Taking a closer look....
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24/11/2013 0 Comments Slow down, you move too fast?Earlier this month I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Olivia Sprinkel for her blog, Sustainable Brands. Not the kind of title that, on the face of it, I would have expected to have a connection with. However....
Olivia's articulated her vision of a movement she's calling Slow Moving Creative Good, or SMCG - the opposite of FMCG where the emphasis is on Fast Moving Consumer Goods. Reading her SMCG manifesto, I got to thinking about various slow things in my life, particularly cycling and bread- and jam-making. I also thought of therapy as a kind of slow living: slow in that a person in therapy often learns to become more aware of their thoughts, feelings, experience, desires, etc. Therapy enables us to take 'time out' from daily pressures, demands and busyness, to find out more about what is inside. Therapy enables us to become more aware of the choices we make and the impact those choices has on our experience. In Olivia's first blogpost I talk with her about some of my areas of slow; in the second I share a few suggestions for anyone who wants to slow down. While talking about the second, I was remembering the number of friends and clients who have suffered stress, burnout, illness or physical injury. I have seen them struggle to accept that they need to look after themselves in a different way, and honour their own pace, despite external and societal pressures to do more, keep going, pull themselves together, work faster, or achieve more success (usually as defined by the Fast Moving Consumer Goods world). I have heard many people think of themselves as less worthy because they are a human being with varying needs, rather than an ever-productive machine. Some people put themselves under pressure to 'perform' in the same way they did in their 20s or 30s. This outlook and way of judging people is both sad and angry-making. I hope that in my own small way - working with clients to help them accept themselves, regardless of their age or abilities, and learn how they can truly fill themselves up with the satisfactions of slower - I'm helping to create the kind of slow-moving, creative, good world in Olivia's vision. What's your experience of slow? http://sustainablebrands.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/the-satisfactions-of-slow/ http://sustainablebrands.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/the-satisfactions-of-learning-to-slow-down/
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AuthorI'm a psychotherapist who likes giving new things a go - that's why this blog's here! We'll see how it goes but I hope some of it will be interesting or helpful to you. Archives
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