Shelly's Shares: Could "Hurrying" Be Draining Your Health, Energy And Joy?

What if the real cost of your busy life isn’t stress, but lost moments of wisdom, joy, and connection? We dive into the quiet epidemic of hurry sickness—those subtle patterns of rushing, overcommitting, and numbing that leave us irritable, anxious, and strangely disconnected from what matters most. Drawing on insights from The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and our own lived stories, we map the 10 core symptoms—from restlessness and workaholism to emotional numbness and isolation—and explain how they erode mental health, physical wellness, and spiritual grounding.

Together, we challenge the myth that “more hours” would save us. If given extra time, most of us would simply overfill it. The shift that actually heals is subtractive: simplify, slow down, and protect the practices that anchor a meaningful life. We share practical tools to make that shift real, including gentle time blocking with buffers, five-minute stillness rituals to retrain attention, walks that restore presence, and small boundaries that keep energy for your true priorities.

You’ll hear how saying yes to the right moments—and no to noise—creates space for better sleep, nourishing meals, steady movement, and deeper relationships. We also explore anxiety as a canary in the coal mine, inviting you to notice what your pace is trying to tell you. By the end, you’ll have a humane, doable path to reclaim time, rebuild calm, and step back into the goodness of the moment.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s always rushing, and leave a quick review to help others find it. Want support on your wellness journey or in the phases of motherhood? Message us on Instagram at wellness with Shelly J or at Moms Who Flourish.

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Thank you for listening to the Words of Wellness podcast with Shelly Jefferis. I am honored and so grateful to have you here and it would mean the world to me if you could take a minute to follow, leave a 5-star review and share  the podcast with anyone you love and anyone you feel could benefit from the message.

Thank you and God Bless! And remember to do something for yourself, for your wellness on this day! 
In Health, 

