everything I learned about how to slow down in life

the slow lifestyle has less to do with aesthetics and more with hard, daily choices

slow living became something like a dream to me.

all across different feeds, it’s about the aesthetic of it. cottages in rural england, bookshelves full of classics, some chickens, maybe a cow and a garden — not to mention the vegetables growing in a patch of land you harvest yourself.

I look around. my condo is as far from rural england as can be, but I’m close to a canal, which, somehow, feels like I can justify the lifestyle. I don’t have a garden, but I can buy plants (keeping them alive is a whole other story). unfortunately, growing my own vegetables is a little far-fetched — and I’m not about to create an indoor garden for that, sorry.

I already have too much on my plate.

(pun intended.)

I love living in the city, because I need people to be happy. I’m as far from the extroverted side of the spectrum as possible, but I understand that the buzz of downtown montreal on a weekend and the possibility of going to the movies or the museum or my favorite café gives me life.

I don’t drive and I hate commuting, so I do most things on foot.

it’s the way I roll and the way I’ve been rolling for as long as I can remember.

and, honestly, I love it.

according to the internet, though, it doesn’t match the slow living concept.

well… I think it’s wrong. because the last couple of years have taught me that slow living is not a synonym for abandoning life in the city to create your own version of thoreau’s ‘walden’. it’s not about setting another unachievable standard available only for the truly rich.

I believe it’s all about counterculture.

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let’s talk about counterculture for a bit

now, I know counterculture is actually a much larger, more complex movement than choosing a cottage-core lifestyle to parade on social media, but I’ll promise everything will make sense in a minute.

according to our lovely oxford languages definition, here’s what the word means:

coun·ter·cul·ture

noun

1. a way of life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance with the prevailing social norm.

I love that definition because I feel it goes hand in hand with what I’ve been feeling lately. a need to oppose myself, in any way I can, to what’s become the norm. overconsumption. hustle culture. being constantly online. rushing and rushing without really knowing where I’m going or why.

some of those ideas are easier to break than others - and substack is overflowing with “I quit social media” posts to back that up - but I feel that regardless of the medium, there’s a common ground to conquer before I even start thinking of turning into the mysterious lady that lives across the hall.

learning to slow down.

and, trust me, it’s easier said than done. I keep fantasizing about being like frances, from ‘under the tuscan sun’ — buying an old house in italy and going with the flow, writing my books by the window and living la dolce vita, literally meeting the love of my life while lying on a chaise longue reading a book.

but if you remember from a few paragraphs up, I like the city buzz and I feel like I would be bored out of my mind if I couldn’t go all lizzie bennet and walk around all the time without risking getting lost and forgotten in the middle of a lavender field.

(trust me, my navigation skills are horrible, one of the many reasons I don’t drive.)

so I had to find a way to slow down without metaphorically throwing everything out the window and moving to the middle of the woods (maybe rural scotland? much more romantasy-coded) and keeping my job because, it turns out, I'm not an heiress, nor did I marry rich (or at all).

so paying my bills, making my coffee runs, reading my books and hanging out with friends was (and still is) important to me, as was being a walk away from the grocery store, a movie theatre and the canal.

by understanding what mattered to me the most, I also understood that the hastiness wasn't exactly outside of me. but inside. society imposes velocity, and it pushes us to be the first, the best, to achieve, but most of the time there's not a crazy coach with a megaphone screaming "RUN, YOU LAZY COWARD, RUN!" at the top volume in your ear every morning.

no, the voice is inside. a crazy inside voice that keeps repeating the batshit crazy speech.

and that realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

because slowing down didn't mean doing less (although, of course, that helps as well), it meant that, first, I needed to quiet down the voice, my voice, that kept telling me to run.

and what a ride that was.

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five practical lessons on slow living

with that insight came what I'm now calling my practical view on slow living. no, it does not mean moving to the woods. yes, it can be done in the city. no, I don't need to live completely detached from reality (although anyone that's keeping up with the news would say otherwise).

and, hey, maybe you're looking to slow down too. maybe you're also tired of running without getting anywhere. maybe it's doing horrible things to your mental health, your physical health, your family, friends, your relationships. maybe you lost hope and can't find a reason to stay.

I've been there. I know what it's like.

I also know that it does get better, but owning your choices and going through the hard process of understanding that you need to help yourself is something only you can do.

either way, here is what I've learned so far.

lesson #01: learn how to shut up

not you, per se, but that annoying voice in your mind. you're not in danger. there's no lion running after you. marketing has no emergencies whatsoever. tom in accounting can wait until tomorrow. there's no actual rush. take a breath and tell the voice to obsess over book boyfriends—a much better use of its time, if you ask me.

lesson #02: be real about what's important to you

you know, fomo’s a real thing. I feel it, you feel it… in some way or another, everybody does. and, truthfully, it sucks. at the same time… we can't be everywhere at once. and I made peace with that. there are places I'll want to be at. others I won't but I'll feel like I need to. I had to go through it all and be honest with myself about the experiences I actually wanted to live and be present at, and let go of everything else.

(“four thousand weeks” is an amazing book to read that'll help with that, btw.)

lesson #03: limiting screen time helps

listen, I'm not going to sugarcoat this. but the truth is, taking a break from screens, especially before going to bed and right after you wake up makes a ton of difference in your perception of time and velocity. the amount of information thrown at you every minute makes you more anxious. the hooks and the songs and the dynamic cuts accelerate the hell out of us. so yes, I'll advocate for less screen time because I know how much it helps.

lesson #04: remember to breathe

whenever I feel myself getting agitated or rushing or just going faster for any reason, I make it a habit to stop, take three deep breaths and start over. it's not magic, but it feels like it, because we overestimate how much we overlook breathing. you can do whatever works for you: stretch for a few minutes, look out a window, hugging your pet, making a cup of coffee... whatever works for you, the idea of having a trigger to slow down can change the tone of an entire day.

speaking of which…

lesson #05: have a morning routine

it doesn't matter what time you wake up, if you exercise in the morning or you prefer to read. but stack a few habits that help you set the tone for your day. for me, having a morning routine has been instrumental in learning how to slow down. as I said before, first I had to drop the routine I had and reconstruct it from the ground up. but now I have one that I love and that allows me enough space to slow down and start my day calmly and aligned with myself.

yes, I get derailed throughout the day, but without a morning routine, I feel lost, confused and just overwhelmed from the get-go. I need the signals my habits send my brain to take time to empty my mind by journaling, having breakfast and exercising so I know I'm starting the day on the right foot.

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the final, and perhaps most important lesson I leave you with is this:

the secret to learning how to slow down in life is actively choosing to slow down everyday.

making that choice and working hard for it. daily. sometimes hourly. this is the hardest lesson of them all, I think, and one I keep having to learn again and again—because that's life, right? you learn something, but then you forget for a while and have to be remembered or remind yourself. either way, it's still a choice.

maybe one we can make together. maybe one we can teach others to make or help them make because circumstances don't make it easy for them. but we learn, and we teach, and we protect these learnings with everything we have.

it's worth it.

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that's it for today.

take care,

maki.