January 31, 2025 • 29 mins
Have you ever felt the world spinning just a bit too fast, leaving you struggling to keep up? Join me, as we explore the life-changing realization that slowing down can lead to profound self-discovery. In our latest episode of Journey to the Soul, I share my personal experience with "wintering," a period where life’s challenges forced me to retreat and find stillness. This time of introspection allowed me to rediscover my true values, find peace, and embrace a sense of purpose that I had almost lost in the hustle. Together, let's challenge the societal norm of constant busyness and appreciate the transformative power of rest and reflection.
Discover the joy of living intentionally and relishing each moment as it comes. I invite you to reflect on your own relationship with speed and motion in your life. By resisting the urge to be perpetually active, we open up a space to connect with our inner selves and savor the small joys that often go unnoticed. This episode encourages you to appreciate life's fleeting moments and explore how slowing down can enhance your overall experience. Share your stories with me on Instagram, and let's continue this journey of embracing slowness together. Remember to subscribe and spread the message with those who might need a gentle reminder to pause and breathe.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, loves, welcome to the Journey to the Soul podcast
.
I am your host, jacinda Villa,a spiritual life coach and
holistic health coach.
Every week, we will be divingdeep into all things purpose,
wellness, spirituality andcreating the life that you dream
of.
This space is meant to be safeand transformative for you to
(00:26):
dive into the deepest parts ofyourself.
I will share what I havelearned from my journey along
this path years of research andmentors along the way.
Having spent many years livinglife out of alignment and afraid
to go after my dreams, I knowfirsthand what it means to take
the first step down, living alife authentic to you.
(00:47):
We are on this road ofself-discovery together.
It is time for you to live thelife you imagined.
Hello, my loves, welcome tothis week's episode.
I hope you are tuning into this,maybe with a cup of tea or a
(01:07):
cup of coffee, as we go intothis week's episode together.
I am sorry if you hear a littlenoise in the background.
They are actually doingconstruction across the street
and I did check the audio aswell before I recorded this, but
(01:30):
I'm hoping that it sounds okay.
So if you do hear something,that's probably what it is.
But I hope you are all enjoyingyour first weeks of January
since we last talked.
As I'm recording this, it's thethird week of January and I
think we're all finally dippingour toes into the year slowly.
(01:54):
And if you listened to my lastepisode, we were talking about
slow intentions and how you cantake a more grounded approach to
setting goals, resolutions,intentions, whatever you like to
call it for the new year.
So if you didn't listen to that, I would highly suggest that
(02:17):
you listen to that and on thisepisode today.
I wanted to just expand onsomething that I touched on in
that episode, which was how Iembraced a slower pace of life
last year and how that reallyallowed me to align more fully
(02:40):
with my values, with what'simportant to me in life, so that
I could live a life that ismore intentional and worthwhile
for myself.
So I want to talk about thatand how that came to be, because
it didn't just happen.
It was something that happenedwhen I just allowed myself to be
(03:05):
last year, and that's reallywhat we're going to talk about
today is my personal story onhow I came to embrace a slow
life and how, by slowing down, Iwas able to overcome probably
one of the hardest seasons of mylife so far.
(03:27):
It really helped me tune in andrediscover my joy, my intention
for life and my path to healing.
So that is what we're going totalk about today.
I really want to share aboutfinding peace and purpose in
(03:48):
life through slowing down,because we live in a culture
where we are constantly goingand going and going, where we
constantly feel the need toperform, and that is great and
dandy, but that's not somethingthat is self-sustaining for many
(04:12):
of us, and there are moments inour life where we are forced to
slow down, where something inlife has us take a step back,
and I call this wintering andthis is there's a book written
on it too but it's a state.
(04:35):
It's a season of your lifewhere we go through very
transformative periods, and whatwe tend to do during those
seasons of our life is we take astep back from our life and we
do that as a form ofself-preservation, because it
can be such an intense moment inlife where what we really need
(04:58):
to do is focus on ourselves.
So it's a time for us toregroup, to reflect and to
really transform, and it can behard for us to accept these
seasons when they show upbecause our culture does not
embrace or value slowing down,especially a slowing down that
(05:23):
is necessary in a season of lifelike wintering.