Shelly

Transcript

Noticing A Life Of Rush

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If this at all is sounding like you or sounding familiar, I think it's important to take some quiet time to really think on it. Maybe think about what causes it for you. And then if it's just like stressing and being in a hurry everywhere that you are going, then maybe you have to make some adjustments in your schedule and your time and time blocking, perhaps. And you know, sometimes, sometimes that's a sign of something else. Sometimes people use the hurriedness to to escape something that they don't want to face, right? And again, take that time to think on this. Is that you? Is that something that is there something you're trying to avoid? Because if if that's the case, it's going to still always come come back. It's not going to go away. Do you get confused by all of the information that bombards us every day on ways to improve our overall health and our overall wellness? Do you often feel stuck, unmotivated, or struggle to reach your wellness goals? Do you have questions as to what exercises you should be doing? What foods you should and shouldn't be eating? How to improve your overall emotional and mental well-being. Hello, everyone, and some free woman. My name is Lady Freeze and Mobile Homeless. My colleague is a little bit more. Education and inspiration women. So that we can all learn together. We're making an intimate money help. The women's of all of you listeners. The ultimate help is that you leave today with even just one nugget that can enhance the quality of your life. And that you will, we all will, now and into the future, live our best quality of lives full of energy, happiness, and joy. Now let's dive into our message for today. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to Words of Wellness. This is our Shelley's Shares episode, and I am feeling the pool to talk about a topic today that I have been coming across it kind of often in recent weeks. And as a matter of fact, our pastor just did a service on this very topic. And then right around the same time, I started reading a book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. And this book was recommended to me by one of the one of the mastermind groups I've been in, and I can't remember exactly who it was. And you know, I started reading it and I thought, this is a topic that I want to speak on and share on. And I think that so many of us can relate. And it's so interesting because my husband recently retired, and that is one of the things that he talks about the most, is that he says, I am tired of rushing to places, rushing to games, rushing to here, rushing to there. And I never really thought of it like that. That's like one of the really big intentions for him is to be able to, I don't want to rush places anymore. And you know, I, you know, that's all intentional, right? We don't have to rush to where we're going. However, when we have full lives and we have families and we have jobs and all of the responsibilities, there are moments where we are rushing to places. And I think that it's easy to get caught up in that. And I just wanted to kind of highlight some things and share some things that I'm reading in this book, and I'm not that far into it, but there are some great, great nuggets, and I wanted to just share with everybody what I have come across so far. And I think that it's very, I think it's kind of eye-opening, but yet at the same time, it's not like it's something brand new. You know, we we know, I mean, I know when there are moments when I'm rushing to go somewhere. And I was just talking to my girlfriend about this the other day is that you know, we're getting ready and we're we're doing this and we're taking our time, and then all of a sudden we might run out of time at the last few minutes, and then it turns into be a little bit of a rush. And I think that I think that's a kind of a habit that we as a society um have easily kind of gotten into. And so I was going to share just a couple things to just kind of open up the conversation, but also to get all of you thinking, and perhaps something that I share today will resonate with you. And then my hope is that it's the awareness, it's the recognition of what we're doing, how we're operating in day-to-day lives, and what we can do to maybe eliminate some of the hurriedness, eliminate some of the busyness, because that also then helps to eliminate a little bit of stress at the same time. So the author kind of points out some things that we might be doing, and he's actually sharing from another book called The Time Cure, but he says that a few symptoms of the hurry sickness he refers to it as. Oh, I bet I left them where I last was, and that was out in the washing machine. So I know that certain things like that happen, and that happens to me, even if I'm not like hurrying to get ready or go somewhere. Um, sometimes it's just we do have a lot on our mind, or we're in the middle of a couple different things. And again, as he's saying, it's multitasking, and sometimes when we're doing that, it can cause us to forget about some of the things that we are in the middle of trying to accomplish. So, the author of this particular book, I'm not going to go into any great detail, but I am going to share some of the symptoms. He has 10 symptoms that he shares that he calls hurry sickness. So, again, maybe some of these will resonate with you. And if not, that's great, but I'm going to share them briefly with you. Irritability. And I think we can relate to that. And sometimes we're going to be irritable, even if we're not in a hurry. But irritability is one of the signs of hurry sickness, hypersensitivity, restlessness, workaholism, being a workaholic, doing a lot of work and not being able to stop, maybe not being able to turn your brain off at the end of the day, being grouty or overtired. The next one is emotional numbness. And this is a little bit concerning, right? If we're not really experiencing the emotions that we need to as we move through our day-to-day life. Another symptom, out-of-order priorities. So do you ever feel like you're kind of disconnected with maybe your purpose or your identity? And maybe you're getting sucked into doing things that really aren't in alignment with your calling and your identity and your purpose. Another symptom he shares: lack of care for your body. This is really important, my friends. If you don't take time for just some of the basics, and and for those of you who have been listening to my podcast, you know I speak about this and I share about this often. Getting enough sleep at night, getting your daily exercise, taking care of your health, home cooked meals, um, you know, any of these things. We want to be taking care of our bodies. And if we have this hurry sickness, this could be some of the symptoms where we're not taking care of our body as we should. Escapist behaviors, doing things that we kind of just escape our day-to-day lives if we won't want to face what's going on at the moment, whether it's getting sucked into watching Netflix or you know, some show or whatever the case may be. Um, slippage of spiritual disciplines. So getting too busy that you're not taking quiet time in the morning, maybe you're not taking quiet time and maybe missing out on church, or maybe you're not taking time on Sunday just to rest and treat it as a Sabbath Sunday, which is something that I want to get better about doing for sure. And then the last one, isolation. So this one is really important as well to really be aware of because if you ever feel disconnected from friends, from others, from God, from your from yourself, um, this can be a sign of this hurry sickness. You know, we're just not in tune with with what's going on. We're not really listening to our intuition and and following our intuition. So I thought these were really some good tips that he shares, or not really so much tips, but just symptoms. And again, it's more just for awareness. It's the awareness in in knowing that, okay, yeah, that sounds like me. Oh, I've been experiencing that. Once we have that awareness, then we can take some steps to make some changes, right? So again, the 10 symptoms that this author shares as being symptoms of hurry sickness. One is irritability, two, hypersensitivity, three, restlessness, four, workaholism, five, emotional