Hello.

Hello, and welcome back to the Elevate daily podcast.

I'm Alexia, and I'm so thrilled to have you here, joining us for this potent conversation with the inspiring Annette Muller.

Annette is a facilitator, doula, wisdom keeper, and the founder of Wild Nettle.

Her mission is to help us build deeper connections to our bodies and the natural world so we can trust in our own unique healing abilities.

Frankly, this conversation has so much importance for me because I would just say that for most of my life, I describe my relationship with my body as hash.

It's complicated.

I was someone who deeply disconnected from my body.

And with that, I found that I dimmed my light.

I minimized my hunger for life and my deepest, truest desires.

I found that I censored my voice and my truest thoughts a lot.

And the biggest piece is I felt very disconnected from my gifts and my soul's true calling.

What I found is that the more I really consciously made the shift into reconnecting and cultivating a deeply loving relationship with my body, that it initially triggered a lot of discomfort.

And as you'll hear in today's episode, Annette shares that first comes the trigger, then comes the treasure.

And I would say, in my life, Annette has been such an incredibly expansive and elevating person in terms of really helping me to honor the wisdom of my body, to come back into a space of honoring that instead of externally seeking for every answer to everything related.

To my body's signals and dynamics.

You know, hashtag, I used to live a lot on WebMD and instead really come back into this place of trusting, listening, having rituals with my body that help me really hear what my body is asking for, the signals.

It's asking for the insights that our bodies really are revealing to us.

If we just get quiet enough and receptive enough to truly listen.

She's really been an expander for me on this topic, deeply as well.

She's also been huge on getting me to really appreciate the wildness within my wildness of my body, my being, my expression, as well as honoring the wildness of nature and all that is around us and having a deeper sense of reverence for it.

So in today's episode, I'm excited that you're really going to get to experience Annette's wisdom.

We go into so many juicy topics.

I am really enthused for you get to hear Annette's personal journey and the transformation she's gone through.

We talk about some of the daily rituals that reconnect her with her body and that she recommends also as opportunities to reset your energy through.

Throughout the day, we talk about how she's turned chaos into innovation through her gene key three, which is her life's work.

We talk about grounding and rewilding practices.

We talk about how to transform shame and trauma into self love, radiant energy, and wisdom on your highest path and so much more.

Something I just want to note before we begin is that in today's episode, there are discussions that we go into on sensitive topics, including trauma, eating disorders, and healing from violation.

So please take care of yourself.

And we do recommend that listener discretion is advised.

And now, with that in mind, we're going to head right on into this juicy conversation with Annette Mueller.

All right, Annette, it's so good to have you here on the podcast.

Can you believe this project is officially here?

I know you have been one of my biggest support systems on this conversation for a long time in terms of having this come to life.

So thank you for being here.

It feels divine that you are our first guest.

Hey.

So divine.

So happy that it's finally happening.

I'm really.

Yeah, so honored to be here.

Thank you so much.

And so, as a fun ritual, as we know in the elevate daily community, we're all about ritual.

I wanted to share as a fun way for people that are listening to get a little behind the scenes on you and your energetic blueprint, a little key code to your gene keys.

So to just kind of share your life's work.

Gene key, which, if anyone hasn't listened to the previous episode, you'll get more context there on what we're talking about with the gene key.

But this is your life's work.

This is what you're here to be known for.

This is the context that a lot of us who grow thanks to you and our elevated things to you, will see in you.

And so your gene key is gene key number three, which goes from the shadow of chaos to the gift of innovation to the city, the highest frequency of innocence.

And the archetype, the elevated self archetype that I've channeled for this particular gene key is our playful pioneer.

So I know you and I have deeply explored the gene keys together.

We've talked about it a lot over the years, and I'm curious to know how, when I share that, just what comes up for you and your journey of really, like, embodying this archetype?

Wow.

When you sent me the playful pioneer, I was like, damn, you hit it on the nail.

Like, it really is the essence of who I am.

I have constantly been pioneering projects.

Like, I realized there's just always something that I'm creating, a business, an idea, a shoot, a travel plan.

I really am like to own that frequency of pioneer.

And then, of course, I am the eternal child.

So silly and so playful and so chaotic sometimes.

So, yeah, I just, it really resonated.

It's spot on.

I love it, because when I feel it in you, and what I find so powerful about the archetypes is I can just immediately see that in you.

And I think for anyone listening now, you'll, now that you have that, that knowing of Annette, you'll see as we go through this conversation, you'll see how she has been a playful pioneer in all ways in life and in her leadership mission.

You can see how it's a really powerful lens in which you shine, and you can see, and we'll probably naturally see how in areas of your life, because what's pretty interesting about the shadow is the shadow is just an area in our lives where they're to alchemize.

It's where the gift lives.

And I know for you, like you said, there's definitely been times of chaos.

And I think especially as we go into this conversation about the body and our relationship to the body, we can feel our relationship to nature as well.

It can feel like there's chaos sometimes or things are not working, let's say, how you want them to be.

So I feel like you're someone who's really elevated me, I'll say, in that relationship to, even then, when the chaos shows up, it's always an invitation to be innocent and how we see ourselves and to see it as something working for us.

So I feel like that's a perfect way to go into, I know you have an incredible story.

This woman's going definitely, I'm just putting it out there.

She's definitely going to have to write something or really share all the details of her story.

Yet today, I would love to know for you in particular, with this context of ritualizing and relationship to your body, like, where was in your life a massive moment that really elevated you into this new way that you really have operated in.

It's quite a tender share, actually.

And I recently wrote a substac about it because I recognize that for most of my childhood and even my teens and twenties, I was kind of living quite disassociated from the body and not really recognizing it.

You know, when you're young and I started modeling, I was so aware of my looks and my kind of presence.

I was very tall, but it was almost like I was looking at myself and my body in my life from this external viewpoint, almost like I was an object.

