What is Slow Living?

And why is it important to slow down in your day-to-day life?

In this week’s podcast, Rising Nature Retreats Founders, Kelly Tolliday and Chloe Ravel, sit down in their monthly conversation on Transform with Travel. Kelly and Chloe discuss what the slow living movement is and why it is so important to them to continue to travel to countries that embody this well. They also announce the launch of their newest retreat - The Art of Slow Living in Portugal.

What We Discuss:

• What is Slow Living?
• What it was like to experience slow living in Greece
• Slow Living brings your True Connection with Others
• How slow living impacts your nervous system
• Join them at The Art of Slow Living Retreat in Portugal

Connect With Rising Nature Retreats:

• Website - https://risingnatureretreats.com
• Instagram - https://instagram.com/risingnatureretreats
• Download the Portugal Retreat Brochure

Resources:

• Slow Living Movement

Thanks for tuning in!

Mentioned in this episode:

Child & Company

Track1-Mic 1: Welcome to the transform with travel podcast. I am here with my dear friend, Chloe Revell. She is my business partner, my work wife, the other half to rising nature retreats, and we are here for our November episode. We're so excited to be here today and talk a little bit. Deeper into this concept of slow living so welcome.

Welcome, Chloe

Track2-Mic 2: for having me. Yeah,

this slow living culture and how does that add up or I guess not add up to our American pace of life. So I'd love to just open it up for the both of us to kind of, like, what does slow living mean to us and how are we embodying that in our day to day life after coming back from Greece?

Track2-Mic 2: I love this conversation. The more we continue to have this conversation, I feel like the more we can Keep each other accountable to, to embody it. Yeah, it's definitely the nature of our conversations is what molds our reality in our life and to do it within community. We know it's our favorite way to grow and expand.

So yes, hooray for like this moment on podcast to have deeper conversations. I love it.

Track1-Mic 1: Yeah, absolutely. And so with this idea of slow living movement, it is definitely something that is making waves across the wellness community and people are tapping more into that.

I can slow down and like really get a sense for six full days and some people stayed before and after so they really got to integrate this even longer. But this idea of really being able to observe yourself in a different culture and observe how other people are living and realizing, wait. I can live in a different way, you know, like, and that's the power of really being able to travel and experience these different cultures.

What was that like for you to experience that?

Track2-Mic 2: Truly, it's one of my favorite feelings when I travel abroad, specifically to Europe. It is such a palpable energy the minute You land somewhere else.

It was something that we felt immediately. So it was a feeling And so that, that particular moment of arriving on Serifos was, I knew it just marked the beginning of a new experience, like a really fresh experience for my mind, for my body, for my spirit. And then, and as I mentioned, it's just like, Every single little interaction with the people, the staff at the hotels and the people that we contracted to come in and do massage therapy and sound healing their, like, joy of life, their their ability to be really present and get to know us.

And I felt that in my experience in Greece, I felt everyone that I crossed paths with was curious about where I was from and what I was doing on the island and what I was exploring and had recommendations of restaurants and cultural activities to do. So it is this connection. I think part of slow living In my experience from what I choose to create for myself and then what I see when I travel is Having a different pace where you can truly connect with someone and then we know the benefits of connection, right?

Like more fulfillment more gratitude. You can also learn, you know from the educational standpoint If you feel really connected to the land you're in or the people you're around you're like more open to have a new perspective to learn and

I didn't want to leave Serifos.

All of us were like, wait, what? It's time to go. And then I, you know, I traveled a bit around Europe afterwards, landing in Paris, which is a place where I've lived before, studied before, and feel very comfortable in just because of my awareness and knowledge of the city and the city landscape. But it was jarring.

It was definitely jarring because it's a little bit more fast paced than, you know, Greek island life. So I remember that first full day arriving in Paris. I remember sharing this with you. It's like whoa I need to re kind of calibrate because i'm in a whole different energy, but nonetheless there was there's such a presence in even the Parisian culture where you like sit for longer meals and you just meet a friend for coffee and you just sit around and talk about life or work or whatever you're going through for a couple of hours like that's embedded in that culture.

So yeah, truly slow living in Europe is an embodied experience anywhere you go.

Track1-Mic 1: Yeah, absolutely and Part of, at least for me, going to Greece, and we've, we've spoken about this on the podcast, but that connection piece, that's a really interesting perspective because I haven't really put that together, the like slowing down equals more connection. For me, it's very palpable, just the nervous system, like down regulation, that nervous system feeling like you're coming out of your head and into your body for the first time.

His name is Carl Honore and I might be saying his last name wrong, but what it says is slow living is a mindset whereby you curate a more meaningful and conscious lifestyle that's in line with what you value most in life. It means doing everything at the right speed.

