Good morning, Belle. Good morning, Belle.

How are you doing today? Saying how lovely and warm it is for once.

Hello. It's been autumn in the

summer. Yeah. And finally,

touchwood. I feel something, some warmth is arriving. Yes,

at last. It's been a while.

So I had a little idea this morning. Not an idea. It was inspired thought

that dropped in, which is all about this podcast.

And I have a little book called that my friend got me a while

ago called question and answers.

365 questions over five years.

1825 answers, a five year

journal. And I've had it for about ten years, and

I haven't used it as it's probably supposed to be used, but I like to

use it as dipping into just journaling prompts and

just when your brain needs a bit of a gear up kind of thing. And

I thought, we're about 25 episodes in. We

had those Mel and Beth interviews right at the beginning. It's been a little

while since we, like, just shared some

insights about who we are and how we think and that kind of thing.

So I wondered if you want to answer some questions. This sounds

intriguing. I'm up for it. So we can do

this however you want. So each page has got a different date on it.

Okay. And you can, if you want to pick a date,

and I'll pick those date. Should we see as it. It was

inspired today? Okay. Say, as in the day we're recording. It,

what was the last meal that someone

cooked for you? I think it's a really good question because there's. I don't know.

But in my house, I do a lot of the cooking, so I need to

think on this one. I need to think on this one. I don't

do all the cooking in the house, but I often

eat separately just because my diet's

different, my schedule's different. I'm just

different. So the last meal that was

cooked for me was,

what did I have Friday? Oh, my God.

Why is this a hard question? It gets the brain cells working, though. That's what

I love about this book, doesn't it? Actually, on Saturday,

does it count that I went out and bought everything and then

there are no rules, so my kids were in charge, and we were like, what

do you want to eat? And they weren't. They were

like, on a Saturday, I was like, can we have picky food? So we went

out and bought pizzas and chicken and salad,

cera sticks and all the bad stuff. And I never usually eat

it, but I made my salad and then ate all the

pizza, and I never eat it. And what's

even more intriguing about this is yesterday I went

to a kinesiologist, told me to not eat gluten anymore, and I got to eat

gluten. And I literally gluttoned out

this weekend on gluten. So it was clearly

to raise my intolerance so that it would come

up. So, yeah, a pizza. Mine was. So it was Father's day

just here this last weekend. And

I went to. Or we went to my father

in law's, and my mother in law made bacon

sandwiches. She was making all kinds of different sandwiches. And so I didn't even know

we were going to get fed. It was quite a nice surprise. We're quite

privileged that we've got. I've got lots of dads and granddads in my life. Father's

day is like a whole day. The man in my house doesn't actually get to

experience Father's day until 05:00 when he's. When we've been to all the other dads

and granddad's houses. So it was quite a nice surprise. I think it

was pit stop number three when we got this on a pit stop. Who it

was when I got this bacon sandwich. So that was nice.

Lovely pizzas and bacon sandwiches. Life of a

spiritual teacher. But I have eaten so much chocolate this weekend

because of all of the dads and granddads in our house.

What about balance? Isn't it? It is. And I

think that. So when I was at the kinesiology, she

said to me, I draw minerals out of food really well.

I do eat pretty well. Like, I try and eat fresh and green as much

as possible. And she said something interesting. She said it's

probably because I'm so conscious about what I put on my

skin. Like, I don't put any perfumes and

symptoms. Yeah, me neither. Interesting. And in the house, don't

have things. And she implied that was

I'm no doctor, but she implied that was a

contributing factor to how well I can draw food out because I

didn't need the supplements. Isn't that

fascinating? I love that. I never thought about that, but I love how it's a

twist on. I think, oh, this is a bad thing that this is happening to

me. But actually she's saying actually, because you do this, you're actually

really good at drawing out. Yeah. So there we go.

Okay. Question. Would you like another

date? What date would you like to go for? Pick a day. Let's go.

August 12. Be weird if that's when this

episode comes out. Wouldn't it. Wouldn't it just. Or if

there's a listener. If there's a listener listening, and it's August

12, you've just had an awesome synchronicity. It's you I'm

talking to today, so let us know if it's all you are in

blur. Yeah. Okay. This is a good one. I don't know

how to this. 1. August 12. What is

your resolution for tomorrow?

For August 13? My

resolution for tomorrow. So I

literally. Speaking of the gluten thing. So it's literally been 12

hours since she said to me, well,

16 hours. So I'm currently

contemplating whether I go full on keto, just cut out

gluten. I'm contemplating all of this, and so my

resolution is.