But the embodied experience of being in my body and feeling through life felt only really present.

After I turned probably 21, I was working in nightclubs.

I was studying business and law.

I was in a very kind of crazy, chaotic environment in London.

And it was actually an incident at an after party.

I drank too much alcohol.

And, yeah, I woke up with a man on top of me that was not the man who I thought it was, wasn't my partner.

And it was, yeah, an incident of violation that really, like, broke me open and made me realize that I was not acting in my own interest.

And I was really just so far removed from what is good for me and what is safe for me.

Because when you are operating in a go, go, go, and you're maybe slipping into territory that is addictive, like alcohol or drugs or any of these things that we think when we're young are just so normal and so natural, when actually they can lead to dangerous incidences like the one that I had and just shared.

And it's not uncommon.

You know, I realize more and more, so many of us have had these kind of moments in our early teens and twenties that were quite violatory and quite intense and shocking, and yet we sort of.

We hide it in shame or we don't really speak about it.

But for me, it was such a pivotal moment because I woke up and I was like, whoa, I really need to change my lifestyle and take care of myself.

Because, you know, when you don't take care of your body and you don't respect and honor your vessel, things happen that will almost force you to wake up and pay attention.

So, yeah, that was kind of like a turning point in my life where I really went from being this party girl, this model, this really cool girl in London who was friends with celebrities and made lots of money and was living quite a, you know, like, a magazine lifestyle into this more.

Okay, I'm gonna go inward.

I'm gonna start to look at why I find myself drinking most weekends and why I feel so disconnected, really, from myself.

Oh, my goodness.

Thank you so much for sharing.

And I think you bring up such a.

In your vulnerability, such an opportunity for anyone listening to actually connect with that.

It's actually so.

I don't want to say normal, but how often it is that it's a hard moment that wakes us up.

And I think something you and I have seen a lot being in a lot of women's groups, a lot of women's spaces in particular, is how much none of us are alone in having had a moment where in various ways, whether, like you said it, being objectified, feeling like just people have all these preconceived ideas of who you are just.

Just based on your appearance, just expectations of you being touchable, you know, like, even that.

Or, I mean, how many times has it been said, things just, oh, well, so and so got there because of something related to their looks or their bodies or something of that nature instead of their credentials, their value, like so many other things.

And I think you sharing is just such an invitation to one.

If you've ever experienced something like that, or if you've had that to like.

Something I've always loved so much about you is how you were so good at helping anyone alchemize the shame.

Because I think, I know you've seen it a lot in your journey, but I'm sure from what you've watched, walking along so many others, is how much it's the shame that can keep us from ever really cultivating a deeper relationship to your body.

Would you say that was one of your biggest things?

Was like, how did you.

Okay, so first big question here.

How did you, when you had that moment of the wake up?

Because many will, like, have it, and then it just, you know, it crumbles them inside.

And you make so many stories about yourself.

How do you navigate that inside of yourself?

And how have you seen it helps others to do so?

Yeah.

Such a good theme to bring up the shame part, because shame is that I see it as, like, this sort of sleeping lizard.

It's the part of us that just kind of stays stuck and never really moves forward.

And so when you.

When you decide to face the shadow, the darkness, the trauma, really the parts of yourself that you've denied or separated, and you go into it, it's muddy, it's dirty.

It's like, it really is this descent into the body and into the parts of the body that we have denied or not been willing to look at and feel.

And so, for me, the first thing I started doing was really practicing yoga.

I remember I stopped drinking.

I stopped smoking.

I also changed my groups naturally, because when you change your lifestyle, you will see people fall away that aren't really in service to the person that you really are.

And I became really committed to this yoga practice in the beginning and went down that kind of typical sort of spiritual trajectory of going into yoga, going into deep health, like, cutting out so many things.

I did all these different fasts and candida diets and, you know, went vegan for a period, so really went into the full pendulum swing from one side to the other.

And granted it was necessary.

However, I also recognized that within that change, there was still a rigidity.

There was still this need to control what I did and how I ate.

And even the practice of yoga can be quite rigid and quite strict.

And I remember feeling like I was almost having to punish myself because of the shame that was now all surfacing around my behavior, around my decisions and my choices.

And so, yeah, luckily, I was able to kind of move through that particular period of life.

It took about a few years, but for me, the big way that I was able to maintain this connection to my body and to really ritual and healing was through the people that I met along the way.

And in particular, these older I women, these elders that I consider teachers who came across my path by pure synchronicity and who were still connected to a more ancient, more kind of feminine, earth based way of being and their.

Yeah, their kind of coming into my life and supporting me.

Washington was transformational.

When I hear you share, I feel like there's two pieces that stand out to me.

There was one, the piece of you starting to cultivate a relationship to yourself.

And I feel like yoga is in so many ways, for so many.

I think it was actually one of mine as well.

It's actually one of the biggest ways you start that journey of just getting curious about the body and just starting to be a bit slower.

I mean, for anyone who's never even gone to yoga to honor, like, when I first did yoga, I found it hard.

Like, so hard, meditation was nearly impossible.

My first meditation teacher, bless her, she dealt with I was not an easy person to have meditate initially.

I'm sure you've seen it, too.

I feel like for a lot of people, sometimes the yoga, even meditation space, can almost feel super intimidating.

What's something that you've seen can be, like, a really simple way that if someone who's listening is like, I really want to connect with my body, and I struggle to sit still.

I struggle to ever just relax.

And I know you felt you've.

You've navigated this.

You're a really good.

You're really good at active relaxing, too, you know?

What would you say is a powerful way that you've seen is like, that really good, like, even simpler way someone could just start.

Yeah, that's really beautiful.

So waking up in the morning, something that I do every morning is I place my hand, one hand on my chest, one hand on my belly or my womb, and you can even do it now.

And it's like, first and foremost, I greet myself.

You know, I greet my body, I greet my heart, I greet my stomach.

