SPILL THE (GREEN) TEA: How to talk about sustainability without getting called out

Brackish is a term used to describe water that is a mixture of saltwater and freshwater, for example, where a river meets the sea.

‘I first encountered it sitting in a boat in just such water and it immediately became one of my favourite words. I am fascinated by intersections, liminal and littoral spaces, overlaps and interconnections, and I want to use this space to explore all of those things – the ideas that don’t fit into neat boxes.

So, I’ll be exploring those things here – the places where craft meets nature, where the rules don’t apply and ‘shoulds’ start to fall away. From occasional ‘salty’ language to refusing to adhere to feminine standards of beauty or behaviour, I am leaning into my brackish era – and I’m doing it here with some brilliant women and non-binary folks who are doing the same.’

In this episode of Brackish, Katie speaks with coach Joeli Caparco about reframing our approach to winter, New Year's resolutions, and life cycles. Joeli (she/they) works with overachievers, perfectionists, overthinkers, and people pleasers to help them create lives they love and businesses that fit within those lives.

Episode Summary

Joeli and Katie explore why the "New Year, New You" narrative is problematic, especially in the Northern Hemisphere's winter season. They discuss viewing the year as a circle rather than a linear progression, and delve into the four feminine archetypes - particularly what the mother phase means if you don’t have kids, and the often-overlooked Enchantress phase.

Key Topics

* Why "New Year, New You" messaging is rooted in capitalism and diet culture

* The importance of viewing the year cyclically rather than linearly

* Understanding winter as a time for rest and dreaming

* The seed catalogue metaphor for winter planning

* The four feminine archetypes: Maiden, Mother, Enchantress, and Crone

* Reframing your middle years through the lens of the Enchantress archetype

Highlights

Happiness should come first, rather than being a reward for achieving external goals

"And I remember a conversation that we had, when I said something like, well, if I do x, y and z, then I'll achieve this, and then I'll be happy. And you were like, Well, how about if you do the things that make you happy, then you'll be happy. So obvious, but my little brain just went, ‘Oh, I didn't realize that was an option! I just get to do the things that make me happy now?’ Well, yeah, and this is another symptom of all of the culture that creates this January new you idea. It's that your happiness is external to you, that you have to earn it."

The Enchantress archetype represents a powerful phase of wisdom and authenticity

"From 60 to 80, those would be your wintering years, those would be your elder years, those would be your crone years. So it really brings in this kind of third quarter where, if you think about the energy of the season of autumn and if you think about the energy of your premenstrual part of your cycle. If you have or had a cycle where you're like, I don't give a single thought about what someone else thinks of me. Like, I'm raging. All of your emotions are heightened, all of that is what we're thinking about when we think about Enchantress. The Enchantress is, to me, the typical, or like the archetypical... badass woman, right? Like she's done with... she knows who she is. They know who they are. They have figured out their place in family and in world, and now they're ready to shed their shoulds."

Winter is naturally a time for rest, reflection

"If you imagine the Wheel of the Year, if we just think about the four seasons of winter, spring, summer and autumn, in spring, all of the plants are coming up that we've planted them in winter. And in spring, you really need to be tending to those tiny baby shoots. They have to be protected before they can go outside. So spring, things are starting to emerge. Our baby animals are coming out. In summer, we're really in the height of things growing things. It could be potentially a harvest time, although normally we would think about harvest time as autumn, but I think summer is really that height of working in the fields, traditionally, if we were farmers, and also playing because the days are long. Autumn, we're really harvesting. We've got to get everything in. We've got to get things canned. We have to prepare for the dark winter. But then what are we doing when we come back around to winter? We're getting out our seed catalogs, and we're thinking, what am I going to plant?"

Winter Wisdom

Joeli's tip: Tune into how your body feels and what it's craving - there's no "right" way to winter. Some people need rest, others find energy in the darker months.

Katie's tip: Keep the fairy lights up after Christmas to maintain some cosy warmth through winter.

Connect with Joeli

* Website: joelicoparco.com

* Instagram: @joelicaparco

Connect with Katie:

* Instagram: @katietreggiden.1

Books we mentioned:

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Birkman (this is an affiliate link)

It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now by Barbara Sher

Check out my full Bookshop.org podcast reading list to find links to all the books mentioned throughout Season 6 of Brackish.

