The Broad Place | Jacqui Lewis
Conversation with Jacqui Lewis
The Broad Place is a school for creativity, clarity and consciousness, and is well known for it’s courses teaching integrated mediation, gatherings, workplace programs, and most recently the book our guest Jacqui Lewis authored - High Grade Living. Jacqui is a writer, educator, facilitator and speaker on clarity and integrated meditation. Jacqui teaches across Los Angeles, New York, Hong Kong and around Australia, as well as her town of London, and hosts immersive retreats globally.
“Most meditation that’s practised in the West comes from a Monastic or an Ashram based lineage, meaning that it wasn’t meant to be done to fit in with a modern life…”
The Broad Place describes itself as ‘a place where you can discover your highest grade self through applied ancient knowledge and meditation for your modern life’. It does this by providing various courses on meditation via their online community, workplace programs, workshops and retreats.
As a global school they offer a broad range of meditation courses diving into spirituality and focused teachings of Vedanta, Buddhism, Zen, Taoism and more, as well as, psychology and neuroscience.
What we love about Jacqui’s approach to mediation is her understanding of today’s world and the need to integrate meditation into our current busy lives. She believes that meditation isn't reserved for ashrams or isolated caves, but rather a calming and powerful practice to help us navigate the modern world with more grace than without.
We could all use a little of that right?!⠀
In this super fun episode, we explored Jacqui’s vision for The Broad Place in creating a new paradigm for education and self-development, celebrating creativity and consciousness.⠀
Mentioned in conversation…
Jacqui's personal discovery of mediation⠀
The creation of The Broad Place (it wasn't a smooth ride!)⠀
The nuances of a refined meditation practice⠀
What to look for when finding a meditation teacher⠀
The incredible impact mediation can have on our lives⠀
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Follow The Broad Place here:
Full Podcast Transcript - Jacqui Lewis, The Broad Place
Pru:
Hi, Jacqui, and welcome to the show.
Jacqui:
Thank you so much for having me.
Pru:
I can tell that we're in for a real treat today. I've been a big fan of The Broad Place for a long time, so I want to kind of dive in under the hood and find out more about you, about meditation, about the potential of the areas in our lives that it has to touch, and of course, about your new book that's just come out, so lots of juicy ground to cover. And I thought that we could start by having a little explore into your journey of meditation. So, perhaps we could start with where you were at in life when meditation sort of first knocked on your door.
Jacqui:
Well, I actually first started meditating when I was a little kid, but I didn't have a formal practice, no one I knew meditated, but it took me learning later to realize that's what I was doing when I was small, so I think I was naturally drawn to it. Also, my little brother was disabled, and so we spent an enormous amount of time in hospitals, and it was sort of a combination of escapism, but also a way for me to tap back in. So, I would just sit and close my eyes and focus on my breath, also sit in nature, look at the horizon, I would spend a lot of time at the ocean and in national parks, just roaming free range back in the '80s-
Pru:
When we were aloud to.
Jacqui:
... back in a different scene. And then I fought I started learning properly when I was 18 years old. Like a lot of people, I started doing yoga. I mean, back then, no one was really doing yoga, there was no yoga activewear or even proper real classes, it was sort of someone doing it in the community center where I lived. There were no yoga schools or anything like that. And then when the teacher would do this little thing at the end, and I recognized how that's what I did when I was younger. And so I kept learning little bits and pieces and studying Buddhism, and Daoism, and zen, and lots of Eastern lineages too, because I was just thirsting for it. So, I meditated for about a decade all over the place, trying everything, trying to find something that fit, and then I learned the technique that I now teach about 12 or 13 years ago, and that's when everything really shifted for me. A formal proper training and a daily practice that is a discipline as opposed to just a dabble really opened me up to a daily practice.
Pru:
Incredible. Now, this is interesting. I have a similar journey with meditation, and going to my first yoga class when I was about 18 years old, and for me... actually, maybe I was a little bit older. I must have been in my early 20s, because I remember it was a university friend that took me along because we were going through quite an intense period at university, so it was quite stressful for us, there was a lot of anxiety, and that's where yoga sort of came into play.
Pru:
So, was any of that kind of feeding in for you when you were in your early 20s sort of to keep you on that meditative path? Was it a mental health, did that lead you there as well?
Jacqui:
It was definitely mental health, I had really horrible anxiety, I was having panic attacks. I ended up actually going to St. Vincent de Paul Anxiety Center, they had a clinic, which was a horrific experience, and it really catapulted me into making sure that I really wanted to use different types of practices. Basically, I was handed a script, within seven minutes, for Xanax, of being there and told that there wasn't anything a problem, it was in my head. And so that was really confronting and I knew that there was definitely going to be another way to manage my mental health, but I was also partying really hard. I was studying, I was self employed, so lifestyle contributed I think a lot to my anxiety. And then when my daughter was born, I was 25, and I had to get serious then about taking better care of my mental health. So, that's when I really started to just dive a lot more deeply into what I'm into, have a practice every day.
Pru:
And so can you talk us through that practice? When you say that you began this dedicated practice, what did you find?
Jacqui:
What did I find in regards to the outcome of the practice or?
Pru:
Both, the practice itself and the outcome.
Jacqui:
Okay, good. So, no one had actually ever asked me the question, "What would you like to receive from your meditation practice?" For me, it was an escape from. So, I was looking to get away from stress, get away from anxiety, get away from panic. I wasn't necessarily aligned to that inner peace and that inner calm, but also creativity and accessing those deeper states of consciousness. And I find a lot of people do that, they're running away from something as opposed to moving toward and into something, and that was definitely the case for me. And also, I'd never really been asked the question after... I mean, I'm talking so many teachers, so many styles, what might also be a conducive fit for the lifestyle that I lead. So, I think it's something that a lot of people don't understand, is that most meditation that's practiced in the West comes from a monastic or an Ashram based lineage, meaning that it wasn't meant to be done and sort of fit in with a modern life.
Pru:
That's a really important point.
Jacqui:
It's a really important point. And what happens a lot of the time is... because all meditation originally stemmed from India, and it was really reserved for those that dedicated their entire life to spiritual practices, including meditation. So, you took yourself away from family, and careers, and socializing, and what you would do is you would dedicate yourself to meditation. Now, that was wonderful if you wanted to forego all those things, but if you didn't necessarily want to do that, there weren't a lot of practices that were designed for people that held down the house, and had a social life, and had ambition and so forth.
Jacqui:
So, this technique, this mantra-based practice that I practice and teach now was actually designed for, effectively, busy minds and busy lives, and it was never meant to be done in a monastic environment. So, it was like, "What's the technique can be utilized by people that don't have an enormous amount of time, but also their minds and bodies are built quite differently?" Have you ever stayed in a monastery or an Ashram?
Pru:
No, I haven't.
Jacqui:
They've really interesting experiences.
Pru:
Please do tel.
Jacqui:
And I say that with a lot of loading. It's amazing for me, it really goes to show the human mind, even with no one speaking, you can still create all these storylines in your head about everybody that's there, and yourself, and this, that and the other.