This is a deep slowing down.
It's where we really step awayfrom everything in our life.
But, just like summer and howthings grow and blossom and come
(05:43):
into fruition, there needs tobe time for wintering and it's
that time for us to step backand be more than do and to
reflect more than anything.
And we need to embrace thisseason of life just as much as a
(06:07):
season of doing.
And we need to acknowledge aswell that one cannot exist
without the other.
You know, winter comes beforespring.
Summer and fall, they allcoincide and there is a reason
for that all coincide and thereis a reason for that.
(06:28):
Last year, like I mentioned, wasa very transformative time in
my life.
It was definitely a wintering.
I could still say, maybe, thatI am still going through that
wintering a bit, coming out ofit now, but still a bit.
I'm slowly going into springand it was not easy.
(06:48):
It was a very hard year for somany different reasons.
But in these moments of ourlife is really where we can
alchemize darkness into light,our deep and personal challenges
(07:08):
that we constantly go throughis a catalyst for change and
growth and I feel like that isone of the biggest things that I
think is what I love about aseason like this is that it is a
catalyst for us to evolve ashumans.
(07:31):
It is a catalyst for us to heal, for us to become something
better than we were.
We are always evolving, we arealways growing and if you've
listened to other podcastepisodes of mine, I feel like
that is one of the greatestgifts is that we can start again
(07:51):
and we can be better than wewere yesterday, that we can
learn from everything that lifeis bringing into our attention
right now and grow from that and, you know, continue to get
stronger.
I didn't embrace that initiallywhen I went through my deep
(08:12):
wintering last year, but I wasessentially and it was my body
forcing me to slow down afteryears of not honoring it and its
needs.
I know I've talked aboutdifferent things that I've
(08:36):
overcome with my health and myeating disorder and things like
that in other episodes and thiswas kind of just an accumulation
of all of that and I had triedtaking a step back and slowing
down and all of those things,but it was really not as much as
(08:57):
I needed to.
I didn't really want to slowdown.
I didn't really want to stopand truly listen.
I did it just enough tocontinue to get by.
But when 2024 came around, mybody truly forced me to slow
down and I couldn't fight that.
(09:19):
I did fight it for a couple ofmonths, though.
I just continued to try to pushthrough it.
Every day I would try tocontinue to carry on with my
life as I had up until that timeand to try to test my limits of
(09:39):
what I could and couldn't do,and every day I was more and
more disappointed to realizewhere I was.
It was the first time in mylife that this was happening in
this way, and for months I trulyjust fought it.
I did not want to accept whatwas in front of me.
(10:03):
I really had to honor that.
My body was speaking to me andI truly needed to listen to it.
I needed to not just listenenough to get by, but actually
stop and truly listen to what ithad to say.
There came a moment in thistime where, after resisting
(10:31):
where I was and trying to fightit and wanting it to be
something different than it was,I had to acknowledge that I
needed to rest and nourishmyself and take care of my body.
It took me a while to get there, but I finally acknowledged
(10:53):
that and accepted that.
And for someone who has alwaysthrived and prided herself in
being in motion and constantlygoing, this was a very difficult
thing for me.
I was ingrained with theincessant go go go of hustle
(11:16):
culture at a very young age andthis is the only way that I
really moved through life.
I didn't think that slowingdown had really any place in
life, unless it was once I had acertain amount of success, a
certain amount of money.
I was at a certain age where Icould just relax.
(11:41):
But because of those deep rootsin hustle culture that I've had
for most of my life, slowingdown was one of the most
difficult things for me to do.
In my mind and with the bestintentions, I had tried slowing
(12:02):
down in smaller ways up untilthis point, thinking that it
would be enough for my body andfor it to heal, because I have
been on a physical, mental,emotional healing journey for
the last couple of years and Ithought that what I was doing
was enough.
(12:22):
But it clearly wasn't and Idecided to just embrace the
slowness.
I decided to embrace where Iwas.
I decided to just allow myselfto be in that state of not
(12:43):
fighting, of letting the quietbe there and hearing everything
that my body, my soul, wanted totell me.
