The Art of Slowing Down Before Life Makes You - Podcast Transcript

Listen to the full episode here: The Art of Slowing Down Before Life Makes You

Hello. It is now into almost the second third week of November. When I'm recording this, it's only really the first week and...

We're just past daylight savings. The world in the northern hemisphere is getting colder and the days are getting darker.

And for me, it comes with this sense of relief that finally things are slowing down. And for me, if it's getting darker earlier, it lets me feel more permission to relax and tune things down in the afternoon when my daughter gets home from school, to not feel like I have to keep pushing so hard because even the daylight is saying, "Chill out. It's fine. It's okay to slow down."

And I also find that being able to wake up that I guess slightly later earlier in the day, I don't know what this time thing does to me. It makes everything crazy, but when I wake up and I'm able to actually hear the birds starting to make sounds and the sun is coming up and it's not quite as dark as it was and it just feels beautiful to me in the morning.

I weirdly have more of a rush of energy than and I feel more on my normal schedule, right at this changing of the clocks and in this autumn season. And I don't know if it's just because I was an autumn baby and I just really have always loved the fall.

I feel at home there. But I really like this seasonal quietening where birds are around, but they're migrating through.

Things feel like they're still happening out in the world, but it's much calmer.

And even all of the hustle that was happening back in October and in September...

The gathering of all of the food and the harvesting of all of the vegetables and everything. Even that slowed down.

And now it feels like it's an okay time for soups and for hot drinks and tea. And there's something to me about also preparing soups and teas and things that take a little bit more time than just pouring a glass of water over ice that gives that natural slowing down versus the rush that I felt even a few months ago. So I'm wondering if you're feeling that too.

I had a conversation with one of my good friends recently talking about having a chance to go back and visit her home country, and taking the time to just go on a jaunt just for herself, go visit a town and a place that she visited a lot in her 20s and she's now in her 40s.

And to be able to witness what's changed and what hasn't changed and to be there, but to recognize that up until this moment she had never really taken time to experience a place like that just for herself and it felt very indulgent and lovely to finally do that and not make her trip entirely about visiting family and making sure that she sees everyone constantly and doing everything.

And I wanted to share this with you because I think this happens to all of us, that we get really busy. And if we're traveling or we have friends or family to meet, no matter where they are in different countries or even just in the same town but down the street.

Often we get so caught up in what we need to do in the obligation of seeing everyone that we almost don't slow down enough to enjoy it or to ask, "What do I need from this gathering or what would be really nice?" about this particular visit or this particular moment in time.

I'm curious what your thoughts are about that. I do think it changes over the course of our lives.

And perhaps it's also seasonal over a lifetime as well as throughout a year, that when we're young, there's so much rushing about and so much excess of energy, it's fine. We're able to have multiple thanksgivings and Christmases and visits and we have college and we've got friends and there's parties everywhere.

And there's multiple sides of the family to visit and children and people to play with. And it is exhausting, and I do remember complaining about all of those things, even as a teenager and in my 20s and 30s.

And now here I am, gosh, I guess in my late 40s now and realizing that the things that I want to enjoy now need to be savored, but that I'm also able to bring a lot more of my own presence to it. So in discussing with my friend her visit to this place that she's visited as a child, and in her 20s like her whole life, the different quality of it in her 40s.

And she was curious what that might be. And my thought was that, when we're younger, we visit a lot of places and we're excited and we're moving through them fast.

But we are looking for an experience and we're looking for a place to give us something. Like we're looking for something outside of ourselves to hold onto or to grasp, and we're wondering how that experience is going to change us or form us or if we might gain something from it that sparks something inside of us that makes us different. And I personally have noticed that as I get older, when I go anywhere,

I'm not really demanding too much of the places that I'm going anymore and I'm not looking for a transcendent experience anywhere.

But really now I'm bringing myself as more of a fully formed human being, with my own likes and dislikes and my judgments and all of that, but I'm able to go to a place and wonder who am I in this space?

Versus what is this space going to spark in me? And I'm able to witness myself in a space and go, how do I resonate here? And what do I bring to this space rather than what can this space give me?

And I'm wondering if that's a quality that will amplify as I get older, or if it's just a quality of me right now. But it feels true that as we get older and we're more capable perhaps of slowing down, that we're able to find more of our own rhythm and resonance in the world and that we're able to exist in our own energy, bringing that with us.

