The Unseen Speedometer: A Guide to Balancing Life's Fast Lane
How do you know when you’re going to fast?
If we’re driving we’ve got a gauge in front of us.
Sometimes we even know what it’s going to say, we just don’t look at it.
But what happens when the gauge isn’t so obvious?
Throughout the year I fly out west and work in hospitals and communities around Brewarrina and Bourke - 10 hours away from the coastline.
I used to live in Bathurst (3 hrs west of sydney) and used to think that was ‘country’.
Brewarrina is the real country.
It’s fun work because it’s challenging.
In the short time I'm usually there I have to provide robust treatment/ healing/ coaching/ Macgyvering in whatever way I possibly can to help.
I want to leave knowing that I didn't just slap on a bandaid - that I helped each person to make an important shift in their wellbeing.
It's great work, and it’s fast.
Sometimes fast is good. Fast is exciting, it’s exhilarating and makes us know we are alive and creating.
I certainly feel that.
And recently at the end of a day working there, after so much happening all around me, I knew I needed space.
And all I wanted was to walk barefoot on the grass, in silence.
And so I did.
I even ended up laying down on the grass underneath the early evening sky and waited for the exhale to come.
And it did.
The lengthened exhale, akin to one that usually happens when you finally arrive on a holiday long overdue.
The gift is in allowing that exhale to come.
Whether it’s calling a friend when times are tough.
Putting your phone down and going for a walk when the stress is too much.
Or just saying, right now I need a hand to find my neutral.
These are all ways that we’re acknowledging the speed we’re going.
The exhale that usually comes after we do this, is your body's relief of that acknowledgement.
Because when that exhale comes, it welcomes the next fuller breath in.
And that inhale, is the new.
That inhale, creates the space to continue.