Jacqui:
But primarily, you'll eat one to two meals a day, it's usually vegetarian food. You don't have garlic, and onion, and spices, and coffee, and sugar, and you're definitely not drinking alcohol. It's a very different kind of environment. No one's WhatsApping you or DMing you on Instagram, or you're not juggling emails, and calling your parents, and checking the news, you're really in this sort of bubble environment, which creates a different nervous system and also a different state of mind. Whereas, you can imagine for you and I, and probably for everybody listening, there's a lot of juggling and a lot of balls in the air.
Jacqui:
And so when I finally came to the practice, it was like, "Oh, this was designed to enhance my life, not meditation become my life," everything shifted. And I also, once I became a teacher, I really drew down on that, that idea that you meditate in order to be your best self when you're living your beautiful life, not chasing meditation experiences. And that can happen a lot as well, this idea that, "That's the bomb," or the healing that's needed is like, "My life is too chaotic and too crazy, so I need to take myself away from the world and just meditate." Because then, there's that great saying, "The only piece you'll find up the mountain is the piece you take with you," I'm a big believer that we need to find systems or techniques or practices that help create internal stability and emotional resilience and more flow so that then we can move with life rather than having to sort of take ourselves away from the world in order to create that.
Jacqui:
And I think that's one of the big challenges with meditation at the moment is, because it seems to be increasing exponentially, but everyone says that every year at the moment, I think as the world gets busier, there's this idea that meditation is going to be the silver bullet, or the quick fix, or if you just do a teeny tiny bit, or go away for 10 days and your partner, and then come back, and then a lot of people go, "Well, I now don't have an hour in the morning, an hour in the afternoon or evening to meditate." So, they just do little bits of it and then it becomes more challenging.
Pru:
This is a really interesting conversation and it's not one that I, as a meditator, have heard a lot going around as well. I'm dealing with Vedic meditation, which is what I practice, but that is for the everyday householder, but just how clearly you've explained that is that meditation, it does come from Ashrams, which are this completely different environment to what everyone listening to this podcast, I dare say, experiences in their day to day. And really, it's such a juxtaposition, really, to imagine that we can take something from one extreme environment and put it into the other extreme environment. And really, when people, I think, are seeking meditation, it is for calm and inner peace and usually less, rather than adding in more, which as someone who's done Vipassana in the past as well on my meditation journey, finding that hour in the morning and going on a 10 day retreat is not long term sustainable.
Jacqui:
Yeah. For anyone that might be listening and thinking, "Oh, I really want to dive into a meditation practice," it's a really big way up of making sure that there's no band aiding, which is just like, "I don't feel great. What's the quickest, fastest route?" So, I get asked all the time, like, "Can you meditate for two minutes?" It's like saying, "Do you want to get fit?" Sure, you can just walk around the block, but there's going to be other things that need to happen in order to support you in getting fit, and it's the same with meditation. So, with the practice, ensuring that there is the daily discipline, but also the compassion and the kindness to yourself when you can't necessarily fit it in.
Jacqui:
And it's this nice edge, I think, that we have to walk, which is making sure that we don't get to A type and controlling and dogmatic about our meditation practice, but also making sure that we, in the compassion and the kindness in finding the flow in our days and fitting in the practice, also making sure that we're not too hard on ourselves, and being gentle with ourselves whilst also being disciplined. It's a dichotomy, and we've got to hold the two together. So, finding a practice that supports that and really understands that we have big, sometimes overwhelming lives, and we live in a modern environment that is, and can be very, very challenging, and also recognizing that we need to find that peace and that inner calm without trying to control our exterior environment, so what practice might support you in that, I think is really important.
Pru:
Awesome. Okay. So, talk us through then, coming back to your story, around where were you in life when you found this mantra-based practice?
Jacqui:
I was in my mid 20s, and mid to late 20s, my daughter was a little, very, very little, and life was really challenging around that time, and I sort of got to a push that ended up being sort of the thing that pushed me over the cliff. Because I was practicing and had been practicing so many monastic techniques, and I had so many friends that practiced Vedic meditation that were always banging on about how amazing it was, I almost sort of was deliberately not learning because I was like, "It just can't be that good." And also, it's a big investment financially, and I was like, "Look, I'm paying $20 in my local community center to sit and I don't understand why this is so much more in regards to the price."
Jacqui:
And so I eventually learned... because a friend of mine, we did all this testing, and my cortisol and adrenaline levels were just so insanely high in my body, so he helped me with the course fee, which was really, really helpful, and so that ended up helping me learn. And then after I learned, everything shifted. My anxiety was plummeting, my ability to just be in the world in a completely different way, I responded to things very differently, I was much more resilient, I was much happier, I was happier for no reason.
Jacqui:
This is the thing that, out of all the things that I hear from students, I absolutely love because I experienced it, which is where just you can't put your finger on why you're happy, but you feel naturally joyful. And a lot of the time, we don't consider this until it happens. And previously, it might have been that we were happy because it was tethered to something, like the house is clean, or I won that new contract, or I got a promotion, or this has happened, or we've just paid off that bit of the mortgage, and it's like, "Ah, now I can have a breather and feel happy." Whereas it doesn't make sense if partnered to something. And so the practice for me showed me that there was joy and happiness that could just flow through life without it being tethered to anything, and that was really, really important, that sort of opened up a whole door and a window for me as to what life might look like.
Pru:
Interesting, interesting. And what was the power in having a teacher at that time to sort of lead you through that?
Jacqui:
I've had lots of teachers in the Vedic and Transcendental Meditation communities, and I think that having a teacher is vital in the beginning, in particular, because you need to have someone that's going to guide you through all the different phases that sort of... it's like opening up a flower, and you will naturally open up, but having some sunlight, some warmth through that process, and some guidance, I think, is very, very important.
Jacqui:
So, to say, we have a lot of students that I teach, and then I hear from them two years later, and they've admitted, they're like, "I missed one last September, meditation," and they're really diligent, really steady. So, it's not a blanket rule, but for most students, there's some wobbles, there's lots of questions that pop up. And everyone has a different experience. There's some themes and there's some commonalities in the student experience, but truly, everyone's got a different nervous system, a different state of consciousness, a different mind, and the brain's wiring is going to be different, so their cognitive bias, and prejudice, and the ways in which they view themselves and their practice and themselves in the world is going to be, you can imagine, wildly different.
Jacqui:
So, having a teacher that can help guide through that process and ensure also just to keep the habit there of meditating, I think is really, really vital, as opposed to, a lot of the time I get asked, "Could you just be self taught?" And I think it's the difference between having, like I do right now, a gym membership that I don't go to, versus a personal trainer. If you have a personal trainer that's there with you the whole way, and believes in you, and wants to see the best in you, then the process is really different from you trying to figure it out on your own, just turning up and dabbling around with the machines.
Pru:
And also just the lineage of having a teacher as well. I think so many beautiful things are taught to us in this world, and traditionally, we've stayed with teachers for a long time, or move between teachers, but had teachers and had elders and had that respect for elders to lead us and guide us through a process.
