284: Esther Lemmens ~ How to Express Yourself and Live a Purpose Driven Life

 

Today’s Guest

 

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What You’ll Learn

• Why we need to express ourselves + all the different ways there are of doing it
• Why it’s so important to find our own unique way of expressing ourselves
• What is Ikigai and how it fits into the concept of life purpose
• How to know when something is a hobby and when it’s meant to be a business/career
• Why we need to be aware of what our Ikigai is + how can we figure out what it is
• What to do with our Ikigai or purpose once we know what it is
• Why this is a journey of both self discovery and self creation, and how to balance the two
• What are blocks and why they come up along our journey
• How to get unstuck when you’re not making progress
• The four levels or areas you need to evaluate when you’re trying to get unstuck

 

Things We Discussed

• Ikigai
• The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, by Héctor García & Francesc Miralles 

Connect with Esther

• Website
• Facebook

 

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Related episodes

• [SHP 29] How to Heal Your Money “Stuff” & Find Your Life Purpose, with Mary Jane Allen
• [SHP 25] How to Create a Life That’s in Alignment With Your Purpose, with Amethyst Mahoney
• [SHP 3] How to Discover Your Life Purpose, with Helen Elizabeth Evans

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 284. This is your host Holly Worton, and I am back with a different kind of episode. So, I think I told you last week that I would be having another solo episode this week, but I have decided to slot this conversation into today’s episode, which is the last episode of 2018. It is New Years Eve, if you are listening to this the day it comes out, and I thought this was the perfect topic to help us on our path, on our journey, into the new year. I have of course been talking about the new year ever since Samhain, because one thing is the pagan new year and one thing is the actual new year according to the calendar that we all know and love and use on a regular basis.

So, this topic, something that was proposed to me by my guest, Esther Lemmens. Esther is a visual arts lover, book and word addict, course junky, ethical eco warrior, organic food-y, green tea connoisseur, holistic health geek and crazy cat lady. She has a zest for life and also a zest for graphic design. She is a visual brand consultant and graphic designer with almost twenty years’ experience in design and creative art-working. She helps unconventional entrepreneurs make their branding more recognisable and memorable so that they attract more of their ideal clients. She is a natural improver, she loves making things look better and work more efficiently, she really enjoys getting into the details.

So, Esther approached me with an idea of a topic of conversation that we could have for the podcast, so it is kind of related to some things I have talked about in the past, but it kind of brings together a bunch of little topics into one bigger topic. And, this is something that I think is really, really, important, it is something that has been kind of top of the mind for me lately, and it is about finding our way to express ourselves in the world and how to do it. And you have heard my journey over the past five-and-a-half-years with this podcast, but specifically in the last year where I have been really been kind of moving away from the mindset work and more towards expressing myself through my writing. So, that’s been a massive journey for me and I think journey to finding our way of expressing ourselves, it is not a done thing, it is not like you find your one thing and then you do it for your entire life. It is absolutely a journey and it evolves, and you are going to find different ways of expressing yourself and you are perhaps going to shift the way that you express yourself, but this is at the core of what our life purpose is, at the core of how we can live a fulfilling life, do something meaningful in the world. I think those of us who have reached a point of dissatisfaction in life, where we feel like there must be something more, but we don’t know what the heck it is, today’s conversation is going to help with that and even if you feel like you have found your way of expressing yourself, or of spreading your message to the world, again that is something that is probably going to be refined at some point as you grow, and as you change as an individual. So, I’m really excited to share this conversation this you, I think it is really juicy, I think it is really interesting and useful.

So, here’s what you will learn, we talk about why we need to express ourselves and all the different ways we are of doing it, because it is not just about what you are going to do for your business or for your career, there is so much more to it. We discuss why it is so important to find our own unique way of expressing ourselves. We talk about the Japanese concept of Ikigai and how that fits into the concept of life purpose.  We discuss how to know when something is a hobby and when it is meant to be a business or career because both of those are ways of expressing yourself. We discuss what to do with our Ikigai, or our purpose, once we know what it is. We talk about why this is a journey of both self-discovery and self-creation and how to balance the two. We discuss what are blocks, and why they come up along our journey. We discuss how to get how to get unstuck when you are not making progress and how there are four different levels or areas that you need to evaluate when you are trying to get unstuck, and I had a big ‘aha’ moment during this conversation when Esther was talking about the fourth area of this Ikigai, or life purpose, that you need to focus on when you are looking at getting unstuck and finding your path and finding your way of expressing yourself. So, again, I think this is a really juicy and interesting conversation and I really hope that you find it useful so without further ado, here is our conversation.

Holly: Hey Esther, how are you?

Esther: Hey Holly, I am well thank you, how are you?

Holly: Good! I am really looking forward to our conversation today, this is something that we have been kind of going back and forth on for I don’t know, a few weeks now? And I am looking forward to sharing this with people. It kind of touches on some things that have been covered in the podcast and brings them together in a whole new thing. So, we are talking about expressing ourselves in the world and why that is so important and how to deal with the stuff that comes up along the way; so let’s start with, or asking the question: why do we need to express ourselves in the world, why is this an important thing?

Esther: I think it is something that is innate to everyone, I think everyone has that desire and I think (I don’t know it is a bit of a theory of mine) I think that’s not the main reason, but this may be one reason why people have families? It is a way of expressing who you are and bringing up children with certain values and passing things on in the world and leaving a legacy, and all that kind of stuff. For me, I don’t have children, I have never really wanted any, and it has never really happened to me either, so I have never had to make any decisions about it in that way; but I do feel you don’t have to have a family to express yourself, or to leave a legacy even. So, I like the idea of doing that in a different way. I know lots of people, especially lots of women my age, and they have decided not to have families and that there are other things I want to do with my life. So that’s when that comes in even more, it is just the desire to do something meaningful, or to express your purpose in some way, figuring out what that is first, obviously. So, that’s kind of how I see it, how about you?

