Slowing Down and Getting There Faster

By Dr. Tanya Smith, TCM

In our pursuit to get ahead and do the best for ourselves or our families, we can get caught up on a giant hamster wheel, only to realize years later that we have ended up where we started. Digital pings and consumer messages distract us and keep us busy enough so we don’t hear the call of our hearts. We fail to see the dividends of making time for family meals or time to connect with ourselves or nature. We think this busyness is getting us where we want to go, to a place of happiness, prosperity, and contentment. And maybe once we’ve arrived, then we can take better care of our health or provide more for our families.

My challenge to you is to set aside some time TODAY for self-renewal. To step off the hamster wheel and get in touch with yourself again. Notice how you feel when you take this time for yourself. Nurturing ourselves can make us naturally feel more loving, which makes us better friends, partners or parents and more fun to be around!

We’re so busy, it’s easy to get out of practice and forget how to take care of ourselves. Check out the ideas below to get your creative juices flowing.

Move
Move your beautiful body, shake your sillies out, exercise, stretch, breathe deeply, dance, jump.
When you exercise, your body rewards you by releasing a cascade of feel-good hormones (endorphins). These endorphins are Mother Nature’s antidepressants, lowering your stress and boosting your sense of well-being. And to boot, exercise burns calories and helps regulate your insulin levels, reversing some of the metabolic imbalances that can contribute to weight gain and other health issues.

Nurture
Put yourself on your agenda and carve out time to start to nourish those parts of you that have been left out. You cannot give to others if you are depleted yourself. This is not about relaxing, or tuning out or taking a break. This is an exploration of the parts of us we try to feed with excess food or tv watching, alcohol or instant messaging.

Be still for a moment and allow that part of you to have a voice and gently ask what it needs. You may be surprised. It may need a bath alone, some time to recharge. It may need a massage, caring touch from another. It may need a phone conversation with a friend that just gets it. It may need an inspiring book or message, fuel to continue the journey. If you listen, the response will bubble up. Nothing is too crazy, follow your impulse, open up the possibilities.

Make time each day to meditate and reflect on what’s important to you and what makes you feel grateful.

Connect
With yourself, with nature, with your community. Humans are social beings. It feeds us, nourishes us and inspires us to have other people around, to feel like we belong. It is very easy, especially in a big city, to live an anonymous life. The flip side of that is that in a big city there are lots of people with similar interests to yours, so it’s easy to find and connect with a like-minded community.

This can be simple. Get to know the person who sells your food, makes your morning coffee, does your dry cleaning, rides up in the elevator with you. Ask their names, crack a funny joke, talk about the weather, just smile and look them in the eye. Whatever it is, invite them into your world, even for a couple of minutes.

These small acts of self-care help to plonk us right back in the present moment, to slow down and realize that much of what we are striving after is already here. We are already happy, we just didn’t notice!