I let myself feel, okay, what is present this morning?

You know, how does my chest feel?

How does my belly feel?

How was my night of rest?

Because oftentimes we wake up and immediately the brain wants to go, okay, to do lists, you know, coffee, tea, and then meditation and even that, like, instant into ritual can sometimes skip over this really simple opportunity to just go, hey, good morning.

How are you?

I feel you.

I'm here.

What do you need?

Because the body talks to you when you're willing to give it the space to talk.

So I often, I don't like to get too structured because I know that some mornings I feel more tired and I want a matcha latte, and maybe I want to just, you know, have a bath even, or do a little bit of stretching.

Other mornings, my body feels really rested.

I don't want any caffeine.

I just want to have, you know, a glass of water and some lemon and get straight into my YouTube free, like, weightlifting, you know?

So I really.

I let myself be guided by the present moment and by having that small time with yourself each morning, you will start to let yourself be led from body first.

And then you get guided, like, into different movement practices, meditation practices, dancing.

I love that this does not require rigidity.

I think I love it so much because we both love freedom.

We're both such freedom beings, you know?

And I love, because I think that's where with Ritual, it gets really confused.

Everyone thinks that it has to be so rigid or, like, you're living a Ritual life, if you, like, every single day, show up in a very specific way.

When in Reality, to me, what I hear from you that I absolutely feel such a deep exhale in, is the ritual to your body, is that simple moment of waking up and just before you reach for literally anything external or even touch your divine partner, if you have one in bed or if you have a baby, like, just.

Even if you're holding your baby, you're breastfeeding your baby.

Like, take a moment to just put your hand on your heart and, like, take a deep breath and just say, hi, body, I'm here.

What do you need today?

And like you said, it doesn't then have to be.

Like you said, some mornings it can be a longer journey, and some days it's today I took the deep breath, and today I simply started by just that shift into, like, what I feel is your shift there is, like, actually putting body first.

Like, when you just said that, I got full body chills, right?

Like, what does it really mean to trust that the body is there?

And I want to come and double click back on that.

But before we go there, I want to actually go back to that other piece you said about the elders and the people you brought into your life.

Because I think the first piece that stood out to me about your big shift was your relationship to self.

But the other big piece that really stood out to me was how you really surrounded yourself in relationship with other people who had a specific relationship to body.

And I'd be really curious to know what stands out to you on that topic, because I think for so many people, right, like, they start connecting to your bot, their bodies.

And one of the hardest pieces is, as you do so, you start to realize maybe environments you're in, people you're surrounding yourself with, there's.

There starts to be messages you received.

How did you.

How did you experience that?

Right.

Like, I can imagine as you're in, awakening now, you're in the clubs, and probably things are a bit different, or people you're spending time with.

What have you found are like, the signals that the body communicates in those moments?

Sure.

As you're speaking, I'm getting truth bumps where I really enjoy this.

And actually, as a caveat, truth bumps.

That moment where we feel goosebumps, it is the body saying, pay attention, pay attention.

Something in here is truthful.

Something in here is literally resonating with the frequency of my cells.

And it's going alert, alert.

That's why when we hear music or we hear someone speak, we get that moment.

And actually, to that point, exactly.

The more embodied we become, the more present we become to the feeling instinctual part of us, the more clear we are with this experience of contracting or relaxing.

And I really.

I see that as just the basic mechanism to really orientate myself around people, environments, the world.

It's like I can walk into a room and I either feel my chest expand and I can sometimes even feel myself sighing, like exhaling deeper.

When the environment and the people are regulated and when they are, yeah.

Able to meet me in my regulation versus other environments, which I'm also attracted to.

These high nervous system, really fast paced cities, really intense, like clubbing environments where the breath is shorter and sharper, but it's exhausting.

And my body feels tense.

And I noticed specifically for me, because of my.

Just all the years of doing this work, I recognize that I then take on the role as the co regulator because somebody in the space is going to be soothing the energy field, and it's usually the calmest person in the room.

And you'll find that you are then having to make use of your nervous system calibration to almost, like, bring people into a more easeful, embodied, breathing, connected way.

And interestingly, back to the elders.

There was one woman in particular, and she was in her late seventies.

I actually saw her at a sober morning rave, which, again, is like I was going to yoga.

And then I started actually hungering for that more fast paced expression of movement.

Because I am aries.

I've got, like, three aries in my chart.

I have a lot of fire.

I also recorded require fast paced movement.

So I would go to these 06:00 a.m.

sober raves in London.

And I went once, and I saw this woman who was in her seventies, and she was just dancing, and she was so free.

And she became one of my first teachers and something she taught me as she traveled throughout the world with her little backpack at 75 years old.

She said, every morning I wake up and she does this little Qi goong, tapping, tapping of her body.

And I do tapping now all the time with my clients and with myself, tapping the body awake from the inside out.

And she would always laugh at these kind of acrobatic, really over the top classes of yoga or movement.

And she said, all you simply need to do each morning is wake yourself up from the inside out.

And that's, as I say, this kind of first touch.

Hello, how are you doing?

And then the simplest.

Tapping, tapping all the way.

Like, I'll send you a YouTube link, which you can share.

I've got a video which is just a tap from the top of the head through to the tip of the toes, because through that tapping, you wake up your energy body.

You connect to the meridians.

You start to move the blood and the lymph, and from that place, you feel like, oh, wow, okay.

Hello.

Hello, world.

Hello, life.

Hello, day.

How are we doing?

I love that.

Let's definitely share that as a powerful ritual.

Do you find people can also do that at any time in the day?

Ideally, we want to set up our mornings if we can prioritize one thing.

Like we've said here, starting your day off in that moment, that's a really powerful opportunity to really start with a very beautiful relationship to your body and your being yet also, some days are all sorts of dynamics.

And so also, this seems like a ritual someone can do at any point in your day.

Let's say you're coming out of a really intense conversation or an intense meeting, or things are just not going your way.