Jacqui:
I agree. I think that also, it's just really important in today's age to find a teacher that still views themselves as a student, to some degree. There's a lot of sort of self aggrandizing and self appointed guru making that can occur in any spiritual and meditation community, so for anyone looking for a teacher, I'd find someone that still has that humility, and also doesn't think that the buck stops with them, and is also happy for students to move around through different teachers.
Jacqui:
There should be a freedom, on the student's behalf, to interact with lots of teachers and also not be aligned, necessarily, to a single lineage, because within every lineage, there's 1,000 variations of that, and I've learned this through all my study of, say, Qigong, or Tai Chi, or karate, or yoga, there's so many different facets, and every little string that gets pulled out of that will say, "My way is the best way," when I think that the easier path to walk is to admit that everyone's facing in the same direction or all moving in the same direction, and so therefore, that freedom to be able to move around through different teachers and lineages I think is really, really important.
Pru:
Yeah, I really like that approach actually, coming from... I do a lot of mentoring with businesses, and, of course, I encourage people to have different mentors, have different teachers, because at different times, you need different things, or there's something within your own journey, your own soul that will naturally gravitate towards someone else because you need that particular thing that they... maybe it's just a sentence that they utter, or maybe it's something deeper, but it's what you need at the time, and that's part of trusting your own journey too.
Jacqui:
Definitely.
Pru:
All right. Well, tell me about The Broad Place. How did that come about? So, you've obviously, experiencing a little bit of a roller coaster in your 20s, and then finding your dedicated practice and one that really fit in with this lifestyle, how did The Broad Place come about?
Jacqui:
The Broad Place came about because my husband and I... so he wasn't really even necessarily into the meditation component, but reworking what self development looked like, and also his spirituality, because primarily, and we're talking nine or so years ago, almost 10 years ago when we started discussing this, there was three primary camps, and there was the really woo woo kind of spiritual, sage burning, hand holding full moon scene, which I quite like, and he does not, so it was sort of that full tilt spiritual scene.
Jacqui:
Or there was the more corporate environment, which we were exposed to because of our work at the time, where mindfulness was really being bandied about, it was really big, it still is, but particularly then, and corporate mindfulness programs that were very dry, more of that sort of like, "Turn to page 67. Now we'll look at compassion." And so I was like, "Um." And with a lot of our clients, we were experiencing those programs from the inside and just really crushingly disappointed, because I was like, "There's just such a better way to do this that's more engaging and more exciting."
Jacqui:
And then there was also, in self development, the big sort of... it's still a big movement, that really adrenaline and cortisol, Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss style, push it to the tail, like, you got to go to the nth degree, and very, very forceful, and I've ebbed and flowed in and out of those kinds of things for a long time. But I really wanted to just create something sat in the middle. So, something that wasn't even necessarily aligned with the lineage. For all of our students, we wanted to create a platform whereby they could come at it however they liked.
Jacqui:
So, they can meditate and live their amazing lives, or they can come on retreats, or they can do programs, and learn, and do mentoring, but they could really just stitch it together, rather than being told, "Now here's step two, and here's step three, and here's step four, and step five," because it sometimes feels like almost like a bit of a pyramid-ey scheme thing, where it's like, "Great, now, you've got to go on to the next level, and the next level, and the next level," when it comes to self development. And so we wanted it to be a very free, non dogmatic, non hierarchical space in which students could interact, also believing that the technique, particularly of the meditation, is that it makes people more intuitive.
Jacqui:
So, it peels back the stuff that holds them back. So, namely, fatigue, and stress, and tension. I always say to students, if you think of your personal worst, it's probably like in an international airport where you're just at the end of your tether, and your consciousness has just not expanded in that moment, it's usually quite contracted, whereas when we're feeling more in flow, and more stable, then we can make the decisions that support us naturally without having to be told so much what to do.
Pru:
I love that.
Jacqui:
Yeah. So, we just really believe that if the work that we're doing works, then people become more intuitive, and they will make the decisions that support them even better, and we're just here to gently guide.
Jacqui:
So, we formed the school. So, we say that we work on three things, which is creativity, clarity, and consciousness, and meditation is a huge foundation for that, but there's all the other facets have what we offer. But it's really a way in which people come in and not necessarily have to be tethered or tied to a system. So, my husband was really deeply into this, because he wanted to sort of break a bit of ground in regards to how it could be done and also make it really accessible, and modern, and stylish. He's a creative director, so he was really thrilled about that component. In the beginning, for me, it was predominantly just trying to share this technique that had changed my life, and I'd seen it change the lives of so many people around me. And then The Broad Place just grew and evolved from there. So, it's been a wild journey, I'll say that. Hasn't been easy.
Pru:
I'll ask you about that, don't you worry. And I just want to say, what a great way to reimagine that space, because as you say, there are some real dogmatic places that this kind of self development comes from, and me having a background in psychology, I know well about those, the Tony Robbins motivational speakers, and I think there's times and places, but it is almost like a pyramid scheme. You do the base level, then you go to the next level. And just so to radically reimagine that and coming back to that stripping the things away and intuitively trusting yourself in a place that you can flex, and move, and go sideways, and just be more agile in your own development and your intuition in what you need next.
Jacqui:
And also be open to having... What I really tried to do with students, because I study from so many different lineages and philosophies, is sharing as much of that. I believe in breeding them together rather than saying, "Oh, no, we found this way and this is the only way." I'm always wary of a system, particularly like Vedanta, which traditionally was about oneness about unity that then says also, but not those things. So, there's a modern translations of these ancient philosophies that also can sometimes get a little dogmatic, but rigid, I think is the word I'm looking for, a bit tight, and we really got to follow them to the nth degree. And I think that the celebration of being unique, an individual, and finding your own path is something that you I personally want from my teachers and what I hope to give our students as well, which is them knowing that they're supported no matter what they do.
Pru:
I love that. So, what did day one at The Broad Place look like?
Jacqui:
Day one was chaos, because we were still, at the time, running a restaurant and a café, and my husband had an award winning fashion brand, and we had an advertising marketing PR agency.
Pru:
Wow.
Jacqui:
It was just chaos. So, we launched The Broad Place in and amongst all of that. Purely as well, in the beginning, we weren't sure if people would resonate with what we were offering and the way, the flavor in which we were offering it, because at the time, that sort of philosophy was quite new, and I'd had a lot of people sort of go, "Oh, no, people like to be told what to do, and they need to follow strict rules, that's why they're created," and so forth, and we were trying this really sort of lateral, creative, humorous, like, "Let's not take this too seriously," approach.
Jacqui:
And so we had no idea if it would take. So, we kept all the other balls in the air, and that went on for a year while we sort of straddled all of them, but even just the teaching was my happy place. It was the place that I just really shone and resonated with.
Jacqui:
There was a bit of an ironic thing that happened where the more I tried to let go of working in all the other businesses, the harder and tighter it got. Really, there was this bridging year, that until I learned all the lessons that I need to learn, it just wouldn't go away. And for me, those lessons where I was trying to be two people. I was wearing my, "This is me as a meditation teacher hat," and taking myself really seriously, and then going back into running restaurants and advertising agencies and campaigns and just being a different person over there. And so it took me a long time to work out that you just need to be one person wearing different hats to really, really get that lesson, and then everything sort of fell away really seamlessly and easily, and I just focused then on The Broad Place.
