Wake up, remove the mouth tape, turn the red light on, take castor oil pack off, chi machine on, jaw exerciser, scalp massager, water with 3 different hydration sachets inside, peptide injection.

It’s when wellness becomes neurotic— a checklist, a performance— stacking so many habits but with no idea which, if any are actually moving the needle.

I am all for optimising, don’t get me wrong.

There really isn’t a modality or hot new trend I don’t know about— but I definitely don’t adopt them all. How psycho would we feel if we tried to implement every new thing at once?

I have learned to keep things simple but there was once a time where i’d travel with a suitcase full of wellness things. I’d use very few of them, but I felt a sense of comfort and safety having them with me. I was a ‘just in case’ person and to be honest? Quite high anxiety. I thought everything had to be ‘just right’ in order for me to thrive.

I was a very high maintenance wellness girl, that’s for sure. But I am so, so glad I matured.

Over the years I realised that I was trying to ‘try’ so many things but that only a few of them really mattered.

If I could tell you the main practical things now off the top of my head, it’d be things like these:

• The whole house water filter. I’ve had one for over a decade no matter where I’ve lived.

• Turning the bright lights off after sunset and phone in the drawer at this time too.

• Moving my body in ways that are invigorating and strengthening and letting this change in different seasons (eg, after birth) and not according to trends.

• The rebounder. I notice such a big difference when I focus on my lymph.

• Organic produce. Wholefoods. But also our favourite treats that are not crunchy at all— like Loaker biscuits. We love these in our home. We also eat out at cafes because— aussie lifestyle— but eat mostly at home.

• Non toxic cleaning products.

• Natural fibres on all the beds— linen.

• Sunshine. Lots of it. Window always cracked while driving sorta commitment.

• Prayer, mind and proper use of imagination.

• Creative expression and aesthetic beauty.

Can I tell you which I believe to be THE most important element of wellness though? More than any of these practical things??

I’m going to get to it shortly in this post.

I believe in standards that are woven into life— not a wellness routine that becomes neurotic.

Living a mostly outdoors lifestyle matters more to me than spending hours in a room full of biohacking equipment.

Living a life of beauty and expression matters more than ticking things off a wellness checklist.

High standards, but relaxed. This is my motto. It used to be ‘neurotic perfection’, lol.

Now, to be clear, I am a healthy woman and am not healing anything in particular and I fully recognise that in times of healing chronic illness, it’s very natural that your healing regime takes up a lot of your mental space.

The old proverb says— When you have your health you have 1000 dreams. When you don’t have your health, you have one.

I am never one to condone laziness or apathy regarding health and vitality.

I am the opposite.

I have learned over the years though, that we can have all our ‘ducks’ in a perfect wellness row, but be missing one of the most important tools a high vitality life.

I was asked recently as a guest on how I start and end my days. My answer was this, but I’ve added some more detail.

Start—

I wake up usually with my kids or even sometimes a touch later (hello, breastfeeding during the night still) as my husband gets up with my very early risers. Maybe have a little bounce on the rebounder but most days I head out for a walk at the beach with my headphones in— I call it my prayer walk. I play an emotive playlist and I feel my prayers— not just say them. It is one small thing that is very valuable to my mind, my body, my day and also my home. Sometimes one of my kids comes on the bike, but it’s my moment to set the tone for the day.

End— Laying beside my kids, little red reading lamp on, reading a book. We have the family biomat on, a red light, and I either do legs up the wall or we take turns on my little leg rocker for lymph. It’s a simple family wind down routine. I don’t typically do anything after the kids go to bed— I go to bed with them. I usually fall asleep right after reading, and I try to imagine beautiful things as I do— my mental prayers.

While our habits are definitely important— there is something even more important.

I really, whole heartedly believe this.

Habits matter. Getting your steps in matters. Eating nourishing food matters. Community and sunshine matters, hallelujiah!

But what I believe matters the most?

Faith. In two parts.

Your perception of yourself.

Your faith in your body’s ability to heal.

The new era of wellness is about recognising the importance of our faith.

Not just faith in Jesus, but faith in what He came to tell us, show us, free us from.

Faith in your body’s ability to heal, and faith in yourself as a high vitality person.

It’s peeking beneath your wellness routines and supplement stacks and asking yourself this: What are the most naked, honest beliefs you have about yourself and your body’s ability to heal?

It’s knowing that the biggest hack is free— the disciplined use of your mind.

It’s knowing that you can have the most dialled in routine in the world but you will never out-exercise, out-supplement, out-protein your perception of yourself.

It’s knowing the difference between optimising from a loving place, and becoming so anxiously caught up in the wellness trends that you miss your life.

It’s fully waking up to the fearful systems of intimidation and modern day medical curses that keep people trapped in its lies and its spells.

Jesus said, ‘Your faith has made you well’ many times while healing. He was always revealing truth and freedom— connecting us directly with our Creator to prepare us for life in a world of lies, deception and darkness.

If I ever returned to my phD, it would be to study this one line— Your faith has made you well.

Our quiet beliefs instruct our lives, including our bodies. When people hear of ‘faith’ they see it only as religious. But we are practicing faith with every belief we hold to be true— including with our health. Jesus knew this. Those people didn’t just believe in Jesus, they believed in healing.

God did not make us puppets, He made us participants. Too many think that to honour God you have to surrender all but if you surrender your mind in this world— you surrender it to a world of fear, sickness and chaos.

To be truly well, you’ve got to take your crappy thoughts and beliefs captive and make them life giving instead.

This doesn’t mean you don’t optimise. This doesn’t mean you don’t have high standards for food, habits, environment and life….

It’s about renewing the beliefs that live underneath it all and making sure they match up with the vital, resilient, energetic person you want to be.

When I get caught up in feeling I need all the new gadgets or sachets to be vital and vibrant I stop and ask myself this:

How much of it is truly moving the needle?

How vital can you still be if all of it was gone?

Do you perceive yourself to be high vitality even without all of your gadgets?

Are you a high vitality woman only because of your 15 step morning routine? Or could you access the same vibrancy if dropped in the middle of a countryside without a gadget or sachet insight?

Your body doesn’t care about your wellness religion.

It responds more to your persistent thoughts about who you are, than to your 357 step routine.

Learning how God truly designed your body will take you 1000 miles further than obsessively stacking wellness habits just because the cool kids are doing it.

There is something fundamentally anti-vitality about living as though you cannot thrive without 458 gadgets and ‘hacks’.

Here are some questions to get quiet with:

Who do you perceive yourself to be?

In your most honest thoughts— are you a high vitality person? Resilient? Energetic?

God gave us the gift of a mind that has an enormous and undeniable affect on our bodies and our lives.

I do not EVER talk about self concept and faith in a bypassy way— no.

But we cannot talk about wellness WITHOUT properly addressing the impact of your mind, your self concept and your faith. They go together— they always have they always will.

God designed us this way.

What you think about yourself and your body is the most important ingredient on your plate. You can eat the cleanest diet in the world and still perceive yourself to be a low energy, low vitality, always getting sick woman— your diet cannot outwork your perception of yourself.

When you go to work on your thoughts about yourself— when you train your mind to expect vitality and radiance, you become simpler in your routine.

The flex used to be ‘look at all my fancy supplements and modalities and how knowledgeable I am to use them’… but as you mature out of that false reliance, you learn that your vitality isn’t mostly because of your high maintenance regime-- it’s how you’re using your mind and your words, how you resolve conflicts, how you’re using your God given gifts, how you narrow in on the work and people in front of you to love.

The more vital and free you become, the less reliant you become too. It all becomes simpler.

I offer these words not as prescriptions. I am not a doctor. I have a BSc(Hons) and have studied many other modalities but I only offer these words as personal ideas. I trust my readers enough to know that they (you!) have a strong sense of discernment and know what is relevant to you or not.

I share more about my journey in the most beautiful book I’ve ever made— Body Luxury. You can read what I wrote about it here or you can buy it here.

Love PK

XXX

From my life, to your coffee table or beside your bed— a real life piece of hard-cover beauty that merges Vitality, Womanhood, Food and God.

When I walk past my copy of Body Luxury, as it sits on top of my very boujee, limited edition Assouline books, I get a jolt of joy each time.

It’s not just the cover (even though, it is stunning), but it’s the peace and freedom I now know, after decades of wondering whether I ever would.

Body Luxury is a philosophy that was created over 37 years.

From a child with health anxiety (yep, a child)….

an athlete….

an over achieving eldest daughter….

a girl who’d pick the sultanas out of the cereal, and many other disordered habits….

a studious researcher with a BSc(Hons) in the field of exercise and health science…

an 8 figure wellness entrepreneur in my mid twenties….

a holistic health nerd and ‘natural everything’….

a crunchy mum who learned that some of it is just anxiety dressed up…

a mother of 3 desperate not to pass on my ‘old food stuff’ to my kids…

an Aussie woman who lived all over the world, but was utterly transformed by life in Italy, and one moment with a butterfly cupcake in the English Countryside…

a woman who knows there is a time and place for it all, and not to cling rigidly or else God will ensure humility is learned…

a woman learning what it truly means to live biologically, how God designed us differently to men, that our symptoms tell a story, and how so much of the world has health all topsy turvy…

a woman joining the dots between a womans’ creativity, her aliveness, the beauty that surrounds her….

a woman who is finally free, after so many years wondering if she ever would be.

I tell this story through the book I have called, a museum. A living, breathing collectors item containing words from The Body Luxury philosophy.

If you’ve followed my work for any amount of time, you know how much I believe in craftmanship and beauty we can hold in our hands. In a world of AI slop and print-on-demand (time and a place!), going the extra mile to make something special is so worth it.

I also believe that witnessing, creating, holding and appreciating beautiful art is life giving for women.

I didn’t just make you a beautiful book— I’ve invited you into a museum of 312 coloured pages, so I could offer you some of my freedom and peace….

with no screens.

As you flick through the pages, you’ll walk through a museum of words I’ve written, personal discoveries I’ve made and old beliefs I’ve let go of.

You’ll read a back story about my anxieties as a child, why this journey is so tender for me, and just how long I’ve been seeking this kind of freedom.

You’ll receive the Body Luxury manifesto, but made aesthetically as gorgeous as God made our bodies.

You were not meant to spend your life obsessing over what to eat.

It’s not about the brownie, it’s about the woman eating it.

Your body responds to what you believe about yourself, more than what’s on your plate.

Noticing beauty will do more for your vitality than your 87 wellness gadgets.

Your ruthless self honesty is your best beauty serum.

When you’re over obsessing about your food, you are under living.

You can be vital, vibrant, hot, nourish your body, have a standard, but not fear foods all at the same time.

You can mature from a wellness girlie to woman living in the gloriousness of her God given biology— no longer competing with it or trying to make up for it with a 9834 item supplement stash.

The root cause is that you forget that the Kingdom of God is within you.

I made this book to be an heirloom for our daughters,

a collectible for the woman who wondered whether she’d ever be free,

a jolt of joy and a reminder of freedom, every time you walk by the book in your home.

I made this for my own daughters, with the hopes they can live the freedom and vitality God intended for women….

And so they can avoid the ever-looping health/wellness anxiety that took so much peace from me when I was young (you’ll discover in my book just how young it started for me).

I also made this for the women of my generation— you— who know very well the pipeline from innocent childhood, to disordered eating, to wellness anxiety and wondered if they’d ever be able to be both vibrant and hot, and still at peace.

I want you to know you can.

Body Luxury is where the wellness girlies mature into a relaxed vitality. You know, like the hot, thriving, older European women who’ve never heard the word Biohack in their lives?

Body luxury is the life that’s possible when we know how God truly designed us, and that relentless food anxiety was not part of that plan.

Body Luxury is not body positivity, nor is it wellness girlie obsession— it’s beyond them both. It’s a settling in to the way God designed us—and letting that faith be an essential nutrient.

The aesthetic is European Wellness X Australiana spunk.

It’s Mediterranean long table lunches X grounded English Countryside scones.

You can open it to any page and be served up short pieces, long ones or poetry that make you exhale.

The first print is limited. It ships worldwide from my home town of Perth, Western Australia.

You can get yours here.

Designed by a long time design partner of mine, Emily. You can find her info here

Shout out to Michaela, my creative right hand and my actual saviour on many occasions for almost 10 years now.

Also, a long time reader edited the words and I was so glad to have someone from this community who knew the work— ensure I wasn’t repeating myself too much ;) Thanks Steph!

Dearest gentle reader,

I have loved that letter opening ever since I binged Bridgerton last year.

You know what else I haven’t forgotten from that season finale? That quote where Penelope says “Gossip is information, and information connects people” and honestly, I think about that quote a lot.

I’ve been under the weather this week. I wrote about that term ‘under the weather’ on Substack notes briefly.

Back in the day, before Louis Pasteur (fraudulently by the way, you can dig in if you want to) declared that germs are the cause of illness, people believed quite literally in the term ‘I am under the weather.’

When people were sick, they attributed it to atomospheric and electrical changes.

When the weather changed, the bodies responded. I’ll always remember my nanna hurrying to put a jacket on me after I finished a 90 minute soccer game in the freezing cold rain. “Put a jacket on, you’ll catch a chill!”.

It’s the same to this day. Only now, we’ve got so much more in the form of environmental and electrical assaults. Our bodies have to find a way to adjust to these assaults— acute illness is the way it does this. I’m sure you notice that people seem to be ‘under the weather’ more often throughout the year now.

More germs? Or more in the way of chemical, environmental and electrical interference?

Feeling ‘under the weather’— fever, aches, tiredness. It’s the body adjusting to its environment.

I’ve come to see acute moments of illness as something to appreciate. I really mean that.

Hippocrates said “Give me a fever and I can cure any disease.”

A fever isn’t a glitch. It’s the perfect response to the assaults of an imperfect world.

I feel brand new after a fever. Whenever I’ve had mastitis, I have felt completely reborn after breaking a fever and getting into the sweats. Everything relaxes into its correct perspective. Things I was stewing over before become ordered. Fevers don’t just serve the body, but the life. They burn away what’s old, what’s irrelevant, and they leave us purified and clear.

I always notice in my kids, that they’re different after a fever— they mature. It’s like a perfectly designed alchemical process has taken place to help them move to their next phase as growing humans.

It burns away all that isn’t important. Doesn’t belong. Is in the way.

When you look at it from a German New Medicine standpoint, the ‘healing phase’ is often when the symptoms are present. We’ve just resolved a conflict, and the symptoms are the tissues responding to the resolution. I’ve come to learn that whenever we get anything like snotty noses, tummy ache, headache— to ask “what resolved right before this began?”

In my home, we’re not ‘sick’ a lot. But I’ve learned to appreciate the importance of acute illness, and how strengthening it is for a body to go through that process fully. We celebrate that our body is actively responding to the environment. That we are alive and dynamic in our relationship with the world. And that we rest deeply in the love and intelligence in which our body was designed.

I wrote briefly this week on Substack notes about sugar. I wrote that I believe sugar is going to be one of the things that makes a comeback in the wellness world— especially for women. Hey, we can all have our opinions. I’m not sharing every single nuance of this conversation but an over-arching belief that being anti-sugar is not good for women.

When I was deep in the cleansing world, we used to say that how you are with fruit is how you are with the sweetness of life. Is there anything sweeter than the sweetness God provides in fruit and honey?

I saw a video the other day of quite an influential woman saying that ‘just a quarter of an apple is enough to add visceral fat to the body’.

I’m sorry, what?

I have sat in many different seats when it comes to wellness approaches. I love digging around to find ‘ways’ that might best suit a body, but that still give freedom. I believe that some people do really well with some structure and discipline with their eating, and that having something to ‘follow’, is actually life giving, not life taking.

Not everyone is in the position to be ‘intuitively eating’. Some are too highly emotional, and some have other things going on which means that following a protocol is the most supportive thing for them.

I also believe that sometimes, following a protocol can be a way to grip too hard onto a sense of control and can be rooted in disorder. We all know this.

Life can flow between the two. There can be seasons of tightening up, there can be seasons of loosening up. If you’re European, you stay loose because your wellbeing is not dependent on ‘correct eating’ but on beautiful eating. You walk every morning to the Boulangerie or to the ‘Cafe and you have a croissant with coffee and sugar with your friends. You walk home. You walk everywhere. Your sense of community is rich, your joy high, your movement natural. A croissant, bad? What? I don’t have time in my beautiful life for this nonsense.

We spend too much time analysing food in the wealthy western world, and not enough time on the many other elements of health and wellbeing— namely beauty, community, purpose and natural movement that is outdoors, everyday, regardless of weather.

I have deeply explored many perspectives when it comes to ‘ways to eat’. You probably know that my origins are in exercise physiology/bioenergetics and that my honours thesis was on exercise/appetite/food. I have studied with Natalia Rose and others in the cleansing world and I resonate with parts of several philosophies.

I love to dig. I love to experiment. But the more I dig the more I realise that people need different things at different times.

I by no means believe I have it all figured out.

The only way I know something is by trying it for myself.

Reading it in a peer reviewed journal is not enough for me.

We all know that there are holes in a lot of science and that our bodies run on an intelligence that supercedes it.

That’s not to say I don’t pay attention, but personal experimentation is my main method of research.

I have tried many things and when I say tried, I mean immersed myself in different ‘ways’.

For example, I lived years of food combining— a premise where for example you eat proteins and starches separately, fruit on its own. At its core, the essence of this ‘way’ is that eating simply is better for digestion and that some food groups produce enzymes that when produced together, slow the digestion process. It’s thought that this could result in certain foods staying too long in the gut and causing issues like over-fermentation and sluggish digestion. That’s the high level version.

I have rested into a place I call Body Luxury— high standards, but relaxed.

I don’t measure my macros or fuss over protein, but that’s not to say that if there came a point where I felt I needed to ‘follow’ something again and change tactics, I would.

There are seasons for it all.

But back to sugar.

In the last year I’ve dug into Ray Peat’s work. I don’t adopt all of it, but I have experimented with it. To sum it up in brief:

His work is rooted in bioenergetic principles and focus on a healthy metabolism. He is big on gelatinous meats— to buffer against the tryptophan from eating a lot of muscle meats (it can be inflammatory). He’s big on clean dairy, if tolerated (I personally eat sheep and goats cheese). He’s really big on avoiding PUFA’s and ultra processed foods, and replacing all Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids with saturated fats like butter, ghee and coconut oil. He encourages oysters once a week, liver once a week and is big on the importance of sugar.

“When energy is adequate, the body makes the right decisions”

“Sugar is protective. It lowers stress hormones and supports the thyroid.”

“The idea that sugar is the enemy has done more harm than good.”

He goes deep into progesterone, which he calls the hormone of safety, of growth and of peace, and into Estrogen which he calls ‘the stress hormone’.

What Ray Peat is also big on is personal experimentation and working with your thyroid hormones. He encourages you to find what works best for your own bio-individual self.

“Science became theology when it stopped being skeptical.”

“You are allowed to question everything, even what they call science”.

But measuring and calculation aside— I think about sugar and I let my intuition tell me some things about it.

The idea that sugar is deeply protective, anti-stress and signals ‘safety’ to the body makes sense to me.

For centuries, sugar was a rare and precious luxury. To enjoy sweetness was sensual and celebratory.

Sure, now as a culture we over do it. But is it the sugar we over do or all of the other crap that goes with it— the crappy fats, the artificial ingredients, all the bad food combinations, the poor sunlight, the indoor and sedentary lifestyles, and not to mention all of the crap in our psyche which guilts us to death about everything we eat?

There are SO MANY other issues around sugar, that have nothing to do with the sugar.

I have said that I believe that sugar will make a comeback in the wellness world. Women will realise that sugar hasn’t been the problem so much as ‘all the other stuff’.

Sugar when eaten gratefully, naturally, and SIMPLY, is better digested than a health food bar with sugar alcohols loaded with 12 ingredients and a tonne of conflict in the psyche.

Of course, I’m generalising. But I know my readers are intelligent and discerning.

We’re probably all guilty of an era where we would work out on an empty stomach. Think about how our body perceived this— No food. No sugar. Is she being chased by a rabid animal? Adrenaline and cortisol are high.

Ray Peat says “Sugar is what tells the body— You are safe, you don’t need to fight.”

Our wellness world right now is so big on protein. Have 30g of protein before working out! They say. You see shredded women on IG reels adding 30g of whey protein to their coffee, unsweetened almond milk, no sugar before a workout.

Once upon a time, way back when, I would’ve agreed with this approach but I just don’t now. We need the sugar to signal safety.

Not just safety, but abundance.

I have coconut water everyday. We go through it like we live in Thailand and we have a coconut tree in our backyard. I love the extra hydration, the potassium and the fact that i’m not just guzzling plain water all day (even though I have a whole house filter as well as a fancy japanese drinking water system).

This might be controversial for some, ‘too much sugar’ some might say, but as a breastfeeding mum, it invigorates me. I tell all mums who are about to give birth to load up on coconut water for their recovery. If it’s winter, don’t put it into the fridge because we know you need warming foods and nothing cold.

I have noticed that since making SURE I include regular natural sugars into my days, I feel calm. It alleviates my anxiety. My body knows that it’s safe. I’m not starving. I am not at risk. Abundance and safety is the message.

If I have coffee, I always have it after eating, and I always have it with creamy milk and sugar. Sometimes I’ll add collagen, but the organic whole milk + the maple or honey + some glyceine or a big fat home made gelatinous marshmallow is enough for me.

My drink of the moment is a mocha— organic cacao with some boujee additions, maple or honey, organic whole milk, some glyceine powder or a big fat gelatinous home made marshmallow.

Read more

I have been on one this week, in a good way.

Premenstrual and a bone to pick— I’m sure you know the mood.

One thing I promised myself this year, was that I would declutter— not just my regular quarterly declutter, but another level. The goal can be summed up as less but better.

A capsule wardrobe that I love— less items but nothing that irritates me when I look at it.

A home that is even more orderly and beautiful— things we love, and nothing that we tolerate even though it’s of no use.

A creative life that is simple and ordered, not ambitious in too many directions.

Kids areas that are simple and easy to tidy, not anxiety inducing and overly time consuming.

This is an entry reminding you of how life changing it is to declutter, and some ideas that have helped me go next level with my own decluttering.

I don’t use the term ‘life changing’ loosely either.

Freeing yourself from the burden of excess, from the grips of ‘stuff’, and from the frustration of limbo and into the fresh air of space and clarity— it’s life changing.

We spend so much time and energy trying to ‘get clear’ and ‘move forward’ and ‘start new’, and from experience, we can never really do any of that while we are the owners of too much stuff.

Too much stuff, creates an overburdened mind, a taxed body and a weary spirit.

“An excess of things is invasive, overwhelming. It deflects our attention from the essentials. Our minds become cluttered, like an attic full of objects accumulated over time. We feel constrained, unable to move forward. But if we fail to move forward, we are not living. If we carry on accumulating possessions and pursuing multiple desires, we become confused, anxious and listless.” ~ Dominique Loreau.

On a mini walk the other day I said a prayer that I’ve said many times before when praying about clarity on some things— ‘Help me to know the way, but mostly to trust that it’s the way.’

We’re tossing up a few things right now as a family, not major things but just little direction things. Depending on the day, the time in my cycle, and whether I’ve had enough butter and sugar, my ideas change. I can wake up in the morning certain on something, and go to bed at night with a completely changed mind.

A strength and a weakness, a joyful thrill and a frustration.

Sometimes I say the prayer nonchalantly like I’m sending God a voice note: “Hey God, it’s just me. Can you just get back to me about whether it’s this way or that way? End of business today would be super. Ok, tata.”

Sometimes it is a little more earnest and desperate. Imagine me walking up a hill, weighted vest on (if I remember it), wired headphones in (because, you know), pretending I’m on a call:

“God look. Sometimes I drive myself nuts. You know it, I know it, my family and friends know it. I feel clear about the way, but then I’ll wonder if I’m actually clear or if it’s the devil on my shoulder. Am I self sabotaging? Is it intuition? I read this book once about how we shouldn’t focus so much on doing God’s will but on doing our will but God’s way. I read that rather than seek your will all the time as if every single step is fated, to trust the ways I’m called to go, but to do it your way— godly, honouring, honest. I know life’s not about you rolling out a play by play for me, I know that. But dam sometimes I wish I could just ask you a question like I asked chatgpt the other day to find me recipes for fermented buckwheat bread. You know, shortcut the lessons. I know, cheeky. But anyway, I’m tired of thinking today. My period is coming. Help me trust my clarity more. Let me know that I know that I know that it’s the next right step. Let me cast away doubts and guard my mind with even more precision. End of business today would be great but no rush.”

That night, I was going through my books to find one to read.

I was not in the mood to read about homeopathy.

I was not in the mood to read another novel that took me 50 pages to get into.

I was not in the mood for anything growthy and I was not in the mood for The Bible. Don’t come at me— God loves honesty. I’m rough, imperfect and deep down a vigilante and God knows it.

I saw in one of my many stacks of books, a book that I bought and read years ago— it must’ve been 7 or 8 years ago. I could see all the bits that I’d underlined and starred and ‘YEP’’d. I love reading back on books and seeing who I was back then. What pierced my heart? What shot me into inspiration? What soothed my mind? What jolted me into the right action? What hit so much that I put two exclamations !! beside it?

It’s kinda like the other day when I was clearing out my photos in my phone (I have 90,000 all the way back from 2012— in case you wanted to feel better about your own number). Looking at all of the screenshots of memes I’d saved from say, my super liberal vegan era. Gosh, I could not delete them fast enough. It was a nice walk down memory lane but, wow.

The book I was inexplicably drawn to was this one.

L’art de la Simplicite’. How to live more with less. By Dominique Moreau.

It is stunning.

It’s not just a directive for living more simply, but living more beautifully. I love her direct French style. No fluff. Straight up. Gosh, bring back directness!

I have another one of her books too, about the importance of making lists. Although, you can probably guess that she spells ‘list’ way more French and chic’ like ‘LISTE’. It’s probably what drew me to the books all those years ago— my love for Europe and all the ways Europeans are just cooler.

Now, I have read Marie Kondo and many of those decluttering and minimalism books— I have always been drawn to these philosophies and more so, the freedom and spaciousness they promise. This book though has remained my favourite over the years. Upon reading it again, I’m reminded why.

I cannot get enough of learning about life giving order— in our bodies, our homes and our lives. I love learning from all different cultures about what brings people vitality, peace and aliveness. It’s why I’ve travelled, bought a home in the Italian countryside, made sure to live in England so I can touch those roots.

It’s what inspires me to continue refining the philosophy for beautiful living and eating that I call Body Luxury, and put it into a gorgeous book that you can hold in your hands (in the works!)

Only a few pages in to re-reading this masterpiece of a book, my husband had ordered a skip bin, and half of my wardrobe was on the floor. I am nothing if not fast.

The next day, I spent hours on my pantry. Sweaty, premenstrual hours.
(I wish I took a before and after photo and done one of those ‘tap to clean’ things. Oh the satisfaction).

I didn’t realise how agitating it was for me to look at, until it wasn’t.

This is the thing— we don’t realise how much we are tolerating, how much is irritating us, until we are free of it.

We think we are tired of the things we need to do, but sometimes we are just tired of the amount of volume we are processing visually and mentally just by being in our own homes.

Colours that are too loud.

Stuff that has no right place.

Things that irritate us every time we walk by them.

Things we were given that we do not like, but keep in order to be polite.

Things we don’t use, but we keep ‘just in case’— an attitude which keeps us burdened and stuck.

Clothes that we don’t like, that are made from fabrics that are not natural, that are of styles that are not even our own.

Kids areas that cause too much chaos and stress to keep tidy, that make us more on edge than we need to be.

A general lack of beauty and serenity.

A general tolerance for ‘this will do’.

A general lack of order.

Order and beauty. Let these be gifts that you give to your family this year.

“We cannot be open and receptive if we have not made space first. Do not place material things above human values, above your own hard work and peace of mind, above beauty and freedom, or above living things in general.” ~ Dominique Loreau.

I’ve decluttered many times, as I’m sure you have too. We all get that sense when we have too much stuff. You feel it in your body— burdened, stuffy, unclear. Ugh.

‘Too much’ is a poison that disguises itself as a luxury. I have known the burden of ‘not enough’ and I have also known the burden of excess— both come with complications and I could write a book about it. I have given more than I can count both monetarily and in high value items.

I’m no stranger to big purges, and giving away things I still loved. I remember when I was living in Scottsdale, a land of much excess in parts, giving my sisters all of the designer bags I had because I was just so ‘over’ the stuff.

When we’ve moved or relocated, we’ve often given away every piece of furniture to a family in need or friends.

I love the feeling of recirculating goods— things we don’t need, but would make the world of difference for someone else. I know what it’s like to have very little and it’s in my DNA to always be helpful if I can be.

I am also very sentimental and this can create issues when trying to be a master declutterer. My kids art? Touch it and I’ll shoot you. I have a bag packed of sentimentals in case of fire— in it is all the cards and letters I’ve written my kids over the years (and other people have given to them also), the two rings my nanna gave me from her mother, the indigenous message stick one of my best buds gave me, the small collection of jewellery I own, our important documents, passports and my kids art.

I feel sentimental with clothes in some instances too. Although I have given away most all of my clothes over the years there are some I hold onto so that I can give it to my daughters— it’ll be super cool vintage one day. I wish I had more of my nanna’s clothing. She had a small and modest wardrobe, but I’d loved to have had just one of her dresses.

We all have that level of ‘comfortable decluttering’— this is the kind that we do regularly. We get rid of things that we’re happy to part with, relieved even. But that’s as far as we go. We don’t go to the next layer, and really declutter. We put things in the pile, then take them out, then put them back, then think “oh but what if this comes back in style” and “what if I get invited to….” Or “I should keep this and gift it”.

When we stop at ‘comfortable decluttering’, we’re not changing our ‘set point’, so we just accumulate again and repeat the process in a few months. We have decluttered out of discomfort, to find equilibrium again, because we’ve felt antsy at the amount of ‘stuff’ that is burdening us. But it didn’t change the way we live.

We haven’t yet become convicted enough to really change our ways and to live with the kind of less that brings lasting peace and freedom.

Decluttering should be life changing. Maintaining it, even more so.

We have to care a whole lot more about living a life where we’re not constantly overburdened by stuff.

We have to care a whole lot more about the clarity, peace, serenity and spaciousness that is ours when we live the fine art of enough.

We have to care about that freedom and time we get back when we don’t live in a way where most of our mental energy goes on tending our stuff, tidying our stuff, managing our stuff.

This week I’ve gone beyond my usual level of ‘comfort’ when it comes to ‘less stuff’. And I’ve only really scratched the surface, because I’ve still got more to go.

I don’t know who needs to read this very specific message, but your dream might be to have many homes around the world— make sure you ask your nervous system about this dream too.

It sounds so fun and awesome to have multiple homes, and in many ways, it is. But in most cases, it’s excess. Excess has consequences— even if you have the financial capacity for ‘more and more and more’, that doesn’t mean you are without the mental consequences. More, more, more. It’s exciting but it is tiresome. More to maintain. More to remember. More to tend to. More to care for. More to keep in mind.

There is only so much we can keep in mind.

Some practical things that may help you go beyond ‘comfortable declutter’ and into WHOA I AM LEVITATING declutter:

1. Get a skip.

It might not be called a skip where you are— but it’s one of those mega sized bins that comes to your house. Some might argue that everything is recyclable, and not to use a skip because it’s going to landfill. In an ideal world that would be the case, and if you can avoid it, go for it! If you can reallocate, recirculate, or recycle, everything that needs getting rid of, then Hallelujiah. We keep two big extra recycle bins at our house so that we can always recycle well. But waste is waste and sometimes no matter which way you slice it, some things are for the bin. Holding onto a ‘stuffy’ lifestyle, means you waste more time maintaining it. Time you could be reading with your kids, instead of huffing and puffing around the place, tired of picking things up that have no place to be put down.

By throwing out junk, it inspires you to be less wasteful. Also, holding onto things just because you don’t want to throw them out, means that you’re the one who’s holding onto the waste. it’s just like food— you are not helping hungry children by over-eating and shoving yourself full of waste— you are over burdening yourself. But you could buy and cook less food in the first place.

2. Get yourself in a savage mood.

You’ve gotta rev yourself up to be the right kind of savage for a good declutter. Have a coffee, pep yourself up, and get to work. Get emotional about how heavy it is to be surrounded by stuff and how caring for so much stuff is taking life force, joy and peace from your home. Give yourself a big kick up the bum. Remember how exciting it is to make space for new, to live with less mental burden and to be free of the ‘possession’ of possessions.

3. Know exactly where it’s going, or who to. Less vague donating, more focussed.


One of the things that felt tricky for me in previous decluttering attempts, was that I didn’t have a pile for some things. I typically have a ‘donate’ pile for any goods and a ‘throw’ pile for any junk. But some things don’t fall into either of those piles. Thing is, I don’t usually go to the bother of selling things (call me lazy, I just don’t), so in the past I have held onto things that didn’t seem to have a ‘place to go’. I know I could get onto Depop or similar, but I prefer to give things away. But sometimes, an item doesn’t feel like a giveaway item, nor a throwaway item.

This is one of the traps. We have to find our way around these traps to go to another level of decluttering.

This time, I created a new and small pile of clothes that I would get rid of if I were to sell them. This showed me that I was ready to part with the clothes, but maybe they were very expensive and not worn at all (bad purchase obviously) and so I felt a little wasteful throwing them into the big pile. Still, that is no reason to hold onto them. I decided that this pile would be for giving as a gift to women in my life throughout the year. It got me around that trap, and into that honesty of “I don’t want or need this, I’m holding onto it because I haven’t found a place for it to go.”

A vintage pair of white Levi’s that are gorgeous, but one size too small for me (tags on), a beautiful linen dress that I never wore (didn’t suit my boobs in this breastfeeding season), a super snazzy limited edition flannel set (my youngest sister who’ll love this for her bday), a brand new Sezane white shirt with tags on, some vintage hand bags I bought in Italy for collectors items but never use. These will go to women in my life as gifts.

It feels wasteful and non-intentional to just ‘get rid’ of beautiful items without giving them a proper place to go, and sometimes I think this is what trips us up when we donate. Our donating is too general. We are donating to a very vague charity. Maybe we hold onto some super nice things because we feel maybe a Good Sammy’s store is a bit too impersonal a place for a new *insert label or beautiful material* dress, but that you’d rather give it to a women’s refuge, or a friend, or your sister, or a mum you know. We can overcome this by getting even more personal with our donations:

— A family you know of who really need what you have/have been through a rough trot.

— A women’s refuge.

— A disaster relief.

— Another organisation or group of people dear to you.

— Keeping a few special things tucked away for loved ones birthdays.

— Making a small collection to be stored and given to your kids one day.

It might feel easier to part with your more valued things when you can make it more personal. Many things hold memories, and sentimental value, not to mention monetary. Sending them somewhere ambiguous might feel a little tough.

By the way, it is ok to tell the truth about this. This will help you go another level with clearing out, creating space, and the 198323 benefits that come from that.

I remember when Sol was a baby, and we were moving to London. My midwife Jo told me of a very young couple who were having their first baby, and had nothing. I gave them our new pram, our cot, our high chair, our changing table (because you only buy one of those with your first baby, then you learn!). We set them up with everything they’d need.

I went next level with this declutter because I envisioned where everything was going and who to. It wasn’t just a ‘pile to donate’, it was much more intentional.

I called a women’s refuge close by me, and arranged to drop off a whole bunch of different things and two bags of good quality clothing and shoes. This motivated me even more because I was imagining who was receiving it.

Here is what I also am not doing this round— I’m not giving loads of clothes to my sisters. HA. Hear me out. I have given my sisters loads and loads and loads in many different ways. My youngest sister’s wardrobe is at least 50% my old stuff. But here’s the honest truth. When I see my youngest sister wearing my clothes, styling them all cool, I think to myself ‘dam, should’ve kept that’. That’s not the attitude I want to have as a determined minimalist. It’s stupid I know!!

For the stuff that the women’s refuge did not want, I found another good home for. I got in touch with another woman who takes electronics, like a new hair straightener and bread maker (I am an oven baker only I’ve realised). I took time to allocate things carefully this time— Not that I haven’t in the past, but more so.

I have a friend who is amazing at repurposing old furniture, and she has taken so many things when we’ve decluttered in the past. I love having friends like this, because her and her family froth out on taking tables apart, making doors from them. One time we had an old outdoor lounge in the skip that was badly weather damaged. She texted to say she’d come round to visit, saw it and took it home. I asked her how on earth she would manage to repurpose it. She did! Some (many) people are more handy than I am.

“The price of disorder is a life overburdened with things we wouldn’t miss if they weren’t there: the things we had forgotten all about until we found them at the bottom of the cupboard, in a trunk in the attic. Things that are there in plain sight all the time: they stand alongside things we use every day, but they get in the way.” ~ Dominique Loreau

4. Help the kids learn the beauty of letting go.

It’s one thing to declutter for yourself as an adult, but I find it tricky when the kids have their own (worthy) views about what is sentimental.

My kids are no strangers to letting go. Sol watched as we gave away everything in London to a family. The kids always ask why we don’t still live in the houses where they were born and are quite miffed about it. It’s the downside to the international kind of life we have lived (and are slowing down from).

One thing that my kids hate parting with is their stuffed toys. Perhaps because they’ve moved around a lot, their stuffed toys have come along for the entire journey and are truly special to them. So when we declutter, it’s like pulling teeth trying to get rid of even just one. They all have a name. They remember exactly when and where we got them. I have to find the balance between reallocating some, and respecting that they of course get to have special things too.

My kids are very good at putting their clothes into piles to give to either their cousins, or another kids they know. They’ve got no problem turfing things and giving them away. But there are definitely some things that I dare not touch. I have bundled up things and donated them to the local Lions Shed in the past, only to then see a kid at the playground with one of the stuffy toys. UH OH! I just told them the truth on that occasion, but, I don’t do that anymore that’s for sure.

I’ve seen some decluttering accounts say things like ‘just get rid of the kids things, they won’t even notice!’. I do this too with the little faffy stuff, (especially with their unruly craft table), but not with their stuffed toys. They don’t have a tonne of stuff, if I’m honest. We’ve stayed at airbnbs before where the kids who owned the home, have had rooms full of squishmallows and smiggle gear— I felt like we were minimalist masters after seeing it!

This time, we bundled up about 20 toys. The kids know where they’re going and why. They also know that nothing new comes in if we’re not willing to part with the old. They get it. They also love the feeling of giving. Never underestimate the beauty of children’s hearts. It is one thing that always flaws me as a mum— the generosity and thoughtfulness of these kids hearts.

5. Get stoked about a capsule wardrobe.

Dominique said in her book that “Every woman has made a wrong purchase that spoiled her natural elegance.”

I want you to find freedom in these words. It’s ok. We’ve all bought colours that make us look tired and pale. We’ve all bought styles that looked good on that woman twirling in the reel on Insta, and make us look like a mutton dressed as lamb. Start again.

If you need to, sell the clothes that are not a fit, or are made with polyester and other artificial fabrics and use that money to buy a few good quality items made from natural materials— linen, wool, silk.

I really believe that we flush so much money away by buying too much of things that are ‘so so’— impulsive, emotional, thoughtless. The ol ‘buy once buy well’ is to be lived by where we can. I bought a Moncler jacket on sale in France TEN years ago, and still to this day it is my go to coat for winter. It was one of my best clothing purchases.

Dominique also says many funny and accurate things I agree with like “Unattractive clothes make us want to eat to compensate for our feelings of awkwardness.”

Dominique gives her idea of true and false luxury in the book, and I want to give one too.

True luxury is simplicity, the spaciousness for who and what you love, the correct unburdening of what is not yours, not being possessed by possessions, an orderly home that is beautiful and simple, a capsule wardrobe so that dressing is a simple joy, space for imagination, creativity and contemplation, sturdiness in a world of trends, things you love and nothing else, wool linen and silk, living each moment wholeheartedly.

False luxury is excess, opulence that is tasteless and anxious, too many choices, internal pressure to keep up appearances, too many pursuits, too little contentment, too much to tidy, too much to ‘keep in mind’, possessed by possessions, nothing is ever enough, nice stuff but no time for who and what matters, afraid of losing it all.

Get rid of that coffee table — the one that just collects crap and makes you anxious with your kids. You only have it because ‘people are meant to have coffee tables’. I’ve always thought coffee tables were stupid when you have little kids. Free the lounge room!

Get rid of everything in your home that ‘you’re meant to have’ but don’t love and instead keep only what is beautiful, meaningful or useful. Let the walls be bare until you have art that calms your nervous system— get rid of the stuff that shouts at you every day.

Get rid of the polyester and save for one good cashmere sweater. Get rid of things you tolerate, things that irritate you everyday as a gift to your mind. Once you taste simplicity, order and beauty you won’t ever go back to chaos, disorder and excess.

You know as well as I do how nice it feels to look around your home and see space, order and really love the things you have chosen— not just the things you tolerate (and that irritate you). Your body feels different, like you can breathe, like there is room, like weight has gone. It’s palpable in your physical body because you have let go of matter. Your body knows.

I have a few decisions to make, not about huge things but about directions to go, and I promised myself that I would not make them until I had completely a decluttering that puts all of my other attempts to shame.

Sometimes you want God to slap an answer down in your lap, but what God wants to do is help you to hear— not just today but everyday. God knows that excess is anti-life.

God knows that He never stops speaking, we only become less attuned at hearing.

Free yourself.

Unburden yourself.

Love Pk XX

Read right through to the end where I talk about what really came alive for me last night as I read The Book Of Luke to my kids.

First, some context.

Do you ever wonder things like, ‘how come some people in a family will get sick and others won’t?, or ‘how come that man who smokes and drinks and eats crappy food lived to be 102?’

If you’ve read my work for any amount of time you’d know that I don’t have conventional views about health and illness.

I believe God created us and our bodies/minds/spirits with immense love, and such miraculous intelligence that we will never even scrape the sides of understanding it.

I don’t believe in the contagion or germ theories as they’ve been presented to us.

I believe in vitalism, that the spirit that animates our bodies holds the secrets to our vitality and also our illnesses (amongst many other things).

I believe in terrain theory and that each body will respond differently even to the same ‘threat’ depending on their resilience and susceptibility.

I believe that symptoms are our bodies way of expressing distortions in our vital force, that we ‘get what we need’ with regards to symptoms, that our body is ALWAYS working to restore balance in us, and that the loving wisdom and intelligence of which we were designed is underestimated and misunderstood by much of modern medicine.

I recognise nuance and know that I’ll probably change my mind on some things as I discover more, but that’s a brief snapshot of where I’m at now.

I’m embarrassed to admit though that it was only this year that I made the connection between the term pasteurisation and Louis Pasteur— the father of the germ theory. How did I not put the PASTEUR in PASTEURisation? Like my brother says, I can do really hard things with ease but sometimes I’m a total numpty with the easy things.

Pasteur was the one who decided that milk be pasteurised to remove bacteria— hence the term. Makes sense right?

Yes. But when you dig in, you might learn like I did— that the work of Louis Pasteur was often faulty, unethical and fraudulent. This is pretty big, considering that most all of mainstream lifestyle medicine is based on his theories and that these theories are used to encourage mask wearing and social distancing.

It’s claimed that on his death bed, Pasteur admitted his flawed theory stating that “The germ is nothing, the terrain is everything”. I don’t use that statement as the basis of my understanding as I wasn’t there and they didn’t have iPhone proof in 1895. But it’s an interesting part of the story.

One of the best books I’ve read on the topic is ‘The Truth About Contagion’, by Thomas S. Cown, MD and Sally Fallon Morell (yes, the Sally Fallon who wrote Nourishing Traditions) which lays it all out very simply.

Others include ‘Can You Catch A Cold’ by Daniel Roytas and ‘What Really Makes You Ill?” By Dawn Lester and David Parker.

These are PACKED with references. I’ve included two articles here too.

"Germ Theory Versus Terrain: The Wrong Side Won the Day"

"Louis Pasteur, Unchecked Fraud: The Unscientific Origins Of Germ Theory"

This is not what I came here to write about though…

I’ve been on a journey of understanding the spiritual, mental and emotional roots of illness for many years— I suppose as a natural follow on from my years of science and research? I wanna know the truth. What I’ve learned is that not everyone does. Sometimes the truth is too confronting. It upheaves everything we’ve built our belief systems on. Who are we if we are not bound by that anymore? My friend Nellie always says that to understand health, you need to unlearn basically everything you’ve been told. I completely understand that sometimes this is too rattling for some and liberating for others. I also acknowledge that there remains nuance in it all.

My exploration from a mechanical approach to wellness to a more holistic one began not when I started cleansing, and addressing stress etc, but when I personally started noticing in myself that health was so much more than this.

As someone who lived many years obsessed with wellness and my body, I first started noticing that there was so much more to food than food— that my mental and emotional state influenced how I digested food, and that the alignment of my life influenced my weight.

I could eat a supremely clean diet and exercise perfectly yet be doing work I absolutely hated, or in a misaligned relationship and be super bloated and inflamed.

On the flip, there were times I could eat whatever I wanted and feel light and easeful while being far less rigid with my regime. It wasn’t the food, it was the girl who was eating it and her mental, spiritual and emotional state.

I’ve written about this before and have documented a lot of it. It’s all intended for my book titled ‘Body Luxury’ (God give me the discipline to get it done).

When I read this verse in The Bible, it clarified so much for me. As a woman who was pedantic in many ways when it came to food and health, it freed me. It reoriented me. It reminded me of the loving wisdom that sustained me everyday.

Matthew 6:25-27 (NIV):

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

This verse for me felt like God saying this:

You are not meant to use your precious life obsessing over food, or appearance. Do you trust how magnificently I designed you? Do you know of the inbuilt resilience? Do you think your health is as shallow and fragile as being afraid to eat a bread roll? I didn’t create you, with your uniqueness and gifts, to obsess over what will fuel you. Food is meant to nourish your vessel so you can DO GOD’S WORK. Obsessing over food is not meant to become life’s work. The problem is not the food, the problem is the spirit. Correct that and watch the vitality and order return.

This is the big thing about our big God— He is all about order. He created us with the same order in which He operates. Our spirit animates our body, so wouldn’t it make sense that the spirit , the vital force then is central to our health?

That Matthew verse has since been an anchor for me.

For me it is a pure dose of freedom and rest. A breath out. A loving Father allowing rest for His determined children.

Ahhhh.

It is this love which is at the centre of my health philosophy.

Of course though with a grain of discernment we know that this doesn’t mean we don’t tend to our bodies, our health and be mindful with what we consume. It means we don’t let all of THAT, consume US.

There are many Bible verses which go along with this one, to essentially shape my entire philosophy, which is set your standard, and then relax.

These posts are from May (my instagram ).

Here are a few solid words from God.

Our bodies house the Holy Spirit! This is EPIC!!

"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Don’t be a glutton. Straightforward!

"Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Proverbs 23:20-21

Physical health and spiritual health go hand in hand.

"Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well."

3 John 1:2

Self control is life giving.

"No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."

1 Corinthians 9:27

We should never become complacent with the miracle of the body, or with the food God provides for us.

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."

1 Corinthians 10:31

Caring for our bodies is an act of worship

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship."

Romans 12:1

This then lead me to the knowledge of German New Medicine (GNM)— which suggests that physical illnesses are directly connected to unresolved emotional shocks or conflicts. It was developed by Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer and is based on the idea that the mind, body, and brain are deeply intertwined in how we experience and process stress.

GNM acknowledges that symptoms aren’t just random. They are each the result of specific biological program corresponding to a specific conflict. For example, a separation conflict for a mother could result in mastitis in her breast— the conflict is “my baby is ripped from my breast”. This could happen when a mum goes back to work, or after a traumatic birth or in another instance of separation.

The same separation conflict in a baby or child corresponds to skin issues. When a separation conflict is resolved in young children, it will result in a rash breaking out. I think this is very interesting when thinking of all the rashes that break out at daycare centres— where young children are separated from their mothers in the early days when biologically, mothers and babies are meant to be together. This is NOT to throw shade at all, but to state the fact that we are governed by biological principles which were designed for our survival. They are not a political statement nor can they bend to one— they make SENSE. Of course there will be biological consequences if a mother and baby are separated! It’s one of the most important connections there is!

(Side note, if you want to dig into German New Medicine, one of my good friend and long time expert has a course you can do as a self study— I was the first person to buy the course several years ago! I have a discount for you too).

So, from GNM I continued the journey and started digging into homeopathy. Not just ‘have some arnica’ homeopathy but ‘all diseases originate from distortions in the vital force’ homeopathy. Despite being a very casual student of homeopathy for a few years, this year I became a formal one. In my weekly deep dives I am learning that the roots of all diseases begin with distortions in our vital force— and that these ‘assaults’ or ‘distortions’ can be inherited.

Ok, this is still not what I came here to write about.

Where I really come alive is in the liberation that is intended when we truly understand our bodies, how they interact with nature, and also the role our relationship with God has on disease and healing.

This is why understanding the importance of biological femininity and biological masculinity is so important to health. We can try and live hyper masculine lives as women, but never without consequences. The same goes in vice versa with men. We cannot outsmart the intelligence, love and wisdom of which we were created.

When you see the world from say, the lens of a more holistic understanding of health and illness, you start to see evidence of it everywhere. Conversations like ‘we better not come close, my kid is snotty’ make little sense anymore. You lose the fear. You know that. You’ll get a snotty nose if your body needs to, and that if you do, that mucus is doing a job. A cold isn’t something to get rid of, and definitely not something to suppress. Did God intend for us to fear our own body and believe it was fighting against us? I struggle to believe so.

Now THIS is what I came to write about…

Last night while reading The Book Of Luke (Bible) to my kids, I read words I’d read many times before. This time, they came alive for me in a new way. You ever feel like God is holding a highlighter and making words on a page POP so that they’ll hit you in a new way?

I read them out loud and felt like God was saying “SEE?!”

When the paralyzed man is being lowered through the roof for healing, Jesus says two things:

1 . Your faith has made you well.

2. Your sins are forgiven.


Now I’m going to share my interpretations of these through the lens of understanding deeper truths about health and illness.

Firstly,

Your Faith has made you well.

Jesus says this so many times in The Bible and I’ve listed others at the end of this entry.

YOUR FAITH HAS MADE YOU WELL.

Here’s what screams inside me when I read Jesus say this as he is healing.

1. Your connection to, and remembrance of your Creator reorders your vitality and HEALS.

2 Your BELIEF in your bodies SELF HEALING MECHANISMS which were GOD GIVEN, and the CAPACITY FOR MIRACLES IN HEALTH, directly impact your body’s functions.

3. What you BELIEVE directly impacts your experience.

Your faith has made you well.

Ooooof.

Jesus. The great physician. Pay attention to His words!

The second part.

Your sins are forgiven.

Jesus says this to the paralysed man.

The Pharisees then say to him (paraphrasing), “Why do you go on saying things like this when you don’t have authority to forgive sins? “ (They don’t know that Jesus is the son of God).

Jesus responds:

"Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
Luke 5:23-24 (NIV)

The first and most important understanding here is that Jesus as the son of God has authority over nature, illness, sin and even religious traditions (Jesus was not religious, despite what most people think).

Secondly, and the one that hit me like a tonne of bricks (and connected the dots between The Bible, psycho-spiritual-somatic healing and German New Medicine) is this:

Jesus knows that the forgiveness is the healing.

The forgiveness is what frees the body of its ailments.

The restoration of health is what happens when the spirit is made right.

Jesus doesn’t see the paralysed man, cut him open and try to figure out why he is paralysed.

He knows. And He goes straight to the heart of it— forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a healing procedure.

Reconnection with GOD is healing— body and spirit.

What does the forgiveness of sin free in this paralysed man? What does it do to his psyche, and therefore his diseased body to know that God has FORGIVEN him?

How could our OWN forgiveness of others in our lives free them in their health?

How could our own forgiveness of ourselves free us in our health?

When you think about German New Medicine, and how healing occurs when we HEAL CONFLICTS…. Then we know that the miracle of the mind body spirit connection was always part of our design, and we are only just scratching the surface of understanding what Jesus always knew… as THE great physician.

What would this forgiveness do to so many other people walking God’s good earth right now who carry enormous shame, not knowing the liberating mercy of the gospel?

Forgiveness is a healing procedure.

The alleviation of chronic shame is freedom for the body.

True healing has to be a resolution at the level of GOD and in the ORDER of which He designed us— the vital force that animates our entire being, the crippling beliefs that keep us paralysed and sick. The body will then change.

This is a bold statement to make, but I believe it.

The root cause of everything is that we stray from God.

Women try to live like men, men try to live like women. There are consequences to everything in nature. Even if it’s not politically correct, it’s biologically correct.

God designed us as part of Himself, and so our healing can never be separate, nor can our vitality.

I believe God has given us things like Homeopathy and GNM as ways to understand His design better, and to free people from oppressive and fearful belief systems.

Homeopathy tends our vital force and is a true healing art. Correctly matched remedies work with the aim to tend the distortions gently and effectively with the goal ALWAYS being full cure.

GNM tends our psyche and the conflicts that keep us bound and repeating symptoms and illness— offering freedom when we can resolve them.

Prayer and worship ensure we never live separately to the love that made and sustains us— the wisdom that wakes us up everyday, that keeps our hearts beating without our instruction, that heals ours cuts on autopilot, that resolves many ailments without us even needing to know how, that turns liquids into urine while processing the waste, that forms poos from our food after extracting nutrients. I’m sorry, WHAT?!

Do you ever think about how when a woman becomes pregnant, immediately God’s divine design takes over the entire process. The mother does not instruct the growth of the toes and the organs. This is the same loving wisdom that sustains us.

We can never reduce our health to mechanics and materials (except of course in emergency situations).

Think about how arrogant and ignorant we have become to try and exclude the divinity that created life from the restoration of health.

Jesus came to Earth as the way, the truth and the life, to restore connection to God, to offer salvation to a troubled humanity, to liberate what was oppressed, and as the great physician and healer of all healers… He shows us truths about health too.

Love, PK. XX

Here are some goodies you may enjoy:

1. Homeopathic first aid kit (as well as Mums & Bubs) Use code BODYLUXURY10 for a 10% better price. Note this is for acute prescribing— chronic cases need to see a professional Homeopath.

2. GNM foundations course. Use code PKGNMLOVE for $111 off your self study program.

3. Intro to Homeopathy course (loaded also with lectures on Contagion theory).

Here are some extra verses where Jesus says both YOUR FAITH HAS MADE YOU WELL and YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN <3

Mark 5:34
“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”

Luke 17:19
“Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Mark 10:52
“Go your way; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.

Luke 7:48-50
“Then Jesus said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ ... ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’”

Mark 2:5
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”

Luke 5:20
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’”

Matthew 9:2
“Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

It was about curses. 

Yep, real modern day curses. I’m not even talking about curses from witches in pointy black hats stirring their cauldron pots. 

I’m talking about curses from your medical professional. The psychic you are listening to as if they are God. Others in positions of expertise and authority. 

I have long been fascinated by the power of autosuggestion. 

Simply put, it’s when people (particularly in positions of authority), say something to you with certainty, and because of your belief in their expertise, you accept it as TRUTH. Your subconscious mind responds and then so does your mind and body.

This happens a lot in the medical field. How many women do you know who have been told ‘you can’t get pregnant’ by one medical professional and have believed it to be true? 

How many women do you know who have been given that heart breaking news as ‘truth’, have gone onto explore other modalities and have become pregnant? 

Modern day ‘curses’ happen all the time. 

A very brief story for you. 

Before Jesus, back when I was confiding in psychics etc, I remember sitting in my car in Sedona having a conversation with a woman who would ‘channel messages’ about people’s futures. She was a lovely woman and outside of these sessions we had good chats, but I just wouldn’t not book a service like that again. It’s nothing against her as a human, but I don’t trust those practices now, after having many a veil ripped from my eyes thanks to the love and wisdom of Jesus.

I was looking in the wrong place for wisdom and truth, and I was also clearly trying to know things about the mysteries of life (and my future) that were not for me to know. She even said it to me when she retired. “I’m done doing this. People need to go direct themselves.” Amen we do. Straight to God. 

I’m not saying people don’t have prophetic wisdom, I believe some do.

But you know and I both know there is a difference between messages from God, and psychics channelling all kinds of stuff, not of God. I don’t wanna get into it, because it’s not the point of this message.  Use your discernment. Pray for it to be stronger if you need to. Now, moving on. 

This woman told me ‘you will not have anymore children’ after my second child. By this stage, I had two healthy children (thank you God!), my youngest was 2. 

Now, I didn’t take it as truth, but it always felt very incorrect and also out of line for someone to say something so bold with certainty. Nobody has that certainty.

Of course, it wasn’t truth. It could however be a curse IF I let it. Big emphasis on the IF here. We get to decide what autosuggestions we allow in as truths to impact or control our lives. 

I remember walking through the forest one day and suddenly and out of nowhere remembering this moment with the psychic. It was right after we decided to go for a third baby. I prayed for this ‘curse’ to be broken in case it had any stronghold over my body. It was already ‘null and void’ in my mind but of course there was this lingering thought of ‘what if that lady is right?’. It never hurts to call in the big guns and pray a curse away (thank you God!!!). 

We then got pregnant right away. Praise God! Now, all of my conceptions were all very easy and fast and I am so thankful for that. But you and I both know it’s not the same for all women. I mean, how deep do we want to take this wormhole right now? 

Why all of a sudden is this true? The Oral contraceptive pill? Gardasil? Microplastics? The plethora of toxins we dump into our bodies? 

But also…. The POWER of a medical professional with expertise saying “YOU CANNOT GET PREGNANT.” That goes straight into a woman’s psyche, unless she makes the effort for it NOT to. This is true at many points along a women’s pregnancy too, eg ‘your baby is too big’. I speak in my Home Birth Companion about how I was told my baby’s head was ‘too big’ only for her to be my smallest baby.

My friend Nellie and I always talk about the power of a diagnosis. In German New Medicine, the shock of a diagnosis in itself can make the disease spread. This is such a vast and tender conversation and we can go in many directions with it. Also, I know I do NOT know everything about it. So much of it is a mystery. It intrigues me to no end. Perhaps Nellie and I will chat about it on the pod episode we plan to record shortly. 

Nellie is an expert in GNM. I am as you know, qualified in a variety of things ‘the body’ (Including a BSc(Hons) just so you know I’m not totally rogue) but mostly I’m just a passionate enthusiast about getting to the TRUTH about these bodies God created, the intelligence that works them, and our relationship with all of creation. I accept thought that most of it will forever remain a mystery. We aren’t meant to know what God knows. Even just a little fraction of the truth though is mind-blowing. 

What I am reading now about the truth of viruses and the knowledge of exosomes is something that is connecting so many dots for me. I will tell more about it later. Anyway… Stay on track, Peta! 

These ‘curses’ happen all the time. 

We allow them when we accept these ‘truths’ that are not truths. Sometimes we manifest them because we accept them as truths in our subconscious minds and you know how that works- the body and life responds and makes you think ‘that person was right after all.’ 

If you are trying to get pregnant, or know someone who is, and you haven’t tried homeopathy— please do. (RMDY homeopathy have a remedy called ‘FOR HER’ which is a good starting point, but please do reach out to them first. A thorough consultation with a professional is always best).

The success stories are mind blowing, and I hear SO many stories of women being told with absolute certainty ‘you won’t have kids’, to then having many once their vital force, toxic load and terrain was properly addressed.

But this isn’t just true for conception. It is true for ALL of our maladies, symptoms and disease states. 

Do we accept truths we are once told that we will live with a condition forever? At the very best, suppressing symptoms? 

One of the things that drew me to studying homeopathy in an advanced way is that its goal is not simply a placation of symptoms but of CURE. The goal is to hit the distortion of the vital field, to address the initial (or multiple) assaults, so that the body no longer needs to express the symptoms it is expressing. The goal is to free the vital force, and create a vitality that conventional medicine cannot rival with its different, more isolated and suppressive approach. 

(Of course, emergency medicine is different!! I want it to be clear that I am not poo-pooing all of medicine, I’m not). 

Homeopathy takes into account all the quirky elements of our being— mental, spiritual, emotional. Our family history. It addresses generational trauma, did you know? A good homeopath listens intently, so much so that the patient will often ‘confess’ the secrets of the root of the ‘disease’. 

It is not just about taking arnica after a fall, or aconite after a shock, or chamomilla for teething, or phytolacca for mastitis. That is a drop in the ocean of what homeopathy offers. 

I use homeopathy almost daily in my household. 

I am having a consultation on Thursday with a homeopath to address some generational and childhood things in myself— I am SO excited for this. I am robust and vibrant but I have my quirks. Also, I was on the oral contraceptive pill for many years as a teen and want to tend to some of the ‘assaults’ I’ve had on my vital force.

Homeopathy is the first port of call for my family. I have seen my children perk up from being bed ridden within 15 minutes of taking the correct remedy. 

When we treat acute situations with homeopathy, we are not adding to the toxic load of our children. We are not adding more assaults to their vital force. With each assault, and with increasing amounts of toxic load, we are encouraging more chronic symptoms. 

Some things require a trip to the ER and praise be to God for those amazing, brilliant professionals. Truly!! I have been there more than once!!

Many things however do not require a doctor, a suppressive plan of action, or fear. 

The deeper I go, the more I firmly believe that EVERYONE, especially parents, need to understand at least the basics of homeopathy. 

Do you know that Instagram has banned the #homeopathy hashtag?? (You can confirm with Chat GPT if you want. I had a little biff on with Chat GPT yesterday about it). That tells you everything you need to know about how powerful homeopathy is.

Now, I get asked all the time where I am studying homeopathy. 

I’m studying with RMDY academy and it’s a two year advanced practitioners course. 

The course is closed and reopens likely in 2026. You can follow Melissa at @thathomeopath if you want to join it in future. 

BUT…. I have something else that is more basic for those keen. 

Many of my readers have told me they want to learn the basics of homeopathy in a less formal way. They want:

A) simple

B) affordable

C) now! 

There is a very bright and clever homeopath I follow on Instagram (amongst others!) called Lisa Strbac. 

She has a stellar intro program coming up that is boosted with loads of holistic health wisdom (you know, the goooood stuff). She reached out recently and asked if she thought my community would be interested in her short, sweet, powerful course on the basics of homeopathy. Considering the emails I receive, it was a no brainer. 

The reason I started studying homeopathy officially was for it to be an ‘insurance policy’ for the people I love the most. I wanted to boost my skills and have important knowledge for the times ahead. 

If you feel the same, you wanna check this one out. Alec Zeck is also doing a guest lecture and he is ON ONE right now, sharing some really important truths about health that are setting people free. He and I have been in each others sphere since the big ‘awakening’ of 2020. 

I don’t tell you about courses often (if ever!). I only do if I think they would be a very beneficial addition to your life and the health of your family. 

The two biggest things I want for you from this program are this:

1. To feel free of the fears that the germ theory lies may have planted in your mind. 

2. To feel confident understanding and applying the basics of homeopathy at home.
   

Now, I want to share details that Lisa offered so you can decide if it’s right for you.

At the bottom of the email I’ve included a book you may want to read if you want to get familiar with homeopathy but don’t want a course right now.

Homeopathy Heals - Everything You Need for Confident Home Prescribing

This comprehensive course is perfect for anyone looking to confidently use homeopathy at home, and it’s packed with valuable content and practical insights. 

Course Highlights:

• Lifetime access to over 4 hours of video lessons, divided into easy-to-follow segments.

• Comprehensive printable slides to support learning.

• Lisa’s step-by-step Homeopathy HEALS method designed to build confidence in home prescribing.

• New in 2025: Expanded lessons on fevers, homeoprophylaxis, combination remedies, and tissue salts.

What You’ll Learn:

• The principles and philosophy behind homeopathy.

• How to select, dose, and repeat remedies confidently.

• Practical applications, including homeopathy for fevers, first aid, and preventative care.
  

Expert-Led Live Sessions:

This course also includes exclusive live Zoom sessions in January and February 2025, featuring Lisa Strbac and a lineup of groundbreaking guest experts:

• Alec Zeck: Reframing the Infectious Disease Paradigm.

• Jaclyn Dunne: Health Empowerment and The 4 Doctors approach—mindset, diet, movement, and quiet.

• Dawn Lester: Exploring the power of your mind for health and well-being.

• Eileen McKusick: Biofield tuning and the energetic nature of health.

These sessions are interactive, offering you the chance to ask questions, deepen your understanding, and connect with a like-minded community passionate about holistic health.

Lifetime Access:

All enrollees get lifetime access to the course materials, so you can revisit the content as often as needed—making it a long-term investment in your family’s health.

Self-Paced Learning:

The course is structured to allow you to progress at your own speed, with no rush or overwhelm.

Now here’s how you join.

Our community link to join is here.

Use the code EARLYBIRD20 before November 18, 2024, to get the entire course for $199 instead of $249 (All USD). 

The course officially opens on January 3, 2025, giving you plenty of time to prepare for the start of your homeopathy journey.

Here are some testis’ from Lisa too. 

“The knowledge I’ve gained is absolutely life-changing. We haven’t needed a conventional doctor in over two years!”

“Lisa’s course made homeopathy accessible and easy to understand. I feel confident using remedies to support my family’s health, and it’s made such a difference!”

A book you might want to read is:

The Impossible Cure, by Amy Lansky.

Feel free to fire some questions in the comments.

Lotsa love,

PK. XXX

PS. When I said yes to sharing the course with you, it made me an affiliate. I know you know this but just declaring for full transparency. I only share what I would/do/have bought myself.

Sometimes it’s difficult to live the ‘correctness’ because we are overburdened systemically, running unproductive beliefs, living with  symptoms which are the result of vital force assaults which cannot be treated by grass fed steak and 10k steps a day alone. 

Sometimes we need a cleanse. Sometimes the ‘next step’ in the picture of totality is removing stagnancy. The clarity we need for a life change is right behind a good unburdening of matter, waste, stagnancy and cloudiness. How could we ever believe that physical stagnancy wouldn’t be intrinsically linked to our spiritual and daily aliveness? 

I know after many of my cleanses (especially liver and intestinal), I’ve found freedom and clarity I just didn’t have. When we are overburdened, overstimulated, distracted and overindulgent…. we can’t hear as clearly. I really believe that our disciplined tending to and unburdening of our biological systems is important for hearing God. This is why people fast from food or other vices to be able to ‘hear’ God. When we are not constantly turning towards vices, stimulating ourselves to total deafness and confusion, we access clarity and connection with the One who created us. 

I once heard that our colon is the pipeline to God. Ask anyone who has colonics frequently and they’ll nod at that (including me). 

I know God can cut through anything and meet us clearly even in a body which is uncared for and overburdened (of course)…. But discipline is a part of faith. We can’t just abuse the creation and expect that everything will be perfectly ordered. 

We have to participate. 

We have to tend the terrain of our physical bodies, the knots in our psyche, the assaults to our vital force, the toxic load we accrue. 

Discipline with our bodies is as spiritual as it gets. 

It is all about order. 

With order is correct function. 

With correct function is robustness and the ability to adapt to ever changing environments. 

“Eat junk food, and the terrain becomes a swamp.

Avoid exercise, neglect injuries, and the terrain is blocked

Disdain your mental, emotional and spiritual bodies, and the terrain with stagnate.”

Harvey Bigelsen, M.D. 

I always think of this beautiful thought— the divine love and intelligence of God that takes over when we are conceived in the womb, never leaves us. We are hard wired to return to homeostasis. This is what our symptoms are— our bodies expression, and attempt to return to homeostasis, to adapt to a world where there are unfortunately, a lot of assaults on us (trauma, glyphosate etc). 

With a solid terrain, a freed up vital force, we should be robust enough to adapt. 

Prayer alone is important but our free will goes along with it. 

Jesus is the almighty physician and I pray for His loving hands over my children every night, but with our free will, discipline is expected of us too. Gluttony and laziness are not fruits of the spirit. In saying that, we can be disciplined while also being trusting, without fear, and relaxed in our care for the body (I call this Body Luxury as you know). This is why I always say, set your standard high, and relax into your life. Get to the point where the most nourishing lifestyle is your way of life. 

It is nuts to think about how allopathic medicine treats symptoms in such isolation from everything else. A 10 minute consult and a symptom is treated according to the symptom picture, not according to the whole. A medicine is typically prescribed which is often suppressive, pushing the disease state further into the body, for it to reappear again in the same way or in another way. The more suppressions, the deeper the disease. How do we think we get away with such brute force on the bodies systems without any consequence? Of course in emergency scenarios it is absolutely essential. But for everyday things? We can’t out fool nature, or think we can tell it what to do by sheer force and there won’t be consequences. One of the things that drew me most to homeopathy was that it aims for a complete cure. Medicine should aim for nothing less. 

Side note. I am NOT slamming allopathy— it’s not without its place. But it is limited and we all know that. I spent 90 minutes yesterday talking to a dear Doctor friend about V’s, glyphosate, autism and we were able to have a very open chat about limitations, gaps etc. For emergency medicine, western medicine is the Hail Mary we are all so grateful for. That’s for sure!!! For lifestyle and chronic illness however, there are limitations and we can’t deny it.

Vital force.

Spiritual order. 

Psyche.

Emotions.

Biological correctness. 

Nervous system.

Terrain.

Vibrant Life.

How can we separate them? 

Can we have a vibrant life or body without a vibrant spirit and a vibrant mind? 

This is why Homeopathy is having a resurgence again— because a good homeopath will listen to someone speak for 90-120 minutes, purging secrets, talking about quirks, releasing ‘stuck’ stuff, and lastly, receiving a remedy or two that will address the vital force (perhaps in one go or perhaps over a longer period of time in what they call ‘zig zag healing’). Sometimes you’ll be more free and more confident in your direction after a good homeopath sees your picture in such totality that the right remedy/it’s free your vital force. You stop going around in unproductive circles wondering why you can’t seem to progress and live that more purposeful life that is sooooo close but feels so far.

Distortions in the vital force from trauma, environmental assaults, V injuries etc, will continue to express as physical, mental and emotional symptoms. Treat the vital force, and there is no longer the need for those symptoms to be expressed (This takes good work by a solid and well trained homeopath, of course). 

But this doesn’t mean you don’t need to exercise, eat well, manage toxic load, tend to your beliefs, you know!?

All of it. 

All of it. 

This is why German New Medicine is becoming so sought out by long time truth seekers in the health space too. You can’t ‘out eat’ a conflict in your psyche. 

Your weight gain may have nothing to do with your food and exercise, but because you have an abandonment/refugee/existence conflict and the biological adaptation is to hold onto weight. Maybe your recurring mastitis isn’t because of tight bras or poor drainage but because of a separation conflict with someone in your life. 

Sometimes the ‘next best step’ in your picture is to have a conversation you need to have— get it ‘off your chest’ and out of your cells. Sometimes a conversation is the healing, not the ashwaganda. 

Vitality. 

It’s always about the terrain.

It’s always about the psyche.

It’s always about the vital force.

It’s always about movement.

It’s always about prayer. 

It’s always about honesty.

It’s always about unburdening 

It’s always about making peace. 

Eating matters, but it’s not the full picture. 

Perception matters, but it’s not the full picture. 

Our lives will change as our the big PICTURE of our totality changes. Bit by bit. 

Equally, our body and even our blood (I’ll go into this more in another entry— I’m reading a book called Holographic Blood by Harvey Bigelsen, M.D. I’ve just started it but it is fascinating and quite frankly, epic) will change as we are able to change our mind, our perception, our lives. Did you know you can actually see worry in your blood? OK I’ll save this for another post because it’s just *mind blowing emoji*.

Sometimes, we are internally resourced and clear enough to see clearly. 

Sometimes we are not. 

That’s what I came on to write about today. 

Sometimes we can’t change our lives because we can’t see beyond the cloudiness of our state. Our lives will, without a doubt, respond to the loving tending to of our inner terrain— as layered as it is. 

When we tend to the totality of our expression, the clearer we are on our purpose, the easier it is to move on from unproductive patterns, the more our life can respond to a more vital terrain. 

What comes first, a vibrant body or a vibrant life? 

What came first is the loving God that created us with such inbuilt healing mechanisms, a bodily system that is so totally mind blowing in its intelligence. 

What comes next is our loving tending to of our mind, bodies and spirits so that our lives become the true expression of our clarity and vitality. 

Lotsa love, PK XX 

I have sworn off Instagram many times. If you’re reading this on the Substack app, you might have too. I’ve deleted the app from my phone for months at length (bye Felicia!). I’ve deactivated my account. I’ve been shadow banned for as long as I can remember— whether because of my content or my inactivity I don’t know. I’ve told myself that I don’t need it— and this is entirely true. None of us need it. 

I decided recently that if I am going to show up on there, I’m going to do it on my own terms and to redefine what that means. I have three little kids. I refuse to spend my precious time, days and life competing with an algorithm or worse yet…. Giving the power of my creative expression to my audience. 

Have you noticed how we do this? We do. We give them too much power.

Instagram used to be so innocent. In 2011, I’d post a photo of a smoothie with the X-Pro filter, get 2 likes and be as happy as Larry. Then as my audience grew and grew, they started to expect things from me (vocally). I mean, how much does a person change in 13 years spanning from their early 20’s to their mid 30’s? A lot. 

People forget that we can only ever express from our unique perspective. Both the creator and the consumer both forget this.

Now too, there is the obsession with going viral. We, perhaps unknowingly, start to mold our God given creativity and unique life perspective into a ‘pick me!’ and ‘me too!’ form of expression. We’re letting the algorithm and our audience control our art, our expression, and sometimes even our lives.

Yuck and no way. Take the power back.

I noticed a while back that Instagram started to feel like nails on a chalkboard for me. I started to only want to post when I felt it was a perfect post (if there is such a thing). I have been very vocal about controversial things online and my skin has grown thicker because of it— but sometimes too, posting about those things just wasn’t always worth it. 

Kids. Home. Real life. I need to be good for those things first and foremost. The children God gave me are my most important life’s work.

What I have learned is something you no doubt already know too—  

1. People will talk about you, regardless of what you say, write, do. Gosh. Some people are tragically addicted to bagging out strangers.

2. It is impossible to show the totality of yourself on a bloomin’ social media app. I am so emotional and high integrity that sometimes I feel frustrated that I cannot give the full picture. I hate the instagram bio. It is never a complete depiction. CHALKBOARDDDD! But then I remind myself— social media is a game. It’s not real life. Express yourself how you want to. Reserve what you want to (like how I don’t share my children online). And most of all, let it be life giving, or do not do it at all. 

This is particularly important for us mothers. 

I’m going to share some words that I shared there this week. Apply these words to any social media, or places where you express yourself online. 

I don’t know who needs to read this but, let your Instagram/Substack/X be fun again. 

Let it be a treasure trove of your own personal expression again. 

Let it be life-giving and innocent again. 

You are giving your audience too much power over your expression and becoming a ‘pick me!’ creative and that’s why it feels like nails on a chalkboard. 

Back in the day, it used to be so straightforward but now it’s like you’ve got to wear a clown suit and study consumer psychology to get people to see your stuff— this has changed our behaviour and made a lot of creative people siphon themselves into a ‘me too’ and ‘pick me!’ expression. What’s the point? What’s the point in giving any of your precious days, your precious life, to (excuse the tough love) being a try hard? 

Return to the roots of what your expression is, the gifts God put in you, the perspective that is unique to you, and the way in which you can help people— this is when it will feel life giving again. You’ve forgotten that expression IS life giving.

Your time on any of these apps needs to be disciplined, life giving and replenishing otherwise get rid of it. 

Here’s the new deal: If you’re going to spend any of your precious time on these apps, it HAS to be life giving. If it’s not, re-think your strategy. Life is too short to let strangers on the internet (unknowingly) micromanage your life force. 

Now while we are here and focussing on being all life giving again, I want to share some things about workouts too. Because hey, creative expression and workouts— both are my jam. I have a room in my home that I’ve turned into a writing + workout studio. It’s a peanut butter and jelly combination. 

(Piccie ^ from lunch with hubs the other day. A cherished spring time date).

Here are three ways to make your workouts feel life giving again.

1. Remember you are training to be an agile, vital and vibrant 80 year old. 

When you zoom out from the 6 week, and 90 day goals and remember you are training for the purpose of MORE and BETTER life… it is easier to make it a part of your daily discipline. You are training for vitality & longevity, resilience & vibrancy.

2. If feeling bored and bleh, follow a movement method so you can improve athletically again. 

Moving in all planes is important but sometimes we are too spread out over too many methods. Eg, reformer one day, barre the next, strength the next. While this is fine, sometimes what we need is to follow a discipline so we can see specific improvements and body changes and not just throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks. 

I know for me, there are seasons (eg postpartum and pregnancy) where just staying nimble, fit and strong are what matters… but then I start to feel like I wanna train for athleticism again— it’s hard to see improvements when we’re too spread out across modalities. Again, seasons! But it might be time to ‘get really good at something’ rather than just workout for the sake of working out. 

Back when I was doing just reformer, or just Tracy Anderson, or just strength training, my body would respond super quick because ONE method was having its way with my body (plus walking). Right now I’m enjoying a strength/mat pilates/walking split. 

3. Save your caffeine for workouts. 

Sometimes a little boosty boost is what you need to get momentum again. Have your matcha (or whatever your bevvie of choice) before movement, rather than before just sitting down. For me, it feels good to properly metabolise caffeine in this way. I have a low caffeine tolerance and don’t have coffee, so when I say caffeine for me I mean a good frothy matcha or loaded cacao but I know for some of you (and my husband), that’s all child’s play!! I’ve never understood how people can have a ‘night time hot chocolate’. I’m sorry what? If I had a night time cacao I’d need to go dancing. 

Next on the ‘life giving things’ list is some things we’re doing in our home with the kids. Stay tuned. 

Lotsa love, and bless you loads… 

PK XX 

The other day I had a bunch of my mumma friends and their kids over for a picnic in the sunshine. Afterwards, I really wanted to want to have an afternoon matcha or some kind of boost but the truth was, I didn’t need it. More than that, I didn’t want it. The boost came from the soul. The sunshine. The people. There was no concentrated green tea that could do for me what conversation, people, togetherness and sunshine could do. 

Good deeds for pregnant friends. Spending ages sending audios to friends overseas in need of business advice. Playing soccer with my kids for longer than usual even when I am becoming antsy to go inside and do something else. Getting up early to walk with the sunrise even though my sleep is still spotty. Following a new workout split that is more defined and disciplined, rather than taking 20 mins faffing around deciding which workout to do and then getting frustrated when I’m almost out of time for said workout. Sharing words and art even when that voice in my head tells me that it’s all junk and I should just bugger off and hide.

When we focus on getting our life right by God (you know what I mean), then our body will always respond. The spirit is what animates the body.

I want to remind you of this if you are hyper fixating on ingredients and 10,000 steps and all the good life giving habits we know and love… but forgetting about all the things that are not food, that hugely affect your vitality too. 

What needs tending to in your days? Your home? Your relationships? 

I posted these words below the other day, and soon I’ll write an entry about some life giving change ups we’ve made in our home. 

But the short message I wanted to offer today was this. Take it in the poetic context in which it is offered and clarify the rest with God. 

Taste the sweetness of your life sis, and you might not want so many raw treaty treats at 3pm. 

Your appetite regulates when you are focussed on the right things.

You wanna move more when your life force is flowing. 

You’re not reaching for false satiation when you are feasting on the real thing. 

Stay ‘high standard’ with your food, yes. But don’t be flipping over to see the ingredient list of your thrice sprouted almond butter but then scrolling without self control, worshipping life sucking idols, starting a business that isn’t for you and thinking your food is all that is influencing your shape.

Focus more on the life God gave you, the gifts, the people, the work and get right by that... then watch your body change. 

The shape and vitality of your body is not just dependent on avoiding seed oils (although, keep avoiding them), but on making sure your spirit is well too. We worship the body and the food but take our eyes off the One who created it all. 

How can I tend my life force?

How am I being sloppy with my habits and thinking my raw milk will make up for it?

Am I focussing more on health idols than on the all loving, intelligent God who created me and this fine instrument?

How can I tweak my days so that I am living more ALIVE according to what God has put inside my heart and the people inside my home?

Change your life, change your body. 

Love Pk XX

I’m trying to be write and share more— get the juices flowing without trying to make everything perfect. So, in the spirit. Here’s a quick one this afternoon.

*Photo by my good pal Jerusha Sutton back in my Bondi Beach days.

You don’t need to smash a bag of MnM’s to prove that you’re free.

You really don’t. 

Food freedom is being free to, and free not to. 

This can be a tender topic so please exercise discernment when reading. I don’t know the stories and situations of everyone reading and so with anything, read and process as a responsible adult.

*Obviously, this post is not meant to replace professional help, and should be read in the context of which it is written— an opinion piece for resourced women who can observe others expression without being influenced if not appropriate.*

I am writing to the maturing wellness gal— the one who has for a long time been very healthy ingredient obsessed, sometimes obsessive, fearful of certain toxic foods and who for the most part now lives very freely with food. 

Your standards are high.

You care about good quality. 

You buy and make the wholesome version of many things but not the junky green-washed-324723 ingredient ‘healthy’ version— the actual better version. You know the difference now.

But you’re not over the top, either. Out at the cafe and feeling fine? Hungrier than you thought from chasing the kids? Yeh, gimme that croissant!! Yeh go on kids, have the marshmallow with the babycino. (Side note, after living in Italy, I see croissants as medicinal, same as raw milk gelato. But we all know the ones in the average cafe are try-hard versions of those supremo European pastries.. ahh!).

Your foundations are solid, but if the occasion arises and you really want something, you can have it. You are robust enough an individual, with a solid foundation in mind, body and spirit that you can afford a little ‘not usually on brand’ food here and there— IF you want it. Your life force isn’t going to be crippled by a rasberry and white choc muffin.

Here’s the thing though. 

It’s ok if you don’t want it. 

It’s ok if certain foods give are just a no.

It’s ok if your vitality and life force is in such a place that you just don’t want those foods that were once on your ‘forbidden list’. 

It’s ok if you don’t want half of your kids muffin. Because let’s face it. Sometimes you make yourself eat it even though you had a good solid breakfast, because “If I don’t, then I’m not free.”

This is the little sneaky voice I want to address.

“If you were REALLY free, you’d eat this.” 

You don’t want it.

You don’t feel like it.

It’s processed junk that doesn’t really belong in a human body. Let’s just not forget this part. Sure we can have it and carry on with our lives as normal. But we are also free to say ‘actually, nah. I’m not controlled by it but I just don’t want it.’

Food freedom folk love to say ‘there is no good or bad food.’ I agree to an extent. I believe that our psyche and beliefs around food and our perception of ourselves matter even more than food, and that this knowledge will be at the forefront in the wellbeing world over the next few years (A post on this coming soon). But I also believe that toxic load is real and that we were designed to exercise discipline.

Our bodies are not so fragile that we can’t process certain less than ideal ingredients. I wholeheartedly believe that when our vital force is unhindered, we are resilient— we have to be considering all of the new environmental challenges we face in today’s world. 

In saying that— the food freedom movement can be so highly charged. I understand this, because the opposite of food freedom is so gripping and once women free themselves from those grips, it can make us angry, and desperate not to go back there. This then causes a really charged up ‘anti-diet culture’ where we can think that any form of care and consideration with our food, means we’re getting sucked in again. 

As with many movements, they can be hijacked, and something that once was very life giving, can become detrimental.

There has to be a middle ground, where we are truly free with food, vital and alive, resilient and robust…. but also free to care about our appearance, care about lessening our toxic load, care about having a radiant and vital body. 

This is where the ‘anti-diet’ and body positivity movement can go too far and I have spoken about it for years— often it suggests that wanting to be trim and vital, is a problem. 

But it’s not. 

Out BEYOND body positivity and also BEYOND intuitive eating, there is a place— Body Luxury. It is where we do what is life giving, it is where vitality is the goal, it is where beauty and radiance is allowed to be wanted. You are not trapped by food but you are also not trapped under the life sucking message that you’re not allowed to care about your body size. 

I eat whatever I want but my foundation is a very high standard for food quality.

Some foods make me feel like crap.

Some times I feel better for lightening up and not trying to ram protein down my throat.

Sometimes I can be a green juice gal, food combining gal and sometimes I can be a gelatinous broths gal. I have been all extremes and now incorporate what feels right in the season and climate I am in.

Some foods are alluring and will taste good for 30 seconds but if I’m honest with myself— I didn’t need it. Why do we glorify over-burdening ourselves?

Some foods I eat just to prove to myself that I can. Some foods I eat because I’m emotional. I don’t beat myself up for this.

Maturing is realising that we no longer need to eat certain things just to prove we are free.

What is actually the most life giving? THIS is the goal.

Sometimes it will be a celebratory piece of decadent fat cake. YUM.

Sometimes it will be a little more discipline.

Whether food is life giving or not depends on so much more than just the ingredients. I have always said— it’s not what we’re eating, but who is eating. 

Once you overcome certain unhealthy habits with food, you may think that you need to eat anything and everything otherwise you’re ’sucked in by diet culture’.

The goal of food freedom is not just to be free of the grips of disordered eating, but it’s to be free to live your LIFE. Food freedom is meant to be life GIVING. 

You can be totally free with food AND also not give in to your every whim. This is not just true with food but in life. 

With any true freedom there is discipline. 

Discipline allows us to live more freely. 

Discipline allows us benefits that the undisciplined do not have. 

People think freedom is about ‘a free for all’ all of the time. It’s not. I once heard Tim Keller (God bless his soul) say that freedom is having the RIGHT constraints in place, not having NONE. 

Vitality requires discipline and the older I get the more I realise that all the best things in life do. Discipline allows for freedom. Freedom is a benefit of discipline.

You can live food freedom and still have standards.

You can live food freedom and know that certain ‘foods’ don’t belong in a body.

You can live food freedom without sacrificing vitality.

You can live food freedom and healthy discipline at the same time… and I believe you already know what that looks and feels like. 

You do not need to eat junk to prove that you’re free. 

You are already free. 

You are free to choose what is life giving for you, and you are free not to. 

Beware the voice in your head that says ‘if you were really free you’d eat this *junk*’. Is that true? You ARE free. 

You are free to eat *that*, and you’re free not to. 

Your goal is vitality and LIFE.

This is Body Luxury. 

Love, PK XX

Every week when I see her I think ‘damn, nice outfit’ or ‘gosh she paired those earrings with those pants so nicely’ or ‘she always chooses such nice natural fibres’. 

She has short hair that she slicks back and has a face that just glows. It’s clear she hasn’t had work done, but it’s also clear that she takes care of herself— that look. 

My neighbour at our country property is the same. She’s in her forties and her hair is mostly grey— she is as natural as natural can be and she absolutely radiates. There is a light within her that beams through her face and it clears her skin better than any scrub or mask would. She is always generous and joyful (that’s not to say she doesn’t have her crap, but she’s got this light, you know?)— that look.

On the flip, I know women who have perfected their skincare regime, get every fancy treatment at the clinic, and although you could comment kindly on the texture of their skin or something else mechanical—  there’s not as much radiance, glow, light. The regime is so rigid and dependent on ‘outside things’ with much less focus on the parts of beauty that come from inside. I throw no shade here (with my postpartum melasma), I’m just observing. 

That’s the thing about beauty. You can have the most incredible skincare, at home devices and in clinic treatments and still without that glow. 

But also (and this one is for all my el natural, holistically minded ladies) you can cleanse your body, take care of your insides, have air purifiers in every room, live low tox, sleep on silk pillows, have saunas, sit in front of red light— and still not have that glow.

I read once that when people get too much work done on their faces, they’re harder to relate to and really feel, especially for kids. I mean, it makes sense— if our faces don’t move then we won’t see the expression that we’ve come to know as an important part of relating.

What is beneath this desire to stop the appearance of aging superficially?

Why do we want to pretend we’re not aging?

