

8-Week Live Meditation & Philosophy Course · Begins 8 September 2026 · Online + Margaret River
Meditation for Emotional Waves
Sādhanā
साधना
Learn to surf life’s emotional waves
An Eight-Week Meditation & Philosophy Course to Help You Meet Life’s Emotional Waves with More Awareness, Compassion, Self-Love, and Equanimity.

Tuesdays, 5:00–6:30 pm AWST | 8 September–27 October 2026
Join live online through Zoom or in person at Studio Zen in Margaret River/ Wadandi Boodja, Western Australia
In-person places are limited to 10
Registration opens privately to the waitlist on the New Moon Solar Eclipse, 12 August.
Life doesn’t leave much space to come back to ourselves
From the moment we wake up, there is something asking for our attention.
Messages. Work. Family. Decisions. Screens. Social media. World news. Other people’s needs. The pressure to keep up with it all.
We absorb so much information, yet often feel further away from our own clarity.
We look outside ourselves for reassurance, direction, the right answer, or the thing that might finally make us feel better. Meanwhile, the body is carrying stress, emotions are building under the surface, and even when we have time to rest, the mind doesn't always know how to stop.
You may already feel or know you need more space. More stillness. A way to understand what is happening within you. But building that practice alone can be difficult when life already feels so full.
Sadhana is a place to come back home to yourself.
An 8 week program to learn how your body and mind respond to life, build a steady meditation practice, and meet what arises with more mindfulness, loving awareness, compassion, and equanimity.

Finding Calm, Peace & Balance
in life’s chaos.
Introducing Sādhanā
Sadhana is an eight-week live meditation and philosophy course for people who feel emotionally overloaded by modern life and want to create a steady inner practice.
Together, we will explore mindfulness, loving awareness, Ānāpānasati meditation, emotional patterns, the relationship between the body and mind, and practical ways to meet triggers and difficult emotions.
You will learn through guided meditation, the teachings of the Buddha, yoga philosophy, Eastern wisdom, self-inquiry, daily practice, and your own direct experience.
This is deeper than opening a meditation app when life becomes difficult.
It is a supported space to understand the practice, experience it within yourself, and begin bringing it into the way you live.
Learn to surf life’s emotional waves
Over eight weeks, Sadhana will help you build a steady meditation practice that becomes woven into your daily life. You will begin to understand your emotions, reactions, patterns, and the way your body and mind respond to what is happening around you.
So when a wave rises, you know how to ride it. You can pause, feel what is present, observe and listen more intimately, and choose how you want to respond.
As the practice deepens, you begin to create a more intimate relationship with yourself. You learn to meet your inner world with more kindness, trust what your body is showing you, and make space for joy, connection, gratitude, and the parts of life that can be missed when the mind is always somewhere else.
Sadhana is a practice of coming back home to your heart and learning to meet life’s emotional waves with more awareness, compassion, self-love, and equanimity.


A feminine approach
to the practice
I created Sadhana for people who want to build a real meditation practice, but do not connect with spaces that feel too strict, impersonal, or difficult to maintain in everyday life.
I believe in the middle path. You will have structure, a daily commitment, and accountability, because consistency is what allows the practice to create change. At the same time, you will be guided with love, kindness, and compassion, with space for questions, resistance, emotions, busy weeks, and whatever may arise while you are learning.
I offer a feminine approach to Vipassana and the teachings of the Buddha. You will learn through stillness, mindfulness, philosophy, the body, and most importantly, through your own experience.
I do not approach the practice through force or the feeling that you have to meditate. I approach it through devotion - a present you choose to give yourself each day.
Throughout the eight weeks, you will be guided, held, nurtured, and seen while you build a practice that can become part of your life.
I decided to create Sādhanā, so you don’t have to take many days off and go far away. It is program designed for busy lives, which is not compromising of how deep you can go, or the amount of tools you can learn.