Pru:
Wow, wild ride in itself. I can just imagine you wearing all those hats, and what an important lesson to learn for you along the way as well, particularly as a teacher teaching then, but also teaching now, just understanding that comes back to that duality that we were just talking about, that people want this practice and this deep resonance with a practice yet having to live their everyday lives.
Jacqui:
And also, it really informed how I teach now, and particularly because I teach so much in corporate workplaces, which is you're you at work and at home and socializing, you're not, "Oh, this is my work me, and this is this me," and it's so much identity building and so much role playing, like I have to be this person over here, and all the hats, there's too many hats, we get so burdened by them. And then take this hat off and put this hat on, and oh, there's an overlap of this hat, whereas the work that I'm trying to push is just you're just a human being first before you do anything, and then ground in that so then you can then bring your human beingness to all the things that you do, not the other way around, because we get so obsessed with all the doing. And that just took me some serious grinding away to really get that for myself.
Pru:
And to authentically show up as ourselves in each of those different environments as opposed to the environments dictating who we are, but us just authentically, and life becomes so much easier when you do, way less complicated.
Jacqui:
Way much easier. Yeah.
Pru:
Awesome. So, The Broad Place started in Sydney. Where did it go to next?
Jacqui:
It quickly moved around. So, we started teaching all around Australia, and then we were being invited by people to teach all over the place. So, we taught through Asia, we held our first retreat in India, we have started teaching in America, predominantly in LA and New York, and then through Europe and London as well over the coming years. So, we used to spend, prior to COVID, five months of the year on the road traveling, which was really exciting and also really taxing. Now that we're still, it's been amazing what's opened up in regards to the kind of work that we can do and so forth. But I think it was a combination of right place and right time. People were really ready and really thirsting for it. So, the feedback we were receiving was very, very positive, and people were super enthusiastic, and so inviting us to all these great places that we got to go and share, teaching with and, yeah, it was amazing.
Pru:
Yeah, sounds incredible. And so it was it you guys kind of driving the direction of that or was it just that you were being... say, for the states, for example, that the calling was there, the people were there ready and waiting for you and you went there?
Jacqui:
Yeah, it was pretty much that. We were very, very, very fortunate in that, I think, the tone that we were delivering made people really excited and curious and very, very supportive, and we also have a lot of friends in America, so they were very, very helpful in helping us establish our network there and invite their friends to learn and so forth. The exact same situation happened with London as well. So, yeah, I think I've got this unbridled enthusiasm for everything, and it sort of inspires enthusiasm for other people, which has been really, really exciting. So, they get all like, "I want to get involved." So, we've been really lucky like that.
Jacqui:
The only thing that was really seriously planned was hosting the retreats in India, because they take such an enormous amount of work, but the rest just seemed to just flow quite well. It was really beautiful. And then moving to London, obviously, was... Well, not obviously, but moving to London was not on the cards for us whatsoever, but it was a decision that we made pretty quickly when we were there teaching. So, generally speaking, everything has just sort of... I wouldn't say fall in our lap, because we've also worked our ass off, but has been pretty synchronistic, it just seemed really obvious what the next move was.
Pru:
Incredible. And I think that kind of naturally happens, as a meditator myself, is, as you let the things fall away, the next step does become quite obvious.
Jacqui:
Absolutely. Yeah. And just trusting as well. I used to sort of need five things, five hints, and then I whittled it down to like, if I hear it four times, or three times, and now it's usually just once or twice, you can feel into it, in your nervous system, it just either feels right or something feels weird. And then it's just taken a long time for me to trust that. I think it was always there, but it just took a really long time to trust it. And particularly, I think one of the benefits of my husband and I both had our own businesses since we were both 20, 21, so there's been an enormous amount of chopping and changing with The Broad Place.
Jacqui:
So, we've been able to let go of things that we felt were no longer relevant with a lot of ease, because we're used to, in own businesses, moving things around a lot, and then also consulting with other people and helping them really keep mixing it up. So, The Broad Place has been a really flexible, lean school, that has meant that we've been able to experiment a lot. When we launched, we had a lot of product that we were doing that was Vedic based product that, to be honest, we probably we launched on that too early, it would have been perfect. Two years ago, doing Dosha style product, but it was easy to sort of work out like, "Okay, what's going to work and what's not going to work?" And lots of experimentation and curiosity, not too much hanging on, which tends to happen when you have your own business.
Pru:
Yeah. I think that's great as well. And also having almost gained your own apprenticeship in running those early businesses as well, so you can come to The Broad Place. And I'm such a fan of a lean business model that allows you to flex and change, it allows the business, I should say, to flex and change and be agile as you change as well.
Jacqui:
Yeah. And there's been, for me personally, as a teacher, just such an enormous amount of growth in the last seven to eight years since I've been teaching, and it's been so gratifying to be able to just keep shifting how we teach, and why I teach, and what can we share, and how can we share it? And that's been really, really liberating, and might be a little bit breakneck speed for some students, but for most of our students, they just love coming along for the ride. It's always been exciting.
Pru:
Yeah. And just keeps it so fresh and energized for you as well, which I think when you are tapped into kind of what's going on, you're moving with the collective consciousness as well and what people need at the time.
Jacqui:
Yeah. And I think there's a big difference. It took me a long time, particularly in my 20s, to work out what's the difference between being solid and being stagnant. And so that has been a big part of it, is working out how do we have that solidarity, being really grounded, and being really solid and what we do, whilst also ensuring that at no time, we're not stagnant? Because I've always worked in creative industries, I love the creation of things and the putting them together, the execution, the bringing it to life, and so it's been beautiful to have a platform like The Broad Place to be able to do that.
Pru:
Yeah, absolutely. And that is so closely tied with you as well, I think. So, I think that does some of the explaining for the changes and the flexes as well. So, what does Rhe Broad Place look like today?
Jacqui:
At the moment, we are obviously based here in Australia, so we are going to be here in Australia for quite some time.
Pru:
I believe so.
Jacqui:
Yeah. So, we are doing teaching integrated meditation online, which has been unbelievably transformational, and I'm so beyond wrapped at how just brilliant that's been and reaching people all over the world, in lockdown and having really severe mental health crisis, and then also people just really thirsting to dive into a proper meditation practice. We hear it all the time, like, "I've dabbled, I've tried this, I've tried this, I've tried that. Nothing's sticking. I can't do it. Blah, blah, blah, blah." And then they learn this and they're like, "Oh, wow. Okay, now I've got it."
Jacqui:
And traditionally, the technique was only ever taught in person, which has meant, through the pandemic, that no one taught really globally, which I just couldn't stand for. I just honestly had that moment where I was like, "I've just spent so many years now of my life doing this thing that I want to share with people and the moment in time that we need to share it is now." And so it's been just remarkable, and people are just so beautiful and grateful, and they're really resilient in their practice, because they don't have any of the, "Oh, like when you're in the room physically, I think I need someone physically in the room with me," they're learning in their own homes, so that's created this amazing vibrancy in their practice.
