Slowing down is how you ground.
Slowing down will help you to ground.
We've been having a major heat wave this week in Southern California, unprecedented temps into the 90's and 100's.
I can feel it’s been trying the patience of my friends and family, and just about everyone I encounter.
I have found myself thinking a lot about the people who live in places that are accustomed to intense heat - places near the Equator or in the depths of the desert.
How do those people navigate life through such intense heat?
And upon reflection, I thought back to every time I've visited a country or a place that's super friggin' hot. And what I observed was that the locals often moved at a much slower pace, allowing themselves to rest and nap when the heat gets overbearing.
Turns out it works.
The most easeful way I have found to move through the 10+ or so days of record breaking heat is to surrender to the reality of what it is and to slow my normal pace way, way down.
And here’s the thing:
We all have times in life when we feel overheated. Maybe it’s feeling overheated due to external circumstances like really hot weather. Maybe it’s feeling overheated due to being on the verge of burn out. What I am referring to is more of an internal sense of overheating due to inflammation, chronic stress, an overload of toxins or heavy metals in your organs, or unhealthy patterns like workaholism, people pleasing and trying to be all things to all people.
Our modern day technology *obsessed* culture is much, much more oriented to supporting the yang, in a somewhat toxic and imbalanced way. Harder, faster, better, stronger mentality. All that doing creates a lot of heat.
To help drive this point home, think about when you do an intense workout like a really fast-paced vinyasa yoga class or a HIIT workout, you are generating a lot of heat. Heat serves a purpose. It’s a necessary cleanser and part of what keeps us alive. However, we are living in times that are overheated and inflammatory in so many ways.
The most healing antidote is NOT to fight fire with fire. (Despite what the mass media, politics and the news may try to spin. Despite how many people fight each-other in traffic or say across the internet. Fighting fire with fire just adds to the fire).
When you are overheated, the most healing antidote is to give yourself time and space to cool down.
Turns out, slowing down is a really valuable practice for these overheated times we find ourselves in.
In essence, slowing down is how you help yourself to ground.
Slowing down is how you help your body to heal.
Slowing down is how you help your nervous system to unwind and for the processing of trauma.
Over time, slowing down signals to the body that you are safe and allows you to live more of life from a place of “rest and digest” (parasympathetic nervous system) versus “fight versus flight” (sympathetic nervous system). The latter which creates so much stressed based dis-ease.
To drive the point home even more, let’s imagine the opposite of moving at a slow, relaxed pace. Think about when you try to fit way too much into your days. You multitask. Rush around. Over-commit. Over do. Keep adding things onto your endless to do list. Spend too much time on social media, endlessly scrolling and absorbing more information then you can possibly digest.
See how grounded you feel after a day, a week, a year, a lifetime living at that place. Not very grounded at all.
Again, slowing down is how we help ourselves to ground, to cool off, to heal, to balance.
It’s deceptively simple in theory and yet some of the simplest things can be the hardest to put into practice, especially to an ego that’s addicted to speed and always wanting more.
So how do you slow down?
Here are 5 simple ways to start slowing your life down now:
Consciously connecting with the Earth through spending time in nature or the support of Flower Essence Therapy. The organic pace of Gaia is actually much slower than human time, by coming into resonance and harmony with other Earth, we can heal lifetime(s) of rushing from a place of scarcity, trauma and FOMO. Also see 5 below.
Slowing down your breath through practices like meditation, pranayama and breathwork. (Be mindful some types of breathwork can encourage building heat. Alternate nostril breathing is a great practice for balancing the mind and reducing internal heat.)
Do less. Taking at least one thing off your to do list every day and every week.
Engaging in restorative and cooling movement practices like yin and restorative yoga, yoga nidra and tai chi.
Journey to the Mother Gaia Temple Healing Ceremony is a beautiful quantum healing experience that helps you to live life in a more grounded way. It is available as instant digital download in my shop.
Personally, I think some of the best things in life are born of slowing down and not rushing.
With love and compassion,
Jana
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