And at first, when I startedplaying with this, my day-to-day
(13:04):
life, it felt so indulgent.
I had really bad associationswith slowing down.
You know personal lies that Ikept telling myself and I know
this is more generational traumathat I've carried into this
lifetime and it's that if I slowdown, then I'm lazy, then I
(13:29):
won't amount to anything, then Iwill basically not achieve
anything in this life.
I will fall to the wayside.
I never really thought thatthere was a way for me to
continue working towards mygoals in a way that was also
(13:49):
supportive of rest.
Right, rest is integral to ourbeing.
But that has always beensomething that I've believed is
that if I stop, I'm lazy, if Istop, I'm not working towards
what I really want to achieve inthis life.
And I have always been soambitious and so driven, and
(14:12):
it's been sometimes to mydetriment because it has gotten
me to these positions.
But these are all learningexperiences, right, and this is
still something that I strugglewith is that belief that I can
slow down and that the worldisn't going to fall apart
because of it, and it's a veryhard thing to shift.
(14:33):
I know that I'm not the onlyone that struggles with
something like that.
In a culture where we areconstantly told that we need to
perform and reach and achieve,and how it looks from the
outside in it's tiring, it's notsustainable.
(14:54):
So I just allowed myself toenjoy being here now.
It was honestly the first timein my life that I ever slowed
down in this way.
Looking back, I know that thiswas so necessary because I had
never allowed myself to slowdown.
(15:16):
I have been going since I was14 years old.
I have been in a state ofsurvival most of my life, but I
have been going and working andhustling since I was 14 years
old, filling my time with work,working countless of hours,
(15:37):
driving myself to the floor, youknow, slowly deteriorating
myself.
So from that perspective, I'mlike deteriorating myself.
So from that perspective, I'mlike I've never done this.
And it's true, I probably doneed it.
But that didn't make it anyeasier to accept, and this space
(15:58):
, this quiet, really allowed somuch to come up.
Like I mentioned, thosewhispers that my body, that my
soul, had been giving me foryears, that I didn't want to
listen to, that I constantlyignored.
Those are the parts of myselfthat I really had to confront,
(16:23):
because it quieted therelentless noise and I leaned
into the discomfort ofeverything, truly listening to
these uncomfortable andvulnerable parts of myself.
Because you need to acknowledgeall of it, you need to honor
(16:43):
all of it.
You can't move to the nextthing without facing what is in
front of you.
It was very uncomfortable to sitin my feelings and my emotions
of everything that this broughtup at first and feeling my
physical limitations everysingle day, every day I was
(17:05):
plagued with anxiety.
Every day I was plagued withanxiety.
I woke up immediately, anxious,and I would feel the immediate
discomfort in my body and all mymind could hold on to,
initially, from the moment thatI woke up, was the discomfort in
my body.
And if I had some kind ofdiscomfort, then it would be a
(17:28):
quote bad day.
And if it was a bad day, I waswriting the whole day off as
rubbish.
Basically, and most days werebad days because most days I had
some kind of discomfort in mybody.
And the way that I startedmoving through this is I woke up
(17:50):
every single day and when Ifelt that anxiety come in, I
decided to just sit with it andfocus on the small things that
brought me comfort.
I would wake up, breathe, feelthe breath coming in and out of
(18:11):
my nose with the promise of anew day.
I could hear the birds singingin the background.
I could see the light coming infrom the window, the beautiful
morning light.
I would feel my partner next tome reveling in the relationship
(18:36):
that we have, the love that weshare.
I would think about all thethings that I would get to do
that day that would bring me joyreading a book, cozying up with
a book, cooking a meal thatnourishes my body and this was
(18:58):
what started to shift myperspective.
Gradually, it helped bring morepeace into my life by doing this
every day, and it took time forme to not let the anxiety or
(19:20):
the fear take over me and allowit to determine what kind of day
I was going to have, based offof how my body was that day.
But it was a constant devotionto myself To focus on the good,
to focus on all the wonderfulthings that I still was going to
(19:42):
experience, because whereverthere is discomfort, there is
comfort to be found.
Wherever there is darkness,there is lightness to be found.
