How Allira Potter discovered her intuition

I’m Allira – a proud Yorta-Yorta woman, an intuitive, a creator and writer, a speaker, a model, an empowerment and mindset coach, a manifesting queen, a baby witch and an all-round spiritual sister.

My book Wild & Witchy is the book I wish I’d had available to me growing up; the words from a role model I never had. I didn’t see black representation in bookshops as a kid and that’s why this book is so important to me.

Twelve months ago, I had $100 in my bank account. I was working in the corporate world, I was burnt out and I was so far from living my best life. Now, I have left the corporate world behind, and I have my own six-figure business and two fur babies that I am obsessed with… and I did all of that on my own. I created this life for myself through hard work and manifestation – and that’s what I want to share in this book, because I wish I’d had more inspirational Aboriginal women to look up to as a kid to show me that I could do it and that anything was possible.

Born this way

I’ve been tapping into my intuition since I was little. My mum was really spiritual and witchy, so I didn’t really think anything of it – I just thought it was the norm. As a kid, I’d get what I call little ‘downloads’, which are like bursts of higher guidance, intuition or inspiration from Spirit or the universe. It was like I could hear people talking, which sounds crazy, but that’s how the downloads came in for me. (By the way, I use the term ‘Spirit’, but you might say the universe, or God, or whatever… it’s just the term I use to name that higher power.)

Mum knew that I was tapped in, too, and super intuitive, but we never really spoke about it for some reason – it just wasn’t a conversation we ever had. While I definitely knew that I had a bit of a gift, I didn’t dive really deep into it and start to fully embrace it until well after my mum passed away.

As I got older, I started to suppress my intuition a bit because it all seemed a little weird – like, having a mum who was so super spiritual was strange and I didn’t want my friends to know. But when I was 16 or 17, right in the middle of my last year of high school, Mum got really sick, and that’s when we started talking about spirituality and how tuned-in she and I both were to our intuition. She showed me her oracle cards, which are sort of similar to tarot cards but not – they’re decks of cards with pictures and phrases or words of guidance, but they don’t follow the same rules or structure as tarot, and are a more general tool to use for affirmations or messages from Spirit (we’ll talk more about oracle cards later!). Mum never pushed me to use them or anything, though; it was mostly just for fun.

When I was 17, my mum passed away. She was a single mum (Dad was never really in the picture – I mean, he was there, but he wasn’t really there) and I have a sister who has an intellectual disability, so when Mum passed, it was just like… ‘Fuck. Okay. What do we do?’ At that point I was given a deck of her oracle cards but, to be honest, I just wasn’t interested in using them. I put them away thinking I might come back to them someday and then didn’t even think about them again for years.

I eventually started to spiral. I was taking drugs every weekend, drinking alcohol pretty much every day, using sex as a tool to fill a void… I was just out of control for a solid 12 months. My family and friends knew that I was not okay but I needed to learn the lesson for myself – which I did. I went on a four-day bender and the comedown was so bad that my body was just not having it. It was crazy. A friend asked me at the time, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ and told me that I was wasting so much potential to really be something. And in that moment, I realised that there is more to life than just being a little party girl. I was like, ‘Okay, you need to get your shit together, Allira. You need to sort your life out.’ So I did.

My purpose

So that’s how my spiritual journey started: being gifted a deck of cards, putting them aside and coming back to them many years later after hitting a really low point in my life. As I started to lean into spirituality more and more, I began focusing on my intuition and learning to strengthen and tap into it, and I allowed myself to be open to receiving messages from the universe. I started seeing little signs – things like feathers on the ground – and I received downloads again like I had as a kid. And not just for me, either, but for people around me – my friends and family, and even strangers!

The more readings I did, and the more I committed to my spiritual hygiene and my daily practices like journaling, affirmations and meditating, the more I was able to really feel, see and hear messages from the other side. By this point, I was deep in what I would call my ‘awakening’. Before, it was like I was living a very surface-level life – the world was moving around me, but all I could see was what was right in front of my face. But when I moved into spirituality and had this awakening, it was like I moved beyond that. I could see so much more. It’s from that place that I could really tap into people’s energy and feelings and receive those downloads. I kind of realised, ‘Hey, I’ve got something to give here.’

I have been through a lot of shit; I have experienced so much already in my life – which is truly just getting started. And even though I made it this far and I am seriously frothing 15 over my life right now (like, seriously), I do wish I’d had someone to look up to when I was going through the shit times. I wish I’d seen women who look like me represented in media, with different body shapes and from different backgrounds. I wish the wellness spaces I was introduced to as a kid weren’t so whitewashed. I wish I’d had a strong, fierce Aboriginal voice to listen to; a role model to look up to and say, ‘Fuck, yes – if she can do it, I can, too.’

And all of that, everything that has led to this point, is why I decided to write this book. This book is for you.

You, who is struggling with one of the hardest things you’ll ever go through – the loss of a loved one.

You, who is deeply feeling the loss of a relationship and not sure where to go next.

You, who wants to connect to your spirituality and intuition, and get tapped into the power of the universe.

You, who wants to manifest a life of abundance and greatness, and call in all the shit you ever dreamed of.

You, the young Aboriginal women, men, non-binary, beautiful humans, who aspire to be fucking great.

You’ve got this.