You Don’t Need to Slow Down — You Need to Soften
+ this week's class: The Practice of Softness (56 mins)
You’re probably performing your self-care.
You’re probably sprinkling ‘slowness’ and ‘ease’ into your schedule because, well, this is what we do to be healthy, right? This will improve my rotten mental health, and that anxiety that makes me over-stuff my calendar, and my shitty sleep that gives me eye-bags no make-up can deal with.
So we do it. Crow-barring in meditation, or yoga, or breath work, or journalling. Into wherever our routines allow. Booking it in like meetings. Ticking it off like chores.
I met with a Joy Unplugged client this week and her morning routine is a 35-step wellness fest that’s performed and structured and meticulous. She’s become a human-doing. Head-lead, thought-first, mentally approaching all of it the same way she thinks about her work.
But of course she does. That’s what we’ve been taught. Tasks must get done, alignment must be found, we must keep up. Or else, what? It all falls apart? We become less-than? We fail?
There’s a reason she’s burned out.
This is a call, not for more slowness to be performed, but more softness to be allowed into everything.
Because slowing down isn’t the issue
Slowing down is a change of pace; softening is a change of approach. And, friend, it’s your approach that’s fucked up; it’s your approach that’s been twisted by a culture that forgot what care actually means.
When it’s head-lead, thought-first, cerebral, it doesn’t belong here. Yes, even if it’s still slow.
When you’re going into a yoga class to see how much further you can get in your forward fold; into your journal to see how much more you can write; into a meditation to see how much longer you can sit… the slowing down isn’t the problem.
When you get yourself through your intense morning routine because… this is what winners do, you’re missing the point.
Let’s shift our lens
What if these practices were felt experiences? What if, instead of scheduling yoga every day because that’s what well-rounded people do, we checked in with ourselves and asked first?
What if we left the doing for the office, and brought the being into our down-time?
Our nervous system craves it. It’s a shift from brain-led to body-felt. It’s somatics, baby. And, my friend, you need this more than you know.
You need to drop into your body
Regularly and often. Even when it’s painful, even when it’s heavy, even when it’s hard. This is a divine communication that will give you the biggest gift long-term: joy.
Sure, your body might be telling you difficult things about your hormonal landscape, about your injuries, about your capacity right now — I’m not saying joy is always rainbows and cupcakes. But this is truth that can’t be safely ignored. We listen, we adapt, we love ourselves like an old friend — honouring the very singular way these atoms and energies are arranged to make this very aliveness we’re experiencing.
And what an experience.
Softness is a skill
This is about permission to feel what you’re feeling, to stop trying so fucking hard all the time. This softness — because being soft is what is it, instead of a hard, forcing mentality that gets you into your Lululemons regardless — isn’t a weakness, but a learned skill that can be practiced; one that changes everything.
Maybe you swap your early morning for a proper bone-shifting lie-in. One you enjoyed so damn much you write about it later. Maybe your body’s asking to cancel plans so you can rest instead. Building your skill of disappointing people without it impacting your self-worth.
Maybe it’s about skipping the workout. Or doing a harder one.
Maybe it’s about saying no to an opportunity. Or booking that call.
Your body will show you the way in ways your head never can. And when she does, your nervous system will know about it. This is what regulation looks like; this is your route to calm and ease and that feeling of expansion in the pit of your belly.
And then, my friend, the joy becomes inevitable.
So no, you don’t need another thing to schedule
You don’t need to follow the well-fluencers. You don’t need more tools, trackers, or hacks. And you definitely, definitely don’t need to perform your softness.
You just need to let yourself feel, and feel more deeply and way more regularly (this is interoception. Learn about it here).
Maybe right now you place a hand on your chest and have a word with yourself: “this is enough”.
Because it bloody well is. More than that: if you want a calm, vibrant, connected experience of these finite days of yours, it’s vital.
That’s where the joy lives. That’s where you begin again.
If this hits home, I’ve a practice made for you. It’s a brand new class for the Joyful - The Yoga Revolution library (learn more about becoming a member here), and it’s a gentle movement experience that will get you out of your head and back into your body.
This class is especially brilliant if you’ve got injuries, if you want to take it a little easier, and you’re ready for a full-length full-body connection session with a slow down that’ll last for days.
This week’s recommended class:
The practice of softness (56 mins)
This is a gentle movement experience that will get you out of your head and back into your body.
This class is especially brilliant if you’ve got injuries, if you want to take it a little easier, and you’re ready for a full-body connection session with a slow down that’ll last you days.
Practice with the class below, or find this session inside The Yoga Revolution’s library here to favourite for later.