The profound simplicity, and radical resistance, of slowing down
Photo credit: Jael Rodriguez on Unsplash
Most days I have a consistent morning routine as I start my day. It’s fairly simple, and informed by Ayurveda, such as having a glass of warm water, sometimes with lemon, to help wake my body (never before taking care of the hungry meows that wake me each day, of course). I was noticing this morning that I often fill the glass of water quite quickly, and slowed the pitcher down- letting the soft stream of water gently fill the glass, watching the currents and bubbles dance in the glass as the water flowed in- I could feel a settling in my body, a clarity in my mind, simply watching this daily routine with more presence. I felt more gratitude for the beauty and access of the clean water, tasted it more clearly, and felt the warmth flow into my belly with more awareness.
What can make a profound difference is how we are relating to the things we do and experience day to day.
Grounding, clarifying, and regulating doesn’t have to require fancy tools, complex meditations, or long lists of self care. What can make a profound difference is how we are relating to the things we do and experience day to day. This is one thing I love about Ayurveda- the simple and accessible daily practices naturally encourage slowing down, and approaching tasks with loving awareness.
If the story is, “I need to get this done so I can get on to the next thing,” how does that influence our experience, and what do we miss? When we open to curiosity and presence how does that influence our experience in turn? There is a reciprocal dance between our inner state and our external- or interpersonal- experiences. When I carry a sense of urgency in my body, the things I’m doing will feel more urgent. Likewise, if I am rushing through my tasks, my body may read this as a need to speed up internally, becoming more vigilant and scanning the future, preparing for what is next. Our body is likely to interpret hurriedness as a sign that there is a threat in our environment, and begin to mobilize for action. This can create a cycle in which we do things with urgency, feel a threat internally, and then move faster to get away from the perceived sense of threat.
These moments can create an opportunity for reparative relationship to the present- that it can be safe to slow down enough to watch a gentle stream of water fill a glass, for a few moments.
There is a caveat here- trauma survivors can often feel a sense of threat internally, all the time- a call coming from inside the house- that can make anything or everything feel like an actual threat in the environment. This can happen for a number of reasons, which can be unique to each person- but often it relates to an experience of learning that the world can’t be trusted- that it is not safe to stop scanning for threat- and a difficulty trusting one’s own system to discern between real threat, intuition, anxiety, or projection. Trauma happens when we experience something that happens too much, too fast, too soon, or not enough. This can also be a common result of developmental or complex trauma, which commonly arises from having trusted people or systems that should be caring for you, that should be trustworthy, but instead create harm. This particular experience of trauma can be difficult to identify within oneself when it has been widely normalized at the level of society, community, or family structure.
Trauma can become more complex when the response to sharing experiences of trauma is received with denial, dismissal, gaslighting, or additional violence. For those living with trauma, I have found that even these small moments of practicing slowing down can be an accessible way to help orient to place and time, ground in the present moment, and even over time help regulate a dysregulated nervous system. These moments can create an opportunity for reparative relationship to the present- that it can be safe to slow down enough to watch a gentle stream of water fill a glass, for a few moments. It might provide a brief moment of relief to those who feel they must always be vigilant in their daily lives.
Our internal systems may have learned that in order to feel safe, we need to be always moving, always vigilant.
Everything exists in relationship- we have a relationship with our thoughts, with our body, with our partners, pets, jobs, tasks, experiences, and with Mother Earth. Even if we are not intentionally tending to these relationships, there is still a relationship there- with its own dynamics and history.
In the U.S., a sense of urgency is in the air we breathe and the water we drink- it exists at every level of our society, informed by capitalism, by an inherent sense of competition with each other for the ‘American dream,’ by the literal scarcity of time outside of working hours- and even the creep of work into personal time. In a culture where productivity and profit drive all of our systems, and we are not supported by social systems like accessible healthcare, many must hustle for literal survival. This has become so normalized to the point that people will defend the high cost of university education and the exorbitant student loans that come with it, corporations who mercilessly exploit people seeking medical and mental health care and the providers who want to help them are praised for claiming to creating “access,” and people without housing are criminalized, labeled as lazy, inconvenient, or subhuman, and punished instead of cared for by their communities.
