June 12, 2024 • 46 mins
Hello Friends! In this first interview episode of "This Brutiful Life," it is an honor to drop in with my dear friend Amanda Barron. Amanda's journey is a testament to resilience and transformation.
We dive deep into her story as she shares an incredibly raw and moving account of her health struggles, beginning with a life-threatening incident in 2018, and leading to a brutal but beautiful journey of self-discovery and healing.
Don't miss out on this heartfelt conversation. Tune in, and let's learn together how to embrace both the brutal and the beautiful aspects of life.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:16):
Welcome to This Brutiful Life. My name is Mariah Weirding, and I am delighted
to invite my first guest on the show today, my friend Amanda Barron.
Welcome to the show, Amanda. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me, Mariah. It's my pleasure.
And I want to set the tone with a little bit of how it is that I know you and how we came to meet.
(00:44):
So Amanda is an incredibly skilled and beautifully compassionate worker in the helper realms.
She started off in the yoga therapy realm, including massage therapy.
And I met her when she owned a beautiful studio in Oregon called Soul Shine
Yoga and Massage Therapy.
(01:05):
And she has now spread her wings into the psychotherapy realms.
With that work, she continues to just deepen her practice and her knowledge
with each step that she takes.
She offers what it is that she's learned to help other people have a better
life and to relate to each other better.
And it's just wonderful to have you here? Anything else you'd like to add to
(01:29):
that intro so that people know a bit about you?
I think you did a wonderful job just kind of sharing that, you know?
Yes. So like you said, I did massage and yoga and I still do dabble in that,
you know, the hands-on helping modalities, but have switched gears into the
mental health world and licensed in both Oregon and Washington now.
(01:50):
So kind of a fun switch, but also very timely.
So perfect. I love that you've just continued to dive deeper and share that with the world.
And when we met, I had just recently moved to Oregon around 2016 and 17,
and was seeking community and had worked in the yoga studio world for many years.
(02:15):
So I decided to find that avenue of people first.
And the moment I walked into your studio doors, I knew I had found the right
people just based on the aesthetic and the vibe that you curate and the heartfelt
teaching that you offer.
And I was honored to be able to offer a little three-class belly dance series there for a while.
(02:36):
And we met after that class, and I knew that I was lucky enough to have found
somebody I could consider a friend outside of the class setting as well.
Absolutely. I love that. And we also bonded over karaoke. We have to add that
part too. Oh my gosh, karaoke and also astrology. My gosh.
Oh yeah. The depths and the giggles over many a lovely glass of wine by a fireside
(03:01):
as well. I remember those evenings quite well.
Well, it's a delight to have you here. So now that we know a little bit about
how we know each other, how are you feeling today?
Yeah, that's a great question. I am feeling good today.
I started my morning off with a dentist appointment, a dental cleaning.
(03:22):
You know, you can't go wrong with that. Taking care of the body.
There we go. Self-care. Oh, yeah.
But I've also been just really feeling the pull to go inward as of late,
I would say over the last like week, still recovering from a third COVID infection and healing from that.
But I'm just feeling really met by myself today. day.
(03:43):
That's so beautiful. I'm so delighted to hear that, especially on a dental cleaning day.
Not easy to regulate the nervous system after that sort of self-care for me. So I'm glad to hear that.
Completely. Well, and it's funny because there's like a lot of like,
you know, things in the outside world going on.
(04:04):
Like I had to take my car to the dealership last night and it kept dying.
I have a brand new car. It's like two years old and it's dying all the way over
So, you know, things like that.
And then I found out that my brand new garden that I planted has bugs and all
these like little things, you know, but I'm also like, I'm okay though.
Like, you know, none of that stuff is gonna like, you know, flip my, my, you know, script.
(04:29):
And I'm, I just feel really good and really dialed in with where I'm at internally.
So that feels great. Perfect. I love that.
Today, I'm feeling a little bit on the low side of the energetic spectrum,
but not anything too particularly drained.
Just a sort of contented coming off of the heels of a very homebody celebratory birthday weekend time.
(04:56):
And being the type of person that usually goes out and has a bit more of a shenanigans
type energy from one's birthday.
It's nice to have that turning 43 and being okay with having spent the whole
weekend at home this is this is fine this is perfectly fine right that is that's
like a beautiful description of like 43 i just turned 43 in may right we were
(05:19):
both there yes deep welcome to the club hey here we go,
but i love that i love that there's something about just being good being in
your home space you know and you don't need all the other and not that that's
not fun every now and then but But it was so nice to just be home and be, exist.
(05:39):
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.
Alrighty. So let's set the tone for our story time, shall we?
I have invited you into the theme of this podcast being sharing with us a story
from your life that could be considered brutal, that changed you and impacted you permanently.
(06:00):
And that made you perhaps into who you are, but not without perhaps quite a bit of pain,
trauma, these sorts of brutal aspects of life and the beautiful meaning you've
managed to weave in life as a result of that.
Will you take us there and kind of set the tone for us and where you were and
(06:22):
who was there and how old you were? Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to tell a story about out an incident that happened to me in 2018
actually and it was sort of a kickoff to.
A six-year period, six and a half years now, of ongoing health problems.
(06:43):
And it really set the stage, if you will, for a brutal journey.
And it's kind of hard because I'll start there and I'll end up somewhere different,
but we'll get there. Hang with me.
We're here for the journey. We're here for it.
So in 2018, I had decided to go to a cranial sacral training in Salt Lake City.
(07:12):
And this was part of some continuing education units that I needed as a cranial
sacral practitioner and massage therapist. this.
And I have been a person who hasn't really done a lot alone in my life.
I got married really young and I had kiddos young and have always really had
either my family of origin or my family that I came into and created on my own
(07:38):
around me, as well as friends and a lot of community.
But I love the idea of going there alone and just doing a thing.
And it didn't feel like a big deal at all to me. But so I got my flight and
went out to Salt Lake City, booked a cute little Airbnb that was going to be
just me in it, no one else staying in it.
And got to Salt Lake City and got all my food and felt really good in my body and felt good.
(08:03):
Just doing something like, oh, I'm on my own.
I'm on this journey. And it wasn't something big, Salt Lake City from Oregon,
but it felt kind of monumental for me.
Well, around the evening time,
I started just feeling really tired, a little bit more tired than normal and
crampy and was not really sure what was going on there as it wasn't like time
(08:28):
for my cycle or anything like that.
But I was like, I'm just going to go to bed. Well, I went to bed and I woke up.
Probably around two or three in the morning and just felt awful.
And I looked at my abdomen because I was so uncomfortable.
And it looked as though I was like six months pregnant. I was so just bloated
(08:48):
and my belly was distended. I was so uncomfortable.
And I got really scared because I was just dripping with sweat and I was hot.
I was running a massive fever, I could tell. and here I
am in this space alone in this basement
of this house you know and the woman that
(09:09):
usually lived in it above she was also a yoga teacher and was out of town so
I knew there wasn't anyone upstairs that I could be like checking in with so
I remember going to the restroom and just sitting there and I had recently gotten
this big lion thigh piece tattoo and he has blue eyes and I
wanted to get the blue eyes like my own eyes and I just kind of looked down
(09:33):
at at that lion and I was like something's wrong and I have to really be fierce
like thinking of the lion as a representation of being fierce taking care of
myself right now yeah and it was I remember going.
Calling an uber and going out on this porch swing that was outside on this house
(09:54):
and just like I'm I'm going to sit out there and wait. It was snowing.
And here I am in this foreign city to me.
I don't know anybody. I don't have anybody I can call. You know, nothing.
And this Uber driver picks me up and takes me to a 24-7 urgent care situation
where I was untaken and misdiagnosed for the bladder infection,
(10:15):
even though the test came back negative.
It is so it's just like a slew like tests
that they ran but basically it
said okay we'll go home and if if you know
you start feeling worse than go to the er well i
got in the car and i don't remember a lot at this point but i remember the same
(10:36):
uber driver got me he was like i've got you i'll just wait i'm not doing anything
which was super sweet like you know guardian angel coming in all sizes and shapes.
And mine was an Uber driver. No doubt.
Just a really caring, loving human.
And I remember calling my partner and saying like, hey, this thing's weird. I don't know about this.
