The 31-year-old Yorta Yorta author draws upon her own life struggles to delve into topics that people are often hesitant to discuss.
The book acts as a guide to life.
It covers a multitude of topics such as friendships, break-ups, love, grief, manifestation, tapping into spirituality, self-care and mental health.
Ms Potter is not unaccustomed to life in the limelight — she has built a career as a digital content creator who runs an extremely successful Instagram account.
She is brazen, candid and confident with her 42,000 followers.
She speaks openly about the loss of her single mother to melanoma at the age of 17.
After her mother’s passing, Ms Potter admitted she “hit rock-bottom”.
“I suppressed my grief and emotions for a really long time until I had my spiritual awakening, I guess you could call it,” she said.
“I utilised drugs and alcohol to sort of suppress my emotions and become numb essentially.
“Once I stopped alcohol, (I was sober for nearly a year), that is when I really dug deep into my spiritual journey.”
Even with all these obstacles, Ms Potter’s determination to help others never wavered.
One of the defining moments that led Ms Potter on to the path of becoming a self-love guru was after her mother passed, when she was gifted her mother’s oracle cards.
At the time, Ms Potter didn’t really understand why she was given the cards or how they were going to serve her, but they ended up becoming instrumental in her journey towards self-discovery and reflection.
She used the cards regularly, which ended up guiding her towards enrolling into spiritual development and life-coaching courses.
“It was almost like she knew that I was going to step into this incredible space,” Ms Potter said.
After overcoming her own challenges, Ms Potter wanted to provide advice and guidance to others who were feeling lost, disconnected and alone.
She used her Instagram platform as a way to reach people.
“I just wanted people to really accept themselves for who they are and understand that self-love is not linear,” she said.
“I want to talk about how women can unlock their intuition and I want to talk about grief, having lost my mum at such a young age. I just think that we should normalise the conversation around death as well.”
Ms Potter said it was a natural transition for her to publish a book that highlighted the importance of loving yourself.
“Everything in the book has come from my own personal experiences,” she said.
“I’ve really been able to share with my audience – I’ve shared my lived experiences and I’ve shared the tools and rituals that I have used to get to where I am right now.
“Anything that anyone might be afraid to tap into or speak about – everything is in this book.”
Wild & Witchy was published in January, having taken just over a year to compile, write and publish.
“I worked alongside an editor just because I felt like I needed somebody there to sort of guide me on how I should structure everything,” Ms Potter said.
“I just remember the first time that my publisher sent it to me, and I was like woah, my life is about to change.”
Ms Potter explained that it still hadn’t really hit her that she was now the author of a published book.
She said that throughout the writing process she had learnt how powerful and strong her voice could be when she created an open and honest dialogue with her audience.
“It’s really cool to be in the position that I’m in because people are really listening to what I have to say,” she said.
“They want my advice, they want all these tips on spirituality, and they want tips on how to look after themselves after a break-up.”
As to what she hopes people will get out of the book, “I just hope there is going to be something in there that an individual can resonate with, whether that’s a man buying the book or a woman buying the book or someone who is non-binary,” she said.
Ms Potter is looking forward to whatever the future has in store for her.
“I don’t know what’s next, which I think is the most brilliant, incredible thing because I’m open for any opportunity,” she said.
Anyone interested in reading Wild & Witchy can purchase it at https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/p/wild-witchy-allira-potter
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