God -- Part 1 of an ongoing testimony.

In all truth, I feel a little clumsy writing this. I’m in the renewal of my life– fresh, new and tender and here I am trying to tell about it. But, the rawness of these times is precious. I’ve been taking my time with this communication because it’s delicate, but it’s also a continuation of everything we’ve been exploring together this year. This is not just another spiritual exploration, a truth to try on for a few weeks until ‘it no longer resonates’. What I’ve been experiencing for most of the last year, gradually increasing in strength and clarity…. Is a complete redirection and simplification in my Faith. I’m writing here in my mess and innocence to document my experience in (somewhat) real time. 

God knows (I know, you know), that many of us, including me, have ridden the spiritual Contiki tour bus diligently for the last decade. I’ve sailed the seven seas searching for truth, embodiment, actualisation, epiphanies, understanding. Deeper than that, I have sailed the seven seas looking for peace and fulfilment. I have been an eager student, a devoted student. I’ve invested more than half a million dollars over the decade in becoming better, understanding more, healing, clearing, upgrading, learning. I have been on calls, coaching sessions, healing sessions once or more a week for as long as I can remember. 

I rode that bus until its wheels fell off. 

I rode that bus until it ran out of fuel.

I rode that bus until I catapulted out of it, landing firmly on my knees.

I have always had a relationship with God. I prayed the same prayer every night for as long as I can remember— it was mostly a prayer for the health and safety of my family, relief of stress for my mum and ‘love and health for anyone who needed it.’ At my primary school we prayed every morning, twice a day at our recess and lunch breaks, and before we left school each day. We went to Church on Fridays and I sang in the church choir. I vividly remember the auditions. I must’ve been 7 years old but I was adamant that I was destined to be in the church choir. Miss Dios, our music teacher, would have us stand in a semi circle and sing ‘Happy Birthday’. She’d then lean in with her ear and listen in, to gage our level of natural talent. I got in— and that’s not because I was some remarkable gospel singer. It was because we were all pretty average (All except Katherine— she was elite). I was Christian, not Catholic like most others at our school. My friends all had their first Holy Communion and other Catholic celebrations and I felt a bit left out. Why wasn’t I the same as them? I was also the child of divorced parents, and there weren’t many of us at St Jeromes Catholic Primary School in the 1990’s. Mum said that I begged her for a white long dress for years. One day, she asked me ‘is it because you want to have a Holy Communion like the others?’. Busted!!  Even though I wasn’t Catholic, I was learning about Jesus just as they were and I wanted that celebration (and dress). 

I never experienced the church hurt that so many others have– but I have I personally experienced hurt at the hands of well intended Christian people– which well and truly put me off a relationship with Christ. ‘Why would I want to be like them?’ I thought. This definitely contributed to me, completely detouring around anything that looked and smelt like Christianity as an adult. Like many others, I couldn’t always separate Christ from the people and institutions that hurt people in the church. 

I was dedicated into the Salvation Army when I was a baby— dedicated into a life of serving God through Christ. I lived watching my mum be the living embodiment of Christ values— serving her family and community selflessly, despite being handed some very challenging circumstances throughout her life. My mum never dwelled. She never indulged her past or identified with her wounds. She never canceled things because ‘she didn’t feel called’, or ‘it’s not aligned’, like our generation so often does. She has always said to me ‘people need to leave the past in the past and stop wallowing in it.’ At times I thought she was being insensitive, shoving down her stuff because she ‘didn’t have the tools to heal it’—That was me revealing the spiritual narcissism of the modern self help world that I was so actively participating in. But now, I can see how she wasn’t just being ignorant and bypassing– she was living her life for something bigger than her pain, her history, her circumstance and her trauma. She acknowledged it, but she didn’t live as if the world owed her something because of it. She never ever complained about her life, instead, she ‘lost herself in the service of others’. Remember that one? Once I truly got this, there was so much relief. I had tried for years the modern way of ‘putting myself first’, loving myself above all, being a master of boundaries, only doing things if they felt ‘aligned’. Still, a gaping hole remained. Maybe those self centered pursuits were the cause of the gaping hole. Sure, I was generous and loving. But I wasn’t willing to ‘lose myself’ in service.

