And on a deeper level, you know a slower pace of life when you are at home and with your children would improve your presence with them, and ensure you don’t miss a moment of their ever-changing childhood. And you know you’d feel true contentment if you leaned into a softer, slower version of motherhood.

But...real life gets in the way. You’ve got a job, your kids are young and rambunctious, you’ve got chores, and who has time for all that slowing down anyways?

Slow Mothering in a Fast-paced World

Choosing to slow down in your motherhood journey is an intentional motherhood decision. It’s a way of quietly aligning your values of presence and purpose with a life that reflects them.

In a world that moves faster than human brains were ever wired to think, leaning into a slower pace in your relationship with your children gently rejects society’s standard. It offers your children something so many miss out on: true, unrestricted presence and attention.

How do you approach a slower pace when your reality moves a mile a minute? Don’t discount the mothering style you find most aligned with your values just because society’s pace differs. Your belief that slow motherhood is possible amidst a busy life is your first step toward making it happen.

The Mindset around Slow Motherhood

Ugh, another wellness person talking about mindset, am I right?

The thing is, mindset really is a critical component in achieving anything, whether you’re climbing the corporate ladder, finishing a marathon, or, indeed, implementing a less than common motherhood style. Whether you think you can do something influences whether you do it.

I wanted to start with mindset in this series because, even when you strive to implement tangible change, mindset has the power to block that initiative and snap you back into your old rhythms. Don’t skip the subtle but powerful practice of editing your thoughts and words to reflect the lifestyle you are embodying.

Your belief that you can find a slower path at home and with your children is crucial to actually finding said path. I know you’re skeptical, so start by editing your mindset over the next few weeks with the suggestions below.

Three Mindset Shifts to Lean into Slow Motherhood

1. We don’t have time -> We have time. Watch your thoughts and your words over the next couple of weeks. How often do you tell your family you don’t have time for something? Is it true? Start the rewiring process by deciding, actively, that you do indeed have time to read a book, listen to a story, or examine a leaf, bug, or rock. Okay, but what about the times we really, really don’t have time like when the oven is beeping while the pasta boils over and we all know mornings can get a little hectic? Well, if it’s true, you can say it. But taking a moment to pause before you do ensures you’re not solidifying a state of rushing into your head (and your family’s) when the reality is different.

2. I’ll slow down when X happens -> I’m slowing down now. Ah, the age-old achievement cycle. We’re pushing for something that we just know we can reach in the future, but by the time we do, we’re already so set on the next milestone, we don’t even realize we are sitting on something that used to feel so important. You can live your whole life pushing for milestones or you can live it experiencing the journey to those milestones. When the in-between is watching your kids pass through their own milestones, finding purpose in “smaller” pursuits like a craft project or garden task, and simply feeling good in your day to day, you realize X thing happening for you is not the end all and be all. When you catch yourself rationalizing opting out of your values because you need X to happen first, take mental note and provide yourself a new rationale for leaning into your values instead.

3. I can’t actually have a slow lifestyle like X person -> My slow motherhood journey is my own. We all know comparison is the thief of joy! The mindset that you can’t have a slow lifestyle like someone else does have some truth to it. You can’t live that way because you’re not them. You’re starting where you are now, with everything that encompasses, and they started somewhere else. Journeying into a slower, more intentional path is a deeply personal choice rooted in your own values and your own understanding of what is important in your life, for your family, and as a mother. Watch when your thoughts fall into the comparison trap and do what you can to avoid triggers (like reducing your scroll time on social media). When you find you’re comparing yourself to someone else, recognize what’s happening and offer a gentle internal reminder that you are where you’re supposed to be.

More Ways to Slow Down

• Two-minute Reset Meditations for Routine Calm Days includes ten completely free two-minute meditations for you to capture a moment of calm right now, without spending an hour at the yoga studio or taking paid leave.

• The Mama Naturalist on my website and Substack is a space where I share both conceptual and practical guidance on slowing down, connecting to nature, and living seasonally.

• Mindful Moms Digest offers exclusive yoga and meditation classes, nature stories from a wildlife biologist (me!), and free, supportive resources including links back to every blog post for busy, working moms journeying toward a slower, more seasonal way of life.

• Cultivate Calm Mornings is a structured series of three yoga workshops that supports you in transforming your morning routine from chaotic to calm.

