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The Slow Living Collective

The Slow Living Collective

Written by: Amy Pigott
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 Welcome to the slow living collective podcast, a podcast all about living a simple life, on your own terms. I’m Amy, mama of two from the UK who is on a quest to live life on my own terms and step into my own authenticity. Listen in while I delve into slow, simple and seasonal living, pottering around my allotment garden, home educating my children outside of the school system, being intentional, embracing my life as a homemaker and not being afraid to share who I am. Join me as we slow down, rest and dive into the nitty gritty topics of every day life.

theslowlivingcollective.substack.comAmy Pigott Alternative & Complementary Medicine Hygiene & Healthy Living Self-Help Success
Episodes
  • End-of-Year Reflection: How to Close Out the Year with Intention

    End-of-Year Reflection: How to Close Out the Year with Intention
    Dec 8 2025
    There’s something quietly powerful about the end of the year. Not the sparkle and rush of the Christmas season or the Pinterest perfect countdowns. But the hush that creeps in beneath it all if you let it.December, for me, isn’t about resolutions or big reinventions. I’m not trying to change my life in a flurry of pressure and self-improvement. I’m trying to listen. I’m trying to land. I’m trying to make space, not just in my calendar, but in my mind, my home, my nervous system.Looking Back Before Looking ForwardEvery December, before I even think about what’s next, I pause and look back. And not in a “Did I smash all my goals?” kind of way. That energy can stay in corporate-land as far as I’m concerned. This is more of a heart check. A quiet moment to ask:– What happened this year that really mattered?– What shifted — even slightly, that deserves noticing?– What parts of me feel stronger now? Softer? Clearer?I’m not chasing the highlights reel. I’m interested in the quiet wins. The emotional heavy lifting. The boundaries I held. The messy bits I got through. The growth that didn’t come with a certificate or a like count, but left its mark just the same.Clearing Space: Physically, Emotionally, SpirituallyAs the year ends, I naturally start tidying corners of the home, but also corners of my mind. The kitchen drawer that hasn’t closed properly since June gets sorted. So does the internal voice that’s been whispering unhelpful things all year. I ask:– What did I carry too long?– What did I say yes to that didn’t sit right?– What am I done pretending I need?I let those questions simmer while I potter about, sort through clothes, wipe down forgotten shelves. I don’t need a formal ritual or a vision board. I just need time. Space. A bit of silence. That’s where reflection lives, in the margins. In the not doing.Resetting the Rhythm (Not the Entire Life)I also take this time to check in on the rhythms we’ve built as a family. Especially around home education. What’s working? What’s feeling forced? What do we want to bring with us into the new year and what do we want to quietly leave behind?We talk about it as a family. My kids are part of this life, not just passengers in it. And I want them to grow up knowing that reflection isn’t something you squeeze into a single night before New Year’s, it’s a muscle. A way of moving through the world with intention.The same goes for work. I ask:– Did I enjoy what I created this year?– Did my work support the life I want, or get in the way of it?– Am I still aligned with what I set out to do?If the answer is no, I don’t panic, I just adjust, slowly and gently and with full permission to evolve.The Only Questions That MatterI don’t set big goals anymore. I’ve let go of trying to overhaul myself every January. Instead, I ask better questions. Questions that centre my life, not my to-do list.– How do I want to feel next year?– What kind of energy do I want in my mornings?– What rhythms support my peace?– What’s worth continuing and what’s done now?I’m not interested in striving just for the sake of it. I want to live. Fully, deeply, and slowly. I want to keep choosing contentment over comparison, presence over perfection.This is EnoughIt’s easy to get swept up in the idea that we should be doing more, earning more, achieving more by the time December rolls around. But I think that kind of thinking misses the point.I don’t want a new year that starts with pressure. I want one that starts with peace. And the only way I know to get there is to end this one with intention. With stillness. With space to breathe.So I clear the clutter.I tidy my thoughts.I honour what this year held, even the bits that didn’t go to plan.I forgive myself for the moments I fell short.I celebrate the ways I showed up.And I carry forward what still feels true.That’s it. That’s the practice.A New Year, Without the NoiseIf you’re feeling the tug to close this year slowly, follow it.Let the world hustle. You can soften. You can quiet the noise. You can decide that your version of “success” doesn’t need to come wrapped in urgency.There’s no need for a glow-up and no need to reinvent yourself. You are allowed to enter the new year gently, with gratitude, clarity and a deep knowing that this life, the one you’re already living, is worth honouring.Here’s to a soft landing. And a slower, deeper start. To hear more, visit theslowlivingcollective.substack.com
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    16 mins
  • Redefining Success

