Slowing Down as a Form of Self Care
As we enter the homestretch of 2020 and continue to weather the second surge of the pandemic, it can feel easy to want to get past all this and just skip to the next. But I will encourage you to do the opposite: Slow Down.
We are in the final moments of a milestone year - one that has been foretold for thousands of years. A year that signals that a New Beginning is upon us. That a rebirth for Humanity is actually possible that can lead us to true Peace on Earth! The signs are everywhere. In the stars, in the seasons, in the media, the government, the educational system, in our dreams, in our hearts...everywhere.
And that is why I am encouraging you to slow down. To discover in stillness all the signs you now have the opportunity to finally see and experience. To receive the guidance you need with unprecedented clarity so you can move forward with new conviction and sharper focus. To absorb the life-changing lessons of this year with humility and gratitude. To allow 2020 to complete so 2021 can be a wholly new experience - a clean slate in so many ways - and not just a carryover of what's been.
So how will you choose to slow down?
I know that for many of you, the words "slow down" are like nails on chalkboard.
It's okay if that's how you feel - no judgment. I used to feel that way with a passion! However, after being told I should slow down by several different people, time after time, year after year, and in response to the same pattern: burning out and running myself into the ground, I had to get real with myself. I was the common denominator. I could choose to continue being defensive and telling these people that they didn't know what they were talking about and to mind their own business - that I can take care of myself, thank you very much. But the proof is in the pudding.
And I needed to make a difficult choice. To learn how to stop choosing what always led me back to suffering, pain, and disappointment. To stop listening so much to my mind and to listen more to my heart. And to start exploring new choices that challenged what I believed. Like a pickaxe chipping away at the limitedness of everything I thought I knew and revealing the limitlessness of everything I have yet to know in the negative space in between and all around.
I know this is getting meta, and it likely feels like a tangent. But keep reading.
We all have difficult choices in front of us right now. And the key for all of us is learning how to stop choosing what perpetuates cycles that no longer move our lives forward. Whether it's beliefs about your own self-worth and what you think when you look in the mirror, how you rationalize judging others and criticizing their differences, how you stop yourself with perfectionism, how you distract from being in the moment by obsessing over the past or worrying about the future, how you justify sabotaging yourself and creating distance between yourself and what you need and desire... Difficult choices, indeed.
And as we step onto the precipice between the way it's been and the way it can be, we need to face these choices and ask ourselves honestly, "Do I want to carry them with me?"
Do they further peace in my life?
Do they bring me joy and joy to others?
Do they create harmony or conflict?
Do they make me feel more alive?
So slowing down. Soaking in the process. Being thorough and deliberate as you reflect inwardly to decide what you will choose and not relying on what you've chosen by default. And understanding why it matters what you choose. That your choice has a value that contributes to the collective consciousness and touches everyone, everywhere, in all times.
Alright, now I'm getting meta. But because it is meta. We are all a part of the collective. And each of us contributes to its consciousness. So as each of does the hard, sometimes grueling work of slowing down to look within and face these difficult choices, it can change everything.
