09/18/2026
This week was my birthday. Carlos and I have a tradition. We surprise each other with an experience, usually somewhere we haven't been but close enough that Chloe can come with us.
This year, what I got was a lesson in slowing down. Again.
I was always a doer. Give me a task and I consume it. I loved crossing things off my list and I was never one of those people walking around with a long list of things they never get to. I got to them. Fast.
Israel is funny that way. It's a country of doers and achievers. We move fast. We're impatient with slow walkers, slow drivers, and even slow life milestones. Get married fast, have kids fast, get the degrees fast, land the good job fast. Fast fast fast.
And yet. We sit in restaurants far longer than Americans do (based on my unscientific personal research). We lounge with friends and talk for hours without anyone checking the time.
Sometime in my 30s I started going to group meditation in Israel, a practice so deep I haven't found anything like it anywhere I've lived since. I went to retreats. Buddhism, meditation, mindfulness. And I learned to slow down.
I ate slower. I thought clearer. I learned to sit doing nothing, watching people go by, with no inner rush and no discomfort. It felt so right. So natural. So healthy.
Then I moved to Portugal, where slow isn't just accepted, it's on a pedestal. Slow mornings. Slow walks. Slow living. It fit me like it was made for me.
Then I moved to the US and started a whole new life. And an enterprise with my name on it. My creation. Everything I have poured my heart, soul and creativity into. And that is like living on a treadmill that goes fast. You want it to slow down, but the moment it does you get scared and turn the speed back up. It's a strange thing.
People here in the South drive slower than in Israel. Slower than Portugal even. But I don't feel the slowness in the air. If anything I feel encouraged to go fast. I haven't found a place to practice meditation. I eat too fast. I think too fast. I play games on my phone when I could and should be staring at the wall in my time of rest.
This week Carlos took me to Fernandina Beach in Florida. As beautiful as it was sleepy.
The heat was too intense on the first day, but once we got a break from it, I felt something happening as the hours went by. My system went into slowing down mode. I felt it relaxing, loosening. By day 3 I was thinking slower. Moving slower.
Today is my first morning back home. Chloe loves to sleep under my desk while I work, so she wakes me up too early every single morning just to do that.
This morning, in an act of defiance, I closed the door behind her and stayed in bed for another 30 minutes.
It sounds small. It didn't feel that way.
Shabbat Shalom 💙
Inbal