And as I continued to slow downmore and more and finally, and
(20:04):
hear to all these whispers thatmy body and my soul had been
sending to me, it really allowedme to free myself from old
habits, thoughts and ways ofbeing that no longer served me
(20:37):
and ways of being that no longerserved me.
A lot of these things that Ilet go of mentally and
emotionally, were things thatwere of my life and just made my
path on this earth that muchheavier.
It was a wonderful opportunityto really refocus my heart on
(21:04):
what truly matters.
That is the most incrediblegift that this past year gave me
.
As much as I fought, as much asI resisted, it was something
that was so necessary in my life, and that's how some of the
(21:25):
hardest lessons are learned,right Is?
We fight so hard for it to besomething that it is.
But what happens if we learn tojust be where we are, to just
embrace this chapter of life?
Because in every chapter oflife there is something that we
(21:47):
can learn and take away andexperience.
You are never going to be inthis place again.
Wherever you are in your life.
You are never going to be inthis exact place again, having
these experiences, the versionof you that is there and that
makes it that much more richer,because this moment is not ever
(22:14):
going to replicate itself.
In one year it will besomething totally different, and
one of the biggest lessons thatI learned was that simply being
was enough.
And every day there was a wargoing in with myself, between
(22:36):
the part of me that wanted to bein action and the part of me
that was learning to be, and Iconstantly felt like I wasn't
doing enough, like this wasn'tright.
But simply being is enough youbeing where you are, wherever
(22:58):
you are on your journey in life,even if you are not where you
want to be or you feel like youare far away from the life that
you want.
Right now, in the life that youare living, you are exactly
where you are meant to be, andit is all divinely timed.
(23:19):
There is so much goodness thatonly this season of life could
bring you, because it will nevercome again.
Why not just let yourself enjoyit?
I was really able to connect tomy inner compass again, and
(23:41):
because I had the gift of timetime, since my body would only
allow me to do so much in a dayI was able to reconnect to
activities that I had loved todo but had not made a priority
to do.
(24:02):
But these are things that Ifound joy in doing, and it was
reading, just to read.
You know reading to get lost inbooks, like I used to when I
was younger, slowing down mysenses and tuning into
(24:24):
everything by baking something,connecting with my partner more
deeply.
It was really a moment formajor realignment and it allowed
me to reconnect to my body,which I had been so disconnected
(24:45):
from for so long.
And now I know exactly what itmeans, what it sounds like.
(25:08):
It allowed me to reconnect withjourney and I continue to learn
, and every day, to live morewith intention and to soften to
my life even more, and it's aconstant practice.
And it's a constant practicebecause our life today is not
(25:31):
conducive to living in this way.
It's not something that isvalued.
So it can be hard to want tolive life more in this way, but
living in our modern day and age, so we can teeter-totter
between living with intentionand coming back to the hustle
(25:55):
and bustle of life.
It's not a linear path, andthere are still days when I
fight against it.
Honestly, most days, I stillfight against it to some degree,
and that's why I am sodedicated to it for myself,
because I know what it hasbrought into my life and I know
(26:19):
that, because I still resist it,it is something that is so
necessary for me.
I would love you to think aboutwhat your relationship with
slowness is.
When you think about that word,what comes to mind?
Is it a positive feeling or isit a negative feeling?
(26:43):
What would happen if youallowed yourself to slow down
and to embrace the presentmoment more fully?
I think life would get more andmore richer, because all of
those moments make up our life,our big, whole life that we get
to live every single day, everysingle day.
(27:14):
I would love if you reflect onthe small things that bring you
joy in your everyday life,because those are the things
that are going to yourexperience.
They are just as important aseverything else.
(27:35):
I am excited to discuss thistopic more with you as the year
goes on, as I continue to go onmy adventure with it.
I know that there are manyother things that I want to
share with you about how to putthis into practice more into
(27:57):
your life, and why it's sonecessary now more than ever.
I would love to hear yourthoughts on embracing the
present moment more and whatyour relationship with slowing
down is, because I feel like alot of us do struggle with that
(28:20):
aspect of life is just acceptingthat there are seasons where
we're not meant to be going allthe time.
So please share with me yourstories of slowing down and
living with intention.
