Another damn Oxymoron! Ship!! I thought you need to go fast to get things done, I thought you need to be on top of things, moving and shaking at the speed of Progress! It’s actually just the opposite. Slow is where our center is, slow is where our breath is, slow is where our focus is, slow is where our feelings are, slow is where our vulnerability is. Slow is where our power resides.
Biology
Unless we’re born a genius that can learn something with just one attempt, we have to slog it out, slowly and difficultly, one day, one swing, one page, one piece, one note at a time. Whatever we’re learning whether it’s the anatomy of the human body, the chords in a Beethoven symphony, the ingredients in an award winning lasagna, or the mechanics of a good forehand, we have to break it down. We have to break it down into it’s smaller parts and practice slowly, read slowly, swing slowly, play slowly, until we’re comfortable enough to start the process of speeding up. Anyone that’s ever played a sport or played a musical instrument knows full well that to get to the higher levels of understanding you have to be able to break things down slowly and FEEL THEM SLOW!!
How many days a week do you have a slow, relaxed dinner with conversation that’s not headed anywhere? Once a week? Five times a week? Once a year? Do ever have a really slow meal with no agenda and no rush to go anywhere?
Have you ever taken a really slow inventory of your life? Slow enough to actually feel and appreciate what you’re taking inventory of? Are you involved in a romantic relationship at the moment? A marriage? How often do you slow down enough to appreciate the fact that you have someone in your life? Are you in love with them? Do you think about breaking up with them? Do you think about seeing other people? Do you think about how many things you have in common and how much fun it is to hang out with them? Do you think about how much you love touching them? Do you ever imagine what life without them would be like for the long term? I’m sure if you have any issues in your relationship, you’ve imagined what being without them in the short term would be like. But have you slowed down enough to have a chance to envision what life would be like if you were never to see them again? The long term is much longer than we realize when we’re thinking short term and I know that sounds totally cliché but it’s true.
Try having some slow period every day, even if it’s only five or ten minutes. Without the ability to slow down and see the overview, we can potentially be creating problems in other parts of our life without realizing it. When we slow down we have a chance to breathe, we have a chance to relax, we have a chance to feel many of the feelings that we haven’t really felt when we’re flying around our life in a perpetual frenzy. When we have a strong center, we’re capable of handling more emotional turmoil and more of people’s dysfunction. When we’re in that hurried frenetic mental space, taking in difficult emotional issues can range from feeling mildly unbalanced to all out paranoid. To have a strong center requires trust in our emotional stability. When we look at things with the benefit of going slow and having enough time, the stress of immediate resolution recedes. We don’t always have to have the answers. We don’t always need to know where we’re going. We don’t always need to be in charge. Slow down, go outside and look at the stars tonight. Go outside and look at the trees and the plants and the animals. Look at the people in your life and think about them not being there. How does that feel? If it feels better to have them in your life do something today that let’s them know that. Let them know how lucky you feel to have them as part of your life.