The Inconvenience of Joy

“I will never apologise for embracing joy and beauty - even when the world is falling apart – for joy and beauty are the fuel for my activism”.

These words by Karen Walrond inspired this week’s conversation on Joy, and how cultivating joy is both a way to resource ourselves and build the resilience needed to meet the challenges of our world. Joy is often seen as being the same thing as happiness, and yet these two emotions are profoundly different. The practice of joy is embedded into all world religions and can become a deeply spiritual practice – as well as a beautifully infectious state to find ourselves in.

In this week's conversation we dive into the meaning of joy, how it shows up in our lives; how activists across history have cultivated joy in their lives and work and what happens when we learn to practice joy as part of our daily rhythms.

In this episode we reference the following:

• Mission: Joy – Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu (video)
• Habits for practising joy - ThoughtBox (PDF)
• Seeking Language Large Enough – David Whyte / On Being (podcast)
• Climate Courage Campaign – Climate Majority Project (website)
• Joy Over Fear – St Ebbe’s School (website)
• Schools of Dreams - Kimberley Oliff Cooper TEDx Talk (video)
• The Fun Habit - Mike Rucker (book)
• Glorious – MaMuse (Rachel’s current favourite joyful song)

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The world is feeling a very broken place right now, with all that is erupting out of the Middle East, and with continued suffering across the world. When we do engage in conversations about what is happening, we often find ourselves sidetracked into the dance of moral outrage and the opportunity for a conversation is lost. And yet simple human connection sits at the heart of all that we're yearning for - each of us carrying the innate need to be seen, to be heard and to belong. So what happens when we offer to meet those needs in others, simply by noticing their shared humanity?

This week's conversation is raw, personal, honest and deeply human. With no apology. For we don't need to hide our humanity to be professional. In fact, that is perhaps the reason why so many of our institutions have become so inhumane and it also holds an invitation for how we can each start to re-humanise the landscapes we are part of.

In this episode we reference the following:

• Most shocking second a day video - Save the Children (video)
• Human: A Portrait of our World - Yann Arthus-Betrand (film & photography)
• Immigration & Refugees curriculum -ThoughtBox (learning resource)
• Meeting a broken world - Rachel Musson (blogpost)

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We talk a lot about change but living through it is something else entirely. Change is the only constant, and yet change can feel deeply uncomfortable - fearful at times - and not necessarily something that many of us openly embrace. In a world constantly talking about the need for change, systems-change and changemakers, there is a deep energy of possibility in this invitation - and a deep necessity when we realise that the current context is making us unwell - and yet which is the direction of change to follow?

In this week's episode we reflect on the messy, non-linear and often uncomfortable nature of personal and systemic change. Whether that's the changing nature of relationships or the constantly shifting and changing climate; changes in culture and society to systems change and changes in our brains and bodies, we dive deep into the different ways we can embrace the uncertainty of change and find a more easeful relationship with a world in constant shift.

In this episode we reference the following:

• Common Cause Foundation (website/organisation)
• The Three Horizons model - Bill Sharpe (website)
• Bio-leadership Fellowship (website / movement)
• Stories of Triple WellBeing - Rachel Musson (ebook)
• There are Rivers in the Sky - Elif Shafak (book)
• Luna Living - Kirsty Gallagher (book)
• Sacred Geometry (7 circles)
• Schools of Dreams - Kimberley Oliff Cooper (TedX talk)

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We've all probably experienced the feeling at some point in our lives where we're talking to someone and know that they are just pretending to listen. The feeling of disconnect that this creates within us may be subtle but it's felt. Listening is a gift - when we give our full attention, we are in presence and attentive to anything that may emerge. And yet, in many of our modern cultures, the art of listening is a dying act whilst silence is endangered species. Learning to listen to ourselves, to each other and to the wider world is a practice we can all inhabit and a hugely rich and deep way of forming seen and unseen connections with ourselves and the world.

