I am not here to perform for you.

Words on your creative freedom, and mine too.

I am not here to perform for you.

Once again, this is a raw post. I’m writing it on an afternoon where I’m a little under the weather, day 1 of my cycle and I promised I’d rest while my husband takes the kids out. Plot twist, I’ve sat and written this. Make sure you read to the end. It’s very full.

I turned 37 over the weekend. It was the best birthday I’ve ever had. I wasn’t anywhere spectacular, just at home with my family. Actually the most spectacular place of all.

I saw three of my closest friends for lunch a couple of days earlier. This is a rare and wonderful thing when you all have little bubs at home. The sun was shining and spring was in the air— it was glorious.

The rise in energy, the mood-boosting effects of a lunch in the sun with women who really KNOW you-- this needs to be studied. There is no pretending, no over-thinking whether you said the wrong thing, just a lot of laughs and a lot of love. Lunch with friends is vitality maxing.

I woke up to my kids sprinting into my bed as soon as they could hear me and my littlest babe Figgy wake up. She still sleeps tucked into me, curled into my side with her hairy head in my arm pit. I’ve got plans to night wean but they are non-linear at this stage. More on that another day. The kids all piled on, including my husband and we had morning-breath snuggles. My day was already complete.

I thought to myself— This is wealth. I thought back to all of the birthdays that I tried to over plan so that they’d be special on paper. I thought back to all the birthdays I held such high hopes for in terms of celebrations. I looked around me and had all I could ever want or need.

Birthdays are about who you love, and who loves you.

Birthdays are a day to hear from all those who care enough to remember your birthday. If you’re lucky, they’ll share special words, intentional words about why they love you and what you mean to them. It’s a day each year where we get to look back on our lives, and be reminded of everyone who means something to us.

I heard from and saw friends I’ve known since I was 4 year old, friends I played soccer with back when I was the only girl playing with the boys, friends I made when we lived in Italy, America, Sydney. Some friends text/audio messages were so long and thoughtful I just felt like the luckiest girl ever to be reminded of the people I treasure.

None more than my family though.

My husbands cards are always my favourite.

My kids ones too. They always do multiple as if they’ve been stashing them away for weeks.

My mum always puts together a photo collage for each of our birthdays, including our spouses and the grandkids. She then writes a long caption to go underneath and these are always iconic. Her instagram is kept private, only for family and so her entire instagram page is just collages and meaningful messages for us all. We always tease her when we catch her on her phone and she’s working on a collage for a birthday that’s months away. “Mum’s working on a bloody collage I bet!”

“These take a long time you know!!” She says.

Of course, we see each other in person and write lengthy cards too. We are a wordy bunch, my family.

It was actually my mum’s birthday yesterday— we’re two days apart.

On my birthday, my husband took me shopping at Zimmerman. It’s one of my favourite Australian designers, and I’ve had a growing collection of their pieces for the last 10 ish years. I love investing in their pieces because they’re timeless and classic. I plan to give them to my daughters because who knows what the style will be in the next 15-30 years. They’ll be grateful for the vintage, I figure. Also, they’ll always have a piece of ‘what mum wore’. I won’t leave my trackies, just the snazzy bits. My nanna always told me that women need to have a few nice frocks. My frock collection is an ode to her. She’d love the ones I’ve got.

My mother in law also bought me a gift card for this store, and so off we went. It’s actually become a bit of a birthday tradition. On this day, however, I decided I’d do something I haven’t ever done and film a silly little ‘come shopping with me’ reel. So trivial, compared to my usual gut punch content. It was a bit of a joke as I recorded my commentary over the top of the video as I watched it— raw and unscripted— clearly it was not my usual content. Many long time followers loved it. People get tired of being spoken at, you know? They like to just see who people are. I think we vastly underestimate that the kind of content many of us most want to enjoy, is just glimpses into others lives… into who they are. Not just ‘what they can do for me’ and ‘how they can change me’ kinda content.

To be honest, it was a bit healing for me to make and share that silly little video.

Me. Eldest daughter. One who identifies so much in what I can do for others.

Even I can make and post a silly little video.

But I lost 3000 followers.

In all truth, I felt purified in the best way.

Initially thought I started to wonder why it bothered so many people. I was trying to imagine their thoughts:

“There’s a cost of living crisis, and this woman is shopping in Zimmerman”.

“She said sugar daddy! Offensive!”

And other political things I’ll keep to myself.

I’d never posted something like that before. But let me be REAL with you— If I wanted to be showy, I could be. Humility is too important to me and my husband and how we raise our children.

Now, long time readers on Substack know what I’m about to say, but many followers on Instagram do not. It lacks context there and someone can start following you without any context at all.

