🌿 How To Plan a Slow Day of Gentleness

A day for you, for your soul. For rest and for quiet.

Hello, lovely! I’m Nospheratt and this is Joy Every Week - a weekly quest to find joy in everyday things. You’re receiving this either because you subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. Enjoy! :)

I wrote about this last year: The Joy of a Slow, Soft Day

And maybe, maybe, find the courage to plan for a day like this. Add it to the calendar and see what happens.

Maybe.

But that was a dream. It took me months to finally get here; to actually plan for it. Make it happen.

Come with me? Let’s make it happen for you, too. 💛🌿

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The world keeps spinning out of control around us.

The year has started, a month and a half are gone, and we need to take a break.

You need to stop, breathe, raise your head above the water, if just for a moment.

A day, a weekend. An evening, half an hour.

Something.

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🌿 Intentional Rest

Have you ever noticed that intentional rest feels different — more… well, restful. Restorative. Healing.

It’s not the same to stop because you are exhausted, or resting because you’re ill. It’s emotionally different, besides the obvious physical differences.

It’s important to rest and recover when you need it.

But stopping before you’re depleted—that’s where the gold is. Down that path lay amazing things.

However…

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It probably feels impossible.

At least for me, it does: a slow, soft day.

A day to focus on nurturing, joyful activities.

A day of no rushing, no pushing, no forcing.

A day for you, for your soul. For rest and for quiet.

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🌿 The many reasons why this is (apparently) impossible

How many of these crossed your mind when you thought about taking a slow day?

I don’t have time. I need to work. The world is on fire. I have too many obligations. My family won’t allow it. I can’t stop.

I don’t deserve it.

I know this may be hard to do; besides our societal conditioning, there are many circumstances that make it very complicated. Single-parenting, illness or chronic conditions, being a caretaker, job responsibilities… I get it.

If you can’t get a full day, plan for a morning or afternoon. Even an hour. Anything that’s available to you will be useful and restorative.

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🌿 What would be your dream slow day of softness and gentleness?

For me it would go something like this:

• Wake up slowly. Stretch, yawn. No hurry to get up.

• Read in bed for a little bit. No news, no social media. A book or some fun things from my Read Later list. Or some lovely poetry.

• Get up, cozy up in the sofa with my journals, mate, a blanket and some soft music.

• Around 11 am make the bed, tidy up a little.

• A light, delicious lunch.

• Play with journals - decorate my main journal, make collages for my travel journal, add notes & quotes

• Color a page or two on my favorite coloring book

I could go on, but you get the idea. All my favorite activities. The things that make me sigh with longing.

🌿 What will be on your list?

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Also: just thinking about this is stirring up a lot of anxiety for me. As if I’m not allowed to even think about such an indulgent thing.

If you’re feeling the same, know you’re not alone. It’s normal and understandable to have a lot of feelings about doing something so subversive and radical as allowing ourselves to get some damn rest. 😉

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🌿 This Week’s Quest - A Slow Day of Softness & Gentleness

Ideas & inspiration to find your joy.

1 - The Dream

Get a piece of paper, a pen and 15 minutes.

• What would your ideal, dream Slow Day look like?

  • Write it down. Make a list. Or a poem!

  • Don’t censor anything. At this stage, you’re drafting your dream. Anything is possible. Just go for it. Write down the most luscious, peaceful, joy filled things you’d like to do or enjoy.

• Set it aside for a bit.

• If you think of more things, go back and add to it. No matter how impossible or ludicrous they seem.

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2 - The Possibilities

After a few hours or a couple of days, sit with your list again.

• Figure out which things are possible as-is; the easy, uncomplicated items. Copy them to a new list.

• Take a look at the items that seem impossible or too complicated.

  • Can you simplify them? Or enjoy them in a different form?

  • For example: I can’t take a walk on my favorite forest because it’s too faraway and it would take me too long to go there and back; it’s a whole day trip. But I can enjoy the nearest park — it’s a 10 minute walk to get there.

