The Power of Going With the Slow

So often in life, and certainly in the realm of change, there can feel such pressure on us to move faster.

We see it when people are navigating the exquisite pain of deep grief, where there comes this point where we begin to feel: well, that's enough now. I've been grieving for long enough and it's time to get on.

There can be this rush, this pressure on ourselves to be done with grieving, when in fact every single part of us understands deeply that that’s not how grief works. It doesn't have a time frame to it.

The wiser, kinder, more evolved way of navigating grief is simply to understand that it has its own cadence, its own rhythm, and all we can do is walk alongside it. And that may well mean going at a much slower pace than we've been conditioned to move at.

We see this in other realms of change too.

I see clients transitioning from one job into either another job, or into retirement, or into sabbatical, or into… what they don't yet know. Maybe it's another job, maybe it's a period of no work, maybe it's work-seeking.

Sometimes that transition is something we've asked for. Sometimes it's been thrust upon us — through redundancy, or a business no longer being able to function in the economic climate.

That kind of change is also a form of grief.

Some aspects of it happen very quickly. Maybe there's been an amazing opportunity and we need to move toward it really quickly. Or something's happened within our place of work that's meant we've just had to accommodate that it's happening, maybe outside of our own desire.

In those times, though the external mechanisms might be moving really fast, our internal mechanisms don't necessarily move at the same pace.

Allowing Ourselves to Catch Up

What we need is some spaciousness. A bit of freedom, actually. The freedom to move at our own pace in terms of how we accommodate the change we're experiencing.

On the outside, we're moving at the same speed as the events are unfolding. On the inside, we're able to hold ourselves steady and recognise: oh gosh, yes, this feels fast for me. What am I noticing about the impact that's having? What support might be useful?

Really allowing ourselves these tiny moments of pausing, to catch up with what's happening, rather than feeling as though we're having to run so fast that we leave part of us behind.

That sense of leaving parts of us behind came up in a conversation with a client who was talking about how their whole life moves at such a pace that they recognise for much of their life they've left the slower parts of themselves behind.

Their particular inner work is understanding how to regroup. How to collect themselves. We use this phrase, don't we? I need to collect myself.

To collect ourselves: in order that our whole self can move forward at a steadier pace, a pace that feels truer for our whole system.

Small Steps and the Alphabet Between A and B

There's something powerful about taking small steps.

James Clear's book Atomic Habits explores the power of tiny actions in fomenting big change. Sometimes that tiny action might be: if we want to change something about our fitness, we put our running shoes on and go and stand at the door. For a few days maybe we just do that. Then maybe we build on that and we step out of the door. Then maybe we go for a very short walk and return. Then we walk for a minute and run for a minute.

We can slowly stack change too.

We're often so hardwired to want to get from A to B in the fastest possible route that we forget there may be a whole alphabet between A and B that we're bypassing — that might actually get us there in a much healthier, wiser, kinder way.

Beautiful Disruption and the Language We Use

This really speaks to the work around beautiful disruption, which is one of the five main chapters in my book, The Heart of Change.

When we return power to ourselves we can begin to see how beautiful disruption can support us with the bigger changes.

This can often look like things that are extremely subtle. For example, being really mindful of the language that we use toward ourselves, or the way that we think about others, can have an incredibly significant impact.

When we say something out loud, we're not only verbalising it, we're also hearing it. And when we hear something, it's literally coming into our system in some way, and that can become imprinted.

The thoughts that we have also have a profound impact in our system. All action is born out of thought, ultimately.

Which isn't to say that we judge ourselves for having negative thoughts — that's just judging the judgement, building pressure and weight upon ourselves. It's far more about having compassion for those thoughts, having compassion for ourselves for having those thoughts, and then reflecting: well, what might feel more true for me right now?

Adding these little subtle, tiny changes into the way we're speaking can have such a significant impact on the meaning.

One of my limiting beliefs is 'I am annoying.' I've done a lot of work around this. I can hold it very lightly. It's absolutely okay for me to recognise that story is there — it comes from childhood, from being the youngest in a very big family.

