How Slowing Down Helped Me Reclaim My Dreams

“For fast acting relief, try slowing down.” ~Lily Tomlin

“Are you the owner?” asks, well, yet another customer at our local Italian eatery.

“Nope—I’m just old!” I reply, all sheepish but pleased.

It’s true. At fifty, I’m not exactly your classic, college-struggling part-timer.

Actually, I’m the oldest employee at our restaurant—the staff “mom,” if you will. I’ve been at this serving gig three years now and haven’t looked back. Which might seem weird considering how I got here in the first place. What a contrast to the world I once lived in.

I co-owned a financial services company with my dad for sixteen years. We had a good thing going. Our clients were well taken care of—we were winning awards, and the money reflected that. At forty-five, I had it all: a full-tilt career, a decent marriage, two kids, and a nice house.

To say that wasn’t enough for me wouldn’t be honest. No, it was more like it was TOO much.

I felt overwhelmed by the life I’d helped build. 

I was stuck on the treadmill of Keeping It All Together, running faster and faster with each passing year, terrified I’d fly off the back end in one spectacular “Sam-Style” crash. I longed to slow down enough to examine my choices, my reality, and myself. The pace was killing me. Whoever the “me” was that I’d become.

Couldn’t I just walk for a while?

My running took me to a thirty-three-day meander on the Camino de Santiago in Spain in May of 2019. It was one of those “sort-out-your-shit” mid-life pilgrimages. I walked in, a pile of cynicism and confusion, but walked out with confidence, clutching one very ballsy answer:

“Quit your career.”

For context, it was driving me crazy. I’d crossed a threshold where it didn’t matter how much money I was making because I was miserable. Investing for others never felt like me—artsy-fartsy “Sam” was drowning in portfolio pressures. Uncontrollables like market returns and regulation built on the assumption that all financial advisors could be out to screw their clients had me on edge 24/7.

Looking back, I am grateful for those years that never felt like me. Because they eventually helped inform a more authentic life. That’s the one I’m living now. It’s a more peaceful, more meaningful existence. Even if I am “just serving up pasta.”

See, when you’re stuck on the treadmill and the universe keeps ratcheting up the pace, it’s all you can do to breathe, let alone hold any other aspiration in your head.

You simply can’t. There’s no time for that sort of fluff.

You’ve got clients and deadlines and responsibilities and targets. Your files come home with you. Your conversations with loved ones center around what ridiculous head office battle you had to fight against today, just to keep up with the demands of your job.

Dream?! Snort. This IS the dream… Isn’t it?!

Apparently, it wasn’t MY dream.

Fast forward to a world where I’m out three or four nights a week, doing a literal (and warmly received) tap dance if the kitchen is backed up. I collect tip pools on Wednesdays. I clock in, I clock out. And when I’m home, I am not thinking about work.

This is a far cry from my Sunday night anxiety, when I would lie awake in dread over what fires I’d have to put out the following morning.

As a server, I’m counted on to provide care, kindness, good humor, and advice for tourists and newcomers on our area, along with the obvious meals prepared to their liking. It’s a curated experience that comes with a smile. A can’t-fake-it smile.

The smile is legit, because I’m happy. 🙂

But there’s something else at play here. Taking my foot off the gas—that is to say, making the difficult decision to slow my life down—has allowed me the time and space to dream.

And I am (and always will be) “one of those.” I know, I know, I know; insert eye rolling from my realist peeps in the audience. I am a DREAMER.

I believe our dreams matter. 

How can they not? Why else are we here, spinning on this giant rock? Are we meant to come into the world, then run like hell unquestioningly until the day we die? Methinks, no.

The problem most of us have with dreams is threefold: (1) they’re seemingly impractical, (2) they require courage to get started, and (3) they need time to germinate and take off.

The sad fact is most of us are in survival mode just to exist. We don’t have the time to dream.

Dreaming is a bloody freaking luxury! We have more urgent matters to attend to—like mortgage payments and helping our aging parents understand their cell phone plans.

But I think casting our dreams aside despite today’s survival mode reality is already a slow descent to the grave. We may still be alive, but are we really?

Sure, we can pinch ourselves and feel that pain, looking around at the world’s we’ve built and the treadmills we’re running on to keep it all going. Of course we’re alive. We’ve got the tax bill to prove it!

Inside, though? Our soul might be one breath away from lights out. This happens when we shrug off the whispers it quietly sends to us, succumbing to one of our great failings as human beings: we settle.

Uggg, settling.

Some people might think I’ve “settled” in choosing to swap a lucrative occupation for some part-time job waiting tables.

It’s the opposite.

I’d have been settling if I would have stayed the course in my previous career. And I’d probably be dead by now. That may sound dramatic to you, but I was on the cusp of CRACKING at least quarterly. I just assumed this was something I had to suck up.

