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Angel, Ruby & Odin

@pressplayirl

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Punk rock mom. Ex-influencer. Pro content creator. Doula. Rebirth Olympian. I host play parties & retreats that break folks out of their *boring*.

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I woke up this morning and decided to combat me feeling like a wet rat bridge troll, with a little make up and a selfie. My body dysmorphia has been absolutely psychotic post gaining 12 kg by getting off meds, trying HRT and not running daily. I’ve felt pretty god awful about myself. And it’s been a giant exercise in self love and honest conversations between me, myself and I about being proactive about what I can control. Can’t say the weather (aka winter, not seeing the sun, not having a car, not going to the beach, no longer having a pool) hasn’t made it exponentially worse, but I am eager to utilise Spring / Summer energy to get back into my body. This lifestyle doesn’t work for me, and I can see it in the way my mind declines and my self confidence dwindles. A little make up and a good ol’ selfie is actually really helpful in showing me that I am indeed not a bridge troll and I’ll survive existing exactly as I am - because I’m a baddie with a bunda and big heart 😈🫶🏻 by @pressplayirl

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11 hours ago

There’s a specific grief that tags along some of life’s most epic transitions.

A maturing, a greater sense of self revealing itself through each curveball; all of it amounting to knowing that deep down inside, everything happens for a reason, that life happens exactly as it needs to.

And yet, that doesn’t help ease the weight of sadness that is part and parcel to outgrowing all hopes your past self had for you.

My dad used to like and use this one line from a Coopers Brother song to crush my spirits anytime I’d elaborate on an ambition I had.

‘Dreams never die, just the dreamers.’

And maybe his twisted little projection has grown to have deeper meaning over the years.

I am still dreaming, manifesting, creating, desiring - but - the focus shifts slightly, to make room for the immediate needs of your children and future dreams your children have.

As a part of my own healing journey, I am allowing a daily funeral to feel sad about the things I ‘could have, should have, would have’ done.

And IMO, better to process this now than on my ☠️ bed looking back with an iota or regret or resentment.

By grieving the loss (aka change of plans) *now*, I can create space for positivity, productivity and purpose led thinking that is much more congruent with what I’m trying to build or how I’m trying to feel at any given moment.

It’s a matter of staying stuck in place or keeping aliveness moving.

It’s so so so easy to become addicted to our struggle, our suffering, our setbacks.

That kind of commitment to stagnation makes me feel physically unwell.

It’s best to process what I’m feeling NOW to make way for the growth and expansiveness in this giant cosmic game of chess my future self will be desperate to embody when push comes to shove.

A Disney imagineer, an animal cafe, a 50’s boutique motel owner in a seaside town, a ghost tour guide, a vintage car rental company, repurposing old churches and castles, a women only co-working space with built in daycare and homeschool programs, a boutique postpartum recovery space with 24/7 doulas & midwives in a NYC mansion, a pet cemetery, animal loss ritual space - bye for now, but who knows what the future holds.. by @pressplayirl

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2 days ago

‘Angel how did you get so hard? What radicalised you? What made you so cynical?’

I dunno - maybe 13 years invested in trying to convince a man (many men) to love my kids as much as I do, and then realising how sick it is that I beg anyone to love my kids? 🤮

Photos of my perfect children doing puppy yoga in #bangkok at our favourite hotel @thefiglobby by @pressplayirl

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4 days ago

Breaking generational curses and cycles happens in the small stuff…the doing things differently when no one is watching, where there’s no one to take notice but the inner child I’m tending to affectionately by choosing the alternative to every trigger or trauma I have.

