Slow - Emma Winfield

'Slow' evolution

Following a fulfilling but exhausting career in overseas community development, and a very lucrative but uninspiring second career in IT, I eventually worked myself to a standstill and knew it was time to stop, take stock, and create a genuinely sustainable lifestyle that would really work for me.

My 'Slow' philosophy evolved from a process of experimentation as I set out to apply the principles of ecological sustainability & permaculture gardening to my whole lifestyle. By focusing on my skills & resources, and working with my natural inclination to favour intuition, risk-taking and unconventional action over prescribed one-size-fits-all 'solutions' I gradually discovered the changes I needed to make in order for my life to be sustainable - cycling my energy round, so when I put in effort I got back reward and was ready to put in more effort.

Having become known in the UK amongst fellow coaches as 'The Slow Coach', I have been offering 'Slow' to others since 2003, working with people to help design their 'personal best' quality ofrnlife & with business owners to help them focus their business around their real genius, rather than any industry 'norms'.

'Slow' is not about simply doing things slowly, it's about stopping and taking the time to choose what you do in life, letting go of what's not right for you, and making the absolute most of your life's experience. It's about the small things as well as the big things; it's about quality over quantity; and it's about living life on a human scale and a human pace.

Whilst I take care to help people manage their journey, working with empathy & care, myrnapproach is completely practical and is definitely about taking action. Very often the process involves a greater or lesser degree of 'downshifting' - cutting down work hours, scaling a business back to a core niche, reducing cash income, moving house, changing friends - and I help people manage their unique version of 'Slow', walking them through the downshifting journey & helping them make the right decisions in the right order at the right time for them.

I have worked in the UK, South Africa and Australia, and have worked with a range of people, from individuals to owners of multi-million pound businesses. Each experience has been unique, challenging and ultimately incredibly rewarding for me as well - the cycling works!

I also 'practice what I preach', and in 2006 took a year off from work and helped set up Transition Bristol, ultimately aiming to help downshift our whole city. I have since helped set up my local Transition Towns initiative, set up a community smallholding and set up The Bristol Green Store, a practical 'sustainable products' retail store run as a not-for-profit collaboration, showcasing local producers & traders.

I own & run three sustainable businesses, Simply Natural Homes (making natural cleaning & bodycare products), The Natural Paint Store and The Natural Building Store. All of them focus on providing information and practical products that contribute to creating truly sustainable lifestyles without any hype, greenwashing or unnecessary consumption.

I run workshops on natural cleaning & provide advice on chemical-free homes for L.I.L.I (the Low Impact Living Initiative) and I work with them to offer a full programme of training courses on low impact (sustainable) living, from making your own compost toilet to running a smallholding.

I work closely with the Sustainable City team of the Local Authority in Bristol, helping to bring information, advice and training to people looking to make practical changes for more sustainable ways of living.

So if you're ready for some 'Slow' then contact me & start experiencing "the downshift uplift"!