325. Slow down to speed up

Have you ever been in the car and someone is on your tail driving fast and they zoom around you in a hurry only to get to the stop light and there they are. Right beside you? Happens a lot. Or maybe you speed to work trying to take shortcuts or detours and it just takes longer? Statistics show speeding if your on short trips like to work or school or grocery store isn’t very effective due to traffic lights and stops. We are talking like 10 seconds here. and when you consider the risks of accident and cost of a ticket the benefit of those 10 seconds disappears. I think it’s the same way for life. I was rushing the other day to leave the house and I got in my car to see I had forgotten my phone in the house and my water bottle. So back up the drive I go into the house to find it. All my time saved rushing gone. And I was stressing myself on top of that. And we do this a lot. Whenever you rush something or take shortcuts it seems like it takes longer. How about when you’re speeding on a project and you make tons of mistakes so now you have to take the time to fix them? If you just slowed down and were intentional about what you’re doing, you would actually be ahead. Seems like the same goes for life. I was busier than usual this week with design clients and visiting My sister Heather so a couple days I didn’t get in my morning routine of meditation and journaling. I just hit the ground running without doing it because my busy mind didn’t want me to slow down and take the time. I’m actually glad it happened though because it taught me a valuable lesson. I get less done and distract myself so much more when I tell myself I’m too busy and I don’t do the things that take care of my mind. So, I allowed meditation and journaling to slack for a few days in a row. Here’s what I found. I was less productive and had more moments of feeling a little down or just lethargic because I was being lazy with my mental space. I scrolled a little more on Instagram which is so interesting to me because if I start, it can be so addictive that I know it’s making me feel unproductive and not great but I can’t seem to stop. Kind of like if you’re not disciplined with chips or sugar. There have been times where I wasn’t even hungry but I just kept eating those cookies or chips because it tasted so good knowing I was going to feel bad later. That’s how I feel when I consume too much social media. That’s also why I try not to get on much anymore. It’s a time killer. My point is my brain said I was too busy to meditate and journal which I just went along with, but in return it was also very distracted and unfocused and a little overwhelmed and I realized it’s because I let my brain run me when I usually tell my brain how the day is going to go. when I meditate that’s me letting my brain know I’m in control. It starts the day with me being aware and in control of my thoughts. When I journal I always journal what I’m grateful for but also how I’m going to show up that day. So that starts my day looking for what’s good in my life and also being intentional about how I’m going to show up. When I didn’t do those things, I was just left to whatever my primitive brain wanted to do and it wants to be distracted and worry and think negative thoughts about pretty much everything, the Primitive brain is also looking for danger, not for what’s good. So when you live from that space, you’re looking out for how people are out to get you or in what ways you need to protect yourself from feeling pain of any sort which causes you to want to distract yourself by eating too much of the wrong things, drinking too much, scrolling, consuming. And these things slow us down in every way.  Find out what to do by listening to the entire episode!  I love you guys!