#63 - Designing a Nervous System Friendly Home with Cecilia Macaulay

Permaculture designer Cecilia Macaulay joins host Leisa Reichelt for a surprising but genuinely practical conversation about how the design of our home environments can either add to or reduce the nervous system burden on School Can't families.

Drawing on 34 years of permaculture design, and on Japanese cultural practices she's studied over decades, Cecilia introduces the idea that home can be designed to work for us rather than against us, without requiring willpower, discipline, or a big cleanup effort. Her approach, which she calls Togetherness Design, starts from the principle that order is natural, and that small, well-placed design choices can create a sense of competence, calm and belonging for both children and parents.

Cecilia shares practical, immediately usable ideas: why the kitchen sink is the single best place to start, how "floordrobe islands" can transform an overwhelming room into a liveable one, what perpendicular shoes at the front door have to do with nervous system regulation, and why design, not rules, is the key to creating lasting change in a household under pressure.

This episode is also a reminder that the young people in our community who have found their way out of conventional schooling can build meaningful, even remarkable lives on their own terms, Cecilia's own career is a case in point.

Special Offer for Listeners:

The Home That Loves You Back: 9-Month Guided Home Harmonising Project starting June 28: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-home-that-loves-you-back-9-month-guided-home-harmonising-project-tickets-1981827693982

Use the code: SchoolCant200 for a $200 discount (limited to the first six to sign up)

Other Resources:

Cecilia’s Website and Blog to sign up for stories and events: https://www.ceciliamacaulay.com.au

Cecilia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cecilia_macaulay/

Cecilia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cecilia.macaulay.australia

Transcript

Leisa Reichelt 0:05

Hello, and welcome to the School Can't Experience Podcast. I'm Leisa Reichelt, and this podcast is brought to you by the School Can't Australia community. Now, caring for a young person who is experiencing School Can't can be a lonely and isolating experience, but we are here today to support you and many other parents who are also on a School Can't journey. We are in for something a little bit different this week. We are gonna be talking about the intersection of permaculture, School Can't, neurodivergence, and how we can design our homes with very little effort and energy to work better to support our nervous systems. And we're joined by the wonderful Cecilia McCaulay. Now, you may be wondering, like I was, how permaculture could possibly be helpful when it comes to School Can't, but I think we're in for an unexpected treat and some very practical tips that we can all start using this week that could help improve quality of life for our whole family. Plus Cecilia has a very special offer for School Can't listeners that we share at the end of this episode. I really hope you enjoy our conversation. Cecilia Macaulay, I wanna welcome you to our School Can't podcast.

Cecilia Macaulay 1:14

Thank you so much for having me.

Leisa Reichelt 1:16

It's a pleasure. Cecilia, to get us started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you've come to do the work that you do today?

Cecilia Macaulay 1:23

Its such an unusual route, which is probably heartwarming for parents whose own children are going to have an unusual route in their careers. I've been a permaculture designer for 34 years. And I picked well because it has become more and more interesting every year of my life. I started out making ecosystems for edible gardens. Turning boring, barren, dead land into something productive and alluring for whoever owns it so they wanna go out and pick things. And that took me to Japan every year for 34 years. I'd go in Melbourne's winter and teach permaculture. But, Leisa, bit by bit, my focus changed from outside people's gardens to inside their homes

Leisa Reichelt 2:19

Why? Why is that?

Cecilia Macaulay 2:22

Well, this is the probably three main reasons. One is all my life my main hobby has been managing myself and my own unruly brain, and finding ways to make me enjoy life more and be more reliable and more enjoyable for all the people around me as I make my permaculture paradise. So I created share houses, and I ran them eight years each. And every year, I was learning ways to make my mind, a better friend to myself. Neurodiversity wasn't a thing then, and I didn't know that I'm not the only one, and now I do. So one reason I got interested in using permaculture inside my house was scaffolding for my own mind and inside other people's houses because as I traveled, I was not staying in hotels. I was the guest of the most generous, beautiful, creative, interesting people I came across who hosted me as I ran these workshops, who almost always had a home life in splendid And they'd about it and I'd laugh about it. But bit by bit, fixed it with them. And they couldn't believe it because I used permaculture. The permaculture I was teaching in their gardens, I used the exact same design patterns in their home. No forcing, generativity, finding visible resources, use the power of community, turn compacted areas where nothing relates into areas where all the objects are friends of each other and they're working as a team, like in the garden, like in our personal lives. And it was like magic. So now I'm on a mission not to save the world or stop global warming but to make home a place that's friendly to our nervous systems. And the place that it counts the most, I think, is homes of people whose children can't go to school.

