Embracing cycles of rest is essential for our own ability to grow and create. Rather than continuously striving, reaching for the next thing and going ever faster, we need to pause and recharge, acknowledging that rest is as crucial as productivity.

By honouring the natural cycles of action and rest, we give ourselves the chance to integrate experiences, reflect deeply, and ultimately emerge renewed, ready to bring our full selves to the work we care about.

Emma Chow is a regenerative designer and leader who learned this the hard way in 2020. Since then, she’s journeyed from global consulting to pioneering work in service of the circular economy, following a passion for nature and the climate she’s held since the age of 18.

In her conversation with Ben, Emma shares how embracing rest as part of life’s natural rhythm can open up space for resilience, creativity, and a deeper connection to purpose.

Links

• Connect with Emma via LinkedIn
• Emma’s website

Welcome to Peripheral Thinking, uh, conversations, exploring ideas at the margins, the per.

As this is where the ideas which will shape the mainstream tomorrow are hiding today.

In the conversation today, I talked to Emma Chow.

Emma is a regenerative designer and leader with a decade of experience working in service of nature and society, journeying from global consulting to pioneering work in service of the circular economy.

And much else since.

This is a great conversation as it touches on an important aspect of peripheral peripheral thinking that there are parts of our own lives, parts where school to ignore, uh, which often force their way back into our consciousness demanding our attention, kind of our own peripheral thoughts, our own peripheral thinking, if you like.

And you know, this is often not an easy journey, as Emma's story talks to, but the invitation if we do, is to grow and evolve work.

Which is rewarding, inspiring, and impactful.

In this conversation, we talk about winter, not the gray raininess outside your window, but the opportunity and necessity to let seasonality and systems shape and inform your work.

Uh, in this, I hope you'll be inspired by Emma's journey and learn a few practices to lend creativity and ease to your work.

And I hope too that you'll come away with a renewed appreciation for the dark times, the time of renewal, winter.

and I guess winter in particular is it's, uh, something I.

An idea, both kind of literally and metaphorically that lots of people will spend their time trying to escape from.

But one of the things that we'll talk about today, which I'm really looking forward to getting into a little later, is actually the, the, the kind of reverse of that, the converse of that, the, the kind of, the, the wonder of winter, the healing power of winter.

So very much looking forward to getting into that.

Now, I, I made reference that we'd actually started this conversation, uh, in person walking along the seafront here in Hove, where we both live Hove on the south coast of the uk.

And so you just for some context, so you are a, you're a Canadian, uh, who's come via Canada and America and much else besides, and now find yourself living in this, uh, in this kind of southern UK hotspot of Hove.

That's right.

Is it?

Yes, that is absolutely right.

Hmm.

So what, how, how have you, how, how, how have you, how have you arrived here?

Oh gosh.

Where do I even begin following intuition?

I would say it's funny because I grew up in Canada, ran away from there.

I was like, I.

Let's go to the US and is in a time, I don't know how things have changed over the past couple decades, but it's a time where it's like Canada was a little sister, a little brother of the US and I was an athlete tennis player.

So if you're good, you go to the US and you go play for a school.

So that's, that's how I did.

And I was in corporate America and I look back and like, wow, that was my whole like adolescent transition into adulthood, which I now see so many belief systems, ways of working, very importantly, and even how I spoke and I got rid of my Canadians and made myself American very good at shape shifting.

And then I, I, I was super passionate from the age of 18 about climate and nature.

And I just had this, again, an intuitive, like inherent level that was so vibrant and alive in me and just saying, I need to dedicate myself to this.

And at that point I was looking across the ocean and seeing what was going on in Europe and.

They were so much more progressive on a sustainability front.

So I thought, let's go there.

My mom's actually from England, so I'm very fortunate and I have a British passport, so it made it possible.

And I don't speak any other foreign languages unfortunately.

So when you start looking at Europe and you go, I wanna work here?

it narrows quite quickly.

And yeah, the dream job at the time came up and I just totally flipped my life over on top of itself.

And within a month, moved from Boston to the Isle of White of all places, which I honestly had never even heard of until I saw on the job contract.

that leap, uh, I want to come back to because I think that that's a totally brilliant thing.

The, oh, so corporate America.

What was corporate America for you?

was doing consulting at Deloitte and I was a analyst and then consultant, so it kind of meant you're thrown into whatever project they need you?

on, and it was like doing many different jobs.

Over the course of two and a half years.

And I got to my whole motivation even for going into it.

'cause I knew right at that point, do I follow my heart or do I follow my head?

And I think I kind of went on a junction, chose, chose a path at that junction that was more the logic, which is saying go learn about industry.

Kind of like go into the belly of the beast and understand how business works because you can't change a system unless you know the system.

So I was miserable at times, you know, it was not aligned.

It was hard to get on sustainability projects.

It was, but I did get glimmers and I learned so much.

And it did end up serving as a really valuable platform because it skilled me up in ways that enabled me to then come to England, take the role that was available and have a level up of, of a, of a form, um, which has set my whole journey in motion.

ever since, so I don't regret a thing, but it's interesting to look back and reflect and be like, in those decision points, what, were my thoughts?

what were my feelings and where did I choose to

And what, what was going on?

What do you think was happening at that point?

I, at this point, so had, had.

A very fortunate opportunity.

I didn't even know about consulting.

They, they were very smart and swept me up into a leadership conference and training as a sophomore in university in the us.

And so I was, you know, 19, 20 years old and I didn't know What consulting meant, and I just started doing it.

I was like, okay, let's, this this's fine.

I can do, I can do this.

And I did an internship and you know, that's a trial.

And I came out of it and that's when I made, and I remember having a phone call with an amazing manager who I had during a short stint, and that was actually on social impact work within my internship at Deloitte.

And I, I spoke to her, I'm having this battle, this is what I'm thinking, this is what I'm feeling.

Do I go the environmental route, which I knew at the time would be probably in like a smaller Startup boutique consultancy.

The market really wasn't mature.

It wouldn't, what trajectory would that set me on versus going into a really credible name, getting great training and resources.

I'm potentially having to work with companies that my values don't align with.

How do I reconcile this?

And so through that conversation, I did follow my gut.

They, they were like, it sounds like they didn't tell me anything, to be honest.

They, I just spoke.

It was very coaching kind of conversation.

I just spoke a lot.