Holly: I really like that you brought up the whole family thing, because as a fellow child-free person.

Esther: Mother of cats!

Holly: Mother of cats, yes, as my husband says! {laughing} As a mother of cats, they are my legacy and I am hoping that they will carry on with my tradition. I have been so business-focussed for the last, almost 20 years of my life, and now focussing on my writing, so my writing now is my primary way of expressing myself, along with this podcast, but I think it is really important what you said about the family thing, because there are so many ways to express ourselves, so it could be through writing, speaking, crafts, projects like art, families; there are so many different ways. I think it is very easy to make this a very life-purpose-y business-focussed episode, but I think it is really important for people to remember: there are so many ways that you can express yourself in the world and find your thing.

Esther: Definitely, yeah, yeah.

Holly: And this is something, it has taken me forever to get to the point on my path where I realise that writing is my primary way of expressing myself, again, along with the podcast, which I love. But, why do you think it is so important to find your own way of expressing yourself, because there are so many options.

Esther: Definitely. I think society is just sort of structured in a certain way and it is kind of like: this is what people do, and this is how things work and all that; and I think there are more people thinking: you know what, there must be more to life? And part of them, they feel bad for feeling that way, some people may even have families and think: oh my god, there must be more to life, and then feel horrifically guilty, for even the thought coming into their heads. I think it is just innate in us, we have this urge, I think it is very primal, almost, maybe in the old days when you were running away from sabre tooth tigers expressing yourself was not the main priority, but I hope you know what I mean?

Holly: Yeah absolutely.

Esther: It is very built in, I think, it is part of the purpose and our reason for being and all that, yeah.

Holly: And I think you have a really good point about the fact that we are able to have these thoughts and be concerned about our life purpose and expressing ourselves, because our basic needs are met, well most of use, most of the people listening to this podcast, we have got shelter, we have got food, we have got all the basics, so we can focus on this problem, this issue, of how am I going to express myself in the world? And I really wish we had access to these concepts, and conversations, at a much younger age because it really wasn’t until not that long ago, about ten years ago maybe, that I started thinking about this. Before, it was always: what am I going to do for a career, what am I going to do for a business, but I wasn’t really thinking of it in terms of: how am I going to put my essence out into the world and express myself and spread my message and leave my legacy? We are very much, I don’t have kids, so I don’t know what school is like these days, but it was always like: what are you going to go to college to study, what is your career going to be? It was very education and career-focussed and I think there is so much more to it than that.

Esther: Absolutely, and I think there is more and more dissatisfaction with it and that expresses itself in different ways, people become resentful of even some of the good things in their lives and that’s really sad. I think if you figure out what your purpose is and find a way to release that, and express that, then that can make everything else more harmonious around you. Whether you have a job, or whether you have a family, or not, whether you express yourself in running your own business, some people run their own business for a while, find it is not for them, they go back to employment, there is nothing wrong with that, it is not like you have failed or anything. Even the more entrepreneurial thing at the moment is more like: you have to aim for a certain amount of money each month, otherwise you have failed by default and all that stuff, it is becoming a bit less and I think that people are starting to see through that now, which is really good. It has been a very hustle kind of environment, hasn’t it, for a long time, I think?

Holly: Yeah, it absolutely has, and I was just listening to a podcast the other day and this ad came on for another podcast and I forget what it was called but it was something about the hustle, and it was like: how today’s top entrepreneurs have hustled their way to the top and I was just like: well, I won’t be listening to that one, will I?

Esther: Not quite, no, good old Gary Vee eh! I do like Gary Vee, I quite like his no-nonsense thing, and I enjoy a good swear every now and then, it sort of helps me express myself, so I kind of like that about him, but no, I don’t live for this, I live for my own, it is not like a 16-hour work day, that’s not what I live for. Some people do, and if it makes them completely happy, that’s fair enough, that’s good for them, but it is not how I want to do things, really.

Holly: Exactly, there is also the issue of how your passion, how your purpose, how your way of expressing yourself fits into the lifestyle you want to live, so for some people I am sure they want to be out there, sharing their thing with the world 16-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week, and I have been there, I have done that, not necessarily because it was a conscious choice but I just kind of found myself swept up in that, because of the business partner that I had at the time. It was not right for me, absolutely not right for me, so I have kind of spent the last ten years finding ways of expressing myself that don’t lead me down the road to burnout and don’t make me feel stressed out, and exhausted, and doing it in kind of a softer way, so I think it is not just finding your way of expressing yourself, but finding how you want to express yourself in terms of how much of your life do you want it to take up? Do you want it to be the all-consuming thing, or is it just like a small part?

Esther: Yeah, and you also hear a lot these days about the whole “more feminine” approach to marketing, which I totally get and I am totally with it, beyond that I think it doesn’t have to be gendered in any way, there are some qualities that are perceived as more masculine and some as more feminine; but it is all about the balance, one is not bad, one is not better or worse, it is just about a balance between the two. There are times for tuning in and going inside, and there are also times for action, strong-determined action, so you can’t have one without the other, or you get no good results if it is not in balance, right?

Holly: If you are going within all the time, no one is going to know who you are or what you are doing, because you are not actually expressing yourself.

