Slowing Down

By Emily Robinson, with love retreats

Dear friend,

I listened to a friend’s podcast yesterday, and a line from it has stayed with me until this evening: “Emotions cannot find a moving target.”

At first, I thought about endurance runners. Fast cars. Athletes who need speed more than feeling. There are times when staying ahead of emotion serves a purpose – when performance requires a certain kind of numbness, a forward momentum that can’t afford to pause.

But then I thought about how I’ve spent so much of my life being that moving target.

Bob and weave. Keep busy. Stay ahead of whatever wants to catch up with me. I don’t do it as much these days, but I know the pattern. I know what it feels like to outrun feeling until I can’t anymore.

And here’s what I’m sitting with on this fifth day of the new year: Some of us may still be moving to ignore our feelings, some may not realize this is a pattern, and some of us are learning to sit in silence just a little more. Maybe we’re all still running a little – from the end of the year, the holidays, time with or without family. Maybe there are feelings from last year – or last week, or yesterday – that haven’t caught up yet because we haven’t let them.

We’re five days into January and already the world wants us moving. Setting goals. Making plans. Being new versions of ourselves. But what if we slowed down first? What if we let our emotions find us before we set off running again?

Because here’s the truth: sitting with emotion when it finally finds you is a lot to hold. It’s heavy. It asks something of us that forward motion never does. But it’s also the only way through. I know this so well and I resist it, I become almost petulant. But we have to go through…Not around. Not ahead of. Through.

I’m not saying don’t have goals or intentions for this year. I’m saying maybe – just maybe – we need to feel first. To let whatever we’ve been outrunning catch up. To stop being moving targets long enough to know what we’re carrying. And please know I am doing this work with you.

There’s no rush. The year is long. Your feelings have been waiting. It does not need to be a quick shift. Maybe we play with it just a little bit. Baby steps if needed. A step forward, sit with and then a quick jaunt just to reset. However you need to feel is your way – and the best for your soul.

P.S. If you want the link to the podcast episode, just reply to this email – I’d love to share it with you.