Meeting Mrs. Mindfulness

Mrs. Mindfulness - Melli O'Brien



One of the great joys of working for the Festival of Dreams each year (I MC the remarkably varied and energetic Open Stage) is the amazing people I get to meet and work with. It is because of the Festival that I have managed to see first hand the beauty and wonder of such great teachers and artists as Alana Fairchild, Lia Scallon and Lou Van Stone. And this year is no different because I got to spend a fascinating evening with Mrs. Mindfulness herself, Melli O'Brien.

Melli is an Australian mindfulness teacher of some renown. She started her teaching career at the Mangrove Mountain yoga ashram near Sydney, but these days she is based in Byron Bay and her platform is the World. Melli has taken her mindfulness teaching virtual, and she has made many people enter into a renewed relationship with themselves and their awareness through her online courses and events. Her Mindfulness Summit has been a triumph, and Melli continues doing her valuable work in spreading the message of attention and inward journeying.

I had organised to meet Melli at a ridiculously busy place, and several times I had walked right by her, wondering: "Hmmm, is that her...?" There was something about the gentle face and placid eyes that made me think so. But it wasn't till my seventh lap around that I knew for certain. She had sat down at a table amidst all of the craziness and was journaling. "That's gotta be her..." I thought.

And it was.

Melli is one of those people with whom you feel an instant rapport, and soon we were chattering away like crazy about matters spiritual. We had people joining us soon, so I just had a few precious moments alone wit her and I was determined to ask her all I could before the conversation inevitably shifted.

I had to ask her about the journaling. I am a keen journaler myself, and I wanted to know if this was an intrinsic part of her own mindfulness practise:

"Of course," she answered, "it just keeps me so centered and so concentrated on the moment. If there is any craziness in my life I know I can just pull out my journal and I will soon be transported to a particular type of careful attention. The act of journaling itself is an exercise in mindfulness. It can't be otherwise."

Carefully closing the beautiful journal she had open, she continued: "Journaling always connects me to my mindfulness practise. It is also an excellent - and safe- space that helps me to vent my frustrations and get all the stuff down, all the junk it may not be valuable for me to give voice to."

"I've been keeping journals since I was 15. I find it therapeutic and creative." 

So what lead you to become, I asked her, a mindfulness teacher? It is not exactly the kind of thing you get pamphlets for at a career fair in high school. "Well I was teaching for a long time before I established a blog and moved into the online space," Melli answered. "Most of my training was at the Satyananda ashram in Mangrove Mountain. I was always giving my mindfulness teaching but through a specifically yoga context.   I went through my teacher training there and it was a beautiful atmosphere. I always placed a strong emphasis on mindfulness. I was given a lot of opportunities through my involvement with that community. I started teaching retreats, and I took every single opportunity I could get."

Mangrove Yoga, Mangrove Mountain, NSW


"I was so happy to at last find a way of expressing something I had always known to be true," she said. "I had felt alone in my spirituality since I was a young teenager. I just wanted people to be happy by experiencing what I was experiencing."

"I think when you put so much energy and love into something it just grows more and more. I have been offered so many opportunities to teach something that I believe is valuable. But it wasn't till 2014 that I realised I had to start standing on my own two feet and really establishing myself and making this journey a permanent and sustainable one."

"My passion is immersion retreats, multi-day retreats, mainly because that is how I have had so many amazing experiences in my own life. It's a creative expression, and each retreat is a microcosm, it's own self-established community. It's all about the sense of journey."


Melli O'Brien and Walter Mason talking happiness and mindfulness


Check out the Mrs. Mindfulness website and see Melli's upcoming events.
 

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