I relate to the "hurry" defect-it seemed to have infected all the women in my family. Running around like chickens with our heads chopped off turned them, and me kinda nutty, seeking relief in booze. I witnessed a woman in my home group behaving this way as she was setting up for some pot luck we were having. She wouldn't let anyone help, she wanted it to be perfect, her energy wasn't good, she was fake, like she wasn't even in her own body. I recognized my mom, grandma, cousins, aunts, and me, in that spasticity- hurrying- vacated state of being. It's like being an automaton. Controlling, but not in control of her own body.
The more I seek to control and manage, stay ahead of, and hurry, the less I am in my own skin and mind in the moment. If I am infected by "what's next" I can't just be, or appreciate anything. In observing this woman and her energy of pushing everyone away so she could have her perfect potluck, I was able to amend that sort of behavior in me. I think moving so quickly and spastically, generates negative energy in my home-Like I'm getting high off housework, or whatever I am trying to distract myself from internally.
The people in my home pick up on that rush of stressful energy and it makes them uncomfortable...just as I was uncomfortable with her and with the women in my family all those years. My mom had to have everything clean and perfect by a certain time or all hell would break loose. I am grateful that I do not have to make my loved ones suffer anymore so that I can stay ahead of my house work or whatever I am hurrying to do. I can stop the family pattern.
I have taken this mentality to driving, like thinking about others, mindful of not wanting to scare them with my spastic driving and being patient in stores. Letting people go ahead of me in line and traffic is a good way to practice this. It just is nice not having to make everything about me and actually consider others. I never did before!!
Compassion isn't just having a bleeding heart or suffering because of the bad things in this world, compassion seems to be an action word now for me. I have to actively seek to have compassion for the people I come in contact with, the ones I can actually see. Hypersensitivity kept me from giving actual love to those around me and in my community. All my "compassion" or what I perceived to be compassion at the time, was outsourced to causes and issues I couldn't actually do anything about. All that conductive energy from me was wasted on virtue signaling, anger, sadness-not action, no love.
Real compassion is felt by others in my home and in my community. Even if people around me don't give it back, God does. Just waving to my neighbors, smiling in the stores, being mindful of what energy I am bring to my loved ones, asking a homeless person her name or giving her a ride...those things are where I need to put my God given energy...not on hurrying to clean toilets or outside issues the news wants me to spin out about.