Reclaiming the Inner Pulse in a World That Won’t Shut Up

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Hey Reader 🌿

Crazy to think this is the 7th issue of Coming to Our Senses. This has been such a welcome project in my life—nothing is really generated here except contemplation, engagement with you beautiful humans, and thought-provoking ideas I’ve been sitting with.

It feels good to have a place where I can spill my thoughts and not need to feel so polished. Just send them out and let them land—like driftwood on faraway shores. Even without a reply, there’s something healing in knowing these words live outside of me now, making space for something new.

By issue 7, I probably don’t need to explain what this is, like some kind of podcast intro... (yes, that is in the works, but one creative project at a time, aye?) I’m very good at overfilling my plate—like at a wedding buffet. Everything looks amazing, I’ll just have a bit of this and a bit of that... and before I know it, I’ve got a mountain that I’m somehow expected to annihilate before the speeches start. 🤣

Overshooting the mark is something I do well. But lately, I’ve been trying to rewire that habit—strip it back, slow it down.

We do well to create noise in our lives. The world outside is loud, sure—but sometimes the loudest part is us. We fill the space so we don’t have to feel the stillness. Then, when it’s quiet, we flinch. We fidget. We feel guilty. Like we haven’t earned rest. Like we need permission to stop.

What even is rest? Do I know it in my bones? Or am I just bypassing it—again—telling myself, “I’m fine,” and leaping to the next thing?

This year, I promised myself space. Slowness. Intention. A pace that allows for noticing. For loving well. For listening deeply—not just to the people I work with or the seasons they’re in, but to myself.

Because the hustle? The scarcity mindset? The “limited spaces available” urgency? That whole thing? It’s exhausting. And it never ends unless we end it.

So yes... I invite a pause. A detox. A full-scale interruption. Throw your phone in the ocean and break your laptop. (Ok maybe don’t do that—but it’s a satisfying visual, isn’t it?) 🤣

Because it’s easy to forget what’s ours. What’s true. What’s actually needed. And truth, authenticity, surrender... they’re not just poetic, trendy words. They’re anchors. If we don’t claim them, we drift.

As I write this, I’m tucked into a little campground shelter in Ōkārito. The rain is playing tag with the sun, and just beyond the flax bushes the ocean is roaring like it has something urgent to say. The dogs are curled up in Petra (my trusty Landcruiser steed), and this place... it stirs something in me.

I came here years ago for a photography workshop with the beautiful Rina Sjardin Thompson. It was wild. Raw. Unforgettable. It was here that I tapped into something with my artform, I tuned into the landscape in a different way and really listened.The alps in the distance, ancient rainforest as far as the eye can see, the sea pounding the edge of the earth. And the birds—oh my goodness, the birds.

This land is home to the brown kiwi and the kōtuku. One a creature of night, feeling its way through the dark with unshakable trust. The other a rare, ghost-white heron, a spirit guide said to walk with souls as they pass into the beyond.

The last time I saw one here—still as snow, poised above the water—I felt that tingle in my bones. My body reverberated the message: "Something sacred is here."

I always wonder... why do I feel the need to photograph these moments? Why not just sit and receive them?

But I think maybe I’m a record keeper. A story weaver. The art is in the noticing. In the listening.

And that’s what this issue is about—sound. But not just the soothing kind or the observational.

This is about the feral, the internal, the instinctual kind of sound. The kind we only hear when the static goes quiet. When we unplug. When we finally stop outsourcing our attention to the doom scroll.

It’s about noticing how little we actually listen—to ourselves, our breath, our bodies, our needs—and how much we give away.

Because time is not something we can earn back.

And yet we give it away so easily—to people-pleasing, to the relentless buzz of things that don’t feed our soul.
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Here’s something wild:

There are 72 years in the average human life. That’s 25,920 days. Now subtract:

• Sleep: 24 years
• Work: 12–14 years
• Basic tasks: 6–8 years

What’s left? Maybe 8–10 years of true, awake, available time.

And then... we scroll.

An average of 2.5 hours a day = 38 days a year = 7+ years in a lifetime staring into the void of curated & not so curated chaos. It's mind numbing & creativity depleting.

That time? That was your art. Your laughter. Your love. Your dancing, your book, your ocean swim, your breath.

That’s what we lose. And that’s what I’m reclaiming.

From this stormy coastal refuge, with Kōtuku in the lagoon and Kiwi rustling in the bush, I’m asking myself—and you:

What are we really listening to?

And what do we want to hear more of?

I am still learning how to be water.​
That line stops me every time.
Water has always been my greatest teacher.

Or maybe she’s a they—an entire coven of rivers, oceans, hot springs and storm clouds. Each with their own current. Their own truth. Their own way of showing up in the world.

The way we’re expected to multi-task like it’s a personality trait. The way we carry entire galaxies in our hearts—worry and wonder, grief and grit—and still manage to show up for everyone else. We shapeshift. We soften. We surge. We avoid obstacles not because we’re afraid, but because we’re wise? Wisdom from the realising of past poor choices so we can learn the right path.

Like water, we find another way.