And I'm going out for dinner today. Celebration. So this

is. So my resolution for tomorrow is

mindful eating. I think just the

mindfulness, because what's interesting about kinesiology is you're using

your body, right? And your body is. Without even knowing what

you're testing, your body is responding

strong or weak. And it's amazing. Like, I was

watching her work, and I'm like, this is so fascinating

that we know. Like, she put some tinctures on my

shoulder, and I didn't know what she was putting on there. And tested. She was

like, yes, for this one. No, you don't need this one. And my

body was going, yes, feel how strong

my arm was when I had

this particular mushroom chew on my arm, which,

interestingly, the woman who makes the tinctures was like, this is what you need.

And I was like, why do I need that? And that was the one I

tested the strongest with. So I'm messaging. You're amazing. Anyway,

so by being mindful with what we eat, I

think it's tuning back into that wisdom of, I

know whether it's okay today to have pizza and bacon

sandwiches, or if today is a

salad and fish day or whatever.

I love that. I love these questions. They're making us think outside of

the box. Where are you answering that? Yeah. What is my resolution

for tomorrow? So I am going to be really

productive all week, actually. But tomorrow I'm going to be. My resolution is

to be productive, but also moderately productive. So what I

mean by that is, I know what I need to do tomorrow, and I'm going

to be, like, a bit of a conveyor belt of just creating loads of stuff

tomorrow. But I also want to balance that with

time for me, time for family, bit of self

care, a lot of mindfulness, and just be really present through that

process. So that's my resolution. Tomorrow.

Specifically tomorrow. Love that.

And we both like, it's the mindful thing.

And what's even more interesting for me, as I was doing a session for somebody

last night, helping her with her business,

and that's exactly what was coming up. It was

like, she's, what do I need to be doing? Where should I be focusing?

And everything was like, you need to just stop for two weeks.

You just stop. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but

you stop. And your work is to sit on the mat and to just

meditate. And she knew this. Like, she knew this before she even came on the

call, but I swear she needed to hear it

separately and everything. And I was pulling

cards, and they were all, like, literally affirming what we were

saying, stop and just sit. And

that is when the inspiration comes through. And this is what we

mean by the energetics behind what it is that we're doing.

It's not, I have to do the right thing because then

the energy that you're coming into, it could be different. Like, I need to just

get this done. I've got all of this work to do. Huffy puffy, or I

have to eat this diet. Is that. Why does it need to be diet? Why

are we looking at food at work or whatever, as

something that fuels us and that enhances us and that is part

of what we're doing, rather than something that we need to

restrict or get through? And I think that comes with

that stopping and that what do I need right

now? What's useful right now? What's most important right

now? And we have this infinite wisdom

that should we care to tune in and listen, it's

there. I love it when we do, when we find the time and space to

do that, just sitting on the mat experience, because we can often

feel like it's almost like we're on a rubber band kind of thing. We can

feel the tension immediately. Like, to begin with, might be like, okay, but I don't

want to sit on the mat. I want to be, like, over there. But

when we're in that kind of mentality, we're missing all of these wonderful nuggets

of experiences and conversations and

synchronicities because we're

like, we're doing. We're taking everybody out, and it's

fine. As another example. So this morning I went for a walk,

and I was out for about an hour. And what I will

often do is put my headphones in and listen to a

training or a podcast or something that's like

enhancing my mind, my knowledge, whatever.

And then this morning, I had my phone with

me, and then I was like, no, I need to just

stop today. Nothing in the brain for a moment and just

stop. And then I happened to. I had some interesting

internal conversations, and then I happened to meet

somebody that I hadn't seen for ages, and she was there with their dog, like,

with a chat. And had I had my headphones in, it would have been, like,

super awkward, wouldn't it? Or I might not have seen her, or. Because I've

been in my head and gone another way where I was literally like, should I

go this way or this way? And I was just tuning in. Which

way do I. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, are we ready for question number three? Yeah, you picked

this time. Okay, I'm gonna say the

13 September.

Oh. Oh.

What are you chasing at this moment?

Rainbows. I'm chasing rainbows. What

am I chasing? Oh, that's such a good question. But isn't it? Oh, it's

so loaded, isn't it? What am I chasing?

What am I chasing? I don't

know. I don't think I'm chasing anything. Am I chasing something?

