listener chat

This week we meet another wonderful listener, Sara, who has found herself in a place many of us can relate to: she's gradually reduced the commitments in her life in order to do more of what lights her up but has found other requests and demands on her sneaking in and is finding it difficult to create boundaries and say no.

Sara has been transitioning to retirement over the past couple of years but is struggling to actually retire. She values service in all areas of her life, and is struggling to calibrate what service looks like in a life that has always placed the service of others ahead of her own needs. She's finding it difficult to say no and similarly tough to create boundaries. 

Brooke and Sara talk about the role of ego in constantly saying yes, as well as the feelings of guilt that arise when Sara chooses to create and honour the boundaries around her time, energy and other values.

Brooke is then joined by Cark Honoré, who talks about our innate desire to feel relevant as we get older, and how to move through the fear of losing our identity when letting go of work, relationships or activities that used to define us. They also have an interesting discussion on the trajectory of slow living and how it’s come to reflect different things now that it’s more of a mainstream idea.

Enjoy!

Looking for more Slow?

• Find show notes, resources and links at slowyourhome.com/season4
• Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod
• Sign up for our love letters
• Join the Slow Experiment Club over on Patreon
• Or leave a rating or review in iTunes

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today’s episode we meet Nancy, who has recently moved from the UK to Kuala Lumpur with her family, and is afraid that her introversion, combined with her desire to live a ‘slow life’ is holding her back from making friends.

Brooke discovers that she and Nancy share a lot of the same concerns, and they dive head-first in to why they both struggle with connection and what relationship that struggle has to deeper issues of self-worth, guilt and shame.  

Brooke also shares some of the practical techniques she’s used over the past six months of living in a new place that have helped her slowly find and connect with like-minded people, while also talking through why we might want to rethink what “like-minded people” means to us. Are we holding out for a perfect fit when there are dozens of great people surrounding us? And if so, how can we get to know whether we’re a good fit as friends or not?

To bring another perspective in to the conversation, Brooke is joined by the wonderful friend of the show (and friend in general) Cait Flanders in the second half of the episode and they talk about making friends online, the importance of getting comfortable with awkwardness and letting go of expectations when meeting new people.

It’s a really warm, practical and honest conversation about making friends as an adult, with some special attention given to those of us who are on the more introverted side of the spectrum.

Enjoy!

Looking for more Slow?

• Find show notes, resources and links at slowyourhome.com/season4
• Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod
• Sign up for our love letters
• Join the Slow Experiment Club over on Patreon
• Or leave a rating or review in iTunes

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we welcome back listener chats, as Brooke sits down to talk with Xan Holyoak. Xan is a listener of the show, a writer, a single parent and a slow living and nature loving woman. She first reached out to us after the nature experiment last year, and the more Brooke learned about her story, the more she wanted to share Xan’s wisdom with our wider community. So here we go!

In today’s chat Xan and Brooke talk about when she first started to slow things down, why she started writing about it on her blog, how her life changed after her husband suddenly passed away in 2015 and how she lives slowly now as a single, working parent. There’s a wonderful thread throughout the conversation of the importance of values, journaling and boundaries, and we hope you enjoy.

Questions featured in this episode:

1. Where did your journey to slow living/simplifying start?
2. Why did you start your blog?
3. Tell us about the way life changed after your husband died in 2015.
4. How do you make everyday work, as a single parent, working mum and living slowly?
5. Let’s talk about our shared love of journaling as a self-care practice. When do you journal?

Looking for more Slow?

• Find show notes, resources and links at slowyourhome.com/season2/
• Follow us on Instagram @slowhomepod
• Sign up for our love letters
• Join the Slow Experiment Club over on Patreon
• Or leave a rating or review in iTunes

As always, thank you for listening!

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week Brooke chats with listener Colleen Valles, who has managed to slow down and simplify her life to amazing lengths, despite a full and busy life as a single mum working a full-time (and then some!) job. 

Colleen has so much to offer and goes deep into how she uncovered her priorities and slowly changed her job, her schedule and her home to live a life more aligned to those priorities. 

She's now building a tiny home in one of the most expensive areas in the US, and her and Brooke talk about how she plans to combine households with her non-minimalist partner too! 

For show notes, and links to Colleen's blog and social media head over to http://www.slowyourhome.com/95

Enjoy! 

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If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes: (https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/slow-home-podcast-brooke-mcalary/id985005895?mt=2) or head over to the Patreon page (www.patreon.com/slow) to help support the show financially.

And thanks so much for listening!

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we have a new Listener Chat with you, featuring librarian-teacher and all-round lovely person, Morgan.

When Brooke put a call out on Facebook for Calgary-based listeners a couple of weeks ago, Morgan was the first to volunteer her time. A few days later they got to sit down at Brooke and Ben’s holiday apartment and chat for a couple of hours.

There were two big themes that came out of this conversation - one being Morgan’s amazing literary brain. She has so many book suggestions and nuggets of wisdom drawn from her extensive reading, and you can find a list in the show notes. The second theme is that of living a values-based life, which has seen Morgan and her family make some massive changes over the past few years, all of which are aligned with their values and the kind of life they want to create for themselves.

Head over to http://www.slowyourhome.com/66 for the full blog post, as well as links and show notes from today’s conversation.

Enjoy!

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If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially.

And thanks so much for listening!

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.