Is this something that someone could do at any point, and it can just be a really powerful ritual to reset into their body?

Totally.

That's such a good point.

Any moment in the day, and specifically actually in the afternoon, when you get that slump and you're looking for cake, me, or sweetness or coffee, it's a great time to just get up and shake, shake and tap, because you are energetically shifting whatever you've been carrying and holding.

And also, all the people that you've interacted with, they have imprints on us.

And when we tap ourselves back into our own energetic feeling, also, another great way to kind of shift back into your own body is to have a shower, rinse yourself, like a simple rinse.

That's why we both love the ocean.

We love being in bodies of water.

Water is an incredible medium to literally put us back into our own frequency.

And it's so underrated, you know, go under a shower and speak to the water.

The water carries codes.

Thank you, water for, you know, removing anything from my aura that is no longer needed or mine to hold.

Thank you for cleansing me and putting me back into my frequency of vitality.

We can really ask these things, and they're so simple, and they really are so available at any point in our days to just take us back to us, to our alignment.

Oh, my gosh.

I love that you're bringing in a ritual of reset in the sense that I'm just laughing.

I'm literally thinking about in the earliest days of my business, I wasn't so aware.

And as you know, I was going through a lot related to my body.

So I definitely relate to anyone listening who, like, I had all the gut health issues.

I was so disconnected for so long and then went through the whole era of feeling like I couldn't digest anything, being sick by everything.

And in that same time was right when I was in the early stages of business, and I didn't yet have a really great way of cleansing, of ritual of.

I was good at the morning, but I wasn't aware of the evening.

And so z, my husband, used to.

My now husband, used to laugh because I would come home after, like, you know, interacting with people all day, doing my client sessions, and he would joke that it was almost like I had energetic people still on my field when I would come home.

And it's so funny you talk about the shower, because that's exactly what I would do.

And I still, to this day, do it after any client session, after any big meeting, whether it's the ocean or a shower, I love to just go in and it's such a great energetic hygiene of just like you said, like coming back and releasing anything we carry.

Because I think so often, we get so hard on ourselves these days, and we start feeling like we make up all these stories about ourselves, about like, our brain fog, our lack of focus.

And honestly, half the time I just need a shower or a quick five to ten minute nap.

Sometimes I literally, the other one is, I am now a lover of the nap.

I think the nap is one of the most, like, misunderstood things.

I mean, think about it, as kids, they have those nap, they have nap time.

And so funny, because I feel like.

So many kids don't want to do naps.

And all of us adults, all we want is like, can I just please get a five to ten minute nap?

Please?

You know, because are you much of a napper?

I'm trying to remember if you.

I might.

I mean, when we're on vacation or do things together, you'll definitely go in for your siesta.

But have you also found that the nap is a super powerful way for you, too?

It's so interesting because for me, those of us who are capable of afternoon naps or daytime naps is an evidence, is, for me, evidence of a regulated nervous system.

Because previously I couldn't take naps, because as soon as I would go down, it's like everything would start to come up and then you start to get this, like, panic sensation, which I know many people have when they try to nap now, because of all the work I've done and all the kind of somatic healing and really the understanding and decision that there is no rush, there is nothing that I need to urgently tend to that is more important than my personal well being and my bodily well being, first and foremost.

And I think the prioritizing of the self and the body allows for this exhale to be like, yeah, I'm going to be the best business leader when I'm well rested and regulated.

And so now, yes, a nap, even like a ten minute nap, even just lying down, listening to a guided meditation, you know, if you're not fully falling asleep, but you're just going into that state of peace and then coming back to the emails or clients or meetings or you know, thousand to do lists that we have.

But, yeah, it's a priority for me to be able to know when I need to say, pause.

Essentially, I'm over here smiling because now I'm celebrating that I actually can take naps.

And next, every time I take a nap now or I've ever felt like, I think the hard part for so many is our society really doesn't make us revere rest time, you know?

I don't.

I know I would just speak for myself and that a lot of my conditioning was like, gotta be productive.

Gotta keep doing things that's a waste of time or.

Or pride in, like, the never ending go, go, go.

I've also been in so many rooms where people pride themselves on, oh, I'm too busy for a bath.

Or I've had people literally say to me, like, oh, good for you, that you can take a nap.

And again, I also honor various circumstances and people's various dynamics.

But even if it's a couple minutes or a breath or a simple thing, it's just a lot of times there's definitely circumstances people walk with, but a lot of the times, it's simply just making it a priority or letting go of a lot of these stories we have that it's not productive.

I will say for anyone who has a thought that it's not productive.

I have had a lot of my greatest business insights and downloads, and greatest my methodologies have often come on the back end of an app.

Of an app.

And I think this is a really interesting thing to tap into, is when you connect with these moments or when you connect with now, getting people to just take a moment to, like, really go into their bodies.

What I feel in you, as you say this is they're actually coming into receptivity and into receiving, and into actually receiving their truth, their voice, their messages, their decision making.

And how many people have we heard, including ourselves, such a big part of our journey.

It's something Annette and I have bonded over many times, is the struggle to receive, the struggle to allow ourselves to receive.

Yet, have you noticed that the more you've really connected with your body, the more you've ritualized your body?

Like, the deeper you've gone on this journey, that actually, it's naturally opened you up to increase your capacity to receive?

Yeah, I think this is an important point to also kind of thread us back to the initial incident that I spoke about that kind of woke me up and really just showed me that I was living in a state of terror, actually, and fear.

And I think so many of us underestimated incidences in our childhood or our upbringing that really created extreme terror and fear in the body.

And what that then looks like is these diseases like eczema or IB's or, you know, always rushing or anxiety.

Like, when I first started reading about anxiety, I remember being like, wow, you know, I've had anxiety for most of my kind of teens, but I didn't know what that meant to.

And then as I started kind of delayering and remembering things in my upbringing and going to therapy and understanding, like, wow.