I'm chasing? I want my shoulder to get better. I think

I've spent a lot of my life

chasing, and it took a lot of time to unwind

that. And I'm super resistant to

actually making goals surprising, but I

am very resistant to doing things like that. However,

there's been some stuff coming up for me recently

about the impact of my

words and speaking

on stages or in

podcasts or beat that. There's something there. And I

feel this. I don't know. Am I chasing it? For me, when

you say chasing it, I don't know. Like I'm just out of

reach. Yeah, it doesn't feel like it's here,

but it doesn't feel like it feels more like I'm moving

towards it than chasing it. But I would say

that is what I keep seeing

ahead of me. So, similar

answer for me, really. But I've been catching

myself recently because it took

me a while to get to this position where I could merge my corporate knowledge

with my spiritual knowledge and be who I wanted to be in the world. I

forget sometimes that I am there because it's the old belief

patterns that have been going on. And sometimes I think when you hit a different

income level or you're at a different stage on your career,

whatever that is, we can sometimes default back to,

it has to be hard, or I'm never going to get there, or kind of

thing, because that was the pattern. And those were the beliefs that I

held for a long time. And like my mom would say, why are you going

around the houses to get to where you want to go? Because I would go

from job to job to get to where I am right now. Forgetting sometimes that

I'm here now, I don't need to use that pattern anymore. So

sometimes I'm catching myself thinking that I'm chasing

something, but that I've actually achieved that, if that makes sense. And I think

it's every single time I'm, like, leveling up or

stretching myself a little bit. It's like my default button sometimes goes back

to, this is going to be hard. It's going to take ages to get to

where you want to go. And then I go, hang on a minute. Look at

what I've built, look at what I've created. Look at where I am compared to

where I was. So it's kind of a cheaty

response, I suppose, to what about, what are you chasing at this moment?

But I think it's almost, what is my subconscious thinking that it's chasing

when actually I'm not really chasing the thing that I

was chasing for a long time. I totally get that.

It's like this irony, right, that what

I was chasing was ease and flow. Yeah. What I was

chasing all the time thing. And then the resistance comes up and all

of that stuff, but it's like, how can you

chase ease and flow? You need to be in ease and flow. And then, yeah,

it's mad. I also learned something about myself this

week, something in my human design. Someone

I was talking to, a friend, and she was telling me, I can't remember

one of my destiny, whatever. And it was like,

ease and flow. You need to be in ease

and flow. And if it's hard, it's not for you. And I'm

like, oh, my God. My whole life I've been saying that

it shouldn't be hard. Like, I literally used to say, it shouldn't

be this hard. Like, why is it this hard? My family

would almost make fun of me for being, like, always just trying to

find the easy route and flow into things. And then when it

came up, I was like, yes, this is entirely

me. And then yesterday in my kinesiology

session, we had to pick colors. And

I don't know why she was like, pick colors. So I picked colors. And the

first two colors I picked, the combination was desire for

independence in life, to feel free. And I'm like,

oh, my God, that is exactly me. That is. If

you could sum what I'm chasing in a

sentence. It's like the desire for

independence to be free. But you can't chase that.

It's got. You've got to be it. So maybe I

am chasing it, but. I'm getting the images of pooh bear when he throws

the sticks over the side and he just watches them flow down. That's what we

need to be. We need to just be a stick flying down the

river. We play poo sticks.

A very good poo stick bridge in the local park.

Nice. The kids think it's hilarious. It's called poo sticks. There

we go. Okay. Should we do another

one? One more. One more. What date

would you like to go for?

6 May. I knew you were going to say that. Did

you? Yes. Who is your best friend? Oh,

you are? Best

best friends. Oh, that feels really

exclusive, doesn't it? I know. I don't like this question either.

Best friends, it depends. The best

friend is the one that actually calls me out on my

stuff. And actually, for a long time I didn't have a best

friend. Yeah, I didn't really have a really very close

friend, obviously, like my husband and my

family. But I've done a lot of healing around the sister wound

over the last six or seven years. Really. And now

I would say that I have a few

best friends, but the person that's coming to

mind is my friend

Jessica, who I've actually only met in real life once.

She lives in the States. Yeah. But we do a lot of work together.

We're on similar trees with our business

and with. And we've got quite different life philosophies in a lot of ways.

But what I love about her is we keep each other accountable.

We can talk about everything. We can be honest with our

struggles on things. We can laugh when

we're doing our work. We are working together at the moment.

So if I have to pick,

I would say that. But also now I have

some really good sisterhood

circles. Yeah. Which feels nicer for me.

Yeah. I would say again something very similar. So I

never really had a best friends growing up.

I had lots of friends in lots of different circles,

but there wasn't somebody I would say she is my best. I don't know

what was going on at the time to maybe come to that conclusion.