I've done the work to be able to hold it, not to get rid of it (because it's a part of me), but to hold it much more lightly.

So, rather than saying 'I am annoying,' now I might say 'Sometimes I feel I'm a bit annoying' — which feels much more true. Sometimes I do think I'm a bit annoying… and that's okay.

Or when we say things like 'I don't know how to do that.' We can add 'yet'. It’s incredibly empowering, because it implies there is this potential in the future where we do know how to do it, where we have learnt how to do it.

These are very subtle, very small changes that can have a long tail effect on how we ultimately reform these neural pathways in our brain and begin to change the way we think and speak about ourselves.

The Butterfly's Chrysalis

For me, these kinds of subtle shifts are all part of this sense of going with the slow. Not setting really heavy, weighty, fixed goals on ourselves that demand we move at a certain pace, that demand we become something else.

I don't believe that's what change is about.

I believe change is about revealing who we actually are.

And we want to do that work softly and gently, because when we strip away the butterfly's chrysalis too quickly, the butterfly can't survive.

We have to allow the butterfly to move through its process. For our own particular butterfly, it needs to emerge at its own pace — even if it’s not the pace we think society or our inner critic dictates.

Really what we're trying to do here, all the way through this work, is bring our conscious awareness to what’s happening.

This, for me, is the vital crux of going with the slow.

It's not a passive sense of giving-up-ness. It's a very attentive, very mindful way of recognising: ah, this is what is changing for me now. These are the subtle shifts I'm putting into place. Oh, and look at the change that happened because of those subtle shifts I began implementing way back when.

Going with the slow actually leads to much deeper, more impactful, and longer-lasting changes than some of the quick fixes we might be drawn to take.

Titration: Drop by Drop

This is mirrored in modern trauma work as well.

There's a term — titration — which actually comes from chemistry. The idea of titration is where a solution is slowly added drop by drop to another solution until a reaction reaches completion. It's this very slow, measured approach to creating a significant change.

In trauma work, titration is the practice of breaking down overwhelming memories, emotions, or our somatic sensations — our bodily responses to things — into small manageable pieces, which are processed very gradually over time.

We work very, very gently, very, very slowly. We can step in, we can step out. We're not seeking (in any way) to reach an answer, or a solution, or a fixed response, or a significant change quickly. We're seeking to do it in such a way that our whole system is able to manage that process much more effectively and then come to a much longer-lasting, much healthier outcome.

In the trauma-informed somatic work that I use, this very gentle approach often means coming at things from multiple directions very softly.

It's almost like there's the heart of the matter — I imagine holding it in a cupped hand. We recognise it's there. We might not know what it is. It might be sitting in the grey, but we sense it's there.

So we do this work approaching it from multiple directions, moving very, very gently, in order to be able to softly, softly, softly reach a place where it feels safe enough to attend to its deeper need.

What this approach does is it builds our capacity. It builds our resilience. It also helps us integrate the steps we're taking — the tiny, tiny changes we're implementing — and that allows for healing that is sustainable and long-lasting.

That's really the power of going with the slow.

One Bite at a Time

If we think of change as being an enormous meal in front of us, it might feel overwhelming, how on earth can I possibly eat all that?

But if we take it one little bite at a time, and maybe step away from the table, and step back, and just have another little bit, then it can actually become a deliciously nourishing process. Not something that feels like we're going to be overwhelmed or so full we can't move at the end.

Going with the slow is about bringing conscious awareness to what we're noticing. It's attentive. It's mindful. It's recognising the subtle shifts we're putting into place and witnessing the changes that unfold from them.

It's allowing the butterfly to emerge at its own pace. It's adding the solution drop by drop. It's moving through the whole alphabet, not just rushing from A to B.

It's collecting the slower parts of ourselves rather than leaving them behind.

And it's trusting that this gentler pace leads to deeper, more lasting transformation.

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