Slow Down You Move Too Fast!

                    

This weekend I found myself frequently humming, "Slow down, you move too fast ..."

Lately, it feels like life is moving too fast. A month feels like a week--a week, like a day.

Saturday night we really felt the effects of this. 

My husband and I were supposed to attend a big fund raiser for my son's school. As we got closer to the hour of the event, we realized we were tired. Really tired. Lay down and sleep for five days tired (and this is in spite of the fact that we've all been going to bed on time!).

So instead of donning our party clothes, we put on scarves and jackets and drove to a nearby nature preserve to watch Jupiter, Venus and the Moon--through a powerful telescope--dance in the dark night sky. Our entire family was in bed asleep by 9:00.

A parent I talked to the other night--who is also a teacher--agreed, "Things seem to be moving really fast; everything seems unusually intense right now."

I saw a friend last night at an Indian restaurant who echoed our experience, "What's going on? It feels like we're all living at warp speed these days! Where's the off switch?"

This past weekend I went to a Kundalini yoga workshop on living in uncertain times and our teacher affirmed, yes, things are moving faster (on every level) and they're only going to continue to speed up.

When it feels like things are moving too fast, I rebel. I dig in my heels. I stop in my tracks. I stand still. And come home to myself--through my breath and often, through nature.

My brother lives in cabin in the woods in North Carolina; he sent me this haunting poem yesterday. I can't get it out of my mind. It beckons me to find ways and moments in my week to step off the merry-go-round and just s-t-a-n-d  still.

Maybe it will do the same for you.

Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

~ David Wagoner ~

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Video:"Feelin' Groovy"-Simon and Garfunkel; The 59th Street Bridge Song. Written in 1966, the year I was born. Growing up in the sixties and seventies Simon and Garfunkel were constant voices in my home.

Choices

I often hear my coaching clients say they don’t have a choice. What they really mean is they’re not ready to make a hard choice—downsizing to a more affordable home, leaving a financially comfortable job, ending an unhealthy relationship, moving to another part of the country, taking a much needed sabbatical, changing their diet, living on a salary that is half of what they used to make, getting up early to exercise or meditate, etc. (Read my last post where I share about my struggle with this.)

It’s so easy to slip into the sleepy slumber where we think we’re at someone else’s mercy when it comes to how we set up our lives. But we’re not. We’re the masters (or at the least co-creators), not the slaves. And, our choices—big and small—impact our day to day experience of life.

I have many friends and colleagues around the nation who are making hard –and often uncomfortable choices--in order to support their larger life goals of more freedom, balance, simplicity, harmony, health, room for creative pursuits and time to be alone or with family.

The other night my husband I were sitting up late talking after our son went to bed. For us, like many, the year is unfolding differently than we had anticipated. Yet, our gratitude is growing for the choices we’ve made which support our values and allow us to:
*live in a home that is beautiful but modest and only needs one salary to cover the mortgage instead of two
*be five minutes from my new office which provides me more time to focus on the aspects of my business that really feed me
*live close to things that are integral to our quality of life: my yoga and dance studio, hiking trails, a farmer’s market, the Texas hill country, the Crossings
*be at our son’s school community in five minutes, which limits the time we all spend in the car each day
*spend more time together as a family playing music, dancing, being outdoors, talking (because the TV is off)
*enjoy relatively high energy levels, health and vibrancy due to the food we eat and things we do to feed our spirits and minds—not just our bodies
*live lives where we feel a deep sense of connection—to ourselves, our family members and our larger community

There is a story in the chapter on Managing Your Energy from The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal where my photography teacher challenged me in my twenties when I told him I was late to class because of my corporate job. “I had no choice,” I said. I really thought I didn’t. And now, I know I do.

AN INVITATION: Interested in reconnecting with who you are and getting support for the choices you need to make in your life? Check out our women's self-renewal circles, our FREE September 17th Global PRG Sampler Teleclass on Reconnecting with Who You Are, my upcoming The Empowered Entrepreneur Workshop on Aug. 28th in Austin, TX or our life-changing October 2-4 Fall Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat at The Crossings.

Also, visit Live Inside Out and learn how you can live more intentionally (and become a fan on the Live Inside Out Facebook page).

The Journey, a blog about coach/author/entrepreneur Renee Trudeau’s personal journey to life balance and living life from the inside out, comes out weekly. Subscribe here. For more information on Renee’s upcoming events, click here.

Photo: Renee Peterson Trudeau, a field in the Berkshires in upstate MA. My choice: to pause and spend time in natural environments that feeds my body, mind and soul.