Having worked in full time ministry for five years, as well as working with pastors and ministry leaders in therapy, A. C. knows the unique challenges of slowing down in ministry. In her book, she shares about her personal and professional journey in slowing down, which didn’t come easily for her, but instead, was prompted by chronic health issues, trauma, and loss, that all came together in a painful, perfect storm. Faced with her body shutting down outside of her control, she started to slow down and listen in, learning new depths of God’s restorative care.
I sat in the lobby, impatiently counting the minutes as they passed the top of the hour. I was waiting to begin my first spiritual direction appointment, unsure of what to expect. Friends of mine had worked with Shari, and they’d told me about the sweetness of slowing down with her and enjoying her direction, whether for an hour or on a silent retreat. Something in me was intrigued. Something else in me wasn’t sold on it just yet. I was drowning in the details of a busy day, and I barely felt as though I had margin for this appointment. I wanted to make the most of the hour with Shari, but I also didn’t want it to interfere with everything on the to-do list that was weighing on my mind.
Why Slowing Down Feels So Hard
Most days in this season were anything but slow and silent. I was in my third year of seminary, moving through life with my thinking brain leading the charge. When I wasn’t working on counseling coursework, I was spending my time on a second master’s degree, digging into ancient languages of Scripture. Day in and day out I worked my thinking brain overtime, weaving together coursework on counseling, ancient Near Eastern cultures, family systems, Second Temple Judaism, trauma, hermeneutics, couples therapy, and more.
When Life Refuses to Move Slow
Back then, moving slowly wasn’t an option because I had more assignments to manage than was reasonable for any one person. When I would sit down to read or write a paper, I was always aware of the limited time I had as well as everything else I needed to get done. It was as if an internal gas pedal was always pressed to the max, trying to help propel me through the current stressor in order to get to the next task, over and over again.
The Body’s Resistance to Slow
And so as I waited for the hour of spiritual direction to start, I knew how many more minutes I had in my day and how much still had to be accomplished. And in that equation, I knew I had no time to spare. Fueled by an internal angst, I was trying to rush through an hour that was designed to slow me down. Not my best look, I know.
As seconds stretched to feel like hours, I watched Shari walk down the hallway with a warm smile on her face, inviting me to come back with her. Before she sat down, she calmly asked me if I’d like any tea. I tried to politely hide my instinct to hurry up and get started, attempting to embrace the cadence of the space. Next, she unhurriedly pulled out a box of matches from her desk drawer, pausing with intentionality to strike the match against the side of the box and light a candle, all part of her process to invite us to hold silence together. I could see her delight in every step of this ritual. From the joy in her eyes and her calm presence, it was clear she was savoring the prologue of what would come next. Before we’d even begun, she was inviting me to slow down.
What Happens Inside When We Slow
Now if I’m honest, the unhurried pace of her movements agitated something inside of me. Some fear inside me was worried about what might happen if I really let myself slow down. Some part of me was thinking, Let’s hurry up and get going already! Deep in my gut, I could feel this tension bumping up against her gentle invitation to ease my pace. Slowing down didn’t feel good just yet.
Why Slow Can Feel Unsafe
Slowing down creates space to tune in with the body and tend to the soul. The problem is, for many of us, life is fast-paced, and we’re not used to a slower-moving rhythm.
Slow as a Threat to Survival Rhythms
Whether or not we want it to be true, our body often moves at the pace of the culture around us, one that doesn’t allow breathing room but demands that we push through life, no matter the cost. In this rhythm where most of our days are go- go- go, it often feels much safer to do and perform, finding “rest” in doing a good job or doing the right behavior. When this is the tempo we have known down in our bones, slowing down can feel like driving backward on the wrong side of the road.
Practically, it can feel painfully inconvenient to slow down when our to-do list only seems to get longer. Even if we can force mind over matter and jump into a minute of deep breathing or a yoga class, these spaces don’t always feel good in contrast with our busy and often distracted lives. The moment there is space to simply be, we might start to notice things happening inside that we’d prefer not to feel, making slowing down feel risky at a gut level.
Learning to Move Slow with the Body
Slowing down means we might need to be with and feel emotions that aren’t initially comfortable to acknowledge. Slowing down means we might feel the weight of our thoughts, which can run a mile a minute, overwhelming us when we aren’t distracted by busyness. Most simply, slowing down threatens the predictable pace our body is used to. I say all of this to validate the ways that slowing down is not as simple as it may seem at first glance.
Slow as a Path Toward Healing
In this space, we are going to explore what happens inside as we slow down, so that we can understand the day-to-day muscle memory that carries us through life—the reflexive rhythms that might push back against our attempts to slow down, keeping that unhurried tempo seemingly out of reach. Rather than viewing the roadblocks and disconnects that get in the way of slowing down as problems, we’ll tune in with what’s happening beneath the surface so that we can learn to move with, rather than against, our body.
Anna Christine is a licensed counselor, researcher, and author. She loves cultivating healing spaces that honor the entirety of our embodied beings. She holds two master’s degrees, one in clinical mental health counseling and a second in biblical studies, and has served in a spiritual formation fellowship. She is currently working on a PhD at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Her book, The Sacred Art of Slowing Down, which includes practical and contemplative exercises, can be found here.
