06/21/2013
When I was on 7 or so psychiatric drugs, I had a near death-like experience where I went through a dark tunnel, saw a white light, and received a message of my purpose in life. The message I received was threefold. My purpose is : 1. To write without getting attached to it, 2. To Love, and 3. To slow people down. I didn’t quite understand the part about slowing people down until today, ten years later! While I have questions about #1, it makes perfect sense. Writing feeds me like nothing else. “To Love,” seems obvious, like #1, 2 or 3 on everyone’s life purpose list. But the last one, to slow people down, sounds unique and like it’s for me personally.
I live a slow paced life. I meditate every morning, refuse to get a smart phone (yet), and it takes me generous amounts of time to do things. This isn’t because I am “stupid” or slow to get things. Sometimes I wonder how others get so much done each day-yet the quality and vibration of what I do is unique. It needs time. It’s fermented, then slow cooked; it comes about from a slower paced life. My writing and teaching require me to live in the slow lane, as does my body, my mind, everything about me and the structure of my life. I basically can’t be rushed.
So I go slow, but it only occurred to me today how, of course, by going slowly, those around me are sometimes slowed down too. I don’t respond to messages/emails/phone calls right away most of the time. My phone is frequently on airplane mode. Emergencies need to go through my slow pace filter and often aren’t responded to the way many others would. Meditation, writing and other forms of quiet reflection are my primary urgencies. Ha.
By not being able to relate with me on Type A timetables, people who are in my world are sometimes inadvertently slowed down. I also often gravitate towards slow friends who listen slowly and who I can listen to slowly, making sure nothing is missed or misunderstood. Of course we talk quickly sometimes (I am from New York and actually talk and think very fast) and I certainly write longhand faster than anyone else I’ve ever witnessed- but there’s a deep, thorough processing going on in the conversations and writing that doesn’t often happen in the average chat or article I am aware of.
Going slowly from the beginning might mean taking a few months or longer to sit with our challenging, even torturous, feelings, and to reach out to people willing to slow down and listen without diagnosing. This requires patiently processing our feelings, thoughts, memories, symbols, fears and longings. All of this requires time, air, breathing, going slowly and having others who can appreciate the slow pace, the right now; who can accept the stuckness, are okay with boredom, monotony, feelings and intensity. Slow pace is required for the “long short way,” where things actually, ironically, happen faster because we aren’t trying to force them to, we aren’t resisting life or pushing the river.
Going slowly is my new/old medicinal offering to myself and others. I offer it as my very being so you know there is someone out there going slowly, waiting to respond. Whatever the pace our souls move at is what it is; it cannot be altered by drugs. In the words of Robyn Posin: You can leap forward and slide back as many times as you need to. Or you can just take smaller steps.
What an “aha” for me to realize that going so slowly, the thing I’ve been criticizing myself for, is a big part of my life purpose, not only for myself, but to slow others down as well.
When we have a health problem of any sort, Western medicine and our current culture (which many of us are stepping away from) tell us, “There’s no time for this. How can we eradicate it as quickly and easily as possible?” Perhaps the real question is, “Do we have time for that view?” Do we have time to ignore our body/mind messages? Do we have time to deal with the long term ramifications of rushing, crashing and being inundated with a whole new set of problems?
Even more pertinent, what does slowing down look like? How do we listen to our symptoms? My ways are through writing, meditation, time in nature, and other practices that fine tune my intuition. These include connecting with others in the slow lane, others who are exploring life as a mystery, a process, an opportunity for communication. As I slow down and practice being honest with myself first, I begin to see the fears I have that keep me stuck in symptoms. Does this make it easy to overcome them? Sometimes, but not necessarily. It does make it easier to connect with others and attract people I can connect with deeply and genuinely. By slowing down enough (externally) to find self communication that is honest, it becomes easier to express myself to others and to intuit who will get it. As for fear based symptom eradication, which I still find myself knee jerking towards, good luck. Take as long as you need to, try as many quick fixes as you can find. When you’re done and ready to return to the slow path of soul, I’ll meet you on the dirt road, unpaved, picking berries in the sunshine, or being poured on in the rain.
Sure there’s a time and place for efficiencies- for raincoats, cars, airplanes, the internet- no doubt. But mostly, we’re headed for the unpaved road in the country, the slow path of our souls, the unavoidable, undeniable underbelly of life. It’s unpredictable, unmapped and undocumented until we take the time to document and map our own course. When we live there, rushing through to eradicate our “problems” becomes less and less of an option, and life is actually worth living and learning from-slowly, kindly, with heart.
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