The Good Pace

"I beg you to be patient with all the unresolved things in your heart." -- Rilke

Change is slow work.

It is an invitation to be human, to clear out the clutter of a well-curated life to make room for the grace-filled wonders revealed in our weakness. Yet, we are quick to resist the very things that lead to our flourishing because growth oftentimes feels like death. We protect our ambitions from the perceived threat of change because the illusion of control is much easier to manage than the loss of control.

We are tired.

A bone-deep kind of tired.

And, eventually, our desperations find the light. The weariness becomes difficult to compartmentalize. At that point, we can continue to manage it or confront it. Such confrontation cannot be hurried because it is the slow-down work that fashions beautiful things that otherwise would remain dormant and hidden from the people who would learn from it.

Makoto Fujimura writes in Culture Care: "I have discovered that something is awakened through failure, tragedy, and disappointment. It is a place of learning and potential creativity. In such moments, you can get lost in despair or denial, or you can recognize the failure and run toward the hope of something new. The genesis moment is to assume every moment is fresh. Creativity applied in a moment of weakness and vulnerability can turn failure into enduring conversation, opening new vistas of inspiration and incarnation."

Your courage can lead to enduring conversation, to new vistas of inspiration and incarnation.

So....how do we slow down?

Perhaps this is a good starting point: curiosity, contemplation, and community.

Curiosity

Be curious about your pain. Instead of the quick default to shame, slow down and ask questions like:

Why I am feeling this way?

Why did I respond the way I did?

Where could this reaction be coming from?

These questions can begin to dismantle our broken defaults and train us in the way of kindness and patience. Choose curiosity over condemnation.

Contemplation

Curiosity will open more doors and lead to more questions.

Then, it's a matter of making space to consider those things. We tend to avoid the quieter postures because we are afraid of what we'll find. The thought of being still can be overwhelming, so start small. A practical starting point could be setting a 3-5 minute timer and being still (or 1 minute if needed!). Slowing down is a full-body endeavor -- the stillness, the breathing, the listening, praying, break dancing (kidding), etc. And we are always learning! It takes time to dismantle the high walls of self-protection, and oftentimes, we only have the energy to do this courageous work one brick at a time.

Introspection is good and necessary work, but we can get stuck in the inner life, losing sight of the broader reality. Solitude becomes isolation. Self-reflection becomes a distraction. We get too close to ourselves and need to invite others into the beautiful chaos of our hearts.

Communication

David Brooks writes in How To Know a Person: "Introspection isn’t the best way to repair your models; communication is. People trying to grapple with the adult legacies of their childhood wounds need friends who will prod them to see their situation accurately. They need friends who can provide the outside view of them, the one they can’t see from within. They need friends who will remind them, ‘The most important part of your life is ahead of you, not behind you. I’m proud to know you and proud of everything you’ve accomplished and will accomplish.’ They need people who will practice empathy."

We need those who practice empathy, who are unhurried, who speak truth with grace-filled persistence. Slow change can be hard to see or feel, so we need people to remind us that we are changing.

Curt Thompson writes in The Soul of Desire, “Imagining a different future often requires that others first imagine it on our behalf."

On the days when you feel lost, when disappointment seems the theme of your life, when you've spent your imagination on your destruction, let others tell you a better story. A story of courage, of pilgrimage, of change.

Believe them because they are telling the truth.