Cultivate Calm

Send us Fan Mail This is the final episode of the season. It started with a text from a radiology office and ends here, with a life that looks ordinary from the outside and is irrevocably different on the inside. This episode is about what the full arc of that journey actually looks like and what the word surrender really means when it's tested against something serious. Cancer recovery, life...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is about grief. Not managing it, avoiding it, or reframing it into something more comfortable, but actually sitting inside it. After a decade of cancer diagnoses, divorce, and losing her father, the emotional landscape that built up over those years is finally being examined honestly. This episode is where that examination happens. There's also something here tha...

Send us Fan Mail After three cancer diagnoses across a decade, the question that keeps surfacing isn't about treatment or recovery. It's why. This episode is an honest look at that search, what it turned up, and what it didn't. Including Gabor Maté's work on emotional repression and physical illness, the BRCA testing process, and what it actually means to carry significant fami...

Send us Fan Mail After a third cancer diagnosis, something fundamental shifted. This episode explores the myth of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess who descended into the underworld, stripped of everything she possessed, and returned transformed. It's a framework that maps closely onto what 15 months of illness, surgery, and recovery actually felt like from the inside. Not a triumphant comeback. A...

Send us Fan Mail After 15 months away from teaching, returning to the yoga studio was equal parts terrifying and clarifying. In this episode, the journey back to the mat begins, not as a triumphant comeback, but as an honest reckoning with what 14 years of teaching, a cancer diagnosis, and a long recovery actually adds up to. Yoga, healing, cancer recovery, teaching, and returning to purpose. Some...

Send us Fan Mail 18 months of cancer, grief, surgery, and recovery, and what emerged from the other side wasn't just physical healing. It was a shift in how to relate to life itself. This episode is about what that actually looks like. A lot of it comes back to the body. There's grief for what's been lost and a genuine wonder at what remains. Not about appearance, but about resilien...

Send us Fan Mail May was a month of contradictions. Surgery recovery, grief and a rainbow unicorn birthday party. Life kept moving and I was somewhere in the middle of it, trying to keep up. This episode is about what it looked like when something finally started to shift. It started with an incident at Bunnings, a stranger's throwaway comment that hit a nerve I didn't know was still liv...

Send us Fan Mail For months after surgery I was living in survival mode. Chest pains, persistent headaches, swollen legs, and a mirror I was avoiding. This episode is about what it actually looks like to hit rock bottom in recovery, not dramatically, just quietly and completely. There's a David Hawkins idea I came back to during this time: that it's not our emotions that cause the most s...

Send us Fan Mail The mastectomy happened. This episode is about what that was actually like. The double mastectomy with PAP flap reconstruction, seven hours in theatre, and what I remember from coming around on the other side. Some of it is sharp and painful. Some of it is genuinely strange. At one point I played hangman with the nurses while on fentanyl. Recovery started in those first fragmented...

Send us Fan Mail The surgery was done. I thought the hard part was over. This episode is about the long grey stretch that followed, the part nobody really talks about, where the emergencies have passed but you're still completely stuck in it. Six weeks after the double mastectomy, I got the green light to drive and do light exercise again. That first moment alone in the car felt enormous. And...

Send us Fan Mail The third time, you'd think you'd be ready. You're not. I've had breast cancer twice before, so routine MRIs are familiar territory. This time was different. A text from radiology, images in a portal, circles and arrows I recognised immediately and had hoped never to see again. In this episode, I’m sharing  the story of my third cancer diagnosis, my mastectomy...

Send us Fan Mail I've had life-changing news more than once. The first time, I handled it quietly, privately, keeping it together for everyone around me. I became the queen of suffering. But is pushing through really the same as healing?  In this episode I go back to 2014, when my father's cancer diagnosis brought me home, and a discovery of my own sent my life in a direction I hadn&apos...

Send us Fan Mail Resilience was something I wore like armour for years. Two cancer diagnoses, the end of a marriage, and a lot of pushing through. By the third diagnosis, I started questioning whether resilience was actually serving me, or just keeping me from feeling what I needed to feel. In this episode I talk about the moment I realised I didn't want to fight anymore. Not giving up, but g...

