Similar to slow fashion, we believe slow living is a state of mind. Beyond the act of physically slowing down your lifestyle, it’s a focus on being more intentional, knowing your priorities and putting yourself first.
We put together some lessons on slowness that we’ve gathered as a slow fashion brand and a non-profit providing small batch client orders, but also as people who want to be living slowly and connecting deeply.
State of Mind
We wrote previously on our slow fashion blog, “slow living is a mindset, it’s thoughtful actions and thoughtful living no matter who you are”. Being conscious of every decision will ultimately slow us down and it will slow us down for the better.
When we find that we are making better decisions due to our slowness, we’re saving time and potential hardships along the way. If we start thinking slowly we will start acting slowly and doing life slowly. As life slows down we live more meaningfully, intentionally and with purpose. That means we have to create space for slowness.
Intentionality
The goal of slow living is to become more intentional. Once our mindsets have shifted, everything we do can come from a place of intentionality. One thing that’s helped Robyn recently is lighting a candle in the morning and simply staring at it for a few moments or minutes. For Kristin, meditation has transformed her routine. Meditating every morning for at least 5 minutes allows for an intentional time to present.
Wu wei is an ancient Chinese concept literally meaning "inexertion", "inaction", or "effortless action", so staring at the candle or meditation can help to position your mind, body and spirit to sink into your awareness and hopefully for the rest of the day you will also feel less reactive.
Priorities
Our intentions are directly related to our priorities. We want to be intentional about putting our priorities first. Our priorities are different for different people but a lot of the time they could come down to our passions or our work, our people or our community and ourselves.
Redefining success can help shift priorities and keep us grounded during the busy days. It feels good to get things done, but it feels even better to get things done with intention.
Putting Ourselves First
Putting ourselves first is actually the least selfish thing we can do! When we take care of ourselves, we’re investing in our priorities and creating the best versions of our well-being naturally allows us to be the best to and for each other. Being the best version of ourselves for the people around us is one of the greatest gifts you can give and often a result of slow living. A slow lifestyle means making time to put ourselves first. 
Physically Slowing Down
A lot of beautiful practices come from slow living and enable us to more easily get into a slow living state of mind. Some of our favorites are simple things like deep breathing, creating slow routines like candles and tea in the mornings and practicing meditation and mindfulness.
Bringing in our other priorities include, meeting up with the people that matter to us most to practice together, have deeper conversations about slow living, being intentional and accountable to what our priorities mean to all of us.
Our environments are also a reflection of our mental states and getting into nature, forest bathing and breathing in the clean air are beautiful practices in slow living. Nature is our teacher and one of the best guides when it comes to slowing down.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” - Lao Tzu
We wish you all a slow and intentional holiday season.
With Love,
Abel Wear
Written by Kristin Anton @kristin_anton
Photos by Brit Gill @brit_gill
Model Margherita Porra @margheritaporra