I Am Exactly Perfectly On Time And So Are You: The Radical Medicine Of Embracing A Slow Pace In A World Of Haste And Stress

Welcome back to Masterful Listening. This is episode forty-eight of the show. And uh it's kind of meta what just happened for a couple of minutes here because as I sat down finally to record this episode, which for some reason has felt challenging, I've been thinking about this particular one for months, and somehow I just couldn't get my butt in the chair, which I often joke is the hardest part of doing anything is just actually sitting down to do it. But as I finally put my butt in the chair, for some reason I thought, wait, is this episode 50? Which felt like a huge accomplishment to me.

I'm someone who's started many, many things. I'm a wonderful starter. I haven't always been a wonderful completer or finisher, however you want to say it. I think you get the point. But to me, the idea that I actually started this show that was over a decade in the making, and I was thinking about it, and then have continued. Uh, and I'm in season four, and have continued despite the fact that the last six months were by far the most painful, grief-filled months of my life. If you've been listening to the show, you know that my sweet soul dog Rad passed away quite fast. Um, from the

time that he had his first seizure on April 13th to when he passed on July 3rd. I didn't even have three months with him, even though I was told I'd have six months with him, which also felt like the most cruel news that I could have received. And not only did I have to say goodbye to Rad, but in grieving his loss, I lost the ability to walk. My legs completely shut down. And so I wanted to share this story finally. I haven't talked much about it because, as you can imagine, it's been a really challenging story. But now that I've been in it for over

three months, I've been sitting with all the incredible insights that I've gotten. And it's so fascinating because this idea of going slow has been in my awareness my whole life. I've been fast naturally. I've just done things fast, I've talked fast, I learned fast. The only thing I've actually done slow is walk. I always say I'm a fast talker, slow walker, and Rad really slowed me down. It was very funny how he was almost so slow that I was like, come on, Rad. And that's why what's happened with his passing and how I've been forced to move slow because I haven't been able to walk. It's

been a really painful time, but it's been such a profound time. And so as I sat down to finally get this recorded, because I'm also excited to just get this out and to share with the intention that I hope that whoever's listening out there doesn't have to be in as much pain as I've been in to get this lesson. You know, I don't think we absolutely have to go through something to really get it. I think often that is the way it works, but I think that wisdom is also when you can actually listen to someone's experience and like get the lesson without having to go

through all the pain that they went through. And that's what I want for you. I'm sure you're still gonna go through your own pain because we all have our own experiences. But if me sharing my story can alleviate any pain and suffering for you, that is the intention of this particular episode, which I dedicate to Rad, of course. And I dedicate it to my new friend Mello, who is my new furry friend, who I am convinced Rad sent me to teach me the other lesson that I've been working on my whole life, which is patience. Slow was the lesson that Rad taught me the whole time

he was with me and uh with ruthless impeccability taught me as he passed and has been teaching me since he's passed. And Melo has come in to teach me patience. And I don't know about you all, but I don't find it's easy to learn the lessons that we've needed to learn, and it hasn't been easy, but I've gotten so much incredible insight through this time of pain and physical pain and disability and grief. But before I get into that, I want to circle back to what I started with, which was I put my butt in the chair and I have this platform where I organize the

podcast. And in my mind, this was episode 50. But actually I thought, but I just want to make sure because I don't want to say it's episode 50 if it's not. So I started going through all my episodes and I realized somewhere that I had mislabeled them, that the first season I labeled up to 13, but then in the second season, I started counting from one again. But then in the third season, I was counting all of them and I was like, oh, this is so annoying and frustrating. But I want the numbers to all match. I want it to all flow correctly because it was

bugging me. And as I started clicking on each show to update the number, after about four, I felt this impatience because it was taking a while and I just wanted to quit. And that's what I've done so much of my life. I started doing something that felt kind of tedious, like updating a spreadsheet. And instead of kind of pushing through and appreciating the gift of actually doing something that might feel a bit uncomfortable, but doing it slowly and doing it with patience, I would stop. So I said to myself, come on, just do it. Just click on each one and do that thing and update those

