Slowing Down to a Gentler Way of Being – Moxie On Monday

There are major advantages to getting older.

Who knew? Well, women at Midlife & Beyond, of course! 

One major advantage is that it’s been scientifically proven that time goes faster as we get older. It’s buried somewhere in E=mc².

You may be wondering how on earth could that be an advantage?!?

Think about this for a moment.

One reason life seems to speed up is that we have slowed down! 

One thing I’ve noticed as people get older is the tendency to soften and to move through life in a more graceful and gentler way. 

I woke up early Saturday morning to meditate before my 7am Meditation Teacher training class. One of the women in my study group said something that really stuck with me. She was talking about how life in the corporate world could be so fast. Everyone moved fast. They worked fast. They talked fast. Frankly, she was exhausted by it all. She shared that she was loving this recent “segway into a gentler way of being.” She saw the pandemic as a blessing where she spent more time at home. She could move at a slower pace. She was able to slow down and enjoy life more. She had no desire to return to her previous way of being or doing in the corporate world. The added enrichment and awareness from the meditation teacher training were enhancing her pleasure and experience of life with more ease and grace.

Midlife has a way of changing us. 

Midlife isn’t an age. It’s an experience. Midlife is a portal from who we were told to be, taught to be, conditioned to be – to who we choose to be. 

Becoming more conscious naturally slows us down. 

Slowing down allows us to be more mindful.

Mindfulness leads to greater awareness. 

Dostoevsky was a deep thinker. He loved to dive deep into the human psyche to figure out what makes us humans tick. He believed that to be original, we needed to think deeply. To think deeply, we needed to slow down. He went on to say that if you are slow, the world will seem faster. 

The world seems faster because it moves faster. 

The slower we move, the faster the world around us will seem. 

The more we slow down, the kooky humans look like a bunch of whirling dervishes!

That’s the beauty of Midlife. 

We can choose to slow down. 

If we don’t, oftentimes the universe will do it for us. Perhaps, by tossing in a pandemic, or an illness or anything that rocks our world and forces us to slow down. 

The irony is that when we slow down, we can enjoy more. We get to savor life’s precious present moments. Slowing down keeps us more present. More presence enhances creativity. Greater creativity allows inspiration to flow through us with far more ease and grace. Being inspired brings more joy. More joy makes us magnetic, attracting good things into our lives.

Midlife is a gateway between our younger, more fast and furious self to our older, wiser, slower self – moving more mindfully, more intentionally, more consciously – creating more, BEING more – while expending far less energy.

I’ll admit I was born a Type A, overachiever, a woman on the fast track, so busy on the treadmill of life that I felt more like George Jetson than a mindful Buddha. 

The past few years have left me transformed in many ways. Today, I enjoy slowing down. I enjoy watching the world go by and not having to keep up. I enjoy being me.

I enjoy BEING.

I enjoy ease and grace.

Oh, and I enjoy GRACE!

If you’re ready to leave the fast lane and hop on over to the slower lane with me, here are some tips that have helped me to be more mindful, intentional, conscious and more present:

1. Consider ritualizing a sacred routine into your morning. The way we start our day is the way our day goes. Even a few moments of meditation in the morning will make a world of difference in how your day goes.
2. How about setting your alarm to get up 15 minutes earlier in the morning to give yourself time to savor the quiet time rather than rushing out the door? Pour yourself a cup of tea, watch nature through your window, cuddle up with a book with inspirational sayings – give yourself a precious gift of 15 minutes to get yourself into a positive mindset and a slower pace for the rest of the day.
3. If you start to feel frazzled, give yourself a 16 second time out with Davidji’s 16 Seconds to Peace Meditation: Breath in to the count of 4, Hold your breath to the count of 4, Breath out to the count of 4 and Hold your breath to the count of 4. That’s it! Let go and breathe naturally knowing that you can use 16 Seconds to Peace to slow you down anytime during the day when things start speeding up.
4. Set a Bedtime Intention. Before you go to sleep at night, set an intention to live life at a slower, gentler pace. See yourself in your mind’s eye going through the next day with ease and grace. Intend to live fully in the present moment. Gently float into a deep, peaceful sleep with your future self ready to wake up to a gentler way of being.

Cheers Beauties! How about it? Is it time to slow down? Ready to join me? Please share any tips and secrets that have worked for you to be more present and to savor life’s precious moments?