And then she said, sounds like you're thinking about it the right way.

And I'd already made a decision I'd, I'd said, I think I wanna go to Deloitte.

I think I wanna go into the consulting.

And I did.

And I didn't see a real option otherwise at the time.

Now of course I do.

Of course I see many options.

But when you're leaving schooling and looking out at the horizon, especially in the us which is very striving, very achieving mindset, the artist in me, which was very alive as a child, have been kind of cast side.

Closeted.

I remember that used to be my fun fact.

It used to be like, what's your secret that no one knows?

I'd be like, when I was little, I dreamt of being a dress designer and I make art, but no one knows.

So Yeah.

it's very interesting because now I understand myself more and I very open, like in human design, they call it open centers.

I have a lot of open centers, so I take in my environments, I take in information and I can shapeshift very easily, but I can also lose a sense of my own.

I amness quite easily.

So I think at that point, because I wasn't so much in my, I amness and my being, I could easily override sometimes I'm envious of people who I meet who are like, I just, you know, followed.

They followed their creative track.

And especially when they have become designers or they're in the sustainability space, and I've done a full circle and now, now I'm more there, but sometimes I'm like, did I hate myself?

Like, did I corrupt

this innocence and creativity that I had?

And then get a very, not even a bit like very disillusioned with the world, which continued because I brought that same belief in business, which I still have.

Like I still, I do believe that business has a role to reimagine our society and our world, but I continued in that in a very similar template that I was in corporate consulting and just move that into sustainability.

So even though the context changed, the fundamentals and the structures and the dynamics didn't.

Which is very now very interesting 'cause I'm like, it wasn't for me.

Two blocks of corporate America and then sustainability and my life radically changed.

It did in some ways, but my way of moving through the world didn't.

It was, for me, it was wonderful era up until a couple years ago, and now it's been very much an of like a rapid evolution that sometimes I don't even appreciate until I'm in a situation again.

And I'm like, like I feel it in my body.

I'm like, oh gosh, this is what I used to feel all the time.

And I would just push through because I was an athlete, you know?

And you're just taught, keep going.

Yeah.

I mean it's interesting that because I didn't know the, um, the, the, the high performance athlete bit, well you've mentioned it before in, in passing, uh, terms, need to have a separate conversation about tennis.

'cause I'm sure your, your server is much reliable than mine.

Um, but the, there's kind of the, these, these kind of dual aspects, if you like, the, uh, the kind of high performance athlete.

And the, the kind of hidden artist, right?

Kind of hiding on the periphery.

'cause actually one of the, obviously this is called peripheral thinking and one of the things I'm really curious about are those aspects of us, which are peripheral, uh, but also aspects which kind of exist, uh, in culture at large, which are peripheral.

But those things which are peripheral are often the things which become the mainstream tomorrow.

And so really interested in that kind of dance that we play kind of personally, emotionally, mentally, intellectually, which is kinda refinding those ideas, those aspects of us which are on the periphery so that they can find their voice in our own mainstream.

And of course how that sort of plays out more broadly.

Uh, and I think that, I'm kind of curious then to see how that kind of unfolds in the journey that you talk about.

So you do, you're soon Boston.

So you are basically, you know, fully in the high performance workspace, uh, is what you're doing.

And, um, I guess that is involved kind of flying around the place and, um, sort of giving your life all hours of the day, every day of the week, um, to the Deloitte beast.

Absolutely.

But I thought I, I count myself lucky because I wasn't in an m and a mergers and acquisition project, which was notorious for being up until 2:00 AM and I've never been someone who can sacrifice my sleep.

Like six hours is very little for me.

And I was looking at some of my Pearse and going.

I'm so lucky that I don't have that, but it's all, everything's relative.

And I, and I'm like, I had the energy and my nervous system was wired for going all the time and doing, and never, I didn't know what rest was.

I didn't know what stopping was, like nothing could stop me.

that was the thing that everyone's saying at me is, I'm so impressed with how driven you are and you get these gold stars.

it's.

like, you're so good.

Keep going.

I, I'm the, I'm like, this is mental because I, you know, 22, 24 and I'd be fly, they'd fly me to a project just for three days from Boston to San Francisco and I'd fly back on a red eye Thursday night and I'd land Friday morning and I'd go back to my apartment and I'd have a nap and I'd go into the office

and start working again.

I could not even try and do that, I guess.

Oh God, no.

I mean, just the idea of it makes me feel quite uncomfortable, but it's like that, that is, that is of course, you know, a way of living, a way of working, which is super vape, super pervasive.

And even today with um, sort of much more awareness around kind of mental health.

And I always find this kind of curious.

So one of, I have, I partner on a platform which provides meditation teaching and it's set up with my long-term meditation teacher who comes from a Buddhist tradition.

And we, when we were sort of been looking at those, you know, kind of thinking about where that exists in terms of the world of things that people have available to them and talking about things like mindfulness in the workplace.

But of course really all mindfulness in the workplace is an appropriation of an idea to lend people like you who are in that thing, the feeling that there is some care and or maybe the idea that they could become even more productive,

you know, give even more of their time to, to, to serving that, that machine.

And it's often how those products and services are sold into businesses.

'cause it's a meeting, the current paradigm of

extraction

in the form of productivity.

So, you know, if you're the CO of business, I'm gonna, I've got this amazing app or tool and I'm gonna give it to you.

And we, we've proven that there's 20% increased productivity when people use this three times a day.

And then they go, oh Yeah.

great.

So it's like the way that we're even starting the conversation and how we're designing things, and I totally have the same view.

It's unfortunately been co-opted and,

and the integrity of it undermined and diluted.

And like, what, what is the intention,

right?

It's like something is only what it becomes based on the intention that underlies it.

And there's also this piece of like, hmm, how do I describe it?

Yeah.

I think it's just the.

The extraction.

It's a reductionist.

It's taking something that's actually really complex and then reducing it to fit the one dimensional reality that we create

in our, in our world, and like that's not seeing each of us as whole human beings and all of the life around us as, as their whole beings as well, and our relationship in it.

I think we're so far from that.

So, yeah.

So that, uh, is a, is a, is a useful segue that, uh, that kind of understanding also a, a kind of movement towards more of an understanding about, um, the kind of whole that we are part of that we are connected into.

So here you are, you're in Boston.

