Say It Again, But Slower

“Say it again, but slower.”

That’s the thing my therapist said that never left me.

I was talking fast, like I always did when I was afraid of silence. Listing reasons. Explaining context.

Defending myself preemptively, as if the air itself might accuse me.

I told her how tired I was, how I always felt like I was falling behind some invisible schedule everyone else understood.

How even resting felt like cheating.

She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t nod. She just waited.

Then she said, gently, “Say that again—but slower.”

I laughed at first. It felt ridiculous. Like being asked to reread your own handwriting because even you couldn’t understand it.

So I tried.

“I feel… tired,” I said, this time leaving space between the words.

Not racing ahead of them.

Not stacking them like evidence.

And something strange happened.

The sentence sounded heavier when it wasn’t rushed.

It landed. It stayed.

She leaned forward a little. “Do you hear the difference?”

I shook my head. I didn’t trust my voice enough to answer.

She said, “When you slow down, you stop trying to outrun how you actually feel.”

That was the moment.

Because I realized I’d spent most of my life speaking the way I lived—fast enough that nothing could catch me.

Not grief. Not fear.

Not the quiet suspicion that I was allowed to exist without constantly justifying it.

She didn’t give advice after that. She didn’t reframe it.

She just let the silence sit, like it was something safe instead of something dangerous.

Now, years later, I still hear it when my thoughts start sprinting.

Say it again, but slower.

And sometimes, for the first time, I actually listen to what I’m saying.