HOME TO THE HEART ULURU RETREAT

I had a dream to host a retreat at Uluru. I first visited 23 years ago, and went again last year in the winter of 2023, after all those years of wanting to return. Once you’ve been, it’s hard not to think about going back. It’s a wild and spacious land full of magic, awe and wonder. Its sacredness is felt in the subtle layers of your energy body, if you’re present enough to notice. I wanted to share it with others; take women to the heart of our nation, and allow that to be an invitation to the heart of themselves. You can’t not be touched by the land. The art-scape, nature, the red earth, the unfamiliar shrubs and the history; it sits so obviously at the centre of your consciousness. I wanted others to feel it like I did. 

When I visited Uluru a year ago with my daughter, Mackenzie, I felt the whip of the tether that glued me to her for fifteen years. There were many things I couldn’t see and do because of her inability to walk long distances, at speed, over rocky terrain, or be away from a fridge for too long, which keeps her medications at just the right temperature. 

Returning there without her on my Home to the Heart Retreat, I was hungry for the freedom I thought I might feel walking around the base of Uluṟu, and into the Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuṯa, like an eagle that soars against a rich blue sky. Untethered. 

It took a year of programming, planning, and coordinating this retreat, with great financial risk. But we did it. Ten women, me and my cohost, Amanda, went on a voyage to the heart of our nation, the red centre, and their own heart. It was beautiful. But in some ways, it wasn’t what I thought it would be. 

I intended for the retreat to be a pilgrimage, of sorts. But it was far less spiritual, deep and deliberate in the guidance than I usually offer. There were restrictions, culturally, financially, logistically and with time that impacted on how, where, when and what we could do to touch in to the subtle states of awareness within. At times, so exhausted, guests slept in and missed the morning magic of a midnight sky lit up like a fire on the horizon - it’s the very thing that I am there for. 360 degree views with the rising sun, Uluṟu and Kata Tjuṯa framing the horizon. I doubt I will ever get sick of that stillness, and the blackness of the sky, lit up with thousands of stars before the sun enriches the skyline in an array of colour and pattern. 

I’ve been contemplating for some time what my role is in this space of spiritual and personal evolution. I know, through my own healing journey, that most of the work I have done in my multi-faceted career has been driven by unconscious childhood wounds and limiting beliefs around my worth. As I’ve cultivated and embodied an understanding of my worth without the need to help others, I’m not sure this is the kind of work I am meant to be doing anymore. In some ways, the way the retreat unfolded (which was full, exciting and perfect as it was) is cementing this consideration for me. 

I half-heartedly taught one yoga class, we guided some breathwork, and the rest of the time it was, “meet at this point at this time and don’t be late”. We planned a spiritual experience, but we executed an adventure. I could have been a tour guide, except I lacked all the valuable intel a guide might have to share. It was rich, and wholesome, hearty and delicious in so many ways - the connections, the food, the women, the laughter, the receivership of all the land has to offer. It was really special, and I am so glad to have had the experience.

I wonder, now, if I am simply to be of service through the writing of my book.

I have created a career path that allowed me to free myself of my caring and parental responsibilities because I don’t feel guilty for taking myself away from my life when it is for work or for others. But in my work, as with my parenting, I am giving, exponentially, to others. I am learning to give myself permission to be away from my life, for me. On my own, without any responsibility. I want to go on a holiday. A solo voyage. God knows, I bloody deserve it. 

In some ways, I touched in to that state of freedom I was yearning for, away from the demands of 24/7 care of my daughter and her needs. I completed all the things I wanted to do without her on our retreat - they were carefully embedded into the itinerary to ensure I got out of it what I wanted and needed. But having ten women to consider, care for, nurture and guide is another sort of tether.

And I realised that what I’ve been searching for, is the freedom of being untethered to everything.

But, I know, that’s not possible. I am (we are) so connected to all things that to be untethered would be to be lost, somewhere dark in an abyss, like a free fall into a deathly crevice. Somewhere beyond the safety net of a network, an anchor, that would let us know, ‘You are here’ ⤵

I had a feeling something big would happen on retreat. I have also had a feeling that something big is to change in my life in September. I didn’t and don’t know what. I just have a feeling. And I trust that feeling, more than anything.

From the moment I stepped off the plane at Ayers Rock Airport, a pain crept into my shoulder and seeped through my right chest cavity, like a river that secretly flows beneath a mountain. A wildly uncomfortable pain made its home in the right side of my chest. It gripped onto my ribs, shoulder blade, lung and every muscle fibre that held my skeleton around the cage of my heart. The pain that constricted my breath and impaired my ability to laugh or move with agility, speed or freedom felt just like the collapsed lung I experienced two decades ago. I lay awake all night wondering if I needed to call an ambulance. It clutched on and held me back for days, slow, meticulous and considered, just like Mackenzie does. I was reminded, again, there is no rush, and how the body keeps the score - it holds on to unprocessed emotion, stories and memory and, in my case, when the body is ready to release it, I feel physical pain. The lung, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, holds the emotions of sadness and grief.

Over breakfast, with one simple question from a guest, the memory of a moment when my life pivoted and became something different to what I thought it would, came flooding out of me. I sobbed as I realised, beneath a lifetime of frustration, and feeling like someone and something outside of me was failing to meet me, my needs and expectations, I hadn’t allowed myself to grieve. I was grieving the loss of the life I thought I would have. Grieving the demise of a relationship at a time when I needed his support the most. Grieving the child that I didn’t have and the hardship I’ve witnessed and endured because of a diagnosis and a title, ‘single special needs mother’ that made things into something they weren’t meant to be. I hadn’t given myself permission to grieve, because I had a life to live and child to help survive. I fought my way, for fifteen years, like a warrior, armed and ready to slay life as it came at me. That warrior spirit was necessary, but I’m ready to lay down my weapons. I’m ready to soften into the qualities of the untainted heart - joy, equanimity, loving kindness and compassion.

I am an alchemist; capable of transmuting anything dark and heavy into an opportunity, a lesson, a light. But I hadn’t seen this grief before. Not like that. Not for those things. But on my retreat, it was time to see it, and let it go.

I carried that pain in my chest for the first three days of the retreat, exhausted by the weight of the discomfort in my body. I felt like I was being crushed. And with this new awareness, and the release of a grief that silently gripped me for all those years, I finally let go of the past. 

Later that day, as we hiked through the Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuṯa, a message from God soared over head and I received a gift - the knowing of how I am going to end my memoir. 

Home to the Heart was an invitation to our guests to come back to their own heart wisdom. But it was me that needed that the most. To finally be freed of a broken heart, and be truly heart led, without the conditions of the ideology of a perfect life. I have landed, fully, into the life that I have, knowing that it couldn’t be any better than this. Mackenzie, in her unconditional love and exuberance for life, continues to teach me to come back to joy. And that I get to choose how I respond to life, no matter how it is unfolding.

I am taking the rest of 2024 off social media to be in nature, to free myself of the conditions of a society that says work like this, own that, be this. I have one final retreat in October which I am really looking forward to, and then I will not be hosting anymore events this year. I will walk in the rainforest, meditate, do yoga nidra every day, exercise and use the time to finish my book with the knowing that I do not want, nor do I need to be untethered. 

Because I am free, within the silence of my heart, and I get to choose how heart led I want to be, because of how deeply I am connected to my daughter, and everything else around me. I see that being tethered, is to be connected. And to be connected, is to know love. And in knowing love, I am heart led, which is exactly what I want to be.

To the women that adventured with us, thank you. You helped make a dream come true.