Slowing down

This time of year has a way of pressing the fast-forward button on our lives. There are invitations to accept, traditions to uphold, gifts to buy, meals to plan, moments we’re told are magical and therefore must not be missed. We hurry through our days like well-intentioned multitasking phenes, convinced that if we can just do it all, we will arrive at some shimmering finish line called fulfillment.

But to what end?
What are we actually trying to achieve?
What do we think is waiting for us at the end of all this motion?

So often we feel restless: driven, compulsive, slightly winded in all our doing. We reach for the next task, the next distraction, the next obligation, without pausing long enough to ask what we are really seeking in all this frantic grasping. Is it joy? Belonging? A sense of meaning? Or maybe just reassurance that we are doing life “right.”

Becoming conscious and slowing down just enough to put a gentle foot on the brakes, gives us a better chance of discovering what we’re actually looking for, and therefore, finding it. Slowing down doesn’t mean opting out of life; it means showing up for it with presence instead of panic.

Each day, take a moment to breathe on purpose. Not to improve yourself or fix anything, but simply to remember that you are here. Find a pocket of silence and bring your attention to your heart. Listen. Notice what’s actually going on around you and within you, when you stop rushing through your own life.

Sometimes slowing down will reveal we need something simple and human like to call a friend and hear a familiar voice. Sometimes it’s guidance will lead us to a book or a poem that gives the soul something nourishing to chew on. Maybe it’s a walk in nature, where the trees and sky gently remind you that nothing meaningful is ever in as much of a hurry as we are. These small pauses create space between us and the reflexive habits that quietly steal our time when we’re not paying attention.

We tend to give enormous power to the big events of our lives, the milestones, the crises, the celebrations, while overlooking the quiet wisdom that lives in the spaces between them. Yet it’s often in those in-between moments where the beauty of life actually takes place. In the pause. In the breath. In the decision to be present rather than productive.

Slowing down is not a failure of ambition. It’s an act of trust. A willingness to believe that life is not something to be chased, but something that will meet us when we finally stand still long enough to notice it.