Useful Links:

Try out a nature-informed coaching tool - Find a spot in a blue (or green) space where you can spend some time without being interrupted and try out this ‘four directions meditation’ to reflect on the sustainability journey you’re on and try out a nature-informed tool at the same time.

Spread the Word:

Please share Brackish with wild abandon – and show us some love by following, subscribing or leaving a review. All that good stuff tells the ‘algorithm Gods’ to show the podcast to more people, and that can only be a good thing, right?

Dive deeper:

You can find the poem Katie shared on this episode along with other poems, nature-connection prompts, and short personal essays on her Substack.

Brackish is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

About Katie Treggiden:

Katie Treggiden (she/her) is a craft, nature and sustainability writer, certified Blue Health Coach™ and the author of Brackish on Substack. She grew up in Cornwall and as a child, took for granted that you could catch mackerel for the barbeque from a day boat, find grasshoppers between molehills on the lawn, and watch bats catching insects at dusk. When she returned in 2017, it was not the county she remembered. There were no longer enough mackerel for it to be worth taking a boat out fishing, and as for the grasshoppers, molehills and bats? Nowhere to be seen. In fact the Living Planet Report published by the WWF in 2024 estimates a 73% loss in biodiversity in roughly the time she has been alive. Baba Dioum said, “In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand.” So Katie is a storyteller. If she can help people to understand and connect with nature through her poems, short stories, and Blue Health Coaching™, perhaps we can reverse that decline – and feel a whole lot better in the process because we are not separate from nature, as much as modern living might try to convince us we are.

In this episode, Katie talks to Elle Bower Johnston. Elle (she/they) is a body witch. Their work is the alchemisation of breathwork, somatic, and rest practices with witchcraft and folk magic. She works with creatives, witches, queers, change-makers, weirdos - folks who might not necessarily feel like they belong in ‘wellness’ or ‘spiritual’ spaces - to help them get into deeper their relationship with their body and connect with their magic.

Her work is queer- and trans-centred, trauma-conscious, and rooted in unravelling colonialism and capitalism from the ways we relate to our bodies. They believe that our personal practices can be microcosms of liberation that spiral out and create a better world.

During this Katie & Elle discuss:

• The societal pressure to stay "busy" and how it often undermines our well-being
• How moving through space—whether walking, driving, or traveling by train—enhances mental clarity and creativity. 
• Understanding different types of rest and exploring rest from various perspectives—physical, mental, spiritual, and social.
• The liberating power of saying "no" and how starting from a place of refusal can help reclaim energy and create space for true rest.
• The paradox of needing to slow down in an urgent world

You can connect with Elle here

Website: ellebowerjohnston.com

Instagram: @ellebowerjohnston

Free Notion dashboard of rest practices for rebels - Radical Rest Portal

Here are some highlights:

The Pressure of Productivity 

"Nobody comes up to me and says, ‘You seem inspired at the moment or happy or well-rested.’ It’s always, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so busy,’ as if productivity is the only measure of success. But what about asking if my work is bringing me joy?”

Embracing the Chaos of Rest 

"Rest isn’t just about napping or yoga Nidra. It’s anything that connects your mind and body, bringing you back to a sense of wholeness. It’s about exploring different layers of self and finding coherence, whether it’s through traditional practices or something as simple as revisiting childhood movies."

The Power of Saying No

"Starting from a place of refusal is a form of reclaiming energy. We often move with this sense of ‘I have to, I have to,’ but by saying no, we allow ourselves to drop back, be present, and reclaim rest as an act of self-care."

The Importance of Listening to the Body

"Listening to your body is key. It’s not just about what your mind wants but also what your body needs. Sometimes, rest is about allowing your body to guide you, trusting its signals, and respecting the need to pause, breathe, and reset."

Books, Podcasts & Articles we mentioned:

Experiments in Imagining Otherwise by Lola Olufemi

The BBC’s Witch podcast

Emergent Strategy by Adriene Marie Brown

Making Design Circular Conference – 2024

LEARN HOW TO TALK ABOUT YOUR ECO-EFFORTS WITH CONFIDENCE so you can connect with values-aligned clients and customers without the fear of getting called out.

