Slow Living and My Parenting Philosophy Based in Compassion

Hippie in Disguise Shabana Buwalda

Photo by Ottawa photographer Shabana Buwalda

Faire Child has a lovely blog nurturing a culture shift toward more time, more play, more exploration of the natural world. I had the honour of being asked to share my thoughts on slow living and my parenting philosophy, and although they asked for short answers I might have gone a little long. I hope you’ll visit the blog and see all the great resources Faire Child has for parents, teachers and guardians to nurture and nourish a love for the natural world.

You can link to the blog here. And you can read my interview “A couple of moments with Danielle Chassin”.

Here are some of the things they asked me about:

  • What 3 words best describe your parenting philosophy?
  • How have you made changes in your life to ‘live slow’ and what benefits have you seen?
  • How do you try to be a more conscious and thoughtful consumer?
    • This is where I talk about a concept I call ‘extended consumer responsibility’

You can also read more about Faire Child and their amazing zero waste weather clothing for children here. I’m not big on promoting consumption, but I do wholeheartedly believe in Faire Child’s mission, ethos and products. And, I only do genuine, unpaid endorsements.

Ecominimalism and Slow Living: An Interview with Me!

Hippie in Disguise Shabana Buwalda

All photos in this post by Ottawa photographer, Shabana Buwalda

I always prefer to talk about others than talk about myself. However, I get a lot of questions about how we live, so I thought I’d share this interview we did where I talk about how we try to live a slow, minimal family life, in a fast, big city.

The interview below appears in the Rwanda issue (2016) of the Global Guardian Project learning capsules, an interactive STEM-based curriculum and magazine aiming to educate children and families about global environmental issues, animals, ecosystems, and much more. Each issue includes an interview with a family striving to live a sustainable lifestyle. I encourage you to explore their magazines and educational materials, which are beautiful and inspiring, and includes all sorts of activities, art downloads, and other fun projects.

Rebecca Lane, founder of the Global Guardian Project, interviewed me about our family’s way of life in August 2016.

Tell us a little about your family.  Where do you live + how do you spend a typical day with your family?

Hello! We are Matt, Ro, Sen and Danielle, a family of four living in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. Ottawa has four very distinct seasons, experiencing very hot and humid summer days (40 Celsius / 104 Fahrenheit)  and very cold snow-filled winter days (-40 Celsius / -40 Fahrenheit). We feel fortunate to live in a place with such variety in weather and we do our best to make the most of it, by spending lots of time outdoors in the elements year round. As a car-free family, we live downtown to facilitate our travels by bike or foot.

About us? First, there’s me, Danielle, I do a lot of things. I work outside the home as a Policy Strategist for the Canadian government, where my main task is advising the government on social and economic problems related to supporting vulnerable populations. I don’t define myself through my occupation though. It’s my passions that make me who I am. Foremost I am a mother. But I’m also a creative, a writer, a minimalist, and slow living advocate. Matt, does similar work outside the home, although he advises on ocean health and climate change. Matt is an avid athlete and an ambassador for cycling lifestyle. Ro and Sen are our two children. Ro is our 11 year old girl. She is highly intuitive, deeply loving, naturally funny and the definition of a social butterfly. She loves the arts and is always dancing, singing or drawing. Sen is our 5 year old boy. He is a wild one and highly self-directed. He is head strong, while also being very sweet and calm. He loves inventing, climbing, dancing, cycling, and pretending to be a ninja.

Our children attend public school and we work outside the home, so our family doesn’t get much time together during the week. We’d love to change that, but instead we make the most of our weekend time together and make a concerted effort to slow things down and connect. We generally schedule nothing for weekends so that serendipity can lead the way.

Our typical weekend day involves walking around the city. There’s a lot of thinking behind why I value walking, wandering, and urban adventuring, and part of that thinking is to show my children that there is an abundance of nature in the city. But, if we only ever walked down Main Street or drove to get to the places we visit they would think, as many others do, that our city is a concrete jungle. I also want them to learn that it’s fun to have no plan, that schedules can get in the way of opportunity. So, we usually leave our home, with water bottles and snacks, and have no specific destination in mind, just a broad sense of direction. Along the way it’s a little thrill to find a pocket of wildflowers, painted alleyways, new bakeries, and pop-up art shows. Our favourite days usually involve time by the beautiful Ottawa River and eating all our meals outdoors.

Hippie in Disguise Shabana Buwalda

It’s obvious that  slow + minimalism are core beliefs for your family. Tell us a little about what that means.

Minimalism and slow living are growing in popularity, which means there is a range of ways people interpret and apply these concepts. What people refer to as minimalism varies quite a lot. For example, minimalism is used to refer to a home aesthetic or a visual signature. For me, minimalism is a way of life, it’s a lens through which we approach our days, our activities, our thoughts, our behaviours. This lens focuses on reducing quantity and increasing quality. Our minimalist lifestyle is motivated by environmental concerns and my affinity with simplicity, this is why I like to call it ‘ecominimalism’.

Minimalism and slow living intersect easily for us. Slow living is really about connecting more with the things we do and the people in our life. Connecting with the present, mindfully, wholeheartedly. To do this, to live slowly, we must do less. To increase our quality of connections, we must decrease the quantity of things we do.

Tell us a little about your family life before your shift.

