Slow It Down

So many people are seeking to live life in a softer, gentler way. These last few decades have seen the ramping up of capitalism and the shift in human life from a precious mystery to a resource to be exploited.

Well people are tired of the exploitation.

But how to shift back into the softness of your humanity?

Slow tf down.

Telling someone to slow down is much easier than doing it. You see when we slow down we have no other choice but to face ourselves and the consequences of our decisions, and our fears, and our sadness. These come up first in the silence of slowing because these are the things we repress over and over.

Why?

We've been groomed by society and culture and our families and communities to seek and feel only happiness, only success, only big and expensive material things. Those are all worth experiencing but when we're taught to ONLY experience those things, we cut ourselves off from the expanse of other feelings and we do it so long we are convinced we can't face those emotions when they show up.

But we can. And we must.

We owe it to ourselves to stop robbing ourselves of the wholeness of the human experience. The emotions that aren't deemed appropriate by society (the fear, desperation, frustration, etc.) inform us. They increase our wisdom, intelligence and as we process them through and out, we settle, we ground, we relax into this inexplicably expansive precious life.

So back to the slowing down. How to do it?

1. Start your day in slow motion. Try not to pop out of the bed right into something. Take the time to gather yourself (even if you have abundant energy) during a morning routine. Check out this free morning ritual checklist to get some ideas on how to do this.
2. Meditate for 5 minutes a couple times during the day. This will help you re-center your awareness into your body in the present moment which helps to keep the busy work at bay. Try this loving-kindness meditation.
3. Pause several times during the day, just for 2 minutes to find stillness and quickly reassess whether or not the actions you're taking are in alignment with your intentions. You can watch my free training on this here.

Now you have real steps you can take to slow down. And as you do, you start to see all the other areas where you can do with some slow motion like: cooking, eating, walking, brushing your teeth.... There's so many things we rush through during our day. Imagine slowing down enough to truly experience what you're doing and the little joys, delights, aha moments, and giggles that can arise from this.

Try it out for a month and you'll keep coming back to slower living because it feels so good. It feels like the real thing human experience.