Are you doing what you’re supposed to be doing? Focus in school so you can go to college and get a degree. Find a job in your field and achieve your way to your first promotion. When you’re not focused on work, go on first dates until you find the one. Marry them. Buy the white picket fence house. Have babies.

That’s the dream, right?

Well, maybe. What happens when you change your mind about your career path? Or when you want a little more time to pursue your hobbies? Or when you don’t like living in the suburbs? What happens when you glimpse a vision of something a little different that you think could feel a lot better?

You make a decision. Intentionally or unintentionally, you decide whether you’ll explore that other vision or carry on down the path society already defined. And you already know the easier path.

Intentional Living as a Path to Contentment

Intentional living is the path out of the cookie-cutter life and into one defined by you. It doesn’t mean bucking every piece of the American dream and living an alternative lifestyle.

Intentional living means clearly understanding your values and ensuring the life you lead reflects them. It’s leaning into what’s right for you, regardless of whether it aligns with society’s standards.

The concept is simple, but not always easy, especially when making subtle shifts into your values means rewriting habits, editing your family routines, and making changes that don’t make sense to the people closest to you.

But living in alignment with your values is the only path to contentment.

Journaling Exercise

Ask yourself:

• What are your values? This one might take some time, but it’s something you can journal and think on over the course of a few days or weeks until you find a handful that feel like they represent you at your core.

• Which parts of your life are out of alignment with your identified values? Think through your day to day as well as how you tend to spend your time over the course of a year. Connect those activities to your values, or note where they don’t align.

• Identify a change you can start making today to step into greater alignment with your values. Remember, it doesn’t have to be radical; it can be a simple shift that pushes you just one step closer to your living your values each day. That’s intentional living.

Defining Intentional Motherhood

Intentional motherhood is a reflection of intentional living. It’s identifying what matters most in your motherhood journey and making choices that align with those priorities for your relationship with your children.

Motherhood in particular is almost easier to steer to your own personal values because societal norms are arguably less defined. No matter the decisions you make in motherhood, you’ll find someone cheerleading that choice and someone shaming it.

Quit work and you’re not providing for your kids, but stay and you’re handing the responsibility of raising them to someone else. Breastfeed or formula feed. Buy new clothes or accept hand-me-downs. Co-sleep or sleep train. The list goes on and on (I bet you can name a few!) and there are proponents and antagonists galore on every side.

Knowing there will always be someone for you and someone against you in your mothering choices makes mothering intentionally particularly freeing. You do you.

In my world, you’ll find a push toward living slower and more seasonally, mothering slower and more seasonally, and doing it all even while providing financially for my family. What about your family?

Journaling Exercise

Ask yourself:

• What are your priorities when it comes to mothering? What matters most to you and your children when you examine your relationship with them? Think big picture for these questions.

• Which parts of your day are exemplary of these priorities? Get more specific here. Consider what you are doing and what your children are doing when you feel most aligned with the priorities you identified. Note if moments or routines in your day are consistently out of alignment with those priorities.

• Choose one moment, activity, or shift in your daily rhythm where you can lean more intentionally into your mothering priorities. Write it down and commit to doing it tomorrow.

More Ways to Slow Down

• Two-minute Reset Meditations for Routine Calm Days includes ten completely free two-minute meditations for you to capture a moment of calm right now, without spending an hour at the yoga studio or taking paid leave.

• The Mama Naturalist on my website and Substack is a space where I share both conceptual and practical guidance on slowing down, connecting to nature, and living seasonally.

• Mindful Moms Digest offers exclusive yoga and meditation classes, nature stories from a wildlife biologist (me!), and free, supportive resources including links back to every blog post for busy, working moms journeying toward a slower, more seasonal way of life.

• Cultivate Calm Mornings is a structured series of three yoga workshops that supports you in transforming your morning routine from chaotic to calm.

Your motherhood can reflect the fast-paced chaos of today’s society, or it can reflect the natural daily and annual shifts that are observable right outside your window. You decide.

The Frazzled Mom Stereotype

We know her, and yes, we so often are her. The frazzled mom is yanking on her clothes while pouring the coffee. She’s flinging breakfast foods at the kids while packing their bags. She slides into work just on time and pours her energy into that job. Later, the frazzled mom is struggling to get dinner on the table before bath and bedtime pass her by. She’s collapsed on the couch by the end of the night.

