How do you choose to experience joy today?
Where will you find your ‘red wattle flowers’?

Singing and mantra is my doorway to HER

It is my heartfelt prayer to call her forward

Calling her forward after hiding in the shadows.

And I now know now the time has come to give her my full attention.

This time on my cushion is my sacred time for me.

I belong to no one except myself.

This post includes an audio mantra practice with me.

Why are we encouraging and supporting our kids and loved ones to live their fullest life and realise their greatest potential if we are living our own life from a place of depletion, fear, worry and limitation?

The photo above was taken not long after I came out of the ocean pool early one morning in Yamba NSW on a recent road trip with my Dad up the east coast of Australia.

In this moment, it all became clear to me.

I could feel beliefs held for a lifetime around who I thought I should be, and the behaviours fortifying these beliefs, finally being known for what they really were.

They were not true, and they were not ‘me’.

I have spent much of this year working behind the scenes re-inventing the business foundations for Simple Sacred Everyday and cultivating clarity on who I am, what I offer and who it is for.

This work has had me bump up against so many stories I have unconsciously held as a woman around what I am ‘allowed’ to do, what I am capable of and the value of what I share in the world.

I feel I have definitely mined the proverbial ‘depths’ and I am grateful for the lightness I feel as I slowly re-emerge.

I have heard so many reasons why it is hard to prioritise self-care. And please know, I didn’t just wake up one day and have a fully fledged self-care routine magically up and running.

It took time. It took patience. It took trial and error. It took starting and stopping and starting and stopping and starting and stopping.

But I kept picking myself up, dusting myself off and returning to the practice because I knew something had to change. I had to take responsibility for my own care and wellbeing.

I had a day recently that was really, really hard.

I was feeling some big emotions that I was having difficulty processing, and I simply could not stop crying. I had just realised that I had been carrying a story all my life that what I offer to the world as ‘me’, and as woman, doesn’t matter.

When I began my self-care practice 20 years ago, I had no idea it would bring so much personal growth and transformation. It gave me an amazing source of support that helped me through so many of life’s curveballs. It also helped me address some long held stories and beliefs that were playing out in my life which I knew, deep down, were not serving me.

I am truly grateful for the all the healing, insight and understanding my practice has gifted me over the years. The learnings I have received have been life-changing, and even now, 20 years down the track, I am still reaping so many rewards from devoting regular time to care for me.

So here are 5 of some of the greatest lessons I have learnt from my practice so far, and I am sure there will be many more to come!

To help me amplify feelings of ‘enoughness’ within and to connect me to an inner joy and contentment, I have been using a beautiful hand mudra called the Inner Smile Mudra. The mudra affects the flow of energy from the navel up into the heart and throat, and is believed to stimulate the production of the happy hormone, seratonin, in the body.

Explore this beautiful mantra which holds a special frequency to help you remember the light that you are. This mantra is particularly helpful when our mood is low, or our mind is locked in a cycle of rumination, judgement or fear, or when we need reassurance that there is light beyond the darkness – that the Spring will follow the Winter.

When we look at the state of our planet, it really feels as though we need to focus on big, grand plans to bring about the change that is needed. But what if the most potent power lay in the small actions we take everyday, like a yoga-inspired home practice?

Deep down, all we want to know is what it feels like to be loved and to give love, wholly and completely. And there is a deep, quiet part of us that knows the way. This part is gentle, unassuming and patient, and its whispers are often drowned out by the drama, materialism and distraction of the world around us.

My home practice is a spiritual one. But it hasn’t always been like this.
I began a home practice many years ago to find peace of mind in a imperfect world.
And when I began my home practice, it was purely instinctual.
There was no method. There was no strategy. There was no game plan.
And from this little home practice ‘thing’, big life-changing things grew.

So how do you make showing up for your home practice easier when it feels really difficult, particularly as we head into winter here in Melbourne where it is feeling dark and cold, and inspiration and motivation for home practice feels elusive?

I don’t see my home practice as a ‘fix-all’ solution to all of the situations and circumstances that we find ourselves in life. For me, I see my home practice as a ‘refuge’ – a space that I create for myself each day to pause, catch my breath, and hold myself in presence for a while.

There is a way to freedom, satisfaction and joy.

And to find that ‘way’ for you, you need to pause.
You need to listen inwardly.
You need to be kind and compassionate towards yourself.

But where do you start? For me, my home practice is my starting point.

It feels as though the winds of change are moving through.
Are you feeling them too?

After big shifts and upheaval in the last couple of years, it feels as though life is encouraging us to explore new patterns and ways of being so we can truly realise a harmonious, balanced and satisfying way of living.

How are you travelling my friend?

There is definitely a sense in the air that we are in the thick of change and transition. Life is asking us to shape-shift once again as we begin to take baby steps towards the post-pandemic world. You may have heard the term ‘liminal’ to describe these times, where we feel we are in the metaphorical waiting room between one stage of our life and another, a sense of navigating the unknown, of trying to find our bearings in the void.

How is this transition showing up in your life right now?