Grandmacore, The Old-Fashioned Way of Living We All Need Right Now
Us millennials, our generation is perhaps the most blessed generation I feel. I know we went through so much compared to our older generations and even to newer ones but somewhere I think, our generation has finally realized before its too late to slow down and devote more time where your life really needs it.
Adapt habits that your life will thank you for and not just to please our forever hungry mind.
I am loving this feeling of returning to something old. 🎀
Something our grandmothers and their mothers lived without ever needing to name it.
Grandmacore is what people are calling it now. And it is such a fitting name because when I think about how the older generation in our families lived, it was just… present. Grounded. The day had a rhythm.
There was time for prayer, for sitting outside, for making things, for being with people without half a mind somewhere else.
I have been trying to bring some of it back into my own life and all I feel is gratitude that somewhere my paths were corrected before it was late.
These are the everyday habits (or rituals) I am talking about.
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1. An early morning walk in the quiet
Going out in the morning, around 6 or so, before the day gets busy, is something I have come to really love. The ambience feels so different, so peaceful at that hour.
I don’t even like to wear AirPods at that hour.
I know this gets talked about a lot but I genuinely love that. That stillness? There are so many things where we are never able to express the emotion in words and the early morning is one of that. To me at least. ♥️
Our grandmothers walked in the morning as a matter of course and it was just part of how a morning went.
2. Starting the day with naam jap or a moment of prayer
Our ancestors had time for devotion. They prioritized it. Our grandparents would always start their day with a small prayer. A sense of gratitude. That was just how a day began. This is something the older generation never skipped.
I do naam jap and even on the mornings I feel scattered, sitting with it for ten or fifteen minutes settles the mind.
But, I’ll be honest, I didn’t adapt this habit from my older generation. This was something that was gone with them.
If there is one person who corrected our paths, our way of living everyday life, is Premanand Ji Maharaj (My guru 🙏) who literally made his mission to make younger generation realize it before its too late.
And I don’t think so there is single person on earth on doesn’t know about him. 🥹
Whether you sit with a mantra, visit a temple, or light a diya and stand quietly for a moment, this kind of beginning changes the quality of the whole day. Our grandmothers knew this without ever analysing it.
Being a devotee has nothing to do with living a boring life or using incense every now and then. It’s literally about living a better, purposeful life that only rewards us with sense of fulfillment and gratitude.
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3. Sitting under the sun for a little while
I have written about this before in my mental clutter article because I genuinely believe in it. Sunlight does something for the mind and body that is hard to explain but very easy to feel.
It heals us.
Our grandmothers sat outside in the morning, oiled their hair in the sun, stayed in the courtyard a little longer than necessary.
Being outside was not a break from the day. It was part of the day to live more intentionally. Even 15 or 20 minutes makes a real difference to how I feel.
4. Making something with your hands slowly, over time
Crochet, candle making, infusing herbs in oil for your hair, embroidery. Something that takes time and patience and does not need to be finished today.
Our grandparents always had something like this nearby. A project being made slowly over days or weeks. There is a very particular kind of calm that comes from working with your hands on something unhurried and I have been missing it without fully realising it.
I want to try making candles. The process of it, choosing the scents, warming the wax, and letting it sit. Thinking and talking about it only is doing the magic. 🙉
5. Evening time with family, chai, whatever conversation comes
This has always been part of life in most of our homes and it is one of the things I love most about how the older generation lived. The evening had this natural gathering quality.
Someone makes chai, snacks come out, and everyone is just around. Talking about small things. Nothing important necessarily, just being together.
What I have been more conscious of lately is actually being present for it. Not half on my phone, not half somewhere else mentally. Just in that time, properly. And it always leaves the evening feeling more complete.
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6. Asking your parents what their everyday life looked like growing up
Our parents carry whole worlds in their memories that most of us have never thought to ask about.
What did ordinary evenings look like when they were young. What did they eat on regular days. What did their mothers do in the mornings, what small rituals did the women in their family have.
These conversations start casually and then go somewhere really beautiful.
I always come away from them holding something I did not have before.
Some small detail about a life that was lived fully and quietly, long before I came along. And it makes me want to live my own ordinary days with a little more care.
7. An evening without the short video scroll
On the evenings I step away from reels and short videos. A longer conversation, a book I kept meaning to read, just sitting quietly, my cats doing something I would have completely missed otherwise.
Our grandmothers’ evenings wound down naturally when the light faded. The day had an end.
That feeling of an evening that actually closes is something worth having again, even if we have to be a little deliberate about it.
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8. Walking to a nearby place you have never tried
A small local curiosity, close to home. Pick somewhere you have passed many times and never gone into. Go on an ordinary evening with nothing particular attached to it.
Our ancestors had this kind of simple exploration built into their days.
A new stall at the market, something a neighbour recommended, a seasonal thing they had not tasted before. Small and unhurried. There is real pleasure in that kind of evening.
9. Going to bed at 10 on some nights
Every day I went to bed at 10, was the best thing that happened because I would then naturally wakeup early. But the days when I watch something or sleep around 12, it just messes up.
Waking up at 8 or 9 doesn’t has the exact feeling waking up early morning has.
The older generation never had to think about this. The day ended and they slept. We have so many reasons to stay up now and most of them are not even worth it.
10. Asking your parents about their parents who came before them
This goes a little deeper than asking about their own childhood. What were their mothers like. What do they remember about their grandfathers. What small things did their parents do that stayed with them across all these years.
My father has shared things in these conversations that I would never have known otherwise. And every time, there is this feeling of understanding something about where I come from.
The women before me who lived quietly and fully in their own ordinary days, who never called it slow living, who just lived.
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That is what grandmacore comes back to for me. A quiet gratitude for a way of being that was never trying to be anything special. It just was. And somewhere in us, we already know it. We are just finding our way back.
Save this for later 💕