Um, you are, I guess, a coming to the realization, the conclusion that maybe your time in this particular corporate beast is coming to an end and know that the time is right to make a shift back to, uh, that one part of yourself, which was the kind of movement more towards the environmental sustainability side.

So how, how did, how did that come about and, and where, where did it take you?

I will tell you.

So I, what I didn't say earlier was, one of the pros that was drawing me to join Deloitte was they had these options.

It was the first, I was so lucky.

It was the first cohort where they said, there's actually so many of you were gonna trial doing two class starts.

So we'll have a group of, you start in September, which is when we normally do, we'll have a group of you that starts in January.

And I thought, why would I rush into being AD an adult and working, I'm gonna work for the rest of my life.

Like, why would I do that?

And some people thought I was crazy, like, why would you take a break?

You were displaying your true colors

that.

So that tour came alive, right?

So it felt like I could do that dance between.

The more conventional, mainstream corporate side of me and the what became the traveling.

I'd never gone backpacking because I'd always been playing tennis.

I could never take a break if I was, if I was traveling somewhere, I had my tennis rackets with me.

So it was radical, it felt, seems silly now to say it, but it felt radical to get on?

a plane with no tennis rackets.

And it was like such freedom because these, I was used to having the heaviness of constraints and boundaries of what I needed to do, how I needed to perform, what I needed to play next when I needed to, you know, do an exam or an internship, whatever.

And I just had this six month gap where I was like, you can do whatever you want.

So I booked a one-way trip to Sweden and that's when I looked to the Organic Farming Association called wooing,

um, because I'd heard a friend had done it before and I thought, well, I don't really have much money.

I wanna go travel.

I believe I can do it.

Off.

I went with my young energy and a naive belief that everything would be fine and it was euphoric, and I realized how much I love solo travels.

so I traveled for six months on my own, mostly doing volunteer exchanges.

Like all of it was very much with purpose.

I interned, of course, I had to do, be doing multiple things at once.

So while I was, I was also doing remote part-time work for social enterprise in the UK while I was traveling, and then one in New Zealand.

So I, I still exercise my workaholism.

Good.

Good.

I was worried for

yeah, but I couldn't just take a break to take a break.

Um, but it was amazing and it opened me up to the world and it's like once you see something, you can't unsee it.

So I, I felt in my body and in my spirit, what life can feel like.

I felt so alive and I met the most beautiful people and it completely changed how I saw the world, how I trusted people, which was a big lack of trust I used to have before.

so that was there and I, and I would rekindle it every year because we don't get much holiday or what was it called in the uk and you'll leave in the US you get like two weeks.

So I would maximize it over Christmas and I would, I would take my two weeks often, so I'd go off and do, I wouldn't tell my teams this again.

They'd think I was crazy, like going and sleeping in hostels and camping and things.

You don't do that when you're in corporate consulting.

So I, I mean, honestly, some people I could tell, but some was like, you're not gonna understand.

So one, I love New Zealand, that's why I finished my trip and I just had, I call 'em spirit places.

It's like, I don't know if I had a past life.

I don't know what it is, but I.

Went there and it felt different to me.

Just, just like the, the feeling.

I can't even describe it.

And so I said, you know, I'm coming back within two years.

So I did, I came back and that was 2017 Christmas 2017, going to New Year's 2018.

I went and did two weeks.

I went and did a for pasta, volunteered at a pasta, um, center there, and I just backpacked, couch surfed.

And then I stopped en route back to in, in Maui.

I've never been to Hawaii, but Maui is just magical.

And I didn't realize at the time, I wasn't, I very early in my well call spiritual journey, right?

So I wasn't fully appreciating how magical that was and like what intelligence I was experiencing seeing.

But clearly it showed up with me because I remember very vividly on that plane from Maui back to Boston.

I just thought to myself, I'm done.

I know I'm not leaving.

I'm, I'm not staying.

And then I had one night in Boston and it was absolutely fine.

Nothing was wrong with it.

I call it neutral, but just felt flat.

And it was in such contrast to the adventure and the aliveness I'd just been experiencing and the nature.

And I just thought, Yeah.

be here anymore.

And I went that night and I just went online and I searched.

I kind of had a hit list of my dream organizations and I would every so often just go and look.

So this had been a year in the making.

I had no intention of staying in Boston or in that job for long.

I said, I'm gonna be here for two years.

And it's amazing how the universe works, right?

It was on the two year mark, and I'm getting chills now talking about, because I got my promotion in consulting the very same day.

I remember I was on a plane, of course, hooked up to internet because you can't take a break.

And I got an email from the recruiter and an email from my employer saying, you've got promotion, which felt like nothing.

Like I just.

Feeling state was like, okay, I didn't care.

It didn't mean I didn't want more money.

It didn't matter to me.

And then I got this recruiter saying, Hey, we've got a new job.

And it was with El McCart Foundation, which is everything just flowed.

It was one of those things, I couldn't even describe what the sequence of events was, but within four weeks, three weeks, I'd done interviews, I'd gotten a job offer, and I was making decision to pack up my life and move very rapidly

Wow.

And so what, what was the, what was that length of time?

What was the time from the, uh, recruiter email to the making the decision?

How long was that?

I mean, I think That was two to three weeks.

and then it was four weeks on top of that

And so, uh, for those, for those who don't know, just give us a little overview of the Ella MacArthur Foundation,

I call 'em the hub of all things circular economy.

So they came out over a decade ago when circular economy really wasn't even a thing and they looked at different, theories and thought leadership that existed and blended things and created something that's called circular economy.

That's based on three principles which are about eliminating waste and pollution, keeping materials in use, circulating, and importantly regenerating natural systems.

So I came in at the very beginning of when they were looking at how do we apply these principles, not just the plastic electronics furniture built environment, what we call technical materials, right?

They're not de rapidly decomposing the way that food, biological materials compost are.

So it's a totally different world and it's when just people are really starting to pay attention to saying our food systems are pretty messed up.

We need to do something about it.

and yeah, so it was full circle because as I mentioned a couple minutes ago, I didn't have a career per se in food, but I had, it's easy to say, lots of us say we love food, right?

So that's not unique.

But, um, that's definitely the case for me.

And being on those farms,

planted those metaphorical seeds.

Um, which then what?

Three years later, four years later, like came through.

And then next thing I knew I could bring my lived experience with my more theoretical 'cause I'd studied environmental studies and economics.

