How to live a slow life?

Do you want to take out the speed? Enjoy more? Be more? Focus on the little everyday actions to live a slow life.

What I share today, I’ve shared in the past in other words (in this article: Slow down and enjoy). But this week I was moving too fast and so I find it important to remind all of us (including myself). Why do we move so quickly? Why do we want to get so many things done in one day? I recommend you to answer this for yourself. My honest answer: I just forget sometimes. I switch into “autopilot” and leave my home too late, run to the subway, down the stairs, into the waggon, switch on a podcast, rush out… Stop. Breathe.

There is a beautiful quote from Jon Kabat-Zinn that says “The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little.” I have the quote as my current phone screen saver to remind myself every day. I recommend you to do the same. It helps me to look at the phone and be reminded to observe the little things, the little moments… and for that: We need to move slower. And so on some of these past days, I walked veeery slowly to the subway, almost in slow motion. I stood in the waggon with slow, instrumental background music or no music at all, closed my eyes, did some breathing exercises, took in the sensations and all kind of noises and smells. I watched the people, smiled at them. I focused on my feet. I really love to stand in the subway or bus without holding on to any handle, because then I have to concentrate on my balance and this connects me to the present moment. In more than one occasion, someone asked me if I wanted to sit down (especially when I had my eyes closed for a moment). I found that very lovely and thanked them but kept standing. Sometimes, I had the feeling people looked at me a bit strangely when I left the subway walking as if I was an old dog. But it’s only my perception. Maybe they found it amazing. We never know what others think.

When it comes to my personal feeling, I have to say I love the mindful moments in the public transport. I enjoy “just standing there”, observing. But it’s really hard for me to walk slowly. It’s a huge challenge. Why is it so hard? Why do I have the feeling that when I walk slowly I lose time? Time for what? Yes, the day has “only” 24 hours but who decided how much needs to fit into them? Just because my Google Maps says it takes 15 minutes it’s still totally OK if I take 25 minutes. It might seem weird but it’s so necessary to learn that. And it’s not easy. It doesn’t fit into our world of productivity to take longer than Google or to not get a certain amount of things done every day and week. It’s time for a true change because I know we want it all. We need to make this change happen together as community. Let’s use the wellbeing, Yoga, breathing practices we know and all the new techniques that are being born right now out of need for more calmness. Let’s slow down together.
If we want to have a slow life, we need to…

…get up slowly

…brush our teeth slowly

…walk slowly 

…eat slowly 

…talk slowly

…breathe slowly

…dress slowly

…think slowly

…hug slowly

…write slowly

…dance slowly

…work slowly

…laugh slowly

…move slowly

…meet slowly

…smile slowly

…exercise slowly

…kiss slowly

…drive slowly

…prepare our meals slowly

…do everything slowly

…live slowly.

PD: This article was written as slowly as possible. 🙂