Vipassana, one of India's oldest meditation techniques, roughly translates as "to see things as they really are". And Low says she went home from the Dhamma Medini meditation centre in the Makarau Valley, north of Auckland, with a reconditioned view on life.
"You come back completely changed in the way you see, do and react to things. There wasn't a feeling of infallibility, but rather that every moment of this life counts for something. If it's not bringing you fulfilment, it's just not worth it," she says.
A communications executive for a government department, and a single mother of two teenage daughters, Low had already been considering a sea change.
"I needed to figure out what I wanted when the girls left home. The eldest had recently flown the coop. I knew I had to leave my unfulfilling job, where I felt I wasn't making a difference. It started becoming important to me to contribute, and make a better life for other people," she says.
Ten days of meditation helped her to decipher that.
The "noble silence" - no communication by speech or body gestures with other meditators at the retreat - was, she says, the easy part. "Physically, it was very challenging. Twelve hours a day sitting cross-legged on the floor meditating, with two vegetarian meals a day," she says.
The principles of Vipassana decree that there are no phones, no cameras, nor "high or luxurious beds"; and no meals after midday. From the 4am wake-up bell to lights out at 9.30pm, the day is enveloped in meditation.
"It was 120 hours of sitting with yourself and your brain, trying to focus only on your breathing, not your thoughts," Low says. "But you can't always stop yourself from thinking, and things that aren't going well in your life suddenly become quite clear. You find yourself trying to find solutions. By the end my head was really clear, and I knew I didn't want to do things anymore that didn't bring me joy."
And so she returned to Cambridge, and within days had handed in her notice at work, and sold the home she'd had built; the mortgage with no regular income was just too dizzying. And then the ramifications of her spontaneity hit her square in the jaw.
"Unfortunately, you still need to operate in the world of reality - to pay bills and get by. So I began a real hard-out search for another job, but something quite different," she says.
"I had to be patient - or I might have gone crazy and lost the plot. So I was meditating every day and I went back to the gym, which kept me quite grounded."
Low and her youngest daughter went flatting. When she wasn't job-searching online, she was doing volunteer work. She signed up with Volunteering Waikato, and would do bucket collections for charities and drive people to their hospital appointments.
"The elderly people were so inspiring. They would say how they would give anything to be able to walk again, or drive themselves around. I felt like I was getting a lot more out of it than I was putting in," she says.
"When you're younger, you tend to be a lot more selfish. But as you age you become more aware that you are just a very tiny drop in how the world works."
It wasn't long before she found a job in an area she really wanted to work in - a not-for-profit organisation. In November, she began a 12-month contract as the communications manager for the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Cancer Society.
"I think it will be really helpful in my journey," she says. "I want to keep helping people; it keeps you humble. It's somehow reassuring to know there are always others who will need more support than you do. I want to make it part of my daily mahi [practice] to give back."
She intends to keep doing things for herself, too. She's training to walk the Rotorua Marathon for the first time this year, alongside her sister Tania. It's a matter of unfinished business - she was forced to pull out before last year's event, when she injured a calf muscle a few days shy of the start-gun.
And she has returned to Dhamma Medini for more meditation.
"While the principles are Buddhist-based, I don't have any religious affiliations, but I'm able to connect with it. There is an amazing feeling of calm," she says. "They use the word 'equanimous' a lot [to have an even and composed frame of mind]. You look at your emotional and physical sensations and let them pass by. 'This too shall pass'." It may just be her new maxim.
Lyn Maxlow
She could have sat on the sand, with a good book and a sun umbrella; with one eye on her kids dashing through the waves. But instead, Lyn Maxlow dived headfirst into the roiling west coast surf - and became a life saver.
She went to the beach to watch her two children learn how to rescue swimmers and fishermen in peril. But now, at 45, the high school maths teacher is a volunteer lifeguard, racing inflatable rescue boats over breakers as big as houses. And she's been the one inspiring the rest of the family to follow in her wake.
Although at first terrified of those waves, she's now in among them most weekends - and training weekday evenings. "You have kids, get on with life and don't think about doing things for yourself. But now I've finally found my passion," she says.
It began when Maxlow took her son and daughter, Lee and Faye, to Bethells Beach, on Auckland's west coast, to join them up to the surf life saving patrol's junior programme. "There was a tiny sign in the window, 'Parents have been known to qualify as surf lifeguards'. I'd always imagined the lifeguards were all blond, super-fit 18-year-olds like on Baywatch. But I thought, 'Why not have a go?'"
Growing up in England, Maxlow had always loved the water, but there wasn't much call for lifeguards in her hometown of St Annes - a Lancashire seaside resort more famous for donkey rides and sandcastles than surf. She had never had formal swimming lessons, so diving into a pool in her 40s - with the aim of swimming freestyle for 400m in under nine minutes - seemed like a formidable task.
But with extra training - and 5am starts - she achieved it in three months. She is thankful for the tutelage of Dave Comp, president of the Bethells Beach club: "He never made me feel embarrassed that I was trying to do this at my age." Mastering tube and board rescues, first aid and resuscitation, Maxlow earned the bronze medallion to become a qualified lifeguard.
It wasn't long before voluntary patrols at Te Henga (Bethells) once every four weeks wasn't enough, and she was drawn to the big, orange inflatable rescue boats (IRBs). The club did not have female IRB drivers. "I just wanted to do it. But I was absolutely terrified of the waves. I can still feel the nerves flooding in," she says. "But it was all about building the hours up and getting confident, like learning to drive a car. It can get messy out there." And yes, she has flipped it.
