The discomfort of slow

I struggled to get moving last Sunday. Our household is usually up and about early so we went for a walk around the local market trying to tick off some Christmas shopping. My body just felt heavier and heavier.

When we got home, my family enjoyed working on garden projects and visiting friends in the sunshine, while I lay on the bed with the curtains drawn. I napped, watched some episodes of The Crown and stared out the crack in the window.

There was nothing particularly wrong. I wasn't sick or sleep deprived or premenstrual or depressed. Just heavy with the need to slow down. To not be productive or busy.

And it's interesting how uncomfortable that felt.

I have grown more accepting and gentle with my body's need to slow down and rest in times of convalescence or stress. When I can mentally justify it. But this discomfort was about my need to be slow for no reason, just because I felt it in my body.

There can be a validation in being busy, from knowing that you are doing something worthwhile. You can feel purposeful when striving towards something, and have a sense of belonging from all the tasks that you do and share with others.

I wonder if it is possible to feel valuable and worthy for just being? For moving at the pace of your body. I wonder if we can choose to slow down when our body needs to, without justifying why, or feeling any guilt or discomfort? Without waiting until our body forces us to stop with a crash?

I'm really looking forward to reading Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey soon. I've heard her speak about how rest is an act of resistance. How it is necessary to make connections - literal neural connections and also relational connections with ideas and people. And that we need to model and support each other to rest because it is difficult in our current world.

I want to support rest and being slow for myself and my community. So I am going to continue to feel the discomfort of moving slower, being unproductive, day dreaming and pausing, especially when I think I should be doing more.

I'll keep learning how to value each of us, just for being alive, in our miraculous bodies.

With love,

Emily