Dear Friend,
I've missed you. It's been a while.
I've been learning how to stop treating everything as urgent, and it's been revolutionary. I've been learning how to honor my own wellness, live in the present moment, and recognize what is a glass ball that I am juggling versus what is a rubber ball that I can set down.
For so long, I was juggling a dozen glass balls, or at least what I thought were glass balls. The constant pressure of urgent-feeling tasks was drowning out what actually mattered. Through my renewed practice of discernment, as my urgent-feeling glass balls transform into manageable rubber balls, I am so excited to expand my capacity to write more frequently and at a cadence that is a treat for us both.
I enjoy writing so deeply, and our catch-up is long overdue.
In the past month since I've been away from writing to you, I began working through The Artist's Way, prioritizing my ‘Artist Dates’ and ‘Morning Pages’. Through this, I started two new Instagram series that have been filling my creative well: one on building my dream life (sharing lessons that I'll carry over here on Substack as well), and another on dressing with pieces already in my own closet. But here's what's different: I'm approaching both without the urgency that used to drive my creative projects. Instead, I'm letting them unfold naturally.
Perhaps most exciting of all? I began writing fiction for fun. The characters just started coming to me, whispering their qualms and passions, and I am so thrilled to bring them alive on the page. No deadline pressure. Just pure creative joy.
For pleasure, I finished reading Emily Henry's 'A Great Big Beautiful Life,' joined a book club where we recently discussed 'The Wedding People,' and have been immersing myself in breathwork sessions, hot yoga, spa days, tennis matches, making family recipes, and listening to Haley Hoffman Smith's 'You Have the Magic.'
In other words, I've stopped treating my wellness as something to squeeze into urgent margins and started making it the foundation everything else builds upon.
The Urgency Trap
💌 A Leadership Love Note 💌
This month, I renewed my commitment to a framework I learned through life-coaching that has completely shifted how I approach leadership and energy management: learning to distinguish between what's actually urgent and what just feels urgent.
We live in a culture that treats everything as a crisis. Every email feels urgent. Every opportunity feels like it must be seized immediately. Every project feels like it will make or break us. But here's what I've learned: when everything is urgent, nothing is important.
The revelation came through understanding glass balls versus rubber balls:
Glass balls are the true non-negotiables: your health, your closest relationships, your core values, your authentic expression (perhaps through creative work!). Things that genuinely cannot be dropped without real consequence.
Rubber balls are everything else: the tasks that feel urgent but can actually bounce back if you need to set them down. Most of our daily "urgencies" fall into this category.
The leadership lesson? Great leaders don't respond to everything with equal intensity. They create space to discern what genuinely needs immediate attention versus what can wait. They protect their glass balls by not exhausting themselves on rubber balls.
The most powerful thing you can do as a leader, of others or of your own life, is to stop participating in the collective urgency culture. When you create calm in the chaos, you give others permission to breathe too.
Reflection Question: What would change if you stopped treating every request, every opportunity, every problem as equally urgent?
Beyond the Urgency of More
💌 An Equity Love Note 💌
One of my new series focuses on dressing with pieces already in my closet, and it's become an unexpected lesson in moving beyond urgency-driven consumption.
Our culture constantly tells us that we urgently need more: more clothes, more opportunities, more everything, or we'll miss out. And it feels exhausting. It is exhausting to keep up with the trends. To have over-packed closets where we feel un-inspired to get dressed because we are listening more deeply to the voices outside of us, instead of our inner knowing. What if we stepped back from the urgency and trusted our inner knowing instead?
When I stopped treating my wardrobe as urgently inadequate and started exploring what I already owned, something magical happened. I rediscovered forgotten pieces, created new combinations, and found joy in working with what I already had. It felt empowering rather than constraining. The self-imposed constraints, allowed greater creativity and inspiration to flow.
This practice had me thinking about equity in a broader sense: how often do we overlook the resources, talents, and opportunities already within reach while searching for something new or different?
The book club I joined this month centered around 'The Wedding People,' and our discussion revealed how often we seek validation or fulfillment outside ourselves, when the capacity for joy, connection, and meaning often exists within our current circumstances.
In a deeper sense, this practice also revealed how urgency-driven consumption perpetuates inequity. We know that fast fashion's "urgent" trends come at the cost of garment workers' safety and fair wages. Meanwhile, the environmental costs of overproduction harm the communities least equipped to deal with pollution and climate change.
What if stepping back from urgency culture isn't just personally liberating, but collectively more just, serving our collective wellness?
Reflection Question: Where else in your life might urgency-driven consumption be clouding your ability to appreciate what you already have? How might you approach your current "wardrobe" of life with fresh eyes and creative constraint?
Your Body's Anti-Urgency Wisdom
💌 A Wellness Love Note 💌
The most profound shift this month has been learning to stop treating my body's needs as urgent interruptions to my "real" work. I’ve especially been honoring my monthly cycle as essential intelligence rather than inconvenient timing.
During my luteal phase, instead of pushing through with urgent productivity, I've been creating space for:
Protein-rich Ninja Creami creations that satisfy cravings while supporting stable energy (try this recipe here!)
Cooling mango sorbets when my body asks for something sweet and refreshing (try this recipe here!)
Grounding meals like steak dinners when I need deep nourishment (check out my video below!)
Movement that feels nurturing: hot yoga for release, tennis for joy, breath-work for centering (like in my videos below!)
Your body has its own rhythm that runs counter to urgency culture. When you honor these natural cycles instead of fighting them, you discover a sustainable way of being that supports rather than depletes your energy.
Anti-Urgency Practice: For the next week, notice when you're treating your body's signals (hunger, fatigue, need for movement, emotional overwhelm) as urgent interruptions. What happens when you respond to them as important information instead of inconvenient timing?
Until Next Time...
Writing to you again feels like the opposite of urgency. It feels like coming home. There's so much more I want to share about this shift from urgent living to intentional living, but I'm learning to trust that not everything needs to be said right now.
Thank you for your patience during my writing hiatus. It wasn't urgent that I return until it was genuinely time. Thank you for being here when I do return. And thank you for your own experiments in stepping out of urgency culture and into what actually matters.
This is what wellness looks like to me right now. Not treating everything as a crisis, but creating space for what deserves care. Not forcing every moment to be productive, but trusting that aligned action flows naturally from centered presence.
Love,
Rikhi 💌
P.S. What's one thing you've been treating as urgent that might actually be able to wait? And what's one truly important thing that's been getting lost in the urgency shuffle? I'd love to hear about your experiments in slowing down to speed up.