quickly. The intention is any combination is continuous and linked with breath, and then as we progress it, it can get there.

But so when people think Vinyasa, they're like, oh, it's a fast no. It isn't. That was never its intention. I've never read any yogic text that talked about the benefit of doing it quickly.

Studying yoga and being in my teacher training, what I've noticed is as my embodied skill in poses improves, as I understand more about how the poses and postures feel in my body, I am able to move quickly through them. I don't rush through them anymore because I understand because I've sat the postures, I've sit, I've studied them, I'm being in them, and I'm understanding more about my anatomy. And as it's moving through space or holding a pose, I'm understanding more of it so I can be embodied in my movement because I understand it as an experience rather than looking at it just as a visual or an image and creating that as a destination that I'm rushing to.

I don't know why this is coming up for me, but when I was learning about kirtan singing, the sort of sacred practice of singing mantras and songs, I was always told that there was supposed to be, I've mentioned this before, a sense of longing in your voice. But there's also a sense of urgency. Right? A a deep desire to be connected to the source in whatever way you conceptualize it and the importance of that. So I think what we're talking about now, which is really exciting, is urgency can be a beautiful motivating factor.

I deeply want to feel more connected. I deeply want to, you know, reach out to my community. I deeply want to move away from my limiting beliefs and into my fullness. And then what do we do? And so urgency as a spark, beautiful.

If it pushes us into rushing, unskillful. If it pushes us into paralysis and, like, inability to do anything, also unskillful. And so the the the work then becomes, how do I take urgency, hold it, recognize it, understand it, and then make choices, conscious choices about what I'm gonna do. And that's really tricky, when the urgency so if we talk about urgency to, like, connect to the greater source. You're like, okay, well, I probably have my whole life to try to do that.

Right? But sometimes urgency is something an emergency is happening, and you have to move right now. And so that's what we have to practice. So in that moment, can I be conscious or can I be Or will I be a reaction? That's a boom right there.

It's a boom. If I was holding this mic

Yeah, you

would I would drop it. Should I hit

the mic? No, please don't. Oh. I hit it. Braddy daddy over there.

Thank you. That's a high compliment, by

the way. I think that sums it up really, really beautifully about the nature of urgency and how we can react or we can respond to it. And it can be a really beautiful driving force. Can also be a destructive, reactive, stumbly, tumbly all over the place, just taking everything down in its wake. And we can bounce between the two of them very quickly.

Like my example at the airport, right? I was rushing and then I was able to come down and work through it. The line is razor thin. It really is.

Well, some takeaway tools, if we're open to them. One thing is if you are met with a person who is in the throes of rushing, and lots of really well intentioned people are in that place, one thing you can do is start to deepen your breath and slow the pace of your words to help them regulate their own nervous system. Will it always work? No. But it has worked a lot, enough.

Oh, okay. And what's interesting is that I've been on the receiving end of that and have been grateful for it after the fact. Oh, they they I did I was whipping myself up into a thing, and they helped me, like, regulate that thing. A little harder to do the opposite when someone's being really lethargic and trying to but it's still possible to bring an uplifted quality to your voice and an excitement that can spur people. We can definitely encourage people in that opposite direction.

But my whole point in saying that is we aren't without tools. We aren't just meandering through with, like, letting the world happen. We can make some choices.

Beautifully said. And thank you for offering those those tools out to the world. With that, I'm feeling very complete.

How about you? I also feel complete. Will you

take us out, please?

I will do. Let's take a deep inhale and a full exhale. And it is with deep appreciation and gratitude that we release the archetypes and the spirits that we called in to the sacred space of sharing awareness, understanding, insight. As we all leave the circle, I wish you all safety. And with these words, our container is open, but not broken.