It was only when my dreams came at me unflinchingly loud that I realized I had to do something. Thanks to that meander on the Camino, all those “shoulds,” “musts,” and societal expectations that otherwise took up head space dissipated, freeing up fertile ground for my dreams to matter. In essence, my dreams became louder than my misery.

But I thought I was nuts. Who would walk away from security and set off for the great unknown?

An insane person would. At least, that’s what I’d thought. And you can’t blame my distorted thinking; remember, I’d been running at warp speed for years.

It would take that far slower pace for me to see things clearly. To see things for myself.

Today, chasing my dream admittedly comes with frustration, exhaustion, and its own version of disillusion.

I have taken my walk across Spain as inspiration to help other women try and slow down so they, too, can sort out their shit and find themselves. It all sounds good in theory. But anyone who has ever started a business before will tell you it is often a lesson in failing forward.

(Then swallowing your pride with each lesson learned—like, who buys 2,000 custom “thank you” bracelets for a company that hasn’t yet launched anything to thank someone for?! Yeah, I did that!)

I know, though, that if this dream of mine matters, I’ve got to continue to find the money, motivation, and stamina to invest in it. These are all ME problems, but I’m dealing and pleased to see the wins when they come.

What’s important here—and this is part of my self-talk when feeling frustrated—is that I’m not ignoring what matters to me.

I’m not shoving it down, beating it into submission, or deluding myself that it doesn’t exist in the first place.

If Slowing Down Is Key—Then How?

My answer here isn’t going to sound like rocket science or some earth-shattering discovery. It’s easy: get out and walk.

I will forever champion the slowed-down art of moving your body, one foot in front of the other, on the cement sidewalk of your urban jungle or the mossy loam of your backyard forest. Walking IS the answer. If we can tear ourselves off that treadmill for twenty to thirty minutes a day, we’ll begin to see a shift.

Stress levels decrease, and this is documented scientifically.

With less of that pesky stress hormone “cortisol” coursing through our veins, we’ll feel better without even trying. You show me a person whose mood isn’t lifted after a walk, and I’ll show you the millions in my bank account. (Ha! There’s no such thing as either!)

Walking has been a time-honored tradition of problem solving, creativity-fueling, and dream-catching for years. Beethoven would set out for long walks, pen and paper in hand, ready to capture those melodies as they came to him.

So, I’m not saying go out and quit your job. I’m just saying, get outside for some deliberate movement. Which brings me to my next point.

The Importance of Conscious Decision-Making

Aiming for a life with no regrets takes decision-making to the next level.

If that means tightening up our purse-strings while I work on my dream, or relying on my husband to carry the bulk of the financial torch, or going out and getting a serving job to help take the pressure off—so be it. I make these choices willingly and with the fortunate support of people who believe in me.

“Conscious” decision-making requires us to weigh the options and think about others in the fallout of our choices. How does my desire to go after this dream impact those I love? What do I need to consider? What’s my downside, and how does that inform any decisions we need to make as a family?

Those Who Are Watching

A by-product of going after our dreams is the message it sends to those who follow. In my case, we want to show our two daughters that their dreams are important. I’d have been selling out completely if I’d never left my career; that “your dreams matter speech” we parents often dish out would have otherwise felt like flavorless gruel. At least for us.

Over the last four years, I’ve seen how my tenacity (read: head-banging, stubborn persistence) has inspired my kids.

My eldest will shoot for the stars with the loftiest expectations. And while talking her off her ledge over NOT being accepted into the most competitive university in North America felt daunting, I secretly loved that she tried.

Because why not shoot for the stars? Her playing large will net a guaranteed number of disappointments, but it also fuels her grit. And on those few occasions when she swings hard and knocks one out of the park—how great does that feel because she took the chance to begin with?

Don’t Aim to Be the Example of Success—Aim to Live the Dream, Failures and All 

I judge myself harshly. And those midnight, panic-stricken voice messages I send to my friend Carolyn are proof. Nothing happens quickly. Nothing is easy. Nothing goes the way we think.

But in the end, if we’re breathing life into those dreams of ours, we’ve already won. We aren’t merely going through the motions. We are in the arena, taking chances, learning lessons, failing forward, getting back up, and squeezing the juice out of how we want each moment to feel.

And I’ll keep it even more real for you.

I sometimes feel as though I’ve traded one treadmill for another. It’s in those moments when I back away slowly from my laptop, shove my feet into my hikers, and hit the trails. When I’m feeling overwhelmed and unclear, I literally walk away.

A full-tilt life is exciting (and exhausting), but it’s not always the one best aligned with our souls. We need to slow down—meander, even—so we can recognize when things are spinning out of control. Our walking can even lead us to our dreams, if only we take the time to put one foot in front of the other.

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