Getting Inspired

As you will discover, as you listen to this engaging track, Sarah encourages you to find inspiration everywhere. She encourages you to be curious. During this track, she uses great examples to demonstrate and inspire you to set intentions, keep going, be resilient, seize opportunities, and live your best life.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Harnetting Happiness with myself Sarah J Naylor.

Today I want to chat to you about getting inspired because I've been inspired a couple of times just recently.

Yeah,

I just wanted to share those little nuggets with you because you know what?

Inspirations around us,

If we look for it,

If we seek it out or if we,

You know,

Just recognise those opportunities.

So the first person I was rather inspired by was a lady called Elise Downing who I am hoping will become a podcast guest so do look out for that episode.

In fact I'm sending it out there.

So who is Elise Downing and what was it about her that inspired me and why do I want to record a podcast episode with her?

When we were on holiday just recently and the first part of our holiday was at the Love Trails Festival in the Gower Peninsula in South Wales and in addition to the loud music that was booming all night,

Well until about midnight anyway,

We were just old and in bed early,

There were also activities on and guest speakers in the book tent.

So there was like a library cum book tent which was rather lovely and there were a selection of speakers on.

One speaker I really wanted to hear talk but I missed was another speaker on that I'd listened to speak at a running show previously.

This woman particularly caught my eye when I read the notes on her book and I picked up the back of the book and I thought,

Oh that sounds interesting.

So I duly joined the audience in the tent to hear her read an extract out of her book and then do a Q&A.

I subsequently bought her book,

Read it and loved it.

So basically Elise,

Five years ago,

Decided with very little training or knowledge to run around the coast of Britain.

She's very honest in this book and it's very humorous.

In fact I would go so far as to say it's Bridget Jones meets Cheryl Strayed.

Cheryl Strayed wrote the book Wild,

Who Reese Witherspoon played her role in the film and obviously then you've got Bridget Jones.

So the writing of the book and the story and the journey is like a real combination of the two because you've kind of got that Britishness of Bridget Jones with that adventure of Cheryl Strayed.

Because Elise,

She graduated from university,

Although she started to do some running and I think she had run a marathon,

That was all she had done.

Well I say that's all she'd done,

To me that's amazing because I've never run a marathon,

But she didn't know anything about really running around the coast of Britain,

So much so that she was relying on Google Maps and it wasn't until I think about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through where she ran with somebody who I think had been in the military or was in the army or something like that,

Who then encouraged her to actually follow an Ordnance Survey map.

I don't know what the maps are like globally or anywhere else but the OS maps are the ones that track the landscape of the UK which show you in detail where the footpaths and roads are,

The train lines,

The gradients,

The coastline and you know where you can go and where you can't go and what you should be mindful of in terms of what's hilly and what's not.

For the best part of her journey Elise used Google Maps which was how she got round.

Anyway suffice to say the fact that she did it and had the journey that she had and she kept persevering,

It was just a fascinating read because she wrote the book actually during lockdown,

She'd had somebody,

I can't remember which publisher she did it with but I think this person had been following her when she did her journey because apparently she did it all on Facebook with videos and things like that and they wanted her to write the book and she kept on putting them off putting them off then during lockdown she thought well sort of if not when so that is what she did and it's just such a brilliant read in fact my partner Gareth is now reading it and keeps on reading out bits to me because he's just chuckling away.

So if you've not read it I do encourage you to have a look at Coasting by Elise Downing that's E-L-I-S-E Downing D-O-W-I-N-G and keep your fingers crossed she'll come on a podcast with me because she'll be an amazing guest she's just really she's really honest down to earth humorous and it's just a fascinating tale of somebody deciding they were going to do something setting that intention following up on her fears and her worries and her concerns and sort of her nearly sort of jacking it all in but then sort of just really embracing it and doing it on her terms yeah it's just really empowering and she's so humble about it as well but she now does a lot more running and she reads OS maps she would be as she said in her own words that she would definitely plan if she was to do it again and if I tell you it took her 10 months and she started in the November and finished the following I think it was August but anyway we will hopefully get her on as a podcast guest and if you read a book you'll find out more it's brilliant but I was really inspired because it's just like yeah it is it's about seizing those moments it's about just doing stuff as such you know I was talking to and I've just recorded an episode with Claire Deacon as you will discover she's had a very challenging time in her life on top of a whole host of other stuff that she'd had happened previously but in short she went back into higher education and she's got a master's in positive psychology I was having a chat with her about that and saying you know I quite fancied doing a master's degree myself and going and studying because I live and breathe positive psychology that is part of who I am you know the power of the mind and what we can do with it and how we can reframe things experience life in a different way I understand the fundamentals of so much stuff and have conversations with people like herself and I get all this stuff but I just sometimes think should I have a qualification underneath my belt to go wave it in the air and say you know I've got a qualification as well but I don't know it's really it's an interesting concept so very inspired by the fact that she took told and did that but she's also embraced all nature of modalities and therapies holistic therapies as have I done so we've covered so much ground it's the same you know I've done in my past I've trained to level two Reiki I've done ascension work I've done journey work I've done shamanic work I've done EFT I've had RTT I've done hypnotherapy I've done regressional hypnotherapy I've experienced all nature of holistic therapies as part of my journey part of things that have excited me interested me and I've been inspired by some stuff I've gone on to learn more about you know I've done my coaching qualification NLP I've done stuff with Richard Bandler and Paul McKenna I've done coaching with horses I've done coaching with children I've done just all sorts of stuff and the beauty of recording these wonderful podcast episodes is the fantastic conversations I have with people about all nature of things I've had my astrological chart and I wouldn't claim to be an astrologer it's all too many symbols it's all too technical for me but you know I kind of get the energies of things I don't need to go into it all but I just regularly get inspired and want to do stuff yeah so what have you been inspired by what what inspires you does anything inspire you what if you know how have you got to where you are today what's inspired you to do what you do what do you enjoy doing you know and if you want help with that get in touch I mean you're welcome to have a free discovery chat with myself I've got a link on my website if you want to book in it's sarahjnaylor.

Com and if you go to work with me you can book yourself in for a free discovery call you know I've talked to people I love talking to people anyway I have been talking for my allotted 10 minutes so as I said if you've enjoyed this episode please do rate and review follow and subscribe and please do help me share the happiness and spread the happiness even further let's push the pushy push pushy pushy push the happiness out there take care and if you want to get in touch just head over to sarahjnaylor.

Com that'd be lovely to hear from you take care and until next time lots of love from me goodbye

Reviews

Love your energy and enthusiasm, Sarah! It's infectious 😊 when you said you're into positive psychology, I thought, that makes sense! Happy I found you and thank you for this book rec 🙏

Wow, i love the way you expressed yourself in such a casual & authentic manner. I can feel energetic just by listening to you. What inspires me is nature.

Edit: I love connecting to plants & trees by observing the details like vien patterns on leaves, the small pollen on the flowers & so on. Dipping my toes in water just takes away my stress. Opening my arms & feeling the wind & other Little things like that.