21 articles

I’ve always believed that self-inquiry can be a portal. Sometimes that portal is meditation. Sometimes it’s heartbreak. Sometimes it’s travel, long and lonely and bewildering. But recently, it came in the form of something unexpected:Running my astrological birth chart and my human design through ChatGPT.

We all carry stories that feel so familiar they might as well be our own voice — the subtle doubts, the quiet assumptions, the emotional reactions that rise before we even have a chance to choose differently. In the yogic tradition, these inherited imprints are known as samskāras: subliminal impressions carved into us through repetition, experience and unexamined memory.

There are moments in life when we meet people who feel like mirrors. All the qualities we long to recognise in ourselves appear so effortlessly in them. And then, as you spend time together, you realise something extraordinary: what you see in them is what they see in you. The connection becomes something rare and beautiful — a space where you bring out the best in one another, even though just days before you were strangers.

Yoga is often thought of as postures on a mat or quiet studio time. Yet the ancient texts describe it far more broadly, as a framework for cultivating steadiness, awareness, and presence in every aspect of life. The Yoga Sūtras tell us:

There are places in the world that make you feel whole, grounded, and deeply nourished, and there are places that quietly take from you, chipping away at the equilibrium you’ve worked to cultivate. It can feel as though the culture of a place seeps through your skin, shaping your energy and attitude before you’ve even noticed.

There’s something quietly profound, and often overlooked, about the boundaries and standards that shape our lives. Not always the ones we consciously set, but those gently handed down to us by the people and spaces we inhabit. Whether in work, friendships, family, or romantic relationships, these invisible lines quietly frame what feels possible, what we believe we deserve, and ultimately, how we see ourselves.

In the modern wellness world, the surface often appears to be a glow: luminous skin, green smoothies, gym schedules, lymphatic drainage, and cold plunges. And while all of these can support well-being, they don’t touch the deeper layers of what it means to be well.

There’s a common belief in the wellness world that everything begins with self-love. But I’ve come to learn that it’s not always true. You don’t need to force love upon yourself, or convince yourself that you are worthy, or even forgive yourself first to love yourself. And while an at-home facial or a scented candle might offer a moment of stillness, they aren’t the same as true self-love. I’m talking about the kind of quiet recognition that lives deep within you, the inner knowing that you are already loved, already whole.

A reflection on slowing down, shedding layers, and returning to self through travel. There’s this idea we’re sold, that travel should be a rush. To see the world is to move quickly from country to country, ticking off iconic sights and staying “on the go.” I thought that energy would sustain me.

While in Ubud, I’ve been trying to open myself to everything this place offers. There’s a current of possibility here, pulsing quietly beneath the surface. After experiencing the depths of sound healing—something I’ve done before and always found moving—I felt curious to take it one step further.

In a world that constantly demands our attention—from deadlines and devices to the never-ending to-do lists—it’s easy to drift away from ourselves. But coming home to yourself doesn’t require a retreat or a spa day. (Although you should do these things too.) Sometimes, it doesn’t need to cost anything. Sometimes, it’s about the smallest gestures—things we can do right now, wherever we are, to re-centre, ground, and feel more us again.

It’s all about finding the right book at the right time. I have said it before, but it is taking on a life of its own; every time I get to the end of a book, I am a little more open, a little further along my path and a little deeper into my journey. These recommended books combine philosophy, ancient wisdom, spirituality, meditation, health and well-being. It’s an incredible reading list and I wanted to share it with you.

Finding trust in yourself so that you can trust the journey you are on. Choosing to believe that not to know that what is happening at any given time is ok it’s part of the process. It's all part of what will one day make up your story. The right here, right now can feel heavy, uncomfortable or painful but it is temporary. It will pass. You cannot feel the depths of every experience if it is only the fear you let in. What if you were to explore beyond the fear? Beyond the pain, there will be a message, a lesson or something stuck that you have yet to explore. Without delving into what it means, you are missing the lessons your life tries to show you. The parts of you that will make you all you know inside you already are. The parts of you that you long to share and be at ease with, the raw the vulnerable, the real you. Moving through the pain, into understanding is how you find freedom in letting go.

One day you will look back upon the things you believed and it will seem as if someone else’s voice was directing you. The voice inside will evolve if you let it, allow it the space to learn from your mistakes, and test the theories that the child version of you learned to believe. Trust, be brave and create new beliefs for yourself to live by. Once you start to listen, you’ll embark on a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you.

Self-love is when you put yourself first, it might be for a moment or once a week or maybe it's whenever you need to self-soothe. It’s finding things that are just for you. Moments that make you happy that you can pull on and continue to cultivate over and over again.

Writing regularly is something that is said to free the mind, to process one's thoughts, to download the noise. For some, it is a collection of thoughts that were, in the moment of writing important. For others, it's a way of making sense of the hundreds of thoughts we carry every day.

Everyone you meet in this world of ours has some form of anxiety, fear or stress that will show up in their body and most of us do not know what it is. It might be butterflies, headache, dizziness, feeling overwhelmed or some other sense of unease. Whatever it is that your body does to send you a signal, here are a few simple tricks that you can use anywhere, to feel grounded.

Only a 6-hour flight from Melbourne, I took the plunge and decided to undertake my Yoga Teacher Training. Now, what they don’t tell you is that it is more than learning poses and moving through transitions from one position to another, it's an eye and heart-opening experience, and if you ever do a YTT know that you will find yourself ugly crying on your mat.

The overarching message that I got from this book was that you can unleash the power in the quiet and learn to be more of yourself in the not-so-quiet. Social and other so-called extroverted activities are learnable skills that can be scaled gradually so all introverts can enjoy both the solace and the social, in a setting and environment that nurtures them. It’s ok to be the person looking for the most interesting conversation in the room,

You watch day by day thinking that these things you witness are normal, and then all of a sudden out of nowhere, you see something in a new light and for the first time ever you realise that the conflict in your work life and the person you are can no longer coexist in the way that they have done for years.

Do you need to say no? Or at least consider it as an option more often. I believe what the world has shown us recently, more than anything else is that underneath all the noise and so-called ‘being busy’ we might only need a few key basics. Looking around some of these basics can be seen in the form of comfortable clothing and natural hair colour but other basics like the quality of relationship are a little more difficult to identify, although are ever more important.