numbers. It won't take you that long. It always, I feel like seems worse in our mind than if we actually do it. And then I had the thought, well, if you take more time to do this, you'll have less time to record the show. And I said, so what? Do it. And I did it. Guys, I did it. And I'm glad I did it. And I think the reason that I'm able to do these things, which might not sound like a big deal. And as I look at the time, I see 1111. So I see you, universe. I get that wink. I'm paying attention. It is

a big deal. I've seen because I've been forced really to go slow, that those little things that we do or don't do, they are a big deal. The way that we do anything is the way that we do everything. And so many times, because I was rushing and moving so fast and being impatient, I didn't finish things. I kind of half-assed them. And you know, sometimes that's okay, but I realized I don't want to be that person. So I spent so much of my life, A becoming aware that slowing down would be good for me, meaning I was just getting that from so many people. But

then it annoyed me. I was like, well, don't tell me to slow down. Going fast is actually great, which sometimes it actually is. It's just I have that ability. For me, going fast isn't really hard. It's been hard to go slow. And only recently have I very confidently said that I am slow now. I'm not trying to be anymore. That's the irony, is that I spent so much time putting pressure on myself and rushing towards going slow. It was like, hurry up and be slow, which think about how ironic and ridiculous that is, right? If we're rushing to go slow, we're literally doing the opposite and

we're missing everything in the way. Because one of the greatest gifts that I've discovered through this time where I've been injured and limping was that when I have been walking super slow with a cane, or even when I was in a wheelchair, I mean, there were some times it really hurt, but other times I was actually so much more present. So again, I'm gonna get into that. I want to share the gifts that I've discovered through pain connected to the power truly of going slow, the beauty of going slow, and how that has very naturally cultivated a patience within me that it's like the reward of

patience is patience. I read that the other day in this book of runes, and I loved it because it just feels good to naturally feel patient rather than try, try to. I'm trying so hard to be slow, I'm trying so hard to be patient, even feel the energy of that, right? So we're back at the world's first super rad listening school. I'm always gonna keep the flow similar, meaning I'm gonna introduce how I'd like for you to listen today. And then I'm gonna tell a story. I'm gonna tell the story of how I've learned that grief literally shut down my body as if I got hit

by a bus. I got hit by the bus of grief. I have seen firsthand how losing a loved one can handicap you, just like getting hit by a car can. That's what happened to me. Um, I never would have believed this had it not happened to me. And I know, or I can't even believe, but it's true as I say this. I'm so grateful that I've lived through this because, first of all, I am finally feeling better. In the past week and a half, it was like the first time that I could actually walk slowly with Mello, my new furry friend, without a cane. And that

has its own set of challenges. I'll I'll mention briefly, but it feels like life and me and Rad, and I believe this was his sole contract with me. I feel like his final lesson, that like final puzzle piece, the incredibly traumatic, painful way that he left sent me into the kind of grief and my body into the kind of grief where it forced me to go slow. There was no going fast here. I couldn't move. And in being forced to be in this much pain and literally not be able to run from it, I couldn't walk away from it. I often couldn't walk at all. And

then I had to sit with that. I had to sit in pain with my pain. And I really wanted to actually do it. I didn't want to eat it away or smoke it away or uh distract myself from it. I really was like, okay, I want to be with this because I decided to just lean in. Like this was my reality. You might have heard me talk quite a bit on this show about the importance of going slow. It's not like this is the first time. I think actually last season there was an episode all about the slow pace. Um, I think I even talked about

it in an episode about Rad last season. Again, I had no idea I would lose him so quickly. Um, but see, and I just lost my train of thought. God, it's so annoying when that happens. I keep going. The point is, I was forced to go slow. I think my body shut down because some part of me, and I do believe our higher parts, our spiritual selves, I do think we create the circumstances in our life. And in some way, I created this. And that is so challenging to comprehend. And yet now, because I have had this belief for so long, and I've known that I

do believe in some level this is happening for me, I realized that I think some part of me felt that the only way that I deserved to actually rest and heal and grieve and move slow and talk slow and do less is if I was handicapped. So I became handicapped. And now, you know what I've learned? I deserve and I will moving forward, live at a slow and spacious pace. It works better for me. I think it's what I've always needed. I think my nervous system has been so fried from running my whole life. And if you heard that funny noise, I'm clapping my hands together.