Esther: You are just going to sit on a park bench in internal bliss, which is nice, but you are not going to accomplish much in the world outside, external stuff.

Ikigai

Holly: So, you have introduced me to this concept of Ikigai and you created this really nice graphic, I love graphics like this. So, tell us a little bit about what that is and how that relates to life purpose?

Esther: Well, I came across the concept, maybe last year, or the year before, and I had never heard of it before. I really love Japan and anything Japanese in that way, so I looked it up, and I just really loved the way that that has broken down, there are graphics on google that you can find, there used to be more on Wikipedia itself, but it is basically an overlap, you can visualise is it a Venn diagram, what do you call that kind of thing?

Holly: Yeah, yeah, it is.

Esther: It is where certain things meet, so it is: what you are good at, what you love doing, what the world needs and; what you can be paid for. I read a little book about it going further, it is called, The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life and that sort of delves into it a bit deeper and that gives people their purpose, and even when people are just content with simple things and they live to a ripe old age because they are happy with their lives, and that doesn’t mean they are wealthy, necessarily, financially, but they have got this inner-wealth going on. And, yeah, I just really loved the concept of Ikigai, and I wanted to explore it a bit further and that is when I started doodling with these graphics and stuff.

Holly: Yay! And I think this is really important the way it breaks it down into: what you love, what you can be paid for, what the world needs, because sometimes it can be really confusing to know whether something is mean to be a hobby, whether it is meant to be a business. And I know I have, in the past, I don’t want to say guilty, but I have been guilty, of having these things that I am passionate about and I love, and trying to make a business out of it or trying to make money out of it, and then further down the line after it is not working and it being struggle and realising that it was just meant to be a hobby, it is okay to have something and enjoy it on my own, and not necessarily try to do it with other people and make money out of it.

Esther: Absolutely, and even for a short while, it doesn’t have to be an ongoing hobby, it could just be: been there, tried that, tick, done, next… {laughing}

Holly: Exactly, and I think that going back to finding your own way of expressing yourself, that is probably going to change throughout your life. Or, it may not, but I think plenty of people it is a matter of refining your journey and refining your way of expressing yourself and not necessarily finding the one thing that is going to last you your entire life.

Esther: That will fulfil you forever!

Holly: Yes, and you can’t change it because it is the thing. I think that also places a lot of, it is really stressful, trying to find the one thing that is going to be your thing for your entire thing.

Esther: That’s the way jobs used to be. I remember my dad, he changed his job once, and that was unheard of, because you pick a career and you stick to it forever until you retire, that kind of thing. So it is kind of like we are bringing that forward into the whole purpose thing and I think there may be an underlying purpose that is quite general, and I think in this day and age it might be making a real difference in the world and maybe helping the environment. I think the whole making a difference, or leaving a legacy, I think that might be a lot of people’s true purpose and then the way you express that, there are layers on top of that. So you might be really focussed on the environment, or making a better working environment for women, or anything to do with what makes you feel fulfilled in day-to-day ongoing life.

Holly: So, why is it so important for us to be aware of our Ikigai, or our life purpose, why do we need to figure this out?

Esther: I think, if we don’t, there is always going to be a feeling of: something is not quite right, or there is something missing, there must be more to life, that kind of feeling, because I know that I have been there. I was in a job, it was not like I didn’t enjoy my job, I quite enjoyed my job. It was kind of similar to some of the things that I am doing now, I am working with design and stuff, but there was still a feeling of: there has got to be more to life than this, the 9-5 grind and all that. I don’t know, I felt I couldn’t envisage myself doing this until I was 65, I thought: this is just depressing, and I just don’t want to think about this. It is not like I figured it out and then all of a sudden it was like: ah, that is that sorted then: tick. It is not the same thing, it is just a journey, you go on this journey. It keeps going forever.

Holly: Yeah, exactly and I think it is absolutely a journey of getting to know yourself and knowing what it is that you want to be doing and how you want to do it and how you want to express yourself.

Esther: Definitely.

Holly: That’s taken me the last ten years of my life to refine, because before that I wasn’t really conscious of it, I wasn’t really aware. I was deeply unhappy with my first business but making tons of money, so I felt like I was successful, because you know…

Esther: You felt like maybe you should be happy because you were making the money, what else do people want? I am successful, that’s it, but…why am I not happy?

Holly: And I think this is the same thing that happens to a lot of people in their careers where they are climbing the corporate ladder and they are super successful, and they have been focussing on those goals of getting up and up and up and then it is like, well I got here and now it sucks!

Esther: I thought this was it, now what?

Holly: Yes, exactly. So, how do we figure out what ours is? As we said, there is no one answer that is going to fit your entire life but how do you get started on this path? How did you get stared on this path for example?

 

Getting started on the life purpose path

Esther: I think by taking some small action. When you start thinking: oh there must be more to life than this and it comes up, I think when something wants my attention, it comes up more and more all the time and that is when I start paying attention, because I know that it is something that I need to pay attention to, right? Yeah, so this feeling got stronger and stronger and I started looking into what I enjoyed as well, where my interests were, and I left, I had an office job, Norwich is not a big city, I live in Norwich, and it kind of was a corporate job, it was for an agency. It wasn’t a huge agency, but still, although I did like what I was doing, I thought that there must be more to things, more to life. So I started exploring some more of my interests, and one of those was nutrition, so I really liked the subject of nutrition and I also had some health issues that nutrition helped me a lot with, to get through and get over, and started looking into doing a course. So, I signed up for a course, I started learning about it, it was a very demanding course by the way, and I had to reshuffle my life a little bit as well. I then left my full-time job to go and work in a health food store three days a week, needless to say, I moved out of my flat, I had a little flat of my own at the time, which I was renting. So, I moved in with a friend to keep costs down and stuff but, still, I found it was not quite paying the bills and working in retail I found it was not really for me, either, I didn’t like it.

