the tortoise & the hare

Today’s episode is all about joyful living. What it is, what it isn’t, how to get more of it and how it differs from happiness.

Stemming from Brooke's intention to try and find more joy in 2024, this conversation is delightfully and unexpectedly wide-ranging, and in it Ben and Brooke explore:

• the definition of joy, and why it means so many different things to so many different people

• why much of the literature around joy is religious or spiritual

• how joy differs from happiness and how it is similar 

• the role that alcohol has on our ability to experience happiness and joy (and how Brooke's experience has changed since she stopped drinking)

• how to adopt a lens of joy and happiness to life when you’re not a joyful person by default

• why choosing joy is a revolutionary act

• what the difference is between choosing joy and toxic positivity

• how we can add more joy to our lives

Head over to The Tortoise for the full show notes, including links to the articles mentioned in today's episode, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there. 

Thanks for listening! 

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Episode 10 of The Tortoise, the podcast (plodcast!) that digs deep into the possibilities of slow.

You can listen to the podcast right here, or if you’d prefer, subscribe via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favourite pod-dealing platform.

If you’re new to The Tortoise — Welcome! Thank you for coming over! — you can sign up to the newsletter below to make sure you don’t miss an episode of the pod, and you’ll also receive a slow-living letter in your inbox every Thursday-ish.

The Topic: Top Ten of 2023

Back in the days of The Slow Home Pod, we used to record a ‘Top 10’ episode at the end of every year, where we would list some of our favourite moments, experiences, places, films etc. It felt like a nice excuse to look back, and a relaxed way to wind up. So, we decided to bring it back this year for The Tortoise.

Before we get into our Top Ten lists though, Ben and I spend some time reflecting more broadly on the year — lessons we’ve learnt, successes and failures we’ve had. We started out with fairly measured expectations, “2023: just don’t suck!” and overall, I think we achieved that, which actually feels good considering how low the bar was in the first place!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, we both struggle to keep our answer succinct as we dive into our Top Tens, but it was a lot of fun to try. Listen in as we walk through our favourite:

* TV show

* Small detail

* Movie

* New destination

* Book (you know I failed to limit this one)

* Discovery

* Album

* New listening (podcast or otherwise)

* Meal

* Experience

It’s a fun thing to do together, and we’d love to hear your own Top Ten list for 2023. As Ben says, it also gives us loads of ideas to check out next year (I think many of my book selections come from you, so thank you!)

Do you have any stand-out favourites?

The Links

Below is a list of links discussed in today’s episode. If I’ve forgotten any, please let me know in the comments:

* The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

* Shadow & Bone by Leigh Bardugo

* Nightbirds by Kate J. Armstrong

* Isles of the Gods by Amie Kaufman

* The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

* Holly by Stephen King

* Fairy Tale by Stephen King

* Blurry Vision by Shred Kelly

* Too Hot for Gravy by Seamus McAlary

* Rat Saw God by Wednesday

* Ecstasy of Gold by Ennio Morriccone

* Rise Up (orchestral version) by The Fat Rat

* How Other Dads Dad by Hamish Blake

* Matildas vs France penalty shootout

* Join The Tortoise community on Substack

* Subscribe to the podcast in your favourite app (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc)

We’re taking a break now, which means no new podcast episode in January, but I have scheduled a couple of posts to come out early next year. One on values and one on defining our 1% experiments. I hope they arrive in your inbox at a time that feels full of possibility and curiosity.

Thank you again for your support this year as we launched this new, unedited, slice of life plodcast. We had no idea if anyone would enjoy it, and seeing the response has been brilliant. We can’t wait for next year.

(Well, that’s not technically true. We’re in need of a break. Then we’ll be back!)

Wishing you and yours a restful, restorative, joyful break.

Brooke and Ben xx

Welcome to Episode 10 of The Tortoise - the p(l)odcast all about the possibilities of slow. In today's show — the final one for 2023 — Brooke and Ben look back over the year that was and walk through their personal Top Ten list. That is, their favourite:

• TV show

• Small detail

• Movie

• New destination

• Book (you know I failed to limit this one)

• Discovery

• Album

• New listening (podcast or otherwise)

• Meal

• Experience

It’s a fun thing to do together, and they'd love to hear your Top Ten list for 2023. 

Head over to The Tortoise to share your list and to see the full show notes, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there. 

Thanks for listening, and see you in 2024! 

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This month's episode digs into the topic of addiction (and more broadly, obsessive behaviour) for things like tech-use, busyness, food and consumption. If you need help with addiction or mental health, there's a list of resources over at The Tortoise. 

In today's show, Ben shares his experience with tech over-use and the links he sees between it and the hustle-grind-capitalism-productivity culture, and he and Brooke look at how the proliferation of tech (especially smart phones and social media) have increased our desire for instant gratification. 

Brooke talks through her compulsion to consume bad news, and shares a few ways she's trying to break those patterns of behaviour. She also talks about the role that tech and consumerism intertwine to create a world that feels simultaneously too much and not enough, and how that has her and many other women she knows feeling angry. 

