We were sitting with friends at a party on Friday night when one of them turned to his wife and said, “You’re slouching. Sit up straight.”
She tried.
Then he said, “I gotta get you that thing you strap on your back to force you to sit straight.”
Another friend chimed in, “Oh, don’t get that. I have one. Yes, you sit upright, but after a few minutes, your neck hurts so much.”
I sat there listening, amazed at how much I could say about this. But where would I even begin? What could I say in passing that wouldn’t turn into a whole class?
So I said nothing.
But I kept thinking about it.
I know we have a quick fuck epidemic these days. We’ve been conditioned to want the climax, but not the process that gets us there.
And this is certainly not limited to our posture. We’ve been told that you need to:
get straight to the point, or you’ll lose people’s attention
squeeze something meaningful into a seven-second hook before someone scrolls away
keep people entertained every second, or they’ll move on
turn anything worth learning into a quick tip or a five-step fix
even better, find a jab we can inject to melt all our troubles away
When the quick fuck is available, getting to know our bodies or questioning a habit can feel like too much work, even a waste of time. Why stay with the process when we’re promised we can skip straight to the result?
It’s something I’m still figuring out. If I want to create change, I also need to learn how to get people’s attention. But getting their attention doesn’t have to mean cutting everything short or watering it down. Over the past year, I’ve seen that there’s room for something longer and deeper.
I’ve leaned into longer experiences, writing, and workshops. I’ve hosted quite a few in-depth live sessions that lasted more than two hours. People not only stayed, but remained fully engaged.
Yet there I was at that party, assuming there wasn’t room for a longer conversation without even asking if they wanted one.
And this is how we end up reinforcing the very system we want to change. Yes, so much is competing for our attention. But when we accept that we can no longer stay with anything deep or slow, we stop making room for it. Maybe the way out starts with offering each other the chance to stay, rather than deciding that a quick fuck is all we want.
Next time, I can start by asking, “Would you like to hear more about why that happens?” I can open the conversation and let them choose.
What conversations do you avoid or water down because you’ve already assumed people aren’t interested in the longer, deeper, or more intimate version?
💚 When you’re ready, here are four ways I can support you:
Discover Your Body’s Story: a free five-minute quiz to understand what your body may be telling you—especially if you feel wired but drained, stuck in a loop, or disconnected from yourself.
Apply for the next Posture in Motion: a small-group posture and somatic practice to help you feel more at home in your body, move with greater ease, and shift the patterns keeping you tense, braced, or in pain.
Hire me for a Live Experience: immersive virtual and in-person wellbeing events that bring the body back into the conversation through nervous system regulation, breathwork, and posture-focused practices.
Practice with me live on Insight Timer: join my Monthly Unconditioning Practice to reconnect with your body’s wisdom, or an Embodied Focus Session combining focused work sprints with movement, music, and community.
Thank you for joining me on the path of unconditioning,
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Hedi Shah
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👁️ Mindfulness Teacher & Bodyworker
🐉 Nervous system regulation, breathwork, and posture-focused strength training to target the cause of what keeps you stuck and in pain, not just symptoms.
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