Category - General

As a Integrative empowerment coach for women I’ve heard it over and over again… ” How do I make LASTING Changes in my life”.

” I’ve tried therapy, coaching , medication , yoga etc..But I keep falling back into my old patterns.”

My message is one most don’t want to hear, change takes time and repeated practice. Recognizing your patterns is a fantastic first step, but awareness alone isn’t enough ( sadly ).

Creating lasting change is a journey , a journey of self discovery , and a commitment to the process.

That’s where we usually fall off the wagon , is in the commitment process. Most of the time we want to change but we don’t actually want to do the work or put in the time to really make it work.

This is why it feels so challenging to really shift from where we are to where we want to be.

Getting coaching, seeing a therapist, taking medication, doing yoga etc.. are great stepping stones and building blocks that help you on your journey, but in order for them to really really work you’ve got to be willing to commit to them. Your coach cannot solve all your problems for you, they can help you get clarity on whats blocking you from your full potential , but then you’ve got to be willing to work on letting go of that block once you know what it is.

Therapy can help you heal old wounds from your past and start being able to get your head above water , but your therapist is only able to go so far with you, you are the one whom needs to take the next step.

Medication is a great way to diminish systems that might be keeping you feeling trapped in a place that’s too hard to get out of alone, but meds alone are only going to go so far. Addressing the underlying issues that are perhaps causing these symptoms to arise is where the healing journey really starts to take place.

Yoga is a fantastic practice for opening up the body and mind and discovering new depths of connection to your body and soul. But doing enough yoga isn’t going to eradicate all your pain.

The healing journey is always a journey that begins and ends with you.

Healing is a ever evolving and moving target. It is the journey of the soul in this lifetime, it is life itself. Change isn’t something we wake up and get done in a week, it’s a process of unfolding and exploring ourselves on deeper and deeper levels.

No one person can change you , or heal you , or “fix” you. If you are not open to touching those places inside that might feel a bit scary to tap into , then the work will remain undone.

To decide to change, to break out of habits, patterns, and addictions takes courage plan and simple.

If change was easy we would have all changed everything about ourselves and our lives we don’t like many many years ago. Transformation can feel daunting, overwhelming , and confusing.

We can become so attached to our story of who we are ( even if it’s painful) because it’s what we know. Change can mean letting go of parts of our identity and that can feel super scary if you’re not ready.

This is where coaching , therapy etc.. come in as a way to help you on your journey and create a safe space to explore this process without feeling lost at sea. But the work always remains firmly in your hands.

As the quote from Einstein goes ” The definition of insanity is doing things in the same way over and over again and expecting different results.”

If we want to create change and healing in our lives first the willingness to go through what that will require of us must be present. Being willing to learn how to approach things from a new be it unfamiliar mindset. Most of us will spend the rest of our lives blaming other people for who we are and what are problems are. I’m not here to blame you or say ” it’s all your fault”, but I am here to help people take responsibility for their own lives. To own the power they possess , to recognize that you are responsible for your own life is extremely empowering.

My end note is this: Change is not a overnight process, the power to truly create the life you want lies in your hands, you don’t have to go it alone but the journey is always yours to take. Power comes with owning your responsibility for creating your life and the power you have to change it is always there waiting for you to tap into it. It is NEVER TO LATE TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU WANT.

Spoiler Alert: This post is a raw and vulnerable one.

Life has been  very , very odd lately. Nothing is turning out the way I thought it might, and that can be interesting.  I was heavy on the path of what I felt was my calling, my passion, and then it came to a screeching halt.  I partook in the Ayahuasca ceremony and then EVERYTHING CHANGED.

I’ve written about it over and over, each time coming to some new clarity and depth of understanding. For the first few weeks all I could do was to simply be present with the very intense overwhelming bizarre experience I had just undergone, then after that I felt the slate had literally been whipped clean. I felt empty , void of myself and  who i had known myself to me, a very disconcerting feeling indeed. Now nearly two months later the messages keep unfolding, like seeds that were planted are now beginning to bloom.

