What’s New UPDATED

At 7am on the 1st of March, Co-Founding Director of MPA, Miranda Stephens, led our 20 min shared practice on zoom with an extended version of PROP (you can find the shorter version on our app https://mindfulnessaus.com.au/mindfulness-app/)

Pause: simply stop where you are

Relax: sigh out, letting all the tension drain out of your muscles

Open: take in what’s happening through all of your senses – what do you see, what do you ear, what do you touch, what do you taste, what do you smell, what is around you, what is alive within you…

Proceed: take the next step into your day, aware of the choice you make 

Have a listen HERE

These shared practices are ways that our community of mindfulness graduates get to connect, feel supported in practice, and tune in with ourselves and what we might need from practice at the start of each month. If you haven’t been yet, pop it in the calendar now with this link for the zoom room https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87089957518

See you on April Fools Day at 7am (no joke :))

MPA is currently running lots of courses, and so we facilitators are trying to remember to record the practices we guide in the courses, so participants can have a go with the same voice at home.

But if you are reading this and are not in one of our courses, its also perfect for you to ‘dip in’ to the kind of practices we have in our courses.

Here are a couple from the first week of the Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy course Tracy is teaching in Launceston: have a listen, follow the invitations, and see if these are helpful practices for you.

3 minute breathing space – https://soundcloud.com/user-899524320/3-minute-breathing-space-from

10 minute breathing practice – https://soundcloud.com/user-899524320/10-minute-breathing-space

And if you cant get to one of our courses but would like support in your mindfulness journey, please be in touch by phone or email and we can help you out with resources and pathways that might suit.

 

Refreshing Your Self at a Botanic Gardens is a no-brainer: Botanic gardens are cultivated to bring calm, beauty, even awe as we experience the presence of plants from around the world, in all their myriad ways of adapting to all sorts of climates and conditions.

Larissa’s plan and poems for the day are attached; but beyond plans, the Refresh Your Self on 22 February brought something unexpected in the way we might nourish our foundational practices – the weather was wild!! In fact, apart from our group, the gardens were closed as the storm passed through. Some might worry that weather is the natural enemy of nature based mindfulness, but the storm brought an important metaphor into the practice, and an experience of being able to continue with calm, in the midst of challenge. Check out the practices and poems from the day here.

MPA Refresh Feb22 2026 LB

As we enter autumn and the turning of the seasons, in Tasmania we will likely experience many varied weather patterns, possibly in one day! Whatever the conditions, the practices of breathing, walking, sensing our bodies and being open to our world mindfully are still available to us, and a steady home base in a changing world.

And whether its the Botanic Gardens, your garden, a pot plant or a weed in the footpath, the metaphor of life finding ways to adapt and grow is never far away!

Josef led a lovely Breath and Body Awareness Practice that led us from a narrow focus on the breath, and gently widened our attention to include the whole body. I happened to be at O’Neil’s creek, at the foot of Mount Roland, watching the practice on zoom on my phone, and being able to widen my gaze to a soft attention to the whole forest and mountain in front of me. Where were you for this practice? What happens for you as you move through your mindfulness practice from narrow focus to wide or soft awareness of the body of beyond? This human capacity for both types of awareness allows us to

be present to our experience in its detail, and its connectedness. In the coming month, perhaps you might like to explore the way that you can enjoy the tiny things, and the big picture, in your day to day living.

I can give a little plug as well for our upcoming Refresh Your Self for graduates of our courses, which will be held at Oura Oura Conservation Reserve in the Liffey Valley. At this mini day retreat, we’ll get to spend time with the living beings that make up this vast and significant landscape, practicing this dynamic of opening out from narrow to wide awareness. Registration will be on the website soon, so check out https://mindfulnessaus.com.au/finished-a-course/ and don’t miss out this special event led by Outdoor Adventure therapist and MBSR graduate Nick Hall, and myself, Tracy from MPA!

Well, this was a treat.

Black Cockatoos called to Tessie Strong and myself (Tracy) when we arrived at the Pelverata Hall to open up, before 7 others joined us for the Mindful Bushwalk into the Falls. Tess welcomed us to her country as a Merlukadee woman, and we drove to the trail head where we listened to the poem ‘Come Close In by David Whyte (below) before starting our transition into mindfulness on the fire trail, noticing our concentration as we watched the path, and then inviting ourselves from time to time to ‘Look Up’ and trust the sensations of the soles of our feet, and the relatively flat path, to keep each footfall safe, as used open awareness to move through the space of the forest and hills.

Along the way, Tess helped us pause and engage with our senses: seeing the birds in the trees, listening to the call of the pigeon, touching the trees and noticing their signs of resilience, smelling the eucalypts. We even tasted the native cherry fruit!

When the track turned onto the traditional footway of her ancestors, Tess called to the ancestors and invited us to pick up a companion for the journey from the place to guide us: a stone, or stick, or leaf, whatever we noticed.

Our mindfulness included inviting awareness that other beings were also aware of us: noticing changes in sounds and behaviours as we moved through the space, and at the waterfall being aware of the ancestors, old men and women in the rocks, looking over us.

We met challenges on the way as we climbed over boulders and along the goat track section, and were reminded to ‘turn towards’ the difficult experiences with curiosity, and the in the knowledge of safety. We had each other, and a first aider, and a guide, all there for our protection.

We ate at the Falls lookout, and Tess gathered water for us from the waterfall. We explored what it was like to keep attention on a chosen visual point for 2.5 minutes, and most of us noticed something unexpected that occurred as we waited, much like the way we wait in our body scans at locations in the body, to notice what arises when we allow time and attention.

Our return trip gave us the chance to share our experiences, and to notice moments of awe: cicadas fresh out of their shell, the updraft at the waterfall, the heart beat call of a bird.

At the end of the traditional footpath, we returned our travelling companion objects to the places we found them, and Tess thanked Country and the spirits on our behalf for a safe passage.

START CLOSE IN

Start close in,

don’t take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.

Start with

the ground

you know,

the pale ground

beneath your feet,

your own

way to begin

the conversation.

Start with your own

question,

give up on other

people’s questions,

don’t let them

smother something

simple.

To hear

another’s voice,

follow

your own voice,

wait until

that voice

becomes an

intimate private ear

that can

really listen

to another.

Start right now

take a small step

you can call your own

don’t follow

someone else’s

heroics, be humble

and focused,

start close in,

don’t mistake

that other

for your own.

Start close in,

don’t take

the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.

– from David Whyte: Essentials