For me, that looks like being absolutely fine with a messy house, not letting clutter or dirt or dust or dishes turn me into a domestic overlord with a bad attitude, it’s choosing not to slam doors or cupboards, it’s denying passive aggression as a valid form of communication, it’s saying sorry when the wrong thing comes out of my mouth, it’s saying YES to everything I can say YES to because they deserve it, it’s creating opportunity and encouraging abundance instead of perpetuating scarcity and struggle scripts, it’s validating my daughter who tells me she’s a lesbian before she was even 10 - and believing her, it’s giving my all to homeschool because I value what bullying and a toxic environment does to a child, knowing that it would stretch and stress me, it’s teaching my children about money and manifesting and miracles and magic in a world that feels dark and desperately difficult to manage, it’s in eating dessert for dinner and splurging on the stuff that makes us happy, it’s doing everything I can to raise my kids as sex positive and body positive, it’s raising them on true crime podcasts so they’re self aware and smart about the potentials of danger, it’s choosing to be human and vulnerable and real instead of sheltering them with the idea that I’m some emotionless perfect robot mommy here to serve them dutifully sans personal agency, it’s including them in everything I do and inviting them into my world instead of risking giving them the impression I resent them for what I sacrificed to have them, it’s treating them as intelligent people deserving of respect and compassion, being generous with my patience and holding them accountable for their personal contribution to our family ecosystem, their friends, their learning and the ways they engage with the world, it’s recognising they’re not children I’m here to control - but to love, learn from and be challenged by. by @pressplayirl

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13 days ago

I’ve reached peak defeat. Peak rage. Peak resentment. Peak confusion. I can look back at my mom in her fourties, traumatised, insufferably temperamental, slamming cupboards and crying and drinking with a new found appreciation for what absolute peak maternal depletion and perimenopause feels like. It’s this continuous wrestle between being so unbelievably full of love and gratitude and optimism, whilst compartmentalising this complete lack of capacity for 80% of things. I know so deeply what needs to get done in order to down regulate my nervous system and improve my mental health, but all of a sudden the deafening sound of feeling defeated means I can’t see the forest for the trees. And after working in maternal health and being absolutely obsessed with menstrual / women’s health for a lifetime, I can know exactly what is happening and how to help myself - but also feel completely fucking invisible and lost in the sauce of it all. I’m currently moving through one of the most hardcore seasons of my life, in terms of changes in the body, the mind, the home, life. Things I could have easily worked out before, now are the reason I become undone for 10 days. My self care, my habits, my routines, my rituals….all obliterated to ash I’ve swept under the bed while I jump on a trampoline of bad habits, dopamine chasing and treating myself like shit. I’ve never ever ever felt this wobbly in my life - ever. And even though I can logically associate that to both monumental changes on the inside of my body and an accumulated treasure trove of trauma since 2018, it does not help me IN the moment of it all. I need a million dollars, a month of sleep and a live in nanny to take care of my kids and pets and me, and tuck me into bed every night for the next 365 days to feel human enough for me to stabilise and move from survive to thrive. And none of those things are possible, so of course hardcore decisions must be made. Absolute-ness on my non negotiables must be deployed. Sobering self talk must be engaged. Running in the opposite direction of what’s obviously making me feel worse than I need to - has to happen. But sometimes, I wish it were simpler ✨ by @pressplayirl

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17 days ago

Birth is an unruly, juicy center to the core of your being

In this episode of The Birth Pause, Angel takes us through the two births that split her life into a before and after.

Her first, a 45-hour labor that led her to an epidural, pitocin, and a vacuum-assisted delivery — and to the doula who would go on to change the direction of her life.

Her second, meant to be an unassisted birth at home, until a phone call brought an ambulance, then police, into the most vulnerable hour of her life. Her son arrived within minutes of reaching the hospital, with almost no one she’d planned on there to see it.

Angel speaks openly about fear, force, pleasure as a coping tool, the loneliness of co-parenting after birth with someone who didn’t share her reverence for it, and the strange gift both experiences gave her — an authenticity and body trust she’d never had before.

A conversation about what it costs, and what it gives back, to meet yourself in the pause after everything changes.

