Quick summary: Intentionally slowing down to meander is active empowerment, not dysfunction, because it lets thoughts soak in and reveals options that haste leaves unused. Rushing away from pain does not reduce its impact and can dry out well-being by locking in scarcity beliefs before they are examined. Unhurried pauses give people time to choose what they absorb, deepen their dialogue with life, and approach mental health with more control.
How would you like to effortlessly improve skills to approach and manage your mental health? To actually slow down, relax and feel more in control of your life? To discover that intentionally slowing down to meander is not a sign of weakness. Nor is it signs of dysfunction or failure. Rather, taking time to pause or slow down is a sign of active empowerment and change for doing something different.
Let me start with discussing water and rocks. Water guided by gravity will flow without judgement or consideration along the path of least resistance. Rocks guided by gravity don’t move. There is strengths, benefits, and challenges with either approach.
Wait. Let me re-start by discussing a dry barren desert city in Arizona. Specifically the Dunbar Spring Neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona where Brad Lancaster lives. In 1996, the man illegally cut holes into the concrete curb to allow rainwater to flow off the road and into the ditch. The result was that the water soaked into the parched, unproductive ground which created a vibrant greening of the dusty dry land.
Wait. Let me re-re-start by discussing dry river beds in New Mexico and Bill Zeedyk. A retired forest ranger who passionately embraced a second career of thinking like water as he developed and refined induced meandering to slow down the flow of water to improve ecological restoration practices. And once again the dry, parched land soaked in the lingering rainwater to become vibrant.
OK, let me confess, if you’ve gotten this far, we’ve been meandering. I did that intentionally to begin expanding the perspective for managing your mental health. These two examples of slowing down the flow of rainwater metaphorically and literally reflect the benefits and joys of intentional meandering.
Meandering is defined as “an act of wandering in a leisurely or aimless manner.” But to be honest, the way I see it, meandering is never aimless. It is unhurried. Big difference.
Let’s look at that big difference between “leisurely” or “aimless.” Leisurely is being unhurried or relaxed. Aimless is without purpose or direction. Meandering is relaxed and unhurried, but it definitely has a purpose. Even if that purpose is leisurely wandering to enjoy the moment. Doing nothing on purpose is something. As Joe Hyams states in Zen in the Martial Arts after talking with martial artist Bruce Lee and Bronislaw Kaper, “I had discovered that doing nothing can sometimes be more important than doing something.”
Let us meander once again … about big differences that often seem small and insignificant, until you discover the full extent of their short- and long-term consequences. For example, we previously discussed the word “approach” as a verb (moving closer to someone or something in space or time) and noun (How you deal with a task). One happens regardless of your input, the other only with your input. Being more mindful of the first allows you space and time to be more intentional and effective with the second.
The purpose of meandering is to allow thoughts or rainwater to gently soak in. To slow down. To be mindful in the present moment. The process of leisurely moving forward creates an opportunity for things to linger, which often reveals previously hidden, undeveloped, or untapped resources and options that can make life better. In Tucson, rainwater was traditionally managed by having it quickly drain off the roads and into a drainage system that hurried the water away. As a result, the land was left dry and baron. Slowing down and re-directing the flow of rainwater changed everything without requiring any additional effort or resources. In New Mexico, rocks strategically placed in dry riverbeds refused to move, so the rainwater slowed down as it flowed around them and soaked into the dry land. Small changes with big results. Big long-term results built from numerous, tiny, short-term benefits.
Slowing down to go inch by inch often seems like you’re doing nothing. It seems too easy. Life by the inch is a cinch, but life by the yard is hard. However, doing nothing can make life better. Nothing is not aimless; it is leisurely learning, mindfully meandering, or a pause with purpose. Like briefly sitting on a bench and watching the world go by. Or, as music composer Claude Debussy expressed, music is created by the quiet, empty spaces between musical notes. Alan Watts in his book, The Wisdom of Insecurity, states, “Nothing is more powerful or creative than emptiness.” In any direction, nothing is essentially the slowest speed you can go. And when you go slow, you see more. You have more time to reflect, ponder, and react.
