Keeping Up the Pace?
(c) Melanie Parish , 2014
Pace
I took a course from a guy named Larry Byrum in Boulder, Colorado years ago. He teaches classes on relationships and how to find the perfect partner at the Higher Alignment Center. His work is quite interesting and the system he uses has served me well. One of the aspects he talked about was “pace.”
Larry used a scale of 1 to 100 to describe pace. I took courses there over 10 years ago, so apologies if I misrepresent his current teachings. He said that for a romantic relationship to work, one needs to be within 20 points of their partner on the “pace” scale. After 20, he said he didn’t recommend it. In our society people make more money if they are faster paced. Those who are slower paced make less money and are sometimes perceived as “lazy” by people who go through life at a faster pace. We have a lot of judgment about pace in our society. Those who are slower paced may wonder if they “should” be doing more. This kind of “should” pops into my work with clients fairly regularly. It is my perspective that there are no “shoulds”–simply lives full of choices, victories and gratitude.
I am fairly sure Mel and I are about 20 points apart. When Mel and I are alone together we are fine. We vacation well. Sometimes he gets up early and goes off to do things while I am still hanging out. We are fairly active on vacation so it suits both of us, then I come home tired and rest.
Throwing in all the kid stuff can be challenging for me. I am the slowest paced person in my family although Xander may be similar to me in his pacing. The myriad of kids’ activities leaves me exhausted by the end of the school year. Mel does more driving in the evening than I do but the constant comings and goings drain me. I give myself permission to say no to “one more thing” and to rest when I need to. He keeps going at the speed he enjoys and I try not to ask him to slow down to hang out with me. We find common ground.
I think of myself as about 55-60 on the scale. I think of Mel as somewhere between 75 and 80. He doesn’t talk fast or move fast, it is just that he is continually productive and engaging with life. He is always thinking new thoughts. He is always up for anything. We have had to grapple with the concept of “doing enough” in our relationship. I think we both have little devils sitting on our shoulder telling us we aren’t doing enough in our lives–we “should” be doing more. As we have let those voices go, we have found peace in our marriage and have given up on the idea of “fair” and exchanged it for peacefulness, kindness, and appreciation. I know we are not operating at our best when we are having a “doing enough” conversation.
I continue to think about pace and how my pace affects how I move through the world and how I interact with others. I notice that a clue that someone is slower paced than you is that you find yourself wanting to finish their sentences and hurry them along. A clue that someone is faster paced is that you feel you don’t quite have the time to creatively solve problems together. We can also have baggage from our parents. A fast paced parent may have made us feel slow or dumb simply because their pace is quicker than ours. A parent who is slower than us might have felt like a drag.
What pace are you on a scale of one to one hundred? What about your parents? Your spouse? Your children? How can you honor your pace and the pace of those around you?