Send us Fan Mail Waiting for a mastectomy is its own kind of heavy. I'd been through surgeries before and thought I had some idea of what to expect. I didn't. This episode covers the months leading up to the surgery, from a new surgeon who used a word that stopped me in my tracks, to the moments where I finally stopped holding it together. There's a lot in this one about the people...

Send us Fan Mail So many of us struggle with overthinking. Trapped in an endless cycle of ruminating thoughts, it can feel overwhelming and like there’s no way to come out of it. Thankfully there are ways to calm a busy mind and today I’m talking about some of the reasons why we overthink, how it impacts our mental well-being, and sharing some effective strategies to bring your mind into a state o...

Send us Fan Mail Many of us grew up thinking we had to be hard on ourselves to succeed. We believed that criticising ourselves was the only way to improve. However, constantly criticising and being hard on ourselves often leads to feelings of shame and hopelessness. It drains our mental energy, makes us feel unworthy and puts our nervous system into freeze mode. So, why do we punish ourselves? Beh...

Send us Fan Mail I'm often asked if yoga helps people with anxiety, and as tempted as I am to say that yoga is the cure for everything, it's not so straightforward. Learning to manage anxiety is a journey so today I’m sharing some practical tools to help you care for your nervous system and feel a whole lot better. To address anxiety effectively, it's important to understand the mec...

Send us Fan Mail If you’re like many people and your mind is bombarded with busy thoughts, I’ve got something really special for you today. In this episode, I’m sharing a guided meditation and breathwork practice that will help you sink into a deep state of peace and tranquillity. This ancient technique dates back over a thousand years and holds the key to unlocking a secret portal to a calm mind....

Send us Fan Mail Today I’m diving into a topic that holds immense power in our healing journey: our emotions. In previous episodes, I’ve talked about the effects of the nervous system on our well-being but today I’m exploring how suppressed emotions can cause stress and hinder our physical and mental health. Join me as I share my own healing journey and how I experienced a profound transformation...

Send us Fan Mail Our nervous system has two main branches: the parasympathetic and the sympathetic. The parasympathetic branch is associated with relaxation and calm, while the sympathetic branch triggers the fight or flight response when it perceives a threat or danger.  Chronic stress can disrupt the balance of our nervous system, triggering prolonged fight or flight responses. This can lead to...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever set goals but found yourself repeatedly falling into patterns of resistance, procrastination, and self-sabotage? If that sounds familiar, this episode is for you. Today I’m diving into the concept of resistance and exploring why it's not simply laziness or a lack of discipline that hinders our progress. By understanding the deeper reasons behind our resistance,...

Send us Fan Mail Yin yoga is a deeply relaxing and calming style of yoga that has loads of benefits for everyone, from beginners to elite athletes. Today I’m going deeper into the principles of yin yoga to explore why it’s so good for the physical body, nervous system, emotions, and the mind.  During Yin yoga, we focus on slow, long-held poses that primarily target the fascia or connective tissue...

Send us Fan Mail Ten years ago, I made the life-changing decision to quit my six-figure career and open my own yoga studio. Today I’m sharing my personal story of how I fell in love with yoga, the significant impact it had on my life and why I’ve never looked back.  My real journey with yoga began when I moved into a house with a yoga studio conveniently located at the end of the street. Curiosity...

Send us Fan Mail I have a special treat for you today which I know you’re going to love. In this episode, I’m guiding you through a Yoga Nidra meditation to bring your mind and body into a beautiful state of relaxation and calm. Yoga Nidra is often referred to as yoga sleep. It’s a deep relaxation exercise where you’re guided to rotate your consciousness through different parts of your body.  This...

Send us Fan Mail Gratitude wasn’t always my thing. In fact, I used to roll my eyes when yoga teachers talked about gratitude. But life's twists and turns led me through some of my darkest moments, including divorce, a battle with breast cancer, and my father's terminal illness. It was during these tough times that I discovered the power of gratitude. When life takes a difficult turn, it&...