You could send me a message onInstagram.
I would love to read it and Iwill talk to you all in my next
(28:47):
episode.
Until then, stay warm whereveryou are in the world.
I am sending you so much loveand so much light.
Until then.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Please make sure you subscribeso you never miss an episode and
share this message with anyfriends and family.
So you never miss an episode,and share this message with any
(29:07):
friends and family.
I'd love to hear your takeaways, so share them with me by
leaving a comment below orheading over to my Instagram at
jacendamarie.
I am sending you all so muchlove.
Hi, loves, welcome to the Journey to the Soul podcast
.
I am your host, jacinda Villa,a spiritual life coach and
holistic health coach.
Every week, we will be divingdeep into all things purpose,
wellness, spirituality andcreating the life that you dream
of.
This space is meant to be safeand transformative for you to
(00:26):
dive into the deepest parts ofyourself.
I will share what I havelearned from my journey along
this path years of research andmentors along the way.
Having spent many years livinglife out of alignment and afraid
to go after my dreams, I knowfirsthand what it means to take
the first step down, living alife authentic to you.
(00:47):
We are on this road ofself-discovery together.
It is time for you to live thelife you imagined.
Hello, my loves, welcome tothis week's episode.
I hope you are tuning into this,maybe with a cup of tea or a
(01:07):
cup of coffee, as we go intothis week's episode together.
I am sorry if you hear a littlenoise in the background.
They are actually doingconstruction across the street
and I did check the audio aswell before I recorded this, but
(01:30):
I'm hoping that it sounds okay.
So if you do hear something,that's probably what it is.
But I hope you are all enjoyingyour first weeks of January
since we last talked.
As I'm recording this, it's thethird week of January and I
think we're all finally dippingour toes into the year slowly.
(01:54):
And if you listened to my lastepisode, we were talking about
slow intentions and how you cantake a more grounded approach to
setting goals, resolutions,intentions, whatever you like to
call it for the new year.
So if you didn't listen to that, I would highly suggest that
(02:17):
you listen to that and on thisepisode today.
I wanted to just expand onsomething that I touched on in
that episode, which was how Iembraced a slower pace of life
last year and how that reallyallowed me to align more fully
(02:40):
with my values, with what'simportant to me in life, so that
I could live a life that ismore intentional and worthwhile
for myself.
So I want to talk about thatand how that came to be, because
it didn't just happen.
It was something that happenedwhen I just allowed myself to be
(03:05):
last year, and that's reallywhat we're going to talk about
today is my personal story onhow I came to embrace a slow
life and how, by slowing down, Iwas able to overcome probably
one of the hardest seasons of mylife so far.
(03:27):
It really helped me tune in andrediscover my joy, my intention
for life and my path to healing.
So that is what we're going totalk about today.
I really want to share aboutfinding peace and purpose in
(03:48):
life through slowing down,because we live in a culture
where we are constantly goingand going and going, where we
constantly feel the need toperform, and that is great and
dandy, but that's not somethingthat is self-sustaining for many
(04:12):
of us, and there are moments inour life where we are forced to
slow down, where something inlife has us take a step back,
and I call this wintering andthis is there's a book written
on it too but it's a state.
(04:35):
It's a season of your lifewhere we go through very
transformative periods, and whatwe tend to do during those
seasons of our life is we take astep back from our life and we
do that as a form ofself-preservation, because it
can be such an intense moment inlife where what we really need
(04:58):
to do is focus on ourselves.
So it's a time for us toregroup, to reflect and to
really transform, and it can behard for us to accept these
seasons when they show upbecause our culture does not
embrace or value slowing down,especially a slowing down that
(05:23):
is necessary in a season of lifelike wintering.
This is a deep slowing down.
It's where we really step awayfrom everything in our life.
But, just like summer and howthings grow and blossom and come
(05:43):
into fruition, there needs tobe time for wintering and it's
that time for us to step backand be more than do and to
reflect more than anything.
And we need to embrace thisseason of life just as much as a
(06:07):
season of doing.
And we need to acknowledge aswell that one cannot exist
without the other.
You know, winter comes beforespring.
