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After recently writing about the benefits of long-term planning, last week I spent an afternoon updating my vision. It’s always a lovely reminder about what matters most in my life. While I want to keep prioritising my work, walks in nature, creativity and meditation, right now my main focus is relationships. Often we think that finding time for the people we love will just happen, but sometimes day-to-day life gets in the way.While it might sound contrived or even unnecessary, I’ve come to believe that scheduling time with our closest friends and loved ones is important. So here's a thought for this week. Choose the five most important relationships in your life and put time in your calendar to do something you enjoy with each of those people. Don’t wait until you can manage a special date night or a weekend away – a regular walk or coffee can be just as meaningful to keep you connected.When you're with that person, give them your undivided attention. Be generous in your assumptions of them, forgive any flaws and be curious about how they are doing. Be patient, kind and compassionate. Hold back on offering unsolicited advice and instead, listen well, ask lots of questions and make them feel heard, understood and validated.These are small things that I sometimes forget myself but when I do remember, they help create a deeper connection.✨
After sharing memories of my love of the sea a few weeks ago, I recently discovered research about the healing effects of being near water. Of course we know this anecdotally, but it’s helpful to be reminded that even just a couple of minutes viewing a river, lake or the ocean lowers your blood pressure and decreases your heart rate. Being near water is good for your nervous system, incredibly calming for your mind and nourishing for every aspect of your wellbeing. See if you can find your way to your favourite lake, river, waterfall or beach this week and once you’re there, make an effort to stop for at least five minutes to take in all of that beauty. Let the healing element of water wash over you, metaphorically at least, and notice how much it transforms you. ✨
Over the weekend while I was tidying my office, I stumbled across a ten-year-plan I had written in 2014 and it was pretty incredible to read.There were a couple of things I hadn’t achieved but for the most part, it was an uncannily accurate description of the life we are living right now. Right down to the sunny little room that I work in, overlooking our veggie garden, fruit trees and chickens.Before I started my business, I had never been much of a planner. For the most part, I just enjoyed going with the flow. But as I began to hear stories from clients who had created a vision for the future, I thought I’d give it a try.It is one of the life changes, alongside learning to meditate, that had the biggest impact on me and something I now recommend to all clients.If you’ve never tried it before, I’ll share detailed steps in this week’s newsletter, but you can also make a start on your own.Choose a time frame such as five or ten years and start writing about your dream life, covering as many areas as possible. Include where you’ll be living, the important relationships in your life, how you’ll spend your days and take care of your health and make a note of your creative and spiritual interests and any community work etc.Importantly, allow yourself to dream big rather than simply writing about what you believe to be possible.After you’ve done this, you might find it helpful to create a visual representation of your dream life (this was my favourite part of the exercise) and then the next step is to engage with your vision often.Use it as a guide to create clear goals and from those goals, map out some small, manageable actions.These steps might sound pretty rudimentary but they really can be the beginning point of creating significant change in your life. ✨
Do you have a place that has transformed or healed you? One near the top of my list (although it’s hard to choose a favourite) is Wilson’s Prom. The wild and untouched beauty never ceases to amaze me but it’s the healing energy I’m most drawn to. Other places that evoke the same feelings are the national parks and ocean beaches of Tasmania, the mountains in the Victorian High Country, the property in Byron Bay where I run my retreat and the beaches and bush near where I live on the Mornington Peninsula. But it’s another place that I visited just once that somehow completely transformed me.It was the wet season when I travelled to Ubirr in Kakadu National Park but that day, there was a reprieve from the rain and the sky was clear. From the lookout, the lush green Nadab Floodplain stretched as far as the eye could see. In the late afternoon light, a single eagle appeared and made wide, rhythmic circles right in front of me. As I watched its movement, the whole world seemed to slow down and become silent, still and expansive.I thought about the indigenous people who have inhabited that land for over sixty thousand years and in that moment, became profoundly aware of my own insignificance in the grand scheme of things. That was almost twenty years ago now but if I close my eyes, I can recall that scene like it was yesterday and I’m reminded of all the same feelings. Have you had an experience where a single moment in a beautiful place shifted the way you see things?✨A note of thanks to my dear friend Karen for the conversation that inspired this post and to Ingrid @ingridhuitema77 for making the NT trip both possible and incredible.
“I get so lostin where I want to goI forget that the place I’m inis already quite magical.”Rupi Kaur ✨
“You hold in your hand an invitation: to remember the transforming power of forgiveness and loving kindness. To remember that no matter where you are and what you face, within your heart peace is possible.” Jack Kornfield ✨Join me this morning at 9.30am (AEST) to meditate on finding inner peace. Live on @insighttimer. I’ve included the link in my bio. 🙏
Every week I have conversations with clients about what makes life meaningful and so often, it comes down to the small things.You don’t need a lofty life purpose to live a meaningful life - you just need to lean into who you are, do more of what you love and use your innate gifts to connect with and contribute to others. Try exploring the following five steps to create more meaning in your life:1. Start being the most real version of yourself in every setting, regardless of what others think of you.2. Remember the things you love doing and do more of those things every day.3. Consider how you want to leave people feeling after they’ve interacted with you.4. Step away from your busy life to think about the big picture.5. Choose a cause you care about and do something small to contribute each week. ✨
When I was a little girl, my yachtsman father was determined to give me 'sea legs'. He took me out on the water as a tiny baby and throughout my childhood, we spent countless hours on the ocean. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​One of my happiest memories is being covered with sea spray as my friend Adrienne and I dangled our legs over the front of my father's old wooden fishing boat on a wild wintery sea. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​On the days when we ventured further afield, a pod of dolphins would sometimes appear out of nowhere and swim with us in the bow wave.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​I was, and still am, completely in love with the sea. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​These days, I mostly watch the swell from the beach but on a still day, Chris and I take our paddle boards out onto the bay and I'm reminded of that childhood magic. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​One miraculous morning last summer, the dolphins found me again and swam alongside while I paddled.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​I share these memories because I think it’s so helpful to remember what we loved as children. Reconnecting with those things can bring us closer to lightness and joy. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​What about you? What did you love to do as a child? ✨
A few weeks ago, while I was speaking at @myli_library, I was asked to share my favourite quote. The words that sprang to mind were those of Mary Oliver’s poem, Wild Geese.I read the poem in full which prompted the most beautiful response from the audience, but it was one conversation afterwards that has stayed with me since.An older man stood back and waited until others had spoken with me. He had a humility about him that I warmed to immediately. I walked across to say hello and he shared that he was a local farmer and not generally inclined to attending book events. “I’m so pleased I came though,” he told me. “That poem was the most beautiful thing I have heard.” He described how he spent hours alone on the land, taking in the beauty of the changing light and often at the end of a day, a family of ducks flew in.“Your wild geese made me think of my ducks and now, every day when I see them, I’ll think of those geese.” Our exchange was brief and there was much unsaid but it was a moment of connection that touched me deeply. I promised to send a copy of the poem so he could read it again many times, as I have done since discovering it almost a decade ago.If you’ve not heard Wild Geese before, here it is. I hope you are moved by it as much as my new farmer friend and I were. ✨Wild GeeseYou do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–over and over announcing your placein the family of things.
© Kate James 2024

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We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands we live and work on, the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.

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