(10:57):
And he was like, you should just go get checked out just in case.
And so I did. And I remember getting to the ER. And after getting to the ER,
I don't remember a whole lot, to be honest.
I remember the nurse that was staying with me.
I remember feeling like, Like, huh, this is funny.
I've never had... I've been in the hospital for like a tonsillectomy and having
(11:17):
babies, but I've never had a nurse not leave my side.
So part of me was like, this must be bad, you know?
But yet there was no part of me that was thinking, huh, you know...
I don't know. My brain just didn't calculate that this was as bad as I found out later that it was.
(11:38):
I just knew that it probably isn't good.
And what happened over that next 24 hours was I would come in and out of consciousness
and she would be right there with me.
And I would feel a little bit better for a bit. And then I don't remember much.
It's all very... It's just shaky.
(12:01):
And I've I tried to work through it with different therapy modalities of trying
to understand kind of what happened in that moment.
And I literally have no access to parts of those memories.
It's just not there. And that's probably because I was unconscious.
So what I do remember is them saying to me that they're working on getting my
(12:21):
heart down because my heart rate was over like 180, 190 consistently for just multiple hours.
Wow. And yeah.
And so I was in the intensive care unit and I did get moved.
They were able to get me down. And again, I don't know, timing wise,
I have no idea like how long I was where it was just about two days of this.
(12:45):
And then I woke up in a different room and I actually got woken up by the same
nurse that was with me, but she had left and gone home and it wasn't even her steps.
She came back in and street clothes wasn't in her, you know,
stubs anymore and said, she held my hand.
I remember she, cause she was a yoga teacher too. So we kind of had a moment,
(13:06):
like, I remember, do remember her telling me that and I was talking for a bit,
but not much over that, but she says we almost lost you wow and
i was like whoa and it just like didn't
register right like did not register and
i've never been like i kind of always felt like if you almost died that you
would kind of know it you know like you would know but i i mean that's how i
(13:31):
envisioned it like you know from er shows or whatever where they're like hey
like you know this is the moment and And they're like, no, right.
But there was none of that. It was just like, I thought I was okay.
But I don't know. It was a lot.
I knew I was sick, but I didn't think I was that sick.
They said that I had some fluid in my pelvis, and they didn't go into much more.
(13:57):
But what sort of came out of that was them sending me home, which they never
should have sent me home.
I had an abscess in my fallopian tube. yeah
that at the time was at least
what i found out later when i went to southern oregon and had
it taken care of surgically was that it was the size of a baseball when i went
(14:19):
in in salt lake and then by the time i was in medford and that was like a day
later it was the size of a grapefruit like grown oh my goodness yeah yeah so
it was a lot and they sent me home,
which was frustrating to go home. I was able to get a flight.
And that was a really rough trip home. I was very scared. I was pale.
(14:42):
I kept having people ask me if I was okay.
I had to have strangers watch my bags while I went to the bathroom. You know, yeah.
Basically, finally got home. There was a guy that had to pick me up out of my
seat when I got back to Southern Oregon.
And I went right from there to the hospital. And I'd never felt so like poisoned inside of my life.
(15:06):
And so what I ended up finding out after going home and getting into surgery
was that I had the abscess and that I had gone into sepsis and needed emergency surgery.
And it was a lot. It was a lot. I was new in my relationship.
And my partner, Josh, gosh, he's now my husband.
He was there. But it's like, we've been dating for, I don't know,
(15:30):
four months at that time.
And I'm up in stirrups and he's right there. It's not exactly...
Behind the moon period, it's over.
Yeah. Okay, that was quick. That's not what I was envisioning.
But it was rough. It was rough.
And then got through all of that, was
in the hospital for about six days on high-dose antibiotics
(15:51):
um and here's another
little brutal bit they were having a shortage of saline at
that time oh i don't there was a hurricane and how convenient they were made
in right yeah i think it's costa rica where a big portion of the u.s gets its
saline wow and i believe that i could be wrong on that it's it's something like
(16:13):
that but the information you learn when you're just Just trying to survive. Amazing.
Completely. So instead of like getting it injected through a drip,
they had to inject it right into my vein. And it was the most painful.
That sounds horrible. It was a lot.
Yeah. So six days in the hospital, you know, and also like feeling like, oh, I get to go home.
(16:35):
But, you know, they're like, no, I got to keep you still.
And I heard there again, too.
This was twice now. When I got out of surgery, they said they almost lost me again. in.
I heard that for the second time in a span of a couple of days.
And it was, you know, there's no time for my brain to make sense of what was going on around me.
(16:56):
And I was just so focused on like, it's all going to be okay.
It's all going to be okay. You know?
And I call myself a recovering light addict because I was so,
I don't want to call it like toxic positivity,
but I don't think I even had a moment, at least that I remember to be like,
(17:18):
this is really hard and I'm really scared.
And I don't, I just remember being like, it's all going to be okay.
I'm going to feel good again. Everything's going to be okay.
Cause that's how everything in my life physically at least had worked out up until that moment.
Yeah. So they sent me home with antibiotics and I very quickly became the most
(17:44):
depressed I've ever been in my entire life.
I can easily say I've never experienced maybe even depression until that point.
I've been down, you know, you all get down, but I grew up with a mom that severe
depression and it was, it was nothing like I've ever experienced.
(18:05):
And I remember just sitting in the bathtub and wondering and being scared by
this thought of maybe, maybe it would be better if I wasn't here, you know?
And it was just also like kind of observing myself from up above,
like, who is this person? I don't know her.
(18:26):
And that was really hard.
And fortunately, I was able to, I remember like my, this wisdom was like,
go read the box on the antibiotic.
And it has a black box warning for depression and suicide.
Yeah. Wow. And I had been pumped with that in the hospital for six days,
(18:52):
intravenously, and then sent home with it in a medication form.
And called the doctor and he's like, oh, get off of it immediately.
And so I did. And I came out of it.
I came out of it. And I came out of it pretty quickly, surprisingly. But then...
I think I went right back to that light addict at that point,
(19:15):
you know, and I will say that was like a brutal journey that moment because
it was the hardest physical thing that had ever happened to me in my life up until that point,
you know, I'm like doing marathons or half marathons and, you know,
running Ragnar races and teaching yoga and doing headstands and like living a very vivacious life.
(19:37):
And that was like, oh, okay, that's, you know, whoa, that hit me.
And maybe, you know, maybe that was just a one-off kind of a thing.
But, you know, it, I can't really, it's hard for me to tell that story without
telling the other story that is the long COVID venture that I've been on for
the last four and a half years.
(19:57):
And basically, you know, I don't know why I got COVID as bad as I did,
but, you know, maybe it's because I had sepsis and what I've been told by doctors
is it can take between two and five years for your body to regulate and come
back to normal, you know, for your immune system to be, yeah,
to be having the gusto that it needs to fight off things.
(20:18):
And maybe it hit me harder, but I've also seen people who are super healthy
their whole lives get COVID and it just knock them down.
And it's a, it's a virus us that when you get it, it's like you roll a dice.
And some people... Yeah, I said it's like when you get it, it's like you roll a dice.
You roll a number. That's it. Yep.
And it's either you get a one and it's super gentle or you get a higher number
(20:42):
and it's difficult or you lose your life.
And I was fortunate to not roll the highest number, but I definitely rolled
somewhere we're in middle or, you know, a little bit of our high med, but, um.
Yeah, I feel like that was part of my journey.
I've got sick and COVID brought on asthma.
It brought on a heart issue where I've had to be on heart medication now for
(21:07):
the last four and a half years and steroids for my lungs and just medications
to help regulate my nervous system.
And that's more like the homeopathic way, but it's been a journey.
And I think looking back on the journey, it started there. That was like the
time of me realizing that, you know, that I'm not untouchable.
(21:32):
And it's not like I walked around feeling that way entirely,
but I feel looking back on myself at that time,
like, yeah, I was teaching yoga and I was doing massage and,
you know, telling people like, you know, teaching these bits of wisdom of slowing
(21:52):
down and being in your body.
And trusting your body and all the things.
But I don't think I was truly loving that because I had such a privileged place
that I was coming from. Yeah.
It's really easy to say those things when you're able-bodied. No doubt.
