Show Notes
There’s a particular kind of magic that settles over the world this time of year. Maybe you’ve felt it too, that gentle call to exhale, to let things soften a little. To stop chasing the next thing and instead linger in the moment, barefoot in the garden with dirt under your nails and absolutely no idea where your phone is (and honestly, not caring either). Summer has its own rhythm. She doesn’t rush. She unfurls. She shows up unapologetically, sun-kissed, slightly overgrown, humming with bees and possibility. And every year, I find myself needing to answer her invitation again. To slow down. To live with less noise. To breathe more deeply. And if I’m honest, this year more than ever, I need that exhale. Walking the Walk (Even When It Feels Uncomfortable) I talk a lot on the podcast, here on Substack, on Instagram, about slow living, simple living, seasonal living. I share practical ways to strip back the chaos, to live more intentionally, to reconnect with rhythms that feel more human and less machine. But here's the thing: sharing about slow living is not the same as actually living it. I’ve had to sit with that recently. Because while I believe deeply in everything I write and teach and podcast about… I can also be incredibly good at staying busy in service of slowness. Isn’t that wild? I can fill my calendar with things that all “support” my values and still end up frazzled, overstretched, and a little bit disconnected from the very life I’m advocating for. So this summer, I’m choosing to walk the walk. For real. Which means creating more space in my schedule and energy. Saying no, kindly but firmly. Letting some things rest. Including, most notably: the podcast. 🎙️ A Gentle Shift: What’s Happening With the Podcast Starting this month, The Slow Living Collective Podcast will be moving to an every-other-week rhythm for summer. No big drama. No huge announcement. Just a quiet recalibration to match the season. This isn’t about burnout. It’s not about stepping away.It’s about alignment. It’s about recognising that slow living isn’t a marketing message. It’s a lived experience and one I want to fully step into over these next few months. The podcast is still a core part of my work, and I’ll continue showing up there with love and thoughtfulness. But with more space. More intention. More… summer. Think of it like this: the podcast is taking a long, luxurious exhale just like the rest of me. What This Actually Means (And What It Doesn’t) It doesn’t mean I’m disappearing.It doesn’t mean the podcast is any less valuable to me or to you.It doesn’t mean you’ll stop getting thoughtful, heartfelt, seasonal content. It does mean that I’m choosing to let things breathe.It does mean that I’m putting my values into practice, even when it’s a bit uncomfortable.It does mean that I’m honouring this season, both literally and metaphorically, and giving myself space to feel it fully. And maybe, it’s an invitation for you too. Slowing Down With Me I think so many of us are tired of being told to go faster. To do more. To produce, perform, and push through no matter the cost. But the cost is real, isn’t it? Exhaustion. Disconnection. That foggy, always on feeling that leaves us wondering when life will actually feel like ours again. Slowness is not the enemy of success.It’s the soil from which meaningful, sustainable, joy filled lives grow. So this summer, I’m giving myself permission to rest more. To be outside more. To put my feet in the grass and my face in the sun. To write when inspiration strikes, not because there’s a deadline looming. To read books that aren’t “productive.” To eat tomatoes warm from the vine on my balcony. To notice. To live. Maybe you’re craving that too. So here’s your permission, if you need one.To listen to fewer things.To unsubscribe from urgency.To let some things be undone.To say, “That can wait.” Because here’s the truth: the world will keep spinning whether you respond to that email or not. And in the meantime?
More from The Slow Living Collective
There are some things I used to compromise on without really noticing and I would explain them away as nothing more than practicality. Listen, I don’t think all compromise is bad because obviously it isn’t and sometimes life requires compromise… none of us are moving through life getting exactly what we want at every moment. But slowly, over the past few years, I have started to realise that some of the compromises I was making weren’t neutral meaning they were costing me something.
I think one of the most grounding things seasonal living has taught me is that not every season asks the same thing from us, and I don’t just mean the seasons outside the window, although I do mean those too. I mean the quieter seasons of our lives, the less obvious ones, the seasons of holding things together, of building. The seasons of rest, of tending, recovering, recalibrating, waiting, grieving, beginning again. The seasons that don’t arrive neatly on a calendar like the actual seasons, but still shape the way we move through our days.
I think one of the most uncomfortable parts of living intentionally is realising that your life might stop making sense to other people and that’s not because you’re doing anything wrong and it’s not because they are doing anything wrong either, but because difference, when it is lived honestly, has a way of unsettling the stories people carry about what a good life is supposed to look like. There is an unspoken expectation in modern life that our choices should be broadly recognisable. Ideally, they should also be explainable. If we choose something different around work, family, home, ambition, money, education or pace, we are often expected to justify it in a way that reassures other people we haven’t made a terrible mistake, it’s as though our lives need to pass some kind of public approval test before we are allowed to feel settled inside them. But life doesn’t need to be universally appealing to be deeply right for you, in fact, it only needs to be coherent to the person living it snd this is something I have had to learn slowly, and sometimes uncomfortably, over the years. I live a life that many people wouldn’t choose; I home educate my children, I live in a small, 650sq ft home by choice, I centre my days around home, rhythm, presence and ordinary life rather than constant expansion, I identify as a homemaker and I have opted out, where I can, from certain forms of pace, productivity and visibility. Not as a rejection of modern life entirely and certainly not because I think everyone should live like me, but because this is how I stay well inside the life I am actually living. And those choices are not meant to be persuasive (a very common assumption) they are simply mine and I speak to those who either associate with this way of living too, or desire to live in a similar way. I think that is where so much unnecessary tension begins. We assume that when someone makes a different choice, they must be making a statement about ours. * If someone home educates, it can be read as a criticism of school. * If someone stays in a small home, it can be read as a rejection of ambition. * If someone chooses a slower pace, it can be read as laziness. * If someone centres home, family or care, it can be read as regressive, especially for women, whose choices are so often treated as public property and moral declarations rather than personal decisions. But someone else’s inability to imagine themselves in your life is not a verdict on yours; it just means they wouldn’t choose it, it is that simple. And it’s also fine, they don’t have to. I wouldn’t choose lots of other people’s lives either. I can scroll through Instagram and see all sorts of lifestyles that make me think, “Absolutely not for me, thank you kindly”, but I don’t need to announce that in the comments section like a woman holding a clipboard at the gates of acceptable living, because it isn’t my life. And this is the bit we seem to forget… not everything needs our approval or agreement and not everything needs to be filtered through the lens of whether we personally would choose it. Sometimes another person’s life can simply exist. When I first started home educating, I noticed this very quickly. I had made the decision before my first child was even born, so it wasn’t sudden or impulsive. It was something we had thought about deeply. It was a long standing choice rooted in our values, our family rhythm and what we wanted for our children and yet even saying that can make people uncomfortable. Because if I say home education is the best choice for my children, some people hear, “School is the wrong choice for yours” and that’s not an assumption, I have literally had this accusation levied at me more than once. But that is of course not what I am saying… I don’t think every child should be home educated and I don’t think every parent has the capacity, desire or circumstances to home educate. I don’t think school is wrong for every child but I do think home education is
I think many of us are exhausted not because our lives are too small, but because we’ve been taught they should always be bigger, better, more remarkable, more productive and more visible.
Opting out is often presented as the answer isn’t it? The way back to yourself or the antidote to burnout. Or even the thing that will finally make life feel manageable again.