Leisa Reichelt 4:43

Cecilia, families who have got kids who are experiencing School Can't have got lots of challenges from lots of different fronts inside the home and outside the home. Why do you think making changes to your kind of physical environment inside the home will be something that's worth investing energy in?

Cecilia Macaulay 5:06

Well, one reason is that's just my piece of the puzzle. That's one thing I can make a difference in. I don't go to schools. I'm not a psychologist. I can't work on those things. But I do have an impact on the home, so I think it's important. I know that I want to do everything possible from every front to make the nervous system burden less for children and parents. And we can have houses that are on our side and handing us what we want when we're looking for it, and that aren't reinforcing a feeling of I'm failing and I don't belong. So we can make houses a place of belonging of repair when things go wrong, they can go right again quickly, and of competence. "I'm good at stuff. Look what I made. Look what I did." We can set our houses up so that happens more readily. And my work is for mothers and children as a team. It's not just focusing on the child, because I see mothers and children as an ecosystem. When we care for the mother, it has a flow on effect to the child. Order is our nature. Every flower, even molecules like to just get in the right order. So my job's just clearing the decks, taking away the stuff our culture dumped on us, so that that natural order can emerge

Leisa Reichelt 6:41

I feel like I wanna go back to, what you were talking about at the beginning. You know, this connection between, your unruly mind

Cecilia Macaulay 6:48

Hmm.

Leisa Reichelt 6:49

and unruly environment. and I also, I feel like I wanna say something as well, which is that we're very conscious that for a lot of people there are a lot of demands happening right now, and having a tidy house is probably very low on the list of things that feel like a...

Cecilia Macaulay 7:07

useless.

Leisa Reichelt 7:08

It doesn't, really doesn't sort of feel like a priority. So this conversation is not about saying we should all have spotlessly tidy houses, because for a lot of folk, that's just not a reality that we live in right now, and that's fine. And people are prioritizing their energy in the best way that they can. But can you talk us through a little bit, like how do you understand that connection between, like, your experience of having an unruly mind and how that sort of connected to your environment?

Cecilia Macaulay 7:36

Well, my greatest teacher has been Japan, and the reason I go every year and have been going every year for 36 years is because Japanese cultural practices are medicine for unruly minds before medicine existed. Tea ceremony wasn't just a way for rich people to pass time. It was a way for traumatized samurai to get back in their bodies, to breathe, to have some control over something, even if it's only their cup of tea, in a world where they're just currency. And the environment's controlled. You go to a tiny room. Status disappears. Even the, the boss samurai has to leave his sword outside. We're all equal. The teacup goes here. You, you take a breath between each, each action. You get your balance first before you pick things up. And I discovered this my first year in Japan, and I fell in love. Ikebana is a way to stop, settle your mind, and just look at the darn flower. Look at its bend and think about how it relates to the other flower. And while you're arranging the flowers, you're in another world.

Leisa Reichelt 8:58

Let's talk about permaculture and how it relates to the home. You ran us through earlier some of the principles of permaculture, but can we go in a little bit more and understand what is it that is so special about permaculture in your mind?

Cecilia Macaulay 9:12

Well, the first thing is there's no force, and you're using design instead of willpower and effort. So when I would have a failure, I'd take a photo. Like when my milk spilled or something broke, I'd take a photo and I'd ask, "So why did this happen?" And it would not be blame, it wouldn't be a judge and jury, it would just be a curious inquiry, a compassionate inquiry. And I'd say, "Well, no wonder, the cans dropped out of the cupboard and smashed my favorite cup. The cupboard's too full". So I'd get out my pen and I'd write two-thirds full is full on the cupboard, and then I'd stop shoving things in and there'd be less disasters. And so this has been going on for 30 years in my life. Observation is one of the most powerful things, and especially if you're neurodiverse. You've had so much suffering and so many small failures and so many cans dropping on your favorite cup that you don't wanna see what's going wrong. You wanna just keep looking ahead. don't wanna say, "Why did this happen?" 'Cause the answer is, "'Cause I'm a bad person." Well, it's not. So turning on curiosity for what's going on, why did things go right? Why did things go wrong? Let's make more things go right, set up so less things go wrong. And so the camera's a really amazing ally for that

Leisa Reichelt 10:47

Let's talk about some of the different techniques that we can take from permaculture or the principles of permaculture and apply them to creating, you know, little areas of order in our home. What are some examples, Cecilia, that, you know, if you're feeling a little bit kind of overwhelmed and everything's just not in a great place, you don't have a ton of energy, where would we start?

