Self-expression, Self-care and Self-leadership. A 2020 Trifecta

hello
and welcome to the wine and wisdom show
thank you for being here uh you’re here
for the first time welcome it is so
wonderful and i feel uh
filled up the fact that you would like
to be here on a wednesday night with us
thank you so much
uh for those of you who are returning i
gosh
i love it when i see familiar faces and
comments so please make sure you do that
tonight
as you know my name is heidi denning and
i am the host and producer of the wine
and wisdom
show and let me tell you what it’s all
about because
you might think it’s about wine and
wisdom which of course it is
but it is what it is really about
is connection firstly
for me to be able to connect with you in
your lounge rooms or wherever you are
with a little bit of you know plonk in
your glass
cheers and secondly
it is about me being able to bring to
you
some of the most courageous and
resilient self leaders that i know
are changing our world in their little
ways and their big ways
day after day after day and i feel so
lucky that i have been surrounded by
so many amazing people and this is my
opportunity to bring them to you because
i think
one thing that 2020 has taught us it’s
taught us many things and we’re going to
talk about them tonight actually
but the one thing i know that it just
taught us
is when you can connect with amazing
humans
who bring a smile to your face some
warmth to your heart
and some wisdom to your brain oh my gosh
that’s all we really need uh
so this gives me a lovely segue into
introducing our incredible guest for
tonight
uh if you have read anything about her
you will know
that she is one of those amazing
courageous
resilient self leaders who are
changing the world every single day
by what she is doing now she connects
amazing people
in her local community with incredible
events around creativity and
self-expression and self-care and
self-leadership but she also connects
with this global community
uh with her online presence and i tell
you what if there’s one thing there will
be a few things that you will want to do
tonight but if there’s one thing you’ll
want to do
is to get on her email list because
helen has
this oh yes helen wilkes is who we’re
bringing
but helen actually she has this
absolutely
beautiful way of seeing the world
and helping not just her way but helping
you see the world with a
totally different lens and i know we
all get overwhelmed by all those
newsletters that we get into our inbox
and i certainly do it’s delete delete
delete delete
and i’ve got a you know an ai thing that
tells me which ones i
perhaps should read and which ones i
shouldn’t but i tell you right now
helen’s e e news is one i
pretty much read from top to bottom
every single time
it comes into my inbox because her
wisdom
and her beautiful way of seeing the
world
and it’s just remarkable and that is why
i wanted her on this show so let me
introduce you
to the incredible helen wilkes i’m going
to bring her on
now and you get to see her
smiley smiley face hello helen oh my god
i’m fabulous
you met me so much but you are fabulous
you definitely are digging that intro
would you like me to do that for you
always i mean please
please record it send it to me
now i’ve got one question before
anything else helen ah
do you have a little bit of something of
your favorite in a glass this is the
wine drinking
i’m drinking red wine in a champagne
glass that is how invested i
am i’m impressed
cheers cheers to you and cheers to
everybody who is watching we would love
to know
are you drinking red wine in a champagne
glass because it doesn’t matter
we’re going to talk about creativity and
self-expression because you should be
able to do it
any way you want right that’s right
so please let us know in the comments
what are you drinking
are you drinking white are you drinking
bread a little bit of bubbles a little
bit of bourbon i don’t know but whatever
it is let us know we want to know don’t
we helen
yes we do and cheers to you tiffany
uh what are we uh sushma nice to see you
are jade
you’re looking beautiful clear with your
baby bump let me say
i can’t see it right now
helen wilkes i’ve given you a little bit
of my intro
what i would really love for you to do
is to introduce yourself
and share with everybody who is either
watching now or who will be watching
later which we know happens a lot with
facebook lives
i want you to share with the world the
positivity
that you are sprinkling day in and day
out
yeah so thanks so much for having me
it’s a privilege
to be here with you someone that i love
and admire so much
so thank you and acknowledging the
wonderful work that you do
and not just with this but every single
day
so thank you um so
what am i i’m so many things but i guess
for reference today to keep it you know
shorter
um i am a yoga teacher
i am um i guess at my essence right now
someone who builds communities
yeah um i am a mentor i’m a speaker
and i’m someone that is just entirely
obsessed it’s like it’s in my dna what i
was
you know sent to earth to do i think
um just obsessed with breaking norms
and just creating new ways of doing
things and not because i’m like trying
to be cool or trying to do things
differently
um but just because i see things a
little bit differently
apparently um so that’s that’s kind of
who i
am right now on what i’m doing yeah in
terms of
what my work is influencing
um so i guess
i have a studio at maroubra beach in
sydney
and it is a yoga space it’s an event
space
and it’s somewhere where hopefully
transformation can happen
and one of the biggest intentions with
this space
or a couple of the biggest intentions
with this space that four years in
is um you know we have these intentions
when we create things but you never
actually know until it goes live
what it will be and what the kind of um
what what its own life form will will
take on
um and luckily my intentions and what it
has become
have have become aligned um and the
biggest thing
really is to create a safe and
supportive space for people
um i think right now i mean we’re always
and especially right now in 2020 we all
have so many roles
and so many um labels
and so many things that we are doing so
many responsibilities
we often don’t have places where we can
go and we can just put that down for a
minute
and we can just walk in somewhere