I often wondered why my mum volunteered to stay back late at her school and care for kids beyond what she was paid for. She was a single mum of four children who worked more than full time hours. If anyone had reason not to, it was her. I often wondered why she volunteered to coach the soccer team at school and my sisters soccer team. If anyone had reason not to, it was her. I often wondered why she volunteered as the chairperson of the Athletics club— got there at 5am and was the last to leave, then welcoming families back to our humble abode for a fully hosted BBQ. If anyone had reason not to, it was her. I often wondered why she would go to great effort to visit every member of the community when they were in hospital, or take them chocolates at Christmas and Easter. She was so busy, carrying so much stress, why did she still maintain these commitments so diligently year after year? If anyone had reason not to, it was her. 

The self help world would say that ‘she’s avoiding her pain, distracting herself’. But with my fresh, unveiled eyes, I can see that my mum well and truly got the memo from God. She always lived for something bigger than herself and her preferences, her desires, her pain. 

Every year at Christmas, mum would buy toys, food and clothing and bundle up a big hamper for the Salvation Army. We went there in person, to the derelict building in a close by suburb to drop it off. Sometimes it was so sketchy outside that we had to try several times, making sure there was someone to receive it inside. I have written about this story often, but there is one year that sticks out in my mind distinctively. We were at the shopping centre on the Thursday that mum got paid. It was right before Christmas. Mum had just bought the meat for Christmas Day— a big splurge for us! She had it in the trolley, along with the carefully planned out groceries and last minute bits and pieces. While waiting in line for bread, mum turned around to realise that her meat had been stolen from the trolley. I’ll never forget the look on her face. It was pure devastation. Our Christmas meat, gone. We couldn’t just go over and buy some more. My mum had planned use of every dollar. 

Still, the following day, my Mum went to the Salvation Army as normal with her giant box of food, toys etc. 

Still, right after the day she realised we’d be without Christmas meat.

Still, right after the pain of being stolen from by someone in the community. 

After I left my religious primary school, I went to a very liberal high school. It was a specialist performing arts and soccer school in a very colourful area. It was the complete opposite to my primary school experience, but I loved it. I continued to pray throughout my years in High School, but I wasn’t learning about Jesus and Scripture like I had been for 8 years prior. 

As a young adult, I was spiritually hungry. I wanted to know everything I could about life, life beyond life, humans, our potential, the meaning of it all. In my early adulthood, as I was wrapping up my Science degrees, I partied on the weekends, trying to reach new states, new places experience an ecstatic high and to touch other places. I wanted to know what more there was. After a few years, I stopped dabbling in the party scene, deferred into an entrepreneurial journey wired around personal and spiritual growth. Still, the search for exaltation continued. 

My introduction to new age spirituality was with a CD I was given. It was Earl Nightingale — The Strangest Secret. I played it over and over and over and over, ingraining into my mind that whatever I wanted in this life, will be created through my thoughts. This opened the door for many things, many roads, many pathways, many teachings. I became incredibly curious about the energetic arts, the universe, and healing. I was immersed in personal development— much of this was a devotion to my own betterment, my own healing, addressing generational trauma and the rewiring of patterns that weren’t rewarding. I have devoted a lot of the last 15 years to understanding a woman’s relationship with food, her body and God-- positioned perfectly to do so, through my painful history of disordered eating, as well as the burning passion in my heart for sharing the intelligence and wisdom of the human body.  

I have written books, offered programs, held events— sharing well intended messages. Some of which I still stand beside, but many in which I don’t (I’ll share more about these as I continue to share this journey). For many of us who find ourselves positioned as leaders in our field, we pass on our momentary fleeting thoughts as if they’re mega downloads. Sometimes, we even label them as truths. We live in a world where ‘but it’s my truth’ leads us on long and winding roads to….. where? I have written about this recently but… the self help world has become self indulged. More than this, it’s become narcissistic. Maybe it always was. Our obsession with self love has us living as if we are self-sourced manifesting machines, whose feelings and desires matter more than everyone else’s. We are convinced that if we can just make ourselves happy, by knowing more about ourselves, healing ourselves, gentle parenting, setting boundaries and becoming ‘Queen’s’, then that is how we will know Heaven On Earth. 