So we, we covered food and soil and I, I understood and I need the science side of things and the business.

So it, it was a moment I was like, was this written for me?

This is amazing.

And so they, the, the Ella MacArthur Foundation is based, uh, in the uk, uh, for those people who don't know on a tiny little island, uh, which is just off the South Coast called the Isle of Whites.

Uh, so you are in Boston.

You've just come back from New Zealand.

You are making a decision that you are no longer in the corporate, gonna be in the corporate world.

Um, you are heading back to a kind of earlier love of food and you find yourself some weeks later having committed to coming to take this job and flying from Boston to the Isle of White.

Now, for those who dunno, can you just paint a little picture of the Isle of white?

I can sum it up and I just completely, sometimes it seems, I mean, I do think lot of things.

I look back, I'm like, that was absolutely crazy.

No one else would do that.

Doesn't make any rational sense.

But basically, I didn't even Google the olive y.

I was just

like, dream drop, let's go.

It was an 18 month contract.

I was like.

what what's the worst thing that can happen?

Come on, let's just go.

Meanwhile, my flatmate in Boston looks at me and she goes, I just Googled it and you're going to a sheep farming island.

Like, there might be more sheep than people there.

And I go, yeah, that'll be fine.

That's,

That's, what I wanna do.

that's an attitude that applied and many crucial moments in my life.

and sometimes it mystifies me.

Looking back, I'm like, like something possessed me.

I was just like, yep, you're gonna go do.

this crazy thing.

And I arrived again crazy.

I took a red eye across the Atlantic and I had my bike in this bike bag that barely functioned.

I got it secondhand.

It was useless.

My bike got ga damaged in the process, my backpack and a huge Adidas like roller duffle bag.

Huge.

And I was going through the airport and I had to go through the tube.

Someone like given me directions to go and I could have just gotten on a bus.

National Express and would've been much easier now.

I know, but I remember going through the tube stations and being like, there's no elevator.

How am I meant to get this stuff?

It was like eight in the morning.

I had to ask people for help.

So that was a, a rough landing into British culture.

And then you go to the island, which is a brilliant, I was, I was, when I was thinking of that sort of question, how would you describe the island of WI wasn't really sure how really to bring it to life, but I think your flatmate

did

I, I think so.

And it's like going

back in time and going onto a movie set.

Like one of my other Canadian friends visit and then she arrives and she just stopped in the high street and looked around and she's, I feel like I'm in a Disney movie.

And at that point it all becomes so normal to me that I thought, yeah,

these tiny buildings and couple stones, it's all

very normal to

old slow pace.

Um, few

life.

Very much island

Yeah.

Lots of conservative pockets.

Yeah.

Mm-Hmm.

people.

And so here you are.

You've basically landed from Boston, your full, uh, whilst the, the kind of the, the, the kind of outer focus of the work has changed.

Uh, so here you are.

I'm from Boston.

Your full elite performing, um, self high octane, high energy, high achieving, landed in this kind realm of exciting new, sort of new to you circular economy, pioneering person in pioneering work.

Uh, what could go wrong?

So how long were you, how long were you with, uh, Ellen MacArthur Foundation?

Yeah, I went through a lot of different eras with 'em and I learned a ton.

and I, over time it took some time, but eventually I did, I think, drop away a lot of the high octane

practices and ways of being.

Yeah, and just the organization, because I was, I was the only North American for a while.

yeah, it was, it was more culture like dancing between cultures than I had expected.

'cause I grew up with my mom, my mom's British, and I thought, oh, this, this is easy.

And actually there's a lot of nuance, and especially when you're working internationally, like I had French, Italian, Spanish, um, colleagues, so I, that was a whole new world for me

to dive

into.

Anyway, so I mentioned at the very, very beginning of our conversation that we are to ultimately sort of talking about this idea of kind of winter and, um, the kind of the, the, the kind of benefit and importance of winter when we are, you know, sort of, whether it's literally, whether it's metaphorically we do everything

that we can to avoid the kind of darkness of winter, but in, in some ways what, I guess this point where you are transitioning from, sort of consultancy life, kind of Boston to this, uh, circular economy, very, you know, kind of pioneering environmental work in some ways, I guess this still feels quite spring and summer of your work.

Would that be a kind of fair way of

Oh yeah.

Definitely lots of creation.

New ideas.

Still lots of travel for work, meeting people, learning, growing.

Definitely in spring and summer still

until things

Until things changed.

Right.

Okay.

So what changed?

I think now that we're talking about, I think Covid, you know, COVID affected all of us, but I was actually really grateful at the first few weeks of Covid.

You know, it meant that planes weren't flying.

I wasn't traveling for work.

How

much traveling had you been doing in that phase?

monthly at least, but I'd be going to the us, I'd be going around Europe, I'd be going to London.

So even that was like day trip.

So I was used to having probably two weeks a month solid at home, having a schedule, getting groceries kind of thing.

But otherwise, it was constantly in motion.

And now I've, I've learned, I'm like, oh, this is something from a nervous system, conditioning from childhood, that chaos was normalized as safe, even though of course, that's not safe for the nervous system.

So naturally, I was drawn and attracted to and with, with.

Um.

Jobs and work and anything that created more chaos

because that's why I was a pro at, was just juggling a million things.

And I never was still until Covid and I like out a nervous system.

I was like, oh my God, I feel like I can breathe.

And I'm an introvert.

So just getting a lot of the stimulation, the talking in being impersonal all the time, like being in an open plan office, which I could never do work in.

I do work in the evenings.

I just couldn't do it.

and so Yeah.

it was like this huge relief and it opened up, it allowed that.

Deeper part of me and the artist to become much more alive.

Like I was doing much more art.

I had the privilege, privilege of having a house that had a whole room dedicated to art and meditation and yoga.

And I got back into yoga I was able to do a meditation teacher training, which I've been thinking about.

But I thought, well, that's for later.

Do the business stuff first.

Do the important things that doesn't, that doesn't matter.

You know, save the art and stuff.

So all of this was like coming alive, and at the same time, I could spend more time in nature because I had this gift of living on the is of white.

So I was so grateful for being there.

And that was a real golden era that I still savor to this day because I remember having calls, you know, meetings for work, and I really felt for the people in France and in London and people who couldn't go farther than a couple blocks from their house and were piled on top of each other in little apartments.

So I.

