Part One: Slow Down. There’s Nowhere To Get To

By Peter Howe

Be honest — do you ever look like you’ve got it all together on the outside but feel like you’re barely holding it together on the inside?

I did for years.

On the outside, I looked like I was productive and thriving.
But underneath, I was anxious and frantic.
On the outside? Driven. Committed. Determined.
On the inside? I was running on fumes.

I told myself that this is the way it is right now.
And it’ll calm down soon.
I just need to get through this period, and I’ll be good.

So I kept going — because resting felt like failure.

About six years ago, I was really crashing.

I was exhausted.
But I couldn’t stop.
I was blind to it.

I was like a machine stuck in high gear — with no brakes.

Somewhere along the way, I believed that being busy meant being valuable.

That rest wasn’t a priority.
That slowing down meant I was falling behind.

I normalised the busyness.
I dismissed the warning signs.
I didn’t prioritise what my body was desperately trying to tell me.

I didn’t know it then, but my nervous system had been screaming for help for years.
I didn’t know how to listen.

And then that morning happened.

Do you know that feeling after one too many drinks?
When you lie down and the room spins like a twisted theme park ride?
Nauseating. Disorienting. No matter what position you lie in, you can’t stop spinning.
The bed becomes a merry-go-round on steroids you never agreed to.

That’s what it felt like.

But I hadn’t been drinking.

I was burned out.
I hit my breaking point.
My body couldn’t take it anymore.
My nervous system was shot.
I was cooked.
Stick a fork in me — I was done.

I was so dizzy. Sick. Weak.
I couldn’t get out of bed.
When I finally mustered up the strength to get to the toilet, I couldn’t even walk — I had to crawl.

I spent the next three days in bed.
With two truths I could no longer ignore:

I couldn’t pretend I was fine anymore.
I couldn’t keep living like this.

That was my wake-up call.
Maybe… this is yours.

We all know we should slow down.
We’ve heard it. Said it. You’ve probably given that advice to others — and nodded along to the podcasts about it, too.

But are we actually practicing it?
Or are we still sprinting through life as if there’s a finish line that, when we cross it, we'll finally feel okay?

We’re chasing a mirage:
The money — so we’ll feel secure.
The body — so we’ll feel worthy.
The partner — so we’ll feel loved.
The success — so we’ll finally feel enough.

But what if there’s nowhere to get to?
What if we’re not chasing things at all —
but chasing the feelings we think they’ll give us?

The feeling of being safe.
The feeling of being loved.
The feeling of being happy.
The feeling of belonging.
The feeling of being enough.
The deep exhale that says, “I can finally rest now.”

Here’s the paradox:
As I just shared, the things we’re racing around trying to find —
aren’t things at all.
They’re feelings we want to experience.
And they already live inside of us.
But we’re moving too fast to notice.
And we’re looking in the wrong direction.

What Are We Really Running Away From?

Truthfully?
For me, not slowing down was a way to avoid discomfort—a way to outrun the emotions I didn’t want to feel and confront.
If I stayed busy, maybe I could stay ahead of it.
If I kept moving, maybe the sadness, fear, anxiety, and pain wouldn’t catch up.

But the irony is, I never got ahead of it.
I was in it the whole time — I just didn’t know it.

If I stay busy...
If I get it right...
If I don’t get it wrong...
If I have all the answers...
Then I’d be safe. Then I’d be okay.

But here’s what I’ve come to see:
We’re not running toward something.
We’re running away from ourselves.

And the more we run, the more disconnected we become —
from the very thing we’re searching for.

Healing.
Peace of mind.
Clarity.
Presence.
Simply being okay and happy.

Because none of that exists in the future.
It only exists right here, right now.

The mind — oh, it’s powerful.
It spins stories about who we should be and where we should be.
It tells us we’re not enough yet. Not until. Not unless.

But it’s all made up.
Totally fabricated.
And we believe it — only because we haven’t seen the illusion for what it is.

You don’t earn your way into peace.
You don’t deserve your way into rest.
You don’t avoid your way into healing.
You don’t achieve your way into wholeness.
You already are it.

Once you truly see that —
it gets easier to recognise when you’re caught up

The Truth You Find When You Slow Down

Slowing down can feel scary at first — not because there's anything wrong with you,
but because you've been taught to fear what you might find when you stop.

We've been conditioned to believe that if we slow down,
we’ll discover something missing.
Something bad.
Something broken.
Something not enough about ourselves.

But the truth is, when you slow down...

You don't find brokenness.
You don't find emptiness.
You don't find a problem to fix.

You find yourself.

The quiet space within —
Where all your well-being already lives.

The feelings you were running from —
That, when felt, begins to heal on its own.

The old stories of "not enough," "have-tos,” and “shoulds”
are seen clearly for what they are: passing thoughts, not truths.

