If you have been following my enewsletter or my social media channels, you know that I have been recommending slow living. This concept of slowing down is about allowing yourself to have a slow morning or a slow weekend. Rather than succumbing to the busyness that our lifestyles and modern culture seems to dictate.
Taking the time to instil some slow in our day to day lives is medicine for our soul and is an aid to those coming out of abusive or toxic relationships, have experienced trauma, burnout or overwhelm.
Recently one morning, I decided to take things slow. Even though I had originally made other plans. I set my alarm for 6am so that I could be ready to run some errands. My plan was to be at Bunnings by 7am, then to Foodland by 7.50am and be home by 8.30am so I could then “start my day” in my home office. However, upon waking I decided to ditch my plan!
What rises in slowness
Instead, I switched gears to take a slow morning. I did some reading, had breakfast, then went back to bed for a little while. When I got up to have a shower, I luxuriated in how differently my morning had turned out. Unexpectedly, I felt emotion rising up. As I stood under the running water, experiencing a slowed down morning, there it was: grief.
I found myself recalling my father’s funeral from four years earlier and remembered myself at the front of the church reading his eulogy. I remembered how I had coached myself leading up to this moment to put a cap on my emotions, so that I could get through the eulogy gracefully. Naturally, I am quite an emotional person, often it feels like my emotions are right up at the surface. So, this was no easy feat under the already emotional circumstances.
But I did it. I got though reading aloud to nearly 600 people without so much as a lump in my throat. It was graceful and poignant and being able to control my emotions at that time was deeply important to me.
When I took the path of a slow morning, my grief had its chance to rise to the top. It occurred to me that as important as it was to speak gracefully at that time, it was also important to allow my emotion to have itstime. My slow morning was that time.
The gifts of a slow morning
Emotional processing is one of the gifts of slow and mindful living. In emotional processing, we are able to reduce subconscious stress and therefore reduce excess cortisol production which can affect many of the body’s processes including metabolism, sleep, mood and memory.
My experience that morning showed that it is often in these slow and mindful times that we very naturally facilitate emotional processing. Maybe this is why so many of us choose not to slow down?
What would rise up for you if you started slowing down?
Would it be a memory? An emotion? A revelation? A solution? Even if there is some grief or pain ready to rise up, just like it did for me this morning, there will be relief in the movement of it.
Go for it… try slowing down.
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