    Redefining Success
    Dec 1 2025
    There was a time when I thought success had a very specific look. It came with upgrades; a bigger home, a full calendar, promotions, excess, and maybe, eventually, a kitchen island. It was a life of steady expansion, of always reaching for the next thing. That’s what we’re sold, isn’t it? That progress is linear, tangible, and measurable. That you prove you’re doing well by stacking visible achievements on top of each other like building blocks. Bigger.Better.More.But eventually, I got tired. Not in the “I need a weekend off” kind of way but in a tired in my bones, in my brain and in my soul kind of way. Because the more I chased, the more I realised there was always something else to catch. One more rung on the ladder. One more level up. And it was never enough. The finish line just kept moving.When “Success” Stops Feeling SuccessfulWhat no one really tells you is that conventional success can become its own trap. It looks good from the outside'; shiny, impressive, easy to measure. But it’s often built on a foundation of pressure, pace, and self-abandonment. You start shaping your life around an image that was never actually yours. And one day, you realise that everything you’re chasing is costing you the very things that matter most: peace, presence, clarity, joy.That’s where I found myself. Living a life that looked “on track” but didn’t feel rooted. So I did something unexpected: I stepped off the path.These days, I don’t have a five-year plan or a desire to scale. I don’t have a dream home on my vision board. We live in a small 650 sq ft split level flat and plan to stay here permanently. We grow food in containers on the balcony and out our allotment. My Husband works from home full time, I work from home when I have time, I home educate my children and I say no to things that pull me out of alignment even if they look good on paper.And strangely, in the quiet of all that notchasing, I’ve found the version of success that actually fits me.For me now, success is being able to wake up slowly with my kids. It’s sitting down to lunch without rushing through it. It’s making food from scratch and knowing exactly where it came from. It’s writing words I believe in here. It’s going to bed with a calm nervous system and a full heart. It’s living in integrity with what I value, not with what I’ve been told to value.Letting Go of the Upgrade NarrativeRedefining success has meant releasing the belief that more automatically equals better. And that process is uncomfortable. Because the world doesn’t hand out awards for opting out. People don’t always understand when you say, “We’re not moving, actually.” Or, “No, I don’t want to grow this bigger.” Or, “That’s not the kind of busy I’m interested in”. But I’m not here to live for the applause. I’m here to live a life that feels like mine. Even if it doesn’t look like anyone else’s.There’s this cultural script that tells us we have to move fast to matter and that success is built in speed and hustle. But the more I slowed down, the more I realised that everything I wanted, connection, calm, clarity, was already here. It was just buried under noise.“No”One of the hardest, and most liberating, skills I’ve learned is how to say no. No to opportunities that look shiny but feel off. No to timelines that rush me. No to business tactics that don’t sit right in my gut. No to the idea that my worth is tied to how much I can produce.And that quiet voice that sometimes whispers, shouldn’t you be doing more?I hear it. I thank it. And then I let it go.Success now looks like saying, “This is enough for today.” It looks like resting without guilt. It looks like building a life I don’t need a holiday from.What If This Is Already Enough?The irony is, once I stopped chasing more, life started to feel more abundant. Not because I had more, but because I noticed more and noticed the feeling of being exactly where I’m supposed to be. We’re taught to associate success with expansion. But sometimes the real expansion happens when we choose to stay and when we root into the life we have instead of constantly reaching for something shinier.If you’ve been feeling tired of the chase, I want you to know that you’re not alone. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just waking up to the possibility that different doesn’t mean less. That maybe the life you’re building quietly, without the noise, without the spotlight, is more successful than you think.You’re allowed to want less.You’re allowed to stay small and steady.You’re allowed to redefine success on your own terms and mean it.Because the kind of success that matters isn’t something you climb toward. It’s something you grow into. And if you’re growing slowly and gently, in a way that actually feels like you? To hear more, visit theslowlivingcollective.substack.com
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    10 mins
  • How I Prepare for Winter and the Season of Stillness

