I’d like to consider myself as a salt of the earth kind of human being. The kind of person that values meaningful connection and the simple joys of life (think: jumping into a sun-drenched ocean with a smile plastered on my face). 

It’s a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the urban city life that I once led in Melbourne. Back then I was conditioned to join the rat race, push hard, and overwork myself to the core for the sake of receiving recognition for my achievements. I was naïve and ego-driven, and I never realised there was an alternative to my reality.

I fell into medicine in 2007 when I was 17 years old from a combination of pure luck and happy coincidence. I had an undeniable thirst to prove myself and my strong sporting background and good hands-on skills inevitably led me into orthopaedic surgery.

When I was working 120-160 hours a fortnight with overnight on call, in addition to a research degree that involved intensive hours of article writing and presenting my research findings internationally, I didn’t question my life at all. My colleagues and I were in the same boat, and we all sought to console each other in our collective discomfort. We hoped that our hard work would one day lead us to becoming a prized consultant surgeon, and that dream kept our daily misery alive.

Some years later, I was surrounded by colleagues experiencing relationship breakdowns, depression, cardiac disease and cancer. Yoga helped to reprieve my stress and burn out, but the constant fluctuations of my hospital rotations from city to countryside resulted in an inconsistent practice. That’s when the penny dropped – if I didn’t make a shift now, then it would only be a matter of time before my own good health would be impacted.

Pivoting away from Orthopaedics was a hard pill to swallow. I was utterly lost, so I took the year off in 2019 to seek inspiration from overseas travel and completed my first 200HR yoga teacher training. I engaged in serious self-enquiry to understand what life wanted from me and to slowly loosen the chains of conditioning around my numb body & mind.