Your Inherent Pace

Finding the Unique Sweet Spot for Mindful Movement

It’s a dissatisfying way to go about a beautiful morning but I resist slowing down.

Pouring tea water while heating the pan for eggs and checking my phone. Moving between the kitchen table, frying pan and sink with speed, picking up and putting down with impatience.

Being efficient multitasking is addictive. Acting on the restless feeling of not being quite where you need to be.

The reasons we don’t slow down are many and varied.

Running away from emotions, feeling behind, wanting to be productive. Pushing through tiredness.

Whatever the reason, when I notice myself doing it I return to something I call the inherent pace.

It seems to be a very defined pace of movement my body favours. What it slows down to when I give it free reins. I perceive it as slow (what will people think?) and it’s a challenge to stay in it, initially.

It takes some courage to ‘take your time’.

We say it but often don’t mean it. Claiming our own time feels indulgent, like depriving something or someone else. The things we could have done with the time saved.

But what you do with the time you afford yourself now, is something beautiful.

An experience of calm, delight, gratitude. The world seems softer. Opening up to it and giving more of yourself happens naturally.

When we skim over the surface of experiences it’s like running on empty calories. We crave nutrients.

We long for more richness, more detail, more sensation.

Children can be completely absorbed in sensation - sand slipping through fingers, sunshine flickering through leaves, rhythmic sounds.

The satisfying flick of a light switch - the pressure under the fingertip, the yielding movement, the click, the appearance of light. It’s miraculous really!

But as adults the experience becomes a tedious routine we go through with impatience, if we’re aware…

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