Jade Lord, Owner and Founder of Yoga Rites Outback wants everyone to have the opportunity to access a yoga practise, regardless of where they live. Living 200km from the nearest town, Richmond, on a remote cattle station that she owns and runs with her husband, led Jade (a qualified yoga teacher and 10 year practitioner) to start trialling online yoga classes for her devoted local outback participants so she could offer classes more frequently and reach more people.
Yoga is a vital wellbeing and mental health service in very remote Western Queensland where Jade lives, in a community that has been struggling for years with drought. Yoga Rites Outback offer yoga classes for all age levels, as well as guided meditation, mindfulness sessions and breathing techniques.
Why did you start Yoga Rites Outback?
The creation of Yoga Rites Outback was inspired through conversations with my community and after listening to their needs. I was teaching weekly yoga classes in my local community and when the wet season arrived or the participants were caught up in station life, this meant that I couldn’t travel to town to teach and they missed out on this time to themselves to relax and recharge.
So I said I would start recording classes and share them online. My vision for Yoga Rites Outback is to ensure that no matter where you live, you have access to a yoga practise, healing breathwork and mindful meditations to support you in your day to day life.
How do you help adults and children in remote communities with their health and wellbeing?
Again through conversations and listening to the needs of the community, I have gone on to study pre/post natal yoga and children’s yoga so that I could offer my passion for health and wellbeing through yoga and mindfulness to the whole community.
I have been working with the mothers and early education centre for 4 years now, and the primary school from the preps to grade 3 for two years. The focus is always around understanding and controlling your emotions, as well as improving their self confidence and self worth. I have received lovely feedback from the teachers and parents of the children and love hearing how they take my lessons into their home life.
With the adult classes, my goal is always to create a safe and respectful space where they feel comfortable to journey through self discovery using the ancient practise of yoga and meditation. Beautiful friendships and personal one on one support have emerged through these classes.
What do you love about living remotely 200kms from the nearest town, compared to living in the city?
Station life has many joys to it, particularly since having two energetic young boys of our own to share the experience with. Although I live 200km from town, my husband and I have made a community of our own here on the station with our workers.
It’s important to us that they all feel welcome and at ‘home’ whilst living with us. The one area that I miss the most, and it’s not the real coffee or shopping days, but the connection with people. As much as I love the wide open spaces and fresh air to cleanse my energy, the birthdays, weddings, 1st birthdays and other special occasions of family and old friends down in Brisbane is always sad to miss.
How do you work with your family to run a multi-million dollar cattle business, Yoga Rites Outback and parent two children under 3?
Some days it’s a juggling act and other days I feel like I have successfully balanced them all. I am naturally a pretty organised person and love to have a plan, so my days and weeks are quite structured to ensure that the kids have all their needs met and quality time with both Nikko and I.
Nikko is a huge supporter of what I am doing, so he is happy to take the boys if I am doing some filming for Yoga Rites Outback and then we both just juggle them while paying bills and placing orders for the station. Organised chaos I think some people call it!
Your greatest challenge?
One of my biggest personal challenges has been having the courage to follow my heart and bring mindful health and wellbeing practises to the outback. I firstly had to step away from my role on the cattle station for 1-2 days a week, which as many of you know, is a never ending job and there are always things to do.
Then it was being brave enough to introduce yoga to my community and just hope that someone would show up, to building enough self confidence to put myself on social media; baring my heart, my passion and my beliefs to the world.
Most proud of?
I feel not only proud but grateful that I have found my purpose which truly inspires and motivates me every day to be the best person I can be. I love supporting people on their journey in this life, and showing them how to love and believe in themselves.
Advice for future female leaders?
Ask for help. There are so many amazing, talented women out there who are usually hiding or down playing their unique skills. Support them in supporting you.
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