These large scale, normalized, patterns of urgency and scarcity can feel overwhelming and intimidating to directly address, and often people will choose dissociation over confronting the large scale reality out of self-protection and preservation. Living a slower, more mindful pace can feel like swimming upstream in a white water rapid, but it can also be a form of empowered resistance to these oppressive systems. In her book, “Rest is Resistance,” Tricia Hersey says,
“Loving ourselves and each other deepens our disruption of the dominant systems. They want us unwell, fearful, exhausted, and without deep self-love because you are easier to manipulate when you are distracted by what is not real or true.” ~Tricia Hersey
With a wellness industry that has ballooned in past decades sending us messages that we need to spend money to have access to things that are part of our human existence, lending intention to these opportunities to pause, be present, or slow our sense of urgency can be a powerful way to reclaim our autonomy, our right to be in relationship with our bodies, with the earth, with each moment of living. Where the wellness industry has become another tool of capitalism to gaslight, oppress, exclude, and extract, our bodies and the earth will welcome us home with open arms whenever we are ready to arrive- and we always have access to them. They are always there for us, unconditionally- regardless of our capacity to connect in any given moment. The unconditional nature of our bodies, or the earth, our collective body, exists in stark contrast to the harshly conditional dynamics created by colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.
Where the wellness industry has become another tool of capitalism to gaslight, oppress, exclude, and extract, our bodies and the earth will welcome us home with open arms whenever we are ready to arrive- and we always have access to them.
While I was in my first masters degree program for Spanish literature, I had a graduate professor who once discouraged me from, “doing too much yoga.” She said that exercise should be used purely to bring circulation to the brain, to help you get into your head, and not into your body. She believed this was a hinderance to her productivity as a writer, and encouraged me to follow suit. Looking back, this is laughable, a dark sense of humor, as she was a miserable woman who projected her misery onto the people around her in many ways. Encouraging me not to do too much yoga to avoid becoming embodied was quite benign compared to how she treated me and others throughout my time in the program. I was just one of many unfortunate souls to be a target for her projections and abuse. At the time I knew through experience that I found more inspiration and creative energy through connecting holistically to my body, and went on to become a yoga teacher, holistic psychotherapist, and now, yoga therapist. As I write this article, I’m sitting on the floor, barefoot, moving or stretching every few minutes to slow down and intentionally stay connected to my body. Slow, intentional, easeful.
These precious small moments, like pouring a glass of water while watching the dance of currents and bubbles in a glass, or dipping my tea bag into my mug while I watch birds out the window, waiting for it to steep, or slowing down the pace of my walk in the afternoon winter sun to turn my face toward the sky, nurture a clearer, deeper sense of connection to my soul, my humanity and to my relationship to all that is. It can be as simple as turning washing the dishes into a slow, mindful act of gratitude after a nourishing meal, taking soft, slow breaths and feeling your feet on the ground as you go. I don’t need to pay money, or to carve out large windows of time, for these moments- they are abundantly present in each day, if I slow down enough in these little micro-moments to open myself to them. Slowing down often feels to me like syncing with my body’s, and the earth’s, natural rhythm.
I don’t need to pay money, or to carve out large windows of time, for these moments- they are abundantly present in each day, if I slow down enough in these little micro-moments to open myself to them.
For those who feel strongly caught in the current of productivity, or who carry shame and mistrust as a result of trauma, leaning into small moments like these can initially bring feelings of fear, guilt, shame, or even pushback. Our internal systems may have learned that in order to feel safe, we need to be always moving, always vigilant. This doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, or that slowing down isn’t for you- it does reflect these larger systems we live within that impact all layers of our lives, or the lack of safety that came from past experiences of trauma or harm. It might mean that this will take practice. It might mean working through feelings of obligation, fear, or disempowerment, perhaps with a licensed and trauma-informed therapist, to build the resilience and capacity in your nervous system to make slowing down more accessible. It is possible to get there. It has taken me a lot of practice and support to arrive to a place that I can slow down without feeling unworthy or inadequate.