Seeking Slow, page 7
The ideal situation is that, eventually, any slow-living rituals and well-being practices we do become deeply intertwined with our lifestyles and schedules. We don’t want to have to remember to get our yoga mat out, or to breathe deeply, or to take some time to slow things down. We want them to be a natural and integrated part of our lives.
LIVING LIGHTLY
Daily Mindfulness
Pick an ordinary everyday activity. It could be preparing dinner, washing your hands or face, or hanging the laundry on the line.
Can you try to do the task mindfully? Can you bring your focus to all the little details of the activity? Think about the sounds you can hear, what smells you can notice, what textures you can feel.
Using the example of washing your hands, take the time to notice what the water feels like on your skin—the sensation, the temperature—the sound the water makes, the smell of the soap, how soft the towel feels when drying your hands.
Really engage all five senses to bring your attention to focus on the present moment that is right in front of you. If you find your mind wandering, gently bring it back to the task you are doing.
What did you notice?
How hard did you find this exercise?
ESTABLISHING A QUIET CORNER
It is important to have an area in our homes where we can relax, feel calm, and be at peace. Maybe you already have a handful of places you can retreat to in your home when life gets hectic, but if you live in a busy family home, trying to find space and time to sit and practice a breath exercise or meditation can be tricky.
It can be helpful to spend a little time thinking about how to create a calm space just for you, and where in your home you could create such a space. Having a designated space that is free from distractions can really help the mind settle down and stay focused. In fact, by regularly meditating in the same place, you can begin to infuse that corner of your home with a calm energy. You will probably notice that you start to breathe a little deeper by simply stepping onto your mat (before you even begin your practice).
Think of the best room in your house where you would be able to retreat to and get fifteen minutes of peace and quiet—perhaps your bedroom, spare room, or living room. Once you have chosen the room, decide where in the room you can create a calm space. There might be an obvious corner that lends itself for you to be able to do a simple meditation—you don’t need a lot of space; an area about the size of a yoga mat is ideal. When deciding on the perfect spot for your practice, you might also want to think about when you will be able to craft your fifteen minutes of quiet, which corner of the room gets the best light, etc. By creating this calm space, it naturally focuses your thoughts and clarifies your intention—notice the difference this process makes to your motivation and frame of mind.
Ideally, this will be a consistent space; however, if that is impossible, you can create a pop-up calm space that you can set up and put away as necessary. The setting up of your calm space will then become part of your practice. Rolling out the mat, lighting a candle, and burning a sage smudge stick are all part of the ritual, and become the signifier that you are about to turn your attention inward. These small acts of preparing the space will help get your mind and body ready for the practice too. Here are some items that can help you create that designated calm space at home:
» Yoga mat
» Sheepskin
» Candles
» Smudge stick
» Crystals
» Relaxing music
» Yoga videos
» Online meditation apps, such as Insight Timer, Headspace, and Calm
Once you have created one area like this inside your home, think about how elements of this area can filter through to other rooms of your home. This will help make your home as slow and calm as possible.
CONCLUSION
Throughout the past five years, my family has adapted many aspects of our lifestyle and altered our approach to how we schedule our weeks and prioritize our well-being. There is something inherent within us that knows that slowing down just makes sense, and I have seen time and time again how slow and simple living resonates with people.
More and more, I appreciate that time is the real luxury of life today—time to spend with loved ones and time to sit in moments of stillness. By slowing down, we are able to think about the purpose and meaning in our lives, and it’s then that we realize that our well-being, and how happy and healthy we are, is what is most important. Once we start to think of time as a commodity, we naturally become more intentional with how we spend our time.
A large part of my family’s slow-living experience has been the process of simplifying our home and our belongings. Our old house needs a lot of restoring and renovating, and uncovering the bare bones of this building has been a privilege, and has taught us a lot about the beauty and imperfection that can be added to something from the passing of time. It has also highlighted how crucial having patience is, especially when it comes to the timing of things, and that the art of waiting can indeed be a gift.
Living lightly is a work in progress, as we are constantly learning how to be more ethical. By analyzing our consumer culture, we have been able to make more conscious choices, address how much we consume, and be responsible for any waste we create.
Personally, I am finding that I crave more and more quiet time for my mind. I have learned that it’s imperative to have space to play and daydream for my mental well-being, and I find that mindfully engaging in everyday tasks helps me stay present and grounded. On days and weeks when we are busy, I remember to value my slow moments and use them to create little punctuation marks in my day that allow me to pause and breathe a little deeper. As someone who works from home, I find that the daily slow-living rituals I have established are so important, because they act as little signifiers that I am switching pace, slowing down, and moving into a calm and nurturing space.
The further we look into simplifying our lives, the more I want distance from the digital age that we live in. Taking complete breaks from being at a computer or any sort of screen is what I have found works best for me. I have also found that I need to take breaks from social networks, too, especially as someone who is naturally a bit of an introvert. Being socially engaged all the time is tiring. With regular breaks, and my notifications switched off, I can intentionally choose when I am online, and that way I can be present and engaged. Having clear boundaries is only going to become more essential as technology continues to develop and becomes even more entwined with our lifestyles.
As a balance to this, we need to take comfort and find inspiration in nature. For my family, being in nature and connecting to the seasons continue to enrich our lives in new ways. I am constantly reminded how living seasonally can guide us and help us create healthy, authentic rhythms. I always turn to nature when things become challenging and it astounds me what a positive impact it has on my well-being.
If we want to start feeling happier and healthier, we have to reconnect and learn to listen to our bodies and remember that self-compassion is pivotal in slowing down and nurturing ourselves. We need to foster thoughtfulness and get to know our minds and ourselves inside out. Self-compassion is what I have been digging into recently. It’s pretty fundamental to be able to relate to ourselves in a compassionate way, and for me, this is now key in order to deepen our slow-living experience. I know it will change the way I communicate with myself and the way I relate to those closest to me.
