If I examine my growth in mindfulness, I think I can point to slowing down as an important contributing factor. Consciously slowing down involves deciding what I really need or want to do and letting go of the rest. I have always had problems “multi-tasking” and having too much to do causes anxiety. I can control the stress associated with my “to do” list my writing everything down. It doesn’t seem as insurmountable when it is down on paper, and I realize that some anxiety is fear of forgetting to do something I think is important. Slowing down means letting go of some of the compulsivity that drives me, the ingrained sense that I need to be doing something all the time or I am “wasting” time. It took some time to retrain my mind, but fear of wasting time is mostly gone now. What a relief it is, too.
Now I work towards planning to arrive places several minutes before I need to. The fear of wasting time had me planning just enough time to get there. I would do one more thing before starting out and then leave just a bit later than I needed to get there just on time and arriving a tad late and anxious for being late too. Not only does leaving more time allow me to arrive in a leisurely state of mind, it allows me a few minutes to do nothing—an art I’ve discovered. It has an additional benefit of showing respect for the people I’m meeting.