The Importance of “Slow”
Written by: Kally Doyle
As a therapist, one of the most common things I hear when a client begins therapy is, “How do I fix this? How long will this take to fix?”. I, too, have felt the pressure to hurry up and change a dysfunctional behavior or an unpleasant emotion. It is a journey I find myself still in the midst of- both as a human being and a psychotherapist- to learn to slow down.
Our culture puts a ton of emphasis on go-go-go. We want productivity, solutions, action, and results - and we want them now. You work 60 hours a week and you wake up at 4 AM to do so? “Good on you for working so hard!” You manage to run 5 miles everyday, maintain a marriage, call your family regularly, work full-time, and raise kids? “You’re a supermom!”
We love to see it. But should we?
My vote is no, not necessarily.
Unfortunately the by-product of living in a society that values high productivity and low emotionality is a huge slew of problems, including but certainly not limited to: poor quality relationships, attachment issues, burn-out, stress, anxiety, depression, low emotional awareness and intelligence, lack of access to our own empathy for others, disappointment when we cannot immediately produce results or we “fail”, and ultimately, trauma.
When we move too fast, we inevitably have to put certain parts of our lives on the back burner. Often times, the parts of our lives that end up being neglected are the parts that actually need the most love and attention in order for us to truly thrive, not just survive. For example, when we fail to take time to build our relationships with other people, we end up isolating from others and we end up feeling lonely, depressed, unloved, misunderstood, and sometimes even suicidal. When we fail to devote time to learning about ourselves and our own emotions, we struggle to relate to others, to feel fulfilled with ourselves and within our relationships, and we end up in toxic relational patterns because our own emotions don’t feel safe to us. It often takes many of us well into our adult lives to realize something about this fast-paced life is just not making us feel good.
So what do we do about it?
I know you want a solution- a step-by-step guide on how to fix the unhealthy aspects of your life- but unfortunately I can’t give that to you. In order to heal…to feel more fulfilled with yourself, your life, and your relationships…you have to slow down.
What does this mean?
Slowing down can be taken to also mean "learning to be more present and aware in the moment”. It means that instead of chasing a “solution” to stop the uncomfortable feelings or the relationship stress, we really need to turn our focus to intentionally slowing down and learning how to tune into ourself, mind and body, and our emotions and body cues.
It also means we learn to process and move through things at a slower pace. If you’re anything like me, you may notice a tendency to move quickly throughout your day and also when thinking or processing feelings. However, we must remember our nervous system moves much, much slower than our minds do. If we fail to account for this, we most likely are constantly amping up our body and subsequently our stress responses and stress hormones without allowing our body and nervous system to fully move through and complete the stress response on its own. If we don’t allow our nervous system to move through all parts of the stress response (noticing the stress, registering the stress as an emotional state, and discharging the stress through appropriate action), our body gets stuck in that stress response and new stress only builds onto this stress. It is when we are failing to complete the stress response cycle that we notice trauma responses, anxiety, irritability, aggression, avoidant behaviors, isolation, & lack of energy and motivation within ourselves.
So how does one ‘slow down’?
Truthfully, there is no single, simple answer. However there are several approaches that I have found to be effective in helping one slow down and learn to be more comfortable with uncomfortable emotions and stress:
1) Somatic-based therapies: Somatic, or body-based, therapy includes the nervous system and the body’s responses in the therapy process. It allows for the client to gradually learn to feel more connected with themselves and more aware of their body cues and sensations. With this awareness, one can gradually learn to become more comfortable with emotional states and responses instead of rushing to push away emotions or behave in reactive or destructive ways.
2) Practice guided visual meditations or body scans: Every night as I go to sleep I listen to a guided visual meditation or a guided body scan meditation on Youtube. I have found that personally, I experience less anxiety throughout the daytime to follow on the nights I practice meditation. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to change the brain over time. Meditation also can help you become comfortable with slowing down and being present in your body. You also learn to just notice, instead of impulsively taking action based on your internal state.
3) Practice grounding or ‘orienting’ throughout your day: Orienting, also called grounding, is when one takes time to connect with the present moment and their present self. It can be thought of as re-centering your thoughts, attention, and awareness. Practicing this throughout your day, including moments when you can recognize anxiety or stress building, can lead to you learning to live more presently in the moment, and can help an anxious, fast mind slow down and pause. The body will typically respond to orienting techniques by calming down whatever stress response is occurring. One such technique I like to introduce to my clients is the following: “Take a moment to notice in this moment what it feels like to sit in your chair. How does it feel to be supported by your chair? How does your back feel against the chair? Can you feel your feet firmly planted on the ground? Can you feel the breath in your lungs?” Practicing this technique or other grounding techniques can help stop panic attacks and keep anxiety and stress from escalating in the moment. Remember the key word is practice…it may not work every time you try it and it is not a cure. Practice increases the chances that you will remember to use this technique in times of high stress and panic, and increases the odds your body will respond positively to it when used.
Hopefully you can see why slowing down is such an important thing for us to consider and to actively practice in our lives. I would like to remind us all that slowing down often does not come naturally to us, as our instinct is to escape uncomfortable emotions and situations, and this is something that needs a lot of practice and intentional work to achieve. Slowing down will only bring benefits to our nervous systems, who already do so much to keep us alive. Therapy is a great place to start this journey, but there are many other tools you can use (such as meditation and orienting) to help you work towards this.
