As a heart-centred business, Bombisha is passionate about supporting passion projects… projects motivated by creativity, kindness and enhancing the wellness of the universe, on every level. This could be a multi-billion dollar cooperate business or a personal endeavour of singing to as many trees as possible. Essentially, the more we do what we love and love what we do, the more we thrive as a human family and nourish the system which nourishes us, mother earth pacha mama.
Over the next few months we shall be connecting with different people about heart-centred living and heart-centred business. Linda Kay West begins us on this journey, teaching us how to love more, dream wilder and dance our dance.
What does living from the heart mean to you?
it means to live with fulfilment. When I live from the heart, follow my heart, I feel fulfilled and with that comes an incredible feeling of freedom. It also takes me to the truth and it gives me an enormous space to be free and feel safe to be myself. And it brings a level of creativity into my being and sets me off into a place where I feel I can create whatever it is I want to create.
One thing I love to do is dance and when I come from the heart, it is like I’ve opened the door for that to be possible. It makes everything easier. The resistance disappears. I highly recommend it!
So what are the challenges, day to day, of getting into that heart space?
Gosh, I have to do this because that is part of my belief system, or it’s what mum did or dad did, my peers, my family, the social structure that we live in…
The structures in place of how you are to feel about yourself and how you are supposed to be behaving – if you are bad you go to hell, that kind thing — the challenges are more about not allowing that to interfere with the flow of exactly what you want to do. Being aware of that.
And sometimes I haven’t opened my heart because I’m scared I might get hurt, but when I have gone through that and trusted my heart, it has been amazing. There is a real freedom once I’ve done that, once I’ve walked through that fear, and it comes back to that level of fulfillment again.
What about the heart in relation to work and money?
In the past years, there’s been more focus on business for money — it’s about the money you are in business for so you can make a living. And it is a crazy cycle that you can get mixed up in. You do have to make money to live and at the same time you want to provide a service that’s going to be useful for the people you are providing a service for.
So, I think once you get down to your heart — coming from your heart —there’s an enormous connection there that you make with people, and it is felt. And I think a lot of people in business have gone away from that heart connection and I feel that it is time that everyone came back to that because people need it. They are actually feeling disconnected a lot these days. It is not necessarily their fault, it is just the way things went in business. It needs to come back to that connection, which can only come from returning to the heart. When you come back to that connection it is also genuine and people can sense that.
What about success and heart-based business?
People feel the authenticity of it and it has a huge effect on the overall running of the people in the business and the people attracted to the business.
I know a lot of people feel like following their heart is not going to earn them a living. This is a common perception we have grown up with. With the experiences I have been through and the people I know, the most successful ones have been where they’ve actually followed their heart.
If there is a real yearning to do something different to that cooperate job, for example, make the jump. And without logically getting into it – ‘How’s it going to support me?’ ‘How is it going to make me money?’ Because when you make that jump, one thing that you have to do is be in total trust of that decision you’re making.
A lot of people don’t do it because they think that there’s no future or no money to be made in it, but I know the one’s who have actually followed like that, it has been really heart fulfilling for them and it has been more successful than they thought it would be just from following that intuitive feeling they had about it. And yeah, they had a plan but they also let go of what was going to become of it.
So it is definitely recommended to go and make a bold move towards the very thing you are resisting. In my experience in life, whenever there is resistance, that means GO. And there are times I haven’t gone and I’ve regretted it and there are times I have gone through that resistance and fear and it has been amazing. Break throughs!
I would definitely follow that resistance — go for it! Just follow the heart, it will take you. It will be way better than what you could have imagined. Doors open that you couldn’t have even thought about and putting a structure in place is good, but then let it go.
The heart journey can be challenging, what inspires you to keep following your heart?
For me, it is more about, if I do it, somewhere along the line it will inspire others to follow their own heart. That is the basis. That’s what inspires me. To know that someone may act because I am following my heart — which might inspire one out of 100, say — that’s like a massive big Halleluju! Happy dance! Because someone’s actually followed through and broken away from whatever system they have been following and it brings them closer to their authentic self and then they too may inspire someone around them just by acting on it and following it themselves…
And are there any people that keep you inspired?
I have followed different mentors along the way who have already been successful and why I chose to follow them was because they followed their heart. I knew that in the process of following what my heart was calling me to do, I needed to learn something from people who were already doing it and living from their heart.
I have enjoyed watching them and seeing them. The biggest thing they have all done is completely not listen to family and friends and they have all said the same thing – in this process, the challenges are your family and friends. There may be one person that agrees with you and says “go for it!” But basically, most people tell you “It sucks!”, tell you “You’re dreaming!”… tell you, “You need to go get a good job.” I mean, one of my daughters still tells me this. She is very structured and loves to be in the system and she still says to me “Mum, why don’t you go and get a job.”
So you will get that. Don’t be surprised, don’t be alarmed, that is the normal response from most people around you when you say you are going to go off and do this or that. Don’t expect any support from any of them because they know you as someone else. You’re a mum to them, you’re a sister, you’re a brother. “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t go and do that. That is just something you can have fun with but you can’t go make a business out of it.” That’s mostly what you get.
And expect challenges, that’s just how it is, but don’t let that stop you from keeping going and living your dream. It takes a bit of time, it takes a bit of effort, long hours for you, depending on what you want. Do you want an average business or a highly functioning one? It requires an enormous amount of energy, but don’t give up. And don’t listen to everyone that says you’re crazy. Just keep following what you are getting and allow yourself to have shit days and good days. Celebrate the good days and if you have a shit day don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s normal.
That’s what I get from the couple of mentors I’ve followed, they just keep going, they also keep themselves educated. They actually follow someone who is doing what they want to do but on a higher scale. Someone who is really successful. Get a mentor, and it is not a friend who isn’t in business giving you advice on how to be successful. If they are not successful, you are following the wrong advice.
What are your personal heart offerings at the moment?
My heart offerings, what first comes to me is to stick to being authentic to what you want to share. What is your thing you want to share with the world? Or with people around you or whoever it is?
For me personally, I am in a transition right now, moving from what I have always done, which is healing work and pshysic readings, which I’ve enjoyed but I’m just not feeling that that’s really fulfilling at the moment. So the transition for me – for me to step up – I now have to add to that. I’m just navigating that at the moment…and going with inspiration that comes to me, even if I don’t think that’s going to fit in with what I do… let’s just go with it because those doors open and there’s something there that you just never would have thought…
But when you decide to go with it, have fun with it and fully immerse yourself in it. Don’t do it half in and half out. If you’re going to do it, do it. If your not, don’t. Stop. Do something else. Be open and be playful with it and have structures and outcomes and how you’d like it to be and then let it go because it changes all the time.
And finally, what do you want to be known for?
Someone that actually really lived what it was they did, and shared it, without being something specific, and actually having an effect on someone’s life. Whether it’s drinking chai I make, if they felt amazing drinking the chai, that is awesome. With chai, there is a sharing, it is all about connecting, so if you people meet each other through the chai, amazing. If that makes a difference in someone’s life and they’ve met friends and connected to more people and it has been a heart-centred experience, then that will make me really happy, at the end of the day.
If your heart is calling you to do something completely different to what you’ve always done, just go for it. Don’t hesitate, because you will be taken and guided and you will be given the right people and the right tools. And yeah, there will be challenges along the way but don’t let that stop you. Be fully heart activated by sticking to what you are aligned with, and along the way, you will also inspire others to live from the heart as well and you will make amazing connections with people who are truly authentic and you will live a fulfilling life that is true. There is enormous freedom in that, it is like letting go…