Building our capacity to go slow

Have you ever tried to slow down, only to feel more restless, more anxious—like there’s a ticking clock inside you saying, ‘keep going, keep moving, there’s no time to stop?’ Maybe you want to be meditating but when it comes to the time to sit down and close your eyes a little voice says, ‘you don’t have enough time, just keep going, or you can do that later’. Or maybe you get through an entire day and the thought to meditate doesn’t even come leaving you feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. This is a common pattern we can find ourselves in that’s emerged from a culture that values and emphasises doing over being and rewards us for our productivity rather than quality of life. Imagine if we grew up in a world where true success wasn’t about how much money we made that day or how many hours of work we did but rather the state of our nervous system.

Constant doing, incessant thinking, frenetic energy, and an inability to stop are all symptoms of fight or flight. I often say we are living a habitualised, normalised, state of fight or flight which means that most of the time we don’t actually recognise that it’s happening. It’s so normal and ingrained in who we think we are that we don’t recognise our thoughts and actions are coming from a state of stress. We continue as we always have until something comes along that starts to reveal how stressed we actually are. Maybe you listen to a podcast, read an article, start a yoga practice, download a mindfulness app, do a seminar on stress at work… or possibly you learn Vedic meditation. In these ways we start to recognise where we are at, we feel and see more, and may start to realise the way we’re currently operating isn’t giving rise to the life we truly want to live.

Revealing of our stress is one part… taking action is the next. In order to create change we have to do things differently. If we have normalised going fast, doing a lot, and relying on frenetic energy to get us through the day, then slowing down may initially feel uncomfortable. This is the point we get to in our journey where we know what we need to do, we know meditation is good for us, but we throw up all the reasons we can’t stop our daily life to do it.

When we don’t feel safe we constantly do.

Even when life is objectively safe, our nervous system doesn’t always recognise that. If in the past we relied on speed, hyper-productivity, or perfectionism to get through something overwhelming, our body remembers. It registers ‘doing’ as the way to stay safe. And so, even now, in a different season of life, we might still be running—striving, achieving, staying busy—not because we want to, but because some deep part of us believes we have to.

This is the brilliance of the nervous system: it’s always working for us, always finding ways to keep us from feeling what once overwhelmed us. The controller, the perfectionist, the overachiever—these are all protector parts. They don’t mean to exhaust us; they just want to keep us safe. But the truth is, we are not meant to live in a constant state of urgency. Our bodies are not designed to sprint forever. Eventually the system crashes. Burnout, chronic fatigue, and exhaustion aren’t signs of failure; they’re signs that our body has reached its limit and can’t keep mobilising, so it shuts down.

How do we begin to unwind this pattern?

The nervous system doesn’t learn through logic. It doesn’t respond to knowing that we should slow down. It needs to experience that slowing down is safe. That we won’t lose love, success, or stability by stepping off the hamster wheel. That rest doesn’t equal collapse.

We have to build our capacity to slow down.

Little by little, we have to show our system new data points. We take tiny moments to pause, to breathe, to notice safety in the present. We learn that life isn’t something to keep up with—it’s something to be in. And in that place of deeper regulation, we don’t just survive; we thrive. Creativity expands. Possibilities open. And, funnily enough, we accomplish more with less effort because we are no longer fighting our own biology.

Showing your body its safe to slow down.

The nervous system is subcortical, meaning that it lives in the body and is below the cortical thinking brain. This is why we can’t just say to ourselves ‘it’s safe to slow down’ and it happens straight away. We need to show our body that it is safe to do so. We need to have what we call disconfirming experiences - we need to disconfirm that incessant doing is the only way to operate in life.

One way to do this, that also happens to be really enjoyable, is to engage in something you really really love doing and helps you feel really good. Maybe that’s putting on a song and dancing, walking, spending time with friends, reading a book, painting, gardening, the list is endless! Right after this enjoyable activity engage in something you need to get done. Maybe that’s work related or maybe there’s a phone call you have been putting off or the dishes have really started to stack up. As we engage in the activity pay attention to and be really present to how it feels to get things done from a place of regulation. Consciously recognise that things still get done when I’m regulated and slow. In fact they probably get done more efficiently and with more enjoyment! What we are doing here is showing ourselves there is another way. That fast paced action may be the cultural narrative but we do not have to partake in it. We can choose to gauge the success of our day based on the state of our nervous system not how much we get done.

There is a different way to live. A way that is rooted in steadiness rather than stress. In sufficiency rather than urgency. In deep and grounded trust that life is moving at exactly the right pace—and we are allowed to move with it.

Love Kathleen x

Resources to explore.

Read ‘anchored’ by Deb Dana to take a deeper dive into nervous system regulation and why it is so important.

Sign up for our weekly group meditations, prioritise a culture that supports you slowing down.

Learn the advanced practice of rounding to gift yourself the deep rest thats needed to help shift the state of your nervous system.