We see her in movies, read her in books, and relate more than we care to admit. Maybe we even laugh about just how much we relate to her with our mom friends.

But it’s deeper than a hectic lifestyle, isn’t it?

It’s wishing you had just a few more minutes to cook breakfast and enjoy it together. It’s joyfully watching your kids explore, play, and read, but turning away because somebody has to wrap up the housework.

It’s the clear knowing that they’re growing, developing, and changing every single day. That 18 years seems like a long time until you think about how much of it has already passed.

None of us can slow time, but we can experience the time we have more deeply. If you could shift your frazzled mom days just a little toward calmer presence, would you take that opportunity?

The Antidote in Nature’s Rhythms

Nature is consistent. She ebbs and flows with the seasons, predictably and without hurry. She pushes and grows and thrives and she tucks away to rest. She knows that every moment comes in its own time and she allows them to come and go without fear. The flowers’ spring beauty is just as reliable as their fall withering. The birds’ journey south come winter is countered by their spring migration north again.

Much like us, nature is not infallible. She can rage and storm, and even she can fail when she’s under too much pressure. But she knows resilience. She knows that floodwaters recede and that in the wake of a clearcut, sun-loving species thrive.

So how does consistency, predictability, and resilience translate into an antidote for the frazzled mom stereotype?

Nature provides a mirror. We are part of nature, after all, no matter how persistently we’ve worked as a species to separate ourselves. If we’re willing to look inside this mirror, we can start to understand the areas of our lives that don’t align with our natural state. Whether that’s pushing without rest, grasping onto moments that are ready to shift into new seasons, or lingering within a storm, we can use nature’s examples to step back into harmony with her. And those simple steps can guide us toward a motherhood, and indeed life, rooted in contentment (and far removed from the all too familiar frazzled state).

Repairing the Nature-Motherhood Connection

The key to leaning into a seasonal, nature-centered approach to living is observation. What is going on outside? Take notice when you step outside to let the dog out, go for your morning walk, or sip your coffee. You don’t need fancy hiking gear or the best garden on the block to start reflecting.

What kind of energy do you feel when you observe nature’s rhythms? There’s a reason a heavy rain is best accompanied by a good reading session curled up on the couch or the first signs of spring bring on a desire to reawaken and clean the home.

We’re intuitively driven to follow these rhythms, but the demands of every day life and work have separated us from that intuition. Observation and reflection are the free and easy first step into repairing our lost connection with nature.

Observing and reflecting may sound well and good, but how does that stepping stone translate into mothering less chaotically and more centered? This is your decision point. If a slower, more seasonal motherhood and life feel right, it is in your hands to make that change for yourself and your family.

Critically, the change can’t come from a place of control, overhaul, and rule-making about how things will be moving forward. Just as nature offers her example, you must turn inward to shift your center away from the hectic norm to a grounded calm so you can show up as the anchored example for your family. Tap into tools like yoga, meditation, breathwork, and journaling to begin to reset your own rhythms in alignment with nature.

And, take it one step at a time. Trying to completely rearrange your life, especially when you attempt to drag your family along, is a recipe for falling back into the stress cycle as soon as things don’t go exactly as planned. Like spring days that give us a glimpse of summer then fall back into a cold spell, the shifts into a seasonal life are gradual and non-linear. Accepting that this change will happen slowly honors the slower-paced rhythm of nature you’re trying to achieve.

Start with this 2-minute Nature Nourishment Meditation and allow the beauty, steady wisdom, and grounding energy of nature to seep into your day.

More Ways to Slow Down

• Two-minute Reset Meditations for Routine Calm Days includes ten completely free two-minute meditations for you to capture a moment of calm right now, without spending an hour at the yoga studio or taking paid leave.

• The Mama Naturalist on my website and Substack is a space where I share both conceptual and practical guidance on slowing down, connecting to nature, and living seasonally.

• Mindful Moms Digest offers exclusive yoga and meditation classes, nature stories from a wildlife biologist (me!), and free, supportive resources including links back to every blog post for busy, working moms journeying toward a slower, more seasonal way of life.

• Cultivate Calm Mornings is a structured series of three yoga workshops that supports you in transforming your morning routine from chaotic to calm.