Jacqui:
So, we continue to do that. We do retreats up in Byron. We've got two planned for next year. At the moment, it's been this funny thing. I normally work on an 18 to 24 month calendar. I'm a Virgo and love a calendar, I love planning and Excel spreadsheets, and having everything mapped out, and this is the first time that we've not been able to do that at all.
Pru:
It's not for Virgos right now.
Jacqui:
It's not good for Virgos right now. But even knowing which borders we can even cross, I can't even plan really. I mean, we can do Byron because we live here, but I can't really plan even Queensland, Melbourne. We just don't know what's going on. So, it's been this amazing path of just truly surrender and let go of all that planning. So, outside of March, I don't know. But we've also got our publishing arms, so we've got the High Grade Living book, the Mothers Mind Cleanse, we've published the letters, which we do digitally every day, and then we've got a printed edition of those as well, which people have just gone bananas for, which has been so exciting. A little bit of the product, like the meditation timer, and then the incense, but really the product, I would say, is a tiny, tiny portion.
Jacqui:
Most of the work I'm doing at the moment is on mentoring and in corporate. Mental health, thankfully, is now really becoming, not just... I think previously, it was seen as a luxury, and emotional resilience, and having clarity, and really knowing who you are feeling good about yourself within the workplace was like, "Oh, that's something we can tag on to our leadership program." And now we're seeing this huge pivotal shift where people are very tool thirsty, they want sharp, short, applicable things that they can implement right away. And so for me, it's been so exciting, because that's what we do best. And so now there's been this enormous thirst for that, so it's been awesome.
Pru:
Yeah, fantastic. I love to hear the good stuff that comes out of the pandemic as well, and I just think shaking up our traditional ways or the way that we thought that things used to be or had to be, and really just mixing that up, yeah, it's exciting. There's some exciting things coming out of it.
Jacqui:
Yeah, it really is. And this year, we just got creamed by COVID. We weren't supposed to be living in this country, in Australia, we'd committed to staying in London. We'd given up our house in Australia, all of our belongings. We came back into hotel quarantine in the heat of not knowing what was going on, we had nowhere to live, we had baggage. One of our doggies passed away, and the other one we had to leave with friends in England and then come back with just what we had on our backs, and it was just such a tumultuous year. And my husband, predominantly, is a specialist in hospitality, which is such a heavily hit trade, as a creative director, and we were just like, "This is it. The dream is over. We had a good run."
Jacqui:
And then I was just so in awe of how quickly we were able to rebuild, because the most beautiful thing that I think has happened, we were down in Sydney about a month ago... Sorry, I paused there. Time has become so elastic. I don't know if [crosstalk 00:35:36].
Pru:
It really has, yeah. I've been saying it for the last few months. It's like, "Was that yesterday or was that three months ago? I'm not sure."
Jacqui:
Yeah. Can't tell. Was that last week?
Pru:
Yeah.
Jacqui:
But one of the things, we went down to Sydney, and we did all these day retreats and workshops, and everyone's Gods dropped now, it's like everyone's egos has been smooshed and smashed out of everybody. Generally speaking, with the work I do, everyone arrives with their best self, which is such a trait for me. They really bring their best self to the table. Now people bring their best self but they bring their best off without the guise of what my best self look like. So, it's not like, "Oh, I've got to be like, this is me on my retreat." It's just like, "Here I am real vulnerable and real." And so I found that the work has been even more powerful with people because they're just thirsty and ready, and there's nothing like a pandemic to shake everything up.
Pru:
Strip everything back.
Jacqui:
Big time. And people's priorities have really shifted. If you'd asked me in May, I was sort of like a spinning top, and now I'm so grateful for what's happened, because it's just been really, really transformational, not just for my husband and my family, but for everyone that we work with, we've really noticed these, even through the challenge and the turmoil, people have really stepped up to their best selves, which has been remarkable.
Pru:
I absolutely agree. Okay, so diving into meditation a little bit deeper for our listeners, this is a really broad sweeping question, but I know you've got this Jacqui, is, how is meditation beneficial to our lives?
Jacqui:
Meditation is beneficial to our... Okay. So, first of all, I need to preface this by saying it depends on what type you do. So, again, meditation can either be relaxing, you might do it for relaxation, you might do it to reduce your stress and tension or for better sleep. The type that I teach isn't necessarily... we've integrated meditation, it's not necessarily about having a relaxing experience when you meditate, it's about removing stress, tension and fatigue from the nervous system so that then you can be in more alignment, think quicker, be more on your feet, feel more grounded and connected to yourself, but also it opens up this enormous well of compassion and kindness and love that we have within us, it allows the mind to transcend into those deeper conscious states. And that really is where everything starts to shift. So, I'll just talk to integrated meditation, if I can, otherwise, it's just so enormously broad.
Pru:
It's too big, yeah.
Jacqui:
But I would say, predominantly, if I had to really narrow it down, because for me, it depends on what the student comes to learn for. So, we ask our students this all the time, we're always interviewing them and getting them to rage, like, "What would be the most important things that you came for?" And most students come for clarity, they come for creativity, and they come for better physical health. Sleep would be the fourth one. That's kind of eking up [crosstalk 00:38:27] get into the more of the twos and the threes in regards to what people want the most. But I really think that the most beneficial things that you can get out of it is to be a kind of a person.
Jacqui:
And I'm always saying to our students, so I will say it again now because I can't stop it, that has to include yourself. I think a lot of the time we're like, "I'm so altruistic, and I'm such a giver," but it might come at the cost of ourselves. And this not taking care of ourselves isn't selfish, and I don't know what happened. I know I held on to this self limiting belief for such a long time, that in order to take care of myself, it was really a selfish thing to do, and I needed to be of "service," and that meant burning myself into the ground. So, I'm always saying that, a meditation practice that you do daily that really supports you will help you include you in all of the things, like the love, and the compassion, and the creativity, and not just be an output practice.
Pru:
I agree. I don't know why selfish got such a bad rap, to be really honest. I personally think selfish is sustainable. When you do include yourself in that kindness and the compassion and you actually put yourself first, and I mean that with the awareness of kindness and compassion, and aware of your places in the world, but when you do prioritize yourself, it's sustainable for the long term.
Jacqui:
Well, also, if it comes at an enormous cost to us, then it's not really actually kind and compassionate. It has to include all things, including ourselves. So, we got a little bit confused, I think, about it, about how we show up in the world. And knowing, really, what kindness and compassion looks like, we have to be able to experience it from ourselves, not just from other people, and so that helps us inform then how we treat others. So, I would say start with self first and then move outwards from there.
Pru:
Yeah. And I mean, there can be years and years and years of work to do right there.
Jacqui:
Yeah.
Pru:
And I love your description there as well saying that the type of meditation that you teach and that you practice is not necessarily a relaxing experience, it's definitely been my experience. All sorts of interesting things can pop up.
