How To Deal With Slowing Down As An Over-Thinker

What Story Was I Telling Myself About Slowing Down? 

It’s funny how life talks to you through other people sometimes. So a few months ago I was getting off of my third 12 hour night shift in the ICU and I remember it being a particularly difficult shift. So I’m passing through a small town and I get pulled over. I explained myself I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention I just got off a shift, this man could not have cared less. The ONLY thing he kept saying was you need to slow down. I’d answer, he’d say it again. Even when he gave me my ticket, all he said to me was you just need to slow down. 

So naturally I’m livid when I get the ticket (which I totally was in the wrong for, I was 150% going easily 30 over the limit) but I just kept mocking this man saying you need to slow down mehhhhhh, slow down slow down. And then it was kind of like life lit up her little light bulb in my head and I was like, wow, so true I do need to slow down. 

Something I know about myself is that when I’m rushing and not prioritizing any slowness, stillness, or rest, which are really my whole foundation  as a person. I cannot create anything, I get really frustrated, and I am so off caliber to who I really am, that everything feels off. 

So while the ticket was inconvenient, yes. BUT I heard life talking to me in a very amplified way because of it. 

Before I started really thinking about why I am the way that I am, in a deliberate way not in an obsessive way…the idea of slowing down didn’t have a place in my thoughts. I was really tied to thinking that slowing down mentally or physically seemed foreign to the way I operated. Ultimately the story I told myself about slowing down was no story at all. 

I think it’s kind of ironic because my family has graciously given me the nickname “turtle” because I just move slowly. And it’s really me just taking in the world around me, and being in my own world in general.. that I do just move very slowly. Which worked in my favor when anyone wants me to go grab something for them, because it quickly pivots to a “never mind you would take forever.” Hehe. So maybe to add a bit of definition and context, my slowing down has to come from a more cerebral perspective instead of physically slowing down. Physically slowing down, I’m a borderline expert at. 

What Old Beliefs Did I Live By About Slowing Down? 

I think my interesting combination of being a slow mover and an overactive thinker made slowing down collectively a difficult process. I also think maybe I moved through life so slowly because I was thinking so much that it was a hard balance. I think my belief around slowing down my thoughts, made me feel like I was simultaneously rushing in life. It was relatively anxiety provoking honestly, and made me a very internal person because my brain was always on. 

Slowing down in my thinking meant getting out of my head more often and being in my body more, and the irony of slowing down is that we live in such a fast paced culture so there’s a lot of natural resistance around us. An active form of distraction is making ourselves super busy. For me, if I wanted to not think I would just make myself unreachable. To do: Gym, to work, to yoga class, to book, to anything that kept me from thinking. But being busy doesn’t allow you to process anything, it just keeps you from thinking, which to no surprise doesn’t equal slowing down. 

How Did I Choose To Start Reframing Slowing Down? 

The push and pull between a busy mind and a slow body made the idea of slowing down in general a conundrum. I wanted a way to bridge this gap, to invite my mind to do the same thing my body was doing. I’m a firm believer that when I relax and listen to my mind and body, she tells me things that overthinking could never say. Not when she’s overthinking, but when she’s calm. I can really tune into who I am, listen to what actually matters to me, and  hear the real human parts of me instead of the unoriginal framework laid out for everyone to follow. 

The antidote to peace is doing anything fast paced for a consistent amount of time. There’s a time and a place to speed it up, but constantly doing so is a catalyst to constant anxiety and deep disconnection instead. 

What Shifted When I Started Thinking Differently About Slowing Down? 

Learning to line up my mind with my body took a lot of release. I really clung to my overthinking that prevented me from slowing down, solely because I would use a lot of distractions to get rid of even feeling the need to slow down in the first place. So my busy mind led me to a busy life. This is true for most things when it comes to your mindset. My overthinking mind encouraged an overactive life, one that wasn’t sustainable and made me tired. 

What I thought of as productive, I now see as distracting. Booking yourself out for your entire day isn’t something that will lead you to peace. I had to release this idea that being “productive” meant something important. Because it doesn’t mean anything if you’re not balancing it with rest. 

What Is My New Practice With Slowing Down? 

As I implemented this idea of releasing overthinking and overdoing it in my life, I saw my life around me reflect the mind I was working on creating. I would still overthink, but instead of filling it with doing more..I listened to my thoughts and learned to let some things go. I learned not every thought is worth clinging too. I learned that distracting yourself won’t make these thoughts go away, but what does is acknowledging and deciding if they’re worth your time. 

When you decide what is worth your time, you’re inadvertently deciding what you let into your life. Will I let in distraction or will I let in processing? Will I let in overthinking or will I let in new ideas? Will I let in repetitive thoughts or will I let my mind be silent. Will I let in overbooking myself or will I let the day flow naturally? Whatever you choose will play out, it just starts with your thoughts. 

How Do I Carry Out Slowing Down Now?? 

Carrying out slowing down is a natural eb and flow. We can’t always decide what’s going on in life, but we do have the indefinite decision on how we respond. There will usually be a natural pull to what we’ve always known, but the important part is when you decide to do something different..to slow down instead of speed up, that's when you can show yourself that the busy noise around us is just that, noise. Once it’s blocked out, you’re really left with all that you are and the stillness that lives in you can be connected with again.

If I can look around and notice I haven’t taken care of myself, I haven’t had any ideas lately, or I’m not inspired or excited by anything, those are my ques to slow down and spend some time grounding with myself and less with the world. It’s my que to quiet my thoughts, to quiet my actions, and to quiet my schedule and let this missing part of me come back as I go missing from the booked out life I was curating.