GETTING INTO SLOW LIVING AS A HIGHLY ANXIOUS PERSON
Guys, I have something to admit: I’m a highly anxious person. This year, however, my anxiety has been particularly bad. For the past few months, I’ve been trying to understand why this is. After a lot of personal work, I discovered three crucial areas in my life I wasn’t comfortable with. This discovery was a first step to finding a solution to my troubles. Actually, no. Let me rephrase. Acknowledging these areas allowed me to find tools so I can work on my troubles. One of these tools was getting into the concept of slow living. I’ve started taking tiny steps into a calmer, more centered life-style. It’s… different from what I’ve ever done, so I wanted to share what it’s been like for me so far. This is what gradually getting into slow living as a highly anxious person is like. I am by no means cured from my anxiety, but I am working on it. I still have better days and worse days, but these tools have definitely helped me manage my anxiety better.
DIGITAL BOUNDARIES
There were several reasons for my increased anxiety this past year. Of course, there’s the pandemic, which has probably affected everyone’s mental health. But there were other things. For example, I felt constantly bombarded by messages. Like everyone, I deal with quite a few emails and meetings nine hours a day due to my job. That’s fine, I can deal with that. But I’m also in several family/friends group chats. I receive WhatsApp messages, iMessages and SMS messages several times a day. Then there’s my personal email, where I also receive way too many newsletters from different brands. Catching up with everything felt like a chore. Not just that, I also had to reply, which can sometimes feel overwhelming after a hard day’s work.
Then there was my voluntary exposure to social media: mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and Twitter for way too many hours a day. This led me to constantly compare my life to others’ and letting myself be bombarded by bad news or other people’s complaints or misinformation. I remember I felt annoyed and angry at what I was reading but that didn’t stop me from scrolling. It was as if I were hypnotized by Instagram/Twitter. It was creepy. Limiting social media use has greatly helped my anxiety. I love this interview with Lorde, where she talks about all the reasons she abandoned social media, because I relate so much to everything she says.
So my first tiny step in getting into slow living was to create digital boundaries. I started by unsubscribing from many newsletters I no longer cared for. I also removed all notifications from all correspondence and social media. Everyone knows: if there’s an emergency, please call me. Otherwise, I’ll get to you when I get to you. Finally, I set a time limit on my social media apps so I can only use them for an hour a day. I’ve also made it so I can’t use social media apps until lunch time. This way I am more mindful in my mornings. I use my time to exercise, or take a walk. Sometimes I journal, others I read or write. I feel it’s a healthier way to start my day.
PRIORITIZING PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Another important factor that contributed to my anxiety was that I was trying to be everything, all of the time. Not only did I have to constantly be productive and creative. I also had to be healthy, life-style-wise. I needed to workout every day and I needed to meditate and journal for mental health. Then I needed to meal prep to save money and be healthy. Of course I needed to sleep 7-8 hours a day. Finally, I also needed to clean my house, wash my clothes and pay my bills. I felt like I had no time to live, you know? No time to get bored, to just be. Everything needed to be planned, scheduled in. Even meeting with friends felt like a chore to schedule into my calendar. Something that took time from my productivity or self care.
The thing is though, most times, meeting with my friends for a quick drink felt like more self-care that all the journalling in the world. So my second tiny step when getting into slow living was a mindset change. I’m trying to talk to friends more and not feel guilty about it. I’ve realized no amount of productivity will do for my anxiety what a good chat with my friends can. This might sound obvious to some of you but, for me, it feels like a giant step for my mental health.
MAKING THIS BLOG FUN AGAIN
The third factor that affected my mental health was my need to be productive and creative all the time. Eventually, this blog that was supposed to be a fun and creative place for me, became another chore. Something more to worry about, to feel unsatisfied about. There’s the hundreds of shows I just needed to watch. The hundreds of movies I needed to see. All the books I just had to read. The bands I needed to follow. The expositions I needed to attend. I know these things are not an obligation, but to me, with this kind of blog, it felt like I needed to catch up on everything so that I could write to you about the good stuff. Not only that, when I wrote about anything, I felt like I needed to be really insightful. The trouble is, I’m a perfectionist, so I never feel like my content was good enough. In the end, this left me feeling overwhelmed, not catching up on anything and not writing at all. I was frustrated.
So what will change? What does my getting into slow living mean for this blog? Well, slow living is what I’m working on right now and I want to take you along on my journey as I work on letting go everything that’s no longer serving me. Of course, I’ll also share everything that is working for me. This means, I’ll be talking about the several changes I am going through in my life. I’ll also be talking about minimalism, simple living, slow living and everything in between.
Don’t worry, I’ll still be sharing what I love movie and TV-wise, but maybe those posts will be more scattered, as I’m being more mindful about what I consume (more on this in a separate post). I won’t be writing about the film industry for now, as it’s not something I feel like writing about in my free time (I deal with enough of that with my job). I hope you understand.
SLOW LIVING IS A LIFESTYLE, AND IT’S CONSTANTLY IN PROCESS
Getting into slow living is an interesting process, especially in the world we live in. It’s not about completely evading yourself from the digital and fast-paced world and living like a hermit. To me, it’s about pausing, and assessing where you’re at. It’s about reprioritizing your life.
The world has so much to offer. I feel like we’re often bombarded by all types of messages and lifestyles. Sometimes we jump on all the newest trends without actually thinking if that is something we are actually interested in. Slow living is about seeing what the world has to offer and being mindful about what you want. Think of life as a busy train station: instead of jumping on all the trains in all directions for FOMO, slow living makes you pause and see where you want to go, before getting on the right train.
Slow living to me is about intentional action in a world that’s all about multitasking. It’s about self-reflection. I also believe slow living can be different for different people. I’ll take you on my journey and I hope it can serve you in yours. Join me, won’t you?