About The Reset Practice — Zhi Lee
About The Reset Practice
Anxiety-relief and mindfulness practices,
for busy lives
The Reset Practice is a mindful approach to managing anxiety and stress, designed for people with busy lives. We offer practical tools and techniques to help you find moments of peace and clarity.
About our Founder
Zhi Lee
Zhi became in touch with Vipassana meditation as a young Buddhist in the 1990s. Over the years, he has been using mindfulness and breathwork techniques to calm the mind, and deal with personal forms of anxiety. As a busy business owner and consultant, he understood the challenges of maintaining well-being in a fast-paced world. After recovering from repeated burnouts between 2019 and 2026, he decided to share his knowledge and experience with others, and founded The Reset Practice.
The Reset Practice draws from Zhi's strengths as a corporate team coach, using visual coaching frameworks and practical exercises to help people manage stress and anxiety in their daily lives. The Reset Practice is designed to be accessible, practical, and effective, providing tools and techniques that can be easily integrated into busy schedules.
Other Experiences
01
Author of the Visual Coach Handbook, 2019-2026
A practical guide to visual coaching. The book has been downloaded by coaches, facilitators and professionals all around the world.
View on Leanpub →02
Action for Happiness Facilitator, 2024
Leading and facilitating the NZ AFH Happiness Habits course online with a weekly group. This 6-week course has been developed by Action for Happiness, drawing on the wisdom of experts across many fields, to cover the habits of living a happy life and spreading happiness to others.
03
Meditation Teacher, Insight Timer, 2023 - Present
3 meditation tracks centred on anxiety relief through the practice of metta. 70 reviews averaging 4.5 stars since 2023. 1000 plays with 70% return rate.
View profile →04
Host of The Decompression Podcast, 2022
Tidbit sized micro-meditations for anxiety and depression relief. Produced with my daughter.
Listen on Spotify →05
10-Day Vipassana Meditation Retreat, 2017.
A Vipassana retreat is an intense, 10-day silent meditation program where participants learn to observe physical sensations and mental states as they truly are. Practised at a forest monastry in South Auckland.
Reviews
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"I really felt calm and relaxed doing this meditation 🧘"
— Stephanie E, Insight Timer
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"Amazing grounding and relaxing meditation."
— Heather C, Insight Timer
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"I needed some kindness in my day! Great meditation."
— Julie M, Insight Timer
Take control of your anxiety and stress.
My Story
People ask, “why are you always happy all the time, Zhi?” The truth is — I'm not, all the time.
Having been through personal challenges, I've learnt the tools to be happy. And I'd love to share them with you. I know I'll be able to help you work through your challenges. What you may not realise is that happiness is already within you. It is innate. It's been there all along. You simply need to realise this. You are perfect and nothing needs to change.
Some call this state of being “grace”, some call it “inner peace”, or “Buddha nature”. I found it.
Mental Meltdown
In 2019, I crashed. A mental meltdown. Physically, I felt my breath get sucked away. My blood drained from my body, filling it with a palpable hollowness. I was at work. My desire to please my client had resulted in defensive behaviours, almost as if I was trying too hard to justify everything I did.
It took me five years to crawl out of that hole. It was a trigger for years of rumination — worrying that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't meeting the expectations of others, trying to be the perfect father, husband, son, business owner, consultant. On the outside, you'd never know. I kept a positive facade, but every morning I woke up and caved in to anxiety and depression, before tidying up that brave front and walking out the door.
Tried Everything
I tried therapy, psychotherapy, medication, cognitive behavioural therapy, gratitude journaling, yoga, sound healing, breathwork, breathing physiotherapy, shakti mats, binaural beats, reiki — the list goes on. I read self-help books and articles, listened to wellness podcasts, watched motivational videos, installed mindfulness apps. I think I explored every modality of healing and self-help that was available to me.
Breaking Free
Then one day, after four years of darkness and depression, fighting every day like everything was against me, I broke free.
22 January 2023. It was a classic summer's morning in Kawakawa Bay, the third of a four-day rock climbing trip. I stood on the second ledge of Captain Caveman, a multi-pitch climb. It was then I saw my life shift before me.
My best friend and climbing partner Vijay was ascending the last of three pitches, 100 metres above sea level. Unfamiliarity with the route resulted in a zigzagging rope, with friction making ascending an ever-increasingly difficult task. For 90 minutes, I stood on a ledge belaying, with little sight into what Vijay was battling above. The rain came in. Tunnel vision got the better of me and all I could think of was getting the climb over and done with. I had been facing the wall all this time.
In the moment, time stood still. It dawned upon me that every bad thing that's happened to me actually led up to this. Beat, tired and soaked in rain. But at the same time, I was there with my best friend — in the most beautiful bay, teeming with birdlife and the soothing sounds of waves lapping against the quiet shoreline. All I had to do was PAUSE.
In life, you're always running to something. To breakfast, to work, to a meeting, groceries, chores — running to the place people expect you to be, to the place you expect people to be at.
Stop running. I am now OKAY. And I want you to be OKAY.
Staying Free
Moving on two years later (2025), I thought I had broken free, but I hadn't. Whilst my new perspective gave me the grace to manage, it wasn't until I was involved in an accident that I truly understood what I thought I had learnt in 2023.
14 July 2025 — I was cycling home from work on the Tāmaki Drive cycle path when I pulled over to help a cyclist with a puncture. Two or three seconds later, I heard “Sh*ttttt…” from behind me. An e-biker crashed into me, sending both our bodies and bikes hurtling into the air. He landed with a dislocated shoulder; I escaped, still badly injured, with a strained rotator cuff, bruised adductor muscles and an IT-band injury. I managed to cycle home but could not walk after I got off the bike. I spent four hours at White Cross getting examined and, thankfully, nothing was broken. Was I mad? Yes — I felt sorry for myself because I was still recovering from another injury. I was angry at the person who crashed into me. My bike was damaged and I was already busy enough with life that the thought of taking it in for repair was inconceivably stressful. I was frustrated that I wouldn't be able to walk or exercise for weeks. I was hurting inside out.
But then I remembered Ajahn Brahm's podcast episode on “Control and Freedom”. It is only in letting go of control that you find true freedom. I was alive — I could've died, I could've suffered a concussion. I still have an arm and a leg, family and friends, a home to live in, a stable income… this list of blessings grew in my head until I realised a truth that reinforced what I had discovered at Kawakawa Bay in 2023: you cannot control the course of your life. Everything, good or bad, that has happened to you makes you who you are, for the better. Trying to control everything — wanting things to be different from what they are — is the cause of suffering. We are, however, in control of how we respond to the things that happen to us.