Actually, you know, the divorce had a really big impact on me.

Moving between homes constantly created a really dysregulated nervous system.

Growing up in South Africa, experiencing robbery, crime, like, all these things impacted my ability to feel safe in the world and to feel safe in my body, and therefore made it almost impossible to receive and surrender.

Because if you're in protection and you're in safety, you can't open.

It's like with sex and with pleasure, the woman, the feminine, only opens when she feels she is truly safe to open.

Yeah.

So on that note, really understanding that this piece you asked me about receiving and surrendering really comes from cultivating deep safety internally, and understanding that we are responsible for regulating our nervous systems, for doing the necessary rituals that keep us in a place of presence, in a place of integrity, so that our decision making then comes from an embodied space, you know, and that's not on anybody else.

Like, nobody.

We can't control the outside environment, but we can control how we react.

And that requires daily rituals and presence and conscious decision making.

So, yeah, it's so powerful because we can sometimes overcomplicate.

Like, how many of us can say, oh, I want to become a better decision maker.

I want to have better clarity about whether or not this person in my life is truly aligned for me.

I'm not sure why my body's acting this way or that way, or why this food I'm eating doesn't seem I'm feeling bloated.

All these different dynamics.

Yet what I love is you're bringing us back to the simple truth, which is our body is working with us, which I want to go into this because for one of your core beliefs, that has always stood out to me and honestly has been a massive elevation in my life.

One of the things I would say you have most shifted for me was this mindset that you operate from, which is trusting that your body is working with you, not against you, that nature is working with you and not against you.

And I will acknowledge for myself that can initially feel a little bit triggering because if you're in a situation like when I first met you, right, where, like, for so long, I was feeling so tired of feeling like everything I was eating wasn't working for me.

And, you know, all of the stories of, like, this is me, I could possibly be creating this, or, like, this body that feels like it in a lot of ways was against me for a while, I had felt like I kept trying to fix and I kept trying to just find the one solution and if I just cleansed enough, like, then maybe I would finally solve it, right?

Like, you're.

And gosh, for anyone how much I used to be on WebMD searching every possible reason.

Or, like, you know, then bless, like, Louise, hey, the psychosomatics, you know, you just, you get.

You can get.

Where is the.

Where are these even tools?

Very helpful yet when we can go down the rabbit hole.

And I love, like, this narrative you bring forward, because, one, it can be a bit of a moment to finally just be like, what?

And maybe to absorb this, what you're going to share in a moment.

But also the more I really allowed this and I received back to receiving.

Received this message for you, it was the deepest truth that, over time has now created so much liberation and a completely new relationship to my body.

So, first off, I want to know, how did you come to this?

Like, where was that shift where you elevated?

Because I'd imagine past versions of you didn't necessarily know this.

And I think what's interesting, too, that we need to talk about with you and double click on is you grew up in a space where you've been around a lot of typical health, like, what is kind of the normal health and well being lens that you honestly now have kind of stepped outside of and in a lot of ways are a bit maybe unconventional in, you know, and what, like, this is one piece that I feel like not many people tell you, you know, and so what was that shift for you?

And where has it been and how has it impacted not just you, but what you've watched and others around you who have gone through the same journey?

Yeah, such a great question.

So I grew up with a doctor, a general practitioner, as a father, you know, western medical GP, really kind of committed to the cult of western medicine, which I now recognize in itself is its own cult.

Like, it has a.

Its own symbols.

It really is something that.

Yeah.

He believed so deeply in.

And it's.

And it's sad because I don't want to ever judge western medicine.

But I do see that some of the origins were really from a paradigm of fear and conditioned by the military system in which our culture was built on.

The culture that we live in is very much invested in colonizing the earth, colonizing places.

Like, we still have this ripple effect of man wanting to control nature, wanting to set himself up as the kind of top of the hierarchy.

And in order to do that, one has to be at war with nature and ultimately with each other.

And I really see how that has seeped into the way in which we approach sickness and disease and even, you know, each other sometimes.

So growing up, whenever I had a problem in my body, it was immediately like, okay, let's solve the problem.

Here's a script.

Take this.

Pull.

Take that.

Pull.

And I just lived on antibiotics because during that time, it wasn't so.

You know, our society didn't know the dangers of taking so much antibiotics.

Like, now it's really becoming more prevalent.

But, you know, I was popping pills throughout my childhood, and obviously, over time, that weakened my immune system.

It also destroyed my gut biome.

And so I was just constantly in a very fragile immune system state.

I was allergic to everything.

I kept getting eczema.

I had hay fever all the time.

I just felt like I was the sensitive little child that was walking around afraid of everything, afraid to, you know, touch horses, because I would get this allergic reaction.

And it was such a, you know, to think back in hindsight, like a really difficult way to live in the world and feel free and connected.

And so eventually, I moved out of my family home.

I moved to Edinburgh.

I think getting, like, literally the other side of the world from my family is a pivotal moment.

I think for many of us to actually exit the conditioning and the kind of culture in which we grew up to establish who we are and individuate ourselves from where we come from, you know, without any judgment.

And through that process of leaving home and seeing how other people ate and reacted to illness, I was living with a family at the time, wonderful family in Edinburgh, and they were super health conscious.

They always made these green smoothies.

They didn't have any pills.

And I started slowly seeing how eating was the way to be well and this kind of preventative approach to looking at sickness or disease, in that I don't wait to get sick to fix something.

I choose through my diet and through my lifestyle to maintain my health and my immune system.

And so that was kind of one shift.

And then I went to live with my very first witch, sort of teacher, Susan Weed, who was a radical herbalist shaman in upstate New York, and I apprenticed with her.

And she had a very different approach to the kind of way in which we are looking at illness.

And, you know, that process was going into the woods.

Like we, I had to live in her in the woods, in the dark.

We weren't allowed torches and, and had to go on this almost like a, like a rite of passage that reconnected me to the wilds.