The various speeds at which you move through life impacts how your brain develops, functions, and changes. It impacts your brain plasticity. It impacts mental health. There is no right or wrong speed as each brings its own benefits and challenges. But there are more effective speeds to approach and deal with different mental health, relationship or life issues. Being stuck on the speed of hurry, is not a healthy long-term option.
While slowing down and meandering can be awesome, it can also seem terrifying. Slowing down reveals hidden and untapped resources, but can reveal avoided and unwanted trauma, dysfunction, discomforts, and conflicts. But there is a paradox related to hurrying to avoid facing painful, complex, or uncomfortable issues. The paradox is that the problems exist in your life whether you are moving fast or slow. And whether you see it or not. Not addressing a problem doesn’t decrease the impact of that problem. And just like when rainwater is rushed off the land and quickly drained away, your unaddressed issues are creating a mentally dry and barren space which may foster negative beliefs and values that decrease the quality of your life. They may foster a belief of scarcity that nothing good will grow and that there is insufficient time to enjoy the present moment.
I say “may foster” negative beliefs and values because slowing down comes with increased awareness. Awareness that provides time to validate and evaluate choices.
Sometimes we are not even aware of the choices we make. For example, consider placebos and nocebos. The placebo effect occurs when a person’s mental beliefs and expectations impact their physical self. The most common example is when a person is suffering from an illness or disability and they are given a fake pill and then they get significantly better. Their choice of positive expectations create neurobiological changes that improve their physical well-being. The nocebo Effect is when negative beliefs or expectations create physical changes that decrease their well-being. Both are impacted by your conscious, subconscious and unconscious personal beliefs, values, and perspective.
Your choice of beliefs and values are important influences as the building blocks of your life. In The Biology of Belief, Bruce H. Lipton describes a lecture activity where each audience member picks out and then wears red or green coloured glasses. Then he shows a projected image and asks them to yell out if it shows living in love or fear. However, he doesn’t tell them that the coloured glasses impact how the image is seen. The red glasses reveal a wonderful picture of a cottage labelled “House of Love” with flowers, sunny sky, and inviting landscape. The green glasses filter a threatening dark and gloomy house full of bats, spiders, and snakes with the words, “I live in fear.” Lipton adds, “I always get enjoyment by seeing how the audience responds with confusion. One half yell out: ‘I live in love,’ and the other half, with equal certainty, yell out: ‘I live in fear.’ Then I ask the audience to change into the opposite-coloured filters. My point is that you can choose what to see. You can filter your life with rose-coloured beliefs … or use a dark filter that turns everything black…”
My point is that the rewards and power of slowing down to meander almost always outweigh the potential risks. Slowing down allows you to more clearly see actual or potential consequences. Which bring up a second significant point: focus. Or more specifically, depth and direction of dialogue.
Depth of Dialogue reflects the strength, authenticity, and insights of your connections with life. How intimate or distant you are in connecting with the many and diverse aspects of your life. What do you allow to soak into your life? What do you embrace? What do you want to hurry and rush? Slowing down your thoughts and actions provides you more time to focus and interact with what is happening in your life. Your life pace impacts the depth of your dialogue with life.
Direction of Dialogue is do you agree or disagree with what is being expressed? Consider when a doctor, teacher, or any significant person in your life expresses negative or limiting beliefs about who you are or what you can do, and that, “You will suffer negative consequences.” What do you think and take in? Do you reply with agreement, “Yes, I will.” Or disagreement, “No, I won’t!” When you move too fast, often the negative comments soak in before you even have a chance to consider or evaluate what you want or believe. You don’t take time to ask yourself, “Will taking this in make my life better?”
Agree or disagree? Slowing down might give you time to Unfu*k Yourself as Gary John Bishop wrote. Jennie Allen explores in Get Out of Your Head some ways to slow down to “stop the spiral of toxic thoughts.” And Joseph Nguyen adds Don’t Believe Everything You Think.
Your approach and the speed of your approach to mental health and life matters. Slowing down to mentally meander will not solve all of your life’s challenges. But taking time to linger and meander will solve a significant one: the consequences of hurrying.
Dane Jorento, MSW, LICSW is a speaker offering keynotes, seminars, and workshops on mental health, trauma, ADHD, and relationships. He specialises in BCA Holistic Therapy, EMDR, and DBT approaches.
