On Accepting The Slow Pace of Change

I’ve been wanting things to speed up lately, desperate for situations and feelings to change. Sometimes I wish I’d wake up to a different reality. But, of course, I never do. It’s like my life has been at a red traffic light for the past few years, and it’s hard to figure out — when did I get into this slump? And when can I finally put my foot on the accelerator again?

Maybe my feet are on the accelerator and the brakes at the same time. I feel like I have this urge to go somewhere, change something, do something bold and different — but life is on pause, I can’t seem to go anywhere, and have no clue where I’m going to, or even in what direction to head.

But lately I’ve been waking up with some different thoughts. What if I’m not supposed to know where I’m going right now? What if this is part of the process — that I’m meant to be here in this situation that I am currently in because I have more to learn in this stage of my life before I move onto the next? And what if I can’t do fast right now because I’m not supposed to go fast? Maybe I’m supposed to go slow. Maybe I’m not supposed to get mad at myself and beat myself up that I am here, in this lane, as myself. Maybe I’m supposed to learn not to try and be busy because it appears glamourous, or makes me feel like i’m getting somewhere just because I add pointless distractions to an endless to-do list which simply have me running circles?

Aside from my neuroticism or rationalising, I understood the deeper truth. Change seems to have a pace and a speed of its own volition.

Anyway — here’s some of my related thoughts to the reason why change can feel so slow:

Time to Clear the Sludge

I saw an old friend over the weekend, and she talked about the sludge that collects in our minds over time — mental cobwebs, and that sitting alone or taking yourself away gives you the space and time to start clearing the sludge. So what if this time in limbo, this prolonged purgatory — is time to spring clean the mind — and maybe i’ll even get some clarity, or at the very least make space for some other (hopefully better) stuff to come in?

On Not Knowing What You Want

Not knowing what I really want has been at the root of so much of my suffering. I’ve put myself through tough, relentless backpacking in difficult and isolating parts of the World, making myself even lonelier, more depressed and even sick in the process — because I didn’t know what else to do, and I thought that ‘travelling’ would help me come up with some answers and ideas. I don’t know. Doing things for the sake of them doesn’t yield much joy in the long term.

But I read somewhere that when you don’t know what you want it is because on some level you are identifying with what other people want or expect from you — and perhaps too much of my sense of validation was based on external perception and status. I read that all of us know deep down what we really want: and all of us are the same at our core. We have needs to be loved. We have needs to find meaning and joy in what we do and contribute to the world. We all have a unique nature and want our gifts to be shared with the world and in some ways feel valued or at least appreciated through connecting with people. I know what I want. I want to be able to be myself, to be happy, to be healthy, to feel free and to get good at the things I like and hopefully get to do them for a living.

Discomfort and Reward

Recently, I had a personal experience that reminded me that if you push past the initial period of discomfort — and also sometimes the fear of the pain — that nature and your body rewards you afterwards. I remember when I was young and used to run 10ks — there was a point where your legs and feet would just feel broken. But I remember, I used to get into this kinda zen like state mentally, where if I allowed myself to be with and almost ‘love’ the pain, instead of push it away or numb, surpress or avoid it — it would actually make me perform better. I don’t know why. But it felt important.

What does the ‘Dream’ feel like?

I guess recently, it all comes down to having a hard time sitting alone, and spending quality time with myself. Like many others, I tend to overthink, and lean towards anxiety with a big old side of depression. On one hand, I’m so sick of overthinking, being paralysed with inabilities to make concrete decisions, becoming annoyed with my own fluidity, and questioning and analysing everything over and over again. But maybe I’ve been given a gift — the gift of space and time, in this weird in-between box in my life — to question again, to decide again, but ultimately, to permit myself to feel, and to dream.

In the last two years, there’s not been much feeling, or dreaming. I was beyond numb, and past burned out. I was — in short effect — not tuned in or listening to myself. Somewhere along the line, with a tiny self-care routine that started with daily exercise, fasting and journaling, which then transformed into meditating, healthy eating and continued therapy, some of my shorted emotional circuits came back on-board and I started to actually ‘feel’ again, away from the gnawing numbness that had consumed me for most of my life. And now I have some of my feeling sensors back — then maybe I can suss out what the dream ‘feels’ like. If we are all dreammakers — and can visualise a dream future for ourselves, then don’t we want to live in a dream of our own making that at least feels good?

And yes — I do still have a broken heart and carry much sadness with me—but I also have other things too. I was lucky enough to have one of those brilliant thoughts on the tube today. If you had the choice to just do nothing and stay hopeless, or you could do something and it would still hurt, and you’d still feel hopeless but there is a chance, no matter how small or unlikely, there is still a chance that at somepoint in the future — you might even feel slightly better — wouldn’t you just do something anyway?

That. That is quite a remarkable thought.