Pace yourself. I found my inner voice telling me this over the past few weeks. Yes, we must move through life at various paces. Sometimes we’re able to take a slow pace, and other times we must pick that pace up. Ultimately, we should search for balance because when we become unbalanced in the pace of life, it’s very clear as our systems either started to deplete due, to too fast of a pace, or we get that lethargic feeling because our pace has slowed for too long. This has impacts on how our nervous system regulates and how we respond to the world around us.
When life is fast paced, we don’t often have time to take in much more than what is immediate in that moment, the task at hand. While we’re likely being productive, we don’t often have time to reflect on the situation. These are the times when the small details may get forgotten or we make silly mistakes. When life is slow for too long, it can be a challenge to sit with ourselves. This can cause us anxiety, or just a lethargic feeling of not being useful. We may begin to put too much focus on things that have very little impact in life or focus too much on the lives of others. Then there’s the moderate pace. The one in which we feel most comfortable. Where we find the balance of productivity and rest. We likely feel most at ease here as if we could go on forever at this pace if nothing was to disrupt it. But we know we can’t stay in that moderate pace all the time. We must have ebbs and flows and the discomfort of the fast pace, and the slow pace, to really know where that moderate pace exists for us.
At times, the pace in which life moves around us can push us in one direction or the other! For example, if your friend is currently in a high-paced time in their life, they might start to pull you into their faster pace for particular events, or situations. So, while we have set our pace, the influence of others can change that as well. What we need to ask ourselves then is, are we ok with this influence? How much do we let the influence of others impact our pace? How much of that impact is related to something outside of our control or completely within our control? How much does our ego impact the comparison of our pace to others?
Written by Stephanie Powe and published on The Pace of Life – Alberta Yoga College