That I think was the beginning of wintering, but it wasn't autumn 'cause it was like this, it's like the cozy transition days of autumn, where you're just like, oh, let's just put on a snugly sweater and make my tea and sit and be.

And that's how it felt like until the loneliness set in

because you know, Yeah.

covid on the is of white.

and I couldn't go see my family and I had to make decisions 'cause lots of people made decisions very early on and said, that's it.

I'm, this is gonna last months, I gotta go to my family.

I'm just gonna work from there.

So eventually I did go to Canada and I ended up being stuck there because the planes were, grounded from Canada to the uk.

So I actually had three months and that was proper winter.

I hadn't experienced a winter in Canada since of being a teenager.

And that.

Help me recenter myself, grow more hope, have ideas again, because I arrived in Canada, this was now what, 2020?

pretty burnt out already.

Like I'd gone through several rounds of feeling absolutely exhausted, pessimistic about life.

And I didn't know to name it burnout because again, I'd normalized it.

When you

meant, when you referenced earlier, the normalizing chaos, is that, is this, is this how it was kind of manifesting,

and then that would be a consequence.

And it's almost like if I didn't have something to do and produce and achieve, then what was my worth?

Like, what was, what was I doing?

Everything was about creating something new going, but the travel, the constant doing.

I was constantly in fight or flight, right?

The sympathetic nervous system was wired.

Probably was, those burnouts are probably adrenal fatigue, but I didn't know anything different.

So, um, kind of some of the ways that then kind of turned up for you.

So you are, you are, you are working very hard.

'cause I think I, I don't really know very much about the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in terms of how it runs, but is, is it not run by somebody who's come from a consulting background?

the leadership's changing, but there's lots, and when I was there, there's there lots of consultant

background.

so the, the kind of, the, the energy in the place is quite sort of

Yeah.

And I, at least me, like every team was different, but I was interfacing with lots of the largest food brands and retailers in my day to day and big NGOs.

And it was, it was a lot of external facing, which I did.

And still very much a lot of the corporate speak, you know, making the slides to look the way that they want.

That kind of thing.

'cause it was, it's like a translator.

You know, we were speaking earlier about these different pieces, the artists and where the corporate, and for a while I suppressed the artists and then for a while I, more recent years, I suppressed the corporate and the scientist.

And now I'm starting to recognize and appreciate my own uniqueness in the sense of asking myself maybe, maybe that is my work.

Like maybe that is my offering in this lifetime to be a translator and be a bridge between, and I shouldn't shun every either parts of the, of

myself,

but it's actually the integration.

And it very much aligns with the seasonal metaphor and the, you know, Chinese medicine yin yang, because that's how I identify it.

I can go hard and I can push and I cr create and deliver, and I can be in the rest state and doing teaching, meditation and making art.

So I feel like my work in these, in this current era is learning to bring those pieces together and what does that look like and feel like?

There was just that thing that you said has really had a kind of lingering resonance with that idea of, of normalizing the chaos and how just, you know, we have these habit patterns which are run so deep in us.

Like I was sort of think, just the thing that was coming to my mind as you were talking about that is I clearly, in a way like normalize uncertainty a little bit.

Uh, and so kind of create, you know, in a way, I guess where my body feels at home is in whether, where there is a feeling of uncertainty, uh, and, uh, whether, you know, the kind of unhealthy aspects of that is then creating situations and circumstances which propagate that.

And I guess, is that a little bit what you were talking about with

yeah.

I mean, I still do it.

I still do it Now I'm self-employed and it's like, okay, yeah, freedom.

But instead of choosing maybe the easy path and what could be simpler, I might have more certainty.

It's, it's this thing.

I recognize that this year again seems so simple when we see it in yourself and when I see it myself, it's like commitment.

Because it might part of the normalizing chaos?

like what's actually like always going?

What's underneath that?

What's underneath that?

And as I peel back these layers and ask into it, it's like, oh, it's commitment.

Even like commitment to the flat

I'm speaking to you from, it's like, oh my God, I'm gonna be in one place.

And that was off the back of being a bit nomadic and traveling for a year and a half or two.

So that's what I am identifying it with, which then amounts in, uh, lots of uncertainty, which then I add as normal and what we seek for and create again and again and again in my nervous system.

So it takes work to undo that.

And I've also, since learning more about it and polyvagal theory and things in the past year, it's interesting to think about, like, reflect and investigate.

For me personally, my ancestry, and that's a doorway that's been open for me over a couple, starting a couple years ago, was from an ancestral healing.

And so it's like not everything that we shouldn't blame ourselves.

We don't always know for sure.

But it was interesting to think about, like, what is it that was either in my mom and her nervous system when she was carrying me and when I was a toddler and my nervous system was in training to hers.

Or maybe it wasn't her, maybe it was like, what, what about my grandma and great-grandma?

Oh, she lived through the war.

Like, oh, there's, there's probably a lot of uncertainty and grief.

And my Chinese side, my grandparents escaped from communist China.

There's probably a a lot

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Chip was going on there, which also goes sort of taught the need to move, taught the need to keep kind of, you know, moving

from place to place.

Always.

Like,

where's the greener grass?

Mm Or safer, safer grass, you know?

'cause I think that idea of green grass has sort of been appropriated to some whimsical, it's just nicer thing, uh, as opposed to some sort of, um, kind of pattern which kind of raised it, which was about survival.

I need to

move to survive.

It's like what are all the, the thing, it's the hypervigilance, right?

It's the hypervigilance.

And a lot of us are born into this lifetime with it.

And it can also be a gift, like we do have a service to society because we are noticing things.

Maybe we're seeing things differently than others and, and making things a bit safer.

But it can also do us, ourselves and our wellbeing a disservice.

Because I know for myself, it's constantly like, what are all these different elements of my life and how do I get them perfect?

when will I be okay?

When would I feel okay?

Was there was, so, was there a point at Ellen MacArthur Foundation where there was a clear realization of not being okay?

Yeah, it was, um, Literally produced a, published a report launch one, which was a huge effort a year in the making.

September 2021, and the day after my body completely crashed and the body's very wise and knows how to stop you in your tracks.

And it took my voice.

I wasn't sick, like I didn't have a cold or anything, but been fine doing, you know, the whole performance and talk public speaking the day before.

And the next day I just felt horrible.

I did not wanna get outta bed, but I knew I had to.

and my voice is gone.

