Slowly, softening

Moving at a different pace

Spring now, and so much is happening outside I can barely spend more than a few hours indoors. I wake to sun pouring through the windows, to bright blue sky, to birds in billowing song. The hours stretch out, longer than ever. I place my hand over my heart and say, “you can go as slow as you need.”

My phone background right now says, “How good can I let this be? Am I open to letting this be easy?” Two questions that catch me off guard, that help me soften to life, to receive life fully. I make things harder than they need to be, when I want things to be “right.” To be “the best.” To be" “fixed.”

When I let the details of my life be messier, I get to be with all that is. I am gentler to myself and others. When I leave on the road-trip ten minutes later, I risk traffic, but I get to rest. When I don’t speak in the mornings, even though there are emails to write and people to call, I can hear myself.

When I can hear myself, I find I am more disruptive. I can’t do all the things asked of me as well as I have in the past. But I notice the rainbow flickering in the spray of the waterfall. I dance in the living room. I let things unravel. I don’t force the timing.

It turns out, I like to move far slower than I ever thought I did. Perhaps I thought my rhythm was hummingbird, but that was actually the pace that felt safest, because I could get the most done.

What if I am rooted tree? Gentle cloud? Trickle of a stream? Silent stone?

The past few weeks, I have said to myself, “I love myself enough to slow down and receive life fully.”

I peer at the moon. I am fully there for life.

This feels like a ginormous change. For some reason, I learned long ago that love arrived only when I did a good job, when I said yes, when I did all the tasks that were asked of me.

Moving slowly is joyous. There is a deep hum behind everything, a slow honey drip of presence, a real hearing and being and showing up.

I do less. But I am there more.

And when I am there more, I trust myself to hear what is really needed.

So that is this week’s report, sipping coffee, in my green jumpsuit.

I will send this, lift my face to the sun, take the deepest breath. That is enough.

May you, too, have moments of the day where you find yourself here, fully, fully. It is a gift to us all.

With love,

Raisa