"While individuals vary, the natural pace of human beings is slow. In an atmosphere of slowness, kindness and thoughtfulness flourish....Hurry (pressure) makes one slightly insane.... You cannot be violent to yourself (rush) and expect your [practice] ultimately to meet your standards. Being slow is a teacher."
- Gail Sher
Writing the Fire
I inherited my father's hyper-punctuality. I spent countless hours as a child, entertaining myself in movie theatre arcades, waiting for movies to begin to which we had arrived forty-five minutes early. If there weren't any video games in the vicinity for my brother and I to while away the time (and often there wasn't) it would mean three quarters of an hour watching corn kernels spin in the popcorn popper.
I apologize, in advance, to my own future children, as I'm sure they are destined for a similar fate...
I can't bear to be late. Being late makes me feel like the earth is spinning in the wrong direction. When I first moved to New York, I would give myself an hour to get anywhere. Sometimes more. I have, more often than I would like to recount, been the first one at a rehearsal, at a party, at an audition, at a class--for gods sake--even classes I didn't like. I have, even as an adult--unfettered by parental time tables--found myself much too early for a movie and (sadly) too old for the arcade. Pop, pop, pop goes the popcorn popper.
But, it's not the punctuality that I've come to find troubling...it's the hurry. E.g., to be added to the above list: first one finished with her test, first one done eating, first one across the street, first one to the end of the book, first one to the end of the sentence, first one with her hand raised, first one to know what to say to you in this troubling situation, first one to the silverware drawer, first one in bed, first one out of bed, first one to the passenger seat, first one to finish her to do list, first one to start thinking thinking thinking upon waking waking waking, first one with the bright idea, first one with the funny, first one to the end of the inhale, first one to the end of the exhale, first one to the end of this paragraph...
(you get the idea.)
I checked out a book from the library the other day on yoga and anxiety (it's for research, okay, Mr. Librarian...it's for research), and I was reading a chapter all about the symptoms of anxiety and the traits of an anxious person, going along at my usual break-neck pace (I've always been a very fast little reader, able to take in entire chunks of text at a time), and as I sped to the end of the paragraph, I read the following: "Did you hurry to the end of this sentence? Go back, and read it again. Slowly."
Yikes. You mean, this whole time I thought I was just a super special smarty-pants speed-reader, and you're telling me that I might just be...rushing? Anxiously?
(I can literally HEAR my husband smirking as he reads this.)
There are three things in my life that make me slow down: my husband, my writing, and my yoga practice. My husband, because just the feeling of his arms around me or hands on me or voice in the room actually changes my physiological make-up, I'm sure of it. It's happened ever since we first met...I can remember the way his voice on my voicemail, even at the very beginning, made me feel like I could just...breathe...easier. Writing does it because, well, writing just does that to me--quiets me. Similar to husband's arms around me as calming influence (though not nearly as sexy) is the feeling of my fingers on the keyboard. It changes my chemical makeup.
And then there's the yoga...oh, the yoga.
My body seemed to know, when I began to practice seriously, that there was an untapped wellspring of grace somewhere in that clutzy form of mine. And one day, it just let it out. I remember being in a class, and moving between two poses and feeling, suddenly, that my body was no longer made of body...but of silk. Or water. Or thick smoke. I remember feeling like I could move, not just the grosser elements--the big limbs and muscles--but everything in my body, all the way down to the ends of my hair. I could move from my cells. I could move from my skin. And I felt the way that pose could slip into pose into pose into pose...and, oh my, oh my.
This, you have to understand, born from a girl used to feeling more scrappy than serpentine, more used to the sound of her body accidentally running into things than the sound of breath moving through it...the feeling of grace, I'm trying to say, was not one I was used to.
I remember thinking, "well geez, body, if this is was what you were made to do...why didn't you tell me sooner?"
And as I practiced more and I more, I realized that in order to feel all of this juicy stuff...in order to really move from my toe-tips to my hair-tips...I had to slow down. I had to allow some time. Things don't melt all in a flash...it takes a slow steady application of heat, (if you don't want to end up with just a bubbling pot of burnt). It's this way with food, and it's this way with muscles, and it's this way with pesky and particular thoughts. There has to be room and time for things to transform.
But, until very recently, this slow-ness has been confined to the space of my mat...it has been my sole refuge of slowness. Until recently. When, for whatever reason, it has finally become apparent to me that if I want larger change in my larger life, I have to take what I am learning and make it...larger. I have to begin to stretch out my little yoga-bliss-sweater so it covers the whole of my life. Which means, consciously bringing tools out of the classroom and into my living room/bedroom/kitchen/waking life. Which, in this case, means slowing down.
Walking a little slower. Talking a little slower. Doing less all at once. Breathing. More. Thinking. Less.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Our natural pace is slow. When we are relaxed, when we are calm, when we are happy, things move slowly. Our breath. Our thoughts. Even the changes in the room around us. Haven't you noticed--when you feel turned on or connected to your life, you suddenly have time to notice the way the breeze moves the curtains just so? To notice the sounds of a chain cling-clanging against a far away fence somewhere? To notice the way the little hairs on your arms wiggle? To notice the color of the sky outside the window? Has, in those moments, has the speed of the world changed...or have you?
If you have some time today (heh heh)...try it. Take something slow. Anything--a walk down your block, the next forkful of food you bring to your mouth, the speed at which you are reading to the...end....of...this...sentence.
Try it out. See what happens.