Why did you have to, just outta curiosity.

I mean, it

I felt like I ha, I felt, no, it's a good question.

Like I felt like I had to, which was always, I felt, I felt like if I didn't show up, you know, my team needed me, nothing would move forward.

We just launched this report, I've got public speaking engagements.

We gotta do the thing, we gotta change the world.

I have to get out, I have to keep going if we wanna change the world.

Like that's the kind of martyrdom

that.

I had taken on for myself because my whole identity was wrapped up in it since.

It's funny looking back, right?

It's like things, it wasn't just achieving for the sake of it, but even as a teenager, I remember in high school I got voted most likely to save the world

in the, by

the school and the the yearbook.

And I'm like, that's what I'm gonna do.

This is my prophecy.

Yeah.

When you're whole, it's like this glass tower, you know, I've built for myself and if I don't show up, that might start crumbling.

And it's all fear.

It's all fear of saying, I have, I have to do this.

But eventually I noticed it was a few days later when I just couldn't, I'd gone through periods of feeling depressed.

I'd never been diagnosed or anything, but I, you know, like we all do.

And I just went into this slump, which is like the come down, you know, even Olympic athletes get this.

You go and you do your performance and you're like, oh my God, retired.

What?

What do I, what am I meant to do?

What's my purpose?

So I think I was feeling that.

And also just sheer exhaustion because my body knew

you've done the thing, now stop you.

You can't.

So it really, I finally listened.

It's like a culmination of all those years.

Going and adrenaline, like just riding adrenaline.

And then I had to listen and that was the first time I like had a consultation with a doctor and they don't have burnout as something that's medicalized and can be on your,

what do you call it, like diagnosis that you give to your, your workplace.

So I was diagnosed with anxiety and stress and told to take two weeks off of work and I did not wanna do it.

I, I was like, two weeks off, we gotta do our strategy for the next five years.

We've got all these meetings booked in, the team needs me, I can't, I can't, abandon

Is this all at the end of September?

So this is kind of after the 22nd of September, wake up.

This is all happening in the days, the

yeah.

So it was literally 30 years ago almost exactly that.

I then, after conversations with my boss and just being very honest with him and myself And

And how was, how were they

pretty understanding.

I mean at that point it's like everyone knew we had to, and I, I, so burnouts is experience.

I'm talking about like the big burnout.

It's not like, oh, I feel burnt out.

Like we, it goes, people speak about it all the time now, um, when it's, what I'm talking about is like proper shutdown down, you cannot work, your memory's not working.

That's when I knew I was doing, um, I was speaking on a panel online and they asked me a question and I could not remember anything from the report.

And I was like, oh my God, something is wrong.

Something's wrong.

That, that was really the point.

Is that, Is that, was the trigger to meet the doctor?

Yeah.

That was it.

That's when I did the online survey with the NHS and was like, I need to speak to a doctor?

And it was a week later I spoke to 'em, and in the meantime I was supposed to.

Go speak on stage for this event.

And I was feeling so anxious and I was like, I don't think I can do it.

Which was bizarre for me because I, that was my bread and butter.

Like it wasn't hard stuff.

But that's a real symptom of burnout when there's, there's many of them, but one of them is when things that used to be really easy, like sending an email, just like an admin email becomes really hard.

So, yeah, so this sort of cumulative thing, the doctor then says, okay, you need to take a, you do need to take some, some weeks off.

and, you, you kind of relent.

You succumb to that.

You kind of

Yeah.

Eventually I accept it and I was supposed to go back to the US for a wedding of a friend.

So I thought, okay, well I'll go to Canada, I'll be with my parents, I'll just kind of collapse and be taken care of.

Uh, but my nervous system was an absolute wreck and I started working with a therapist.

I had a coach.

I had my meditation teacher, I was doing my practice.

then I came back to England.

At this point I'd moved to London.

So that was also a big factor.

Again, didn't appreciate that moving from the Isle of White to London because

I was craving more urban life was a big thing.

Um, and I hadn't been in a good living situation and moved again within the city.

So it was a lot of change and my nervous system couldn't take it.

But when I came back to London, I was in a good spot.

Physically, my nervous system was not worked with this amazing osteopath.

And I remember her saying, it's like, she's like, your nervous system is a real mess.

Which of course, I had a lot of grief.

There was a lot of grief that was moving through me and ' cause I thought I was okay.

And she was just, just like, it's like you're putting your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time.

You're kind of start and stop.

Start and stop.

And that.

Was the beginning of starting to unravel and really come into what I call the winter.

Like I'd been in autumn and that point was like, you're going into hibernation.

And it was like a being a caterpillar and a cocoon, totally dissolving myself and, and I had to go through that process and go so deep to really investigate what were the belief systems, my operating paradigm, my sense of who I was, identity, like all of it.

'cause I knew at that point I couldn't go back.

And that set in motion this decision of knowing I needed to leave that job I needed.

And it wasn't just that job, I need to stop working because what end, what was first two weeks ended up being a month, ended up being two months off completely,

and then working only 10 hours a week.

That's all I could do Up to 20 hours.

And then, you know, that was a five, six month process and at that point was through my notice period and can leave.

I had no plans.

I went into total uncertainty, but it.

didn't feel chaotic.

It had this kind of like softness.

It was like emptiness.

That's what it was.

I was emptying out and being in the emptiness for the first time in my life, and I went back to Canada again, a plan, and then eventually intuition came and I was like, I felt also a bit desperate, and I was like, I need to go into darkness.

I think underneath, I didn't know that consciously, but underneath, because again, looking at it, oh, it's so interesting to say, it was on the summer solstice.

So we went from the the SOL system.

Within that period, then I felt ready enough to carry a backpack.

I was like, I think I can do it, but I was nervous.

I felt so weak and booked a flight from Toronto to Peru on the 21st of June.

I went from summer in the northern hemisphere to winter.

Which I didn't realize when I booked that play, but that was the invitation into darkness.

And that was a real beginning of learning to be with the darkness in myself and and in the world.

But that was the only way to start to really heal what needed to be healed.

And so what, I mean, what did the darkness, what did the darkness feel like?

What was darkness for you

Well, I went straight into the Amazon.

I'd had this desire to go to the Amazon for a couple of years, so I made it happen.

I was on retreat there and I'd never felt

the presence of death so vividly because I've grown up, lived, especially here in England.

