Mates, thank you a million for your comments and emails after last week’s check-in. I felt them all so deeply and have found myself thinking about expectations and healing (not to mention guilt and productivity culture) a lot over the past few days. The wisdom and kindness of this community is truly wonderful and I’m so grateful to you all.
And with that in mind, I’ve decided to take a little more time off.
Past Brooke would have seen improvement and immediately jumped head-first into motion again. Current Brooke (wiser Brooke?) however, has learnt enough to know better. Plus, I typically take the kids’ school holidays off from writing here anyway, and they start tomorrow, so it makes sense to keeping tilting into healing for a few more weeks.
There will be a new plodcast episode heading your way on April 18th where Ben and I talk about soft living — the good, the bad, the hard to fathom — but aside from that, I won’t be back in your inboxes until early May, once the autumn school holidays are over.
All things going well, Term 2 will look a lot more normal, with:
More on the 1% experiment (I’ve managed to keep healing and joy in mind over the past couple of months which has been both surprising and important)
Maybe, hopefully, a monthly Slow workshop series
A new theme for the term — rebellious living
I want to explore what it looks like to opt out of the status quo and stand firm in our counter-cultural choices and, just as importantly, how to take care of ourselves while we do. It’s tiring to constantly swim upstream, so how can we live in a way that feels right without burning out?
Should be juicy!
I’ll be keeping payments paused for all paying supporters until I’m back. Many of you have suggested I restart them now, and maybe I’ll consider a different approach in the future if my health ever takes another dip, but for now, I feel much less pressure and guilt by keeping them paused. I really do appreciate your generosity and the value you place on this community though and will spend some time working out my feelings on it all over the coming weeks. (Always learning!)
Until then, wishing you all good health and pockets of joy.
Take good care,
Brooke xx
Sounds like a great plan.
I’m very interested in the rebellious living theme as one who is exhausted from swimming against the tide.
Sending you lots of healing vibes. Love this comment & topic: 'I want to explore what it looks like to opt out of the status quo and stand firm in our counter-cultural choices'. I too am finding it tricky to be myself in my actions, without people stereotyping me e.g., as a hippie or greenie, or judging me for hibernating or being subversive xo