What is gentle living?
Many intuitive, heart-guided women feel tired these days - tired of constantly doing things, the pressure to be productive, and having to have everything figured out now. For these women, there’s a longing to slow down, to move at their own pace, to approach life with more gentleness. Which is why gentle living can be a beautiful, authentic way for them to navigate life.
I came to a point in my life, after experiencing vocation and life transitions, that I didn’t know what to do next. In the past, I’d exerted a lot of effort trying to figure things out quickly and making plans, over and over again. Yet I didn’t want to do that this time. Instead I wanted to embrace waiting and living my life over figuring out my life, even if it meant not knowing what to do next or when I’d know.
While this different approach to life was more freeing, it also felt vulnerable. I was doing things very differently than most, though I knew it was right for me. But how to explain it to others? Now, looking back, I can see that what I was, unknowingly, embracing was gentle living.
The meaning of Gentle Living
Gentle living is all about approaching life with greater gentleness. It’s about living slowly and prioritizing moments of being and rest over constant doing and productivity. Gentle living means reconnecting with your gentle heart and remembering - often - that your worth is innate and you are already enough. Life becomes filled with more beauty, delight, and wonder.
Living Slowly
To live gently is to embrace a slower pace. It doesn’t mean not doing anything at all. Rather it’s allowing yourself to approach what you do need to do and want to do with more gentleness and slowness. Gentle living allows space to live more aligned with nature and its seasons. You no longer have to figure everything out right away, which means less forcing and more moving with the flow of your life.
Being vs Doing
Gentle living is more about being than doing or productivity. In fact, it’s giving yourself permission to do less and to rest when needed, knowing that you are still enough regardless of how much or how little you do. When you’re living gently, you allow for moments to simply be and even do nothing at all.
A Gentle Heart
One of the things that truly makes gentle living possible is having a gentle heart. This way you’re not only living gently, you’re treating yourself gently, too. This includes responding to your feelings with gentleness as well. When you reconnect with your gentle heart, you’re able to see the truth about yourself: that you are enough, just as you are. Your worth is unchangeable and every part of you is worthy of love. From a gentle heart, you’re able to make decisions for your life that are authentic to you.
A Beautiful Life
When you embrace gentle living, you embrace the chance to live life rather than do life. This opens you up to a fuller, more enjoyable life filled with growth, beauty, delight, and wonder. A gentle life can be a beautiful life.
For the intuitive, heart-guided woman who is tired of life feeling like it’s all about what she does, gentle living offers a way for her to slow down, to simply be, to treat herself with gentleness, and to enjoy more moments of beauty, delight and wonder.