Jacqui:
So many. And not having preconceived ideas, I think that's the biggest... I just taught a student privately and he was like, "I've never closed my eyes in my entire life to meditate. I've absolutely no idea what this is about." And I was like, "Oh, thank goodness." Because it's a first slate like for everyone else. I find Yogis or Yogi teachers of like 20, 25 years, are some of the most challenging people to teach because you can fee that they grapple with, "But I've learned this way, I'm used to doing it like this. I tether my breath to my awareness, or I need to create this white vacuous space in which I need to reside." And I'm like, "Not with a mantra-based practice, not with this. This is the transcending base technique that allows the mind to move past all those preconceived ideas."
Jacqui:
And so it's funny, you would think that really experienced students would find it water off a duck's back, really easy, but sometimes it can be even harder.
Jacqui:
My karate sensei always used to say that the black belts are the hardest to teach anything, because they've got so many ideas around what should be happening, and he always said that everyone should have white belt mentality, which is the base beginner level, because you can only learn something from that space.
Pru:
And everyone's experience is so different as well. When I learned, there was my teacher, and then there was one other person that was being taught at the same time, and our experiences as we meditated together was so wildly different, and that was wonderful. I was glad that I was in my body and not hers, hers was really wild, but it was really different.
Pru:
Now, something that you just tapped on there, which I'd just love if you could tap on for a minute for listeners is the concept of transcendental meditation, and just what that actually means, because I think that's a term that gets discussed quite a lot, but not necessarily dropped into.
Jacqui:
Definitely. So, the best way to describe it is that we spend a lot of our time snorkeling consciously, so on the surface of the mind, and we're subject to the conditions of the weather. So, our mind is, generally speaking, pretty turbulent as it is, and then all of the outside knocks that we take. So, we see a friend, they look at us really weird, we take it personally when really they just had indigestion or something, or someone didn't respond to a text message and we think, "oh, oh." And our sense of stability is being changed by the exterior around us, whereas what we're doing when we're meditating is we're allowing the mind to dive past all of that sort of surface layer, repetitiveness that it engages in, and dive down into these deeper states of consciousness.
Jacqui:
Now, it's called different things in different lineages, this fourth state, sometimes pure consciousness, sometimes bliss consciousness, soul consciousness, filled with greater intelligence. I love the word soul consciousness because the truth of who we are is actually inside of us, it's not outside of us, and so it's a reorientation. So, it's mind training, essentially, it's allowing the mind to come, instead of being. I'm indicating with my hands, like outside of your head, it allows you to come within... and I'm indicating down towards your heart.
Jacqui:
So, it allows the mind to kind of come back into itself, like back into that internal orientation, touch base with that field of transcendence that is connected to everything, you call it the Dao in Daoism, that energy that permeates absolutely everything, the unseen, that love and that connection, and then allows us to kind of pop back out into the world after we've finished meditating with a more stabilized state.
Jacqui:
And we spend a lot of our time locked in the thinking in the mind, that feeling of when you drive your car and you think, "Oh, I can remember getting to the suburb," or you automatically went another way home or something like that, where we're not really in the present moment, which, if I can also touch on, mindfulness as a practice, traditionally, you would meditate in order to be mindful. It wasn't a practice unto itself, and then over the years, over the decades, in the West, it has now moved into being a practice unto itself, whereas traditionally, it's you would meditate and then you would become more mindful, which is more present. And the transcendence helps that.
Jacqui:
So, it allows us to become less attached to that constant overthinking, and also for me, the ego, which a lot of people say is vanity, but it's more than that. It's really the part of us that tells us we can't do it, why we shouldn't do it. The example that I always use is, you go to a dinner party and someone says to you, they're like, "Whatever you do, don't ask so-and-so about their partner, because they've just broken up." And you go, "Got it." And then instantly, five minutes later, you forget, and you say, "Hey, how's Bob?" And then you're, "Ugh," and you want to kick yourself. And your ego won't let you let that go. It's going to be there at dinner and you're sitting there going, "Why the hell did I say that? I can't believe I said that."
Jacqui:
And then your ego is reminding you that you did it, and how embarrassing that was, and then just as you're about to fall asleep, it'll be like, "Can't believe you said that." The next day. So, basically, the ego is constantly trying to rip us out of the present moment, trying to take us from being connected to our heart, and telling us all the terrible things that we did, and we do, and reminding us of little things in the past. And so when we transcend, we're not in contact with the ego.
Jacqui:
So, it also allows us to get a bit of a buffer and not be continually reined in by our ego and allow us to experience something other than that. And that has a long term cumulative transformational impact, which I think is really, really important, particularly because I think we live in the age of the ego at the moment.
Pru:
And the more that someone practices this technique, does it become easier for them to access that place where they become more familiar with it?
Jacqui:
I think it becomes more familiar. What starts to happen, though, and this is really important, is that we are now evolving at a different pace, when we were stressed, for example, or exhausted or overwhelmed, it's just it opens up our consciousness, and then we evolve in a slightly different way, but we keep stabilizing our experiences.
Jacqui:
So, an example that I give is, remember when you started kindergarten, and it was really big and scary, and going to school was so unnerving, you with your little backpack and uniform, and then by year two, you've got school nailed, but then you get to six, and you think, "Oh, yeah, this is me. I'm king of the school." And then you go into year seven, now you're in the bottom of the high school years, is always bewildering. And so your conscious evolution is kind of like that, in that you'll just keep stabilizing, but it will keep shifting, and then you keep stabilizing, and then it will shift again, but the process becomes much more trusting, intuitive and graceful, because you become more aware of, "Ah, this is just a new iteration or a different phase." So, the practice itself never becomes stagnant.
Jacqui:
So, this is the long answer, but yes, you become familiar with it, but also, because it keeps shifting and changing. We're never chasing an end goal. I always say to our students, "You can let go right now the idea that you're going to be a great meditator. A great meditator is [inaudible 00:47:25] just keeps getting in the chair. Don't worry so much about what happens when you close your eyes for 20 minutes, it's more of who are you in the world outside of your practice." And that's, I think, where it gets really juicy and interesting, as opposed to the real focus, traditionally, with meditation is what's happening when you close your eyes, whereas as you would know, it becomes less and less about that over time and more about how do you feel in the day?
Pru:
Yeah, and how do you show up. And therefore, the importance of having quite a dedicated meditative practice, and not just mindfulness. And that's something that I really took out of your book was, so often now, the two terms, they're used almost interchangeably, but you make very clear in the book that they are different.
Jacqui:
Two different things.
Pru:
Two different things.
Jacqui:
Yeah. And the book was so hard to write. The High Grade Living book was so challenging to write because you can't teach this mantra-based practice in a book, it needs to be taught with a teacher, and it needs to be taught in person in regards to a live interactive back, back, forth, back forth kind of environment, and it can't be taught in a book. But also, I wanted to create some foundational knowledge around what meditation might be, so try to give everyone as much knowledge as I could around, which could have been... it's a whole book unto itself, but around how to frame up meditation, how to frame up mindfulness, how to think about a daily practice, and then all the things that you might consider before you sort of dive into the next phase of meditation for you. But I'm glad you got that distinction, because that's one I'm always trying to make.
