When Slowing Down Feels Hard

I thought slowing down would come naturally. I will be the first to tell you: it doesn’t.

Even now — after leaving an industry built on motion, after helping to build a brand rooted in presence and intention — I still catch myself filling space. This is most often found in the menial tasks: rewriting to-do lists. Quadruple checking copy is still written correctly. Reaching for my phone just to feel productive. 

Rest, I’m learning, is not a natural state.
It’s a practice.

For years, I lived by the rhythm of a "go" mentality. I was the epitome of being a slave to busyness. It mostly showed up in long days that bled into longer nights, back-to-backs between jobs, school, people, the constant hum of noise and people and movement being my ever-repeating playlist. I was addicted to the pace. The rush made me feel alive, like I was achieving something just by keeping up.

When I finally stepped away, everything went quiet.
Too quiet.
At first, rest didn’t feel peaceful. It felt uncomfortable.

There’s a strange ache that comes with slowing down. You start to notice the things you’ve been moving too fast to feel . This can be physical: the tiredness beneath your eyes, mental: the thoughts you’ve been avoiding, or sensory: the silence you used to drown out with sound.

And yet, that’s where the real shift happens.
In the pause before the next inhale.

I'm try to find rhythm inside the quiet. Slow mornings with sunlight spilling through the window. Walks that have no destination but a simple need to stretch, breathe in the fresh air, explore somewhere new. Breathing before I open my laptop.

Some days, rest still feels like resistance. My brain wants to go faster, my body wants to prove it can keep up. But I’ve learned that slowing down doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means doing things with intention.

Lighting incense before I write. Stretching before I scroll. Choosing to feel time instead of race through it.

Scent has become my anchor for that, it's a signal to shift states.
When I light something soft and grounding, I can almost feel my body exhale. When I reach for my citrus essential oil roll-on, I get more dialled in. It’s the same reason Osero exists — because sometimes, we need a sensory reminder to return to ourselves.

We talk a lot about the beauty of rest, but rarely about the effort it takes to get there. Rest asks for honesty: to admit when we’re tired, overstimulated, overextended. And in return, it asks for patience, because presence doesn’t happen on command.

Slowing down is work.
But it’s the kind that gives more than it takes.

And maybe that’s the point. That peace isn’t something we find when life quiets down, but something we learn to create, breath by breath.