Yeah. It's really easy to say, you know, oh, slow down or take some deep breaths
(22:17):
or, you know, we all need to listen to our bodies.
And I'm not saying that able-bodied folks don't need to do that too.
They do. do we all do we all need that but
it's it's they're they're slowing down because
you know that you need to rest in your
head and oh or you're tired and then they're slowing
down because if you don't you're not going to be able to get out of bed for
(22:41):
the next couple of days that's right yeah and that was sort of the kickstart
of me going through this six and a a half year health journey that has been a,
massive wake-up call for myself to really embody those practices that I have
(23:01):
been learning and teaching my whole life.
But it's not out of like, oh, that's a great idea and that's what I should do.
It's like, no, I have to do it. I have to do it.
And I'm at a point now in my life, I said this in a women's circle a couple
months ago, that I can actually say, even though all of the stuff that I've
been through with the three COVID infections.
(23:24):
Before we scheduled this podcast, it was two.
And then I will say, fortunately, this last infection, I am bouncing back in
a way that I wasn't able to do.
And just that alone has given me a sense of security in a way,
not that I can't get it again and it'd be rough on my system because we know
(23:45):
that with chronic illness, things are unpredictable.
But you know the last completely the
last infection that I had was in 22 August of 22 and
I had a brain bleed and yeah and
then a month later I lost my dog of a brain bleed my five-year-old lab and just
a lot of like a lot of stuff all compacted into like six and a half years a
(24:09):
lot of pain physically mentally emotionally a lot of dipping back in and out of depression and.
Feeling like maybe everyone around me would be better off if I weren't here
or if I moved far away into some little house in the woods and took my dog and
just was there because I have to keep asking people to mask.
(24:32):
I have to keep asking people to, you know, stay away from me if they're getting
the sniffles or whatever, you know, I'm asking for these accommodations.
And I felt a sense of like guilt because I was doing that and asking people
to alter their lives because of my illness when it didn't affect them in that way.
So it was a journey and
(24:54):
like I said I'm feeling finally like I'm
at a place now where I'm like okay it's all clicking it's all clicking and while
I you know don't wish anybody to have to go through hard things like that I
feel that there are so many gifts that I am still continuing to
(25:15):
receive from those experiences. Hmm.
Absolutely. Brutiful. Thank you for taking us through that story that exactly
encapsulates what the whole podcast theme is about with just like eloquence
and grace and vulnerability and just being really present with yourself in each part of the story.
(25:37):
I felt you in each, you know, go to each place.
And I just want to thank you so much for being willing to share that with us.
Thank you. Thank you.
(26:16):
With is just so beautiful. Like that spiritual bypassing piece that can be so
hard to illustrate what it actually means.
I think you did it just effortlessly without needing to really,
you know, go too deep into what that can be when it's at its most toxic.
But I just wanted to say the thing that came up for me when you were talking
about that is that it seems like when you needed it most.
(26:38):
That tendency and that drive that you
had towards focusing on the light in your
able-bodied experience of being a yoga practitioner and
teacher that might have been one of the things that kept
you alive when there was those moments where
people were saying hey you know we almost lost you
right that's what the words that came up for me were the stubborn optimist that
(27:02):
you were just so stubbornly hitched to the wagon of i will see the end of this
in order to disassociate at a healthy level and how important that particular tool can be.
We oftentimes as a culture obviously see a huge overemphasis on disassociation
(27:23):
to its detriment, right?
But sometimes we literally cannot survive what our body is physically going through.
For example, being in septic shock on an airplane and having to have a stranger
come and physically pick us up, right?
Your body was disassociating and you were focused on the light in order to not
leave this corporeal form that's so powerful and i wonder if you would speak
(27:46):
a little bit about that sort of like.
Straddling that line between learning that it's so important to not over emphasize
the focus on the light and the positivity while also not remember forgetting to use it as a vehicle.
Absolutely. That just gives me chills you saying that. Yeah.
I mean, it's a beautiful thing. The light is a beautiful thing.
(28:11):
And I think you're completely right that I had that part of me that was there keeping me going.
And you're so correct that what sums up for me is when your body dissociates
during really difficult situations like that, it's doing its job.
That's right. Yeah. And I always say this to myself, I say, my body loves me.
(28:34):
And I have spent years, it's funny that that's, what did you call it?
Stubborn optimism? Yes.
Yeah. So I lost that. I lost that stubborn optimism somewhere in between 2021 and 2023.
(28:55):
I lost it completely. It was gone, gone, gone, gone. Yeah, yeah.
And so I know what it feels like to kind of be in that place of stubborn optimism
where that light's like, yeah, but this is where we radiate. You know what I mean?
And to me, that light, it's the calling back.
It's like, there is beauty in the shadow.
(29:17):
We have to go to the shadow. That is where we find all of that juicy depth, right?
But there is beauty in that light calling you back.
And it's like the yin and the yang that balance of
having them both and I think my deficit if I
look at it that way not that maybe it was but
before when I didn't know what I knew I needed to know I guess to get me where
(29:43):
I'm at now is it was I hadn't experienced I had experienced hard stuff you know
like I grew up in a not the ideal situation and it was in a marriage and not
the the ideal situation and,
you know, multiple things, but within myself,
at least I needed to experience that heaviness, I guess, in some ways to,
(30:04):
to really be able to appreciate the light truly as well. And I hope that makes sense. Absolutely.
Yeah. So I guess it's like.
Now, again, the emphasis isn't so much on always going to the light or,
like you said, the spiritual bypassing or even sometimes I'll see in therapeutic modalities.
(30:28):
It's positive psychology, but it's like we have to feel the shit and the hard
stuff before we can get to the light. We have to.
There's no other way around it. There's no other way.
So you can sit there and you can ask a client
to say you know if they're if they if they don't love themselves
you can have them do mirror work and tell themselves i
(30:49):
love you every day in the mirror but if they're not like getting down to
those depths and that dark and feeling that first of what it feels like to not
love yourself and really wrap your brain around that then they're not going
to be able to see that like lighter part so i guess what i'm getting at is i
think I think there's so much beauty in being able to journey there and knowing that once you go there,
(31:09):
you don't have to stay there and that there's that other part where you get to go towards the light.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. The light has to be able to penetrate through
into in order for us to even see those parts of ourselves anyway.
I love that. another question for you
is was this journey that
you went through the catalyst exclusively for
(31:32):
wanting to do a deeper dive into education to expand your offerings into psychotherapy
or was that always a seed that you wanted to follow that you had planted before
this yeah so i had all i I had thought about being a counselor for years before this.
I... Excuse me. I didn't think that I could be a counselor though, because when I...
(31:58):
Had done therapy in the past myself i was met
by someone usually with a clipboard and i would talk to them and they would
kind of nod there was never any real connection engagement yeah engagement yes
it's just i i just felt like i was talking at someone and they were taking notes
and occasionally nodding and maybe saying a little bit here and there but not much at all.
(32:22):
So I and I when I would talk to
clients whether they were massage clients or
yoga students it would be if I
would sit there and someone was telling me about their heart I would tear up
with them so I thought to myself I can never be a therapist because someone
tells me about their pain I am going to probably tear up a little bit and that
(32:45):
I'm gonna break I'm gonna break the wall all. And you can't do that.
I don't think as a therapist, at least in my experience. So it wasn't until
going and actually having a really wonderful therapist that like cheered up
when I started talking to her, I was like, Oh, whoa, whoa. Like, what are you doing?
And then, and then I told her about my wanting to be a therapist,
(33:08):
but my fear and she's like, Oh no, like this is actually good.
And it's, she's right. It is good.
And I feel like even since the pandemic, the practice of therapy is changing
completely from even what I learned at school,
like what you should and shouldn't do as far as being a human in a counseling
(33:29):
session, because at the end of the day, we're all just humans first.
Messy and imperfect and wonderful.
I have it tattooed on my wrist, human first, period.
That's right. Because that's what we are, right? And at the end of the day,
it's to me at least in session i
would so much more connect with someone who can see me and
(33:52):
if they get a little tears in their eyes great that's fine because that shows
me that they're seeing me versus someone who's got their clipboard and i have
no idea what's going on i love that description that's perfect that's absolutely
perfect all right well so let's talk Talk about the practical.
