South Australian chiropractor Dr Janah James lost an INCREDIBLE 30+ kgs simply by eating paleo food (as in paleolithic… as in what our cavemen ancestors ate, i.e. protein, fruit, veg, seeds and water) has started recorded her meals in an amazing blog. Here’s a sneak peek from her.

Pictured: Janah’s healthy cocoa dip! = just blend 1 banana, 1 – 1 1/2 avocado,  150g raw organic cocoa powder, 2 tbsp maple syrup and dash cinnamon!

“Being a chiropractor, with good knowledge on nutrition, biology, chemistry and physiology, I was well outside the healthy weight bracket for my age and height, and I knew it. For someone who is in the wellness industry, that is a quite an embarrassing predicament to be in. My husband, whilst slender, works in I.T. and was drinking a lot of soft drinks and energy drinks which I knew were detrimental to him, just not visibly so. Part of what I know as a chiropractor is that prevention is better than cure. This applies to all things that affect the body and prevent us from expressing ourselves at our optimal health. I also knew that I would really rather not get to the point of ‘needing’ to be on handfuls of medications by the age of 50. Somehow it seems like there are few people who are not on at least one regular medication by 50.

Three years ago a drug-free future was looking more and more unlikely for me. As a young woman with PCOS (a syndrome which throws all sorts of hormones out of whack, leaving me with a vastly increased risk of developing heart disease, type two diabetes and breast cancer, not to mention all the other chronic diseases that tag alongside obesity) I had been given the usual advice: Eat less, exercise more. Great. Thanks. Don’t you think I know that mantra? Don’t you think I’ve TRIED it? Of course I had! And it didn’t work, not in the long run. It is a starvation diet, I now realise, and is quite simply unsustainable.

So I would try some other version of the same mantra. One ‘specialist’ (an ObGyn) even told me that two hours of exercise every day, 7 days a week was what I simply ‘had’ to do to lose the weight and reduce the symptoms of PCOS. I can tell you from a chiropractic perspective, that amount of exercise is NOT what my joints and body needed. Other than engaging in what I believed was a ludicrous amount of exercise, I had tried what I was taught was ‘being healthy.’ It hadn’t worked. “Now what?” I thought. Not to mention my concerns that, as I got older, surely this requirement for energy expenditure would have to increase as my metabolism slowed. Or so I was led to believe happens as we age. Truth is, it’s not or metabolism that slows down, rather that our insulin resistance goes up.

What changed three years ago? In hindsight, I realise that I started by thinking globally and then acting locally. Firstly I started using Enjo to clean my house. It’s actually embarrassing to admit that what first got me using Enjo was the speed of the cleaning process and the results it got, rather than the somewhat more impressive fact that it was chemical-free cleaning. And yet, that seemingly small change taught me to think of the environment more and to treat it with respect. As a result of this change in thinking, I decided to go back to what I knew made me feel good, to think about my body as my local environment into which I no longer wanted to put any nasty synthetic chemicals.

Secondly, the symptoms of my PCOS were becoming quite troublesome and the risks it carried with it were concerning. I was having to breath in to do up my shoes, my fatigue and hunger were back, and my periods were non-existent. Something that had helped me feel more vital in the past was the Anti-Candida diet. I had followed it in my early teens after my grandmother cured her leukaemia by changing her diet. I first tried it when I was just 11 years old . My Nana had started it three years earlier and was certain it would resolve the vertigo that I was suffering from at the time. I had been hospitalised for 10 days and put on steroids as the doctors in Malaysia could not work out what else to do. The diet resolved the problem just as my wise Nana had thought it would. I should have realised then the ultimate and life changing impact that our nutrition has on disease. It evidently did make some impression on me. Ultimately this experience did, in a roundabout way, lead me down the path of wanting to be a chiropractor. I learnt that modern drugs and medicine aren’t always the only answer, and not only that, they don’t always get it right.

Nana never took a single drug given to her. Instead she changed what she nourished herself with, and a few months later returned to the Doc who exclaimed “Wow! I have never seen those meds work so effectively and so quickly – your white cell count is back to normal – in fact – better than most your age!” To which she replied “That’s funny because I never took a one of them. I flushed every last one down the loo and changed my diet instead.” She is still going strong, 21 years after her initial diagnosis in which she was told “You should make it to the Sydney 2000 Olympics unless something else bumps you off on the way.”

So, three years ago, after hitting breaking point I returned to what had made me feel healthier in the past. The Anti-Candida Diet. I had done it from the age of about 11 to 13 for various reasons. However, once again, I found it to be restrictive in a social sense, as it makes one a virtual outcast at social occasions. You’re either ‘that person’ who isn’t eating or brought their own ‘weird food’. Or if you do eat ‘normal food’ you’re then ‘that person’ hiding in the corner emitting unpleasant bodily gases because your body is no longer used to wheat, yeast, dairy, sugar or alcohol.

