Take a moment to arrive,
To let your body and mind know you are here.
Find a comfortable position,
A way of sitting or lying that feels steady beneath you,
Supportive yet soft.
If it feels right,
Allow your eyes to close,
Or simply soften your gaze,
Letting the edges of your world blur a bit.
Softening the gaze or closing the eyes is a quiet signal to the body and mind that it's okay to slow down,
To bring ease into this moment.
Allow the breath to slow in and out through the nose,
The belly rising and falling,
The gentle rhythm of life itself.
Relax what can be relaxed.
Release any tension that is not needed.
Stay alert but not rigid,
Relaxed but not drifting to sleep.
Give yourself a moment to settle,
To meet this quiet space between doing and being.
We often think of slow as the way a film slows down,
Voices stretched,
Movement distorted,
Time seemingly suspended.
But true slowness isn't that.
It's the quiet choice to stay steady when the world around you begins to hurry,
To beg for your attention and your speed.
Slow is to move at the rhythm of what matters,
The pace of breath,
Of heart,
Of wholeness.
And slow is also this,
Noticing when the mind has started to race,
When it's gone off somewhere on its own,
Into the past or the future.
No need to judge or push it away.
Simply notice and bring it home,
Back to this breath,
This moment of slow.
Here we practice effortless effort,
Using only what is needed in this moment.
No more,
No less.
Just enough effort to be awake to life,
To engage without strain,
To allow joy to rise from ease.
Just like the way a bird glides once its wings catch the wind,
Or the way breath moves without being told.
In a season that asks us to go,
What if we learn to stay,
To stay slow,
To pause long enough to feel what's calling for our yes,
And to honor our no,
Not from resistance but from reverence,
Because every no creates space for what we hold most dear.
Slow is not the absence of movement.
It's movement with intention.
The moment you look up and notice the light softening through the window,
The warmth of a mug held between your hands,
The exhale that lets your shoulders drop.
These are the places where slow lives,
Ordinary,
Sacred,
Enough.
As you rest here,
Feel what you've created in these moments,
A softening,
A steadiness,
A quiet return to yourself,
To your center.
Let gratitude rise,
And perhaps a small smile,
A simple acknowledgement that you took time for you.
When you're ready,
Let the breath deepen just a bit.
Feel your body supported beneath you.
Begin to bring gentle movement back,
A small stretch,
A longer exhale,
A quiet readiness to reenter your day.
And as you return,
May the peace you created here follow you like an unseen rhythm beneath everything that you do.
And most of all,
May you go slow.
