Have We Actually Slowed Down?

I have read in so many pieces how the Covid-19 pandemic has created “the new slow”. This can mean letting go of the unnecessary, a shedding. It's nice to pay lip service to these ideas: they sound great and make us all warm and fuzzy. But how many of us are actually living slowly? I am finding it increasingly busy wherever I look, and especially online. So many offerings, so much calling for my attention—offers, advice, solutions.

This is all too much for me. Do you feel the same way? I know in my house, with a business, a demanding job, a relationship and my practices, I am rarely idle. And I see it everywhere: Learn to cook! Learn to play guitar! Plant a garden! Do this course! Do that course! Get on a virtual Zoom party. Learn to crochet.

It’s all well-meaning and great, but why can't I just sit in the sunshine under a tree in a park and read my book?  Today, I have done just that. And I thought, how is it you have been in isolation for weeks, and this is the first time you've done this in your lunch break? If this is a time of collective rest, why aren't we (actually) resting?

Because we like it. Being busy keeps us from ourselves. For many of us, if we really tune in to what we need, we realise that we are a long way from honouring that deep longing for serenity.

We must face up to the fact that “busy” can mean a few things, and one of them is “avoidance”. Have you ever tried just to sit still and breathe with your eyes closed for 10 minutes (in some circles this is known as meditation ;)) ?? (Or remember the first time, if you're an experienced meditator?) You know what comes up when you sit still? Well, you need to confront yourself warts and all. These are the good things but also the things you have sought so hard to avoid by being “busy”.

Yoga calls these irritating little interventions vrittis, the thoughts that harass us when we just try to sit still. These are the commentary, the memories, the emotions, the weird desire to itch yourself, the shopping list you create in your head. You're not doing that because you're itchy or desperately in need of household items, it's because it terrifies you to slow down and confront the world free of distraction. The desires that drive us are powerful, and they're influenced by culture and our upbringing, as well as our karma (if you believe in that). Until we get a handle on them, they're in charge. 

We have our phones, our work, our social lives, our kids (or pets or both), our hobbies, our neuroses, all of it consuming our energy and attention. We want all the things. Sometimes we run ourselves into the ground as we grasp for what we desire. Then we stop, we crash, we reboot, we start again.

But do we have enough downtime to reboot properly? I would argue most of us do not. We take the herbs and supplements, drink coffee, get addicted to the adrenaline, and keep going. Then we wonder why we end up with chronic illness and weird, unaccountable things going wrong in our bodies and our minds.

We don't recharge the batteries with rest, down-time, not-doing-time, not-striving-time. Sleep is not enough. What adults can do, and what kids have trouble with, is to make better choices about how we use our energy. We can decide if it's worth it to use our energy when we could be resting. We can look at the reasons why we push ourselves the way we do.

What about starting something equivalent to a savings account devoted to the serenity-credits, beginning with resting even when we don't need to, topping ourselves up. We can keep ourselves at 60-80% capacity, so that when things really hot up (and they inevitably do—and always at the wrong time) we have a reserve so that we don't go into overdrive. When, after all was there a good time for stressful situations to befall us? Never. But we owe it to ourselves to be better equipped.

To maintain a storehouse of calm inside you—who of us really lives like this in our culture? (Even the people I know who are off the grid seem to be in a perpetual hustle.) Do we really need to use up time for the pursuit of doing more and more? Why don't we all just do what has to be done, and let the rest slide?

Is there an award for the busiest person? Of course not, but it is incredible how so many people act as if there were.

I remember a telephone conversation I had recently with a friend who is perpetually busy. After she rattled off all the things that were preoccupying her, she finally brought herself to ask me what I was doing, and I replied that I was just taking time out to have a tea and to stare at the clouds moving in the sky… The point of this is that things take time. Healing, changing culture, changing ourselves, growing into ourselves, finding our rhythm, working out our own flow. This is all about redefining what it means to be slow. Being slow is not not a new recipe or a new practice, rather it’s the absence of these things. It is not necessarily doing anything per se. To speak in a Buddhist way, what we too seldom find is the place before the world of things. It is the place that exists before something is born—nothingness needs to have its moment. Personally, I am trying to look at this from every angle in my life. How do we navigate this extra time so that it is restorative and nurturing for us?

"Let us… seek peace… near the inland murmur of streams, and the gracious waving of trees, the beauteous vesture of earth, and sublime pageantry of the skies. Let us leave "life," that we may live." -- Mary Shelley

Love, peace and prosperity, Ulrika