I've just been running. It's been a joke when I first immigrated from Moldova, but I used to say Russia just because back then I honestly didn't distinguish the two, and now I absolutely do. Um, but you know, I've been Russian, literally, just my whole life. And I've caught this. I've caught myself running around, feeling rushed when I had nowhere to go. It was just my habit. But it broke because when you can't walk, you can't run. So you know how people say one step at a time? My motto has been one limp at a time. I used to say, if you can't walk, crawl, but I

couldn't even crawl because my knee was injured. So uh it's kind of incredible, actually. Now as I speak it, I still have a lot of emotion come up because I just I kind of can't even believe I went through that. Um, there were times where right after losing rad, I couldn't move. I was in so much pain, my whole body felt like it was on fire. And I had this shooting pain where I was laying in my bed screaming in pain and I couldn't move. I couldn't get up. I live alone. Mello wasn't with me yet. I couldn't get up to like get some ibuprofen. And

those nights were quite profound in that I discovered that pain is a portal to our power. I discovered how strong I was, but not just strong, but how compassionate I had become. Because for the first time, I wasn't beating myself up. I wasn't trying to rush through it. I was just kind. I let myself cry. I would even say things out loud like, you're okay, you're doing well, I'm proud of you, I love you. Because there was no one there. It just was. I didn't even think about, no, I'm so alone. What's wrong? No, it was like here I am, and I just lost the love

of my life. And now my body is reacting in a way that's really freaking scary, by the way. I don't know if any of you have ever suddenly had some horrible pain appear in your body that then manifests as your legs breaking down. But to me, that has never happened before. I'd actually never heard of that happening to anyone. So I've been researching now. I feel like I've gone to medical school in a way because I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. But again, are you listening right now, Masterfully? Can you see how often I'm I'm veering off? Um I'm gonna pause.

The power of the pause. I'm gonna pause and invite you as you listen to the rest of this episode, which honestly might just be a bit of a uh a really awesome detour. I'm gonna just flow. I'm gonna speak what's in my heart. Uh, it's hard to organize this because it's been so wild, but I invite you to listen slowly. I invite you to listen compassionately. I invite you to listen perhaps through your lens of grief, if you've ever lost anyone or grieved anyone, or if you've struggled with moving slow and have wanted to rush through the grief and, you know, get to the other side.

Listen through that lens. Because I also, for like the first month of the month of this, was just like, God, I gotta feel better. How do I feel better? And then I realized that was causing me more pain too. So I just surrendered to, I'm just gonna be here for as long as it takes. And interestingly enough, the more I surrendered into the pain, the more I actually moved slow without trying to move fast, uh, the better things got. Not because I was in less pain, but because I was in less suffering. The pain is inevitable, but the suffering I think we have more of a

choice about, but it's not easy. But it's become so clear to me that slow is the best medicine on earth. Going slow is powerful in so many ways. And you know how you might have heard that phrase slow and steady wins the race. I think I said it earlier. Well, guess what? Fuck the race. There is no race. That's the new t-shirt. There is no race, truly, unless you're actually running a race, which if you are, definitely go fast, right? There is a time. I say to run for your life or swim for your life. Got caught in a riptide one time. What did I do?

