20 Ways to Set Your Spirit Soaring (and they’re all FREE)

Getting in touch with your innate sense of well-being can be fun, inexpensive and easy.

Here is a list of things that life has to offer that are 100% free — no strings attached (except in the case of playing with kittens):

  • Friendship — Connect with real people (not just social networking), make new connections and rekindle old relationships, if appropriate.
  • A smile — Dish them out!  You have nothing to lose.  Pass them around.
  • A heart-felt hug/embrace — It never goes astray, have you noticed?  Making physical contact is extremely important for any living creature.
  • A compliment Be impeccable with your words, let only kind, well thought-out words roll off your tongue.
  • Fresh air — Yes, it is free and beneficial.  Be grateful for a deep breath of oxygen.
  • Cloud spotting — This is preferably done on freshly mown, green, lush grass.
  • Swimming — A swim in the ocean or a lake, or even a pool.  The feeling of being weightless and carefree.  Priceless!
  • Humour — Share a good joke, get laughing — it’s the best medicine.
  • Smelling — When was the last time you literally stopped to smell the roses? Use your senses wisely…
  • Children — Watching a baby or a child/children play is one of the most uplifting past-times.  It’s free and it usually puts a smile on your dial.
  • Kittens — Have you ever watched a kitten or cat play with a piece of string?  Another priceless activity that will get your heart-strings all in tune.
  • Dogs — One of my favourite things to observe is witnessing a dog disembarking from a car to see he is at the beach!   If you don’t have pets, go sit in the park and watch animals frolicking.  Just remember joy is contagious — anyone’s or anything’s joy rubs off, did you know that?
  • Mountains — There they are, just standing there looking pretty…go climb one!  It’s an amazing feeling.
  • Walking — Strolling through a meadow on a sunny spring morning, watching butterflies dance their way through the sky in front of you.  When last did you do that?
  • Napping — Having an afternoon nap in the sun or under the shade of a tree.  Bliss!  For anyone who’s been to South Africa, you would have noticed that people do this all the time — during lunch-breaks, coffee breaks, etc.
  • Sand castles — Building a sandcastle is just terrific.  Getting down and mucky in the sand.  Free and liberating!  Note to the beachless:  sorry about that, perhaps it’s time to take a trip to the nearest coast or plan that next tropical holiday?
  • Stomping — Once you’ve built the sand castle, jump on it and smash it into the ground.  Do you remember doing that!?!  Pure elation and freedom from attachment. Release the joy of your inner child.
  • Music — Play your favourite songs and instantly lift your vibration!
  • Be grateful — Make a list of all the things going right in your life and you’ll be surprised at just how well you are manifesting your existence.
  • Creative Expression — The last FREE thing on my list is my book ‘Creative

    How to find your inspiration…

    Expression — How to find your inspiration…’  It is available on this site as a FREE download once you subscribe (subscription is also 100% FREE).

How freeing is it to know that there is so much to do that doesn’t come with a price tag attached?

Sometimes we need to concentrate on being in the now, focus on the little joys of life to squeeze the ultimate bliss out of every day.

What things do you like to get up to that are free and priceless?  Please share your stories…

Here is a blog that you may find interesting:

How to find happiness without buying it

Help Others.org: On Passing Around Smiles… — A Kindness Story.

No Free Handouts — You Have to Work for your Happiness

How Many Carrots does it take to Screw in a Light Bulb?

I’m not too sure what the answer to the joke is…perhaps none as they were all rooted to the spot?

The Vege-Tate Gallery — Beginnings…

My idea for a Vege-Tate Gallery grew into full blossom when my husband and I decided to try and plant a vegetable garden around the back of our house.

This was no easy task as we have vegetable guzzling baboons to contend with on a regular basis — so strong fencing and locks were needed for this venture to succeed.

I am happy to report that my actual vegetable patch is doing very well and is starting to bear the fruit of our hard-earned labour.  Well, except for the poor runner beans that never made it to the finishing line due to a critter biting them off at the base of the stem, which consequentially led me to create the ‘Has Bean‘ design.  You have to work with this!

Whilst planting the seeds of the garden, my mind started pondering all these crazy ideas for a vegetable joke shop with lots of corny but fruity ‘green’ humour.

The designs started to take shape as I sketched out the ideas as they came to me, with a little help from the hubby.

The Next Step

When I had a good 20 designs to work with, I began the digital journey of drawing them onto the computer (yes, using my mouse!  I am still using that old archaic rodent until I get my digital pen) and loading them as t-shirt designs.