I know where I came from, and it wasn’t money. My mum and her mum and her mum all lived in government housing. I intentionally changed that for myself and in the process, freed my very deserving mum from her own financial stresses too. Beyond this though is the fact I married a man who happens to be financially sound — something many seem to think is a crime. I’ve always worked hard and created success before we got together, but having the loving, providing, caring, present husband that I have has been the healing of my life and massive generational healing for my family too.

I have always been so afraid that people would assume that I am all of a sudden ignorant to what life is like for most people. I am hyper-aware of this. I watch myself in conversations, make sure to drop in bits about where I grew up, so that the person I’m talking to knows who I am. I used to go to great lengths to make sure people knew what a good person I was, how much I’d donated, how many people I’d personally helped.

My favourite people are the gritty, rough ones who’ve seen some stuff because that is me in my bones. I slept with a knife under my pillow, went shopping for groceries for my nanna with a butter knife (lol), and my childhood fear was that I’d get HIV at the park because of the syringes in the sand.

The judgements of people on the internet who don’t know me and never did, really got to me for quite a while. I clamped my own tongue because of them. But really, it was on me to free myself from their projections.

After several years of realising how deluded internet dynamics are— I stopped caring whether people online really knew me or not. This did not happen over night.

My life is not a performance. Neither are my virtues. If I am right by God, I am good. I loathe performative virtue, performative faith, performative anything.

So much of my identity has been wrapped up in what I can do for others. If my posts aren’t going to be life changing then why bother? Lol. I am recognising the deep eldest daughter dynamics… the ones where I feel like all I’m meant to do is make sure others are good.

But that wears thin after 37 years.

My silly little shopping reel wasn’t something ’showy’, it was something just a little bit healing for me.

I get to express silly little things too.

I get to show who I am without needing to fix others problems 24/7.

What I didn’t post, was that on my birthday I came home and donated to the Salvation Army— to thank God for my blessings and in honour of where I came from. I do this every year. I was dedicated into the Salvation Army as a baby.

I don’t owe the internet the completeness of who I am and to be honest, that massive exodus of followers was exactly what I needed.

It freed me.

It was like God saying ‘you really want to be yourself? Now go do it.’

I am free to post big sis ted talks and I’m also free to post silly little things.

Anyway.

The next day we went to church and my friend, the pastor’s wife was taking kids church. It was quite an intimate group and my husband and I were both in there with our two youngest kids listening in to the story. Sometimes I find the kids church messages more powerful than the main sermons. They’re so simple, and even though they’re presented in youthful perhaps ‘dumbed down’ ways, they’re taken from the exact same vine as the sermon’s are.

The lesson was about how God gives us all gifts to use in this lifetime.

It was The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14–30).

It’s about stewardship, courage, and using what God’s entrusted you with — not letting fear or complacency bury your gifts.

More so, it was about how we are expected to use them to multiply His good.

My husband and I have been talking at length for many months about how we’re yearning to express our gifts more generously. We’re very hands on at home and have been since the beginning— mostly homeschooling our children and living a very family centred life. Our kids have all co-slept and fed on demand and as all mumma’s know— it’s a life giving sacrifice, but a sacrifice none the less (one I wouldn’t trade). Now that Figgy is approaching two, we’re feeling like our capacity is expanding a little. This is usually the time when you’d get pregnant again, haha. (Not sure yet for us!).

I often feel God nudging me to speak more consistently.

For example in Australia, the most popular podcasts are all heavily left leaning and often involve women talking about their sex lives in a way I find quite gross.

More wholesome, godly opinions are definitely needed in the culture down here.

I have felt at times a nudge to start one but I will be honest in saying that there is a major block in me when it comes to doing it — at least consistently. Sure, I am consistent in my work, and publish video and audio when I feel called to, but starting a consistent weekly podcast in that arena is another thing.

People who’ve followed me for a long time on social media often tell me how authentic and bold they think I am. While I appreciate that generous feedback, I often think to myself “I’m nowhere near as bold as I’d like to be.”

I have spoken up on quite controversial things in the past— C*vid, ‘chest feeding’, and the likes. I’ve spoken up when my first book was plagiarised and shared to go viral (I’m talking Michael Jordan viral). The repercussions of these instances were sometimes too much for my nervous system, and with little children to care for at home, I decided that it was easier to ‘be bold but also play it safe’. The need for physical safety is biologically sound when it comes to mothering. The children are our territory, and when we feel threatened, it is natural to retreat a little. No apologies.

I never stopped speaking. I never stopped sharing vulnerably and honestly. But I definitely drew a line.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I want to show up online moving forward.

I’ve been writing a mini book about creative integrity, our true voice, and our relationship with social media and I have found it SO very easy to write. It’s just poured out of me. You know what they say— write what you’re experienced in. I’ve been sharing publicly for well over a decade and have weathered many storms, twists and turns in that time. Writing on the relationship between our voice, expression, social media, the mob and most importantly God…. Is effortless and thrilling for me. That’s not to say I have all the answers, but I can easily write what I’ve learned.