The Eight-Week Journey
Week 1 - What Is Meditation, Really?
We begin by creating the foundation.
You will learn the difference between formal and informal meditation, how to begin a daily practice, and how meditation can become part of the way you live rather than something separate from your life.
This week gives you a clear and grounded understanding of mindfulness, loving awareness, and how to begin practising them in daily life.
Week 5 - Fear, Anxiety & Safety
We turn towards fear in the body.
You will learn how anxiety and nervous-system activation can shape your experience, and practise ways to meet fear with more grounding, awareness, and steadiness.
Week 2 - Ānāpānasati: Sharpening the Mind
We work with the breath to train attention and steady the wandering mind.
You will learn how concentration supports emotional awareness, and how the simple act of coming back to the breath can begin to create more space inside you.
Week 6 - Anger, Reactivity & Boundaries
Anger carries information.
This week explores defensiveness, resentment, truth, and boundaries, so you can feel anger without suppressing it or allowing it to take over the way you respond.
Week 3 - Observing the Reality As It Is
This week explores the difference between what is actually happening and the story the mind creates around it.
You will begin noticing sensations, thoughts, emotions, and reactions with more clarity and less judgment.
Week 7 - Grief, Sadness & Letting Be
We make space for the emotions that cannot be rushed.
You will explore grief, sadness, tenderness, impermanence, and what it means to stay present with what is here without immediately trying to fix it.
Week 4 - Relationships As Mirrors
Relationships often show us what is still tender, reactive, or asking to be understood.
You will explore triggers, projection, self-love, and the Loving Awareness Process, so you can begin responding with more care and less unconscious reaction.
Week 8 - Compassion & Equanimity
The final week brings the whole practice together.
You will deepen into compassion, loving-kindness, and equanimity, and create a way to continue the practice beyond the eight weeks.
The journey moves from practice, to attention, to observation, to relationships, to emotional waves, and finally into compassion and integration.
What Each Session Includes
Guided meditation
A 30-minute practice connected to the week’s theme, including Anapana, mindfulness, loving awareness, body awareness, somatic meditation, and compassion practices.
Reflection + questions
Time to ask questions, share what is arising, and understand how to work with the practice between sessions.
Tea + integration break
A short break to make a warm cup of tea, stretch, use the bathroom, and let the meditation settle before we move into the teaching.
Metta - Loving Kindness Meditation
We will finish each session with a love and kindness meditation to help us enhance love kindness and compassion and to self and to all living beings.
Philosophy + practical guidance
Grounded teachings from Buddhism, yoga philosophy, and Eastern wisdom, explained in a way that connects directly to emotions, relationships, patterns, and daily life.
This is an Embodied Course.
You will learn through direct experience from the very first session.
The teachings are not there to become another idea you understand intellectually, like something heard in a podcast, read in a book, or absorbed through a Dharma talk. You will practise them. Feel them. Observe how they move through your body and mind. And begin to understand them through your own lived experience.
You will be guided to meet these teachings in your body, your relationships, and the moments when emotional waves begin to rise.