and feel safe enough to remove all the
facades
and all the personalities and all the
people that we have to show
up and be and just allow ourselves to be
taken care of
and supported because for me if we don’t
feel safe and we don’t feel supported
yeah sure we can still create incredible
things
from um not having that foundation
but when we have that like what we are
able to actually
offer the world and how sustainable that
can be
is it’s everything if we don’t have
safety and we don’t have support
like there is no flaw there is no flaw
to literally
have beneath you and be able to catapult
yourself out into the world
so for me that’s one of the most
transformational things that we offer
um in terms of all of the things that we
do there and we do so many different
things which i’m sure we’ll talk about
later
yeah and that’s one of like the main
things that i offer and i think just
just transforms everyone who walks
through the door of which we have so
many different people who come and
share space with us um and secondly
i always felt like and especially in the
age of social media but even before that
i always felt like everything exciting
and everyone inspiration
inspirational was always never where i
lived
you know it was always like oh when i go
to that event
or when i go into the city or when i
like go on instagram that’s where i’m
gonna find all of the people that are
doing great things
but they’re not where i live where i
live is boring and where i live nothing
much is going on
and yet what i’ve learned over many
years of you know
just being a human and traveling around
the world is that if we actually have
the opportunity to connect with people
where we live
you’ll realize that there are incredible
people
you just haven’t spoken to them yet yeah
and that often you’re sat next to them
on the bus
or you’re in the cafe or you’re doing a
workout next to them
so i really wanted to create this kind
of excuse
if you will this opportunity for us to
actually see
that amazing people are where we live
like there’s people living incredible
lives and they’re here
you don’t have to turn on your phone you
don’t have to go like you can if you
want to
but it’s already here so to really just
remind
people of the brilliance that they are
surrounded by
that they often just forget because
they’re too busy on their laptops
yeah so that was a huge um yeah
intention of mine and i’d say that the
last thing on that is
um we spend so much time in our heads
um we’re very mind focused and very
logical and i feel like that
in the last you know however many
decades has been so
um amplified and like we need to be able
to work things out and
be logical and make plans and
for me the way that i think about this
is we’ve kind of been living from here
up
yeah and we also need to remember to
live from here down
and come back to embodied leadership
and in what like whatever it is that
you’re doing whether you’re a leader or
you’re a mom
or you’re just someone who does whatever
job
just to reunite people with the wisdom
in their bodies
because when we actually have a
connection from here down
we are able to show up in whatever role
we are showing up in yeah like a
thousand times more amplified so through
the practice of yoga and the way that we
offer it
um really is to reunite people with
living from here down too
and to show them it’s not some woo woo
extra-terrestrial
like spiritual thing but this body
is full of innate wisdom and if you’re
not tapping into it then you’re really
missing out
on being like an even more powerful
version
of who you are yeah i mean there’s just
so much in that
so much there’s a few things oh my gosh
you know um and you know you remind this
this place of safety like i want to
start with that so you talked about
having a place of safety where people
can turn up
and be who they just are you know i
i was i was talking to my um husband at
dinner tonight about
this whole thing and my girlfriend
madeline had been talking to me
that we all have this we have this
center of who we
really are that’s our foundation of who
we really
are now our jobs and our friends and our
environment
they pull us and push us to be different
versions of that but we all have this
one
you know who we really are at all times
and
if we have the safety and if we have a
place
to go back to that where we can just say
piss off ego like jesus i’ve had enough
of that
i’m sick of turn having to turn up in
whatever form everyone else seems to
require of me
that i can just be me and i’ve got a
place where i can do that
and people will embrace me they will
still think i’m okay
they’re not going to disregard me
what gold absolutely
like you are okay to just be you yeah
you’re okay like how amazing is it to
just go anywhere
and you turn up you know you know you’re
a hot mess one day
or you’re feeling pretty sassy the next
day like whatever the thing is and for
someone to just see you
yeah for someone to see you and be like
you’re all right like you’re okay
you know like that’s just however you
are and wherever you
are right now you’re okay you’re safe to
be who you are
yeah helen was i mean i i know you’ve
you’ve gone through your own kind of
transformations
yourself like from where you are now to
where you were
five years ago 10 years ago you know 20
years ago
but do you think there was a defining
moment
that led you to where you are right now
before you answer i had this amazing guy
on the show
a couple of months ago michael dixon and
if anybody would like to see
previous shows of this you just go to
heididening.com
to the wine and wisdom in the tabs there
and he he talked about
the magical dance of choice and chance
your life is choices
and it’s chances and how like you know
what is that like because
there are these opportunities that come
to us left right and center and
we it’s you know that whole self
leadership piece actually about whether
we
we take them and we grab them and we
keep moving forward
but there’s also these chance moments
right you know those sliding door
moments that
happen so can you share with us
i mean was there one of those or has it
been just a slow
evolving into who you are and what
you’re doing now
um i don’t know if we have an episode
long enough to cover all of those
moments
[Music]
right okay my idol i will write a book
until then i’d say
kind of relevant to where i am now um
