The Stillness We’re Starving For

Why our tired hearts are drawn to slowness

I’ve touched on burnout and rest before.

But this piece isn’t just about rest or burnout recovery but returning to a slower rhythm of life. Giving ourselves space to breathe. And as a mindfulness and yoga teacher, I’m all about the breath!

It’s something we could all be tuning into more often — this quiet, innate desire to sloooow down.… I think that’s why there’s this new term that I stumbled across fairly recently called slowmaxxing. I think it’s a Gen Z term.

According to @womenwhorunwiththemoon on Instagram, slowmaxxing is:

"Slowmaxxing" is a lifestyle philosophy that emphasizes intentionally slowing down and maximizing the quality of each moment, prioritizing mindful living and well-being over constant productivity and speed.” i love it!”

I think this generation — especially the younger ones leading the charge — have tapped into something true. It’s a feeling that is quietly underlying all our busy days and crazy schedules and rush, rush, rushing through everything in this productivity-embracing culture.

I think there’s a sort of craving for slowness these days. Deliberateness. It’s not about taking a vacation or a nap (even though naps are amazing and I encourage them wholeheartedly!). And not just taking a self-care Sunday and calling it a day.

I think there’s a real shift to (or back to?) a different way of being. I think it’s how we used to be. Back before the industrial revolution sped everything up. A way of living that is slow, deliberate, intentional. At the pace of the body, the breath, and not the (rat) race.

We’re Not Lazy—We’re Craving This

Most people don’t know they’re craving slowness until something forces us to slow down — like burnout. When we’ve been pushing ourselves so much that our body puts the brakes on us and forces us the say NO MORE. Maybe through injury or fatigue or just a generic indescribable ennui.

When we forget to rest, our bodies remember for us. (Thank you, body. And brain.)

It makes us really pay attention, pause, think, and realize that we have been going all guns blazing for too long, without giving ourselves time to recover.

In my yoga classes I don’t often refer to shavasana as corpse pose (because that’s a little harsh and jarring, anyway) but I call it the ‘final resting pose’ and I invite people to fully relax in their lying down position. And I sometimes tell the class that it’s during this recovery and rest pose where the magic happens. When we integrate all the benefits of all the yoga poses we just did in class into our body. It’s often thought of as the most important pose, but a lot of people are impatient and skip it entirely or rush through it and jump up and rush off into the rest of their busy day.

But I encourage them not to! I emphasize the importance to slowing down and taking time to rest and rejuvenate (regenerate?).

We live in a world that normalizes going pedal to the metal. That measures success with how much we do. That praises people who keep pushing through — so why would we not do that?! We all love praise, don’t we? So we hustle, we spin all the plates, we say yes to everything. We check our emails in the middle of the night. And then we wonder why everything feels thin and flat and frazzled.

But here’s what I think: We’re not lazy or disorganized or unworthy or somehow broken. We’re starving for rest and living a kind of life that doesn’t demand us to run ourselves ragged just to fit into societal expectations!

Slowness as Safety

Slowness allows our nervous system to regulate itself. We’re often living dysregulated - living mostly in fight or flight mode - hopped up on stress-energy, and cortisol, so much that it’s become our default mode and we don’t even realize it until it’s too late.

We need to learn to live more in our parasympathetic or rest and digest mode (or rest and relax, I’ll say). When we take time to slow down and notice ourselves, our bodies, our nervous sytems have a chance to breathe. We can relax our shoulders down away from our ears (something I also ask my students to notice at the beginning of my yoga classes — and I also invite them to notice how they’re feeling at the start of class and then to check in again at the end of class too and see if they notice any difference (but if they don’t that’s okay too)).

In a fast-moving world, slowness becomes a kind of sanctuary. It reminds us of the real truth of things - that we aren’t machines built to go-go-go. That time does not always equal money and that good living sometimes means doing less, not more.

When we slow down, we start to notice what we’ve been ignoring and how we’re mistreating ourselves. We can start to notice that maybe we’ve been so busy because we want to distract ourselves from our thoughts or feelings or maybe what’s going on in our lives. We use busy-ness to numb ourselves, and slowness allows us to wake up to ourselves.

The Importance of a Gentle Pace

Choosing slowness isn’t always easy. It can feel like swimming against the tide—especially if your self worth and importance has been wrapped up in hustle culture for a long time. Slowness might feel like laziness, and you might feel guilty and maybe like you’re wasting your time and potential.

But slowness isn’t giving up. It’s a gentle reminder that you don’t have to go faster, and allows yourself to pause and remember who you are again and what’s really important to you. Slowness lets us remember because it brings us back to the senses and body and the real human parts of life: the smell of your coffee, your dog breathing beside you, the feel of your feet as you’re walking without any particular destination.

These aren’t small things. They’re real things. The things that connect you to yourself, your breath, your actual life—not just your goals.

A Life That Breathes

You don’t need to quit everything and move to the woods to live slower (though, if you do, please send photos!). I love nature. And nature is such a great place to allow ourselves to somatically slow down — don’t you feel like you take deeper breaths when you’re out in nature? Like your shoulders just relax without you thinking about it?

Sometimes, slowness starts small - like deliberately choosing not to fill every spare moment. Pausing before you say yes to something. Letting your morning be quiet and unhurried - my mornings are the most sacred, important parts of my day. On the weekends anyway they’re where I allow myself to do things for myself at my own pace (a quick peek at my morning routines):

Wake up

Drink water

Let my dog out

Roll out my yoga mat (and blocks) and do some morning yoga

Then I have my morning coffee followed by breakfast.

If it’s a ‘run day’, I wake up, drink water, let my dog out. Eat something (toast usually), then do my pre-run stretches and then go for my run, do my post run stretches, and then I get to my yoga and then coffee and breakfast - which is usually around 10:30 by that point). And then I take my dog out for a short walk.

But your version of slowness could be walking like you have nowhere to be, even if it’s just for five minutes. The more we practice slowness, the more we start to recognize our own rhythm again—the one that got drowned out somewhere along the way. We begin to notice that craving slowness isn’t a weakness but instead it’s a form of wisdom because we’re always meant to live lives that breathe, that give us space to just be.

So I’ll leave you with a gentle invitation:
What could slowness look like for you today? Not as a reward for getting everything done, but as a rightful part of being human.

You don’t have to earn or reward yourself with rest or slowing down. And you don’t need to apologize for needing space. You don’t have to rush toward something just to prove you’re worthy of it. You can slow down now.

I’d love to know how you feel after slowing down — even just for a bit. How do you feel after giving yourself that permission?

If this letter found you at the right time, feel free to share it with someone else who might need a little wonder today.

Thank you for letting me keep you company for a few minutes. I'm so glad you're here.

Until next time—may you carry a small, quiet dose of wonder with you.

With wonder,

✨ Love this reflection?
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With heartfelt thanks, always.
— Caitlin

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