It's Completely Free

It’s completely free. 🥰

What am I talking about? Nothing is completely free!!

But this is.
A sense of inner wellbeing.

And when it’s topped up and fizzing over, life is so good. It builds momentum in an upward spiral.

When I feel good, I choose a healthy lunch, go for a walk, do yoga.

When it’s on empty, not so much.

I’m having a nearly empty day today.

It happens.

But I know how to fill up my tank. It’s completely free and just requires my awareness and a few minutes of time.

What do you do when your well-being gauge is negative?

Here are my go-to tips.

Transcript

Welcome back Wellbeing family,

It's Dr.

Leila.

I'm so delighted to be with you and I'm really delighted that the sun is shining today.

We've had some grey days in good old Queensland and that's very unusual for us.

Normally the sun is shining,

It's bright and lovely and crisp and cool out there in a Queensland winter.

In fact I've got,

For some reason I downloaded the London weather into my weather app and the other day I was looking to see what the weather was going to be for the next few days here and didn't realise that I was actually looking at London and the London summer is colder and wetter than the Brisbane winter.

This is something I've reflected on many times because I lived in London for many years and I remember the effect that it had on my mental state.

So today I have a couple of things that I'm really curious to explore with you and I'm excited to be here.

One of the things is that I'm starting something new this week.

I'm starting a ceramics course at the local Institute of Art and it's just one morning a week but this is something that I've become very passionate about in the last 18 months.

I joined a community studio through a friend and was very inspired by her beautiful works of art and since then I've been exploring ceramics really without any formal tuition,

Not really knowing what I was doing,

Just playing with clay,

Playing on the wheel,

Playing with hand building,

Making glazes.

It's been a lot of fun and it's made me reflect on how I've had various passions through my life.

When I was a kid about 12 years old I developed a passion for horses,

A lot of girls do,

And I had two horses during that time.

I remember how passionate I was,

Every second was about horses,

Riding them,

Cleaning them,

Feeding them,

Just being with them.

And then at about 16 that passion died out and I developed a passion for bicycles because that was a way to get from A to B and I was exploring my freedom and I would ride eight kilometres to get to the university every day and eight kilometres back again.

And then that passion died out and you know and so on and so on and maybe you can chart some passions that you've had through your life.

But what I know is that when I develop a passion,

A doing passion,

Something that involves doing,

Life just becomes so much more exciting because that doing carries me into a world where I'm meeting people who also love doing,

Life becomes exciting,

I feel like my well-being cup is just fizzing over.

And so that's what's happening with ceramics at the moment.

So I'm really excited about that,

To learn,

To learn from an expert,

To really start to think more about the ceramics instead of just doing.

So thinking and doing kind of need to go together really don't they.

So I wonder whether that lands for you,

Whether there is a passion in your life or a new thing in your life that you've picked up that is exciting and creating,

Like it's this kind of liminal space between the known and the unknown right.

That's our learning zone and I know this is a meme that we see a lot on Facebook,

The comfort zone which is this tiny little core piece and then outside the comfort zone is what's called the learning zone and beyond the learning zone is where the magic happens right.

So every time we step outside of our comfort zone,

Which is actually very incorrectly named,

I think it should be called the familiar zone because often it's not comfortable,

It's often very uncomfortable.

When you step outside that comfort zone into the learning zone where you're not the expert,

You don't know what's happening,

You're actually allowing yourself to be vulnerable and learn something new from someone who is an expert,

That's where you can be led to where the magic happens.

In this place where suddenly you feel like a two-year- old and everything is exciting and new and fun and I guess that's how I'm feeling today.

So I'm inviting you to join me in this place and reflect on times when you've been there.

I remember when I first started working as a doctor it felt a little bit like that.

I remember being so excited that I had some very small skill that I could use to help people in this way.

So I'm sure most of you can relate to that and it takes me to a metaphor that I often use for myself which is that I think of myself as a cup or I think of my heart center as a cup and you can be really you know be creative about this like my cup is a medieval golden chalice that's encrusted with emeralds and rubies and diamonds and engraved with amazing medieval scenes.

