The Slow Home Podcast With Brooke Mcalary

Brooke chats with returning guest and zero-waste advocate Anita van Dyke (ex-rocket scientist, turned medical doctor and awesome Mum) about the challenges of zero-waste living in a busy family and ways to work smarter not harder when it comes to zero-waste. Brooke also gushes about Anita's op-shop wardrobe! Links Head here for all links from today's episode Anita's website Connect with Anita on Instagram 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 Sign up for the Slow Post, Brooke's weekly slow-living love letters  Or leave a rating or review in iTunes Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/slow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brooke catches up with friend of the show Jacki Carr (Goal Coach and Speaker) about setting goals in a changing world, and the utter liberation of embracing our personal evolutions. Links Head here for all links from today's episode Jacki Carr's website  Connect with Jacki on Instagram Order Brooke's new book 'Care' Amazon Booktopia Looking for more Slow? Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod Sign up for the Slow Post, Brooke's weekly slow-living love letters  Or leave a rating or review in iTunes   Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/slow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Returning guest Jess Davis from Folk Rebellion talks with Brooke about how New York has changed since the pandemic, what has survived and what has thrived as the City (that now sleeps!) rebuilds from the devastation caused by COVID-19.  Links Watch Jess' film "What day is it?"  Connect with Jess on Instagram and Facebook Order Brooke's new book 'Care' Amazon Booktopia Looking for more Slow? Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod Sign up for the Slow Post, Brooke's weekly slow-living love letters  Or leave a rating or review in iTunes Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/slow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brooke and Ben drop into your feed with an unscheduled hostful to talk through the happenings over the past month. Links Check out the new website and upcoming events Pre-order Brooke's new book 'Care' Amazon Booktopia Looking for more Slow? Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod Sign up for the Slow Post, Brooke's weekly slow-living love letters  Or leave a rating or review in iTunes Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/slow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a conversation many months in the making, recorded a few months ago, Brooke chats with illustrator, writer and environmentalist Em Ehlers.  Links Buy Hope is a Verb: Six steps to radical optimism when the world seems broken  Connect with Em on Instagram and Facebook  Pre-order Brooke's new book 'Care' Amazon Booktopia Looking for more Slow? Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod Sign up for the Slow Post, Brooke's weekly slow-living love letters  Or leave a rating or review in iTunes Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/slow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brooke and Ben sit down in their very 'echoey' living room next to their very loud dogs to talk through what has been happening over the last month or so. They also answer a number of questions posed by listeners in the first Hostful in quite some time.  This episode includes a slight disclaimer that some of the content may be a bit dated as it was recorded well over a month ago.  Links Shred Kelly Pre-order Brooke's new book 'Care' Amazon Booktopia Pain and Prejudice - Gabrielle Jackson  Brooke talks to Slow Productivity Expert Louise Miller  Looking for more Slow? Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod Sign up for the Slow Post, Brooke's weekly slow-living love letters  Or leave a rating or review in iTunes Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/slow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brooke and Ben are back in your earholes. They share updates on the last nine months, what they are doing now and their plans for the future.  Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/slow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've all heard about the transformative power of meditation, but how can we access it when uncertainty, stress and living through a pandemic make it difficult to simply sit still and breathe?  In today's episode Brooke is joined by friend of the show and founder of Centred Meditation, Kevin Janks, to talk through the power of meditation in challenging times.  Meditation allows us to decompress from 'fight or flight' mode and as Kevin explains, the time investment doesn’t need to be excessive. (Research has found that meditating for as little as 12 minutes a day can have a substantial impact over the course of three weeks). It can also be used to shift our perception of control, which is often the overriding emotion during times of crisis, and by doing so, release us from the stress of trying to control and uncontrollable situation. Kevin also shares how meditation allows us to accept the current circumstances we find ourselves in (not in order to accept and give up, but in order to simply accept the way t

As we begin to see some countries relax their pandemic restrictions and allow the general public back into society at varying levels, naturally our attention turns to what that new version of daily life might look like. In this host-only chat, Ben and Brooke discuss what they hope the 'new normal' might entail, whether we should simply be re-entering or re-booting society, and what each of us can do now in order to set that in motion.  Australia’s government is talking about a snap back to pre-virus ways of doing things. But doesn’t that just mean a return to old problems? What if we instead adopted the theme of rebooting back into society, rebooting the way we managed our finance, our view on the environment and even our values? Brooke and Ben dig in to what this means for them, why we need to reframe success and why we can take heart even amidst the pain and uncertainty.  Plus they pose some questions to you, the listener, that offer the chance to imagine your ideal post-Covid future and provide a place

