December 22, 2022 • 57 mins
Are you able to identify exactly how you are feeling? Having awareness of your feelings is a very important part of managing and/or healing from something going on in your life. Amy’s cousin Amanda Rieger Green (@SoulPathology) is on to talk about feelings, emotions, & more!!
“The Triple A” (as Amy & Amanda decided to call the process last minute during this chat) is a way to understand and process what you’re feeling:
AWARENESS
ARTICULATION
ACTION
Listen to hear how Amanda recently went through being AWARE that she was feeling sad, how she was able to ARTICULATE that to herself + others, and then how she took ACTION.
Feelings are hard, so here is a link to the ‘Feelings Wheel’ that Amanda uses: https://feelingswheel.com
Other things you’ll hear them talk about in this episode:
- Tupac (his song ‘Changes’ is everything!)
- Emotions are not logical
- Amanda’s obsession with peppermint bark
- Why Amy can’t resist something like jalapeño, pimento cheese, & honey popcorn
- Healing is a journey
- Creating space for yourself & others
- The salty & the sweet of life
- 4 things gratitude
- & more!
AMANDA’S BIO:
Amanda is a passionate advocate, teacher and thought leader on the crucial intersections of spirituality, human potential, public health and inspiring personal and collective evolution.
She is a world-renowned teacher and consultant to organizations, leaders, officials, communities, institutions, and seekers looking to practice a more conscious way of leading and creating results.
Amanda empowers clients, reflecting their innate abilities to and through them at these intersections to create tangible, meaningful results on micro and macro scales. She uses her profound abilities as a precognitive combined with strategic, practical business acumen and academic expertise to understand the needs of individuals and varying populations to provide groundbreaking Soul-utions for their unique practical objectives and visionary aims.
WEBSITE: https://www.soulpathology.com
INSTAGRAM: @SoulPathology
Best places to find more about Amy: RadioAmy.com + @RadioAmy
Send emails for the '5th Thing' to 4ThingsWithAmyBrown@gmail.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Okay, cass up road, A little food for you. So life.
Oh that's pretty, it's pretty beautiful. Thank you. Laugh a
little month you're kicking with four Happy Thursday, four things.
(00:34):
Vam Amy here and we are like three days away
from Christmas. Sometimes I do best of during the holidays.
But I got a brand new episode for you all
right now. I'm sitting here with my cousin Amanda, and
she came in town this weekends. It's the weekend before
you're hearing this, and she's here for a little respite
(00:54):
or some R and R. And we'll get into more
of why that is and what is going on with her,
but it just it got us into a conversation this morning.
We were having coffee and I thought, oh, you know,
this could be helpful. We knew we wanted to record
something while she was here, not that we have to
write Amanda No, Hi everyone, Amanda Eager Green. Welcome, Welcome,
(01:16):
thank you. I want to always leave space for a
recording with you if we've got it, because people like
having you on the podcast. But if we didn't get
to this, it wouldn't have mattered because then that wasn't
in store for us because we had a lot of
other things we needed to concentrate on, which is really
you just getting downtime and yeah, some R and R
(01:38):
well and the last time we well, not the last
time we were together, but another time we really talked
about how so much of what we love to do
is be intentional with our time, but we also are
good at being flexible together with our time and spontaneous.
So we've done a lot of things and if things
come together and work out, they do and they're supposed to.
(01:58):
So I love the ability just to go with the flow,
and especially during the holidays. It's hard sometimes to go
with the flow during the holidays with everything we have
on our plates. So having this respite has been genius.
I mean, I'm glad you're able to make it because
what you'll here in this episode depending on you know,
I'm gonna let Amanda take it where she wants to go.
(02:21):
But you know, when it comes to feeling things, we
both realize that we, well and probably a lot of
you listening, have the ability to completely numb out, especially
when things get particularly difficult. And Amanda's mom, who I
affectionately call Aunt Lisa, who's not really my aunt, and
Amanda's not really my cousin. It's just my mom was
(02:42):
best friends with her mom and they met in the seventies,
so before we were even born. And then Amanda and
I grew up together, and then you know, kind of
went early adulthood our our own separate ways, doing our thing.
But we always had a connection, and we our moms
were always so close. We knew that we would be close.
It was just sort of we took that for granted.
Our moms are close, we're close. If you need me,
(03:02):
call me. And then the last couple of years, it's
really been way more than that, and I'm thankful for
that connection, and you know, rekindling this and tapping into
what I think our mom's always knew we would have
and what we had when we were younger. But anyway,
Aunt Lisa has cancer and its terminal and we're in
(03:25):
the final stages and she's entered hospice. And I've gone
back to Austin a few times this year to come
see y'all and be there. But when I saw y'all
over Thanksgiving and I could see even your mom was like, yes,
she needs a break. Your mom's living with you and
you and your husband. You moved from Belize back to
Austin to be a caregiver and to have that time
(03:49):
with her. But it's a lot, and so thankfully she
was in a place where for the weekend she was
you know, everything was okay to where you were able
to still come because I got nervous down the wire,
like and I knew I had to be flexible, like
if Amanda can't make it, then that she may not
be able to leave. But I was so thankful that
you were able to come and get this much needed
(04:10):
break and space. UM space has been a big thing
that has been so hard to create for myself this year,
and my self care routines and for the past decade,
self care and my health and well being, my spiritual
and personal development and journey. It is priority in my life,
my connection with God and my faith. And I feel
(04:33):
like this year some of that has fallen on the
back burner because my mom has been unwell. And this
is a very critical and crucial time. It's a general
and delicate time. It's also a sad time, it's an
angry time. It's um it's uncharted territory, and my dad
passed away when I was eighteen, and I am an
(04:55):
only child with my mom and dad. I have four
half siblings who are so involved old and have shown
up in ways that have opened my heart and our
relationships in ways that I feel expanded and taken care
of and nurtured as a human being. But sometimes I
have a hard time in all of this not being
(05:16):
logical and not sinking, Okay, what is on my to
do list? What do I have to do today? What
do I need to get done? Work, my mom, hospice appointments,
the dogs, my husband, and then my self care sometimes
really falls to the back burner. But even some of
my spiritual practices that come so innately have even fallen
(05:37):
down to a lower point on my priority list, and
that that's been unnatural for me in my spiritual and
personal journey, and I've had to really hit the reset button,
and that's been hard. You and I've talked about that
a lot, and you remind me all the time, and
a lot of people do. And I want to give
a shout out. Something I'm grateful for and thankful for
(06:00):
is the carrying people in my life and clients who
I am close to who say you got a lot
on your plate? And I sometimes blow that off and
I say, yeah, I know everybody has a lot on
their plate this year and in life, but I do
have a lot on my plate, and sometimes it's hard
for me to to know that, to hear that, to
really recognize it or feel it. I'm having a hard
(06:21):
time feeling that I have a lot on my've plate
well and feeling the different emotions, which is what we
both felt, like, Oh, this is something we could talk
about that might be helpful. Is identifying what you're feeling
when things are really hard and you do start to
maybe none out or distract yourself or detach completely. And
(06:44):
you know you mentioned unchartered territory. I think the difference
in losing your dad and losing your mom is that
your dad was very sudden and you were a lot younger.
Its still extremely painful, but having a parent, you know
that when you're older and you're the caregiver and you're
watching it happen. I even when I lost my mom
(07:05):
and it was such a painful process of being by
her side and her being in hospice and being a caregiver,
I had that thought. And I don't know if this
is a normal thought. Makes me feel. I don't know,
but I thought, uh, this is so painful that I
don't know if I would have much other just gotten
a phone call that she just died in a car
wreck or something. And I'm sensitive the fact that somebody
else listening right now might have had that experience with
(07:28):
someone in their life and they might be like, no, uh, nope,
just as painful. So I'm not. But it's just I'm
being honest and thoughts that I had because it was
so much. But really, at the end of the day,
we don't want to lose anybody that we love. But
if we're in the process of a hard season, whether
it's grieving the loss of a relationship, something else in
(07:49):
life has fallen apart and broken. You know, there's a
multitude of things different family dynamics, divorce, death like things
that cause us immense Hayne. But if we can't really
identify what we're feeling and really take action, which is
what we're going to talk through, is kind of identifying it,
(08:10):
being aware of it and the things we're feeling, and
then articulating it, which is something Aman and I we
were on our couch, my couch, our couch, because that's
where we've been hanging all weekend. It's it's our couch
for the weekend, and and your dog Cara and my
dog Carra and my cat Maggie. And then are our
trip to see Carry the Nashville Beauty Girl on Instagram.
That was like our our outing, and we've gone on hikes.
(08:32):
We've been very intentional about Okay, what's going to make
you feel good? And those are things you wanted to do.
But anyway, we were talking about articulating and being able
to share it with people that you feel safe, and
then it went on this whole thing of like, gosh,
some people don't even have safe people to talk to,
or they may not even have a therapist, and so
this conversation is just for if you're having trouble identifying
(08:54):
your feelings or acknowledging them, and then you know where
to go from there once you have the awareness that
maybe you're sad, like Amanda, you had this light bulb
golf like, oh I'm sad, and we'll let you take
it from there. But before we get into that, I
do you want to talk about that? I literally saw
peppermint bark make you happy. Yesterday we went to do
(09:15):
cryotherapy at restore where I go, and they had out
a bunch of cookies and peppermint bark and Amanda how
to nowhere bust out a ziploc bag from her purse
and starts putting peppermint bark because she didn't want to
eat it there in the moment. But she's like, I
think I'm gonna want some of this later, Wasn't she
full disclosure? The manager was standing right there that she
(09:38):
was adorable, and I said to her, I said, this
makes me so happy. I happen to have a ziplock.
It had some of my vitamins in it, so I
have vitamins. And I said, may I'm gonna I didn't
even say may I put this in here? But it
was like, how was the person taking the treats and
putting them in my bag for later? It was just
two pieces, but like she's laughing, so you know, and
(10:00):
it's like, but I'm just doing it. And that's that's
how I've been these days. It's almost like my manners,
which my mom is a big manners person by the way,
to so shout out to my mom. It's oh my gosh,
Like I as a child was scared. I could never
live up to so the way, you know, being just
respectful and thoughtful. It's like this season of my life
sometimes my filter and my manners. It's like I I
(10:23):
just grabbed the peppermint bark like I was Stevenson. You know,
I am like Amy's eight year old, and I'm like,
I should have peppermint bark, so twelve twel he's twelve.
I'm like wise as I can say he's eight, but
he's twelve, and he he looks safe, he looks safe
all the things. But no, that the little things that
(10:43):
bring me joy. And I've I've shared this with people,
and I don't know if Amy and I have talked
about this, but since we moved back from Belize, I
love to go to the grocery store by myself. It
gives me my time and I can spend the time
I need wondering around or being as you know, fast
and productive as I need to be. But I get flowers.
(11:04):
I get fresh flowers at the grocery store and it
makes me feel beautiful. I'm a Libra. I love beauty,
but looking at beauty, simple beauty in life. And to me,
that peppermint bark, it brought me happiness and joy. But
it also made me feel human, It made me feel childlike,
it made me feel playful, and it put you know,
(11:25):
a hitch in my Gideon like, this is the most
beautiful bark I've ever seen. So I try to bite
just because I was like, well, if Amanta is doing
and awing over this, I better try some. And I
took a bite and it was not for me. I
was like, okay, wow, Well there was some other kind
of powdered cookie that was in her was for her,
and I was like, oh yeah, that's probably not for me.
(11:45):
So like a wedding, they're called like little wedding cookies.
I'm into that. But I do like peppermint, white chocolate
chocolate situations, but it has to be covering a pretzel,
like that Snack factory brand the pretzel chips they make
come holiday time, or maybe they sell them you're round.
I don't know. I saw one of my friends posting
(12:06):
about how she there's a white chocolate version and a
white cream version, and the white cream version is king.