After a few months of being ‘that person’, albeit feeling much better and starting to see the scales go down by about a kilo each month to six weeks, I switched to the more simple gluten-free approach. This seemed so much easier, and as far as I was concerned, I was still feeling and seeing the health benefits. I was still occasionally having some wheat while I was out, if there was not an appetizing alternative. It didn’t seem to affect me that much. My level of gluten intolerance only led to bloating, reflux, and emotional depression and bowel upset for a few days. I also got itchy skin and skin discolouration, which I have now worked out is also a wheat-induced response. I didn’t know that’s what was causing it until I read Wheat Belly by William Davis MD and totally eliminated wheat.

I should mention that at the start of 2011, the first step in the bigger change in our diet was reading a book by Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It. It completely changed our approach to our diet. By diet I don’t mean some crash-course, crazy and unsustainable starvation/weight-loss plan. That behaviour doesn’t make anyone healthier, even though it might make them less heavy. By ‘changed our diet’ I mean we have permanently changed the types of food that make up our nutritional rainbow. After reading that book and changing our approach, and later reading William Davis’ book Wheat Belly; Lose The Wheat Lose The Weight And Find Your Path Back To Health, my weight loss sped
up, with a total of 17 kilos lost in just 10 months. The other lifestyle changes described above that we had made saw me lose 14 kilos over 24 months to begin with. But once I read those two books and was actually able to understand the science behind fat metabolism, I was able to select foods based on what their chemical impact would be on our bodies.

Our approach to food is now much more on the low carb paleo/primal approach. Think hunter-gatherer, early nomadic human type diet – before agriculture really got its fire burning. For us, this means a diet high in natural fats and high in copious leafy greens, moderate in protein, low in starch and very low in sugar. That’s what we aim for anyway.

Previously we were shopping from the hideous, fluorescent, impersonal ‘super-chains’. No wonder we were uninspired. Whilst we did have lots of ‘vegies’ (not certain I agree with them on their definition anymore) we still consumed a fair bit of sugar (hidden in processed foods like sauces and baked beans etc.) and still a lot of carbs (albeit in the form of brown rice, rye, muesli etc.) You see, the awful Catch 22 about the grains and processed food diet is that you’re already lacking in energy, so you think “I’ll save myself some time and get the ready made sauce/soup/meal, then I won’t have to waste time in the kitchen preparing food and then I can just get along with the rest of my days tasks, before flopping into
bed.” But trust me – processed foods don’t save you any time because they steal it all back from you by not actually providing your body with healthy nutrients for repair, or fuel for energy. Sneaky! But you won’t work it out until you start eating whole foods and realise you need three hours less sleep a night, and you wake up refreshed and alert, and keen to get up early to cook a protein and fat rich breakfast!

My breakfast now is usually an egg stack – consisting 2-3 of eggs, bacon or speck in layers with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, porcetta, Spanish chorizo, ham or other cured meats, with avocados and, if there is any, a side of leftover greens from dinner the night before. When I was still having dairy I would top it off with a few pieces of fried Cheese Curd. Delicious and satisfying from 6:30 am to about 2pm… or later. Depends on whether we ate dinner the night before or not. Who misses bread when you can have a breakfast like that every day and still lose weight and feel fabulous?! Not me! I have since decided to cut dairy and see what benefits I feel, as there are a lot of convincing arguments for avoiding
dairy as well. I do find cheese to be an excellent fuel source that doesn’t raise my blood sugar, but the casein protein is potentially causing an intolerance in my system still.

Lunch is a protein and fat snack, such as twiggy sticks and almonds. Hubby Luke will have this with cheese, cucumber, celery and tomatoes. I find I am generally not hungry. If I am, another favourite is a heap of greens and salad. If I do have salad, I make sure to include fat and protein in the form of almonds and olive oil, fresh lemon juice and again some chorizo along with a spoonful of coconut oil. A point on not being hungry – there is this funny thing that happens when you feed your body good quality, energy rich food; it lets you know when you actually need to eat, and you don’t really get hungry anymore. So I only eat when I am actually hungry, and stop eating when I am feeling full – which I can actually sense now because I don’t feel bloated from wheat. Now, if I eat wheat, within minutes I feel bloated, and then in about 10 minutes I feel like I have been punched in the gut. Then for the next few days I make good friends with the toilet – if you catch my drift.

Now I also find there is no need to keep eating regular meals to ‘keep your blood sugar steady’ when you aren’t eating foods that spike your blood sugar! Out of interest last year I did a 26 hour fast – with only two instances of feeling slightly hungry, which subsided in minutes after drinking some more water. Chances are I was actually mistaking the sensation of thirst. There was no dizziness, loss of concentration, hunger pangs, foggy head or anything you would think would happen when fasting. Our brain can use ketone bodies for fuel, and since I was already in a state of ketosis i.e. using fat for fuel as opposed to glucose I didn’t suffer any ill effects. (Ketosis is a perfectly ok state to be in – we are not talking about ketoacidosis which is of course very different).

