Slower
Today, after teaching my morning yoga class, I realized that I’ve been moving way too fast. In fact, I took a quick video of my walk from the studio to the coffee shop after class to grab some caffeine before heading into work. As I played the video back I realized how fast my feet were moving. I couldn’t recognize the pace as my own, and I thought, ‘I need to slowwww down.’
With so much packed into my schedule lately, despite not getting as much sleep as I know I should, I still have the energy to go, go, go. Racing. In word, step, breath, action. And seldom do I even feel like I need to take pause, but it’s SO important.
Here I am, teaching to my students that they need to create space, soften into a pose, soften into the world, be present, breath and be in this moment. And yet, the only space I have is the space I leave in my wake as I’m rushing from one thing to the next. I’m pounding my feet running from place to place, taking no extra time to absorb where I am when I’m there - no softness for myself, no softness in the world, certainly, limited time for softness toward others. I lose my phone, misplace my shoes, forget my lunch, because I’m moving too quickly to be present in any moment long enough to recognize where I’ve set something down. I’m absolutely not present on my mat unless I’m practicing in the sanctity of my own home or some other studio, and even then, my here-now-ness isn’t necessarily at the front of my mind. I don’t have the time to breathe deep and long because I’m used to being on the go and have conditioned myself to breath at the pace at which I’m moving.
There is no now in any moment these days - I have to think about what’s happening in an hour, in 5 hours, at the end of my day, first thing in the morning, just to keep track of every moving piece. Instead, I need to take it step by step, knowing that I’ll get to where I need to go if I’m in this moment because subconsciously, we all know what direction we’re going and how to get there, we just forget to trust ourselves.