So let's go back a little bit to that moment when the all semblance of the stubborn optimist in you,
(34:17):
the light addict was gone and you were in the darkest depths of depression and
being faced with your now very different body and your now very different set
of capacity and your whole entire life has been uprooted.
And it's another day and you are having Having those thoughts of maybe it would
(34:38):
just be easier if I wasn't here, taking up space.
Yeah. What was it, if there was just one practice or a handful of them,
that you reach for when nothing else seems to work? Yeah.
Yeah. So there's two. The, the first one is my journal and it has been,
it has been my sounding board for my entire life.
(35:02):
I have been writing actively in a journal since I was about 10 years old.
Same. I am a big journaler. I'm glad to hear this.
It is my, like when I feel off and I'm like,
I can't put my finger on it, like before talking
to someone i need to go sit with my journal that's
right because usually i figure it out there and then
(35:23):
i'm ready to talk about it right but that's that
is the sorting hat that's right preach i love this yep right for my brain to
get it all out and be like oh okay that's why or oh that's there too that makes
sense or you know whatever oh i didn't know i I felt that strongly about that still. Interesting.
(35:47):
And I just, yeah, it's like, okay, you've got a voice. And I don't solicit. I just write.
So my writing has been my tool. And it has gotten me through so much.
It took a month off in between, like in August of 22, I had the brain bleed.
And then I had a seizure actually in front of one of my clients,
(36:07):
like a couple that I was sitting with. Yeah.
And that was in person. That wasn't virtual. It was in person.
And so I had to go through all of that, but then decided I need a month off.
So I had not taken a month off ever at that point in my life before.
I took a month off one time to travel and that's it. Out of my whole life since
(36:28):
I was working at the age of 15, I had never taken a month off. Wow.
And so I did that and I just spent every single day writing.
And that was also after losing my dog, like I said.
And that was like, all pushed me over the edge. It's too much,
too soon, too fast, too curious.
And it was, I would sit on the porch with my cup of tea and it was,
(36:53):
you know, Portland, cold, rainy.
But I would just sit there every single day, no matter what and write.
And to this
day that practice is so important to me but there
was that and then the other one is so simple but it is so and it's like something
that I do every day most of the times a day and that I recommend to everybody
(37:16):
is I just I place my right hand on my heart center and my left hand on my other hand,
and I just hold myself and I breathe.
And I tell myself that you are safe and you are held and you are also loved.
And that's what I tell myself.
It gets me true, right? Being a human is hard in any way.
(37:42):
And even the most privileged of privileged humans.
We all have feelings and emotions and bodies. It's hard, but we know that the
span of people hurting is big and that there's so much going on.
It's all a lot in our world.
And so, you know, whether it's physical pain or it's emotional or mental pain
(38:05):
or just me being a human in a day that feels neutral, I still do that.
I love that so much. Two beautiful practices. And I love that there are touchstones
that have continued regardless of whether you found yourself in what you would
quote unquote label a good day or a neutral day or a challenging day.
That's so the consistency of some simple daily rituals. There's something really powerful in that.
(38:29):
Well, will you do us a favor and lead us in a little demonstration of that second
practice so that we can ground it together?
Fabulous. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, let's just get comfortable
wherever we're sitting or standing.
Taking a nice deep breath in through your nose, letting your ribs and intestines expand.
(38:50):
And then just breathe out a nice deep, heavy sigh, letting all of the air move your body.
Let's do one more for good measure. Full, deep breath in. Let your body expand.
And then heavy sigh out. Patient needs at your heart.
Good. And just letting the hands rest at the heart. And you might even just
(39:11):
let your chin drop slightly towards the chest, allowing the ice to close or
just lower if that feels good.
Taking a moment to just breathe into your precious vessel that is your body.
Taking a moment to just let your whole system feel whatever there is to feel.
(39:33):
Everything is welcome.
Noticing what it is like to have your hands, your own hands there,
supporting your heart center, that area of love, of connection,
not just to the world and other people, but to yourself as well.
You are safe you are held and you are oh so loved you are safe you are held and you are oh so loved,
(40:03):
and if you would like you can say that to yourself
i am safe i am
held and i am oh so loved
just noticing what that
feels like to allow those words to infuse into your system just being with yourself
(40:23):
and let's just take one more big breath together breathing on breathing out
heavy sigh relax the arms.
And that's it oh so
beautiful thank you i feel like more
deeply rooted even more than i was just from the
(40:46):
experience of dropping in with you the moment
that i placed my hands on my heart i could feel this reminder to
let myself fully receive the
the tether from my body to the
earth and my goodness I do love being
you know guided through breath and affirmation
it is both powerful to do on my
(41:07):
own and with people and so thank you
so much for sharing with us that lifeline practice
with us it means a lot completely yeah yeah my pleasure all right so a couple
more things before we wrap up here so one is a fun question and it may be very
deep and meaningful as well but But to throw out there another suggestion,
(41:30):
if you have one off the top of your head of a piece of media,
a cultural piece of art that was also a lifeline during those dark moments of
your journey, whether it be a poem or a book, a movie, a song.
It could be something that you created originally. It could be something that
is known or unknown, ancient, modern. Yeah.
(41:53):
Yes, yes, yes. I'm so glad you asked this. So there was a song that got me through
and continues to get me through.
And it's something that if I go on my phone and see how many times I've sent
this out to people, clients and friends and whatever, it's probably a gazillion.
But it is the song, I believe it's called You Can Trust Your Healing by Trevor
(42:18):
Hall. Ooh, I love Trevor Hall.
I don't know if I know that one off the top of my head, but i love his voice it's
so resonant beautiful yeah it's literally
the song that i was listening to in the
bathtub back in 2018 when like
i said i was seeing myself like outside of myself and
realizing that something wasn't right and that's
(42:40):
when i went and got the box and realized there was the black box warning like
oh it called you in oh my
goodness yes okay yeah it was on a
spotify buy like playlists that i i hadn't saved
but it says you can trust your healing darkness has
its teaching love is never leaving it's so
powerful i'm covered in chills i love it so much that's beautiful perfect he's
(43:03):
wonderful he is wonderful his voice has definitely got that that calling you
back to yourself kind of a resonant quality to it my goodness oh yeah all right
so how do we We find you in real life.
I know a few things, so I will throw them out there to the great people that
decide that they might want to reach out to you and work with you.
(43:25):
You can find Amanda on Instagram at DeepSoulDives, and you can find her at SoulShineCounselingWellness.com.
I know she offers all kinds of fun things, both online and in real time.
And she is licensed in both Oregon and Washington.
So she can meet you online if you happen to live in those two states.
(43:48):
And if you have anything else you
want to share about how you might want people to find you in the world.
Yeah. Well, you pretty much got it, you know, in...
If you are looking for someone to work with psychotherapy, I do have a waiting
list right now, but it is something that comes and goes in your availability.
That does not surprise me at all.
(44:09):
Scheduling. But I'm also working, thank you, I'm also working on a couple of
different online offerings that I'm going to be sharing in the next upcoming
year, but possibly a little bit towards the end of this year as well.
And then I am going to be doing coaching type working.
So working a little outside of the box of folks that maybe are not in Oregon
(44:29):
or Washington, really with the idea of self-devotion and self-love.
So that kind of works. I'm excited to offer that as well.
So if you feel called or interested, definitely shoot me a text or all the information's
on the website and or connect with me on social media.
That's probably the best way
is through Instagram, but I would love to connect with more people. Cool.
(44:52):
Fabulous. And you had some sort of fabulous sounding anger workshop coming up.
Was it alchemizing your anger or something? Is that true? Yeah.
Completely. Anger alchemy. Yeah. I had a lovely turnout, but it's something
that I'm going to be offering online as well, just for people that are not in Washington.
And it is a workshop for, I did hold the workshop for women alone,
(45:15):
but I think I want to do it just for humans in general, because I think we can
all learn from each other as well in that space.
But it's a place to create a relationship, a healthy relationship with anger
versus feeling afraid of it or not knowing what to do with it.
And so that's something that I'm really passionate about.
Such important work. Thank you so much for doing
(45:37):
everything that you've done and for literally being the
embodiment of alchemizing your pain and
suffering into the spun gold of having
done all that shadow work and being so generous and doing
it with such grace to share it with the world what you have uh plunged from
the deep so that we can learn and grow alongside with your journey thank you.
Music.
(45:58):
So much amanda it's been a pleasure i love you thank you i love you my dear
thank you so much for sharing this space with me my pleasure i hope you have a.
Music.
Music.
(00:16):
Welcome to This Brutiful Life. My name is Mariah Weirding, and I am delighted
to invite my first guest on the show today, my friend Amanda Barron.
Welcome to the show, Amanda. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me, Mariah. It's my pleasure.
And I want to set the tone with a little bit of how it is that I know you and how we came to meet.
(00:44):
So Amanda is an incredibly skilled and beautifully compassionate worker in the helper realms.
She started off in the yoga therapy realm, including massage therapy.
And I met her when she owned a beautiful studio in Oregon called Soul Shine
Yoga and Massage Therapy.
(01:05):
And she has now spread her wings into the psychotherapy realms.
With that work, she continues to just deepen her practice and her knowledge
with each step that she takes.
She offers what it is that she's learned to help other people have a better
life and to relate to each other better.
And it's just wonderful to have you here? Anything else you'd like to add to
(01:29):
that intro so that people know a bit about you?
I think you did a wonderful job just kind of sharing that, you know?
Yes. So like you said, I did massage and yoga and I still do dabble in that,
you know, the hands-on helping modalities, but have switched gears into the
mental health world and licensed in both Oregon and Washington now.
(01:50):
So kind of a fun switch, but also very timely.
So perfect. I love that you've just continued to dive deeper and share that with the world.
And when we met, I had just recently moved to Oregon around 2016 and 17,
and was seeking community and had worked in the yoga studio world for many years.
(02:15):
So I decided to find that avenue of people first.
And the moment I walked into your studio doors, I knew I had found the right
people just based on the aesthetic and the vibe that you curate and the heartfelt
teaching that you offer.
And I was honored to be able to offer a little three-class belly dance series there for a while.
(02:36):
And we met after that class, and I knew that I was lucky enough to have found
somebody I could consider a friend outside of the class setting as well.
Absolutely. I love that. And we also bonded over karaoke. We have to add that
part too. Oh my gosh, karaoke and also astrology. My gosh.
Oh yeah. The depths and the giggles over many a lovely glass of wine by a fireside
(03:01):
as well. I remember those evenings quite well.
Well, it's a delight to have you here. So now that we know a little bit about
how we know each other, how are you feeling today?
Yeah, that's a great question. I am feeling good today.
I started my morning off with a dentist appointment, a dental cleaning.
(03:22):
You know, you can't go wrong with that. Taking care of the body.
There we go. Self-care. Oh, yeah.
But I've also been just really feeling the pull to go inward as of late,
I would say over the last like week, still recovering from a third COVID infection and healing from that.
But I'm just feeling really met by myself today. day.
(03:43):
That's so beautiful. I'm so delighted to hear that, especially on a dental cleaning day.
Not easy to regulate the nervous system after that sort of self-care for me. So I'm glad to hear that.
Completely. Well, and it's funny because there's like a lot of like,
you know, things in the outside world going on.
(04:04):
Like I had to take my car to the dealership last night and it kept dying.
I have a brand new car. It's like two years old and it's dying all the way over
So, you know, things like that.
And then I found out that my brand new garden that I planted has bugs and all
these like little things, you know, but I'm also like, I'm okay though.
Like, you know, none of that stuff is gonna like, you know, flip my, my, you know, script.
(04:29):
And I'm, I just feel really good and really dialed in with where I'm at internally.
So that feels great. Perfect. I love that.
Today, I'm feeling a little bit on the low side of the energetic spectrum,
but not anything too particularly drained.
Just a sort of contented coming off of the heels of a very homebody celebratory birthday weekend time.
(04:56):
And being the type of person that usually goes out and has a bit more of a shenanigans
type energy from one's birthday.
It's nice to have that turning 43 and being okay with having spent the whole
weekend at home this is this is fine this is perfectly fine right that is that's
like a beautiful description of like 43 i just turned 43 in may right we were
(05:19):
both there yes deep welcome to the club hey here we go,
but i love that i love that there's something about just being good being in
your home space you know and you don't need all the other and not that that's
not fun every now and then but But it was so nice to just be home and be, exist.
(05:39):
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.
Alrighty. So let's set the tone for our story time, shall we?
I have invited you into the theme of this podcast being sharing with us a story
from your life that could be considered brutal, that changed you and impacted you permanently.
(06:00):
And that made you perhaps into who you are, but not without perhaps quite a bit of pain,
trauma, these sorts of brutal aspects of life and the beautiful meaning you've
managed to weave in life as a result of that.
Will you take us there and kind of set the tone for us and where you were and
(06:22):
who was there and how old you were? Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to tell a story about out an incident that happened to me in 2018
actually and it was sort of a kickoff to.
A six-year period, six and a half years now, of ongoing health problems.
(06:43):
And it really set the stage, if you will, for a brutal journey.
And it's kind of hard because I'll start there and I'll end up somewhere different,
but we'll get there. Hang with me.
We're here for the journey. We're here for it.
So in 2018, I had decided to go to a cranial sacral training in Salt Lake City.
(07:12):
And this was part of some continuing education units that I needed as a cranial
sacral practitioner and massage therapist. this.
And I have been a person who hasn't really done a lot alone in my life.
I got married really young and I had kiddos young and have always really had
either my family of origin or my family that I came into and created on my own
(07:38):
around me, as well as friends and a lot of community.
But I love the idea of going there alone and just doing a thing.
And it didn't feel like a big deal at all to me. But so I got my flight and
went out to Salt Lake City, booked a cute little Airbnb that was going to be
just me in it, no one else staying in it.
And got to Salt Lake City and got all my food and felt really good in my body and felt good.
(08:03):
Just doing something like, oh, I'm on my own.
I'm on this journey. And it wasn't something big, Salt Lake City from Oregon,
but it felt kind of monumental for me.
Well, around the evening time,
I started just feeling really tired, a little bit more tired than normal and
crampy and was not really sure what was going on there as it wasn't like time
(08:28):
for my cycle or anything like that.
But I was like, I'm just going to go to bed. Well, I went to bed and I woke up.
Probably around two or three in the morning and just felt awful.
And I looked at my abdomen because I was so uncomfortable.
And it looked as though I was like six months pregnant. I was so just bloated
(08:48):
and my belly was distended. I was so uncomfortable.
And I got really scared because I was just dripping with sweat and I was hot.
I was running a massive fever, I could tell. and here I
am in this space alone in this basement
of this house you know and the woman that
(09:09):
usually lived in it above she was also a yoga teacher and was out of town so
I knew there wasn't anyone upstairs that I could be like checking in with so
I remember going to the restroom and just sitting there and I had recently gotten
this big lion thigh piece tattoo and he has blue eyes and I
wanted to get the blue eyes like my own eyes and I just kind of looked down
(09:33):
at at that lion and I was like something's wrong and I have to really be fierce
like thinking of the lion as a representation of being fierce taking care of
myself right now yeah and it was I remember going.
Calling an uber and going out on this porch swing that was outside on this house
(09:54):
and just like I'm I'm going to sit out there and wait. It was snowing.
And here I am in this foreign city to me.
I don't know anybody. I don't have anybody I can call. You know, nothing.
And this Uber driver picks me up and takes me to a 24-7 urgent care situation
where I was untaken and misdiagnosed for the bladder infection,
(10:15):
even though the test came back negative.
It is so it's just like a slew like tests
that they ran but basically it
said okay we'll go home and if if you know
you start feeling worse than go to the er well i
got in the car and i don't remember a lot at this point but i remember the same
(10:36):
uber driver got me he was like i've got you i'll just wait i'm not doing anything
which was super sweet like you know guardian angel coming in all sizes and shapes.
And mine was an Uber driver. No doubt.
Just a really caring, loving human.
And I remember calling my partner and saying like, hey, this thing's weird. I don't know about this.
(10:57):
And he was like, you should just go get checked out just in case.
And so I did. And I remember getting to the ER. And after getting to the ER,
I don't remember a whole lot, to be honest.
I remember the nurse that was staying with me.
I remember feeling like, Like, huh, this is funny.
