How to not be working all the time
PLUS: 5 questions to help you break free from the urgency spiral
Good morning everyone, happy Friday.
How are your summers going? I keep asking this because, well, this has been a decidedly difficult summer on my end.
On paper, everything is shiny and bright. But damn, my inner experience has been the definition of tumultuous (and no, the fog is not helping).
This week’s essay is an invitation to begin examining the way urgency shows up in your life. I know you know what I mean when I say “urgency,” because I talk to dozens of you every week and you, like me, are also living inside some variation of TOO BUSY TOO FAST and NOW NOW NOW and THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN DNE YESTERDAY and WOULD YOU HURRY UP, ALREADY?
😖
This month, paid subscribers are exploring the theme of “Cultivating Peace.” As a complement to our 2023 guidebook, “Living in Gratitude: Mastering the Art of Giving Thanks Every Day,” I’m also going to incorporate lessons from Deb Dana’s “Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory,” because I can’t think of a better way way to “cultivate peace” than to make a safe home inside ourselves.
Here’s how Deb Dana defines polyvagal theory:
“Polyvagal theory is the science of feeling safe enough to fall in love with life and take the risks of living.”
If this piques your curiosity, I encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. You can even hop in for this month only, and then cancel your subscription in September. Here are all the paid subscriber offerings (hella good stuff, if I may say so, but the best part are the PEOPLE. I promise you the goodest people).
Sending you all my love and care, always,
xo,
dani
💥 Events 💥
INTERNATIONAL EVENT: SELF MADE presents With Pleasure! —a seven-day alcohol-free retreat in Tuscany happening this October 7-14. I’ve partnered with Carol Sicbaldi, founder of Carol’s Moveable Feast, with the intention that you reclaim joy and pleasure, relish in your five senses, and soak in the richness of your surroundings. To learn more and make a deposit, click here.
❓Questions? Ask. I’m here and I’d love to hear from you.
On a recent call with my business mentor, I showed up as I always do, with a list of things for discussion so as to make the most of our monthly 90-minutes together.
I am diligent about these sessions. I take notes. We strategize, and I clarify concrete next steps, because I know that while I’m highly skilled at big picture visioning, I can get totally stuck on where to start. Once we hang up, I “calendarize”—adding the agreed upon tasks to my calendar, ensuring there’s a structure in place so I get things done.
About fifteen minutes before our latest session ended, I had one final topic for discussion.
“How do I take time off?”
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July 11th was the one year anniversary of full-time self-employment. In the weeks leading up, I found myself in an unexpected tailspin. Maybe it was the memory of the stress of this time last year, when I saw the writing on the wall with my former employer and decided I would no longer compromise my well-being for an organization utterly unconcerned with the health of their employees, despite being a digital health company. Maybe it was the release of tension I didn’t know I’d been carrying, as I continued to shift from “what if this doesn’t work?” to “holy shit this is working.” Maybe it was the more relentless than usual, “no sky July,” omnipresent fog we in San Francisco have been swimming in since mid-May, a perfect backdrop for some midsummer malaise.
All of this to say, it’s working (🥳), and as I enter into Business, Year Two, I’ve been asking myself:
⌇Where will I place my focus?
⌇What do I want for myself *and* my business?
⌇What is working, and what isn’t?
There are certain things I’m going to change (I’ll be announcing how my offerings are expanding this fall). But overall, what I’m craving is
deep work
spaciousness, and
simplicity.
More than anything, I recognize that what will be required if I am to make these desires a reality is to release the urgency spiral.
From Productive Flourishing (emphasis mine):
Since our society is ruled by urgency, we have become really good at living, working, and thinking reactively. It’s a good day when we’re only reacting to one urgent thing, though, so we’ve also become good at tending to multiple urgencies at once.
We’re multi-tasking, multi-project juggling masters of the now. Rinse, repeat.
No mind that our bodies suffer. No mind that our hearts suffer. No mind that our relationships suffer. No mind that our spirits suffer.
There’s no time to worry about that stuff in the deluge of urgency. Plus, taking time out for yourself is incredibly selfish; people need you to do something right now.
But to worry about something, you have to be aware that there’s a problem. To be aware of the problem requires a pause and reflection that, again, we don’t have time for. We don’t stop before we have to.
I wish I were being hyperbolic about where we are or that perhaps I’m seeing a non-representative sample of people, but my hunch is that the people I’m seeing know the tyranny of the urgent isn’t working for them.
How does the urgency spiral show up in your life?
The biggest way this has shown up for me over the past year is that, well, I haven’t taken any time off. Even when I said I was taking time off—the week between Christmas and New Year’s, that solo trip I went on for my birthday, spending two weeks in Hawaii—I didn’t actually unplug. I checked email. I spent my time fretting, convincing myself that the wheels would indeed fall off if I didn’t spend my entire vacation in a low-key state of worry.
Coach Catherine encouraged me to just build time off into my calendar, and <cough> stick to it with as much conviction as I do everything else. So far, I’ve blocked off all federal holidays (amazing how easy it is to space on these when you work for yourself) and the week after Christmas (#babysteps).
Here are some questions to ponder if you’re wanting to break free from the urgency spiral:
🌀What’s underneath the patterns and habits that keep you in the urgency spiral?
🌀 What do you need to give yourself permission to let go of beliefs and stories that aren’t serving you?
🌀 What would you do differently if you knew that you’re modeling the urgency spiral to someone you love?
🌀 What would you do differently if you believed you were already competent, worthy, and deserving of love and success?
🌀 Who in your life is modeling and reinforcing the urgency spiral for you and how might you address it?
It’s one thing to take time off. It’s quite another to figure out how to not feel the urgency. Lying on the beach loses its allure if I spend my time worrying about marketing campaigns and bottom lines instead of focusing on what this fogged-in San Franciscan needs more than anything, which is soaking in as much Vitamin D as possible.
My greatest wish is to learn to run a thriving, healthy business while also being able to rest and enjoy my life. Said another way: I did not leave the corporate, start-up world to feel freaked out all the time.
What might become possible in your life without the persistent thrum of urgency?
⌇⌇⌇⌇⌇
In other news: We’re just shy of two months away from retreating to Tuscany. There is still time to join us.
This retreat is for you if:
You’re longing to slow down and savor your life, and take a restorative break from the constant thrum of the 🌀 urgency spiral 🌀
You want to rebel against the bummer “but you can’t go to Europe without wine!” messaging and prove to yourself—and the world—that recovery is SO MUCH BIGGER than the narrative you’ve been sold.
You suspect that your capacity for JOY + PLEASURE is far greater than you tend to allow yourself on a day-to-day basis.
You’ve been taught healing is hard and that to feel good, you have to walk through what seem like endless fires—and you’re ready to push back on this notion.
You’ve hit a plateau in your recovery and the thought of revitalizing your practice with a mix creativity, somatics, and adventure calls to you
You want to adventure post-COVID but you feel overwhelmed by the details and would love for somebody to plan an amazing agenda
You're excited to meet like-minded friends and you enjoy group travel
You’re more stable than you’ve ever been and you want to CELEBRATE your hard work with other like-minded sobernauts
If you are curious but you want to talk anything through, you’re invited to book a call with me to chat. I’d love to collaborate on whether or not this is the next right choice for you. Otherwise, click the button below for so much more 👇🏽 and to register yourself if you’re a “yes”.
SELF MADE empowers you to liberate yourself from societal programming and step boldly into a life of your design. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, writer, integral coach, and recovery guide based in San Francisco, CA.
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Thank you.