Miriam Hussey: I ended up in hospital after travelling — it was quite frightening to see that

From struggles with disordered eating, self-doubt, a damaging tendency to people-please, and the challenges of new motherhood, Miriam Hussey lays it all bare in her debut book, writes Gemma Fullam

Miriam Hussey has published a new book, Light Up. Picture: Gareth Chaney

Miriam Hussey recalls being 14 when her mother handed her “a book that would forever change my life” — Louise Hay’s bestselling You Can Heal Your Life. That seminal work on the mind-body connection has since served as Hussey’s north star; from the get-go it shifted her “whole perspective on life” and helped her realise “there’s more to health and healing than just the physical”.

Hussey’s debut book Light Up — which looks set to become a classic of the wellness genre in its own right — is a bible for optimising mind, body, and soul (Hussey says our soul is “the essence of who we are”), interwoven with startlingly frank anecdotes from Hussey’s own journey to date.