Because I listened. I think that's why I survived. When I realized I was getting pulled out, I let it take me. That was terrifying. But you know why people die in riptides is because they fight the ocean. You will never win that fight. People get too tired. So you're supposed to surrender, let it take you. And then when you feel that current shift and you can, you freaking swim for your life. And that's what I did. So in this time, as suddenly I lost Rad. A week before Rad passed, I woke up and suddenly my knee, my right knee, was just out. I didn't have an

accident, I didn't trip, I didn't fall, but it hurt so bad. I could barely put weight on it. I didn't think that much of it. I thought maybe I tweaked it on a walk and didn't notice. I was obviously under a lot of stress and I was aware at the time, not as much as I am now, that stress absolutely affects our physical body. Obviously, you know, all those chemicals in our system. I was worried about rad, but again, he was doing fine. Um, the next day, my ankle went out. So right knee goes out. Next day, left ankle is in so much pain that now

I couldn't put weight on either leg. And so I didn't understand it. I got a knee brace, I got an ankle brace, and I just thought, okay, I mean, I'm carrying some extra weight, I'm stressed. Hopefully, I'll ice it, you know, do the rice thing, elevate it, whatever. It wasn't getting better. And that night my lower back went out. So the last week I spent with Rad, my body started falling apart. The morning that he passed away, I obviously didn't know that was his last day, July 3rd, the day before Independence Day, I passed out three times. I really now know my body could feel him

passing before I could in my mind. Now I can't explain this to you, but I can tell you that now, three months later, because this started June 23rd and now July, September, October. So it's been about three months. I have now heard so many stories similar that when people were losing a loved one, their body started shutting down. Um, again, I wouldn't have believed that you can lose your ability to walk because of pain, but there's something called broken heart syndrome where people actually like die, like literally of a broken heart. And I can definitely believe that now. And I'm very grateful that isn't what happened

to me. Because I actually did think on some level, I was scared that when Rad passed, I would just die. And I didn't, but instead, my whole grounding fell apart. Think about it energetically, your legs are what ground you. And I think in a big way, Rad was my grounding. So after I got home from the hospital without Rad, that's where it got worse. Those first couple of nights, I was in so much pain because I had this shooting pain all through my body. And it got so bad that I got really scared and I went to the emergency room because I didn't know what was

happening to me. I mean, I'd never been in that much pain. Bunch of tests, didn't find anything, which was kind of um relieving, but not because I didn't understand what was going on. And the doctors were like, well, grief can definitely cause issues, but like, not like this. And I ended up actually flying to the big island. I never posted anything about it or shared because it was like my own grief journey. I had a friend shout out to Sally who invited me. She said, come stay, watch my dogs, go to the beach. And I thought, you know what? Getting in the ocean might really help

me heal because water is so great. It's always been healing for me. And since I couldn't put pressure on my legs, that seemed like a really smart, healing thing to do. So I actually made it there, even though I could barely walk. I rescheduled my flight. I was so scared. I had to be in a wheelchair. And I got there, and because of how injured I was, I could barely get into any ocean there because the big island is so rocky. So imagine that. I'm sitting on a beach on the big island, and just getting from my car to the beach hurt so much. I'm limping.

I have a cane. I'm in so much pain. And when I got there and I saw the waves, I knew that I wasn't stable enough to walk in because if it knocked me over, I would have injured myself more. So I couldn't go in. And I just had to sit with that. And I cried and I cried and I cried, and it felt for sure so cruel. You know, those first couple of weeks were so sad. It was my birthday, too, happened right before my birthday, and I didn't want to celebrate my birthday. And I'm really glad I didn't. I want to force myself to do

something that didn't feel right. But I did really start asking Rad for signs. I wanted to know Rad was okay. I wanted to figure out how to make my way through this time. I wanted to figure out what was going on with me. I was seeing doctors, I was getting blood tests, I was seeing energy workers. I did what I always do, which is when there's an issue with my health, which up until this point, I'd only had mental health issues. Like when I went into a deep depression in my late 20s, I was also super lost. So I sought out so many different modalities. I

always want a holistic approach. So now I was like, okay, I'm going to my MD. And then she referred me to an orthopedic surgeon who also then referred me to a rheumatologist because my inflammation factors were so high that they were scary. So then I got this thought in my head that I might have an autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis, and that deeply scared me. And then finally, when I got an ultrasound, an X-rays, and an MRI, I discovered I had a torn meniscus. And I forget what the ankle thing is, but the point is I have two very severe injuries in my knee and in