Holly: That’s hard.

Esther: There are things about it that I did like, the contact with people, the stuff that I was learning there, my colleagues, they are all really nice, but the restrictions, and the rules, they have to be there for a reason and I get that! But someone saying to me: you can have a cup of tea…at eleven! {Holly: laughing} I am like no, no, I want a cup of tea now! Nobody is going to tell me when I can have a cup of tea – so that was when my inner rebel was like, no, not here, moving on!

So, I started going back to design work, which is what I was doing before, on a sort of freelance basis and some part-time and I sort of juggled, I yo-yoed between employed, self-employed, part-time employed, self-employed, maternity-leave-cover, self-employed, you know so I yo-yoed for ages. By no means that I have figured it out now, because I haven’t, but I am figuring it out and it feels good to fine tune and actually make progress. For a long time I was feeling: I want to accomplish all this stuff, and I just am not making any progress, I am not getting anywhere, I am not going where I want to go, something is stopping me, and I just felt stuck for quite a while, I just felt stuck in what I was doing. I finally decided this whole self-employment thing was my thing, the nutrition thing was still really interesting, but I didn’t do more with it, I kind of parked it. So, I thought this whole graphics, my business, self-employment, I thought: yeah, that is my thing and sort of went into branding a little bit more, and sort of fine-tuning it a little bit more. For a while, I was so stuck and frustrated, so incredibly frustrated for not, you look at other people as well, there is a bit of comparisonitis going on, isn’t there? {Holly: Absolutely} But they have started this after me and they are way ahead of me and so why am I not there yet? You know that kind of thing.

Holly: That’s awful. So what was it that got you to take that leap of faith, because you started getting curious about other things, and you quit your full-time job, which is a really scary step for a lot of people?

Esther: It is, yeah it was. The real world kind of hits you doesn’t it, it is like: no, you are not really making enough money for any of this, for one. I think I just wanted to be in an environment where I felt, I think it is the story of belonging vs fitting in, because when I was a kid, I was bullied a lot, all that kind of stuff, and I think we do a lot to fit in, don’t we?

Holly: Absolutely, I know I have.

Esther: It is even about the whole visibility thing, because I realised that I had some visibility issues and it sort of occurred to me, that when I was bullied, when you stand out you get bullied. When you blend in, when you are invisible, you kind of get away with it, don’t you? That was a big thing for me to realise as well. I think the main thing about the whole journey was being really kind with myself, stop feeling frustrated, comparing myself to others, thinking I should be somewhere I am not, and just think: no, this is my path, this is my journey, I am exactly where I need to be, although that line did grind on me a little bit: “I am exactly where I need to be”. “No I am not!” That is what it was like at first…

Holly: I don’t want to be here now! {laughing}

Esther: But, after a while it was like yes, actually, I am, I know that I am not meant to be there yet, because I am really not ready for that yet, my brain probably couldn’t even cope with it if I was there and I would just have a complete meltdown. I sort of learned to accept there is more a self-acceptance, acceptance of where I was, making peace with where you are, that is one of those things. Also then, starting to become more and more aware of my own habits, my own blocks, issues, where they came from, that’s where I kind of find the expression glass-ceiling, it is a really interesting one for me, because you have to have self-awareness to know it is there, and only when you know it is there you have to think: okay I need to let this go, or clear it, or work beyond it and all that kind of stuff. So, that is when it started happening, I started becoming aware of some patterns, I procrastinate, I was the queen of procrastination, okay. So good at it! It took me a while to figure out: okay, this is why I do this, this is a pattern that I just repeat and if I get overwhelmed with stuff, I stick my head in the sand a little bit and try and ignore reality and kind of do off, and the shiny object syndrome as well, thinking ooh, ooh, I love this, get really enthusiastic about it, you get into it, then get overwhelmed, or think, okay it requires more work. Then you get discouraged and to pull yourself out of it: ooh, there is the next shiny thing! So, there is a cycle of things that I have been repeating. So once I started noticing it, I was like: okay, that is what I do, and this is why I do this, okay. Again, being kind with yourself, not beating yourself up about it, but saying: okay, so this is how it is, so what am I going to do about it? Or just being willing and saying: okay, it is not serving me, and I really want to let this go, and that is when I started digging into all the layers a bit more.

Holly: So it is about kind of paying attention to the things that draw you, I think. Perhaps giving those things more space and more attention.

Esther: Absolutely, I would consider myself one of those multi-passionate people, right? I have got lots of ideas and lots of things that I want to do and want to explore and so it is really hard to say: okay, what is really right for me. So, it is a bit of a fine line really, and you have to tune in and kind of go inside to figure out what the next step is. I try to bring it back so that when I am thinking of all these ideas, when my brain is buzzing, it is all out there isn’t it? It is all external, it is all…but I have to sometimes bring it back and bring it a bit closer to myself and think what the next step would be and just focus on that, really. So, that is what helps me.

