I realised something the other day.
Nothing particularly spectacular or ground-breaking - just the small but saddening observation that there is, in fact, very little about my ‘modus operandi’ that could ever be described as slow, leisurely or relaxed.
If there’s a corner to be cut, I’m first in line with the scissors… and it’s an affliction which has permeated more behavioural layers than is probably necessary, let alone ‘healthy.’
Work. Fitness. Food. If my trademark highlight-all-then-delete approach to 'inbox full' isn't telling enough, then the avocado that goes into the salad in one full, un-diced scoop may in fact be the best metaphor yet, for my somewhat sped-up take on 'slow and steady wins the race.'
Avocado hacks aside....there’s also showers!
A stereotypically serene affair, if the rainforest aesthetic of those shampoo adverts is to be believed, yet my showers are invariably thwarted in their meditative bliss.
Granted, #savewater is a factor here, but it's the drip-drip of ideas and remembered stuff that always seems to interrupt that otherwise relaxing flow most.
Heading up the list of other hurriedly completed to-dos...
Make up - rushed!
Coffee - downed!
Yes, pretty much everything I do, bar maybe a few exceptions, seems to be synced to a too-fast tempo, and to such an extent that anything normal-paced now feels wildly uncomfortable. Like being caught behind a slow-walker on a narrow pavement kind of uncomfortable.
When deliberating the downfalls of this dialled-up default with a fellow mum pal, it occurred to me how much of my rushing might be out of habit, rather than actual time limitations.
Take skincare - one of the Hurry Monster's most common and unsuspected victims.
Granted, my lack of allegiance to double-cleanse culture and all its multi-stepped, pore-tightening rigmarole, might owe just as much to a lack of patience, as it does time.
However, even in its most abbreviated form, slownesss eludes!
I’m not quite sure how ‘take your time’ has somehow, surreptitiously, slipped out of my lexicon, but it’s my new-found mission… to resurrect it, in two minute increments.
For this challenge, I’ve employed a trick of the trade or two, to help shoe-horn myself into the slowness that every fibre of my faster-faster being, now seems to implore me against.
Putting the mug down between sips.
Post workout stretching (a habit I lost long, long ago in the busyness abyss)
A facial stone!!
Letting the hot facial cloth lie for ten seconds longer.
I imagine it will be a slow process... and progress (the irony of which is not lost on me) and also that these small nods to less haste might not happen initially with enough significance to garner measurement, but what I’m coming to realise is this…
That even the most momentary decelerations - the times when I strong-arm myself into slowness - are a respite as much as they are an opportunity for recalibration... in the direction of a *slightly* less fast-paced norm.
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