Summer and fall, they allcoincide and there is a reason
for that all coincide and thereis a reason for that.
(06:28):
Last year, like I mentioned, wasa very transformative time in
my life.
It was definitely a wintering.
I could still say, maybe, thatI am still going through that
wintering a bit, coming out ofit now, but still a bit.
I'm slowly going into springand it was not easy.
(06:48):
It was a very hard year for somany different reasons.
But in these moments of ourlife is really where we can
alchemize darkness into light,our deep and personal challenges
(07:08):
that we constantly go throughis a catalyst for change and
growth and I feel like that isone of the biggest things that I
think is what I love about aseason like this is that it is a
catalyst for us to evolve ashumans.
(07:31):
It is a catalyst for us to heal, for us to become something
better than we were.
We are always evolving, we arealways growing and if you've
listened to other podcastepisodes of mine, I feel like
that is one of the greatestgifts is that we can start again
(07:51):
and we can be better than wewere yesterday, that we can
learn from everything that lifeis bringing into our attention
right now and grow from that and, you know, continue to get
stronger.
I didn't embrace that initiallywhen I went through my deep
(08:12):
wintering last year, but I wasessentially and it was my body
forcing me to slow down afteryears of not honoring it and its
needs.
I know I've talked aboutdifferent things that I've
(08:36):
overcome with my health and myeating disorder and things like
that in other episodes and thiswas kind of just an accumulation
of all of that and I had triedtaking a step back and slowing
down and all of those things,but it was really not as much as
(08:57):
I needed to.
I didn't really want to slowdown.
I didn't really want to stopand truly listen.
I did it just enough tocontinue to get by.
But when 2024 came around, mybody truly forced me to slow
down and I couldn't fight that.
(09:19):
I did fight it for a couple ofmonths, though.
I just continued to try to pushthrough it.
Every day I would try tocontinue to carry on with my
life as I had up until that timeand to try to test my limits of
(09:39):
what I could and couldn't do,and every day I was more and
more disappointed to realizewhere I was.
It was the first time in mylife that this was happening in
this way, and for months I trulyjust fought it.
I did not want to accept whatwas in front of me.
(10:03):
I really had to honor that.
My body was speaking to me andI truly needed to listen to it.
I needed to not just listenenough to get by, but actually
stop and truly listen to what ithad to say.
There came a moment in thistime where, after resisting
(10:31):
where I was and trying to fightit and wanting it to be
something different than it was,I had to acknowledge that I
needed to rest and nourishmyself and take care of my body.
It took me a while to get there, but I finally acknowledged
(10:53):
that and accepted that.
And for someone who has alwaysthrived and prided herself in
being in motion and constantlygoing, this was a very difficult
thing for me.
I was ingrained with theincessant go go go of hustle
(11:16):
culture at a very young age andthis is the only way that I
really moved through life.
I didn't think that slowingdown had really any place in
life, unless it was once I had acertain amount of success, a
certain amount of money.
I was at a certain age where Icould just relax.
(11:41):
But because of those deep rootsin hustle culture that I've had
for most of my life, slowingdown was one of the most
difficult things for me to do.
In my mind and with the bestintentions, I had tried slowing
(12:02):
down in smaller ways up untilthis point, thinking that it
would be enough for my body andfor it to heal, because I have
been on a physical, mental,emotional healing journey for
the last couple of years and Ithought that what I was doing
was enough.
(12:22):
But it clearly wasn't and Idecided to just embrace the
slowness.
I decided to embrace where Iwas.
I decided to just allow myselfto be in that state of not
(12:43):
fighting, of letting the quietbe there and hearing everything
that my body, my soul, wanted totell me.
And at first, when I startedplaying with this, my day-to-day
(13:04):
life, it felt so indulgent.
I had really bad associationswith slowing down.
You know personal lies that Ikept telling myself and I know
this is more generational traumathat I've carried into this
lifetime and it's that if I slowdown, then I'm lazy, then I
(13:29):
won't amount to anything, then Iwill basically not achieve
anything in this life.
I will fall to the wayside.
I never really thought thatthere was a way for me to
continue working towards mygoals in a way that was also
(13:49):
supportive of rest.
Right, rest is integral to ourbeing.
