Raising Awareness in the Process of Slowing Down
"I wonder if slowing down will be useful."
"I can slow down today."
"Try slowing down for 30 days. Slowing down is a process. It takes time. It's not easy to slow down when you're accustomed to moving physically and mentally at a rapid pace."
"May I ask about your flow?"
In a spiritual direction session, my goal as a spiritual companion is to listen, not judge, pry, or try to fix. The hourly session is about something other than my story or what works for me. However, I sometimes need to share a tidbit of my story when asked. Bo Karen Lee, the founder and director of the Center for Contemplative Leadership at Princeton Theological Seminary, believes when a spiritual directee asks the spiritual director about their story, it builds relationship and trust.
Kent Ira Groff, the founder of Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Growth, advises that before spiritual directors can "listen in on another's sacred script," they must "first listen to their own."
I'd listened to my sacred script of slowing down for five years. I listened to the weariness in my body, such that I didn't want to arise from a well-needed nap or leave my laptop behind on a three-day getaway because I was "keeping pace in a hurried culture."
8 Machine on Unsplash
I remember one year sitting in the parking lot, unsure if I was to be the teacher or the student. I worked as an adjunct lecturer at two universities and took doctoral courses at another. I didn't know where I was or what I was supposed to do. I was moving too fast in body, mind, and soul, crawling up the academic ladder—moving nowhere fast.
For me, the saddest moment in the parking lot was moving fast, which was my usual pace, juggling this and that, catching bits and pieces of my home, work, church, and community life, running on a treadmill, and lifting weights that were just too heavy.
One day, a good friend asked why I was working three jobs. Another moment, while serving food at a church function, someone asked, "Do you ever sit down?"
These questions and concerns raised my awareness of the need to slow down. I had to do more than decrease the speed on my treadmill; I had to discover a method, way, and rhythm of slowing down that fit my lifestyle, goals, and personality. Plain and simple, I had to desire the practice of slowing down. As IAMSON so gently queries in the song "Slow Down," I had to ask myself, "Where are you going? What's so important that can't wait."
"Slow Down" was the song I played during the spiritual direction session with my directee when purposing slowing down for 30 days. I'd been listening to the song since its release in 2023. The song reminded me to "be in the present moment, here in the blessings of today." Although I had transformed my pace from juggling this and that, catching bits and pieces, to a work rest flow of unforced rhythms of grace.
A reminder of our hurried pace is a good way to raise awareness of slowing down. Bayo Akomolafe claims in his blog "A Slower Urgency," "'hurrying up' all the time, we often lose sight of the abundance of resources that might help us meet today's most challenging crisis. We rush through into the same patterns we are used to. The call to slow down brings us face to face with the invisible, the hidden, the unremarked, the yet-to-be resolved." Akomolafe is reminded to slow down when he contemplates the African saying, "The times are urgent; let us slow down."
Becoming aware of hurriedness raised my awareness to pause in between doing things. In a parked car, I set a ten-minute timer and breathed. I did not text, check email, or turn on the radio. I just sat in the car thinking about nothing. And for me to not think, that's another blog for another day. Not thinking for the woman who over thinks took unforced rhythms of grace, time, and patience. I had to trust that things would get done in God's timing and let go of things that were undone. I learned that undone things were not important or urgent, sometimes not even necessary.
The reason for slowing down originates from awareness, consciousness, willingness, and coming "face to face" with whatever or whomever you are avoiding, turning, or running away from. The process of slowing down can be useful when you raise your awareness to:
Urgent matters and pressing problems make you feel stressed or panicked.
Responsibilities that cause you not to take a nap or not wake up from that nap.
Distractions and demands forbid you from feeding your spirit with stillness.
Cannot hear without an agenda or ego inflation.
The process of slowing down begins with raising awareness. It is a slow process. It is not easy. It can be done. Try lingering for a while, slowing down a little more each day in between things.
Let me know if you're listening differently, being oddly more productive, letting things go, breathing better, or coming "face to face with the invisible."