in the last like say five years yeah
if we went back that far um i’d say
a pretty defining moment as you know was
my um partner
who um i’ll set the scene for you
i had just opened up the collaborative
which is the studio’s name and
we were about three weeks in and like
everyone who starts
a project especially when you’re taking
on like a commercial space
and you’re doing this very like big live
thing
um it’s all done growing up thing
growing up things
i’m not someone who plans or like i’m
not a planner
i’m not someone that waits until like
i’ve got x amount of money in the bank
like that’s just not
that’s just not my jam if i’ve got an
urge
i honor my urge and i just go with it
um and so when the studio kind of came
into its carnation which was also by
like
exactly what you’re saying by these
chances and choices that i could have
taken or could not have taken and
decided to run with it
and we opened the studio on a bit of a
wing and a prayer
and neil being the like stable in the
job person
so you know you do that conversation of
look if this all goes wrong
are you going to pay my lease for the
year you have to work bloody hard
keep going don’t stop because you’re the
one that we’re riding on if i have
really followed the wrong urge
okay so just so we cool great
we’ve got our like foundation set
and um we were three weeks into the
studio opening and
[Music]
neil rang me or text me one morning and
said i
i’m feeling absolutely awful and i can’t
move
and i just thought vanilla was doing the
classic man flu
sorry for all men listening i was like
oh well you can’t move
like i’m sure he’s fine like he’s
probably just being over the top
and then he texts me and he was like no
really like
i can’t move i was like okay so
i went up to the apartment and i
happened to be with my friend
who happened to be a nurse who was like
i’ll just come up with you
and we’re just going to see how he is
and
we got to my apartment and neil um
was basically switching off he had
something that we later found that was
called gilliam
syndrome which is when your immune
system starts attacking your peripheral
nervous system
and this can happen to anyone at any
time neil didn’t have any like
precondition and he was an incredibly
healthy like 33 year old
and from the moment that i kind of
walked up to the apartment and saw him
i mean i don’t know if you’ve had this
moment but there is a really
kind of like taste in your mouth when
you’re like something’s really wrong
and you never question it it’s more like
a statement isn’t it you know
i think if you have to ask the question
it’s not the moment the moment is like
oh
okay something’s really not okay yeah
and
about 36 hours later he was fully
paralyzed
on uh in intensive care and he’d lost
his vision
and no one really knew what gilliam bar
was at that point the hospital had
treated it
but they were like look we don’t know
how long he’s going to be down for we
might have to intubate him
we have no idea what recovery is
going to look like he could be like this
forever
he like he can really go anywhere from
this back to recovered but we have no
idea
so um that was you know less than
fabulous timing for a star i was like oh
like we are in the midst of
i can learn
[Laughter]
helen go through this experience so you
know
i know that you know
and and being it was interesting helen
and i’ve we’ve not talked about this
i’ve never expressed this to you but
knowing that you know because i i had
opened
a personal training business at one
stage you know
same same but different knowing like
what you put into
that opening moment and what like what
requires of you emotionally let alone
physically financially all of that but
emotionally what it requires of you
in those first few months
and when you can like when you have to
when you’re in the situation that you
were in like with a
am i going to lose my partner
i i mean how you’re even
still operating and being the success
you have still blows my mind from those
beginnings
but i mean that says a lot about you but
sorry i’ve interrupted so please no not
at all
what happened next so we had about a
week where we thought neil was going to
pass away
and um i remember i
remember actually thinking oh i
wonder if i can get out of my lease
yeah do you reckon if i write to them
and say look i’m really sorry my
partner’s unwell
will they let me out of the lease yeah
and all these like funny things that you
think about when you’re you know
partially traumatized um uh fully
traumatized let’s just say yes fully
traumatized fully traumatized yeah
um and
important to say that i remember
thinking okay what am i going to do with
the studio i
had someone cover and as you know from
running a personal training business
it’s such a live business
you can’t put an out of office on you
can’t not turn up
and then you’ve got no money so you
can’t even pay anyone
like you’re just like you’re just at
every angle you’re like
yeah yeah so i remember
thinking
you know what i’m gonna go and teach
because i can’t just sit
thinking about whether neil was going to
pass away like i have to go and do
something
because i just can’t do this and
i decided to go back and teach and i’ll
circle back in a moment but i think this
is really important
and i remember going in and teaching
that first class and my dad was in that
class
because my dad had flown over from
england at the time to be with me
and i remember him sat there like at the
front just as like a show of like you
know
i’ve got you you’re okay yeah and i
remember remember thinking i’m either
gonna say
nothing or i’m gonna have to tell
everyone everything
like i you know like i don’t and i don’t
know what’s gonna happen until i sit
down
and start talking and when like
everyone’s in front of me
and the studio is quite a small space
and it was absolutely
packed like honestly that someone sat
like this
close to me in front of me and i
remember just sharing what was happening
and i just told them and i was like look
i’m i’m not coming from this conclusive
space but
this has transpired over the last week
and right now
i don’t know whether he is gonna live or
pass away
um but what i do know is as someone who
practices yoga or just has a spiritual
practice
is that this is what we practice for
like there’s a there’s a quote by rolf
gates and it says you practice in the
light