I have a natural affinity for slow and minimalist living. That being said, our family did go through a few years of living on fast-forward. And while our weeks still include a list of commitments, I approach them with mindful presence, which makes the experience completely different.

Like I mentioned above, I work in government policy. The nature of my work is unpredictable and generally hectic. After working in this environment for a few years I started to notice that I carried this hustled, stressed energy home with me. I would manically clean and tidy all evening, I would speedily move from task to task. On the weekends, I would hustle around doing errands, take the children to a list of activities, catch up on my social calendar, and generally try to pack as much “life” as I could. I had one setting and it was fast-forward.

Finally it hit me one day that I never slowed down. That, ironically, while I did so much I never felt like I accomplished anything. Worst of all, I desperately missed my children, despite spending every second of the weekends with them. I realized that something had to change. I was never going to catch up. Going fast wasn’t working, so I decided to go slow.

At the time I hadn’t heard of slow living or minimalism. But I knew intuitively what our family needed. We needed quality time together, we needed to do less, so that the things we did we could do in a more meaningful way, with presence, and without a need to rush through them to get to the next thing on our itinerary or to do list. We needed to take things slowly, to be able savour the moment, savour the weekend, savour our lives. So, that’s what we started doing. As you can imagine, we’ve never looked back.

Hippie in Disguise Shabana Buwalda

How has the shift to a minimalist life affected your family dynamic?

Approaching life from a minimalist perspective has been immensely satisfying for us. The children can enjoy life at an organic pace and I feel more present with them when I’m not concerned about when our next activity starts. Moreover, it’s great that my children have learned that they can be thoroughly engaged in life, full of energy and curiosity, while doing something simple, outdoors, uncurated and free. I call this minimalist fun. Slow days out in nature.

We no longer accept every social invitation or birthday party. The children only do one extra-curricular activity a week. I worried a bit that they would miss things or feel left out, but in all honesty they haven’t shown concern once about a lack of activity. The benefits of doing less, feeling calm and having a sense of freedom with time, have won over any sense of lack.

In terms of minimalism with things themselves, we’ve never had a bank account full of money, so the children are accustomed to not getting much in the way of stuff. That being said, we now only get them gifts for birthday and Christmas, and it’s one special thing, whereas before they would sometimes get new toys and books throughout the year. They adapted to this fairly painlessly because they were offered fun alternatives, like play time with friends and outdoor adventures.

Overall, our family dynamic has improved. We all feel a little calmer, more connected, and enjoy being around each other. As a hungry athlete, Matt might not *love* that I take a minimalist approach to meals and don’t observe as much of a schedule around meal times, but he’s adapting!

Hippie in Disguise Shabana Buwalda

What are some ways you see your children being positively affected by the shift?

I think that in spending time in nature and living a slow, minimalist life, I am preserving my children’s innate, natural born strengths: creativity, curiosity, connection. I don’t think my children were struggling much from our fast-paced life, but I know that in time they would have shown symptoms of fatigue, so I’m glad I made a change before we started seeing social or behavioural issues. Overall, the children have more time and freedom to just be themselves and not ply to an adult’s will or schedule. I think the typical traits of a child: creativity, wonder and positivity, need to be protected and cultivated, particularly as these traits will be critical in solving the massive global issues emerging today. By letting children be themselves I believe I am preserving these traits in them.

In terms of positive effects, our children certainly notice that we live differently than virtually everyone we know. They ask a lot of questions about why we “can’t go places fast in a car?” or “have a big piles of presents?” or “buy something packaged in plastic?” or “go to two parties on the weekend?” But these questions always lead to great conversations about choice and aligning what we care about (values) with what we do (behaviour). Children have an innately strong sense of right and wrong and so talking about what we care about, for example healthy oceans, and how our behaviours are linked to these, makes it easy to opt-out of single use plastic. The positive effect is that the children are learning a lot about how everything is connected. We are not islands. We are embedded. Living like that everyday, they are understanding from an early age, and developing the necessary habits, they need to make sustainable choices, for the health of the planet, but  also sustainable choices about how they use their time and energy, for their own mental health.

Hippie in Disguise Shabana Buwalda

What are your hopes for your children by allowing them to be more connected through nature.

The benefits of time in nature are many and there are many great thinkers writing about this. Creativity, independence, mental and physical health, are just a few of the direct benefits. For me, I focus on time in and connecting with nature, for those reasons, but also to instill an understanding of impermanence and our embededness in nature. I also think that if my children have their fondest, happiest memories out in the wild, then they will be motivated to protect it.

Understanding impermanence cultivates a sense of appreciation and presence. Knowing that each path we walk will never be the same twice, we learn to make the most of each experience, we savour the temporary nature of a field of wildflowers, the leaves on the trees. Through experiences like these I hope to keep alive that sense of living in the moment that children are born with. Our innate mindfulness. Our innate presence.

Understanding embededness is key too. Spending time in nature, in the wild, we learn about the abundance of life outside our own. We, more intimately, understand our connection – our embededness – to the systems of life on this planet. We are part of nature. Nature is not out there. We are nature. While I don’t think we should be self-motivated to protect wildlife, if understanding our own precarity through connection is what motivates an interest in conservation and protection, then that’s a good thing.  The more children (and we adults) have life experiences with living plants and animals, the more we can empathize with them, the more we feel a part of their world, and us a part of theirs. Our interconnectedness becomes embodied.

