Sometimes the only way I can slow down is when my body does it for me. It's called a migraine. I usually get one when my life is on fast-forward. My migraine protocol is: take a huge dose of ibuprofen, wrap a heat pack around my neck and hibernate under the covers of my bed. If Darrell is around, he massages my shoulders and neck. When the drugs kick in and I'm feeling like I can move again, I find it's much more slowly. For the rest of the day, I'm in a migraine "hangover." My mind is strangely blank and I can just BE.
After a middle-of-the-night migraine episode, I sat in a kitchen chair this morning, with a cup of tea, staring out the window at a budding oak against the blue sky. The sudden urge to get up and DO something was strangely absent. I really enjoyed that cup of tea. The texture of the mug, the heat against my hand, the steam rising into my face. I SAW the tree. The buds. The criss crossing pattern of bare branches. The color of the sky.
Why does it take being sick for me to slow down? What does it take for you to slow down? One of my goals is to cultivate being present in the moment, WITHOUT a migraine hangover.
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