If I could time travel and share one piece of wisdom with my younger self, I know what it would be. 

I would tell her that I’ve discovered there’s one thing worth pursuing more than anything else in this life. 

There’s one thing, that once you start to cultivate it, will help you to experience a sense of peace, an absence of tension, beyond what you thought possible. 

Fast forward to today, having done many years of meditation & deep healing work, there’s something I know deep in my bones about low mood and joy. ⁣

They are two sides of the same coin. ⁣

The extent to which we face our shadows & emotional pain is the extent to which we have access to joy. ⁣

I spent most of my life doing what my subconscious belief systems programmed me to do - search for happiness outside of myself. (Spoiler - it didn’t work).

The last few weeks have been a time of death and re-birth for me.

Two weeks ago, nature, speaking to me through my body as she does, told me loud and clear that something very precious to me had to come to an end.

While lots has unfolded in between which I’ll get into soon, this ending created the space for the most beautiful, unexpected re-birth. The ending created space for something far more rich and alive to be born.

Here's the thing about change - and why I promise it is not just you who feels resistance when considering changing a habit, a routine, a job or living situation.

And here’s the most important part (in my opinion). Once we understand that fulfilment is an inner state of being, accessible only within the self, not only do we stop looking for fulfilment outside ourselves, we become an exporter of fulfilment rather than a seeker of fulfilment.

One of the great Vedic rishis (seers), Pantanjali, is known for distilling a vast body of Vedic / yogic philosophy into 196 Yoga Sutras. Each Yoga Sutra is a simple, yet deeply layered statement intended to guide the spiritual seeker towards greater realisation of their highest nature and away from mind-induced suffering. 

The more deeply we come to know ourselves through meditation, the less hiding we're able to do from what feels good and true to us.

What I learnt, was that in order to change a deeply ingrained pattern, like the pattern of control that I’m describing, it’s not enough to simply think about wanting to change it, or talk about wanting to change it. We need to take action. We need to do something that gives our brain and nervous system the experience of a different way.

In order to create change, we have to do things differently. Changing how we think and feel requires us to step out of the ever-repeating comfort zone and start to do things differently. New habits come about not only through reflection but through taking action. Vedic meditation is a practice of surrender. By practicing surrender in our daily meditation, we teach ourselves how to surrender to the flow of life outside of meditation.

Most of the most profound shifts in my inner world that I've experienced to date, have been in communion with other humans. In moments where I have felt truly seen and understood. 

When we are well rested, grounded, present and mentally clear, we are able to be of far greater service to the people in our lives than when we are tired and stressed.

The best investments I’ve ever made are those that have given me knowledge and practices that support me to feel safe in my body, to have space between me and my thoughts, to know myself deeply. To stop living in the past and the future. To stop seeking happiness in possessions, titles and relationships and find happiness at its source: inside myself. To be self-sufficient for my own happiness.

I've come to learn through my own experience and with the great honour of being a Vedic meditation teacher, that relaxation is our natural state. Stress is a common state that we have normalised, but it's not normal.

The Veda teaches us that your spontaneous interests and desires are informative. They are clues as to how best to use your unique nature and life experiences to bring more unity and evolution to the collective, moment by moment. This ancient knowledge flies in the face of the ways in which many of us are conditioned to “be a good girl/boy”, to “do what we’re told”, to achieve and succeed in a formulaic way - to exist in a way that is geared towards (conditional) acceptance rather than authenticity.

Your needs as a human being are uniquely yours, and they’re changing all the time. This is where Vedic meditation comes in. Every meditation allows the nervous system to throw off stress, thereby making it easier to detect from inside what you need to feel safe, healthy and whole.

Resilience is one of those things that comes into our awareness when presented with an experience we may rather not have had ~ often an overwhelming stress, trauma, challenge or loss. For this reason, the impact of meditation on our resilience is something we may not realise until faced with adversity or met with an immense demand or challenge.

The Sanskrit word ~ soma ~ means flow of consciousness. That which we put our attention ~ or soma ~ on will amplify or grow stronger in our awareness. The simple action of directing our awareness onto something will create more of it.

From the Vedic perspective, to make decisions and take action based on your fine level of feeling is to allow universal intelligence to be your guide. This is how we make our personal contribution to the evolution of all things, which is the purpose of life and creation.

As the depth of your commitment to your natural state grows, nature will deepen her support of you. It took many days and nights, many moons to birth you in all your uniqueness. To the extent you resist your unique design, you’ll feel friction and a lack of wholeness in life. To the extent you embody your embrace design, you’ll feel held and infinitely resourced.