Make It Wild, Not Busy: The Quiet Rebellion of Unrushed Living

There’s a sentence I’ve been saying out loud more often: I will not be rushed.

Not because I don’t have things to do. (I do.)
Not because I don’t care. (I do, deeply.)

But because speed isn’t the same as aliveness—and hustling doesn’t guarantee meaning.

In this week’s episode of It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way, Laura and I talk about what happens when you stop measuring your life by output and start measuring it by presence. We begin with a familiar story: the pre-vacation scramble, the post-vacation catch-up, and the way “time off” gets swallowed by the work required to earn and recover from it. Somewhere along the way, rest became a luxury item, if not an inconvenience.

Let Rest Be a Quiet Rebellion

We offer a counter-practice: let rest be a quiet rebellion. Not performative, not punitive; simply a refusal to collapse your worth into the things you produce.

That looks like consent before hard conversations. It sounds like: “I have something challenging to say. Are you in a place to hear it right now?” It looks like boundaries that are actions you take, not rules you try to force on other people. It looks like choosing pace over pressure and acknowledging that resentment often points to misdirected expectations—a story we told ourselves that the other person never agreed to.

We also wade into the everyday reality of neurodivergence; how some brains don’t “see” the mess, how anxiety can spike and freeze action, how poorly delivered criticism can feel physically painful (hello, RSD). The fight about the dishes is rarely about the dishes. It’s about the meaning we assign: Do I matter to you? Am I seen here?

Yoga gives us a gentle map. You don’t bully your way into a pose; you adapt it. You notice where the edge is today, and you breathe there. You practice Shavasana—the so-called “easiest” pose that can be the hardest—because stillness is where your nervous system learns safety again. As Laura says, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is cultivate friendliness, joy, and compassion in your own mind so it becomes a calmer place to live.

There’s a political edge to this, too. Fear-based systems rely on frantic minds.

If thousands of us opted out of the busy-for-busy’s-sake loop and reclaimed unrushed hours for reflection, joy, and connection, we’d become harder to manipulate and easier to mobilize for what truly matters.

Rest is not withdrawal from life; it’s preparation to meet it with clarity and care.

If you need somewhere to start, begin small:

• Do a capacity check in the morning: What’s mine to hold today? Do I have room to hold more?
• Before offering feedback, ask for consent. If the answer is no, schedule a time when both nervous systems can listen.
  
• Try 15 minutes of morning pages or a 5-minute breath + body scan.
  
• Protect one unrushed hour—phone off, curiosity on.
  

Let your mantra be simple: Exactly where I need to be. Not as resignation, but as a way of finding the lesson and the joy available now. Make it wild—creative, attentive, honest—not busy.

Because healthy relationships, including the one you have with yourself, aren’t that fragile. They can handle your boundaries, your pace, and your need for space. And the life you’re building? It doesn’t have to be this way. It can be unrushed, present, and wholeheartedly yours.

✨ Listen to the full episode → Make It Wild, Not Busy: The Quiet Rebellion of Unrushed Living