Today I’m bringing you something slightly different: a video chat between Dr. Chesica Jones from Cup Half Full and myself.
Chesica is a holistic doctor, mother, expat, and the scribbler behind Cup Half Full - a blog focused on slow and natural healthy living. Outside of reading, writing, and exploring the German countryside with her sausage dog and baby, she enjoys creative hobbies and connecting with others.
In this ‘slow chat,’ we discuss how we both got into slow living and how the lifestyle has impacted us. We talk about the benefits and challenges of the lifestyle. We also shared a bit about our expat experiences - stay tuned because we will be talking about this a bit more in the future.
One thing that stood out for me was how many similarities both our stories had. Chesica talks about her busy life living in San Francisco - being almost burnt out by hustle culture. She moved to Germany and found herself with a lot of excess time. Slow living came more naturally to her and she has been embracing it since.
I related so much to her story, as a Belgian who moved to New Zealand and also felt almost burnt out by hustle culture, New Zealand was the fresh start I needed to explore slow living and move off the grid.
My biggest takeaway:
Slow living needs to be approached slowly. You can’t “quickly do some slow living.” It’s all about baby steps, being kind to yourself and taking it one day at a time.
We don’t need the big life changes to start today. Slow living can be done with little things along the way, like making a cup of tea and being mindfully in the moment. It’s important to adjust it to your own life, because everything is always changing. As Chesica said in the interview: “It’s not something you do once and then it’s forever, you’re done. It’s something that you need to revisit. As things evolve we need to respond to them.”
If you want to read a bit more about Chesica’s journey towards slow living, this article is a great start: Slow Living: my story.
I loved connecting with Chesica and sharing our thoughts about slow living. We could have gone on for hours! I hope you enjoy this video which will give you more insight into how we both view the lifestyle.
Tell me in the comments what you think of our slow chat - I would love to hear from you!
I love your recap and take-away from the conversation.💖 Slow living truly is best when unhurried and we would all do well to be kind to ourselves in the process.
I was on my back with glee at the mention of sausage dog and slow living!
Kindred spirit here!
Dickie my rabbit dachshund is skipping about in delight - he loves his slow living life 💖