She's like, this is the best one. She put on
her Instagram. She said, if you see these out, will
you buy them for me? I will pay you double
for them, and I was like, WHOA, I might need
to go find the white cream because I think I've
only had the white chocolate. But anyway, finding things like
(12:27):
that that bring you little joy, and I love like
you talked about, you know, buying yourself flowers and how
we can do that sort of thing for ourselves. Or
I was telling you about how I bought. I was
in the checkoutline and something that stood out to me
that made me happy that I thought it was going
to bring me joy was this gourmet popcorn. I don't
even want to know how much it paid for it,
(12:47):
because I probably want to block that out because I mean,
it's just popcorn. But it was jalapeno and pimiento cheese
gourmet popcorn, and I don't know why that just stood
out to me as being this amazing thing. And of course,
oh you know what, I forgot an ingredient honey, and
we hold on the question everybody wants to know is
how did it taste? Well? Yes, so on the edge
(13:11):
of my seat. Jalapeno and pimenta cheese and honey popcorn.
I know, but you know, I'm Cliff's daughter, like this
Pimina cheese with something sweet. Is our salty sweet kind
of like the peppermint with the mark with the pretzel.
I love a salty sweet situation. So this honey mixed
in with this pimenta cheese and jalapeno. It was pretty delightful,
(13:32):
but probably not worth whatever I paid well. And as
a side note, our fathers were also really good friends
and one of the things that they loved is cooking together.
They were both incredible cooks and your dad, of course,
was a chef, but my dad was great at concocting
mixtures and and throwing things in and they love to
do that together. So okay, yeah, you are a Cliff Moffitt,
(13:55):
so I'm gonna try weird concoctions. But it did bring
me joy and it is worth it again, please, I
hope I didn't spend like eight dollars on this tiny
bag of popcorn, but I probably did, but it brought
me joy in that moment. So what are those little
things you can, you know, bring into your life that
will give you a little spark, give you happiness, Things
(14:17):
that maybe you get childlike about or get curious about,
like I was very curious. I have to know what
that tastes like I need to try that. And then
I took it over to a friend's house and I
was able to share it with others and they were like, oh,
that looks disgusting, and I said, no, no, please try it.
So it was to me sort of, you know, a
gift that kept on giving. But joy is something we
(14:37):
are able to feel if we allow ourselves to go there.
But sometimes we're so numb to everything that's going on.
I'm like, I don't even know how to feel happiness
right now, or I don't even know how to know
if I'm happy, or I don't know if I'm sad
right now. I don't really know what I'm feeling. And
this time of year, I think there can be a
lot of feelings. And we talk about how two feelings
(15:00):
are very very opposite, or two emotions that seem like
they can't go together at the same time, kind of
like camino cheese and honey. They can go together at
the same time. You can feel joy during the holiday
season and you can feel immense sadness, So those two
things can be true at the same time. But what
Amanda realized the other day, and Amanda, you can take
(15:21):
it from here, But is that you were feeling sad
and you had to sit with that for a minute. Yes,
and it was it was simple, yet it was profound.
(15:44):
One of the things I want to go back to
is the journey through grief and active bereavement someone dying
and it being a process versus it being acute. And
I want to just give a nod to that, because
there there was a difference. Yes, I was eighteen years old.
It happened in a matter of an hour that I
(16:04):
lost my father very tragically in front of me, and
I wasn't ready for that. Um, I mean, who's ready?
Who is ready for that? But also how the unfolding
of processing that grief. I didn't begin to process that
grief until I was about thirty two years old. And ironically,
and I think we've talked about this before I actually
ended up. I have a Master of Public Health and
(16:27):
worked in hospice for years and had great examples of
healthy processing of grief and holding space, and I still
hadn't been able to understand and process grief. So my
journey through that, the last handful of years of processing
his death and other grief and traumas has been very profound.
(16:47):
But this journey with my mom, she's been sick about
five and a half years, yet she has been so
faithful and joyful, and she, like her very best friend Judy,
has chosen joy. They were both winm in of joy
and faith and saying there's hope on the horizon. Even
though this situation is is tough and it's it's sad
(17:08):
and it's heartbreaking, we're still gonna We're gonna thrive as
best we can. And my mom has been a phenomenal
example and a miracle to her physicians, to our family,
loved ones, friends, and a big thank you to all
the people that have walked us through this journey. This
part of the journey has been the most difficult because
(17:29):
she's been on hospice and she's been declining, like with
these stair steps of decline, and now we're getting into
more of an acute phase that we knew would happened,
but you don't know when or how it's going to
begin to happen. And it's happening, and as it's happening,
I'm still behaving as if it's three years ago and
she's doing her cancer treatments and not having a lot
(17:51):
of pain, and having a great day and able to
go to the grocery store and driving. I mean, she
hasn't driven in a year and a half, but I'm
still behaving. She can still drive. Or we had Thanksgiving
and she wants she baked a pie and she made
cornbread dressing. She wants to do those things. She loves
to entertain. But it was so hard because she's on
(18:13):
a lot of pain meds and she's absent minded, and
she's tired, and her body gives out, and we're trying
to work together in the kitchen and the way we
normally work together in the kitchen didn't work out. And
we weren't upset at each other, but we didn't cook
the turkey all the way. And my husband's like, y'all
didn't finish cooking the turkey. He cut into it and
even though we had done the temperature, it was not cooked.
(18:37):
It was it was kind of bloody. So there, but
there are little things like that that I'm beginning to notice, Oh,
she can't do these things anymore, but I still act
as if we're in year three, And that's what's been challenging.
And this leads up to so after Thanksgiving, which in
a way of to me, is this denial of early
(18:58):
are and then you've been detaching from it because you know,
like you're it's become you're becoming aware. So it's like, oh, okay,
I don't I'm not ready to process this, so I'm
just gonna act like it's not really happening. And then
I'm gonna well when I start to feel things, because
I don't really want to take the time to work
through it, I'm gonna numb it absolutely so after Thanksgiving
(19:20):
and recognizing that she couldn't do all those things and
that for Christmas we have a different game plan. It's
pajamas and ordering in uh you know, or cooking something
different and more simple that's delightful, and being relaxed and comfortable,
like it's being comfortable and casual, spending that quality time
(19:41):
in a way that feels nurturing, that feels present. And
I don't feel like Thanksgiving felt that way, but it
was a realization. So I go, I think the following week,
to go get a manicure. And the woman who does
my manicure, she asked about my mom because I brought
my mom for manicures and pedicure, and she said how's
your mom doing, which our mom's both loved manicures and pedicures.
(20:04):
And then real quick, I wanna say we can sit
see if we're on the same wavelength. We're not. We're
going to say, how does your mom want to die?
We'll say it on the count of three. Let's say
it as if we're her and we're saying, I want
to Okay, three to one, I want to die pretty.
Her mom wants to die pretty. And I'm very clear.
She says, listen, I just need to die pretty. She's
(20:26):
a Leo for all you leo's out there, you all know,
and I'm a Libra, so like shout out to anybody.
But but she said I just need to die pretty.
So so yes, manicures and pedicures in the late stages
of life, my mom was having them as well. Lipstick
on as long as my mom has her lipstick, which
she wants to be buried with by the way, she's
being cremated. But there's a tube of lipstick that goes
(20:47):
in with her ashes when we um in turn her.
There's a place where my dad is. His ashes are
in our church in Baton Rouge, and that's where we
will eventually put her. There's a slot for her next
to him. But the lipstick, the tube of lipstick goes
in with that. And I've known that since she had
breast cancer when I was sixteen. So this is and
she said, she will come back and haunt me if
(21:09):
this is not taken care of. She can be pretty
with her ashes. Okay, so you're getting a pedicure. So
I'm getting a manicure and a pedicure. And the woman
asked about my mom and how she's feeling, and I said,
you know, we're at a point where it's even hard
for her to get out to get a pedicure or
a manicure. She just doesn't have the stamina or feel
(21:31):
up to it. And you know, for her, she loves
to feel pretty. This is a treat. And for her
to say I just don't feel like going with you.
You go today, will go another day, That's when I
know something significantly is changing or has changed. And she's
said wow, she says, well, tell her I'm thinking about her,
and then she very thoughtfully said, and how are you doing?
(21:55):
And I sat there for a moment, and I think
because I was in that kind of cathartic relaxed, comfortable
space of some self care and feeling pretty and taking
care of things that that helped me to feel human
and that are important with my quality time for myself.
I just responded to her, I said, you know, I
(22:16):
think I'm sad, and I just sat there and she
just smiled at me and kept doing my nails. And
I didn't need a response, but I knew that it
would just be a space where I could say what
I was thinking and feeling. And that's where I've had
the disconnect is knowing, recognizing, having that awareness that I'm sad.
(22:37):
And that was a moment. It was a lightbulb moment
where all of a sudden I recognized, Oh my gosh,
I mean, yes, I'm I'm grieving actively, but I'm sad.
But I hadn't been a I hadn't at that moment
been able to feel the sadness. But the awareness of
(22:59):
it was a bowl yet it was profound, and to me,
it was my wisdom. It was my discernment, my truth
coming through in this really safe space. And I've and
I told Amy this, I've had I have so many
people who ask me how are you, and I I've
gotten I'm pretty good at being as honest as I can.
You know, I'm struggling today, or it's been a tough
(23:20):
couple of weeks, or I have a lot on my plate.
But I don't always say I'm feeling sad or I
think I'm sad, or I think I'm really angry or frustrated.
I haven't been communicating that because I'm having a hard
time feeling extreme emotions, whether it's excitement or sadness. I
(23:42):
was having a hard I'm having a hard time. I'm
but I'm working beginning to work through that. And the awareness,
to me is always the first piece. When the lightbulb
goes off, it's like, oh, it's sadness, you know. And
I was kind of sitting there after that I perked
up because it was like, oh, I know what's going
on with me. And that may sound so elementary, and
(24:06):
I hope some of you can relate, but to me
it was profound. It was like, Oh, it's self awareness.
I know myself today and I'm being honest, and this
woman just gave me the grace and the space to
feel and to to know who I am and where
I am and that it's okay. It was Okay, what
about for people that may not be able to like
(24:27):
in that moment, you were thinking sadness. Some people can't
even work through what emotion they're feeling because they're so many.
And then you were telling me about the feelings Wheel
and how it breaks down things underneath each thing, And
so what is the what's the website? It's feelings Will. Yes,
it's the feeling, it's the it's the I feel from Imger.
(24:52):
That's the It's Imger dot io. And that's where I
found the one that I resonate with. There's a ton
of them. If you google feelings Wheel, you'll find one
that resonates with you. But I found this really complex
feelings Will that's also very straightforward and simple, and it's
color coded and there's concentric circles. But with sadness, this
has helped me tremendously, and I recommend this to clients
(25:15):
when we're talking about emotional intelligence, and this is something
I talk about everyone all the time. I talk about
feelings and emotional intelligence because feelings and my emotional intelligence
has been this massive healing journey for me. But I
can also recognize that I just detached, disassociate and and
absolutely shoved down, numb out, put aside my feelings to
(25:37):
suit up, show up, and take care of whatever needs
to be done on my plate in the best way
I can. And that's not always healthy, but that's when
I know I'm in a mode where I'm needing to
slow down and really figure out what's going on so
I can be more true to myself. But this feelings
will is great because it's helped me put names to
(25:59):
emotion that I can't figure out. And as Amy mentioned,
we can feel things simultaneously that might be fear alongside
of hope. We can feel things that are illogical at
the same time. So that's what to me. Sometimes emotions.
I can feel sadness, but then at that same moment
that I was aware that I am sad, I also
(26:21):
felt transcendent. I felt excited. I said excited. So I'm
sad and excited. How illogical is that it is? But
guess what. Emotions aren't logical. They don't fit into a spreadsheet.
You know they're not in a spreadsheet. Emotions aren't logical,
and we're human, we're messy. It makes me just I
(26:42):
don't know. Somehow tie in the salty sweet pretzels. It's like,
you know, salt, it's the salty and the sweet can
happen at the same time. But I like the idea
of of googling a feelings real or feelings chart or
something like that, which again, some are more complex than others.