Most weeks we find ourselves not needing dinner at least two nights a week. Talk about helping reduce world hunger – don’t eat grains and you simply end up eating less! More food to go around! If however we do eat dinner, it’s always some combination of fat, protein and lots of leafy greens. And this is where quality counts so much more than quantity. We choose only high quality GRASS FED meat. Grass fed
stock have high levels of Omega 3 Fatty Acid’s (cardio and neuro protective fatty acids) and in the correct ratio with the inflammatory Omega 6. Fats found in grain fed stock are the reverse – and therefore pro inflammatory. As such, the meat portion of our meals are usually grass fed beef, lamb pork or chicken thighs skin on, mussels, delicious Spanish blood sausage any other meat we can find at the Adelaide Showground Farmers markets. We always couple it with lots of fresh leafy greens, and any other non root vegies that are in season at the time. We have taken to eating the stunning purple carrots for the time being, after all – they are real, whole food… even if they are a root vegetable. Root vegetables are higher in starch, which readily raises blood glucose levels due to the way that human biology works. So, where it is convenient for us we try to avoid them as a general rule. But purple carrots taste awesome and provide us with essential nutrients that wouldn’t be in our diet otherwise
(due to their purple colour). We try to ‘eat a rainbow’ when it comes to vegies. It ensures the best exposure to as many nutrients as possible.

We have found our dietary changes have given us more vitality, clearer skin, clearer thinking and clearer digestion. We love the amazing variety that seasonal vegetable stalls provide us. Our dinner guests love the varieties of veges that are slightly unusual – things you just can’t get at a so called ‘super market’. Things like those purple carrots I was just talking about, kale, feijoas and fractal broccoli to name a very small few. It sure makes the meat and 3 veg approach to eating so much more interesting! We recently purchased a ¼ cow and whole lamb with the request to ‘leave as much fat on it as possible’ (certainly got some shocked looks with this request). This has made things even easier to stick to and a whole lot more cost effective.

We try to stick to the 90/10 rule, but at times that slips to more 80/20. In an ideal modern world, we like to try to keep to consuming a ratio of 90% food that nourishes and provides fuel for repair as well as for play. The other 10% is food for the tongue/endorphins. Since humans are (unfortunately) wired to love sweet things, we still have the occasional sweet tooth. Again, we stick to making our sweet choices at the ASFM market too. With our new approach, when we have treats, we make sure they are really delicious, good quality, made with love and made from scratch which we get one item to share and only on Sundays. This also gives us the joy of looking forward to picking out just the ‘perfect’ dessert for the end of our weekend.

If you want to know more about how I have changed my lifestyle to now revolve around the foods that humans evolved to eat which have helped me lose over 30 kilos all up (14 kilos over the first two years and then 17 kilos in 2011 since understanding human physiology, cutting grains, increasing fat and veg, and decreasing all processed food), then follow me on twitter : @DrJanahJames. I am currently preparing several newsletters for our clinic which will be made available online about every four months as I write them.

In short: Yes – excess calories can be damaging to your health. But excess blood sugar is worse. And you know what, if you stop eating the things that cause an excess in blood sugar, then you don’t want to consume the excess calories.

My new mantra is: Eat less processed crap, avoid those so called ‘healthy whole grains’ and eat more naturally occurring fats, move well and regularly, and take the time to think well; about yourself and about the world around you. Your body and your community will thank you for it.”

I’ve started to laugh when people pose the question really earnestly and seriously: “Could aliens actually be walking among us?” Newsflash: THEY ARE. They always have been. I’m not talking about little green men, Men In Black, UFO thingies or anything the words ‘Roswell’ or ‘Hollywood’ bring to mind. My understanding of this is as follows….

Earth is like a gigantic international space station. An airport, if you will. The only entry requirement to souls from every single postcode in the entire universe is that in order to enter this 3D dimension, they must adopt a human figure. (Not to worry, there’s endless variation on that theme, a bit like choosing a cyber persona! You can be tall, short, fat, skinny, light, dark, male, female, trans, gay, twin, triplet, octuplet, Siamese twin, retarded, dwarf, albino, hairy, anorexic, genius, whatever you like really… whatever sort of body you’d like to ‘learn’ in).

To the average human eye, there’s just a whole bunch of human beings walking around. Which is TRUE! We ARE all human beings, and we’re collectively here to live, love and learn. But our insides — our true essences — come from all sorts of crazy-interesting places. Our human ‘outsides’ are clever costumes housing souls within who have travelled all around the universe and back again. Here’s just some of the different soul types I’ve come across in my psychic readings:

Earth angels. Doreen Virtue identified these ages ago. Ridiculously nice, full of hugs, great with kids and those who need care, sometimes overweight, often with dyed hair, self-sacrificing, huge hearts, always get breast cancer because they nurture everyone except themselves, feel pains/emotions deeply and take things to heart.

