To be early is on time, on time=late and to be late is unacceptable
Slow down, slow down, slow down. But in my head is always Tik Tok Tik Tok.
Sometimes I personally find myself figuratively stopping in the middle of the race hands on my knees heaving in and out in and out, at which point I realize that I am not actually running a race. We hear it all the time. Take your time. But my mind often races to the end. The limit. When this happens I start to run through my days as if I am taking a timed assessment. When I would take a timed assessment in school, often the default mode in my brain was to use that time as a pressure cooker. Needing every answer to be right but I only had so much time. More often than not this caused me to question my answer, flip flop back and forth from A to C. When it turns out the right answer of course was my first instinct. That pressure caused my mind to fumble and my heart rate to climb right up to survival mode. Life can be like this. Sometimes I put all of this external pressure on myself that doesn’t serve me, meanwhile the world has its own external pressures it piles on. I end up running around leaving my keys who knows where and not being as thoughtful as I can be in my daily decisions to get to the next moment of “importance” whether that be a project, or time for a friend or work. There are no right answers to hit by a certain time. There is only now, and how you would like to better move forward with the time that you have. How you would like to help yourself to help others with the time that you’ve got. For me this can only happen through kindness because truly I have found that once one cup is full there is always another cup that is emptying balancing those cups has importance to live a full life, but fumbling the cups to save another to have perfectly full cups at all time, is a race. Sometimes you truly don’t know the way, but something feels wrong. Follow that gut feeling, there may be a cup you have been neglecting while running the race. Maybe take the time to fill someone else’s. You don’t lose any part of who you are, all you’ve experienced or learned by letting go and trying something new, especially when prime needs aren’t being met. Personally Ive always felt best in an actual race when turning around and finishing with a friend. I think sometimes I need to be that friend to myself, slow down, set my keys by the door and give myself the grace I deserve!
When the pressure is pressing on tik Tok tik Tok and I notice my mind racing my heart rate climbing I like to:
Open a book about something I’m passionate about
Pick up the phone and call a friend
Learn a new perspective
Look at my planner
Walk out the door
Drink a coffee slow
Wash the dishes
Move my bones
Lay on my floor pillows and stare at the ceiling breathing in breathing out
Think about joining a pickleball team, laugh and then get in a dance studio alone or with friends
Call my mom, call my sister
Write, write, write
This ones a popular one for a reason, Look at the universal signs and have gratitude for what is lining itself up.
Sometimes its hard to catch the mind doing this and I end up resting or crying, also valid. But being able to listen to your body before it gets to this point, allows you to be proactive and use the race to bring you out of your head and into the rest of your life.
I hope this lands if you need it. In a world that lacks enoughness, I hope you know. You are enough every past version of you has been and every future version of you will be.
Love and light,
Haley