Finding Slowness in the Trenches of Busy

on slowing down when you can't slow down + the gifts of falling skies

Welcome to Slow Folk - a community for gentle hearts and rebellious creatives, thirsty for a slower life in a world obsessed with speed. Notes and reflections from a decade + of life in the Slow Lane. If you’re ready to push back against busy to build a life of purpose and presence-over-perfection - please join me.

Welcome to the Unbusy Revolution.

I should be in bed, but instead I am writing on Substack.

Ya know, I’ve been doing this whole ‘slow living’ shtick for a long time now. Nearly 15 years of saying thanks, but no thanks to a life of too much, too fast. Of striving to find the proper pace - for me.

And even yet, with all that practice . . . there are still seasons when I find myself careening out of the slow lane and into the ditch. Upside down. On fire.

Do ya feel me?

I feel . . . tired. And it’s funny but all I can think as I sit here writing at 10:30 at night, knowing I need to be up at 5 am and should be in bed - is how lucky I am.

Wait, you’re in the ditch. Upside down. On fire. And that’s lucky?

Despite the exhaustion and fear and long-lost knot quietly returning to the space above my shoulder blade, I think, maybe, it is.

One of the best - actually, I’m just gonna claim it - THE BEST part of choosing a slower life for all these years, is it’s gifted me the opportunity to see the beauty within the worst moments of my life.

When things come undone, unravel, let loose from their moorings, slowness affords us this ineffable ability to ride the avalanche down the mountainside.

It doesn’t stop the hillside from giving way. It doesn’t mute the roar of terror in your ears or the tremor beneath your feet.

Instead, it is my late mother’s voice in my ear, whispering - This, too, shall pass.

It is the power to shrug and say - It is what it is. We might as well get on with it.

It is a radical acceptance of things as they are, while also holding onto a deep knowing that nothing lasts forever. Change is the only constant.

You know, I’ve had a lot of notes from readers lately, asking about the actual nuts and bolts of how I first managed to slow down in a world obsessed with speed. I think folks expect that the answer is some well-laid plan, thought out and considered.

But it wasn’t.

I crashed. That’s how I slowed down.

I hit the guardrails at a million miles and hour and went barreling over the cliff. It was painful and it was messy.

Here’s the thing - we can make Slow Living winter activity lists and wear all the linen and read the right books and buy the perfectly imperfect vintage ironstone for our impeccably styled slow living kitchen . . . but it’s not gonna change the fact that sometimes, life is freaking hard.

As in - break you open, bring you to your knees - hard.

Most of us never enjoy the pleasure of this knowledge because we numb ourselves with busyness and rush around the edges of the thing, skirting any opportunity to actually live the moment we find ourselves in.

Wait - what? Pleasure?

Well, maybe pleasure isn’t quite the word but it’s the best I’ve got right now. (I’m tired, remember?) But yes, pleasure. Because I know, that even though I can’t see it right now, there is something beautiful waiting for me in this smoking dumpster fire of unasked-for change.

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But I also know that I won’t find it if I move too fast.

If I don’t allow myself to live the shitty bits, first. If I refuse to feel it. If I numb it with too much work or booze or Netflix.

They say the only way out is through, but I’m not sure that’s quite right. I think sometimes, maybe, the only way out is to simply sit with it where you are, in all it’s awful glory and just - be.

I wonder lately - maybe it’s not just that ‘the obstacle is the path’. I wonder if maybe the obstacle is everything? But maybe, we can’t possibly ever unlock that truth unless we are willing to slow the hell down, even, especially, when we can’t slow down?

In marketing we say, share your scars, not your scabs.

( Gross, right? ) But also . . . what if there’s something to be gleaned from within the process of healing itself? Once we’re healed, it’s too easy to change the story, rewrite the messy bits so that they hang from the narrative arc just so.

I’m not interested in polished narratives concocted after the fact and I’d wager a guess you probably aren’t, either.

Wouldn’t it be lovely - revolutionary, even - if we just told the truth, in the moment? Cause see, I can write pieces like How to Slow Down When Shit Hits the Fan, which is all well and good, but isn’t the same as walking and talking as we figure it out together.

And in this moment, here’s where slowness is landing for me and my own personal falling sky : radical acceptance with the occasional sprinkling of rage.

I cannot change what is happening in my life right now, and that’s ok. I don’t like it, didn’t choose it, but here we are. My life is suddenly much, much less slow than I would ever willingly choose.

It is also what is necessary in this season of my life. Accepting that the pace of our life will change, often without our input, is part of living a truly slow life.

Do I feel angry about it? You bet I do. But also - what’s the point?

No one ‘did’ anything to me. Sometimes shit just happens. In my 42 years, I’ve found that to be the truth more often than not. Whether that’s small problems like a toddler melting down in the grocery store or big problems like watching the most important person in your life succumb to cancer - we can’t really control any of it.

All of this is why I cultivate slowness to begin with.

So that when shit does hit the fan ( and lord knows it will for all of us at some point, probably many points, throughout our lives ) we will be ready. We will have the tools we need at our fingertips. In our muscle memory. In still reservoirs sleeping beneath our ribcage.

In reflex and intuition and breath.

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Slowness has built a deep-seated sense of resilience that only comes with knowing yourself and your values.

This takes time and thoughtful, focused attention.

It also requires a healthy dose of unreasonable stubbornness and grace.

There is a salmon stream that winds its way through my rural neighbourhood. We are miles from the mighty Fraser River, 15 meters above sea level, more than an hour’s drive from the ocean. And yet, every year, salmon fight their way home to spawn here; to return to the place they were born.

Think of the tenacity, intuition, knowing required of such a feat.

I like to think that we, as inter-connected beings, part of the same whole as the salmon, also have that same magic sleeping inside us. Slowing down, creating space, being present, witnessing without judgement - all of it helps us tap back into that resilience that was always there.

So if maybe, you, too, are in the ditch - don’t despair.

This - all of it - is what we’re here for.

Not just for the beautiful moments of stillness with our kids as we hold their tiny sleeping bodies, or the thrill of polishing a tangled sentence, or soaking in all of life’s most nourishing moments. But also the pain, the discomfort, the uncertainty, the miles and miles to travel between the our lives as we know them and the lives we dream of for ourselves.

There is beauty and grace to be found in the struggle, resolve to fortify, resilience to cultivate.

These, too, are gifts.

And remember, you are not alone. I am right here in the trenches with you; reworking plans, starting from scratch, starting over and failing and figuring it out again and again and again.

All of it, even the tough stuff, is beautiful.

Keep your head up.

As always.

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Stacey Langford is a writer, renegade farmer and slow business mentor living and working in Canada’s Fraser Valley. In 2010 Stacey ditched her cubicle in the city to turn her attention homeward, farm and help others craft a simple life, from scratch.

Are you ready to build a life - and a living - you actually love?

I help rebellious solopreneurs and creatives build businesses rooted in Slow Values. If you’re ready to step into your own Slow Life and finally claim your calling, let’s chat!