What is this and why it's an Art?
This is something I would love to call a seed of presence. The Art of slowing down is a concept I created to support myself when I was walking through the ups and downs on my way of becoming a more aware human being.
And it is an art because it takes time to steep and settle into our bones and become a more natural state of being.
Just as it takes time for the tree to grow from the tiny seed it was, hidden in the dark soil, into the giant it is destined to be.
The Art of slowing down was what I needed most, and still do, going onward on my Journey back Home. Because the truth is the more we slow down to the pace of life inside of us, the closer we come to the state of feeling at Home.
Does it sound like a paradox?
If it does, it is because it's a paradox. One of the many out there.
The more we attune our outside reality to our inner pace of truth and love, the more aligned we are with our soul.
The Art of Slowing Down is not about turning you into a lazy sloth either, but more a tool which makes you aware of the pace of your life.
And there are 4 pillars that I shaped from the clay of my own experience, wading through the uncomfortable emotions and stages of my growth that I used to hold space for the Art itself.
- Sloooooow Down
- Listen through Love
- Welcome all parts of yourself that you find there
- Be Water.
Each one of these pillars could be used to stand upon on its own. But together they are more powerful and can hold and carry and nourish you through any of life's challenges and many trials.
BE WHERE THE WORLD IS GOING.
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Slooooooow Down
We slow down and take a moment to breathe deeply into the belly. To create space for regular pauses throughout our day is pivotal in this Art. Every time we notice your heart pace quickens; every time your belly tightens, or every time you feel unsure about a decision that needs to be made or an answer to be found and given...
slow down and take a pause.
You are allowed to take your time and be still,
regardless what the world expects from you.
Slow down as often as you need it and just breathe.
At the beginning it might feel strange and unnatural for you to stop in your tracks and simply breathe.
But this actually rewires our brain. It takes it out of its comfort tracks and trails of thinking and providing solutions and allows it to be more creative and find new pathways and approaches towards the things in our lives.
Regular pauses as daily routine is like letting breeze of cooling freshness into our systems.
For the truth is- our engines are exhausted.
Listen through Love
When you have a moment in your day- in the morning, or before going to bed, take time to really Listen to your inner world. What is going on there?
Do we notice emotional turmoil? Maybe stiffness somewhere in the body? Where?
And when you locate it ... just listen. It has a story to tell.
We so want and expect from the world to listen to us, to our words and opinions and "wisdom", but do we actually take our time to listen to ourselves?
So during this moments we just attune to listen to the messages our body is sending us. We don't have to change it. We don't have to fix it. We even don't have to react upon what we'd hear.
If we are sitting with a crying child would we scream at it to get better right now? Would we request an answer when we see that this child is trembling and terrified to speak? Of course not.
We would hold it and let it know it is okay to feel the way it feels and we are there for it for as long as it takes! That's all it takes.
Welcome all parts of Yourself
When we start to slow down and listen more carefully and with actual interest to our internal world, the chances that we would meet unpleasant parts of ourselves are 100%.
And this is the tricky part.
When we face a part of us that we rather not have- we try to get rid of it, we try to erase it or even worse- to hide it even deeper. We do not want the picture we have for ourselves to be ruined by entertaining and acknowledging those parts.
But everything in us that shows us its discomfort is a part of us that really needs to be seen and it's existence validated and accepted. We are not here to be saints.
We are not here to be perfect and well behaved and shiny the whole time.
Human experience is not meant to be this. We came to this earth to experience it all- the messy and the beautiful.
And in order to be whole we get to invite all of this parts to the table and offer them a voice.
Be Water
Have you noticed how when we meet an obstacle in our day or when we are listening to someone else or even ourselves we tend to listen through our pain, prejudices and shadows?
We can see it on how our body reacts- it tightens up. It constricts. Our heart, our belly, our whole being shrinks and hardens in order to protect itself from what our system perceive as a threat. And what is supposed to pass through us as a smoke, it passes as a blade. And it cuts.
Deeply.
Because we are hard. We are not yielding and soft. We are ice in that moment. In those moments when we receive- life as it is in that moment, ourselves or another person, let us be like water.
Let it pass through us softly- as if we were water.
