Minimalist Living with Dr Emee Estacio and Lesley Leong (Life Simply Zen)

1. Who you are and what you do?

Hi Im Lesley, I love to inspire others to create and be better versions of themselves through online education.

I am a minimalist and essentialist enthusiast. I love keeping my life simple, my daily mantra is “I make my life easy” and “keep it simple”

I am the founder and creator Life Simply Zen.

Life Simply Zen is a place and space created to inspire you to calm your mind down, to focus on the essentials in life, by being a minimalist, being energetically inspired, simplifying your life, to be organised and create systematic systems that is tailor made to suit you.

Living simply also is about streamlining systems with your things, finances and home to reduce the time spent on maintaining them, “Ultimately, it's about experiencing the most out of the essentials in life, and not being bogged down by the inessentials.

2. How did you get to where you are now?

A lot of my methods systems and wisdom came from my late grandmother Rosie Pung from Singapore. My grandmother has always been my guide and inspiration since i was child, bless her soul I dearly miss her since she passed away in 2015.

She has always been an essentialist, very organised and very clean, and always telling me to be systematic in life since young.

When I was growing up my grandmother took care of me while my parents were away most of the time for work in the UK. My grandmother used to tell me Lesley make sure you pack your school work and bag have your school shoes ready and uniform ready so that when you wake up in the morning you are ready and do not have to think about it.

From preparing your bag for school or work the next day to organising your life, cleaning systematically and creating systems.

Being a qualified lawyer for 16 years and 5 years in medicine, being an A type personality having to be at a high level professional as duty of care to my clients, my life was very stressful and complicated especially where there is a lot to think about in my head.

Now being the age of 40, I have continued to learn grow and implement these simple systems in my life.

i’ve been practicing these methods and refining it as I go for 40 years. One my high values in life is location freedom to be Free and light especially when comes to traveling and not let things tie me down.

Ive been in the corporate world as a commercial lawyer for 16 years and in the medical field. Always been working for corporate companies for years. Being 40 now I’ve been through a couple of generations from the pre historic dinasour days of Cd Roms, cassette players, technology age to now being paperless and finding systems that can streamline your business and processes at minimal costs and functional to you and your business.

I have been through my fair share of challenges thinking that by climbing the corporate ladder and keeping up appearances that I would be happy. I was wrong.

Pain: living on automatic pilot not feeling fulfilled constantly feeling overwhelmed by stress and fear of failure i put a lot of pressure on myself to perform and be on top of my game on my profession which is highly litigious.

As my cup was getting full and overflowing it took a couple of challenges that hit me and I spiral down into anxiety fear and depression. Losing the purpose in my life, feeling stuck and questioning everything I do. Moving houses, moving interstate, being made redundant in my job and deciding to resign from the high corporate male dominated corporate law firm I decided to choose my way of life.

A method of feeling safe and in control is by decluttering, organising my life and refocus or regroup reinvent myself. Also telling myself it’s okay I’m like this right now, its okay to sit with this right now. When I’m ready I will be better I will be bubbly myself again.

Choosing my on way of doing business and serving my people.

The one thing I was courageous and strong determined to survive and rise above my problems.

I chose to live a minimalist life, that is essential, it gave me clarity and joy and happiness.

Through my career in law, medicine, marketing, and coaching I have implemented my own essential system and methods that is tailor made for me to make my life streamlined, minimal and simple.

For example I have gone paperless except for essential documents like passports and other important documents.

I do have a handful of my favourite books with me the rest I will either kindle/ audible or go to your local library.

From cutting down trees in legal to Now being streamlined and paperless.

Cut the noise and focus on what is important to you right now.

I travelled and moved a lot in my life time

I strive to have location freedom

Carting a lot of things in life does not serve my purpose

3. Why is minimalist living good for us?

It is very liberating to enjoy the feeling of less is more and appreciate the very essential items that I use everyday.

Mind Body Spirit Me

Mind - you are clear and focus with where you are going, your purpose and balanced in control of your thoughts and processes

Body - you are healthier, liberated with the choices you make with your food, movement and environment, what you put into your environment.

Spirit - because you are one with your mind, body and spirit, you are you unique in every way, this brings the mind and body (feelings and intuition together).

Me - because you are your best friend, only you can inspire yourself into action which inspires your positive change in your environment.

You start to appreciate the things that are essential to you.

4. How can we practice minimalist living?

Did you know there are different types of minimalists:

https://nosidebar.com/types-of-minimalist/

These are definitions taken from Joshua Becker’s blog no side bar and becoming minimalist.

Types of Minimalism

Here are five flavors of minimalism we’ve seen:

1. The Essentialist.

The essentialist ascribes to a philosophy of “fewer, but better.” Do fewer things, but do them well. Own fewer things, but choose things that will last. Wear fewer hats, but wear them wholeheartedly. Essentialism is a minimalism that focuses on quality, not quantity.

2. The Experientialist.

Instead of embracing materialism, experientalism is about collecting experiences. The experientialist will invest in memories and free up resources for activities instead of things.

3. The Enoughist.

Enoughism describes minimalism in terms of having enough, not having it all. The enoughist finds peace in voluntarily using enough — and no more — in any category: food, clothing, home size, storage space, flashing links in your sidebar. Enough looks different from person to person.

4. The Eco-Minimalist.

The eco-minimalist pursues a life of less consumption in order to reduce their impact on the earth. The focus is less on the benefits to the individual household, and more on the bigger environmental picture.

5. The Soul Minimalist.

The soul minimalist cherishes stillness of soul, and works to keep mental and spiritual clutter to a minimum. Practices of quiet, mindfulness, stillness, and listening are all important here.

Your style of simple living doesn’t have to look exactly like anyone else’s. What matters is that you are intentionally eliminating what you don’t need to make room for what’s most important. You’re being mindful of the impact your choices have on your relationships, your finances and the wider world.

You are more than a label, and you’re investing in what matters. You’re living your own story. You can design the life you want to live.

I utilize essentialism by creating Systems that works for me and choose to have positive experiences over things being an experientialist.

Simple free available methods you can use.

Mind Body Spirit Me

I call it MYBJ method (self care)

Meditation

Yoga

Breathing

Journaling

Using candles to create the calm ambience and to clear energies

Soundcloud - solfeggio sounds

Helps with keeping my mind calm, and reduce anxiety, being present balance.

You can simplify your life by just doing simple and easy tasks.

Create systems that works for you. Tailor made systems.

5. How can people find you/connect with you?

Please follow me on Life Simply Zen and Facebook group Life Simply Zen - Soulful Tribe for more videos and things simple.

Website www.lifesimplyzen.com for articles and videos

Moments for you meditation

I will be sharing videos on the 11 steps to simplify your life on the Udemy platform and also on my Facebook group page life simply zen - soulful tribe

U SIMPLIFIED