And if we're able to do that consciously without being caught up in the drama of our lives, right, all of the needs and wants and things that have to get done. If we're able to take a moment to just be in ourselves as we are and go, "Okay, who am I really?"

If I didn't have words to describe it, could I just feel it? And if I can just feel who I am, and what I am without trying to define it too much and I open my eyes in the space.

What do I perceive or what do I feel? And to me, it's a really interesting more intimate experience of gatherings and of locations and of experiences to just be there and not demand anything of it. It feels very Zen. It feels almost religious in a way to take away my own demands of things.

But I like it better, because at least at this time of year, I'm tired. And I'm wondering if you are too.

So this week, I want to talk about the art of slowing down before life kind of forces it upon you.

It's something that's going to happen. We're all going to get forced to slow down eventually. And I think that's where those phrases are born from, like, I'll stop when I'm dead or...

You know, you gotta just keep going and get as much done and no sleep, right?

And I really dislike that. I've always loved sleep, and I love times of year that allow me to sleep more and have excellent dreams and just rest and...

Marvel and creativity. And I find that the fall and the winter really is this time of massive amounts of ideas for me.

And they're only just starting to emerge here in the beginning of the autumn. Like they don't really gain full force until the spring when they're ready to kind of become something.

But I think this is the time for us to just slow down and take a moment and to breathe and to assess how are we actually doing? When we're about to face giant amounts of holidays. I think all cultures have a lot of autumn and winter and solstice holidays, where we're gathering with our loved ones.

And we're providing for them and we're caring for the people that we love. There's something so pure about that, but...

Often it feels so demanding that we need to show up as our best self and that we want to share with people that we're providing for them and giving them something that we worked hard to make.

I've always felt like in the preparations of meals, there's always such a crazy amount of effort put into these meals.

Particularly for Thanksgiving and Christmases anyway, that there's specific things that we think everybody wants or needs or that we've always had, and it needs to be made a certain way and in a certain time for a certain person.

And it's so easy to get caught up in the making of that and the gathering of materials and making sure that it happens that you kind of forget to just enjoy that person being there and enjoying the meal with you, which I think is the more important part.

And it's the reason that we're doing all this hard work anyway. I think it leads to a lot of burnout and stress around holidays.

And I have also come to understand through my own experiences how difficult holidays can be.

When there's people there or not there that you were hoping would be and it makes it feel strange and awkward and you're not really sure how you feel or what you want to do because with every person who passes on or new people that gets added in the whole thing just gets jostled up, and it's not the same as it was.

And it's hard to just be present for what is now when you're longing for something that you had, but you don't have anymore. It can be really difficult. And I know I'm facing that this year, and I will be...

for all my future years now. I'm still trying to figure out what it means to have these kinds of holidays and have these experiences.

What I can tell you is that it's helpful for me anyway to slow down and to get past this rushing reflex of trying to fill every moment of every day with purpose and meaning and activity and make everything perfect. I cared a lot about that when I was younger, or I would want to actually rush past the holidays so I could just get on to the business of hanging out with my brothers and playing and seeing friends and being on the vacation part. So there is both the excitement of the holiday, but then the desire for recovery from the holiday that I felt was built in and those extra days off after Thanksgiving.

In the US it's Thursday and then we've got Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. And it often felt like we needed all of those days to recover or there was multiple gatherings with multiple families on all the days and then you were just exhausted and went back to work on Monday feeling like you've just been rolled over by bowling balls. And it's tough.

I know I'm not the only one who just gets exhausted with all of it.

And particularly for those of you listening who are just empathetic or sensitive or neurodivergent,

I have a really hard time with lots of loud voices and noise and I have come to understand for myself that.

Even though I love it, I love having my family here and I love hearing them laugh and it brings such a smile to my heart to hear everybody having fun and playing games. I, myself, burn out and can't handle that level of conversations that are that ongoing, if there's, you know, 14 people here and everybody's talking.

I need to leave and dismiss myself from the group frequently just to re-regulate myself and then be able to come back and hear anything at all and engage.

And took me a really long time to learn how to do that. And I think...

giving yourself that kind of permission to slow down, to recognize who you are and what you might need.