It was like a returning to the wild.

It was a returning to that chaos, that shadow, that fear of what happens when I don't have medication, what happens when I don't have doctors around?

What happens if I really am out in nature, in an environment, in the dark, in the forest, which I've been so terrified of, you know, can I survive?

Can I actually trust that I am part of this symbiotic relationship with all that is around me?

And it was, it was through that process of starting to eat wild food, you know, drinking the weeds, having infusions every day.

I really believe that period of my life with Susan weed and with this kind of herbalism apprenticeship, I started to imbue, like, literally imbue my body with wild rewilding programming, rewilding nutrients, micronutrients that gave me not only a greater connection to my own, like, human body wildness, but also a resilience to handle the wild world in which we live in and handle, yes, the viruses, the bacterias, the allergies that were coming my way, but not to fear them, but to realize, like, actually, if I let myself meet them with curiosity and if I have enough nutrients and enough energy and enough trust, my body will move through these issues.

And each time I successfully get better without external medicine or, you know, support, I build confidence and I also build, yeah, stronger immune system resilience and inside of myself.

So it's kind of, it's like this process of really almost shedding all the, like your training wheels on a bike and all the things that you kind of propped yourself up to be safe and protective as a little child and going, I can do this.

Like, I can ride out into the wind and into the dark night and I can be safe because I know how to take care of myself.

I know what daily nutrients I need in order to have the energy to meet the difficult situations that come into my.

Into my life.

Because ultimately, it is the simple ways in which we sustain ourselves and, yeah, trust ourselves.

And just like you trust your mind to make choices that are good for you, you have to start to also trust your body to handle the sudden diarrhea or stomach issue that's coming up and go.

Rather than try to fix this or try to punish myself or eating the wrong food or overthinking how this could have happened, I'm going to just trust that my body is getting rid of something right now.

Like, there's a reason this is happening.

And the sooner we stop fixing and we just allow the healing to happen, the quicker the healing happens.

It's like it wants to play out, this phase of moving through something.

And the reason sometimes we get stuck in chronic conditions is because we've interfered with the healing process, and now we're stuck in the hanging healing, basically.

But it really takes, it takes years of trust.

It takes years of sometimes real discomfort.

And actually, that's something that's a really important point.

So many of us are conditioned away from feeling, and feeling includes uncomfortable feelings, you know, those period pains that you've been taking painkillers to avoid feeling.

Those are things that when you start to let go of, have to start facing the pain.

Like, yes, I had monthly period pain, you know, for years.

And what was it telling me?

It was telling me, Annette, stop drinking so much coffee.

I need rest.

Get your hormones in check.

Eat better food.

Stop having sex with people that don't respect you.

Your body is giving you messages.

But we're so good at taking pills to numb ourselves out, you know, getting stuck on Instagram and scrolling to just disassociate from the discomfort, which is the first phase, actually, of embodiment.

It's first going to show you the ugly, uncomfortable things where you've not been living in alignment, essentially.

I'm so glad you brought that up, because I think that right there, the acknowledgement that there's nothing wrong with you if when you do start connecting to your body, it doesn't just immediately feel easy, breezy, anything.

Wow.

Wow.

When I started really connecting to my body, I mean, you and I have talked about this a lot.

I fell into such deep grief.

But what's so interesting that I just want to name is, like, what I saw was, for so long, I worked so hard to numb off my body, I also, just to be frank, I don't think I'd ever really seen anyone who just had a really loving, not in my direct space, that had a really loving relationship to their body.

I think I was actually around a lot of the punishing energy with body, punishing ourselves through, like, how we control how we eat or how we control how we exercise.

And I just really was in that for a period of my life.

So this idea, like, one of your core beliefs, I love, and it's been a huge reclamation for me, is that punishment to nourishment?

And for me, initially, it was so vulnerable to actually come into, what?

What is nourishment?

How do I nourish my body?

I've never known how to nourish my body.

Like, I'm the kid in college who just used to eat, like, wouldn't even eat properly and then would, like, feed herself granola.

Like, would just eat random cereal, you know, like, and I don't even think at that time it was because I was necessarily trying to be hard on myself, but I just didn't have a deep awareness of what really would make my body feel nourished.

I was so disconnected from my body, and my body was just this thing that I, like, walked with that I didn't really have a connection with.

And so I love you name it, because I think oftentimes what gets hard is sometimes, like you said, it gets messy before it immediately feels good.

And if you're, you're someone who, like, looks at people on Instagram or looks at anyone and thinks, like, oh, they just have it figured out.

Like, take a moment to honor that.

This was not an overnight journey for them.

If they're celebrating in their body, likely they went through a lot of dark nights of the soul.

They probably went through a lot of days where they were like, I feel like I'm crumbling with the feelings I have in my body.

And I know for me, it's just like that little moment of sometimes just the awareness, like, when I first just started realizing, oh, wait, I'm not really being loving with my body.

Oh.

And, like, I think that kind of circles back to even the people you're around for you.

Annette, when you were coming out, because you were in the modeling space, you were in a lot of spaces where you saw a lot of different relationships to body.

And I'm sure that dynamic in particular is so prominent.

How did you kind of start to come into nourishment?

Because I think of anyone listening who's kind of in spaces where they would just say a lot of who they're around, they don't feel like necessarily it's a nourishing space.

Like, what was that kind of space where you were able to start in a loving again, elevate daily, not an overnight.

Just drop everybody in your life or drop every ecosystem.

Or for some people, they can't just, like, leave a work environment that isn't fully nourishing right immediately.

But what was that process?

What would you recommend?

That way of just starting to kind of come back into nourishment?

Yeah.

Such a beautiful question.

I think a really key thing is self responsibility and recognizing that I have me to take care of first and foremost.

Because I think for many of us, there's either this.

I was like an over giver, a people pleaser.

And that can be really detrimental in the body.

When you're in an environment and you're trying to constantly make other people like you or feel good enough to be on camera or constantly waiting to be externally validated, that is exhausting.

So this kind of reorienting towards, I am in charge of me.

I am responsible for me.

I take care of me first and foremost.

And only then do my engagements get to be, like, an overflow.

And I also realized it was this kind of.

Not necessarily, I don't like the word boundary, but a protection of my sacred space, understanding that people don't just get access to me.

And I if people are saying things that feel hurtful, I can remove myself from that environment, from that connection.

You know, there's subtle ways in which people cause harm.

And honestly, most of the time, it's because they're feeling a lot of stuff inside of themselves.

But I don't.

We don't need to have to put up with that.

We can start to remove ourselves from situations that almost perpetuate harm or perpetuate feelings of insecurity.

And then equally.

Yeah, I was just thinking about self love because nourishment is ultimately before I can start trusting.

You know, when I had anorexia, for, gosh, like, probably five years in high school, I would constantly be constricting, restricting.

I was restricting myself from food all the time.

It was like, don't allow yourself the dessert.

And I know so many women have this where it's like, restriction.

Restriction, you know, punishment.

Don't take up too much space.

Also, don't let your body take up too much space.

I also like.

I respect and understand.

I'm very tall.

I'm naturally slender.

But I still had obsessions about cellulite and, you know, fat on the thighs or bum.

And it was this constant battle of loving my body.

And it was never going to come from an external place.

I had to develop this love of myself and who I am at my core, in my essence.

And I guess that's where spirituality and this understanding of something so much greater than just the human flesh.

Like, I am a soul with a passion and a purpose in this life.

And yes, this is this kind of vessel that I get to show up in.

I want to take care of and nourish.

But this is not the be all and end all.

And once you start to treat your body in this way and eat from a place of, this is feeding me, this is giving me the energy to do my service in the world, you will also find that the weight or the things that you're carrying that make you judge yourself also start to drop away, because oftentimes these things that even like skin, you know, I have a few clients that have acne and that relationship to you looking in the mirror, and it's called a self devaluation.

When we devalue ourselves, our body responds by creating protection weight, acne, its skin and cell proliferation to protect itself from the negative energetic thoughts and beliefs that not only others, but we are sometimes putting on ourselves.

So unless we start to really look at our body with loving kindness and look at our life from that lens, you know, that's what shifts.

It literally can physically shift yourselves.

If you wake up in the morning and go to the bathroom and look at yourself in the mirror and go, wow, you are so beautiful.

Like, I really do this every day.

I look at myself and I'm like, I'm, like, shocked at how beautiful you are.

And I promise to the goddess, my face has got more and more beautiful and I own it.

I don't have shame around acknowledging my beauty.

And that's another thing.

It's like, no more shame around your beauty and your bright, brilliant light.

And I know you and I have really experienced this where it's like, don't shine too bright.

Don't be too beautiful.

How can you be beautiful and intelligent and now you're wise?

It's like, oh, no, you don't get to have all those things.

And it's like, actually, hell, yes, I do.

Like, I get to really own this incredible experience of life and, yeah, simple things like looking at yourself, looking at your body and going, even if you don't believe it at first.

Hey, beauty queen, how you doing?

Hey, Empress.

I love you.

Like, I'm so proud of you.

You're doing amazing.

It really, it really can shift quite dramatically if we do those daily rituals of love, of self love.

Oh, my gosh.

I mean, you and I, the journey of you and I just unapologetically around each other, celebrating our too muchness, our shininess, like the multifaceted, multi dimensional beings that we are, I just love that when I'm in your presence, the two of us just actually just openly celebrate with each other and each other the gift of oh, my gosh.

And it's not.

The difference is, it's not from that very classic, old standard beauty standard dynamic of you needed to change yourself or fix yourself.

There's this energy of just.

There's nothing sexier than a woman who just walks with a feeling of being, like, really in celebration of herself, of who she is.

And you can feel, it's like, the more you cultivate a relationship to your body.

Like, I'm literally, as I'm doing this, we're not on a video recording, but, like, I start moving my body.

It's like a woman in her sensuality and her pleasure and a woman who honors her hunger.

Like, can we?

Because I think so many women who listen in particular to my.

In this space are women who do have a hunger.

Like, there's a hunger for life, there's a hunger for pleasure, there's a hunger for experience.

They question the norms.

They're not someone who's just going to sit aside and I'm getting, again, truth bumps.

They're not someone.

And so, like, how can we have a new paradigm where we celebrate our hunger?

Quit the crap that's all related to eat less.

Oh, I only want this.

It's like, I'm hungry.

I'm a hungry being on the planet who has a lot, you know, and I know you and I have talked about that, and that's also what's fun, is I've watched you be around me where I would say definitely in my era, where I was still in the questioning of, is it safe for me to eat certain things?

That part of me being around you, like, go put yourself around people who have beautiful relationships to your body.

That's what I saw with you.

Invest in spaces where people you're around are like that.

Because just watching you as an example, I will 100% think that I loved bread as a kid.

My mom talks about when I was a baby, I would just.

She could just give me a piece of baguette, and I would just be entertained for, like, hours.

Yet part of my journey, right, was I couldn't eat gluten for a while, and it would always make me feel sick.

Yet through watching you, through watching this, all the healing I did with my body, slowly I got to just be.

In a space of, like, opening my.

Body up to now, I can eat a delicious baguette, I can walk on the streets of Paris, and I am enjoying and savoring every bite of a croissant.

You know, and it took time and it took space, but, like, being around people who are people who really have done the work to exude that, I know it can be sometimes triggering.

You know, it's really easy to feel sorry for yourself.

But I'm really glad you brought up the self responsibility piece and brought it up that, like, at the end of the day, it's all an invitation to come back into what is your body trying to lovingly tell you.

Like, when I think of you and I think of everything you stand for, it's consistently realizing your body is just asking you to, from a place of love, connect with something.

And I just feel like that's so important to land.

Yeah, so true.

So true.

First comes the triggers, then comes the treasures.

Like, don't be afraid of the triggers.

And I think that is such a key understanding with us, because when you start to elevate, you will be triggered or others will be triggered by you.

But if you decide to consistently be around women who are elevating you, yes, maybe it's a trigger.

But actually, if you turn that trigger into inspiration, like you said, you start to elevate, too.

You go from being like, oh, how come she gets to be so pretty and so eat whatever she wants to?

I can do that, too.

She's paving the pathway.

Like, we can do this together.

And it is possible because she's showing me it's possible.

And it's that, like, perception shift that is what can take you from being a victim of your circumstance into, like, I get to be the, like, you know, sailor of my ship or the architect of my life.

That right there, that was the mic drop.

Like, out of everything, I'm like, that's the mic drop moment is, like, consistently remembering, like, the power of putting yourself in spaces, being around people who are inspiring you in a way, and your body will communicate it.

It may have both, like we said, the trigger and things, but it's also an opportunity to, like, ah, this is possible for me in any area of your relationship to life and how that plays into.

Because, I mean, if we also sum up a key piece here, I'll just say something I've watched is the more I've shifted an energy in my body, it has shifted my mindset in all the other areas.

The more I've built strength in my physical body, which has been my recent journey.

Going to the gym, building my strength, doing strength training, I've watched my strength in my mind.

I've watched the strength in my voice, like, all of that navigate.

So remember also, and I've watched you embody this over and over again.

Annette, like, the more you really do this and you commit to this work with your body, the more you'll watch.

It will just elevate every other area.

You'll watch your intimacy and relationship totally shift.

You'll watch the way you just even attract different types of people.

Like, you'll just, you'll just watch different people who suddenly you're.

I've watched it over and over again where people are shocked by the random friends they meet at a coffee shop who, due to a different relationship, they had to themselves.

It just wasn't in their field before.

And so may this just be a consistent reminder of you have that power and that opportunity in any moment to shift and to elevate.

And so as we begin to close up, I'd love to invite you, and I know you shared a couple of different rituals throughout our conversation.

Of course, what is one ritual that you do daily that elevates you?

I would have to say taking my shoes off and going and stepping into earth.

Like, it seems so simple.

But I really, it started actually, back in my London days, I started taking my shoes off intuitively, and I go and walk in the parks, and I recognize now that I have this, this need and hunger to feel the ground beneath my feet because I can fly up into my head or into even the cosmic realms.

And so taking my shoes off either at the end of the day or in the beginning of the day and just getting my feet into grass, sand, you know, mud, water, whatever earth based element you can connect to and literally feeling like you're drawing yourself down through your spine, through your body, into the earth and making that connection with the mother, the earth mother, which is ultimately the source, the original source of our.

Of our energy, of our infinite supply of energy.

And by feeling my feet on the ground, I get to also release the energy that's no longer serving me and almost like, feed her, like, compost that into the earth, into the soil, and then intake through my feet what it is that I need to then go and rest and sleep or go into a meeting or go and start my day.

And I think that simple earth connection for me is a ritual that really helps me to understand that I am part of this crazy, wild, chaotic and beautiful world and natural world, earth world that we've decided to incarnate into.

It's something so simple, so accessible, and there you have it.

Invitation for us all.

Today, can you go take your shoes off and go put your bare feet into some soil, into some grass, into some nature?

And just like you said, connect to mother Earth.

Like, let it be that that nourishes you.

And then I think, gosh, for all of us who especially spend a lot of time on the tech devices, there's also so much science to show nowadays, even though, you know, all the ancient science has been showing it for a long time.

And, you know, bless the way science is now, also showing things, but the power of grounding and, like, rebooting yourself in that way.

So.

Oh, you've inspired me.

I'm definitely going to do that today.

I might do both grass and sand since I'm near a beach these days.

And yeah, thank you so much, Annette.

This has just been.

I have no doubts this will probably be part one of other chats as we.

There's so much more that we can explore together and speak about this topic of elevation.

Yet if people want to connect with you and go deeper into this space with you, what is the best way for them to connect with you?

To be in your incredible world and to be elevated by your incredible presence?

I would say following me on Instagram, even though I'm trying to do as much kind of offline time, but that's where I will update you with my offerings and then I'm spending a lot of time writing.

So my sub stack.

And yeah, I do offer one on one sessions.

I've kind of got some private clients.

I do offer single consults.

If there's specific ailments or issues that you're dealing with that we can start to look at the root and create like a nourishing support for it.

And yeah, possibly some retreats with Lexi in the future or workshops.

I'm always pioneering new things month to month.

So yeah, that's why Instagram would be the best.

Our playful pioneer will definitely entertain you at her finest.

If nothing else, it's amazing to watch.

I will just share.

I don't think you know this.

I have had many people in my world connect with you through hearing about our retreats and different things, and they go, they now love following your journey.

You're guaranteed to be inspired, you're guaranteed to be elevated and just consistently shown what it looks like, what it feels like to really honor your beautiful body and ritualize your relationship to your body and to also be just consistently reminded of the power of your innocent nature and how it actually inspires you to show up in all the other big ways.

So Annette, I am just so grateful for the gift that is you and for all of you listening and tuning in.

We would be so grateful if you would rate review share this with others.

As this is really a journey, like.

We said, to cultivate a really nourishing, beautiful elevator relationship to your body.

It happens through us all doing it together because we all know, like Annette said, when someone else in the room is also co regulating, it serves us all.

So if you could share it with anyone in your life who you feel like it would resonate with and if you would feel called, we would be so grateful if you would take a moment to just share review and just feel free to share any insights that stood out on instagram or anything of that nature as we're always curious to spark a conversation and to continue the flow.

And until next time, I hope you elevate your life one intentional day at a time.