What, you may ask, does the practice of slowing down and waking up look like in an ordinary day?
It begins with awareness of being sped up. One can be sped up physically or mentally. The action is simply choosing to slow down. It can literally mean taking ones foot off the gas pedal while driving, but this is also a useful metaphor of the entire practice.
An internal example is when I notice myself racing ahead to a worst case scenario in my imagination, I breathe, I make space for another line of thinking, I remember that I am embodied and this gift of a body exists in THIS particular place and time.
Thinking easily becomes automatic and disembodied. This sort of thinking is stressful. It's physically and emotionally harmful, and not only to myself, it effects the way that I interact with others. This effect can be disguised by morality.
One can be committed to treating others with respect and kindness, so that even when you're stressed out and disconnected you are still kind and respectful.
This is obviously good. Good habits are important. But what's lost in this scenario is the presence or playfulness that you would have been able to offer (and enjoy) if you had jumped off the stress train before it left the station.
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An external example of the practice is to physically stop between activities. It's easy for one thing to lead to another in a mind and heart-numbing series of events that, in retrospect, were not intentional, but merely reactive. "The tyranny of the urgent."
The stopping and bracketing of individual events doesn't need to take a lot of time. But if you happen to be blessed with time to spend, it's yours to spend, take ownership. My experience is that through the simple act of lying down for a few minutes between activities, or appointments, I discover a lot of time that I didn't know existed. (And, not inconsequentially, my blood pressure improves, my memory resets, and awareness of my surroundings is enhanced.)
There are myriad other ways in which the awareness of being sped up manifests itself. Awareness begets awareness, this is the ancient, "perennial wisdom," path of awakening.
It begins with awareness of being sped up. One can be sped up physically or mentally. The action is simply choosing to slow down. It can literally mean taking ones foot off the gas pedal while driving, but this is also a useful metaphor of the entire practice.
An internal example is when I notice myself racing ahead to a worst case scenario in my imagination, I breathe, I make space for another line of thinking, I remember that I am embodied and this gift of a body exists in THIS particular place and time.
Thinking easily becomes automatic and disembodied. This sort of thinking is stressful. It's physically and emotionally harmful, and not only to myself, it effects the way that I interact with others. This effect can be disguised by morality.
One can be committed to treating others with respect and kindness, so that even when you're stressed out and disconnected you are still kind and respectful.
This is obviously good. Good habits are important. But what's lost in this scenario is the presence or playfulness that you would have been able to offer (and enjoy) if you had jumped off the stress train before it left the station.
*
An external example of the practice is to physically stop between activities. It's easy for one thing to lead to another in a mind and heart-numbing series of events that, in retrospect, were not intentional, but merely reactive. "The tyranny of the urgent."
The stopping and bracketing of individual events doesn't need to take a lot of time. But if you happen to be blessed with time to spend, it's yours to spend, take ownership. My experience is that through the simple act of lying down for a few minutes between activities, or appointments, I discover a lot of time that I didn't know existed. (And, not inconsequentially, my blood pressure improves, my memory resets, and awareness of my surroundings is enhanced.)
There are myriad other ways in which the awareness of being sped up manifests itself. Awareness begets awareness, this is the ancient, "perennial wisdom," path of awakening.