Elementals. Again, a nod to Doreen Virtue. Elementals are basically fairies in human form. They’re light, fast, funny, theatrical, love nature, animals and dressing up, sometimes have bright red hair, dance and party and get easily overwhelmed by naughty substances and heavy energies, quick-thinking / brilliant, playful, joyful. They’re frequently actors, musicians, performers and animal/nature warriors.

Aliens. Doreen Virtue calls these ‘star people’. I’ve met people from Sirius, Pleidies, Alpha Centuari, hot desert sun planets, rainforest planets and a short ‘bug-eyed insect’ from the Andromeda galaxy. Also someone with what I could only describe as a ‘dolphin sonar’ bouncing out of their forehead in communication with an ocean planet somewhere, and a couple of lizard types (who tend to get called ‘Reptilians’, but I see nothing scary/negative here). I’ve met souls who literally operate starships, are heading up alien military coups and seen a places that looks exactly what George Lucas channelled in Star Wars (Tatooine).

Alien men learning ‘yin’. As a sub-group to this, I’m often surprised by the amount of tall, thin alien males who’ve reincarnated on Earth at this time in history in female bodies. Their true selves are more left brain, practical, masculine, direct and efficient, and they dislike incarnating on Earth as women (particularly due to the fact that historically, this didn’t allow them much independence — which drives them crazy.) These alien-men-as-human-women invariably possess watery (emotional / feminine) starsigns and are here to learn about human emotion and naturally slowing down through the female experience, where everything is of course intensified! (Estrogen, hormones, periods, birth, feelings, breasts, flowing natural cycles… you know.) You can easily spot them — they’re the ones who power through life ‘on a mission’, are tall and thin, multi-tasking, wearing pants, make their own money and almost never worry about their appearance or whether their bum looks big in something.

Ancients. These are the souls who were active in the ancient world. I’m talking Egypt, Babylon, Nazareth, Lemuria, Atlantis and other lost/forgotten ‘worlds’ where civilisations held incredible knowledge that we can now only dream about. I include my own 11-month-old daughter with this bunch. She visited me when I was a couple months pregnant to remind me that she was ‘very high up’ the spiritual hierarchy due to her role as a ‘major player’ in the old world — above me, hahaha! (‘You might be the mummy now, but just remember who was really on top!’) Souls who’ve been around on earth for millennia used to be powerful priestesses, kings, sorcerors, healers etc and many of them are only now permitting themselves to reawaken the ancient knowledge lying deep inside themselves.

Fantasy. Those amazing misty fairytale worlds where King Arthur rides, Hobbits stalk through forests and peasant boys named Gwynne fight dragons? They’re all real dimensions… somewhere. You can EASILY pick souls who come from these worlds — just check out your nearest medieval re-enactment society, game-playing computer geek, or psychic fair. They’re the ones wearing Gothic velvet gowns or the men with long ponytails, Celtic belt buckles and leather-bound journals, listening to lyre music.

Miscellaneous. Mermaids, dragons, genies, salamanders… I’ve met them. They’re roaming around in human form too. Sometimes they have subtle clues so that you can ‘tell’… like my red-haired friend who adores Disney’s ‘Ariel’ (Little Mermaid character) and always heads to the ocean when she wants to feel better… HMM.

Rest life. I’ve met a couple of (unrelated) people recently who are both having what I call ‘ rest lives’. This basically means that they’ve had a bunch of really full-on, generally quite awful, intense past lives and this time around they are just dealing with some light karma and having a bit of a breather. One of these souls is a woman who lives in a gorgeous 18-storey apartment in Melbourne — lovely partner, no kids, great job, huge income, travels the world, collects art. The other is a good-looking young guy who things always seem to happen very easily to — cool media jobs, pretty new wife, finances all healthy and an upbeat, peaceful attitude to life. Actually, technically speaking, this latter guy has sort of ‘finished’ his earth karma but is hanging around to help out the other souls around him.

Newbies. Very occasionally I’ll come across a soul who’s only incarnated on Earth once or twice before. Generally speaking, they’re in total shock. One of these was an absolutely beautiful, sweet, quiet, shy, delicate girl who spends most of her time at home. She panics when she has to leave the house and meet other people, and she can’t hold down a job. She has a lot of difficulty dealing with the harsh, rough, crudeness of Earth life because she is a tall, thin, peaceful man from a very advanced planet quite far away… she’d learned all there was to learn over there and was looking for a new experience to challenge her soul growth with, so came to Earth… and as you can imagine, is suffering massive culture shock!

This sort of information is clearly not for everyone in a psychic reading… but when spiritually advanced people are ready to learn more about ‘who they are’ and ‘where they come from’,  it spills out… and is usually an education for me AND them! There are probably countless more soul types out there… not to mention all those different planets, worlds, galaxies, dimensions, universes and other memories/lives/spaces I cannot possibly explain, yet of which I have caught fascinating glimpses.

Believe me when I tell you that the cosmos is a VERY amazing place… and so is your greater, more mysterious role within it.

