A Slow Immersion into Slow Living
Do you enjoy good food? I certainly do and have been spoiled over the course of my life having lived in a couple of the coolest cities well-known for their international cuisine, Montréal, and NYC, and also during my travels to countries around the globe.
Maybe you’re wondering what food has to do with slow living. Well, the origins of the slow living lifestyle stem from the Italian slow food movement which was born by activists in response to the emergence of fast food in the 80’s and 90’s. This movement focused on nurturing and preserving traditional food production techniques and their manifesto served to inspire the slow living movement.
The Concept of Slow Living
The concept of slow living has evolved and expanded to various aspects of society, including the idea of slow cities, slow money, and slow tech. Slow living is also referred to as intentional living, balanced living, mindfulness, simple living, and other names.
Some slow living advocates use S.L.O.W. as an acronym for four major issues represented by the slow living movement: S: sustainability (using materials that have a limited impact on the world); L: local (using materials and products that are produced locally); O: organic (avoiding products that have been mass-produced or genetically altered); W: whole (avoiding processed foods or materials).
At the core, slow living encourages you to:
consider a more meaningful view of life and align your actions and interactions with your values.
gain a deeper awareness and appreciation of your surroundings using your senses.
discover what your “enough” is and minimize or remove what is no longer useful.
strive to develop and focus on valuable relationships including one with yourself.
live a more simple, peaceful, joyful, and sustainable life.
Giving yourself permission to slow down is a fundamental act of self-care.
Progress in the Process
As a baby, you tapped into your innate ability to learn how to crawl. The latter naturally led to summoning your curiosity, strength, and balance, in order to be able to stand up and walk. Then, you tested your emerging skills and decided that skipping, running, leaping, etc., were the logical next steps.
Progress.
The journey of slow living is one that requires you initially to take a step back, assess your current situation, define, and explore what you truly want for yourself and your life, and begin to slowly integrate and immerse yourself into a new way of living. You review your progress periodically and adjust accordingly. The more you become connected with who you are and are striving to become, the easier and more fulfilling the journey becomes.
What you’re not going to do is rush the process and try to cut corners in order to put a checkmark on the slow living box.
As you and I move along this path of slow living, I will share guiding principles and various ideas of how you can integrate them in your life, to whatever degree you are comfortable with. It’s not an all or nothing proposition.
You Are a Work of Art
Finally, imagine your life as if it were The Louvre in Paris; a world-renowned museum that houses a vast collection of many of the greatest works of art ever made. You are its sole architect and curator.
You collect vivid and unique memories and experiences that you have created. You get to design how the museum looks and feels. You have the freedom to spend as much time as you want exploring the museum in a state of ease, joy, and wonder. You can invite anyone into the museum who truly honours and values you and your contributions.
Life is a gift, and you are a work of art. Slow living helps you to fully understand this.
And so much more.
With gratitude,
Kassandra