DesignShift Practice Session: From Speed To Market to Slowing Down
In December 2024, we hosted our second DesignShifts Practice Session. This was an opportunity to move from theory to practice and explore some of the DesignShifts in community. In this session, we explored how we might move from speed to market to slowing down—a space for us to think about, feel, and be with slowness.
Session overview
Capitalism teaches us urgency. Urgency places us in a space of shame, manipulation, and either/or thinking. Urgency harms. Slow gives us space to dream, wonder, and explore the power of creativity through abundance, not depletion.
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. What if what we designed aligned with the pace and rhythms of nature? What if we lived at the pace of our hearts?
Through sensing, connection, movement, and co-creating we spent time in a space of slowness.
For this session, DesignShifts partnered with Anna Várnai
She is a designer, Researcher & Faciliator with a focus on Regeneration x Transformations.
Session highlights
Through pair discussions, we connected around our relationship to time/speed and what we’re noticing about the pace we’re moving at. Here are a few themes that emerged:
Conscious Choice vs. Collective Pressure
There is awareness that slowing down is a choice, reconnecting to what we want, yet also a sense of overwhelm as well as a lack of confidence to make that choice as the cultural "rat race" and societal norms encourage burnout and depletion.
Modern life promotes scarcity mindsets and feelings of "not enough," which make slowing down feel unnatural or unattainable.
The Cycle of Breakdown and Pause
People often rush until they hit a breaking point before pausing to reflect. There is curiosity about why we need to reach a low point to reconnect with our needs and pace, instead of following others’ speed unconsciously. Slowing down requires relearning to “just be”, rest, pause, and conscious speed—acknowledging how difficult it can be.
Guilt and Anxiety Around Rest
Rest in our productivity-focused society and market might be experienced as a guilty pleasure, not a natural right. Slowing down creates anxiety about "falling behind," while maintaining speed generates its own anxiety. There is a tension between societal expectations to keep up and the need for rest as a natural need and form of resistance.
Modern Overwhelm and Information Overload
People feel like they have “a thousand tabs open” in their minds, leading to mental clutter. The pace of modern life prioritizes speed and information over wisdom, leaving little room to "decompose" or integrate.
Slowing Down as Abundance and Liberation
References to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s work highlight how slowing down connects to abundance and challenges man-made scarcity. To stop, reflect, and move at a natural pace was mentioned as powerful, creative, and liberating. Flow activities, play, and embodied processes are essential ways to reclaim time and break free from constant output.
A Collective Experience
The struggle to slow down is not individual but collective. The relationship with time and speed reflects a collective tension: the desire to slow down, rest, and celebrate the present while being constrained by societal norms, anxiety, and scarcity mindsets. There is power in consciously choosing slowness, and supporting each other in doing so, embracing play and flow, recognizing rest as both a necessity and a form of resistance. 🌱
Rituals for slowing down
As part of the session, we co-created slow down rituals. Themes emerged around finding space to work with our hands and limiting out digital interactions. Additionally, as part of signing up for the session, participants submitted their favorite slowdown rituals. We captured them here.
I don’t belong to the grind
At the end of the session, we shared a Rest Card from Tricia Hersey that said “Rest in the truth of the power you hold over grind culture. A full mental shift start in your quiet moments. You will get your healing via rest. You will be disruptive and push back. You will slow down. You will take a nap. You will rest. You will find silence.”
Links and Resources
A few resources related to slowing down was mentioned during the session. We’re sharing the links here. Take your time with these resources. They are not be be consumed but rather to be experiences.
