Becoming my own teacher started long before I knew what that even meant. I think it began in martial arts. Here, I found discipline, structure, and perhaps most importantly, positive male role models who weren’t looking for anything in return. They simply showed up with strength and integrity, teaching me to hold my own in a world that often felt like it was trying to define me. Martial arts taught me how to stand firm — physically and mentally — creating a foundation of self-reliance that would carry me far beyond the dojo. It didn’t teach me vulnerability, though, something I’m still working on!

By the time I was 18, I made a decision to quit alcohol, it didn’t last forever but I can proudly say I don’t drink to get drunk. I’d been trying all sorts of things, and that was one that really didn’t serve me. In fact, it was leading me into situations that didn’t reflect the respect or health I wanted in my life. I was working as a bouncer in pubs, and drunk people are actually quite ugly!

Around the same time, I found my new tribe at about 4 a.m. on a dance floor in Adelaide. I discovered drum and bass and late ’90s jungle. It completely shifted my relationship with movement and music. I always thought I couldn’t dance, but the truth was, I just hadn’t found the music that moved me. When I finally did, everything clicked. I found my people. For me, dance was never something I could fake — just like my feelings — it had to be real, and drum and bass brought out that real me. I’m also glad that social media wasn’t around then, as some of those photos really don’t need to be online!

During my time at the dojo, the men I trained with became more than just instructors; they became family. I was in a toxic relationship with someone very jealous, who hated me training. It was the guys at the dojo who noticed. They encouraged me to start teaching, this made me keep showing up. One day, one of them turned up at my house with a trailer and simply said, “You’re leaving him.” I’m so grateful for that moment. Not long after, my ex ended up in jail for murder, stoked I had the support to walk away when I did. I was also grateful to be in a country where abortion was legal and accepted. It gave me control over my own life at a time when I needed it most.

I continued training and added capoeira to the mix of martial arts I was already practising. A Brazilian martial art that blends fighting with dance. I think it was here that I truly learned the art of play. Capoeira opened up a new kind of discipline, one rooted in fun, play and music. It wasn’t just about strength; it was also about getting upside down, and throwing kicks, mixed with the beauty of dance. I like the idea of life as a dance — sometimes tough, but always an opportunity to flow with whatever comes next.

Capoeira wasn’t the only form of dance that taught me something deeper. While backpacking around Brazil, I also learned forró, where the lesson wasn’t just in the steps but in the art of letting go. OK, maybe I needed a hot pash from someone on the dance floor to truly let go and allow him to lead, but it worked! Learning to follow instead of always needing to be in control was a huge lessons for me. Just like capoeira, forró is a couple dance, on an entirely different level. I continued this lesson when I returned to Australia, learning salsa and merengue. There is beauty in surrendering to the moment, trusting my partner, and allowing the dance to flow naturally. Like life, the most beautiful experiences come when we surrender the need to control every step. Control is an illusion; I’m learning to trust the universe.

My first trip to Brazil was a time of falling in and out of love, both with people and with different ways of living. In Australia, I’d hide in the ocean under boardshorts and a baggy t-shirt. In Brazil, I felt free to wear a bikini. Backpacking is a great way of peeling away the layers of who I thought I was. I even bought a skirt, a step away from the tomboy image I’d always hidden behind. As I explored the world, I began to realise that every culture, every person, has slight differences. None of them are necessarily right or wrong. Our basic needs don’t change much from country to country though, we all want to be loved, have a safe place to sleep and enough food and water to be healthy.

Travel became one of my best teachers. I’ve travelled, lived, or worked on every continent except Antarctica, each place showing me the beauty of diversity and the similarities that hold us together. Whether I was eating ekmek (bread) and sipping mint tea in Turkey or sharing a laugh with locals in Southeast Asia over my bad pronunciation of their words, the message was clear: be kind, receive kindness. The more authentic I become, the more I find myself surrounded by people who mirror that same authenticity.

Every person we meet holds a mirror up. The way I see situations today is different from the way I’d have seen the same situation 15 years ago. The lenses I see the world through change as I grow. It’s like reading a book today and reading it again in ten years’ time — it’ll read differently because of where I am and what I’ve lived through and for. Such is life.

I’ve learned something from every lover who has crossed my path — even the (hopefully accidental) murderer. TO be honest, maybe the biggest lesson is that not everyone that comes in to my life is ‘forever’. Life doens’t have to be a Disney fairytale, we can write our own script! Each relationship (or moment) taught me different ways to love, to be a friend, and to communicate. I learned not to have sex on a hill, that women can get impromptu (free) happy endings from hot Brazilian masseurs (without asking!) And that the guy in the seat next to you on the plane could become the guy in your bed the next morning. Again, “I love you” doesn’t have to mean forever, it can mean right here, right now — and that’s OK!