🎙️ New episode of The Birth Pause — link in bio
#BirthStory #Midwife #DoulaLife #BirthTrauma #birthwork taken in Melbourne, Australia by @pressplayirl

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a month ago

Gifts NYC gave me: I’ve been told I am beautiful every single day, several times a day - even though I feel like a bridge troll; I’ve been called ‘baby, honey’ or some affectionate variation at nearly every shop or restaurant I’ve walked into; people are genuinely interacting with one another, there are groups congregated on the stoops of houses, at bus stops, on sidewalks, in cafes, at pop up shops, in subway trains; in New York I don’t feel like I’m too much - I feel like I could and should be so much more; struggle is a normal part of life here, so many people openly share the dirty details of their fears and failures, it’s like a rocky reality is the framework for a life worth trying for??? and no one is judging you for screwing up because it’s the hunger and the hustle to keep it moving that matters; losing and making thousands / millions of dollars is normal here, people don’t look at poverty or bankruptcy in the same way (from a victim mindset) or in the ways they judge others for it; content creation is so normal here that it obliterates the default cringe at self story, literally everyone’s taking a selfie or doing something on their phone at all times and no one bats an eyelid; I am not spending nearly enough time playing with clothing and I’ve left my passion for fashion take a genuine hit through my decline in mental health - I’ve been reminded and that interest reignited watching people take pride in how effortlessly cool they look; I’ve walked the city, ridden busses and taken the trains at 10pm, midnight, 3 am, 6 am (they run 24:7) and I’ve not felt unsafe ONCE + been so wildly impressed at how much I have enjoyed not driving and letting myself enjoy the adventure of 20k steps and people watching; NYC has shown me how many gorgeous, interesting, fascinating, hard working, humans there are alive at the same time as me - and in many ways, instilled a specific hope in me that there is so much goodness left to fight for; THE FOOD! my goodness I forgot how much variety and novelty and quality there is everywhere; the accents 😫 the gregariousness, the depth, the LOUD … it is so so so YUM and so FUN. Thank you by @pressplayirl

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2 months ago

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I have taught, toured and ran events all over the world since 2016. It’s in my blood. Speaking on stages, cultivating community, deploying what lights me up into the world and making it work. I’ve gotten in airplanes and flown more hours than I can count, I’ve driven the car across the country and back more times than I can remember: with two babies…two toddlers….two little people. Through breastfeeding and co sleeping and no nights of sleep for 5 years. When I was sick, when I was exhausted, when I was depressed - I showed up. I didn’t cancel one in person event in the 4 years straight that I toured, spoke, was a guest speaker etc…until Covid happened. And it turned my world upside down. I wrote a book and was planning the most elaborate press tour I’d ever done, and the world collapsed in on itself. I lost everything. Legitimately, everything. And it was a massive initiation in planning for the unexpected. The trauma of having the rug pulled out from underneath me crippled my self confidence for a long time. It took me years to get back on the horse. I isolated myself, stopped trusting systems and people. Until last year…where despite feeling vulnerable, I put everything into a new business venture. And after 6 months of being away from my children and home to make this project work, and despite being the only collaborator to believe in it - it was a raging success, before once again - right as a year of international events was set to take place, the rug was pulled underneath me. And I’ve learnt some expensive lessons in the process - mostly about how to self preserve, be discerning with who I trust or what I bank on as ‘certain’, and that looking to normies who will never understand the weight of a big vision, cashflow, being a mom, a business in the shadow realms, hustle and expenses: is an exercise not in ‘dont keep trying because it might fail’, but a lesson in ‘be very very careful who you count on and who you fail in front of’. I’m in the worst financial shape I’ve been in a long time, but I’ll work it out - because no one is hungrier for abundance and relief from the pressures of bulls** than me. by @pressplayirl

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HAPPY 11th BIRTHDAY 🎂 to my sweet ODI boy! You are an absolute maniac (like mother, like son) and I love you for it. I cherish every single moment I get to be your mom. You are intense, brilliant, kind, hilarious, moral, grounded, and good in the heart. Growing to know every single version of you has been one of the most humbling and heartwarming adventures of my life. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of you for persevering when things get overwhelming, for staying open to love and communication and learning. I love watching you with animals and seeing how giant your heart is. I love hanging out with you and watching YouTube videos way past our bedtime, I love the way you hug me when I’m having a bad day. I love you, Odin. And I hope you look back on our lives knowing how treasured you are. 💕 by @pressplayirl

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