Life is Not a Race. Go at Your Own Pace.

When I was little, much to the chagrin of the adults around me, I was a champion “dawdler.” I was told to hurry up more times than I can remember. “Stop dawdling and go faster, we’re in a hurry!” they would say, and my reply was: “I’m dawdling as fast as I can!”

While it may seem inconsequential to tell a child to “hurry up,” and in some cases it may be necessary to ensure their physical safety, I wanted to explore today the very real emotional wounding that can result from being told that the natural pace that you moved through the world at when you were little is wrong and inconvenient for the adults around you.

Instead of being honored as an expression of our deep wonder and reverence for the moment of life we happen to find ourselves in, our children are taught to see themselves as lagging behind in society’s endless race towards the future that never arrives. Children are naturally present and in the flow of the abundance of the universe, and then they are trained out of it and are asked to alter their innate speed and frequency of motion to accommodate a world based in scarcity, fear, lack, limitation, judgement, and comparison.

I want to take this opportunity to say to my inner child, and to all inner children who were told to “hurry up” by adults who didn’t realize how damaging that can be to internalize, that I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry that the way you moved through this world was disrespected, unintentionally or otherwise, and that you were forced to leave behind the relaxed and open-hearted manner in which you perceived life in order to satisfy the demands of a frantic world totally out of touch with the ever-present beauty and wonder of reality just as it is.

From this moment forward, may you be given the space you need to reclaim your natural pace, so that you may recalibrate your system to be in alignment with the endless generosity of your heart that is naturally in love with what is right in front of you.

Beautiful child, there is no race, and there never was one. The only place society’s race gets you to is nowhere, which is always only now, here. You have my full blessing and permission to be here now.

Life is not a race. Go at your own pace. You cannot miss out on the wonders of reality. They are always right where you stand, provided that you take your time.