When creativity meets carnivore: free energy, fear, and the courage to experiment
Article based on Amra's Armchair Anecdotes episode 22-When creativity meets the carnivore diet: a conversation with Vicki E. Stergiannis
Some conversations arrive the way good ideas do: unplanned, slightly weird on paper, and absolutely electric once you’re in them.
In Episode 22 of Amra’s Armchair Anecdotes, I’m joined by Vicki E. Stergiannis — educator of three decades, fine artist trained at Monash, art therapist in the Melton area, workshop runner, commission-taker, sacred-geometry lover… and proudly carnivore.
Yes, we talk about the carnivore lifestyle. But if you think this is just an episode about food, you’ll miss the point.
This is an episode about how people change their lives — not in tidy, inspirational quotes, but in messy pivots, stubborn experiments, and moments of surrender where the universe (or source, or whatever word you can tolerate) seems to slide a new door open.
The dance with the universe (and the moment you stop forcing it)
Vicki describes something I recognised instantly: the point where you’ve tried too hard for too long, nothing’s working, and something in you finally snaps — not in a breakdown way, but in a release way.
You stop clinging. You stop performing. You stop trying to be “liked” by the system you’re in.
And then, bizarrely, things start arriving.
Her example is painfully familiar to anyone who’s worked in education. She took on an art teaching role at a primary school — stepping into something she wasn’t considered “experienced enough” for — and did what so many of us do when we’re being evaluated: she tried to be perfect. She tried to be likeable. She tried to carry the load.
They didn’t keep her on.
Instead of spiralling, she let go. And what grew out of that was unexpected: mandalas, then a long creative stint making them, then therapy work, then the next thing, then the next.
That’s the dance she means: not charging ahead with clenched teeth, but staying receptive to what unfolds once you stop trying to control every outcome.
As someone who’s deeply goal-oriented, I’ve had to learn my own version of this. I can control the work — the writing hours, the drafts, the production. I can’t control how people respond once it’s out in the world.
The shift (for me) has been removing the performative layer: make the thing, do it properly, and then let it go.
Because the minute you start writing for external validation, the work goes flat. You can feel it. Readers can feel it. You’ve killed your own creative pulse by focusing on the scoreboard.
“Passion is free energy. It’s your responsibility to act on it.”
Here’s the line I keep thinking about, because it’s not cute — it’s confronting:
When you’re given passion, Vicki says, it’s not just a nice feeling. It’s energy that needs to move through you. Something that wants expression.
And the only thing standing between you and the expression of that energy is fear:
the voices saying you can’t
the conditioning saying you shouldn’t
the endless internal arguments about whether it’s “worth it”
The older I get, the more I relate to this: the fear isn’t failure anymore — it’s not trying. The slow grief of watching yourself betray your own curiosity.
I told Vicki something I’ve noticed in myself: the more often I act on a creative impulse — quickly, without dragging it through a committee meeting in my head — the more ideas arrive. It becomes a loop. Create. Release. Create again.
And yes, sometimes my husband will ask the brutally practical question: “But will it make money?”
Sometimes the answer is: I don’t know.
Sometimes there is no “purpose” beyond: I feel compelled.
That word matters. Compelled isn’t “I should.” Compelled is “This is alive in me.”
The Cosmic Club: bringing art therapy into human connection
Vicki’s latest invitation from the universe is a project she’s building with her sister: The Cosmic Club — a social singles event that strips away the sleaze and the noise and replaces it with something much rarer: structured, playful, meaningful connection.
Instead of loud bars and awkward small talk, she brings in:
art-therapy style activities
group mandala-making
games that take pressure off the individual
grouping people by numerology or even favourite colour to create immediate shared ground
When she described it, I thought: this is teaching energy, repurposed. Decades of reading rooms, managing dynamics, checking energy, building engagement — now used to help adults meet each other like humans again.
And honestly, it made me a little jealous in the best way: that feeling of watching someone combine all their “random” life skills into something new.
Mandalas: “You don’t need to be an artist to be creative.”
We also went deep on mandalas — not as a trendy colouring-in fad, but as a tool with a long psychological and symbolic history.
Vicki talks about Carl Jung using mandalas with patients and the idea that circles can represent realignment, unity, wholeness — a return from fragmentation.
What I loved here was her insistence that mandalas aren’t about being able to “draw well.” They’re about pattern, shape, repetition, rhythm. They offer creativity to people who’ve been bullied into believing creativity only belongs to the “talented.”