(27:02):
They're very basic ones, and you use the word elementary.
It might seem that way for some people because that's
honestly something I do with my kids, and I hold up,
you know, maybe ten emotions, point to which one or
which ones you think you're experiencing right now, and that
so you may need to take yourself back to something
that is like a little homework assignment for yourself and
(27:24):
bust out a chart and say, okay, okay, self, point
to whatever I think I'm feeling right now, and then
maybe there's a few, and then you sit with each thing,
maybe journal about each thing, or just go on a
walk and you know, think about each thing, meditate on it,
prey on it, and then that way you can start
(27:47):
to have awareness around what you're feeling absolutely and the
feelings will this one the one I have. It's so
cool because sadness happens to be. Sad happens to be
at the center of the wheel, and then it it
fans out from there with things like lonely, guilt, depression, despair,
and then it fans out further. There's more but victimize, fragile, grief, powerlessness, empty,
(28:12):
all of those things, not all of those, but I
just was naming a few empty, you know, Greek, obviously grief.
We all, you know, on a logical level, we know
that I'm experiencing grief. I've shared that it's normal. But
it all relates back to sadness. And it's funny that
sadness is at the center. So I identified what in
this chart looks like a core emotion. But that's a
(28:35):
really helpful tool in the awareness process. And and it's
the becoming aware where the lightbulb goes off. And I
think sometimes the awareness is coupled with a sense of
excitement or to me, sometimes that's how I experience my faith, God,
my higher power that comes through and I'm like, oh,
I'm connected to my soul, my higher self, my higher
(28:56):
self just communicated and it it's my wisdom, it's my truth,
it's my human self and my higher self, that part
of me that is connected to something larger and from
that awareness, then I can start to take some action
and the articulation, so articulating it to myself. The other
piece to the communication of when you have that lightbulb
(29:18):
moment or you are able to point to the feelings
on the wheel and sit with them for a few
minutes with yourself to see maybe where they're showing up
in your body, or how it really feels to feel
sad or angry or afraid or disgusted or joyful and exuberant.
Once you're able to sit with yourself and you're comfortable
(29:40):
in and maybe not comfortable, but well versed, better versed
in your own self awareness of your emotions, it's then
being able to share with other people other people in
a safe way. And I don't mean everyone and going
into the details, but for me, one of the biggest
parts of my spiritual person and healing journey is having
(30:02):
people in my life, whether it's a therapist, a spiritual
guide or advisor, or someone at church, a dear friend,
a family member who in my life feels safe for
me to share what's going on, where they can hold
space for me in a way that I can begin
to process and heal, start healing, start feeling. Does that resonate? Yes,
(30:28):
I like to that you say. It doesn't mean finding
a way to communicate it or articulate it. It doesn't
mean everywhere with every person, or maybe you feel led
to share it more publicly one day or whatever that
looks like. And Amana and I were talking through this
right now, because this is you know, sort of in
(30:49):
alignment with what we do and trying to share certain
things that are going on. Now. You don't get every
single detail of every single thing, but it's coming alongside others.
And you know, I feel like I'm sharing that right
now because I'm like, okay, you've got listeners right now
that we're sharing this with. And this is more we
don't necessarily mean on a public platform, but like who
(31:12):
are your your safe people where you can really get
real with them, or your safe person or you're like
you said, you're a guide of someone that you feel
close to, like a therapist or someone that you trust
in that way. But it doesn't mean just putting it
on blasts for the whole world to to hear about
or to digest. That's not the communication part. And it
(31:36):
may just even be yourself. Yes, you said you were
you articulated to yourself, and that can be pretty powerful
to do that well, and also in prayer and to God.
If you there are people you know. I will talk
to clients and I'll say things like, Okay, who is
your person that you're going to be able to share
this with or help you hold space? Or if it
(31:58):
has to do with some accountability on something, who can
who can you trust to hold you accountable? Who feels
okay for that? Healthy for that? Sometimes people will say
I don't know, and guess what that's a totally okay
answer to. Sometimes when I have something going on, I
may not know who the person to turn to is.
So for me it's I'll turn to God. You know,
(32:21):
I'll say, I'll start praying, I'll say okay, hey God,
I can't you can you know? Or Hey, I'm feeling
this and I don't know how to feel or I'm
experiencing this, can you can you help me process this?
And another thing with setting intentions. I'm big on intentions
and prayer and manifestation with your soul, your higher self
(32:41):
and God, your higher power, whatever that looks like for you.
But also setting the intention hey soul, hey God, hey
higher Self I'm not sure who or how to share
this with or what the healing journey looks like. Help
me show me thank you, Help me show me thank you,
and then and like and then breathe. Just take a
(33:01):
few cleansing breaths. The breath is is one of the
most powerful tools we have, and it's ours. It's ours,
It's the first thing we came in with. So the
breath is something that we forget, we can go back to.
And we're shallow breathers, you know, we breathe from the
upper respiratory system, the clavical area up. But taking a
breath from you know, the base of your belly, your diaphragm,
(33:29):
two or three rounds of breath. I mean, it really
only takes twelve to sixteen seconds to process an emotion.
Doesn't mean you're not going to feel it again and
it's not going to continue happening and it's not still there,
but to become aware of it in the present moment,
to inhale and exhale it, and then for me and
(33:51):
those breaths too. It's because I do some breathwork with
my therapist at the beginning, especially if I'm starting a
session and she can tell that I'm frazzled. I'll do
some of the breathing, and then for me, it shows
up in my throat. And I've talked about that before.
It may show up somewhere else in your body, but
then my therapist will immediately have me put my hand
on my throat and then start breathing through that, and
(34:15):
then I feel it start to sort of go away.
But when I'm feeling something, I am so aware now
of what my throat is doing that I and I
don't know that. I always noticed that this can't be
something new. It was probably happening to me all along,
but I never was in touch with it. And now
I know, and I feel it, and I'm aware of it,
(34:36):
and I put my hand on it and I breathe
with it, and I sit with it, and then I
feel it sort of calmed down a little bit, or
sometimes that might mean I need to really amp it
up and get something out. So for you, it may
show up somewhere. I know you have some throat things too,
but it is cool to get to a place where
you can be aware of that and identify that. And
(34:58):
I love breathwork being a tool for that. In what
we're talking about right now of the awareness of the emotion,
the articulation, and then where do you go from there?
The action, the action, and that that's the word. Possibly
that's a huge action and one of the things that
I love the way you just shared that and reminding
everyone healing is a journey. But healing happens in really
(35:21):
small moments oftentimes, just like the awareness of oh, I'm
sad to me that the awareness was just a healing moment,
that's a turning point for me. But the breath work
that you do this isn't You don't have to go
meditate for twenty minutes or you you don't necessarily have
to go on a fifteen minute walk. All those things
are wonderful tools and certainly can be incorporated, but you
(35:44):
don't have to feel overwhelmed in the tools and techniques
breath work or a little bit of meditation, just thirty
minutes of silence, feeling your feelings, identifying a feeling on
a chart. That stuff doesn't have to take hours or
hours of therapy. It's you creating your own self therapy
(36:04):
that really begins to work for you. And it's the
awareness of it, and it can be so profound and
I also love that you said sometimes when you hold
your throat and you do the breath work with your therapist,
it's not always calming. Something comes up that you have
a revelation about. So sometimes it grounds you and calms you.
Other times it offers more wisdom and insight and guidance
(36:26):
into your energy field because it oxygenates you know, the
neurotransmitters in your brain. And I go to all of
those places because our body, you know, like we've talked about,
the body keeps score. The body is intelligent. So paying attention,
just being present for a few moments. You know, it's
(36:53):
been said and it's been taught to me. Is the
only thing I have control over is my attitude, my
act Jens, And you know what I do my myself.
I just have control over myself. So if I can
learn to get curious around a circumstance, a situation, or experience,
then I can more easily shift my perspective and attitude
(37:15):
around things. So curiosity is also it's playful and it's using.
It's harmonizing both sides of the brain, the right and
the left hemispheres of the brain. Curiosity working with the
left and right hemispheres of the brain, and that's that
helps with clarity and cognition and also the emotional intelligence.
But I do love all the action pieces we're talking
(37:36):
about here, because we've talked about awareness and articulation, but
all of the actions to begin to take healthy action
around who we are and what we're experiencing. Uh so
we continue to grow because to me, healing is synonymous
with growth or expansion. Healing is a process or a journey,
(37:57):
but it's synonymous with this element of I'm owing, I'm evolving,
I'm maturing, I'm expanding, I'm learning. I'm not reverting. And
even though to me this last handful of months, I
feel like I've just fallen back into a little bit
of survival mode because what's been on my plate has
been pretty immense, and it's been day to day and
(38:18):
you know, a day to day caregiver and working full time,
all the lifing, lifing, all the things that you all
know about. I have put certain pieces of myself and
my own self care on the back burner, and am
now now that I'm aware, really aware and recognizing that
I've done that, I get to do something about it.
And I have so many tools but I also have
(38:40):
people in my life that I'm comfortable with and and
you're one of those people. That's been a huge part
of this journey of learning to just articulate this sensitive
time we share, you know, lots of experiences, but having
having the relationships and that really support me have you know,
can support you all in your journey, you know, figuring
(39:01):
those things out, I think is very important. I do
want to give a shout out to my mom through
all of this and to my husband, because my mom,
you know, has has been in so much pain and
has really been so strong and resilient, and that's one
of the things that she's taught me strength and courage
and faith and resiliency. But we've had so many tender
(39:25):
and quality oriented times. I you know, I get to
work from home. I have an office at the house.
I get to work from home today. So when I
finished working, or in between working, if I have an
hour break, she and I have been watching the Great
British Baking Show. It's one of the things that I
am probably the most grateful for in this season of
my life is the Great British Baking Show with my mom,
(39:47):
because I will never forget it. And cherish it. I mean,
we completely binged this and it has been the biggest
joy of our lives. And my husband will say, I
can hear you too, cackling and laughing. Any kind of
has been jealous. He's like, what's going on in there?
And it's like if he watched it, he would not
be cackling and laughing, he would be annoyed and wanting
to do something else. But we've shared joy and tears
(40:11):
through finding quality time and presence together. And I just
want to say that is whatever you're walking through, whatever
any of you are walking through, finding the things that
you can do with the people in your life that
you love, whether it's actual blood, family, friends, co workers,
what whoever it may be that really creates healthy, bright
(40:35):
moments in even really tough and challenging times. Well, and
you mentioned being thankful for you know, the baking show,
so you don't even know, great British banking show, Great
British holiday banking show. Shout out love you all through No, okay, see,
I have zero desire to watch that, Paul Hollywood, but
(40:57):
all the things, Hey, if you know out there, you know,
if you know, you know, Okay, we're in the club. Well,
I can vouch to the fact that I think a
few different times I have called y'all and that is
literally what you were watching, and I still haven't checked
it out, but you know you have gratitude for that,
which I think is another tool is sitting down and
practicing gratitude. So I think you know you mentioned the
(41:19):
baking show. So we'll do a little four things gratitude
here right now. That can be one thing. What are
three other things that you're currently thankful for? Well, I mean,
since we're on the topic of gratitude and food, I'm
really thankful for free toes um. So speaking of the salty,
I have been on a free to kick And so
you say free too, I see, I say frets tostos,
(41:45):
I've been on a free to kick. I live in Texas,
so we have a g B as our grocery store.
So I have been on the h g B lightly
salted version of free tos, those smaller strip ones because
I have needed I've needed something salty. I think some
of it matches my attitude because I've been a little salty.
But I've been so grateful for that as as just
(42:06):
a little pleasure or a treat that that just almost
makes me feel kind of childlike. Or you know, I'm
running by the convenience store with my mom, you know,
getting a snack after school and icy and you know,
a bag of chips, and I haven't. I'm not really
a big chip eater. So I'm totally grateful for Fredo's.
