Slowing down, decelerating life, living intentionally – these are buzz words you hear and read everywhere. There’s little disagreement on them, nearly everyone thinks it’s a good idea to slow down.

When you look at what people’s lives actually look like, however, you quickly realise that the idea of a slower life is just that, an idea. Most people don’t have the first clue how to take the stress out of their lives, and some flat-out claim it’s impossible because they have too much to do.

I have a lot of experience with this, because not only have I decelerated my own life, I also help my clients do the same thing. But if you’re expecting another article on how to slow down, please note that’s not the main focus here (contact me through my programs page to have a chat about that).

What I’d like to focus on is what happens after you’ve slowed down. There are some unexpected effects that you need to be prepared for, and not all of them are pleasant.

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Meet the resistance

I’ve often talked about how our world isn’t designed to let people live at a slower pace. So yes, it can feel like peddling a raft upstream when you try to do that, still hold down a regular, real-world job and live surrounded by people who are also all caught up in the constant pressure of our world.

These things can be handled, though. I witness it in my coaching clients, and it always works. What it requires is a certain disregard for the opinions of others and the willingness to learn how to set healthy boundaries and say No.

What’s harder to navigate is your own, inner resistance. When people are stressed, they laugh at the thought that they could oppose a slower pace. They long to take a holiday in a country cottage, take walks in a quiet forest and sit on the porch sipping a cup of coffee or tea.

How many actually do this in reality, though? How many people resist the urge to “do things” even when they’re on leave? Most start by cleaning their houses and then go on with one project after another. Holiday trips are spent sightseeing and experiencing the local culture.

I’m not saying that any of these things are bad. What I’m pointing out is that they’re not exactly “slow” activities, and that it seems like most people are actively avoiding the slow life they crave.

What does it look like?

The resistance can show up in any number of ways. Some of them are:

• You really want to slow down, but you never seem to get to it. It’s always “after these next few weeks/the holidays/the busy time at work/etc.”, ad infinitum.

• As soon as you’ve given up an obligation or activity, someone shows up to push something else on you or ask a favour that’ll keep you busy again for the foreseeable future.

• When you finally have time off, you fall sick and then spend it getting better.

• You give up activities, but your schedule doesn’t feel any emptier. You’re still stressed most days, and too tired to do anything meaningful in your free time.

If any of this sounds familiar, do talk to me. It’s a very well-known phenomenon, and you can get past it with some support.

If you’re serious about decelerating your life, you need to do the work on yourself. It’s not as simple as shrugging off stress; the life you’ve been leading has left traces both physically and in your psyche, and you need to heal these scars in order to move forward.

Done! So why are you miserable?

When I navigated all those changes and challenges myself four years ago, I learned a lot about myself. It wasn’t always easy but I’ll be honest: It’s one of the most worthwhile things I’ve ever done. And to this day, I still work a lot at times, but the feeling, the pacing has changed. I no longer pile one thing on top of the next. I’m relaxed.

So once you’ve worked through the resistance and actually achieved a slower pace, you’re done, right?

Wrong.

Because that’s when most people suddenly feel deflated. Everything is so lovely, so much more intense than before…and there’s space in your life. Space to do nothing at all and just rest. Space for self care and for your passions/hobbies/interests. It sound like pure bliss, so why are you miserable?

This is something that Tim Ferriss writes about in The 4-hour Work Week. Simply put: creating space means that there will, in fact, be space, and that means time for all the unfinished business in your life to come back to haunt you. We were never taught how to be “slow”. Ferriss speaks of a void that’s longing to be filled.

The way out

It’s really, really tempting now to simply find more things to fill that new void with. Then you’re back to square one. The other option is to do more work on yourself. It’s simply the next layer, after dealing with the initial resistance to the slower life.

This next layer consists of looking really closely and separating the wheat from the chaff. Some things might need to be healed, such as family history, old trauma and hurts. Others are ready to be let go, and this is something you can learn. You can introduce a positive focus in your life without toxicity, without bypassing everything else. To find that balance and re-establish it over and over again, is an ongoing work and very rewarding.

This is what lies on the other side of stress. Once you get a handle on it, you’ll feel the true bliss of a slower pace in life. The black thoughts will be gone, and when they do come back, they’ll be short-lived. Most of your time, you’ll spend on enjoying life. You’ll be focused on what truly matters to you and what makes you happiest.

It might not be particularly glamorous, but it’s well worth the journey to get there!