“You & Me of the 10,000 Wars”
GO SLOW!
This mantra is against everything I know about myself. I always go fast, in everything I do. I feel. I leap. I figure things out. I leap some more. Now I am learning that this pace has left parts of me feeling very unsafe and unacknowledged.
There is a tender heart within me that is terrified of speed. She knows that when the other me is barreling down the road at 100 mph there is no space for her. There is no time for her. Her needs are not even a consideration. She is left behind. She leaves our body behind. This is what happened to me most of the time during physical intimacy for the first decades of my life.
In the speed, the disempowered me slips into the driver’s seat in the blink of an eye. She takes over without me even knowing it. I may find myself in yet another situation that I don’t want to be in where someone’s hand is groping at me and their heat sticking to me like a hot summer day before a storm when the humidity is almost suffocating. It is here that I learned to wait until the storm passed before I dare to breath again.
Why is it so scary and so powerful to speak what we are actually thinking and feeling?
Why do we hesitate to share what our needs are moment to moment?
Why do we have such difficulty slowing down, allowing ourselves to feel, and caring for ourselves as well as we care for others?
We have such a long history of momentum pulling us like a riptide out to a sea of loneliness, disconnection, low self-esteem, and incessant perfectionism. Do you feel me ladies?
When was the last time you slowed down and really let yourself feel whatever emotions were present?
Have you ever truly accepted all parts of yourself as loveable?
When I was 14, I was a rebel and presented that I didn’t give a fu*k what other people thought. My rebel self hopped in front of my tender heart with her fists up ready to battle anyone who thought she was going to take the light away from me. Years later, I became aware that this rebel did the best she knew how in the moment, but her style of fighting created a chasm between myself and my light.
Now at 45, I see that slowing down is one of my greatest tools. In slowing down, I get to listen to my tender heart and choose consciously what it is I truly desire. For example, when I am approached for a hug, I don’t have to just comply. I get to slow down the moment, check in with myself, and from a place of honoring and clarity choose whether I want to be touched. If I choose to disengage for any reason (all reasons are accepted!), I speak my words out loud to the other. I honor both of us by sharing my truth. In doing this, I know the risk of my words being taken personally by another and I make the choice that someone else’s feelings are not my responsibility or more important than my own. This does not make me a bad, uncaring person. It makes me a woman who knows that to live a joyful life, truly free life, I have to be willing to honor myself first. It took me years to learn this, and even longer to put it into practice.
Will you join me on this super sexy train that is all-inclusive, full feeling, connected to the body, SLOW riding, treat yourself like gold magnificence?
Dare to Desire!
Kristen