🔭 The Present Perspective Newsletter

🕊️ How Loss Reveals Freedom

Everything changes and passes. When we are courageous enough to recognise this, it can be scary at first. But with mindfulness, compassion and patience we then discover a surprising freedom—the freedom to live with fresh eyes, to love more deeply, and to rest in the only certainty we ever have: this moment.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell

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Dear Reader

The Reality of Change

Let’s be real for a moment. Everything we like, love, enjoy, rely on, and cherish will one day pass. We will lose it all, and each of us will face our own mortality.

From the perspective of mindfulness, this stark truth contains a profound wisdom. If we are open to it, it has the power to transform how we relate to ourselves, the people around us, and to life itself.

The Challenge of Loss

Nothing can be held on to. Everything changes. If we cling to youth, health, career, friends or life itself, we will suffer. Sooner or later, reality reminds us that change is unstoppable—and reality always wins.

At first this can feel disappointing, challenging and even scary. We become disillusioned, and the illusion that things will stay the same falls away. Hopelessness, grief or depression may arise when what we relied upon is revealed to be fragile and temporary.

The Freedom of Disillusionment

Yet disillusionment can be the beginning of something deeper. If we are patient, compassionate and willing to feel into the hopelessness, a quiet freedom begins to appear.

It is bittersweet. But in acknowledging impermanence, we find a release from needing things to stay the same.
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We discover freedom from the impossible task of preserving the unpreservable.
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We meet ourselves and our life with fresh eyes, and with a softer, more intimate presence.

Letting Go into the Moment

Instead of fighting reality or clinging to the past, we let go. We welcome the new dawn, embrace the unknown, and turn to the infinite mystery of this moment.

We see that the pain of resisting change burns hotter than the pain of letting go. In surrender, life becomes lighter.

In truth, the sooner we see through the illusion of an imagined permanence, the sooner we can lay down the burden of resistance.
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By surrendering to change, we discover something new—something unbound, something free—the mysterious, profound, beautiful and loving presence of life itself.

🧘‍♀️ Mini Mindfulness Exercise: Sitting With Change

1. Arrive (2 minutes): Sit comfortably. Feel the contact of your body with the ground or chair. Take a few steady breaths.
2. Reflect (2 minutes): Gently recall something in your life that has changed—a person, a season, a stage of life. Notice the natural impermanence of it.
3. Feel (3 minutes): Allow yourself to feel whatever arises— sadness, gratitude, tenderness. Rest with the sensations in your body.
4. Release (2 minutes): With each out-breath, imagine letting go of resistance. Not forcing, simply softening.
5. Rest (1 minute): Sit in quiet awareness. Notice that beneath change, there is still this steady moment—breath, heartbeat, life.

Why this helps: This practice trains us to meet change directly, rather than avoid it. Feeling impermanence in the body helps us loosen the grip of clinging and taste the freedom of letting go.

🏫 Intro to Mindfulness Courses and Workshops​

Reduce anxiety, improve sleep and increase self-acceptance with mindfulness.
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These Intro to Mindfulness and Meditation courses and workshops are designed for absolute beginners and are offered by certified Mindfulness Works mindfulness teachers.

Queensland

​Bulimba – 30 September​

​Buderim – 11 November​
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Online and Live

​Online and live - Monday, 3 November​
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🆕 ***New Course*** You Are Already Perfect — 3-Week Meditation Course​

Because of our conditioning, upbringing and culture, most of us have the sense that there is something wrong with us, that we are incomplete, unworthy of love and need fixing.

This can range from a subtle feeling of anxiousness to feeling overwhelmed, isolated, lonely and depressed.
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Mindfulness meditation helps us discover that we are completely unproblematic, whole and complete just as we are.
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This is not a belief or philosophy, but a tacit feeling and realisation.
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This meditation course offers you a chance to let go and reconnect with your already-OK and complete nature.

​It is a time to put down the struggle and come home to yourself in a way that feels natural, fresh and alive.
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This course is suitable for beginners and experienced meditators.
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​Date: Tues 16, 23 & 30 Sept (3 x Tuesday evenings)
​Time: 6.30pm – 7.15pm AEST each session (45 minutes)
​Facilitator: Karl Baker
​Price: $45 (entire course)

❤️‍🔥 Awakening to Self-Love – 6-Day Silent Meditation Retreat, Healesville: Friday, 3 Oct – Wednesday, 8 Oct, 2025​

Final release tickets available now. Only 6 tickets left.

This silent meditation retreat focuses on our inherent ability to experience self-love and inner healing.

Price: $1,995 (all inclusive)
​Teachers: Stephen Archer and Karl Baker
​Dates: Friday, 3 October – Wednesday, 8 October
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🏢 Workplace Mindfulness Training

Nationwide in-person or online mindfulness training for workplaces.
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– Build team mental and emotional resilience.
– Improve mental fitness.
– Practical strategies for reducing burnout.
– Enhance team communication and connection.

​Get a customised program and free quote.
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🤔 Mindful Check-In. How do you meet change?

📝 Mindful Meme of The Week

📩 Ideas? Comments? Complaints?

​Respond to this email.