Perhaps most importantly, spending most of our time in a natural setting, we are keeping our impact on the planet light, developing a deeper connection to it, and fostering a sense of protection and compassion for the earth and its inhabitants. All this while making memories and strengthening our family bonds.

What would one piece of advice be to families who want to make the shift to a slow, minimalist lifestyle?

Just start. Make one change a day. And go slowly! There is no sense in rushing toward slow, minimal living.

***

Update, November 2018: In re-reading this interview, I can see that we have evolved and changed somewhat from this way of life. Matt has been totally won over by minimalist meals and now thrives on this approach! We aren’t perfect about avoiding single use plastic, still. And our children do sometimes get gifts, like a new toy or book, on occasions other than Christmas and birthdays. I guess that’s a reflection of our financial situation, we can actually afford these things now. But, we continue to be very limited in the amount of new things our children bring into their life and us into our home.

Minimalism and Slow Living: Slow, Minimal Family in a Fast, Big City

Global Guardian Project Hippie in Disguise Homeschool Slow Living Gardner and the Gang

Tomorrow the Global Guardian Project‘s Rwanda learning capsule will be released. As a little sneak preview, my interview that is included in the capsule (along with articles and information about Rwanda’s wildlife, local recipes, meditation, art projects, inspirational people and lots more) has been posted to the GGP blog.

In the interview, I talk about how our family brings our values related to minimalism and slow living into our everyday way of life and how these are motivated by our commitment to live in a sustainable manner. I talk about the importance of time in nature, unstructured days, our car-free lifestyle and lots more.

I hope you’ll find it interesting!

I would love to know what you think, so please come back and share your views in the comments below.

  • You can link to the interview here.

If you aren’t already a monthly subscriber to the Global Guardian Project, please consider signing up. For $14.99 a month you get a monthly digital capsule full of learning, art and adventure activities suitable for children of all ages, but especially ages 4-13. The capsules include facts, information and vocabulary related to wildlife and sustainability. They also include recipes (including video tutorials), meditations (including audio recordings to guide you), inspiring videos made by children around the world doing great things to support the health of the planet, digital downloads, art projects and more. Each capsule focuses on a different country. Upcoming countries include Rwanda, India, Canada, Sri Lanka, Thailand and many more!

You can read my post about the Global Guardian Project here. Visit their online shop to subscribe here.

  • BONUS: All subscribers are mailed a beautiful world map to use interactively with the capsules or just to decorate your wall with.

Discount code: Please use ‘HIPPIEINDISGUISE‘ at checkout to get 10% off your subscription.

***

Let’s be friends! Please come find me in other places:

Slow Living Project: Explore Photo Winners (and some news)

Luv Mother and Mabo Clothier by Hippie in Disguise Cape Cod Beach Slow Living

It’s been just over a year since Melanie and I launched the Slow Living Project. Initially the project sought to inspire others to share their slow living moments through photography. As the months went by the number of contributors grew and we explored different facets of slow living through a variety of themes, the project became more than simply a celebration of photography, it became a community and a pool of inspiration around the notion of slow, mindful living.

Participants began talking more about slow living in their captions, testing the idea, pushing it, contemplating, and always inspiring thought. As the months passed, I found myself evolving and changing. I was so inspired and guided by the photos and captions that my way of life changed. I joke that slow living made me lose all sense of deadlines, which is a little bit true, but I also found myself changing in other ways. Slow was really sinking in. Slow was no longer something I did on my days off of work. Slow was infiltrating my very state of mind. By the way, slow doesn’t mean (for me) that I do things at a slower pace necessarily, sometimes it does, but what it means is that I approach my day, my task, my interactions in a mindful way — meaning very connected with the present, connected and in touch as much as possible, in a singular way, with what I am doing in the present.

From my own evolution it became clear that the Slow Living Project would need to evolve too. But I will get to the at the end of the post. First let’s celebrate the winners of the photo contest!

In July, Melanie and I announced we would host a photo contest to celebrate the first year of the Slow Living Project. In partnership with our awesome sponsor  – Magic Organic Apothecary – we awarding 6 prizes this month for our favourite contributions to the #slowliving_explore hashtag on Instagram. As there were around 3,000 photos in that gallery this was no small feat (see the gallery here). But after many chats Melanie came up with 6 photos (down from about 60!) that we loved. (You don’t know how many times I wished for extra prizes!). What you’ll see below are excellent photos, no doubt, but technical ability is not what we are looking for. Really we are looking for a moment of slow living captured beautifully, poetically. As well, we tried to gather a collection that showed variety and would inspire in many ways. Slow living and exploration are personal, we all do it our own way, alone and with children, family, friends, indoor and outdoor, physically and mentally.

Without further ado…

VeronikaGphotography Slow Living Project Hippie in Disguise

Photo by @veronikagphotography

Magdalenadom Slow Living Project Hippie in Disguise Fog

Photo by @magdalenadom

Slow Living Project siblings on hay stack

Photo by @_jessarose_

Slow LIving Project nature collection vanillalemoncake

Photo by @vanillalemoncake

Slow LIving Project

Photo by @tania_mcmahon

Slow Living Project beach silhouette

Photo by @treeoftash

Winners can email Melanie at geoffreyandgrace@gmail.com to claim their prizes. As well, check out Melanie’s post about the winners here.