Now is the time to start thinking about that weeks before there's going to be the gathering to go, "Okay, what do I know about myself?"

What do I actually need and what do I want from this gathering? And I want to remind you that it's important that you're there too.

It's not only about everyone else, it is about you being there with them or you being there for yourself.

And what do you need? Do you need to build in some moments where you're able to escape?

Do you need to be able to have like a safe word that you can give someone to just say like, "Hey, I'm taking a step out for a breath of air, but nothing's wrong."

When I learned how to do that, my holidays got so much better and I enjoy them so much more, where I'm able to come down and participate when I can and not feel like I'm being judged by everybody for stepping out if I can't participate the whole time.

I think as a younger person I felt held hostage like I had to sit at the table and participate in every game or every conversation and just listen and be there until finally everyone would leave and then it would take me days to just re-regulate myself and get back to my normal routines.

As an adult, it's so much nicer being able to go, "Oh, the person that I am can't have that many conversations in a row." Like I maybe have a two-hour max and then I'm gonna need to take five or ten minutes.

And if I do another two hours, like with each reentry, I need a longer break.

So now I'm okay just saying, "Hey, I'm going for a walk." And if you want to join me, fine, but if not, that's cool.

And I'll go take a walk or I'll just come upstairs and breathe and read a book and then come back down.

All of those things really help me to feel like I'm still a part of everything, but in the way that I have capacity for.

And I know everybody's different, some people really thrive and want to be in the middle of the attention the whole time.

That's not me. I want to be parallel to it and participate and hear everything and contribute sometimes. But mostly I just want to be near everyone. And that makes me feel the most loved and at home and safe.

I've also thought about what do I need out of gatherings and is it that I need to have the food that I want or would I rather give the gift of someone else being able to have what they really enjoy more?

And for me, the answer has been to just step back and let people make what they want because I actually don't care as much as they do about the foods that are being provided.

And I want to bring that up to ask you, again, weeks in advance of this holiday.

What's really important to you and what could you maybe let go or release from you needing to control?

I think so much holiday stress comes up around control and feeling like there's so much that we need to be in control of and make sure it goes right and that we're wanting our family and our friends to feel a certain way.

But then also recognizing that we have no real control over that, and we know that they're stressed out too, so then it kind of snowballs and compounds, or at least it has for me.

So I really appreciate having the awareness now to go, "I just want to gather with my family, whether they're stressed or sad or angry or happy or having a great time."

And I want them to just feel at home and have fun. And if they bring a game they want to play, I want to play it with them just to try it. It doesn't need to be what I want to do because I don't really care. Like the joy for me.

isn't about the specific activity, it's just about having people here. And that's more joyful to me, so for me I've distilled it down to that connection as the one important piece.

I think when you're able to look at your own gatherings and wonder what is the important piece for you.

It can relieve you of so much extra shit, honestly, that you're carrying on and allow you to be able to rest and slow down and not feel like you have to rush and make everything perfect.

Some tips that I can say for these gatherings in advance is that if you know what's coming, you know who's going to be there and you know what you need to gather.

If you're able to, having things in place beforehand is hugely helpful. I find having lists helps me out to just know what have I already done and what haven't I done. But I also have learned to enlist help and to not leave this entirely up to myself, and also not to be frustrated with others for not reading my mind and knowing what I need.

So learning how to have what used to be for me very awkward conversations, but just isn't anymore because I've gotten better at it.

To just ask, you know, what have you done? What do you want to have happen? Here's what I've done and what's next.

And who's going to be in charge of that and having those conversations and trusting people to

show up and help or not help but to have lines of communication open has been very beneficial and helpful.

Ah, that being said, it's still a very stressful, untiring time of year.

So some things that you can do if you're finding that you're overwhelmed despite all of this and the thought of making lists just stresses you out more because honestly even talking about making the lists just stressed me out.

Like, Man, maybe that isn't what we need at all. Maybe what we actually need is to learn how to physically feel better in our bodies.

One of the ways we can do that, I think, is to have a moment where you ask yourself, like, "What am I feeling in my body?" and answer that question. So for me when I asked that, just right now, for some reason my toes are demanding a lot of attention, which is interesting because I very rarely think about my toes. And then from there it goes to like the middle of my back and I can kind of follow around where the tension is in my body.

