The Speed of SLOW

The crazier things get, the more sense this makes.

Small-town life in Florida has a deliciously slower pace of life than what I have known. Perhaps it’s the warm sunny weather, or the beach-vibe, or the smaller community that makes things naturally slow down.…whatever it is, I sought it out. It’s not necessary to live in a place like this to understand the advantages of shifting gears - it’s just easier. I began my conscious journey into the ‘speed of slow’ long before I moved here full-time. Like most folks in modern society, I became very good at moving quickly, and making ‘getting lots of things done’ my top priority nearly every day. Often, I felt very pleased with all that I was accomplishing, and there are a great many rewards that can come with living in this gear. Perhaps because of this, it was many decades before I understood the collateral damages.

Parodoxically, consciously reducing time-pressure, and slowing down our activities and commitments, can have the effect of bringing about better, and even potentially more productive results in our lives. It can actually feel like shifting UP a gear or two. For me, it has opened up space for new creativity, for tending to some deferred self-care, and for deepening relationships. I’m not talking about lazing around with no inspiration or goals - though for some people such a significant shift may require a short de-programming period which may look a bit aimless, temporarily. In the homeschooling community, for children who spent years in school and then left to homeschool, we called the necessary transition period ‘de-schooling.’

Adults have been subjected to comprehensive programming for MUCH longer than these children, and most of us will need time and space to UN-learn and DE-compress, before we are able to recalibrate with new vision, and integrated new priorities. When I have a client who wants to change course and adopt a raw vegan lifestyle, they must first navigate an uncertain and often uncomfortable period of cleansing and detoxifying, to ready their body to absorb the more nutritious foods. Each journey is unique, and takes whatever time it takes.

One of the powerful insights I’ve gained from living at a slower pace, is that it becomes more possible to respond rather than react to what life presents. I’m not saying I’m perfect in this realm…I do still have some triggers! But over time, I have realized that when I am overly busy and feeling stressed I am far more likely to become reactive, which is usually counterproductive. When I am more relaxed, with ample time for self-care, and feeling more spacious in general, I have the capacity to consider things thoughtfully, and choose a productive response. This can really become a super-power!

With discernment comes better, more sustainable choices and decision-making. In the hyper-speed of most modern lifestyles comes reactivity, the reflexive preference for convenience, hasty decisions, and unsteadiness. It is really hard to stay grounded if we don’t slow down enough daily to tap more deeply into ourselves, our natural rhythms and our feelings, and to re-establish our connection to Self, to a higher power, and to our place within the giant web of life.

Consciously slowing down has enabled me to meet myself more deeply. Without the near-constant distraction of outer demands filling up all of every day, I have been able to see more clearly, and to realize more deeply what my true desires are. Even when I cannot see a way to indulge them immediately, honestly SEEING myself has had the profound impact of deepening my self-trust, relaxing my nervous system, and opening up space for higher-quality actions and decisions. PRESENCE is at once a high and utterly grounded state of being - whether with ourselves, another being, or a situation.

100% responsibility is required to make the clear choice to live by design, instead of by default. It usually begins with AWARENESS of what is not working so well for us in our life, and eventually, a grounded COMMITMENT to a new course of action. I have to be protective of my choice for a slower pace of life, and that requires some serious commitment muscles! Just as people on a Standard American Diet will often try to lure a newbie raw-fooder back into the mainstream realm of addictive processed and cooked foods, those living at breakneck modern speed will often feel uncomfortable, or even sometimes irritated, by my slower pace. The psychology behind this is a bit complex, and I’ll save it for another blog-post. The point here is that a strong and grounded commitment is needed in order to over-ride the tendency to be swayed by how other people react to our choices.

I’ve heard it said that there are three kinds of business: '“your business, other people’s business, and God’s business.” If we can stay in our own business, life is much simpler. This necessitates getting to know and trust ourselves well, tossing out the ‘rules,’ learning how to gracefully set appropriate boundaries to protect our true needs and desires, and letting go of attachment to the outcomes of our best conscious efforts in life (that is God’s business).

Here are some tips for slowing down, that have helped me: schedule daily personal time in your appointment calendar (I protect a couple of hours every morning, at a minimum, just for myself); take frequent short breaks throughout every day to reconnect with yourself (a few conscious breaths work like magic!) and re-set intentions; purposefully walk tall and slow, and talk more slowly; dim the lights and speak in a softer voice in the evenings; listen to meditative or sacred songs often (see below); and of course, spend time frequently in silence, and in nature.

The speed of slow, for me, is akin to saying ‘less is more.’ A slower pace allows for a more spacious mind, and this less cluttered mind is capable of better focus, more creativity, and deeper listening. We become more finely tuned, and thus capable of more accurate discernment, deeper pleasure, more genuine generosity, and I believe ultimately, much greater satisfaction in life.