Maybe you were doing what you knew to feel safe.
Maybe you were protecting yourself, and that’s okay.
And maybe now, it's safe enough to let that go and slow down.

And in that seeing, something beautiful happens:

You stop believing every anxious thought.
You stop needing to outrun yourself.
You start remembering who you are.

You realise that the peace you've been chasing isn't found somewhere out there in something or someone.
It’s been inside you all along, simply waiting for the noise to fade.

And when you slow down, what you find isn’t something missing — it’s something whole.

The Illusion That Keeps Us Running

Here’s the thing:
There’s nowhere to get to because all that truly exists is the present moment.

There’s no race, and there’s no finish line.

But we have a powerful mind, a wild imagination, and habitual thinking.

And if we’re not aware of them, they create a false sense of self — one that believes:
I’m not enough.
I need to get it right.
I need to achieve to be loved.
I’m responsible for how everyone else feels.

So we stay in survival mode…
Not realising it’s all made up.

And innocently — you made it up.
And that’s okay.
That pattern helped you through hard times.
But you don’t have to live from it anymore.

There’s nowhere to get to.
There’s nothing to prove.
You’re not responsible for everyone.
Nobody is perfect — so please, stop trying to be.

And if you begin to slow down, and when you truly realise this…
You’ll feel it cascade through your entire body.

We often can’t see it…
Because we’re so caught up in our heads,
attached to our thinking and a false sense of self.

We’ve got our blinders on to what is already alive within each and every one of us.

Here’s a short story for you:
A long time ago, the gods were debating where to hide the truth of life so that humans couldn’t find it too easily.

One said, “Let’s hide it on the highest mountain; they’ll never think to look there.”
Another said, “No, hide it at the bottom of the ocean, far out of reach.”
A third said, Let’s bury it deep in the earth.”

But the wisest among them said, “No, let’s hide it inside them. That will be the last place they’ll look."

What if it became the first?
What if you called off the search and slowed down enough to finally glimpse that what you’ve been racing around trying to find was already inside you?
Give yourself some time and space to really feel that realisation…

It’s no coincidence that presents and presence sound exactly the same.
They’re both gifts.

This is why slowing down feels like unwrapping the most extraordinary gift life can offer you —
a remembering of who you truly are.
Slowing down lets you feel it, live it, and be it.

When you’re present.
When you’re not trying to get anywhere.
When you’re not searching for something outside yourself.
When you stop running from your own experience.
When you stop living in your head — about the past or the future.
When you stop chasing that “one day when” moment where you’ll finally slow down…

You realise that all the doing you thought would make you feel complete...
Suddenly, it doesn’t make sense anymore.

And from that space, you can simply be —
and let what you do flow from there.
Not because you’re trying to be happy…
but because you already are.

So take a deep breath with me now — because there’s nowhere to get to anymore.

There’s nothing wrong with who you are.
Nothing wrong with where you are.
Nothing wrong with what you feel from moment to moment.

There’s just… experience.

And when you see that, you can be present with any experience.

Because thoughts pass.
Feelings pass.
Experience passes.

Everything shifts when it’s not being avoided.

How freeing is that?

You come home to yourself — and to life.

Slowing Down to the Speed of Life

Life has its own speed.
Its own current.
Its own creative and organising intelligence.

We start to suffer when our thinking moves faster than the speed of life.

When you really see it, it’s kind of crazy.
Because life is already taking you where you need to go.
We create so much unnecessary stress, worry, and friction by speeding ahead in our minds.

Take another deep breath with me…
Feel yourself… slow down.
Feel the speed of your thinking begin to slow.
Notice how you begin to feel.
What do you make of that?

Feel yourself settle —
back into presence,
into your being,
into love,
into peace.

What’s that like?
Do you see…
you don’t have to try so hard to have peace of mind?

Slowing Down Is a Paradox

When we slow down,
The circumstances in our lives are still the same
The deadlines are still there.
The to-do list is still just as long
The emails still roll in.

But your experience of them is totally different because something has fundamentally shifted inside you.

Your thinking clears.
So, your nervous system settles.
Your wisdom wakes up.
And your inner GPS — the one that’s always been there — you start listening to it again.

And from that place… life actually becomes more effortless.
More alive.
More impactful.

You get more done in less time.
You’re in flow.
You make decisions with clarity instead of mental gymnastics.

So the paradox is this:
Life speeds up when you slow down.

It’s about returning to clarity and presence,
From that space, everything moves more naturally — with far less willpower.

You stop swimming against the current.
You start letting life carry you.
And you tap into your creative potential.

That’s the speed of life.
And there is much more freedom in that than in the speed of your thinking.

In Part Two, we’ll explore our state of mind as the missing piece and how burnout isn’t actually a doing problem.

With love,
Peter

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