I've never had... I've been in the hospital for like a tonsillectomy and having
(11:17):
babies, but I've never had a nurse not leave my side.
So part of me was like, this must be bad, you know?
But yet there was no part of me that was thinking, huh, you know...
I don't know. My brain just didn't calculate that this was as bad as I found out later that it was.
(11:38):
I just knew that it probably isn't good.
And what happened over that next 24 hours was I would come in and out of consciousness
and she would be right there with me.
And I would feel a little bit better for a bit. And then I don't remember much.
It's all very... It's just shaky.
(12:01):
And I've I tried to work through it with different therapy modalities of trying
to understand kind of what happened in that moment.
And I literally have no access to parts of those memories.
It's just not there. And that's probably because I was unconscious.
So what I do remember is them saying to me that they're working on getting my
(12:21):
heart down because my heart rate was over like 180, 190 consistently for just multiple hours.
Wow. And yeah.
And so I was in the intensive care unit and I did get moved.
They were able to get me down. And again, I don't know, timing wise,
I have no idea like how long I was where it was just about two days of this.
(12:45):
And then I woke up in a different room and I actually got woken up by the same
nurse that was with me, but she had left and gone home and it wasn't even her steps.
She came back in and street clothes wasn't in her, you know,
stubs anymore and said, she held my hand.
I remember she, cause she was a yoga teacher too. So we kind of had a moment,
(13:06):
like, I remember, do remember her telling me that and I was talking for a bit,
but not much over that, but she says we almost lost you wow and
i was like whoa and it just like didn't
register right like did not register and
i've never been like i kind of always felt like if you almost died that you
would kind of know it you know like you would know but i i mean that's how i
(13:31):
envisioned it like you know from er shows or whatever where they're like hey
like you know this is the moment and And they're like, no, right.
But there was none of that. It was just like, I thought I was okay.
But I don't know. It was a lot.
I knew I was sick, but I didn't think I was that sick.
They said that I had some fluid in my pelvis, and they didn't go into much more.
(13:57):
But what sort of came out of that was them sending me home, which they never
should have sent me home.
I had an abscess in my fallopian tube. yeah
that at the time was at least
what i found out later when i went to southern oregon and had
it taken care of surgically was that it was the size of a baseball when i went
(14:19):
in in salt lake and then by the time i was in medford and that was like a day
later it was the size of a grapefruit like grown oh my goodness yeah yeah so
it was a lot and they sent me home,
which was frustrating to go home. I was able to get a flight.
And that was a really rough trip home. I was very scared. I was pale.
(14:42):
I kept having people ask me if I was okay.
I had to have strangers watch my bags while I went to the bathroom. You know, yeah.
Basically, finally got home. There was a guy that had to pick me up out of my
seat when I got back to Southern Oregon.
And I went right from there to the hospital. And I'd never felt so like poisoned inside of my life.
(15:06):
And so what I ended up finding out after going home and getting into surgery
was that I had the abscess and that I had gone into sepsis and needed emergency surgery.
And it was a lot. It was a lot. I was new in my relationship.
And my partner, Josh, gosh, he's now my husband.
He was there. But it's like, we've been dating for, I don't know,
(15:30):
four months at that time.
And I'm up in stirrups and he's right there. It's not exactly...
Behind the moon period, it's over.
Yeah. Okay, that was quick. That's not what I was envisioning.
But it was rough. It was rough.
And then got through all of that, was
in the hospital for about six days on high-dose antibiotics
(15:51):
um and here's another
little brutal bit they were having a shortage of saline at
that time oh i don't there was a hurricane and how convenient they were made
in right yeah i think it's costa rica where a big portion of the u.s gets its
saline wow and i believe that i could be wrong on that it's it's something like
(16:13):
that but the information you learn when you're just Just trying to survive. Amazing.
Completely. So instead of like getting it injected through a drip,
they had to inject it right into my vein. And it was the most painful.
That sounds horrible. It was a lot.
Yeah. So six days in the hospital, you know, and also like feeling like, oh, I get to go home.
(16:35):
But, you know, they're like, no, I got to keep you still.
And I heard there again, too.
This was twice now. When I got out of surgery, they said they almost lost me again. in.
I heard that for the second time in a span of a couple of days.
And it was, you know, there's no time for my brain to make sense of what was going on around me.
(16:56):
And I was just so focused on like, it's all going to be okay.
It's all going to be okay. You know?
And I call myself a recovering light addict because I was so,
I don't want to call it like toxic positivity,
but I don't think I even had a moment, at least that I remember to be like,
(17:18):
this is really hard and I'm really scared.
And I don't, I just remember being like, it's all going to be okay.
I'm going to feel good again. Everything's going to be okay.
Cause that's how everything in my life physically at least had worked out up until that moment.
Yeah. So they sent me home with antibiotics and I very quickly became the most
(17:44):
depressed I've ever been in my entire life.
I can easily say I've never experienced maybe even depression until that point.
I've been down, you know, you all get down, but I grew up with a mom that severe
depression and it was, it was nothing like I've ever experienced.
(18:05):
And I remember just sitting in the bathtub and wondering and being scared by
this thought of maybe, maybe it would be better if I wasn't here, you know?
And it was just also like kind of observing myself from up above,
like, who is this person? I don't know her.
(18:26):
And that was really hard.
And fortunately, I was able to, I remember like my, this wisdom was like,
go read the box on the antibiotic.
And it has a black box warning for depression and suicide.
Yeah. Wow. And I had been pumped with that in the hospital for six days,
(18:52):
intravenously, and then sent home with it in a medication form.
And called the doctor and he's like, oh, get off of it immediately.
And so I did. And I came out of it.
I came out of it. And I came out of it pretty quickly, surprisingly. But then...
I think I went right back to that light addict at that point,
(19:15):
you know, and I will say that was like a brutal journey that moment because
it was the hardest physical thing that had ever happened to me in my life up until that point,
you know, I'm like doing marathons or half marathons and, you know,
running Ragnar races and teaching yoga and doing headstands and like living a very vivacious life.
(19:37):
And that was like, oh, okay, that's, you know, whoa, that hit me.
And maybe, you know, maybe that was just a one-off kind of a thing.
But, you know, it, I can't really, it's hard for me to tell that story without
telling the other story that is the long COVID venture that I've been on for
the last four and a half years.
(19:57):
And basically, you know, I don't know why I got COVID as bad as I did,
but, you know, maybe it's because I had sepsis and what I've been told by doctors
is it can take between two and five years for your body to regulate and come
back to normal, you know, for your immune system to be, yeah,
to be having the gusto that it needs to fight off things.
(20:18):
And maybe it hit me harder, but I've also seen people who are super healthy
their whole lives get COVID and it just knock them down.
And it's a, it's a virus us that when you get it, it's like you roll a dice.
And some people... Yeah, I said it's like when you get it, it's like you roll a dice.
You roll a number. That's it. Yep.
And it's either you get a one and it's super gentle or you get a higher number
(20:42):
and it's difficult or you lose your life.
And I was fortunate to not roll the highest number, but I definitely rolled
somewhere we're in middle or, you know, a little bit of our high med, but, um.
Yeah, I feel like that was part of my journey.
I've got sick and COVID brought on asthma.
It brought on a heart issue where I've had to be on heart medication now for
(21:07):
the last four and a half years and steroids for my lungs and just medications
to help regulate my nervous system.
And that's more like the homeopathic way, but it's been a journey.
And I think looking back on the journey, it started there. That was like the
time of me realizing that, you know, that I'm not untouchable.
(21:32):
And it's not like I walked around feeling that way entirely,
but I feel looking back on myself at that time,
like, yeah, I was teaching yoga and I was doing massage and,
you know, telling people like, you know, teaching these bits of wisdom of slowing
(21:52):
down and being in your body.
And trusting your body and all the things.
But I don't think I was truly loving that because I had such a privileged place
that I was coming from. Yeah.
It's really easy to say those things when you're able-bodied. No doubt.
Yeah. It's really easy to say, you know, oh, slow down or take some deep breaths
(22:17):
or, you know, we all need to listen to our bodies.
And I'm not saying that able-bodied folks don't need to do that too.