10 am–5 PM BST Thursday 05 September 2024

A 1-day virtual conference for purpose-driven founders making imperfect progress towards genuine environmental sustainability.

Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world

Katie’s sixth book celebrates 25 artists, curators, menders and re-makers who have rejected the allure of the fast, disposable and easy in favour of the patina of use, the stories of age and the longevity of care and repair. Accompanying these profiles, six in-depth essays explore the societal, cultural and environmental roles of mending in a throwaway world.

Cultivating Hope, 3 part mini course: Are you ready to cultivate hope in the face of the climate crisis? Sign up to Katie’s three-part free mini course that will help you move through feelings of helplessness, reconnect with nature and take aligned action.

Making Design Circular membership: An international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople – join us!

Spread the Word:

Please share Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden with wild abandon — with your friends, family, and fellow purpose-driven founders of making-based businesses or wherever interesting conversations about creativity happen in your world! 

If you love what you’re listening to, show us some love by following Circular with Katie Treggiden in this app and leaving a review. All that good stuff tells the ‘algorithm Gods’ to show the podcast to more people, and that can only be a good thing, right?

Sign up for our my e-newsletter ‘Weekly(ish) Musings for Curious, Imperfect and Stubbornly Optimistic Environmentalists’ - just click here.

And find me on the Interwebs:  @katietreggiden (Twitter, TikTok), & @katietreggiden3908 (YouTube) & @katietreggiden.1 (Instagram) – and if you’re a designer, maker, artist or craftsperson, join me on IG @making_design_circular_

About Katie:
Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular – an international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople. She is also an author, journalist and podcaster championing a hopeful approach to environmentalism. With more than 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, Crafts Magazine and Dezeen. She is currently exploring the question ‘Can craft save the world?’ through her sixth book, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023), this very podcast.

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

In this episode, Katie talks to Rosie Murphy. Rosie is a consummate communicator and connector.

She is just one of a broad ecosystem of architectural workers uniting for greater social justice and environmental consciousness in all aspects of the built environment. She is an advocate for networks such as Black Females in Architecture, HomeGrown Plus and Architects Climate Action Network. 

Rosie's work is centred on youth engagement, creating creative opportunities and experiences for children and young people to be empowered, informed and activated citizens of the future. Rosie works collaboratively across boundaries of design, education and activism in the UK and her new community in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

During this Katie & Rosie discuss:

• The importance of a non-linear approach to design thinking
• Collaboration as an expression of hope 
• How true collaboration requires honesty about power imbalances and a commitment to sharing power where possible, even when it’s challenging.
• The idea that collaboration can be deeply informed by observing and learning from nature
• Challenges in collaboration
• The importance of integrating cultural identity into design work

You can connect with Rosie here

Website:  https://rosiemurphyme.wixsite.com/onlineportfolio

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/rosiemurphy.me

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/contact-rosiemurphy/ 

Here are some highlights:

Embracing Non-Linear Design Thinking

"So this non-linear cycle includes points like ideation, reflection, prototyping and testing, so a lot of aspects of the design process that we're very familiar with, but I feel with a greater sensitivity to community, to ancestry and history, and to a great sensitivity to nature and resources, and yeah, in the way that it's laid out in this koru, this spiral which itself is taken from nature."

Understanding Power Dynamics in Collaboration

"…power is absolutely the most important and most essential aspect of collaboration... collaboration is not equal, there are many different forms of collaboration from community engagement to citizen participation, all the way up to citizen empowerment."

Learning from Nature’s Wisdom

"I just wanted to share a quite beautiful Maori proverb or saying that I was just introduced to recently, which is erere kau, mai te awa nui, mai te kahui, maunga ki tangaroa, pō au te awa, pō te awa, pō au. And that means the river flows from the mountain to the sea, I am the river, the river is me. And for me, that is truly understanding the fact that we are not separate to nature, we are not separate to the natural world, that the way that we operate is part of this global environmental system."

