The Slow Living Starter Kit: Everything You Actually Need (+ Grounding Ritual Download)
A practical, no-aesthetic guide for building a slower, more inhabitable life without quitting your life or buying more things
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I’m going to deep dive into a complete “Starter Kit” for a successful adoption of the Slow Living way of life for you.
In fact, it’s going to include a practical list every single thing you will NEED in order to achieve the Slow Living lifestyle, and beautifully so. You’ll manage to retain a maximum level of comfort, while still gaining all of the associated elements of “cozy” that will do your spirit some healing good during this whole experiment. You’ll emerge blissfully revitalized by your trial, and you’ll ALSO experience the bonus good feelings of achieving a quick and easy “Win” too.
Now, know this first: the core idea behind the Slow Living movement has by now been re-tanslated and modified many times over by a thousand different aesthetic Pinterest boards and influencer reels... This overcomplication of something originally quite simple has muddied the true essence of what Slow Living really is all about, and so much original clarity can be lost. It’s nothing short of disappointing to witness those who would be newly assuming this enriching lifestyle quickly dedicate their focus to superficial subjects such as purchasing expensive trending candles, planning their perfect morning routine down to the half-minute, and even abandoning their lives to the most extreme degrees in a sudden all-or-nothing shift…
But none of that is where true Slow Living really begins.
It instead begins with implementing much smaller and more intentional supports in one’s life… The conception appears as things that work to make life increasingly inhabitable, instead of those that equal its escape. This is a deeply thoughtful undergoing, and the entire process when carried out in an informed way can feel mostly easeful and authentic, which are two key qualities of this movement.
And from here, you will be among those informed ones... Because the Starter Kit I wish someone had handed me up front (a while ago now) is currently being itemized for you, right here in this reading.
The following supply list is for your easy reference and successful start:
The “Slow Living” Starter Kit
1. One Dedicated “Landing Spot”
This can be a comfortable chair in a favorite room of your home, a dedicated corner of the couch, the office chair at your desk, or even just the edge of your bed… For me, my main Landing Spot is seated at my workstation, as I am currently, surrounded by all of my writing tools and collection of office accessories I like to work with.
Why This is Important:
Slow Living demands containment and its associations… You will benefit immeasurably from establishing this place in your life, somewhere that your nervous system can recognize as the one place if nowhere else to where you can always return and fully exhale right before any work of restoration begins.
And note that this spot doesn’t need to be styled or professionally staged. It must only be yours.
2. A Low-Pressure Writing Tool
Read that again, and please avoid any urges to equate this to some influencer’s productivity system product or a rigid content calendar outlining the next quarter… All that is truly required is a simple notebook you enjoy or a digital Journal that you know you’ll realistically use.
Why This is Important:
Writing is a simple way that most of us can easily use to metaphorically "metabolize” the contents of our daily lives. Otherwise, we venture onwards carrying around this growing collection of byproduct waste resulting from its lack of chances to be processed.
I personally rotate between writing here in my inbox publication, the Journal (Blog) located at my personal website, and even the physical pages of my Weekly Planner… The tool itself matters much less than does the permission to write badly using it… You’ll need the freedom to be candid and genuine here, so pick an appropriate tool.
3. A Gentle Time Boundary
There exists a common misconception that Slow Living is synonymous to one having no form of daily structure in his or her life, and this is simply not true. Slow Living just means that the structure that is softly and thoughtfully laid out in our lives is kind to us in return.
Examples of this in practice could look like:
One 15-minute window for yourself
A “No Input” hour
A boundary around not checking your metrics daily
Why This is Important:
As most of us can probably agree on, an absence of structure is detrimental to us. And in Slow Living this opinion still holds up watertight without any leaks. Without some form of boundary with its threads running through our lives to even a loose degree, everything else inside becomes overtaken by noise, even rest itself.
4. One Grounding Ritual You Can Actually Keep
Very much like I attempted to express in a recent post here, the most important quality of any great Grounding Ritual is the ease in which you are able to adopt it to regular use… Fancy 10-step routines that you struggle to “get right” each time you put one into practice are all useless to you without this practicality.
