This entry was posted on Jan 21, 2026 by Charlotte Bell.
Slowing the tempo of our lives transforms the mundane into the transcendent. It teaches us how a lot there may be to understand in simplicity.
Years in the past I took a trip to Baja, to go to some pals who had relocated. One morning I made a decision to take a stroll on a abandoned seaside. As my tempo slowed as a result of mushy sand, I started to note issues alongside the best way that I may not have seen if I’d been dashing alongside at my typical tempo. I observed a superbly formed conch, glowing pebbles, multicolored sand crystals. One specific pile of tide particles caught my eye. I ended to look extra carefully.
Right here had been minute shells simply millimeters lengthy, vibrantly coloured, iridescent, unimaginably stunning. The longer I squatted within the sand inspecting the particles, the extra beautiful the scene turned. Even the tiniest shells had been attractive, painted and lacquered with care as if by miniature artisans. I mused that if I squatted there lengthy sufficient I’d be capable to discern the character of every grain of sand within the beautiful pile of particles. I used to be grateful I had nowhere to go, no essential process to perform. This jogged my memory of the elegant great thing about slowing down.
The Observe of Slowing Down
I initially turned acquainted the follow of slowing down on my first vipassana meditation retreat a few years in the past. That is the place I first discovered the formal follow of strolling meditation. As the times glided by, the follow of slowing down started to filter into every part we did—consuming, brushing enamel, washing dishes, showering, ingesting a cup of tea, working towards yoga asana.
From the surface, we in all probability seemed a bit odd, possibly a bit of sleepy and lackluster. However the internal expertise couldn’t have been extra vibrant. Slowing down and connecting with the myriad micro-movements that make up every motion made me really feel totally, consciously alive.
“We’re all sensation junkies,” stated creator and meditation trainer Sylvia Boorstein on a retreat I attended at Spirit Rock Meditation Heart. We’re a tradition that craves stimulation, a tradition of pace and pleasure. As a folks we’re interested in driving quick, being scared out of our minds by movies, watching aggressive sports activities and listening to loud music. This stuff are thrilling and stimulating to us. Feeding our sensation behavior helps us really feel extra important.
How Speediness Can Obscure the Second
The yoga sutras outline yoga as “the settling of the thoughts into silence.” Once we pace alongside at our ordinary tempo, our actions turn into mechanical. Our minds are anyplace however within the current. However it’s within the current second the place our minds can settle into silence. Once we decelerate, we are able to extra simply glimpse the silent thoughts, the infinite sky of consciousness.
In the identical method the tangled mass of particles on the seaside can remodel right into a incredible panorama, the sensations of dwelling in our body-mind might be fairly compelling. However we have now to decelerate to expertise them. From the vantage level of readability, what we see, really feel, hear, contact, scent and style could be a celebration.
By means of quiet yoga and meditation follow I’ve discovered the refined energies shifting by means of the physique to be fascinating. Once we are keen to decelerate sufficient to look deeply, new worlds divulge heart’s contents to us which are profoundly satisfying and enlivening.
Nonetheless, working towards slowing down on a meditation retreat, the place it’s a important a part of the follow, is kind of totally different from attempting to calm the pace of our each day lives. In Twenty first-century Western tradition, having a full schedule is taken into account to be an indication of advantage. Taking time to chill out is taken into account to be an indication of weak spot or sloth.
It’s, actually, enjoyable to interact in actions that stimulate. However dwelling in a state of fixed exercise, with no time to decelerate or cease, is just not a state of steadiness. It’s from the bottom of steadiness—the ever-changing centerpoint between motion and relaxation—that we stay most gracefully on the earth.
Gradual Down, De-Stress
It’s debatable that stress is the plague of our time and tradition. Many people preserve the lightning tempo of our lives through adrenaline. Our adrenal glands and nervous system work extra time to maintain us on observe. The adrenals are supposed to assist us by means of occasional nerve-racking conditions, not the regular onslaught of a packed schedule. With out occasional relaxation, they put on down. Once they put on down we turn into drained and really feel harassed.
Gradual motion could alter our physiological steadiness in a method that’s replenishing to our nervous system. Roger Cole, Ph.D., is a yoga trainer and analysis scientist who specializes within the physiology of rest, sleep and organic rhythms. He research the advantage of gradual actions, corresponding to yoga and tai chi, on the human nervous system.
“They supply regular, light, nice enter to the nervous system from kinesthetic sensors within the physique (muscle spindle stretch receptors, golgi tendon organs, joint place sensors),” he says. “Simply as after we get a therapeutic massage, this might assist induce reflex rest of the muscle mass and make us really feel mentally protected, decreasing the ‘fight-or-flight’ response the mind (and thereby decreasing the degrees of stress hormones circulating within the bloodstream).”
How Slowing Down Would possibly Truly Make You Extra Productive
Maybe the physiological advantages of slowing down may even enhance our potential to perform what we have to do. Once I take time every day to drop my schedule and do one thing utterly unrelated to work or to do nothing in any respect, I come again to my duties with extra readability and equanimity. Some days could permit an hour to decelerate; others could not.
On the extra tightly scheduled days I’d do one thing easy. This might embrace:
- taking a leisurely stroll across the block
- working towards just a few yoga asanas
- mindfully washing the dishes
- enjoying with my cats
- savoring my dinner
- mindfully ingesting a cup of tea
It doesn’t matter what I do to. What issues is that I permit myself to go to the second totally, to expertise its richness and sweetness. How a lot work I accomplish is much less essential than the spirit and care I deliver to what I do. Slowing the tempo of our lives transforms the mundane into the transcendent. It teaches us how a lot there may be to understand in simplicity.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the creator of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed by Rodmell Press. Her third e-book is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and people sextet Crimson Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.