At first I wondered if I was falling into some deep depression as everything felt odd and off with myself and my life, then it started to come together. I realized my Aya experience did literally kill off a part of myself and that I was now in the process of building a new version of me to fit where the old had been.

My journey had nearly everything to do with FEAR, it was about facing myself and my fear in a way I had never imagined possible.  Now the question is how do I integrate this knowledge? How do I unravel the fear that lives in my mind? How do I break free from the chains that bind?

As I sit here writing this I cry, I cry because I want so much to express my heart with clarity and truth, to reveal my heart in a way that people can feel. I know I am not the only one who feels fear, who feels the tightness of existence, who feels the depth of love and loneliness entangled in herself. I’m not the only one with a painful past, or people whom I’ve hurt and people whom have hurt me. I’m not the only one who has painful family issues and a broken heart when it comes to healing those pains.

My story is not unique , it is a common story and that is why I want to tell it.  We lose sight of how much we are all going through this life together , and how much our lives, stories, loves, and sufferings are entangled.

I wrote a blog once awhile back about the difference between ” knowing ” something and ” being” it, and I see now how much “being it”, is truly everything. But being it takes practice, courage , and above all a serious commitment to the willingness to break open every part of yourself. Breaking open can be beyond freeing and liberating, but it can also be extraordinarily painful and incredibly scary at first. Breaking open means moving all that wisdom you’ve gained in your mind into your heart, it means feeling everything that comes with now being this wisdom, which can be bliss , and can be the doorway to incredible pain as we are so open to now feeling everything. Feeling deeply can be the hardest thing we can do.

Fear is a powerful force that can generate a very large amount of power over our lives. I’m not talking about the common fears such as walking out in traffic may possibly cause severe bodily damage so a bit of fear in regard to stepping out into oncoming traffic is very very healthy.

I’m talking about the other fear, the fear that hides out deep in our minds, the fear that can be a silent and excruciating weapon against our own happiness. I’ve given more thought and attention to this hidden power in myself then I thought possible, I had no idea the depth of fear that existed inside me. These deep old buried things , murky and dank , like a hidden sewer of pain hiding out in the guts of my mind. Fears created by a million different versions of myself throughout time.

The fears of childhood, adolescence , my young adult years, and the fears of my adult self. They can’t be separated , you pull on one and it inevitable leads to another. I’ve got to go in and pull them out at the roots to even begin to see them clearly.

As Daniel Pinchbeck so brilliantly named his book , its  ” BREAKING OPEN THE MIND”.

My mind fears itself, my ego fears losing itself, my identity fears death..etc..

I want to survive which is the instinct of all life- Survival . But What I want more then merely being alive is, to THRIVE.. To be joyously living, not simply existing.  So I ask my Higher Self ” What do I need to do in order to live a full and truly inspired life?” The answer is always ” Let go of this fear you’re carrying around in your heart”.  ” LOVE YOURSELF WITH EVERY FIBER OF YOUR BEING”  SIGH* Okay!

And so I dig and pull out the roots and look each fear in the dirty rudy face and breath LOVE into them.

My Fear is about never feeling accepted, my fear is about being left alone forever never feeling truly connected to life and other people. I see now that I create and perpetuate that fear, I keep myself disconnected and on the outside of life. I lock myself out , this is where I must learn to open the door to my own heart and let my own love in.

I look at how afraid I am to feel myself feeling fear, that was a huge part of what Ayahuasca showed me.

I fear feeling fear. I have been acutely aware of this now for nearly two months and I’ve been paying very close attention to this. I have been noticing what happens when I start to go into fear about something, I see how much I recoil at the sensation, so I’ve been doing my best to instead of moving away from it, I’ve been consciously moving toward it.

This is super painful , hard, annoying , and frankly – SCARY AS SHIT!

