In the busy world of hustling, I failed to remember that a slow life does exist. The month of June reminded me to revisit a slow, peaceful life.

Slow living provides an opportunity to step back, pay attention, and question the ways we use technology, to recalibrate our relationship with the constantly switched-on, logged-in world – McAlary

My Life

I enrolled my two-and-a-half-year-old in a playgroup at school. Few ask me, “Why so early”, a few of them say it is good to put him now, while others think it is a good idea because it gives me free time. I didn’t want him to go to school early nor did I want me time(of course I wanted me time, it’s another story😊) but my decision to put him in school was to set a routine.

At home, he seemed to get easily bored just juggling with the toys, doing random kinds of stuff, cuddling me, and listening to stories was not enough for the little growing mind. So I wanted him to explore things and enjoy playing with other kids, where I have put him in playgroup, it’s all about having fun, where they don’t start formal teaching right away.

On the contrary, it was eye-opening for me. The routine set for him turned out to be a routine set for myself. I relearned a few things in a couple of weeks.

Slow Cooking

I am a mom now, time has flown from, my mom making food for me, to me making food for my son. To be true, I am not so organised person but I lay in a situation where I am obliged to be systematized concerning cooking a meal, washing his uniform, and packaging his snacks for school.

As a mom, I make sure to cook the best for my kid. The desire to want my son to taste the food and his sincere approval by nodding his head is contentment. Rather than cooking something, I take time, to find foods that make him happy and that make his tummy smile. In the process of mindful cooking, I discovered a few things like

Mindful cooking leads to minimalistic cooking like using the right portion of vegetables and fruits where wastage is less.

Mindful cooking relished my taste buds as we pour our mind and heart to it.

Better Relationship

Lately, my husband has been working from home. This has slowed down our lives highly. I say technology has ruined lots of things but one good amongst is, working from home.

It’s a huge step in our kid’s life, first school, and being independent, it is all emotional for us. We started dropping him off at school together. In the morning I and my son do our brushing, bathing, and eating. Then as a family we talk, cuddle, and laugh for some time sitting on the couch as the clock ticks to get off to school, my son plays around throwing the socks to one side and shoes to another side. We run behind him, getting on the bed and jumping onto the sofa and finally, we pack him up to school.

For the first few days of school, he was a crybaby, later as we told him, Mom and Dad were waiting outside until he was back from class. It is gonna be a month he still thinks we are waiting outside for him. One day my husband went to pick him up, and my son started throwing tantrums, “Where is Mama?” and another day when I went to collect him from school, his first question was “Where is Dada?”. So it has been a family drop and family pick up to school😁. It’s not only my son who wants us to come pick him up, it’s us who started enjoying it. We decided it would be me who would pick up and drop my son at school but my husband took it as a priority to be there for his son.

We find this pickup/ drop thing as a time to engage as a family. I hope those memories will last for years. Once after school pick-up is done, we just hit the tender coconut shop, sip tender coconut and buy groceries and we are back home. These small moments, living in the moment I believe are always etched at heart. I reminisced about those days, slow days with my parents, it just brought back memories.

If not for working from home, we would have never got to enjoy the slow life, the flexibility of wfh has given us the slow life we enjoy at the moment. Eventually, my son would grow and he might travel to school by himself, I and my husband might go back to the office, so I might not get the luxury of this slow life, and time together. I don’t want to miss this opportunity at all.

Invest in What you Love

When life slows down, even simple things seem to be our greatest pleasure.

Cooking a meal with no hurry to rush

Talking to someone will turn out to be a meaningful conversation rather than a formal talk

One would enjoy the company of tiny raindrops and a peek of sunshine behind the cloudy clouds.

I started to invest time in myself rather than thinking about what to work for others, what if I didn’t finish it on time, which was not even adding value to my life. I started assessing how I could improvise my storytelling, and how I could reach my clients and I began reading a great many newsletters which excited me to scale up my blog writing.

I took time for minimal physical fitness, rather than designating a time and undertaking it very religiously. It is my thing to just move my body a little. I try my best to stick to my routine if I am not able to do it today that’s fine. I can do it tomorrow. A mindful workout has been my thing.

Switching to Books from Mobile

Ever since college, I’ve made it a habit to read books. I believe that the books I have read have played a major role in shaping me into the person I am today. Gradually things started to drift. As a result of greatly straining my eyes and mind with mobile, I consciously decided to commence reading a book a month.

I was mindlessly scrolling through reels, I revisited the habit of reading a book whenever I found a little bit of time for myself. To my surprise, I completed a book a week. It made me go slow with the pace of the story rather than scrolling not even knowing what was I looking at.

I learnt new things, I lived different characters through different books. I lived in the present, lived in the moment, and enjoyed reading every single word of the book.

Living a slow life is nothing but living your life to the fullest with what you have. It’s not a big thing to be accomplished. We do have it with us, let’s realize and relish it and let our kids live the life that they are meant to live.

xoxo,

Mita