okay before we get into this juicy episode I
want to share with you a holiday promo that's running for all of the month of December I am
offering $200 off my Awakening program this is a thre Monon individual coaching program where I
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n this program includes
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so when you get that message from your ex who who do you reach out to who can help you make
that make that decision on what to say or what not to say so having that real-time support to
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to your friends
and family maybe you don't have anybody else that you can share these things with
and in the safety you'll find Healing so again this promo runs for all of December $200 off this
three-month program the first step is to schedule a free session so that we can get to know one
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ner who can align with you in your life and celebrate the woman that you
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Awakening program is in the show notes below so be sure to check it out enjoy this episode welcome
to this episode of lucid living with Bri learn to live in love awake I'm your host Bri walta and
I am here with one of my best friends and former client Amy Jenkins I'm so excited to share with
you her story and how she has mo
ved through her Awakening journey through relationships family
Dynamics self-abandonment all of the amazing [Music] moments that you've had in your in what
has become your healing Journey yeah it's not over yet yeah yeah do you want well I do I want you
to introduce yourself to to the audience thank you Bri I'm so honored to be here so thank you so
much for having me I love and adore you so much so this is exciting to be here with you um yeah
so as Brie said I'm Amy Jenkins um I'm a holisti
c coach so I like working with folks on a mind body
and soul level I started my career Journey uh as a therapist I was um I got my masters in Clinical
Psychology and was about halfway through a PhD in counseling psychology and was like I don't think
this is actually what I'm supposed to be doing but I don't know it's going to play in somewhere down
the road and fast forward maybe 10 or 12 years um got my certification in personal training and
nutrition and just realized oh there's all these
different pieces to the puzzle that they all
connect that talking through things having this beautiful base of theory from psychology and being
able to talk through things but also bringing in somatic or body work nutrition sleep movement
all these components come together to really truly heal so I love tying all that together and
working with clients who are kind of stuck in in whatever realm of their life I have clients who
are not sure what next career path choice will be stuck in um ki
nd of maladapted patterns in
their life or even just I have athletes who are looking to optimize their nutrition and I always
start our conversations with yeah yeah yeah we can we can start with nutrition but we're gonna talk
about feelings too I love tying it all together and yeah it's it's It Feels So heart aligned to
the work that I'm doing it's taken a while to get here but I I love it so much yes yes watching your
Evolution too from because I've known I don't even know how long we've k
nown each other now a while
back when you had short blonde hair so it was a very long time um if you you aren't watching the
video Amy now has very beautiful very long brown hair so it timing wise it took a while to grow
it out um but watching your Evolution from you know when you got your personal training degree
and just sort of like wanting to really help people achieve their physical goals yeah and how
that's evolved into like oh yeah and and there's all this emotional component and now
bringing in
the breath work and like how that can help open so many doors in your understanding your awareness
like your healing so it's like the body focus has evolved in different ways whether it's the mind
or the physical body it's all it's all connected and ironically I think it unfolded as my own
healing Journey unfolded right yeah always so when I think about when I was starting on the
the personal training component I was kind of distracting myself with being as physically fit
and
like crushing every physical goal and nailing the nutrition yeah as I peeled back the layers
of that onion was just like oh [ __ ] there's a little bit of a wonky emotional layer in here that
I haven't wanted to look at and I think that's where it's kind of I beautiful to see how they
both unfold at the same time of life mimicking art is what they say sometimes it's like career
mimicking life so yeah even your word choice of crushing crushing the workouts and nailing the
food choices like t
hat's so masculine oh my gosh and I know we're gonna dive into my divorce but
I remember very shortly after we separated I dove into what the hell is the divine feminine because
I identified so strongly as this masculine entity and so much of my life didn't want to be a woman
didn't want to be a girl I can remember as like a little kid not I want to be a girl so now yeah
kind of enveloping this oh femininity actually is this beautiful I mean the balance of the two
and yeah yeah it's funny I
hadn't picked up on my word choice but yeah back in the day really
really well it's a masculine industry and I mean we could go into a whole Deep dive around how how
nutrition and and the fitness culture is geared towards men and not towards women who are cycling
and like the whole the whole craziness of it all um but it made me think of the heroin's journey
have you read that book no oh my God it's I've recently read it and recently was like [ __ ]
I really I'm still a little unbalanced i
n the masculine that's to read this okay yeah for me
that's the default safe place is the masculine I'll do it I'll do it perfect I'll you know run