And I see this in every woman I work with.
In the faraway sadness behind their eyes. Masking the joy that longs to break free & shine.
In the power they’ve forgotten, then remember.
In the ways they’ve learned to flow around what hurts, because no one ever told them they could rise.

We’re not just ripples.
We’re rivers.
We’re tides.
We’re storms in the making and springs underground.
And we are learning to stop leaking ourselves for everyone else’s comfort.

Lately, I’ve been craving stillness. Not stagnation—stillness. That pause between wave and shore. The space where the noise dies down and the truth begins to pulse through my veins. The place where we stop paddling so damn hard and just float. Listen.

There’s a difference between movement and momentum. And I think we forget that in the world we live in—where everything is “go,” “do,” “be seen,” “be useful,” “be relevant.”

But what if we stopped?

What if we sat long enough in silence to hear what our soul is actually asking?

Not what the algorithm wants. Not what the client expects. Not what the to-do list screams.

Just… us. Raw. Honest. Real.

And maybe a little wild.

So maybe I haven’t given you a tidy little checklist or a specific practice this month. But maybe that’s not the point.

Instead, I’ll leave you with a few questions:

To consider, to journal, to move with in your day to day:

• Can you tell the difference between the voice of your intuition and the voice of conditioning?
• What daily ritual would help you return to resonance? Are you already practicing this?
• What would happen if you left it until tomorrow? (you know what it is)

Because we’re not exploring sound the way we usually do—not as music or melody, but as the quieting of the noise.
So we can actually hear.

Hear the messages of the body.
Of spirit.
Of the great unknown.

You may not consider yourself spiritual.
You may not align with religion.
But if there’s one thing I know—it’s this:
We need to find comfort in the unknown.
There is magic at play we cannot fathom.
And when we quiet the mind just a little…
We might just glimpse that other portal.
The one where intuition lives.
Where the soul speaks in an ancient tongue that soothes the ground we walk on.
Where the wisdom that doesn’t shout begins to rise.

Maybe the backcountry isn’t your thing.
And maybe… that’s part of the lesson for me, too.
That I can’t always escape in order to reset.

Our nervous systems crave resonance—not isolation.
A home frequency.
A baseline we can come back to in both the storm and the still.
That internal compass.
That low steady vibration reminding us who we are when the noise is just too damn loud.

The thoughts come in like waves sometimes—fast and unrelenting—and suddenly we’re clouded, unfocused, spun out.

So let’s start small.

Take your phone out of your bedroom.

Seriously. Just try it.

It’s wild what changes when you just give yourself that one small act of sovereignty.

Let the last moments of your day belong to you.
To a book. A breath. A conversation with your love. Your body.
A gentle reminder that there is nothing more required of you today.

Let your sigh be the soft exhale that tells your system: we made it, and we can rest now.

And in the morning, resist the reach.
Avoid waking up to a blue-lit vortex of stimulation.
Your nervous system is not designed to hold the weight of the world before breakfast.

Let her breathe.
Let them rest.
Let yourself soften before you break.

Try it for a week.
Or maybe for the next 30 days—until we meet here again.

I’m going offline for the next 10 days.
Off-grid and into the wild with my pups.
No inbox. No pings. Just the river, the rain, the beech forest, a rustic hut, and the mighty mountains. And of course, the birds.

But my real work will begin when I return—
To find how the mystique of the backcountry can live in the day-to-day.
To change the pattern so that I’m not always detoxing from a life I chose.
To build a life I don’t need to escape from.

Are you with me?

Let’s do this together.

Coming Up: Immersive Offerings

✨ The Rewild Winter Mastermind — August to September
An 8-week deep dive into creative fire, nervous system nourishment, and soul-aligned action. Includes weekly group coaching, mindfulness, journal prompts, creative art therapy, and your curated Rewild Portrait Experience to celebrate this journey and welcome spring.

✨ The Art of Rewilding | West Coast
Build your own private retreat—somatic sessions, sacred portraiture, forest immersion. A one of a kind location on the West Coast at Te Aka Treehouse. No set dates. We customise the dates for you and create a journey that is unique to your story.

✨ Rewild Portrait Experiences​
You, in your power. Not just captured—witnessed. Tailored for the season you're in, woven into luxurious & wild places that speak to your soul.

If any of these stir something in you, reply to this email or hit the booking link — I’d love to walk beside you through it.

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Final Reflection: The Sound of Your Becoming

We’re in that seasonal portal again. The introspection of winter is upon us. I feel relief and also a sense of numbness.

For now, I’m off to find a sheltered pocket of the wild —
a quiet camp spot where the dogs can curl up beside me,
and the wind can sing its lullaby across the roof of the truck.

It’s been a long few months…
the kind that stretch like years in the body.
But I can feel something shifting.
The weight softening.
The tide turning.

The seasons are changing — and maybe we are too.
Maybe this is the moment where things begin to bend back toward the light.

So I offer this, not as an ending, but as an invitation...

You don’t need to be loud to be powerful. You don’t need to be certain to move forward.

You need only to come back.

To your senses. To your sound. To your Self.

From my wild heart to yours ❤️‍🔥,

Kass ✨

​www.kassandralynne.co.nz​

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