In Conversation with Ongoingness Founder, Anna Birchall
In the name of putting a face to a brand, I lean into the feelings cringe and courageously interview myself. Out of curiosity or just plain nosiness, I always know to know who is behind the biz? It’s only fair to offer up what I hope to see from others.
What are the key junctions that lead you to where and who you are today?
To force a long story short, I’ll outline some key points:
Terrible mental health starting around age 11, continual spiral down into my early twenties.
All throughout high-school, one of my highest joys was photographing my friends. I’ve always had a camera since I was 12.
Rejected the pathway of being reliant on solely talk therapy and medication in order to function. From these ashes birthed a ferocious curiosity around how to heal myself.
This ferocious curiosity led me to examine patterns in thoughts, feelings and behaviour through journalling. Cultivated a mindset of research and experimentation when I realised I could fiddle with the variables and consciously influence the patterns. This gave me lived experiences that I had a lot of power over my internal world. Based on the journals and notes I had been benefitting from, I designed a guided journal, called Moon Turtle, to help others help themselves too.
In 2018 I started working at BePure in a Marketing & Design role. It baffles me to think where and who I would be if this never happened. Here I worked with and friended the most amazing group of kind-hearted, like-minded people. I was allowed to and encouraged to deeply explore the mind-body connection, developing a holistic understanding of what it means to be well. Introduced to yoga through a BePure friend who taught regular classes. Despite initially hating yoga, persistence led to a love and it’s changed my life in profound ways. The yoga door opened my mind up spiritual ideas I previously would have rolled my eyes at. My understanding of the mind-body connection is expanded to the mind-body-spirit connection.
Since then, my background quest has become using the everyday as an opportunity to soften my heart, expand my capacity for giving and receiving love, to face my fears and transmute them into gifts.
There are so many tangents I am refraining from exploring! There could be many different versions of the summary. This has come to mind for now.
This is Nacho the dog. She’s more like a cat-human fusion in a dog suit. She’s my ‘niece’ who has softened my heart exponentially. Nacho is one of my great teachers in life.
Why did you start ongoingness?
In 2024 I spent five months living in Berlin. As soon as I got there, I went on a mission to find ‘the Sala of Berlin’. In this hunt, I came across a platform highlighting local wellness events and workshops, and the community of teachers and practitioners. I regularly used this as my gateway, and ended up meeting inspiring people and attending nourishing events I probably wouldn’t have found otherwise. A favourite being an evening of Collage and Cacao! These events are always so special and you leave better than when you came in, a new insight to contemplate.
Auckland is lucky with an amazing community of teachers and facilitators in the creative and wellness space. But how does someone find out what’s going on? Having just enjoyed experienced the beauty of this in Berlin, I decided to start the same idea back at home. It’s I found it helpful, maybe other people will too.
What’s your vision for Ongoingness?
You know that friend who can always be relied on for the perfect cafe or restaurant recommendation? You don’t even google it, you just go straight to them. My aim is for Ongoingness to be that friend but for the events that nourish creativity, wellness and self-inquiry. Richard Rudd says that awakening is a series of small softenings. I want for Ongoingness to help catalyse awakening by creating ease around finding events and teachers that offer space to soften. I want Ongoingness to be a celebration of the offerings being created and experiences being facilitated. One day I want to curate and host events too. Quietly I’d love to be another person with a Podcast, why not?
Who is ongoingness for?
Ongoingness is for anyone who has a curiosity in exploring their inner world and would like guidance and community on the journey. It’s for students to get to know local facilitators and hear about events. And similarly it’s for teachers who want to share their offerings to people who would benefit. Currently it’s just for Auckland, but who knows what the future holds.
In the mountains between France and Spain during a 10-day van trip. Feeling ugly and agitated, I closed my eyes and asked myself what I needed. “A yoga class and a hair cut” is what came up. I settled for brushing my hair and a ten-minute stretch in the carpark. I feel most beautiful when I see myself moving, stretching, making shapes. Weird? Maybe. Works? Always.
What are you excited about currently?
For the past year, I have been absolutely fucking fizzing over the Gene Keys. It’s a framework and a language by a man named Richard Rudd. One of the central premises is that all shadows contain a gift. The Gene Keys themselves are 64 universal attributes we possess both as individuals and as a collective. Each of the attributes has three levels of expression—the low frequency expression is a shadow or a challenge; when we can embrace the shadow, we meet the high frequency state called the Gift; and the Siddhi is the highest transcended state. It offers a practical framework for unearthing our challenges and transforming them into gifts and lessons. I love how it inspirits life, and making the mundane a spiritual practice.
What is a piece of wisdom guiding you at the moment?
Allow yourself to grow.
I saw this on the back of someone’s tshirt in a yoga class once (thank you t-shirt wisdom) and it’s stuck with me. Admittedly I am generally slow and resistant to change. Change is growth. Change is the natural state of life itself. Change is God. Allowing change has had to be a very conscious and manual reminder. Slowly but surely, I’m getting better at embracing, actively pursuing, and allowing change to happen and growth to follow. (Taurus Rising and South Node here, iykyk).