Like there's no wildlife that's gonna kill you

and there I was in the jungle and there's no lights.

It's so dark, and I'd be walking alone at night to my.

Tree house, you gotta be way up in the sky so that the creatures can't come and get you.

And I'd hear like screaming monkeys and their cougars and jaguars and things around.

But boa constrictors things I'd heard of and never seen.

Thankfully I didn't see them or have any interactions with 'em.

But you'd see a lot of death.

Like dead beetles.

dead leaves.

Like I would sweep the leaves.

That was one my task at the retreat center.

I would sweep the leaves.

It's like you'd sweep them and within five minutes you'd have the path covered again.

And there's just, so the cycles of life and death are happening so quickly in the tropical, rainforest.

And then just the threat and also the reality of being in a place like brew.

And in Amazon where I knew if something happened, it was gonna be three hours on a boat to the closest town that

would have a small clinic.

Um, so that was, it feels dramatic, but I was like, Okay.

I need to be at peace with potentially dying,

which I'd never thought

about really before.

And how, so how, how aware of that, I mean, how, how conscious of that sort of question were you

very, even, even I hadn't been to South America because I'd heard bad things and I just felt this darkness especially like links to Canada and things.

There've been lots of kidnappings and things.

And I was a teenager that I'd heard about and I had just kind of been this stigma around it and I thought, no, I won't go.

And then I just felt this pull.

But I remember days before, I'd never been nervous to go solo traveling before.

'cause I'd always gone to pretty safe

places.

And this

time I thought this could get scary, like.

Uh, could I die?

Maybe.

And I've never had that thought

before, like choosing to go on this journey

that would potentially confront

death.

And, um, it was a death of self in many ways.

So I, speaking of grief, right, it's not only when we lose loved ones that we feel grief, it's also when we leave a place, when we leave a job, when we leave a part of ourselves behind.

And that identity of being the person who is the face of an organization and jets around all over the world, or it was like, this needs to be grieved and go through a death of

sorts.

so it was both on a physical, like the darkness outside and the death in the jungle and within myself

in a more metaphorical way.

Deep, dark winter

death.

yeah.

Seriously.

And how long were you in Peru?

That was like three weeks, I think.

Three weeks.

And then I went to, where did I go from Peru, Costa Rica,

which was very light.

I got sick there actually, but I think it was, my body actually got, looking back, I'm like, I think my body was going through a healing crisis,

at the time.

And then I went to Guatemala, which also to me had a lot of the dark energy.

It's like the mysterious, not scary, dark.

It's like, it's like a mysterious, and there's a quietness of the people Um, there's like a airiness.

That old me would've wanted to run away from and like chase the sunshine and be in Costa Rica forever.

So it was interesting that I actually didn't love Costa Rica and I loved Guatemala and I did my yoga training there.

So again, it was just like a facilitation of shedding and working through the Peruvian medicine wheel.

that was like the teaching practice.

And I ended in Mexico, which I hadn't planned to go to, but I'd just heard good things.

I was like, okay, let's do it.

And I, I loved it there.

And I, I

reclaimed my art practice

and I did an art residency for the first time ever.

And the whole, my whole art practice completely evolved as part of this journey.

And I had a new relationship with plants having been in the jungle and learning about how indigenous cultures work with plants and natural dying.

So I started studying natural dying.

I.

Loved working with botanicals.

And that's now my primary form of art practice.

Um, but I learned that more formally when I was in Mexico and trained with an artist.

So all these different parts of me that we were speaking about earlier, I call,

I called it like a reverse aging

because when I was 25, I, I, tried to make people think I was 35,

you know?

And I grew up so fast and I didn't let myself laugh so much.

I didn't let myself be silly or play, or make and create just for the sake of it.

So I went into this childlike

phase, which is so necessary,

and it was, now that I think about it, it was like proper, you know, death.

In some way when, when we're elders and then this like re rebirth of a way, but it wasn't a full rebirth.

It was like it'd already been there.

It was just giving space, making room for that part of me to come alive again

and to have a voice

So, yeah, so it's amazing sort of cycle, like you're talking about the kind of, uh, venturing into work initially, the kind of.

the sort of short, lazy hand way of describing this, the kind of high performance you going in, really into these kind of, you know, very striving, high performing, pioneering environments, which kind of demand a certain way of being, a certain way of contributing, which, you know, both kind of fed on and responded to that aspect of you, which was the high performance part.

The high achieving part.

And all the while, while that's going on, the, the, the, the dress designer has no voice.

The dress designer has no, no outlet, which obviously, you know, that dress designer part wants to play in different ways.

And in a sense the kind of, it just, it reachable.

'cause one of the things I was curious about is that idea of kind of wintering, which you were sort of talking about there, about going to, you know, confronting death, letting things die, the grief of doing that.

One of the things I'm sort of curious about, because, you know, in a way.

Like talking about it with hindsight, you go, okay, it's a kind of logical conclusion is if I keep pushing this hard for this long, at some point something's gonna break in me, something in me will break.

Uh, and I guess that's not universally true, but often it's true.

And, um, the, the thing outta the breaking out of the wintering somewhat or outta the breaking there is the opportunity of wintering.

There is the opportunity of, of, um, you know, the, I guess, I guess how, how would you sort of describe that phase for people if they were going to be reflecting on that for themselves and, and how they might sort of dance through this?

I know you and I have spoken about this?

before, but I love even going through the cycle at a more micro level

within a month with the moons.

Like that's been something that I've learned.

I'm definitely not expert in, but I, I just noticing how you feel and using the energy of the moons like our ancestors and even biodynamic farmers today, they cycle their farming practices with the moon for a reason.

It's not just woo woo stuff.

So I've started a couple years ago to just honor it in my own way.

And sometimes that's just like writing an intention.

It's reading posts on Instagram from my favorite astrologer and seeing how it resonates for me.

It does, right?

It works differently for everyone.

But when something works for you, like I just say, follow, it doesn't need to make sense.

So for me, like every new moon is a winter in itself and a moment to pause and seed those intentions and see what wants to die, and then broaden that out, zoom out, and obviously layer that to the year depending on what hemisphere you're in.

I won't speak about the months, but you can imagine what practices can be folded onto that.

And then in life, we're constantly going through these seasons as, as you say, and I think there's something in the, it's not even like pausing.

