Slowing Up

Quick, quick, let’s go.
I need an answer today.
…or the hardest for me.
What’s been going on? **while eyes dart the room**

These orders, demands and questions bring up anxiety like no other.

I feel like a robot, hurried to respond or give an urgent answer for an asphyxiated time-frame, to reply to a question where a large period looms as soon as something uninteresting exits my pie-hole.

I hate being rushed. Quickened.
You too?

I didn’t realize this until recently, when I found myself reacting in a anxious frantic whirlwind of craziness because of what I perceived to be rush.

Most of my life I’ve put myself on the tightrope of busy and go and whir and faster faster faster.

Probably because I looked around and saw quick go hurry being done well and knew not to listen to the quiet tug of slow slow slow because slow my friends was BOR (yawn) ING.

Slow is for people who don’t have social lives.

Slow is for people who aren’t fun.

Slow is for people who have to sit on their couch because no invites or plans or people are pulling them off their precious sofa.

I’m sorry. I ignorantly believed these thoughts in my younger years.

AND HOW WRONG I WAS.

Slow is wisdom.

Slow is sitting in silence and allowing someone to add a period when they have processed.

Slow is holding air in between you and him or her and letting the uncomfortable weight be a space to learn.

Slow is grace.

And assuredness.

Slow is peace and thinking through and listening first and speaking last.

Slow isn’t boring by any means.

The most fun creative inspiring people I know live slow. Live with purpose even in the hustle bustle of humanity.

They aren’t lazy or inactive or dull.

They are in fact, bright and can easily over-extend their valuable time with many note-worthy agendas and meetings and people and things to be at but they choose to slow up.

Slowing up is a wise ramp to living full.

Living purposeful and filled. With honest truth and courageous vulnerability; not fueled by rush and frantic and I don’t wanna miss ouuuuuuuut!

Slowing up is tried and true.

Slowing up is my jam.

Now, when I find myself chasing a string of to do’s on an imaginary tightrope of frenzied hurriedness- whether asked or self-inflicted- I’m asking myself a few questions.

What am I experiencing inside?
Am I feeling rushed and why?
Is this a legitimate timeline or a life-long habit of quick quick quick?
Am I present?
Am I being kind or snapping at everyone in my wake (including my reflection?)
How can I go about this differently? How can I slow up?

When we pause long enough to connect our minds with our bodies and hearts and then listen, do you hear that? The tick tock of time needed for all pieces to travel different paths and merge somewhere at the triad of slow.

That’s where wisdom is birthed.

At the center of slowing up.