And as someone who didn’t think of herself as “artistic,” I felt that little click of recognition. In becoming an indie author, I’ve had to learn visual skills — cover design, branding, graphics — and I realised I use it the way other people use meditation. When my brain is loud, I sit down and make digital assets. It soothes me.
Maybe I didn’t become “artistic.” Maybe I just finally gave myself permission to play.
Then we go there: carnivore, menopause, fibre myths, and “what actually works?”
Now, the carnivore conversation.
Vicki came to it the way most people come to major diet shifts: not through ideology, but through desperation for answers. She describes seeing Michaela Peterson’s story (and then reading and researching further), dabbling at first, feeling worse, and then learning what many carnivore advocates insist on: if you’re doing it, fat matters.
In her telling, eating fat transformed her:
improved mobility after years of frozen shoulder
reduced swelling and pain
steadier mood
improved energy
hot flushes easing dramatically
weight loss without exercise
She describes a day of eating that’s strikingly simple: eggs cooked in tallow, meat roasted in the oven, organ meats, whole fish — and no fruit or vegetables for three years.
And yes: I asked the question everyone is thinking about.
Fibre. Digestion. How does your body function without the foods we’ve been told are essential?
Vicki’s view (based on the doctors she follows) is blunt: fibre adds bulk, not necessarily ease — and fat is what helps.
Now here’s where I’m going to be straight with you: this is the point where you should not outsource your medical decisions to a podcast episode or a Substack article. (Even mine.)
But I’m also not going to dismiss what Vicki is saying, because I’m living a smaller version of it right now.
My daughter has been dealing with intestinal issues. We’ve changed her diet. We’ve reduced foods that I used to insist were “healthy.” And to my surprise, what I thought she “should” eat was making her worse, and a more protein-focused approach has helped.
That doesn’t mean carnivore is the answer for everyone. It does mean a lot of us are being forced — by symptoms, by exhaustion, by real life — to question the one-size-fits-all nutrition story we were raised on.
And it raises bigger questions:
Why do so many women hit perimenopause and suddenly feel like their bodies are betraying them?
Why are we so under-informed about menopause and nutrition?
Why do people often end up with better support from naturopaths than from doctors when it comes to food?
Vicki argues doctors receive minimal nutrition training. I’ve heard versions of this before, and if you’ve ever tried to talk to a GP about food, you may have felt the same frustration.
This episode isn’t “here’s the solution.” It’s here’s the lived experience — and the invitation to research, experiment carefully, and pay attention to outcomes rather than dogma.
Sugar, cravings, and the “gremlins” in your gut
One of the most relatable parts of our conversation wasn’t even about meat. It was about addiction — specifically, how quickly cravings reignite once you “just have one bite.”
Vicki describes carbs as something she can’t moderate. Once she has a taste, she’s pulled back in for weeks.
I laughed, then immediately felt seen, because I recognise that pattern: the more carbs I eat, the more I crave them.
Whether you frame it as gut bacteria, dopamine loops, habit, emotional regulation, or all of the above — the lived experience is real: for some people, moderation is not the easy solution we like to pretend it is.
Fasting: reset, clarity, and the first three brutal days
We also talked about fasting — including Vicki’s 13-day water fast.
That is not a casual “try this next week” suggestion. That’s serious. It comes with risks, and even she mentions how drinking too much water once nearly put her in a coma.
What she describes, though, is fascinating: the first three days being awful, then a shift into a blissful clarity — more time, clearer thinking, a sense of reset.
I’m not here to prescribe fasting, but I am here to note the theme that keeps repeating in Vicki’s life:
She experiments. She observes. She learns. She adjusts.
That’s true in her creativity and in her health.
The thread that ties it all together: courage
If I had to name what this episode is really about, it’s courage.
Not the dramatic kind. The daily kind:
the courage to stop performing for approval
the courage to let go when something collapses
the courage to follow a weird new passion
the courage to question the food rules you were raised on
the courage to keep building a life that actually fits you
Vicki calls herself courageous. Listening back, I agree.
And I left the conversation with the question I’m now handing to you:
Where are you sitting on “free energy” — a passion, a curiosity, a desire — because you’re waiting for permission?
Because you’re not getting permission. You’re getting a flame.
If you want to listen to the full episode
🎙 Episode 22: “When creativity meets the carnivore diet: a conversation with Vicki E. Stergiannis”
You can find the episode show notes, free handouts, and how-to guides at amrapajalic.com/podcast.
And if you’re watching this as someone who’s quietly thinking, maybe I need to change something — start small. Start skeptical. Start with what you can test.
But don’t ignore the flame.