Recently, in the meditation classes we were speaking about the two major strategies the nervous system adopts to cope with pressure, stress and over-stimulation. 

As I was outlining these nervous system responses, everyone in the room could recognise them at play in their daily life.

With this recognition, they will begin to notice them more clearly - as they are happening – amid the pressures and strain of living. 

This seeing gives the opportunity to respond in a fresh way, without needing to fall into the normal habit grooves.

I was moved to record the video above a couple days later.  In it I address a common pitfall that often happens once someone starts to become aware of habits and behaviours (even if they are directly related to nervous system response) that they were not fully conscious of.

In this context it also gives a clear perspective on the purpose of meditation and mindfulness practices.

This free 21-Day Meditation and Mindfulness Challenge is for those wanting to de-stress, reduce anxiety, over-thinking and emotional reactivity.  

This challenge aligns to the first three weeks of the Meditation 1 beginner's course.

When you register for the challenge, you will receive an email each day with the following topics and a guided meditation for that day.

Day 1 – Meditation: Introduction, Purpose and Getting Started

Day 2 – The Key to Meditation

Day 3 – Meditation – The Mind’s Daily Shower

Day 4 – Meditation and Resistance, Part 1

Day 5 – Meditation and Resistance, Part 2

Day 6 – What Makes a Meditation "Successful"?

Day 7 - Meditation and Being

Day 8 – Meditation Review

Day 9 – Pausing – The simplest way to bring calm into your busy life

Day 10 – Pausing and the Momentum of the Mind

Day 11 – Power of the Pause

Day 12 – How Pausing Loosens Habits

Day 13 – Recognising the Body’s Cue to Pause

Day 14 – Noticing the Good Moments

Day 15 – Mindfulness: Introduction, Purpose and Getting Started 

Day 16 – Setting a clear intention and knowing the purpose for your practice 

Day 17 – Mindfulness and To Do Lists 

Day 18 – Mindfulness, Time and Efficiency 

Day 19 – Mindfulness and Multitasking 

Day 20 – Mindfulness and Emotion 

Day 21 – Mindfulness and Presence 

Many of us live much of our lives feeling dulled, tense, or slightly disconnected — as if something essential has gone quiet.

You may notice it in very ordinary moments.

A sense of restlessness, discomfort, or aliveness arises in the body, and without much thought, attention moves elsewhere.

We pick up the phone.

We stay busy.

We start thinking, eat something, or move on.

The moment passes.

And with it, the feeling of being fully here.

When this happens again and again, life continues — but we are no longer meeting it directly. Over time, this is what creates the sense of numbness, flatness, or being not quite alive inside.

When we turn away from these sensations — the small stirrings of energy, tension, or aliveness — the body doesn’t get a chance to settle on its own. Those signals stay quietly held, building fatigue, tension, or that flat, dulled feeling.

Staying with them, even for a moment, doesn’t mean forcing anything or trying to fix it. It simply means noticing what’s happening: the tightness in your shoulders, the flutter in your stomach, the heaviness in your chest. Let yourself follow the feeling — notice it move, shift, or expand — without judgment or expectation.

In this gentle noticing, the body begins to soften. Breathing can deepen. Energy can flow more freely. And slowly, the quiet numbness begins to come to life again.

Slowing Down and Feeling

Even a small pause can reconnect you with the life already present in your body.

Take a moment.

Notice your breath.

Feel your chest rise and fall.

Sense any movement, warmth, or tension in your body.

There’s no need to change anything, no need to push or fix. Just be present with what is.

Even thirty to sixty seconds of this simple noticing can help your body settle, allow energy to flow, and bring you back to your natural aliveness.

Exploring this further

Both the meditation classes and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy sessions I offer create space to move out of habitual tension and holding, and to rediscover the aliveness that is already here, felt directly in the body.

This 24-minute meditation guides you to meet yourself, what you are, honestly and authentically:  

“Raw, open, humble.

Meeting yourself in this honesty.

Not hanging on to any idea of yourself.

No projections of who you want to be.

Complete transparency with what you are.

Fully open, fully honest

There’s a humility in this.

Nothing to hide

Nothing to hide from

Fully laid open

Not claiming or imagining to be anything.

Just being in this humbled space.

The place of grace.”

This guided meditation is not recommended for complete beginners. 

Recorded in a Meditation 3 class on 27/10/2025.

Most people live with a quiet tension just beneath the ribs — a subtle holding born of control, protection, and emotional residue. This guided meditation invites you to bring awareness to the solar plexus and to meet whatever is felt there with present attention.

As the energy softens, what once felt contracted begins to open. Beneath the surface of effort and resistance lies a profound stillness — a vastness that has always been here, waiting to be recognised.

This practice is suitable for beginners and experienced meditators alike. It asks only one thing: a willingness to stay present with what is being felt and experienced.

So much of our health and well-being is shaped by the small, consistent choices we make each day.  This workshop teaches well-being as a daily practice.  Participants are invited to explore simple, restorative habits that support body, mind, and spirit. Through guided meditation, reflection and practical tools, you’ll discover how to integrate well-being, balance, and self-connection into your daily routine.

The focus is on creating sustainable practices that restore a sense of wholeness. By the end of the session, participants will have a clear plan to reduce stress, strengthen resilience, and cultivate lasting well-being.

Who is this for?

For anyone who wants to feel steady, more present, and more connected within themselves. Whether new or experienced, this practical workshop gives the space and opportunity to pause, reflect and map out the changes that will cultivate greater well-being in your daily life.

Date/Time:  Sunday, 18 January, 2:00-4:00pm  

Location:  Yyoga Roseville, Level 1, 94 Pacific Hwy, Roseville

Early Bird Price (until 11 Dec): $70

This short meditation guides you to pause and connect, to be open, honest and fully with the present moment.