Cecilia Macaulay 11:13

Well, we'd start with, as you suggested, little areas of order. Bill Mollison, the old bloke who founded permaculture, he said, "Just get your back doorstep right. Get that right, and then work on everything else." And I thought, "Hmm, maybe the inside version of that is the kitchen sink." I think for the first year, if you want a more nervous system friendly life, only focus on the sink. Your doom piles can stay. The room you can't enter 'cause it's full, that can stay. It hasn't killed you yet. Get that right, and some people may say, "Nup, I can't do the sink." Well, do the table, the, the dining table. which one should I talk about first, Leisa? Sink or the table?

Leisa Reichelt 12:01

Let's do the sink. I'm interested in why you picked the sink. Like, why is the sink a potentially important target area?

Cecilia Macaulay 12:07

I grew up in a family with seven little children. I was eldest of seven at seven, my dad wasn't well. He didn't go to work. one thing he did was every night he'd do the dishes, and two of us would dry the dishes, it was really wonderful daddy-children time. It's a lovely memory. We hate starting, but once you've started, and if you're with another person, there's this tend and befriend rhythm energy which is actually a nervous system medicine. Doing repetitive actions with other people So it is something that has to happen every day, so let's beautify it. Let's make it a source of healing instead of horror. As someone who ran a share house, I knew that the biggest conflicts came from strangers resentful 'cause someone left crap in the kitchen sink, and they went to so much effort to wash their dishes, and they didn't want to, and they did it, and then someone else left stuff, and they feel it's not fair, and they get de-energized, and energy for other things in the house disappears, and they stop making dinner for each other, and it all goes to hell. So as someone who ran a share house, I just got the sink totally right. And I put a lot of energy into it, and it gave so much more back. So how do you get it right? Well, you say, "This is not the sink. This is now the shrine of beauty and love." I'd always have a little vase of wildflowers. Whenever I was out walking, I'd pick flowers and that would go in my kitchen sink, and I'd tell my housemates where the flowers came from. I'd get the drainer that's usually full of dry dishes, and 'cause it's full, you don't want to wash new dishes.

Leisa Reichelt 13:58

Hmm

Cecilia Macaulay 13:58

So the other thing is no dirty dishes go in the sink. They can stay on the table. You can put them in a bucket. You can line them up along the wall. They can go in the dishwasher, but never in the sink because then it's just too psychologically scary to take them all out, and you don't want to start. And for, for one house, I teach something called make families. Round things like to huddle with other round things, so you put all the cups together huddling. Metal things like hanging out with other metal things, so you put all the cutlery together. And long things like to flock, so you line them up so they're feeling that they're in direction, and round things don't like that. And it's like acknowledges, you know, everything has a nature. Every person, even every object. Things are people, too. Let them be with their friends. Let them be in an environment where they feel wanted. Even a dirty knife can feel more or less wanted. So in one house, I even put tape and said, "Here's where the long things go," not in the sink, to the side of the sink. "Here's where the round things go," dirty. And was like a game for the kids after dinner to put the long things here and the round things there. And then it was not scary for whoever washes the dishes to wash the dishes. It's like a multi-step game. And then in the end, you win.

Leisa Reichelt 15:33

Yeah.