what you wish to remember in the dark
and that to me i know and that to me was
like
you know yoga sounds all fancy and it’s
all you know tree poses at sunrise
and doing all these beautiful matcha
lattes but in reality
what it is is creating a practice when
you’re feeling really great
for the moments where hits the fan
and you really need something to sustain
you
and it never dawned on me at the time
because evidently i wasn’t thinking
about it but that could have been the
worst thing for my business
ever because it was so honest
and i don’t know what i would have done
that in front of someone like that
whether i just would have been like
do i go back what if i go back and then
share partners you know like what do i
do
and thankfully i had no room to
entertain that all i had
was honesty which was so amazing because
when you don’t have any of this
mind chatter you actually just get to be
this beautiful channel of truth
because there is nothing to conflict you
or say you’re being an idiot you
shouldn’t say that or that’s not a good
idea
you’re just so clear and that really is
what built the foundation of our studio
and really is what built the very thing
that neil and i needed not at that point
but when he started to recover
so he had a week where he um
we thought he was going to pass away and
they wanted to intubate him
and my sister is an icu nurse and she
said to me at the time
she was like look don’t let them in
intubate him early because people don’t
realize sometimes intubation can
come with its own issues so i just want
you to like promise me
that you they wait until the very last
minute to intubate him and i was just i
didn’t didn’t have any idea what she was
even talking about i was just like
taking orders
i was like yeah yeah whatever sure i’ll
go and tell the doctor that he can’t do
his job like sure no probs
um and thank god i did because i really
wanted to intubate him
and neil’s lung capacity went down to
something like five percent and they
were like look we’re gonna have to
debate him and i was like just give him
one more day
because you don’t know neil yeah so
you don’t you don’t actually know what’s
going to happen and right now
you’re telling me that
neil shouldn’t be even in this position
so if anything is possible
anything is possible you know like let’s
just flip it because
anything can happen and lo and behold
neil’s lung capacity went
up about five percent and they were like
it’s not good enough
he needs to be intubated and i remember
thinking
well one way is death one way is life
and it’s creeping up to the life marker
so i think we’re just gonna hang on in
there and see like how he gets on
and um he ended up walking him himself
out of the hospital 21 days after he was
taken in um which was just like the most
like remarkable recovery of like just
show of strength that he had and that we
had together
at that time of course um
so that was a really defining like it’s
been four years coming up to four years
since then and the learnings have just
been like
every year has held something different
i think in the beginning
when i basically had to care for him he
couldn’t do anything
he was so tiny he had a weight on him or
you remember he was literally looked
like a tiny child he just was so
like thin and he had a paralyzed face
you couldn’t walk anywhere he couldn’t
do anything to the bathroom by himself
so i was like single-handedly running
the studio and then also i felt like i’d
gone home with a newborn baby
i remember thinking this is must be what
mums feel like
yeah because now suddenly i’m
responsible for this person and they
can’t take care of themselves and now
i’ve got to take care of them
um and so yeah like in opening the
studio at the time i’m
thinking god this is such a bad timing
and actually
we unknowingly built the very thing that
we both
needed to sustain us over the last four
years
um so that was yeah a really defining
moment in what it’s taught
me about myself in what it’s taught me
in the power of community
the power of being an embodied leader
and you know i don’t know whether that
had or hadn’t have happened to me
whether i would really have gone into
that
feeling like i had to be the person that
knew yeah i’ve opened the studio so i
must know everything
you know like you feel this expectation
you think this is what’s expected of you
but because i couldn’t do that i feel
like i was going through my own
like transformational
process but i was doing it with
everybody watching me
and i was also doing it with them yeah
does this make sense it was it was such
like an inclusive process
and i think that really taught me what i
now understand
to be embodied leadership and that it’s
way more powerful when we
we can still lead and lead alongside
people
rather than this kind of more older
dynamic of it needing to be a top-down
approach
um and yeah that that was one of the
massive learnings that i had
there’s so many there oh there’s so many
and yeah
and one actually who um is listening
jade who would perhaps like to think in
um the comments of gillian barrett just
so people could understand a little bit
more about it
and perhaps how they might
care to support it that would be amazing
ah thank you
jade um uh
i want to just just check back on that
though helen because
you know you know talking about those
sliding door moments you know
like we all know the movie it was just
like an amazing movie and i
refer to it a lot of those sliding door
movements moments of course where
and that of course was for you because
when you think about how perhaps you
would have turned up to your business
how perhaps you would have been a the
leader that
in your business how perhaps you would
have
decided to do certain events
even like every decision
that has happened since that sliding
door moment
you know could be completely different
to
what it is now because of that moment
you know this is the thing with
adversity right like we do not know
we cannot predict the curveballs or the
cannonballs that are going to be
shot at us at different times of our
life we cannot prepare for them and if
we we
if we sit and if we spend time with the
minutes
days months years trying to prepare for
the
that might come far out
you’ll be casting
the joy out of what is possible for your
life
so like don’t bother with that i say i
mean i
you know forget it don’t try to prepare