Three times, she has raced the 90 Mile Classic IRB Challenge - an 88km true test of stamina, steel and skill, driving at full throttle, steering through the minefield that is the surf zone along Ninety Mile Beach in the Far North. It also involves carrying the boat and its 70kg outboard motor on shoulders across a sandspit. Twice, hers was the only three-woman crew in the race. Maxlow drives most of the way; the boat constantly crashing off waves. "In the first race, we were just so ecstatic to finish. I'd cracked my head open and had a big bandage on, and I was running on adrenalin."
The Waitakere College teacher took her fearless 79-year-old dad, Frank, out for a ride during a recent visit from England. "I think I take after him. He started skiing and windsurfing in his 60s, and took up tennis and dancing in his 70s," she says.
Now she's got to grips with the IRBs, Maxlow is chasing a new challenge - learning to paddle a four-person surf canoe. "None of us had held a paddle before, and there can be a bit of carnage. But I'm loving it, surfing down the waves," she says.
"It's important to do things for yourself as the kids get older, and I love being at the beach. The surf lifesaving motto is 'In it for Life', and that's what happens - it totally hooks you. You're helping prevent terrible things happening at sea, it's completely voluntary and you're working with a group of passionate people. There's a great social side to it, too, and Bethells is a real family club."
Her children, now teenagers, have followed their mother's lead and become qualified lifeguards, and she has finally convinced her husband, Mark, a keen soccer player, to train for his bronze medal. "He always said he was happy just being the 'sausage sizzler'," she says, "but I told him if he wanted to see more of his wife, he needed to be a lifeguard too."
She'd like to think she's also an inspiration to young women on the beach. "I feel because they see me as an average, everyday, older woman driving an IRB, maybe they will say 'I could do that too'."
Rachelle Hulbert
Rachelle Hulbert felt like a bit of an imposter. There she was, standing at the start-line of a cycling race, without a stitch of Lycra, no fancy clip-in shoes and riding a second-hand touring bike - the kind that typically has wider tyres, mudguards and pannier bags for your thermos.
Soon after, she finally bought herself a slick racing bike, so she could clip her shoes into the pedals, and hit the bitumen. Taking evasive action behind a sudden-breaking car, she fell sideways with the bike still attached to her - she's still getting physiotherapy for her injured ankle.
But none of this - nor saddle soreness or crazed city drivers - could deter Hulbert from her new passion. The bonuses far outweigh the burdens for the 42-year-old, who fell into cycling keen to find the perfect physical exercise and reclaim time for herself after having three sons. "It clears my mind, and fills my tank with 'me' time. After kids and work, it's my thing," says the teaching lecturer at the Bethlehem Tertiary Institute in Tauranga. "And the endorphins it releases are so important for your body."
Husband Glen and their three sons - aged 11, 10 and 7 - are more than supportive of the idea. "The baby of the family is very competitive and athletic, and he always wants to come riding with me. Now the 10-year-old wants his own road bike," she says.
The boys have even handed over their pocket money so Mum can ride.
Last November, Hulbert embarked on her biggest challenge yet - pedalling 200km over two days in the Ride to Conquer Cancer. It's an annual event to help fund ground-breaking cancer drug development at the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre. Hulbert and 540 other riders raised $1.5 million. It's a prerequisite that each cyclist collects $2500 in donations before they reach the start-line.
Hulbert was motivated by much more than wanting to finish. "It was so easy to get involved in a race that wasn't just for myself. I've lost grand-parents, aunts and uncles to cancer; my mother and grandmother both had cancer of the cervix."
It was a demanding ride, physically and emotionally. For much of the 200km distance, she was hammered by "horrendous" winds; at the start line outside the Auckland Racing Club, she was brought to tears as riders formed a guard of honour, and bikes of fellow cyclists lost to cancer were wheeled through. "We were all bawling our eyes out and then had to jump on our bikes. But it was an amazing ride," Hulbert says. "The last 20km into the wind was the hardest, but I still managed to finish in the first 30 bikes."
The secret to her persistence was a like-minded riding partner. Her friend Ruth Haupt first got her on a bike. After walking together on the Daisy Hardwick Walkway edging Tauranga's harbour, Haupt - whose husband owns a local bike shop - suggested they start covering longer distances, but on wheels.
"We started out doing 14km - with me on a second-hand touring bike - and I thought we were superheroes," Hulbert says. "I was teaching at Tauranga Intermediate, so I decided to run the boys' cycling group. Well, to be honest, they took me cycling. But they didn't seem to mind having this older woman tagging along."
She admits she doesn't enjoy training by herself, but has found no shortage of company - riding with Haupt, and Tauranga's wealth of bunch riders. "It really makes a difference, riding with other people. They push you along."
Hulbert loves the sense of accomplishment she gets from events - starting with 40km distances in Rotorua's Tour of the Valleys and the Okoroire mid-winter fun ride.
"It makes me laugh how far I've come. Back then, it felt like I was on the bike forever - now 40km for a training ride is a breeze and doesn't feel long enough," she laughs.
On February 22 Hulbert plans to race Bike The Lake - a testing 84km over two laps of Lake Rotorua - for a second time. But she's also extended herself to goals off the bike - running a half-marathon to raise funds for a school in Kenya.
She has advice for women contemplating getting on a bike: "Do it. Start small, with something achievable." She swears by the SMART system, often used by business execs - make your goals specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and within a time frame.
"You don't realise how good you feel until you do it," she says. "And if you feel good and happy, everyone else in your household will be happy."