Cecilia Macaulay 15:34

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 15:35

So a lot of this makes sense to me. Like, when you're like the, "This has to happen every day," and, you know, "Let's do it together," part of me is just like, you know, wouldn't that be nice? but when... I think when you talk about things like not putting things in the sink,

Cecilia Macaulay 15:51

Hmm

Leisa Reichelt 15:51

even though that seems counterintuitive, like, I get that. Because it's like you put lots of stuff in the sink, just getting all that crap out of there is the first job, and that's probably the grossest job of them all. And so, that's a very easy one to keep putting off and putting off, and the longer you put it off, the worse it gets. And then the other thing, as you talk about, like, organizing, things together, Every time I've had to do a washup, that's always the first thing I do is, all the glasses together, all the cutlery together. everything has to be in their correct groups. For me, how could you possibly wash up without ordering things first? but yeah, it resonates with me, I should say, this idea of, like, try to keep things out of the sink, and that idea of having, like, zones for where the dirty things go so that they all match. I could see that. that doesn't

Cecilia Macaulay 16:40

dirty doesn't mean you have to disrespect them and just muddle them in with things that aren't their friends

Leisa Reichelt 16:46

Yeah. That's very interesting. So if you're in a home with a family, I imagine we've got more people listening who have got families to deal with rather than housemates, and you're trying to discourage others from just popping stuff in the sink, which feels like the natural, logical thing to do. Do you have some tips for

Cecilia Macaulay 17:04

Oh, Leisa, I invented something. It's so hilarious. So I put big trailing plant on one family with a School Can't teenager just on where the dish rack used to be. Big trailing plant. And so after you wash and dry the dishes, you put the plant back. And the mum would always put the plant back. It is not a big sign saying, "No dishes in this sink." You don't do signs because who likes being bossed around? I don't, and it just makes things worse. In permaculture, it's just a fact. Pressure makes things worse. So you make it beautiful. And, for the sink itself, I got a big chopping board in another family, and I just covered the sink with it. The sink doesn't exist And when it's time to wash the dishes, you take away the big chopping board and you wash the dishes

Leisa Reichelt 18:03

So back to what you were saying, it's not about like making rules and enforcing rules, it's about designing the environment to try to create the behaviors like that you're trying to get in the group

Cecilia Macaulay 18:15

Exactly. And it can be playful and it can be fun, and you and your family can be making little inventions like that one I made with the chopping board and the plant, and say, "We made a design. We're designers." Because the purpose of this conversation with you is that the listeners can start saying, "Yeah, I can be a designer, and I can design my environment so it's nicer to me.

Leisa Reichelt 18:41

Feels like a very different way of thinking about housekeeping, doesn't it? Rather than being a discipline, being like a moral choice. I think a lot of us are like, Good people have clean houses, and bad people or less good people have messy houses." and it's not that really at all, is it?

Cecilia Macaulay 19:01

It's totally not that at all. And I've found that in my experience, it's the most generous, people who are looking after the world that just don't have the gas to look after their own house. It's just wasn't their mission. But I give them these little design tricks and it's their new hobby because they've got a brain that likes inventiveness and novelty, and they've just invented a new way to keep the sink tidy, it taps into what does work for them.

Leisa Reichelt 19:35

Let's talk about another difficult area to deal with for our kids and for ourselves as well, which is like bedrooms. Bedrooms that can become just accumulations of stuff on the floor, stuff on every surface, nothing where it's meant to be. And it can get to the point where it's overwhelming to live with, but also overwhelming to change.

Cecilia Macaulay 20:01

Hmm

Leisa Reichelt 20:02

How would permaculture tackle that?

Cecilia Macaulay 20:05

Yeah. Oh, that's actually one of the last areas that I work on, just funnily enough.

Leisa Reichelt 20:12

Why is that? why do you take it last?

Cecilia Macaulay 20:14

I think when you get... As an adult, if, if the adult gets certain things like the kitchen sink and the table right, the rewards are so huge, and they're so public, and they impact human connection so much. And getting your bedroom right doesn't help you connect better to other people. So I do it last. And also because respecting a child's agency is really important. Only boss them about the absolutely critical things like don't run onto the road. So if you can avoid bossing your child about their room, depending on their age, that's a good thing. I have seen a lot of homes where the child doesn't have a wardrobe and the mother doesn't have a wardrobe, just a floordrobe. and they don't have the executive function capacity available to waste time putting things on a hanger. First get rid of the amount of stuff if possible. We buy things as a way to feel a bit better in, in life that doesn't have many nice highlights in a day. And, you know, if that keeps you going, great. You know, trip to Vinnies can be a joy. Having less things is really important. Sticking to the colours that the person loves is really important. What's your favorite colours? We have them, and we don't have anything else. So making an ecosystem of colour is a really powerful thing I do with adults. Like, it's actually the first thing I do when I am on a job in someone's house. We get our cameras, and we go and create what I call postcards. Create pictures of preexisting harmony, where two things or three things look really good together, and click, and the photo should look like a postcard someone would wanna buy.

