The Tortoise with Brooke McAlary

If you’ve ever tried meditating, only to be constantly frustrated by the thoughts incessantly drifting into your mind, today’s episode is for you. Meditation practitioner Emily Cordes joins Brooke in today’s episode, where they dive into what it actually means to meditate, how to get started, and how living mindfully has helped Emily work through periods of anxiety and depression. They also talk a...

Brooke and Ben continue to sacrifice their bodies and minds for science* in Week 2 of The Slow Home Experiment. In this episode they talk about their first full week of the No Sugar experiment. Turns out they’re feeling much better than a week ago, and seem to be over the worst of the sugar hangover. In this super relaxed episode they chat about a recent bout of illness and whether they think it w...

In this ridiculously enlightening episode, Brooke chats with Gretchen Rubin, the New York Times best-selling author of Better Than Before, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home. This show starts out as any other - a regular conversation - in this instance, about happiness and habits and the changes Gretchen is most proud of in her own life. But somewhere around the middle it shifts into someth...

Today marks the beginning of the Great Slow Living Experiments Experiment! In case you missed it, Ben and Brooke have given their bodies and brains to science* in the name of testing a variety of slow living approaches. Every month they choose one experiment to focus their attention on, and each Monday release a podcast where they talk about their experience to date. And today is the very first on...

The first non-McAlary podcast guest of 2016 is the delightful Stacey Roberts of Veggie Mama, and honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend an hour on a rainy Friday morning. We talk about negative relationships and why they drove her to learn about mindfulness, what she’s learnt from a decades-long meditation practice, and the negative thought patterns both of us have had to break free o...

Welcome to the first episode of 2016! In today’s show Ben and Brooke talk about rhythms and why this time of year is the perfect opportunity to hit the reset button, rethink your priorities and recalibrate your time. Resetting and rethinking are super relevant for Brooke and Ben this year, as over the holidays they made some huge life decisions that are going to see pretty much everything change....

  We’re rounding out the year with a final hostful, where Ben and Brooke chat about the year that’s been, some highlights, some very exciting future plans, and answer three most excellent listener questions. (They were also interrupted approximately eleventy billion times while recording, so if they seem a little crazy - that’s part of the reason. The other part is that they're like that all the t...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/39 Have you ever found yourself eating your way through a block of chocolate, despite the fact you stopped enjoying it a while ago? Or ordered the big plate of hot chips even though you know you’lll feel bloated and heavy and low on energy in thirty minutes time? So why do we do it? Why do we repeatedly eat food that we know will leave us feeling depleted? That’s what I...

