06: Adele McConnell - Vegie Head Academy

Adele is a published and best selling digital
author, owner of vegiehead.com and the Vegie Head Academy and she
also writes the national magazines. She’s appeared on the cover of
health magazines across the world and lives near the beach on the
sunshine coast in Australia. Adele is a recipe evolutionist for
people who want to enjoy more plant-based recipes in their diet.
She creates food with integrity and encourages others to live a
powerful life with powerful plant-based food. Her site “Vegie Head”
is a place where saucy, tempting, recipes live and Adele’s
inspiring words touch hearts. Adele’s first published cookbook was
released worldwide in March 2014 and has been reprinted three times
and is now available in three languages. For more about Adele’s
work including Vegie Head’s VIP Clubhouse see here.
Adele believes that not having a child was a combination of
circumstance and a personal choice. In 2010, she had
an ectopic pregnancy. She was 10-11 weeks into the pregnancy when
it was discovered. It was a shock as she had not known that she was
pregnant at the time. She went to the doctor several times and yet
they couldn’t find anything wrong. Later, she was rushed to the
hospital and went under emergency surgery. This was a scary
experience for Adele and looking back she realised that she wasn’t
listening to her body. She does not want to take the risk of
experiencing another ectopic pregnancy or going through the process
of having a child. Adele has always been the type of person
who was not particularly interested in having children of her
own. She has a 3-year old niece that she absolutely
adores. She says she’d rather be a cool auntie rather than a
mother. The thing that bothered her most about the ectopic
pregnancy was: The pregnancy was unexpected.
The fact that she was undergoing such serious surgery that
she had no control over. Inspirational
aunt: Adele’s aunt (now 60 years old) had her tubes
tied at 18 because she also had an ectopic pregnancy and was not
interested in having children. Adele has spoken to her about this
multiple times and her aunt said that she’s only met a couple of
people in her life who can whole-heartedly say that it’s a decision
they made consciously. Adele says she was an awesome aunt and was
always active in her life. Adele sees herself in more of a similar
role. Not every woman is a natural mother or should be a
parent.  Many women don’t have a biological urge to
have children, whereas some feel that drive very strongly. If you
know that it’s not your path, then it’s important to listen to
yourself and follow that. Also, to respect people who say that
that’s not their choice. Adele experienced people questioning her
and making her feel that she didn’t make the right decision. There
has to be respect for women who make the conscious and unconscious
decision not to have children. Adele has had that forced upon her,
even coming from her husband’s family members asking, “So when are
you and Paul going to have kids?” It’s not the right thing to ask,
especially if they are going through a difficult time. Were
there any challenging situations, beliefs, or questions that came
up? Did it send you to a period of
self-inquiry?  Adele really felt like the whole
ectopic experience was her fault. She was in agony and in the
hospital had hot water bottles on her shoulders and an ice pack on
her stomach for the inflammation. She turned to her husband Paul
and cried in pain and fear. She felt like she manifested it and
that it was her responsibility for what happened. She did a lot of
self-inquiry and has taken her a long time to be able to talk about
it freely. It’s about being honest with yourself, listening to your
body, and to your instincts. It’s one of those subjects
where we don’t give ourselves enough credit and listen to
ourselves. In Adele’s life, she doesn’t think that
having biological children is for her. However, she and her husband
are open to fostering and adopting. There are so many children out
there that need homes and loving parents and Adele doesn’t believe
that love or parenting has anything to do with biology.
 You don’t need to give birth to someone to be their
mother or that you don’t necessarily have to be a
biological mother to give them the motherly love that they want.
We are extending that feminine, mothering, caring, loving
energy in so many ways in different parts of our
lives. It’s up to each individual to see
which way is most fulfilling and rewarding for
them. Adele shares that kind of relationship with her
pets. It’s an example of having a loving bond and in return they
give us that unconditional love. Adele calls her dogs her babies
and treats them like humans. She’s grateful that she can experience
that and have that bond like how she would with her own children.
They need that same love, care, and stimulation that a child would
need. She compares taking care of her dogs to parents taking care
of their children. Having a dog is great if you are practicing to
be a parent and do require a lot of hard work. This is one way that
Adele shows her nurturing, caring nature. Adele believes
that if we have a loving relationship with food then we can eat it
lovingly and feel good about it as oppose to having these confusing
and disparaging relationships with food. When we are
eating good food and fueling our bodies, we’re saying to our bodies
that we love them and that we are mothering and nurturing our
bodies in a way. For her, working with women, connecting with
people and making sure that her cubby is full allows her to do it
for other people as well. It’s mothering yourself and treating
yourself how you would treat a child and showing kindness. Adele
models that through her relationship with food. She is also writing
and educating about that and is creating a book about recipes for
dogs. This goes back to nurturing someone else other than ourselves
but at the same time, she is nurturing herself because cooking for
her dogs gives her love and happiness to do that for them.
It can be a difficult and challenging process to foster and
adopt children. There are so many children who would
benefit from a loving home and there are many people who would love
to have a child but may not be physically able to. Adele mentions
that it will be interesting to see how the processes become easier
over the years, so that it’s more accessible for suitable parents.
Adele has seen neglected kids everywhere with parents who aren’t
good influences. She had a girlfriend who was trying to adopt and
suddenly lost her job. She couldn’t get another job in that
industry and so was unable to adopt a child. It isn’t right that
the process is so complicated, when at the same time people can
easily have children and neglect them. Hopefully the process can
become easier so that suitable and responsible parents can give
children the loving homes they need. What do you feel is
your most important message? What would you like to leave as
your legacy? Adele asks herself, “What can I do to
change the lives of the people around me or the animals around me?”
For her, it would come down to working closely with dogs whether it
be leaving people with books or educating people about it or
raising a charity. If we: Connect to what we feel
passionately about and believe in;
Be ourselves;
Give ourselves permission to share openly. It can
only be of positive benefit to others and yourself, because you are
living and speaking the truth. We have to respect each woman’s path
and not judge women based on the actions they take. Adele
loves her own space and loves doing things for herself and says
that if she can’t give to herself, she can’t give everything she’s
giving out to the world.  One of Adele’s
wonderful projects is“Rituals”. I was delighted to
contribute my personal experience of a molar pregnancy and also an
aromatic bathing ritual. This is about ‘celebrating and grieving
the loss of a child. A collection of stories to help you grieve,
release and heal’. There are some beautiful tools and resources in
here and I highly recommend it for any woman who is looking for
sacred rituals to assist in coming to terms with what has occurred.
There are some very moving personal stories. You can find
it here. Find out more about Adele and her wonderful
work atVegiehead where she shares a wealth of information,
recipes, and courses.