The progress in slowing down

In Yangon, Myanmar. Just before everything cracked open...

Do you know that feeling - the constant urge to keep going?
To keep moving, keep doing, just so you don’t have to stand still?
Because what if you did stop…
what might catch up with you then?

That question hit me hard one night in Yangon, Myanmar.

A few years earlier, my life had shattered. My partner was murdered when our daughter was just eleven days old. The future we’d planned disappeared in a single moment. And I knew I couldn’t stay where I was. Not in my grief. Not in that version of my life.

So when Fleur was two and a half years old, I booked a one-way ticket to Asia.
Not to escape.
But to keep a promise - to show her the world, like her father and I always dreamed.
And to figure out who I was now, after everything had fallen apart.

We travelled for months around Thailand, Laos, Cambodia.
And then came Myanmar. Raw and beautiful. But most of all unfiltered.
It asked more of me than I had to give.

One long day in Yangon broke me open.

Fleur was done. Totally overstimulated after a long hot day in the capital. She didn’t want to settle down, she didn’t want to eat or play and she certainly didn’t want to go to sleep. I tried everything - staying calm, negotiating, begging, yelling.
None of it worked.

And honestly? I had nothing left either.
That night wasn’t my proudest as a mother.
But it was a turning point.

At some point, I locked myself in the bathroom. Turned on the shower to drown out the noise.
And sat down on the cold tiles.
And then it hit me.

All the emotions I’d been running from.
The exhaustion. The rage. The grief. The emptiness. The deep, quiet sadness.

I wasn’t just running through countries.
I’d been running from myself.

Eventually Fleur cried herself to sleep.
I crawled into bed beside her, stroked her sweaty head, and whispered:
“From my soul to yours, sweetheart, I’m sorry it had to get this far. From now on, we travel slower.”

And I fell into a deep, heavy sleep.

The next morning she woke up smiling, as if none of it had happened.
But I knew something had shifted.

I let go of the pressure I put onto myself. The timeline. The voice in my head that told me I had to keep going.
No one was waiting for us.
Except us.

That night in Yangon gave me a gift I didn’t want, but desperately needed:

• The faster I run, the more I abandon myself.

• I can’t outrun what I feel - it always catches up.

• Slowing down creates space to actually feel.

• And in that stillness… that’s where real progress begins.

Real progress starts the moment you allow yourself to slow down - and feel what needs to be felt.
However hard. However uncomfortable.

Because you can’t bypass your own pain.
But you can choose to face it.
And that changes everything.