Going Slow with Dr. Low

I spent all day on Thursday at a retreat centre.  Like a lot of retreat centres this centre is also a monastery housing Franciscan Monks.  It's such a quiet, peaceful place.  Without all the distractions of home (and even church) it was so nice being in a place saturated in prayer and contemplation.

I always encourage people to bring as little as possible on a retreat and do as little as possible but sometimes I forget to take my own advice and I bring too many things to do like reading.  But this time I brought very little with me so I allowed myself a 2 hour afternoon nap which I haven't done in several months and really needed.

I went on an 8 day silent retreat almost a decade ago and for the first 3 days I slept almost 14 hours a day - twice my usual average!  As the week went on I dropped down to 12 hours then 10 hours and by the time I was ready to go home I was back down to a healthy 8.  My body so desperately needed rest, not to mention my heart, mind and soul.  The only person I was allowed to talk with once a day was my spiritual director who, like a broken record, repeated the same phrase to me over and over again each day; "Rob, listen to your body, honor your body, listen to your body..."

Our culture does not encourage us listening to our bodies.  We push our bodies well into the evening to watch various TV programs and squeeze in more work.  We wake up unnaturally to alarms to rush off to work or school rather than naturally waking up when we're ready.  We push ourselves day after day to work hard, eat food that's not good for us, drink coffee and energy drinks, pop various pills, and other things which are not necessarily good for our bodies and do not make us feel good.  But we just keep going rather than taking time to listen to the signs and messages our bodies give us.

There are many advantages for of slowing down for our heart, soul and mind and also for our bodies.  Take some time to slow down not only to pray, read, journal and so on but to listen to your body and see if you're taking care of it.  If you pay attention your body will either say, "Thank you" or "I could use a little more ______ or a little less ______."

Take care of your bodies so you'll have more energy and strength to serve God and others.