A massive thank you and heartfelt hug to everyone who contributed this month to the hashtag and to the project over the past year. You have changed my life for the better! Melanie and I (and countless others no doubt) have been inspired by the moments you shared. We’ve been inspired so much, that Melanie and I knew we had to make a few changes to the Slow Living Project.

Going forward we will no longer have monthly themes, instead we would like to introduce the hashtag #slowlivingforlife. This reflects Melanie and my understanding that compartmentalizing slow living doesn’t feel right to us anymore. Slow living is a way of life, it is a perspective. We also, in embracing slow living, have had to be reasonable with the amount of work we put on ourselves, so we will now post to our blogs every so often, when the inspiration strikes. Please continue to tag your photos on Instagram with the slow living hashtags, as we hear all the time from people writing us that the slow living galleries on Instagram have been hugely inspiring. Won’t you please inspire someone today?

As a little memory jog, our year in themes and hashtags was:

You can also see a collection of our favourites from the past year on our Pinterest board, click here.

Thank you once again for contributing to the project. There will be lots more writing on slow living coming up in this space so please check back or subscribe by email or bloglovin.

Wishing you a beautiful, slow day. xo, Danielle

Let’s be friends! Please come find me in other places:

Stitch and Forage: A Seasonal, Natural Guide for Summer

Guest post by: Melanie Barnes

melanie

If you are interested in making the most of the Summer months in a seasonal and natural way, and on a budget, the ’Stitch and Forage’ E-course is a brilliant guide. Created by Hannah Bullivant from Seeds and Stitches and Herbalist Natasha Richardson, it also has some wonderful contributors, Sara from Me & Orla, Kate from A Playful Day, Laura from Circle of Pine Trees, Rachel from The Foraged Life, and myself from Geoffrey & Grace.

The section I created was a guide to self care focusing on meditation, including the benefits, why you should meditate, and how to begin. We look at breath, Mantra and energy flow (Prana). Plus, there are two meditations for you to try and practice.

I really love this quote on meditation, I find it to be great inspiration….

“In the beginning you will fall into the gaps in between thoughts – after practicing for years, you become the gap.”  – J.Kleykamp

Let me tell you a little bit more about the course…

Stitch + Forage is as self paced e-course, made up of four core modules; ‘Forage’, ‘Make’, ‘Gather’, and ‘Tend’. You will receive a beautifully designed PDF with all the tutorials, planning tools, resource links, and printables you need for the course.

The modules contain features covering:

  • How to survive hay fever with herbal remedies
  • The joy of camping; both maximalist and minimalist
  • Styling a Summer dinner party
  • A guide to Summer beers
  • Simple, useful Summer crafts
  • How to make your own Summer sour
  • Recipes for seasonal foods
  • Taking care of your skin in the sun
  • Nature meditation
  • The best holiday, garden and beach reads
  • Simple ways to entertain kids
  • Ideas to have a more mindful, eco-Summer

The cost  is – £30  – However there is 50% off until August 31st.

If you would like to sign up to the course, and for further details please see here.

***

Thank you for sharing Melanie!

Let’s be friends! Please come find me in other places:

Interview with a Minimalist: Ksenia

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living

Somedays, some posts, I worry that I’m a broken record. I just keep saying “minimalism isn’t about stuff, it’s so much more” (with emphasis on the emotional, psychological and interpersonal benefits of minimalism).

I’m passionate about minimalism, but not because it means I have a sparse, stylish, tidy home that is as white as possible. No, I don’t have any of these things. Minimalism – living with less – is really about voluntary simplicity and slow living, mindful acquisition and unburdening. In my view, through minimalism, the paring down of our possessions and commitments (and everything else), we come to know ourselves very well. We don’t have the distractions that keep us from sitting idle and reflecting on our lives and the people and things that surround us. When it comes to stuff, and often minimalism starts at the basic level of stuff (yes, decluttering is the gateway), parting with things we thought we needed, but find we don’t miss, is instructive. We learn about ourselves, our habits, our dependencies.

Paring down material possessions opens the gate to a bigger minimalism (irony intended). This is the minimalism that unburdens us of the things, ideas and ways of thought that do not serve us and allow us to spend our time, energy and money in better ways. (Personally, I try to take this a step further by dispensing with ideas, practices and things that do not serve the community and planet well. Emphasis on ‘try’, because, well, I’m far from perfect.)

In crafting this series of interviews with minimalists I sought to debunk the perception that minimalism is a visual aesthetic, or that it is a narrow, prescriptive lifestyle. I’ve purposely chosen to share as many photos of minimalists outside their homes (outside the context of things they own or don’t own), to show the joys and freedoms that come with a minimalist lifestyle, to show that minimalists live in a wide variety of ways. What is common to the minimalists I speak with (and choose to feature here) is that they have experienced massive improvements in the quality of their life, their enjoyment in living, by voluntarily reducing the number of things, people and commitments they are responsible for.

Today, I have an interview with Ksenia who views minimalism as part of her spiritual journey. She recently went on a decision detox, where she undertook a personal experiment to minimize, that is, to apply minimalism, to decision making. I found this absolutely fascinating and asked her to share. Below you’ll hear about Ksenia’s minimalism journey, the benefits it has brought her and her family and perhaps some inspiration for your own unburdening.

Dear Ksenia, let’s start with a little bit about you. Who are you? What’s your background?

