By Jessica Zhuo
Note from Jessica: Thought of sharing this with the church from PTM Alphonsus’ sermon on 19 Jan 2025. This was written in early Jan for ToReally.Live community, but I thought it is also very appropriate reflection to encourage the church to Slow down, and give space in Life for the Pace of grace to unfold as they intentionally build their lives on habits that will help them live in restful rhythms to really live.
Change begins with one Micro-moment at a time.
My typical day used to look like this:
– Waking up to a flurry of activities at home while the children get ready for school and I, for work.
– Commuting 2 hours through a hustling crowd to my office.
– Random colleagues coming to me with a number of varied requests before I get my morning tea or boot up my computer.
– Floods of emails and meetings (planned and unplanned ones) coming in waves through the day.
– Getting home just in time for dinner while setting up for evening conference calls or zoom meetings.
– Finally hitting the sack without really knowing what hit me for the day.
Reset. Repeat the next day. Until I hit the pause button during my sabbatical break from work in 2021. During those three months, apart from resting and recovering from the accumulated fatigue, I determined to do two things:
– The first was to think deeply about my growth as a parent (and establish some discipleship plan with my children).
– And the equally important second thing was to re-think how I wanted to live when I returned to work after the break.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result.”
I knew that if I were To Really Live, something had to change.
I would need to redesign my living every day so that I am living at a pace that is truly life-giving!
As I reflected, I realised that it was irrational to let the overwhelming to-do list control my life. The tyrannical inner voice insisting that we must do everything today and now, is simply a lie*. I also realised that I DO have permission to pause, to slow down, and to decide that I want to move at a more restful rhythm.
I started to introduce over time, small habits (or micro-moments) that would give my days space to receive Life. How do Micro-moments look like for me? (And this may look different for you!)
It looks something like this (it changes from season to season, but here is a glimpse of some parts of it):
– I still wake up to a flurry of activities at home.
– But I have opted for a more restful commute via the bus – a longer, but more restful one as I sit from the interchange for a 60-minute ride. This is my time to set intention, to worship, to reflect on what my posture and anchor will be for the day, as I ready myself to face the pace I expect at the office.
– When I do get my morning tea, I stand just a little longer at the pantry to stir my drink, savouring the ripples and steam as I release the tensions I feel. What a difference a little 30 seconds of slow stirring and slow breathing make.
– A slow breath prayer exercise between tasks (which only takes a minute!) also helps me to reset my energy, and remind me that I am enough, and reaffirm my dependance on the Lord as I labour in His name. During this time, I slow my breathing (breathe in deeply, and exhale out slowly), while meditating on one short prayer or scripture that anchors me for the day. Very often, I feel the refreshing of the Holy Spirit and sometimes gain new perspectives about my anxiety or tension about certain work. I am then energised as I shift my thoughts to truth that brings Life.
– In my evenings, after the kids go to bed, I have learnt to swop out “leisures” that disguise themselves as “rest” activities but are actually energy stealers (like mindless scrolling of social media or browsing on Netflix when there isn’t really something on my heart to watch), with more Life-giving restful moments – like reflecting on my day and giving thanks for moments of delight or growth through a simple journaling time, or reading a good book! (TRL book club is a motivation to read through the chapters of Life-giving books!)
Through these micro-moments that have now become a habit, I learnt to embrace that I am only human. I realised it is OK, and needful even, to take micro-moments to pause, breathe slowly and deeply and let go of unhelpful and misinformed expectations like “I must clear all of these emails today, now!”, and reframe my thoughts to more helpful ones like “I’m doing my best, and the current work will take as long as it needs. The next item will have to wait its turn.”
These micro-moments have helped me find a more restful rhythm in a world that constantly demands for you to be better, move faster, and produce more! In our society where busyness is worn like a badge of productivity honor, I have grown to believe that meaningful productivity often comes not from hurrying things, but from letting them take the time they take, surrendering to the process itself*, and trusting that the next thing will find its place when you get to it eventually.
The choice we can make is to stop believing we will solve the challenge of “busyness” by cramming more in our day*. There will always be another email to clear, another meeting to attend, and another problem to solve. We can make the choice to live in a more restful rhythm by letting go of the fantasy of getting it all done, and instead, give ourselves the compassion and grace to pause in these micro-moments, and surrender our limited time and energies to invest in moments that help us receive Life’s refreshment. That is, To Really Live.
*Quotes from book : Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman