the tortoise & the hare

There’s little doubt the world is undergoing significant changes right now. Pandemic, war, the climate crisis - it’s all impacting our visions of “normal” and, for many of us, prompting an uncomfortable amount of reflection. What is important? How can I have a positive impact? Is the way I’ve been living in alignment with those things?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or wondering just how the hell to start making changes when it feels like the system isn’t set up for you to change, then today’s episode lands right when you need it.

Brooke talks with the wonderful Dr. Kate Litterer - a productivity coach who specialises in both sustainable and well-being oriented productivity - and while they do talk a lot about productivity (and its relationship to capitalism), they also talk about the obstacles so many people face (classism, ableism and privilege, to name a few) when it comes to making necessary changes to their lives.

Kate also talks about her experience with workaholism and its relationship to sobriety, as well as the impact that living with a chronic illness has had on not only her work, but also her choices, priorities and boundaries.

In this episode they also discuss:

• How to apply slow productivity to work when you’re not self-employed, and the limitations on your time are more rigid

• Creativity and slow living

• Kate’s work with undergraduate students and why it’s so important to develop sustainable habits early in our careers

• Detaching our identity and value from our output and efficiency

• How Kate structures her working week

• How to maintain a sense of flexibility to our rhythms in order to flow with the inevitable obstacles life serves up

Enjoy!

Links

• Head to slowyourhome.com/season9 for the complete show notes and links to everything mentioned in today's show 

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Today’s guest, the effervescent Amanda Ewin, has arrived on the pod at precisely the right time, as so many of us settle in to the year's new normal and (if you're anything like Brooke) the struggles of maintaining those rhythms, goals and rituals. 

In this episode Amanda shares her story of overwhelm, loss, grief, reflection and transformation, and through it all weaves the thread of mornings. First as the overwhelmed mother and business owner who found mornings chaotic, through to the woman who now bounces out of bed, nary a snooze button in sight.

Amanda and Brooke talk about the process of establishing and revisiting morning rhythms as life changes, as well as the handy notion of “habit stacking” that has allowed Amanda to develop space in her mornings for meditation, movement, breath work and play.

Amanda also shares her thoughts on ‘the tyranny of the shoulds’ and why redefining success and doing the work to uncover our personal values lies at the heart of any lasting transformation.

They also discuss:

• why hitting the snooze button is (usually) a terrible idea

• the Wim Hof breathing method

• why both Amanda and Brooke have been afraid of goals in the past

• why it’s important to understand the difference between dreams and goals

Enjoy!

Links

• Head to slowyourhome.com/season9 for the complete show notes and links to everything mentioned in today's show 

Love Slow? Support the show! 

• Become a patron
• Or buy us a coffee and share the love

Looking for more?

• Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod 
• Or leave a rating or review in iTunes

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Today's episode is, at its heart, about change. And if there’s something we’ve all experienced over the past two years, it’s been change. Specifically for our listeners, many of us find ourselves having to reframe our definition of "simple living" as the world has changed and so too our vision of slow or simple. 

Clare Reilly knows exactly this tension. After advocating a slower, simpler, more local life for many years, everything was turned on its head when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis - a progressive, neurological disease.

In this conversation Clare and Brooke talk about the process of reframing their definitions of simple living, and what a simpler life looks like for Clare now. (Spoiler alert: there’s no one right answer to this question!) 

As someone who lives with a chronic illness, Clare also discusses how her relationship with rest has changed, and the interlinked roots of productivity and capitalism.

The conversation also digs into:

• values (as always, so much of slow living comes back to the question of ‘what matters to me?’)

• the benefits slow living brings to someone living with chronic illness

• the role of food in Clare’s vision of simple living

• the tension that exists between simplicity and sustainability

• giving ourselves permission to rest even when (or especially when!) we feel the capitalist pressure to be constantly productive.

Enjoy!

Links

• Head to slowyourhome.com/season9 for the complete show notes and links to everything mentioned in today's show 

Love Slow? Support the show! 

• Become a patron
• Or buy us a coffee and share the love

Looking for more?

• Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod 
• Or leave a rating or review in iTunes

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back to another year of the Slow Home Podcast! 

Never before has slow living felt so relevant to so many people, as we grapple with the question of what we want life to look and feel like as we head in to the third year of the pandemic. 

Today's guest is the perfect person to begin this exploration with, as she's spent many years experimenting and, quite literally, practising simplicity. 

Jodi Wilson is an author, risk-averse adventurer, mother, photographer, yoga teacher and all-round thoughtful human, and has recently published her beautiful book, 'Practising Simplicity'. 

In this conversation Brooke and Jodi talk about:

• letting go - what it means and how to move through the discomfort that comes with it
• the idea of risk, and how Jodi decided seemingly on a whim to sell up and move her family of six into a caravan for more than 2 years of cross-country travel

• living with awe at the centre of our lives

• the importance of small steps in making big change

• what constitutes bravery 

• how we can all live a life (slightly) less distracted without the need to live long-term in a caravan

• the role of contentment in our lives.

Links

• Head to slowyourhome.com/season9 for the complete show notes and links to everything mentioned in today's show 

Love Slow? Support the show! 

• Become a patron
• Or buy us a coffee and share the love

Looking for more?

• Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod 
• Or leave a rating or review in iTunes

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have reached the last episode of this year's Summer Series/Winter Warmies and Brooke takes us through her (one of) favourite episodes of the past 7 years featuring Katie Bowman on nutritious movement and couchless living. 

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The 3rd instalment in this year's Summer Series/Winter Warmies includes an episode recorded in 2019 with Beth Kempton.

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Part 2 of this year's Summer Series/Winter Warmies sees Ben and Brooke look way back into the archives with a 2017 banger on food waste reduction featuring over 50 ways you can seriously reduce your waste footprint.

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Ben and Brooke talk through the format for this year's Summer Series/Winter Warmies and bring you Part 1, featuring analogue creativity with Jess Davis. 

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Well, it's that time of the year again. The final pod is here, and as is tradition, Brooke and Ben round out the year with their own Top 10 list. 

First though, Ben decides to turn the tables on Brooke and interview her for once. He digs in to some of the recurring themes of Season 8 - sobriety, health and creativity - and it's as human and messy as you might expect. 

They then get into their personal Top 10, listing their individual favourite: 

• TV show
• small detail
• movie
• new destination
• book
• discovery
• album
• new podcast
• meal
• experience

In a year like no other, there are some unexpected answers to be found in this episode. Enjoy! 

Links

• Head to slowyourhome.com/season8 for the complete show notes and links to everything mentioned in today's show 

Love Slow? Support the show! 

• Become a patron
• Or buy us a coffee and share the love

Looking for more?

• Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod 
• Or leave a rating or review in iTunes

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Friend of the show, author, cook, founder of the Granny Skills movement and co-founder of native food company Warndu, Rebecca Sullivan, returns to the podcast for a wide-ranging, emotional, messy, human and very honest conversation (in other words - there's a content warning on this one!)

Rebecca and Brooke talk birth stories, post-natal health, navigating trauma, alcohol-free holiday drinks and being an imperfect activist, all through the lens of the past two pandemic years and living with mental illness. It sounds like a drag, but it's an incredibly important, heartfelt, hard-won conversation with plenty of laughs (and only some of them inappropriate). 

So settle in and be prepared to listen to some real talk about women's bodies, birth, transformation and healing. Enjoy!

Links

• Head to slowyourhome.com/season8 for the complete show notes

• Check out warndu.com

Love Slow? Support the show! 

• Become a patron
• Or buy us a coffee and share the love

Looking for more?

• Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod 
• Or leave a rating or review in iTunes

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.