But I do know, like, my daughter has similar viewpoints as

well. My daughter has lots of different music groups or actor type

groups or university groups. And I was always the same. I think it's maybe that

transient nature that I love and having so many

jobs like you make friends all over the place. So

I think I would like to think that I am my own

best friend. That might sound a bit sad. Hopefully when I go into spaces and

if I'm being the nice best me that I

aspire to be, that I may have been leaving a little bit of an imprint

in all of those different friendship circles. And I know that I could

pick up the phone and reach out to lots of people whenever I needed to

do that. I've got friends from school that I'm still in contact with, that we

still meet up. My mum is

a really good friend. I don't know, I think it's just a partner. We're really

good friends. So I think, yeah, just that I like being

a best friend to lots of the best friend that I can be in

lots of different circumstances. And even when I'm

managing teams, I want to be the best supportive kind of manager. And there was

one time when I was managing large business support programs and the program disbanded

and then people were starting to be made redundant. I think

because I built up really good connections. It wasn't like

management is doing this and then this is happening and all that was left

was me and my project assistant. And when it was just the two of us

left together, we bonded even more. So I think it's just

been the best version of me so that I can be the best friend for

other people in whatever circumstances I find myself in, is how I'm going to

answer that question. That's the best answer, I

think, and it raises such a good point.

And I know. Okay, so I had a mentor who,

we're not going to go into it all now, but I had a mentor who

basically warned me off against having friends. And it was all this whole thing.

Yeah, we'll maybe talk about it another. It's a whole

system. The book has opened up. Oh,

and again, it was unpicking the woundings that

happened from there. But I understand the point because

sometimes when we look at friendship and best friends and we go back to our

school days and it was the first thing I said, wasn't it? It feels quite

exclusive. I have one that means I can't have another.

And the more work that I've done on myself, it has come

into this. How do I be the friend that I want to

be? And this whole internal talk like, you're with

yourself the most. The most. I don't be the best friend

that I want to be because I'm a people pleaser and it's in spite of

me. I do this for me, like I have my

friendships for me. What do they say about you're the sum

of the eight people that you hang out with the most, and if you

hang out with a lot of people, I think that gives you a lot of

qualities for me, I think that can be really healthy to have

that people who are very different and have different philosophies

to you because it gives you more of a rounded view of the world.

So I think you do. We start a

friendship, we've got to put ourselves in the middle

front of that. Who am I in this

friendship? What do I give? And then it's for the other

person, it's okay, who am I to them?

Who are they to me? Like, how can I help them, assist them,

make their lives better? How can me being in their presence be a

positive influence on them? And then it creates this

2nd, 3rd

Persona, if you like, which is the us energy, which is the

friendship. There's me in this friendship, there's you in this friendship, and then

there's this Us and this dynamic between us and it's, we got

to do it for all of that. I can't just do it for me because

then I'll be like selfish and maybe

draining and it's all about me and la la, I can't just do it for

you because otherwise then I'll be resentful and

whatever, maybe. And

this us energy is

like the, that's super important because if the us energy

breaks down, then I go and be me, you go and be you, and then

we drift. And so it's a really interesting way of looking

at the energetics of friendship, I think.

Yeah. And then making it so it's not about you

completing me. You're my best friend. And I think this is where

my old mentor was getting at was that

when you start to call somebody your friend or your best friend, then there's

these expectations that start to

arrive on them. They can be

unhealthy. Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with.

Her, but I understand that. I understand the logic

of that, but, yeah, I don't necessarily agree

with that. But yeah, maybe we'll talk about another. And any

mentors out there, I wouldn't recommend this, but it's an interesting,

it's an interesting line of questioning and it certainly

raised some thoughts for me and led me down an

inquiry of what actually is a friend and what am I expecting from a friend.

And then how that then actually transpired. The silver

lining behind all this was that I. Okay, I

did, at that point, withdraw myself from friendship groups,

but then I started to do that, work on myself and be like, who am

I? What am I expecting? What am I becoming? And then

I went out. It was a while later, it was maybe even a year later,

but I went out to a gathering, and I was so nervous,

and there was always people there that was so big,

personalities. That's where I met you, actually. What,

like, met you in real life? Oh, in London,

yeah. And I was like, oh, my God, there's gonna be all these people

there. And I was really nervous, and I was like, oh,

my God. And then I remember landing in there, and

I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna come and be me. And they'll either

love me or they won't. Exactly. Yeah,

I went there, and it was like I landed in something, and I was like,

what I belong? And I felt that and not

that. And it wasn't because of anyone else. It wasn't

anybody else acting any differently to me. It

was my view of the world, my expectation

of what I'm going to do. Is somebody going to come and save

me? And I was thinking, everybody there thinks that I'm super

confident and that I'm the one that, like, yeah, everybody.