myself into the ground all of the things instead of the feminine receptive trusting intuitive it's
a good book it's I'll probably reread it several times yeah definitely I'm gonna well when I come
back and listen to this podcast too make a little note yeah so let's let's start by talking about
how or maybe the beginning of the journey on how you
've gotten to where you are now and this more
more awake more of the time place because I want to be careful of like we're never reaching the
Finish point or The Awakening the enlightened moment right it's like so many of this these
falling asleep waking up falling asleep waking up and you just get more skilled at recognizing
nap a little shorter right yes yeah yeah instead of like a coma you're in my coma began yeah you
know I I don't know if this will resonate with your with your listener
s but M my journey really
did begin in childhood you know it really began in the roots and the origin and something I I want
to say I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about some hard things and honestly I'm gonna name it too this
is the first time in my life I've talked about this publicly so it's I'm a little afraid there's
a little girl in me that's feeling a little like you know shameful like don't don't put anybody
down and it's like well I even talked to you about this a little bit and you're li
ke this is
your this is your story so I'm GNA tell my story but I also want folks to know that as I tell
this story uh my father has since deceased so I haven't been able to have conversations with him
as an adult unfortunately he died when I was 10 um but I I talked to him in the in my in my heart in
the spiritual Realm we have a beautiful connection with others and we've done a lot of mending and
healing on the other side uh my mother and I have had quite a few conversations and it's an E
ver
evolving relationship you know and and we have our own sleep wake Cycles as well in our relationship
so as I talk about this I do want to instill hope and reality that it is still a process it is still
a journey but that relationship is improving and I don't have children so I cannot necessarily
put myself in either of my parents shoes but um yeah my my journey started very young um both of
my parents are children of abuse as well and you know I'm an 80s baby and so my parents are boome
rs
and Boomers by and large you know obviously there there's Shades of Gray weren really a generation
that did their own self workor there wasn't a self- journey at least back in the 80s there
wasn't you know if you had a therapist so what something was wrong with you yeah quote unquote
right yeah yeah um and so they didn't do their own healing at that time and so I I I can hold
space for both of those things that a lot of the pain I received was their own pain emitting out of
them whether
they meant to or not and my mom and I even spoken about this a bit where she said I just
always thought because I wasn't hitting you I was doing better than what my parents did and like oh
to hear that and that's really hard and there's a lot of compassion there and there's a lot of
compassion for what I went through as well yeah of course and and not to get into the nitty-gritty
of details I'll just kind of give some um some context a lot of my childhood was around saying
the right thing
and if you didn't you were just completely torn down um people pleasing having the
answer right away and really taking responsibility some of the these qualities are fine right some
of these qualities are taking responsibility for what you did is a beautiful value to instill in
your child but the fear of the ramification if you didn't was maybe that more kind of harsh piece
to it um and so I being my own unique Soul because my brother and I lived the same childhood and
were're both very dif
ferent people um I inherited or I I cultivated if you will this people pleasing
beyond my own own Comfort beyond my essentially abandoning myself I I developed abandonment fears
I was always afraid of not being loved not being good enough that love being taken away and so
my fear of Abandonment led to abandoning myself at all costs I would do what needed to be done
to be lovable to be enough yeah and it set me up beautifully to be the spouse to someone that
I could just people please and my
ex um has you know their own wounds and has his own Journey if
you will and and his own sleep awake cycle but we were in a very codependent relationship and
I think when we met we met when we were 20 we met actually when we were 19 20 years old um and
I had a huge crush on him like from the gecko oh my gosh I was like ooo who is this I recognize
that wounded I want that exactly and I had just shaved my head my and I had a boyfriend at the
time and my boyfriend at the time was like not into
it at all he was not there's been a lot of
hairstyles over wish I knew Amy with a shaved head oh she was fearless and yeah so he thought
it was cool and he was so interested in me and I know you've talked a lot about trauma bonding
and love bombing there was some of that in that relationship too um of both of us having these
wounded parents and thus being wounded children and how can we I wouldn't even say hold space for
one another because I don't think either one of us had the skill set
to do that but just how can we
Collide and how can we numb out we were both um I had never really smoked marijuana at the time
don't tell my mom I'm kidding but I lived in Oklahoma it was the early 2000s and it was very
illegal but you know he got he introduced me to marijuana and I was like oh this is a fun this is
a fun drug this calms me down yep and you know we got lost a lot in um numbing out together and I
think that that set the foundation unfortunately for our relationship uh when t
hings got difficult
when things became um um to a Breaking Point rather than let's have a real conversation about
what's really going on let's have that deep inner connection let's go to therapy together it was oh
[ __ ] it let's just know now yeah which is like when two people come together with the intention
