“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” ― John Lubbock
“Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”
― Maya Angelou
There are two times of year that I find quite intriguing. The one is just before the Summer holidays and the other is just before the Winter break for Xmas and New Year’s. People tend to get into a frenzy to “wrap everything up” or “get everything done” before they “take a break”. And some people treat their “break” as a “to do” item on their to-do list. My sense is that this is a symptom of the society we live in – a world that is always on and always on the go.
Even now, after most people have moved on from the pandemic, I am still struck by how many people shared with me during the pandemic how in some ways it was a gift, because it forced them to slow down and do less. The pandemic was traumatic in many ways, AND it was also eye-opening for many of us. It made us stop and think about what we are doing to our planet, and how we are being with our loved ones, and to consider the pace, the speed, and the quality of our lives.
I firmly believe that we are not built for speed. Human beings are not meant to be moving at the pace that we are moving in this world right now. I keep thinking about one of the very first books my coach had me read when I started working with her: Slowing Down to the Speed of Life: How to Create a More Peaceful, Simpler Life from the Inside Out. This book was exactly what I needed at the time as I was coming to terms with the pace and speed of my own life, and how I had the experience of not being fully present in my own life. I felt back then as if my life was speeding by, and I was simply watching it go by without really being IN it.
Since then, a lot has changed for me. I have learnt to slow down in significant ways without losing my drive, ambition, inspiration, or enthusiasm for life. In fact, I feel like I’m living more on purpose than before, because I slow down to get intentional about what I want and who I need to be in my life.
In that book, Carlson and Bailey distinguish between two modes of thinking. One is fast-paced. It’s called problem-solving thinking. And there are situations in life where problem-solving thinking is the best tool for solving the problem we are facing. However, problem-solving thinking only works with challenges or problems with one clear-cut answer or solution. When there aren’t multiple variables, and there is a “best way” to approach the problem, problem-solving thinking works really well.
Where this mode of thinking is no longer helpful, is when we try to apply problem-solving thinking to more complex problems in life where there isn’t just one right answer or one right way to approach the problem. And for every person the solution would look different depending on who they are and what their context is. Challenges of this nature include challenges with relationships, with meaning and purpose, with parenting, with dating, our relationship to money, healing trauma, etc. When it comes to these deeper complex life problems that are more nuanced, having a problem-solving attitude often backfires and causes even more problems with the challenge we are facing.
In situations like these, Carlson and Bailey reason we need a different mode of thinking. We need to slow down to the speed of life so we can access our own intuition or our own inner knowing. See, we all have our own inner wisdom or inner knowing that is there to guide us, but we cannot hear this guidance when we are moving at hyper speed. We can only hear it, or access it, when we slow down to the speed of life. This mode of thinking has been with us all our lives. We were born with it, and yet, over time we forget how to access it. Through conditioning into problem-solving thinking, we forget about this other innate ability that we possess. And once we realise that we have access to this other mode of thinking, our work is rediscovering this innate ability, and exploring what IS possible when we slow down to the speed of life.
What do I mean when I say slow down to the speed of life? Consider, if you will for a moment, the sunrise, or the sunset, or an approaching thunderstorm on the African savannah, animals migrating or birthing their babies, plants growing, waves crashing in the ocean, rain falling, a bird taking flight, a lioness hunting… I could go on. What do all these things have in common? There is no urgency. There is simply the unfolding of the event. And it takes the time that it takes. The sun cannot be rushed to rise or set sooner. Plants will not be willed to grow faster. The lioness takes her time to approach her prey. She works slowly, patiently, and in a measured and focused way so that she doesn’t scare the prey off. She takes her time, and she stays focused, because that is what the hunt requires.
When we slow down to the speed of life, we notice. We see more of what is going on around us. We see solutions that are right in front of us that we cannot see when we are moving at a faster pace than the pace that life is happening. And at this slower pace, we access our own inner wisdom, our own inner knowing, and it often has such wisdom to share with us, because even though we need to slow down to hear it, it works a pace that we are unable to comprehend. Our brains take in so much information that we are unaware of, that we filter out, so we can function, but our unconscious mind processes this information and has access to things that our cognitive mind does not know about.
