As many of you know, and those who have been reading my blog will know, the last few years of my life have been difficult ones (to say the least). Life turned upside down with the illness and death of my beloved. And before that, I was working a lot. Too much, some might say. So much so that when I did return to work after losing Graeme, I promised myself that I would never go back to that level of busy. Well, the start of 2026 has felt like all of those promises melted away like cotton candy in water.
With big project work, teaching, psychotherapy placement and university classes, the world feels like it is speeding up and that old familiar tightness is starting to creep back in. Simon and Garfunkel’s 59th Street Bridge song and its opening line of ‘slow down, you move too fast’ is beginning to echo in my heart and I can feel the pull of my meditation practice calling me.
I find it really tempting to resist the need to slow down. It’s part of my habitual pattern to want to taste and engage with all of the curiosities and fascinating marvels that catch my attention. For example, it could be my being inspired by the work of Ernest Oberholtzer, an obscure conservationist who lived on an island on Rainy Lake, Minnesota. (I am currently mapping out in my mind how I can do this myself. Building a cabin and living off the land is easy peasy, right?) Or perhaps it is my re-reading all of the Phillip Pullman books so that I might be ready for his last in the Book of Dust series. It’s clear to see that I can enthusiastically take too much on. When this happens, I find that the things that I enjoy start to overwhelm me. I mean a small interest in psychotherapy has led to a Masters degree!
This past week, the fullness of my schedule had me walking and talking faster than I care to admit. In fact, the speed behind my words were like an alarm bell telling me to slow things down and connect back in with my non-negotiables: my meditation practice, some mindful movement and at the very least a daily hour of unstructured time to myself.
Interestingly, being busier and moving faster does not mean that you get more done or live a more meaningful life. There has been much research around the fact that when we slow down, we still get the same amount of living in. Also, living becomes much richer and more connected to not only ourselves, but to the world around us. We’re able to notice details and listen to cues from our body and those who we spend time with as to what it is that we need and/or even what it is that they need. In this way, slowing down is a compassionate action that can give our amygdala a rest so that we can think clearly and act with intention.
Slowing down also helps to drop us into presence. When we slow our pace we have the potential to create the mental and physical space necessary to shift us from a mode of doing into a mode of being with whatever is happening around us. We can do this through single-tasking or focusing on one activity at a time, setting boundaries both for ourself and others and making sure that we remember to pause, feel the feet on the ground, the breath moving through the body and opening up to what it is we can see, smell, hear and taste.
One other way we can do this through meditation. So if, like me, you need a reset to slow down, I will be delivering a practice at the Sanctuary’s online community sit, this Tuesday at 10am Irish time. Why not join us?
-Jane
My Silent Place 
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