Natasha Mason is a mother, passionate meditator, educator, healer and creator. She loves nothing more than seeing a flame being ignited within another. One that fuels passion, purpose and above all, self-compassion. It is Natasha’s mission to enable others to have this direct experience in their own day-to-day life after her own consistent twice-daily meditation practice revealed this for herself.
A moment of intuition led Natasha to realising that by becoming a Meditation Teacher, she could help others experience this feeling by implementing a simple ‘being’ meditation technique to their day. Feelings of empowerment, stable and pure self-awareness, hope over fear, and despite the colourful smorgasbord that is life, a baseline feeling of happiness.
Alongside her role as a Meditation Teacher, Natasha is an Ayurvedic Postpartum Doula, a Reiki healer, has completed Mental Health First Aid training with Mental Health First Aid Australia, and is the Founder and Director of Nourish Melbourne.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast and more.
Broadcast: November 25, 2022
Duration: 46:01
Here is a snippet of our conversation…
Meditation is for life..
..But it's realising that this thing, this thing ‘meditation’ is the one thing that can change everything else in your life when your eyes are open. We don't do this for our eyes closed - this is for life. And when I finally got that, I'm like, I'm doing this for my wellbeing. For the wellbeing of when I started meditating. My daughter, who's now seven, was six months old, I'm doing this for her, for my relationship, for what was to come in. Parents who are both unwell, who have now since passed and going through that, and it was that inner knowing that this is more important than anything else, what I do with my wellbeing is responsible for then how everyone else reacts around me, how their wellbeing is, and it creates a ripple effect. And when you realise how powerful that is, you do everything in your power to make sure you do this meditation practice.
The power of a teacher for support..
If you don't feel or experience that change and shifting yourself well, why are you going to keep doing it? And I had no support you know, I didn't have a teacher. [With a teacher] I actually learned a technique, which was, and still is to this day so effortless, so easy. I had their support, still have their support. This is a great thing about finding a teacher - you need that support when you start meditating. Otherwise, you go off into the world and think, oh, I'm the only one experiencing this, and I don't really know what I'm looking for, I don't know why I'm doing this.
How has your practice impacted your relationships; do you think?
Well, the thing that meditation does is it removes stresses or dissolves that fatigue and stress that we accumulate through daily life and through our, what is very busy lives, really, for most of us, we are on the go. We are either in front of screens, we are exercising. For some of us there’s aging parents, there's children and we know with children the day doesn't stop.. and so if we start to meditate and have something where we remove those stresses and we allow them to dissolve, we're building awareness so that when these tricky times come, this is like prep for those tricky times or when the waters are a little bit rocky. We have a very grounded, awareness in our being.
When you yourself, have that ability to respond from a place that is grounded, aware, free of a lot of stress and fatigue that you're carrying, you can respond with an answer or a way of speaking and being that is more evolved than someone who is under a lot of stress, not meditating, purely reacting.
The magic space.
So really, I think meditation, the magic part of it is the space between a demand. So let's say there is a confrontation with your partner or your child, whether it's a young child or a teenager throwing some something at you and the way you respond is that gap in between their action and your response and how, how do you approach that. And depending how well rested you are and how grounded you are and in your awareness, will determine that.
It's never too late to start a practise..
.. meditation works instantly, it’ll start to pacify the nervous system, start to release that fatigue, and we start to dig deeper and deeper into not only your current day stresses if you are physically tired, mentally tired, but we're going all the way back. We start to chip.
.. what you're doing is creating the foundation to be able to deal with the rocky times when they come. We're not being reactive, we are preparing, we have this resiliency that's being built. We have a strong foundation.