Anyway it's a beautiful cup right and I often think about how full is my cup when I wake up in the morning.

How full is my cup?

How full am I feeling?

And you know quite often I'll wake up feeling like it's pretty empty.

Occasionally I'll wake up with it overflowing which is lovely right that's a gift but often I wake up and it's not in a very good state and so my work is to fill that cup and that's really what I want to talk about today that there are things that we can all do which are completely and utterly free that will help you fill that well-being cup and I want to urge you to really think about this and be deliberate about filling it because well it is free and it gives you it will it will affect your entire life it will improve the quality and the color and the excitement and the joy of every single thing that you do and also help you make better decisions with all of those micro decisions that we're all making through the day like what will I eat for lunch it is an important thing to think about right which will then also add to that cup right or diminish it so it's like a self self turning wheel and if you give it a spin in the morning a bit like a Tibetan prayer flag if you give it a spin it has momentum and it will keep on spinning and then you get another spin and it keeps on spinning if you don't spin it sorry I've changed metaphors here haven't I but anyway if you don't spin it or do something to fill that cup it will slow down and stop or it will empty right because we're using up what's in the cup every day every time we have an interaction with people we're using up our cup so it's really important to be deliberate about how do I fill it how do I and I suppose for me getting excited about ceramics is one way that I fill that cup when something comes out of the kiln and there's an instant uplifting response of oh I like that that fills my cup right it's very exciting equally when I sit at the wheel and I can't do what I'm trying to do it can diminish my cup right and I really it's about building awareness about what is the state of that internal sense of well-being where zero to ten where am I right now how full is my cup how fast is my Tibetan wheel prayer wheel spinning use the metaphor that works for you sorry I'm terrible at mixing metaphors so I I want to talk about how we can be deliberate and find things that are completely and utterly free to help us build that sense of well-being because when your cup is full and overflowing that's when you will touch people just by your presence you will transform them you will magnetize them you will be irresistible to them and you will light up every room and when you're in that place I can tell you because I've been there I'm not always there but when I'm there it's so exciting it's such a brilliant way to be living life so what are some of the ways that we can fill that cup I'm sure that you're thinking about this and well maybe you're just wishing that I would be quiet because I know I'm fizzing a little bit today but so I had a little think about it and I wrote some lists and really you know of course you can spend hundreds of dollars to fill your cup you can go and buy a cashmere sweater these are some of the things that I do that cost money right but what's interesting about that is that when I spend money to fill my well-being cup it actually is combined with it's not as it's not as clean as when I can fill it for free I don't know why that is maybe it's my relationship with money but there's always a bit of retail guilt or guilt that I didn't give the money to a good cause or do you know what I mean like maybe some of you experience that too so these things that are completely free that anybody can reach out for right I think I think that's what happens that when I spend money to fill my well-being cup it's tinged with this guilt that maybe other people don't have that money to spend and can't do it whereas when I use things that are free to everybody most well pretty much free to everybody it's not tinged with guilt so here we go I've got some ideas for you and you know I really urge you to tune in and ask yourself the question when you wake up how full is my cup and you know I want you to know that when I often often when I wake up my cup is not full it actually often is empty right I don't know why sometimes through some kind of grace I'll wake up with a fizzing overflowing cup and hey that's really nice and I bounce out of bed and life is good but that's really a rare thing not a normal thing so I work on filling that cup every day and the first thing that I do this is something I got from Louise Hay 20 years ago and it is so powerful I start thinking about how I want to feel all right I don't stay with how I do feel and I don't get worried about the horrid hows about why have I woken up feeling miserable or why have I woken up feeling thinking about death or whatever it is right like that happens to me otherwise I probably wouldn't be here right I wouldn't have spent my life seeking how to feel better if I didn't feel bad to begin with right so what Louise Hay described is just really starting to plant those ideas about how I want to feel and putting it in the present tense so what I use is this I just say to myself I walk