Holly: For me it is also paying attention to what kinds of things I am actually prioritising in my life. So looking over this last year, I was prioritising physical things, I was not prioritising my business at all. I was focussing on my kickboxing, doing my gradings, passing my gradings, my walk1000miles challenge, really, really, good about filling in my spreadsheet for that, doing lots of outdoors courses. I was focussing on stuff that had nothing to do with my business. I started noticing when I would do podcast episodes, where I would be talking about: how do I achieve my goals, or how do I focus? It was all non-business related stuff and it took me months before I finally realised: it is time to let go of the business and focus on something else. And that was so hard for me, so hard for me, to let go of my identities, I had built up this thing of business-mindset person and how do I let go of that? I was clinging to it even though I know I need to let it go. And that has been a hard part of my journey as well, pivoting, shifting, focussing on the thing that I know is right and letting go of the old thing.

Esther: I think part of that process is whenever you find yourself, you tune into how you are feeling, don’t you? If you are like: I recognise it now, if I am going through my day and I am just bumbling all over the place, with not really much focus, I get really restless and I get this feeling like: ugh frustrated restlessness. And then I think: ah, okay, I am doing this thing again, so just stop, where am I at the moment, what needs doing? Reprioritise, refocus, structure it a bit more and then maybe take a break, clear my head and then just get back to it. I think that works for a day, like approaching it for the day, or a week, but also, I think when you are doing stuff day-to-day and over a period of time and you think: how is this feeling? Obviously, for you, you were thinking: there was something not right about what you were thinking, and you knew that something needed to change. I think once you, then find your thing, it is not even like it is even then easy, it is not like ah that’s it, great, now I can get on with it, then you have to let go of the old stuff and that can be almost a bit of a mourning process, can’t it?

Holly: Absolutely, absolutely, and I think that I am still going through it. I go back through my journals, I have been doing this massive year review where I keep going back through my own journals and I can see, from a year ago, that I knew that I needed to focus on my writing and it wasn’t happening, I wasn’t making it a priority. It wasn’t just that I thought I should focus on it, it was what I really wanted to do deep down, but I still wasn’t doing it, it was like you have got to let go of something to give yourself space to do the thing that you want to do.

Esther: So, what do you think made you stop and say: right, this is what I really want to focus on? What made you realise that?

Holly: That’s an excellent question, I think it was a culmination of things, you know I have been complaining about online marketing for the last-year-and-a-half, at least. I just found myself realising how fed up I was with the online business world, the coaching world, not that there is anything inherently wrong with those things, I think my disgust with those things was a symbol of the fact that it was not what I was meant to be focussing on, I needed to be focus on something else. So, it was kind of that, and it was something that came up one morning in one of my Master Gut calls, so I am on the call, and I distinctly remember which call it was, because it was the week that I was with Joanna Hennon, in Brussels. So we were sitting side-by-side at my computer, and doing the call, and the other two were there. I was saying something about the business-mindset-thing, I don’t know exactly what it was that I said, but I distinctly remember saying to me, she looks at me and goes: well, how is that working for you!? But, straight up: how is that working for you? And I was like: shit, it is not! {laughing} It was one of those moments when her words just like smacked me in the face and opened my eyes and I was like: right it is not working, there is a reason why it is not working, and I need to be focussed on something else. Even after that, it was like: boom, it opened my eyes, but there was still a process where I was like: I don’t know what to do {laughing} and then it kind of finally slipped in, that was when I realised that I needed to let go of the business side of my life and focus on the writing and completely shift what I am writing about. As I have said, I have got this thing, this piece of paper, taped to my desk lamp that says, ‘no. 1 priority tree book’, it has been there since January and I was not making it a priority.

Esther: Oh, interesting.

Holly: Not paying attention to the signs that were there in front of my face, literal signs. {laughing}

Esther: Sometimes they start blending in with the environment, don’t they, so maybe you need to move it to another location? Stick it on the keyboard for the morning?

Holly: So it annoys me.

Esther: Shake it up a bit!

Holly: Not only that, but I am also wondering if seeing that sign, I am looking at it as I am talking to you, seeing that sign every day, if that was what helped make the shift, maybe that helped it slip into my subconscious in a very slow way, compared to how I normally work, and that was also what helped make the shift, because I have been sharing at it every day, for a year practically.

Esther: So, maybe it is also a matter of what you are letting go of to do this new thing, and how much resistance there maybe is to the letting go, because if you were at a place with your business where you thought: it is not really working anyway, let’s just let this go and this new thing, not this new thing, but this thing that you really want to focus on comes up, it might have been a quicker shift. Obviously, maybe it is also your rational mind coming in saying: you can’t stop doing that, that is not how it works!

Holly: You have built this up for so long how can you change? And also it is not like I hated it, I loved client calls, and I always used to say this in my Master Gut calls, I love it when I am on the call with the client, but I hate everything else. I don’t like the marketing, I don’t like getting the clients, when I am on the call with them, I love them, and I love the work that I am doing, but I don’t like all the other stuff. But you can’t do just the client call and not do all the other stuff, I could if I was super famous and the entire world knew who I was, {laughing} but at this point in my business I need to do the marketing stuff. There is something about marketing a book that doesn’t cause that aversion that marketing my business does. I don’t know, it is really, really, weird. It was also hard, because I really loved a part of it but not all of it.

Esther: That’s really interesting because I am just reminded of something that Liz Gilbert said in her interview with Marie Forleo, I think it is in her book Big Magic, and she says, ‘everything you do, it comes with a shit sandwich’. So, obviously the ‘shit sandwich’ for your writing is more palatable than the one that came with your business stuff, in that way, right?

Holly: Yes, yes.

Esther: I love that concept, it is hilarious!

Holly: {laughing}

Esther: I hope I can say shit,

Holly: Yeah, yeah, you can.

Esther: I have been listening to a few of these, so I think I am good with the sandwich!