Books, Podcasts & Articles we mentioned:

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

Drunk Women Solving Crime Podcast with hosts Hannah George and Taylor Glenn

Making Design Circular Conference – 2024

LEARN HOW TO TALK ABOUT YOUR ECO-EFFORTS WITH CONFIDENCE so you can connect with values-aligned clients and customers without the fear of getting called out.

10 am–5 PM BST Thursday 05 September 2024

A 1-day virtual conference for purpose-driven founders making imperfect progress towards genuine environmental sustainability.

Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world

Katie’s sixth book celebrates 25 artists, curators, menders and re-makers who have rejected the allure of the fast, disposable and easy in favour of the patina of use, the stories of age and the longevity of care and repair. Accompanying these profiles, six in-depth essays explore the societal, cultural and environmental roles of mending in a throwaway world.

Cultivating Hope, 3 part mini course: Are you ready to cultivate hope in the face of the climate crisis? Sign up to Katie’s three-part free mini course that will help you move through feelings of helplessness, reconnect with nature and take aligned action.

Making Design Circular membership: An international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople – join us!

Spread the Word:

Please share Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden with wild abandon — with your friends, family, and fellow purpose-driven founders of making-based businesses or wherever interesting conversations about creativity happen in your world! 

If you love what you’re listening to, show us some love by following Circular with Katie Treggiden in this app and leaving a review. All that good stuff tells the ‘algorithm Gods’ to show the podcast to more people, and that can only be a good thing, right?

Sign up for our my e-newsletter ‘Weekly(ish) Musings for Curious, Imperfect and Stubbornly Optimistic Environmentalists’ - just click here.

And find me on the Interwebs:  @katietreggiden (Twitter, TikTok), & @katietreggiden3908 (YouTube) & @katietreggiden.1 (Instagram) – and if you’re a designer, maker, artist or craftsperson, join me on IG @making_design_circular_

About Katie:
Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular – an international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople. She is also an author, journalist and podcaster championing a hopeful approach to environmentalism. With more than 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, Crafts Magazine and Dezeen. She is currently exploring the question ‘Can craft save the world?’ through her sixth book, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023), this very podcast.

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

**This episode was originally an Instagram Live, so at the point of going live on the podcast, the rest challenge we talk about has already happened – however, the Making Design Circular Conference is happening on Thursday 05 September 2024 – find out more get your ticket for that HERE >>> **

In this episode, Katie talks to Jo Casey. Jo Casey is an Autistic and ADHD speaker and business coach who helps fellow quirky-brained entrepreneurs align their business strategies with their unique mental wiring. With over 20 years of coaching experience and 15 years of successfully wrangling her own neurodivergent business, Jo has mastered the art of turning cognitive curveballs into powerful business assets.

Their innovative approach enables established entrepreneurs to work smarter, often achieving twice the results in half the time - without having to start from scratch or pretend to be neurotypical. At a time when neurodiversity is finally getting its moment in the spotlight, Jo's work is redefining success in the business world, proving that neurodivergent traits can be entrepreneurial superpowers in disguise.

Jo's expertise has sparked meaningful conversations about neurodiversity in business, challenging traditional norms and paving the way for a more inclusive (and interesting!) approach to entrepreneurship. They’ve been featured in the Huffington Post, Kind Over Matter, and Tiny Buddha, among others.

When not kicking the business world up the butt, Jo can be found curating the perfect playlist for her latest textile crafting session or passionately explaining to puzzled friends why Jesus Christ Superstar is, without a doubt, the greatest musical ever written.

During this Katie & Jo discuss:

• The difference between physical tiredness and sensory overload 
• How to spot the signs of sensory overload
• How to prevent sensory overload and take care of yourself when it happens
• How neurodivergent folk sometimes need sensory rest, but sometimes sensory stimulation
• Why physical and sensory rest is so important for purpose-driven founders of making based businesses making imperfect progress towards genuine sustainability 

You can connect with Jo here:

Website: https://www.jocasey.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jocaseyb/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoCaseyB/

…and Jo has an amazing energy mapping tool, which will help with some of the stuff we discussed, which you can access here: https://www.jocasey.com/nd-energy-kit/

Here are some highlights:

Depletion versus Nourishing

“One of the concepts we talk about is the things that deplete you and things that nourish you – and I really like that concept because I could be doing something that is really calm, but I’m finding it really quite depleting, or I could be doing something that is really energetic, but you’re finding it really nourishing. I really like this idea of what is depleting and what is nourishing.” 