Come home to your inner sanctuary
Everything Included in Sadhana
Sadhana gives you enough support to stay connected to the practice, without filling your life with more noise.
Eight live 90-minute sessions
Weekly meditation, philosophy, practical guidance, reflection, and questions.
Daily meditation practice, in your own time
A minimum of 10 minutes each day, practised at a time that works for you, so the teachings can be understood through direct experience.
The downloadable Sadhana Practice Journal
A beautifully designed PDF you can download from the Sadhana Portal, print if you wish, or use digitally on your preferred device.
It will help you track your daily practice, notice emotional patterns, and reflect on what is changing in your body and mind.
The Sadhana Portal
A private online home for:
-
Three guided meditations
-
Two Yin Yoga classes
-
One Qi Gong practice
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Weekly session recordings
-
The Sadhana Practice Journal
-
Letters from the Practice
-
Integration prompts and course resources
Use the portal throughout the eight weeks and return to it whenever you need support afterwards.
The private Sadhana Community
One private WhatsApp community with two dedicated spaces.
The Practice Space is where I will support your consistency through daily meditation check-ins, reminders, weekly prompts, recordings, and guidance.
The Sangha Space is for questions, reflections, sharing what is arising, and connecting with others in the practice.
You are always welcome to be quiet while remaining connected to the shared rhythm of the group.
Weekly Letters from the Practice
A short reflection connected to each week’s teaching, with a question and practice to carry into daily life.
The Loving Awareness Process
A practical framework for meeting triggers and emotional charge with more mindfulness, kindness, and choice.
Lifetime access
You will receive lifetime access to the complete Sadhana Portal and every course resource.
The live eight-week container gives you rhythm, accountability, and personal support. Lifetime access allows you to revisit the teachings and practices as your life continues to change.
How This Practice Changed My Life.
After a surf injury in 2014, I started experiencing panic attacks in the water, while diving, and even on the way to surf. It took me years to understand what I was experiencing and why. I tried different methods to free myself from the fear, but over time I could see how it was taking over larger parts of my life.
Then I sat my first Vipassana course. My life changed upside down.
In the silence, and through the practice, everything became much clearer to me. I began to understand how my subconscious mind and body work together, how patterns are created, and what was happening inside me when the panic came. The meditation work I did during that course, together with Cranio-Sacral Therapy afterwards, helped me move through something I had been holding inside for years.
I started living more freely.
I was no longer reacting to life in the same way. The ocean became one of my most healing places for me, and when old layers of fear or conditioning arise, I now have the tools to meet them with love and kindness, move with them, and come back home to myself.
As this practice changed my life, I felt called to pass it on. Over the years, I have brought together the teachings and modalities I practise into a feminine, intimate, and deeply nurtured space - a space where you are guided, held, seen, and supported while you learn how your own body and mind work.
Sadhana grew from this.
From my own practice. From the years it took to understand fear and other emotions from the inside. And from the knowing that when we have the right tools and a loving space to practise them, we can begin to respond to life with more awareness, compassion, and equanimity.


Your guide through Sadhana
I’m Amber Houbara, a yoga and meditation teacher, Cranio-Sacral therapist, sound massage therapist, and sound bath facilitator based in Margaret River.
I have been practising yoga and meditation since 2011 and teaching since 2016. Over the years, I have guided hundreds of people through retreats, workshops, classes, events, and private sessions.
My work brings together Vipassana, mindfulness, the teachings of the Buddha, yoga philosophy, somatic awareness, Yin Yoga, Qi Gong, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, and sound-based practices.
Everything I share is grounded in my own practice and lived experience.
Throughout Sadhana, I will guide you with warmth, honesty, and care as you build a practice that can support you beyond the eight weeks.
Words from people who have practised with me

"I attended my first silent retreat with Amber after attending many silent retreats, mostly Vipassana retreats. My experience with Amber was one that was deeply nurturing and restorative.
I became aware that what Amber offers, in her retreats is the magical feminine essence that creates a safe and sacred place to go deep into the depths of your subconscious Saṅkhāras, while allowing for other ways to move energy, emotions and behaviours with beautiful Hatha style yoga, qi gong and restorative yoga featuring her divine sound healing and intuitive Craniosacral therapy.
One of my favourite parts of Soul - a silent retreat are Amber’s philosophy talks - her insights, her ability to breakdown the Vipassana meditation technique in a way that is through her depth of experience and faith, her passion for exploring the astrological forecast at the time of your retreat is just something very special.
Amber’s wisdom, integrity and ability to hold space is palpable. Her retreats are carefully curated in special places of nature and attending will be one of the most spiritually significant landmarks for your journey inwards, in a way that will feel safe, held and like, OMG can’t wait to attend my next one.
Thank you Amber, you are truly gifted at what you share into the universe and beyond <3"
Katie Green

