From Melbourne to Lightning Ridge – Letting Go and Finding New Rhythms

The last few months have been a whirlwind.

Selling my business, packing up my apartment, and saying goodbye to the life I’ve known for so long has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It wasn’t just the logistics - packing the boxes, selling almost everything I own, the lawyers and paperwork, the cleaning - it was the emotional weight of letting go. The uncertainty of what lay ahead seemed to shift and shake each day, depending on my courage (or my hot chip intake).

And truthfully, even as someone who teaches about the nervous system and calm, I’ve been shaken, anxious, and totally caught up in the chaos. My mind has felt like it’s been running three weeks ahead of me, while my body has been trying to keep up.

Adam, Bailey (our dog), and I have been living in the van together for the last few weeks now, and I've been acutely aware of how much we feed off each other’s unsettled energy. It’s a reminder that stress doesn’t just live in one body, it ripples through all of us when we share a space.

Today was the first day I truly felt myself slow down. Sitting in the garden at the clinic space I'm renting I took a pause, came back to my breath, and it was like something in my chest loosened. The air felt different. The rain yesterday left the ground fresh, and this morning the birds were singing with the kind of joy that makes you pause and listen. I noticed flowers blooming, far too early for the season, yet a little reminder that cycles don’t always run to our timetable, but they come back around all the same.

When we first turned the van key and left Melbourne, I thought I’d feel instant freedom. But the truth is, it’s been a slow exhale. The road has stretched out in front of me, but my mind has only just started to settle into it. From Melbourne, we wound our way through small country towns, each with its own quiet rhythm. Wide streets lined with faded shopfronts, locals chatting outside the bakery, the hum of tractors in distant paddocks. As the kilometres rolled by, I could feel my shoulders begin to drop, little by little.

Lightning Ridge was my first real stop for work. It’s a place unlike anywhere I’ve been, a curious mix of dusty streets, eccentric junkyard houses, and the sense that everyone here has a story you’ll never guess. For a couple of days, I rode my bike from the campground to the massage clinic where I was working. The morning air was cool, the red dust and dirt swirling around my tyres, the scent of the earth rising with the sun. In the evening, I’d ride back “home” to our little van, where Adam and Bailey were waiting. There’s a strange but lovely comfort in that, knowing that no matter where we are, that tiny van and these beautiful souls are my home. After work, we’d slip into the artesian bore baths, letting the mineral-rich water ease the tiredness out of our bodies. Later, sitting outside under the stars, the uncertainty didn’t feel so scary. It felt like possibility.

Travel isn’t always glamorous; it’s messy, tiring, and full of unknowns. But it’s also spacious, humbling, and deeply human. And maybe that’s the point, not to have it all figured out, but to find small anchors in each day.

If you’re feeling the weight of change or the pull of uncertainty right now, here’s a simple breath sequence you can use to ground yourself, wherever you are: https://youtu.be/bBLr0EddfBE