They do. do we all do we all need that but
it's it's they're they're slowing down because
you know that you need to rest in your
head and oh or you're tired and then they're slowing
down because if you don't you're not going to be able to get out of bed for
(22:41):
the next couple of days that's right yeah and that was sort of the kickstart
of me going through this six and a a half year health journey that has been a,
massive wake-up call for myself to really embody those practices that I have
(23:01):
been learning and teaching my whole life.
But it's not out of like, oh, that's a great idea and that's what I should do.
It's like, no, I have to do it. I have to do it.
And I'm at a point now in my life, I said this in a women's circle a couple
months ago, that I can actually say, even though all of the stuff that I've
been through with the three COVID infections.
(23:24):
Before we scheduled this podcast, it was two.
And then I will say, fortunately, this last infection, I am bouncing back in
a way that I wasn't able to do.
And just that alone has given me a sense of security in a way,
not that I can't get it again and it'd be rough on my system because we know
(23:45):
that with chronic illness, things are unpredictable.
But you know the last completely the
last infection that I had was in 22 August of 22 and
I had a brain bleed and yeah and
then a month later I lost my dog of a brain bleed my five-year-old lab and just
a lot of like a lot of stuff all compacted into like six and a half years a
(24:09):
lot of pain physically mentally emotionally a lot of dipping back in and out of depression and.
Feeling like maybe everyone around me would be better off if I weren't here
or if I moved far away into some little house in the woods and took my dog and
just was there because I have to keep asking people to mask.
(24:32):
I have to keep asking people to, you know, stay away from me if they're getting
the sniffles or whatever, you know, I'm asking for these accommodations.
And I felt a sense of like guilt because I was doing that and asking people
to alter their lives because of my illness when it didn't affect them in that way.
So it was a journey and
(24:54):
like I said I'm feeling finally like I'm
at a place now where I'm like okay it's all clicking it's all clicking and while
I you know don't wish anybody to have to go through hard things like that I
feel that there are so many gifts that I am still continuing to
(25:15):
receive from those experiences. Hmm.
Absolutely. Brutiful. Thank you for taking us through that story that exactly
encapsulates what the whole podcast theme is about with just like eloquence
and grace and vulnerability and just being really present with yourself in each part of the story.
(25:37):
I felt you in each, you know, go to each place.
And I just want to thank you so much for being willing to share that with us.
Thank you. Thank you.
(26:16):
With is just so beautiful. Like that spiritual bypassing piece that can be so
hard to illustrate what it actually means.
I think you did it just effortlessly without needing to really,
you know, go too deep into what that can be when it's at its most toxic.
But I just wanted to say the thing that came up for me when you were talking
about that is that it seems like when you needed it most.
(26:38):
That tendency and that drive that you
had towards focusing on the light in your
able-bodied experience of being a yoga practitioner and
teacher that might have been one of the things that kept
you alive when there was those moments where
people were saying hey you know we almost lost you
right that's what the words that came up for me were the stubborn optimist that
(27:02):
you were just so stubbornly hitched to the wagon of i will see the end of this
in order to disassociate at a healthy level and how important that particular tool can be.
We oftentimes as a culture obviously see a huge overemphasis on disassociation
(27:23):
to its detriment, right?
But sometimes we literally cannot survive what our body is physically going through.
For example, being in septic shock on an airplane and having to have a stranger
come and physically pick us up, right?
Your body was disassociating and you were focused on the light in order to not
leave this corporeal form that's so powerful and i wonder if you would speak
(27:46):
a little bit about that sort of like.
Straddling that line between learning that it's so important to not over emphasize
the focus on the light and the positivity while also not remember forgetting to use it as a vehicle.
Absolutely. That just gives me chills you saying that. Yeah.
I mean, it's a beautiful thing. The light is a beautiful thing.
(28:11):
And I think you're completely right that I had that part of me that was there keeping me going.
And you're so correct that what sums up for me is when your body dissociates
during really difficult situations like that, it's doing its job.
That's right. Yeah. And I always say this to myself, I say, my body loves me.
(28:34):
And I have spent years, it's funny that that's, what did you call it?
Stubborn optimism? Yes.
Yeah. So I lost that. I lost that stubborn optimism somewhere in between 2021 and 2023.
(28:55):
I lost it completely. It was gone, gone, gone, gone. Yeah, yeah.
And so I know what it feels like to kind of be in that place of stubborn optimism
where that light's like, yeah, but this is where we radiate. You know what I mean?
And to me, that light, it's the calling back.
It's like, there is beauty in the shadow.
(29:17):
We have to go to the shadow. That is where we find all of that juicy depth, right?
But there is beauty in that light calling you back.
And it's like the yin and the yang that balance of
having them both and I think my deficit if I
look at it that way not that maybe it was but
before when I didn't know what I knew I needed to know I guess to get me where
(29:43):
I'm at now is it was I hadn't experienced I had experienced hard stuff you know
like I grew up in a not the ideal situation and it was in a marriage and not
the the ideal situation and,
you know, multiple things, but within myself,
at least I needed to experience that heaviness, I guess, in some ways to,
(30:04):
to really be able to appreciate the light truly as well. And I hope that makes sense. Absolutely.
Yeah. So I guess it's like.
Now, again, the emphasis isn't so much on always going to the light or,
like you said, the spiritual bypassing or even sometimes I'll see in therapeutic modalities.
(30:28):
It's positive psychology, but it's like we have to feel the shit and the hard
stuff before we can get to the light. We have to.
There's no other way around it. There's no other way.
So you can sit there and you can ask a client
to say you know if they're if they if they don't love themselves
you can have them do mirror work and tell themselves i
(30:49):
love you every day in the mirror but if they're not like getting down to
those depths and that dark and feeling that first of what it feels like to not
love yourself and really wrap your brain around that then they're not going
to be able to see that like lighter part so i guess what i'm getting at is i
think I think there's so much beauty in being able to journey there and knowing that once you go there,
(31:09):
you don't have to stay there and that there's that other part where you get to go towards the light.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. The light has to be able to penetrate through
into in order for us to even see those parts of ourselves anyway.
I love that. another question for you
is was this journey that
you went through the catalyst exclusively for
(31:32):
wanting to do a deeper dive into education to expand your offerings into psychotherapy
or was that always a seed that you wanted to follow that you had planted before
this yeah so i had all i I had thought about being a counselor for years before this.
I... Excuse me. I didn't think that I could be a counselor though, because when I...
(31:58):
Had done therapy in the past myself i was met
by someone usually with a clipboard and i would talk to them and they would
kind of nod there was never any real connection engagement yeah engagement yes
it's just i i just felt like i was talking at someone and they were taking notes
and occasionally nodding and maybe saying a little bit here and there but not much at all.
(32:22):
So I and I when I would talk to
clients whether they were massage clients or
yoga students it would be if I
would sit there and someone was telling me about their heart I would tear up
with them so I thought to myself I can never be a therapist because someone
tells me about their pain I am going to probably tear up a little bit and that
(32:45):
I'm gonna break I'm gonna break the wall all. And you can't do that.
I don't think as a therapist, at least in my experience. So it wasn't until
going and actually having a really wonderful therapist that like cheered up
when I started talking to her, I was like, Oh, whoa, whoa. Like, what are you doing?
And then, and then I told her about my wanting to be a therapist,
(33:08):
but my fear and she's like, Oh no, like this is actually good.
And it's, she's right. It is good.
And I feel like even since the pandemic, the practice of therapy is changing
completely from even what I learned at school,
like what you should and shouldn't do as far as being a human in a counseling
(33:29):
session, because at the end of the day, we're all just humans first.
Messy and imperfect and wonderful.
I have it tattooed on my wrist, human first, period.
That's right. Because that's what we are, right? And at the end of the day,
it's to me at least in session i
would so much more connect with someone who can see me and
(33:52):
if they get a little tears in their eyes great that's fine because that shows
me that they're seeing me versus someone who's got their clipboard and i have
no idea what's going on i love that description that's perfect that's absolutely
perfect all right well so let's talk Talk about the practical.
So let's go back a little bit to that moment when the all semblance of the stubborn optimist in you,
(34:17):
the light addict was gone and you were in the darkest depths of depression and
being faced with your now very different body and your now very different set
of capacity and your whole entire life has been uprooted.
