Slow Juicing Your Life

I feel we have collectively been under the somewhat false impression that faster is better. Possibly also that faster ways of living, working and relating are the only ways.?

It was 2005 and I was at a GE Energy global meeting. I was sitting in a crowd of a few hundreds people from all over the world, listening to a top executive offering what was meant to be an inspirational talk. His starting line sounded something like: “If you want to be successful you have to walk faster, talk faster, move faster”.?

I remember myself wondering: “Does the world really belong to those who walk faster, talk faster and move faster? What about the others? Are they left behind and doomed to a future of mediocrity and invisibility?”.?

For a bunch reasons I won’t discuss here, life did take me to move faster. But the fact is, moving faster did not really make me more successful, nor happy. It only made me feel more disconnected.?

Faster all too often becomes louder.?Then over time noise takes over. And there is no space left at all, no pause, no beginning and no end. No interconnections. It all becomes a blur in which we keep moving faster and louder towards … well, we may not even remember.?

I have the feeling that so many of the dis-eases we encounter today (overwhelm, burnout, mindless action, decision paralysis, paralyzing fear, abysses of separation, judgement and blaming loops, etc.) have to do with a lack of beginnings and ends, of spaces in-between, spaces in which life can expand and create forms, fluid containers that fold and unfold for new life to take shape and evolve.?

Some of the containers we have created, valid and adaptive at some point for sure, are now too tight or too limiting, we move within them without ease, we feel stuck. And our movements become frantic, aggressive, compulsive. Faster. Louder. Less graceful. Discombobulated.?

I see a lot of discombobulation.

Ease needs flow. Flow needs space. Open channels. To create space and unclog the channels we need to move slowly, pause, respect silences, allow pauses. If you pay close attention, you may notice that parts of you are in the habits of moving fast. Maybe those parts of your self have grown in aggressive environments, competing for resources, affections or recognition. Some other parts of you, instead, may just want to be slow, to soften, to let go of the edges, to find flow.?

Can you move as the slowest part of you, trusting that this will not make you a failure? Can you trust that this is the only way to get out of being invisible? Because when you do move slowly, what may happen is that you may open your eyes, you may see what you hadn’t seen before from the high speed train in which you were trapped. You may finally hear. You may sense, taste, smell. You may feel alive. You may feel connected. And you get out of that undistinguishable river of not-inhabited shells. You take shape. You take space.?

When we are no longer chasing an ever moving target, we may just come to be. We may start to embody the whole space our body occupies.?We may grow our influence, expand into the world, touch others, be touched. We may feel still.?

Stillness, I discovered, is not a lack of movement, but a movement from center. A movement that emerges from your flowing pace, after the edges, beyond the chaos, connected again to joy.?

Many of the clients I work with tell me they lack joy. They long for lightness.?

Light. Laetitia. Joy.?

Light is joy and it needs channels to flow.?

How can you then move so slowly that light can flow through you again, fill you and connect you??

Just like a Slow Juicer, whose rotating, repetitive slow movements extract nutrients from our greens. Maybe also our soft rotations, comforting repetitions and slow movements will extract nutrients from life. I wonder, can we slow juice our life??

Here are some ideas of how, for those who are beginners like me:

• Honor beginnings and ends: honoring beginnings and ends means honoring the space in-between them. So create rituals, rituals to start the day (even if it’s only a breath and an acknowledgment of a new day) and to end it. These days I close my days with restorative yoga practices: I so enjoy the comforting sensations of bolsters, cushions, sand bags, I’m re-teaching my body how to simply allow relaxation.
• Cultivate transitions: Observe and respect how energy flows through the awakening, increasing, performing and completing cycle of each action. Be mindful of not getting drunk in the rush of energy of beginnings, pace, savor, practice temperance, let go, stay disciplined, and complete fully
• Practice completing: complete, pause, stay, keep the attention, hold the gaze, soften and connect through closures. Learn not to fear completion and the renewal opportunities it offers.?
• Respect your rhythm and the rhythm of others. Stay authentic. Move from your center.?
• Walk slowly. Speak softly. Refrain from jumping to conclusions. Hold the discomfort. Shut up. Listen.?
• Create ‘containers’ in your day and do only one thing at a time. ?
• Watch out for the patterns of an agitated mind: judgement. Watch out for the patterns of a closed heart: cynicism. Watch out for the patterns of a stuck will: fear. Cultivate curiosity, compassion and courage instead.?
• Dance. Let the movements emerge from within. Let them connect you to your space. Make love to the space around you. Be its lover, know it intimately, feel it on your skin.?
• And smile. Pause and smile.?

A slow life is a life full of nutrients. Nuances. Interconnections. Moments. Glimpses. Possibilities. Not sure how you define success, but for me this is it.

Alessandra