In this week's podcast, we talk about the inconvenience of listening, what it means to truly listen; why listening is so hard and what happens on a cellular level when we gift another person our full attention.

In this conversation we reference the following:

• The Listening Project - ThoughtBox (downloadable resources)
• The Listening Book - Robin Ticic, Elise Kushner and Bruce Ecker (book)
• Listening Abyss (image and concept)
• Interpersonal Neurobiology - Dr Dan Siegel (website)
• Silence & the presence of everything - Gordon Hempton (On Being podcast)
• His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (book series)
• The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss (book)

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you ask a child to draw a tree, most likely it will be a green circle plopped on top of a brown vertical oblong (with a lot more artistic flavour involved, obviously). Similarly, when most people think of trees, we tend to think of them from the trunk up. But the reality is that there’s as much tree ‘below ground’ as there is above.

As well as supporting us to breathe, trees play a huge significance in our lives and in maintaining and supporting the health and wellbeing of ecosystems. Did you know that trees secretly talk to each other, supported by mycelium in the soil which forms an invisible mycorrhizal network in the soil. And that is only the beginning of research emerging into the secret lives of trees and all they have to teach us about supporting the health and wellbeing of our community. And yet our relationship with trees is one of great contradiction - seeing trees as a commodity as well as something to revere and protect.

This week, we're exploring the inconvenience of trees, thinking about what we can learn from trees and how can we bring some of this invisible wisdom into our lives and communities. In this episode, we reference the following:

• The Overstory - Richard Powers (book)
• How trees secretly talk to each other - BBC (video)
• Suzanne Simard - ecologist (website)
• Entangled Life - Merlin Sheldrake (book)
• Sycamore Gap Tree (website)
• Temperate Rainforest restoration, Devon (campaign)
• Wilding - Isabella Tree (book / film)
• Rachel's tattoo (image)
• Holly's Tree pit (image)
• Transforming Leadership Course - ThoughtBox (online course)

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What does it mean to lead when you don’t know where you’re going? Now, more than ever, the future feels very uncertain – foggy even, and the role of leadership needs to transform to meet the fog. Too often, traditional leadership roles are modelled around a hierarchy based on outcome and – to a large degree – certainty. So what happens when we return to the roots of the meaning of the word ‘leadership’ and look to nature for guidance on how to be resilient and resourced for the future?

In this week's episode, we reflect on the invisible work, relational depth and regenerative rhythms of leadership that often go unrecognised in a world hooked on outcomes. We dive into what a nature-led leadership looks like, learning from the deep wisdom and experience of the wider natural world. We explore leadership as a journey of care rather than control, shaped not by hierarchy, but by trust, relationality and the courage to journey upstream towards a healthier future for people and planet.

We reference the following during the conversation:

• Transforming Leadership Programme (course / website)
• The ThoughtBox Team (website page)
• Simon Sinek on leadership (video)
• Surrounded by Idiots, Thomas Erikson (book)
• Insights Colour Model (website)

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In many parts of the world, people find themselves trapped in cycles of business. Our lives are full to the brim and we're finding ourselves endlessly busy - suffering from an epidemic of time poverty. We have more time-saving devices than ever, but what happens to all of that time we save? There is no giant clock in the universe, and yet so many of us shape our lives around time - a concept that is an agreement, not a law. How much is time a state of mind? And what happens when we start to think about different states of time, such as slow time, deep time and long time?

In this week's conversation, we unravel our relationship with time: the rush to do more, the stories we tell about our place in time and what happens when we start to slow down; exploring how reclaiming time might just be the most radical act of all.

In this podcast we reference the following:

• How to have the time of your life - Martin Boroson (Ted Talk)
• Deep Time Walk (app and immersive walk)
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Flow States (website)
• Falling in love with the world - Two Inconvenient Women (podcast)
• The Long Time Project - Ella Saltmarshe (website / podcast)

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