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Leila Stead | Intuitive Guide & Body Intelligence

@itsleilastead

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INTUITIVE GUIDANCE / BODY INTELLIGENCE
Understand the soul & Decode the body.
Nervous System Specialist • Medical Medium • Grief Guide
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Since my mum died, something fundamental in me changed.

Death doesn’t care about plans.
It doesn’t wait for the right timing, the perfect version of you, or the life you thought you’d live later.

Grief stripped away the illusion that we’re in control. That there’s always more time. That we can keep postponing joy, rest, freedom, or truth until everything feels “sorted.”

So now I do what I want — not recklessly, but honestly.
I take the long way home.
I follow the pull instead of the plan.
I choose moments that feel alive in my body, even when my heart still aches.

Losing my mum taught me that life isn’t something you prepare for.
It’s something you participate in.

This isn’t about escaping grief.
It’s about letting it reorder my priorities.
About living in a way that would make sense if tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed.

Death doesn’t care about plans.

And because of that… I care more deeply about living than I ever have before.

#griefjourney #griefandhealing #griefsupport by @itsleilastead

It’s been 12 days and it’s finally sinking in that you aren’t off on a lovely holiday somewhere with your phone switched off.

I’m missing you so much it hurts but I’m taking solace in the fact that you are no longer in pain.

Im missing the version of myself before all this happened too but also celebrating the fact that my level of unbothered has reached new and outstanding heights that I know can only be birthed from this deep pain.

Happy new year mama, hope you’re having a blast up there. I like to think whenever I think of you, it’s cause you’re thinking of me too ✨🤍

#griefjourney by @itsleilastead

Going into 2026 with nothing that can scare me anymore. All I know is next year is big. #griefjourney by @itsleilastead

Sometimes life throws curveballs and it feels like your life is falling apart, the trick to life is remembering that these moments are usually life falling together better than you could imagine. The quicker you step into gratitude for those moments and trust that sometimes rejection is just redirection to where you’re truly meant to be - the easier life flows for you.

From a woman with a PHD in curveball university. You got this #griefjourney #griefsupport by @itsleilastead

The best chilli prawn pasta, $10 prawns from @aldiaustralia and mostly fresh ingredients.
I don’t measure but watch the video and grab the ingredients and honestly…. Absolutely delicious. 👌🏽 #easymealideas #chilliprawnpasta by @itsleilastead

Yesterday a historical photo popped up on my Facebook, an image of an Australian actress and her friend. And instantly I knew this woman sitting next to her, like I felt it in my bones knew her. My mind flashed to a memory, her sitting poolside with friends including the actress in the image.

She passed away, an overdose. I saw it in my mind as if I was her. She slumped forward into the pool and absolute chaos unfolded as people tried to hold her up as she turned blue.
Nothing worked she had already passed away.

I had a reoccurring dream of this moment as small child. I was deathly afraid of pools and I would always wake up screaming after this dream.

So I put the woman’s face into google, she died. Just like the image I had. Just like my dream…

She was me - death 1964 22 years before I was born in this life.

Now I wouldn’t say I’m an overly “spiritual person” I was born with a gift, I use it. No tarot cards, no using any other tools, I am merely a conduit for the information.

So this was a bit much for me, since yesterday I’ve felt really greify for that woman. I distinctly remember that when she died, I felt insanely ripped off, like someone that left a party early (well I guess she did) she was only young. She hadn’t figured life out yet, no children, no marriage, just partying and surface level interactions.

I couldn’t help but to think that’s why in this life I had no choice but to be deeply committed to motherhood, deeply committed to myself and my own growth without the distraction of someone else beside me for the first 40 years of my life. Why did this come across my path now, what does it mean?

If you have had a session with me you would know that if there is a past life trauma reoccurring that I discuss it. It’s been happening more and more in session that these things are bought to the surface.

It’s so interesting. As someone who always leads with curiosity this has peaked my interest.

Has anyone else had this happen? Where you unexpectedly know someone???

If so I would love to talk with you? I’m feeling a bit lost with what all that actually means. Maybe I was just supposed to know I am her. She is me… #pastlife by @itsleilastead

No caption needed. #datingover40 #singlemum #single #soloparent #healingjourney by @itsleilastead

@sandstonepointholidayresort has long been a favourite for our family.
This holiday we were on a strict budget so we checked out powered sites, grabbed our camp set up and for a few hundred dollars we had a get away in paradise.

This is the one place I feel I can truly relax, it has everything so incredibly well thought out and your kids are entertained by all the amazing facilities and full programme of activities.

We cooked our own food at our camp site, so we saved money there, we packed snacks for by the pool, Ever found a hack for a $4 slushie refill and when the weather was bad we checked out the local op shops (highly recommend you do)

Something I always try to do is do my washing before heading home, they even had an on site laundromat with machines that dispense laundry powder so I didn’t even need to pop out to purchase some - like I said every little detail.

I allowed myself a splurge @sandstonepoint hotel and got the steak with red wine jus and truffle mash… also highly recommend. The playground there is stunning! Make sure you book for sunset time slot and thank me later.