Lots of airtime has been given to the stress that parents and carers of young families are currently under, juggling working from home or job loss with remote schooling and caring for kids too young to understand why everything is different. Amongst all of that there has been little time given to the question of how people in single-person households are faring, so in today's episode Brooke sits down with friend of the show Sarah Wilson to talk loneliness during lockdown. Sarah is a former journalist, TV presenter, activist and author of one of the best books about anxiety and depression published over the past few years, First We Make the Beast Beautiful. With her incredible depth of knowledge on living with anxiety, Sarah shares not only how she's finding lockdown, but also why she thinks anxiety has given her an advantage to coping with strange times.  Brooke and Sarah also discuss how COVID-19 will impact Australia in terms of social, economic and climate issues, and talk about the need for resilience a

Undoubtedly we are living in times of heightened stress. Uncertainty, fear, anxiety, living in close quarters, loneliness - they're all stressful experiences and in some way or another, we're all grappling with them as we live through the Covid-19 pandemic.  Today's guest, Ellen Carr, is a holistic coach and yoga teacher who believes that Ayurveda - the ancient sister science of yoga - offers us a way to learn how to identify our stress responses, and importantly, how we can begin to balance them out.  In today's episode Brooke and Ellen talk about Ayurveda, how it can help us live a more well-rounded life and why it's so important to identify your stress responses, particularly in a time of high stress. They also discuss: What is a 'dosha' type and why is it an important part of Ayurveda? How to discover your dosha What happens if you're split across two or even three dosha types  Some practical actions that will help calm your nervous system, no matter what your dosha  What are some of the more common str

Remote learning is one of the biggest changes many of us are facing as lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders continue, and Brooke and Ben know they're not alone in finding the transition challenging. Today’s guest Sarah is a high-school science teacher from Sydney who has some incredibly helpful, practical tips on how we can make this learning-from-home experience a little less stressful for everyone. The tips and suggestions Sarah offers apply to kids of all ages, but Brooke also knows there are a lot of parents of older high school students listening who have specific concerns about their kids' schooling, so she and Sarah delve in to that at the beginning of the episode.  Sarah also offers some advice on how to best advocate for your kids if they are struggling under the current learning conditions, as well as how to make some of the learning (which for many students is almost 100% digital and online at the moment) more analogue. Lastly, Sarah and Brooke talk about the ways in which local communities ca

This week, Brooke is joined by return guest and permaculture expert, Robyn Rosenfeldt, for a fantastic conversation centred on the vital role of community in times of crisis.  Robyn talks about the devastation of the summer bushfires and how that crisis highlighted the issue of food security in her community, before sharing the similar impact the Covid-19 crisis is now having on local supermarket shelves.  In times of crisis there is a tendency to turn our attention to community, and Robyn and Brooke talk about the importance of being community-minded as an antidote to the challenges that face us now and that may await us in the future. Robyn shares the three pillars of permaculture - earth care, people care and a fair share - and speaks about what they look like in daily life, and how we can all harness them to create stronger communities. Brooke and Robyn also speak about the tricky business of living a values-aligned life while also raising independent-minded children, how to pick your battles and why c

Season 6 coming in hot!  After some feedback and lots of questions about slow living in the time of Covid-19, Brooke and Ben decided to bring forward the new season. There are so many ways  slow living might be able to help as we all adjust to the weirdness of isolation, but even more importantly as we all start to think about what we'd like our 'new normal' to look like on the other side of it. So that's what Season 6 is going to focus on, and it will be full of practical advice, realistic suggestions and hopefully helpful strategies to navigate the world during a pandemic.  In today’s episode Brooke speaks with Louise Miller, a productivity coach who doesn't believe in productivity for productivity's sake. They discuss the ins and outs of working from home, with lots of tools and strategies for those of you who are very new to the remote working scene.   Louise shares her insights on:  The importance of grace and compassion right now as everyone navigates this new reality Why creating 'Ta Da' lists inste

And just like that, the end of Season 5 is upon us.  In today's hostful episode, Brooke and Ben spend some time answering the most common pandemic-related questions as asked by you, as well as tackling some lighter topics to try and provide some much-needed balance to not only this episode but also their own mindset.  It's undoubtedly been an incredibly difficult few weeks for everyone, with many more challenges and dark days ahead. Today Brooke and Ben offer some insights in to how they're trying to use the tools in their slow living toolbox to navigate some of these hard days, as well as offering some suggestions for how you might want to adapt some of them in to your own life.  They also answer the following questions:  How are you managing remote schooling while also trying to work from home?  Do you think slow living is helping during lockdown? And if so do you think it will have a positive effect in the future?  What did you learn about schooling and spending a lot of time together while travelling?

