Off-Grid Voices - A Chat With Rachel Ooi

Off-Grid Voices is a series of written interviews with others who are out there living their best lives, living lives that are a little outside the norm, a little different. I’m hoping this series will inspire some of you who may be thinking about living a life off the grid, travelling the world, doing #vanlife, or anything else that you may be considering. Hope you enjoy exploring these lifestyles with me. 😊

This month we get to know Rachel Ooi, who writes on her Substack Conscious Living. Our chat was all about living a mindful life and leaving the rat race.

Here’s Rachel:

Let’s start off with learning a bit more about you, Rachel. Can you share your personal journey towards adopting a more mindful lifestyle? What inspired you to make this change?

We’re all born with an innate sense of mindfulness—something I’m reminded of daily as I watch my children marvel at the simplest things. When I was young, I remember being in awe of life, devouring books eagerly, and expanding beyond my small hometown in Malaysia. I pondered life’s big questions: ‘Is there a soul?’ ‘Who am I?’

But like many of us, I eventually got swept up in the demands of life, education, and the pressure to ‘fit in.’ Slowly, I forgot what it meant to simply be present.

My journey back to mindfulness started in my mid-twenties when a series of life-altering events woke me up. I was working a high-paying job as an IT consultant and had the chance to spend three months in the Philippines. Floating in the middle of the sea with no land in sight, my passion for travel and exploration was ignited. Right after, my five-year relationship ended, followed by my grandmother passing away, and then I finally was able to realize a childhood dream—going to the UK to visit my godsister, only to have it curtailed when my father faced an unplanned heart surgery. These moments forced me to confront the fragility of life and my own need for purpose.

So, I decided to take the leap and quit my job to embark on a 100-day backpacking journey with a trusted friend and mentor. It was during this sabbatical that I re-learned what it means to be truly alive—to live with intention, to notice the world around me, and to savor every moment.

I read in one of your posts something about leaving the rat race - I would love to hear a bit more about that journey and how it helped you on your journey to conscious living.

After the sabbatical, I came back and spent some time thinking about how I wanted to restructure my life. Then I got a call from my previous client and got tempted back into yet another contract job. The money was good, the job was great, so I was pulled back into the corporate world. Being back in the rat race was like pulling me back into a gilded cage—beautiful and secure on the outside but limiting and confining to my spirit. It was as if I was living someone else’s definition of success rather than my own.

After the one-year contract, I left the rat race “for real” by turning down the extension. For the next few years, I explored more fulfilling ways to make a living while continuing to backpack around the world. Traveling was my gateway into conscious living; the easiest way for me to access that mode of living in the present. 

Living day by day, constantly exploring and marveling at life, people, and cultures, helped me to live in the now. Whether it was a crowded market in Southeast Asia or a quiet mountain village in Europe, I stayed in the present, letting go of control and accepting life experiences as they come with open arms and open mind.

Each time I returned to my home base, it felt surreal, like I had gone off on a parallel timeline. My few short months away felt like years from living so intensely. Meanwhile, at home, nothing seemed to have changed. It was as if my family and friends had frozen in time.

It took me a few more years of wandering before I learned that traveling is not the only way to keep living consciously—it is the mindset, not the lifestyle, not the environment. This realization was cemented during a 10-day meditation retreat in Thailand, where I finally sat still long enough to understand that true mindfulness comes from within.

“Wherever you go, there you are” - John Kabat-Zinn

What does living consciously and slow living in a city mean to you? How do you manage to hold on to the essential aspects of the lifestyle while living in a busy city?

Although Freiburg is a city, it is, by my Asian standard, tiny. The slower pace of life here mirrors the rhythm of my hometown, Taiping. Living here meant that I had left the busy city life of Kuala Lumpur. 

The biggest challenge to living mindfully lies instead in the demands of everyday life, especially motherhood. How can one live mindfully when once one wakes, the day is about hustling through one activity after another—getting everyone ready, dropping the kids off, working, picking them up, playing, cooking, cleaning, and finally finding a moment of me-time before starting it all over again?

In the midst of this organized chaos, I rely on tools to ground me in the present. Meditation, as I have mentioned before, is key.  Everything starts and ends with the mind—if we can learn to calm it and repeatedly bring it back to the present moment, we can live more fully in the now. Besides that, I write. It helps me to recenter myself and to recollect my thoughts. I also take mindful breaks whenever possible. For example, today, during a gym session, I looked out the window and marveled at the cathedral reaching up to the sky. A flock of white doves flew by, then turned back toward me, as if performing. In that moment, I felt awe—a reminder that life and the world are magical and beautiful.

What would you say is your biggest achievement so far when it comes to living consciously?

My biggest achievement in living consciously is realizing that, more often than not, I am not living consciously. It’s an ongoing journey—a constant effort to bring myself back to the present. Until we reach a certain level of mastery, all we can do is keep practicing mindfulness and reminding ourselves of what is truly essential—connection, presence and inner peace.

“...what is essential is invisible to the eye" - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's in The Little Prince.

What is your biggest challenge with this lifestyle?

My biggest challenge is the distractions of modern life, especially the one we carry with us at all times—our smartphone. It often pulls me away from living in the moment. When I am traveling, I’m much better at staying present, maybe because of its natural anchoring properties to living consciously. But in daily life, where things can feel boring, frustrating, or stressful at times, our mind often reach for distractions to check out of life. 

I am still working on being more digitally mindful. I try to keep my phone out of reach whenever possible, and I’ve left social media. Even here on Substack, as much as I love reading and writing, I have to be mindful, as it has aspects of social media that can be addictive and distracting.

What would be your advice for someone who is just starting their journey?

“Be compassionate with yourself,” a monk told me during my meditation retreat, and with those words, an invisible weight was lifted from my chest. It’s so simple, yet so often overlooked. We tend to show more compassion to others, but the truth is, we live with ourselves every moment. So yes, be compassionate with yourself.

Living mindfully and consciously does not happen overnight—it’s a journey. Just keep trying. Remember the moments when you do manage to live in the present, notice how time seems to stretch on for eternity, and even the simplest things seems like a wondrous miracle. Hold on to that, and know it is possible. It is also the key to happiness.

Thanks so much Rachel for sharing your story with us. I particularly loved how you highlight that slow living and mindful living is a journey, not a destination and it’s perfectly normal to struggle every now and then. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about allowing ourselves to be in the present moment — without judging.

For anyone wanting to learn a bit more about Rachel, go check out her Substack Conscious Living.

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Something that inspired me this week:

I’ve started reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic. I can’t believe I waited so long to read this!

I really want to share this story about inspiration and how ideas come to be. In her book, Elizabeth writes about an idea she had for a book. However, life got in the way, and she put the idea aside. Years later, she is talking to a fellow writer, Ann Patchett, about book ideas, and Ann shares the book she is currently writing. It turns out to be almost exactly the book that Elizabeth was writing.

She then explains her belief that ideas live a life independent of humans. They have their own will, and when they decide that they want to come into existence, they will find a willing human. Sometimes these humans say “yes” and fully commit to bringing that idea to life. Sometimes, they say “no,” and in that case, the idea goes on to find another human.

I just love this take on ideas and inspiration. For me it feels incredibly motivating and inspiring—I have to cherish the ideas that have chosen me and make sure I do all I can to bring them into existence.

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This is what you can expect from me every week! A long-form article related to a reflection or life lesson on personal growth and one thing that inspired me this week. If you liked this, don’t keep it to yourself; share it with your friends:

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