I’m writing from a little work bench in a studio, overlooking my parents backyard.
The bench is handmade, like almost everything in this house, right down to the dish scourer my Dad made by tying an old orange net into a ball using an elastic band. As soon as I saw it, my eyes almost rolled out of my head, but my boyfriend hours later, washing the dishes, turned to me with an excitement for cleaning only a Virgo can summon and said: we should get one of these!
Sometimes, it’s beautiful to see the quirks of our most loved ones through fresh eyes.
When I was very young, I was embarrassed of my home.
All my friends from school lived similarly. Two story houses with carpeted floors and pools and play-stations and rooms specifically made to use the computer in. They had walk in pantries stocked with electric coloured packages: soft drinks and cordials and those little packets of chips I would have traded everything in my lunchbox for.
Our place was tiny: an old weatherboard beach house, with wooden floors and homemade extensions, a wonky deck and an excessive amount of plants, waaaay before indoor plants were cool again.
Instead of TV units and reclining armchairs and multiple remotes, we had lanterns from Thailand, eclectic wood furniture, no playstation and no pool. We did not have a walk in pantry, but an old wooden cupboard, stocked with with vita wheats and rolled oats, cashew butter and peppermint tea.
Despite my early shame, everyone loved that home.
Sure, it wasn’t as new or pristine and we didn’t have a rumpus room or Cottee’s cordial in the fridge, but there was something about the feeling of it.
Maybe it was the wisteria growing over the front door in early spring, or how walking in the front door opened up to large windows looking over the garden: a sea of green, or how it felt like a sanctuary, my sister and I allowed to decorate our rooms however we pleased, my parents mostly celebrating creativity and self expression, and always in the process of planning The Great Renovation, still yet to come.
But despite the crooked balcony and the strange layout and having to walk from the toilet to the bathroom to wash your hands, almost everyone who walked in the door gushed: oh my god I love your home.
I thought maybe it was because it was so different to the rest of the houses in town.
But now I feel it’s more that this house was truly an expression of our family.
You could feel it then. You can feel it even more now.
It wasn’t the standard house you’re supposed build when you grow up and settle down.
It was my Dad’s enthusiasm for believing deeply, he can make just about anything you could buy, his vigour for reusing and recycling forever ahead of his time, and my Mum’s aesthetic style, her natural ability to create beautiful spaces, collecting influences from all over the world. It was and is a space you just want to be held in.
You walk in and breathe out.
While a small version of me wondered why we were so different to everyone else in town, slowly, over time, I began to feel grateful, even giddily proud, of our small, imperfect home.
I realise today, it was a space I was drawn back to, when I needed to anchor into who I truly was.
Last December, when I moved back here for the first time in thirteen years, for no reason other than a deep, deep knowing I couldn’t explain, I spent my days in the garden and at the beach.
I planted seeds, mostly flowers, starting what seems to have become a new tradition in this backyard: adding cosmos and dahlia and marigolds to the already thriving vegetable beds and blueberries and bananas and eucalyptus trees.
In December I dived into the ocean twice a day, I walked the headlands every night. My period synced immediately to the moon, and to my immense joy and surprise, I developed a tan for the first time in my life.
In late January, the rain came and it didn’t stop coming.
In January I took saunas and cold showers and meditated. I made herbal medicines and practiced Japanese every morning.
I also created The Daily Rest Studio.
The very place I am sitting right now, I would sit, for hours and hours at a time, bringing this online studio to life.
I never planned to have any kind of studio space.
I spent the first six years of my career as a yoga teacher working incredibly closely with three seperate yoga studios.
Everywhere I went, owners of studios seemed to want me involved. I was immediately pulled deeply into the behind the scenes of multiple businesses. I was offered to become a part owner of two. I was both flattered and shocked. As I wrote in the last letter, up until this point I only ever saw myself as an incompetent employee, who did nothing but disappoint my employers more with each day. So this newfound praise was both beautiful and great for my confidence, but I also interpreted it as reason to give my entire self away.
Walking away from each studio was incredibly hard.