And it's another day and you are having Having those thoughts of maybe it would
(34:38):
just be easier if I wasn't here, taking up space.
Yeah. What was it, if there was just one practice or a handful of them,
that you reach for when nothing else seems to work? Yeah.
Yeah. So there's two. The, the first one is my journal and it has been,
it has been my sounding board for my entire life.
(35:02):
I have been writing actively in a journal since I was about 10 years old.
Same. I am a big journaler. I'm glad to hear this.
It is my, like when I feel off and I'm like,
I can't put my finger on it, like before talking
to someone i need to go sit with my journal that's
right because usually i figure it out there and then
(35:23):
i'm ready to talk about it right but that's that
is the sorting hat that's right preach i love this yep right for my brain to
get it all out and be like oh okay that's why or oh that's there too that makes
sense or you know whatever oh i didn't know i I felt that strongly about that still. Interesting.
(35:47):
And I just, yeah, it's like, okay, you've got a voice. And I don't solicit. I just write.
So my writing has been my tool. And it has gotten me through so much.
It took a month off in between, like in August of 22, I had the brain bleed.
And then I had a seizure actually in front of one of my clients,
(36:07):
like a couple that I was sitting with. Yeah.
And that was in person. That wasn't virtual. It was in person.
And so I had to go through all of that, but then decided I need a month off.
So I had not taken a month off ever at that point in my life before.
I took a month off one time to travel and that's it. Out of my whole life since
(36:28):
I was working at the age of 15, I had never taken a month off. Wow.
And so I did that and I just spent every single day writing.
And that was also after losing my dog, like I said.
And that was like, all pushed me over the edge. It's too much,
too soon, too fast, too curious.
And it was, I would sit on the porch with my cup of tea and it was,
(36:53):
you know, Portland, cold, rainy.
But I would just sit there every single day, no matter what and write.
And to this
day that practice is so important to me but there
was that and then the other one is so simple but it is so and it's like something
that I do every day most of the times a day and that I recommend to everybody
(37:16):
is I just I place my right hand on my heart center and my left hand on my other hand,
and I just hold myself and I breathe.
And I tell myself that you are safe and you are held and you are also loved.
And that's what I tell myself.
It gets me true, right? Being a human is hard in any way.
(37:42):
And even the most privileged of privileged humans.
We all have feelings and emotions and bodies. It's hard, but we know that the
span of people hurting is big and that there's so much going on.
It's all a lot in our world.
And so, you know, whether it's physical pain or it's emotional or mental pain
(38:05):
or just me being a human in a day that feels neutral, I still do that.
I love that so much. Two beautiful practices. And I love that there are touchstones
that have continued regardless of whether you found yourself in what you would
quote unquote label a good day or a neutral day or a challenging day.
That's so the consistency of some simple daily rituals. There's something really powerful in that.
(38:29):
Well, will you do us a favor and lead us in a little demonstration of that second
practice so that we can ground it together?
Fabulous. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, let's just get comfortable
wherever we're sitting or standing.
Taking a nice deep breath in through your nose, letting your ribs and intestines expand.
(38:50):
And then just breathe out a nice deep, heavy sigh, letting all of the air move your body.
Let's do one more for good measure. Full, deep breath in. Let your body expand.
And then heavy sigh out. Patient needs at your heart.
Good. And just letting the hands rest at the heart. And you might even just
(39:11):
let your chin drop slightly towards the chest, allowing the ice to close or
just lower if that feels good.
Taking a moment to just breathe into your precious vessel that is your body.
Taking a moment to just let your whole system feel whatever there is to feel.
(39:33):
Everything is welcome.
Noticing what it is like to have your hands, your own hands there,
supporting your heart center, that area of love, of connection,
not just to the world and other people, but to yourself as well.
You are safe you are held and you are oh so loved you are safe you are held and you are oh so loved,
(40:03):
and if you would like you can say that to yourself
i am safe i am
held and i am oh so loved
just noticing what that
feels like to allow those words to infuse into your system just being with yourself
(40:23):
and let's just take one more big breath together breathing on breathing out
heavy sigh relax the arms.
And that's it oh so
beautiful thank you i feel like more
deeply rooted even more than i was just from the
(40:46):
experience of dropping in with you the moment
that i placed my hands on my heart i could feel this reminder to
let myself fully receive the
the tether from my body to the
earth and my goodness I do love being
you know guided through breath and affirmation
it is both powerful to do on my
(41:07):
own and with people and so thank you
so much for sharing with us that lifeline practice
with us it means a lot completely yeah yeah my pleasure all right so a couple
more things before we wrap up here so one is a fun question and it may be very
deep and meaningful as well but But to throw out there another suggestion,
(41:30):
if you have one off the top of your head of a piece of media,
a cultural piece of art that was also a lifeline during those dark moments of
your journey, whether it be a poem or a book, a movie, a song.
It could be something that you created originally. It could be something that
is known or unknown, ancient, modern. Yeah.
(41:53):
Yes, yes, yes. I'm so glad you asked this. So there was a song that got me through
and continues to get me through.
And it's something that if I go on my phone and see how many times I've sent
this out to people, clients and friends and whatever, it's probably a gazillion.
But it is the song, I believe it's called You Can Trust Your Healing by Trevor
(42:18):
Hall. Ooh, I love Trevor Hall.
I don't know if I know that one off the top of my head, but i love his voice it's
so resonant beautiful yeah it's literally
the song that i was listening to in the
bathtub back in 2018 when like
i said i was seeing myself like outside of myself and
realizing that something wasn't right and that's
(42:40):
when i went and got the box and realized there was the black box warning like
oh it called you in oh my
goodness yes okay yeah it was on a
spotify buy like playlists that i i hadn't saved
but it says you can trust your healing darkness has
its teaching love is never leaving it's so
powerful i'm covered in chills i love it so much that's beautiful perfect he's
(43:03):
wonderful he is wonderful his voice has definitely got that that calling you
back to yourself kind of a resonant quality to it my goodness oh yeah all right
so how do we We find you in real life.
I know a few things, so I will throw them out there to the great people that
decide that they might want to reach out to you and work with you.
(43:25):
You can find Amanda on Instagram at DeepSoulDives, and you can find her at SoulShineCounselingWellness.com.
I know she offers all kinds of fun things, both online and in real time.
And she is licensed in both Oregon and Washington.
So she can meet you online if you happen to live in those two states.
(43:48):
And if you have anything else you
want to share about how you might want people to find you in the world.
Yeah. Well, you pretty much got it, you know, in...
If you are looking for someone to work with psychotherapy, I do have a waiting
list right now, but it is something that comes and goes in your availability.
That does not surprise me at all.
(44:09):
Scheduling. But I'm also working, thank you, I'm also working on a couple of
different online offerings that I'm going to be sharing in the next upcoming
year, but possibly a little bit towards the end of this year as well.
And then I am going to be doing coaching type working.
So working a little outside of the box of folks that maybe are not in Oregon
(44:29):
or Washington, really with the idea of self-devotion and self-love.
So that kind of works. I'm excited to offer that as well.
So if you feel called or interested, definitely shoot me a text or all the information's
on the website and or connect with me on social media.
That's probably the best way
is through Instagram, but I would love to connect with more people. Cool.
(44:52):
Fabulous. And you had some sort of fabulous sounding anger workshop coming up.
Was it alchemizing your anger or something? Is that true? Yeah.
Completely. Anger alchemy. Yeah. I had a lovely turnout, but it's something
that I'm going to be offering online as well, just for people that are not in Washington.
And it is a workshop for, I did hold the workshop for women alone,
(45:15):
but I think I want to do it just for humans in general, because I think we can
all learn from each other as well in that space.
But it's a place to create a relationship, a healthy relationship with anger
versus feeling afraid of it or not knowing what to do with it.
And so that's something that I'm really passionate about.
Such important work. Thank you so much for doing
(45:37):
everything that you've done and for literally being the
embodiment of alchemizing your pain and
suffering into the spun gold of having
done all that shadow work and being so generous and doing
it with such grace to share it with the world what you have uh plunged from
the deep so that we can learn and grow alongside with your journey thank you.
Music.
(45:58):
So much amanda it's been a pleasure i love you thank you i love you my dear
thank you so much for sharing this space with me my pleasure i hope you have a.
Music.
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