We’re all going to end up either three feet under or in an urn, you know. How much of it really matters?

I don’t ask these questions from a high horse, I ask them from a place of curiosity that’s in me. For me, it’s less about ‘looking younger’ and more about beauty. Beauty is innate for women— creating it, desiring it and being it.

I care about living a long and vital life, that’s for sure. My regime is low key but my standards for wellness are high. I’d love for my inner vibrancy to translate into me looking as amazing as I feel— but it’s the vitality and vibrancy I’m after. That’s the real gold. 

I want the beauty that comes from me feeling ALIVE. You know? 

That look. 

I’m a 35 year old (almost 36) woman and I have been surrounded in my life by women of all extremes. I am a part of crunchy, alternative, holistically minded natural mummas who have 1 step skincare routines. I also have friends who are more of the boujee wellness category— where they’ll avoid toxins but still do all the things for beauty (face taping, facial massage, cupping etc). I also have friends who do botox, filler and maybe a little zhuzh in the cheeks. 

I’d say I’m somewhere between the laid back ‘European’ natural vibe and the boujee wellness vibe. 

For well over a decade I have lived the low tox life and it’s second nature for me. It’s low maintenance for me because it’s second nature but I’m sure to others it would appear high maintenance. 

When I moved to Scottsdale in 2015, my mother in law started inviting me to the skin clinic for fancy treatments. If you’ve seen my mother in law (many know of her), she is 72 but looks 50. She looks amazing. She is a combination of both taking incredible care of herself (stem cells, colonics, clean food!), and also getting high end treatments. She used to buy me gloves for driving around in the heat so my hands didn’t age in the sun. She is that level committed— I’m too much of a sun lover. My hands could do with a little more lovin’ that’s for sure, but it’s not something I lose sleep over.

My mum was and is a total sun lizard, has had zero work done, and is the opposite from my mother in law in this way. She has shaved her head my whole life and is bronzed and tattooed— beautiful in her Mediterranean skin and authenticity. So, it’s in my nature to be more ‘relaxed’ with my beauty regime.

Both women are beautiful to me.

Being in the public eye for so much of my twenties, going to large events, speaking on stages etc, of course I wanted to take care of my appearance. My main ammo was ozone colonics, eating well, getting regular chiro and massage. But I also did micro needling a few times and some thermage years ago. Those worked a treat. I’m just not sure they’re my ‘forever’ approach.

Here’s something I believe-- whether you’re taking a ‘non tox’ approach to wanting to age gracefully or a ‘I’ll take whatever the clinic has’ approach, or something in between like a ‘I’ll do facial massage and get some hyaluronic acid injections’— the desire is the same. The desire is a woman wanting to age gracefully, and look beautiful. No crime there. 

You might have noticed this too, but often there is a bit of ego in the ‘I take the natural approach’ category. You’ll often see people boast that ‘I’ve never had injections’ etc. But then that same person will still go and get treatments they consider ‘natural’. I recently saw someone who is proudly against botox, go and get an ab sculpting treatment done. 

What’s the difference in the intent? Both are trying to boost their appearance. 

Is the woman who takes the natural approach more noble even though she spends a lot of time and a lot of money on beautifying?

Is the woman who face tapes, facial massages, gua sha’s, cups, etc less vain than the woman who goes to the clinic for a little here and a little there? 

The ‘I prefer the natural approach’ can come with a boat load of arrogance in every realm— parenting, wellbeing and beauty (yeh, I’ve got a lot of writing on this in my notes). 

Woman who facial massage, face tape, cosmetic acupuncture etc (let’s call it boujee natural), are wanting a certain look, the same way women who go and get botox are. 

I’m firmly on the side of ‘el natural’ and yet I can still notice this. 

It is a preference for me to go the natural route, yet it doesn’t make me any better than my friends who pop to the clinic for a few jabs in the forehead. 

I recently got a palette expander— which wasn’t functionally necessary at all. I got it to optimise my bone structure given I am missing three teeth (two of which never grew as adult teeth), as well as optimise my airways and oxygen. For me, it’s all for the purpose of optimisation and vitality. I put in this plate at night and breathe like Darth Vader because feeling *even better* matters to me. I’ll do this, but I won’t inject my cheek with filler. I don’t spend less effort on beautifying the natural way. I may… I may just spend… more? Ah that’s a stretch. I don’t. But I do have high standards for wellbeing. We all have our things we do to feel our best. And when we feel our best, it affects so much in our lives. Just ask a mum who just had an ‘everything shower’. She is on another LEVEL after that. 

I want to age beautifully, so do those who go to cosmetic clinics. Our approaches are just different. 

Last year a friend of mine (a bush friend— in the ‘natural skin’ category), said to me ‘Gosh everyone is getting botox. Do you think you’ll be influenced to get it when you move up to the city?’. What she meant was, that where we lived in the countryside, the all natural look is prevalent and so that’s the standard— natural beauty. Wrinkles. Natural glows. Rub a bit of tallow on and you’ll be right. 

We went on to have a long chat about how it all just hits different when you’re over 35— loads of friends are getting it, loads of women are getting it, so when you don’t get it, you can tell. It takes a strong conviction and a true sense of peace to resist, especially when living in an area where it’s everywhere. 

I told her I wasn’t worried, and it was true— I wasn’t. 

Truth is, I’m still not. I’ve never been one to do something just because everyone else is. 

But there’s another truth that exists here— it’s a feminine urge to want to be beautiful, to glow, to radiate. I had this conversation with my husband yesterday, who is always lovingly affirming me in my naturalness in the moments I throw comments around like ‘you can tell I haven’t slept in a week’. He always tells me the reason he fell in love with me was because I wasn’t like all the girls who you wouldn’t recognise when they took their makeup off. I hope he doesn’t regret that decision when we’re 70 and my boobs touch the ground like long socks with marbles in them, but hey. 

I’m just that gal. I’ll do everything ‘the natural way’ unless I cannot (eg, my son needed a dose of antibiotics recently). I birthed my babies at home, declined most prenatal tests etc, used to board planes with epsom salts to harmonise the radiation and have to be searched at LAX (good times). You know, that’s me. 

I am ‘the all natural’ gal but I do not judge those who are not. 

When I lived in London 5 years ago I’d go and get facial massage at the face gym (gosh I loved it). Nothing like a good buccal massage. 

I’ve bought facial massage courses that I’ve done awfully at completing (I’m always ambitious at buying them around the time of small babies— which is probably because my sleep is worst and my wrinkles are showing).

I’ve got face tape that I sometimes use, but not always because I’m not yet that committed. 

I use super high quality skincare like this one, one of my faves, the famous face food. I use the Serum 3 or the X (start with the serum 1 and work your way up), and the cream DAILY in the morning (The link and code are at the bottom of the email if you want to try the boujee natural goodness for yourself). 

I also use a blend I make myself of castor oil, black seed oil, jojoba and franky oil. I’ll put tallow on (that my friend makes) some nights too. Castor oil literally does everything. Castor oil, bicarb and apple cider vinegar are like, the MVP’s of the crunchy mum world aren’t they?

I wear make up rarely, and when I do it’s minerals mixed with a lush Kakadu plum oil mix— the same one I’ve worn for about 12 years For reference, I use the Colours makeup mineral blend and the 369 Omega Oil mixed together.  (I just dug around and found a code in their site so you can get 30% off if you want it. It’s below too). 

I love the sun on my face (I need the sun on my face). 

It’s pretty chill. 

My skin has always been pretty good. I’ve never had breakouts except for one pimple around my period sometimes and I credit that to both genes and my lifestyle. I have some sun spots that don’t bother me, even though my skin obsessed friends like to point it out ‘I know a treatment for that!’. Back in the day I got it lifted with micro needling but my next approach is going to be a bicarb and castor oil mix I saw on Insta. In saying that, I’m in no rush. It doesn’t bother me (at least not right now). 

The most important factor in my skincare regime is taking consistently good care of myself, which I’m actually pretty good at. With three kids and many years of pregnancy, breastfeeding, several international moves and persistent interrupted sleep, I am solid in my foundations and have been for a long time. 

Exercise, clean environment, clean water, high quality food, cleansing (between pregnancies), colonics, sauna. 

I have my things, don’t you worry!! 

I am a bit of an aficionado when it comes to good wellness ‘tings. (Toot toot. By the way…. Are there any specific recommendations you’d love a post about?)

But all of these things still are not it. 

We are deluded if we think the most important ingredient for our beauty is cream, serum, or even a solid diet. 

Beauty is so much more… what’s the word… Rich? Divine? Deep? 

What I mean is that the roots of our beauty are in the soul. That is where the light flickers on and gives us glass skin. And even if we don’t get glass skin (because, are we really meant to have glass skin?) then we will still look beautiful. Wrinkles, lines, whatever- if the lights are on, beauty is there. 

Our beauty is what we are when we are at home in ourselves….

When we know, seek, and allow joy….

When we are less distracted by the plethora of temptations and focus on the true path God has laid out before us….

Living the right life for us— not someone else’s— that’s the fountain of youth. 

Letting joy in. Letting innocence return. Living more lightly in the heart. 

If you can’t afford the boujee potent plant serums, then some facial yoga, facial HIIT, facial gymnastics or any one of the other free forms of skincare can change your face too…

So can forgiving someone. 

Lightening up and letting go of constant wellness fear. 

Having a bit of fun, for once. 

A little discipline in the right areas.

More of those soul-enriching things that you have just momentarily forgotten. 

I wonder if our pregnancy glow is hormones or if it’s primal alignment with God’s design, our body delighting in a womb full of life. Do you ever wonder about this?

I used to always say that truth is our best beauty serum. I believe that remains true. Honesty, it beautifies. 

So does joy, peace, forgiveness, alignment, surrender. 

Our face changes when we put things down and stop carrying the weight of the world on our backs (because this then strains the sternocleido mastoid muscle which, if you’ve done any sort of facial massage work you know is THE beauty muscle). 

When we let go, we lighten and we beautify. 

This is what’s at the essence of the effective facial massage anyway— it’s letting go of tension, it’s the relaxation of muscles and the nice flow of lymph that allows our natural beauty to return. 

THIS is the look us ‘natural’ gals go for— the glow that is the one that comes with our natural vitality. The glow that comes when we are truly well, vital and alive. 

This is the glow I want.

I want this more than I want my forehead to appear wrinkle-less.

Wrinkles don’t bother me, a lack of vitality is what does. 

Vitality is the focus of my beauty regime. I want the face I have when I am alive, vibrant and well. 

I want the light inside to glow me up. 

You know? That look. 

We all want to be beautiful. 

We all want to age gracefully. 

Nobody wants to look older than they really are. 

We all take different approaches to this. 

There shall be no ‘el natural’ high horse around here. 

As I type this, I notice myself slumping. It reminds me of that posture program I saw on Instagram that is meant to, you guessed it, BEAUTIFY YOU AT THE SAME TIME! I’m probably going to buy it. It hooked me in line and sinker. 

Why is my algorithm like that?! 

Probably because I’m over 35 and yeh, I do care about beauty. 

I do, and that’s ok. 

But what I care about more is vitality, vibrancy, aliveness, peace and joy.

I’ll take the beauty that comes with that. 

That look. 

My kids are finally playing after interrupting me 12 times with ‘I’M BORED’ while I try to write this, so it’s time I go and play with them.  

Later, I’ll bounce on my rebounder with my head tilted up. Not only is the rebounder amazing for lymph, but it’s meant to sculpt the jawline too.

Lotsa love,

PK XX 

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After throwing my daughter a 7th birthday party at a trampoline park with 20 kids… I need to log off for a minute. You know what I mean? 

Sure, I still have a baby to feed and parents to text (thank you for the cards and gifts!) and tennis to take kids to and dinner to organise (Friday night takeaway tonight, praise God for that). 

But do you know what an absolute treat it is to relax, watch a show and eat some chips when you’re a mum of three young kids? 

Heavenly, is one word for it. 

Sometimes it’s a hot chocolate or a matcha. 

Sometimes it’s a dirty bag of chips (with avocado oil if possible because, you know, standards). 

These moments of zoning out and indulging in pure comfort is medicine for this mamma who is throwing parties, going through an awfully bad sleep stage with my youngest, and running the show that is a busy household as always. 

Look.

It’s just where I’m at. 

I’m not holier or heal-ier than here, in this moment. 

Netflix and chips is God’s gift to me this afternoon. 

I’ve been meaning to write in defence of emotional eating for a while— how food and the moments around it can bring such pure comfort.   

I’m an emotional eater and I’ve got no problems with it. Sometimes I make food choices based on nutritional composition and physiological appetite and taste and sometimes I make food choices based on my need for comfort. 

I rebound for my lymph health

have a sauna in my yard

a biomat in my workout room 

I eat mostly organic 

cook from scratch most nights 

bake sourdough bread twice a week

do colonics 

use non toxic everything

have done a lot of liver and intestinal cleansing  

whole house water filters 

workout regularly 

do my best to avoid blue light in the evenings

have lived well over a decade with solid diligence in the realm of wellness…. 

also… add ‘emotional eating when necessary’ to my list of self care habits. 

I’m an emotional person. 

I’ve lived with functional anxiety forever. 

I’m neurodivergent in more ways than one. 

Sensory overload is real. 

Eating for comfort sometimes is supportive for me— not bad. 

Why do we need to equate ‘emotional eating’ with pigging out on junk food to the point of gluttony? Sometimes it’s just not that.

We can eat emotionally without abusing our bodies.

We can eat for comfort (nostalgia, memories, celebratory moments), in perfectly nourishing ways. 

The standards for wellbeing/food etc is high for me and yet I’ve learned that letting myself truly support my complex self is one of the most important things I can do for my vitality. 

Sometimes that looks like saying no to a big dessert because I’m full.

Sometimes that looks like a 500mL green juice.

Sometimes that looks like adjusting my protein.

Sometimes that looks like less.

Sometimes that looks like more. 

Sometimes that looks like a nice European picnic spread.

Sometimes that looks like a bowl of ice cream (out of the pint, I prefer it this way than in a bowl) snuggled up with my kids on the couch. 

I remember when I was on a worldwide tour for my first book, ‘Earth Is Hiring’ (I stopped printing it since my sanctification began, more on that another time). I did 6 cities around the world in Australia, USA and the UK. After each event I was so mentally and emotionally spent that I’d want potatoes and only potatoes. Hot chips. That’s what I wanted. Potatoes, the grounding root vegetable, but also— hot chips are comforting and nostalgic for me because they’re such a big part of the Aussie childhood. At each event, I’d speak for 3/4 hours straight, stay for 3 hours afterwards to sign books and chat, then immediately go to be with and breastfeed my first baby with big, engorged boobs (Sol! She came on the whole tour before her first birthday). I was lit up, but also pooped. 

Similarly, when my husband and I went on a speaking tour in 2015 all around Australia (pre kids), it was hot chips I wanted afterwards. Nothing else. Hot, crispy, potatoes. Gimme ‘em. 

