Self-Care - How to go Slow on Purpose

My whole life has been about speed. For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt as though I should do as much as possible in the least amount of time. I was even a productivity coach for a few years, before transforming to the Magickal Creatrix.

Life has been fast for a long time

It probably began at school. It was certainly present at collage and University, as I remember how monumental amounts of work with tight deadlines were piled on top of me.

My working life became about getting applications in quick, showing up early, and going that extra mile to prove I was the right person for the job.

I’ve taken this ethos with me into every part of my life, and the result is that I burn out…..a lot!

Burnout for me can last anywhere from a few days to a few months, and it’s not pleasant.

Finding myself out of sync with life

Recently, my desire to control the pace at which I live my life and the event’s I’ve experience have been out of sync more than usual. And I have been energetically crashing all over the place as this disconnect became more and more obvious.

After all these years, I think I’ve finally realised that the only way to do a lot of the things I want is to be slower.

I want to slow down.

I need to slow down.

But honestly, I don’t know how to be deliberately slow after a lifetime of fast.

I’ve spent a lot of my adult life investigating productivity systems, exploring time saving tools, reading books, taking courses, testing new things, failing at most of them and temporarily succeeding at the rest.

I’ve done all this to get ahead, to be successful, to find happiness, and to discover my passions. Instead, for as long as I can remember I’ve swimming upstream and burning out.

Something I haven’t tried for any extended period is slowing down, and the way I see it, I’ve got nothing to lose, as right now things are uncomfortable.

Learning to slow down

I’m not exactly sure what slowing down looks like for me, as I’m going to work that out along the way and share the journey as I go. But for now, I’m focusing on building awareness of my need to speed things up, fit things in, do more in less time, and take on more than I am capable of.

I need to recognise when the habit of going too fast appears in my life and work, and acknowledge it, then deliberately slow down.

Just today (the day I wrote this blog) I’ve already noticed :

• The urge to write out a huge to do list of unachievable tasks for the day
• Overwhelm building up as I begin to think too many steps ahead of myself
• My heart rate increase and my energy change as I click into ‘work mode’
• My uptight attitude about needing to walk the dog in the middle of a busy day, rather than taking it as an opportunity to welcome the break, enjoy some fresh air and take my time.

Surrender to a new pace

There is an element of surrender required here. It’s important to surrender to a new way of doing things, a new mindset, a new pace.

Surrender often feels uncomfortable, but the rewards can be huge.

Check out my blog - Surrender and Let Go, Working with the energy of surrender

Ask yourself……

The question I want you to ask yourself is: How fast does your life feel right now, and is it a pace that is beneficial or challenging?

Hi, I'm Sarah... 

..astrologer, artist and life improvement enthusiast

I’m a big fan of using every tool available to create our best lives. It’s not always easy to see life’s challenges as opportunities, but as we learn to tune in to our own needs, explore our behaviours and make better future decisions, it becomes possible to craft an amazing journey for ourselves and those around us. My goal is to help you explore your own life, habits and behaviours in a way that can benefit you and those around you.

If you loved this article, then you’re going to love Cosmic Cuppa, my Monday morning motivational emails, where I share a peek behind the scenes of my own life and how I use astrology, at and self-development to explore ways to show up and be better every day. I also send a digest of my weekly blog articles every Thursday.