To celebrate the launch of A Modern Woman’s Guide for a Natural Empowering Birth, in which Miss Psychette’s own birth story is featured, author Katrina Zaslavsky conducted a national tour and interviewed Yours Truly on how to enjoy a natural, easy, fear-free, spiritual, holistic pregnancy and birth. Check out the video and share it with pregnant friends and even younger daughters… this is about empowering women with positive, informative views on our wonderful life-giving bodies!

There’s a new trend in Tinsel Town: celebrity ghosts. Every deceased star from Errol Flynn to Anna Nicole Smith seems to be out haunting unsuspecting tourists… while certain A-listers have confessed to experiencing the odd haunting or two themselves!

Anna Nicole Smith once said she wanted to be the next Marilyn Monroe. Although she didn’t have Monroe’s talent or charisma, she was like Monroe in that she was a pretty blonde who had sex appeal, posed for Playboy, and died too young. She was also famous for marrying a wealthy oil tycoon, who was old enough to be her grandfather, and her reality TV show. She died at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida in February, 2007 of a drug overdose (like Marilyn). Anna Nicole’s spirit has allegedly been seen wandering the halls of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel. Some believe her ghost might be confused because after her death, the hotel renovated the suite where she died and renumbered all the rooms on the floor.

Jim Morrison The ghost of The Doors frontman has apparently haunted a woman at her home in Virginia. Rhonda Baron said she saw the spirit of the late musician lying on a bed he apparently used to sleep in. The property in Arlington was apparently owned by Morrison’s parents before Baron’s family took over the home. “The spirit laid down on the bed. Completely laying down and looking at me like this. It was like a haze. It was like you could  look through it,”she said. Morrison died in Paris in 1971 at the age of 27.

Ben Stiller Hollywood funnyman Ben Stiller says that he believes in ghosts and has lived in houses haunted by spirits. The actor-filmmaker says he feels uneasy living in the suburbs because he is “aware of ghosts”. “I have a little thing with quietness and spirits. I’m aware of ghosts. I sort of believe in ghosts, and my wife does not. She’s afraid of axe murders,” he says.  Though Stiller insists he has not seen any ghosts himself, the actor reveals his parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara once rented a home in Nantucket that was supposedly haunted by a young baby named Stanley Benjamin.

Simon Cowell has confessed that he has become fascinated with the idea of ghosts and the afterlife. The entertainment mogul is said to have become interested in spirits after staying at a “haunted” house during the auditions for The X Factor US. Simon stayed at the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas with fellow judges LA Reid, Nicole Scherzinger and Paula Abdul. A source close to Simon told the Daily Star: “He’s not scared at all, in fact he’s fascinated by ghosts and poltergeists.

“Some of the guys on the show have joked that if he does see a ghost he’d probably say it had given an average performance and it should try again.” However, the insider revealed that Paula did not share Simon’s love of the spooky experience. The source added: “She was totally spooked out. She said she was woken in the middle of the night because the taps in her bathroom kept turning off and on. She didn’t get much sleep after that and refused to spend another minute there.”

Neve Campbell The Scream 4 actress says her former home in Los Angeles was haunted and she used to have frequent encounters with a woman who had been murdered in the property. She told Live magazine: “I know that ghosts exist because I’ve seen one. A few years ago I moved into a haunted house in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, with some friends. It turned out that it was inhabited by the ghost of a woman who had been murdered there in 1991. Doors would repeatedly slam, windows would open and ashtrays would fly off dressers. Then there were times when the ghost would actually walk into the room. After a while it felt normal. I’d pass her in the hallway and casually wish her good morning.”

Errol Flynn was the quintessential action star of his day, known for his swashbuckling roles in such films as Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood. His off-screen Hollywood lifestyle was just as action-packed, well-known for his wild parties, womanising and boozing. He died in October, 1959 of a heart attack at the age of 50. Flynn is believed to haunt Mulholland Farm, the house he built near Beverly Hills that featured secret passageways, two-way mirrors and peepholes. After Flynn’s death, the house was owned by Stuart Hamblen, who reported various types of poltergeist activity. Then it was owned by Ricky Nelson, whose family reported the phantom sounds of breaking glass, chairs being thrown about and banging on the walls.

Sandra Bullock feared that her temporary home in London was haunted. The 46-year-old actress lived in London while filming sci-fi thriller Gravity with George Clooney, and was apparently kept awake by things that go bump in the night. According to The Sun, she was so scared that she asked producers to investigate the spooky goings-on at the converted church where she was staying. A source told the newspaper at the time, ‘Sandra is convinced something is not right.’

I’ve just discovered a skincare brand that appears to tick every box for the conscientious-spiritual-eco consumer, and then some. Sophyto launched in the UK in 2008 but is just gaining attention Down Under as a brand formulated with pure, natural ingredients (and, as far as I can tell, no hidden nasties — any company that’s happy to publish their entire ingredient list, as Sophyto does, gets my nod of approval). Inspired by nature and backed by science, this water-based organic line is gluten-free, organic, Fair Trade and cruelty-free (Sophyto works with PETA and the Vegan Society). It contains no artificial fragrance, colours, fillers, parabens or processed nutrients, and their small percentages of safe synthetics are even approved by the UK Soil Association! The moisturisers don’t contain chemical SPFs or minerals, either, relying instead on the natural forms of SPFs from the botanicals.

“My own personal quest searching for the ‘right’ product line has indeed taken many years. In fact it was so frustrating; I quit my job in fashion and hit the study books,” says founder Karen Sinclair Drake. “Many years (not getting younger!) later I finally became a member of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists and set out to research how topical products interact and influence our skin and body.” Drake drew inspiration from complementary and alternative medicine, and developed each and every eco-friendly Sophyto product with green chemists to make sure they contain optimal levels of certified organic botanical ingredients: “Sophyto totally supports the agricultural industry as opposed to the petrochemical industry – quite evident from our exceptional high levels of plant and food based ingredients.”

Based in the advanced science of phytotherapy, Sophyto harnesses the healing power of botanicals and other powerful bioactive ingredients to naturally nourish and restore skin’s youthful glow. They work with your skin to naturally optimize pH levels and moisture content, and most possess natural aromas like apple, pineapple or cucumber. Delicious! Love the 21st century packaging too!

Excerpt taken from the amaaaaazing new book, A Modern Women’s Guide to a Natural Empowering Birth ($34.95)… the book I wish I’d had when pregnant for the first time, and something that should be mandatory reading for every mum-to-be in Australia   Check it out!

I’ve always had a robust, down-to-earth philosophy about health. I haven’t taken so much as a cough lolly since I was about 15, and I don’t have a doctor. I believe if you eat green vegies, exercise, sleep properly, get some sunshine, play in the dirt and think happy thoughts, you’ll rarely encounter illness… and when you occasionally do, not only is it excellent for your immune system, but it’s usually masking an emotional upset that needs to be addressed.
I first fell pregnant in May 2008 and I remember walking through the house on a sunny day and saying out of nowhere to my husband, “I don’t think I want to go to hospital. I just want to have the baby at home.” No fears or worries ever entered my head – the idea just felt right, relaxed and natural. We put “home birth Adelaide” into Google and immediately found Lisa Barrett, a phenomenal midwife who has birthed thousands of babies in hospitals and homes (everything from breech births to twins and cords wrapped around necks), and has an awesome holistic philosophy.
Throughout my easy pregnancy, Lisa, my husband and I met monthly for cups of tea. I had no ultrasounds, because I didn’t want to blast my fetus with radiation, and I never saw a doctor or obstetrician; Lisa performed all my check-ups and gave me positive, empowering books to read, such as Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery. I ate properly, consumed no caffeinated, carbonated or alcoholic drinks, and used nothing on my skin and hair but organic herbal oils.
We had a plastic pool all ready to fill for a water birth, but when my waters finally broke – nine days early, at 1am! – I realised I didn’t desire it. I filled the house with candles, played some soft music, and let my body guide me. I did lots of wriggling and stretching on hands and knees, and as my cervix slowly opened, so did my throat – I made louder and louder noises, which greatly assisted the pains.
The contractions went throughout the night, while the midwife sat and knitted, and my husband sipped cups of tea in the corner. It was very quiet and beautiful, and rain pattered on the roof. I kept my eyes closed and focused within. My body was releasing so many natural chemicals, endorphins, oxytocins and adrenalin, I was sailing high as a kite! It was an awesome natural high. I honestly don’t remember the ouchy bits!
Around 5am, Lisa suggested I sit on the toilet so that gravity could assist with pushing. I delivered my baby half-standing up, hanging off my husband’s neck at 8:28am. My baby boy went to the breast and fed within about one minute (his appetite has never ceased since!) After a while the placenta was delivered and I felt absolutely wide awake, exhilarated and glowing. I held him against my chest, skin-to-skin, for most of the first 24 hours for bonding and natural temperature regulation.
I had a three dimensional tear but I declined stitches. The midwife told me to “keep my knees together” sitting and standing for a week, and it healed back together naturally. I also bathed it in saltwater and swam in the ocean. We also chose not to vaccinate our little boy after all the research we’d looked at in this area.
After my homebirth I found myself intuitively doing lots of ‘natural parenting’ things such as co-sleeping, and later, feeding him only pureed organic fruit and vegetables (no processed, sugar-crashing wheat or grain products such as biscuits, bread and pasta). I found my body was incredibly in tune with my baby’s – we could burp, fart and awaken from a sound sleep simultaneously! It was like we had a very strong energetic cord still linking us, and this lasted for months.
Afterwards my husband, a chiropractor, was telling one of his patients how fantastic our birth was. She asked, “Did you have a homebirth?”
“Yes,” said my husband. “How did you know?”
“Because you only hear people who’ve had homebirths talking like that,” she answered. “Never hospital births.”
I got pregnant again in May 2010 and this time I REALLY took it in my stride. I was almost brutally efficient – woke up with labour pains around 5am the day after my due date, and the contractions deepened over the course of the day, textbook-style, while I walked around the garden, watched TV and ate Lindt chocolate!
The pain was actually worse the second time (which other people have said often happens), or in any case, I can remember it more vividly as it was during daylight. However I simply told myself “It’s just muscle fatigue from the cramping”, and also, “It’s totally natural and in about two hours it will be all over for the rest of your life!”
When I felt “pushy”, I knew exactly what I had to do this time, and how it would feel. I half-stood once more, opened my legs as far apart as I could, and began to do one great, big, long push. Halfway through I stopped and gasped, “Is the head out yet?!”
“Not yet,” said Lisa, crouched between my legs, who was of course helping me once again. So I kept on pushing and out slithered my baby girl – in one long push! – and no tear this time. The placenta emerged 10 mins later, again much quicker and easier than the first time, because I knew what it felt like and what I needed to do. Breast-feeding was also no problem whatsoever. My daughter had a bit of a twisted foot and some conjunctivitis, but we squeezed a bit of breast milk in her eyes, and regularly straightened out her ankle with stretches and some chiropractic adjustments over the following days, and it sorted itself out naturally within a few weeks.
Having had two such fun, happy, easy, fear-free birth experiences, I now wholeheartedly cringe whenever I hear hospital horror stories. In my opinion, most girls do not have the confidence or health philosophy to feel strong enough to say “NO” to doctors, obs, gynos and bossy hospital midwives who seem to make every personal decision for them, and teach them from the get-go that birth should be unbearable, frightening and dangerous. The body really is perfectly architecturally designed to give birth, and the less it’s interfered with, the happier and calmer the baby (and mummy) feel. Doctors are so jumpy and quick to introduce drugs, needles, vacuums, surgery and other forms of butchery when often, the body and/or baby still needs a little time to turn, descend and birth naturally. We do not run out into the field every time a goat or a sheep gives birth with white coats, stethoscopes and machinery, and nor do we expect blossoms, trees or vegetables to perform “on time!” in our gardens, forcing them to follow our own tightly controlled, impatient human timelines. According to the World Health Organisation, only 12% of births are “high risk” enough to actually require the sorts of procedures that hospitals offer. And yet your average pregnant woman receives all of them. Lots of mums begin labouring nicely at home, but lapse into ‘shut down’ mode when they arrive at the hospital and are told they have to give birth within a time limit. Mum freezes up with adrenalin, the labour halts, the doctors rush in with forceful procedures, and… well, it’s easy to see the downhill series of events that happen after that.
We need to stop drugging and slicing up our babies and dragging them forcibly out of the womb into glaring, noisy, negative environments, injecting them immediately with toxic chemicals and slathering their skin with petroleum based “skincare” products. And don’t even get me started on elective caesareans! I don’t know what’s worse – the mum who deprives her baby of the natural yeasts, bonding chemicals and vital cranial moulding from the vaginal tunnel, and herself of an incredible life rite-of-passage, or the doctor who selfishly schedules her caesarean so it doesn’t interfere with his Christmas holidays! Another thing that worries me is that often women feel, deep down, they’d quite like a home birth, but their husbands get scared and talk them out of it. We need to honour and support pregnant mums’ intuition. I would love to live in a society that is less medicalised and more trusting of life’s natural flow; a society where women who choose to homebirth and not vaccinate their children are not publicly vilified or threatened with fines and gaol. At the very least, I’d love to hear more joyous words used to describe pregnancy and birth, and for women to share more heart-warming birth stories. .

Further reading: Birth: at home or at hospital?

The other day, a friend was saying how much they’ve turned off regular synthetic chemical ‘designer’ perfumes and they don’t wear them anymore — and they can’t even give them away to get rid of them, because that would mean someone else has to bathe in chemicals! More and more, I’m starting to agree (and I used to be a perfume fanatic): I’m looking at my boudoir table covered in glittering couture bottles and I’m thinking… I’d rather anoint myself every morning with something artisan, decadent, spiritual, higher vibrational and magical, that nobody else on earth owns except me. But what?

Fortunately, my friend Frances Tree provided the answer. Frances can talk to trees, herbs and flowers, has studied under Suzanne Catty and intuitively blends her own oils and sprays using an amethyst pendulum. She has already made me an oil for love healing (15 essential oils!), an anti-decongestant spray for my sick son, a bedtime slumber spray for my baby girl and a bug-repellant spray for my plants. Today I asked her to blend me a beautiful, luxurious oil that that I can use as my very own perfume, every day. I wanted fresh floral/citrus notes… she intuitively sensed that it needed lots of violet, which was bang-on (Violet is the secret name I’ve always called myself! Not so secret now, I guess…)    Violet is a very rare and expensive essential oil which makes it all the more special and sacred for me. Once Frances had finished my perfume blend, she gave me the following instructions: “Prior to use, you will need to ‘awaken’ your oil. Ground, centre and hold the oil between your hands. Let the oil speak to you. Holding this intention, shake the bottle briskly and tap the bottle with your fingernails seven times.”