We become obsessed with our ‘stuff’ and we over indulge it so to fit in with our spiritual communities. We feel secretly superior to those who ‘don’t do the work’ (relentlessly) and especially superior to those with religious beliefs. The new age looks and smells fancy, cool and advanced, but deep down, I always felt its hollowness. What I thought was a search for truth, only dissolved the truth. We pride ourselves on being ‘without religion’, the leaders of our own lives, and yet only we know whether or not our hearts truly know the peace and fulfilment we’re searching for. For me, I was taking long and windy detours. Of course, that was my journey. But my journey was not some healing spiral— it was many roads that looked good, smelled good, sounded good…. But didn’t bare the fruits my heart longed for. I know there are beautiful, wonderful, genuinely loving humans in the merry-go-round of the self help machine, who are sucked in. I see them with loving eyes and no judgment, because I get it. There is so much darkness in the self help industry cloaked in ‘love and light’, and yet I know so many of us feel and see the many layers of deception more clearly than ever. Evil knows exactly which heart strings of ours to pull. Evil knows exactly how to hide in what seems popular, trendy and progressive. 

(I want to note here that I do not renounce the work of everyone I’ve ever worked with. There are many truly gifted people practicing healing modalities and therapies that are good. There are also many operating in the new age arena, who are possessed, unethical and unknowingly separating people from God. There are very dark ‘worship’ dynamics in the self help world too. I’m sure you are aware. This may be ripe for more detailed exploration soon– I’m taking my time with my communication to ensure grace on this journey and to avoid heavy handedness).  

God and my marriage.

I have been married to my husband for nearly 7 years and we’ve been together for 9 as of the middle of next year. For the entirety of our marriage, I have felt like a broken woman. I have explored so much in the form of generational healing, intimacy work, internal family systems— but I always felt like there was something deeply wrong with me. Despite having a very loving, present husband— I felt lost, alone and confused. For most of our marriage, I blamed it all on myself. I was the one who came from a broken home. My mum was abandoned by her husband and her Father (in the womb!). My Nanna was abandoned as a pregnant woman, forced to hide her pregnancy in the 1950’s. My great grandmother had lost THREE children— one as an adult and two as infants. It was me. I was the wounded one. I wondered if I had the ability at all to be in a marriage. I’d never seen one. I’d never seen my mum be loved like she deserved to be, nor my Nanna. I didn’t have a template. I was as loyal and committed as you could be— I have never, ever stepped outside my marriage in any way, shape or form, despite the times I felt most lonely. My morals and values in this way have always been strong— integrity, loyalty and honesty– I am my mothers daughter after all. My husband’s parents have been happily married his whole life, so he was often perplexed at my confusion and internal loneliness. So, I did what I knew how to do. I took responsibility for my broken-ness and I did the work. When I say I ‘did the work’, I mean, I had coaches, mentors, guides, healers, therapists, energy workers of all flavours– consistently. I was always working with someone, with the goal of making me more whole, more open to life, more able to feel things in my heart that I just could not feel. I strongly resisted using my married name. I strongly resisted marriage at all. It wasn’t a rebellion, it was a deep fear in my heart that I would be dropped by life if I didn’t continuously walk, live and love with armour around my heart as heavy as the earth. And yet here I was, with a soul that said a very strong yes to my husband when he proposed to me. The soreness in me said ‘I can’t get married!’ and God said ‘yes you can.’ It was in my nature to seek for my own faults. I have spent the last 8 years exploring myself without end, asking the question– what is so wrong with me? My husband and I have always loved and respected each other hugely. We both did our absolute best in our own ways to have a thriving marriage– and yet, the last few years have been incredibly hard for us. 

Every single day for years, I wondered whether or not I was in the right place, whether I’d just be better off on my own, whether I was too broken, whether we were just not a fit— Not because of a lack of love and respect (we had that in spades), but because of a deep sense of lostness and confusion. Also, because of external influences which caused challenge in our dynamic and some other elements that shall remain private for the purpose of other’s dignity. But, there was something missing. Not something little, something big. Last year, we separated for a period. It was an intense, hard period. There was some damage done during that time that has required a lot of healing and rebuilding. I was alone in the USA caring for two small children, with no family support close by and no way of getting home to Australia (the borders were hard closed). It was during that time that I re-learned what it meant to lean on God. I needed someone to rest on. I needed to know an everlasting, unwavering masculine love. I needed a Father. 

