Rushing.
“GO!” “What’s next?” “I’m late. Hurry up!” “What else can I do?”
These are just a few thoughts that would race through my mind throughout the day. It was as if I was trying to beat this invisible stopwatch, and there was someone inside my nervous system screaming with a bullhorn “Hurry up!” “Get it done!” “Faster!” This may have served me well in high school in a track meet in the last stretch, but this was not working with what I wanted for myself. How could I attain any sort of calm and peaceful state when my insides had the pedal to the metal? Add less sleep, more stress, and a cup of coffee to this scenario, and I couldn’t go fast enough, do work quickly enough, or even breathe deeply enough. The level of productivity could not match the speed at which my insides were running. Yet I so desperately craved an internal peace. A tranquil respite from the oh so faced paced life of more, more, more.
Why This Hectic Pace?
Wasn’t it Ferris Bueller who said so eloquently, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it”? I couldn’t stop long enough to look around. Therefore, I was missing it. Nowadays, life in the 21st century with all of our highly modern technology is more fast paced than ever and people are feeling it, consciously or unconsciously. Snail mail has been traded for instant emailing and instant messaging with seconds of waiting in between. Translation: we have forgotten how to wait! If there is any space or void we now have a tendency to want to fill it. Got a problem? We need to fix it fast. Space? Quick, fill it up!
Waiting brings up space. Space is at a premium these days, right? Space creates awareness. That’s why many people are not comfortable with space or waiting, as it brings up what we need to be aware of. Feelings, emotions and whatever else lurks in the silence. Awareness is evolution. It’s where we are headed and where many people I life coach are choosing to go. To gain awareness, we have to be comfortable making space and sitting inside of it to observe what we need to see so we can integrate it and go beyond. So, how do I get this internal pace that’s running inside of me to slow down? I have to dive head first into the moment and embrace it.
Embrace and Be With the Moment
What does this look like? It’s about purposely not looking in the future even 2 hours from now. Heck, 5 minutes from now. Stop thinking about the past. Consciously and whole heartedly delve into the present moment and sit myself there like I was Al Bundy about to plop down on the couch with my hand tucked in my pants. Sit in the moment and get comfortable. Sit with my feelings of speediness until a different energy emerges – an energy of peace and contentment.
This is my inner presence or my so-called soul self. This has no speed at all. It coasts along experiencing the fullness of the wind through the trees. It just is. When I can be in the moment and be with exactly what is, feeling and embodying my inner presence, any act of doing or falling behind or not having enough time simply falls away.
There are some days that I have to practice this many times throughout the day. I literally have to catch myself before I run away. So the next time you catch yourself in the fast lane sprinting toward go, go, go – slow down. Give yourself permission to create a little space to wait. Wait for awareness to arise. Remember to breathe, center yourself by any means necessary, and become aware of that centered place inside of you that needs to do absolutely nothing but just exist and be. Slow down and find inner peace.
Touch upon the stillness to feel what you really have and who you really are. That can never be taken away from you, for that is a place of abundance. A place where all is okay by just sitting for tea with this lovely inner friend that you have forgotten about that has been there all along. Take the time to be with this inner self.
If you don’t make this choice, you might just find time speeding away with you attached to it and hanging on for dear life. The choice is yours.