An inexpensive get away with world class facilities, that’s the amazing part. You can do sandstone point for all budgets.

Plenty of people were there for big family birthdays and it gave me plenty of ideas. Ever said it was her favourite get away we have ever done and I agree, tanned, relaxed and ready for back to school. #familytravel #travelonabudget #campingwithkids by @itsleilastead

Things I would rather do than date a man at 40 years old in 2026 :

Skydive into a pit of tarantulas
Fight a crocodile with only a bread stick
Get trapped in a lift with all men who have nose whistles
Assemble IKEA furniture with my ex
Get a root canal from a stranger on market place
Swim across the ocean wearing a steak necklace
Have a colonoscopy with no anaesthetic
Explain to a grown man that “communication” is not nagging
Have a 40 year old man ask me for my snap chat
Listen to someone sip 10 litres of drink through a 1ml straw
Go on a date where “let’s just see where it goes” is the entire relationship plan
clean vomit with only a chop stick
listen to another man tell me “I just want peace” while bringing only chaos to the table
Explain that “I’m an old soul” does not mean he still lives like it’s 1998
Breastfeed a baby with a full mouth of teeth
Marry a snorer before divorce was a thing
Walk on a never ending path of thumbtacks
Have a man tell the waiter “tap water is fine”
Be tattooed by wasps

Did I miss anything??? Can my husband come get me? It’s so ghetto out here 🤣🫠

#datingover40 by @itsleilastead

I think I finally understand what it means to come home to yourself.

For most of my life, I changed my hair before I changed anything else.

Blow-drys. Straighteners. Treatments. Anything that made my curls look less like… me.

I was teased for my hair as a kid, and somewhere along the way I decided that looking “put together” meant looking less natural.

And being Samoan only added to that feeling of being different.

So this might seem like just a photo of my hair.

But for me, it’s 40 years of unlearning.

Yesterday I walked out of the house with my natural hair and didn’t spend the day wondering if I looked “too messy” or “too different.”

I just felt like me.

And honestly… that feels pretty fucking beautiful.

And today people celebrated something I was once teased for. All day I got comments on it and at first I felt really self conscious about that, but then I realised it wasn’t the hair it was the energy behind it. Something was shed, a layer of who I thought I should be maybe.

All I know is they saw what I felt.

Change. ✨ by @itsleilastead

9 months without my mum.
2 months into my 40s.

And if I’m honest, I’ve been fighting one of the darkest parts of grief yet.

Grief-induced depression is strange because from the outside, life keeps moving.

You work.
You parent.
You answer messages.
You laugh at things.
You make plans.
You do the washing and buy the groceries and keep showing up.

But underneath it all, there’s this heaviness.

A version of you is still trying to understand how the world can keep turning when one of the people who made it feel like home is no longer in it.

I thought turning 40 would feel different.

I thought I’d arrive here feeling powerful, certain, maybe even excited about the next chapter.

Instead, I arrived without my mum.

And these past two months have been less about reinventing myself and more about learning how to keep choosing life when a huge part of me is still grieving hers.

Some days I feel her everywhere.

Some days I feel completely alone.

Some days I’m deeply grateful to be alive.

And some days, being alive feels incredibly heavy.

I’m learning not to judge any of it.

Nine months later, I’m not “moving on.”

I’m learning how to carry her while I move forward.

And right now, that is enough. 🤍 by @itsleilastead

Maybe the life that didn’t go to plan was the making of me.

If you had shown the younger version of me the road ahead, I’m not sure she would have believed she could walk it.

You’ll become a mother and suddenly find yourself building a family differently than you imagined.

You’ll spend years looking for love in places that cannot hold you, until you realise the most important love story your daughter will witness is the one between a woman and herself.

You’ll be misunderstood. Judged. Talked about. Disliked by people who have never sat at your table or lived a single day inside your story. And eventually, you’ll discover the extraordinary freedom of letting them.

You’ll lose your mum and learn there are some versions of you that grief takes with it forever. But somehow, amongst the wreckage, you’ll begin building another one carrying pieces of her into everything you do.

You’ll turn 40 and realise you still don’t have life figured out.

And strangely, that will be one of the most freeing realisations of all.

Because perhaps we were never supposed to arrive at some magical age where the house is finished, the relationship is perfect, the bank account is full, everyone approves of us and we finally get to exhale and say, there. I did life correctly.

Maybe life is the rebuilding.

The leaving.

The grieving.

The choosing differently when you finally know differently.

The terrifying yes.

The necessary no.

The plane ticket.

The starting again.

The people who stay.

The people you finally stop chasing.

The ordinary mornings beside the little person who has unknowingly watched you become a woman right alongside her.

I used to think growth would feel like finally having everything together.

Now I think it feels more like looking around at a life that bears almost no resemblance to the one you planned…

and realising you wouldn’t trade the woman you became getting here for the woman you might have been if everything had gone right.

Some things fell apart.

Some things fell into place.

And sometimes, it takes years to realise they were the same thing. by @itsleilastead