But that has always beensomething that I've believed is
that if I stop, I'm lazy, if Istop, I'm not working towards
what I really want to achieve inthis life.
And I have always been soambitious and so driven, and
(14:12):
it's been sometimes to mydetriment because it has gotten
me to these positions.
But these are all learningexperiences, right, and this is
still something that I strugglewith is that belief that I can
slow down and that the worldisn't going to fall apart
because of it, and it's a veryhard thing to shift.
(14:33):
I know that I'm not the onlyone that struggles with
something like that.
In a culture where we areconstantly told that we need to
perform and reach and achieve,and how it looks from the
outside in it's tiring, it's notsustainable.
(14:54):
So I just allowed myself toenjoy being here now.
It was honestly the first timein my life that I ever slowed
down in this way.
Looking back, I know that thiswas so necessary because I had
never allowed myself to slowdown.
(15:16):
I have been going since I was14 years old.
I have been in a state ofsurvival most of my life, but I
have been going and working andhustling since I was 14 years
old, filling my time with work,working countless of hours,
(15:37):
driving myself to the floor, youknow, slowly deteriorating
myself.
So from that perspective, I'mlike deteriorating myself.
So from that perspective, I'mlike I've never done this.
And it's true, I probably doneed it.
But that didn't make it anyeasier to accept, and this space
(15:58):
, this quiet, really allowed somuch to come up.
Like I mentioned, thosewhispers that my body, that my
soul, had been giving me foryears, that I didn't want to
listen to, that I constantlyignored.
Those are the parts of myselfthat I really had to confront,
(16:23):
because it quieted therelentless noise and I leaned
into the discomfort ofeverything, truly listening to
these uncomfortable andvulnerable parts of myself.
Because you need to acknowledgeall of it, you need to honor
(16:43):
all of it.
You can't move to the nextthing without facing what is in
front of you.
It was very uncomfortable to sitin my feelings and my emotions
of everything that this broughtup at first and feeling my
physical limitations everysingle day, every day I was
(17:05):
plagued with anxiety.
Every day I was plagued withanxiety.
I woke up immediately, anxious,and I would feel the immediate
discomfort in my body and all mymind could hold on to,
initially, from the moment thatI woke up, was the discomfort in
my body.
And if I had some kind ofdiscomfort, then it would be a
(17:28):
quote bad day.
And if it was a bad day, I waswriting the whole day off as
rubbish.
Basically, and most days werebad days because most days I had
some kind of discomfort in mybody.
And the way that I startedmoving through this is I woke up
(17:50):
every single day and when Ifelt that anxiety come in, I
decided to just sit with it andfocus on the small things that
brought me comfort.
I would wake up, breathe, feelthe breath coming in and out of
(18:11):
my nose with the promise of anew day.
I could hear the birds singingin the background.
I could see the light coming infrom the window, the beautiful
morning light.
I would feel my partner next tome reveling in the relationship
(18:36):
that we have, the love that weshare.
I would think about all thethings that I would get to do
that day that would bring me joyreading a book, cozying up with
a book, cooking a meal thatnourishes my body and this was
(18:58):
what started to shift myperspective.
Gradually, it helped bring morepeace into my life by doing this
every day, and it took time forme to not let the anxiety or
(19:20):
the fear take over me and allowit to determine what kind of day
I was going to have, based offof how my body was that day.
But it was a constant devotionto myself To focus on the good,
to focus on all the wonderfulthings that I still was going to
(19:42):
experience, because whereverthere is discomfort, there is
comfort to be found.
Wherever there is darkness,there is lightness to be found.
And as I continued to slow downmore and more and finally, and
(20:04):
hear to all these whispers thatmy body and my soul had been
sending to me, it really allowedme to free myself from old
habits, thoughts and ways ofbeing that no longer served me
(20:37):
and ways of being that no longerserved me.
A lot of these things that Ilet go of mentally and
emotionally, were things thatwere of my life and just made my
path on this earth that muchheavier.
It was a wonderful opportunityto really refocus my heart on
(21:04):
what truly matters.
That is the most incrediblegift that this past year gave me
.
