Slowing Down

“Mom, can we stop at the park?” “Mom, can we take the books back to the library today?” “Mom, can we make cookies?” If I could rewind my life, I would say YES to each one of those questions. But sadly, I didn’t always do that. Now what?

Now I get to hopefully encourage you to slow down. We parade our “busyness” around like a badge of honor…like we win a prize or something…or that we’re SO important because we ‘just don’t have time for that’. I’m done. I’m done being too busy for things that are IMPORTANT because I’m doing too many things that are URGENT. I always tried to teach my children the difference between those two things, but I don’t know that I was always the best example. Too often, I told them things, but didn’t show them. Now that they’re both parents, I will do my best to help them learn from my mistakes and mis-steps.

I started reading a book this month called “Slowing Down To The Speed Of Joy” and one of the things the author talks about, is that we don’t have any room for JOY when we’re so rushed. He says “Joy erupts within us when we allow an experience to touch the very depths of our souls. That cannot be rushed. It’s time to slow down to the speed of Joy!”

Take a look at everything you did yesterday. How much of it was urgent, and how much of it was important? How much of it brought you JOY and how much of it was just a check-off from your long list?

Let’s take some inventory and take a breath. And let’s all try to do better.

~ Brooke