It is mid-January and I finally feel ready to step back into the world of Samsara Lifestyle after the busyness of the festive season. December has a way of sweeping us up — full tables, long nights, conversations that stretch late, and days that blur into one another. And while I love that season of connection and family, there comes a moment when the body and soul gently tap you on the shoulder and ask for something quieter.
With a new year comes new intentions. I have never been much of a New Year’s resolutions person — mostly because, like many people, by the end of the first week of January I have no doubt already failed. A few years ago, after hearing this done on a podcast, friends and I decided at our annual New Year’s Day long lunch to do something different. Instead of resolutions, we chose a word for the year — something to live by, to return to, to gently guide us when life feels noisy.
This year, my word is nourish.
Nourish can mean many things to many people. Filling the body with good food. Fueling the soul with what feels good and true. Being creative. Slowing down. Taking the time to look after oneself more intentionally. For me, nourish has started with managing my wellness and placing my health firmly back on the priority list as I enter another season of my life.
And so, begins my familiar journey back to yoga.
I have been doing yoga on and off for over 25 years. I start, I commit religiously, I feel incredible — and then, inexplicably, I stop. Years pass, life intervenes, and somehow, I forget how good it made me feel. I have no idea why I do this, because the benefits of this age-old practice are undeniable.
25 years ago, my introduction to yoga happened in a studio in inner-city Richmond, Melbourne. Classes were packed — sometimes over 50 people — most of us dressed head to toe in black. Our teachers were beautiful hippy women with long grey hair flowing, hoop earrings swinging, bodies that folded effortlessly into the most extraordinary poses. They looked as though they had never left the mountains of the Himalayas, floating through class with a calm and glow that felt ethereal. I loved it. And then my family arrived, and somehow yoga slipped quietly out of my life.
Fast forward a few years. The kids were older, Lululemon had entered our vernacular, and yoga found its way back in. Bougee suburban studios. Hot yoga squeezed in near work. Festivals offering full days of wellness. Yoga once again became part of my life — familiar, comforting, and grounding.
As my family grew older, travel returned to the menu, and inevitably, I found myself in India. And there I was in Rishikesh, the spiritual home of yoga, doing downward dogs while the Himalayas soared around us and the Ganges flowed furiously below. It remains one of the most extraordinary places I have ever practiced.
Rishikesh is full of yoginis and wanna bes — a town where Western travellers arrive on something of a pilgrimage, hoping to find themselves. What has always fascinated me about practicing yoga in India is that classes are predominantly taught by men, with very few women participating. It is such a stark contrast to Western studios, where yoga is largely a female-dominated space.
My travels have led me to practice yoga in places I could never have imagined all those years ago in that dark crowded studio in Richmond.
On a beach in Sri Lanka, with the Indian Ocean crashing rhythmically behind us. In a dusty open-air room in Kolkata, where young students giggled in the background — unsure if it was my appearance or my inflexibility that amused them most. On a stinking hot rooftop in Jaipur, sweating through 30-degree heat before the sun had even risen. On an open-air rooftop in Gili Air, looking out over electric blue seas where large turtles glided past beneath the surface. On a surf beach in Mirissa, watching the sun rise as eager surfers paddled out for the first waves of the day. In a thatched hut in Lombok, surrounded by a symphony of different languages as we all took our first pose together. In Uluwatu, Bali, practicing outdoors with international teachers guiding us to set an intention for the day. And closer to home, on a beach in Byron Bay, where the scent of salt air mixed with the unmistakable waft of marijuana as the truly glamorous took their first deep breaths of the morning.
Each place was different. Each practice imperfect. Some days I was strong, others wobbly. Some classes felt transcendent; others were simply grounding. But all of them reminded me that yoga does not belong to a studio — it belongs wherever you are willing to show up.
Today, as I took my first class for the week, I reflected on how powerful it is to set an intention. To breathe slowly. To hold the pose just a little longer than feels comfortable. To listen — really listen — to what the body needs.
This year, my intention is nourish.
Not to strive harder or push further, but to soften. To care. To remember that wellness is not something to squeeze in when there is time, but something that makes everything else possible. Yoga, for me, has never been about perfect poses. It has been about presence — on a rooftop in Jaipur, by a river in Rishikesh, or on a mat back home.
And as Samsara Lifestyle gently reawakens for another year, I am reminded that nourishment often begins with something simple: a breath, a stretch, a moment of stillness — wherever in the world you happen to be.