Slow Down!

I've been getting a message lately, repeatedly.  I try to be open and receptive to the universe's subtle signs and hints, but I can be pretty dense sometimes.  I once made a deal with the powers that be...I said if I heard the same song or got the same message 3 times in 2 days, I'd take it as a sign and pay attention.   Lately I've been so busy.  Busy in thoughts, in actions, in emotions....and add to the mix trying to figure out what time it is in Afghanistan at any given moment, and I'm not really sure where yesterday begins and today ends.  But anyway, I have still noticed a definite message. 

I know I started hearing it before this, but when I went to see my therapist for the last time a couple of weeks ago, I flat out asked him for any parting words of advice.  I wanted a bit of the wisdom he found was important throughout his life, and his answer was "slow down."  I acknowledged this and we both laughed.  Easier said than done sometimes?  From my earlier post, you can imagine this is a hard thing for me.  It's not the slowing down I mind, it's the fact that I'm aware my time is limited and there's just so MUCH that I want to do!!!  It's like I'm tempted to try and make another deal....Okay, I'll slow down, just promise me I'll have enough time to do the things I want.  Ha ha...if only life came with guarantees. :D

So I mentioned something to a coworker regarding possible trips I might be going on with C.  His answer?  "Take it slow..." he warned me, "and be careful."  And scattered about my life these past weeks I know I've been hearing this message here and there.  Just now I was flipping through a book that I had lent to someone a while ago and just recently got back.  Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser.  I was flipping through the pages and stumbled upon this:

      To listen to the soul is to stop fighting with life - to stop fighting when things fall
      apart;  when they don't go our way, when we get sick, when we are betrayed
      or mistreated or misunderstood. To listen to the soul is to slow down, to feel
      deeply, to see ourselves clearly, to surrender to discomfort and uncertainty, 
      and to wait.

"To listen to the soul is to slow down..." Okay....I get it.  As I sit here, knowing I haven't written in too long, again, knowing there's a list pages long of all the things I want to get done this week, feeling sick from allergies and stress and all other manner of nonesense, wanting to do so many things....I hear the universe telling me to slow down.  It makes me want to cry, really, because I've been trying to hard to become the person I want to be, to sculpt the life I want to be living, I've always thought if things weren't working, it just means you have to try harder.  And for me that has always meant, do more.   But maybe the hardest thing for me is to slow down.  Maybe that *is* trying harder.   I let myself consider the notion for a little while.  What if....what if I truly said, okay, let's put all of these goals and deadlines off for say...another year.   I do this and a surge of panic rises up in me.  Another year?!?!! But that's like...a whole year of my life gone!!  A whole year of time wasted when I could have been DOING things!!!

I don't think I'm getting it yet.  I mean....I'm getting the message...loud and clear.  But I'm not convinced.  It's like a math problem, I'll acknowledge that the correct answer is "slowing down."  But if I don't understand *why* I'm going to have a hard time applying it.   And maybe here is where that sneaky little think, Trust, comes in.  Faith, patience...blah blah blah all that stuff.  

I am terribly afraid, that if I let go of my do do do, more, keep going, workin' at the goal attitude, I'll lose it.  I'll lose the momentum, I'll lose the motivation, I'll lose the dream.  I'm afraid I'll become lazy and none of my dreams will come true.   But life is telling me to slow down.  I'm so confused, really!!  Which life lesson is more important?  That hard work and persistence is important, or to slow down?!?!   I'm really not getting it, am I?   

At this point, I've heard the message, and I'd like to send out a very clear response to life.  "Okay, I get it...SLOW DOWN!!!  Just please, tell me where the brakes are????"    And more importantly...how do I slow down without stopping???