🦥 My Teacher, the Sloth

When I first started leading mindfulness groups, I chose the slogan Love Your Inner Sloth. My thought process: (1) Sloths are cool and (2) It’s the reminder I needed. Our world tells us to speed up, do more, and say yes to everything. Rather than get sucked into the frenzy, sloths tell us there’s another option: honor the part of ourselves that wants to slow down, savor small moments, and rest without guilt(!).

Over the years I’ve handed out hundreds of “Love Your Inner Sloth” stickers with my friend Sean’s adorable sloth drawing. The reaction has been near universal: relief. Yesss, the slow part of me is lovable, too

I’m on my way back from my first pilgrimage to the land of the sloths, Costa Rica, and I wanted to share a few lessons from these slow-moving gurus.

1. Move ½ as Fast, See 2x

Sloths survive by being still. It’s camouflage and a stable perch to watch for predators and the prying eyes of tourists like me. For us humans, stillness helps us see more, too.

Meditation teacher Tara Brach has a simple formula: Go half as fast, see twice as much. On a hike last week, I caught myself racing the clock so I could fit in a hike, hot river soak, and breakfast before 10 am. But when I slowed my pace, I noticed a procession of leaf-cutter ants, each carrying a fluttering green leaf four times its size. It was mesmerizing. And I almost missed it.

2. Let Feelings Digest

Sloths can take up to a month to digest a single leaf. When we let things settle, we can react with more wisdom.

Our culture places a lot of value on the quick comeback, the speedy answer in a meeting, the instant reply on Slack. But how often do we rush into words or actions when a pause – my friend Jeanette Bronée calls it a power pause – might have made space for something wiser and kinder to emerge?

Years ago, a former girlfriend told me she didn’t feel I included her friends in our life together. Instead of acknowledging her feelings with care or recognizing my defensiveness, I rattled off examples of when I had invited her friends. You can guess how well that went.

3. Save Your Energy for What Matters

Sloths have the slowest metabolic rate of any mammal their size. They’ve learned to spend their energy carefully, and we need to, too.

When drivers cut me off while I was biking, I used to carry that anger for hours. Did it help? Of course not, it just drained me. Nowadays, when on the receiving end of a distracted driver, poor customer service or, like today, a canceled flight, I try to channel my inner sloth: every bit of energy I waste I can’t dedicate to what matters more.

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We live in a world where “sloth” is a deadly sin. In Spanish, the same word means both “sloth” and “lazy.” Poor guys.

Loving your inner sloth isn’t about doing nothing. It's about choice. Sometimes we should push ourselves and get the project done. But just as often we should slow down.

Yesterday I gave a sloth sticker to a new friend in Costa Rica and it jogged a memory. Driving on a main road, she saw a motorcyclist stopped, waving her down. She pulled over, wary of trouble. Instead, she found a sloth, slowly—very slowly—crossing the road. She got out and marveled at this graceful, glacial pedestrian.

This is the wisdom these two and three toed gurus offer us: there is so much to marvel at, if we slow down enough to listen. #loveyourinnersloth