Slowing down doesn’t mean doing nothing. It is not the opposite of getting stuff done or making progress. Slowing down is essential in order to do something – and in opening up new worlds.
Our work to slow down is guided by these living and evolving questions:
What kinds of inner work do we, as individuals and organisations in a living system, need to do to be able to slow down?
Over decades of industrialisation and capitalist ethos, our senses of self and self-worth have become ever more linked to productivity. Disengaging from this narrative can be anxiety-inducing and provoke existential questions around who we are beyond what we produce. Although this anxiety is often difficult to sit with, we believe that learning to do so is an absolutely intrinsic practice in the work of moving to more regenerative systems.
How must we, as individuals and organisations in a living system, recalibrate our understanding and living of time?
The speed at which we work dissociates us from our bodies and from the impact we have on our communities and environment. Recalibrating time from a linear to a cyclical living of time allows us to work in rhythm with the seasons, including time for rest and non-productive fallow periods. This gives us and our resources time to rest, reflect, heal, regrow and reorganise.
How might we, as individuals and organisations in a living system, re-magic living and working?
Speed also dissociates us from the moment. When we detach from productivity and growth as the means and the ends, we can find other practices that help us feel present, fulfilled and in grateful relationship with our work, people and planet.
As a collective, our sense of curiosity about slowing down lies in its expansive, spiritual quality, as well as in its mundane, everyday occurrences. We believe it invites deepening and widening, intuition, reconnection and healing for individuals and organisations alike.
Slow work practices
We’ve collected some of the practices we have identified through our work under several themes and, although the list is in no way exhaustive, we hope you might find seeds of inspiration for some rebellion against speed, whatever that looks like for you. The practices here are thematic, and each is embedded within the others. We’ve gathered them and grouped them into categories with working definitions – although, in truth, the categories all bleed into each other and could be cast in a million different lights. We have also set these themes in an order that felt right to us, but it is not a set process to follow.
We’re working with words and phrases and language from different sources which we feel hold meaning and feel generative, and weaving these with language of our own experimentation and play. Wherever we can, we will credit the person or organisation whose work we’re drawing from and building on.
The practices, as they stand now…
Developing pause
A constant practice of both finding and/or creating moments of stillness and slowness in your everyday life and work. The practice of noticing within those moments in order to see, think, feel, hear and understand things in a new or deeper way. Disrupting the impulse to speed up.
Embodying knowledge
A constant practice of healing the ruptured connection between mind and body, in resistance to the dominant ‘Western’ culture of separation and opposition. Developing an understanding of different bodies’ languages in order to take good care of self, community and the more-than-human world – as well as to work with intuitive, embodied knowledge. Healing trauma. Thinking about the ‘bodymind’*.
* We first came across the phrase ‘bodymind’ in Shayda Kafai’s work on Crip Kinship.
Doing the inner work
A constant practice of working with the complexities and contradictions within us, at the same time as working with the complexities and contradictions around us. Recognising that the problems we see ‘out there’ are also ‘in here’. Radically unlearning, and lovingly re-parenting ourselves. Going inside out.
Grieving
A constant practice of acknowledging death and grief as a way to reconnect with life. Embracing endings and periods of slow, as well as beginnings and continuations. Knowing when to say no, when to let go, and allowing the sadness to come in when you do. Valuing impermanence. Shadow-gazing and composting.
Playing with success
A constant practice of broadening how we understand and attribute value to things. Disentangling our senses of self and worth from our learned definitions of success and from our ability to produce. Letting go of growth as our most important metric, and placing health and wellbeing at the centre. Quality over quantity.
Living the questions*
A constant practice of uncovering and asking our most important questions and living and working into them. Holding answers and outcomes lightly and finding comfort, guidance and possibility in not knowing. Being open, patient and present. Valuing emergence.
* ‘Living the questions’ came originally from Rainer Maria Rilke’s collection ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ (letter seven). The idea was developed further by Krista Tippett in her On Being series.
Seeking out connection and community
A constant practice of seeking out life-affirming connections and community. Holding the power of what you share, how much and with whom. Talking to the right people at the right moment. Co-learning and co-creating.
Dancing with definitions
A constant practice of trying on new ideas and experiencing different ways of knowing and being. Bringing our attention to the expansiveness of things and surrendering to the possibility of multiple truths. Telling stories and working with more than words. Resisting the urge to name and define and fix into place. Poetry over pedantry, language at the edge of language*.
* ‘Language at the edge of language’ was a beautiful phrase used by Gabriella Gómez-Mont during a session at Imagination Infrastructures 02 – A Time Between Worlds.
Prioritising pleasure
A constant practice of reclaiming the right to prioritise and ritualise pleasure in resistance to the impulse to pass over celebration and joy*. Laughing at the ridiculous irony of living in these times, in these contexts, and learning to find enjoyment in not-knowing. Reading the signals of pain and pleasure to do more things that nourish body, mind and soul.
* Pleasure as a right to reclaim comes from adrienne maree brown’s work on Pleasure Activism.
Flowing with living systems
A constant practice of co-designing and feeling ways to flow with (rather than against) living systems. Recognising the intrinsic value and intricate, ancient intelligences of the more-than-human world, and learning from it/them as kin. Unlearning our ‘main character’ energy and seeing ourselves as non-distinct from the world we live in.
Recalibrating time
A constant practice of finding ways to live and work in natural rhythm rather than linear, chronological time. Imbuing moments with a kairological sense of experience and presence. Working towards a long future from a rooted understanding of deep, long time. The long now and the big here*.
* We drew the phrase ‘the long now and the big here’ from Brian Eno’s work with the Long Now Foundation.
Tending foundations
A constant practice of allowing roots to develop slowly and deeply, without needing to disturb or uproot or show-and-tell. Valuing roots as well as fruits and tending to those roots with good soil and good fertiliser. Trusting that the right shifts are taking place at the right time at the foundations of ourselves.
You can read more about the practices in this article. We would also like to convene a practice group to peer review these practices and build them out together – if you would be interested in this, don’t hesitate to get in touch at hello@theslowworkgarden.com.