But asking that allows me to slow down enough to be present in a moment and then ask, well, what might I need?

And rather than asking that in this broad sense of like, "What do I need from the world, from anything?"

It's just what is my body asking for right now? Do I need to just wiggle my toes or stand up?

Do I need to change my position? Does that give me a moment of relief? And if so,

Could I just give that to myself? And I think making questions like that more habitual to be able to check in to yourself and allow yourself to give yourself what you need, even if it's just to switch where your posture and switch where your weight is on a leg or to recline versus lean forward or look up instead of looking down and feel how glorious that feels, that's really wonderful. And we should probably practice that a whole lot more.

I think you know that you need to slow down when you notice that you're getting more irritable or you're not able to think and you have tension in your body or you start feeling like you need to control everything or you just feel kind of unable to connect with joy or happiness or the meaning of what you're trying to create.

So all of those things are signals that we should be slowing down. And often...

For myself when I would first get that input and realize I needed to slow down. I would just get angry about it and be like, well, how the heck am I supposed to do that?

Because there's all of these things and I give myself all of the evidence of why I needed to keep going. Here's what I can say with pretty good assurance is that no matter what it is that you have to get done, it'll keep.

It'll still be there for you, even if you took five minutes an hour, a day, or five days. If that's true...

What could it be like to allow yourself to get some rest or go do something just fun for yourself?

Nature to me is such a remedy. And being able to go outside and take a breath of fresh air or listen for any kind of creature that isn't human that's out there.

Or even just the wind and the leaves. It's something that I think resets my body naturally, and it reminds me that I'm not going through everything alone, that there's a lot of life out there happening.

And not all of it is centered around all of my stuff. To me, that's a huge relief. And you might find that to be a huge relief as well, to realize that if you go out there and see that there's other people going through stuff,

What a nice thing to realize that my stuff isn't that big of a deal. It's a big deal to me, for sure.

But the rest of the world isn't going to find it that big of a deal. I find that so comforting to realize that I don't have to blow everything up that big and it's okay if I don't get everything perfect because I'm just living my life and not everyone's lives. Thank goodness I'm only living my own.

And then I can take a moment and re-engage and remember what I felt like doing, what I wanted to experience or be.

Or give. Giving is actually really lovely too. And I guess that's the other half of this holiday upcoming, isn't it? Is Thanksgiving and providing for each other and to be able to give. And that feels really good.

When I'm able to connect to that and go, "Okay, what do I have to offer right now?" And sometimes my answer is not very much.

But maybe it's just the appreciation that I'm here, or that I saw something beautiful, or a bird flew by or that a cat was in my lap or that I could make hot tea or give a hug. Those things are good.

And that's very grounding and nourishing. And I guess what I'm saying here is reaching for the small things is wonderful and maybe that can be a boon to you this year.

To think of the small things rather than the big ones, to really be present for them and to be really in your body as you're getting that cup of tea, or as you're recognizing, like, for some reason, my toes need to be moved.

And you do that and recognize what a gift that I can take that moment and move and enjoy relieving tension, even just a small little joint of my body. Those things can be timeless and can make you feel a lot better.

So my friends.

I hope that as you're moving through this season of life, they're able to find some stillness and to find some peace. With things as crazy as they are, recognizing that perfection isn't really possible.

But certainly being present can be. And that it's all gonna work out somehow.

It might not work out well. It might work out great. But I'm coming to be a realist in a lot of things and to go, you know, sometimes things aren't going to work out the way we hoped, but it all eventually moves.

And inevitably things will get good. And I look forward to that and I'm often looking for it so much more now in the small and the ordinary and in the day to day.

Here's the truth. You don't have to earn anything. You don't have to earn a right to slow down.

Being able to have some rest is your birthright. And when you have it, you will naturally feel

enough energy to do whatever it is that you want or need to do. So my wish for you this week is to get excellent rest. To be able to receive that without guilt and to even delight in it if you feel a little guilty, if you kind of add a little bit of delight to that guilt,

It can make it funny and relieve that feeling to say how delicious that I got to have a rest just now.

Even though I'm not comfortable with it yet, but I want to be. And that is a lovely, lovely thing.

I'm wishing you a wonderful week and I'll see you again next time.