As much as I fought, as much asI resisted, it was something
that was so necessary in my life, and that's how some of the
(21:25):
hardest lessons are learned,right Is?
We fight so hard for it to besomething that it is.
But what happens if we learn tojust be where we are, to just
embrace this chapter of life?
Because in every chapter oflife there is something that we
(21:47):
can learn and take away andexperience.
You are never going to be inthis place again.
Wherever you are in your life.
You are never going to be inthis exact place again, having
these experiences, the versionof you that is there and that
makes it that much more richer,because this moment is not ever
(22:14):
going to replicate itself.
In one year it will besomething totally different, and
one of the biggest lessons thatI learned was that simply being
was enough.
And every day there was a wargoing in with myself, between
(22:36):
the part of me that wanted to bein action and the part of me
that was learning to be, and Iconstantly felt like I wasn't
doing enough, like this wasn'tright.
But simply being is enough youbeing where you are, wherever
(22:58):
you are on your journey in life,even if you are not where you
want to be or you feel like youare far away from the life that
you want.
Right now, in the life that youare living, you are exactly
where you are meant to be, andit is all divinely timed.
(23:19):
There is so much goodness thatonly this season of life could
bring you, because it will nevercome again.
Why not just let yourself enjoyit?
I was really able to connect tomy inner compass again, and
(23:41):
because I had the gift of timetime, since my body would only
allow me to do so much in a dayI was able to reconnect to
activities that I had loved todo but had not made a priority
to do.
(24:02):
But these are things that Ifound joy in doing, and it was
reading, just to read.
You know reading to get lost inbooks, like I used to when I
was younger, slowing down mysenses and tuning into
(24:24):
everything by baking something,connecting with my partner more
deeply.
It was really a moment formajor realignment and it allowed
me to reconnect to my body,which I had been so disconnected
(24:45):
from for so long.
And now I know exactly what itmeans, what it sounds like.
(25:08):
It allowed me to reconnect withjourney and I continue to learn
, and every day, to live morewith intention and to soften to
my life even more, and it's aconstant practice.
And it's a constant practicebecause our life today is not
(25:31):
conducive to living in this way.
It's not something that isvalued.
So it can be hard to want tolive life more in this way, but
living in our modern day and age, so we can teeter-totter
between living with intentionand coming back to the hustle
(25:55):
and bustle of life.
It's not a linear path, andthere are still days when I
fight against it.
Honestly, most days, I stillfight against it to some degree,
and that's why I am sodedicated to it for myself,
because I know what it hasbrought into my life and I know
(26:19):
that, because I still resist it,it is something that is so
necessary for me.
I would love you to think aboutwhat your relationship with
slowness is.
When you think about that word,what comes to mind?
Is it a positive feeling or isit a negative feeling?
(26:43):
What would happen if youallowed yourself to slow down
and to embrace the presentmoment more fully?
I think life would get more andmore richer, because all of
those moments make up our life,our big, whole life that we get
to live every single day, everysingle day.
(27:14):
I would love if you reflect onthe small things that bring you
joy in your everyday life,because those are the things
that are going to yourexperience.
They are just as important aseverything else.
(27:35):
I am excited to discuss thistopic more with you as the year
goes on, as I continue to go onmy adventure with it.
I know that there are manyother things that I want to
share with you about how to putthis into practice more into
(27:57):
your life, and why it's sonecessary now more than ever.
I would love to hear yourthoughts on embracing the
present moment more and whatyour relationship with slowing
down is, because I feel like alot of us do struggle with that
(28:20):
aspect of life is just acceptingthat there are seasons where
we're not meant to be going allthe time.
So please share with me yourstories of slowing down and
living with intention.
You could send me a message onInstagram.
I would love to read it and Iwill talk to you all in my next
(28:47):
episode.
Until then, stay warm whereveryou are in the world.
I am sending you so much loveand so much light.
Until then.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Please make sure you subscribeso you never miss an episode and
share this message with anyfriends and family.
So you never miss an episode,and share this message with any
(29:07):
friends and family.
I'd love to hear your takeaways, so share them with me by
leaving a comment below orheading over to my Instagram at
jacendamarie.
I am sending you all so muchlove.
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