Pru:
I could feel the importance of it on the page as I read through it, I could feel that bold exclamation marks around it. Well, that's a great little segue into the book, actually, because it is High Grade Living: A Guide to Creativity, Clarity and Mindfulness, and it's such a beautiful book. I said to you just when you walked in, that I spent just such a beautiful, leisurely Saturday afternoon reading it, it was a rainy day, and it just had the right level for me, the right balance between wonderful information, storytelling, but also this underpinning of the role that a stable meditative practice can play in your whole life. And that thread, it just really, really underpinned the whole book.
Jacqui:
Oh, beautiful. Thank you. What we're really trying to also educate everyone in is that to be more mindful and creative, there's action involved in that. It's about actually going about that and inviting things in, and letting things go, and being actively engaged in your evolution as opposed to sort of being dragged behind the bus of our lives. And so meditation is something, you have to do it, it's still a task, like other things, let's be really honest about that. Let's also be really honest about that, like with anything that is usually self sustaining, your ego doesn't want you doing it. You don't necessarily feel like doing it, so let's just understand that it is a discipline. And also, creativity is a discipline, and ensuring that we have clarity as a discipline.
Jacqui:
Discipline is really unsexy. People get a bit... It's like the word habit, they're like, "Ugh." But it's also so important if we're going to actually do it, if we're going to engage with it rather than it being this sort of... Our publisher was a little bit nervous in the beginning of how realistic we were about everything, and it's not like a big fantasy puff piece around, like, "Oh, my God, it's going to be so beautiful."
Pru:
"[crosstalk 00:50:44]."
Jacqui:
Yeah, that. We need applicable tools and things that we can actually action, I think, so that then we can become more established in who we are.
Pru:
And a big way that I see that you really... I mean, in many ways, of course, but really anchor that practice, is through your practice of rituals and routines.
Jacqui:
[crosstalk 00:51:06] rituals.
Pru:
You really are. Can you just give us a sort of a high level overview of how your mornings roll? Because I find this really interesting, and I'm such a practical person, and I think that a lot of our listeners are as well. So, it's like, "Okay, great meditation, transcendence, got it. This is all great." But okay, now we're getting down to the brush your teeth stage. So, how do your mornings consciously roll for you?
Jacqui:
So, what I learned very early on... my dad's a surfer, and I learned very early on that mornings are just sacred. Our entire family gets up insanely early. We're that real own the day kind of family, that's how I grew up. Exercise has also been a really big part of my family when I grew up. And so as I became an adult, I lost a lot of that footing and grounding. I still always wake up really early, even when I was partying hard, but I don't enjoy sleeping in, it's not comfortable for me. I love that. I just find that morning time is so beautiful. If I feel like I've missed it, I feel discombobulated for the whole day.
Pru:
You're not telling my story. It's like, "I've missed the magic. What's the point now?"
Jacqui:
Yeah, completely. And my morning, I have what I would call almost like a program, because it's just so incredibly important for me to take those hours in the morning. I am remarkably driven and productive, but if I don't take that time I flounder. So, for me, what seems like an enormous investment in time, I get a return on that investment just tenfold of what I put in, so I always make sure that I'm doing something.
Jacqui:
Now, my morning routine, I tend to be really obsessive, so I have obsessive compulsive disorder. Not that I'm neat, people get really confused, but I get really ultra obsessed with things and I get caught in a loop. So, I've learned over the years that part of my strategy on being more creative and flexible is actually to mix it up a little bit, but there's always the same pillars.
Jacqui:
So, for this morning, for example, I meditated, and did some stretching and a little bit of Qigong and then walked the beach for sunrise with my husband, and then we went out for coffee. Now, that's unusual in that I didn't do a proper yoga practice and I also didn't do my tea ceremony, which I normally do in the mornings. I also like to write. I just spent 15 minutes writing, or journaling, or reading something really nourishing in the mornings. I've got a couple of books that I've always got on the go. I always read the Dao De Jing and I've got lots of different translations. So, depending on what I'm looking for, I'll dive into that. There's a whole bunch of really gorgeous spiritual books that I-
Pru:
[crosstalk 00:53:53].
Speaker 3:
[crosstalk 00:53:53].
Pru:
That's fine.
Jacqui:
Could you hear it on here?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:53:58].
Pru:
He's got his headphones on so he's not hearing it like we're hearing it. Okay.
Jacqui:
I completely forgot what I was saying. Hang on one sec. I've lost it.
Pru:
Book on your bedside that you always read.
Jacqui:
Books that I always read. Oh, yeah. So, there's a lot of really beautiful books that I love to engage with that are very spiritual in nature, so I'm not reading a novel, for example, first thing in the morning, and I try to not dive into the New York Times or The New Yorker early in the morning. And so it's basically creating a vessel, an empty vessel for me to engage with presence, and things that I feel really nourish me.
Jacqui:
So, I light incense, I light a candle. At the moment, I'm really fortunate we've got this beautiful area of the deck that's outside, but it's under cover, the roof has a big eave on it, so I can sit outside even if it's raining. And all the birds are in the trees, and I've got everything I need there. So, I've got all my tea ceremony things, and a little pile of books, and it's just a really beautiful space in which to sit. And so I usually start my mornings out there, starting off in the dark, and then as the sun comes up, I'm meditating and writing and reading.
Jacqui:
So, I would just really impress upon people, and particularly, a lot of our students are very high performance based leaders, they're CEOs, they work like absolute dogs, with big families, and I am constantly getting them to run experiments where they take time out in the morning for themselves and watch their productivity boost. So, it's a preconceived idea that, "Oh, no, if I took time for myself, I've got so much to do that I won't fit it in," but it's the way in which you approach it, that's the most important thing. So, starting the morning with that gorgeous, grounded, solid, connected place, I think it's just unbelievably vital. So, that is what informs my morning routine.
Pru:
And what I love about your morning routine is that you have all of these things that you know really nourish you, but you're willing to mix them up as well. And I can see sometimes when people get into patterns, people that I work with, they have to do their meditation, then they have to do it every... and they end up with this three-hour long practice, which actually doesn't serve them in the mornings, but it's like-
Jacqui:
Well, they are stressed at the end it.
Pru:
Yeah, exactly. But it's like, you can have all of these tools and maybe swap them out for day to day, depending on, again, what your intuition is telling you that you need for the day.
Jacqui:
Exactly. And there's some mornings that I don't do the tea because I just don't have the time or I have coffee instead, because the tea ceremony takes sort of 30, 40 minutes most times when I do it if I'm by myself. But the meditation and the reading is always in there, and then everything else is flexible around that. And also, this came from... my dad is hilarious, and he had such a tight morning routine in that he would surf or get in the ocean every single day, but then he had this routine when he got home, which was having fruit and granola, cereal, fruit first, then cereal, he'd have a coffee, and he reads the paper, but he would sometimes be really rushed and we would just be in tears watching him try to do what would take an hour in like six minutes. And so he would be shoveling the fruit while reading the newspaper and trying to make the coffee at the same time, because he was like, "I can't miss my sequence," he had this whole sequence.
