I’m Michael

. . . and I’ve just got home after a morning of surfing. With my face a bit burnt and shoulders kind of sore I am enjoying sinking deep into the couch. It’s not the most ergonomic space to work, but hey, with this view (looking over the Pacific Ocean) it is more than sufficient. As I sit down to do a little work I can confidently say that I have finally struck a harmonious and fulfilling work-life balance. It is so refreshing to look out through my eyes at this day and get a real sense of the creative capacity we have to design our own lives our own way.

I believe that you, me, we, are all born creators, and that the creative spark of life itself resides at the core of our being.

The great work of our life, I believe, is the process of creating and re-creating both ourselves and the life we get to live. And it is my greatest joy assisting people through this process of creating and refining who they are and their current experience of life. And as you’ll read below I do that through a number of different avenues, each of them dear to my heart.

A few things people might know about me.....

I am a qualified chef.

I hated school - and one day after an argument with my English teacher I drove to the restaurant where I was employed as a dish pig (I referred to myself as a H2O porcelain technician) and begged them to take me on as an apprentice. They did. I grew to love cooking and although I haven't worked in a commercial kitchen for many years, my love of food married my love of health and wellbeing.

My love for food, nutrition and service led me to become a certified health coach. PLUS Hannah and I have a huge love of Ayurveda. With all of this in mind good tucker always plays a huge role in what we do and offer to our clients - Especially on our retreats.

I am yoga teacher.

I am still cooking, only now I cook people!

One of the first recorded mentions of the word yoga is the term yogakshema. This roughly means that the process of yoga is one of cooking, or being cooked! The old yogis saw cooking food on the fire as a process of transforming one thing into another - such is the nature of fire. And the same is true of the subtle inner, metaphorical fire that is spoken of in yoga - once it is ignited, harnessed and directed through the process of yoga, transformation becomes inevitable! And that’s why I love it.

I taught yoga for many years as my main vocation, and I loved learning the crazy depth of wisdom that’s been practiced for thousands of years. These days I enjoy a solid self practice and a lot of the philosophy that upholds the practice of yoga informs so many I do, but I never really felt fully at home as a yoga teacher. It served me tremendously whilst I was doing it, but to be honest it was the love of meditation that drew me there in the first place. The yoga system was a way in which I could broaden my practice and understanding of my true passion, meditation.

I teach meditation.

Long before I taught asana-based yoga I was practicing and teaching meditation. It all started when I travelled around Australia for 2 years in a small truck by myself. During that time I met and hung out with a lot of cool people, but I also spent a lot of time alone. It didn't take long to realise how freakin' crazy my mind actually was. My own madness is what first got me really curious about mediation. I wondered, how does the mind work? What are thoughts and where do they come from? Why do some thoughts feel different to think than others? What are emotions?

My meditation practice began in the Buddhist tradition, and grew from there. I have had many amazing teachers, and I have extracted the best of them to form a practice and philosophy of meditation that Hannah and I now offer as Fire and Light - our one on one Meditation Teacher Training, which uses both traditional meditation practices of breaking down the illusions and habit patterns of the mind but also modern practices such as NLP and self-hypnosis techniques to deliberately create our lives the way we want them to be.

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I love adventure.

I have driven around the circumference of Australia, travelled through Europe and Morocco, pilgrimed through Sri Lanka, India and Nepal, trans-mutated in Hawaii, Lived in Bali, played in New Zealand and got drunk breaking a seven-year alcohol free stage in Fiji (it only took 2 beers). I love adventure and plan to travel this beautiful big globe until I die. But, paradoxically, I love our home. Hannah and I live in a small coastal town of 500 people and WE LOVE IT! Every time we come home after being away we question why we ever left!

I have been coaching for many years now. It is an amazingly rewarding profession. The journey into coaching was such a natural and smooth progression over time, it felt like something that I couldn’t not do. I feel so blessed to be able to make a living doing the thing that feels most natural and effortless to me. In coaching I integrate all of the above points, even adventure trips, so that my clients can come to know themselves as truly whole – and support them so that they can then integrate that sense of wholeness back into all areas of their lives.

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A few things people don't know about me . . .

I TALK SHIT

I was born with Meconium Inhalation, which is a fancy way of saying that whilst I was being born I somehow swallowed my own poo. It blocked my lungs and I was practically born dead. My Nan reckons that my grandfather saved my life by tapping me on the tiny, 6-week-premmy bum, and saying" you'll be right mate" like any good Aussie would. And sure enough due to his affirmative brilliance (so Nan reckons), I was alright. But the near death experience left me with a scar - I have talked shit ever since.

I am a sensitive dude.

I love coffee, but here's the thing - if I have more than a 1/4 strength shot things turn a little crazy. I think it is all the yoga and meditation.
I'm telling ya, it does weird things to you.

Proceed with caution.

I once wanted to be a stand up.

It’s true, when I was 18 I dreamt of being a stand-up comic and used to prepare routines in my head, and anytime I got drunk enough and found a microphone I would rattle off my jokes to anyone who’d listen. I soon realised that to become a comic you had to be funny, ha, who would have thought! Now I teach public speaking as a part of working on Yoga Teacher Trainings with my dear friends at The Practice Bali - and that’s when I let my suppressed comedic cat out of the proverbial bag.

Dreams do come true.

When I was a kid I had a monstrous poster of Pamela Anderson on the back of my bedroom door, in red Baywatch swimmers and all. We were close, me and Pammy.

Anyway, fast-forward 15 years and I was working on a boat in the Mediterranean and lo and behold, Pammy and her entourage came on as a guest. What! I know. Two things happened on that boat. Firstly, I got a sneaky photo of me playing with a pink pair of her undies, an act that would have got me immediately fired (how could I not, I was 22 and in the presence of my childhood dream girl) and secondly I saw her boobs.

I am glad it happened that way, as I was then able to get on with the rest of my life and dive into some more, let’s say, important, and even dharmic, endeavours.

Here’s some things I love . . .

Surfing, especially riding fun, weird boards.
Serving nourishing food to people.
Sitting in deep meditative stillness, either by myself,
with H, or with a group.
Observing someone’s life change for the better, transformation is beautiful.
Watching whales breach.
Sitting with Hannah, drinking a ridiculously weak coffee, whilst having fun simply talking about how much fun we’re having.
Sitting by a fire in the Australian bush.
Playing table tennis with the boys.
Spotting an owl in the wild.
Writing.
Watching Basil (the dog) wobble his head when he hears the word beach