Summer Slow Living Update
It’s been a while since I talked about my slow living lifestyle here on my blog. And ironically, I guess that’s the point of living a slow lifestyle. After purposefully living more slowly for the past few years, I am now 100% comfortable with not pushing myself to do something that I am not feeling excited about at the time. And that’s the whole reason why I haven’t talked much about it here. I wasn’t super excited to write about it. However, it’s been a few months and I am happy to say that I’m now motivated to talk about my slow lifestyle again.
So to recap and give you a little bit more context, I started my slow-living lifestyle at the end of 2020. I think a big reason was because, before covid lockdown, I was feeling like my life was going 100 miles an hour and I was completely out of control when it came to burn out. I was juggling a full-time job, pushing my side hustle to my limit, trying to get fit, running a household with my husband and finding time to keep up with all of my family and friendship relationships. When we went into lockdown, I was actually relieved that a lot of these things got put on hold. All of these things I once loved, I was happier not to be doing them. That’s when I realised that I was pushing myself too much. Life is about enjoying things I loved, not feeling relief when I no longer had to do them. My perspective was definitely skewed.
So I started practicing mindfulness and living intentionally. This then evolved into a complete change of lifestyle and pace. I prioritised taking time for myself, setting aside time to do things I enjoy and giving myself boundaries. If I didn’t feel up to doing something that could be postponed or moved, I didn’t push myself to do it. I realise now that when I was pushing myself to do too many things, that’s when I would start feeling out of control as well as physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. Now, this doesn’t mean I am a complete couch potato and don’t do chores, life admin or quit any of my jobs. I just needed to make better use of my free time.
Like I discussed in previous slow living posts. You don’t have to a complete slow lifestyle zealot and live off grid, with no job and only doing things you 100% want to do all the time. This isn’t realistic for majority of us. Majority of us still need to have a regular 9-5 whilst making the most of our free time. So for me, slow living is about living my life in a way that is more mindful, intentional and enjoyable.
I last updated you with my slow living lifestyle back in October of last year. I talked about my creative projects, making more time for things I loved and living more intentionally. I am happy to say that since then life has been pretty smooth and I haven’t had a case of burnout. Although, some of my creative projects aren’t exactly where I envisioned they would be by now, I have started up some new hobbies that my inner-child adores.
As a child I used to read. And I don’t just mean casually reading a few books for school. I mean, if I wasn’t in class, I was reading. I would easily get through one novel a week. I’d read all of the fiction in my school’s library. I’d take them home and read into the night. Sometimes pretending to be asleep when really I was reading with my tiny torch under my duvet into the early hours of the morning. Yes, I was a cliché. Recently, I have discovered my love for reading fiction again. My heart is so happy exploring this old passion of mine and I love smiling, laughing and crying alongside all of the characters I imagine. It’s a really simply yet fulfilling part of my day. At the moment I actually have a few books on the go, one fiction, one non-fiction and one from the Harry Potter series for casual reading before bed. I’m so excited to be reading again, that I even thought of adding book reviews as a regular segment on here.
Another “inner-child” hobby I’ve been exploring more lately is gaming. As a child I loved playing on our family Game Cube. And now adult me loves playing on my PC and my Nintendo Switch. I’ve found that gaming really relaxes me and helps me hone my puzzle solving skills and reaction times. At the moment I’ve loved playing Baulder’s Gate 3 on the PC and Legend of Zelda’s Tears of the Kingdom on the Switch. Again, I am kind of thinking about letting this hobby spill over onto my blog so that I can share my passion and excitement.
In terms of plans for the future, nothing is set in stone. I am letting my life take me where I am meant to be and enjoying every moment along the way. So maybe I won’t talk about slow living again for another 8 months, maybe I’ll talk about it again in a few weeks time. But whatever happens, I’ll be making sure I’m living my life the way I want with intention and enjoyment at its core.