Jacqui:
And so after teasing him relentlessly for years, I was also like, "I've got to be more flexible around the way this is put together." And so I tongue scrape every morning, drink a big glass of water on waking and then tongue scrape as well before drinking the water. But there's some pieces that are portable that we can travel around, but if I'm in a hotel room, sometimes, but I'm generally speaking, I'm not doing the full tea ceremony. There might not be enough room to move around. Hotels don't have gyms anymore. A lot of the time they just have small rooms, and that's fine if I can stretch, but there's so many variables. We've got dogs, we've got kids, a daughter, so...
Pru:
But even just the dedication to making that time in the morning, it's so important.
Jacqui:
So important.
Pru:
So important. All right. Well, how did the book come about? I'm always interested. Was it just inside you, the book, that you knew that you needed to write, or how did it come about, and then how was the process of writing it?
Jacqui:
The book about because one of my students, Paulina, works for Thames and Hudson, and so she approached us because we were teaching on this concept of hybrid living, which is how to elevate to our higher selves, and she'd attended some workshops, and bits and pieces, and she just loved this idea, this idea of like high grade, the best quality, and celebrating that in every day, and not elitist, not striving, but just the simple pleasures, and really taking the time to enjoy everything as opposed to sort of just pushing and forcing it. So, she approached us, actually, to write the book, and it on many different life forms before we got to where it is now.
Jacqui:
It was really challenging writing it because the different chapters in the book. So, how do we bring the same philosophy to each chapter, I found really, really challenging, and how to make it really practical without being too philosophical, but also making it inspiring enough so when are people reading, they're like, "Oh, I get that, I understand that," so that then they could apply themselves to it. So, I personally found the process really, really challenging. We also did all the photography and the design ourselves. And then you are working with a publisher, so there's pros, and I think there's pros and cons. I imagine this publisher feels exact same way about working with authors, that there's pros and cons to that process. It's very push and pull. And also, you have ideas around how things should be, and they have expertise, and those things finding the harmony between both of those is challenging, but the end results was brilliant.
Pru:
It is, it's an absolutely brilliant book. And what do you hope people get out of it?
Jacqui:
I hope that people feel empowered, that's my aim. I really hope that people understand that they have the tools already within them, and that this book is just reminding them of these beautiful things that they can do, that they can engage with, that are clear and concise, so they feel really empowered to live their higher life, their highest grade life, aligned to their highest self. And also, understand their lower self, which for me is the ego, or when we're petty, we talk about removing toxic talk, and gossip. We all know that we do a lot of things that maybe don't sustain and serve us, and then how do we be more empowered to say no to those things, and not like a hard no, but maybe just a little pause for a while so that we have more space to invite in the better things for us.
Jacqui:
So, empowered would be the intention. One of the big challenges with the book is that we're really asking for everyone to find their own path, and there is no cookie cutter approach. So, there's no like, "Steps one to 10 on how to live your high grade life." It's very much about in exploration and being curious and experimenting. I think Thames and Hudson found that a little... and they were like, "It would be much easier for this to be a bit more prescriptive for people." And I totally understood that, but it would also go against the intention behind the book, so I was really happy that they backed us on that and just went, "Okay, let's put it out there," and the response has been absolutely brilliant. Because I feel that everyone has been able to...
Pru:
It's okay?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it's fine.
Pru:
It's usually okay with these directional mics.
Jacqui:
Oh, okay. Cool. I feel that everyone has been able to feel themselves within the book, project themselves into the book and take out. We're well aware that not 100% of the book is going to resonate with everybody, it can't. If it does, we're in problem land because it means that it's too watered down. But there's this idea that you would pull through bits and pieces and different threads that you would need in moments in time to, not just inspire you, but help you take action.
Pru:
And definitely, I think you did such a brilliant job of it, because in my reading of it, I certainly had this... it was a very calm and grounded sensation as I was reading it, but also almost invited me with the tools that were presented within it. So, it had that lovely balance of calm and action, and not as though I needed to add all these things into my life, but actually, that if I could just see it and ground and then just cherry pick what the things that would serve me to add in.
Jacqui:
Beautiful. That's exactly our intention.
Pru:
Well, all our listeners, I hope that you check it out. It is a High Grade Living: A Guide to Creativity, Clarity and Mindfulness. So, beautiful. All right. We will wrap up in just a minute Jac, but what's next for you?
Jacqui:
At this moment in time, I can honestly say I'm not 100% sure. I'm going to continue writing, lots of new online programs that are coming through, which has been brilliant, and lots more teaching, teaching in person, and just trying to travel around Australia as much as we can, as the borders open or close. But for me personally, that's for The Broad Place, for me personally, it's really been this amazing opportunity to just ground.
Jacqui:
We're spending so much time in nature, I started studying martial arts again, which is really fantastic, and studying fine arts next year as well. Because we were always moving, I found it really challenging to study, because I would miss five weeks at that time, and now that we know we're going to be here for all of 2021 in Australia, I'm able to study. So, something that's really solid and grounded, so I'm studying fine art, so I'm so excited.
Pru:
Wonderful, and how nourishing for you as well, for the teacher to be the student.
Jacqui:
The best.
Pru:
I think it's always nice to flip those seats. Beautiful. All right, well, we'll wrap up. I'll ask you our one wild ride rapid fire questions that we ask all our guests here. So, in rapid fire succession, tea or coffee?
Jacqui:
Tea.
Pru:
Lovely. Fate or free will?
Jacqui:
I'd have to say both, I think it's a combination of both, but I'd probably lean more into fate.
Pru:
Love it. I'm not going to ask you this one. So, normally, I ask, do you have any kick-ass daily habits in place? But I feel like we covered those fairly well.
Jacqui:
Yeah.
Pru:
All right. This is a theoretical question for this moment in time. But if you could jump on a plane tomorrow and go anywhere in the world with anyone, where would you go and who would you go with?
Jacqui:
Japan with my husband.
Pru:
So quick. I love it. Who else would you like to see me interview on the podcast?
Jacqui:
Well, someone that I always think is so beautiful to interview but has passed away is Ram Dass. Otherwise, I would say Pema Chodron, because she's incredibly hard to get on interviews, because I think she's 84 now, but she's just, for me, one of those unbelievably beautiful and brilliant, authentic women.
Pru:
Lovely. I'll have to have a look-see. Finally, Jacqui, how can people connect?
Jacqui:
Our website is probably best, thebroadplace.com, and then also on Instagram, which is @thebroadplace. But I really also want to take the opportunity, because we got hacked twice this year with Instagram, and it's become a platform that I'm using with a little more of a different approach, so I would recommend people also sign up to our newsletter because that's how we stay in touch with all of our students, and we send out these juicy tips and tools every day, but you can also subscribe weekly, and it's still gorgeous newsletter to receive. I don't really love subscribing to newsletters, but the one that we put together, we try to make it as juicy as possible so that it's worth people's time.
Pru:
Juicy and nourishing. Yeah, lovely. Jacqui, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute treat.
Jacqui:
Thank you for having me.