Instead of striving to do things faster, the slow movement focuses on doing things better. Often that means slowing down. Doing less and prioritizing spending the right amount of time on the things that matter most to you and I really love that because it's not saying slow living equals eating slower.

That's one, I could just take that one thing and then see how that feels. Or for me right now, it's slowing down in motherhood. So business is going fast, you know, exercise, doing all the things, driving from school, all the things. But what I can do is when I am with my girls. for those, you know, three, four hours after school, I can put my phone away and I can practice slow living in that moment.

So it's like, maybe not trying to overhaul your whole life all at once, because we always know that that's not sustainable. Making any change has to start small and incremental. But maybe picking one area of your life where you would like to see more sustainable change and picking that area. Yeah,

Right? Does it just mean a couple of breaths before you go into that meeting or arriving at that meeting 10 minutes earlier than you usually do so you can sit in your car and say your affirmations or just take a moment to connect and pace yourself? I think sometimes when we want to create big changes in our lives, it could be It can feel overwhelming.

Track1-Mic 1: And we're going to dive deeper into other countries that do this really, really well. One thing also on this website that I think we can chat a little bit about is slow living denies that being busy equates to being successful or important.

It means being present and in the moment it celebrates quality over quantity. living with intense being conscious and considered to adopt a slower mindset is to switch off autopilot and make space for reflection and self awareness, which is a major cornerstone of yoga with self study and slow living means living better, not faster.

Everyone who's kind of doing this big wake up call right now. A couple years post pandemic, really asking themselves what is important to me and the slow living concept, the slow living movement is inviting us all to decide what's important and then slow it all down so that we can experience it better.

You know, have that longevity of the richness of that experience rather than just trying to tick off all these different bucket lists of things to do and people to be seen by. And that idea of success isn't. Being busy, success is being where you are, and feeling that fully, I think, is a lesson that all of us are trying to

Track2-Mic 2: We are a learning girl.

Track1-Mic 1: that's the great thing about going on retreat or some sort of guided... sabbatical, I guess you could call it. Guided, guided experience is that that's hard to do. A lot of us don't want to feel our feelings. We've been avoiding that our entire lives. We don't want to be where we are. We want to be 10 steps ahead.

That's the power of bringing that all together.

It's a cultural belief. So it's not only within our belief systems, just within our own families, but it's a cultural, a cultural belief. And so it does take some reprogramming that it isn't as easy, like it's not as easy said than done, right? Like we can say we want slow living, but are you taking the steps to make that happen?

And I find that retreats are accelerated experiences, like accelerated healing because you are just, you're subjected to the feeling of slowness and it can be really jarring. And I know we can chat maybe a little bit about this, like how many of our retreat guests were like, What the bleep? You know, what is going on?

And it was something that we had to request. Because naturally within the Greek culture, Mealtimes are about connection and slowing down. And for all of us, we were like, okay, what's next? And so yeah, there is these moments on retreats that really allow you to accelerate your healing around this belief because you are in the energy and in the feeling and we, we work and teach a lot around energy, especially when it comes to the energetics of asana that you teach through your workshops on retreats the energetics of sound that I teach through my certifications and on retreat as well.

So we are not burning out and can live a fuller and more complete life. And so it just, for me this year, it feels like, Everything's connecting in a really beautiful way, and I think that's what healing is truly all about.

Track1-Mic 1: I think you, you said it really well. We just finished up this weekend, our reset retreat, which is a one day retreat in Fort Lauderdale at a beautiful spa.

And it was a full day. So our guests really got to immerse themselves in what it would be like to be on a retreat, truly reset, come into the holiday season feeling really strong. You know, really empowered and connected to themselves, but something you said really well in the opening ceremony was how can we continue to go on these retreats and come home, but each time them not feel so drop jarring when we come back home, so it's not so much that you keep going on 678 retreats a year and then you come back home and everything still feels really shit at home.

And this is not just on retreat. If you, you're listening, if you're listening, you're into travel, right? So. For those listening into travel, you've been on a trip where you've come back home and you're like, Oh, I just don't want to be here anymore or inevitably on your last day of your trip, you're like, Oh, back to reality tomorrow.

Yeah,

Track2-Mic 2: results, I just want to jump in here because we are on some level like very result driven here.

We, we want to take you on retreat and just to Kind of second what you're saying Kel, it's like, it's not just about, you know, having the experience. We want you to have an incredible experience on Retreat. But if we know that your life has been enriched and you can like take the tips and the things that you've learned, the learning lessons from your experiences and make the overall quality of your life better because of it.

So off to Portugal we go, huh?

Track1-Mic 1: huh? Yeah, so with that, we just announced this week as of recording that we are launching our retreat in Portugal next summer called The Art of Slow Living.

