The Practice That Changed Everything

WTF was I thinking when I stopped doing this?

I lay out my yoga mat and kick off my sandals.

The grass is long and lush underneath my feet; the trees heavy with green.

The setting sun is hot but the air is getting cooler in preparation for nightfall. Golden light is everywhere.

A group of lads are kicking a football between each other. Thud. Thud. Thud. Leather on skin.

Birds are squawking their way back to their nests, piercing the air with their prehistoric cries.

A group of thespians rehearse a Shakespearian play in the nearby rose garden.

(I’m not making this up. Every year the Melbourne Shakespeare Company puts on a play in the park and local residents sit on fold out chairs among the rose bushes with flasks of tea. The Merry Wives of Windsor. The Merchant of Venice. Much Ado About Nothing. I go every year with my mate Suze. This year it’s Twelfth Night. We’ve got tickets for Sunday.)

I pull my speaker out of my bag and start playing The Devi Prayer. The low, soft sound adds cushioning to the soundscape and one by one, people come and sit with me.

I didn’t know who would come. I didn’t know how many. But seven seems like the perfect amount.

An action shot of the Melbourne Shakespeare Company performing The Merry Wives of Windsor in 2022 in the rose gardens at St Kilda Botanical Gardens. See, told ya! My neighbourhood is the tits!

Some context.

A few weeks ago a dear friend pointed something out to me.

I was spinning in a vortex of burnout that had taken me by surprise and knocked the air from my lungs.

I was sobbing, flailing and for the first time in years, unsure of myself.

She reminded me that when we’d first met I’d told her that my full time job was me - my mental, spiritual and physical health. My work (Amplify and other personal development courses I ran at the time) was an extension of that.

She told me that at the time she’d thought “what a bloody genius! How smart to live so well.”

But the pandemic changed things.

For reasons I won’t delve into here, I began to pull away from some of the spiritual communities I’d associated with. My spiritual practice got benched in favour of some brutal and hard years in business that took all of my focus.

Of course abandoning my spiritual practice didn’t happen overnight and there was no immediate effect. Slowly I dropped a meditation here and there; ignored my journal in favour of focusing outwards instead of inwards. It was a slow and insidious fraction from myself. I didn’t even notice my intuition dim or my ego take the wheel. I couldn’t see the scarcity in my actions or the way I skirted over emotions that needed to breathe in the light of day.

I thought (and this is embarrassing to say) I’d done enough work.

So I didn’t notice the cracks until I found myself feeling incredibly unstable. It took my friend tapping me on the shoulder to point out the obvious.

In a world that doesn’t legitimise pausing, it's a rebellious act to live a slow life. To wake up and immediately close your eyes in meditation. To drink a coffee with both hands cupping the mug. To read some pages of a book instead of scrolling on social media. To earnestly write in a journal; poems and lyrics and pictures and feelings splayed out over double pages that no one will read. To take time to meet ourselves every day, over and over again. To ponder. To regulate. To simply sit with our breath. What an extravagance when there are lists to be made and a lifestyle to buy and so many things to do, do, do!

Since pressing a massive (indefinite?) pause on social media (and so the marketing of my business) I have reclaimed space. Not just time. Space.

In that space, I have dusted off my mat. I put my hand on my heart and felt my body breathe. I asked myself questions and wept over the answers. I rediscovered my truth and sat next to a whole host of yucky emotions that had been clamouring to tell me something. I resurrected and reformed my spiritual practice. And it has changed everything for me.

Now, I don't know for sure if I believe in God (although I refer to God regularly). I don’t know if there’s a greater consciousness that hears my prayers. I don’t know if I can actually “trust the universe” and I don’t know if everything happens for a reason.

But I know my life feels better when I cultivate faith (in myself and my place on this planet).

I know I hear myself better when I connect to the ancient awareness that sits below my navel.

I know I’m kinder when I tap into that space that sits above my heart and below my throat.

I know I feel safer when I slow down my inhale and deepen my exhale.

That has been my work over the last few weeks. A deliberate and conscious return to faith born from a daily, unique-to-me spiritual practice.

The intersection of this practice and the world burning is an important one.

Because friend, it is naive to think that the world is not burning. No amount of faith can deny the fact that humanity is on the brink and we are going to be facing some extreme challenges in the next decade or so.

It feels (for me) that the window of hope is getting smaller. But the feeling of hopelessness is a dangerous one so I turned to some great minds to find out what little old me can do amid the chaos.

Time and time again through podcasts and books and articles the same answer came. What we need right now is kindness and community. Because without caring for each other, we’re f*cked. We have to stop putting the desires of the individual over the needs of the collective. It’s a massive ask in a world that is skewed so violently the other way. But we have to try.

And so here I am. On my mat. In gardens so beautiful it’s impossible not to believe in God. Welcoming seven strangers from my community who saw my poster, to sit with me in meditation. Because what else is there to do but create a space of kindness where I can gather with my neighbours and we can share in our humanness through a spiritual practice that has proved time and time again to save me.

The warmth of the sun. The sound of the football. The grass between my toes.

One by one, people come and sit with me.

I didn’t know who would come. I didn’t know how many. But seven seems like the perfect amount.

I hope that next week they all bring a friend.

If you’re in the bayside area of Melbourne and you’d like to come and sit in meditation with us, we gather each Wednesday in St Kilda botanical gardens at 7pm. Hit me up for more details.