slowness opens
As someone who has practiced, taught, and written in the landscape of slowness for well over two decades, it continues to intrigue me how humans’ increased longing for slowness mirrors a further distancing from it.
In our current collective moment, there’s a heightened crying out for slowness. The howl is palpable. It aches and breaks open, wails its lament, crumbles itself into restless whimper. It’s painful to witness, and also… I trust what’s happening.
I also wail and break open.
For children.
For adults who care for children.
For you, as child.
We have the wanting. We see the need. We have plenty of ways to practice. What is it, then, that delays our experience of slowness?
Might it be that slowness requires the slowness of itself?
That what seems on the surface as heightened urgency for slowing down is simply evidence of all that’s breaking down. And, that the slow decomposition of things—agitated in busyness of heat and fester—are essential to regenerate a landscape earthed in rich soils of slowness.
In Be Slow Now, I wrote:
We claim slowness by accepting its invitation to come inside. We let ourselves feel the expanse of its space—to rest, to listen, to know—and everything begins to shift.
Yes, and…
We must not let our attention continually drift back to the shift—wanting the shift or measuring the shift or telling stories about the shift.
When we focus on the shift, we box ourselves into the confines of what we are in the process of shedding… efficiency, productivity, control, urgency.
Instead, we can attune to the small openings of slowness, feel their emergence and edges, and allow ourselves to listen.
What do you know of slowness?
What do you know of where you go to settle into the softness of yourself?
That place of drift and stretch.
Where you release your breath, feel your bones, remember your skin.
Where you are held as you are.
Where you follow daydream paths woven with ancient thread,
and find yourself expanded beyond your body and also
in your body, rooted and steady where you are.
Slowness opens space for us to connect from within—to remember ourselves back home.
Our inner home is always here. Our desire for slowness is a simple request to reconnect from the separation we feel.
Slowness is always here, too. Slowness is a space. A space with no requirements of time or effort. A space that expands each moment we connect with it and listen.
Here are two simple practices you might want to try:
Notice for time + big picture
Notice when and how you use or hear the word “slow” and where it shows up connected with time (e.g., trying to make time to go slow, wishing time was slower, wanting more time for something, feeling stress connected with “fast” or “rushing”).
Notice when and how you think or talk about your day in the frame of a “big picture” (e.g., you remember your day as a series of events; when asked about your day you give a generalized answer; you see your week in terms of its calendar; when you’re at a meeting, child’s baseball game, or grocery shopping, you think of it as a whole event to get through).
When you notice elements of your day connected with time or big picture generalizations, especially if they are related to longing or wish for something else, simply acknowledge what you notice. Don’t judge yourself or push anything away. Your focus is only to notice. You may also want to smile (maybe giggle) and say, “I see you.”
Attune to small moments
Think about the ordinary things you do each day (e.g., brush your teeth, rinse the dishes, walk the dog, sit at a particular traffic light, drink water, make lunch, wait by an elevator). Select one or two as a way to begin. When you find yourself entering the moment (e.g., picking up your toothbrush, pushing the elevator button, stopping at the red light), focus on feeling yourself go into it and notice the details inside it, including yourself, for the full space of the moment. When the moment ends, say, “thank you.” The moments you select might be 3 minutes or 3 seconds; it doesn’t matter. You are simply letting yourself be in the space of a moment (instead of moving through the time of it). Note: You can support yourself to remember to attune to moments in this way by leaving little notes for yourself next to the places where you do ordinary things, such as: “I am brushing my teeth” next to the sink, or “I am drinking water” on your glass, or “I am walking the dog” on the leash next to the door.
That’s it? Yes, that’s it.
Slowness doesn’t require effort. It opens from the release of effort.
Consider this possibility…
Perhaps it isn’t hard at all to experience slowness. It is easy. And because it is so easy, we resist it. We aren’t used to the feeling of easy, so when we feel it, we tell stories of not being productive or worthy because we (or others) aren’t trying hard enough.
This is why framing slowness as an idea, strategy, or task of time management will always only keep the experience of slowness at a distance. Slowness isn’t something to add to existing structures held by logics of urgency, scarcity, fear, and outcomes of achievement. Slowness opens within the dissolving of these structures, not when it’s boxed on a shelf next to other “wellness” strategies designed to make such structures more palatable.
This includes the structures of our systems (e.g., schools, healthcare, agriculture, technology) and the structures held in our bodies, understandings, and languages. It is from the frequencies of what we hold inside ourselves that we create what we experience in the world.
