8 Easy Ways to Practice Slowing Down
Watercolor and Ink Original Work by Matilda Wentzel
8 Easy Ways to Practice Slowing Down
Easy ways to practice Slowness (pick one):
Take something off your plate. I’m sure there’s something that can wait.
Take breaks in between activities (5 min goes a long way and can give you a fresh slate for the next task)
Devote a day to silence (maybe you decide not to listen to anything that day, no music, no podcasts, no youtube, no books. Or maybe even go a whole day without talking, I’ve done this, it’s actually nice!)
Set aside 10 min each morning this week to meditate. You can do anything for one week!
Pick an activity you already have to do and devote that activity to awareness (Such as, if you need to do the laundry, focus your mind on all the nuances of the activity, the color of the garments, the way it feels, what you’re picking up next. Attention to the mundane.)
Focus on your breathing all day long. Simply have the intention and see how often you can remember to take a deep breath.
Take some time to write and get your thoughts out on paper.
Anytime you’re doing something you like, say to yourself, “I’m doing this for me.”
Original Watercolor and Ink Piece by Matilda Wentzel
I’ve been playing around with something helpful lately called:
slowing down.
It’s so great!
I feel so much more relaxed.
I’ve been repeating to myself over and over in my head,
“Things can wait”
“It will all work itself out”
“Everything will be accomplished in perfect timing”
And the one I’ve been enjoying most of all is:
“I do less and less.”
Now I’m not repeating these things because I’m perfect at resting and taking care of myself, but because I have a racing mind sometimes.
In fact, the less I do, the more my reasoning mind squirms and screams its worries at me, including one of the worst lies, “you’re falling behind”
Hold up!
If I believe in perfect timing then I have to see this lie for what it is, an erroneous idea!
That’s why I say the nice words to myself, because they are replacing the worry thoughts.
Sometimes it’s not enough to just stop thinking and quiet the mind, even if you do achieve the stillness of mind that is so addicting you wanna be in that state forever! Even if you do, eventually what’s ‘on your mind’ surfaces again.
So I like to replace the thoughts with new ones that make me feel better.
Even if I have to be super specific; down to a ‘T’ of what exactly it is that’s coming up for me.
The thing is, if we let ourselves slow down and say “Things Can Wait” we may have some limiting beliefs surface for us. Maybe even our worth and identity is challenged.
Stillness is the best place to address anything that comes up.
In the fast paced life which we think we’re doomed to live, we scarcely have a second to stop and think about what’s really driving our moves and attitudes.
Slowing down is the best time to reflect, I dare say one of the only ways to reflect. That’s why it’s so important to make time for it!
I know, slowing down sounds like one more thing to make time for.
So it’s important to ask ourselves, “What is my perception of time?”
“Do I have a healthy relationship with time, one that feels good?”
How often are we aware of the moment?
What about our thoughts?
What more are we here for than to enjoy these precious moments we’ve been gifted with?!
Slowing down is challenging, but a challenge is just the kind of thing that facilitates growth, leveling up, and a renewed sense of resilience! It’s a challenge worth accepting.
It was the same when I began slowing down a few years ago, first it started with the awareness that I was on the edge of burn out. Burnout is more serious than you might think, for some it can cause depression or even take away one’s ability to show up for regular everyday tasks, let alone the go-getter-goals we were striving so hard for that put us here in the first place.
It’s important to be able to recognize the early signs of burnout while there’s still time to be proactive. This is where I’m at now. The only reason I am able to sit down and share something meaningful right now is that I’ve been in full-on self-care mode!
That’s the great thing about rest, it opens up our capacity to be creative and give, AND to receive.
Getting injured about a year ago (Nov 30th 2022 I tore my hamstring) started me on a deep dive learning journey about rest, one that was not pretty! I got injured a second time a few months later on March 11th 2023, pulling my other hamstring. On top of the obvious learning such an experience would bring, I’ve also been practicing slowness since about 2019. I was a few years into starting my art business and I was definitely feeling burnt out on a small scale, so I started practicing. Looking back, I now realize I’ve been on a mental see-saw, teetering between sanity and the edge of burnout for years. Now I'm taking even more action to prevent it, or should I say, Less Action!
Pick from the list at the beginning of this post to start your own practice towards stillness!