The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

As soon as I read the book title, I knew I needed to get the book: The Ruthless Elimination Of Hurry by John Mark Comer.

Just the day before, when I asked God what was the source of the stress that underlay a lot of my current challenges, the phrase hurry sickness came up.

(That’s what happens when you learn to hear God’s voice and align with your divine design. You get answers and insights you would not naturally have. You start to tune in to a spiritual reality that underlies what we can sense with our five senses.)

Hurry sickness, also known as time urgency, is characterized by “a pressing need to hurry through tasks and make the most of every moment. Hurry sickness can show up as a driving need to make the most of every second.”

That’s definitely me.

Hurry sickness is, according to my and John Mark Comer’s research, not just an issue for me. Time urgency is endemic to our fast-paced, technology-driven culture. I’ve written about technology and how it can be a hidden stressor that we’re not really paying attention to, because it’s “the water we swim in.”

What I want to share here are some of the “heart issues” that can contribute to hurry sickness, so that you can address these deeper issues through the various tools that are available.

In my Healing Codes work, I like to identify the “four-part program” that forms the foundation of an underlying heart issue. That programming includes the feeling(s), the unhealthy belief, the unhelpful coping behavior, and the relational context–along with any attached memories.

For me, hurry sickness is rooted in:

• anxiety and the fear of missing something important (which I call FOMSI)
• the thought/belief that “I don’t have enough time to do everything that’s expected of me”
• the unhelpful coping behavior of multitasking and, well, hurrying.

The relational context stems from my relationship with the world of work. (Yes, we can have a relationship with a group, organization, or aspect of culture, as well as with people, God, or ourselves.)

There are always “memory capsules” connected to the four-part programming. They may be buried in the subconscious, but they’re there.

In my case, that way of relating to the world of work stemmed from a trauma I experienced early in my adult life. I worked for a summer on Mackinac Island in a little leather shop, and while there I had to get my wisdom teeth out. The dentist told me I’d have to go back to get the last tooth pulled, since it was so impacted it would be too much trauma to take all four out at once.

When I asked for more time off, my employer fired me, effective immediately, and said, “You are a unit, and if that unit does not perform at 100% capacity, we don’t want IT on the payroll.”

In my employer’s eyes, I was merely a slave, a replaceable “unit” that could be dispensed of at a whim. My need to take care of myself physically mattered not one iota.

Getting fired also meant I could no longer live where I was, as the employer also provided housing.

Recovering from the dental surgery and on pain meds, I had to move from one friend’s domicile to another, as the rule on the island for employees was that you couldn’t have a guest for more than one night. All I remember from that week of my life was walking down the main street with my suitcase to yet another place to sleep.

There was more to the trauma and an even earlier traumatic memory, but I think you get the idea. What I came to believe from that experience is, if I didn’t give my work 100% of my ability, it would be disastrous. And in fact, that primitive part of my brain believed I wouldn’t even survive.

When something is interpreted as a survival issue, it goes underground, encoded in the unconscious “survival brain” and in cellular memories.

Later, when I became self-employed, I relied on my well-oiled inner drive to “work at 100% capacity” in order to succeed, aided and abetted by all the advice about how to hustle as an entrepreneur.

The sneaky thing about such coping behaviors is that they seem to work—until they don’t. For a long time I believed that multitasking was what helped me succeed as an entrepreneur and parent.

Usually it’s the body that gives signs that something is out of whack and change needs to happen.

In my case, the headaches and acid reflux, along with muscle tension and chronic neck pain, signaled that something was amiss. Classic symptoms of hurry sickness.

So what am I doing?

I’m addressing the four-part program with my C-H-R-I-A tools mainly:

• Connecting with God through prayer, especially Immanuel Prayer, and keeping a gifts journal.
• Healing the memories with the energy tools.
• Releasing the old energy and Replacing the lies with the truth.
• Infusing the new truths deliberately, and practicing better coping skills, such as mindfulness meditation, along with
• Activating the new, more positive energy based on right beliefs.

C-H-R-I-A: The CHRIA Cycle of Transformation. All four components are needed.

This is a work in progress, as are all healing of deep heart issues and long-standing coping behaviors. Prayer for wisdom and guidance, self-compassion, patience and perseverance provide the fuel for healing.

Whether your particular challenge is hurry sickness or something else, I hope this “template” for healing gives you something to work with. Listen to your body, identify the four-part program, and use the tools God puts before you to heal (e.g. prayer, Healing Codes, or my CHRIA tools).

If you would like to know more about the CHRIA tools in my Align with Your Divine Design program, go here.

We are made to heal, so focusing on healing pulls you toward the flow of life.

About John Mark Comer’s book . . .

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry contained many good insights, but I felt a little disappointed.

I wasn’t enamored with the colloquial writing style, but that’s just me.

I guess I was looking for a magic bullet, something I hadn’t thought of before myself. It was a disappointment only because I am already doing, or striving to do, most of the things Comer suggests.

Regularly practice solitude, prayer, getting out in nature. Check.

Practice the Sabbath—taking one day to stop and rest. Sabbath, Comer says, is about two things: worship, and rest. I try to do this every Sunday. It’s a bit tricky, however, because for me as a Highly Sensitive introvert, true rest would mean no appointments or commitments. Well, I do want to go to church (I attend an amazing church), so right there, in a way Sundays are tiring for me. But I do try to keep Sunday afternoons for restful activities, which usually means reading or puttering around the house or walking in nature or connecting with close friends or family. My challenge with Sabbath is to turn OFF the thoughts of what I “should” be doing so I won’t fall further behind.

Simplicity. This one I’ve been working on for a while, and I’ve written about focusing on subtracting all that doesn’t serve me right now. However, I find that this somehow often slips into that “optimizing” and “making the most of every moment” that drags me back into hurry sickness. Sigh.

Slowing down. This is good advice, and Comer gives very practical suggestions, like choosing the longest checkout line in the store (that one goes against my grain). But many of his other suggestions I already implement (kill your TV; drive the speed limit; ditch social media;cook and eat at home; “put your phone to bed and let it sleep in”).

Perhaps for me, the most important thing I can get from this book is the title itself: the ruthless elimination of hurry. That’s a good focus. Just saying the words to myself helps my nervous system somehow. It opens me up to how I might do that in the next moment.

Ruthless means it’s important. Elimination is practical and specific. Hurry is the problem. The phrase slows me down when I begin to feel the “hurry headache” come on.

The ruthless elimination of hurry. Ahhh . . .