for it
because we can’t predict it we can’t
predict it right
so you know going back to even our title
for tonight about
self-care and self-expression and
self-leadership
like what we do today without
caring about what might happen in the
future because we don’t know
and they could be little things and they
could be monstrous things we don’t know
but all we can do is live in today and
try to do what’s right for us
right now and you know
from reading your emails from bottom
to top to bottom i mean i know that’s
what you
are trying to give to the world that
like what can we do to live in today
[Music]
and you know 2020 for many people has
been
the greatest adversity of their life
without doubt
yes a hundred percent we’ve all
experienced it very differently
without doubt um but i suppose from your
perspective
your unique ex lens on the world which i
know you have which is so beautiful
this embodiment leadership what do you
what do you think we can extract from it
helen
without you know we don’t none of us
care for
to talk about politics here or anything
like that but what are the
things that we can extract from 2020
that will set us up for some new version
of fabulousness going forward
i feel like the first thing is exactly
what you’ve said
is that i feel you know 2020 is called
on a lot of things
excuse my french and i mean that by we
were all hiding under our
veneer of venus and distraction
and then suddenly we couldn’t be busy
and distracted so much anymore
so we really got to see what was
underneath our busyness and distraction
and sit with that which i think has been
so like confronting and difficult
and all of those things but such an
amazing insight to really see
really see where you actually
are with the world so i feel like it’s
given us this
incredible unique opportunity to
understand understand ourselves on such
a
um more truthful level than perhaps we
kind of had before but i guess what i’m
taking
away from it is um
kind of what i said earlier that
anything is possible
if you’d have said that we were going to
be doing this a year ago
we would have all been like you’re crazy
that would never happen you know even
when i look at
friends who have who have you know not
not made
massive changes and leaps toward la they
want to live because their job is really
secure
or because they could never do that and
yet this year has shown us that
nothing is really anything anything can
be changed at any point
and at any time and that whilst you can
look at that
in like oh my god anything can happen
and anything can change
i always think just change the diet
change the tonality
anything can happen and anything can
change
yes anything can happen like so often
the the kind of caves that we’re living
in
and the barriers that we’ve surrounded
ourselves are in
even though i know they feel so real
aren’t
they’re things that we’ve built or we’ve
created or society has put on us
so i feel like one of my biggest
learnings is just just to keep checking
in with myself
and to keep asking myself like hang on
am i trapping myself
here or actually has this year taught me
that anything is possible and i can
actually make
anything a way out of no way yeah
so i feel like that yeah that’s
definitely been been one of my
like biggest learnings from this year
so helen i mean when new south wales
sydney went into
its lockdown earlier in the year i mean
your yoga studio had to close
your events prep program had to be
cancelled
all of that was deleted really
what did you do what did you do
business wise to keep afloat to keep
some cash flow to keep your staff
because of course when you’ve got staff
you know that’s this
other pressure i’ve got to find a way
because
i know they’ve got to pay rent they’ve
got to pay mortgages they’ve got a life
i need to somehow find a way so
i can actually support them which is
you know in 2020 i think all all leaders
no matter what have really struggled
with that part because if it’s just
about
all right i can perhaps manage in myself
for whatever reason but when you’ve got
people who are relying on you to adapt
and extract something different and and
and operate in a new way
that’s a full-on responsibility so what
have you done
to be able to cope with that first of
all that is my jam
that is like that’s a big turn on for me
i’m like oh
oh so everyone’s expecting me to not
expect me but the general you know
uh conversation around this is that
everything’s gonna go wrong
and that you know we’re all gonna
collapse and i’m like all right
challenge is it okay okay i got it i got
it
my dad once told me like when i was
younger my dad had many different
businesses like
you’re not paid for when things are
going well you’re paid for when
hits the fan
like that is when you’re that’s when you
really
get to see who you are so i remember
hearing that and ever since
when something comes up even if it’s
small um
or like that massive i’m like okay like
this is this is what i’m being trained
for you know
like rather than trying to get through
it or panic how can i really
um yeah take it as the challenge that it
is so i think
first off i paid no attention to what
anyone else was doing
i don’t care like what anyone else in my
industry
or anyone that could seemingly be
compared to what i do
because i think that’s the first thing
that takes you out of your own intuition
and your own gut instinct and especially
with social media
and that feeling of like especially you
know when the rugs being pulled we want
to look to people
because we want that kind of are we okay
are we doing the right thing
and whilst i really get that before i
think before we ever do that we just
need to be with ourselves
and what would i what what do i really
feel like the right thing to do
is next and it might not be the right
thing when i get there
but what’s the thing right now that i
know to be like
the best move so that’s the first thing
i just switched everything off was like
okay
what do i feel like i need to do and
secondly just keeping everything so
simple so the one the glimpses that i
had
of everyone in my industry just felt
like absolute chaos
and everything just felt so complex and
so hard
and i don’t believe that things are
complex or hard
i think if we if if that’s where we are
we’re not seeing the most obvious simple
thing that’s right in front of us
that could probably just make our lives
