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Arete Warriors – spirit, mind, body strong
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Slowing down to the speed of life.
Dear Reader,
I have journals filled with notes I’ve taken from the many books I’ve read. The Notes app on my phone has countless quotes & statistics I wanted to capture while on the go.
There are a few that I remember being profound when I read them. Mind you, I don’t have the best memory (why I take notes) & I think a book’s impact has a lot to do with where the reader is (emotionally) when they consume it.
I’ve read many about the body – exercise & nutrition, AFTER all I’d read about the subject to earn my Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology.
But quite a few years ago I realized the importance of the mind & spirit. It doesn’t matter how FIT a person is, what their body fat percentage or Vo2 Max is, if they cannot find peace or happiness.
For me, the exercise & diet parts are important to my overall well-being, but I have passed through seasons in my life where I practiced too much of that & it harmed my overall health.
I’d originally intended for these 4 books to be in one newsletter, but as I started to dig in to my notes there were simply too many awesome things I wanted to share with you about each.
I try to keep these emails as short as possible, so I’ve divided this into a 4 part series.
Each of these books changed my thinking, & therefore my life, in profound ways.
Let’s Prepare – the warm up
The first book I want to share with you is Slowing Down To The Speed Of Life by Richard Carlson & Joseph Bailey.
This is maybe an example of it being the perfect book for that specific season of life.
A few years ago a friend & life coach stayed with us & saw how rattled I seemed. Constantly.
The morning he was to leave he watched me with an amused look on his face while I frantically buzzed about doing all the “necessary”, “urgent” things.
He finally said sincerely, “I bet it takes you a bit to fall asleep at night.”
A few days after he left this book showed up on my doorstep.
The authors simplify our thinking into 2 different modes. The Analytical or Processing Mode & The Free-Flowing Mode.
Our egos want us to be in the Analytical mode, because it doesn’t like not knowing.
It would rather mull over what we already know to be true (ie things that have happened) than be still & place our trust in the universe or anything else for that matter.
If the ego is not replaying the past, it is likely busy trying to prepare us for the future.
This constant pull to be anywhere but here is the root cause of most of our suffering. We miss what we already have right in front of us, looking for something else.
But if we can quiet that bad boy, & be present, in the now, we will eliminate so much of our stress & anxiety.
There is nothing in the future to rush off to that can offer me anything more than this present moment.
In slowing down, we can practice making the quality of each moment more important than getting stuff done, planning for what may or may not be, or rehashing what is already finished.
How many of our conversations or interactions are diminished by our simultaneous expectations, agendas or guilt.
Stress isn’t something we catch from the environment or other people. It is something that we quite innocently create by not recognizing the thinking that is creating it.
If you dropped something important in a dirty swimming pool, your ego would promptly engage you in the hustle of finding it. However, the struggle would actually lessen your chances of finding it by stirring up the murky waters.
Stillness will let the silt settle & allow you the vision you need to see clearly.
Enjoy the freedom & power of not trying so hard. Just relax.
It is our desperate need to judge each situation, repair what we deem to be damaged, & prevent potential upset that actually limits our ability to relish what is.
Stress is our interpretation of & reaction to an event, not the event itself. That’s why the ego’s attempt to control everything around us is so futile.
If we believe that our feelings are determined by outside forces, we will seek something equally external in response. When we realize the actual source of our experience is always our thinking, we can begin to restore the power in our lives.
The key to slowing down is first awareness – thought recognition. Each time we notice our thoughts as the creators of every moment, we take our understanding up a notch.
When we come to understand our thoughts are not caused by other people or outside events, we can no longer indulge in self-pity. Our new vertical shift will not allow us to continue our old habits.
Raising your level of understanding around this is like raising the water in/around a log jam in a river, as opposed to trying to pull one log (thought) out at a time.
This is what living in the Free Flowing mode can do for you. Elevate your level of thinking (get out of the Analytical mode) so deep, creative & more inspiring thoughts have room to surface.
Put your problems on the back burner & trust that the solutions will come to you, naturally. The mental wrestling we engage in only creates more stress.
Thought is the power that creates human experience. What we think becomes our emotions, perceptions, sensations, decisions and behavior. It’s impossible to experience any negative feeling without first creating a negative corresponding thought.
They talk about living above or below the line (based on your level of understanding). You could simplify this enlightenment scale by comparing it to your ego in my opinion.
People living below the line see differences & disagreements as a threat to their power, authority, or perceived level of importance. When people are living above the line, they see differences as interesting, & they become curious about the other person’s perspective.
Reader, I confess, my ego is my biggest area of opportunity right now. I struggle daily (almost every moment) with quieting that beast. Especially when it comes to parenting!
It is my most important focus right now as I feel it is to blame for almost every bit of upset I experience in a day.
Let’s Work – the exercise
I have plenty more notes, some specifically related to parenting, but for now I want to leave you with this summary of strategies for slowing down to the speed of life.
- Learn to be more aware of the present moment.
- Accept each moment for what it is. (You’ve never experienced this moment right here before, & you never will again.)
- Beware the thought attacks. (Treat your thinking like a TV. Feel free to change the channel.)
- Lower your stress tolerance by getting quicker at thought recognition. (When you lose your patience with your kid, realize it was your thinking, not your child’s actions that made you lose it.)
- Have compassion for moods. (Life is distorted in a low state of mind, & we all experience low states on occasion.)
- Practice doing one thing at a time. Meditate.
- Live in the Free-Flowing Mode as much as possible.
