Getting up early each morning to watch the quality of light change in my backyard, sip my freshly steeped tea, and read a good book is the highlight of my day. It’s probably because without even knowing it, I created a habit of living in the slow lane for the first hour of the day. However, the rest the day often turns to chaos.
As someone who is always talking about slow living, following brands and writers who talk about going back to the practices our grandparents would have admired–handmade and local–it was a shock when my own health coach informed me that I was moving to fast.
I didn’t see it.
But when we pinpointed the things that brought me the most joy, they were things done slowly–playing in my garden, walking around the neighborhood, going to the farm in Indiana, working on art, baking, meeting friends for coffee. Each item we listed made me smile as I thought about the slow process that went into every task. I could feel the rush of the world and the weight of having to do it all be lifted.
Not every moment will be a slow moment. We need to move, we need to build, we have sh*t to get done. But when our entire world is hustle culture, we also lose something. The trick isn’t about becoming a total minimalist (as I would say I’m a minimalist mentally, but when it comes to my design practices I lean more towards maximalist) or about slowing down so much that our daily lives can’t move or we aren’t making progress on our dreams. It’s finding our own individual balance of movement and rest. Of chasing after our dreams, and acknowledging the magic in this moment.
In my latest podcast interview on Rise Up Buttercup, we dive into these slow practices and tools for you to find your own journey to a balance of slow. The line I end the show with though, might just be the most important advice I have to give.