Holly: {laughing} You are good with the sandwich! So, once we know what this thing is, and how we are going to express it, or how we want to express it in the world, or how we want to express ourselves, what do we do with this? How do we know whether it is meant to be a hobby or a business? How do we get going on this kind of journey of discovery of how we are going to do what we are going to do with this thing? It is so nebulous.

Esther: It totally is, yes.

Holly: And it is such a journey.

Esther: Well, for me, speaking for myself, it is just going with what you are drawn to, and it is kind of like what you are saying what you are prioritising in your life, that is the big thing and also you have to make the space for it though, inner and outer, and allow yourself time to play, and time to discover new things, and once you have maybe tried something you figure out: oh my god, that is it, that is how I want to do this, for now, not necessarily forever, right now this is what I really want to do. And, sometimes it is more subtle than that, you might look back and think: ooh, I have been doing this for a while, and actually this is one thing I keep doing, or coming back to, or prioritising, oh, maybe there is something there. It is simple, but it is not easy.

Holly: Yeah, it is making the time and space and making it a priority and so you can play with it and see if it is the right path. I think the whole playing with it, is a really important concept, because again it is not like you are going to find this thing, pick it, and it is going to be your thing for your entire life, you have got to play with it to see: is that it? You have got to give it a chance to develop, or not develop, and then if it is not the right thing then you find another thing. You have got to be open to being flexible, I think that is also a really scary thing, because it is so easy to just want to find the thing, because there is so much certainty in that, but there is so little certainty in the path, and in life, because things are always changing, and you are always growing.

Esther: Yes, and it is like the whole concept of “speaking your truth”, “following your bliss”, that we were just talking about, that kind of makes it sound like: you just figure that out and once you have done that, that is it, everything will be easy, and super fun, and you will never work another day in your life and all that stuff. Well, I think that we can agree that is not quite how it works.

Holly: No, and I think it gives the wrong impression to people. You always here: do what you love, and the money will follow. And it is so tempting to want to believe that because it sounds so easy and beautiful.

Esther: Yeah, and I have signed up to that as well thinking: ah yes, yes please, that is what I want, yes thank you. And you look at other people who are living the life and doing the thing and you are like: yeah, yeah, I can do that! {laughing}

Holly: And it looks effortless when you see someone else do it, but you don’t see all the stuff that went on behind the background that they did to get where they are. And I think that is thing that is also important, is don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle or advanced.

Esther: Ah yes, I love that, absolutely.

Self-awareness

Holly: Because you never know what they have done, you never know where they are in their path, you never know the stuff that went on before what you are seeing now. So, this whole process involves so much self-awareness and I think that is probably why I made some really bad decisions early on in my life, because I wasn’t necessarily very self-aware, and I feel like the last ten years of my life I have been really getting to know myself, and getting to know what, and who, I am growing into and it has been a massive journey of self-awareness, but I wasn’t like that at all for the first, I don’t know, 35 years of my life.

Esther: Neither was I.

Holly: So how did you get started on the path of self-awareness?

Esther: Well, I think it was just this, I don’t know inner-guidance poking me along the way and it keeps just poking harder and harder, until it has your attention, right? I think kids, especially young kids, they are so tuned in, and they are full of life and wonder and all that and then it all gets conditioned out of them, really, doesn’t it? And they spend the rest of their lives when they are grown ups trying to get it back, that is really how I see it.

Holly: Yeah, absolutely.

Esther: You know, well-meaning adults and all that, it is all good, it is just how it is, no blame or anything. I think, for me, something inside was just poking until I paid attention and I feel like I have never really fitted in anyway. I think as a kid, I wanted to belong, but I confused that for wanting to fit in, and I thought that was the same thing, but it really wasn’t. Now I am really just grateful to the internet, because I have actually met like-minded people online, and by Facebook especially, that I would not normally have met otherwise. I feel like I do have the entrepreneurial spirit, but I am not a natural outgoing, extroverted, entrepreneurial-leader-type person. I am introvert, I am a highly sensitive person, empath, all that, and I think it has been also a matter of self-discovery vs self-creation, so you have go that whole law of attraction thing, we create our own reality, which I absolutely believe. I feel like the other side of the yin and yang thing is about discovering: who am I? what do I want? what lights me up? what do I not like? It works in all areas of your life, in business but also in relationships. What kind of person do I want to be with? What kind of person do I want to be in this relationship? So it works in perfect harmony with each other, and the paths keep spiralling, I think.

Holly: So, can I ask a question, how does what you are doing now, or how does your life now, relate to the things that you were really passionate about as a kid? Because, I have found that for example, I wrote my first books when I was 7. I wrote a whole series of books when I was 7, I was an insatiable reader, I couldn’t get enough books. Then I kind of went away from that because of low-self-esteem, low self-confidence, life-crap, and now it is like I have come back to that. So, are there any parallels between stuff that you were really into as a kid and what you are doing now?

Esther: Yes, I think so. I always used to like to doodle, arty-crafty things, I did a lot of that, just because I felt like it. One of the things I did, I used to have all these beads and things, because I like to make earrings and stuff like that and had these boxes of them with all these different compartments in it, with all the different colours and shapes. What I used to do as a kid I threw them all together in the lid, and then give them a good shake, and then I would spend hours sorting them all out again by shape and colour, that is what I did for relaxation, seriously.

Holly: {laughing} Wow!