A Testimonial from Luminate, a Full Moon Event for Women
"Trying to gather some thoughts and feelings about a wonderful yoga journey in which I’ve embarked myself last year with Amber.
I’ll start by mentioning how beautifully harmonious the place and ambience were set up, from the beginning of the journey I felt welcomed, at home and peace with myself and the women practicing next to me.
We started with a Qi Gong practice followed by a nutritious chat about the astrological moment we were living which already helped opening up myself and creating a clear intention for the practice and meditation, we continued by slow movements as we went through the calm summer evening and it all just accompanied perfectly to open up myself into deeper thoughts and questioning old beliefs. As we dived deeper into a meditative state, following the sound healing vibrations, I had one of the biggest awakenings of my life, had a strong connection with my inner guide and always felt loved and supported.
I guess after that practice, I had to go through a couple of weeks of journaling to understand what the practice and meditation were showing me, but always had that evening near my heart, as it was the first awakening moment that was showing me the path for big changes in my life.
Amber thanks for the love, the connection and the support.
Cannot recommend the Luminate journey and the retreats enough. Just a little recommendation, come with an open heart and be ready to surrender, as big movements happen on its own when we allow it to speak through us."
Florencia Moratorio
“Before the retreat, there was a lot of overthinking and anxiousness.
It wasn’t so much an aha-moment. It was more of a soft remembering. Remembering what joy felt like.
Afterwards, I felt so much lighter and full of joy.
The moment I sunk into myself and it felt so comfortable to be in my skin.”
Laura

Your Commitment to the Practice
Sadhana is designed to support real change over eight weeks. For the teachings to become part of how you meet your life, you will be asked to commit to:
At least 10 minutes of meditation each day
Of course if you can meditate longer it would be amazing.
This can be formal or informal meditation (you will learn the difference on the course).
One 90-minute session each week,
attended live or watched through the recording
A willingness to keep coming back
even when the mind is busy, motivation changes, or life feels full
The practice is not about perfection. Missing a day does not mean you have failed. What matters is the devotion to begin again.
Daily meditation creates the foundation, while the weekly sessions deepen your understanding and help you work with what is arising in real life. Without regular practice, the teachings can remain ideas. With consistency, they begin to shape the way you respond and become part of your daily life.
The live eight-week container gives you rhythm, accountability, and support. Lifetime access gives you a place to come back to for years to come.

Sadhana is for you if…
You feel emotionally overloaded by the pace and noise of modern life, and you are ready to create more space within yourself.
You want to build a steady meditation practice, but find it difficult to stay consistent alone.
You want to understand your emotions, reactions, patterns, and the relationship between your body and mind.
You are a Yoga Teacher looking to deepen your meditation practice and Yoga Philosophy understanding
You are looking for teachings that are grounded, embodied, and connected to real life.
You are willing to meet yourself with mindfulness, loving awareness, and honesty.
You are ready to devote at least 10 minutes each day to your practice and attend or watch the weekly session.
You do not need any previous meditation experience.
You only need a willingness to practise, observe, open your heart, and stay open to what your own experience begins to show you.
Sadhana may not be for you if…
You are looking for a passive course to watch without putting the teachings into practice.
You are not willing to make time for at least 10 minutes of meditation each day.
You are looking for an instant solution without being willing to observe your patterns or do the inner work needed for change.
You are looking for someone else to heal you, rather than being willing to take an active role in your own inner work.
You want meditation only as a way to avoid, suppress, or quickly remove difficult emotions.
You are unable to commit to attending or watching one session each week throughout the eight weeks.
You are currently seeking treatment for a mental health condition that requires clinical or crisis support.
Sadhana is a meditation and philosophy container for mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-inquiry. It is not a replacement for therapy, medical care, or crisis support.

Choose How You Will Join
Everyone moves through Sadhana together as one live group.
The in-person participants will gather at Studio Zen in Margaret River, while the online participants join the same session live through Zoom.
Wherever you join from, you will receive the same meditation, teachings, reflection time, weekly guidance, community support, and access to the Sadhana Portal.
Online
Join live through Zoom from anywhere in the world.
You will be part of the same live practice and shared eight-week journey, with the freedom to participate from your own home.
Every session is recorded, so you can watch it within the week when you cannot attend live.
In person
Join us inside Studio Zen in Margaret River.
The in-person experience includes the intimacy of practising together inside the studio, the atmosphere of the space, in-room guidance, tea, and only 10 available places.