You don't have to do a physical pause necessarily, but especially when you've done like a burst.

Of output.

I never used to celebrate.

It was always just racing to the next thing.

And I think that's often how our businesses are.

It's like, come off of summer holidays and it's like, let's go.

Then you get to Christmas, then you might stop for a minute and they're like, okay, let's, let's go with January.

And then we're in spring and then we're in the next quarter.

And it's like, where do we celebrate more, where it's deserved?

And acknowledge the effort that we've put in.

Because often when we're wired, you know, we're drinking five coffees a day and we're just going, going, going, unless we consciously stop and make ourselves, you know, say I just did three months of working overtime and weekends and a lot of work to go produce that event or report or whatever.

I'm letting myself take the Monday off.

You know, like it might feel radical, but.

Speak to your teams, figure it out.

'cause normally other people want it too.

Like my whole team wanted it.

We tried to put, it didn't work, but we wanted to put policy in so that we could just, everyone could have like a day totally off a weekday.

Like it's not an annual leave day.

They don't need to use, it's like, this is what needs to happen.

Because nature works in that way.

Like the leaves are all changing colors outside my window because the trees are drawing their resources back in and they're emptying out the color of their leaves.

Like that's what we're meant to do.

We, we do the full outburst.

We're producing our leaves, growing our branches for a season, and then we gotta consciously say, okay, now I gotta pull it back in.

And it's like coming back to ourselves.

So there's this, there's this expansion and contraction that we see in nature everywhere, and we can always be reminded by our breath.

Like, we breathe out, we ex, and then we exhale.

We breathe in.

Sorry, I said that wrong.

We exhale, we breathe in and we exhale.

And so the inhalation, you know, or you can think about, for me, people think about it differently, but for me it's like the inhalation takes work and that's our summer.

And then the exhalation, we're emptying out and that's our winter.

So there's always a transition, but we're never in one state for long, so we can't be like, I'm gonna do a 10 month summer and then a one month winter.

That's gonna be great.

And I, I especially people who freelance are self-employed, they're like, tried this thing, or I tried to take all of January off and it didn't work.

Because it doesn't work if you're going full throttle the rest of the year because you're gonna be sitting there going, I need to check my client contracts, I need to check my email, I need to do this stuff.

So like, your nervous system isn't able to relax.

So it's more how do you build in.

It's not your day to day.

I don't wanna say that 'cause it's not gonna be the same and one day to the next, but it's

more how do you look?

Design your cycles and whatever your work and life.

You know, kids too, kids are going through a season

as well with their school and sports and everything.

So I think, I think it's all in the pause.

I mean, that's why

meditation is my core practice.

I know it's important for you too, and on why I say if people are gonna do one thing, it's meditate because it builds that muscle of awareness and you start to notice, like you don't necessarily need to resist or change it, but you can just be like, oh, I'm in Hyperdrive mode right now.

Okay, but I actually need to be in that mode to deliver this thing.

Or, I've got this crisis in my team right now.

Okay.

Then I notice it's done.

Now how do I signal to my body?

It's over.

So the stress cycles can complete just like

animals when they're attacked.

You have dog and like animals in the stuff, animal go shake, and they're processing.

They're laying the stress cycles complete.

We're meant to do that too, except instead we take stressful meetings and we're sitting locked up static behind a desk and computer and we're meant to move as creatures.

So especially when you've just done a lot of output, then it's like, go move, but not go run sprint five kilometers.

That's more adrenaline.

It's like consciously think about maybe do some Qigong, maybe do some yin yoga, maybe do a yoga nidra, maybe go for a slow walk, not a fast walk.

Like it doesn't always take a lot.

But if we just build that in, even for an hour after we've done a big push.

That can just help to start a signal process and complete the stress cycles and start to signal to the nervous system.

You're safe.

You don't need to be in fight or flight.

You don't need to be hypervigilant and solving all the time.

You can now exhale.

Yeah.

I mean that's a really kind of brilliant thing to, uh, point people to, and it is sort of such a kind of obvious but equally radical idea.

This starting to think seasonally, starting to think cyclically.

You know, this idea that one of, you know, the things said at the beginning of the conversation that you know that there is this kind of huge value in the winter, right?

And so, like what you are talking about it need not just be, there's 15 years of work and I hit a wall, and then I'm forced to winter.

Uh, whilst of course that may happen for people, but it is, then it's like, okay, now hold on.

This cycle of spring to summer to autumn, to winter, like you say, can go on the cycle of a moon cycle, can go on a seasonal cycle, can also go through the rhythms of a day too.

And actually the value of the pause, the value of just taking time to let rest, um, at different points.

Of course, just then you come back outta that little mini wintering into a spring back into the life, back into the creating, back into the doing.

And so it goes again.

But it does sort of feel like such a kind of obvious, um, kind of beautiful but really radical suggestion, actually.

Just think and act cyclically, enjoy the rhythm.

Enjoy what winter can give as part

of that sequence.

Yeah.

It's just this invitation to embrace winter, which is what we've been conditioned in our western society, especially in the northern hemisphere, to resist winter and dread it and complain about all the time.

And like even notice that it's like what's the language and the narrative you build inside yourself and with others about the season?

And can you consciously start to shift that?

And see what invitations it's bringing you, because every season's bringing us gifts, but like if we ignore it, we're missing the value, like we're missing the reward.

I think Emma, that is a beautiful place to end.

Um, we sort of nestled into winter and if I wasn't careful, we would bounce straight into the next conversational cycle of spring.

So, uh, I think is a good place to end.

I will point people to all of your, uh, kind of various things.

but yeah, just want to say thank you so much for.

Talking to me and, um, sharing on this, this seasonal journey.

well, thank you.

Thanks to the invitation to do it.

I always piece things together more and have many revelations or sometimes bigger ones when I verbalize it and stitch it together.

So Thanks for that opportunity.

Thank you again for listening.

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I think are the, the currency of our modern time.

So if you take a moment to, you know, share it with somebody who you think would benefit, we hugely appreciate that.

Or even take some time to write a review.

Uh, irrespective, if you like what we're doing, you can find out more if you search up peripheral-thinking.com, you'll find your way to the podcast website.

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You can keep abreast of everything that we're doing.

We'd be sure to keep you notified as soon as the next conversations go live.

Meantime, thanks again for your time.

Thanks again for your ears, uh, and we look forward to you joining us next time.