I mean, I am grateful for fresh cut flowers sitting
(42:26):
next to my sink in the kitchen or in the bathroom,
or in my office or you know, next to my
mom's bed, my bed. I like I mentioned, that has
been one of the biggest pleasures but most beautiful aspects
of my life is going downstairs washing dishes, grabbing um,
some tea or coffee, and fresh flowers are sitting there,
(42:49):
and arranging those flowers, cutting the flowers, putting fresh water
in them, keeping them alive. That has been something that
has been so cathartic for me. And I normally, I mean,
I cook quite a bit, but fresh flowers have been cathartic.
So massively grateful for fresh cut flowers and the arrangement
of those. And then I'm I'm grateful for friendship and
(43:09):
the people in my life who have really shown up
to hold space for me in the way that I
haven't been able to hold space for myself and you
being one of those um my siblings, my mom, even
my husband, my you know, some dear friends and spiritual advisors.
But I have and clients. Let me say that, I
have lots of clients and people that I work with,
(43:31):
and I get a little emotional saying it, because there
are just people that say how are you, or they'll
send me an email and say, you know, I was
just thinking about you and your mom. I just you
crossed my mind today. And this is somebody maybe I've
talked to twice in the last four years, and and
those always come through at the moment I need them
to come through. So friendship, connection, people being supportive. That's
(43:54):
a lot more than four things. But you know, you know,
but that's four four things. There are no rules for things.
Just help you. It's a starting point because sometimes sitting
down to journal gratitude can be seem overwhelming or intimidating,
like I don't really know how to journal this out.
But it can be four things as a starting point. Okay,
four just could be for words some days, but also
(44:17):
me may mean that each thing that you think of
has a rabbit trail of things um or there's a
domino effect. And that's what I found too with practicing gratitude,
especially the last couple of years, is there's a domino
effect and it just starts. So once you start flowing,
it does get easier. But there are days where you
know it might be a little more difficult and you
feel stuck. But okay, fine, do one thing. Well what
(44:41):
are you what are you grateful for right now? Well,
the first thing I thinkful for is that you were
you were able to come, because again it was touch
and go. We weren't for sure, for sure for sure,
and or maybe that was me just also to being
like protecting myself and getting too excited, but that you
were able to come, and and that we also had
(45:02):
a weekend to hold that space and kind of like
you said, go with the flow. Not every weekend is
like that, especially leading up to the holiday season, Like
I'll be traveling next weekend and you'll be back home.
But you know, just the kind of time that we
were able to actually have because we still had kids
and still had things, and I mean we were Friday
(45:22):
was dedicated to the kids, and we were driving all
over town doing this and that, but we still had
time together. And then Saturday got to be more of
our day, which we were very intentional about, and we
stayed gone with ourselves, and I got a babysitter just
to help out with a few things, because you know,
I wanted to make sure that we had that time.
(45:42):
Second thing would be that we were go with the
flow like we talked about, and that we've gone hiking
every day too. That's been part of our being intentional
and care and then but on those hikes there's no
pressure for what we're gonna talk about or if there's
any silence, that's okay too. But then also things have
(46:03):
just come up organically that I didn't know we would
even be talking about, but we we've just been open
to it and things have come out, and it's been,
like you said, a safe space, but organic in in
some parts, like nothing's forced. So I'm thankful for that.
And there's no judgment because I think when you are
trying to work through something sometimes there's this fear of like, oh,
(46:25):
if I say this out loud, what is this person
going to think? Okay, first thing you coming. Second thing
is our flexibility. But that means us running home and
putting the dog in the car and going down to Radnor,
you know, last being like, hey, we're going to Ratner
and we're hiking and we're holding space for each other.
And Amy and I are both the fastest walkers that
you can imagine, we both are. I mean, it's basically
(46:46):
a running a little jogging pace but walking. Third thing
would be we did cryotherapy and the booth together because
it's so good. So some cryotherapy chambers, I guess it's
a one person only got room for yourself. But there's
another location where four people can fit in there, and
so we decided to go to that one, and a
(47:07):
man and I both got in there together and we
listened to Tupac Changes while we danced around in the
freezing cold. And so that is I'm thankful for our
Tupac dance party in negative two two degrees and and
the song changes that song. I love Tupac and I
(47:28):
know that Changes is one of your favorite songs. So
if people people don't know Tupac, you're missing at song,
I would say listen to it for sure. This is
because it it was you know, in the nineties and
one of the my favorite pieces of it. And I'm
not going to wrap it and sing it for you
because y'all would shut this podcast off immediately and it
(47:48):
really might hurt Amy's ratings and we do not want
to do that. Which speaking of if you've never rated
and reviewed, I don't ever asked people to do that.
One of my friends said the other day she actually
went to go do that for the pod guests, and
I said, oh, thank you. That's so And you know,
but I listened to Oprah's podcast, and you know other
people that have massive fallings that would never need to
(48:09):
ask for a following, a subscription of you know, subscribe,
a rating, a review or anything. But yet they she
always does. She's like, oh, and make sure you go
rate and review the podcast if you have time. Thank you, Oprah.
And I'm like, oh, pop, I can do it. I
can do it. But before Amanda reads or shares her
favorite part, the song starts off in case you're unfamiliar,
(48:30):
but he's like, I see no changes. Wake up in
the morning, and I asked myself, is life worth living?
Should bless myself? You know? And then he goes on
and on and on. But that's the beat, which is weird.
In the last month or so, I've sang about of
saying to Tupac songs do love Tupac? I did, I
think Dear Mama, look a few weeks ago with Kat
and then now here we are changes. But what's your
(48:51):
favorite part? My favorite part is, and it's later in
the song, it's we've got to make a change. It's
time for us as a people to start making some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way
we live, and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see, the old way wasn't working, so it's on
us to do what we've got to do to survive.
(49:11):
Tupac was so ahead of his time. But then also
it's so this is still so relevant now, and it's like, Okay,
it's still time to change. Let's change the way we
treat each other, because Lord knows a lot of people
need that, especially on the the Internet. But yeah, so
Tupac changes our cryotherapy time. And then I would say,
the fourth thing that I'm thankful for is firefly lane
(49:36):
or we got to lane. Okay, so it's really couch time.
I told a man of one of the things that
I want to do more of is lay on my
couch and watch whatever I want from my couch, not
on my computer, folding laundry or putting on my makeup
or blow drying my hair. So I don't even have sounds.
So that's how I miss things that happened. I'm like, oh, yeah,
(49:57):
I watched that episode, but I'm like, I kind of
was trying to read the subtitles while my blow dryer
was in my ears, or while I'm cooking or doing whatever,
and not that I don't have time for myself, but
I'm talking. I want couch time. That's what I want.
I'm gonna lay on my couch. So we've also done
that this weekend, which has been cool. So in our
couch time, we also started season two of Fire Filly
(50:18):
Lane on Netflix, and it's so good. If you haven't
seen season one, then that's something you get to. Yeah,
you go back and and watch and then well and
it's about friendship. Oh that's so true. It's about friendship.
I didn't I wasn't even putting that little bow together there,
but yes, it is about friendship and it's so good.
So those are my four things that I'm thankful for.
And I'll say this too. You might be done with
(50:40):
your Christmas shopping because Christmas isn't three days, but maybe
you have last minute gifts that you need to shop
for after the holidays, or you are interested in gratitude
and you're you want something like a tool to help
you along with it. And that's what our Four Things
Gratitude Journal is. It's a it's a tool and Mary
and I created it is something to not be intimidating,
(51:01):
to be something easy that you can bust out. And
you can do four Things Gratitude in any old journal,
but this is you know, we put quotes on each page,
we put prompts in the back their stickers, and a
couple of weeks ago we released two cover options. And
the colors are so so cute, I said, I wanted
to report back what people's favorite has been. And I
(51:24):
am a little surprised. I thought the favorite was going
to be the red and the coral colors, but the
blue and the teal color seems to be more of
a favorite, or that's what people are buying more of,
so that's sort of surprised me. But they're both cute,
so not in a bad way. But anyway, Four Things
dot com if you want to enter the new year
and with the four Things Gratitude Journal and acent of
(51:44):
the proceeds go to education in Haiti through Project Meta Share.
I love gratitude as a tool, and I love breathing
as a tool. And if you're someone right now that
is processing a lot through the holidays and you feel
the salty and you feel the sweet, or you don't
really even know what you're feeling, then the point of
this conversation was to hopefully help you become aware of
(52:07):
what it is and then to be able to articulate
it to yourself and possibly others, and then to be
able to take some action. So the three a's called
the Triple A, and amana, thank you for sharing some
of what you're going through. I know it's a lot,
but that's an example of getting vulnerable when it when
(52:28):
it feels right. And if this didn't feel right from you,
for you, I know you wouldn't do it. But I
know that it's special and it's helpful to a lot
of people that might be going through something similar, maybe
again not grieving the loss of a mom in the moment,
but other hard things and just getting real about that
it is it is hard, and there's a lot of
(52:49):
feelings happening. And even you, who someone as I see
that's very emotionally intelligent and is able to tap into
so many different things. And that's what you do. You
incurridge people all day long. You help people get to
their highest potential. And so too, it just shows like, Okay,
every not everybody has it all together at all times,
(53:10):
and it's okay to not. And you even getting excited
about an aha moment that is so simple, Like you said,
it's so simple but profound that you had the revelation
that you're sad, and then now you're leaning into that
and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna be sad, so that
I no longer numb it out or push it down,
because that doesn't go anywhere good. I tell you from experience,
(53:32):
that goes nowhere good, real fast. And then you're in
this hole and you're trying to dig your way out
and it may take years to do that. So just
being proactive in that, and that's part of this conversation too,
is maybe that's where you get out the wheel. Spin
that wheel spin spin the wheel of the wheel of
emotional fortune, right, and so you know. But by the way,
(53:56):
the wheel that that that I was looking at the
circle wheel, it kind of looks like the wheel of
fortune wheel you know that they spin. It has all
those colors on it. I mean. And maybe if you're
doing some I don't know, maybe this could be an
activity if you're having trouble identifying your emotion, is spin
the wheel each day or you know, you can't really
spend the wheel online, but maybe you take your finger
and you close your eyes and you land on an
(54:16):
emotion and then sit with that emotion for the day
and you may process that like, oh, okay, that does
not relate to me at all. Okay, next emotion. The
next day, you put your finger on something else, and
then maybe that's how you're able to exercise that muscle
and get there, is you know, a little emotional wheel
of fortune, like your emotional whale of fortune. But you
(54:37):
know that's so great because that also helps you with
developing intuition and connecting with your soul and spirit. Because
whatever you put your finger on, maybe you can't identify
with that emotion today, but maybe you have a memory
where oh that's what I was feeling. Oh my gosh,
that's what it was, and it may help you process
or become aware of something uh in the past that
(54:59):
was going on that you might not have actually processed
or been able to articulate. And it creates awareness from
something in the past. That So healing isn't always linear. Yes,
it's a journey, but healing is nonlinear as well, meaning
you go back. You know, when we process trauma and
therapy and with people, it's it's not linear. So yeah,
(55:20):
be playful with it because this is this is big stuff.
And Amanda tell people where they can find you and
all the things. Yes, if you are wanting to connect
with me, my name is Amanda Reager Green on Instagram,
it's at soul Pathology. My website is soul pathology dot com.
(55:41):
I am an intuitive, a psychic medium, but most of
all I work to, like Amy said, connect people with
their highest self, their highest potential, and connect the human
consciousness with the soul, essentially astounding you with your own abilities.
And you know, if if you know me or you've
worked with me, I work with everything from um neural
(56:03):
feedback and cognition and all of the neural sciences to
astrology and numerology and then connecting with loved ones on
the other side. So it's just a big gumbo of
tools and you just take what you want and leave
the rest. And hopefully you just leave or walk out,
(56:24):
you know, in working with me on a session, feeling better,
more alive, more awaken, in tune than when you came in.
