I took the 28 day Slow Living Challenge. Here is what I learned.

As promised, I completed the Slow Living Challenge right along with you all. During those 28 days, my life should have been very hectic. We are finishing building our house, I am starting this blog, and my kids were finishing up their school year. It normally would have been a time of high stress, over-working, and neglected self care. What better time to challenge myself to be more intentional about my life, right?

My Biggest Takeaways from the Slow Living Challenge

Showing Up for Myself

The first week of the 28 day challenge was all about shifting my mindset. Taking my mindset from one that was primarily living in the future to one that was focused on the moment.

The first step was to build a journal practice. I had been journaling for a while now but my challenge was to show up for journaling at (roughly) the same time every day regardless of whether or not I had something to write about. And for the most part I succeeded. I showed up to write in my journal every morning before 6 am. At a time I knew I could focus on myself before it was time to get the kids up for school.

I have to say, that quickly became the best part of my day. On the nicer mornings, I took my journal out to our front porch. I wrote about how peaceful it was being outdoors with the sounds of the birds greeting the morning. On days I felt less eager to get outside, I curled up on the sofa with my coffee and appreciated the quiet of a house still asleep. Some days I wrote pages, other days a simple paragraph stating I had nothing in particular to say. The point was that I was showing up for myself every morning.

Being Present for Others

Another takeaway from the first week of the slow living challenge was recognizing when I was only half-present for my family. Often times my phone is in my hand while others are telling me something or I am otherwise multi-tasking. I became more conscious of those times. If someone was looking for my attention, I was intentional about putting my phone down and being present with them. If I was watching TV in the evening with my husband, I was not also making blog graphics or folding laundry. For me, it was about recognizing how to not multi-task. Something I actually thought was a good thing but have since learned we aren’t designed to do two things at once.

Getting Closer to the Source

The second week of the challenge revolved around our relationship with food. Like many of you out there, my relationship with food is rather complicated.

My biggest goal for this week was to buy more local food. It was strawberry season where I am so local strawberries were in abundance. I visited the farm stand several times this month to buy strawberries. We ate strawberries and yogurt for breakfast often and had strawberries and ice cream a few times in the evening.

Some things I noted about buying local strawberries over ones that have to travel a long distance:

1.) they taste better (no surprise there)

2.) despite them being riper and more juicy they actually did not go moldy as fast as the ones from the grocery store meaning less strawberries got tossed

3.) the packaging was more environmental since they came in plastic baskets that we could then return to the vendor when we were done.

Find Something to Upcycle

The third week asked us to evaluate our relationship with stuff. To think about what we buy, how we get it, and the significance we give to things.

I know I hold a lot of environmental guilt. It makes me sad just how much plastic comes into our house in the form of packaging, and how our first thought is to buy something new rather than make do with what we have. The problem is I lacked mindset to do much about it (I try but not nearly enough). It is a goal of mine to start living more inline with my values when it comes to my “stuff”.

So, when I had the urge to buy a bird feeder for our garden, I resisted. I remembered I had read instructions on how to make our own out of a tea cup in a book recently so I made plans to do so. Everything I needed to do that project I already owned (except for the glue). So off I went to craft myself a bird feeder rather than heading online to Amazon and buying one from who knows where. By stopping first and thinking about it rather than defaulting to my first thought, I could be more intentional about what I chose to bring into my home. And, I have a cute bird feeder like no other.

Turning the Negative into Positive

During the fourth week of the slow living challenge, we reflected on our experiences of being more intentional. Once such aspect was to not automatically go to the negative when in a less than positive situation but rather find solutions. I talk about one such thing I was already doing when it came to doing dishes here.

Another mindset shift I have gone through was to catch myself when ever I started to think too much into the future. Our house build has gone on way longer than expected and so whenever I get into a spiral of thinking about if it will ever end, I return to the moment and appreciate the things that are complete. Right now, as I write this, I am admiring the shelves we built yesterday in the living room all nicely styled and ignoring the fact the wall behind the TV is not yet painted. One thing at a time. I give myself permission to be fully present writing this post and to not rush through it in the name of checking things off my to do list.

Create a Bucket List

To avoid getting stuck in the rut of routinely doing life rather than living, I created a Bucket List for my girls and I for the summer. I hope to use this time they are off of school to do the things we tend to put off for another day – only for that day not to come. They are teenagers now, and while we have to be more intentional about spending time together since friends take priority over family time, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Why is a bucket list important? By intentionally creating a list (and making a plan for implementing it) you get to put aside “life” for a moment to actually live and do the things you want rather than just the things you need to do. That is a big part of living slow. Resist the urge to always be productive and allow yourself some time to play.

Final Thoughts

This slow living challenge really helped me shift my mindset toward being more intentional. I feel less stress. I feel far less guilt about taking time out of my day to take care of myself and do the things that recharge me. Yes, at the end of the day my to do list is not always done. I don’t always wake up to a clean kitchen and the clothes might sit in the dryer longer than intended. But, I am calmer. I feel more like myself. I am not as quick to anger. And I am happy. At the end of the day, that is what really matters – not how clean my house is or whether that wall is painted.

So, I challenge you to give slow living a try. If you are unsure where to start use my slow living challenge as a guide. Practice returning your thoughts to the moment whenever you find yourself in a state of worry. Ask yourself what really matters in the grand scheme of life. Read more. Laugh more. Take a deep breath.