Olivia Ashton: A Life of Practice
Practitioner: “a person actively engaged in an art, discipline or profession.
When someone is playing soccer and they seem to be running through the defenders and scoring goals as if the net was the length of the field; when they have found themselves “in the zone” it can be viewed as the person getting “lucky” - that being in the zone is happening to them; that it’s out of their control.
When someone finds their groove with work, when they find themselves creating new offerings or taking pictures that capture their subject just so, when they enter that “flow state” it could be said that they just happened to be at the right place at the right time, that it was circumstances that allowed them to do what they did.
When a monk sits for hours in meditation it could be assumed that they were lucky enough to be born with a body that was made just right so they can sit without discomfort for hours and a mind calm enough to do so without little mental turbulence.
Is the Division 1 soccer player born with the skills that they need to play at that level?
Does a composer have the music already hard wired into his consciousness and simply bides his time until the feeling of sharing strikes them?
Is the flow state, being in the zone, sitting with one’s mind and offering life one’s undivided attention something that a lucky few are born with, and few get to experience?
Or is there something more to it?
Some innate ability may be present for one to be successful in a creative life. Some innate ability may be needed to play a certain sport at a certain level of competition. But along with the innate ability comes the practice.
The practice is the engagement with meditation.
The practice is the way to hone one’s ability to excel in any given sport.
The practice is the embracing of life.
The practice is the journey without a destination.
The practice is the place where, the more undivided one’s attention can be during this act of engagement, the more life unfolds.
As an entrepreneur, meditation practitioner and teacher; as a photographer and creator/teacher of a new course (Undivided) that offers ways to more consciously engage with our phones, Olivia Ashton has lived a life of practice. Having arrived in this life via a home birth to parents engaged in their own entrepreneurial practices, Olivia has spent most her life in Portland, Oregon where she found a passion for soccer at an early age, a passion that led her to an opportunity to play Division 1 soccer at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.
To play soccer at this level, to be offered an opportunity to play at this level, requires not only practice but a dedication to practice.
A devotion to practice. A devotion to team. A devotion of one’s life to this path.
To know one’s self takes practice. To act on one’s feelings takes practice. To choose a different path when that path no longer feels in alignment with where one wants to go takes courage and a trust in the way one feels.
When the timing is right, a bird must take a leap of faith from its nest.
Determining that her journey with soccer had run its course, Olivia returned to Oregon where she began her studies in Fine Art and German, at Oregon State University.
The bird must take a leap in order to discover what exists beyond its nest; the place from which it has spent its life.
Removing soccer from her life, Olivia found herself having taken a leap from something known, something understood and structured, something that she had actively engaged in for a number of years in her life and found herself wondering at the space in her life. The space that was now filled with both possibility and fear.
There is a certain amount of time between the bird leaping from the nest and flapping its wings for the first time. It’s a moment of freefall, uncertainty. It’s a moment of wondering why this choice was made and a moment of knowing that there is no way to take it back. It’s a moment of allowing a new way to arrive. A moment of trusting that the reason for doing so was enough.
It was in this space that photography offered itself to Olivia as a focus for her energies and as an avenue to explore life as she set off to spend a year studying abroad in Germany. During her time in Germany, Olivia began exploring not only Germany itself but Greece, Spain and many other countries, all of which were explored with her camera as she began to feel the passion for capturing her surroundings (the architecture, the people) and found that she saw life in a different way through the lens of her camera. Throughout her time abroad and during her travels, photography helped her connect with the physical space that she found herself in and with others - a connection that continues still as Olivia entrepreneurial career began and continues as a photographer.
The first time the bird flaps it’s wings and discovers it can fly, the flight itself may be short; there may be a quick return to the nest, but there is now a knowing.
Having spent a year exploring the external world, Olivia began a deeper exploration into her inner world, her spirituality, during her last year at Oregon State. From meeting life-long friends, to going to festivals, to conscious and intentional experimentations with psychedelics Olivia moved through a period of her life that felt playful and fulfilling and she felt the growth within that comes from exploring and taking steps towards a deeper understanding of self. It was also during this time that meditation drew Olivia in.
Flight is possible.
With practice, the bird can fly farther.
With practice, the bird can fly higher – it can fly lower.
With practice, the bird comes to learn what they are capable of and how to become more attuned with their surroundings.
With practice, meditation can lead to states of deeper awareness.
With practice, meditation allows the mind to become less cloudy – to become more clear.
With practice, meditation allows one to be more fully present.
