These Three Truths of Slow Living Will Change Your Life
A Slow Travel Blog from Ballycotton, Ireland
Have you ever heard of a glamping pod before? Neither have I, until I found one on booking.com and decided it was the perfect place to stay during my slow travel solo trip to Ireland. I didn’t know much about the area except that it was in county Cork, not too far from the city of Cork where I’d fly into.
So what exactly is a glamping pod? Imagine a capsule, or maybe a long tube cut in half the long way and put on the earth. It’s basically a tent, but with actual walls, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. Hence the term “glamping”, but let’s start from the beginning …
Day 1: Settling In
As I’d come up all the way from Killarney, where I’d been staying the week before for the World Irish Dancing Championships, I only arrived in Shanagarry at 7 p.m. According to Google Maps, my glamping pod was only 800 meters away from the bus stop, which was true enough, but there was no walkway in sight.
So I grabbed my suitcase, shouldered the two grocery bags with a week’s worth of food and drinks, and started walking along the main road. The cars had to drive around me in a wide circle as there was no sidewalk and I was taking up half the lane with all my baggage.
Luckily, there wasn’t too much traffic and when I made it to the pod, my host Timmy was already waiting for me with the keys.
He quickly showed me around the pod that he had built himself and I fell in love with the place the second I stepped inside. The walls were panelled with wood, giving it the look and smell of a Finnish sauna. I felt right at home.
There was a handy little cupboard on one side, which I filled with my clothes and yoga mat. Yes, I brought a yoga mat all the way to Ireland. It was only half a yoga mat, to be exact, as I’d cut the thing in half so it would fit in my suitcase.
Yoga is one of the main pillars of the slow, mindful lifestyle I am striving towards, and I most certainly couldn’t go on a slow vacation without my mat.
When I was done unpacking, I grabbed some olives and a beer and went to sit in the garden behind the pod. And that’s where my slow living experience really began …
Slow Living Truth #1
You do not actually need any distractions, you are just used to them.
I left my laptop at home on purpose; I only had a phone with bad reception, which I’d leave stowed away in my handbag most of the time. So I just sat there in the garden with absolutely nothing to distract me but birdsong and the sound of the wind caressing the leaves in the trees.
Can you imagine the relief this brought me after four days in a crammed concert hall with hundreds of people, loud music and a busy schedule? And can you imagine the relief it might bring you after a busy week of dealing with other people and their demands on your time?
Distraction-Free Moments in Everyday Life
Here’s the good news: You don’t have to go to Ireland to experience the benefits of slow living. I would definitely recommend it if you can — after all, it’s Ireland — but all you really have to do is live the truths of slow living in your daily life and purposefully eliminate any distractions from time to time.
For example, the next time you sit down to fold your laundry, don’t turn on the TV. The next time you cook, do it without listening to a podcast. This will force you to give the thing that you’re doing your undivided attention, which gives your brain a much-needed break.
Give yourself one distraction-free break every day. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your lunch break or just a few minutes between work and heading to the gym. Just grab a drink, sit on your balcony or the couch for a little while, put your to-do list on hold, and deliberately do nothing.
I know you don’t want to hear it, but I have to say it:
Put your phone away for those moments. Don’t just turn it upside down and put it on mute, place it somewhere that you can’t see it at all. As soon as it is visible to you, it will distract you even on a subconscious level.
Day 2: Decompression Walk
As I had banned myself from using an alarm clock during my time at the glamping pod, my body chose not to wake up for 14 hours straight. It’s not only your physical body that needs sleep to recover, it’s also, and maybe most of all, your brain.
I know that a more or less steady wakeup time is generally healthier, but when you’ve just gone through a particularly intense period in your life, you might need a real lie-in to give your brain enough time to process.
And processing is what the second truth of slow living is all about:
Slow Living Truth #2
To decompress, your mind needs the freedom to wander.
For me, the ideal setting for letting my mind wander is a long, distraction-free walk. I call it the decompression walk.
So naturally, the first thing I did after breakfast that morning was put my shoes on and go for a walk. Once again, the absence of walkways posed a bit of a problem for me. I am probably just a spoiled Swiss kid, but in my country, there are sidewalks in any village and bicycle or walking lanes next to every main road.
Since I didn’t have a car, I had no choice but to walk on the side of the road all the way down to Ballycotton. Imagine me leaning into the thorny yellow gorse bushes at the side of the road every time a car was rushing by at 100 km/h.
Luckily, I made it to Ballycotton without getting run over. There, I consulted Google Maps to find smaller roads to make my way way up to the cliffs. To my relief, these smaller roads were pretty much deserted and I would only see a car every ten minutes or so.
