Slowing down - creating space - inviting change - allowing it?

What If I Don't Want to Speed Back Up?

I've been thinking about the line between being driven and simply being so busy that we don't have the space to notice how we're actually doing.

We live in a culture that is very good at making a full life look like a successful life. Busy diaries, long working days, endless commitments. Being busy can become part of how we understand ourselves.

And sometimes being busy is exactly what we want. There is nothing inherently wrong with being ambitious, productive or driven.

But what happens when we slow down?

I don't mean taking a day off and filling it with errands. I mean creating enough space that we might actually notice what is going on underneath all the doing. Have we largely lost touch with being - just being.

Because that can be uncomfortable.

When we're busy, there is less room to feel. Less room to think. Less room to notice that we're unhappy, exhausted, lonely, bored, or simply no longer interested in the things we've been putting so much energy into.

Sometimes the busy is doing a job for us.

It is keeping us moving past things we might otherwise have to acknowledge.

And perhaps one of the reasons slowing down can feel frightening is the question underneath it:

What if I don't want to speed back up?

What if I don't want to speed back up?

What if, with some space, I realise that the pace I've been maintaining isn't actually the pace I want to return to?

That doesn't mean we should all give up our jobs, abandon our ambitions or spend our lives resting. There is a difference between slowing down and becoming complacent. There is also a difference between being driven by something that matters to us and being driven because stopping feels too uncomfortable.

For me, this is where curiosity becomes important.

Rather than immediately asking “What should I change?”, perhaps we can start with “What is happening here?”

Creating space gives us the opportunity to notice.

Noticing gives us the opportunity to understand.

And understanding gives us choices.

Curiosity → Understanding → Change.

It sounds simple. It isn't.

Because understanding what we need can sometimes mean recognising that something needs to change. And once we know that, we can't necessarily then not know it.

Perhaps slowing down isn't about doing less.

Perhaps sometimes it's about creating enough space to discover what we actually want to do.

I like to think this starts with the space for curiosity. Some potentially interesting questions:

Curiosity: Why am I so busy? What is it doing for me?

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Understanding: What am I noticing when I create some space?

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Change: What do I want to do with what I've discovered?