Not only because I was offered almost anything I wanted: More money. A stake in the business. To run teacher trainings. To take any class slot. But because I was made to feel as if I was making a stupid, extremely selfish mistake.
Leaving these businesses is another long story for another day.
After six years of weaving in and out of studio spaces, I had firmly decided it was not something I ever wanted to do.
But my life (probably yours too) has a really cute way of turning out better than I ever expected it to.
Just like my family home, my online studio feels a little different to the online platforms I’ve loved and been a member of so far.
When I started, there was this tiny, schoolgirl aged voice in me, who just wanted to create something proper you know? Like the online studio equivalent of a grown up home.
But my body said fuck no.
My body pulled me into finding a different way.
Something that felt like me. Not the expected, cookie cutter version of an online space.
It was not the easiest path, for sure.
Creating this studio threw me learning curve, after learning curve, after learning curve. And I know there are more to come.
There were times where I wondered, is all this worth it?
There were times where I wondered, will enough people ever be drawn to this? A space that is not easily defined. A space that continues, month by month, to change and evolve?
But a louder, more mature, feeling said: fuck yes.
Being a custodian of this studio has taught me so much: not just about web design and sound and video editing and digital organisation and outsourcing: but mostly about surrender, releasing my grip on results, and deeply, deeply trusting myself.
I feel like I’m just getting started, all over again.
I wake up excited almost everyday.
It’s proof, again, that choosing to find our own way is hard.
For me, it’s never been easy anyway.
But when it is the path we’re supposed to be walking along: we’ll always have the energy and the strength to meet whatever challenge comes our way.
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What I’ve been feeling right now, is to those who get quiet enough to listen: our intuition is speaking louder than ever.
What I’ve been feeling right now, is when we make decisions based on what others have done, based on what we think we should do, based on what seems like the path bringing us the fastest results: the universe slams the door shut right in front of us.
This sounds cool, but in reality, it is terrifying.
What I’m feeling right now, is that every time we walk in the wrong direction, the universe acts quickly in an attempt to shake us back on track.
What looks like the shortcut, will often take us further from ourselves.
If you’re being earthquaked by the universe right now:
Where have you been choosing the most direct path for the sake of perceived efficiency alone?
Where are you choosing the one worn down by the feet of so many others, instead of taking a deep breath and committing to finding your own?
Where do you need to go off course?
Where do you need to take the scenic route?
Where do you need to take a detour around the headlands, or amble all the way off the road, moving slowly through medicinal weeds and wildflowers and the movements of birds?
Where do you think you can’t be who you are because you’re not professional, cool or good enough?
Where do you think you can’t be who you are because you’re the odd one out?
Take what makes you different, and turn it toward the sun.
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In a world of people trying to prove themselves, trying to be the loudest, the fastest, the shiniest, the richest:
Patience is medicine.
Slow growth is medicine.
Hand-made is medicine.
Hobbies are medicine.
You are medicine.
Not the you the world had you believe was good or valuable or worthy.
Just You.
Who you have always been.
You do not need to change anything about yourself.
You simply need remember and practice adoring who you already are.
Surround yourself with people and places who do the same.
If I have learned one thing, it is this: there is nothing more magnetic then allowing your wonky imperfections to lead the way.
This week in all things The Daily Rest…
🌸 November in The Studio is all about developing Self Worth. To me, Self Worth is Self Trust. It’s learning how to validate yourself first. It’s learning how to lead with instinct, intuition and feeling. It’s learning how to surrender to the journey, not the results.
🌸 The Soft Business Circle is starting in November. Every month we meet and talk all things intuitive, soft business. We talk about creating content that feels good. We talk about fears and desires and how to weave and create from an intuitive, aligned place. We talk about Human Design and building community and selling without urgency or fear.
Your journey is so inspiring Emmie, thank you for sharing it openly with us 🙏🏽✨🤍
thank you Emmie, soooo beautiful! my parents house is the same haha, everything handmade, I used to hate it when I was at school, everyone else in their cookie cutter houses and mine being so weird.