I told my husband recently, my voice is changing. I don’t want to write and speak how I’ve always written and spoken.

Refinement is happening.

What I want to express is broadening.

I either want to allow my voice to change, allow myself to express more of who I am beyond what people expect of me…

Or there’s no point.

I have plenty of opportunities to influence and support people in my real life.

For me, it’s not about becoming more political or more polarizing.

It’s about allowing myself to have more fun with my expression, and see where God wants to take it.

What it takes to embody any sort of authenticity online is one really big thing-- it’s facing off with the mob.

You have to come to terms with the fact that there will ALWAYS be people who are devoted— I mean DEVOTED to critiquing, misunderstanding and projecting.

I mean, how long would we need to discuss the internet dynamics in this one post? Not to mention the political divide and depress tactics.

For me, one of the most obvious examples is the part of the raging left.

They’re insufferable. I used to be one. Although, I’ve never been someone to comment on others posts as if they owe me.

They’ll come into your inbox and tell you who you are, what to say, and what to do with your money.

They’ll read your words as if you were peering into their home and writing it personally for them.

They are so brainwashed and unable to critically think that they spew the same rhetoric over and over and over again. I used to also fall into this trap so I get it. But also, I hate it.

People truly feel entitled to your voice.

They feel entitled to your belief system, your faith, your mind.

They feel entitled to your creativity.

They feel entitled to your whole dam freedom, your life.

You have to realise this to free yourself and your voice.

As

Salomé Sibonex

wrote this week on instagram— it’s all about control. You won’t ever say the right thing, because there is no right thing. It’s control they want. And it’s a spiritual war.

The war for your voice is a battle of good and evil.

It’s not just a ‘left Vs right’ thing.

It’s a good and evil thing.

A good heart VS cold heart thing.

We are ignorant if we play too much into the left Vs right divide. I’m well aware that there is extreme unhinged-ness on the right too, only I have witnessed more of it from the left.

I’ve seen it even with religion.

Recently there has been a popular ‘crunchy’ formerly Christian ‘influencer’ who has deconstructed her faith. I don’t know her backstory like many others do, but apparently she grew up fundamentalist and so this deconstruction has been a process of shedding oppressive religious spirit and finding God beyond it.

I have no real authority to be able to speak about what God is doing in that woman’s life. It is her own journey. I know from experience that faith is very windy. It is intimate. It is personal. Sometimes God tears something down and reconstructs it in a more pure form.

Now I understand that culturally, when things happen online like this, it’s natural for people to want to talk about it. It helps us make sense of things and it’s normal to connect over cultural happenings.

It’s also good and natural to feel convicted by the Holy Spirit and to discern for yourself whether something someone shares is for you or not.

But what has surprised me is the catty and gossipy commentary by Christian women on this ‘unravelling’ of this woman. Rather than praying, they’re publicly gossiping about her, her husband and her children.

Um. What?

Hang on, is this what Christ would be doing?

Would Christ be gossiping about this woman, her children and her marriage?

Faith can sometimes be more of a performance than a personal relationship.

I refuse to let my faith become that. I’m not perfect! But my faith is not a performance.

My reason for sharing this story is this— it doesn’t matter which area or ‘group’ you even vaguely fit into, there will always be people who view your words and feel triggered by them, and who tell you what you should or should not say instead— the version that will suit their worldview.

Social media has groomed people to be quick to criticism and slow to compassion.

Even amongst those who are meant to be following the true light of the world— Christ.

You’ve got to make peace with how the mob operates if you want to have an authentic voice online.

Whether it’s the left, the right, the people from your small home town who still stalk you even though they hate you, the low lives in the forums, the new agers, or the Christians who need to let the Holy Spirit clamp their gossipy tongues…

You have to decide if they get to control your voice.

You have to realise that the cost of honesty and authenticity is mass approval.

What is to costing you to let them pull the puppet strings?

What is it costing you to let them decide?

What is it costing you, that you’re speaking up on an issue you are unqualified to speak on only because they told you you had to?

IT’S COSTING YOU YOUR INTEGRITY.

It’s costing you your voice.

It’s costing you the GIFTS GOD PUT INSIDE YOU.

That is too high a price to pay.

So decide whether it is compelling enough for you to have a voice online. Is it? Has God put a message inside of you?

Be honest. If God doesn’t need you online, get off. Enjoy the peace beyond the internet insanity.

But if God has given you gifts that are to be shared— they are His gifts, not yours. You must share them.

The cost for hoarding.

The cost for squishing.

The cost is too high.

The cost is your freedom.

The cost is your integrity.

The cost is your vitality, too.

