Slowing down + getting curious for successful healing By Kevin Yee-Chan

It’s no secret that modern western culture glorifies all things fast. Alongside fast, it celebrates bigger, better, shinier. To the superficial eye, it’s all quite appealing and works well for marketing in scarcity economics: that transactional way of using lack and fear to attract sales. It’s the economic system that so many of us were raised with and capitalizes on the sense of urgency in our bodies. The trouble is: urgency is exhausting.

When we think about healing sustainably and holistically, it’s important to recognize that while urgency is vital in certain (survival) situations, slowness is vital in long-term healing. We need both.

Slowing down allows us to be in good relationship: taking time to get to know what our different systems need to be well-rounded and well-grounded. Whether they are our organ systems, our mental-emotional systems, our eco-systems, or our economic systems… slowing down gives us the opportunity to recognize the nuance and detail of how we inhabit our bodies and cohabitate our land.

With slowness, we can tease apart habitual reactivity and pause to discern between cause and effect… between trigger and response. In this discerning pause, we get a moment to assess the appropriateness of our response from a state of regulation rather than vigilance.

This means time and space to adopt a wider aperture. Time and space to lean into interdependence- to create relationships with those who have the wisdom we don’t and who can enrich our understanding. So that we can assemble a team where everyone plays to their strengths for your healing. In fact, this interdependence lets everyone focus on what they do best and leaves us all with more time and space to be curious.

Because let’s be real: if you’re in a tough spot where something that’s been happening isn’t yielding the results that are desired, curiosity is a foundational part of making sustainable change. Curiosity may have killed the proverbial cat, but it does wonders for our healing. 

When we move slow and get curious, we can tend to the subtle threads stitching together the larger fabric of our experience and heal from the inside out.

So as we embark on another turn of the calendar year, and as you notice the shiny advertisements that create a sense of urgency in your resolutions, in your body, I’m curious:

What would it be like to move slow when you don’t absolutely need to move fast?

Maybe with some more slowness and curiosity, we can work with the wealth of diversity and interdependence that’s in and around us. I do believe it’s a strong, reliable way to be precise about the healthy and healing future we want to embody together… right now.

With care and curiosity,

Kevin Yee-Chan R.Ac