my ankle that because they're on different legs, and each leg needs the other leg for support, it's been taking so long to heal. So my body injured itself. How can that happen without an injury? Well, a little science for anyone out there listening. When you are around your doggy and your love, you have a chemical, you know, called oxytocin. It's the happy love drug that's flowing through your body. When you go through intense stress, like I did facing Rad's coming, passing, and then actually saying goodbye to him so suddenly as he was in a seizure that lasted hours, and I crawled around on a hospital floor

and came home alone for the first time ever. My blood, my blood, my body was flooded with cortisone, cortisol, pardon me, and adrenaline. So when your system is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol and all the love chemicals leave, it affects your body so deeply that your inflammation rises. My inflammation uh factors in my blood went so high that the rheumatologist was really concerned. And I said to him about a month and a half ago, I said, Listen, I really feel like I don't have rheumatoid arthritis. I think I loved Rad so much that the grief destroyed me so much. That like, have you ever seen someone

have a reaction like this? And then like it just goes back to normal when they do their grieving. And he said, No, I've never seen that. I said, I'm gonna be the first person. Um and then after that, I continued again, I continued my search. I found, I found an incredible acupuncturist that has helped me so deeply. I felt very drawn to that modality because acupuncture, they don't give you diagnoses. They really just feel into like the heat in your body and the energy in your body. And if I am convinced of anything more today than ever, it's that it's all energy. Um, I'm gonna talk

more about that another time uh this season.

And then I knew that it was time to stop smoking. I'd been on and off smoking a long time, and I searched for someone to help me quit. I had an intuition that hypnosis would help, and I found an incredible man named Andy Rader, who was my guest in the show, the episode before this one. So Andy R A D, Rad Raider. That was my first sign from Rad. I had a hypnosis, hypnotherapy session with him, and in 33 minutes I walked out. It has been now almost two months. I haven't touched a cigarette. I will never touch a cigarette again. It was one of the

most profound experiences of my life. So done. Smoking went away. And I know that helps with inflammation, right? And that was something I didn't want to do. And I feel like this was Rad also saying, I'm gonna help you with that. Next, I was in so much pain that not only was I in like leg pain, but my neck was like, it was almost worse. I was in the constant migraine. And again, on an energetic level, neck-shoulder pain is all about feeling pressure, about like moving forward in life, which very much tied to how I was feeling with losing rad. I started reading books about the

the pains in our body and how they're associated with um our deeper emotional pain. And I'll link some of those books because it was fascinating because every place where I had pain, even like my ring finger on my right hand, had been inflamed the whole time I lost Rad. And I looked up the meaning of that. That's the relationship love finger. I lost the love of my life, and as I've healed that, my finger feels better. They couldn't find anything wrong with it. Um, Andy Rader, when I told him about my neck, said he has one chiropractor he trusts, the only one that he wants to

refer me to, because I needed a gentle one. Um his name is Dr. Rad. Yeah, Robert Adamich. Radomich. Uh, there was another rad. I got my x-rays at Radnet, and I'm serious. Like Rad has been guiding this along. And so the first gift of going slow was I've been paying attention even more, which is the epitome of what this show is all about. Masterful listening is all about listening to the world around you and to yourself. And how can you do that if you're rushing through your life? I rushed through so much of my life, and I was forced recently to not be able to move

and to be in pain all the time. So I decided I'm either gonna be suffering and fighting it, or I'm just gonna surrender to it and say, okay, I'm not gonna walk. I had to accept that. I had a night where I thought, what if I never walk again? Can I live like that? And after like some big tears of facing that, I thought, yeah, I can I can survive that. And then I thought, what if I never dance again? Because I love to salsa dance. Anyone who knows me knows that's like the joy of my life. I thought, what if I never dance again? Could