How to know when you’re experiencing sensory overload

“Treat yourself like a glorious experiment... tune into to what’s going on in your body.”

On rest as disruption 

“These are my needs – and it’s perfectly fine, in fact it’s admirable, to meet my needs. Exploitative capitalism teaches us to exploit resources to the point of depletion and we are our own primary resource.”

Being the change we want to see

“There is something about being the change that we want to see in the world – and having emotionally grounded, rested, healthy people, we ‘re much more likely to be able to inspire that in others… one of the things we know from neuroscience is that when we’re running on adrenaline and cortisol, the creative activity in our brain is really limited… so our ability to solve problems drops down and if there was a time when we needed people to come up with solutions to really complex, thorny problems, it’s now.”

Books, Podcasts & Articles we mentioned:

Emergent Strategy by Adriene Marie Brown

Maintenance Phase podcast with Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes

Laziness Does Not Exist by Dr Devon Price

How To Discover Your Environmental Superpower – Making Design Circular short course

Making Design Circular Conference – 2024

LEARN HOW TO TALK ABOUT YOUR ECO-EFFORTS WITH CONFIDENCE so you can connect with values-aligned clients and customers without the fear of getting called out.

10 am–5 PM BST Thursday 05 September 2024

A 1-day virtual conference for purpose-driven founders making imperfect progress towards genuine environmental sustainability.

Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world

Katie’s sixth book celebrates 25 artists, curators, menders and re-makers who have rejected the allure of the fast, disposable and easy in favour of the patina of use, the stories of age and the longevity of care and repair. Accompanying these profiles, six in-depth essays explore the societal, cultural and environmental roles of mending in a throwaway world.

Cultivating Hope, 3 part mini course: Are you ready to cultivate hope in the face of the climate crisis? Sign up to Katie’s three-part free mini course that will help you move through feelings of helplessness, reconnect with nature and take aligned action.

Making Design Circular membership: An international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople – join us!

Spread the Word:

Please share Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden with wild abandon — with your friends, family, and fellow purpose-driven founders of making-based businesses or wherever interesting conversations about creativity happen in your world! 

If you love what you’re listening to, show us some love by following Circular with Katie Treggiden in this app and leaving a review. All that good stuff tells the ‘algorithm Gods’ to show the podcast to more people, and that can only be a good thing, right?

Sign up for our my e-newsletter ‘Weekly(ish) Musings for Curious, Imperfect and Stubbornly Optimistic Environmentalists’ - just click here.

And find me on the Interwebs:  @katietreggiden (Twitter, TikTok), & @katietreggiden3908 (YouTube) & @katietreggiden.1 (Instagram) – and if you’re a designer, maker, artist or craftsperson, join me on IG @making_design_circular_

About Katie:
Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular – an international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople. She is also an author, journalist and podcaster championing a hopeful approach to environmentalism. With more than 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, Crafts Magazine and Dezeen. She is currently exploring the question ‘Can craft save the world?’ through her sixth book, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023), this very podcast.

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

In this episode, Katie continues last week’s conversation with Tamu Thomas a renowned transformational life coach, dedicated to guiding women towards achieving work-life harmony by embracing holistic well-being practices that align with their nervous system. 

Katie & Tamu explore:

• The term ‘high-functioning freeze’
• Defiant hope & rage 
• Activism v Martyrdom 
• And of course, the final quick fire round of season 4!

You can connect with Tamu here

Website: https://www.livethreesixty.com/ and https://www.womenwhoworktoomuch.co/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamu.thomas/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/livethreesixty/

Learn more about Tamu’s membership here: https://live-three-sixty.mykajabi.com/membership

Here are some highlights:

I learned that it was unsafe for me to express rage 

“Rage is part of the human experience, rage, emotion, energy in motion, rage is energy in motion that says you've got to make a change, whether it's externally or internally, but instead, we hold on to it, and have a lot of like, bitterness and resentment inside. And we get sidetracked with that. So we avoid the real issue. And we make it all about the anger or the rage.”

