How gentle pacing awakens the body’s wisdom
The Pace of Movement and the Language of the Body
When we move quickly, the body’s whispers can’t be fully heard. Each movement tumbles into the next before the previous one has had the chance to be received. Information rises to the surface, but in our haste, it slips away – unfelt, undigested. The feedback fades too soon – like a dream upon waking, gone before we can make sense of it.
It’s like chewing too fast and swallowing chunks of food. When we move through our practice or our day in this way, our body becomes overwhelmed with unprocessed sensations, emotions, and signals. When we hurry, we skip over the subtleties, leaving behind fragments of half-felt experiences. Over time, these unprocessed sensations can collect beneath the surface, leaving build-up half-digested information and forming layers of discomfort, confusion and that we can’t quite name. We may feel these feelings without realizing that the source lies in the speed at which we move and the lack of space we give ourselves to feel. The body keeps trying to speak. It wants to be met slowly – listened to, savored, understood.
The Medicine of Slowness
Moving slowly is not about doing less – it’s about doing with awareness. When we slow down, we create the conditions for real listening. We begin to sense the subtleties of movement, the micro-shifts that carry the wisdom of the body.
Slow movement invites us into an intimate dialogue with ourselves. It’s the remembering that meaningful learning rarely happens in a haste. Like a seed unfolding underground, growth asks for gentleness, darkness, and time. The most transformative changes are not the ones we rush through. When we slow down, we start to sense the shimmering dialogue between our awareness and the body’s natural intelligence.
In yoga, in art, in love, and in life, the changes that endure are the ones that are given time to root. Like soil absorbing rain, the body needs space to take in what it’s being offered. The slower we move, the more deeply the message is received.
Feeling as a Form of Digestion
Feeling is the body’s way of digesting experience. It’s how we metabolize life. When we allow ourselves to feel, to pause long enough for sensations to ripple through, the body softens, integrates, and releases what it no longer needs. Without this slowing, we skip the alchemy. The sensations we haven’t allowed ourselves to feel remain undigested, waiting patiently for us to return.
To feel is to metabolize. And just like with food, digestion takes time. When we honor that pace, we allow what we take in – whether a posture, a breath, or an emotion – to move through us in a nourishing way.
When we rush, we miss the wisdom that lives in the pauses. But when we slow down, even the simplest gestures – lifting an arm, drawing a breath, turning the head – become sacred conversations. Each movement becomes a doorway into presence, a chance to receive what the body has been quietly trying to say.
Lasting Change Happens Slowly
Slow, mindful change is the kind that lingers. It weaves itself into the fabric of who we are. The body learns through repetition, patience, and attention. To move slowly is to trust the unfolding. To know that what’s meant to shift will do so, not when we demand it, but when we allow it.
This practice of slowing down is an act of devotion. It’s a returning to the body as teacher and guide, trusting that each moment holds something valuable if we move at a pace that allows us to feel it.
The slower we go, the more we notice. The more we notice, the more we learn. And the more we learn, the deeper our connection becomes, to the body, to the breath, and to the quiet intelligence that’s been there all along, waiting for us to listen.
Loving you,
Meghan