The benefits of pacing

I’ve been musing on the word pacing as it pertains to another – relational pacing – and how that is showing up in my life.

Since April, I’ve modified my pacing to align with my dog Nina. As she navigates her sunset year (or perhaps months), I’ve had to slow down quite a bit and adjust my lifestyle to fit more with hers. I’ve become a full-time carer to an elderly, geriatric, deaf, mostly blind, and cognitively-declining fur baby. Radical!

Yet, this pacing adjustment is serving me well.

I’ve come to realize that my relational pacing is also to my Soul Self. My soul, for years, has been screaming for life to slow down, to stop moving from one event or project or trip to the next without the necessary rest and recuperation needed in between. My body, and most notably my nervous system, has suffered from the onslaught of a fast paced lifestyle. And I think most of humanity is also suffering with fried nervous systems from living in a technologically highly stimulus-driven world that we are just not suited to live in.

I feel grateful.

Thanks to Nina, the enforced slowness is allowing me to shift my being in ways that is much more aligned with my Soul Self. I have more time in my day where I can go into flow state and follow my muse rather than override her with the excuse of ‘this has to get done now.’ There is spaciousness.

I’m sleeping better than I’ve done in years and I can feel my nervous system slowly begin to regulate and align with the pace that my Soul Self wants to move.

What does this have to do with pie you may wonder?

During the extensive autumnal sunny days, I spent a lot of time in my garden. As I harvested the last of the apples from my tree, childhood memories surfaced of my mom’s baking – and her tub of Crisco (shortening) – that was part of every home-made pie crust recipe. I love apple pie.

So I got busy (a different kind of fun paced busy)

Armed with New Zealand’s version of Crisco called Kremelta, I got out my rolling pin and pie crust recipe and smashed out a pie. OMG, delicious. I shared it with a friend and a neighbor. I made another pie. Shared it around. And made another……..

Yup, Pacing + Pie = Happy Nervous System

How are you pacing?