Empowerment to build momentum

"My life is mine, square with a life of service means that your life has to be of service to you too. Because if your life is not a service to you too, if you are giving away all of your lifeforce energy, you're not actually doing activism, you're doing martyrdom. Our planet doesn't need any more martyrs. Social justice causes for human beings, animals around the world doesn't need any more martyrs what they need, or what these things we believe in need, is for us to be and this word, sometimes it gets on my nerves, but it is for us to be empowered. Because when we are empowered, rather than doing things in fits and spurts, we can actually build momentum and have a compounding effect. And I say this to my clients. And I say to myself all the time. Social justice is not just if it's not just for you too, we don't need any more martyrs. "

Books & Podcasts mentioned:

10x Is Easier Than 2x, Benjamin Hardy

Upstream Podcast

Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world

Katie’s sixth book celebrates 25 artists, curators, menders and re-makers who have rejected the allure of the fast, disposable and easy in favour of the patina of use, the stories of age and the longevity of care and repair. Accompanying these profiles, six in-depth essays explore the societal, cultural and environmental roles of mending in a throwaway world.

Cultivating Hope, 3 part mini course: Are you ready to cultivate hope in the face of the climate crisis? Sign up to Katie’s three-part free mini course that will help you move through feelings of helplessness, reconnect with nature and take aligned action.

Making Design Circular membership: An international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople – join us!

Spread the Word:

Please share Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden with wild abandon — with your friends, family, and fellow designer-makers or wherever interesting conversations about creativity happen in your world! 

If you love what you’re listening to, show us some love by following Circular with Katie Treggiden in this app and leaving a review. All that good stuff tells the ‘algorithm Gods’ to show the podcast to more people, and that can only be a good thing, right?

Sign up for our my e-newsletter ‘Weekly(ish) Musings for Curious, Imperfect and Stubbornly Optimistic Environmentalists’ - just click here.

And find me on the Interwebs:  @katietreggiden (Twitter, TikTok), & @katietreggiden3908 (YouTube) & @katietreggiden.1 (Instagram) – and if you’re a designer, maker, artist or craftsperson, join me on IG @making_design_circular_

About Katie:
Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular – an international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople. She is also an author, journalist and podcaster championing a hopeful approach to environmentalism. With more than 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, Crafts Magazine and Dezeen. She is currently exploring the question ‘Can craft save the world?’ through her sixth book, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023), this very podcast.

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

In this episode, Katie talks to Tamu Thomas a renowned transformational life coach and the author of "Women Who Work Too Much: Break Free from Toxic Productivity and Find Your Joy." She is dedicated to guiding women towards achieving work-life harmony by embracing holistic well-being practices that align with their nervous system. 

Tamu's groundbreaking book sheds light on the systemic pressures that force women into a cycle of over-functioning, often leading to significant workplace stress and an imbalanced share of emotional and domestic responsibilities. Drawing on her extensive background in social work, she has a profound understanding of the systemic roots of these issues, particularly the disproportionate impact they have on women. 

Tamu's unique coaching methodology is deeply influenced by somatic practices and Polyvagal theory, focusing on helping women rebuild a connection with their core selves, establish healthy boundaries, and forming a strong sense of self-trust. She is especially attuned to the nuanced challenges faced by Black women and women of the global majority, navigating what she terms ‘the trinity of oppression’: patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism. 

In her own words, Tamu asserts, "We don’t need more self-improvement; we need systemic change.” Her approach is not just about personal transformation but about sparking wider societal shifts. Her insights and guidance are invaluable for those seeking a life filled with fulfillment, deep connections, and genuine joy, amidst the demands of our fast-paced world.

