Welcome to The Slow Newsletter, your weekly dose of dazzling, aha-moment-generating Vedic wisdom. The Slow is where we break down teachings on meditation and consciousness to inspire easy, abundant living—even in the most demanding times.

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💬 Quote of the Week

JFK Airport Terminal 8 • 5:28 AM

There we were, Pete and I, wheeling our carry-ons toward our departure when we stumbled upon the most beautiful exhibition. The question on the wall and the hundreds of accompanying handwritten answers stopped us in our tracks.

We forgot all about our boarding time as we stood there, taking in these fragments of human stories, one by one. Here are three of my favorites:

Here’s more from the creator:

What’s it like being you?​

I’ve been asking that question for the past fifteen years and have received more than 95,000 handwritten, true, and anonymous answers.Whether about love or loss, joy or fear, what they all have in common is an honest voice of the human experience. These stories offer a brief glimpse into the intimacies of everyday life, bridging meaningful connections between strangers.​

We’re living in a time where the differences between us are magnified. I believe that what starts as a simple act of listening can be a profoundly transformative experience.​

By exploring the lives of those we share our spaces with, we uncover how beautifully human we all are. These stories invite strangers of all ages and backgrounds to reflect, rejoice, heal, and connect through words.By creating a space for these stories, we open a space to better understand each other—and ourselves.​

– Brandon Doman, Founder, The Strangers Project​I’m committing to asking this question more intentionally this week.

Will you join me?

📚 A Guide to Surviving The Election

Ever notice how everyone seems to lose their minds before election day?

There’s no getting around that emotions are charged, and differences seem to be highlighted at every swipe of our finger on social media.

Reflecting on our “differences,” I’m struck by a simple truth: people whose political views make our blood boil share 99.9% of our DNA. When I’ve looked deeper, I almost always find that the person whose posts drive us crazy is likely worried about the same things we are—just seeing them through a different lens.

And what shapes the lenses through which we see? Stress accumulation.

When stress chemistry floods our system, our bodies prime us to look for differences and threats. This ancient survival mechanism has become our modern-day saboteur, especially during elections. That fight-or-flight response has us scanning for danger, making it nearly impossible to find common ground. (And scrolling through X isn’t exactly helping our nervous systems stay calm.)

Through years of working through my own layers of accumulated stress and helping others release theirs, I’ve discovered something profound: While we can’t change election outcomes, moving through this time with more perspective can transform how we relate and even create unity in seemingly divisive times.

The key lies in understanding three crucial laws of Nature:

1. We can only ever act according to our state of consciousness. No one can act differently than their consciousness allows – this includes speech, thoughts, and decisions. When we wonder, “Why would somebody vote for [fill in the blank]?” the simple answer is that their consciousness dictates that perspective.
2. Knowledge is different in different states of consciousness. What feels deeply true to us is shaped by our state of consciousness, life experiences, and even our social media algorithms.
3. Unity exists beneath all apparent division. Beneath our political views and social identities lies a deeper sense of who we are—a shared layer of Being that transcends all worldly identities. This unifying field connects us all, regardless of who we favor or dislike on the podium.

A footnote on all this: Unity isn’t just philosophical talk – we can read about it all day long, but we can only truly feel it through direct experience. No amount of intellectual ruminating will get us there.

Through Vedic Meditation, we quiet our nervous system and access expanded states of consciousness. This reveals the underlying unity connecting us all, moving our understanding from intellectual head-nodding into can’t-deny-it embodiment. From this direct experience, we naturally begin to see that unity in others.

This is why I’ll continue to champion the importance of regular practice that leads to full expansion. After all, consciousness leads all.

💫 The Six-Word Question That Changes Everything

I’ll share a little secret: I’ve never been called an egoist, nor considered myself “full of it,” but in my pre-meditating days, when stress took over, my world shrank to just… me.
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The weight of heavy life experiences, combined with sleepless nights and self-medicating instead of proper healing, left me perpetually exhausted and on edge. My mind became an endless loop of worried chatter: How will I make it through today? Where is my life headed? Will I ever sleep again? What will they think of me? What about me?

My teacher Thom calls this the “I, me, mine” consciousness state—when life’s pressures build to such a crescendo that we retreat into self-preservation, feeling utterly alone in our struggles. In this insular cocoon, we forget we’re surrounded by other human beings who are more like us than we realize, all seeking connection.

But there’s a paradigm-shifting way to break free from this “I, me, mine” mindset. It’s the simple question that stopped Pete and me in our tracks today:

“What’s it like to be you?”

When I ask this with genuine curiosity, without setting a list of expectations on what I will hear in return, I invariably find common ground with those around me. I feel less alone, more connected, and I step out of the narrow confines of my own story to weave back into the fabric of my community.

The key is to ask and then truly listen.
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​Meditation helps, of course. Without the static of stress urging us to focus on differences, we enter a state of full receptivity where connection flows naturally. As we deepen our practice, something remarkable happens: our baseline shifts toward natural unity, and the question itself begins to dissolve. We start living in the quiet understanding that this connection has been here all along.
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​Here’s a meaningful challenge for the week: Whenever you find yourself feeling division, separateness, or the “othering” of someone, pause and ask this six-word question: “What’s it like to be you?” Stay open to the answer that unfolds, and notice how it shifts something inside you.