My name is Ksenia. I was born and raised in Latvia by the beautiful Baltic Sea. When I was four years old the Soviet Union collapsed and Latvia became independent. The fall of communism brought radical changes to all the spheres of the society and opened doors to many influences from the West and from the East. My parents where among the first to embrace changes. They raised us in a beautiful home surrounded by nature in a yogic environment that was unusual for that time. Our family traveled to places that most Soviet people couldn’t even dream of visiting. My childhood had profound influence on my perception of the world.

I moved to the United States 10 years ago where I live with my husband Daniel and my son Anton. These days I am a stay at home mom and I love it. My passion lies in the realms of creativity. I love embroiding, crocheting and drawing thangka (Tibetan spiritual artwork).

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living
What part of the world do you live in?

I live in New York. I met my husband during a trip to England. While we were deciding on a place to start our life together, the Universe sent us a lucky green card lottery win. And so we moved halfway across the world to NYC.

How many children do you have and what are they like?

I have a son, Anton. He is a curious little toddler with endless energy. He always moves and spends his days dancing and singing.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living
I was intrigued and inspired by your recent Instagram post about minimizing decision making. Can you tell me more about this?

I always felt mentally exhausted from all the irrelevant decisions I had to make every day. What should I eat for breakfast? What should I wear? These thoughts would come to my mind in the mornings when I was still in bed. I never liked to feel rushed and I always dreamed of days that will start with meditation and a long cup of tea. When I came across the theory about decision fatigue I was blown away. Research shows that our brains are capable of making only a finite amount of choices a day. Every additional decision, no matter how small, exhausts our “brain muscle” and consequently weakens our ability or desire to make a right choice.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living
And so I decided to go on decision “detox”. My patient husband approved of this experiment. We started making weekly food plans, started making budget, we decided to eat the same thing for breakfast, quit shopping except for necessities and chose to restrain from entertainment. The list goes on.

This practice turned out to be very liberating for me on many levels and I am excited to see where it will take me in the future.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living
I believe there are many ways to be a minimalist and many forms of minimalism. What does minimalism mean to you? And, in what ways are you a minimalist?

Minimalism above all is a part of my spiritual journey. I believe that I am a visitor in this world searching for love and light, I am here to grow and to learn. I don’t want to spend my days around artificial things that are not really important. Minimalism is not a style for me, it is a tool I use to free my mind from the distractions of the world.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living Prayer Flags

What has been the greatest benefit of minimalism?

Minimalism helped me discover a new state of mind, that shines light on all areas of my life.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living
What is your story, how did you start on a path toward a minimalist lifestyle?

It all started from my trips to India. When I first traveled there four years ago I was in awe from the simple life people lead there and felt that we are missing the point in the West. I attempted to mimic this simplicity in my life, but I didn’t reach my minimalist Nirvana at that time. Last year I was lucky to spend another six weeks in India. While I lived in the ashram I was following a strict ashram schedule. I was amazed that I was able to do all the things I am desperately attempting to do in my everyday life with very little effort. I had time for meditation, for work around the ashram, for socializing with friends, for Anton and even for reading. There were several things that stood out to me immediately, one, was a limited amount of possessions I carried with me and another had to do with a steady ashram routine.

Upon my return I was determined to project ashram lifestyle in Himalaya’s onto my own life in NYC. And so I dove into simplifying once again.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living MandalaKsenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living

Is your parenting influenced by minimalism?

Yes, it definitely is. When we were preparing to welcome Anton into this world we were dreaming to do this as gently for the environment as we could. We asked friends and family not to shower us with abundance of baby gadgets and we restrained from buying toys. However it didn’t turn out exactly as we hoped. Anton was becoming more overwhelmed with each gift he was receiving. I knew I had to do something about it. I decided to trim the amount of toys he had to one box of quality toys that went along with our parenting philosophy. We removed all media entertainment from him, stopped excessive socialization with other toddlers and cut down on his scheduled activities. He was left with unlimited time in the park to explore nature and with a lot of my undistracted attention. My goal was to conquer overstimulation. It took about a week for all of us to get used to it but it turned out to be a great experience. Boredom turned into imaginary play almost instantly, single-toy-at-a-time created unbelievably long attention span for his age and his vocabulary expanded tremendously. Now looking back, I am so glad that I found strength to go full force on simplifying his busy little life.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow LivingKsenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow LivingKsenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living
Are there any books, websites or other resources that have inspired your minimalism?

  • Buddhist and Hindu thought on non-attachment.
  • The Minimalists, I had pleasure of seeing their new movie. These guys are simply incredible.
  • Instagram, it has been my source of inspiration from environmental minimalism, people like you { thank you Ksenia! } and reginenordz make me try harder every day.
  • My guru Haidakhan Baba, he placed Simplicity in the center of his teaching. Without him I would not have started on this path.

In what ways/areas do you struggle with keeping things minimal? What is your weakness?

Minimalism didn’t come naturally to me, I went through many struggles while I was letting things and ideas go. The biggest challenge was in the area of my creativity. I was parting with my old art projects, with yarn I didn’t use for crocheting, with oil painting supplies I didn’t see myself returning to since becoming a mother. It was very intensive time. The experience was similar to deep self analysis. I discovered that I attached many emotions to things that brought me joy in the past, like a dress I wore when I was pregnant or gifts I received from loved ones and no longer used. Separating emotions from objects was a break through for me. I feel that I have reached a happy place right now, but I probably still have too many books on my shelves and too many jars of delicious herbs in my tea cabinet.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow LivingKsenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living
Have there been any struggles with the other people you live with about living in a minimal way?