Linked with the “nurture” pillar of the Making Design Circular framework, Katie & Tamu discuss:

• The new book Women Who Work Too Much – Break Free from Toxic Productivity and Find Your Joy!
• Toxic Productivity
• Our connection with nature and why it’s so
• Why it’s so important that we reconnect mind and body
• Simple ways we should be honouring our basic needs
• Why we shouldn’t be adopting a belief that we’re broken

You can connect with Tamu here:

Website: https://www.livethreesixty.com/ and https://www.womenwhoworktoomuch.co/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamu.thomas/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/livethreesixty/

Learn more about Tamu’s membership here: https://live-three-sixty.mykajabi.com/membership

Here are some episode highlights:

Recognise we’re not designed to go it alone

“The beauty is as human beings we're not designed to go it alone. So it can feel really daunting when we feel like oh my goodness, the system is rigged, for most of us to be at fault, for most of us to fail, when we recognise that we can start to embody the genius of our species, which is connection, and compassion, and all of that stuff. And we can start to work together to create systems and structures that care for us and our planet.”

The Idea of Toxic Productivity

“We don't just breathe in, we need to breathe in, we need to exhale. And in fact, something I say all the time is, the rest is quite often more important than the race. The rest is what sets us up. And we often talk about being part of nature. Actually, no, we are nature. We are all children of this earth. Whilst we were born of our mother's wombs, we are all children of this earth, there is nothing on this earth that is productive, that is producing all the time. Even our evergreen trees have times of rest and dormancy. We're not supposed to be doing that all the time. It is unnatural. So as we stepped into the industrial revolution, we started making all of these machines to make our life easier. But once we identified that we could create mass, and people could consume more. And that mass would result into profit it was profit and growth above everything else. So it shifted how we experience ourselves. And generally speaking, we started to compare ourselves to the machines we created to make our lives easier. And that's when we started talking more about consistency.”

Capitalist Conditioning

“let's be real, there are many times in life where we do have to go beyond our bandwidth sometimes. But it's about recognising the difference, so that we can make choices and we can do that for finite periods of time. We have a sympathetic nervous system for a reason, we go into states of fight or flight for a reason, they're not all bad, but it's a finite period of time. What happens in our culture is that the rules of capitalism say, actually, you should always be beyond your capacity, that's a good work ethic, that's being efficient, that is being somebody who is reliable. And it just conditions us, if you think of us like a piece of elastic, it conditions us to always be overstressed over stretched elastic. And so we have situations where people use anxiety as a motivational tool. None of this stuff will happen overnight, but over time, we can start being motivated by what feels good, what's in service of our long term good, as opposed to constantly being motivated by anxiety, which is our body's warning signal for terror.”

Books & Podcasts mentioned:

10x Is Easier Than 2x, Benjamin Hardy

Upstream Podcast

Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world

Katie’s sixth book celebrates 25 artists, curators, menders and re-makers who have rejected the allure of the fast, disposable and easy in favour of the patina of use, the stories of age and the longevity of care and repair. Accompanying these profiles, six in-depth essays explore the societal, cultural and environmental roles of mending in a throwaway world.

Cultivating Hope, 3 part mini course: Are you ready to cultivate hope in the face of the climate crisis? Sign up to Katie’s three-part free mini course that will help you move through feelings of helplessness, reconnect with nature and take aligned action.

Making Design Circular membership: An international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople – join us!

Spread the Word:

Please share Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden with wild abandon — with your friends, family, and fellow designer-makers or wherever interesting conversations about creativity happen in your world! 

If you love what you’re listening to, show us some love by following Circular with Katie Treggiden in this app and leaving a review. All that good stuff tells the ‘algorithm Gods’ to show the podcast to more people, and that can only be a good thing, right?

Sign up for our my e-newsletter ‘Weekly(ish) Musings for Curious, Imperfect and Stubbornly Optimistic Environmentalists’ - just click here.

And find me on the Interwebs:  @katietreggiden (Twitter, TikTok), & @katietreggiden3908 (YouTube) & @katietreggiden.1 (Instagram) – and if you’re a designer, maker, artist or craftsperson, join me on IG @making_design_circular_

About Katie:
Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular – an international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople. She is also an author, journalist and podcaster championing a hopeful approach to environmentalism. With more than 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, Crafts Magazine and Dezeen. She is currently exploring the question ‘Can craft save the world?’ through her sixth book, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023), this very podcast.

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

In this episode, Katie talks to Lucy Hawthorne. Lucy is a campaigner at heart and Founder of Climate Play. Through play-based training and facilitation for adults, she helps make it safe, light and fun for people to face climate change. 