I walked and walked, without music or a podcast on my ears, enjoying the rich green pastures and yellow gorse around me, and my mind was wandering with me. After about 50 minutes, I reached the coastline and actually felt tears in my eyes because of the stunning view that was unfolding right in front of me.
I am going to let a few pictures speak for themselves here:
The Ballycotton cliff walk isn’t very long and you could probably complete it in less than an hour, but I deliberately took almost three. I spent time smelling the gorse blossoms I love so much and stroking the thick, soft grass around me.
I found a bench and just sat there for as long as I wanted, watching the wind push wild waves towards the coast, crying silent tears of love, relief, gratefulness, and hope.
I cannot remember the last time I had the luxury of unlimited time. The freedom of going at my own pace, of doing exactly what I felt like doing for however long I wanted.
And let me tell you, it was truly healing.
Give Yourself Time
Of course, achieving this feeling of being completely unhurried in everyday life might be close to impossible for you. However, you probably can give yourself the luxury of time every once in a while, say once a month.
At whichever interval seems doable for your lifestyle, schedule a full day or even a weekend for yourself. Put it in your calendar like you would any other appointment.
What’s important here is that it is at least one full day and that you do not have any commitments in the evening, because otherwise, you will subconsciously end up feeling stressed knowing that you have to be somewhere at a certain time.
When your free day finally rolls around, don’t set an alarm. Get up whenever your body naturally wants to, and do whatever you feel like doing for however long you want to.
A time-free day like this must also be a judgement-free day for you to get the full benefits from it. No one activity is better than the other. If you feel like lying on the couch all day, go ahead. If you feel like going for a walk, you do that instead. Don’t feel pressured to do one thing because you thing it’s “better”, “healthier”, or “more productive”.
On time-free days, these thoughts are not allowed.
Day 3: Coffee and the Tide
The next day, I did my usual morning yoga and breakfast routine, then decided to go down to Ballynamona beach, which was just a 15 minute walk away from my glamping pod.
When I arrived, I couldn’t resist taking my shoes off even though it was a windy April day. There is something about feeling sand between your toes that is just too special to miss. So I stowed my shoes in my bag, pulled up the hood on my jacket to stop the wind from freezing off my ears, and started walking barefoot in the sand.
The tide was receding at this time of the day, and I walked all the way out to the shoreline. I always get this weird feeling that I’m not really by the ocean if I’m not in it. So I walked up to the water, rolled up my pants, and walked in the icy water until my feet were too cold to keep going.
I walked for about an hour, listening to the sound of the waves crashing, the seagulls screeching, and my feet tapping lightly on the sand. I even tried to do a few Irish dance moves, but they turned out to be too hard in the wet sand. And then I reached Garryvoe Beach, which is where I found the third truth of slow living.
Slow Living Truth #3
If you keep your eyes open, you can find slow moments everywhere.
When I arrived in Garryvoe, I went up to the parking lot to sit on a bench, which is where I spotted a mobile coffee shop. It was a simple black van with a built-in espresso machine in the back and a small sun blind to provide a bit of shelter for the barista.
I went to him and ordered a latte, which he delivered with a perfect rosetta. I talked to him for a little while, learning a few useful latte art tricks, then took my coffee and sat down on the bench with a terrific view of Ballycotton bay and the lighthouse on the other side.
And that’s when it dawned on me:
Enjoying the Slow Life Every Day
Slow living isn’t just for holidays, it’s something you and I both can and should incorporate in our daily lives. We all have a bunch of already established daily habits that we can use for a slow moment to calm down and relax, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
For me, that habit is coffee. No matter how busy my day is or where I am, I will always find coffee somewhere. Usually, I would get it in a takeaway cup and run off to the next place I need to be at, but since that moment at Garryvoe beach, I stop to think every time I get a latte:
Do I really need to hustle right now, or can I get my coffee to stay and sit down for a moment, simply enjoying the taste or reading a few pages of a book?
If I do get coffee to go, I will still take a moment to enjoy it. I would sit on a bench for a few minutes or even in my car if it’s raining, and forbid myself from driving off instantly.
These few conscious moments of doing nothing but drinking my latte really help to keep me calm and grounded throughout my busy day. I’m sure you can find a slow habit like that in your own life, too.
Of course, a holiday in Ireland’s beautiful countryside provides the perfect conditions for an immersive slow living experience, but what I learned during that time will stay with me forever.
The three truths of slow living really can change your life, no matter where you are.
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