Esther: Probably OCD, but there you go. So I really enjoyed that. I was usually on my own, rather than playing with kids, doing either that or reading or something like that, I was very happy with my own company. I used to make a lot of things and doodle and draw and stuff like that and even some kids in my class, they would see it and they would say: oh can you make me some? Yeah, sure, here you go. I would do it and give to them. So, it kind of makes a lot of sense for me, I am a very visual person, so it makes sense that it would go in the direction of graphics, but that said, I didn’t always know that as such. Although I did all these things when I was a kid, like you, I kind of got side-tracked as I was growing up. I went and studied electronics of all things for a few years. It was quite fun really with the printed circuit boards and the soldering and stuff, but that all changed so fast, there is none of that going on now. I think I was trying to do what I felt my dad wanted me to do for a while, there was a bit of that going on. I didn’t see it as a waste of time or anything, it was interesting, and I learned a lot and one thing I learned was: it is not for me! So, I am moving on now, thank you. So, yeah, it was all part of the journey really, yeah.

“Self-discovery and self-creation; intertwined with self-awareness and self-expression”

Holly: So, as you said earlier, this is kind of a journey of self-discovery, and self-creation, and they seem like two kind of opposing concepts, but it absolutely is. It is like I always say with my journey it is combining practical action and mindset, you take one step with the practical action and one step with the mindset work. It is kind of like this with self-discovery and self-creation. At the same time you are increasing your self-awareness, getting to know yourself, who you really are deep down, peeling off the layers of crap that you put on, throughout your life, but at the same time you are creating the self that you want to be by creating your reality, so how do you balance this? How do you personally balance this?

Esther: Well, that is a good question. One step at a time {both laughing} …it is not simple. The self-awareness thing is a big thing, so I just keep being open, I think it is a matter of being open, what is going on for me right now? If I don’t feel happy with something, why is that? And it takes things like even listening to your podcast, I get a lot of like: oh my God, yes, moment, ‘aha’ moment and not the other kind of oh my God.

Holly: {laughing}

Esther: That’s a different podcast, so the self-awareness thing, and how you express that, so I do look at it a bit more, so there is the self-discovery and self-creation and that is intertwined with the self-awareness and the self-expression. So, I think that is a beautiful cycle. If you get stuck in one too long, it all gets out of whack, so it is important that you keep moving through that flow of: what makes me tick? You can get stuck in your head and then it is like: okay, just moving on, how do I want my life to be? And then sometimes you get a bit stuck in that and you go away with the faeries and then you maybe need to come back down and say: what can I do right now that is going to bring me closer to that? Then you have got the self-awareness switching on. Then the self-expression: I want to do this, or create that, or put that out into the world, I am going to try that. So, to me it is a wonderful flow of things in theory, in practice it is not always that easy though. It is not like: oh yeah, that is easy, not really, but that is the general plan I work with.

Blocks and fears

Holly: I think, for me, I love journaling, I love other people’s journal prompts, I love coming across things where you have a list of questions because asking myself those questions really helps me to get to know myself, and where I am, and then for me the self-creation is all about the mindset work I do. Every time I realise, this weekend I have got my kickboxing grading and I am actually really scared of it. I did the summer course, over the summer and I did really well, but I wasn’t grading on it and I am really nervous about this weekend, so I have been doing some belief work, I have been doing some mindset stuff on it. So, for me, it is the combination of creating my reality, by taking action, and creating the mind I need to have, or the beliefs I need to have, to do that action and realising what my blocks and fears are. So, maybe this is time to move onto blocks. As we have discovered who we are and how we want to express ourselves in the world, we eventually hit some blocks and fears and crap. So how do you see this, what has been your experience with this? What blocks…how did that come up for you?

Esther: Well, for me, like I said, I had this idea of what I wanted my business to be, or what kind of business I wanted, and I really loved the idea of a lifestyle business, that is kind of the concept, isn’t it? A business that works around my life, not the other way round, that gives me plenty of freedom, it is about defining what success means for you and all that. So, I kind of had this idea, it was a very vague idea, looking back now, you know hindsight. I was doing all the things, the practical stuff, the strategy stuff, the processes, the systems, the productivity, trying to do all the things, and I found that I was doing, doing, doing, doing and spending a lot of time doing, and I was not making any progress. Part of the cycle was the whole procrastination thing, which I later became aware of. That is when I became familiar with the concept of mindset, through you and some other sources, as well, and we have done the lovely HEW® together as well. So the mindset for me was like: oh my god yeah, that is it, if I have limiting beliefs or if I believe on some level that I am not good enough, or that is not possible, or whatever it is, then I am just going to get in my own way, and nothing is going to change. So that was like boom, mind blown, you know? So, I started working on that.

More recently, I feel like it is not like I have discovered another level, but there is just another deeper level to it as well, it kind of all intertwines, and it interlinks, and it overlaps with mindset and, for you, the HEW® is probably a lovely combination of the two things together which is the mindset at the energetic level, so all the stuff that is underneath it. So, I started doing some more energy work, as well, like I said I have worked with yourself and with a lady who does chakra balancing and things like that, I do reiki myself as well, so a nice variety of stuff, I love trying stuff out anyway. That has been really insightful, and I feel like it is just chipping away, it has started chipping away at all these blocks and stuff, and even whether you believe in karma or ancestral stuff, it doesn’t really matter, but I felt drawn to trying something so that is what I did, and it did feel like it made a difference. It is always, I find even with the energetic stuff, when you work with the practitioner you do communicate, and you talk about stuff, and you become aware of things, so they can see into your energy field. I think we all can, but sometimes we are a bit more blocked than other times, and some people do it a bit more naturally than others. So this lady was seeing all these things and it was like, wow, that was amazing, so we worked to clear it and sometimes I helped, but mostly she did it all. Yes, it has started, I think all the different things that I have been doing, I think rather than focussing on just one thing, doing all the strategy, and getting a coach, and a structure in place and all of that stuff, that is great, you need that as well, but if that is all the stuff you are doing, if that is the only thing you are doing, and you are still feeling stuck, then obviously there is more going on. So, yes, there is the mindset and then the energy level, I have seen it as a triangle as well: strategy, mindset and energetic.