Looking back, I can see God gluing us together, knowing that soon we would know marriage as we yearned to know it. God knew that he’d go to work on my heart and reconfigure it from a hyper independent, always-geared-for-survival woman, to the soft, joyful woman I wanted to be. God knew that it was possible for us to have what we yearned to have, together. My husband is devoted, loving, willing and strong to no end. I am so eternally grateful that it is him that God chose for me and for my children. It has been challenging for us both, but it has been perfect and our love has grown in ways I could never, ever have imagined. God was preparing us. 

Mid renewal. Or early renewal? X

Recently, my marriage has been restored in ways I have been praying for for years. Although absolutely, the work I and we have done with many amazing and talented practitioners has helped, there is no work I’ve been able to do that compares to what God has done for my marriage and my family. It has been nothing short of miraculous. We have been working on our dynamic for a long time, and God swooped in and rearranged it for us in line with his beautiful original design for marriage– something I never felt worthy of… until now. I see my husband differently. I see myself differently. Not just a little bit differently– but as a woman who was designed by God– I forgot this, throughout all those years of trying to do it all myself. Heal myself, fix myself, lead my life. My family is walking this path together now. It’s new, it’s fresh, it’s tender and we’re quietly waiting for our path to reveal itself. As a life long ‘I have to be the one to make it all happen! What does my astro say? What more intel can I gather in order to perfect my life?’ kinda gal, it is both challenging and relieving to put it all down and trust God to lay his hand on it all. Sol said to me the other day when asking if we’d have another baby– “We’ll see what God gives us.” 

Since that dark and transformative period of last year, I’ve been in the process of walking out of a complex and multidimensional belief system and slowly into a new, simplified one. I have spent a lot of this year walking myself out of so much that is false, illusory, dark and confused. I have been able to communicate the artificiality  and dangers of modern day ‘self help’, and yet there has been a period where I haven’t yet known what I am walking into. A lot of the year God has simply been ushering me out of the old, waiting for the moment to walk me into His arms— with fresh eyes, a fresh heart, a fresh mind. 

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh— Ezekiel 36:26

I have been moonwalking myself out of the boss babe era for years now, slowly and gently. You can read about it all over my work. For so long, I  lived as if I was the source of my own strength. I lived as if I created my own reality through my thoughts, frequencies and that if anything was happening to me then I created it. The responsibility I took for my life was imbalanced. I believed in God as my creator and at the same time, lived my life as if I was playing God. Our souls are not designed for that, and neither are our minds or bodies. 

I have spoken about my beliefs about womanhood– the primal role of a woman as a mother and homemaker and my own experience of a lack of fulfilment in seasons of feeling like I ‘should’ outsource things within my home that belonged to me and me only. I have spoken about my beliefs about sovereignty and much more.  When I get to the roots of all that I believe, I see someone who is the OG when it comes to truth, love and liberty…. His name is Jesus. As a devoted truth seeker, I’m both surprised and also not surprised that my search led me to Him. But I also don’t take the credit. Jesus came and got me, because He knew that I’d no longer resist with my pseudo truths, half truths, convoluted truths, tired truths. 

We talk a lot in the spiritual worlds about the veil thinning. But NOTHING removes the veil like Jesus does. I don’t believe anything has the power to. With Him it’s like a VROOSH. One day you see the distractions and delusions as normal and the next, you wonder how you lived so long like that. I’ve been adjusting to fresh eyes and as beautiful as it is, sometimes I feel like a baby giraffe.

In June of this year I was in a vintage book store in Frome, England. I walked right to the Bibles. I hadn’t read a Bible in a looooooong time. I’d say since I was 12. But I wanted it. I really wanted it. I bought the mini sized one— to go along with my very mini sized belief that I’d actually read it. Still, I bought it. 

In July of this year, I had the experience with my son having emergency surgery in an Italian Hospital. I have shared in a previous post about the Prayer I prayed and the Promise I made during that experience (read for reference in my substack if you haven’t). 

