Living Slowly: An Introduction

My largest focus (aside from loving and taking care of Wesley) over this past year has been on my nutrition. I have worked tirelessly to figure out what works best for me and honestly, I’m feeling pretty good. I am cooking more than I ever have, and I’m eating a larger variety of foods than ever before. My family is well nourished, and I feel a deep sense of pride at feeding my son and my husband largely unprocessed, comforting meals. I have started enjoying feeding my body what it needs, rather than cycling through the vicious process that I followed for many years – this entailed “eating healthy” Monday – Friday, only to throw caution to the wind every weekend and then wake up on the next Monday morning to “restart”. I feel like I am much more balanced now and my relationship with food is so much healthier.

For whatever reason, as I changed my relationship with food, I became much more aware of the rest of my life. I felt like an outsider looking in on the interactions that I had with my husband, my son, and even my dog. I started noticing that my patience was fairly low across the board and my stress was at an all-time high. I noticed that I felt unsettled most of the time and like I was always trying to play catch up. I noticed that 95% of my time was spent on tasks that held little meaning to me or my family or my life. I realized that in the time that I did have home with Wesley, I was distracted and rarely fully present.

I remember I was speaking to my mom about this one day and I said, “My life just feels chaotic,” and her response was, “That’s because it is chaotic. When I come to your house, it just feels like chaos.”

The more that I started to ruminate on this, the more it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I mean a ton of bricks as in tears streaming down my face sitting in my office at work. As a lifelong Type-A perfectionist overachiever, it was not easy to admit that my lifestyle was no longer working for me, but I had to be honest with myself. This was not the life that I wanted.

I wanted to stop telling my one-year-old to “hold on just one second”

I wanted to stop speaking to my husband only in demands and requests.

I wanted to stop counting down to nap time just so I could take a breath.

I wanted to stop feeling flustered and anxious and overwhelmed 24/7.

I desperately wanted to start enjoying my life as a mother and as a wife and taking in the years that I know are going to fly by before I can even blink.

I started to ask myself what this would look like. What does the life that you are picturing look like on a day to day basis? Honestly, the answer surprised me.

It looks like spending time outside with Wesley as he stomps in puddles and plays in the dirt without thinking of all the tasks I need to complete once I get back inside. It looks like sipping coffee without reheating it for the 15th time. It looks like bringing my dog, Rosie, out to throw the ball without gasping in frustration because it’s taking too long and I need to load the dishwasher. It looks like getting in bed early with a good book and getting up early to meditate and do yoga. It looks like waking up on Saturday morning and deciding what to do with the day instead of having back-to-back activities and commitments scheduled in. It looks baking sourdough bread on Friday morning and letting Wes help me even if it’s messy and takes 5x longer than usual. It looks like dating Tim instead of just coordinating schedules.

These thoughts and feelings that I had felt so overwhelming to me. As someone who has always prided themselves on achievement and accomplishment – it felt foreign that I was craving something different. I prayed and prayed for clarity. I prayed for a new career path to be put on my heart that would offer me the fulfillment that I clearly was seeking. I prayed and prayed and prayed – and all that I kept coming back to was one single word. Slowly.

So here I am – committing to living slowly. I’m going to take it one step at a time and take you along for the ride. To me, living slowly means mothering intentionally. being present. creating more and consuming less. connecting. playing. recharging. getting curious. nourishing my family. and cutting out the things that are less important for the things that are most important.

Cheers to this new journey: living slowly.

xo,

Jaclyn