There are some things that make me feel like I’m being ripped apart when I move toward them, some fears that feel literally like death to me. (Worst then death, as death seems like it will be a very peaceful experience.) This is why Ayahuasca is so terrifying for pretty much everyone who has gone deep into the medicine, it shows you yourself – ALL OF YOU! All of you in ways you never could have conceived of experiencing yourself. It shows you your fear, your pain, your suffering, and then it shows you how thats all perfect and in order with life, but that it can all be let go of and moved through if you’re willing to face it.

No one is without a shadow self. The sneaky part of the shadow, of fear, is that when we hide from it, when we push it away, that is where it thrives and grows stronger. In the dark , in the shadows, in those murky depths is where it feeds and grows into the monsters we are so terrified of becoming ,or being consumed by.

The big fucking cosmic joke of life is , in order to dissolve all that you fear seeing and becoming or experiencing , you must be willing to face it.

The unbearable truth is the only way to move past your fears is the willingness to move into them and move through them one step at a  time.

What is so mind altering about Ayahuasca is not always the visions or truths you might get during your journey together, but the sheer joy of when it ends and you have actually lived through the experience.

It can literally feel like the best time of your life when its all over.  I think , personally, this is because ( for most) you have just now faced down some of your biggest darkest scariest parts of yourself and when its all over you see that you can face those horrors and live to tell the tale.

We all don’t have to take Aya to get there, she is a powerful tool in getting there quickly and very fiercely, but it is not needed to face who we are.

I do plan on partaking again in about two months and this very thought alone can bring me to my knees with fear. I check this fear and I ask ” what are you afraid of?” The answer is so simple, funny, and mind boggling – I’m afraid of myself.

I’ve never been a big fan of confrontation and this journey with my own fears has been the biggest confrontation of my life. I feel like I am purging now, purging the shame, the pain , the insecurities that have plagued me in ways I didn’t know. I am sitting inside the walls of the hell my own mind can create, the prison of which we all can lock ourselves in. I am deep inside now and I am experiencing more then ever how I am truly the only one who can set myself free.

Right now the biggest prison I’m working to move through is ANGER. I have a giant river of pure pain filled rage that brews under the surface, my fear is unleashing this anger. Over the years on my spiritual self loving journey I have definitely done a lot of work on processing, allowing, and releasing my anger.

BUT… I still have a huge fear of the power of the anger that I can feel inside me at times. The anger is most often directed at myself and it pops up most in traffic and in bizarre experiences of feeling inconvenienced.

I had a pattern of intense suppression going on throughout my life up until I really became conscious of myself and my ability to heal. I would stuff and stuff and stuff my anger down until it wouldn’t have any space left to be and it would erupt out of me like a volcano. I would scream and throw things and cry. It scared many friends and family members. Mostly I had huge amounts of shame after an explosion and I would internalize the pain and anger again and beat myself up about it creating a vicious loop.

Now I don’t feel the same overwhelming explosive quality to my anger due to having practiced processing, and learning how to love and forgive myself . Now my fear is of the ugliness of anger the sheer rejection of it from our culture. How as a spiritual person it is very frowned upon to be super angry.

My work with anger and fear is to find the space to be able to allow them to exist and to stop fighting them with everything I’ve got. Can I let myself feel angry and feel safe inside that feeling? Can I feel Fear and let fear be and not try desperately to wiggle away from it?

Can I embody both fear and anger while loving and accepting myself in the process? Can I surrender to feeling super shitty and let that be perfectly alright?

I also am feeling ready to embrace the fact that both Fear & Anger are Teachers and have shown up in my life to not just harm me and cause me suffering, but to guide me and help me more clearly know and understand myself on this journey as a human being.

I know my journey is always one of love, love for myself , and love for life itself. It is not always easy, clear, or direct but I am always moving in love and with love no matter how far away it can feel at times.