And again soul pathology dot com. And then also that's
the same Instagram handle. And yeah, we are a few
days out from Christmas. If you're listening to this when
it comes out, or you you know this is a podcast,
you might be listening to this in July, so who knows.
(56:50):
Hopefully it's still you can apply it to whatever season
of life you're in. Yeah, and also just just so
if you know you are new, I am limited sometimes
in my one to one work and what I do.
I do some retreats and workshops, but I have all
sorts of tools and resources. I have free tools how
to set intentions on my website. I've got a great
eighteen day meditation that is wonderful for morning and evening
(57:13):
and it really helps to get in a flow and
get in a space of peace. So there are all
sorts of tools on my website that are good if
you're just dipping the toe, your toe into the water
of whatever yourself help, self care and spiritual and personal
journey is. I love, It's okay, hope y'all are having
the day that you need to have, and you have
the Christmas that you need to have, and that you
(57:36):
take some time for yourself whatever that may look like.
And then also listen to tupoc changes. Okay, thank you. Bye,
Okay, cass up road, A little food for you. So life.
Oh that's pretty, it's pretty beautiful. Thank you. Laugh a
little month you're kicking with four Happy Thursday, four things.
(00:34):
Vam Amy here and we are like three days away
from Christmas. Sometimes I do best of during the holidays.
But I got a brand new episode for you all
right now. I'm sitting here with my cousin Amanda, and
she came in town this weekends. It's the weekend before
you're hearing this, and she's here for a little respite
(00:54):
or some R and R. And we'll get into more
of why that is and what is going on with her,
but it just it got us into a conversation this morning.
We were having coffee and I thought, oh, you know,
this could be helpful. We knew we wanted to record
something while she was here, not that we have to
write Amanda No, Hi everyone, Amanda Eager Green. Welcome, Welcome,
(01:16):
thank you. I want to always leave space for a
recording with you if we've got it, because people like
having you on the podcast. But if we didn't get
to this, it wouldn't have mattered because then that wasn't
in store for us because we had a lot of
other things we needed to concentrate on, which is really
you just getting downtime and yeah, some R and R
(01:38):
well and the last time we well, not the last
time we were together, but another time we really talked
about how so much of what we love to do
is be intentional with our time, but we also are
good at being flexible together with our time and spontaneous.
So we've done a lot of things and if things
come together and work out, they do and they're supposed to.
(01:58):
So I love the ability just to go with the flow,
and especially during the holidays. It's hard sometimes to go
with the flow during the holidays with everything we have
on our plates. So having this respite has been genius.
I mean, I'm glad you're able to make it because
what you'll here in this episode depending on you know,
I'm gonna let Amanda take it where she wants to go.
(02:21):
But you know, when it comes to feeling things, we
both realize that we, well and probably a lot of
you listening, have the ability to completely numb out, especially
when things get particularly difficult. And Amanda's mom, who I
affectionately call Aunt Lisa, who's not really my aunt, and
Amanda's not really my cousin. It's just my mom was
(02:42):
best friends with her mom and they met in the seventies,
so before we were even born. And then Amanda and
I grew up together, and then you know, kind of
went early adulthood our our own separate ways, doing our thing.
But we always had a connection, and we our moms
were always so close. We knew that we would be close.
It was just sort of we took that for granted.
Our moms are close, we're close. If you need me,
(03:02):
call me. And then the last couple of years, it's
really been way more than that, and I'm thankful for
that connection, and you know, rekindling this and tapping into
what I think our mom's always knew we would have
and what we had when we were younger. But anyway,
Aunt Lisa has cancer and its terminal and we're in
(03:25):
the final stages and she's entered hospice. And I've gone
back to Austin a few times this year to come
see y'all and be there. But when I saw y'all
over Thanksgiving and I could see even your mom was like, yes,
she needs a break. Your mom's living with you and
you and your husband. You moved from Belize back to
Austin to be a caregiver and to have that time
(03:49):
with her. But it's a lot, and so thankfully she
was in a place where for the weekend she was
you know, everything was okay to where you were able
to still come because I got nervous down the wire,
like and I knew I had to be flexible, like
if Amanda can't make it, then that she may not
be able to leave. But I was so thankful that
you were able to come and get this much needed
(04:10):
break and space. UM space has been a big thing
that has been so hard to create for myself this year,
and my self care routines and for the past decade,
self care and my health and well being, my spiritual
and personal development and journey. It is priority in my life,
my connection with God and my faith. And I feel
(04:33):
like this year some of that has fallen on the
back burner because my mom has been unwell. And this
is a very critical and crucial time. It's a general
and delicate time. It's also a sad time, it's an
angry time. It's um it's uncharted territory, and my dad
passed away when I was eighteen, and I am an
(04:55):
only child with my mom and dad. I have four
half siblings who are so involved old and have shown
up in ways that have opened my heart and our
relationships in ways that I feel expanded and taken care
of and nurtured as a human being. But sometimes I
have a hard time in all of this not being
(05:16):
logical and not sinking, Okay, what is on my to
do list? What do I have to do today? What
do I need to get done? Work, my mom, hospice appointments,
the dogs, my husband, and then my self care sometimes
really falls to the back burner. But even some of
my spiritual practices that come so innately have even fallen
(05:37):
down to a lower point on my priority list, and
that that's been unnatural for me in my spiritual and
personal journey, and I've had to really hit the reset button,
and that's been hard. You and I've talked about that
a lot, and you remind me all the time, and
a lot of people do. And I want to give
a shout out. Something I'm grateful for and thankful for
(06:00):
is the carrying people in my life and clients who
I am close to who say you got a lot
on your plate? And I sometimes blow that off and
I say, yeah, I know everybody has a lot on
their plate this year and in life, but I do
have a lot on my plate, and sometimes it's hard
for me to to know that, to hear that, to
really recognize it or feel it. I'm having a hard
(06:21):
time feeling that I have a lot on my've plate
well and feeling the different emotions, which is what we
both felt, like, Oh, this is something we could talk
about that might be helpful. Is identifying what you're feeling
when things are really hard and you do start to
maybe none out or distract yourself or detach completely. And
(06:44):
you know you mentioned unchartered territory. I think the difference
in losing your dad and losing your mom is that
your dad was very sudden and you were a lot younger.
Its still extremely painful, but having a parent, you know
that when you're older and you're the caregiver and you're
watching it happen. I even when I lost my mom
(07:05):
and it was such a painful process of being by
her side and her being in hospice and being a caregiver,
I had that thought. And I don't know if this
is a normal thought. Makes me feel. I don't know,
but I thought, uh, this is so painful that I
don't know if I would have much other just gotten
a phone call that she just died in a car
wreck or something. And I'm sensitive the fact that somebody
else listening right now might have had that experience with
(07:28):
someone in their life and they might be like, no, uh, nope,
just as painful. So I'm not. But it's just I'm
being honest and thoughts that I had because it was
so much. But really, at the end of the day,
we don't want to lose anybody that we love. But
if we're in the process of a hard season, whether
it's grieving the loss of a relationship, something else in
(07:49):
life has fallen apart and broken. You know, there's a
multitude of things different family dynamics, divorce, death like things
that cause us immense Hayne. But if we can't really
identify what we're feeling and really take action, which is
what we're going to talk through, is kind of identifying it,
(08:10):
being aware of it and the things we're feeling, and
then articulating it, which is something Aman and I we
were on our couch, my couch, our couch, because that's
where we've been hanging all weekend. It's it's our couch
for the weekend, and and your dog Cara and my
dog Carra and my cat Maggie. And then are our
trip to see Carry the Nashville Beauty Girl on Instagram.
That was like our our outing, and we've gone on hikes.
(08:32):
We've been very intentional about Okay, what's going to make
you feel good? And those are things you wanted to do.
But anyway, we were talking about articulating and being able
to share it with people that you feel safe, and
then it went on this whole thing of like, gosh,
some people don't even have safe people to talk to,
or they may not even have a therapist, and so
this conversation is just for if you're having trouble identifying
(08:54):
your feelings or acknowledging them, and then you know where
to go from there once you have the awareness that
maybe you're sad, like Amanda, you had this light bulb
golf like, oh I'm sad, and we'll let you take
it from there. But before we get into that, I
do you want to talk about that? I literally saw
peppermint bark make you happy. Yesterday we went to do
(09:15):
cryotherapy at restore where I go, and they had out
a bunch of cookies and peppermint bark and Amanda how
to nowhere bust out a ziploc bag from her purse
and starts putting peppermint bark because she didn't want to
eat it there in the moment. But she's like, I
think I'm gonna want some of this later, Wasn't she
full disclosure? The manager was standing right there that she
(09:38):
was adorable, and I said to her, I said, this
makes me so happy. I happen to have a ziplock.
It had some of my vitamins in it, so I
have vitamins. And I said, may I'm gonna I didn't
even say may I put this in here? But it
was like, how was the person taking the treats and
putting them in my bag for later? It was just
two pieces, but like she's laughing, so you know, and
(10:00):
it's like, but I'm just doing it. And that's that's
how I've been these days. It's almost like my manners,
which my mom is a big manners person by the way,
to so shout out to my mom. It's oh my gosh,
Like I as a child was scared. I could never
live up to so the way, you know, being just
respectful and thoughtful. It's like this season of my life
sometimes my filter and my manners. It's like I I
(10:23):
just grabbed the peppermint bark like I was Stevenson. You know,
I am like Amy's eight year old, and I'm like,
I should have peppermint bark, so twelve twel he's twelve.
I'm like wise as I can say he's eight, but
he's twelve, and he he looks safe, he looks safe
all the things. But no, that the little things that
(10:43):
bring me joy. And I've I've shared this with people,
and I don't know if Amy and I have talked
about this, but since we moved back from Belize, I
love to go to the grocery store by myself. It
gives me my time and I can spend the time
I need wondering around or being as you know, fast
and productive as I need to be. But I get flowers.
(11:04):
I get fresh flowers at the grocery store and it
makes me feel beautiful. I'm a Libra. I love beauty,
but looking at beauty, simple beauty in life. And to me,
that peppermint bark, it brought me happiness and joy. But
it also made me feel human, It made me feel childlike,
it made me feel playful, and it put you know,
(11:25):
a hitch in my Gideon like, this is the most
beautiful bark I've ever seen. So I try to bite
just because I was like, well, if Amanta is doing
and awing over this, I better try some. And I
took a bite and it was not for me. I
was like, okay, wow, Well there was some other kind
of powdered cookie that was in her was for her,
and I was like, oh yeah, that's probably not for me.
(11:45):
So like a wedding, they're called like little wedding cookies.
I'm into that. But I do like peppermint, white chocolate
chocolate situations, but it has to be covering a pretzel,
like that Snack factory brand the pretzel chips they make
come holiday time, or maybe they sell them you're round.
I don't know. I saw one of my friends posting
(12:06):
about how she there's a white chocolate version and a
white cream version, and the white cream version is king.
She's like, this is the best one. She put on
her Instagram. She said, if you see these out, will
you buy them for me? I will pay you double
for them, and I was like, WHOA, I might need
to go find the white cream because I think I've
only had the white chocolate. But anyway, finding things like
(12:27):
that that bring you little joy, and I love like
you talked about, you know, buying yourself flowers and how
we can do that sort of thing for ourselves. Or
I was telling you about how I bought. I was
in the checkoutline and something that stood out to me
that made me happy that I thought it was going
to bring me joy was this gourmet popcorn. I don't
even want to know how much it paid for it,
(12:47):
because I probably want to block that out because I mean,
it's just popcorn. But it was jalapeno and pimiento cheese
gourmet popcorn, and I don't know why that just stood
out to me as being this amazing thing. And of course,
oh you know what, I forgot an ingredient honey, and
we hold on the question everybody wants to know is
how did it taste? Well? Yes, so on the edge
(13:11):
of my seat. Jalapeno and pimenta cheese and honey popcorn.
I know, but you know, I'm Cliff's daughter, like this
Pimina cheese with something sweet. Is our salty sweet kind
of like the peppermint with the mark with the pretzel.