In the Alentejo region of Portugal and we are so excited we are actually going to a retreat center that one of my dear friends has hosted a retreat before so we have very direct knowledge and experience of this beautiful property that we are working with and the owners that we've been talking to have just been so loving and kind and generous and they're so supportive.

And so So on top of everyone wanting to go to Portugal and then also this like combined intention, this collective intention of wanting to return back to slow living and return back to nature and, and have that really seeking that stronger connection within themselves and with the nature and all the good things we said, okay, this is a no brainer.

We're going to go to Portugal because it's one of the countries that truly embodies this slow living movement. The most and and it's woven into the fabric of their society. It's woven into the fabric of their daily interactions. So we said, Okay, next summer, your European summer, it's instead of hot girl summer, it can be slow living summer.

Make Seraphos our beautiful summer Greek home. But for those interested in Portugal and ready to sign up now, the applications are actually open right now. And for the first eight people to sign up, we are offering 100 off the retreat price, as well as 50 percent off our VIP package upgrade, which has so many amazing goodies and things.

And you can download our brochure through the show notes here. You can go to our website. Rising nature retreats dot com. You can go to our Instagram account at rising nature retreats and you can download the brochure to get all the information. But for those listening right now that want to get just like a little bit more information on why they should come to Portugal with us to explore this concept of slow living, it is the central theme of the entire retreat.

Chloe, what would you say to them? If someone was like, Hey, why should I go to Portugal with you? I

Track2-Mic 2: with you?

I would say if you are ready to embark on the next level of that, I would ask you to join us in Portugal and explore what it's like to use travel as one of profound and incredible ways to heal and to grow and to transform

and Portugal again, like I have, this has been a country that's been on my list forever.

So we're about 15 to 20 minutes away from the coastline. So you're going to be by the most incredible beaches and feel that water ocean energy that is incredibly healing, but also having that sweet. Reprieve and coziness of, you know, the olive tree groves and sitting under a shady tree with an amazing book and going on these lovely walks where you'll see all these wild flowers and, you know, just have nature surround, like being fully immersed.

So really excited. Come with us to Portugal you guys

Track1-Mic 1: And you know what, it's so accessible from the, at least from the east coast. I mean, you can get a direct flight straight into Lisbon. It's going to be an hour and a half drive from Lisbon airport. So in terms of just like ease of travel, it's definitely going to be something, especially if someone who's So if you're listening who hasn't been to Europe before or hasn't traveled alone before, this is a really accessible way to get over to Europe in a supportive container without having to take too many flights or connecting flights.

And so if you are wondering, okay, I get it. Art of, the art of slow living. I understand we need to slow down. These are some of the benefits that from theslowlivingmovement. com has, has been able to express why somebody should, should be taking those next steps into embracing slow living into their life.

So number one is you embrace more time by cutting out activities that distract you like social media scrolling or those that don't fulfill you like spending time with people who drain your energy. You are going to reclaim more time for self care. I know we always talk about, people always say, I don't have time for this.

Slow living means becoming more mindful, managing your stress and celebrating. Every little moment something we talk about a lot is we're like on to the next thing on to the next thing We're like wait, we just had a sold out retreat in so and so country Let's celebrate this like slowing down offers you the opportunity to celebrate the little moments and it makes you seem like your life is More enjoyable, right?

Like you're able to be like wow, there's a there's a lot of stress and a lot of challenge But there's also so much beauty Number three, building stronger relationships. This is the biggie. This is the connection that you were talking about, Chloe. Reducing stress, reclaiming your time and living mindfully can help you improve your quality of time with your loved ones.

Finding a better work life integration and making time for what's important to you. And the very last one, which is one that you just touched on and something that's so important to Chloe and I, why we place every single retreat in the exact locations that we do, is seeking a stronger connection with nature.

Slowing down can help us reconnect with nature and the pace and pattern of the seasons by embracing seasonal living and the slow food movement and getting outside more regularly.

Track2-Mic 2: Yes!

Track1-Mic 1: So you get to embrace all of those things on our retreat in Portugal. You are going to be in this container, like Chloe said, this accelerator of change, of healing, of observation.

You get to be in this accelerator and this catalyst for change within you so that you can fully embody what slow living means and then bring it back home with you and actually fully integrate that as well.

Track2-Mic 2: so excited.

Track1-Mic 1: know, right?

I've never spent money on before, but to know that you have plenty of time to plan for it, to save for it. To get a commitment from you guys, all we need is a deposit, you know, to a sacred yes that's like, yes, I'm committed to making this work and we can set up payment plans, get you situated, we truly created an experience leading up to the retreat itself that is very supportive.

Track1-Mic 1: go, let's do it, guys. So, as I said, anyone listening who is interested in just either learning more about us or learning more about the retreat, you can go to our website, risingnatureretreats. com. All the links to all the brochures will be in the show notes here, and Chloe and I will be jumping back on in December.

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