Tag: slowingdown

When the mind gets busy with thoughts, turning to the body offers an alternative to step out of rumination, to create more space between thoughts and actions, and to find a sense of peace and grounding.

The Body, Charles Simic

This last continent

Still to be discovered.

My hand is dreaming, is building

Its ship. For crew it takes

A pack of bones, for food

A beer-bottle full of blood.

It knows the breath that blows north.

With the breath from the west

It will sail east each night.

The scent of your body as it sleeps

Are the land-birds sighted at sea.

My touch is on the highest mast.

It cries at four in the morning

For a lantern to be lit

On the rim of the world

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Jens Herrndorff, Unsplash

A mind free of worry, hangups and cravings allows us to go back to our true original being, one that is feels whole, at peace, joyfully curious and unencumbered. We use the breath, chest and abdomen to fill our awareness as we breath and cultivate stability and freedom.

Half Life, The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran (extract)

Do not live half a life 
and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished 
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it 
for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
You are a whole that exists to live a life,
not half a life.”

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Pascal Debrunner, Unsplash

The foundation of learning to slow down and cultivating mindfulness, we stabilize the attention using the breath.

Why the breath?

The breath is closest to us, and is often immediately available and without fuss.

The predictable, certain and reliable pattern of breathing, where the in-breath would be followed by a pause and the outbreath, is a stabilising factor to achieve coherence within us.

Breathing rejuvenates our cells, fuels us, is a gift that continues because to live is to breathe.

So whenever you’re down, just breathe. Whenever you feel like reaching out for the next cookie, just breathe and slow down.

In Blackwater Woods (extract), Mary Oliver

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends n it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Neom, Unsplash