I love a salty sweet situation. So this honey mixed
in with this pimenta cheese and jalapeno. It was pretty delightful,
(13:32):
but probably not worth whatever I paid well. And as
a side note, our fathers were also really good friends
and one of the things that they loved is cooking together.
They were both incredible cooks and your dad, of course,
was a chef, but my dad was great at concocting
mixtures and and throwing things in and they love to
do that together. So okay, yeah, you are a Cliff Moffitt,
(13:55):
so I'm gonna try weird concoctions. But it did bring
me joy and it is worth it again, please, I
hope I didn't spend like eight dollars on this tiny
bag of popcorn, but I probably did, but it brought
me joy in that moment. So what are those little
things you can, you know, bring into your life that
will give you a little spark, give you happiness, Things
(14:17):
that maybe you get childlike about or get curious about,
like I was very curious. I have to know what
that tastes like I need to try that. And then
I took it over to a friend's house and I
was able to share it with others and they were like, oh,
that looks disgusting, and I said, no, no, please try it.
So it was to me sort of, you know, a
gift that kept on giving. But joy is something we
(14:37):
are able to feel if we allow ourselves to go there.
But sometimes we're so numb to everything that's going on.
I'm like, I don't even know how to feel happiness
right now, or I don't even know how to know
if I'm happy, or I don't know if I'm sad
right now. I don't really know what I'm feeling. And
this time of year, I think there can be a
lot of feelings. And we talk about how two feelings
(15:00):
are very very opposite, or two emotions that seem like
they can't go together at the same time, kind of
like camino cheese and honey. They can go together at
the same time. You can feel joy during the holiday
season and you can feel immense sadness, So those two
things can be true at the same time. But what
Amanda realized the other day, and Amanda, you can take
(15:21):
it from here, But is that you were feeling sad
and you had to sit with that for a minute. Yes,
and it was it was simple, yet it was profound.
(15:44):
One of the things I want to go back to
is the journey through grief and active bereavement someone dying
and it being a process versus it being acute. And
I want to just give a nod to that, because
there there was a difference. Yes, I was eighteen years old.
It happened in a matter of an hour that I
(16:04):
lost my father very tragically in front of me, and
I wasn't ready for that. Um, I mean, who's ready?
Who is ready for that? But also how the unfolding
of processing that grief. I didn't begin to process that
grief until I was about thirty two years old. And ironically,
and I think we've talked about this before I actually
ended up. I have a Master of Public Health and
(16:27):
worked in hospice for years and had great examples of
healthy processing of grief and holding space, and I still
hadn't been able to understand and process grief. So my
journey through that, the last handful of years of processing
his death and other grief and traumas has been very profound.
(16:47):
But this journey with my mom, she's been sick about
five and a half years, yet she has been so
faithful and joyful, and she, like her very best friend Judy,
has chosen joy. They were both winm in of joy
and faith and saying there's hope on the horizon. Even
though this situation is is tough and it's it's sad
(17:08):
and it's heartbreaking, we're still gonna We're gonna thrive as
best we can. And my mom has been a phenomenal
example and a miracle to her physicians, to our family,
loved ones, friends, and a big thank you to all
the people that have walked us through this journey. This
part of the journey has been the most difficult because
(17:29):
she's been on hospice and she's been declining, like with
these stair steps of decline, and now we're getting into
more of an acute phase that we knew would happened,
but you don't know when or how it's going to
begin to happen. And it's happening, and as it's happening,
I'm still behaving as if it's three years ago and
she's doing her cancer treatments and not having a lot
(17:51):
of pain, and having a great day and able to
go to the grocery store and driving. I mean, she
hasn't driven in a year and a half, but I'm
still behaving. She can still drive. Or we had Thanksgiving
and she wants she baked a pie and she made
cornbread dressing. She wants to do those things. She loves
to entertain. But it was so hard because she's on
(18:13):
a lot of pain meds and she's absent minded, and
she's tired, and her body gives out, and we're trying
to work together in the kitchen and the way we
normally work together in the kitchen didn't work out. And
we weren't upset at each other, but we didn't cook
the turkey all the way. And my husband's like, y'all
didn't finish cooking the turkey. He cut into it and
even though we had done the temperature, it was not cooked.
(18:37):
It was it was kind of bloody. So there, but
there are little things like that that I'm beginning to notice, Oh,
she can't do these things anymore, but I still act
as if we're in year three, And that's what's been challenging.
And this leads up to so after Thanksgiving, which in
a way of to me, is this denial of early
(18:58):
are and then you've been detaching from it because you know,
like you're it's become you're becoming aware. So it's like, oh, okay,
I don't I'm not ready to process this, so I'm
just gonna act like it's not really happening. And then
I'm gonna well when I start to feel things, because
I don't really want to take the time to work
through it, I'm gonna numb it absolutely so after Thanksgiving
(19:20):
and recognizing that she couldn't do all those things and
that for Christmas we have a different game plan. It's
pajamas and ordering in uh you know, or cooking something
different and more simple that's delightful, and being relaxed and comfortable,
like it's being comfortable and casual, spending that quality time
(19:41):
in a way that feels nurturing, that feels present. And
I don't feel like Thanksgiving felt that way, but it
was a realization. So I go, I think the following week,
to go get a manicure. And the woman who does
my manicure, she asked about my mom because I brought
my mom for manicures and pedicure, and she said how's
your mom doing, which our mom's both loved manicures and pedicures.
(20:04):
And then real quick, I wanna say we can sit
see if we're on the same wavelength. We're not. We're
going to say, how does your mom want to die?
We'll say it on the count of three. Let's say
it as if we're her and we're saying, I want
to Okay, three to one, I want to die pretty.
Her mom wants to die pretty. And I'm very clear.
She says, listen, I just need to die pretty. She's
(20:26):
a Leo for all you leo's out there, you all know,
and I'm a Libra, so like shout out to anybody.
But but she said I just need to die pretty.
So so yes, manicures and pedicures in the late stages
of life, my mom was having them as well. Lipstick
on as long as my mom has her lipstick, which
she wants to be buried with by the way, she's
being cremated. But there's a tube of lipstick that goes
(20:47):
in with her ashes when we um in turn her.
There's a place where my dad is. His ashes are
in our church in Baton Rouge, and that's where we
will eventually put her. There's a slot for her next
to him. But the lipstick, the tube of lipstick goes
in with that. And I've known that since she had
breast cancer when I was sixteen. So this is and
she said, she will come back and haunt me if
(21:09):
this is not taken care of. She can be pretty
with her ashes. Okay, so you're getting a pedicure. So
I'm getting a manicure and a pedicure. And the woman
asked about my mom and how she's feeling, and I said,
you know, we're at a point where it's even hard
for her to get out to get a pedicure or
a manicure. She just doesn't have the stamina or feel
(21:31):
up to it. And you know, for her, she loves
to feel pretty. This is a treat. And for her
to say I just don't feel like going with you.
You go today, will go another day, That's when I
know something significantly is changing or has changed. And she's
said wow, she says, well, tell her I'm thinking about her,
and then she very thoughtfully said, and how are you doing?
(21:55):
And I sat there for a moment, and I think
because I was in that kind of cathartic relaxed, comfortable
space of some self care and feeling pretty and taking
care of things that that helped me to feel human
and that are important with my quality time for myself.
I just responded to her, I said, you know, I
(22:16):
think I'm sad, and I just sat there and she
just smiled at me and kept doing my nails. And
I didn't need a response, but I knew that it
would just be a space where I could say what
I was thinking and feeling. And that's where I've had
the disconnect is knowing, recognizing, having that awareness that I'm sad.
(22:37):
And that was a moment. It was a lightbulb moment
where all of a sudden I recognized, Oh my gosh,
I mean, yes, I'm I'm grieving actively, but I'm sad.
But I hadn't been a I hadn't at that moment
been able to feel the sadness. But the awareness of
(22:59):
it was a bowl yet it was profound, and to me,
it was my wisdom. It was my discernment, my truth
coming through in this really safe space. And I've and
I told Amy this, I've had I have so many
people who ask me how are you, and I I've
gotten I'm pretty good at being as honest as I can.
You know, I'm struggling today, or it's been a tough
(23:20):
couple of weeks, or I have a lot on my plate.
But I don't always say I'm feeling sad or I
think I'm sad, or I think I'm really angry or frustrated.
I haven't been communicating that because I'm having a hard
time feeling extreme emotions, whether it's excitement or sadness. I
(23:42):
was having a hard I'm having a hard time. I'm
but I'm working beginning to work through that. And the awareness,
to me is always the first piece. When the lightbulb
goes off, it's like, oh, it's sadness, you know. And
I was kind of sitting there after that I perked
up because it was like, oh, I know what's going
on with me. And that may sound so elementary, and
(24:06):
I hope some of you can relate, but to me
it was profound. It was like, Oh, it's self awareness.
I know myself today and I'm being honest, and this
woman just gave me the grace and the space to
feel and to to know who I am and where
I am and that it's okay. It was Okay, what
about for people that may not be able to like
(24:27):
in that moment, you were thinking sadness. Some people can't
even work through what emotion they're feeling because they're so many.
And then you were telling me about the feelings Wheel
and how it breaks down things underneath each thing, And
so what is the what's the website? It's feelings Will. Yes,
it's the feeling, it's the it's the I feel from Imger.
(24:52):
That's the It's Imger dot io. And that's where I
found the one that I resonate with. There's a ton
of them. If you google feelings Wheel, you'll find one
that resonates with you. But I found this really complex
feelings Will that's also very straightforward and simple, and it's
color coded and there's concentric circles. But with sadness, this
has helped me tremendously, and I recommend this to clients
(25:15):
when we're talking about emotional intelligence, and this is something
I talk about everyone all the time. I talk about
feelings and emotional intelligence because feelings and my emotional intelligence
has been this massive healing journey for me. But I
can also recognize that I just detached, disassociate and and
absolutely shoved down, numb out, put aside my feelings to
(25:37):
suit up, show up, and take care of whatever needs
to be done on my plate in the best way
I can. And that's not always healthy, but that's when
I know I'm in a mode where I'm needing to
slow down and really figure out what's going on so
I can be more true to myself. But this feelings
will is great because it's helped me put names to
(25:59):
emotion that I can't figure out. And as Amy mentioned,
we can feel things simultaneously that might be fear alongside
of hope. We can feel things that are illogical at
the same time. So that's what to me. Sometimes emotions.
I can feel sadness, but then at that same moment
that I was aware that I am sad, I also
(26:21):
felt transcendent. I felt excited. I said excited. So I'm
sad and excited. How illogical is that it is? But
guess what. Emotions aren't logical. They don't fit into a spreadsheet.
You know they're not in a spreadsheet. Emotions aren't logical,
and we're human, we're messy. It makes me just I
(26:42):
don't know. Somehow tie in the salty sweet pretzels. It's like,
you know, salt, it's the salty and the sweet can
happen at the same time. But I like the idea
of of googling a feelings real or feelings chart or
something like that, which again, some are more complex than others.
(27:02):
They're very basic ones, and you use the word elementary.
It might seem that way for some people because that's
honestly something I do with my kids, and I hold up,
you know, maybe ten emotions, point to which one or
which ones you think you're experiencing right now, and that
so you may need to take yourself back to something
that is like a little homework assignment for yourself and
(27:24):
bust out a chart and say, okay, okay, self, point
to whatever I think I'm feeling right now, and then
maybe there's a few, and then you sit with each thing,
maybe journal about each thing, or just go on a
walk and you know, think about each thing, meditate on it,
prey on it, and then that way you can start
(27:47):
to have awareness around what you're feeling absolutely and the
feelings will this one the one I have. It's so
cool because sadness happens to be. Sad happens to be
at the center of the wheel, and then it it
fans out from there with things like lonely, guilt, depression, despair,
and then it fans out further. There's more but victimize, fragile, grief, powerlessness, empty,
(28:12):
all of those things, not all of those, but I
just was naming a few empty, you know, Greek, obviously grief.
