You know the feeling when life gets so busy and so overwhelming, all you want to do is find some quiet? Have a day with nothing to do, no one to answer to, and no responsibilities to worry about. There’s no noise, no stimulation. It’s just complete stillness.

On a recent trip to northern Wisconsin, I had that exact opportunity. I was immersed in the woods at a beautiful retreat on the shore of Lake Superior. September had nearly burnt me out, and while things slowed down in October, my body was still firing on all cylinders. My brain: hyperactive. My nervous system: completely on edge. And then everything came to a hard stop. All of a sudden, I was in this beautiful setting during peak fall, realizing I had gone from one extreme to another. There’s not much that can prepare you for this.

Stillness is an interesting space to be. Imagine a train moving at full speed, then forced to come to a complete stop. That’s how it feels when you’re living life on fast-forward. The train doesn’t simply cease movement. The engine might, but the body inevitably crashes forward, unable to shake the momentum from its previous journey. Imagine that in your body.

The first thing you notice is how loud the silence is. You can’t stop a racing mind simply by entering a quiet space. The second thing you notice is how uncertain your body feels in the silence, especially if you live in a city. Changing the environment so drastically puts the body on alert, recognizing that something is different. All of a sudden, any slight noise could be a threat.

The first day or so in this new environment was a challenge. A good challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. I was thrilled to be where I was, but I could not get my nervous system on the same page. It was breathtaking to see so many stars, but thanks to the New Moon, it almost felt like the dark would swallow you at night. And the absence of sounds gave mental chaos free space to roam.

Then a shift began. My breaths started to drag out longer. My ears stopped ringing. And my mind eventually started to quiet. One thought drifting away at a time. For the first time in a long while, I sat down, staring out at the water, and thought about absolutely nothing. Simply breathed in the clean, damp air and listened to the sounds around me. The rustling of leaves. The crunch of footsteps on a nearby trail. Birds singing. A woodpecker having its way with a tree somewhere. The slight movement of the water below.

Eventually, I noticed the constant feeling of needing to be doing something was no longer there. There was no anxious energy, no urgency. Just a stillness that began to settle within me, as natural as breathing. My shoulders released. My eyebrows relaxed. I walked slowly through the woods, taking in every single detail from the unique weaving of bark on a fallen tree to the hundreds of mushrooms unlike any I’d ever seen before. It felt as if I fell through a portal to another dimension. A place where there’s nothing but time.

Leaving was bittersweet. I knew the closer home came, the faster the peace and stillness would fade away. That it would eventually begin to feel like a dream as “real life” played on. As I entered the city limits, there was so much resentment towards a lifestyle I had no interest in returning to. A life that had run its course. I was shocked at how much anger I had simply arriving home. How much desperation there was to leave and go anywhere else.

It’s been about five months since this trip, and so much has happened you’d think five decades had passed. The holidays went by in a chaotic, emotionally charged blur. I rang in the new year at a secluded cabin alone for a much-needed respite before being thrown into the inevitable fire that society has forced January to be. I nearly burnt my entire life down when the decision to either stay in my home of six years or move was presented. Needless to say, in a season that is meant to be slow, it felt like I could hardly keep up with the curveballs and plot twists life decided to throw - and all at once.

These first few months of 2026 have made me immeasurably grateful for the time I had last fall to slow down. When shifts in my day job offered the opportunity to coast through the last three months of the year, I wasn’t quite sure of the reason. Was it meant to be a lesson on resilience? Making room for the right opportunities? Or maybe it just wasn’t that deep? Now that a little more time has passed, it seems to me the reason was to allow my body time to recover from one challenging period before the next. Let my nervous system rest. Provide time for the simple things that bring me joy. Actually, put an out-of-office message up for a week. But more importantly, provide a taste of what it’s really like to slow down without any strings attached. Because now it’s become an addiction. The slower pace, the stillness, is something I crave. Something that has now become my end goal.

The secret truth of slowing down is that you won’t want to speed back up. Life will inevitably have its sprints and marathons, but it’s also meant to be savored. We get one life. The average life expectancy in the US is 79 years. That means 40 is roughly the halfway point, not 50. And while I hope every single one of us lives a meaningful, high-quality life for a century, we’re not guaranteed tomorrow, let alone 100 years.

Slowing down removed any eagerness to take on new work for the sake of taking on new work. Slowing down encouraged more time for myself and more intentional time with others. It means waking up to dance music and swaying in the kitchen with my coffee before opening up my emails. It’s jumping into bed by 8 pm to read a few chapters of a good book. It’s prioritizing tasks during the day based on timeliness, not on other people’s urgency. It’s visiting the new bookstore up the street and leisurely browsing afterward with no plan. Movie nights with friends and an impromptu dinner out because you feel like it. Slow cooking something delicious on a Sunday afternoon.

I will never regret an unproductive day spent doing things I love, but I will regret a productive year spent working towards someone else’s goals. That’s what slowing down really teaches you. What follows is figuring out how to break away from the hamster wheel society puts us on from an early age and relearning what’s really important. Creating strict boundaries around my personal time. Prioritizing my mental and physical health above all else. Asking myself what I want and, for the first time, actually determining the answer.

Slowing down stops everything to put you on a track to chase the life that you really want at full speed. It clears out the clutter, silences the noise, and faces you with a different perspective. If you’re willing to listen, the possibilities are endless.