On Setting Your Own Pace

Leaving ourselves behind in an effort to keep up

“What does it feel like to move at a pace that isn’t yours?”

It was somewhere between squat and burpees on Thursday morning that Amanda Martinez, one of my favorite instructors at The Class, asked this question - and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

What is my own pace, I wonder? For as long as I can remember, I’ve been keeping up with the pace that was demanded or expected of me. The pace to be on time. The pace to keep the peace. The pace to excel in school. The pace to get the right job. The pace to be praised. The pace to be admired. The pace to check things off my to-do list. The pace to get married and have kids before it was “too late.” The pace to get my kids where they need to be, when they need to be there. The pace to stay included, thought of, relevant.

Even during the periods of time when I was living on my own, in between jobs, with minimal responsibility to or for anything - I’m not sure if the pace I chose was actually my own or what I had come to equate with being productive, efficient, and worthy. And the irony is the frustration I often feel when others can’t keep up with my pace - but now I’m not even sure that pace is mine.

My five-year-old feels zero pressure to keep up with other people’s pace. He starts eating his dinner when the rest of us are nearly done. He does not feel hurried. He does not have FOMO. He is listening to his body and enjoying his five course meal at his own leisurely pace. On weekends when mornings are less regimented, he will sit at the breakfast table sometimes over an hour after the rest of us have moved on with various activities. While sometimes it is inconvenient for us, we primarily observe him in a state of awe and jealousy - probably wondering what our own natural pace would have been, if we hadn’t spent our formative years being rushed and shamed, our adolescence pressured and guilted, our 20s absorbed in hustle culture or our 30s judging others’ who didn’t conform to the rhetoric we had long internalized.

On my second or third time taking the Myers-Briggs assessment I had the mind blowing realization that I was actually a natural introvert who had been masquerading as an extrovert. I had trained myself to act the way that was most respected and warmly received by those around me.

It makes me wonder whether left to my own devices I am actually a head-in-the-clouds gal who sleeps in, takes long unscheduled walks, sits at the dinner table for a few minutes before clearing the plates, and doesn’t make her weekend plans until the weekend…

…rather than presenting as a Type A overachiever who is always doing the most, actively stifling the innate rage I feel when witnessing anyone unabashedly relaxing, when there is very obviously so. fucking. much. to. do.

I actively create time blocks and spaces where I can experience an unstructured, unplanned, unmanaged experience. I coined last summer as my “slow summer” and was unwaveringly dedicated to making fewer plans, being more present and literally forcing myself to chew my food more slowly. It was an experiment I relished in, but invariably left behind once swept up in the chaos of back to school, back to work, and back to keeping up.

When I catch myself yelling at my kids to hurry up, inhaling my food when there is absolutely no reason to, scheduling meetings back to back, or offering to drive to a playdate on the other side of town in rush hour traffic - I have this out of body experience as I play out a game of “what if?” What if we’re late to school? What if bed time is later than usual? What if that client meeting has to wait an extra few days? What if the playdate doesn’t happen? What if I decline the invite to the group dinner?

When I channel that awareness into conscious change, I start doing things a little differently. I try to embody some surfer dude that is super chill and in absolutely no hurry. I cancel plans that I made while high on productivity. I carve out time to “do nothing.” But it is still contrived. It is a task I’ve created in an effort to not be ruled by tasks. It is a commitment I’ve made to be untethered from commitment. As ironic as it is, I will continue to do it, because it is the only way I know how to make the unnatural become more natural.

Maybe the answer isn’t about finding my own pace but about learning to slow down long enough to feel it—to let it catch up with me. To trust that life will still happen, even if I move through it more gently. Which brings us to…

This Week’s Haiku

Pace not truly mine,
Haste unlearned, and still I find,
Time will wait for me.

Until next time, reclaim your rhythm.

Love,

Jess

P.S. This week’s Cycle Breaker comes with a track!