There are days where I still find it a challenge to be compassionate with myself and surrender to what my body needs. Maybe I have planned to do certain things, but when it comes to it, perhaps I simply don’t have the energy; therefore, it makes sense to factor in more time to rest.
Understanding our bodies can be a challenge because they are constantly evolving. As I enter different seasons of my life, I find that I need different things to nourish and support my well-being. And equally, as my daughter grows, she requires different support and provides different challenges. We therefore have to remember to think about our well-being holistically and encourage ourselves to adapt. What continues to be a constant, though, is that inquisitive nature to understand myself and life a little better.
When it comes to altering our lifestyle and slowing down and simplifying, small daily changes can be empowering and help us feel like we are moving in the right direction. Sometimes, these simple realizations are all that are needed to initiate change, and by making small adjustments, we can begin to notice a difference in the quality of how we move through our weeks.
Once we start to think of our lives in terms of how happy and healthy we are, slow living naturally follows suit. After a while, we realize it simply makes sense to live this way and it feels like returning to a more authentic way to live. By living slowly and simply, we can create more space for quiet pauses and moments of stillness. The deeper understanding we have of ourselves, the more we are able to shape our future into what we really want. Let’s honor our bodies and develop the art of listening to what we really need, not just the louder messages but the whispers from the soul as well.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANK YOU to Leo and Bailey for all the words of encouragement and extra huggles—I couldn’t have got to this point without you. Your patience and help with taking pictures is invaluable. Thanks for always giving me the space to stop and capture what inspires me.
Thanks to my folks for raising me with an appreciation of the simple things, and for always encouraging me to do what makes me happy.
Many thanks to everyone who has listened and offered support whilst I have been thoroughly absorbed in creating this book—I promise I will start behaving normally again soon. Thanks to Sarah-Lou for taking a wonderful headshot (that I actually like) and for always listening.
Thanks to Rage for giving me the opportunity to share what slow living means to me and my family, to Erin for all your hard work with editing the book and for always answering my many emails, and to all those at Rock Point publishing that have worked so hard to help me make this book beautiful.
Thanks to everyone who reads my blog, subscribes to the newsletter, and follows along with our slow living journey. I hope this book inspires you to seek your own slice of slow.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MELANIE BARNES is the writer and photographer behind the blog Geoffrey and Grace and the Instagram @ geoffreyandgrace—destinations for slow and simple living. With more than fifteen years’ experience in movement and well-being, she is a trained yogi, meditation teacher, and massage therapist. She shares advice on slow and simple living via her blog, e-guides, slow-living retreats, and magazine articles. She lives by the sea in Sussex in the UK with her husband, daughter, and cat.
NOTES
THE CHALLENGES OF OUR MODERN AGE
1. Professor Hollie Martin, “Consumer Culture/Materialism,” YouTube, 2014.
2. Paulina Pchelin and Ryan T. Howell, “The Hidden Cost of Value-Seeking: People Do Not Accurately Forecast the Economic Benefits of Experiential Purchases,” The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9 (2014): 322–34.
TIME
3. Daniel J. Levitin, The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload (New York: Plume, 2014), 16
4. Ibid., 96.
5. Ibid., 98.
LEARNING TO NURTURE OURSELVES
6. Kristin Neff, PhD, and Christopher Germer, PhD, The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive (New York: The Guilford Press, 2018), 10.
7. Ibid., 1.
8. Dr. Stuart Brown, “Play Is More Than Just Fun,” TED, 2008.
9. Indre Viskontas, “How Daydreaming Can Fix Your Brain,” Mother Jones online, October 13, 2014.
10. Daniel J. Levitin, The Organized Mind (New York: Plume, 2014), 376.
11. Ibid., 170.
SEASONAL LIVING
12. Chorong Song, Harumi Ikei, and Yoshifumi Miyazaki, “Physiological Effects of Nature Therapy: A Review of the Research in Japan,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 13 (2016): 781.
13. Ibid.
SUSTAINABILITY
14. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future” (Cowes: Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017), 18.
15. Ibid., 3.
16. Shannon Whitehead Lohr, “5 Truths the Fashion Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know” Life (blog), HuffPost, October 19, 2014 (updated).
17. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future” (Cowes: Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017), 20–21.
18. Global Fashion Agenda, “Pulse of the Fashion Industry” (Copenhagen: Global Fashion Agenda and The Boston Consulting Group, 2017), 13.
WELL-BEING: MIND AND SOUL
19. Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditations Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body (New York: Avery, 2017), 207.
20. Ibid., 249.
21. Ira Hyman, PhD, “Don’t Think about It: Thought Suppression Causes Behavior Rebound,” Pyschology Today online, September 10, 2010.
DAILY SLOW-LIVING RITUALS
22. Tiu De Haan, “Why We Still Need Ritual,” YouTube, 2016.
For all the seekers of slow who believe that there is a better way to live.
To my family, who fill my life with joy and inspire me to live slowly, be present, and make the most of our time together.
Text and Photography © 2019
by Melanie Barnes
First published in 2019 by Rock Point,
an imprint of The Quarto Group,
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019943789
Digital edition: 978-0-76036-568-7
Hardcover edition: 978-1-63106-630-6
Group Publisher: Rage Kindelsperger
Creative Director: Laura Drew
Managing Editor: Cara Donaldson
Senior Editor: Erin Canning
Art Director: Cindy Samargia Laun
Cover Design: Evelin Kasikov
Page Design: Laura Shaw Design
Melanie Barnes, Seeking Slow