I still be happy? And that one was super hard, but it's like I needed to face it. And I was in this slow state that I did. And I also came to like, yeah, I think I could still be happy if I can't dance again and if I have to walk with a cane. I don't see that as how my life should go, but I I can handle that. And then there was the day where that finger was inflamed so bad, and that's when I had another profound breakdown because the idea of losing my finger on my right hand was too much. The idea that I

couldn't write or draw, which are like my main ways of expressing myself, was too much. And I had a real big breakdown that night. I mean, it was like visceral crying and screaming. And then I realized that's just a thought, and I decided I wouldn't believe that thought because I am no longer entertaining lies and horrible thoughts. This has been a time where I've again been reprogramming my mind deeply. I've been sitting in this seat of awareness, I've been observing things way more than before. And I've actually learned for the first time how to feel so many emotions. And if anyone is grieved, you know, it's

like they come in waves and they come out of nowhere and suddenly I'm fine, and then I'm just bawling over rad and then I'm okay. And because of how I've been forced to walk so slow, I can now, when I have these big waves of emotions, just kind of like watch them and not get sucked into them. And that's something I could God, I I kind of tried to practice it for a long time, but couldn't quite do it. And now I've been doing it, and it's kind of amazing because those waves just pass and I know that I am not the emotions, you know, I'm

not the wave, I'm the ocean that finally clicked in, and it sucks that it took this much pain to click in. But here's what happened, right? And this is maybe the whole bottom line, the point is at first when I had to walk with a cane, I had a lot of um resistance to it. A, I felt really like embarrassed in some way, like I'd have to walk across the street, and I was taking so long. And I felt like, oh my gosh, are people just like annoyed now they have to wait for me? And oh, I had to get in a wheelchair at the airport

because I couldn't walk to the gate. It was so painful. I tried to walk to the gate, and then I thought, why am I hurting myself? Because what I'm worried about how I look, and I was like, yeah. So I discovered how concerned I still was about how people might perceive me instead of taking care of my body. And that was amazing. I dropped that. I thought, fuck that. If someone is judging me for being in a wheelchair, then they're just a horrible person and I need nothing to do with them. I was like, I'm the one who I need to be concerned about. Would I

ever also look at someone with a cane or with a wheelchair and judge them? It's like, no. But have I been frustrated when like I'm driving and I see someone crossing the street and they're limping and they're usually older and they have a cane and they take so long. Have I ever felt annoyed? Yeah, I have, but not anymore. Every time I see someone now, God, I feel really emotional, but it's like I've been annoyed at people my whole life for going slow. And only now am I just like, I'm okay with it. I'm like, go slow. Like, where the fuck are we going? And I'm

cursing more this episode because sometimes it just really helps to make the point. Um, where are we going? It's like I've processed anger around what happened to me, I've processed sadness around what happened to me. But the gratitude is that really for the first time, the fact that I was forced, my body forced me to have to live in a walking meditation. If anyone's familiar with the idea of a vipassana, a vipassana is uh a meditation retreat, and you usually they last 10 days. It's a silent meditation retreat. I did a three-day vipassana, and as part of the vipassana, you do a lot of meditation, you

do a lot of sitting, and parts of it are walking meditations. And what a walking meditation is, is you essentially do some sort of breathing, but the intention is you're doing it as you walk, and you're supposed to walk really, really slow so that you could literally feel like every part of your foot, your heel, right, on the ground, and then the front part of your foot, your toes, and you're supposed to do that for like I don't know, we did it for maybe 20 minutes at a time. But I struggled so much with the walking meditation, even though I prefer to walk slower, but the

idea of walking that slow, it was like I just kept trying to walk fast. So here I was recently in so much pain that the only way I could walk was with that pace of a walking meditation. And at first, I'd say for like the first couple of weeks, I was still so frustrated with it. And then I just had this moment where I was like, what if you just enjoy this? Could you just be in it? Why do you have to walk faster? And I realized again, it's because I was concerned about what other people were thinking. Because when I at least had my cane,

people could be like, oh, that person's probably injured. Because again, when you look at me, you couldn't see my injuries, you couldn't see the heartbreak on the inside. And also, unless you could see my knee brace and ankle brace, which sometimes you could, sometimes you couldn't, depending on what I was wearing. If I was walking without a cane at the pace that I needed to, it would look like I was in slow motion and something was weird. I did get some weird looks from people. I think they just didn't understand. So there were times actually when I started to finally get a bit more strength and

