Urgency, Burnout, and Digital Compulsion

By yung pueblo

We live in an age where everything is just moving too fast. Productivity feels far more culturally accepted than rest, superficial connections are more bountiful than deep interactions, likes and views are replacing real life community – the internet, cellphones, and social media are connecting us with each other, yet everyone still feels far apart.

It is not surprising that the pressure society puts on us to produce and stay connected yields a feeling of mass exhaustion. Constantly being on email, being fed endless information on our feeds, incessant notifications – there is such a big battle for our attention that it makes it hard to feel anything other than urgency.

It is easy for your nervous system to get overwhelmed because human beings are designed to move through a natural world instead of a digital world. The combination of being so far removed from nature and being constantly online can make your mind and body feel sick.

One of the best solutions for burnout is the simple act of moving slowly. Intentionally moving slowly is a tiny rebellion that can help you regain your power, purpose and your sense of direction.

Whether internally or externally, pausing so that you can move slowly is how the power of choice reemerges in your life.

Internally: If you are always moving fast, it becomes exceedingly easy to do and say things that you regret or that are out of alignment. If you are always moving fast, the survivalist tendencies of the past will have an easier time taking over your present. Impulsiveness is how past pain recreates itself in the present and how old patterns that don’t serve you maintain their power over your actions.

Moving slowly is a powerful tool for healing yourself from the past, because it helps you see which patterns you need to say no to so you can move toward new behaviors. Moving slowly is how you can see more than your fear and old pain.

Externally: Pausing and moving slowly is not only the way to create a shift in the internal world of your mind and heart, but also the way for you to reconnect with your power so you can design your life in a way that feels more meaningful and rejuvenating to you. Instead of moving at the relentless pace that society demands, making time to take a deep breathe, to go outside, to look up at the sky, to walk for the sake of joy, are choices that can help you recenter yourself.

Instead of letting your phone decide who or what is important to you, taking the time to reflect about what you value the most will help you use your phone as a tool instead of the phone using you. Moving slowly is how you can decide for yourself what is worth your energy.