“Be honest with what’s here, this moment

Nothing to run from

Nothing to distract yourself from

Honesty allows us to be fully here

To connect with our own presence

To connect with our own heart

To connect with what is of real value

Being myself

Notice this inner silence

Being fully with this

Fully with your own heart

Feeling the power of your own presence

Feeling the flow inside yourself”

This meditation is a re-recorded excerpt from “Open, Honest, Here” (25 minutes), which was recorded during a Meditation 2 class on 22/7/2025. 

This free 14-Day Meditation and Mindfulness Challenge is for those wanting to de-stress, reduce anxiety, over-thinking and emotional reactivity.  It combines the 7-Day Meditation Challenge and the 7-Day Mindfulness Challenge AND includes an additional daily meditation for the second week of the challenge.

When you register for the challenge, you will receive an email each day with the following topics and a guided meditation for that day.

Day 1 – Meditation: Introduction, Purpose and Getting Started + 5-minute guided meditation

Day 2 – The Key to Meditation + 10-minute guided meditation

Day 3 – Meditation – The Mind’s Daily Shower + 15-minute guided meditation

Day 4 – Meditation and Resistance, Part 1 + 18-minute guided meditation

Day 5 – Meditation and Resistance, Part 2 + 22-minute guided meditation

Day 6 – Meditation and Being + 23-minute guided meditation

Day 7 – Meditation Review + 17-minute guided meditation

Day 8 – Mindfulness: Introduction, Purpose and Getting Started + 15-minute guided meditation

Day 9 – Setting a clear intention and knowing the purpose for your practice + 14-minute guided meditation

Day 10 – Mindfulness and To Do Lists + 12-minute guided meditation

Day 11 – Mindfulness, Time and Efficiency + 18-minute guided meditation

Day 12 – Mindfulness and Multitasking + 12-minute guided meditation

Day 13 – Mindfulness and Emotion + 22-minute guided meditation

Day 14 – Mindfulness and Presence + 16-minute guided meditation

This free 7-Day Meditation Challenge is for those wanting to de-stress, reduce anxiety, over-thinking and emotional reactivity.

When you register for the challenge, you will receive an email each day with the following topics and a guided meditation for that day.

Day 1 – Meditation: Introduction, Purpose and Getting Started + 5-minute guided meditation

Day 2 – The Key to Meditation + 10-minute guided meditation

Day 3 – Meditation – The Mind’s Daily Shower + 15-minute guided meditation

Day 4 – Meditation and Resistance, Part 1 + 18-minute guided meditation

Day 5 – Meditation and Resistance, Part 2 + 22-minute guided meditation

Day 6 – Meditation and Being + 23-minute guided meditation

Day 7 – Meditation Review + 17-minute guided meditation

How Meditation Can Help

The perpetuation of stress, anxiety and emotional reactivity is due to the habit of allowing the mind or attention to continually focus and fixate on thoughts and emotions – whether they are wanted or unwanted, pleasant or unpleasant. 

This habit is especially troublesome when an emotional disturbance is present, and one is compelled to dwell on the associated thoughts and feelings until they pass.  This is an unfortunate consequence of the seemingly harmless habit of letting the mind wander and think aimlessly.

This 7-Day Meditation Challenge aims to counteract this habit by guiding the attention to what is natural (not created by the mind) and what is neutral (not emotionally charged) within the body.  This creates a sense of space or distance from thoughts and feelings, which allows them to be seen and observed.    

For example, if you put your hand right up against your face, you can’t see it. Only when you start to take your hand away is there enough distance and perspective for it to come into full view.

This space and objectivity allows room for authentic, appropriate response to situations.  Just as a good driver will be aware of traffic conditions at a distance, allowing greater response time to other drivers.

Another example is when someone (or yourself) is really angry. In these situations, the anger has temporarily taken over the attention and one has become the anger. The anger is not only pressed up against the face, as in the example I gave of the hand, but has actually taken over the psyche, facial expressions and actions of the body.

This is the same for all thoughts and feelings the attention has identified with. Identification means that there is not the space to distinguish the thought/feeling as separate from what I am – my attention has identified with it as me (to varying degrees). An example of this is someone who says “I am an anxious person” or even more commonly “I am stressed”. Anxiety and stress are no longer being seen or perceived as distinct energies within but have become amorphous with the sense of myself.

This free 7-Day Mindfulness Challenge is perfect for those new to mindfulness and those who practice mindfulness, but would like the extra reminders and structure of a 7-day challenge.

When you register for the challenge, you will receive an email each day:

Day 1 – Mindfulness: Introduction, Purpose and Getting Started

Day 2 – Setting a clear intention and knowing the purpose for your practice

Day 3 – Mindfulness and To Do Lists

Day 4 – Mindfulness, Time and Efficiency

Day 5 – Mindfulness and Multitasking

Day 6 – Mindfulness and Emotion

Day 7 – Mindfulness and Presence

Register for the 7-Day Mindfulness Challenge here:

More about Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of reclaiming our attention, our focus.  Our attention has been hijacked by advertising and social media, and particularly our own thoughts and emotions. 

Whenever the mind is not fully engaged in something, the habit is to automatically focus on one’s thoughts and feelings, or to try to distract the attention so as not to focus on them.

Mindfulness is the practice of consciously bringing the attention to the present moment. 

Over time, the practice of mindfulness gradually breaks the habit of aimless thinking.  It creates space so that intrusive thoughts are no longer able to take you over and the tendency to dwell on disturbances reduces.  

Unhelpful thoughts and emotions start to diminish and drop away when they are no longer fueled by our attention.  In their absence there is greater flow and creativity in daily activities.