in love peace and joy I'm surrounded by generous warm-hearted friends life is an adventure there are new and exciting things that are bound to happen to me today if I'm open to them and I just repeat one of those sent I sometimes I'll just repeat I walk in love I walk in peace I walk in joy and can you feel like I can feel that even as I use those words it has a physical effect on me it's having an effect on my voice it's having an effect on my body I can feel my gut relaxing my heart lifting so that the words that we choose to tell ourselves can have a profound effect and that practice can go on for a minute or 10 minutes or 20 minutes however long you want it to go on for you can actually Louise Hay has some really lovely web pages where you can just Google 100 best affirmations from Louise Hay and find ones that work for you like there's no point using an affirmation that feels so so far from where you are that you can't even it doesn't land right it's got to be something that can land for you like just the next step and where it's like we're walking up a ladder then you find the next step and the next step and the next step right so find something that works for you and keep it close use it whenever you feel you need it if you're feeling that your levels are really dropping use you use it go for a little walk around the block and use your affirmation so that's the first thing that I do before my feet even hit the floor and I find that super helpful and I've written a little list of other things that I know that it's not just money that is the cost it's also time right so I organized my tips into time-based tips they're all free things but the investment is in your time so I call them the one-minute wonders close your eyes and take a deep breath turn inward put your hand on your heart and find gratitude for one thing in your life stand up and have a stretch spritz with some delicious perfume light a candle or think about three things that went well today so those are all one minute wonders isn't that amazing and you know even as I read that list I again I feel myself lifting I feel myself lifting like I'm in the bottom line is that for most of us not everyone there are a few blessed souls who are always feeling light and happy and joyful I'm not one of them for most of us we have to work hard to combat the momentum and the inertia of negativity and I'm not going to go into that why that is we don't need to know why but if it's true for you it just is true for you we don't need to make it mean anything about us right it just often is the way it is so using these these tools to build momentum spin the prayer wheel fill the cup are very very powerful and then I went on to the deeper investment of your time 15 minutes for example 15 minutes of meditation or chanting or just reflection 15 minutes of doing yoga asana and that can be you know vigorous Hatha yoga or it can be gentle Yin a short walk a 10-minute walk cooking yourself a nice lunch talking to your best friend cuddling a pet or getting active in whatever way you prefer but doing 10 minutes of activity so that's your your deeper investment and then and then I I went on to talk about the well-being billionaires those of you who feel like you are well-being billionaires can engage in you know the really deep investment in your well-being go to yoga every day do a one-hour class of yoga and you can do that online on your computer you don't need to pay at all you know it's lovely to have a community in a sangha and to pay and to go to a yoga studio but if money is also a problem and these are the two things that most of us struggle with right money and time so if money is a problem you can do yoga online that's so not a problem anymore go for a long walk do a longer meditation practice or find a group who are meditating near you there's always free meditation groups around and that can be so powerful when you meditate with a group it's it supports your own meditation practice I didn't think too much about the well-being billionaires because I know not many not many of us actually have the time to do this right I consider myself a well-being billionaire because I do have the time and I do have some money to put into this so for many years I've been going to a yoga studio and it's been wonderful and I just pay an annual fee so I can go whenever I want at the moment I have a home practice and I do that five or six times a day a week sorry and there are other ways too that I engage you know what I call a billionaire's practice of well-being my ceramics practice is a billionaire's practice I go to the studio at least twice a week and I'm going to be starting my course tomorrow you so I want you to think about that write your own list what are your one minute wonders what are your deeper investments what would you do if you were a well-being billionaire I'd love it if you'd let me know I look forward to seeing you next time bye

Reviews

This is such a beautiful talk!! You delivered this wise perspective perfectly. And thank you for being honest about not waking up with your cup filled. I love Louise Hay as well. Believe it or not, I've been thinking about starting a ceramics class! Thank you so much for this message... YOU are a new favorite of mine! 🙏🏽💜✨🙏🏽