what's the rush?

If your week has been anything like mine, you might have experienced moments of merciless setbacks that make you feel as though you're hacking through a dense field of weeds with a dull machete, swimming upstream against an angry current, or just wishing you didn't feel the need to rush to get anything accomplished.

We are all most likely familiar with that heart-pounding moment of panic as we curse our commitment to the clock and calendar, praying to all things sacred that we "make it on time." 

Whether it's sweeping through our inbox, sprinting to catch a train, tripping over ourselves to make it on time to a meeting, slamming through a project to meet a deadline, or powering through a meal to get on to our next task of the day - when has speeding through something ever really improved our wellbeing, or enhanced the situation itself?

There is absolutely a time and place for rushing for safety's sake, but when it becomes habitual from the second we wake up until we hit our pillows at night, our immune and nervous systems eventually re-wire to consider these fight-or-flight conundrums the norm.

When our bodies are in flight-or-flight mode, it protects us in drastic situations when we are literally fighting for our lives: it's like pressing pause on digestion [who has time to eat when there's a bear chasing you?] and pressing fast-forward on the heart rate [pump yourself up to RUN]. Imperative in life-or-death situations, not so great for communicating and living on a daily basis.

The Yoga Sutras advises to practice yoga for a long time, without break, in all earnestness. When we are inhaling a meal, are we earnestly giving the food and our bodies the attention they deserve? When we race through a conversation or meeting interrupted by glances over at our device's email notifications, are we completely focused on the task at hand?

Every moment deserves our attention. Even if we are pushing to finish something, or moving quickly after a much-needed meditation before running to get to wherever we need to be, we can still give our sympathetic nervous system a break simply by being aware of things like our breath, or of how we feel in that moment.

When we practice mindfulness in everything we do, what we do becomes more clear.

Click here to read the full post, including personal tips I use myself, even in a rush, to move as mindfully as possible throughout the day in order to nourish mind, body and planet. 

How do you operate from a more mindful place when you find yourself in a perpetual rush?

Read on for an easy solution to any rushed meal, real good music, yoga happenings and more.

*Photo by Renee Choi doing Breakti at the Bedford Ave Subway station, where I often find myself skipping steps to catch my train [it felt GREAT to be there for playful purposes only].