And I thought, and I think they're probably feeling the same as me, so how

can I be that person to them that helps them belong?

Yeah. And that night

had flipped so much for me about

how comfortable I am in rooms, who I am as a

friend, as a colleague, as a community.

It had nothing to do with anyone else. I love that story.

Thank you for sharing that. I had a similar conversation with my daughter, who was

struggling to find friends at university not that long

ago, and not that she was struggling to find them. I think she had this

grand idea that you had to have university, you had to have millions of friends,

and that you're always, like, on the go kind of thing. And she was thinking,

this is not the experience that I thought it was going to be. And I

said, think about what are the things that you. I already know what things are,

but let's think about the things that you love to do. And let's go find

the groups. Let's go where your people are. Don't try and put yourself in a

position where those are not your people, because that's what. That's university land. We end

up in a house with six people that are completely different to us. And so

we found this gaming society. And she was like,

yeah, but I don't think I'm ready. I think I need to build my confidence

up before I go to the gaming society. I need to be ready for that.

No, you need to go to the gaming society to build your

confidence. And we were talking about, think less about

your anxiety and nervousness around feeling confident going into that space. And think about

what kind of friend would you like to be for somebody who is also

turning up for the very first time and be that friend for

them. And so she went and she met

this guy and they got on so well. They went to McDonald's afterwards and he

actually left. He left his bag in McDonald's. They got all the way back to

the flat and he was like, oh, my God, I've forgotten my bag. It's a

McDonald's. And she was like, it's okay, we can go. It was like 1112 o'clock

at night. It's okay, we can go. We'll go back. And really, I've only just

met you. Just. No, let's go. You would have done the same for me.

Let's go back and collect, get you back. And it was there underneath the table

and then walk back again. And that created a friendship that had real

bonds from the beginning. Because she'd gone into that environment with that

energy of, how can I be the friend that I want to be?

For me, if I was feeling this way, which I am feeling this way, how

can I be that for somebody else? So I think sometimes if we flip the

switch of this is how I'm feeling. These are my genuine feelings. I'm

nervous about this, but how can I be the person to support me

internally? And how can that then be reciprocated? Because we attract

like. Attracts like, right? So if we're feeling that way, then we're going to maybe

bump into people you can see in a room when you go to networking events.

The people up against the wall were like, oh, my God. And the people who

were like, in the centre going, life and soul of the party. And if your

people are at the side of the wall, like, just sipping their coffees and

people watching, then go talk to them. Those are your people. It's

such an important skill. And not everyone

has it. And actually, me sharing that story, I've

shared it with some other people who were there. And it came about

me sharing it because somebody said to me once,

who was in that circle? They were like, when I thought you were

really intimidating, and I'm like, who, me? Like, before they met

me. And I'm like, or not. I was. That they were intimidated by me.

If you knew what was going on in my brain, you wouldn't be.

And I was like, okay, so this is interesting. Like when. So when I'm

looking at somebody else and think they're all this and they're all that, it's

probably not true.

And I don't know. I think the most important thing is

to be yourself. And I think it's okay to admit that you're feeling

confident. Not confident or unsure or a

little bit out of it. And it's sometimes when you even open up to that,

not with. Through blame, not. You made me feel this way because

nobody. You know what? When I stepped into that room, I was really

nervous. And then

there's a. I don't know. I think that can form a bond as well,

rather than trying to fake your way through it.

I don't know. For me, it took healing. For me,

it took inquiry. For me, it took understanding, awareness.

Yeah. And a bit of bravery and a bit. And this

decision, this intention. I'm going to go in there

and I'm going to bring my own sense of, I'm

meant to be here. I'm part of this room. I'm going to bring that sense

with me and the sense that I'm part of this room and

we are all part of this room. And it just flipped

so much. Now I go to some networking events and I'm

so aware of that, that there's some new people and that

maybe some people are intimidated. Apparently I give off their

vibe. So it's an interesting

dynamic. And, you know, the trauma that I faced working

with that mentor when she was like, you're not allowed to have any friends, actually

led to something. We shouldn't say that, exactly. And give her

credit. It led to something

that helped me but actually become a better friend

and have more eventually more friendships. I

have enjoyed the book of questions. Maybe we shall bring it out in

25 episodes time. How did you find the book? Of course I love

the book. You should bring the book more often. I want to know from the

listeners, do you like the book? I know I've got a good one. If maybe

the listeners could give us some dates. Yeah. And

then we can do this every now and then because I love that.

Questions that. Who'd have thought would be speaking about pizzas,

friendships, confidence and mental

traumas. Thank you, buck. Until the next time.

We'll see you soon.