An open letter on my journey to becoming a mentor.

Dear Reader,

I wanted to share a personal letter of how I ended up here, doing this thing I call Creative Mentoring.

In a world of 10 second reels, Tiktoks and endless instagram scrolling, long form letters are slowly becoming obsolete. So in an effort to keep the slow, true, real and beauty of life alive, I wrote this letter to share a piece of my heart that pertains to my reason for being and the essence of my work.

I suppose that all honest truth telling starts from our formative years. A time when life is filled with wonder and awe and we are most connected to our authentic selves. A time when we learn to develop our views and beliefs of the world through the subconscious patterning of our caretakers and the world around us.

As an only child of a very young single mother, living in a housing commission flat on the lower north shore of Sydney, my imagination was my best friend. The endless hours of solo play led me to craft the most wondrous dream-like worlds out of everyday objects like cardboard boxes and even thin air, like my imaginary guinea pigs that lived under my bed. I would create my own radio show and interview Barbie and Ken on their latest beachside holiday destinations and create underwater worlds with crayons, pens and paint. I had a knack for creating magic out of the mundane.

I was born quiet, confident and curious and often left alone to seek my own fun.

Quite the lone ranger in my earliest school years, (with less friends that I could count on one hand), my imagination kept me engaged and my vibrant mindspace often got me into trouble as I was seen as a daydreamer by my teachers.  In year 6 I was the lead in the school play. I look back now and wonder how I was so confident and didn’t have a moment's thought for stage fright or nerves, as I was able to act out my inner world of fantasy and play.

But as I grew older, I began to lose the connection with my mystical inner world and the pressures of popularity, boys and fitting into the sea of sameness at school took hold. I began to wilt, like an undernourished flower and lost the connection to my vibrant dreamer, as I started to look for my identity outside of myself.

My teenage years were fright with fluctuating weight and boy obsession, and never feeling quite adequate or enough. I comfortably coasted through school, never finding my passion and longing for the lunchtime social scene. I became deeply insecure, but yet no one would have known the internal pressures I placed on myself as I ebbed and flowed through bouts of anxiety and depression.

Fast forward to my mid 20’s and my heart was cracked open whilst on my first solo retreat in India. I was overworked, recently broken hearted, sick and sad and needed a space to land and heal. It was here, alone in this unknown place, that I met a healer who held a space so safe and tender, that a host of buried, painful memories began to surface.  It was in her soft and tender presence that I allowed my inner demons and old memories of past trauma, to re-emerge and leave my lips for the very first time.

This was the moment my heart subscribed to a garden of healing and a mission for a sweeter life.

Fast forward a few years of therapy, self exploration and healing sessions of many kinds, a high profile, well paid career in luxury hotel sales, and a deep investigation into all things psychological, nutritional and “mind, body, spirit”… and I found myself learning Vedic meditation. 

I can distinctly recall that I was a different person after I learned to meditate.

It’s hard to put into words but the me before meditation was kind of vanilla, hidden, insecure, discrete, timid, broken, confused and jaded.

The me after a few months of meditation was vibrant, softer, more alive, sparkly, warm, curious, open and a whole lot lighter. I started to see and feel the magic of my life and how it shaped those around me. These shades have continued to reawaken and solidify in my personality as I continue down my path of twice daily meditation practice.

Practicing meditation felt like the healing balm I didn’t know I needed. It offered me the ability to reconnect to a source of myself that I had long forgotten. The part of me that I was so deeply connected to as a child. When I saw the world through the lens of wonder and awe. When I felt the essence of life illuminating everything.

Shortly after I learned to meditate a lot of things started to (not so gently) shift. My friends, my home, my habits, my confidence, the way I saw the world and my purpose in it was going through a transformation. My purpose was not something I had really contemplated before then. 

Within 6 months I had left a high paying career as a luxury hotel Sales Director and started at square one, as a personal assistant to a big time Artist Manager in the music industry. Literally my dream job. I loved (almost) every day of that job for the next 4 years. I transferred my skills of being in service to high level guests in luxury hotels to, tending, managing and looking after the intricate and exciting needs of world class musicians. 

I quickly moved up the ranks and became an Artist Manager in my own right, spending more time with my artists than any of my family or friends. Observing and decoding their world and learning the inner workings of their creative purpose, passion, skills, challenges and essence.

It was here, in this contained and intimate space, that I learned a language of creativity. I learned how to read its pulse, how it requires to be nurtured and how it moved through people in the most wondrous ways. I learned that when we feel safe and supported enough to explore our depths and express our truth, we can achieve the most extraordinary things.

I witnessed how aspects of patriarchal structures, systems and industries suppress our true creative urges and perpetuates a “I’ll take what I can get” attitude to life instead of basking in the endless possibilities of success, freedom and abundance that are infinitely available to us all.

There came a point on this journey where my paths of personal healing, spiritual awakening and creative exploration began to weave together forming my own unique artistry. Having never considered myself a creative person, this was a soul shaking revelation, to see myself as an artist and that my unique creativity was how I weaved my passions and experience into my work serving others. 

It was at this time when I heard the deafening call to leave the comfort of a world I knew and loved, to take all I had learned, studied and embodied, and to go out and live my own creative dreams as a Vedic meditation teacher and Creative Mentor.

So there you have it. The long winded story of how I got here, minus a lot of boring bits and the endless nerding out and studying of a wide range of modalities both ancient and modern, psychological and somatic.

This space I hold is a sacred and fertile home for you to nurture & culture your unique expression, in an embodied & spiritual way. A place for the inspired and curious, who have stories to tell, visions to birth and a deep desire to create a wild, fulfilling and authentic life.

With love,

Rach x