My mindfulness journey started when I was young, and it has never been a straight line. It is more like climbing a set of stairs. I grow quickly, then plateau, then take another step up, then plateau again. I am sharing it openly here, including the parts that might sound a bit ridiculous, because everything along the way led to the next thing. Without all of it, I would not be who I am today and Mirosuna would not exist.
I was always drawn to exploring my spirituality. I just felt there was something more out there, more than this human plane of existence.
The teenage years: a teacher and some strange nights
As a teenager I got curious and went exploring a side of life that people tend to call woo woo. With a teacher, I tried tarot, pendulums, crystal balls, ouija boards and guided meditation. Things got strange quickly. My senses felt heightened, I started to see things, and I had frightening sleep paralysis, which I have only ever experienced during that stage of my life. It all became too much, so I stopped practising and got on with what I thought of as normal life.
But something had shifted. I had become far more aware, and that awareness is what propelled my mindfulness practice. The reason is simple: I had been taught how to meditate. Instead of trying to work it out from Google, I had someone guiding me week by week on how to quieten my mind and what to actually do during a meditation. I learnt to listen to my intuition, to stop accepting whatever answer a modality handed me and instead connect to myself and feel the right answer. I discovered that mindfulness, for me, was about being happy and living my truth, and that the answer is always already within.
Finding a meditation teacher
A few years later I found myself a proper meditation teacher. This time the focus was on deepening my practice and connecting with my intuition week by week. It heightened my sense of empathy and helped me understand that we are all energetically connected, all wishing for the same thing: to be happy and at peace.
Our group met every week. We would talk about the challenges in our lives and then heal through meditating on them. Everyone walked out feeling better than when they walked in. You could feel the energy in the room change, exactly the way it changes now between the start and end of one of my sound meditations. What I learnt was that no matter what people are going through, meditating always helps. It brings clarity, gratitude and perspective, and it creates the space you need to find your own answers.
The corporate plateau
In my early twenties my practice plateaued again. I stopped going to class as my career in the IT industry took off. It was an exciting time. I was learning constantly, had a big social life and chased my goals hard. But after a few years I realised I was living in a very human way, and that almost everyone around me was doing the same. Work hard, very hard. Get the loan, buy the house, rush from place to place and goal to goal.
That way of living can leave you feeling empty and lonely, longing for fulfilment and purpose, and increasingly stressed and anxious. It can leave you overworked and completely deprived of self-nourishment. We can have so much materially and still not feel happy or fulfilled. I know because I was there.
Moving to Melbourne
So I left Sydney and moved to Melbourne in search of more. I wanted a city that was a little less hectic and valued community and balance a little more. No offence to Sydneysiders, it is still my home, but I absolutely love Melbourne and what this city values. The move let my practice flourish again, because there is such a strong mindfulness community here.
The lesson from that move is one I still share with students: your environment has a significant impact on your wellbeing. You cannot always change the environment you are in, but you can always make changes in other ways. Without change there is no growth.
The monastery
Melbourne led me to Truc Lam Monastery in Da Lat, Vietnam, where I went on pilgrimage to train with the Buddhist nuns. It was one of the most enlightening experiences of my life, and it led me to the nun teachers I still learn from today.
What I learnt there was a way of life that did not require me to be religious, dress a certain way, be in a certain place or live a life other than the one I already had. It was simply about bringing awareness to my body, mind and speech, and creating space for positive change.
That change ran through every part of my life, personal and professional. My priorities changed. So did the people I chose to keep close, how I spent my time, my relationships, my perspective and my behaviour. I learnt how to deal with my baggage, with negative people and with bad situations. I found deep gratitude, acceptance, passion and a happiness that has lasted.
Founding Mirosuna
It changed so much that I founded Mirosuna: a community of like-minded people on a journey for more. More fulfilment, more meaning, more connection. I had realised that, for me, happiness is about helping others on their journey as I continue on mine, and that transformation happens in community. Solo practice is valuable, but there is something powerful about meditating alongside other people, sharing energy and witnessing each other grow.
If I could give my fifteen-year-old self one piece of advice, it would be this: life will hit you with constant distractions that pull you away from your truth and your centre. You can live on autopilot, one day blurring into the next, tangled in daily stress. Or you can create space for change and start living with more peace, perspective and purpose.
Where to start
If any of this resonates, come and meet me and the rest of the Mirosuna team. The simplest way in is an in-person class, or a sound meditation if you would rather lie down and let the bowls do the work. And if you are still working out what your own "more" looks like, I wrote finding your passion for exactly that question.
Love,
Sally Kellett
Founder of Mirosuna