When we choose to slow down enough to access our intuition, or our unconscious mind, we suddenly have access to information that was right there all the time, but we did not notice it. However, for many of us, slowing down feels uncomfortable. Some people are afraid of slowing down. I’ve had clients tell me that they are afraid they might become lethargic and useless if they slow down. That was my fear too, when I started the process, and now I know that that was my Ego making up excuses to convince me not to go there, because it was afraid of what I might discover if I slowed down.
My fear was that slowing down would be painful, or that I would discover that I don’t like myself or my life. I will share that slowing down was not painful. It was hard. It felt uncomfortable, but it wasn’t painful. What did evoke pain, was the awareness of how much I had been missing in my life, and the realisation that I wasn’t living in a way that was aligned with who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to spend my time. So, the truth was painful. And sometimes that’s just how it is. That’s why the truth wakes us up. What is more painful, is to keep chasing something invisible, in the hope that the inner pain will go away.
In many ways, slowing down freed me. It helped me see, really SEE, my life for the first time. It helped me listen deeper, notice more, and become more intentional. It also helped me discover that I can create what I want, and that it doesn’t have to be so hard and tiring. There is another way that also has me access joy and compassion for myself.
These days, I slow down in many ways. I have a morning practice where I write my Daily Daydream. This is a way for me to get really intentional about my day, and to actually create my day before I live my day. (I will share more about this practice in 2024). I take time for walks out in nature. This helps me connect with my inner wisdom and feel deeply connected to Life. These simple practices help me start the day with more intention and purpose.
I slow down by getting coached. Coaching is a powerful way to slow down on our thinking, our beliefs, and the stories we tell ourselves. I slow down with strong emotions. I incorporate practices life Free Form Writing and Compassionate Self-Forgiveness to help me process my intense feelings. This helps me not only release what needs to be released, but it also helps me come back to my own inner wisdom and to who I want to be and how I want to show up.
And I slow down during the day and the week to do things that bring me joy or make me happy. For the past six months, I have been very intentional in bringing pleasure and joy into my day, EVERY day. I don’t wait to have fun. I don’t wait to enjoy my life.
Lastly, I want to share that I am also intentional about taking vacations. And I don’t do “working vacations”, because to me, a working vacation is just more of the same – i.e., you are busy and rushing; it’s just in a different, perhaps more beautiful setting. That’s not helpful, because you come back from your travels feeling as tired as ever. So, when it’s a vacation, I don’t take a laptop with me. I disconnect fully, so I can be present to my vacation and my life. Why? Because it supports me in connecting with my inner wisdom, in replenishing my energy, and in finding inspiration.
Rich Litvin recently shared in a newsletter that “a successful entrepreneur who has no free time is actually a failure, and a million-dollar business owner or coach with no fun in their life isn’t truly wealthy.” What is the point of working so hard for money and success, if we never get to enjoy it? Most people who strive for wealth and success hope that it will give them freedom and flexibility. Little do they realise that the chase for money and success can become so addictive that it could rob them of the very things they are longing for. If we are not conscious about how we spend our time, we become slaves to time.
Rest is part of the important work we do. We need to take our downtime as seriously as we take our work time. Recreation is not just playtime or do-nothing time. Recreation is “re-creation”. It’s how we rejuvenate our soul and spirit. It’s how we slow down and reconnect with ourselves and our own inner wisdom. It’s how we find inspiration. It’s where our best creations come from. Without recreation, we are simply treating ourselves like machines that need to be always on and always working. But Life reminds us that we are mortal. And that our time here on earth is short and fragile.
No-one on their deathbed thinks about how many hours they worked and about how hard they pushed themselves. They think about their loved ones, and what they missed out on by never being present to their lives. They think about how much they regret not spending more time slowing down to soak up and savour this precious gift called Life.
So, dear reader, are you willing to really let yourself slow down this Holiday Season? Are you willing to give yourself the gift of re-creation and inspiration? Are you willing to take your downtime and rest as seriously as you take your work? Are you willing to slow down and be fully present in your life so you can be a full witness to the beauty and the magic of it?
References
Carlson, R. & Baily. J. (1997). Slowing down to the speed of life: How to create a more peaceful, simpler life from the inside out. New York: HarperCollins.