What is slow living?

It’s difficult to define slow living in words.  It’s not the words themselves that introduce a challenge, it’s quite easy to find the ones that align with the concept of slow.  Intentional, purposeful, mindful, long-term, resourceful and fulfilling all come to mind.  It’s just that my slow might look different from your slow and there are many paths to slow and how would we describe the whole process in one breath?  Process, perhaps that’s a good place to start.  The best that I can come up with is that slow living is a process of designing our lives around how best to use our time to bring us meaning and authentic joy.

It’s counterculture.  Not that pursuing meaning and authentic joy go against our Western culture, these pursuits are universal and transcend any culture.  It’s just that our culture has always sold us the idea that the more we have, the faster we go and the busier we are, the happier we will be.  But then we discovered that we are not, we are not happy and the adding and the speeding up don’t help.  That’s where it begins, the slowing down.  It’s really just a reaction to fast.  It’s a ‘I don’t want to do this anymore and I realise that I can actually choose to do it another way.”

My slow life

Is my life even slow?  Sometimes it doesn’t feel particularly slow.  Everyday brings with it it’s to do lists and demands.  But what we have decided to do in our home is manage these demands so that they don’t unravel into chaos.  I mean what a statement, as if demands are manageable and chaos isn’t a ravaging uncontrollable force.  So it’s not like we simply see chaos coming and say stop, this is a slow house.  It’s a process of learning to say no, of learning to live without and making certain sacrifices to make room for savouring the moments.  It’s learning to put things aside for another day and undoing a life of feeling the pressing force of living by deadlines and expectations.  It takes practice and a lot of intention.

It’s bringing the pre-mix cheese muffins to the kitchen tea because although a whole-food based recipe with three cheeses and organic herbs from my garden would be more ‘slow living’ in the Instagram sense, choosing to save time on a busy weekend means less chaos.  It’s making the whole-food based recipe with three cheeses and organic herbs from my garden another day, when this activity will bring me joy.  This is the kind of slow life I am living right now.

It’s the process of designing my life around how best to use my time to bring me meaning and authentic joy.

For us personally, it’s also been a season of learning to live with less stuff.  This has been our journey over the past few years as starting a business together has required us to put in rather than take out.  There are so many things that I have coveted over the past few years.  I always dreamed of dressing my children in trendy new clothes and they live in hand-me-downs.  In all honesty, I have experienced moments of disappointment over this (and other material lack), but I have figured out how to self-talk my way out of it.  This is the life we chose because we didn’t want to go fast anymore, we didn’t want to live subject to external demands that robbed us of meaning and joy.  And we do find meaning and joy in everyday even without the material things!  So I have to be honest with myself and acknowledge that I lack nothing even when materially we do.  This has been the greatest gift that I have gained through this season and I hope that I never lose it.  It’s foundational to truly embracing slow, I believe.

Recently, I have asked myself, “What if this, what you have today, is all you will ever have?  Will it be enough?” This is a tough question to ask because it doesn’t go hand in hand with not wanting or craving more.  I don’t ask it of myself because I don’t have big dreams and big ideas of what I could and would do with great resources.  I ask it because I know that ultimately I cannot control everything and I wonder that if things don’t go ‘my way’ will I still find meaning and authentic joy in what I have?  Perhaps this is a topic for another blog but it’s tied in with my personal journey to slow.  I am a Christian too and my personal spiritual journey has also brought me to this place, where I want to be able to say, “God, you are enough for me.”

Practical tips to going slow

So, if you are thinking of slowing down, here are my top tips for starting this process.  There’s so much more that we can explore regarding the how to’s of slow living and I will be writing on various topics around slow living in upcoming blogs.  What follows is a very elementary introduction to how I have approached slow.

1.  Get rid of the busy
I mean the busy for the sake of busy.  Stop thinking that you sound important when someone asks you how you are and you say, “Busy”.  We just sound uninterested and uninteresting.  Think about who you really are, what you really love doing and make more space for this in your life.

2.  Get rid of the stuff
Go through a process of sorting.  Get rid of the things that you really don’t need and don’t use.  Get rid of the clutter and challenge yourself to live with less.

3.  Be mindful
Live in the moment, get out into nature more and remind yourself to enjoy the life you have and the people that you get to share it with.

4.  Eat better
Be conscious of what you eat.  Focus on sourcing food that has been produced naturally and is free of additives and preservatives.

5.  Use your resources better
We less wasteful.  Think about your impact on the world, think long-term.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on slow living.  Look out for more from me on my journey to slow and my lessons along the way.  But right now, it’s Tuesday afternoon and I’m heading down to the rock pools with my family to look for treasures.  And I realise, we are doing it, we are making space in this crazy, busy life to consciously enjoy our time and do the things that bring us joy.