Slow Living: How Presence Rebuilds Connection

This comes on the back of a beautiful weekend of slowing down. We live in a society where everything is fast. We snap our fingers and want the response now. We live in an Amazon economy where you order today and it arrives tomorrow. I have noticed with clients that their children often do not know the energetics of yearning, of wanting something and waiting for it. When I was young in Holland, we wrote a list of what we longed for, and part of the magic was the wait.

Yearning, Then Letting Go

There is a piece here that law of attraction points to. You want something, you visualise it, you taste it and smell it, you place yourself in the moment of having received it. Then you let it go, into the universe, into whatever word you use, and let it arrive to you. Slowing down is what makes the receiving possible.

A mobile phone is a wonderful thing, and it has also made it easy to cancel on someone twenty minutes before, as if their time were less precious than ours. I remember skiing in France as a girl, meeting friends at the lift at nine thirty, and if you were ten minutes late they left, because there was no way to reach them. That constraint held something. Slowing down asks: what is my communication to myself, and to another, and can I honour it?

Learning to Receive, and to Trust

I named my brand Feel Fully You because so much of the work is fully experiencing: a thought, an image, a body sensation, an emotion, felt deeply rather than numbed. When we numb out, it is usually because something happened too fast for us to move through, so we lose access to the good feelings along with the hard ones.

Here is where slowing down showed up in my own life. I had booked a restaurant for lunch, and my partner had forgotten. My past self would have opened the map, given directions, managed every detail. This time I chose to receive. I let him take us there, choose the time, find the parking. When we micromanage, we quietly tell our partner we do not trust that they have us, that we are safe with them. That chips away at intimacy and builds resentment. Letting him lead let him step into his fullness, and let me rest into being held.

How Presence Changes an Afternoon

At the restaurant his iced tea arrived lukewarm with three melting cubes. I felt the old urge to step in and fix it for him rise up, and I stayed with the discomfort and let him handle it. He slowed down and asked, kindly and clearly, for exactly what he wanted, explaining it so the young waitress felt taken care of rather than told off. The owner came out, tasted the drink herself, agreed it was not right, and made it properly, taking real pride in her menu.

Because we were present, we got to talking with her. She was from Hong Kong, running beautiful evenings, and we ended up chatting about local English wines and champagnes from East Sussex. If we had rushed, none of that would have existed. She said later that people feel safe and included around us, and that is one of the biggest gifts we can give anyone, a felt sense of safety.

So much of the time we numb with a scroll or a drink or a game. None of that is bad. If it becomes the way we soothe, the question is: what am I really trying to soothe here, and which part of me needs a little light? Slowing down is a doorway into receiving yourself, noticing your thoughts, images, sensations, and emotions. That is what cultivates the mind, body, and soul as one.

"Awareness is the first step towards self-love. It is really important to slow down, to feel our emotions, to feel the body sensations that may have been coming up."