In my previous post (on the feeling of Resentment, and forcing ourselves to feel something else positive and false), I taught us a perfectly suitable Grounding Ritual complete with an included free, downloadable .PDF resource. And if you are currently using this method, you do well to resume… Anything similar that you will realistically put into practice will work just as well…
Think:
Firmly placing both feet on the floor and taking three deep breaths in
Lighting a favorite candle before you write your daily reflection in your dedicated journal
Stepping outside your home to experience just 60 seconds of the fresh air outside
Why This is Important:
Ritual is underpinned by habbit, which is the reinforced teaching resulting from the act of repetition. Whenever we manage to keep our Grounding Rituals as a regular practice, we are actually teaching ourselves, and especially our nervous systems, that this present moment matters… This moment matters to us simply because of our targeted intention, and this is true even if nothing on the outside of this one moment actually changed at all.
5. A Way to Capture Small Wins
The evidence of Slow Living does not usually manifest itself in the big, bold breakthroughs that happen in our lives… It is much more likely to arrive during very subtle shifts appearing like:
“I paused…”
“I noticed...”
or
“I didn’t abandon myself.”
Why This is Important:
Stated simply, your mind will appreciate all efforts made to establish proof that this way of life is actually unfolding successfully for you. Follow through with keeping a simple, updated digital or pen and paper list of “glimmers” you experience in your life… It doesn’t need to be elaborate, fancy, or long-form, either. Only the date and its associated Truth are required for this documentation.
6. Fewer Inputs, Chosen on Purpose
Again, I feel it necessary to insist that Slow Living is not based in the actions of “giving up” our entire lives to extreme degrees, voluntarily abandoning our current circumstances, or shutting out everything we consider to be not in our newly-established best interest… In fact, the genuine adoption of this lifestyle can be better conceptualized as selectivity of what all we allow to enter inside of our experiences.
It helps, when you find yourself in the act of deciding what all to permit into your life, to ask yourself several questions to serve as a barometer to the innermost truth placed within you. Pause long enough to gague your visceral, gut answer to questions of the following nature:
“Who of the people closest to me leaves me feeling the most steady about myself?..”
and
“What type of content to which I’m often exposed gives me the sensation of being most present in my body?..”
Note your authentic responses and keep this guidance in your consideration for interactions going forward
Why This is Important:
The following is deceptively simple to comprehend and often eludes our sound judgement: Your inner life reflects what you feed it.
7. One Place That Doesn’t Demand Performance
We’ve now come a full circle and finally find ourselves quite near where we began this whole list: in our preferred place, or environment. In this sense of the meaning of “place” realize that this one need not be an actual physical, discoverable location with lattitude and longitudinal coordinates…
In reality, this sort of place could resemble an infinite number of potential fittings for you… You might instantly feel “at home” with a beautiful new fountain pen and your personal Journal, already open to a fresh, blank page. Or, this could default to something online for others… An email newsletter subscriber circle is suitable, as is a private, premium online community of your peers where you are never faced with the need to explain yourself for clarity.
For myself, I return to this special inbox publication/email newsletter of mine and the lovely online community of my subscribers included with it.
Why This is Important:
It is no secret that effective healing of nearly all types can more easily occur in the secure, private places in our lives than it can on a busy stage supporting the fullness of entertainment’s activity... And meaning, with a depth to it, ALSO flocks to these same places where healing intervention causes us to thrive… You’ll see these two co-occurring for us at different times along our journey. But know that to secure your desired measure of them both, you’ll most likely need to occupy certain sacred rooms and firmly shut closed the doors with only yourself and the quiet residing within…
✨ Bonus: Free Grounding Ritual Download
To make this gentle change easier for you, I’ve created a convenient and gorgeous free Grounding Ritual PDF you can use anytime you find yourself feeling scattered, currently resentful of your life, or disconnected from yourself…
Inside, you’ll find:
A simple step-by-step grounding ritual
Gentle journaling prompts for self-return
A printable + digital-friendly format
You can download it here → Free Grounding Ritual PDF
So now we can all confirm and agree that Slow Living is not about doing less of life.
Rather, it’s about deeply abiding in and inhabiting the one you have…
And you truly don’t require very much at all to begin shifting your ways toward the full assumption of this rewarding approach to living...
You only need one (cozy) place to land… and the full permission to remain there.
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What you’ll find inside:
Peer support from others who truly understand your experience
Guided self-care practices and wellness resources
Access to a private podcast and live community gatherings
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Here’s a “Sneak Peek” of my emerging membership community for mothers and other female caregivers of neurodivergent and special needs children called UnCommon Momma…
Below, you’ll be able to view a 12-minute video tour of the Members’ Portal inside of our community. Be advised: This is an unplanned and unedited video recorded from home and you WILL most-definitely hear my 4 year-old daughter making monkey sounds (and other noise) in the background! Oh, bless it.
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