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.

Radical Self-Care

Are you willing to p*** people off in order to take care of yourself?

I just returned from our amazing Fall Self-Renewal Retreat at The Crossings with twenty wonderful women from around the U.S. (Look for more to come on our April 2010 retreat.) During one session, we explored what our “barriers to self-care” are: what keeps us from taking care of ourselves.

Many women shared that they were afraid of what others might think, they might ignite anger or irritation for taking a stand for their needs or they were afraid they might rock the boat by saying “no” to a request from someone else, so they could say “yes” to their physical/emotional/spiritual well-being.

Can you relate? I sure can.

Usually every Fall and Spring—our busiest times—I become extremely mindful of my time, energy and resources. And invariably, I have to end up saying no more often than yes, to things that truly feed me: new coaching clients (they can work with our amazing senior career coaches Angela and Sarina), opportunities for collaboration/projects with colleagues, starting new partnerships and friends/school social gatherings. Occasionally, I even change my mind and give myself permission to back out of previous commitments.

This used to be really hard for me. I love to help and serve others and have many gifts and talents which allow me to do so on a large scale—whether it’s supporting others to discover their life’s work, experience more balance, grow/expand their business, promote their amazing events/initiatives or remember who they really are.

But just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.

I am not willing to over-work, over-schedule, over-commit or over-extend in order to please others. And, when you commit to this path—which is often lonely—you will invariably p*** off some people along the way.

I took the hard road for the first thirty-something years of my life, but have finally learned that the person that I need to honor, nurture, respect and love above all--is me. And when I am kind, accepting and gentle towards her, everything else flows ...it's all good.

"Self-care is not about self-indulgence. It's about self-preservation." Audre Lorde

AN INVITATION: Interested in how you can learn to take a stand for your needs and tap into the power of self-care? Consider starting/joining one of our women's self-renewal circlesor joining us Oct.29 for our FREE Live Inside Out class via telephone. Sign up here. View all upcoming events here.

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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.

Photo: Renee Peterson Trudeau. Olympic National Forest, WA.

Seasoning

I started a six-week writing sabbatical--basically dedicating 4 hours/day to writing about and exploring a theme that has been sitting with me for over a year--on Monday June 30th.

I have been planning since January--moving client appointments around, tightening our company overhead this summer, arranging for neat summer camp experiences for my son, making sure my staff were prepped and ready to step in for me--in order to make this time possible. (I am still running two businesses during these months, but did say "no" to a lot of new business/clients, events and speaking gigs so I could dedicate this time to my new writing project.)

I swore when I started that I was going to release any stuff around "goals" for this sabbatical (i.e. a book, a CD, a "product") and really just play with this theme--conducting some informal research, doing some interviews, playing with mind mapping and creativity exercises, selecting some new reading around my chosen topic and journaling, journaling, journaling. And, having a lot of fun with my family during my downtime.

I've been "goal-less" for the most part, but man, it can really be hard to release attachment to outcome. I guess I still have some overachiever tendencies lingering in my bones! (Ha ha)

One of the things that has become very clear is that now, less than two weeks into this, I'm discovering that this respite is more about me and my personal/spiritual growth and moving into a new way of being, than a writing project. It feels as if all of the stuff that I'm processing through intense nightly dreams, conversations with close friends and daily revelations are part of my seasoning--preparing me for my next big life stage. (I recently learned about the phrase "seasoning"--a term the Quakers use to describe a period of waiting, where action is not taken because the"way" has not yet "opened"--through Your Soul's Compass, a book I'm reading by http://www.joanborysenko.com/.

I couldn't stop laughing, I told my husband recently, as I envisioned the really powerful (yet humorous) image of myself standing in a tall high rise office building outside of a conference room filled with men and women in suits sitting around a table working very fervently on something that appeared to be very important. I knew I was not to enter and the sign on the door say "Renee's Life Purpose-Keep Out!" I'll know when I know and not before. :).

I'll share more later on the insights I've been having on work pace (mine and our collective), the price we are all paying by working at brake-neck speed AND the theme I'm exploring this month and next.

Marianne Williamson, author/teacher (http://www.marianne.com/) says "Every change is a challenge to become who we really are." I think that describes perfectly the metamorphosis that I'm experiencing right now.