Have you noticed how easy it is to feel as though you are constantly behind? There is always something else that needs our attention—another email to answer, another appointment to make, another person who needs something from us. And for many women, the demands are very real. We may be caring for children while also beginning to care for aging parents. We are tending to marriages, friendships, homes, careers, our health, and the needs of the people we love. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, we are also trying to care for ourselves.
It is no wonder so many women feel busy. But I have been thinking lately about the difference between having a full life and living a hurried life. They are not necessarily the same thing.
I was recently inspired by Lynne Twist, author and founder of the Soul of Money Institute, and her reflections on productivity, presence, and our relationship with time. She writes about the scarcity mentality that can shape not only our relationship with money, but also our relationship with time—the persistent feeling that there is never enough. Not enough time to finish everything, not enough time to rest, not enough time for ourselves. And perhaps most painfully, the feeling that somehow we are not doing enough.
When Busyness Becomes a Habit
For women, busyness can become almost an identity. We can become very good at accomplishing, organizing, caring, anticipating, and holding things together. These are beautiful capacities. But constant doing can also become a way of keeping ourselves occupied enough that we don't have to listen too closely to what is happening underneath.
Because when things become quiet, we begin to hear ourselves. We may notice the exhaustion we've been overriding, the longing we've been postponing, the relationship that needs our attention, the dream that keeps returning, or the part of ourselves that wants something different.
This is one reason I believe an unhurried life is not simply about relaxation. It is a practice of coming back into relationship with ourselves. When we stop rushing from one thing to the next, we create enough inner spaciousness to feel again. And feeling is where so much of our wisdom begins.
There is a kind of knowing that cannot be rushed. We can call it intuition, inner knowing, feminine wisdom, or simply the quiet intelligence of the body. Whatever language we use, most of us have experienced it. It is the feeling that something is right before we can explain why, the subtle sense that something needs to change, the idea that arrives on a walk rather than while staring at a computer, or the answer that becomes clear when we finally stop trying so hard to find it.
This deeper wisdom is always available to us, but it can be difficult to hear when our lives are filled with constant noise and urgency. Sometimes we don't need another answer. We need enough quiet to hear the answer that is already within us.
Choosing How We Show Up
An unhurried life does not mean abandoning our responsibilities. There may still be lunches to make, parents to care for, businesses to run, bills to pay, and people who genuinely depend upon us. The invitation is much subtler: Can we move through the life we already have without creating unnecessary urgency inside ourselves?
Can we cook dinner without mentally racing ahead to the next five things? Can we listen when someone we love is speaking? Can we walk outside and actually notice the sky? Can we take one full breath before answering? Can we allow ourselves to do one thing at a time?
The outer circumstances of our lives may not immediately change, but we have more choice than we sometimes realize in the quality of presence we bring to them.
And this matters not only for us, but for the people watching us. Our children learn far more from how we live than from what we tell them. We can tell them to rest, trust themselves, enjoy their lives, and take care of their bodies. But if they continually see us rushing, overextending ourselves, putting ourselves last, and measuring our worth through productivity, they are learning something else entirely.
What would it mean for them to witness a woman who honors her own rhythm? A woman who can be devoted to the people she loves without disappearing from her own life. A woman who works and creates and contributes, but also rests. A woman who doesn't apologize for taking a walk, sitting quietly, watching the sunset, or simply doing nothing for a little while.
Perhaps one of the greatest things we can model is that a meaningful life does not have to be a hurried one.
Refuse to Rush
Lynne Twist shares a simple teaching she received from a spiritual teacher: “Refuse to rush.” I love those words. Not never be busy. Not give up your ambitions. Not stop doing meaningful work. Simply: refuse to rush.
Because rushing is often an internal state as much as an external one. When we begin to soften that internal urgency, we may discover something that has been waiting underneath it all along—our breath, our body, our creativity, our intuition, our joy, our own inner voice.
Perhaps this is one of the great invitations for women in this season of life: not to fit more into every day, but to inhabit our days more fully. To remember that our wisdom does not shout. It often speaks quietly, and we have to become quiet enough to hear it.
An unhurried life may still be a very full life. But it is a life we are actually present for.