numbness, six, out-of-order priorities, seven lack of care for your body, eight, escapist behaviors, nine, slippage of spiritual disciplines, and ten, isolation. So if any of those, and it again, maybe you relate to one, two, maybe you relate to more. And again, it's more about that awareness. So, what can we do to start taking some steps to you know really try to take care of ourselves? And again, this is not about guilting anyone or making anyone feel shame. Again, it's just about that awareness. That's the first step, right? Realizing that, oh yeah, oh, maybe I was irritable. Oh, yes, maybe I am experiencing some of those symptoms because that's when we can start to make some changes. And I think this is really important to know, this is an important point. This being over busy, this hurried life of speed is the new normal in the Western world and it's toxic. Psychologists tell us anxiety is often the canary in the coal mine, our soul's way of telling us something is deeply wrong and we need to fix it. In one recent study, 39% of Americans reported being more anxious than they were a year ago. Are you more anxious now than you were a year ago? I think that for me personally, I'm less. I have a different lifestyle now for sure. That's less demanding of me. But when we think about what's going on in the world and the country and and things around us, sometimes that can cause some stress and anxiety for us. And so that could be something that's contributing to yours. So again, it comes back to that awareness. And I apologize for my dogs barking in the background. So that's something to really really keep an eye on. What level of anxiety do you have now compared to last year, even last month? It affects our emotional health, it affects our physical health, it affects our spiritual health. So when I talk about wellness on my podcast here and all the different components of wellness, this most certainly impacts all of them, and not in a very positive way. A couple other quotes. People in a rush don't have time to enter the goodness of the moment. I love that. It just comes back to that famous quote: take the time, stop and smell the roses, right? How many of you take time to stop and smell the roses? I know that when we go out on our walks with our doggies, it's just so, so beautiful out. And we definitely take the time to appreciate the beautiful sky, the flowers, the trees, whatever's happening with the weather at that point in time. Uh, today on our walk, it was absolutely beautiful. We just had a ton of rain, so it was clear and crisp and just so pretty out. So taking that time to enjoy the goodness of the moment. Hurriedness can kill wisdom. Wisdom is born in the quiet, slow moments. And then hurry can kill all that we hold dear. Spirituality, health, marriage, family, thoughtful work, creativity, generosity. So I just wanted to share this today. I just think it's so important, and I I wanted to just kind of highlight some things and just bring it to the forefront because if this at all is sounding like you or sounding familiar, I think it's important to take some quiet time to really think on it. Maybe think about what causes it for you. And then if it's just like stressing and being in a hurry everywhere that you are going, then maybe you have to make some adjustments in your schedule and and your time and time blocking, perhaps. And you know, sometimes, sometimes it's a sign of something else. Sometimes people use the hurriedness to to escape something that they don't want to face, right? And again, take that time to think on this. Is that you? Is that something that is there something you're trying to avoid? Because if if that's the case, it's going to still always come come back, it's not going to go away. So a couple things to think about when it comes to a solution. I I thought this was so so spot on. I was reading about how many times we hear, and I'm guilty of saying, you know, how quickly the time goes. And then you hear people say, gosh, I was I wish there were more hours in the day. And if you think about it, if you had more hours in the day, what would what would you do? What would we be doing? We'd be filling those hours, right? We'd just be extending what we're already doing. If we had five, ten extra hours in the day, we would be filling those extra hours with more things, with more stuff. So again, what's the solution? The solution is not to um have more time necessarily, but the solution is to slow down with the time that we do have, and to simplify our lives. Simplify our lives around what really matters. What are the priorities in our lives? What really truly matters, focus on that first, and then the other things will fall into place. And if the other things don't get done, there's always tomorrow or the next day, or the next day. So again, I hope that this um rings true to you. I know that I um have on occasion used the hashtag YOLO. You only live once. And for me personally, I'm not it's not that I'm FOMO. It's not that. I personally, if I have the opportunity to do something or to see a friend or family member, or go to an event that fits with my schedule and isn't going to overtax me, I'm going to do it because I do sometimes have that belief that you do only live once. And I like to have fun. I love to see friends and family whenever it is possible. And if there are opportunities that arise that I can take advantage of and have those exciting moments and those fun moments and make memories and have those rich moments with people that I care about, I'm gonna do it. Now, I also understand that sometimes it doesn't work out, and I always truly I'm I know it's so cliche, but I'm always saying that if it's meant to happen, if it's meant to work out, it will. And if it doesn't, there's probably a reason, right? There's probably a reason behind it. So I hope again that this resonates with some of you. And again, I know that we can't do everything, we can't do it all, but I hope that this inspires you to maybe take a moment to think about your day-to-day lives. What maybe can you eliminate if you do feel like you're in this hurried world? What can you maybe eliminate? What can you adjust with your schedule? Again, we're only we're only human, right? We can only be in one place at one time, and that's just the how it is. So, again, I just hope that this uh rings true for some of you. I hope you find value in this, and as always, take time for yourself and your. Wellness on this day, give yourself the gift of some quiet time, some down time, some relaxed time, and just do nothing time because that is very important for our overall health, wellness, and longevity. And with that, my friends, I hope you all have a beautiful, blessed rest of your week. And I want to remind all of my moms out there if you are looking for mentorship to help you put your wellness in your health and your self-care as a priority. And if you're looking for support and guidance along your wellness journey and in your areas of motherhood and the phases of motherhood, please reach out to me as we do have a Moms Who Flourish mentorship. And I would love to have you join us. And also, if you might be looking for one-on-one coaching or mentorship in the area of wellness and longevity, I offer that as well. So always feel free to reach out. Message me. The best place is on Instagram at wellness with Shelly J or at Moms Who Flourish. And with that, my friends, have a wonderful rest of your week, and I'll see you next time on Words and Wellness. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. I hope you gained value and enjoyed our time together as much as I did. And if you know someone who could benefit from today's episode, I would love and appreciate it if you could share with a friend or rate and review Words of Wellness so that more can hear this message. I love and appreciate you all. Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions or topics you would like me to share in future episodes, please don't hesitate to reach out to me through my contact information that is shared in the show notes below. Again, thank you for tuning in to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelley Jeffries, and I encourage you to do something for you, for your wellness on this day. Until next time, I hope you all have a healthy, happy, and blessed week.