Remembering slowness

and unlearning urgency

I hadn’t realised it had happened again.

The stealing of my time and attention, the habitual act of picking up my phone first thing in the morning. Mindlessly scrolling under the guise of work, connection or information seeking.

The urgency rising in my body. My mind whirring with to-do lists. Instead of taking a walk or moving my body, I make my way straight to my home office still in my pyjamas, filled with a mild panic, thinking about all the things that MUST be done.

This is where I was before I stopped for summer.
And it felt really shitty.

There’s a part of me that’s disappointed in myself for not catching it, a feeling of ‘not this again!’ But in our hyper-connected, always ON world, it’s so incredibly easy to feel like we always have to be urgently doing. That our worth is inextricably tied to our output and every minute should be productive (whatever that means)

But where’s the space for life to seep into these tight edges?

I spent the first days of our holiday going cold turkey (no reception to feed my addiction) feeling annoyed that my little black information box wasn’t giving me what I needed. Relearning (again, oh again) how to actually switch off.

And then on the third day, my system caught up.
My body remembered. I came home to a slower cadence.

I started to wake early before everyone else, risking the sound of the ancient kettle whistling and growling to make myself tea. Being mindful of my movements; slow and small so I could sit outside and have the quiet all to myself.

Nothing pulled my attention except the depth of the present moment. There was space to think, to hear the waves, to notice the absence of urgency, and once again to hear my own voice.

When slowing down feels hard

I know from personal experience and from many of my clients that the idea of stepping off the ‘doing’ hamster wheel, resting or slowing down can sound terrifying or impossible.

Perhaps at the end of the day when you try to switch off, the quiet is deafening, or there's that tricky feeling of urgency in your body that doesn’t ever seem to dissipate.

From really early in our lives, we're socialised into hurry and pace, the idea that if we don’t do it NOW then we’ll miss our chance. We know what effort feels like, and not just effort but 100% effort. Always do your best, give it your all, try your hardest, quitters don't win and winners don't quit. 100% becomes the norm. So that means the first time we try to go slower or someone suggests that we don't need to push so hard, it can feel deeply uncomfortable.

Slowing down doesn't feel safe because we're not trained to be comfortable in the pause. We're trained to never stop. 

But I think deep down most of us know we’ve been sold a lie, that working harder and never stopping doesn't get us to the top of the mountain - it only pushes us to the edge of the cliff. 

And while we're so busy doing we're getting further and further away from connection; to ourselves, the people that matter to us, to nature, spirit and the essence of life itself.

One of the reasons that slowing down can feel so uncomfortable is that we have more time to look starkly at things. Taking things slow means we begin to notice whats underneath the pushing:

“Oh, I really am tired”
"I have feelings I don't want to feel"
"There’s situations in my life I don't want to face"

We have to grow our capacity for going slower, tending to our nervous systems to remind them that slow can be safe after years of hustle and push. 

Going slower, doing less, finding ease and cultivating gentle, sustainable effort over forcing and pushing are necessary for our collective and individual well-being. 

Changing our well-worn patterns may feel like an uphill battle, but we all deserve to take this one precious life at a pace that's our own, not one dictated to us by systems of oppression and containment. 

Exploring urgency

If you want to get curious about a slower pace and explore your relationship to urgency or doing all-the-things the first place we usually start is awareness.

When we’re aware of something we create choice and through choice, we can make changes in our lives and how we move through the world.

Urgency and the need to DO is tied to mobilisation and activation (fight/flight).

Ask yourself :

1. When I’m feeling activated and everything is urgent, when stress in my body is turned up, what happens in my body?

2. What do I notice and not notice? What happens to my senses? What are the impulses in my body asking of me?

3. Try tracking where the energy is moving towards or away from, is energy building in your body, can you stay with the feeling just for a few seconds?

The more opportunities we give ourselves to notice how these places and states feel the more likely we are to notice them as they come up. We create a map for ourselves so then we get the feeling of ‘oh right I’m here again’. We recognise the terrain more easily and from there we can choose a supportive action that changes our path.

Mobilisation often gets what it needs when we can reconnect with something that feels safe or ok. We can work with the body (bottom-up practice) to encourage feelings of safety and help ourselves remember we’re in the here and now and we don’t need to urgently move.

Practices for release and grounding

Mobilisation and urgency in the body feels like running from one thing to the next without stopping. We’re in constant motion with no time between. Ending one task, conversation, email and starting another. You might notice racing thoughts, feelings of being trapped or feelings of reactivity and defensiveness.

This is the place where its difficult to slow down, rest and relax. Try some things from the following list and work in intervals, pausing in between to check in with how you’re feeling.

As you explore can you track the urgency settling a little? I like to think of the image of a snow globe. We’re waiting for the snow to settle a bit before we shake it up again. Can you feel the settling in your body, even just a little?

• While standing lift your heels, standing on your tiptoes and then let your heels drop onto the ground.

• Go for a walk, climb the stairs, lift something heavy.

• Shake and wiggle your whole body

• Take off your shoes and put your feet in water, on the earth outside or if its available pebbles or sand.

• Flop onto your bed with a sigh

• Wash your face with cold water

• Have a toddler tantrum for 30 seconds, shake, flail your arms, bang your feet on the floor.

What else could you add to this list?

To close…

When we can enliven our awareness, meet our body where it is and be compassionate to the energy it’s offering us then it does the most magical thing; re-organise, re-calibrate and connect to resource, so you can come back to being you.

This place of urgency and mobilisation, of running from one thing to the next is addictive. The feeling of adrenalin and cortisol we get from ticking off our to-do lists and feeling like the person who CAN do it all is so seductive.

Of course, I’m not suggesting we don’t tick things off our to-do lists and get a buzz from managing the important things in our lives. But we can do it without tipping the scales into intense stress. Without constant urgency and driving ourselves to depletion. We can sustainably care for our energy and capacity so that we have enough energy to give to the things that really matter to us, not just our to-do lists.

I’d love to know what your relationship is to slowing down? Do you feel the hum of urgency in your body often? Do you (like me) often not realise when you’ve you’re in the pattern of doing all the things and not stopping? I’d love to continue this conversation in the comments or you can just hit reply to this email. <3

Sara x

PS: if you enjoy my work and want to know more…

• Find out about 1-1 somatic coaching. I’ve recently reinstated single 90 minute coaching sessions too - all the details are over HERE (If you’d prefer to have a chat over a cuppa about anything I offer you can do that by following the same link and choosing the ‘discovery call’ option)

• If you enjoy the practices I share here you might want to sign up to Moments of Connection: 30 recordings and daily journal prompts to edge you towards greater body connection HERE

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P.P.S - If you enjoyed this post you might want to read the post below about getting enjoying doing less :)