Investment
Waitlist members will receive first access to early-bird pricing from 12 August.
After early-bird enrolment closes, the founding enrolment prices will apply.
Payment is made in full at the time of booking.
If a payment plan would support you to join, please contact me before enrolling.

How to join Sadhana
Sadhana is designed to support real change over eight weeks. For the teachings to become part of how you meet your life, you will be asked to commit to:
1. Complete the Sadhana Application Form
Take a few minutes to reflect on what is bringing you to the course, the practice you are ready to commit to, and whether Sadhana feels like the right fit for you.
This is a short self-reflection and commitment process.
You do not need to wait for approval.
2. Choose how you would like to join
After submitting the form, you will be taken to a page where you can choose:
Online through Zoom
or
In person at Studio Zen in Margaret River
3. Complete your booking
Select your preferred option, make payment through Wix Bookings, and secure your place.
Your place is confirmed once payment is complete.

Come home to yourself, so you can meet life with more clarity, compassion, and love.
You do not need to wait until life becomes quieter.
You can begin creating more steadiness within the life you already have.
Over eight weeks, Sadhana will help you build a practice that supports you to meet emotions with more mindfulness, understand your patterns with more compassion, and create a more intimate relationship with yourself.
So when life moves, you know how to move with it.
When a wave rises, you know how to ride it.
And when you lose connection with yourself, you know how to come back home to your heart.

Some of the benefits reported by those practicing Ānāpānasati
Taken from Vipassana Research Institute.
Effective tool to deal with fear, anxiety, stress and nervousness
Improved awareness and alertness of the mind
Increasing concentration and focus of the mind
Support stronger memory
Increases self-confidence
Improves decision-making
Increases capacity and mental focus to work
Better the ability to understand and express oneself
Regaining mastery over the ‘monkey-mind’
Mind becomes healthy, wholesome and strong
One becomes full of good wishes for others
More words from people who have practised with me

"Phone detox; delicious healthy food; rising with the sun, to the deep reverberating sound of a gong; meditation classes; yoga classes incorporating sound and cranial sacral therapies; nature immersion; philosophy talks amongst boulders and tall trees; more meditation and yoga and then getting substantial sleep. Days of this, until one morning it just feels natural and nurturing to wake with the sun, to the call of the gong, to sit together,in quiet meditation and comfort.
Silence in a group is uncomfortable....at first
An hour of meditation is uncomfortable....at first
Thankyou Amber for the opportunity to truly realise how much my distractions rob me of seeing my life through quiet, unaffected, childlike clarity. I have found the time again to enjoy what I actually want to be doing and to draw myself to presence. It is a constant work but I have remembered that I can do it and you have offered me the skills to reset.
Thankyou for holding that space for us all."
Lisa Maier

"Amber, my beautiful friend & teacher,
Created the most soul filling, transformational experience for me and 12 other women and 1 man in the most delicious setting in Denmark.
She guided us through a 4 night silence retreat and I came out of it feeling anew. Her knowledge & wisdom is inspiring and learning from her over the past few years has been invaluable. I'm looking forward to participating in another one soon."
Grace Fleming

I am honestly very grateful for the experience I had and wanted to take this opportunity to write a feedback.
For me, the most important thing was how pure your intentions are for doing these retreats. The alignment you have with your purpose makes the retreat far more rewarding and interesting. When you do something with that level of clarity and focus, everything that follows is so beautiful and has a ripple effect. And because of that I was able to learn a lot and had such a profound experience. This will go beyond me and affect others around me as well so thank you so much once again.
I hope to share a path with you again soon and practice more. Until then I hope you keep doing what you're doing and much more.
Lots of love and best wishes,
Parmeet
Parmeet Kumar

I’m so honoured to have joined Amber’s one-day Ānāpānasati retreat. I can’t express how beautifully held I felt throughout the experience. Amber guided the practice with such wisdom, gentleness, love and presence.
If you are looking at a digital detox and a day to come back to yourself, this retreat is exactly what you need! It offers a profound opportunity for reflection and inner stillness.
Brunhilde Cuffel
Have a Question? Get in Touch
If you wish to know more or ask any question please contact - IamEndlessTrip@icloud.com
