We all know what Slow Living looks like on Instagram. But what does Slow Living look like in real life? Could it be, it’s not what we think?

I’ve spent a lot more time on instagram than usual lately, as I work to intentionally grow this little heartfelt endeavour of mine. You know what I’ve noticed? 

Overwhelmingly, the Slow Living feeds look nothing like my life. As in – even after 10 years I caught myself wondering – Maybe I’m totally out to lunch? Maybe this is what Slow Living is supposed to look like.

But rather than feeling that all these beautiful polished feeds are wrong, I realized, that for me – they simply didn’t feel TRUE.

So I thought I’d share some of the practical details of my real, messy, imperfect Slow Life to pull back the curtain a little and well . . . More than that. I want you to give yourself permission to live a life that feels true to you, too.

Cause if I’m being honest – as much as I love these feeds – I mean honestly, they make doing laundry look so charming – they also make me feel kinda of awful. 

It’s true what they say, you know. Comparison truly is the thief of joy.

So anyway.

What does my Slow Life look like, 10 years in?

How do I shoehorn slowness into my modern life, with all the demands of running a household and a business and a farm and somehow still manage to get the kids to soccer on time (in a clean uniform to boot)?

1) I’m clear about what matters.

Losing my Mum to cancer brought a lot of ugly shit into focus. The perspective afforded by the horrific experience has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. 

Read about how my grief helped me simplify here.

I KNOW what matters to me most, and I’m not afraid to disappoint other people in order to put first things, first. 

This clarity, knowing what matters – if you don’t have it, Slow Living will always dissolve into aesthetics and superficial fluff.

2) I say no. A lot. All the time. As much as humanly possible.

Gosh. Lemme tell you, 10 years in, I still hate it. I’m a born people-pleaser and knowing that it isn’t good for me doesn’t change it.

But setting clear boundaries is crucial if you want to live slow.

3) I suck at email. On purpose.

This is my number one way of filtering out customers who aren’t a good fit for our farm and values.

I refuse to be chained to my email. I don’t let it set my priorities or my schedule or anything else.

This is in pretty aggressive opposition to societal norms and I gotta admit, I kinda love the subversive undertones such a conscious decision carries.

4) I don’t use social media.

My use of Instagram for this blog is done at arm’s length via Tailwind. I do my best not to dive into the IG environment directly. I don’t use it at all for personal purposes. Ditto for Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve never had a TicToc account, same for Snapchat and the gobs of others whose existence never even registered on my radar. 

The few times I have to dip in, I always come away feeling – gross. My mood is always worse after exposure to social media, without exception. 

When I first quit Facebook, my social life (this was in my 20s) took a nose dive. But you know what I realized? All those relationships? They were superficial. They fell away so easily because they didn’t really matter.

The relationships that survived my cord-cutting were deeper, more meaningful and much more durable. Over a decade and many life changes and relocations later, they remain.

(Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport is a great read on the subject. I love his perspective.)

5) I embrace my quirkiness.

This sounds like an odd one, right? But actually, when I think about it, accepting myself and all my faults has been key to my being able to live a big, juicy, purposeful life.

I used to do the 9-5. I had a pretty intense career with a government human rights agency.

Life was heels and pencil skirts and lawyers, so many lawyers. An office with a view of the city and mountains and drinks with girlfriends before catching the train after work.

It made me so sick that I ended up taking a six month medical leave from work. I just wasn’t suited to it. Wearing my heart on my sleeve meant that I was shitty at office politics, felt too deeply the pain of my clients, became frustrated by my lack of ability to take action on obvious injustice, raged at the legal barriers to my providing help.

It was the worst.

I was great at my job, but my job wasn’t great for me.

Here on the farm, I lean into my weirdness, my earnestness, my sensitivity. It’s not perfect, but it is so much more rewarding doing work where I’m not afraid to be seen. Where all those things that made me unsuitable for a ‘regular’ career became assets.

This shift in perspective has coalesced into something I call Slow Work, which you can read about here.

Stay tuned for Part Two.