Over the last three years, I’ve watched myself enter into coaching arrangements (I was the client) on a ‘sugar high’ and in a trance of deficiency, only to exit most of them soon after. I could feel how easy it is to be led astray by well intentioned people who are worshiping money and false gods/goddesses. I stopped my participation in numerous containers, forfeiting investments of well into the 6 figures, because I just did not want to be influenced by what felt dark, artificial and lost. While I can see the distraction and deception at play, it also makes me sick that I was sucked in.  I made a very large investment with a top female coach in a period that I call a ‘sugar high’— This is when we get so excited about a potential for our life that we make investments from this ‘sugar high’ place. I also made the investment from a trance of deficiency– falsely believing that what I didn’t have was enough and that I would find great exaltation in ‘more’. The container was due to start 6 months after the investment. Soon after the investment was made, I realised what a mistake it was and I went to her team and let them know that I’d found extraordinary peace in my life as a mother, and that there was no sense in entering the container (that hadn’t yet begun). I was told that there was no chance of a refund– a business ethics issue, but something that has become commonplace in the murky self help world. It hurts my heart, my body and my soul to know that this investment is now wasted, when it could’ve gone to something truly worthwhile and yet… I’d rather lose the money than expose myself to teachings and ideologies that lead me further away from the peace and fulfilment that I finally feel. 

Recently I stopped production of my book Earth Is Hiring and Stop Missing The Point Book. Sure, there are some concepts amongst those books that remain fine, but many in there were written by me at a time where I just wasn’t seeing clearly. That happens when we jack ourselves up on ceremonial cacao each day-- we feel we have to MAKE and BE so much more than what is true. It’s a tricky thing to admit that I put work out there that I no longer stand behind, but humbling myself to Truth is all I want to do. 

Similarly, I have stopped offering any previous programs and am wiping the slate clean. My Substack is my only offering, as it allows me to communicate in real time and share my journey. My kids book Earth To Kids is also still available– but that is it. I have another very innocent kids book ready for print (it was completed earlier this year) and am just deciding what to do with that. I wasn’t offering coaching or mentoring, ever. You may have followed– a month or two back I reluctantly offered The Bath House– a mentoring group, after having delaying it by about 9 months. Despite feeling like I ‘should’ offer mentoring, I was consistently told not to (from what felt like within, but came from above). I canceled The Bath House on the same day that I offered it. God was working then, telling me ‘No.’ I never felt positioned to coach or mentor anyone 1:1. I never felt like I had the skills or ability. I was right. Sure, I could share my perspective and experiences in compelling ways, but a 1:1 exchange felt beyond me. People are dealing with things so heavy, so strong that I did not feel equipped to support them adequately. It just was not my lane and I didn’t touch it.  Despite looking around and seeing every man and their dog charging large sums for coaching, I just kept being told ‘don’t go there’. Now I know why. So many of us are simply not qualified. People need God, they do not need false idols in the form of humans to worship. 

Note: I did ‘try out’ one month of mentoring two women who’d been in my community for years to ‘make sure’-- and while it was an honest experience that they felt was really supportive, I quickly decided after that this wasn’t my work. While a part of me was feeling like I had to ‘keep up’ with the industry… I was being humbled by God and over the years, this was happening faster and with more clarity. 

I remember a friend and Pastor saying to me about his coming to Christ— “It felt like the biggest relief of my life when I stopped living my life as if it was all about me, to stop focusing so much on myself.” This was a few years ago, and it hit me hard then. I thought about it often over the years and the truth in it grew within me, according to how willing I was to put down my own self-importance and significance. Only recently though have I truly felt what he meant. (Read a post from a few months back titled ‘The Relief Of Wholeness’ for a conversation along these lines). 

In the self help world, we sell our beliefs. People worship other people. People worship so much that looks, sounds nice but is self absorbed and hollow. The world is hurting, the world is ill– self importance, self indulgence and self absorption are not the medicine. Self love is not the medicine we’re yearning for. God’s love is. 

These lyrics are by John Pantana– The song is Meet Your Maker. 