It's an interesting and meandering conversation that will hopefully leave you with lots to think about. Head over to The Tortoise for the full show notes, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there. 

Thanks for listening! 

This month's episode digs into the topic of addiction (and more broadly, obsessive behaviour) for things like tech-use, busyness, food and consumption. If you need help with addiction or mental health, there's a list of resources over at The Tortoise. 

In today's show, Ben shares his experience with tech over-use and the links he sees between it and the hustle-grind-capitalism-productivity culture, and he and Brooke look at how the proliferation of tech (especially smart phones and social media) have increased our desire for instant gratification. 

Brooke talks through her compulsion to consume bad news, and shares a few ways she's trying to break those patterns of behaviour. She also talks about the role that tech and consumerism intertwine to create a world that feels simultaneously too much and not enough, and how that has her and many other women she knows feeling angry. 

It's an interesting and meandering conversation that will hopefully leave you with lots to think about. Head over to The Tortoise for the full show notes, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there. 

Thanks for listening! 

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Brooke and Ben are talking about hard times. Or more specifically, how to deal with the emotional heaviness that comes from living through really difficult things.

Digging into this feeling of heaviness, they discuss how they're trying to acknowledge and accept the challenges, as well as the tools they use to help them move forward. They also talk about practical ways to protect ourselves when things feel hard, why limiting social media is a powerful way of drawing boundaries, the impact of gentle activism, why rage-cleaning can help process anger, the rebelliousness of finding joy and why pairing all of these things with action is so important. 

Hopefully this conversation shows that it’s okay to look for and hold onto joy in amongst the difficult times. 

Head over to The Tortoise for the full show notes, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there. 

Thanks for listening! 

Today Brooke and Ben are talking about hard times. Or more specifically, how to deal with the emotional heaviness that comes from living through really difficult things.

Digging into this feeling of heaviness, they discuss how they're trying to acknowledge and accept the challenges, as well as the tools they use to help them move forward. They also talk about practical ways to protect ourselves when things feel hard, why limiting social media is a powerful way of drawing boundaries, the impact of gentle activism, why rage-cleaning can help process anger, the rebelliousness of finding joy and why pairing all of these things with action is so important. 

Hopefully this conversation shows that it’s okay to look for and hold onto joy in amongst the difficult times. 

Head over to The Tortoise for the full show notes, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there. 

Thanks for listening! 

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this month's episode, Brooke and Ben dig into the topic of seasonal living. Not only the calendar kind of seasonal living, but also the other seasons that exist in life too. The ones that don’t change every three months. The internal seasons, the life seasons, the in-built cycles and rhythms that — whether we realise it or not — have a profound impact on how we live, how we grow, how we show up in the world.

They begin with a pretty traditional look at what seasonal living means — that is, how it can impact the food we eat, the activities we do, our energy, our personal environmental impact, our connection to the world around us and the rhythms that drive it all.

But from there, they dig into the broader conversation around seasonal living, including the seasons we experience throughout life, why many people find themselves resistant to the stereotypical ‘spring, summer, autumn, winter’ analogy, the archetypes that mark our way through adulthood and the importance of recognising the inherent messiness of transitions.

It's thought-provoking and juicy in all the best ways. 

Head over to The Tortoise for the full show notes, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there. 

Thanks for listening! 

In this month's episode, Brooke and Ben dig into the topic of seasonal living. Not only the calendar kind of seasonal living, but also the other seasons that exist in life too. The ones that don’t change every three months. The internal seasons, the life seasons, the in-built cycles and rhythms that — whether we realise it or not — have a profound impact on how we live, how we grow, how we show up in the world.

They begin with a pretty traditional look at what seasonal living means — that is, how it can impact the food we eat, the activities we do, our energy, our personal environmental impact, our connection to the world around us and the rhythms that drive it all.

But from there, they dig into the broader conversation around seasonal living, including the seasons we experience throughout life, why many people find themselves resistant to the stereotypical ‘spring, summer, autumn, winter’ analogy, the archetypes that mark our way through adulthood and the importance of recognising the inherent messiness of transitions.

It's thought-provoking and juicy in all the best ways. 

Head over to The Tortoise for the full show notes, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there. 

Thanks for listening! 

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For a term we throw around a lot, self-care is not all that well defined. It’s attached loosely to the ideas of wellness, self-help, relaxation and mindfulness, and so often comes to us packaged, commoditised and ready to be bought/sold.

Ben and Brooke start today’s episode by trying to define self-care, and eventually land on one that is as broad and inclusive as possible:

Self-care can be anything that leaves us feeling cared for or supported from within.

From there, they dig deeper into their own experiences of self-care, including how they make time for it, what constitutes "boring self-care", the weird rituals that act as self-care on the days there's not a lot of time and the parts of self-care they struggle with.

Brooke then reflects on a comment left on a recent Tortoise newsletter about toxic positivity, which asked about the difference between resilience, positive thinking, wallowing and toxic positivity. It's a juicy topic that both Brooke and Ben have some thoughts on, and will no doubt return to again.

Head over to The Tortoise for the full show notes, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there. 

Thanks for listening!