My husband was very supportive of my search for meaning through voluntary simplicity, but when I was loading our car with donation boxes for the third time he asked me to slow down a bit. It has been a while since that time and recently he told me that he is finally feeling positive effects of minimalism and is willing to dive deeper into this process.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living
What have been some unexpected experiences (positive or negative) you’ve had with minimalism?

I was able to embrace my inner introvert more. I used to feel all sorts of feelings when I needed to take a break from an outside world. Minimalism taught me to say “No” and not to feel guilty about it.

What advice can you offer to people interested in living a minimalist lifestyle?

It is hard to give advice because everyone’s life and circumstances are so different. I would suggest to stop things from entering your home first. Stop shopping and take some time to reflect on what you own and what no longer serves you.

Do you have any goals for this year or the next few that you want to share?

No particular goals this year, but our vision for the future is to live in our own small home surrounded by nature, homeschool Anton and travel a lot.

Ksenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow LivingKsenia Interview with a Minimalist Mother Simplicity Slow Living
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Thank you, Ksenia, for sharing and inspiring! Readers you can follow Ksenia’s world over on Instagram @ksenjaisa

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Slow Living Project: Reflect Photo Selections

The Happily Ever After Slow Living Project Reflect

Photo by @thehappilyeverafter

About this time last year, Melanie and I were ironing out the final details of our Slow Living Project / Collaboration, and discussing how we hoped to build a community of friends and photographers that were passionate about sharing the beauty, enjoyment and challenges of slow living. A community that would welcome new people each month who wanted to share their experiences and learn from others. We’ve been overwhelmed and delighted by the community that has blossomed. And now, with coming up to almost a year of nurturing slow living, we wanted to take some to reflect on our journey, and so we chose to focus June’s theme accordingly with word ‘Reflect’ — using the hashtag #slowliving_reflect.

Thank you for sharing your moments of reflection through words and images. We were quite inspired, and, as usual I had a very hard time choosing a selection to share with you, so please visit the hashtag to enjoy all that was contributed this month.

There are always many beautiful photos in the galleries, but I’m especially drawn to ones that have explored the theme creatively or in metaphorical ways. I’m also partial to captions that dig deeper into the theme. With this in mind here are some of my favourites.

Twins: teaching us about reflection and difference

Mama 2 the little ones Slow Living Project Reflect

Photo by @mama_2thelittleones

 

Reflecting nature’s beauty onto paper

Kunstkiekje Slow Living Project Reflect

Photo by @kunstkiekje

 

Reflecting on a year together

Photo by @blowyinthewind slow living project

Photo by @blowyinthewind

 

Reflecting on hard work and the ways of nature

Photo by @frakturfolk slow living project

Photo by @frakturfolk

 

Reflecting, infusing and preserving nature into cloth

Photo by @petalplum slow living project

Photo by @petalplum

 

Reflections on a shining soul

slow living project Photo by @rachelthomasjones

Photo by @rachelthomasjones

 

Reflecting light, colour and life

The Happily Ever After Slow Living Project Reflect

Photo by @thehappilyeverafter

 

Reflecting sky, sea and soul

Photo by @ourbeautiful_adventure slow living project

Photo by @ourbeautiful_adventure

 

Beautiful photos with inspired captions on reflection

Photo by @jenni_isdancingintherain slow living project

Photo by @jenni_isdancingintherain

Photo by @justordinaryfolk slow living project

Photo by @justordinaryfolk

Photo by @findingjoyforus slow living project hippie in disguise

Photo by @findingjoyforus

Photo by @ksenijaisa slow living project hippie in disguise

Photo by @ksenijaisa

 

Melanie’s selections can be found over on her blog www.geoffreyandgrace.com.

Congratulations to those who were selected for the blog, and thank you very much to everyone who added their special moments to the hashtag gallery. No matter how many entries we see in the gallery each month we are overwhelmed and inspired by how you explore the theme, both through photography and through words.

As with all our monthly themes there’s no reason to stop using the hashtag on your images, you never know who or what it might inspire in someone else. I noticed last month that #slowliving_create is over 4000 photos under the hashtag. And that our generic hashtag #slowliving_ is growing steadily too. Let’s keep the slow living momentum going! Slow and steady, though.

Special Announcement: 

To close out the year, we decided to return to our first theme ‘Explore’ using the hashtag #slowliving_explore. Add the hashtag to your Instagram photos that fit the theme to be part of the gallery and inspire others on their slow living journey. We would love to see how you explore the world and slow living.

This month will be a little different from the usual. Melanie and I will curate a collection of our favourites to share in August on Instagram, our blogs, and on our Pinterest board ‘Slow Living Moments’. But to celebrate our year and to thank everyone for building this beautiful community we will be offering prizes to a few folks who have contributed outstanding photos to the #slowliving_explore collection this month. We have partnered with Magic Organic Apothecary to offer 6 prizes. Each winner will receive a gift box containing their Daily Cleaning Ritual and Aphrodite Facial Oil. MOA makes the most delightful and consciously made organic herbal facial care products. You can read all about them here.

To enter for a chance to win a prize:

  • Add the hashtag #slowliving_explore to your photos (as many photos as you wish)
  • Follow @MagicOrganicApothecary + @geoffreyandgrace + @hippieindisguise on Instagram
  • Competition closes August 19th, so photos submitted after this date will not be considered for prizes
  • Good luck and enjoy! We can’t wait to see what you share.

As a reminder our Pinterest board is a great place to get a quick glance at all the selections we’ve shared so far and to get a good dose of visual inspiration. You can check it out here.

You can find previous month’s selection by searching my blog: “explore” “nurture” “love” “renew” “raise” “bloom and harvest” “create” “gather

Thank you to everyone who shares photos and inspires us to live slowly, wholeheartedly, with gratitude. Best wishes for a beautiful and exploratory month! xo, Danielle

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Slow Living Project: Nurture Photo Selections

Well, it’s officially a cliche here, but yes, another month of the Slow Living Project has gone by, and another set of inspiring images has been collected — this time under the theme ‘Nurture‘ using the hashtag #slowliving_nurture.

This past month, Melanie and I wanted to focus our slow living on nurturing, whether it’s nurturing ourselves or others, or nurturing a love, passion or interest.

We asked: How do you take time to slow down and nurture health, creativity, connection and all of life’s important things? Thank you for sharing your moments of beauty, nurturing, and connection. We were very inspired, and, as usual I had a very hard time choosing a small selection to share with you, so please visit the hashtag to enjoy all that was contributed this month.

There are always many beautiful photos in the galleries, but I’m always particularly drawn to ones that have really explored the theme, and often this comes by way of the caption. Personally, I was inspired by those of you sharing images of nurturing children’s love for adventure, travel, exploration and nature, but nurtured in an open-ended way, nothing forced, nothing  rushed, allowing children to guide themselves. I also loved, and have a fondness for, nurturing family and sibling bonds. And, of course, there’s the very basic nurturing of life, that we don’t always pay enough attention to. With these thoughts in mind here are some of my favourites.

Nurturing a love for nature and adventure, collecting memories, treasures and wishes

slow living project

Photo by @slooower

slow living project

Photo by @mytinytribe

Nurturing life

slow living project

Photo by @ambertia

Nurturing souls, bonds and creativity

slow living project

Photo by @lilimuguette

slow living project

Photo by @keishua_

slow living project

Photo by @lightlovers

slow living project

Photo by @devine_tribe

slow living project

Photo by @celinabailey

Melanie’s selections can be found over on her blog www.geoffreyandgrace.com.

Congratulations to those who were selected for the blog, and thank you very much to everyone who added their special moments to the hashtag gallery. No matter how many entries we see in the gallery each month we are overwhelmed and inspired by how you explore the theme, both through photography and your words.

As with all our monthly themes, there’s no reason to stop using the hashtag on your images, you never know who or what it might inspire in someone else. I noticed the other day that #slowliving_create is close to 4000 photos under the hashtag. Let’s keep the slow living momentum going! Slowly, though 😉

As a reminder, in December we started using the hashtag #slowliving_ for all our images in the project. Feel free to use it yourself, especially for any photos you love but don’t feel quite fit the theme of the month.

The theme for June is ‘reflect’ using the hashtag #slowliving_reflect. Building on our month focused on nurturing, and moreover our many months of focusing on slow living, we wanted to take some time to reflect on our journeys. We would love to learn from your reflections on slow living and how you take time to reflect on life. All reflections big and small are welcome. Use the hashtag #slowliving_reflect on your Instagram photos to be part of the gallery.

And…please feel free to join in even if you have never participated before.

As usual, Melanie and I will curate a collection of our favourites at the end of the month to share on Instagram, our blogs, and on our Pinterest board ‘Slow Living Moments’. And by the way, our Pinterest board is a great place to get a quick glance at all the selections to date and to get a good dose of visual inspiration.

You can see previous month’s themes and selections on my blog for: ‘explore’ here,‘create’ here and here, ‘bloom and harvest’ here and here, ‘raise’ here, ‘gather’ here, ‘renew’ here, ‘love’ here

Thank you to everyone who shares photos and inspires us to live slowly, wholeheartedly, with gratitude. Best wishes for a beautiful and reflective month! xo, Danielle

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Slow Living Photo Selections: Bloom and Harvest, Take 2

Another month of the Slow Living Project, and another set of inspiring images has been collected — this time under the hashtag #slowliving_bloomandharvest. This past month, Melanie and I wanted to focus our slow living on the season’s changes: the harvest in the northern hemisphere and the blooms of spring in the southern hemisphere. Thank you for sharing your moments of beauty, contemplation, stillness, and connection. We were very inspired, and had a hard time choosing a small selection to share with you, so please visit the hashtag to enjoy all that was offered this month.

In April we revisited a favourite theme ‘Bloom and Harvest’. This time around the seasons have switched, with it being spring in northern hemisphere and fall in the southern hemisphere. Like the first time around, we loved how you captured the colour and beauty of these seasons. Personally, I was quite inspired by the images that cleverly combined blooms and harvest: reflecting on the dying bloom, harvesting flowers to create blooms in a new context, capturing the bloom of the harvest, and thinking about bloom in a broader sense: the blooming child and the blooming mind. I always have a special fondness for images that include children, that is, I am inspired, comforted and given hope to see children raised from a slow approach and children learning about the wild natural world. With this in mind here are some of my favourites.

Beautiful blooms

Blooming bellies, babies, families and minds

Blooms harvested

Cultivating children’s creative, helping hands

Melanie’s selections can be found over on her blog www.geoffreyandgrace.com.

Congratulations to those who were selected for the blog, and thank you very much to everyone who has added their special moments to the hashtag gallery. With over 1600 entries to the gallery we were overwhelmed by the participation this month. As with all our monthly themes — #slowliving_explore, #slowliving_create, #slowliving_raise, #slowliving_gather, #slowliving_renew, #slowliving_love and so on — there’s no reason to stop using the hashtag on your images, you never know who or what it might inspire in someone else. Let’s keep the slow living momentum going! In December we started using the hashtag #slowliving_ for all our images in the project. Feel free to use it yourself, especially for any photos you love but don’t feel quite fit the theme of the month.

As mentioned on my Instagram account earlier this month, the theme for May is ‘nurture’ using the hashtag #slowliving_nurture. Melanie and I want to see and be inspired by how you nurture yourselves and others, how you take time to slow down and nurture health, creativity, connection and all the important things in life. Use the hashtag #slowliving_nurture on your Instagram photos to be part of the gallery. Please feel free to join in even if you have never participated before. As usual, Melanie and I will curate a collection of our favourites at the end of the month to share on Instagram, our blogs, and on our Pinterest board ‘Slow Living Moments’. And by the way, our Pinterest board is a great place to get a quick glance at all the selections to date and to get a good dose of visual inspiration.

You can see previous month’s themes and selections ‘explore’ here,‘create’ here and here, ‘bloom and harvest’ here, ‘raise’ here, ‘gather’ here, ‘renew’ here, ‘love’ here.

Thank you to everyone who shares photos and inspires us to live slowly, wholeheartedly, with gratitude. Best wishes for a beautiful and nurturing month! xo, Danielle

***

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Photo by @lillalinaea

Slow Living Project: Create, take 2

What a beautiful month it was for the Slow Living Project, with our focus word ‘create’ there were so many inspired moments shared through the #slowliving_create hashtag — over 3200 in fact! The images were not only beautiful, but more importantly captured the spirit of creativity and creation in a slow and intentional way : slowly working away at a creative project over days and weeks, bringing slow intentional creativity to our time with our children, bringing our creative spirit outdoors, gathering, building, decorating, creating family traditions and even creating life (both plant and animal).

You can view all the contributions to the gallery here. Thank you to everyone for sharing and inspiring others.

Photo by @lillalinaea

Photo by @lillalinaea

Photo by @fareisle

Photo by @fareisle

Photo by @veronikagphotography

Photo by @veronikagphotography

Photo by @onbeing_kristy / @onbeing_mom

Photo by @onbeing_kristy / @onbeing_mom

Photo by @lightlovers

Photo by @lightlovers

Photo by @devine_tribe

Photo by @devine_tribe

Photo by @aplayfulday

Photo by @aplayfulday

Photo by @aspetalsfall

Photo by @aspetalsfall

Photo by @vanillalemoncake

Photo by @vanillalemoncake

Photo by @sapphireandlars

Photo by @sapphireandlars

Photo by @travel.little.one

Photo by @travel.little.one

Photo by @heartenohana

Photo by @heartenohana

Photo by @growingwildthings

Photo by @growingwildthings

Photo by @joyfulnoisephoto

Photo by @joyfulnoisephoto

Photo by @earth_mamma

Photo by @earth_mamma

Photo by @lessmeansmoreproject

Photo by @lessmeansmoreproject

Photo by @mommetry

Photo by @mommetry

Photo by @findingjoyforus

Photo by @findingjoyforus

Photo by @mama_2thelittleones

Photo by @mama_2thelittleones

Photo by @littlekinjournal

Photo by @littlekinjournal

Photo by @ambertia

Photo by @ambertia

Melanie’s selections can be found over on her blog www.geoffreyandgrace.com.

Congratulations to those who were selected for the blog, and thank you very much to everyone who has added their special moments to the hashtag gallery. With over 3200 entries to the gallery we were overwhelmed by the participation this month. Each image left us with something some sort of inspiration. As with last month’s theme ‘love’, there’s no reason to stop using the hashtag on your images, you never know who or what it might inspire in someone else.

As mentioned on my Instagram account earlier this month, April will bring back another favourite theme ‘Bloom and Harvest’. This time around the seasons have switched, with it being spring in northern hemisphere and fall in the southern hemisphere. Like the first time, we would love to see how you capture the colour and beauty of these seasons. Use the hashtag #slowliving_bloomandharvest to include your photos in the gallery. Please feel free to join in even if you have never participated before. As usual, Melanie and I will curate a collection of our favourites at the end of the month to share on Instagram, our blogs, and on our Pinterest board ‘Slow Living Moments’.

In December we started using the hashtag #slowliving_ for all our images in the project. Feel free to use it yourself, especially for any photos you love but don’t feel quite fit the theme of the month.

You can find selections from other themes here: “explore” “nurture” “love” “renew” “raise” “bloom and harvest” “create” “gather

Thank you to everyone who shares photos and inspires us to live slowly, wholeheartedly, with gratitude. Best wishes for a beautiful and colourful month! xo, Danielle

***

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