Slow Your Flow
Here in Florida, we are finally starting to feel a break in the intensity of heat. The air is just a little lighter, the temperatures are a smidge lower, and though we have limited visual evidence in the way of changing leaves, the feel of a Florida Fall has officially arrived.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about Fall. I was raised first in California and then Florida, so I find heat comforting. The coming season requires honest work for me to find comfort when the temperature drops...don’t laugh...below 70 degrees.
On the other hand, I do love the feeling of change and freshness and energy that we feel when the air is light and brisk, and the sun warms the skin more gently than the intense scorch we have lived with since May.
No matter where we live, Fall can bring a strange mix of how we experience time. On one hand, nature is asking us to collect ourselves and prepare to slow down for the winter. On the other hand, we are being pulled into the intensity of holiday preparation and school exams and that feeling that suddenly there is a lot more to do and the pace is going to be fast and furious until the sun comes back again to melt us into a slower flow.
How are you feeling this change? Are you greeting this weekend feeling fresh and alive, or depleted? Has the change in temperature and pace brought you new life, or do you feel some overwhelm and anticipatory fatigue, even dread?
How is your shine?
We have to tend to ourselves. Whether happily or anxiously ungrounded, that translates into our connection with our clients as simply UNGROUNDED.
And it burns energy in a way that can add up quickly and put us in autopilot mode, pushing through our tasks and interactions with our eyes and hearts living in “what’s next’ rather than what IS.
When we hustle, we radiate a wake of anxious energy all around us. The art of learning the difference between hustle and focused drive is a lifelong pursuit! It requires deep self awareness to recognize, and then shift into, a state of slow flow even as the world spins around us.
I know when I am ungrounded and simply going through the motions on autopilot I feel dissatisfied and restless and just...empty. Quite honestly, sometimes it takes a while to recognize it.
How about you? Are you intimately familiar with your personal signals of being ungrounded?
Here are some typical signs:
-mind or heart racing
-moving very quickly
-inefficiency, wheel spinning
-under or over emotional
-forgetfulness
-neglecting people or activities that are important to us
-others’ moods or energies make us tired, sick, hurt
-intuition is blocked
-analysis and logic are the only tools used to make decisions
Being able to slow down and come back to ourselves in the midst of the intense pace we are required to keep is crucial for our own health and happiness, and for the welfare of every person we serve. It requires patience to remember over and over and over again....but it is so worth it! We really can be connected in the midst of life’s frenetic pace. The connection is where meaning and joy and love, and HEALING, wait for us.
Grab your journal, talk to a tree, or simply hit reply and spill your soul about your strengths and challenges as you seek the awareness to bring fresh, open, and calm energy to your resonance with your clients and everyone around you. This is the very core of your identity and effect as a therapist, and as a human being.
I am sharing my warm, slow, melty energy with you. (Why yes, I AM wearing a sweatshirt!)
With shiny love,
Tara