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’s to understand in simplicity.
Years in the past I took a trip to Baja, to go to some associates 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 way in which that I may not have seen if I’d been dashing alongside at my typical tempo. I seen a wonderfully formed conch, glowing pebbles, multicolored sand crystals. One specific pile of tide particles caught my eye. I finished 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 analyzing the particles, the extra beautiful the scene grew to become. 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 would be capable of 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 vital job to perform. This jogged my memory of the elegant great thing about slowing down.
The Apply of Slowing Down
I initially grew to become acquainted the follow of slowing down on my first vipassana meditation retreat a few years in the past. That is the place I first realized 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, consuming a cup of tea, working towards yoga asana.
From the surface, we in all probability seemed a bit odd, possibly a bit sleepy and lackluster. However the inside 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 writer and meditation instructor Sylvia Boorstein on a retreat I attended at Spirit Rock Meditation Middle. We’re a tradition that craves stimulation, a tradition of pace and pleasure. As a folks we’re drawn to 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 very important.
How Speediness Can Obscure the Second
The yoga sutras outline yoga as “the settling of the thoughts into silence.” After we pace alongside at our ordinary tempo, our actions grow to be mechanical. Our minds are anyplace however within the current. However it’s within the current second the place our minds can settle into silence. After we decelerate, we will 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 now we have to decelerate to expertise them. From the vantage level of readability, what we see, really feel, hear, contact, scent and style generally is a celebration.
Via quiet yoga and meditation follow I’ve discovered the refined energies transferring by way of the physique to be fascinating. After we are prepared to decelerate sufficient to look deeply, new worlds speak in confidence to us which might be profoundly satisfying and enlivening.
Nevertheless, working towards slowing down on a meditation retreat, the place it’s a very important a part of the follow, is sort 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 calm down is taken into account to be an indication of weak point or sloth.
It’s, the truth is, enjoyable to interact in actions that stimulate. However dwelling in a state of fixed exercise, with no time to decelerate or cease, shouldn’t be 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 planet.
Gradual Down, De-Stress
It’s debatable that stress is the plague of our time and tradition. Many people keep the lightning tempo of our lives by way of adrenaline. Our adrenal glands and nervous system work extra time to maintain us on monitor. The adrenals are supposed to assist us by way of occasional irritating conditions, not the regular onslaught of a packed schedule. With out occasional relaxation, they put on down. Once they put on down we grow to be drained and really feel confused.
Gradual motion could alter our physiological steadiness in a method that’s replenishing to our nervous system. Roger Cole, Ph.D., is a yoga instructor and analysis scientist who specializes within the physiology of leisure, sleep and organic rhythms. He research the good thing about sluggish actions, equivalent to yoga and tai chi, on the human nervous system.
“They supply regular, mild, 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 once we get a therapeutic massage, this might assist induce reflex leisure of the muscular tissues and make us really feel mentally protected, lowering the ‘fight-or-flight’ response the mind (and thereby lowering the degrees of stress hormones circulating within the bloodstream).”
How Slowing Down Would possibly Really Make You Extra Productive
Maybe the physiological advantages of slowing down would possibly even improve our skill to perform what we have to do. After I take time every day to drop my schedule and do one thing fully unrelated to work or to do nothing in any respect, I come again to my obligations with extra readability and equanimity. Some days could permit an hour to decelerate; others could not.
On the extra tightly scheduled days I would do one thing easy. This might embody:
- taking a leisurely stroll across the block
- working towards a number of yoga asanas
- mindfully washing the dishes
- enjoying with my cats
- savoring my dinner
- mindfully consuming 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 vital than the spirit and care I carry to what I do. Slowing the tempo of our lives transforms the mundane into the transcendent. It teaches us how a lot there’s to understand in simplicity.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started educating in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Apply and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third ebook 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 Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.