Speaking the same language really doesn’t matter in moments of passion or even when you’re lost in a village or confused by something on a menu — you can always be understood. Communication isn’t just about words — it’s about energy and intention. The way someone speaks to you leaves an imprint, and from those imprints, I’ve chosen how I want to communicate with the world around me.

I’ve also found that friends are the family we get to choose, which is a true blessing for those of us who may not come from big or close-knit families. The family we are born into teaches us some of life’s most important lessons, often bringing up deep, inner child wounds, that we need to face, in order to become the best adult versions of ourselves. No one wants to be (or be with) a forty-year-old throwing five-year-old tantrums! These can be some of the harshest lessons, but over time, we come to see that life happens for us, not to us.

From all this, I’ve realised what I like, what I don’t like, and who I want to be. It wasn’t something I learned at school or read in a book but something I felt and lived in every moment. It’s also made me truly understand that nothing is permanent, and no one can be expected to be with you every step of the way. But, if they are, be forever grateful for that. You have to be your number one project, best friend, and the love of your own life. In reality, you are the only one guaranteed to be with yourself from your first breath to your last.

Another big one, is the fact that food is medicine! This can’t be learned from textbooks. In a world where western medicine is pushed everywhere, I’m sure there are more pharmacies than grocers. It’s insane that ‘organic’ needs to be proven and labelled, where the big farmers can spray all sorts of crap on their food and not declare it. Imagine that, reading the labels on supermarket fruit and veg and deciding to put all those pesticides in your body. Would you?

We need to feel the changes in our body. The food I put into myself affects my mood, weight, energy, and behaviour. By listening and feeling how my body responds, I discover what nourishes me and what doesn’t — lessons I could never have fully understood without living them. The children at school knew I’d be a cranky teacher if I ate sugar at break time. I knew it too — I’d warn them! Saying it out loud helped me stop it before it happened! This is self-awareness. I don’t want to be a bitch, and I can feel how sugar affects me, so I steer clear of it — or drink lots of water and own it when it happens!

But alongside this life I was living, there was an internal one that helped all these moments of awareness. Yoga showed me that my mind — despite the physical discipline I had developed — needed taming. It wasn’t enough to be strong in body; my thoughts needed just as much care and guidance. Yoga wasn’t just about poses or flexibility; it’s a mirror for my inner world, showing me all the places where I was still holding on too tightly, or I’m too attached to outcomes and expectations. This was highlighted when I sat Vipassana, here, I truly understood the power of stillness and silence.

In stillness, I found things within myself I never knew existed. No shaman, no healer was needed — just me, sitting with my breath, watching the waves of thought and emotion rise and fall. Vipassana showed me that everything I was searching for outside of myself was already within me. In moments of silence, I touched something vast — a knowing that had always been there, waiting for me to stop moving for long enough to hear it. I had waves of emotion and gratitude for friends, I flashed back to past lives, and I truly felt that where my attention goes is where my energy will flow. What I focus on, I will get more of. So, I’d better focus on what I want more of, not what I don’t want.

I was literally focusing on the pain in my hip for 4 days, as I learned the pinpoint focus technique of Vipassana, the pain just disapeared. It was like magic! Where my attention went, my energy literally flowed — if I could get rid of pain by letting go of that focus — what else was possible?! We are, after all, just energetic beings!

Through a mixture of practices, I came to deeply understand that my breath is my anchor, a tool to create space between stimulus and response. I found I could choose how to act instead of reacting on autopilot. This was a big one — the idea that I could shape my experience simply by taking a moment to breathe and acknowledge the power of choice.

As I went further, I began to see that many of the things I was learning in dreams and reality, I was already living, teaching, and modelling for those around me. I found deep connection and meaning in living a simpler life, more in tune with nature, and away from the constant noise and demands of modern society. Living in a van, free to move with the tides and seasons, is a reminder that everything we think we need is often just a distraction. It’s in the space between the doing that we find the being, and this is where the magic happens.

As I think about all that life has shown me up until now, one thing is clear: there is no guru, no teacher more powerful than the experiences we live, the choices we make, and the awareness we cultivate along the way. We are our own best guides, capable of shaping our lives in big ways, all by paying attention to how we show up in each moment.