You put no heavy weights on me
You say, "Come, rest and receive"
All of those years I was wounded by religion
You unwind me

You calm all my striving
You lay Your peace over me like blankets
You put an end to my pretending show
You are the least religious Person that I know

You put no expectations on me
You say, "Son, I just want you free"
And all of those years I was wounded by religion
You unwind me

You calm all my striving
You lay Your peace over me like blankets
You put an end to my pretending show
You are the least religious Person that I know

Meet your Maker
Smiling bright
Meet your Savior
Loves pure light
C'mon and taste the real thing
Feast on life
Jesus, Lover
Drink His wine

Meet your Maker
Smiling bright
Meet your Savior
Loves pure light
C'mon and taste the real thing
Feast on life
Jesus, Lover
Drink His wine

You calm all my striving
You lay Your peace over me like blankets
You put an end to my pretending show
You are the least religious Person that I know
You are the least religious Person that I know
You are the least religious Person that I know

I listened to this song during the week that the ‘VROOSH’ happened– the ripping off of the veil. What pierced my heart were these lines:

You calm all my striving
You lay Your peace over me like blankets
You put an end to my pretending show
You are the least religious Person that I know

I’ve never felt so seen in both my desires and my reservations. Calm my striving– three words of balm from the depths of my heart. 

Spiritual narcissism is rife. We believe we need to ‘expert’ ourselves rather than humble ourselves. For me it is the relief of my life, to give my life to God. It is the rest and relief I have been searching so diligently for. It is the humbling for my ‘identity’ that my soul had been yearning for. I have never cared less about what people think/say/comment on my social media because my identity is no longer anything I can communicate on my insta bio. I couldn’t say that a year ago. 

God has been pruning, landscaping and reshaping my life this year and most remarkably in recent months. As I have shared,  I have stopped all of my work, with the exception of this Substack– allowing myself to start again, be made new in always— as a mother, wife, woman, and artist. 

I believe children need clarity– they need parents who are rooted, not parents who are easily swayed and influenced according to what sounds good and seems culturally trendy. The sugar high is not sustainable. I want to parent with God. It feels like the most important parenting decision I can ever make. More important, is living with a pure heart of love like my Mum always has. 

I will in time share how my own parenting is changing, how God is rearranging our home. 

I’ve got a lot to share here, including convictions about how gentle parenting/over-validating and over-indulging our children’s feelings is creating chaos inside of their hearts, minds and lives (and creating a generation of kids, even more self indulgent than us). 

I have a new capacity for selflessness– now that I’m not living as my heart is something to be protected diligently by me. I have a new capacity to love others– regardless of whether our views agree. Almost overnight, desires that had ruled my life for years were dissolved. I have stopped ‘manifesting’ and all new age practices (without judging any friends who disagree). There is a lot that I’ve believed and practiced, that was removed from my life overnight in a VROOSH! I will continue to write about these on my Substack in due time.

I have a beautiful community of people who have for many years trusted me to share my experiences honestly, and so this is why for me, walking this new path and communicating it is very delicate. I know that I have walked the path, traversed the many ‘ways’, modalities, belief systems, and teachings, so that I can continue to be able to relate to those in my community who still are. 

I want to be cool about this— we all know that when we are overcome with truth, we can become heavy handed with our sharing of it (cue: annoying and intense. We’ve all been on both sides, lol) There is a strong instruction in my heart that I am warm, compassionate, loving as well as bold as I continue to share this journey.

I am humbling myself to a life that is no longer mine. It doesn’t feel like an ego death. It feels like the sweet relief that I’ve been searching for. 

I’ve found my resting place. 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11: 28

To be continued…. 

Merry Christmas to you and your family. I’m so excited to get stuck into making my white Christmas, laughing with my family (my bro and sisters are all in town!) and taking the kids to the Christmas eve service, complete with nativity (I used to always play a camel at  our nativity at school. Not the most litty character but hey– I played that camel well. I still remember our Priest, Father Whiteley, calling me ‘Petra’, and me just pretending that was my name for fear of offending him). Ahhh, mems. 

This year’s wreath! By yours truly. Quite the nifty Nelly this year (except for my homemade marshmallows which continue to flop).

Love, Peta X

PS. This video was sent to me by my friend Joel Brown this week– this. This is what it’s all about. Watch the whole thing if you want to feel the essence of the moves I believe Jesus is making in so many of us right now. The message is that the commandment, Love One Another– is not a suggestion or recommendation. It is a command. I encourage you to watch if you want your heart stirred (regardless of faith!)