False Tales of Urgency
Creating space in the face of immediacy
I recently started working with a therapist who specializes in OCD.
I've always circled around the idea that I may have OCD tendencies, but because they didn't look like what I remembered from MTV's True Life growing up, I assumed I was just being dramatic.
Last year, Patty Woods and I briefly talked about the grief that can come with a diagnosis, especially as an adult, in our podcast episode (which you can listen to here).
In one of my first therapy sessions with my new therapist, I started crying thinking about little Andrea, how complex and tense her inner world was at a time where she should have had very little to worry about. That despite living a life filled with love and opportunity, she fixated on big, overwhelming fears.
I'm grateful that, despite multiple decades ruled by anxious obsessions and compulsions, I've found someone who is well equipped to help me not just manage, but re-learn to enjoy life.
One of the many lessons I've learned over the past few months of working with my therapist is identifying false urgency.
"When you feel an intense level of urgency, it's very likely that's your OCD talking."
Now, you don't have to have OCD to fall victim to false urgency. You simply have to be alive in 2025.
Quickness is often associated with efficiency and effectiveness (at least, in my head it is). I've never worked in an emergency room but my body sometimes reacts like every Slack message or email is a matter of life or death.
It’s been helpful for me to acknowledge it when it happens.
This is feeling really urgent. Is this actually urgent?
What stories am I making up in my head right now?
That if I don't act immediately, I'll be seen as lazy or not doing enough.
That if I don't respond right away, opportunities will disappear.
That someone else's sense of urgency needs to automatically become my emergency.
It’s also been helpful for me to remove or reduce participation in certain spaces that I know inevitably lead to urgency or anxiety (mostly social media — I decided to delete Instagram and LinkedIn for *hopefully* ever).
The reality is, very few things in life actually require immediate attention. And those that do usually come with clear signals. I'm learning that responding thoughtfully is usually more valuable than responding quickly.
That most emails can wait a few days.
That I can be aware of what’s going on without push notifications.
That I can’t actually interpret the tone of a Slack message.
It's a cycle that, with practice, can be broken (even if temporarily) by questioning our assumptions and creating intentional space between the initial message in our brains and our responses.
So the next time you feel that familiar sense of immediacy, take a breath. Compassionately question it. And know you’re not alone.
Peace, love and taking our sweet time,
Andrea