of you know just colliding right it's not really it's not really I'm a heal I'm and and healed is
also an interesting word but like I'm an awake I'm a conscious person around my stuff
I know how
this shows up in relationships if you're not that way coming into relationships you kind of just
like are it's more transactional it's like I'm going to be here so that I don't feel abandoned
and you're probably here so that you feel loved or validated or whatever he was getting from the
dynamic and it's just this constant transaction of what I need from you because I can't give it to
myself yes and of course you find a man like that that replicates the early dynamic because tha
t's
what you learned and from the early Dynamic you adapted all of these wonderful survival skills
of people pleasing and getting your needs met right that at one point for little Amy that was
vital you had to you had to because we need the connection from our parents we need the the you're
going to take care of me right we need that from our parents so we just do what ever we need to do
to figure out how to get that and the unfortunate piece is then those patterns get Consolidated and
sol
idified in our subconscious and they just keep running the show into our adulthood which is
why this whole part of being introspective and curious about your trauma and your patterns is
so important because you don't want to be the one passing down like your parents did even though
you may not have children but it's like the people that you interact with like just everybody that
you touch with your wounded places it affects them so it's our trauma is not our fault but
it is our responsibili
ty now totally totally and I think that's I know to your point neither
one of us was doing the work on ourselves and so inevitably we couldn't meet our own needs
let alone each others so there be times where I couldn't show up for him or he couldn't show up
for me and that just triggers all of those wounds and kind of a domino effect and inevitably too
because we were codependent with when one of us was triggered the other was inevitably triggered
and so it just created kind of a chaotic cy
cle for us yeah and that's when we get into those
real hopeless places where it's like oh my God we're here again oh my God we're having the same
fight again like it's just it's like Groundhog's Day if we're not stopping to be like oh what's
at the root of this or why why does this thing bother me so much that they're doing or where's
my part and taking accountability for it or am I taking too much accountability for it because I
know that was in both of our cases with our exes we we took f
ault for a lot of things that were not
our fault yeah yeah and responsibility I if I you know I know we're going to talk about this in a
little bit probably um of the work that you and I did together I think that was one of the pieces
that just finally clicked for me is oh my God I'm not responsible for your happiness and you're
not responsible for mine I'm not responsible for any of your feelings yeah whoa yeah yeah and
it's kind of it's like just that simple and just that complex right ye
p yeah yes so you were with
him for several years 18 and a half years and and I say that there were so many I mean yeah I never
want to frame it as like it was all just chaos we definitely there was a lot of love there there
was a lot of of Adventure there so many positive memories um I can say so many positive things
about my ex he's so creative so funny um just you know I do think of him and very fond light yeah
and it's been three years so that definitely helps but yeah um you know I wou
ld never want to talk
about him in a disparaging way yeah but um yeah 18 and a half years and there were times I think
one of the um there's I can actually remember one memory very vividly of you and I at the gym
and we were talking and I was going through a phase where I thought we were going to break up
and it's okay that you don't remember this and it was one of the very first moments I felt very
comfortable being like I don't know what I'm going to do about this relationship I don't thi
nk it's
GNA last and it still took I think about four or five years before we finally ended it and um most
of it was because he said very frankly I mean if nothing else my ex was really great about saying
if we break up I can't have you in my life I can't I can't be your friend I can't be around you and
that was his boundary you know we we didn't set many boundaries with one another but that was
one that I just I knew and the way he said it I knew he meant it and so every time I kind of got
close to that Cliff of saying I think I'm done I think I'm ready to move on I knew it meant full
abandonment yeah the worst fear the worst fear right there in my face yeah and it wasn't until
I was ready to say I would rather be alone than in this relationship in this cycle anymore yeah
thank you for naming that because I think a lot of women who stayed longer than they should and
I say that lightly because it's like I I believe that we finally come to the place of being ready
when exactl
y when we're meant to but that moment when you first think like [ __ ] this might not
this might not be working and and you almost slowly start grieving or slowly start preparing
for the grief well before you left oh yeah and I don't know if that's the case with men I don't
I don't work with men in the same capacity but so many of my female clients have done that where
they're they're grieving they're they're coming to the realization or the that moment of pure knowing
that this is the righ
t decision and sometimes that takes several years several years and there's no
shame in however long it takes you to to come to that point where it's finally like the pain
of being here is worse than the the potential pain that might come from this unknown place of
being abandoned and being alone right and I don't even think I did it consciously but I think that