The intention for this new 37th year of my life is ” TOTAL EMBODIMENT” , the art and practice of fully embodying myself – the good, the painful, the beautiful , divine, horrifying, selfish, powerful, abundant, and yes even fearful angry me. My intention is to love and embrace ALL of myself even when in the moments it feels damn near impossible, I will simply do the only then I can , which is do my best from wherever I might be in the moment.

Love Amber.

Since my Journey with the medicine vine Ayahuasca nearly two weeks ago I’ve had a very powerful shift in my perspective on my life and life in general.

Part of my intention of going into ceremony in the first place was to discover most clearly what was blocking me from truly stepping into my own personal and professional power. I got a pretty heavy duty answer to my question, but now I’m asking ,” what do I do with this new knowledge & insight?”

Now that I see that FEAR, and the fear of being abandoned ( which translates to- being without community, being without  understanding from others, feeling a sense of not  belonging , feeling like an outsider) has been ruling my life, the question is what do I do now?

I was having a great deal of overwhelm and anxiety in my reintegration process back into  my life post aya journey . I was having the most powerful and vivd dreams of my life, it seemed like every thing that has ever hurt inside me was brought to the surface all at once and I was having a hard time being with that. I was doing what I always have done , and thats figure it all out NOW.

I was going about my life as if this major freaking thing had not just taken place inside me, I was trying to control the experience after it happened and go about being who I was before I did it.

Instead of these intense feelings getting easier, they started getting worse. I even reached out for help from a facilitator ( one who helps run the aya ceremony journey)to make sure I was not going off the deep end.

He informed me of what I had known intuitively , that this was not uncommon for someone who had a very deep and intense experience with the medicine. But I was grumpy about it cuz I went into this to be happier, not more insane then when I went into it.

So I did what I do best, I got in the bathtub and I let myself cry and feel, and let go..

The answer appeared , I was still trying to approach everything from the exact same mindset I had before the ceremony . I was for the first time in my life unable to analyze and figure my way out of this feeling place.

My mind kept feeling like it was drawing one big major blank after another.

The only answer I could come up with about what to do next with my life was

” I DON’T KNOW!!”

And it dawned on me, this is the best answer I’ve ever gotten. This is where I am needing to start. I am in the space of not knowing , and my work begins here. I was so admit about filling up the space that had been opened in me through my ayahuasca journey that I was causing myself panic attacks. Who am I when I’m not knowing?

I’m very attached to having the answers, I like knowing things. I’m very good at knowing things and being full of ideas and answers.  There are plenty of things I don’t know, such as how to preform brain surgery, how to solve complex mathematical problems, how to bake a cake.. But these not knowings fall in the realm of choice and study, skill, and interest.

When it comes to me , my journey , my passions I am full of ideas, and I feel very knowledgable. But here I sit, BLANK.

Now my work begins , now I learn how to not know. I learn to sit in the discomfort of uncertainty. For the last few days I’ve been doing nothing~ meaning, simply sitting with this open space inside me and not trying to put anything inside it.

I for the first time am willing to see what unfolds without needing to figure it all out.

This is my job , this is part of what the source of energy that I met in my journey was telling me repeatedly~ SURRENDER.

Surrender to Not Knowing. It’s safe to be in the space of uncertainty, of infinite possibilities. I don’t have to get it all done right now, everything doesn’t have to be figured out and solved now.

I have no idea what the next step is on my journey through life. I have no idea what I’m going to do in regards to my work with women and the self love journey, I have no clue what I’m doing now. This is huge!!

I’ve been so tightly wound about my life and having to figure it out and have a plan that I’ve been unable to have access to my full capacity for joy, pleasure, play..

My work with self love began as I realized I was very, very ,very hard on myself all the time. I had an inner slave driver that was relentless. Even though to the outside world I looked like a relaxed person, I was extremely uptight.

When I was finally able to see that I didn’t need to punish myself in order to grow and be the person I knew I could be, I was able to begin my journey of love and healing.