Bea Johnson is a guru of zero waste living. Her family of four produce barely enough rubbish to fit into a small glass jar - every year - and she now spends time teaching others how to reduce waste and live simpler, more sustainable lives. She also has a kick-ass accent. Coming in to this conversation Brooke was expecting to walk away feeling overwhelmed and a little inadequate. Not because of Bea...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/37 Mark Shapiro is a big fan of authenticity. In fact, he quit his job in television earlier this year to spend time teaching people how to live an authentic life. And what he’s discovered is that we humans play it safe. We stick very closely to whatever it is we “should” be doing, even if it means ignoring the truth of who we are and what would make us happy. Mark and...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/36 When people used to ask Rachel Macy Stafford just how she managed to fit so much into her life, she took it as a compliment. But as her world began crashing down around her, she realised just how much ‘having it all’ was actually costing her. In today’s episode I ask Rachel about the moment she realised things needed to change and how giving just 10 minutes of undist...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/35 Linda Esposito is a psychotherapist who’s passionate about helping stressed out, sleep deprived adults, angry teens and their frustrated parents. When I sat down with her recently we wound up talking about depression, social media, the power of disconnecting and the importance of routine. We also chat about the work she does with mindfulness, how we can learn to bett...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/34 Sometimes I’ll have a conversation with a guest that leaves me feeling like I’ve spent an hour chatting with a friend, and today’s episode with Jen Hansard - one half of the dynamic Simple Green Smoothies duo - is one of them. Jen and I talk about the massive success of Simple Green Smoothies and the brand new book (out today!) but we also talk about the health crise...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/33 This is a special bonus episode of the show, featuring a chat I recently had with Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist. Joshua and his wife have just launched The Hope Effect - a charity designed to revolutionise orphan care. To be honest, I had no real idea of the difficult and damaging environment many young orphaned children are brought up in, and once I heard Jos...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/32 This week it’s hostful time, where we do our best to answer your listener questions. This week Ben even sings. It’s a beautiful thing. Fortunately though, this was our first time recording with a two-mic set up (we’re so professional) so Ben’s mic is a little quiet. We’ve done our best to shift the levels around and it should be fine but if things sound a little diff...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/31 Everyone’s path to a simpler life unfolds differently, but as I’ve been interviewing guests for the podcast and talking to more and more people about their stories, it’s becoming clear that there are common points in most tellings. Common realisations as we strip away the excess, the clutter, the stress and the stuff. One of the most common is the desire to simplify...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/30 Many people dream of making the shift from hectic city life to somewhere slower paced, and I can’t help but feel this has become the expected move for those adopting a simpler life. But it totally doesn’t need to be the case. Today I chat with Rachel Jonat who has just moved her family of five from The Isle of Man (a relatively small and remote island in the Irish Se...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/29 Travel has been a part of my life for a really long time, so chatting with this week's guest, Tsh Oxenreider, was such a joy. Tsh has just returned home after a year-long round the world trip with her husband and 3 kids and - not surprisingly - we spend a good chunk of today's episode talking about it. We chat about the different types of long-term travel - both slow...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/28 Time for another hostful episode and today Ben and I are answering two really excellent listener questions. The first is from a busy mum who is trying to find time to live a slow life - in spite of the constraints of family, work and life. The second question is about how best to establish a social network of like-minded people, while not alienating old friends whose...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/27 Is there such a thing as fast slow food? Today’s guest, Jules Clancy of The Stone Soup believes there is, and she’s made it her mission to create and share recipes that are healthy, tasty, fast, easy and have just 5 ingredients. In today’s episode we talk about how to create simple, easy meals, but we also look at the impact minimalism has had on Jules’ life, beyond...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/26 In today’s episode, I’m the annoying person talking about Christmas - in September.  While the holidays are still a few months away, I’ve been asked whether it’s possible to maintain a slower, simpler way of life in the face of the consumerism-driven Christmas of the modern day, and I think it’s a question many people will have over the coming weeks. So I thought now...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/25 Sometimes I have a conversation that is so honest and open it floors me. Today’s episode is one of those. Sam Lustgarten writes about frugal living, but he and I dive in to a whole lot more than that.  We talk about how he fell into debt in college, and how spending money on stuff became a much-desired distraction as he moved through a difficult personal time. We als...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/24 Is slow living really accessible to people who live in cities? This is a question I'm asked a lot and today’s guest, William Powers, is the perfect person to ask. Bill's most recent book, New Slow City, explores what it means to live slow in one of the world’s most hectic cities - New York.  He and his wife spent a year living in a micro-apartment in Manhattan, and B...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/23 Today's guest is my lovely husband Ben, and while hostful episodes are usually about us answering listener questions, today I interview him about our journey from stressed-out to slow living. We also look at the major benefits from his perspective, and how his idea of success and a life well-lived have changed.  As the one who was the driving force behind slowing dow...

http://www.slowyourhome.com/22 In today’s episode, I chat with Cait Flanders about her journey towards a debt-free life, and honestly, it’s a delightful kick in the pants for any of us who may not be on friendly terms with our money.  Over the past 3 years Cait has paid off over $30,000 in consumer debt, adopted minimalism (you’ll find that these two are very closely related!) travelled extensivel...