We all, you know, on a logical level, we know
that I'm experiencing grief. I've shared that it's normal. But
it all relates back to sadness. And it's funny that
sadness is at the center. So I identified what in
this chart looks like a core emotion. But that's a
(28:35):
really helpful tool in the awareness process. And and it's
the becoming aware where the lightbulb goes off. And I
think sometimes the awareness is coupled with a sense of
excitement or to me, sometimes that's how I experience my faith, God,
my higher power that comes through and I'm like, oh,
I'm connected to my soul, my higher self, my higher
(28:56):
self just communicated and it it's my wisdom, it's my truth,
it's my human self and my higher self, that part
of me that is connected to something larger and from
that awareness, then I can start to take some action
and the articulation, so articulating it to myself. The other
piece to the communication of when you have that lightbulb
(29:18):
moment or you are able to point to the feelings
on the wheel and sit with them for a few
minutes with yourself to see maybe where they're showing up
in your body, or how it really feels to feel
sad or angry or afraid or disgusted or joyful and exuberant.
Once you're able to sit with yourself and you're comfortable
(29:40):
in and maybe not comfortable, but well versed, better versed
in your own self awareness of your emotions, it's then
being able to share with other people other people in
a safe way. And I don't mean everyone and going
into the details, but for me, one of the biggest
parts of my spiritual person and healing journey is having
(30:02):
people in my life, whether it's a therapist, a spiritual
guide or advisor, or someone at church, a dear friend,
a family member who in my life feels safe for
me to share what's going on, where they can hold
space for me in a way that I can begin
to process and heal, start healing, start feeling. Does that resonate? Yes,
(30:28):
I like to that you say. It doesn't mean finding
a way to communicate it or articulate it. It doesn't
mean everywhere with every person, or maybe you feel led
to share it more publicly one day or whatever that
looks like. And Amana and I were talking through this
right now, because this is you know, sort of in
(30:49):
alignment with what we do and trying to share certain
things that are going on. Now. You don't get every
single detail of every single thing, but it's coming alongside others.
And you know, I feel like I'm sharing that right
now because I'm like, okay, you've got listeners right now
that we're sharing this with. And this is more we
don't necessarily mean on a public platform, but like who
(31:12):
are your your safe people where you can really get
real with them, or your safe person or you're like
you said, you're a guide of someone that you feel
close to, like a therapist or someone that you trust
in that way. But it doesn't mean just putting it
on blasts for the whole world to to hear about
or to digest. That's not the communication part. And it
(31:36):
may just even be yourself. Yes, you said you were
you articulated to yourself, and that can be pretty powerful
to do that well, and also in prayer and to God.
If you there are people you know. I will talk
to clients and I'll say things like, Okay, who is
your person that you're going to be able to share
this with or help you hold space? Or if it
(31:58):
has to do with some accountability on something, who can
who can you trust to hold you accountable? Who feels
okay for that? Healthy for that? Sometimes people will say
I don't know, and guess what that's a totally okay
answer to. Sometimes when I have something going on, I
may not know who the person to turn to is.
So for me it's I'll turn to God. You know,
(32:21):
I'll say, I'll start praying, I'll say okay, hey God,
I can't you can you know? Or Hey, I'm feeling
this and I don't know how to feel or I'm
experiencing this, can you can you help me process this?
And another thing with setting intentions. I'm big on intentions
and prayer and manifestation with your soul, your higher self
(32:41):
and God, your higher power, whatever that looks like for you.
But also setting the intention hey soul, hey God, hey
higher Self I'm not sure who or how to share
this with or what the healing journey looks like. Help
me show me thank you, Help me show me thank you,
and then and like and then breathe. Just take a
(33:01):
few cleansing breaths. The breath is is one of the
most powerful tools we have, and it's ours. It's ours,
It's the first thing we came in with. So the
breath is something that we forget, we can go back to.
And we're shallow breathers, you know, we breathe from the
upper respiratory system, the clavical area up. But taking a
breath from you know, the base of your belly, your diaphragm,
(33:29):
two or three rounds of breath. I mean, it really
only takes twelve to sixteen seconds to process an emotion.
Doesn't mean you're not going to feel it again and
it's not going to continue happening and it's not still there,
but to become aware of it in the present moment,
to inhale and exhale it, and then for me and
(33:51):
those breaths too. It's because I do some breathwork with
my therapist at the beginning, especially if I'm starting a
session and she can tell that I'm frazzled. I'll do
some of the breathing, and then for me, it shows
up in my throat. And I've talked about that before.
It may show up somewhere else in your body, but
then my therapist will immediately have me put my hand
on my throat and then start breathing through that, and
(34:15):
then I feel it start to sort of go away.
But when I'm feeling something, I am so aware now
of what my throat is doing that I and I
don't know that. I always noticed that this can't be
something new. It was probably happening to me all along,
but I never was in touch with it. And now
I know, and I feel it, and I'm aware of it,
(34:36):
and I put my hand on it and I breathe
with it, and I sit with it, and then I
feel it sort of calmed down a little bit, or
sometimes that might mean I need to really amp it
up and get something out. So for you, it may
show up somewhere. I know you have some throat things too,
but it is cool to get to a place where
you can be aware of that and identify that. And
(34:58):
I love breathwork being a tool for that. In what
we're talking about right now of the awareness of the emotion,
the articulation, and then where do you go from there?
The action, the action, and that that's the word. Possibly
that's a huge action and one of the things that
I love the way you just shared that and reminding
everyone healing is a journey. But healing happens in really
(35:21):
small moments oftentimes, just like the awareness of oh, I'm
sad to me that the awareness was just a healing moment,
that's a turning point for me. But the breath work
that you do this isn't You don't have to go
meditate for twenty minutes or you you don't necessarily have
to go on a fifteen minute walk. All those things
are wonderful tools and certainly can be incorporated, but you
(35:44):
don't have to feel overwhelmed in the tools and techniques
breath work or a little bit of meditation, just thirty
minutes of silence, feeling your feelings, identifying a feeling on
a chart. That stuff doesn't have to take hours or
hours of therapy. It's you creating your own self therapy
(36:04):
that really begins to work for you. And it's the
awareness of it, and it can be so profound and
I also love that you said sometimes when you hold
your throat and you do the breath work with your therapist,
it's not always calming. Something comes up that you have
a revelation about. So sometimes it grounds you and calms you.
Other times it offers more wisdom and insight and guidance
(36:26):
into your energy field because it oxygenates you know, the
neurotransmitters in your brain. And I go to all of
those places because our body, you know, like we've talked about,
the body keeps score. The body is intelligent. So paying attention,
just being present for a few moments. You know, it's
(36:53):
been said and it's been taught to me. Is the
only thing I have control over is my attitude, my
act Jens, And you know what I do my myself.
I just have control over myself. So if I can
learn to get curious around a circumstance, a situation, or experience,
then I can more easily shift my perspective and attitude
(37:15):
around things. So curiosity is also it's playful and it's using.
It's harmonizing both sides of the brain, the right and
the left hemispheres of the brain. Curiosity working with the
left and right hemispheres of the brain, and that's that
helps with clarity and cognition and also the emotional intelligence.
But I do love all the action pieces we're talking
(37:36):
about here, because we've talked about awareness and articulation, but
all of the actions to begin to take healthy action
around who we are and what we're experiencing. Uh so
we continue to grow because to me, healing is synonymous
with growth or expansion. Healing is a process or a journey,
(37:57):
but it's synonymous with this element of I'm owing, I'm evolving,
I'm maturing, I'm expanding, I'm learning. I'm not reverting. And
even though to me this last handful of months, I
feel like I've just fallen back into a little bit
of survival mode because what's been on my plate has
been pretty immense, and it's been day to day and
(38:18):
you know, a day to day caregiver and working full time,
all the lifing, lifing, all the things that you all
know about. I have put certain pieces of myself and
my own self care on the back burner, and am
now now that I'm aware, really aware and recognizing that
I've done that, I get to do something about it.
And I have so many tools but I also have
(38:40):
people in my life that I'm comfortable with and and
you're one of those people. That's been a huge part
of this journey of learning to just articulate this sensitive
time we share, you know, lots of experiences, but having
having the relationships and that really support me have you know,
can support you all in your journey, you know, figuring
(39:01):
those things out, I think is very important. I do
want to give a shout out to my mom through
all of this and to my husband, because my mom,
you know, has has been in so much pain and
has really been so strong and resilient, and that's one
of the things that she's taught me strength and courage
and faith and resiliency. But we've had so many tender
(39:25):
and quality oriented times. I you know, I get to
work from home. I have an office at the house.
I get to work from home today. So when I
finished working, or in between working, if I have an
hour break, she and I have been watching the Great
British Baking Show. It's one of the things that I
am probably the most grateful for in this season of
my life is the Great British Baking Show with my mom,
(39:47):
because I will never forget it. And cherish it. I mean,
we completely binged this and it has been the biggest
joy of our lives. And my husband will say, I
can hear you too, cackling and laughing. Any kind of
has been jealous. He's like, what's going on in there?
And it's like if he watched it, he would not
be cackling and laughing, he would be annoyed and wanting
to do something else. But we've shared joy and tears
(40:11):
through finding quality time and presence together. And I just
want to say that is whatever you're walking through, whatever
any of you are walking through, finding the things that
you can do with the people in your life that
you love, whether it's actual blood, family, friends, co workers,
what whoever it may be that really creates healthy, bright
(40:35):
moments in even really tough and challenging times. Well, and
you mentioned being thankful for you know, the baking show,
so you don't even know, great British banking show, Great
British holiday banking show. Shout out love you all through No, okay, see,
I have zero desire to watch that, Paul Hollywood, but
(40:57):
all the things, Hey, if you know out there, you know,
if you know, you know, Okay, we're in the club. Well,
I can vouch to the fact that I think a
few different times I have called y'all and that is
literally what you were watching, and I still haven't checked
it out, but you know you have gratitude for that,
which I think is another tool is sitting down and
practicing gratitude. So I think you know you mentioned the
(41:19):
baking show. So we'll do a little four things gratitude
here right now. That can be one thing. What are
three other things that you're currently thankful for? Well, I mean,
since we're on the topic of gratitude and food, I'm
really thankful for free toes um. So speaking of the salty,
I have been on a free to kick And so
you say free too, I see, I say frets tostos,
(41:45):
I've been on a free to kick. I live in Texas,
so we have a g B as our grocery store.
So I have been on the h g B lightly
salted version of free tos, those smaller strip ones because
I have needed I've needed something salty. I think some
of it matches my attitude because I've been a little salty.
But I've been so grateful for that as as just
(42:06):
a little pleasure or a treat that that just almost
makes me feel kind of childlike. Or you know, I'm
running by the convenience store with my mom, you know,
getting a snack after school and icy and you know,
a bag of chips, and I haven't. I'm not really
a big chip eater. So I'm totally grateful for Fredo's.
I mean, I am grateful for fresh cut flowers sitting
(42:26):
next to my sink in the kitchen or in the bathroom,
or in my office or you know, next to my
mom's bed, my bed. I like I mentioned, that has
been one of the biggest pleasures but most beautiful aspects
of my life is going downstairs washing dishes, grabbing um,
some tea or coffee, and fresh flowers are sitting there,
(42:49):
and arranging those flowers, cutting the flowers, putting fresh water
in them, keeping them alive. That has been something that
has been so cathartic for me. And I normally, I mean,
I cook quite a bit, but fresh flowers have been cathartic.
So massively grateful for fresh cut flowers and the arrangement
of those. And then I'm I'm grateful for friendship and
(43:09):
the people in my life who have really shown up
to hold space for me in the way that I
haven't been able to hold space for myself and you
being one of those um my siblings, my mom, even
my husband, my you know, some dear friends and spiritual advisors.