And here I am 8 years after this realization, and I see how that slave driver has been tamed, but she is has learned sneaky tactics and maneuvers .

I still feel the call of perfection, of knowing it all, of being on top of my game, of pushing and pushing myself to grow and be better.

Not Knowing and sitting in open space filled with no answer or direction is very weird for me. But I have seen and felt things that cannot be unseen and unfelt. I know that the answer is to let go. Stop trying so hard to figure out everything and find a way to let it be.

This is the opposite of ” DOING”. I now learn how to let MYSELF BE.

My Mission should I choose to except it is~ the mission of allowing the unknown into myself and sitting within it’s fast expanse with awe and wonder.

Much Love~ Amber

First I would like to preface with the fact that this will be my most Vulnerable blog post yet.

I will also not be discussing where or with whom I took this journey with for privacy purposes and to protect all those whom are involved.

This Past Friday night on September 2nd 2016 I partook of the sacred ancient plant medicine Ayahuasca. It was my first time ever partaking of the medicine. I would like to start by saying it is near impossible to describe such an indescribable experience and my own journey with it is a very personal one and can in no way shape or form be a perfect reflection of what may happen to any one else whom may partake in the medicine. This is a powerful life changing medicine, make sure you are with a Shaman who can safely and with deep loving intention hold the space  for the love and transformation to unfold.

I cannot describe to you my journey in its absolute entirety , but I will share the most important highlights.  I would also like to add that I spent weeks tuning into the energy of the medicine vine , everyday I called her and I set my intention with her. I told her I wanted her to show me where I am most blocked, show me whats holding me back from living my most full life. I asked her to not hold back , even if it was the hardest thing I’d ever do I wanted to see clearly the truth of my own limitations and to be give the gift of insight. I asked for a healing to take place that night and she answered and gave me all that I asked for and more.

Nothing on this earth can begin to touch what I experienced on Friday night, the words that come to mind are- Turned inside out, obliterated, dissolved, blown open, shattered, powerful, and totally alien to this physical life I know.

As the medicine began to take me past the fuzzy gentle space it started in , I began to ,what felt like , fall through the universe and its many layers. I felt like I was slipping through one dimension of thought and consciousness after another at a rapid uncontrollable speed.  The moment I could really begin to take a look around I was then pulled to the next place, then the next.

It very much felt like being on a water slide in that it keep pushing me at rapid speeds on and on and on…swirling and hurtling through space ( which was not really space at all).

This went on for an unknown period of time ( as there is truly zero concept of time in this frame of mind), and at some point I realized I had no body and I had left the world I knew behind. I was being pulled at such a powerful force toward totally dissolving myself I began to lose my mind . I mean that I began to lose touch with my own linear mind, my usual way of processing and thinking, or understanding things was becoming incredible hard to access. I started to lose language, I would try to conjure a word or think of something specific and as quickly as the words or ideas would form they would then crumble. Their meaning was lost and completely unimportant in the space where I was existing at that moment.

The only thing that mattered was this intense pressure of energy that was blasting out of my heart and simultaneously blasting into my heart. The call of this energy ( though it had no actual words ) was SURRENDER! All I wanted , and all the energy wanted was for me to LET GO.

I finally at some point let myself be dissolved into the void, it was nothingness and everything happening all at once. I was light, I was energy vibrating at the fastest possible frequency , I had for lack of better words- DIED. I was nowhere, and everywhere ,  I had no body , no mind, no language, no story- Yet I was EVERYTHING. The most powerful , total complete everything.

Since there was no concept of time ( as the only moment was NOW) I have no idea how long this lasted..

The next thing I knew some tiny part of me ( the human being Amber) had a doubt, there was a question , a wordless question that said , ” Who am I if I leave all this self, this story, this mind behind?”

