A Gentle Life in a Hurried World
Slow Living with a Full Calendar
I used to think slow living meant empty space—blank pages on a calendar, long walks with no time limit, mornings spent in quiet stillness, and afternoons of unhurried tea. And while those things are certainly beautiful, real life doesn’t always look like that in the day-to-day!
There are groceries to buy, children to teach, meals to prepare, relationships to tend, work to be done, and sometimes… the calendar fills whether we like it or not. And yet, I believe we can still choose to live slowly. We can still live gently. Even in the full seasons!
Slow living isn’t simply about doing less. It’s about doing things differently. Living life with intention, with presence, and with a deep awareness that life is not an emergency. We aren’t in a rush to get through it!
Slow is a Posture, Not a Pace
You can move slowly in your spirit, even when your feet are moving quickly. It’s a posture of the heart!
You can approach a Monday morning with peace. You can do your job as worship, a fragrant offering. You can drive to soccer practice with worship music playing, taking the long way home through a quiet neighborhood just because the trees are blooming and you want to enjoy them.
Slow living in a full season means anchoring your soul in rhythms, not chaos. It’s choosing to fold laundry with your hands and your heart, to make eye contact with your child when they speak, to stop scrolling when you could be stirring a pot of soup or savoring a book. Pausing to admire the sunbeams dancing on your floors.
Tiny Pauses Matter
I’ve learned that I don’t need three free hours to breathe. Sometimes all you need is:
A slow breath before answering a text, or giving yourself permission to respond to it another time
A candle lit while you answer emails
A whispered prayer over a to-do list
A deep inhale while you wash the dishes
Five minutes to look out the window or get sunshine on your face before you begin school
Taking the time to make yourself a nourishing meal instead of grabbing something quick
These are the holy pauses. These are what mark our days with gentleness instead of haste, where heaven meets earth in the quietest ways.
You Can Show Up and Still Be Rooted
It’s okay to have a life that requires you to show up for others. Being needed doesn’t have to rob you of peace. In fact, it can become the very place you embody slow living, in the way you greet, listen, serve, and move in and out of each moment.
Slow living isn’t hiding from life. It’s being fully awake in it. Living with open eyes and a grounded heart, even when you’re in motion.
Slow living in a modern world looks like choosing presence over productivity and intention over urgency. It means crafting rhythms in the midst of responsibilities; this can be as simple as savoring your morning coffee without distraction or turning off notifications during dinner with your family.
Sometimes, saying no even to the good things frees space for yourself and your family.
We can’t always escape the noise fully, but we can create quiet within it. In a culture that celebrates hustle, slow living is a gentle rebellion: choosing to be rooted, to notice beauty, to move through your day with a soul at rest even when your hands are full.
It’s baking bread not just for nourishment but for the joy of kneading; it’s walking instead of rushing, listening instead of reacting, and honoring the sacred in the ordinary.
Practical Ways to Practice Slow Living (Even in a Busy Season)
If you’re longing to slow down, but your days feel full, here are a few gentle invitations to try:
Begin your day with intention – Before you check your phone, sit with your coffee or tea. Breathe. Set a tone of peace and presence. Read the scriptures or a lifegiving book!
Simplify your yeses – Say no to things that pull you into chaos. Make room for the things that matter most. We can’t say yes to everything, even the righteous or fun things, without facing burnout at some point.
Build in transitions – Leave 5-10 minutes between tasks or appointments. Use them to breathe, regroup, or pray. Sip water or snack on something with protein to sustain your body!
Create anchor points – Whether it’s a candlelit dinner, afternoon tea, or evening reading, build daily rituals that slow you down and center your heart. We aim to have a quiet time reset in the afternoons, this helps me have down time to read or move my body before dinner prep, and my kids get a rest too!
Embrace quiet pockets – Silence doesn’t have to be long to be powerful. A few minutes in nature. A quiet room. A few deep breaths in the sunshine. Listening to birdsong to refresh your nerves.
Turn ordinary tasks into sacred rhythms – Make your bed as an act of order. Sweep the floor while listening to a favorite podcast. Water your plants and pause in gratitude.
Slow living isn’t just a lifestyle choice friends, it’s a gift to your nervous system.
When we move through life in a constant state of urgency, our bodies often stay stuck in “fight or flight,” even during ordinary moments.
This can look like shallow breathing, racing thoughts, irritability, exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix, or feeling overwhelmed by simple tasks. Over time, chronic stress like this can take a toll on our health—impacting digestion, sleep, immunity, and emotional well-being. We may find ourselves triggered even by the tiniest of things.
We live in such a rushed, burdensome culture and then wonder why we are riddled with anxiety! It was never meant to be this way. We feel worried, haggard, and worn down by everything we are supposed to do… and our body shuts down in response.
Slow living offers gentle signals to our nervous system that we are safe. When we pause to breathe deeply, linger over a meal, or create moments of quiet, we activate our parasympathetic nervous system—the “rest and digest” mode—bringing calm to our body and clarity to our mind. It’s not self-indulgent. It’s healing!
If You're Tired, You're Not Failing
Friend, if you’re reading this while rubbing tired eyes and wondering if you’ve lost your grip in the busy swirl of life, take heart. You haven’t failed! Every day is a new chance. Let’s walk out the truth together that slow doesn’t always look still. You are choosing presence, beauty, and intentionality in the midst of responsibility. That’s slow living, too!
Light your candle. Take a slow breath. Return to the moment.
You don’t have to escape your life to live slowly, you just have to come back home to it.
I'd love to hear from you!
How can you start to practice slowness in your current season? What rhythms are grounding you, even when life is full?
Leave a comment below, or hit reply and share with me. I read every message!
With you in the highs and lows,
Alyssa 🌿
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
— Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring
Love this! I've found that practicing an intentional Lent instead of just letting the days go by until Easter has greatly helped me slow down in every way. From a digital fast (look up School of the Unconformed on Substack) to praying Morning and Evening prayer and lighting certain-colored candles...Lent is like a spiritual tune-up built into the liturgical calendar that naturally results in slow living. It's been such a blessing!
Journaling is the big thing for me....forcing me to sit still long enough to capture our days and weeks.