Leisa Reichelt 22:13

And that's from things that have in your own home already

Cecilia Macaulay 22:16

Things that are already there and already together. You can fudge it a bit. And people are amazed. They look at their house and say, "Disaster." They look at the photos and say, "Art gallery. I have preexisting beauty everywhere." And is there a colour theme? yeah! All my preexisting beauty is, like, joyful green and pink, or it's all, like, hessian and unglazed pottery and natural. We'll just expand that throughout your whole house. And they say, "Yeah," and they've got energy for it. It's already there and it's already them. And it, it shows their, their aspirations. Like, one day I wanna, like, live in nature, And so the, the seed of their future greatness is already there, and I get them to find it and capture it and make a name for it.

Leisa Reichelt 23:05

And coming back to that design a-approach as well, right? Thinking about this as a design opportunity rather than, just purely about order maybe

Cecilia Macaulay 23:16

Yes. And I work for a lot of people who are psychologist resistant because I'm not into your problems. I'm a designer and I'm making you a designer. As a side effect, a lot of anxiety, a lot of nervous system burden disappears

Leisa Reichelt 23:37

When we were talking before, Cecelia, you were telling me a little bit about floordrobe islands and how we can use those as a technique. Can you talk us through that?

Cecilia Macaulay 23:45

Yeah. I went to one house and the first thing I did was I just divided the floordrobe and I used masking tape to show here are islands of floordrobe, and here is walkway. And this is like the river, and we keep it flowing. And you can have your floordrobe, but not here. And she loved it because I always wanna do the smallest possible intervention with the biggest reward. That's how you keep going. You don't do a big intervention with a small reward, which is cleaning up the whole floordrobe and putting it away, and then three days later it's back. That's not rewarding. That's heartbreaking. So I don't wanna do that to people. So she had a clear area, and every day she really enjoyed her clear area. And to clean the house, all she had to do was just go chunk, chunk with her hands and just put things to the side, to the islands. And that just got her knowing my life can change. I'm someone that can change way that my house is. And I can make areas of clarity, and it's a joy. And looking at it helps clean my brain And the problem hasn't been moved to a new room, it's just not a problem, it's just there? Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 25:04

Yeah. And it makes the space a little bit more livable and enjoyable to be in, but it's not like a massive effort to achieve it in the first place or thereafter.

Cecilia Macaulay 25:15

Yeah. and children love it. Sticky tape is one of my great tools, masking tape. In my share house I put stickers where the pots go in the cupboard. The big heavy pot at the back, the little hot pots you use often at the front, just to make it easy for yourself. And with the handles all facing out, so when you reach it's just giving you something like a butler. So, setting up things so it's like a butler is one way I bring some joy to a, a house that's in disarray. Say, "All your pots are being your butler." Succeeding in one movement. Building that in is one of my big missions. When you want a pot, you open the cupboard, you grab the handle, it's out. It's not stacked in other pots. It's just by itself the other pots got decluttered 'cause you didn't need them, and you succeeded. And you say, "I am a successful, competent person, and the universe is not fighting me." And in a lot of homes that have disarray, you can have, like, 200... What's the opposite of a victory? 200 defeats before you get dinner on the table, and I felt that. 25 years ago. Can I tell a story of my defeat? I had a friend who was depressed and I said, "I love you. I'm going to come every Wednesday and cook you dinner. I love cooking, you need it." And the first Wednesday I came she went out shopping. I tried to find the chopping board, and couldn't find them. And I found a stack, and they were wobbly or moldy or something, and, oh, I managed. And then where's the knives? I don't know. And looked everywhere. Oh, okay, got the knives and but they're blunt, they don't cut. And fry pan, which do I pick? There's seven fry pans, and one's wobbly and one's burnt and one the handle burns you. And as the cooking session went on, I thought, "This isn't ending. I still don't have the lasagna made. It's been... It feels like hours." It was like I was moving through honey. And feel like crying now just remembering my frustration. I wasn't a good cook in that house, she had to live with that every minute of her life. And that was a, a moment that really sent me on this direction of using design inside houses, not in gardens. I want people to feel victory every time they, every time they decide to act in the world, I want it to work.