I was trying to like put the cane away that I would feel uncomfortable because I was like, I don't want to look weird. And even then, I was like, oh my God, screw that. I'm so grateful that this slow time showed me how much I was still more concerned with how I would look to a stranger than to what I needed to do for my body to feel good and not in pain. Um and then I did have this awareness one day when I was with my friend and we were crossing the street, and I could tell that she was getting a little uncomfortable because I

was walking so slow and like the light was about to change, and there were cars waiting. And I think she uh was like, oh no, you need to get to the other side. And I was like so already embracing, never putting myself in jeopardy because someone else is uncomfortable that I was like, no, I'm just gonna keep taking my time. And I realized for someone in their car who's seeing someone who looks totally able-bodied just walking across the street super slow, it could look like, what the hell is wrong with that person? Why are they being rude? It's a green light. But in my case, I

couldn't walk faster without uh hurting myself. So I think in those cases, it is helpful to have some sign of like, oh, I'm injured, right? I'm not just an asshole, just like taking my time without being aware. And now as I say that, perhaps the more uh conscious and intentional thing to do is don't start crossing the street when it's like blinking and you know you can't do it in time and you're gonna hold up traffic, right? I guess that's the other thing. So constantly learning lessons, learning to be nicer to myself. Uh I got a disability parking ticket, ticket pass finally. I thought, you know

what? Honestly, it is really painful for me. I actually think I should get one of those disability passes because I need one. And I had this funny thought. Um, I'm gonna record, I think, the next show about my parking karma and how it's been like the most incredible uh metaphor for the power of like having faith and belief in our life because I believe so deeply that I will always find a parking spot, literally that I do. And I thought, wow, now I'm really gonna have the best parking. So the good thing that came out of this whole situation is now I got a handicapped parking

spot. And I remember there were so many times where I'd pull up to a place and I'd see that, you know, the handicapped spots and I'd have a feeling sometimes or a thought of like, man, that'd be great to have one of those. Passes and then as I was driving with my handicap pass, thinking, now that I know what it took to get that, not as cool to have it as I thought, but how amazing it is to have one. And now when I see people park in disability like handicap spots when they're they don't need it, I just realize how horrible that is. And so

I hope if you're listening out there and you've ever taken a handicap spot, even for five minutes, because you got to run in real fast. Someone like me or another person who can barely walk, for whom five feet really hurts, you're preventing them from um being just a little bit less in pain. So um I've also really developed such a deeper respect for the fact that there are wheelchairs and there are canes and there are handicap spots. Thank you, thank you, thank you for that. Because honestly, when you need that, it's really, really helpful. Um so I'm gonna actually try to wrap it up. The reason

I share this is not in any way to be like, oh, look at me, I've been in pain. Honestly, I am proud of that. I made it through this time. I'm still making it through this time, and I'm still in pain, but I'm in less pain. But I've also learned to live in pain all the time and still find gratitude. And what helped me was going slow. The more I actually stopped fighting the pace and actually realized it's not a race. There is no race. Slow and steady doesn't just win the race, there isn't a race. We're not in a race, we're in our life. And

sometimes life sucks, and we all lose people and we get our freaking heartbroken, and it's so sad. But if we fight it, it gets worse. When we fight with reality, we always lose. If we push ourselves too fast and we don't listen to the whispers of our body, my body's been whispering for a while. I knew that my smoking needed to stop. That's why I ultimately did it. I always said I would do it at the right time, and this ended up being it. But it was giving me whispers. I hadn't been feeling great. I was getting whispers around the extra weight I was carrying. It

