S-L-O-W down

2 October 2008

Yesterday’s Oprah show revolved around the theme of slowing down. It featured the tragic story of Brenda Slaby, a Chicago educator and mom who forgot her sleeping two-year-old daughter was in the car and left her there for eight hours last August. The child died. We relived that experience with the guilt-ridden mother. Such a sad, sad story.

Oprah’s message was that people, particularly mothers, are overwhelmed and running a mile a minute, putting themselves and their children at risk. I think this is a valuable message. If we don’t take time to actually live consciously and to take care of ourselves, we can’t take care of others.

I met this week with a successful business owner who routinely stays up until 3 a.m. After just three or four hours sleep, she gets up and starts all over again. She’s exhausted. We talked about her perfectionist tendencies which make her inclined to stay up and keep working until everything is done perfectly. And we talked about some low-consequence activities she might be able to experiment with allowing to remain imperfect.

When I told her my policy is that I don’t work after dark, she looked at me in wonderment and said, “And you’re successful.” She thought the only way to be successful was to work all her waking hours. I encouraged her to examine her definition of success and allow herself to allow working less to be a measure of success.

If you’re someone who is so stressed that you could see accidentally endangering a family member or someone who’s working so hard you never even see your family, I encourage you to slow down, take time for yourself, and lighten up that to-do list. One of Oprah’s guests, Norman Fischer, a zen teacher, encouraged viewers to get up a half hour early to meditate. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Personally, I don’t meditate (though I’ve taken meditation classes). But I do knit. What I love about knitting is that it forces me to slow down. It’s not easy to knit unless you’re sitting down. Some knitting requires more focus than others, but the act of knitting is a bit like meditation to me.

My advice? Take time for yourself. Do something pleasurable like knitting, running, taking a bubble bath, meeting a friend for coffee, or stroking your cat. Allow your brain to rejuvenate on a regular basis. And please, please don’t feel guilty about it.

Tagged with: meditation, oprah, self-care