I am officially launching my new gallery entitled ‘The Vege-Tate Gallery’ — I do hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them.

The link to the store is here.

Below are my personal favourites.  Next week I will showcase the rest of the store along with some other fun merchandise from this range.

Literally for the man who has everything!

This one is for the ladies — especially the ones that can make a grown man cry!

For The Beatles fan

For the humble…

For the melon appreciation club

For the overworked!

For the political activist

Keeping abreast of things

Please let me know what your favourite design is!

John Cleese – Pushing Boundaries Through Comedy

WARNING:  PG 13 – Foul language used in this blog

I was fortunate enough to be able to go and see John Cleese‘s new show ‘Alimony Tour’ in 2012.

“Without these ground-breaking, side-splitting writers and actors we might never have broken the barrier of vulgar, fowl and completely insane comedy”

I have always been a huge fan of Fawlty Towers and Monty Python, not to mention A Fish Called Wanda and the latest triumph, ‘Spud’ – a movie made from the South African novel of the same title by John Van De Ruit.

The childhood memories of Basil Fawlty and the ‘deceased parrot’ skit are some of my fondest.  This so-called ‘black/dark’ humor has been my life-line in many occasions and it is all due to the genius of pioneer comedians such as Cleese and the Python team, as well as Connie Booth (Cleese’s first wife and co-writer and star of Fawlty Towers).

Without these ground-breaking, side-splitting writers and actors we might never have broken the barrier of vulgar, fowl and completely insane comedy.

Pushing Boundaries

Cleese mentioned that he was the first person to say ‘shit’ on the BBC and consequentially went on to be the ‘first’ person to say ‘fuck’ at the church memorial service for his fellow writer/actor/friend, Graham Chapman.  A tribute, Cleese declared, that his friend, Chapman, would have wanted him to fulfill at Chapman’s expense *grin*.

“With their light of humor, they shone laughter and mirth into the hearts of millions who needed to be uplifted from their daily grind.”

The Python team went on to push all sorts of boundaries with their completely zany comedy skits and movies.  The one thing they did achieve through this was a world-wide fan base and some of the best and most diverse comedy to hit the screens ever!

This opened up new avenues and diverse channels for finding humour in the mundane and darkest of places.  What’s life about if we can’t take the Micky out of everything!

Comedic pioneers, with their light of humour, shone laughter and mirth into the hearts of millions who needed to be uplifted from their daily grind.

On With the Show…

Mona Lisa grinThe show was about Cleese’s personal and professional history and what a journey it was!  From the humble beginnings in a one-horse town to the moment David Frost called him up to be on telly – the show takes you through the trials and tribulations of this mans extraordinary life.

Mother Cleese

I loved the story of his mother.  In a nutshell, she lived to be 101 years old – being born in 1900 and passing away in 2001, she experienced a centuries worth of tumultuous history – living through WW1, WW2 and the cold war – just to name a few major events.

However, according to Cleese, she never really noticed any of it due to her incessant fears, worries and phobias.  Something he later turned around when he offered to hire a hitman to ‘take her out’ if it made her feel better.  This made her laugh about her situation and from that moment onward they shared a special bond through his talent of ‘black comedy’.

The Effect on the Masses

What stood out for me during the performance was how all the thousands of people in the audience responded to some of the clips he was showing from his various shows.  The crowd was applauding, giving standing ovations and laughing merrily.

“When you have the ability to laugh, you have the ability to heal.”

This brought me to think:  How wonderful is laughter?!  It can unite so many people under its umbrella.  It can make us look at situations and find the humor, no matter how diverse in nature.

Laughter is the Best Damn Medicine

The human being has this wonderful gift – to laugh.  And, more importantly, to laugh at ourselves.  So many times, we take ourselves and situations too seriously.  When you have the ability to laugh, you have the ability to heal.

Be lighthearted and find something to laugh about every day.  You will reduce stress and you will be a fantastic person to be around.

Go on – have a laugh!

A Parting Word of Thanks (Just Don’t Mention the War!)

Thank you, John Cleese, and all the other comedians who pushed the boundaries and gave us all something to laugh about!  The echoes of laughter will linger long after you have moved on.

You leave this planet a much more jolly place to be in.  You all deserve medals for your contributions to pant-wetting.

Other articles you may enjoy:

What is Free and Priceless in the World Today?

Why Weird is the New Cool

The Dummies Guide to Awakening

7 Proven Tactics to Spread Joy Around the World

Does The Sun Shine Out Of Your Bottom?

Dare to Be Who You Are

A Practical Guide to Feeling Good