But I have and clients. Let me say that, I
have lots of clients and people that I work with,
(43:31):
and I get a little emotional saying it, because there
are just people that say how are you, or they'll
send me an email and say, you know, I was
just thinking about you and your mom. I just you
crossed my mind today. And this is somebody maybe I've
talked to twice in the last four years, and and
those always come through at the moment I need them
to come through. So friendship, connection, people being supportive. That's
(43:54):
a lot more than four things. But you know, you know,
but that's four four things. There are no rules for things.
Just help you. It's a starting point because sometimes sitting
down to journal gratitude can be seem overwhelming or intimidating,
like I don't really know how to journal this out.
But it can be four things as a starting point. Okay,
four just could be for words some days, but also
(44:17):
me may mean that each thing that you think of
has a rabbit trail of things um or there's a
domino effect. And that's what I found too with practicing gratitude,
especially the last couple of years, is there's a domino
effect and it just starts. So once you start flowing,
it does get easier. But there are days where you
know it might be a little more difficult and you
feel stuck. But okay, fine, do one thing. Well what
(44:41):
are you what are you grateful for right now? Well,
the first thing I thinkful for is that you were
you were able to come, because again it was touch
and go. We weren't for sure, for sure for sure,
and or maybe that was me just also to being
like protecting myself and getting too excited, but that you
were able to come, and and that we also had
(45:02):
a weekend to hold that space and kind of like
you said, go with the flow. Not every weekend is
like that, especially leading up to the holiday season, Like
I'll be traveling next weekend and you'll be back home.
But you know, just the kind of time that we
were able to actually have because we still had kids
and still had things, and I mean we were Friday
(45:22):
was dedicated to the kids, and we were driving all
over town doing this and that, but we still had
time together. And then Saturday got to be more of
our day, which we were very intentional about, and we
stayed gone with ourselves, and I got a babysitter just
to help out with a few things, because you know,
I wanted to make sure that we had that time.
(45:42):
Second thing would be that we were go with the
flow like we talked about, and that we've gone hiking
every day too. That's been part of our being intentional
and care and then but on those hikes there's no
pressure for what we're gonna talk about or if there's
any silence, that's okay too. But then also things have
(46:03):
just come up organically that I didn't know we would
even be talking about, but we we've just been open
to it and things have come out, and it's been,
like you said, a safe space, but organic in in
some parts, like nothing's forced. So I'm thankful for that.
And there's no judgment because I think when you are
trying to work through something sometimes there's this fear of like, oh,
(46:25):
if I say this out loud, what is this person
going to think? Okay, first thing you coming. Second thing
is our flexibility. But that means us running home and
putting the dog in the car and going down to Radnor,
you know, last being like, hey, we're going to Ratner
and we're hiking and we're holding space for each other.
And Amy and I are both the fastest walkers that
you can imagine, we both are. I mean, it's basically
(46:46):
a running a little jogging pace but walking. Third thing
would be we did cryotherapy and the booth together because
it's so good. So some cryotherapy chambers, I guess it's
a one person only got room for yourself. But there's
another location where four people can fit in there, and
so we decided to go to that one, and a
(47:07):
man and I both got in there together and we
listened to Tupac Changes while we danced around in the
freezing cold. And so that is I'm thankful for our
Tupac dance party in negative two two degrees and and
the song changes that song. I love Tupac and I
(47:28):
know that Changes is one of your favorite songs. So
if people people don't know Tupac, you're missing at song,
I would say listen to it for sure. This is
because it it was you know, in the nineties and
one of the my favorite pieces of it. And I'm
not going to wrap it and sing it for you
because y'all would shut this podcast off immediately and it
(47:48):
really might hurt Amy's ratings and we do not want
to do that. Which speaking of if you've never rated
and reviewed, I don't ever asked people to do that.
One of my friends said the other day she actually
went to go do that for the pod guests, and
I said, oh, thank you. That's so And you know,
but I listened to Oprah's podcast, and you know other
people that have massive fallings that would never need to
(48:09):
ask for a following, a subscription of you know, subscribe,
a rating, a review or anything. But yet they she
always does. She's like, oh, and make sure you go
rate and review the podcast if you have time. Thank you, Oprah.
And I'm like, oh, pop, I can do it. I
can do it. But before Amanda reads or shares her
favorite part, the song starts off in case you're unfamiliar,
(48:30):
but he's like, I see no changes. Wake up in
the morning, and I asked myself, is life worth living?
Should bless myself? You know? And then he goes on
and on and on. But that's the beat, which is weird.
In the last month or so, I've sang about of
saying to Tupac songs do love Tupac? I did, I
think Dear Mama, look a few weeks ago with Kat
and then now here we are changes. But what's your
(48:51):
favorite part? My favorite part is, and it's later in
the song, it's we've got to make a change. It's
time for us as a people to start making some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way
we live, and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see, the old way wasn't working, so it's on
us to do what we've got to do to survive.
(49:11):
Tupac was so ahead of his time. But then also
it's so this is still so relevant now, and it's like, Okay,
it's still time to change. Let's change the way we
treat each other, because Lord knows a lot of people
need that, especially on the the Internet. But yeah, so
Tupac changes our cryotherapy time. And then I would say,
the fourth thing that I'm thankful for is firefly lane
(49:36):
or we got to lane. Okay, so it's really couch time.
I told a man of one of the things that
I want to do more of is lay on my
couch and watch whatever I want from my couch, not
on my computer, folding laundry or putting on my makeup
or blow drying my hair. So I don't even have sounds.
So that's how I miss things that happened. I'm like, oh, yeah,
(49:57):
I watched that episode, but I'm like, I kind of
was trying to read the subtitles while my blow dryer
was in my ears, or while I'm cooking or doing whatever,
and not that I don't have time for myself, but
I'm talking. I want couch time. That's what I want.
I'm gonna lay on my couch. So we've also done
that this weekend, which has been cool. So in our
couch time, we also started season two of Fire Filly
(50:18):
Lane on Netflix, and it's so good. If you haven't
seen season one, then that's something you get to. Yeah,
you go back and and watch and then well and
it's about friendship. Oh that's so true. It's about friendship.
I didn't I wasn't even putting that little bow together there,
but yes, it is about friendship and it's so good.
So those are my four things that I'm thankful for.
And I'll say this too. You might be done with
(50:40):
your Christmas shopping because Christmas isn't three days, but maybe
you have last minute gifts that you need to shop
for after the holidays, or you are interested in gratitude
and you're you want something like a tool to help
you along with it. And that's what our Four Things
Gratitude Journal is. It's a it's a tool and Mary
and I created it is something to not be intimidating,
(51:01):
to be something easy that you can bust out. And
you can do four Things Gratitude in any old journal,
but this is you know, we put quotes on each page,
we put prompts in the back their stickers, and a
couple of weeks ago we released two cover options. And
the colors are so so cute, I said, I wanted
to report back what people's favorite has been. And I
(51:24):
am a little surprised. I thought the favorite was going
to be the red and the coral colors, but the
blue and the teal color seems to be more of
a favorite, or that's what people are buying more of,
so that's sort of surprised me. But they're both cute,
so not in a bad way. But anyway, Four Things
dot com if you want to enter the new year
and with the four Things Gratitude Journal and acent of
(51:44):
the proceeds go to education in Haiti through Project Meta Share.
I love gratitude as a tool, and I love breathing
as a tool. And if you're someone right now that
is processing a lot through the holidays and you feel
the salty and you feel the sweet, or you don't
really even know what you're feeling, then the point of
this conversation was to hopefully help you become aware of
(52:07):
what it is and then to be able to articulate
it to yourself and possibly others, and then to be
able to take some action. So the three a's called
the Triple A, and amana, thank you for sharing some
of what you're going through. I know it's a lot,
but that's an example of getting vulnerable when it when
(52:28):
it feels right. And if this didn't feel right from you,
for you, I know you wouldn't do it. But I
know that it's special and it's helpful to a lot
of people that might be going through something similar, maybe
again not grieving the loss of a mom in the moment,
but other hard things and just getting real about that
it is it is hard, and there's a lot of
(52:49):
feelings happening. And even you, who someone as I see
that's very emotionally intelligent and is able to tap into
so many different things. And that's what you do. You
incurridge people all day long. You help people get to
their highest potential. And so too, it just shows like, Okay,
every not everybody has it all together at all times,
(53:10):
and it's okay to not. And you even getting excited
about an aha moment that is so simple, Like you said,
it's so simple but profound that you had the revelation
that you're sad, and then now you're leaning into that
and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna be sad, so that
I no longer numb it out or push it down,
because that doesn't go anywhere good. I tell you from experience,
(53:32):
that goes nowhere good, real fast. And then you're in
this hole and you're trying to dig your way out
and it may take years to do that. So just
being proactive in that, and that's part of this conversation too,
is maybe that's where you get out the wheel. Spin
that wheel spin spin the wheel of the wheel of
emotional fortune, right, and so you know. But by the way,
(53:56):
the wheel that that that I was looking at the
circle wheel, it kind of looks like the wheel of
fortune wheel you know that they spin. It has all
those colors on it. I mean. And maybe if you're
doing some I don't know, maybe this could be an
activity if you're having trouble identifying your emotion, is spin
the wheel each day or you know, you can't really
spend the wheel online, but maybe you take your finger
and you close your eyes and you land on an
(54:16):
emotion and then sit with that emotion for the day
and you may process that like, oh, okay, that does
not relate to me at all. Okay, next emotion. The
next day, you put your finger on something else, and
then maybe that's how you're able to exercise that muscle
and get there, is you know, a little emotional wheel
of fortune, like your emotional whale of fortune. But you
(54:37):
know that's so great because that also helps you with
developing intuition and connecting with your soul and spirit. Because
whatever you put your finger on, maybe you can't identify
with that emotion today, but maybe you have a memory
where oh that's what I was feeling. Oh my gosh,
that's what it was, and it may help you process
or become aware of something uh in the past that
(54:59):
was going on that you might not have actually processed
or been able to articulate. And it creates awareness from
something in the past. That So healing isn't always linear. Yes,
it's a journey, but healing is nonlinear as well, meaning
you go back. You know, when we process trauma and
therapy and with people, it's it's not linear. So yeah,
(55:20):
be playful with it because this is this is big stuff.
And Amanda tell people where they can find you and
all the things. Yes, if you are wanting to connect
with me, my name is Amanda Reager Green on Instagram,
it's at soul Pathology. My website is soul pathology dot com.
(55:41):
I am an intuitive, a psychic medium, but most of
all I work to, like Amy said, connect people with
their highest self, their highest potential, and connect the human
consciousness with the soul, essentially astounding you with your own abilities.
And you know, if if you know me or you've
worked with me, I work with everything from um neural
(56:03):
feedback and cognition and all of the neural sciences to
astrology and numerology and then connecting with loved ones on
the other side. So it's just a big gumbo of
tools and you just take what you want and leave
the rest. And hopefully you just leave or walk out,
(56:24):
you know, in working with me on a session, feeling better,
more alive, more awaken, in tune than when you came in.
And again soul pathology dot com. And then also that's
the same Instagram handle. And yeah, we are a few
days out from Christmas. If you're listening to this when
it comes out, or you you know this is a podcast,
you might be listening to this in July, so who knows.
(56:50):
Hopefully it's still you can apply it to whatever season
of life you're in. Yeah, and also just just so
if you know you are new, I am limited sometimes
in my one to one work and what I do.
I do some retreats and workshops, but I have all
sorts of tools and resources. I have free tools how
to set intentions on my website. I've got a great
eighteen day meditation that is wonderful for morning and evening
(57:13):
and it really helps to get in a flow and
get in a space of peace. So there are all
sorts of tools on my website that are good if
you're just dipping the toe, your toe into the water
of whatever yourself help, self care and spiritual and personal
journey is. I love, It's okay, hope y'all are having
the day that you need to have, and you have
the Christmas that you need to have, and that you
(57:36):
take some time for yourself whatever that may look like.
And then also listen to tupoc changes. Okay, thank you. Bye,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com