I’m so used to getting up at 6.30am with the boys, these lockdown induced sleep-ins (until 8am today) leave me feeling discombobulated, unmotivated and a bit flat. It looks potentially sunny but the weather says quite literally freezing and I’m feeling a bit rundown, so not hugely tempted to venture out for the walk or run that my head is telling me it needs. By 10am, however, I have huge cabin fever.
I angle for a walk but I don’t think Tom will ever walk unless he has a dog and it’s not appealing to the kids until they’re actually out and about with a few other incentives thrown in: a tree or boulder to climb, a muddy puddle, an ice cream, pockets full of biscuits or all of them combined. They head out to find a deserted skate park. I don my thermals under my running gear and set off up the road to somewhere. I enter the well-trodden portal of Gate 109 a.k.a. The Changing Rooms, Wanstead Flats.
Thinking time.
Having done a little scrolling on Instagram while in bed I land upon a selection of sites that advocate for slow living and illustrate, through beautifully shot photographs of home and family, the ideal. I’m entranced by the images, the interiors and the pace at which these lives are being lived out. The vibe is naturalistic and homemade and definitely attractive.
I wonder, however, how the concept of slow living equates with one’s inner rhythm, something I am becoming more and more interested in. I love the idea of slowing down – certainly how it appears – but often feel happiest when I’m getting on with something, at a certain pace. Sometimes I actually need to go fast in order to slow down, whether I’m typing at Olympic speed or going out ‘for a run’ which is actually usually a sprint/walk.
I eat fast (this is definitely not a good habit, I assess), I think fast (useful but also liable to tangent) and I do have a tendency to multi-task at speed, even when the pressure is not on. But I also purposefully partake in and advocate for meditative tasks that make me or others slow down: nature collecting, working with pressed botanicals, dyeing with plants, drawing or gardening, for example. Often these elements of my work happen in between a period of tight deadlines and mammoth word counts.
For me, slow living feels more like a reassuring bass-line rather than an all out aim. I can hear it in the background. I definitely need lone periods of it. It’s always there to provide ritual and grounding and calm. But I also need to move to my own beat: my quick, my active, my creative.
It all makes more sense to me within the remit of Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of healing whereby the universal life force manifests itself via three different elementally governed energies or doshas: vata (air and ether), pitta (fire and water) and kapha (earth and water). Although we’re all a unique combination of these forces, usually one or two dominate and can also be stronger under certain conditions. Achieving your own personal harmony (prakati) of all three is the ultimate aim: fast, medium and slow.
My prakati is predominated by fast-moving, creative and dynamic but potentially nervous, cold and dry vata (‘that which moves things’) according to a wise Ayurvedic doctor I once had the pleasure off working with many moons ago – and you can the adjust your lifestyle, environment, lifestyle or habits for better health and happiness (at some point I’ll have to move to a hotter country, for example!).
In the name of getting some food on the table (methinks a dosha-harmonising Indian takeaway would be appropriate) I’ll leave you with a link to chef and wellness expert Jasmine Helmsley’s explanation of Ayurvedic principles (click here >), as she explains it all really well and has delicious recipes on there too (highly recommend her book East meets West). Less slow living; more balanced life. Enjoy.
PS Also tuned into a Podcast called Mating in Captivity (thanks J) about the paradox of love and desire, which meant I walked for nearly two hours enthralled. Worth a listen. Spot on I’d say.