was not about how I looked anymore. That was cool. I needed to feel good in anybody, but I knew that the extra weight, I knew that the smoking, I knew that the self-care wasn't so awesome. I'd been taking more care of Rad than of myself. That was another lesson. Uh, now that I have Mello, who's so sweet, I've I promised that I would come first. Rad taught me that to always put myself first. But I wasn't able to see all of this until I was forced to sit with it because I literally couldn't move. So if you're out there and you're really trying to go slow,

and you're trying, you know, it's like I'm I'm working so hard to do it, that in itself is not a slow energy. You don't gotta hurry up and go slow. You got to just practice it. So I'm gonna leave you with one practice that actually a coach shared with me years ago. And it just came back to me. And this is a great way that if you're out there and you're finding yourself, you're running, you're rushing, everything is urgent and you're stressed. First, feel free to borrow my mantra. It is the title of this episode. I've said it before, I will keep saying it because what

we say becomes true. I am exactly perfectly on time. And so are you. Say that to yourself. Anytime that I still notice myself trying to go faster, which is very rare these days because I'm used to now going slow, but now that my body's healing a bit more, and by the way, my inflammation markers went back to normal. I went back to the rheumatologist in a month and I'd been doing so much healing work on myself. I'd been doing amazing self-care. I'd been going to acupuncture and to the chiropractor. I've been going to this incredible hot tub, laying under the trees and praying and meditating and

sending love and light to my knee and my ankle because guess what? Nothing else was doing anything. And you know what? It helped. Uh, and my inflammation went down. And I said to him, Well, you said that you've never seen this happen in 30 years. So what do you say now? And he's like, I just say I'm really happy to see it. It's kind of a miracle. And that was really affirming because I do believe that if our bodies can get sick, they can heal. And I do believe now more than ever that we are capable of healing ourselves and that there's a lot of people

out there to help us. And I'm grateful to the rheumatologist, to the orthopedic surgeon. I'm grateful to the people who did my MRIs. Those were so hard to do. Please warn people in advance how loud they are. Um, I'm grateful to my chiropractor, Dr. Rad, thank you. And to my acupuncturist, Celita, thank you. And to Andy Rader, thank you. I mean, thank you to everyone who's come across, who's been so kind to me. Thank you to Rad for sending me all the signs. Thank you, Mello, for testing my patience and teaching me. And mostly thank you to me. Really, because I take this masterful listening seriously.

And going slow is masterful listening. If we don't listen to the whispers of our body, it will scream. And my body screamed. My body screamed so loud that I've been in months and months of pain, and I really faced never walking or dancing again. And I will walk again and I will dance again without pain. I've decided that because I've also seen the power of the mind, and I will talk more about that in other episodes. But for now, I want to encourage you that if you're struggling with feeling rushed, which is my least favorite human experience, then borrow the mantra. I am exactly perfectly on

time because you are. You are not late. And come up with your own mantra. You know, yesterday I was talking to a coaching client and we came up with, I got nothing to do and nowhere to be. Just try that on for a few minutes. Everything can't be urgent. That literally, if everything is urgent, nothing is. Distinguish in your life what is urgent and what is not. And if it's not urgent,

you can do it tomorrow. Notice your breath a little bit more and do this exercise to practice slowing down. Take your phone or take an alarm and set it for three minutes. Three minutes. And if you have a thought of I don't have time for that, BS, I'm calling it you got three minutes. Find the time. And when you set that alarm for those three minutes, just move at the most glacial pace possible. As if you were on film and someone slowed it down. So literally, move if you're watching on camera, move as if you're literally in slow motion for just three minutes. And if you're

standing, walk that slow. If you're sitting, move your arm that slow. Do whatever you're gonna do for three minutes extra extra extra slow. Notice how uncomfortable that might feel. Notice any resistance and keep doing it for three minutes and then notice how you feel after the three minutes and do that every day for a week. And then see if it affects the rest of your life. But I am convinced that slow is the greatest medicine on earth. And I'm very grateful that I've discovered that. And I really hope that somehow listening to this will save you the pain and suffering of needing to figure that out

on your own, or at least maybe alleviate it just a little bit. All right, I think that's it. Yeah.

We're exactly perfectly on time. See you next time. Stay rad.