Season 5 has thus far been a pandemic-free zone (mostly because all episodes previous to this one were recorded before the world turned topsy-turvy) but that changes today.  After having a couple of weeks to process some of the changes in their own lives and the world at large, Brooke and Ben chat about where they're at right now and the huge shift in pace that's happened. Ben shares the impact the crisis has had on his business and Brooke talks a little about trying to work around home-school responsibilities, heightened anxiety and a new normal.  Slow living has given Brooke and Ben a lot of tools over the years, many of which have been helpful in the first weeks of the pandemic and lockdown, and in the first half of this episode they share what they are and how they're helping. They also discuss: The impact the crisis has had on Ben's business Working from home while also trying to keep on top of home-schooling responsibilities  What's helping them the most right now Why limiting inputs of news and socia

In another 'pre-pandemic’ yet very timely episode, Brooke and Ben dig deep in to ’self-care’ and all it represents, as well as how they apply it in their own lives.  Slow living and self-care have kind of become synonymous in the mainstream, featuring a lot on Instagram and in books and blogs and magazines. There is undoubtedly a lot of crossover between the two, but there is also a lot of consumerism and privilege tied up in the modern-day vision of self care. In this episode Brooke shares her thoughts on that, and then she and Ben dig deep in to what they think self-care is, and why it's so important.  They explore: The origins of self-care as a movement and how society defines self-care now What it means to advocate for yourself How they each manage self-care now Where the words ‘want’ versus ‘need’ fit into self-care How important exercise is within their own self-care The enemies of self-care What self-care looks like for them in a practical sense The second half of the episode features Season 4 frien

Is slow living anti-tech? In today's episode Brooke and Ben dig deep in to their relationship with technology, which was one of the most requested topics for this season of the podcast. Tech strategies and boundaries are something Brooke and Ben have spoken about before but as their work has shifted and their kids have grown, their approach has changed over the past couple of years. In this show they talk about:  The elephant in the room  – is slow living anti-tech? How they make technology work in a way that feels slow What they mean when they talk about tech The mindset they adopt when managing their relationship to connect-tech Other tools they use to develop and maintain tech boundaries  Other ways they manage tech use with the kids and themselves when not working How important it is to be a role model when it comes tech (and how challenging that can be) Whether they feel good about their relationship to tech or if there are things they're still working on  Brooke then has a wo

In this week's episode Ben and Brooke get talking about community. The sense of place or home or belonging that strikes us when we truly feel seen.  In part this episode was prompted by their own experience of searching for and finding community, and in part due to the many questions they've received about how and why they settled in their new community after travelling for 18 months. Brooke and Ben discuss how, as they travelled, they almost subconsciously formulated a list of traits they were looking for in a community - access to nature, finding like-minded people, sustainability - and how they went about finding a place in Australia that had most of those things.  They also discuss: How they've previously struggled with the idea of community, and what it actually means to them now How their idea of community has changed over time Whether slow living has anything to do with community and if it's possible to create a slow living community How they were forced to rethink old beliefs, patterns and

In what feels like a very natural progression from last week’s episode on Stuff, this week Ben and Brooke talk about their efforts to reduce waste in their home. From food, to clothes, to cleaning Ben and Brooke talk about where they started out on their waste reduction journey and where they find themselves now. This week they talk through:  Where the shift from simple living and decluttering to reducing waste and being more sustainable came from How they first started to reduce waste Whether they believe they do ‘enough’ Where they've found new opportunities to reduce waste and what those opportunities look like How they capture their plastic waste Other than food, what other kinds of waste they've been trying to reduce, and how they're going about it  Brooke then speaks with Georgi from Season 4, who shares the practical and inspiring things she's done since they last spoke. Not only has Georgi engaged with the communities she's part of, but has also begun a conversation with