“My path has been meditation heavy. It’s a slow process. It’s incremental. It’s been like laying, brick-by-brick, a path to these clear states of mind that I did not previously have a road map to.”
As Olivia’s practice with meditation deepened, she began to attend week-long silent retreats at Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon and, lived at the monastery for a period of a month and-a-half in 2019.
The Zen lineage of Buddhism focuses on the practice of meditation and the personal experience of looking within to find one’s buddha nature. Additionally, the transmission of teachings in this tradition are completed directly from teacher to student. Through the experience of 17 silent retreats Olivia has been blessed to receive the teachings from the teachers at Great Vow and has continued to utilize those offerings and experiences to learn to become more present and attuned to the moment.
Carrying on the Zen tradition of passing on knowledge to others, Olivia found herself at the start of the pandemic in 2020 ready to offer her meditation practices and knowledge to others in a way to not only share what she had learned but to build community at a time when many found themselves isolated from most of the world. Starting with Instagram Live meditation offerings and later moving to Zoom classes, Olivia provided a space for others to deepen their meditation practice or start a new practice in a way that was welcoming and inclusive and infused with her passion for this practice – a passion that is so beautifully evident each time one sits in practice with her.
Through her experiences at silent retreats, where she felt the deep feeling of presence and finding states of clarity, of clear mind, the idea to find a way to maintain this presence with life and a more conscious engagement with technology (particularly our phones) was born. As with many of us, Olivia has experienced the struggles to utilize technology in a way that adds to life rather than consuming life. Over the course of several years, Olivia began experimenting and documenting methods that allowed her to disengage more from her phone and engage more with life with the result being the class she began offering in January of 2023 called Undivided. In the course, Undivided, Olivia offers the tools that have helped her create a more intentional relationship with her phone which allows her to utilize as a tool that can be used for connection, work and even play, while also being able to set it down and become present with life. By sharing her personal journey with technology and sharing her research into how and why technology has been intentionally created to be addictive and trigger dopamine reactions while engaging with it, Undivided, which is currently in its second iteration, offers participants ways to shift their own relationship with technology and reminds them that they are not alone with this challenge.
While currently being offered on Zoom through month-long cohorts, Olivia’s goal is to share this on a platform that will allow those interested in taking the course to access the teachings at their own pace via recorded lessons and a shared space for active engagement around this topic. Olivia also hopes to share an iteration of Undivided with teenagers so that she can offer alternatives to technology to a generation that appears to be even more inundated than those before them.
Practicing the art of setting her phone down and disengaging from technology, has opened up more space for Olivia to spend more time in presence with her friends, her cat Jackson, her family and her partner, Calvin. In a life that can be full and feel overwhelming as a creative entrepreneur, Olivia finds support from time well spent with those most important to her and coming back to the contemplation of the impermanence of life. That, no matter how safe we try to make ourselves, this is all temporary and an opportunity to make the most of each special moment.
With practice, the bird learns to soar not by will but by understanding. Understanding the surroundings and conditions the bird finds itself in. Understanding that its ability to soar isn’t inherent in its life itself but a culmination of practice and awareness of its circumstances. The bird soars when it can. The bird flaps it’s wings when necessary. The bird flies from practice. The bird leapt from the nest out of choice.
Olivia has lived a life of practice and, as she continues to share her practices with others, she not only continues to lay the bricks down for her own path but is helping others learn to do the same for themselves. When I first met Olivia during a weekly meditation offering, I often found myself wondering how someone with so much beautiful and exuberant energy could also teach meditation and hold the practice for herself. I could feel the bubbling energy from her when she spoke. I could feel the deep peace of sitting in mediation with her. How could one hold both, so much energy and a deep place of peace? While the two seemed to be diametrically opposed, I think Olivia’s energy and love for life allows her to relish the slowness of practice, the slowness of finding a clearer mind, the slowness of being present in life – a slowness born from a desire to soak life in with the knowing that this is all temporary.
However temporary this life, I’m grateful to have met Olivia and grateful that she continues to share her beautiful spirit-filled offerings of mediation, photography sessions, and teachings on how to give our undivided attention to life. Thank you, Olivia, for sharing your soaring energy with those who are drawn to your offerings and thank you for the example you offer to all of us regardless of what stage we find ourselves in on our own journey of flight.
(Please visit Olivia Ashton’s website to learn more about her and her offerings (https://www.oliviaashton.space) or follow her on Instagram (@olivia_ashtonn)