Combining a lot of LEGO with climate psychology, she creates conversation on the topic that teams actually want to have, rather than only feel like they should. Her serious play approach helps people to engage more honestly, deeply and creatively, identifying ways to build alignment and shared action within their organisations, whether they are getting started or have gotten stuck on their sustainability journey. 

Climate Play was born after Lucy spent a good while in the charity and NGO-world and became concerned the heaviness of the conversation was affecting energy to act. So now she challenges the norm of serious seriousness as always the best way to get things done. She is a qualified coach and LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator. 

During this Katie & Lucy discuss:

• How Climate Play came about
• Understanding what Play is and how its defined
• Where Play comes in to a topic such as the climate crisis
• How to use her safe, light, fun form of engagement with environmentalism
• intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. 
• The overlap between choice, wonder and delight as well…
• Play archetypes and how they help us engage with environmentalism

You can connect with Lucy here:

www.climateplay.org

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyhawthorne/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/climate-play

[email protected]

Monthly Climate Play Meetup (first Thurs of the month 1300 – 1400 GMT) https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/lucy-hawthorne-founderfacilitator-climate-play-29888274577

Here are some highlights:

Origin of Climate Play

“Climate play is in essence, trying to find different ways of really tapping into people's motivations and really trying to create spaces where people can engage in subjects that they don't really want to and that feels very different to a very hard hitting strategic approach that I spent many years, many years doing.”

Become the best version of yourself

“How many people actually fulfil their own moral compass? Very few, even people who are very dedicated, we're not perfect beings. And therefore, there's something about what will you always want to do. I'm not saying that if everyone suddenly untapped their playfulness, then climate change is going to disappear into a puff of smoke. But I think there is just something about reframing the way we engage with things. Whether that is thinking about and understanding (your audiences) motivations? What are they doing? If you're thinking about how you run initiatives in your company, or you're trying to think about how your family considers sustainability, there is just something about finding a combination of the things that you love doing, the things that you're good at doing, and the things that the world needs some support on. It's not a magic silver bullet, but I think there's something about understanding your sense of playfulness, you are highly likely to be more engaged. And when you are engaged, you're likely to be a better version of yourself.”

Books, Podcasts & Articles we mentioned:

The Art of Peace by John Paul Lederach

International School of Billund

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Play by Stuart Brown

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez

You’re Dead to Me, BBC Radio 4 Podcast

Using Play to Rewire & Improve Your Brain, Huberman Labs Podcast

Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world

Katie’s sixth book celebrates 25 artists, curators, menders and re-makers who have rejected the allure of the fast, disposable and easy in favour of the patina of use, the stories of age and the longevity of care and repair. Accompanying these profiles, six in-depth essays explore the societal, cultural and environmental roles of mending in a throwaway world.

Cultivating Hope, 3 part mini course: Are you ready to cultivate hope in the face of the climate crisis? Sign up to Katie’s three-part free mini course that will help you move through feelings of helplessness, reconnect with nature and take aligned action.

Making Design Circular membership: An international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople – join us!

Spread the Word:

Please share Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden with wild abandon — with your friends, family, and fellow designer-makers or wherever interesting conversations about creativity happen in your world! 

If you love what you’re listening to, show us some love by following Circular with Katie Treggiden in this app and leaving a review. All that good stuff tells the ‘algorithm Gods’ to show the podcast to more people, and that can only be a good thing, right?

Sign up for our my e-newsletter ‘Weekly(ish) Musings for Curious, Imperfect and Stubbornly Optimistic Environmentalists’ - just click here.

And find me on the Interwebs:  @katietreggiden (Twitter, TikTok), & @katietreggiden3908 (YouTube) & @katietreggiden.1 (Instagram) – and if you’re a designer, maker, artist or craftsperson, join me on IG @making_design_circular_

About Katie:
Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular – an international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople. She is also an author, journalist and podcaster championing a hopeful approach to environmentalism. With more than 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, Crafts Magazine and Dezeen. She is currently exploring the question ‘Can craft save the world?’ through her sixth book, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023), this very podcast.

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast