Slowing Down
For many of us, there is a vague discomfort associated with slowing down. I’m reminded of a quote I included in an earlier section:
“As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn’t touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat until I began to drown. So I just didn’t stop.”
Orleana Price in The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
There are all kinds of reasons why we have difficulty slowing down. We fear if we don’t pack as much as possible into every moment, we will disappoint others, lose opportunities, go bankrupt, be a bad person, be irresponsible, or see our lives descend into chaos. But underneath the fears we can identify, there is usually a lot of repressed anxiety and leftover feelings from the past, which we escape by never slowing down enough for them to catch up with us.
Yet, being followed by the shadows of our past as if by a shapeless stranger in a dark alley, isn’t the experience that most of us want to have in life. In order to keep going at that speed, we shortchange those we love, leave our environment (personal and collective) in chaos, and treat strangers abruptly or with indifference.
It’s good to experiment with ways of slowing down in our day-to-day lives. This could mean slowing down our movements, scheduling things with more space in between, taking a few conscious breaths as we shift activities. It can also mean noticing our resistance to slowing down, and what lies behind it. What are we choosing, instead of aliveness and presence?
“Respect leads to caring – a quality of impeccability in what we do. How often do we rush through the day, not paying attention to even the simplest things? When we slow down, even a little, we connect with a deeper level of experience.”
Joseph Goldstein, One Dharma
Next: Ambiguity and Uncertainty
Site Map