Earth Lab Origins #1: The Beginning

Okay, it never looked too good on the outside.

There was a time I was deeply confused. The life I was living was full of struggle. I didn’t fit into the corporate world. It just didn’t feel like me. Day to day, I was living a version of life that didn’t reflect my true self.

Later I learned that for something good to grow, everything old has to break.

My relationship ended. I left my job. And through the pain of that collapse, I started reaching for the small things that felt real. Things that felt like mine.

I wanted to find myself. My self worth. My inner truth.

I was getting older, and I couldn’t allow myself to keep living a life that didn’t reflect who I truly was. But first, I had to figure out what that truth even looked like.

So I packed my bags and went to stay with my mum in a national park in Kazakhstan, where she ran a guesthouse. I didn’t know exactly what I was searching for. I just knew I couldn’t keep living the way I had been.

There, I gave myself permission to slow down. To breathe. I did yoga. I meditated. And I started reconnecting to myself.

I was searching for something real. For my light. My worth. My place in the world.

I was tired of adjusting, surviving, coping, stressing. I needed to find myself in all of it.

At first, there was no light.

As an immigrant who moved to Australia alone in my late teens, I had lived in survival mode for years. Constant adjusting. Constant hiding. Very little space for the real me.

So being with my mum again after so long felt like coming home. A return to something known, something safe. Something that felt more like me.

I began to look inward. I meditated. I asked myself questions. I talked with my mum. I searched for my inner voice.

It was faint. Hard to reach.

But through rest, support, and the feeling of being protected by family, I started to feel something shift. A quiet strength. A subtle pull. A whisper of direction.

And it began to show up as creativity.

As I slowed down, I started reading about plants. I walked through the bush near the guesthouse and noticed what was growing. I infused herbs into oils. I mixed blends. I sold a few to guests.

And something about it just made sense.

I knew I needed to follow that feeling. To lean into my creativity. To work with the natural ingredients that were grounding me and connecting me to the earth.

It gave me glimpses of the direction I needed.

I began mixing oils, using them in saunas, applying them to skin, breathing in their scent. Those moments with my hands in the oils made me feel a little more whole again.

These were the first glimpses, sparks, micro moments when I started to connect to myself. Feel the energy. Listen to the flow inside of me.