In a hurry to slow down
It's been ages since I have felt this much hurry to slow down. I've been getting warning signs from my body: nausea, light-headedness, fainting, spasms and tremors suddenly popped up. To regain strength and health, I picked up meditation practices, journaled, wrote some poems, and read books. In other words, I slowed down. While I was circling back to the homestead practices I religiously kept up with before capitalism ruined them all, the symptoms slowly went away. This showed me the passion project I started back in 2016 is more than a cute little side quest. It is my biggest self-care practice.
It was so dreamy
In 2016 I started to journal, meditate daily, and mother like it was the only purpose I ever had. I hyperfixated on natural and attachment parenting, except for baking sourdough, I did all the soft, natural, feminine, motherhood extravaganza things you can think of. Then Covid happened, and slow living and self-care were monetized by a certain type of woman. As much as I want to be a bigger and more confident person, I couldn't handle being tainted by that image. So I gradually practiced less of anything considered spiritual or momfluencer/tradwife-like.
Today that reasoning reads so silly to me, especially because those slow days from 2016 until 2020-something felt like the best years of my life. It was so dreamy, all of it. I had two natural, hands-off births, merely two years apart. After that, I trained to become a doula because I wanted to help women feel as powerful as I did while giving birth. I started a version of this blog, envisioned hosting female-centered gatherings, I read books on feminism and women in the medical field, I learned about healthy eating, living according to your menstrual cycle. I wrote a lot, photographed family, friends and strangers, and healed in more ways than I thought possible.
Back in safe waters
Luckily, economic trends peak and lose interest over time. Lately it's been more about injecting plastics, AI, and smoking. Basically anything hedonistic, nihilistic, artificial, and destructive. I have this feeling that it's safe to be loud about slow living, well-being, and poetry again. It seems no one is profiting from, investing in, or starting up anything honest, raw, or authentic these days.
I'm in safe waters to repeat practices and restore, reconnect, and hold equilibrium.
Last week I meditated for the first time in a long while. That's when I noticed my racing heart (I had no idea) and the tension in my body (again, I had no idea). I have such a slow and deep belly breath how is it that I'm still so tense? Apparently my mind and body are completely disconnected. It is time to slow down and reconnect. No more new projects, goals, or wishlists. Hush the mind that repeats all the things I should do or should've done already.
Practices to restore, reconnect, and hold equilibrium
I've been habitually leaning on these since 2016. Mostly consciously slow practices to mentally and intellectually regulate my nervous system, and newer practices that are less ‘airy’ and help me stay grounded, focused on connection and movement.
Meditate
Journal
Write
Photography
Yoga/pilates
Hosting conversational dinners
Aerial sports
Flexibility workouts
What I love most is that once again It's a Dialogue is proving its worth and importance to me. My fascination with well-being, motherhood, creativity and exploring these themes from every angle possible, is the practice I benefit from. That's why I landed here again, writing this little journal entry, it soothes me. Rediscovering what I already knew, but somehow forgot these past years while mothering, switching careers, grieving, learning and loving.
It’s a Dialogue reminds me of what I absolutely mustn’t forget, the beauty of it all.
Love always,
Daphny