There’s a question here that begs to be asked:
Do we really want slowness for our children, our schools, our communities, and ourselves?
If the answer is yes, we must be willing to dissolve, too. To let go of the things that frame, schedule, and urge us to stay separate from each other and separate from ourselves.
Slowness is here, ready for us attune to its small openings and listen.
Will you dissolve and go in?
*
as delight, Melissa
Workshops
Are you interested in a workshop for your staff or community to explore ways to nourish slowness and its possibilities for connection and learning?
Here’s a description of one workshop I offer:
Slow and Spacious Learning:
The #1 request I hear from educators, parents, and others working with children and youth: How can I slow down? How can I get children to slow down? How can everything slow down so we all have more space to be present with the wonder of learning? This workshop is an opportunity for participants to sink into slowness to explore its beautiful possibilities, as well as reflect on what arises inside ourselves that often keeps our learning contexts full of what’s fast and busy. We’ll look at learning design that stifles slowness, and then identify small, concrete ways we can design for more slowness and spaciousness for all learners (including ourselves). Slowness often feels like a far away and lofty goal, but there are clear, actionable, and simple shifts that can make a huge difference in creating more spaciousness for wondrous learning.
Learn more about the workshops I offer: Workshops
Communities of Practice
Would you like to support a group (of educators, leaders, creatives, parents, other) to notice, wonder, share, and reflect about their practice at it connects with slowness? I design, advise, and facilitate learning communities grown from trust, curiosity, deep description, and practices of noticing. A community of practice with a focus on slowness is a powerful way for a group to see what is already present that is beautiful and good, and to invite collective wisdom to find ways to expand experiences of slowness for all who the community serves.
Connect with me to learn more: melissa@melissaabutler.com
Be Slow
Pause. Breathe. Sink in. Be nourished within a sacred space of slowness.
You are invited to experience the softness of yourself and the gentle unfoldings that emerge when you let go.
I am in the process of designing online offerings to support you (and others) to be slow and attune to energies that play within the frequency of slowness—wonder, awe, delight, beauty, love.
I’d love to hear your feedback about the kinds of offerings that most appeal to you.
What do you want?: a slowness survey
Noticing Matters each week
I’ll continue to write about the space of slowness this month, including the edges of overlap between slowness and boredom, slowness and silence, slowness and listening, as well as specific ways to support experiences of slowness for children. If you’d like to receive this writing as resource and nourishment for yourself, please join as a paid subscriber.
Previous writing on slowness (and spaciousness in learning) that may interest you:
Creating Space: Designing for slowness, curious play, and inner belonging | August 2023
You as child: Attunement to wholeness as liberation work | July 2023
Learning IS: play is wonder is art is nature | April 2023
Be Slow Now: Why we long to slow down and how to claim slowness as space to rest, listen, and know | October 2022
Some Slowness | December 2020
It’s like breath | February 2024 | for Fred Rogers Institute
Small is Enough | November 2024 | for Fred Rogers Institute
Notice small, Create BIG
Notice small, Create BIG is now available on my website as an asynchronous course.
When we feel a call to create, sense a surge of energy around an idea, know in our bones that this is something to follow, stretch into, and share… we need nourishment, connection, a wide-open place to play—unfettered, free, and alive.
If you are inside a creative project or feel the whispers of something new, I invite you to explore the invitations in Notice small, Create BIG, a playfully layered course designed to enliven the points of small in your creative process.
Learn more: Courses
Resources from Others
I’ve been re-reading Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity by Tracee Stanley. In a few weeks I’ll be attending a Writers Retreat under her guidance at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. :)
The entire book is valuable reading, but there is one chapter in particular I’d recommend for anyone who struggles to “find the time” for slowness, rest, or spaciousness of care. In Chapter 4, “The Householder’s Flow” (pp 73-85), she shares a beautiful approach along with small shifts of perspective and simple, short practices to embody more rest into your everyday (busy+full) life.
Have you ever found a book on your shelf and can’t remember what footnote you followed or which friend told you about it that resulted in the book now living in your house? This recently happened to me with Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression by Mark Nepo. Oh, is it good! If you are engaged in a creative project or you like to reflect on creative process, you might especially find it lovely.
If you’re interested in the idea embedded in the sentence—“We must not let our attention continually drift back to the shift—to wanting the shift or measuring the shift or telling stories about the shift.”—you might like to learn more about Buckmister Fuller, including his theorizing of precession.
Thank you for reading all the way to the end.
I appreciate your attention and I appreciate YOU.