Leisa Reichelt 28:06

And this feels like this is kind of the nervous system thing, right? That, as you interact trying to do all the different things that you have to do in life,

Cecilia Macaulay 28:14

Mm.

Leisa Reichelt 28:15

the settings can be harder or easier depending on the environment, right? So if you can create an environment that makes easier settings,

Cecilia Macaulay 28:23

Hmm

Leisa Reichelt 28:24

then that draws less down from you on a daily basis,

Cecilia Macaulay 28:29

Or it tells you I live in a friendly universe. The universe has my back. When I want my shoes in the morning, they're going to be there. There's nowhere else they're going to be, and I go to that place, and there the shoes are

Leisa Reichelt 28:42

Let's talk about shoes because when we spoke beforehand, you told me about the perpendicular shoes, and I've been practicing that for the last week. And, yeah, I do. feel like it does make a difference. So talk a little bit about the shoes and how we think about shoes

Cecilia Macaulay 28:58

So one strong cultural practice in Japan is take your shoes off before you go in the house. Before you step onto the tatami, while you're in the vestibule, the entry, and you line the shoes up. You put them together as a pair with their beloved where they belong, and you turn them to face outwards, so when you leave the house, they're pointing the way you're going to go. And there's about 10 good benefits of doing this. One is when you take off your shoes, you get a little micro meditation. You get to settle before you make that transition from the outer world to the inner world. It's like a little prayer. And making transitions better is a huge part of my job as a designer. So you can go from one area of putting in effort to a different nervous system state. Right, we're out of fight and flight. We're home. We're now into rest and digest, into tend and befriend. And you've got that little consecrated moment of putting your shoes together. It's a luxury. You don't have to put your shoes together, but you take the time and you invest. They're not going to walk away if you don't. So there they are, and you've had a breath, and you go in. It also shows you when you walk into a house, what's the mental state of who's there. If the shoes are all higgledy-piggledy, you know, wow, this family's under a lot of pressure. I better be kind to them. I better not be hard on them. They don't have margin. Margin's an important thing, and in Japanese, it's called yoyu. It's extra space, and they respect it so much. Like, always give yourself margin. Don't fill your diary. Leave 20% empty time. Don't fill the, the, the can cupboard so things fall out. Leave 20% margin. And always having margin is really important. And as a, a family with a child who can't go to school, you may feel there is zero margin. From where you're sitting, you can probably see 2,000 tasks that need to be done. So getting back to shoes, it's saying, "I have margin," and claiming it. I'm going to do this useless act as a statement that I have margin. And then when you're leaving the house, your shoes are saying, "Come on, boss, I'm going to carry you. I'm lined up and ready to go," and it's energizing. It's like my house has my back. My house loves me back. I put in effort a few hours ago, and now the effort's coming back to me.

Leisa Reichelt 31:45

The shoe thing works for me. Like, having my shoes lined up even throughout the day. as I walk around the house, I'll, see it and go, "Look at that. That's someone who's got their life organized. Their shoes are lined up." Don't look around the corner, but the shoes, totally got it under control.

Cecilia Macaulay 31:59

You need one little island of regulation, one little island, and it spreads, like culture spreads, like culture in yogurt protects the yogurt. And that's why I've called this system that I've, like, pieced together over the decades from Japanese culture, from permaculture, I've called it Togetherness Design. It's my working title. It's how you can feel together in your emotions, how you put things together with their families where they belong. And, it's my hope that children will feel, "I belong. I belong at this table. I belong with this task. I belong somewhere fantastic in the future that wants me. I can do amazing work that doesn't even exist yet." There is no job description, Leisa, for my job. I- there was no place in the world for me.

