Permission to Slow
The clocks have gone back. The evenings close in earlier, the mornings take longer to arrive, and everything outside is slowing down. The trees have let go of their leaves. The ground is resting. Nature doesn't try to hold summer's pace through November, and it doesn't apologise for it either.
We're not so different. We move in cycles and seasons internally, just as the world does externally. Winter is a natural time to turn inward, to rest more and to nurture ourselves. But many of us struggle with this transition.
So this month isn't about overhauling your life. It's about a simpler question. If you're go, go, go all the time, where's the balance? And what would it take to find a little more of it?
What do you do for yourself?
It's a question we ask a lot of the people we work with. Often the answer is: I get my nails done every couple of weeks. I get my hair done etc. That's all fine. But when we ask, "Do you actually enjoy it?" the answer is surprisingly often no. It's the longest two hours of the month - sitting in the chair, making conversation, watching the clock.
So these days we ask it a little differently. What do you do that helps you feel calm in your body? What leaves you more settled than when you started?
That's often a harder question to answer. And it's worth sitting with, because looking after how we appear and looking after how we feel aren't the same thing.
What tends to soothe the system is something with no demand in it. Handing yourself over. Lying down and letting someone else do the work - going for a massage, a facial, reflexology, energy healing. Nothing to perform, nothing to get right. All you have to do is slow down and receive.
We know that isn't always within reach. But it's worth noticing how rarely most of us let ourselves be looked after at all.
When slowing down makes you feel worse
Some people can't slow down because they genuinely have too much on. For others, something else is going on. They try to slow down - sit to meditate, run a bath, take an evening off - and they feel worse. Restless. Anxious. Like they should be doing something. So they get back up, keep going, and decide that rest just doesn't work for them.
Through the lens of the nervous system, this makes complete sense. If your system has been running in survival mode, it reads stillness as risky. Slowing down means lowering your guard, and part of you isn't convinced it's okay to do that yet. It's like trying to sit quietly and meditate while the oldest part of your brain is convinced that a bear is chasing you.
You're not bad at relaxing. Your body is doing what it was designed to do.
Matching the tool to the state
Meditation is good. Mindfulness is good. Breathwork is good. But none of them is right for every state you might be in. So much of what we see online is shared without context. A practice that works for one person is offered as if it works for everyone, in every state. But the same tool can help one body settle and leave another feeling worse - and when it doesn't help, we tend to decide we're the problem.
Deb Dana's work with Polyvagal theory offers a useful map. At the top is a state where we feel grounded, connected and able to rest. Below that is fight or flight, and below that, shutdown.
Fight or flight is the "it needs to be done yesterday" state. Everything is urgent. We get through the list and tick the boxes, but we're running on stress the whole time. Racing thoughts, a tight chest, a short fuse.
Shutdown is the other end. Flat, heavy, numb, far away. Very little energy for anything. Withdrawal, lack of interest, hopelessness. The "what's the point?" state.
Freeze is to the side - where the two meet. Equal amounts of both. Try this: press your palms together in front of your chest, and push each hand into the other with exactly the same force. Your hands don't move. From the outside, it looks like nothing is happening. But keep going and you'll feel it - the forearms tightening, the upper arms working, maybe a small tremor in the hands. There's a huge amount of effort going on beneath the surface that no one can see. It's the "I want to do, but I can't" state. And it's why people in freeze often ask, "Why am I so exhausted? I'm not even doing anything." There can be just as much activation in there as in fight or flight. It's just held with the brakes on.
If you don't know which of these you're in, it's easy to reach for the wrong tool. Asking a body in fight or flight to sit in silence can feel like holding a lid on a boiling pot. That system usually needs to move first - walk, shake, stretch, breathe out for longer than you breathe in. A body in shutdown is different again. A slow, relaxing meditation can take it further into that heaviness. What it needs first is something that gently brings energy back: warmth, small movements, connection, energy returning in small doses.
Freeze needs both, in the right order. Here, we meet the shutdown first, with small, gentle movement. As that lifts, the activation underneath tends to rise, and that's when bigger movement helps it move through. Even within breathwork, some practices are more activating than others, and the right one depends on where you're starting from.
One rung at a time
What we're not trying to do is leap from stressed to serene. These states aren't on-off switches. Each one has a range, that is often described as a ladder.
When you can recognise roughly where you are and use something that suits that state, it helps you climb a rung. Maybe two. That's the aim - not the top of the ladder in one go, but small, attainable steps closer to where you want to be.
It's worth knowing that climbing out of shutdown often means passing through a more activated rung first. Feeling a bit more restless than numb can actually be progress.
And as we explored last month, this isn't something you can think your way into. Regulation is felt, not figured out. The body has to experience it.
A few questions for November
Rather than adding something to your to-do list, you might sit with these over the month:
When did you last slow down without guilt?
When you do stop, what happens? Does rest feel restful, or does something in you start to rise?
What do you do that helps you feel calm in your body - not for how you look, but for how you feel?
Do you know where to start? Or does even finding the time feel out of reach right now?
Permission to slow
This November, the invitation isn't to hibernate. It's smaller than that. One evening. Twenty minutes. One thing each week that's genuinely for you.
People often come to us because they want to feel less stressed. What they discover is that they also sleep better, react less and have more in the tank for the people they care about. Not because they pushed harder, but because their system finally got some time to settle.
Our breathwork sessions this month are shaped around this theme, and our one-to-one work - reflexology, energy healing, somatic work - is there for anyone who'd like to hand themselves over for an hour.
And if you'd like to get to know your own nervous system a little better, our free online programme, Nervous System Foundations: Why You Feel Wired, Flat or Somewhere In Between - and What Helps, is a good place to start. It's designed to be as relatable as possible - what tends to show up in day-to-day life, how to recognise your state, and which tools help with what. You can sign up below to be the first to know when it's live!
If you have questions, or you're wondering whether working with us might suit you, get in touch. We'd love to hear from you!
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