way easier
and even though we might not stay with
that thing we can do the most simple
thing to buy us time until we figure out
what the bloody hell we’re going to do
so for me um i did both of those things
i literally just took my whole studio
online i made sure that all of my
communication
with all of the studios run on
membership so we have a
like a um yeah a big regular following
of people that are really
invested in what we do um and was really
honest with them
like i think there’s two two ways of
showing up and the first thing is
to lead and people want leadership
during these times
but i want you to lie to them they don’t
want you to tell them you know
tell them what to do but they want to
know that you’re there
and i think the first thing i did was
just send an email out and say to
everybody like i’m right here with you
and this is really and hard and i
don’t know what’s going to happen but
what i do know
is that i’m not going anywhere and i
know you’re not going anywhere
and together we will figure this out so
just know that
firstly there’s that and secondly
really honest with people we’re a small
business
and i’m frightened and right now the
thing that
sustains me and all of my staff and our
community
at large is at risk and so
you know this is a really scary time and
if you can still be here and you can
still support us
i would love you to do that and if
something’s happening in your world then
just talk to me
communicate with me and let’s just see
how we can get through this together
um so that was something that i feel
like
you know part of me like my ego wanted
to be like don’t tell them that you’re
frightened
yeah yeah not what leaders do
tell them that you are fine everything
is great
yep yep and yet when i really actually
drop in
i’m like no like because we all feel
like that in our own way
and that’s okay it’s okay to feel
we can still be strong and powerful and
really bloody vulnerable at the same
time and people respect and receive that
so much more than just do whom it may
concern
you no like it’s just it’s a whole
different energy in it
um so really honest with people closed
the studio
put everything online um
kept all of my teachers on kept paying
all of my teachers found different ways
to
maximize our online presence in terms of
live classes
pre-recorded classes um
we planned retreats way back when for
when we thought that we were going to be
reopening which was a little bit ballsy
to be honest
um but we did it and this was how we
just
sustained ourselves the whole time and
we didn’t lose one staff member
everyone still got paid um you know our
membership retention was
of like i think 80 percent of what we
were when we were open which was just
amazing and i don’t think that any of
that was by fluke or by accident
yeah it was really you know the way that
everyone came together and just
you just adapt and people don’t care if
it’s messy
no well we just really don’t care
just like tiffany’s just said that the
truth will set you free people
we are so sick of leaders
crapping on and telling us untruths and
bullshitting
yes we just want truth
so thank you tiffany for saying that
because that’s
all we want because none of us you know
there’s so many
fake news things and click bait and all
of this i mean how beautiful it is to be
involved with people
who will just say i
don’t know what i’m doing right now but
i’m making the best decisions
for the information i’ve got today which
could be completely wrong
next week and i will have to change them
but right now
this is what we’re doing that’s all i
can do
because you know what perfection is a
fairy tale
yep we cannot try to be perfect
especially when there’s so much
uncertainty yeah it’s
absolutely impossible and i would
imagine helen
like going back to that time when you
open the studio
and neil was on life the life support
and you had to make the decision whether
to be
either that stoic leader who is like
i’m going to be fine look at me i’m
dealing with it all
and you know you can all turn up and i
i’ll be here for you
or you say like oh my god
this is like the most traumatic adverse
thing that could possibly happening to
me right now but
i’m just gonna try and show up every day
and be here for you
because that is all the control i have
on everything that is so uncontrollable
a hundred percent and exactly like
you’re saying like the
truth piece is just ah just yeah
the truth has a certain energy to it has
a certain taste to it
and if you can find it within you to be
okay
with your own truth in that moment like
to me that’s the most powerful
leadership you can offer
yeah ever
helen uh 2020 has rattled
so many people people i mean beyondblue
tells us that
there is a 30 increase with people
contacting them about anxiety double the
amount of people contacting them about
depression
um what what are your what do you say if
you’re
one two three things self-care things
that we can all try to put in place
right now
to help us just calm
the anxiety calm that uncertainty that
we can’t control
so we can just try to ride this through
turn off your phone and turn off the
news
apart from this yes oh when you’re
pressing yoga you keep that on then yeah
yeah
yeah those two yeah those two yeah
really like turn off the television
for a while turn off your phone for a
while
like i know everyone’s like oh that’s
not possible i need to stay up to date
yeah but what about okay yeah
part of that is true but we’re not in
the age where if something happens we’re
not gonna know
we will always know someone will always
come and tell you when something
important’s about to happen
it’s like almost one of the annoying
things about life right now
is that you never don’t know you know
everything all of the time
all of the time all of the time so i
just think like
turn everything off for an
hour for a day and get outside
like your nervous system
your nervous system doesn’t know that
you’re not being chased by a bear
when you’re watching something stressful
on the news
like you are sending you we us are
sending ourselves into such
disarray 24 7
with our technology and our bodies just
can’t
cope with that they weren’t designed to
be in that state
and whilst we can come up with all of
these fancy practices and all of these
things to do
and that’s great really what i do is
turn off my phone
turn off the television go and put my