Then I thought, okay, there is another element to this as well, so I can make the full Ikigai, four elements, which is kind of looking after your body, making sure you eat well, you get enough rest and sleep, exercise too. Just looking after, the internal and the external, and balancing the practical with the physical. That is kind of how I see it and seeing it in that way helps me to keep the balance, and break it down, and then I can then recognise: oh god, I am too much in the strategy stuff and in the doing, wow, okay, I need to put the brakes on and think: is there anything in my mindset that I need to clear, or maybe I need to balance myself a bit more energetically? Maybe I need to look after my body and go for a walk, that kind of stuff, so that is how I broke it down.

Holly: I think that is so interesting, because I don’t think a lot of us, I don’t think a lot of us, and I don’t think before today, so many things just fell into place as you were speaking just now {laughing}. I think I come from a very ‘doing’ place, my first business was all about strategy, doing, doing, doing; and then I moved into the mindset, and it was all about changing my beliefs to clear the limiting beliefs, and the fears and the blocks and all that stuff, and then with the HEW® I got more into the energetic side of things. I feel like this year has been very much about the body, because of my thyroid problems I was struggling with weight for the longest time, I was struggling with energy levels, I felt like crap and I felt limited by my body, I felt like my body was holding me back from doing a lot of the things that I wanted to do, which had a lot with being active, and really enjoying my longer walks and doing my national trails and doing my kickboxing and I just felt really limited. And this year has been about doing the Walk1000Miles again, going further with the kickboxing, with the advanced gradings, doing the outdoors classes and putting myself in groups, a lot of the classes I have done this year have been all men and me, and so that has been outside of my comfort zone, because I was afraid, I would be the slow woman who is overweight and can’t keep up with the group, that never happened but you know, it was always a fear of mine. Then, finally, I found the way of eating that worked for me, and not only helped me to lose weigh this year, but gave me so much energy, so that has been a massive shift for me, so I feel like this year that last piece of the puzzle clicked. I went from strategy, to mindset, to energy, to body, and I feel like my body is now getting on track with everything and, it really is an important piece of the puzzle, because I feel like now, I can do so much more because my body is feeling good, it is healthy, it is doing well. I think a lot of times we forget about that.

Physical/Mind Energy

Esther: Totally, and I think it is really good about what you are saying that the energy level, not the energetic level, but your physical energy, and your mind energy. I found that when you have, for example, mindset blocks, it takes so much energy to keep all that crap in place and deal with it, and the whole cycle that I was in: procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, ah, shiny object, yay! Overwhelmed, agh…all that stuff, it takes so much energy. You might think, even when you are in that stage, it is kind of a vicious cycle, I find, part of my thinking, subconscious thinking, was: oh my god I feel overwhelmed already, if I get more clients how am I going to cope, I don’t have the energy as it is, that kind of stuff. We don’t realise that, once you clear all of that crap out, you actually have more energy to do the stuff that you really want to do. That was really a big ‘ah ha’ moment for me.

Holly: Absolutely, it is a very important piece of the puzzle that we don’t always look at. So, I feel like that we have done a lot of talking for the last 52 minutes.

Esther: Has it been that long? We have done well!

Holly: Yes, yes. I feel like we have done a really good job of digging into this topic, and I think it is so important for us to find out how we want to express ourselves in the world, and stop looking at it as: what do I want my business to be? What do I want my career to be? How do I want to make money? But: how do I want to express myself in the world, what is my legacy that I want to leave? How do I want to change things in this world, based on my message?

Esther: And, yes, how do you want to be remembered in a way? That is a bit external, but it is on everyone’s mind really, on some level, it matters, it does, I think.

Holly: Good! Well thank you for joining me for this conversation.

Esther: Thank you for having me, I was really looking forward to this conversation.

Holly: Yes! Alright, if you have any questions, I will include all of Esther’s links and stuff in the show notes, so you can get in touch with her, you know where to find me that will be in the show notes as well, and please let us know if you have any questions, or if there are any comments that you have about this topic, or anything that you would like to add, I always look forward to receiving feedback from listeners, so thank you.

Holly: That is all for now, I hope you found that conversation interesting and useful. As always, I welcome your feedback, feel free to drop me a line at [email protected] and get in touch and let me know what you thought. I would also love for you to join me on Patreon, a lot of times we discuss the episode, and I discuss things that are going on for me, I talk about things that I don’t talk about on my blog, or on social media and other parts and it is a good kind of place to explore this concept of going into the woods of our being and getting to know ourselves and this journey of self-discovery that we are all on. So, if you would like to join me there if you head over to: http://patreon.com/hollyworton  you can join me there and membership starts at just $1 a month and, like I said, you will exclusive access to stuff I don’t share anywhere else, so I would love to see you in there. Thank you again for listening, thank you so much and tune back next week for another solo episode, this time it will be a solo episode! Remember to visit: https://www.hollyworton.com/284 for the show notes on this episode.

Happy New Year, Happy 2019, and I wish you the best of luck on your journey into your own personal woods this year, thank you, thank you, thank you.