Leisa Reichelt 32:53

Let's talk about your, your crazy career. I think your way of creating a life for yourself and a career for yourself is really interesting. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Cecilia Macaulay 33:02

So I, I, I remember being 19 and in teacher's college and not being happy, and after interior decorating college and looking at the newspaper of jobs advertised, it was a newspaper in those days, and thinking, "Oh my God, there's nothing for me. There's nothing." And the terror of the world doesn't want me. I had a lot of fun part-time jobs because I love novelty. I went to Japan, is where the neurodivergent people go, and I became an English teacher, and that was incredible freedom because I could teach whatever I liked. And so I taught the children how to teach me Japanese. And I decided I wanna teach like the richest people in Japan, so I better learn Japanese so I can prove that I can teach a language to myself. And hyperfocus, I, I learnt Japanese. Actually learnt it with the power of zones, which I haven't talked about today. I'd have Japanese in the train as I went to teach English, and the old guy beside me when he saw me trying to write Japanese, he'd always say, "Eh, eh, chigau yo. That's different." And he'd teach me how to do the Japanese right. So the whole of Japan were my free teachers if you do your work on the train. This is the permaculture principle of design for connection. If I'm just studying at home alone, I'm not getting that extra input. I'm not getting that, you know, the strangers care that I learn Japanese. So I made my personal growth a public thing. I have many jobs at the same time, like a permaculture garden has many things growing. You got potatoes and camellias and herbs, and just see what works. And I just offer myself. I'd say, "Oh, I can design your garden." And in the beginning, I just do it for free. So we're now in an era where a lot of jobs will stop existing, and new jobs are appearing, and one job I'm sure is the job I have had, which is Space Host. I rented a big house, I was really scared, and I said, "I'm making permaculture paradise, and people will pay me rent to live here, and I'll set the culture, and it will be friendly to my nervous system and to theirs." So I said, "This is a house for sociable introverts." And people said, "I'm a sociable introvert. I don't like when people talk at me." And they were so grateful to live in a house where talked about things that were meaningful, but we didn't talk at others as a way to regulate our nervous system. They go and live in the other house that's a extrovert house. When I started these houses, I was a messy person, but I knew if I just washed that peanut butter knife instead of leaving it in the sink, then I was creating a culture of we have a clean sink. And if I left it there, that dirty knife would just call its friends and it would soon all go to hell. So I'm the leader. And I led without bossing 'cause I didn't want a boss. So bit by bit I learnt to tell people the story of the house before they moved in really clearly. "Do you wanna live in a house where we wash, dry, and put away?" And they'd say, "Yeah." And they were choosing, I wasn't forcing. A lot of the children I knew who didn't go to school were very good at something. One just watched videos all day of cooking, Master Chef, and she loved cooking. She didn't love cleaning. Her mum had to do that, but her mum didn't love cleaning either. So there would be like three days of dishes, but she'd make amazing food and invite her friends who also couldn't go to school. And they had this beautiful culture of honoring each other with amazing dinner parties, and cheese boards, and birthday cakes. And thank goodness the mother supported that. Find whatever they're good at and support them in it, help it be a social thing.

Leisa Reichelt 37:28

Cecelia, I think one of the inspirational things from your story though is that, like, you have managed to turn this into a career, like a way of supporting yourself in a job that most people would think is not a thing.

Cecilia Macaulay 37:44

Not a thing

Leisa Reichelt 37:45

I think that, to me, that's part of the story, right? Is that we don't all have to be doctors, lawyers, accountants, marine biologists, right? And particularly in this future with work changing so much, the types of ways that you can

Cecilia Macaulay 38:02

Hmm

Leisa Reichelt 38:03

an existence is, you know, there is a big role for design and creativity in how you think about what that kind of work might be, right?

Cecilia Macaulay 38:12

And the reason... A, a lot of children refuse school because they know that the machine out there is not for them. A lot of the time they know they have-- they're a join the dot kind of a person, and that they can do better than that tedium, but they haven't been supported. Like this last month and a half, I was paid, like a, a lot of money, to help a lady set up a permaculture paradise. She had chronic fatigue and sat home for 10 years, and she's a really smart lady. She'd always wanted to make a community. She'd seen my home in Melbourne, and she saw the home I made in Sydney with all the people coming and going, and the plants, and the bees, and the bunnies, and the baby goat party. And she said, "I want a home like this," and, "Cecilia, please help me set it up." I helped her buy harmonious furniture, all from the op shop, because there was no need for anything else, and always make the smallest possible commitment of energy or money to get the best result. And wrote her flatmate wanted profile, helped her with the legal side. So now she's got this beautiful infrastructure for really compatible people to come and live with her, and they'll be happy and so will she. She didn't wash the dishes, and I don't force and I don't order, even to my clients. And I said, "It's okay if you don't wash the dishes, but you have to put it in the housemate wanted ad. "In this house, we don't wash the dishes."" And after I said that sentence, we didn't talk about it again. She never left a dirty dish. And that's design to accept feedback as a permaculture principle. You know, when it's out in the world and you say it, like, is this a house where we wash the dishes or not? I wanna be a house where we all wash the dishes.