Now, I wrote this next piece I’m about to share months ago, and didn’t post for some reason.

Maybe I was waiting for my 37 year old maturity to kick in, LOL. You really do start becoming more ‘unshakable’ the closer you get to 40. DONTCHA THINK?! All you who are over 40 are probably thinking ‘just you wait girlfriend, wait until 60!!’. I believe you, wise women.

Below is what I wrote. It was specifically about my faith, but you can apply the sentiment to all areas of your life. Now remember, I wasn’t writing it for YOU personally. I was writing it as an expression, towards all the people and ideas and agendas that have at times won the war for my voice.

I am not here to perform for you.

I am not here to write things that will be a hit for you every time.

I am not here to write things that will answer questions perfectly.

I am here to share what God put in me, the stories of my life that are rough and gritty as they are holy, to tell about life from where God put ME, amidst all the ways it is muddled and messy.

I don’t write with the goal of solving some century old wheel-of-fortune puzzle.

Most importantly. I will not write to pretend.

When I actually figured out who Jesus was, for myself, this was the first thing I gave Him— my pretending. All that I was holding that was heavy. All the pretending to be more or better than I was.

I won’t put that heavy pretending back on my back.

I won’t pretend I have the answers I don’t have.

I won’t pretend that I’m not still wrestling.

I won’t pretend I believe it’s demonic just because you do.

I won’t pretend our convictions need to match up.

I believe Jesus frees just as much as he invites us to excellence, and holiness.

I believe honesty is one of the key parts of holiness.

I won’t pretend.

I won’t perform.

I am a 36 year old woman, who has a lot of figuring out to do.

Do not come to me as your North Star. That is too big a burden for me to carry.

Read my words as someone sharing from the well of honesty, from the relief of non-pretending.

I write to unburden me.

I write to unburden you.

I write to declare that our honesty is safe on public platforms so long as our heart is genuinely oriented towards God.

I write to un-muddle.

I write to clarify.

I write to free.

I write to wrestle.

I write to participate.

I write to share.

I write to help.

I write to seek.

I write to cry.

I write to celebrate.

I write to feel.

I am not here to satisfy whatever precise ideals you’ve got about who you think I am and what you think I should say.

I have gone back and forth about whether to be on here at all, many times. Is it worth it? Does it matter?

God does not want me to always present a perfectly polished answer. What God wants to deliver through me is that we are safe in our honesty. More people have told me that through my words they have felt closer to God in my imperfections, in my ‘not knowing’, in my wrestles than in my perfectly and poetic certainty about it all. I myself feel closer to God when I am not pretending. I fell into the arms of Jesus because in many ways, I was tired of pretending and I will not go back to that place of pretending— precisely because I follow Jesus and He asked me personally for my burdens to be placed at His feet.

I will not tell you that I am wholeheartedly convicted about something if I am not. I will not pretend I have it all figured out because I do not. In my words, and in my life, what I want to say and what I want to live is that same single thing that has been driving me my entire life— I want to do right by God.

This is what drives my creativity.

This is what drives my expression.

This is what drives my mothering.

And my marriage.

I cannot pretend that what God put in me is different to what it is.

What I feel called to write about, my viewpoints, they may not be perfect but they are HONEST. This honesty is what I want to give others.

That you can be honest about where you are at.

That you do not have to pretend.

That you do not have to believe you have the exact same opinions as others who have been lumped into your worldview.

That you do not have to be a carbon copy of that .

Pretending is a burden that I gave to Jesus the day I really encountered Him for the first time.

I did not become a perfect person that day.

I will not so long as I live.

But I did gain the freedom to be an honest one.

When I am honest, I can move forward.

When I am honest, I know truth with a lot more intimacy.

When I am honest, I am closer to God than when I am pretending.

Whenever I go to post, I have voices in my head and I know that they are not of God.

It’s the voice saying ‘this sucks compared to the christian women who are more bold than you.’

It’s the voice saying ‘you’re a try hard’.

It’s the voice saying ‘they’re gonna tell you there’s not enough protein in your breakfast!’.

It’s the people from my home town for goodness sake— people who watch and peep, undoubtedly STILL having an immature little gossip like they always have.

I have been sharing my views, part of my life (not all), and many honest elements of my evolution for 14 years. At times I have taken big breaks, especially around the births of my babies to be free of the tendrils of social media.

I am not here to satisfy your ideas of what I should say, what stance I should take, or to fit inside the little cage you’ve designed. Crunchy mum. Perfect christian. Leave me outside of them all.

I still have many, many questions in my walk of faith. God knows this. God is OK with this.

God is more ok with this than many people online are. I answer to Him.

Ok now here I am telling you that I want to share more of the light, joyful and funny parts of my life and I end the post on something as deep as this. HAHA!!

Love, PK. XX