I have a book beside my meditation chair that my mother gave to me. Every once in a while I pick it up and open it to a random page. Here is the line I read today: Slowing down improves everything. Read that again.
The more I thought about it…and wrote about it in my journal, the more the truth of these simple four words expanded in me. For instance, I decided that slowing down is not falling behind, missing out or coming in last. Slowing down improves everything because it is a chance to reset before moving forward.
We have a few well known phrases for exactly this. Lighten up. Calm down. Hold your horses. Chill out. Loosen up. Settle down. Get a grip. Look before you leap. Wait a minute. Take a break. Hold up. Deep breath.
In the reset there is room to breathe, consider and consciously decide. Slowing down first is a way of gathering yourself, looking around, assessing yourself and the environment. It is the equivalent of checking that your tray table is in the upright and locked position before take-off. Then and only then are you ready, I mean really ready, for what comes next.
When…
life is moving too fast
the conversation is getting out of hand
the to-do-list is getting longer instead of shorter
there are not enough hours in a day
it feels like the world is crashing all around you
…slow down.
Slowing down improves everything. It will improve your confidence. You will make a better decision. You will engage in life more meaningfully. When you get the urge to speed up, to make it happen, to pull out all the stops…try slowing down first.
Except if you are merging onto the highway. In that case, please stomp on that accelerator. That’s a separate blog.
I saw this quote on Facebook: If it broke your heart but fixed your vision, you won.
Right away I could feel the complete truth of it. It also quickly reminded me of how hard it is to experience a broken heart. And while that heart is broken, how far it is from feeling like you’ve won anything. Because a broken heart is a real thing. Nobody can tell you it shouldn’t hurt, and no one can make it all better. In the midst of the experience of a broken heart there is no winning.
It’s only over time that the way you see things can change. It’s only over time that a heart might heal just enough to allow a new perspective. Deep hurts open us up and they also make room in us for something else, something new, something we couldn’t have possibly known.
How else do we become humble and grateful? How else do we become better humans? How else can we relate to each other more fully? How else can we accept the mystery that is life?
I don’t know about you, but I am grateful to have improved vision. Through all of my hurts I do feel like I’ve won. I am proud of my scars, but more importantly I am proud of who I have become. I don’t look forward to more broken heart experiences. I do know my vision can always be clearer.
The holiday season is about to begin. Some of us slather on a whole additional layer of “things I have to get done”. We have an entirely different list of “boxes I need to check”. Maybe we’re excited. Maybe we’re exhausted just thinking about it.
Wherever you fall, this is a reminder to check in with yourself. Whatever you do, do it consciously and do it because it feels good. Don’t let others steal your joy or your peace.
And don’t try to steal another’s joy or peace by assuming what makes you feel good also applies to them. You really have no idea.
In the season of love, how about we just be kind. Kindness includes accepting myself and others exactly the way we are. In simple terms, it is walking to the beat of my own drum and allowing others to do the same. Gently. Without judgment.
This is just a reminder. A reminder I need…again…this year. With great humility Paula
Have you noticed there are always two sides? Two sides to a story. Two sides to an argument. With most stories and opinions there are really more than just two sides. Because life is complex and personal experience is, well, personal. If we live in a black and white world, life can be tense. I think there is a little more ease in shades of grey.
Shades of grey. The middle ground. The place in between. It doesn’t mean my opinion or my side of the story doesn’t matter. It means I am not so attached to it that I can’t see another way of looking at something. Turns out the grey area is where there is room to grow. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, but there is possibility, something new, in that silver grey.
Here is another thing. There are always two sides…but healing happens in the middle ground. Healing happens when we loosen our grip on this or that and slide into that place in between. After all, what do we really know for sure? I’ve decided I am perfectly okay dancing in the middle, accepting my own limitations and staying curious.
It all reminds me of the lyrics from the Joni Mitchell’s song Both Sides Now.
Rowsand flows of angel hair And ice cream castles in the air And feather canyons everywhere I’ve looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun They rain and they snow on everyone So many things I would have done But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down and still somehow It’s cloud illusions I recall I really don’t know clouds at all
Check out the song on YouTube here Much love Paula
I think the adage – walk a mile in my shoes – is a more than worthwhile idea to contemplate. I believe this one activity alone could change the entire world. Can you really imagine what life would be like, feel like, to be in another’s shoes? Not with all of your current privilege and personal history…but with theirs?
It is a great spiritual activity to imagine this very thing. It causes my heart to soften, my eyes to open and for compassion to blossom. It is the start of the realization that all of creation is one living, moving wave of energy.
Walk a mile in my shoes. Not so you understand…but so that you soften. It is there, in a softened heart, where the world is changed. It changes because you change. You become one with all that is.
Maybe we struggle sometimes with the idea of Oneness. Like, what is it really? How can I get my mind around it? How can there be Oneness when I look out into the world and see so many differences? Are we really all connected…like one giant organism?
Science is catching up with our desire to understand this better. Take a look at this one minute video that Anna Mann shared with me on Facebook.
There are a few misconceptions about life that I think are common. One is this: If I am a good person, kind and giving…then my life will be less rocky, less tragic, more even. And this: If I just think positively, look for the good, always see the silver lining…well then, I have made it. I am transformed. I am an evolved spiritual being.
These don’t always work for me. No matter how good of a person I am or how often I practice seeing the good, there are moments in my life that just suck. They are hard and painful. I feel discouraged, overwhelmed and defeated. I opine, “But, I’m a good person” (say it in a whiny voice). I ditch my rose colored glasses. Just-not-working.
So, what now? I like the Zen outlook. It goes something like this…from Steve Krieger.
“You deal with your shit in Zen by sitting with it. By breathing right into it. You don’t try and ignore it with pleasant thoughts or lofty ideas, and you don’t try and bury it with solutions. You deal with it, you work with it, one breath at a time. You hold it right there, in your breath. You don’t try and breathe it out; you don’t try and breathe it in. You keep it suspended in your diaphragm like a burning hot coin. Your problems won’t change; only you can change. That’s the point.”
How about that, Paula?
Listen…it doesn’t mean you have to do it alone. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for help. It doesn’t mean everything is now okay just because you read this quote and it makes sense to you. It also doesn’t mean you have to fix it or pretend.
Dealing with life means living and working with it ONE BREATH AT A TIME. You know what? I can do that. Just about with anything. I can breathe it…one breath at a time.