More from Frances: “Essential oils are ‘living’ energetic beings of light, they are quite literally the concentrated ‘heart and soul’ essence of a plant. Respect their ancient knowledge and potent healing power. They have been gifted to you to help you on your spiritual journey.” Useful tip: “Light, heat and oxygen will degrade your oil. Keep away from devices like mobile phones. Store in a special box or bag. However placing your oil somewhere on occasion that it can connect to the sky / moon / stars and morning sun can be energetically powerful. If you’ve had your oil for some time or it has been exposed to phones etc, you can cleanse and charge it much like you would a crystal. Speak to it and ask what it needs.”

Frances and I walked around my bowery garden and talked about the fact that we have an on-site natural well spring. This is by far the best water to use when making flower essences — and doubly powerful when using the plants that grow around the spring itself. I spoke to her about flowers that grow abundantly like weeds on our property (forget-me-nots) and those I’ve had great trouble cultivating. She said the flowers that come to us in great volumes are the ones we spiritually ‘need’. Fascinating concept! Personally I’ve been obsessed this year with planting tall English cottage garden blooms such as foxgloves, hollyhocks, delphiniums and lupins… which apparently represent ambition and fruitfulness. I’ll be making my own flower essences soon… watch this space for a photo gallery of my efforts!

Last year I was lucky enough to connect with Melburnian Katrina Zaslavsky, who is the driving force behind the most positive, joyful, self-empowering, modern book on natural birth I’ve come across. It should seriously be mandatory reading for every pregnant (and non-pregnant!) woman in Australia (worldwide?!), and I don’t say that lightly… or because my own birth story is printed in it! A Modern Women’s Guide to a Natural Empowering Birth ($34.95) has just launched, is endorsed by Dr Sarah Buckley, MD, and carries incredible testimonials from readers whose lives it has already touched, such as “I couldn’t put it down” and “the most inspiring and wonderful book I have ever read”. This book makes the perfect gift for any baby shower or pregnant mum whose health and wellbeing you care about. Happy mummies, happy babies

For more information, visit inspiringbirthstories.com.au

This week, Miss Psychette has been busy on air… appearing every Thursday at 3pm with Amber Petty on FiveAA radio during the summer, PLUS a spot with Lucy Cornes! The topic of the day was accessing your everyday intuition, hunches, gut feelings… and of course taking the usual phone calls from listeners wanting to know what 2012 holds for them. There was plenty of talk about the importance of busy mums taking time out and not feeling guilty for doing so: “When mummy’s happy, everyone’s happy!”

So, I thought I’d do something a little special this December — something I haven’t done for AGES, not since I first started my website in 2006. Back then, I used to channel a message every week. This led me to all sorts of interesting chats with different characters around the universe — gods and goddesses, angels, elementals and other energies. I thought I’d pick some really fun names from history, meditate, tap into their energy and ask them what their words of wisdom are for all of you… as your unique Christmas present from Psyched In Stilettos

MARY MAGDALENE
“I come to you as a woman, sister and young mother like all of you bringing warmth and assurance this Christmas. You are doing a fine job. You spend so much time making your families happy, but make sure you are keeping happy yourselves. I respect all of you as lightworkers and ask you to spend the holiday time to rest, recharge, gather yourself and prepare for the next leg of your soul journeys. The time is Now for completion, resolution and wonder. I gift you with much gold [golden wishes] and happiness. Blessings.”

THOR
“Stand your ground. You are a rock. Let the waves of [other people's] panic crash over you. Be firm in your convictions. You are never wrong when guided by heart. You hold all the power you need within. You are unstoppable on your mission. Roar your message loudly!”

LAVENDER FAIRY
“Sweetness. Silence. Love. The message to you at this quiet closing of the year is to know in your heart, and be proud, of all you are. I urge you to find more stillness. Place your hand on your heart and listen to the sweet silence within you. You will know what to do to make things better. Crush lavender between your fingers and breathe it in to connect within and ask me any questions. I am always here for you with love and grace.”

PICASSO
“I come to teach you wild abandonment. The soul cannot be contained. It leaps and jumps and bounds. Express yourselves wildly, vividly, largely, loudly. Leave your mark. Declare your individuality. Make the world yours, and have a thirst for life. Quench it with experiences. Grab what you want with both hands and never let go. Together you children are painting a grand masterpiece [the earth's future]. Which colours are YOU splashing?”

DIANA / ARTEMIS
[She's telling me that Wonder Woman was based on her!] “Stride forth and conquer like never before. Reach out and grasp the future with your hands. Seize the day and the glory. Make your passions real. Have it all — your wildest dreams can all be yours. Listen to your heartspeak, and connect outwards with other people, creating and strengthening a loving community and earth. I urge you forwards to make good in the world, for yourselves and others. Have strong hearts and minds. Go forth and conquer!”