    How I Prepare for Winter and the Season of Stillness
    Nov 24 2025
    There’s a point in the year, sometime after the clocks change and the air cools, when everything in me starts to shift gears. Not in a big dramatic way. More like an exhale I didn’t realise I was holding. The sun barely clears the horizon before it’s on its way down again, and I feel that pull inward. A sense that it’s time to quieten things down.It’s in that stretch between late autumn and early winter that I start preparing, not in the frantic, pre-Christmas way, but in a softer, steadier rhythm. A slow return to the essentials. The kind of preparation that says you don’t need to brace — you just need to be ready to rest.Creating a Home That Welcomes Winter InI always start with the space itself. Our flat is small, and once winter sets in, we’re in it together, both literally and figuratively. So I start by making room. Not for more stuff, but for the season itself. I clear surfaces. Tuck away the remnants of summer. Shift furniture ever so slightly to make space for what we’ll actually be doing, more reading, more snuggling, more long afternoons that never seem to get light.The blankets come out. I do a quick sweep of the kitchen, not for aesthetic reasons, but because we’re about to spend a lot more time there, stirring pots and making endless cups of herbal tea or coffe. I check the pantry for the staples that make winter cooking feel effortless: dried herbs, oats, tinned tomatoes, cinnamon. Essentially the building blocks of slow food.And I do a little mental check-in: Will this space carry us well through the colder days? Can we stretch out in it without bumping into stress? That’s really the goal. Not perfection. Just ease.Winter Is a MindsetOnce the physical space starts to feel more settled, I turn inward. Because winter, for me, anyway, isn’t about ticking off tasks. It’s about allowing a different kind of rhythm. A softer one. It’s when I stop expecting myself to run at the same speed as I did in the light-filled months of spring and summer.This season has a weight to it, but not in a bad way. It just asks more gently. It doesn’t push. It doesn’t shout. It simply says, you can go slower now. And so I listen. I pare back the calendar. I loosen my grip on what I thought I “should” be doing. I let mornings be slower. I let plans fall away without guilt. I look for what feels necessary — and what I can leave until spring.Home Education, But SofterOur home ed rhythm changes, too. The content doesn’t disappear but the delivery does. It becomes lighter and less about checking boxes, more about leaning into curiosity. We bring blankets to the floor and learn from under them. The world outside slows down, and I try to let our learning reflect that.I’m not trying to force productivity when everything around us is asking for presence instead. Some of the richest conversations we’ve had have come from cold walks, a cup of hot chocolate and a question asked out of nowhere. I make room for those moments, because they don’t happen when we’re rushing.The Subtle Work of Tuning InwardThere’s a kind of quiet personal work that surfaces at this time of year, a re-evaluation that happens naturally if you give it enough silence to rise. I don’t plan it. It just arrives.This is when I start asking different questions. Not “What’s next?” but “What do I actually need?” Not “How do I do more?” but “What’s quietly asking to be let go of?” I give myself the time to reflect, to notice what’s feeling heavy and what might not need to come with me into the new year.This kind of reflection doesn’t look impressive. It’s not always neat. But it clears mental space the same way tidying a shelf does. And it prepares me far more than any to-do list ever could.Holding Space for the Messy BitsOf course, it’s not all serene candlelight and cosy corners. Winter can bring up resistance. The stillness can feel itchy. The early darkness can feel suffocating. The quiet can be loud in its own way. And I think it matters to say that. Winter can feel restorative and raw. It’s not one or the other.So part of preparing for this season is reminding myself that I’m allowed to feel it all, the rest and the restlessness, the joy and the slump. I don’t need to perform contentment. I just need to let myself be in the season I’m in.And that leads nicely into letting winter be what it’s meant to be. I’ve stopped expecting winter to behave like spring. I’ve stopped expecting myself to bloom in a season that’s meant for stillness. That shift, from resisting the quiet to embracing it, has changed how I experience this part of the year.Preparing for winter now means slowing the pace on purpose. It means letting rest be a rhythm, not a reward. It means choosing calm over chaos — not because I’ve got it all together, but because I’ve learned that pushing through only leaves me more tired come January.So I take a little off our plates. I close the laptop ...
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    18 mins
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