I have been rediscovering slowness of late. There is such a beauty in moving slowly, giving myself time to shift from one place to the next, pausing to breathe, to feel my skin as I put lotion on my dry hands, to touch a tree as I pass by, to stop for a moment to watch the rain drip drop outside of my window before getting back to work.
It feels like stepping into a dimension of timelessness. I don't know why, but here, it’s easier to breathe.
When I think about it, I have always moved a bit slower than most people. I remember taking time to paste little red circles around a piece of art I was making in kindergarten and the teacher being unhappy with me because I was not yet finished. I also remember being the slowest runner in my gym class in 9th grade, and being mortified by it. My mother, a highly anxious and a highly conscientious person, experienced (and created) so much stress around leaving on time so as to not disappoint people that I can still feel it in my body as I type this.
Whether it is catching a bus, getting somewhere on time, or meeting the thousands of deadlines of college, graduate school, and work, it seems that I have been trained constantly and consistently to hurry, to consider the agenda’s of others, to do more while keeping to a schedule someone else created.
After a while, we start taking these deadlines and these agendas as givens. We start moving quickly, ignoring our own need to rest, to transition, to stop and breathe; we take on more and more until even the times we are not working, we are not resting either because we are thinking about all the sh*t we still need to get done. Perhaps we think that we can get it all done, if we can do all the things, we can finally be free to just be…but that day never comes.
Many of us, myself included, have felt that this anxiety and the pace of modern life is not healthy or sustainable. And many of us, myself included, keep going anyway until we get so sick or burnt-out that we literally can't go anymore. Studies on the rising rates of anxiety, chronic illness, and depression give evidence to what our bodies already know. In turn, meditation, therapy, breathwork, self-care, and rest as resistance (check out Tricia Hersey and the Nap Ministry if you haven’t already) have all become a much bigger part of the collective conversation as more and more of us are finding our ways back to ourselves.
Something I found once I started meditating and trying to slow down is that while my head knew that I “should” relax, inside I was still constantly working - worrying about what I need to do that I haven't done, planning what I need to do, or feeling guilty about not doing it.
It is one thing to know that you need to rest, and another to find the rest inside. Once I realized that this programming to always go and do lives inside my body, I began connecting with it, with the feel of it, the texture and sensation of it, and becoming more conscious of the conditioning around how my worth and my productivity are intertwined. By feeling it in a conscious body-based way, I began releasing it and finding the peace that lives underneath.
Over time, inner peace went from feeling like a foreign concept to feeling like home - albeit a home that I wish I spent more time in! My default setting will likely always be anxiety and urgency, but it is no longer the only setting my body knows.
Miraculously, I found that when I allow myself true rest, I can actually do more when I am in “ go” mode. I have more energy for it, more capacity - I don’t need as many distractions in the form of scrolling and snacks and other such things (though I still do need some!).
Also miraculously, I found that most deadlines are in fact quite flexible, that people will happily adjust schedules and that in fact, most people appreciate a voice that speaks up for slowing down - that they too are tired of the urgency. That in fact, their bodies crave slowness too.
If you are someone who needs it, let this love message to slowness be your permission and invitation to slow down, even if for a few seconds. If you need more encouragement, consider that at the intersection of all oppressive systems (white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy) is the prioritization of production over restoration, and that when we undo this internalized urgency, we are reclaiming a more human way of being and working, for ourselves and for others.
I invite you to take a few extra moments to really notice the bark of a nearby tree, to take a little longer putting on lotion in the morning, to chew a few extra times so that you can really taste, feel, and smell the food that nourishes you. I promise, it feels so good.
Let me know what you think and feel about slowness, and if you want to explore more deeply how the programming of urgency lives in your body and to reconnect with slowness and inner peace, please reach out.
With so much love,
Irena
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