Leisa Reichelt 40:29

Yeah

Cecilia Macaulay 40:30

So I, I do home visits. Like I go to someone's house, we spend four hours. We do postcards, find their personal beauty creation style, have a conversation to help them change the power balance, put up different infrastructure in their house, usually kitchen, wherever it's important to them. It might be their studio, might be their kids' room. And put Post-it notes all over with the homework, and as it becomes second nature, 'cause my job's

Leisa Reichelt 41:02

Yeah

Cecilia Macaulay 41:02

to become second nature so you're not using willpower and discipline. And then I come back a few months later for the final four hours, and they tell me like, "This just didn't work." I say, "Oh, no wonder it didn't work," and we do the final celebration. So that's one thing I do, consults and webinars with my sister. We do like three-hour webinars where people in real life make physical changes. They learn the permaculture patterns, the Japanese cultural practices, and we do physical practices that let you embody, you know, how does stagnancy feel? How does things lined up feel? How does oppression feel of being told to do things you don't wanna do? How does it feel in your body?

Leisa Reichelt 41:53

Cecilia, I do feel like I could keep talking to you for hours, honestly. there's--

Cecilia Macaulay 41:57

that's why.

Leisa Reichelt 41:58

it does feel as though there's a lot of synergy in the ways that you're thinking about life and the ways that we need to think about supporting our School Can't Kids, you know, with the, the not forcing and, looking for the strengths that exist and many of the permaculture tenets seem very relevant, I think, to, to,

Cecilia Macaulay 42:19

right?

Leisa Reichelt 42:20

to supporting School Can't Kids. If people wanna learn more, Cecilia, about your work and other resources that might be, helpful to them, where should they go?

Cecilia Macaulay 42:30

Well, my website, Cecilia Macaulay. I'm available for going into homes, Melbourne, Sydney, in between, and doing hands-on home harmonizing, which is also harmonizing hearts. And a really cost-effective way is the nine-month project, which starts June 28. I have a book my sister and I are writing, 'How to Create a Sacred Space Anywhere in Your Home'. And I've made a Substack, Cecilia Macaulay, where I'm putting useful articles on how to make sure your home loves you back.

Leisa Reichelt 43:08

All right. Well, we will put links to all of those things in the episode notes, so if people are interested in learning more and signing up for Substack and/or seminars or whatever, that is available to them to find easily. Thank you so much, Cecilia, for your time. It was fun, wasn't it? It was great. it's been a real pleasure talking to you, and yeah, I appreciate your time

Cecilia Macaulay 43:30

Thanks so much, Leisa

Leisa Reichelt 43:32

So there you go. If you, like me, thought the last skill you needed right now was permaculture, I hope you've been pleasantly surprised. If you'd like to continue learning more, Cecilia has very kindly offered us a $200 discount to the first six listeners who register for her nine-month Guided Home Harmonizing Project, The Home That Loves You Back, which sounds amazing actually when she described it to me. And it's kicking off on June 28th, which is in the very near future. The Eventbrite link to sign up for this is in the episode notes, and you can use the code schoolcant200 to receive the $200 discount. and links to all of Cecilia's other free resources are there for you as well. And as we draw near to the end of the Australian financial year, a reminder that your tax-deductible donations make an enormous difference in helping School Can't Australia do more advocacy and education about the real reasons for School Can't with our health and education professionals. So if you're able to make a donation, we would be very, very thankful. If you know someone who might find this podcast helpful, please take a moment to share it with them, and I would be so grateful if you were able to subscribe in your podcast app, maybe leave us a rating or a review. This makes an enormous difference in helping get the podcast in front of more people who really need the support. We love to hear from you, so if you have feedback, suggestions, you wanna say hi, or perhaps volunteer yourself or someone else for an episode, you can drop me an email to schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com If you are a parent or carer in Australia and you're feeling distressed, remember you can always call the Parent Helpline in your state or call Lifeline on 13 11 14. Please do not hesitate to reach out for extra support. Thank you again for listening. We'll talk again soon. Take care