feet in the sand go and look at some
trees
go and look at the ocean go and sit with
my friend
and just have a hilarious conversation
about
anything um laugh
like i know so many people myself
included
before feel such um
guilt about laughter
or even saying that you’ve derived
anything good at this time because so
many people are
in hell they’re having a awful
time excuse my french
and i i totally i hear you
but we must reclaim our joy we must
because we are no good to anybody
worrying
stressed tired knackered with nothing
left to give
so even just sitting down with your
friend
talking rubbish you know looking at cat
videos on youtube or talking about a
thing you did those
years ago then i know and i beat her or
wherever you’ve been whatever
like just not me obviously
i just like to come back to laughter and
come back to nature
like those two things we all have
that even if you’ve got a tiny bit of
grass outside of your apartment
even if you’ve got a phone and you call
up you may like everyone’s got this
access whatever your current
like reality is and that to me
then when i do have to go back and face
life and its challenges my nervous
system can actually handle it
like my nervous system is like thanks
you just gave me a really nice break
and i’m ready to receive whatever else
i’ve got to do for you but if we
never give ourselves that opportunity to
unplug
yeah bad things happen yeah yeah
and i think you’ve you’ve just answered
the next question i was going to ask you
about
you know i i talk about your resilience
bucket you know you
if you think of your resilience like a
bucket and
when life’s good that bucket feels
strong and sturdy and you’re on fire
but when times get a little wobbly
like like now little rusty holes start
forming in that bucket
and as we know little rusty holes become
bigger holes and
and all our strengths and capabilities
start flowing out
so my question was going to be which i
think you’ve really answered
is what do you do to keep your
resilience buckets strong
and sturdy despite the challenges and
the uncertainty
and the cannibals and the curveballs
that get thrown your way i mean
you’ve mentioned joy and nature
i mean are they or that they your go to
two things
um they are my go-to’s the two other
things that i would add
is rest yeah sleep
again like we want to make everything so
complicated with superfood smoothies
and like eight supplements and actually
just go to bloody bed
go to bed and get some sleep and some
rest or even just
being on your sofa without doing
anything without looking at your phone
without just quickly checking the
television like to actually just
rest and do nothing and again turn
yourself into that more like
parasympathetic state of your nervous
system that rest and digest
is something that i practice every
single day like i actually cannot
not do it otherwise i just feel like i’m
a nutter
um and this might sound like a
a strange one to add but
for me also staying resilient
and kind of filling up that resilience
bucket like you so beautifully
call it is it’s also just to come back
to the fact that people are really good
and there are good people everywhere
and when i’m struggling when i’m
struggling
with 2020 when i’m struggling with my
mental health when i’m struggling with
anything and all of those you know we
all have that kind of
inner witch in our minds that likes to
tell us
all of these awful things i just like to
remember
that there are people like me feeling
how i feel
that i’m not on my own ever i’m never on
my own
in how i feel everyone feels the way
that we all feel and it might come
dressed in different clothes but at the
root of it we all feel the same
and if i’m feeling lonely or especially
now with all of the news on with this
kind of
very much like you know be frightened of
people and people aren’t good and
like there are great people everywhere
there are great people where you live
people are kind people are good and
they’re probably in your neighborhood
and that honestly even though
that might sound unrelated to rest in
nature
genuinely really fills me back up
in my like relationship to other humans
that makes me feel so
connected what is that whole connection
piece isn’t it like you know we know now
how i think more than ever this year
people have realized that
connecting to good kind calm
wonderful gorgeousness people
from who live from their heart far out
like
this is all we need in this well no we
need other things of course
we do that’s pollyanna but we that we
need to have them around us yeah
we need to seek them yeah and we need to
we need to extract
the others who do not fit into that mold
because
it’s not worth it having those others
sapping you of life and energy and
joy and all of that just keep
those good and make it your priority
make a priority
building community and being with good
people is uncomfortable
everyone has the first or ten first
awkward
conversations and you feel like an idiot
and you feel like no one likes you and
what are you doing i don’t know what i’m
doing
god this is awkward can’t believe i came
and yet actually
like you have to go through that process
everyone does
even the people that are now the bestest
of ever friends
like put yourself out there in whatever
capacity to build those relationships
because when you are surrounded by
whether it’s in your your greater
community or your inner circle
by good people it restores your faith
in everything and if you can restore
your faith
when you’re feeling terrible or things
aren’t going your way
like that’s what we turn to we turn to
our beliefs we turn to our faith
you know and i think that’s so important
helen i have one last question for you
tonight i know we’ve gone over time as i
always seem to do
with that um but it’s such an
interesting conversation i could talk
for hours
but my last question uh to you is
out of all the pearls of wisdom that
have been handed down to you
over the years what has been
the most impactful to you and what has
that piece of wisdom that someone has
given to you that you’ve been able to
apply to your life
and it’s had a positive impact what is
that
um yeah i thought about this one long
and hard and again
as with everything i’ve said it’s really
simple but really profound
um on the first night that
neil went into hospital i rang my dad
and my dad was in london and i’m in