And with that question ( which was more a feeling then a actual question) I was flung out of the void and it felt like I was split in two, like my soul was ripping. Then I was fiercely aware of SUFFERING. When I feared the void, when I clung to my identity, my story I felt agony. All this energy wanted ( relentlessly ) was for me to STOP CLINGING to my story of myself, to let go of the need to control everything , it kept calling me so powerfully to surrender. It was like an energetic echo that reverberated throughout every molecule  of existence .

I had what felt like lifetimes of being trapped outside of the beloved bliss of the dissolving void, I could feel it calling me on every level, but it took so much of me to let myself go. Even though the feeling of letting go was more relief then Ive ever known in physical life, the fear of death ( losing myself) was SO POWERFUL!

I wanted to understand things , but the journey was 100% about losing my mind, my idea of self, of letting go of those parts of me that lived every waking hour in fear.

This all went on for what felt like an infinite amount of time- I would dissolve and lose myself in the void of everything , and then again be blasted out due to fear . I was faced over and over and over with the most powerful reflection of my own FEAR I have EVER Known.

There were long stretches where all I knew was Fear, it was like my life-force was encased in a prison of fear. Like my human mask was being ripped off over and over and it was so scary to be revealed and seen so clearly. I saw and felt my fear, it danced before my eyes in scary images and I would laugh at them telling them they were dreams and they had no idea what being real fear was. These images would try to suck me in , but it was so clear to me that fear was in my mind and these images were illusions simply trying to give me a visual image of what fear looked like. Fear has no face, it belongs to no one.

Fear is a  nebulous abstract reality. I was at once deep in my fear as well as being completely removed from it and able to watch it as an observer. I for the first time in my life realized on every single level of my being how deeply the truth is that ,” Fear is a total construct of the mind”. I could see and understand so clearly how I was creating every minute of fear in my life.  I was confronted with what felt like the deepest fear I’ve ever known, I knew that this fear was the fear that was controlling my life.

I saw, felt, understood, and became the embodied knowing that I had a terror of Being ABANDONED.

A golden thread appeared and showed me how this fear had touched every aspect of my life, this fear had shaped my life. How I leave myself, how I am so terrified of living my life on the outside , of being left behind and forgotten , being alone and a outcast. I in-turn would isolate and separate myself before anyone ever had the chance. I left myself, and this pain of leaving myself had broken my spirits ability to let go. Feeling like I have to cling, to control, to hold tight or it might all disappear and leave me behind in the empty space.

Would I still exist if I let go? Would I still be real if I let the void, the empty take me for good? There was this never ending presence with me that held me in the middle of all this fear and said through its endless presence ” I will never leave” , ” Nothing but LOVE IS REAL”, ” There is Nothing to lose, there is nothing outside of this moment ” ” This fear is a dream created by you the dreamer”. Everything is NOW, and Now is EVERYTHING.

I finally was coming somewhat back to my body at this point and I was finally able to purge by Crying.

I cried for all the suffering I had created in my life, for all the sadness I had bought into, I cried for how I had hurt myself on such deep and powerful levels. I said over and over ” I am so sorry, I am so sorry , I am so sorry”. Tears poured out of me, my heart was cried by another woman in the room. Her tears and sobs felt like my heart breaking open and her sobs where my hearts song.

The only truth I knew and felt that I was taking with me from here on out is: ITS ALL LOVE, BECAUSE- ONLY LOVE IS REAL. My greatest fear is FEAR. My greatest barrier is my own beliefs and my investment in them even when they are so painful. My life is my own to create, there is no God person who thinks I should be any one else. The energy of life I met that night did not care on any level how I look, what I wear, how I live , it doesn’t need me to pray, to bow, to chant, to do one single thing for it, as it IS and LOVES ME beyond any love I could ever conceive of on this earthly plan.

There is no such thing as a spiritual person verse a non-spiritual person, because no matter what we are ALL THAT IS, AND ALL THAT IS IS US.

All my love my beautiful sisters and brothers. May we all continue to illuminate the path and yet know we are all teachers here together learning and becoming as one.