After any big, stimulating event I attended or spoke at (which was a LOT for a few years), this was my go to afterwards. It helped to regulate me. 

Hot chips was my self-regulation.

Not anything fancier than this. 

Sometimes it isn’t a certain mineral or vitamin I am craving-- it’s nostalgia. It’s the comfort of a memory. It’s remembering something sweet and beautiful. It’s familiarity. It’s innocence. I craved milo in my last pregnancy because it reminded me of my childhood and I had it with glee. I eat Vegemite for this reason too. Not that ‘healthier’ version, but the real deal. Vegemite is nourishing for me and it’s not because of the vitamin b they reckon it has loads of. 

I have had my fair share of binge eating, and eating from less than loving places in my earlier years, trust me. I have learned the difference between eating in an absent and unloving way and eating in a loving, grounded way. 

As I’ve learned more about myself (and more importantly God’s love) I have softened my edges. I have stopped believing that all of my natural proclivities are wrong, or that they should look more perfect than they do. I have started noticing all the things in which I have carried, held and stored and just how much extra support I really do need. I have mostly given this to myself through my top tier wellness lifestyle, therapies and lately, prayer. But I have also realised the more innocent and childlike ways I support myself too when disregulated and overwhelmed. When I do ‘emotionally eat’ as we call it, it’s not in a way that challenges my vitality, but in a way that supports it. 

When I lived in England, I was so affected by the relentless grey skies that eating rich comfort foods was so natural. Going to the cafe in the afternoon for Vegemite toast and a hot chocolate after a long pregnant rainy day playing with my toddler inside… it was just so delicious in every way and I LOVED that cold British pregnancy. I had a thriving, healthy pregnancy, a ten pound baby, looked and felt vibrant and had a fast slippery slide home birth. The fact that I ate for emotional comfort as well as nutrition was all part of the overall nourishment of mother and baby. 

Why do we assume that good-for-you things must always be ‘ughhhh’? 

We are so hard on ourselves. 

Sometimes we need to try the softer way. 

Life can be hard, especially when we have been through stuff and it lives in our bodies. 

I won’t pretend I’m ‘fully healed’ from all of my peculiarities, I’m not. But I after so many years of food and wellbeing obsession, I feel in a REALLY good place— a hard earned place, and also a place more resembling the love of God (thank you God, for this). Sure, I have boundaries and standards, but I live in a way that is always prioritising life giving habits, for vitality and wellbeing. 

Most of the time this means typically ‘wellness related’ habits. 

But sometimes the best way I can do this is Bridgerton and some chippies. 

I can hear the hardcore detox or carnivore people in my head saying ‘food isn’t for comfort. You’ve got to face that feeling without food’ etc. 

Great. You do that. 

And in certain seasons I do too. I’m no stranger to liver and intestinal cleanses, fasting, sitting in the quiet spaces, processing the anger on my liver, the intimacy of those spaces and facing a lot. 

Yes I can be there too. 

But it’s not always time for that. 

Sometimes it’s time for comfort and nostalgia. 

Sometimes, we’ve got to take the support we can get and not fight it. We always fight it. At least in our minds. 

Last Saturday I was feeling a little mentally zonked as we’ve been in a rough sleeping phase with our bub. I manage it quite well, to be honest— I don’t feel the need to nap during the day and I thank God everyday for the health I enjoy. But Saturday has a certain energy to it you know? It’s a ‘WOOHOO’ kind of energy. I like to ride it. It was a picky platter I wanted. Sundried tomatoes, raw cheese, crackers, dip. This right here reminds me of Christmas Day growing up (although we had much more budget items as a kid. Ritz crackers vibes) and it’s one of my favourite things to eat. 

Hilariously, I looked at the back of the dips and chose one without the seed oils. Right after, I went to the deli section and bought sundried tomatoes, knowing they were likely in sunflower oil. 

The picky platter mattered more to me than the oil. The cozy Saturday afternoon moment. 

Choosing the loving, relaxing thing is not always greens or protein. 

I have had many strict seasons. 

Perhaps I will again. 

I believe it all has its place. 

But the question isn’t ‘is this good or bad?’

The question is ‘is this loving or not?’ 

Sometimes strict is loving. 

Sometimes comfort is. 

Sometimes what we need is journaling or a long convo or some deeper work and always prayer. 

Sometimes we need a picky platter. 

Or, some chips. 

Some Bridgerton. 

Some relaxation. Nostalgia. Comfort. 

Maybe they’re gifts from God after all, why do we always assume otherwise? 

God is clear that we should not be gluttonous— I’m making sure that is in here so nothing gets taken out of context. But I am quite certain my readers are like me, in that we are not gluttonous at all. We live well, and we are often too hard on ourselves. 

Living Body Luxury is recognizing that food is more than food, that we are ALWAYS eating with a belief about whether *insert food here* is nourishing or not. 

This bag of chips today is medicine for this overstimulated mum. 

Also, I’ll have the most fancy wellness smoothies loaded with colostrum, ashwagandha, moringa, bee pollen etc in the morning and on with my life I go. 

I’ll go out on a lunch date with hubs in the afternoon and have scrumptious Thai at my favourite restaurant in town, and on with my life I go. 

I’ll walk with my kids, and bop on my rebounder, and maybe even squeeze in some sculpting Pilates… and on with my life I go. 

I’ll sit down at my desk, open my draw to my secret box of choccies and write with one beside me (how good)… and on with my life I go.  

Pk xx  

Today, I’ve had two. First up was a frothy chai latte with coconut milk. We were headed to a picnic with the homeschooling co…

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Your adrenals, or lack of vitamin B or your munted MTHFR gene (I’ve got it).

Maybe it’s not your delicious, frothy 10am matcha that’s got to go.

Maybe you’re tired because you’re not using your gifts.

Maybe you’re tired because you’re using your energy on consuming things that are now consuming you… your vitality, your joy, your life force. 

Maybe it’s time to push pause on pathologising your food and take a moment to get honest about your life— in the most loving, freeing, clarifying and life-giving way you can.

There is nothing that can tire us quite so fast, like living a life of over-consumption. 

There is nothing that can tire us quite so fast, like living a life where our God-given gifts are kept hidden, unused, and consistently over-thought. 

There is so much we could be doing in this life— so many shiny opportunities to explore and examine. We can be so many things, do so many things, that if we are not TRULY focussed, our entire life turns into a relentless game of decision fatigue. 

Focus is the art of our time. We have each been given gifts from God, that when used, give us life. When not used, we feel it. 

We may be in a season of mothering young kids— that alone is us using our God-given gifts as mothers... and yet that’s not to say that we don’t have gifts that are given to us, to be given to our community. For some mothers, motherhood alone is the work (rightly so!). For others, we’re restless because we’re meant to be writing too, creating too-- in ways that GIVE us more energy for our home. Some aren’t creating but instead seeking rest and refuge in things like lengthy social media scrolls— yet this time and energy could be used on something life sustaining, creative, energising. 

We get to take our focus back.

We get to be the ones who don’t get sucked in by the very intelligent ploys to drain us of our LIFE by being too-good-to-refuse-distractions. We get to refuse the distractions. We get to turn the other way. 

We get to audit our lives, where our focus and energy goes and then decide that it is WORTH the discipline it takes to course correct. 

I am a wellbeing nerd. I just completed my third liver flush this week. I love to get into all of the crevices of my own wellbeing, vitality with regards to my eating and lifestyle. What I know to be true though, is sometimes I am blaming a period of low energy on things that are not to blame… I may think I am tired from mothering, meanwhile, I’m scrolling my phone for an hour before bed— staring straight into bluelight before I close my eyes. Meanwhile, I’m spending more time observing others lives, than I am on using my own gifts and time in the ways which are right by my family, my community and by God. 

We cannot complain of tiredness when we are staring into a screen for hours a day unnecessarily— mindlessly viewing other people’s lives unnecessarily— That is on us. 

Sometimes, God has to shake us of our complacency and distraction… sometimes, that’s what our tiredness is. 

If you’re living a truly focussed, honest life using your gifts and time in the way that is RIGHT for you— your matcha in the morning ain’t gonna hit the sides, the sandwich you have in the afternoon ain’t enough to slow your energy. GET THIS. The power of living a FOCUSSED and CLEAR life…. is MORE powerful to our wellbeing than the fiddly little things you’re giving all the power too. 

Yes, food matters, A LOT— this is why I am so big on lifestyle and cleansing, because sometimes our livers and entire systems are so burdened that we just cannot access any kind of clarity. Sometimes, we need to cleanse in order to SEE! But also... sometimes we just need to care enough about our lives and those in it that we stop doing things that are quite simply-- wasting our time, our energy and our LIVES.  

We need the full 360 approach. Let’s bring back into the health conversation, the importance of how we are living our life, honouring our life and using our gifts and our time.

This is Body Luxury. I recorded a 40 minute podcast style episode today for paid subscribers diving into this and more. Also stay tuned next week for some good news for those wanting to become paid subscribers!

Have a beautiful week. PK XX

Because then she naturally releases her grip on food, and food releases its grip on her….

Her life can stop being a torturous game of ‘getting food right’…

She can remember food’s rightful place in her life, as something that fuels her God given gifts and life, and not an obsession that consumes her vital life force.

She can be so full of what truly sustains her creatively and spiritually, that she is naturally able to stop the over-consumption of all that will never truly fill her.

She can truly intuitively eat for her body’s vitality from a neutral place - hearing God speak to her through her body, rather than hearing dozens of insta gurus speaking about organ meats or fruit and mistaking it for ‘intuition’. Intuition isn’t between others and you— intuition is only between God and you.

But what changes first? The life or the food? Sometimes, we need to amend our food and follow a protocol, so that our body remembers what it feels like to be able to live, create and receive our life… never underestimate the power of an angel sent to help you heal.

Sometimes though, all we need is to be convicted enough and tired enough of living being consumed, obsessed and distracted that we say…. Enough.

Sometimes, one ‘Enough’ is more powerful than a 12 month program. Sometimes one ‘I want my life back’ is more powerful than consistently indulging our patterns and weaknesses.

Women— we are bombarded with messages and agendas daily intended to take us out of life and into deathly consumption and distraction. We have to care about and fight for our full and vibrant lives, MIGHTILY AND WITH FEROCIOUSNESS…. Nothing less in this day and age will do.

Peta Kelly for Body Luxury.

PK XX

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In this new Body Luxury section, I’ll be s…

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When I am over-thinking, I am under-living. 

When I am over-stimulating with matcha/cacao/my phone… I am under- living.

When my life itself is not my prime energy source, when I am not alive and aligned, using my life force in the right ways, I look for it in all the wrong places. 

When I’m not fully immersed in my life, when i am thinking about it more than I am living it, no moment never feels enough. So I over stimulate to ‘take me somewhere else’. 

When I’m misusing my energy I am also mistreating it…  I am obsessing over my power supply coming from food, or matcha, I am detached from my true power supply, forgetting that my most PURE energy comes from my most PURE life. 

When I am IN my life fully and as truthfully as is humanly possible, I don’t obsess over external fuel sources.  When I am rightly using and replenishing my life force, my food is simply fuel, matcha is something I enjoy. They do not hold any more power than that…. Because I remember that I do.

Yes yes yes there are survival strategies at play too. They are so valid brilliant, important, precious and I go deeply into them in the book (also, I’ll go deep in The Bath House that opens next week). I know the strategies because I have lived them and live them intimately.

Also… OUR MOST HONEST LIFE IS THE SOURCE OF OUR MOST PURE LIFE FORCE . Sometimes we look to food, stimulants etc because we’re BORED. We’re WITHHOLDING. We’re PRETENDING. We’re living a life that is not our own.  

The Bath House- the liberation, lifestyle and leisure club will open its doors for the first ever soak next week. It’s me, offering my presence, wisdom, stories beyond ‘teaching’. These words are from my new book- Golden. Out 2023. 

Lotsa love, Pk xxx

You can intentionally change your body or follow an eating protocol without it meaning you’re sucked in by diet culture. 

Find the relief in allowing yourself to experience what you want to experience without it meaning something about where you sit on the ‘goodness’ spectrum— not just with your physical desires but all desires. 

We’re a generation of pendulum swingers. We swung from the extreme of being riddled with the effects of a toxic diet culture, to the extreme of labelling any kind of intentional wellbeing or body change pursuit as ‘diet culture’. We do this with everything as part of our exploration, but it’s time to establish balance. 

I suffered eating disorders for over 15 years and I know this: 

It matters more about WHO is eating than WHAT they’re eating.

It matters more about whether the voice inside guiding the change is LOVING or UNLOVING.

Eating too much and calling it ‘intuitive eating’ is unloving.

Eating too little and calling it ‘wellbeing’ is unloving. 

In both cases, there’s something inside of us wanting to be heard and it can’t be heard if we’re focussing more on the program than the person. 

There have been seasons in my life where tightening up my eating and following a protocol have been the most loving thing for me. I wasn’t overweight, I wasn’t even symptomatic, but the protocol allowed me to walk a path of devotion, discipline and created an environment within my body of spaciousness that was most important for my whole being at the time. It was not unloving, punishing or ‘diet culture’. 

There have also been seasons (particularly when younger) when I’d go on the soup diet, or cut out sugar, or not eat all day– and this wasn’t on behalf of my wisest most loving self, but instead an unheard part of myself seeking protection and control. 

There have been seasons where the most important thing for my entire being, was to eat whatever I wanted and re-learn to trust my desires as a woman. This mattered more to me than anything any kind of green juice could offer me. 

There have been seasons where green juice was loving, and seasons where it was not. It had nothing to do with the green juice.

There have been times when I’ve signed up to a trail run because I’ve wanted the control and safety of knowing I HAD to train so I HAD to be saved from my uncontrollable compulsive eating. 

There have been times where I’ve loving ritualized pilates every morning because it circulated energy, boosted my mood, calmed my anxiety and also…. I enjoyed the experience of toned legs and a peachy butt. No guilt, no shame, no story. 

People connect to God and themselves through a physical devotion that to others may automatically be discarded as ‘diet culture’. Others connect to God and themselves through allowing more trust and freedom. Many flow between in seasons. 

It’s not about what we’re doing, but who is doing it,  and whether the voice inside is loving or unloving- rather than assume we know that intimate part of someone else, we should become more intimate with it in ourselves. 

This is an excerpt from my new book, due out in 2023. I’m editing it right now and I am soooo excited for you to read it. It’s not a book about food and the body, it’s a book about the woman. 

If you enjoy my writing and how you feel when you read it, you’re welcome to join the Pk Diaries as a paid subscriber, and read wayyyy more, wayyy more regularly. 

Subscribe now

I’ve got lots of exciting things coming, including a fun, exciting, fresh live transmission coming up soon. Oh, and a new club :)

Oh the manifestor surge. 

Pk xx