australia and it must have been about
3 a.m i think this time and it was one
of those phone calls where you’re in
absolute like i’d fallen to sleep and
then woken up and remembered what
was going on and it was one of those
like
screaming crying what am i gonna do
like a dad i don’t know what to do
like just help me and i remember like
just like
crying and just feeling like someone
give me
something because i actually just don’t
i don’t even know what to do
with myself right now and i remember my
dad saying to me
like i can’t tell you that he’s gonna be
okay
but i can tell you that you will be like
you
will be okay and i know
right now it’s really and it might
get
even worse he’s like but you don’t even
know yet
who you really are in there and you will
be
okay like you will find within you
what you don’t even know that you have
yet
and you will get through this regardless
of what the outcome is
trust yourself trust yourself to know
what to do next
trust yourself that even if it feels
like it’s falling apart
for longer than you would like that you
will be okay because you have
more in you than you will ever even
realize or know
until you need to know it yeah yeah like
and that
i just remember like i’ve probably heard
you’ll always be all right like a
thousand times but i remember just being
like
oh my god he’s
absolutely right like i know me
i can rely on me you know like i i i can
do this like i can actually
yeah and and i feel like again in those
moments when we’re having such down
moments it’s so
easy to say oh everything’s going to be
okay
and actually it’s a lie we don’t know
so again rather than him lying to me and
telling me that everything’s gonna be
fine
oh don’t worry about it so annoying
just the truth the truth right now is i
don’t know
but i do know you yeah and i know that
you will always be okay
so just remember that and that to me
like when i’m
really just feeling whatever the feels
are
is just to be like you know what i’m
always gonna be okay
like i will find something in me even if
it’s in the 11th hour
and i’ll get through it yeah yeah which
you did which i did yeah yeah yeah
what a long hour actually
a big call out and thank you to dad
amazing legend for
yeah thank you dad my gosh
yeah and so helen right now um
you i mean you’ve you’ve had retreats in
australia and overseas uh the borders
are closed obviously so we
we don’t have any of those in the diary
but when is your next
one going on here on our land
that we could perhaps have a look at
yeah so i have one more retreat
um with one space left in
november it’s a three night retreat down
in berry
beautiful on the south coast yep so um
anyone who is interested in just
basically
i call yoga retreats well my yoga
retreats
it’s like adult babysitting which sounds
probably really weird
but what i mean by that is you basically
just get to come along
and take off all of your
responsibilities hand them over to me
for the whole three nights and four days
and again like i was saying earlier
take off all of your hats take off all
of the labels and the rolls
and for three nights and four days you
literally just get to be taken care of
and fed sleep in practice yoga
roll around in the grass have a glass of
wine like whatever it is
like these retreats are like a
kind of like a yeah a bubble in which
you can do that
beautiful yeah and for those who don’t
live
in maroubra or in the in the surrounds
uh you do have online programs that they
can tap into
right yeah i have an online yoga
collection
which is like a series of pre-recorded
classes
um and our studio is an ocean view so
it’s so beautiful because
it was actually filmed it’s very bougie
our online collection was filmed by
part of the crew who filmed spider-man
whoa
i’m a big dog you are freddy pants oh my
god
so what i say that because it’s so
beautiful you literally feel like you
are walking into the studio and you’re
just watching the ocean
um so you can yeah you can practice with
us online and you can also practice with
us live we live stream classes from our
studio
and yeah onto
the internet anywhere in the world
and i’m going to put all those links um
after we finish up so if anyone would
like to click on
and have a look around please make sure
you do and
as i said if you don’t do that and if
you don’t do the retreat
just get on the email list um so you can
have this beautiful wisdom that
helen has oh my gosh it’s just divine so
helen we’re at the end like way over the
end actually
but anyway that happens sometimes i
think don’t get a plan
it’s all about self-expression right we
indeed do it whatever way we need to do
it for us
so and thank you so much
for being here for sharing a wine with
me
and everybody who’s watching either now
or in the future you’ve got a smidge
left i’m at the end
and uh yeah truly appreciate
your amazingness at all times
but uh for you sharing it tonight and
you know telling your
bravery to telling your story uh you you
are a woman with courage who i truly
admire
and i just think you know if we can just
make more of you in this universe it’ll
be such a better i don’t know if the
universe can handle any more helens
actually there’d be too much chaos
there might be a yeah there might be but
anyway thank you for you
um thank you to everybody who’s been
listening uh tonight
and if you’re watching later on which i
know most of you will
um that will you know any questions that
you have please pop them in the comments
helen and i will come back and we’re
we’re more than happy to
answer anything you’ve got but for
tonight we say goodbye
um you enjoy your last bit of wine
that you’ve learned and we’ll see you
again at a fortnight
thank you so much good night
About Helen Wilkes:
Helen Wilkes is a community leader, lit up advocate of working in a new way and founder of the collaborative Maroubra.
Not just a yoga studio, The Collaborative Maroubra conspires with the best local talent, to create regular events focusing on creativity and self-expression, clarity and change, spirituality and self-care. Our desire is to bring people together, to connect with our community, ourselves and way beyond.
People can practice and learn with Helen online anywhere in the world, in person at one of her many weekly yoga classes, events or retreats in Australia and around the world.
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