Dr Zac Elizabeth Buchanan

Dear Reader, Over the recent school holidays, my family and I went away to Tasmania. It was a beautiful trip, but something caught me completely off guard—not just the landscapes, but my own mouth. I found myself repeatedly shrinking. In cafes, museums and shops, whenever I needed to ask for basic, rational things I had every right to ask for, I prefaced almost every request with an apology. "Can I be annoying and ask for an extra plate?" "Sorry to be a pain, could we please have some water?"...

Dear Reader, Life, in the domestic realm, over the last couple of months has been unusually busy for me. And as such, my rhythm with these weekly newsletters has been thrown off kilter. Enjoying the sunset on a recent weekend away When I started this venture of The Return, I anchored it in the deep intention of practising what I preach: prioritising my wellbeing, tending to my nervous system, and remaining present and available to the people I care most about first and foremost. I made peace...

Dear Reader, Have you ever felt like you were holding everything together just fine—managing the juggle, getting things done—only to find yourself completely overwhelmed or snapping over something tiny a moment later? When this happens, it's easy to fall into self-criticism and wonder why our patience or resilience suddenly disappeared. Following on from my reflection last week about the dance between striving and stillness, there is an important physiological reality underneath it all: our...

Dear Reader, So much of the self-development world can get stuck in a loop of "fixing" or unearthing past patterns or experiences, that our minds almost instinctively turn towards the negatives when we're in that headspace. We focus on the things about ourselves that need to shift. We look back at our past—our childhood conditioning, the parenting we received, or the hurtful relationships we survived—and we focus on what we need to unlearn, overcome, and repair. And yes, that is important,...

Dear Reader, I didn’t share this in my last newsletter, but almost immediately after stepping out of the airport coming home from our holiday, I came down with a virus. On the plane ride—and in the car on the way home—I had been mentally compiling a monumental to-do list. I was mapping out everything I needed to organise for the first week of the school term, alongside all the tasks I needed to check off for work. I was ready to hit the ground running. Instead, the virus hit me hard. It came...