• Add your modified / simplified items to your new list.

• Sort your activities into a loose plan for the day. What would you like to do in the morning? In the afternoon? How are you closing the day?

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3 - The Plan

Here comes the part that can turn your dream into a reality. Look at your list and figure out:

🌿 What needs to be done in advance for any of this to happen?

• Make a list of necessities:

  • Items you need for your activities, like journals, books, games, blankets, candles, etc.

  • Food! Decide in advance what you’re going to enjoy, so you don’t spend precious time grumbling when you get hungry. If you’re cooking make sure you have all the ingredients stocked.

  • Meds. Make sure you have everything you need so you won’t have to run to the pharmacy.

  • If you’re like me, you’re going to want to do a little bit of cleaning and tidying up. Do this BEFORE your Slow Day — the day or weekend before it. Otherwise, we know the slow day will turn into cleaning day.

• Get help if you need it.

  • If at all possible, ask someone to help you with the responsibilities you can’t postpone, be it work stuff, caretaking tasks or watching your children.

• Schedule it.

  • Even if it just half an hour. If you don’t add it to your calendar, it won’t happen. You know it won’t.

  • You can also buddy up with someone to make sure you will take your slow day and enjoy it, instead of looking at it like free time to catch up with the three billion things you need to catch up with.

• Treat this as a sacred time.

  • Once you have scheduled it, protect it. Fight for it.

  • Don’t allow anyone — not even yourself — to take this time and use it for something else.

• Enjoy your slow day of softness, gentleness and joyful restoration! 😊💚

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📚Reads

➡️ How to take a “Slow Day”

The benefits of an extended break- in a single day.

My progress through the day was not working through a to-do list in my head or phone. I had plenty of things to do having just returned from a trip, but I breathed deeply and trusted I would remember to get it all done in due time. Or if I didn’t, also fine.

Dishes done, I slowly walked to the living room. I actually smiled as I saw my poor backpack which was in need of a deep clean. A month of sunglasses and God knows what else smashed into it. I started to clean it out. One mangled item at a time. I imagined the backpack happily participating as a gutted it, like that scene in the Wizard of Oz where they replace all the scarecrow’s hay, and he sings along, in the Merry Old Land of Oz.

A different take on a slow day. I especially love “the backpack happily participating” — it’s a wonderful idea that will try as soon as I can. Add some magic to daily chores by imagining the house and the objects happily participating. 😁

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➡️ Mondays are always slow

The antidote to rise and grind

I’m trying to shed the guilt and self-blame I feel about this. I’m trying to embrace my slow Mondays for what they are — a necessary part of my weekly rhythm. I’ve always worked like this. I will probably always work like this. And that’s okay.

The work that needs to get done will still get done. My unfinished tasks will still be there tomorrow. The world won’t fall apart because I take it slow on Mondays.

Slow days - or the spirit of a slow, gentle day - can be a weekly thing.

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➡️ January Notebook - The Slow Living Issue

Winter stars, peace and Wassailing

In the ebb and flow of the year, this is still very much a season of rest. So there will be no mentions of goals or resolutions in this newsletter, thank you very much.

We’ll be following the lead of our pagan ancestors instead, continuing the Midwinter festivities over into January and focusing on all the slow, gentle, warming aspects of this month.

In this newsletter, we’ll be cosying up with hibernation rituals, drinking warming spiced drinks and continuing the festive spirit of last month with an Orchard Wassail.

Loads of inspiration for the Slow Wintery Day of your dreams.

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🌿 That’s It For Today!

It may take quite a bit of thinking and planning, but I promise: having a Slow Day of Softness and Gentleness is worth it. 💚

Even if it takes a month to be able to do it. Start today. You deserve it.

If you’d like, share your Dream Slow Day plans with me. I’d love to cheer you on as you work on it. 😊

Until next time. —Nospheratt

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