moment where I started to name it years before we actually did split um subconsciously I began
the work there I start I stopped nu
mbing out I started focusing on crushing that nutrition I
went to a very masculine place with it but I did I started focusing on self-care from a holistic
perspective um I started going to therapy to talk about what was going on I started doing more um
holistic healing and seeing spiritual healers um and so I think I needed that more like I needed
my team yeah right I needed my team so that I knew that when this ultimate abandonment came
that I was choosing that abandonment because I was no
longer going to abandon myself I was going
to choose me yes yes and the reframe around this isn't an abandonment this is a this is a choice
for my well-being yeah yeah is is an impactful one right when it's not like oh my oh my God he's
leaving me and I won't be okay it's like oh I'm choosing this and I will be okay because I've
surrounded myself with the these amazing people that can hold me and you know when I think about
those moments that I like when I left it was not the most opportun
e time for him I left when I
had bolstered myself up and you and I worked a lot with this there was so much guilt and shame
that I'm doing really well and I've supported myself he might be actually at the lowest part of
his life and how dare I do this to him when he's going through this yeah how dare I no longer take
care of him yeah yeah which is a hard it's hard to decipher for those of us who have taken care
of people our whole lives it's hard to decipher what is what is true for you you
and what is like
doing something to punish someone else yeah it's like you didn't choose to leave when you did like
to throw him into the lowest point of his life it was just that was the point where you needed to
take care of yourself and he's an adult man who's responsible for his own feelings and experiences
and emotions and he can get his tribe of people to support him too right it's like oh I'm not
actually that's not my role anymore and that's not my responsibility and you know it's
funny
talking about repeating patterns um I was put in that place at an early age a team of one
my mom would often say to me you're my best friend or why can't you be my therapist when I
was getting my degrees well why can't you be my therapist and so I was used to being someone who
needed to be the role of the daughter best friend and therapist and so having a spouse now that
really isolated himself um and and really relied on me to be there as support in many different
components or diff
erent ways yeah it was a role I knew all too well and been very groomed for
yeah and we go towards the familiar even though it's uncomfortable even though it's not serving
The Familiar is is the safe place in our in our mind because with with the unfamiliar comes all
of the unpredictable things that could happen and we don't control them and like panic mode
so I'll stay in this painful familiar over the unpredictable potentially much better place which
you experiencing now so what was that
what was that moment like for you when you said I'm going
like how did you how did you come to that that for sure knowing um I think he actually did it for
me to begin with he started everything in motion um because I honestly didn't have the guts at
first yeah and through several conversations we decided to separate and then excuse me as soon as
he left I've never really said this to anybody so sorry if I'm kind of pausing as as soon as he
left because I don't I don't I don't mean this to
be hurtful at all but as soon as he left I
felt this like tremendous overwhelming sense of relief and a door closing that I was so happy to
have closed yeah and that sounds really horrible to say because again lovely human being it wasn't
a terrible it wasn't awful you know I could make all the excuses right yeah because I did for
so long um and to some degree I still do right I still say oh but um but as soon as he left I
just knew in every cell of my body this is what I wanted and I could
feel every cell rejoicing
yeah yeah and then I had to decide how to tell him I actually wanted a divorce because we were
just doing a trial separation but I knew pretty much instantly and so thankfully had therapy I
think I had individual therapy and then I had an individual session with our couples counselor
both that week which was great and excuse me put up sticky notes everywhere you're allowed to
want a divorce you can writing out how I was going to say that I wanted the divorce and i
t
was um I mean it was trembling I was terrified it was funny because um I went right back to
that little girl who was torn down for saying the wrong thing because I knew in his eyes I was
going to be saying the wrong thing yeah yeah and that would probably open a lot of space for him
to tear you down especially if what you're saying is causing pain for him or or uncomfortability
or inconvenience right yeah 100% yeah yeah I want to I want to thank you first and foremost for
sharing some of
these pieces that you've not said out loud and being vulnerable in your story and I
can relate to that moment of relief and to the to the the then coming moments of longing and missing
and grieving and I think it's important to to say that we can hold both of those things like we can
we can feel that this was a [ __ ] yes decision in my body full through and through and still have
that moments of dropping into the Nostalgia and remembering the good times and missing that and
missing him an
d missing what was even if there was pain even if there was you know the uncomfortable
experiences it's like we still had all of those experiences with that person person and the grief
doesn't mean you have to hate them forever but you can you can hold both you can hold that duality
of of knowing you know and it's been three years it comes less the way it's come less but I've
even talked with my partner now where there are times where I miss laughing with him you know
I do miss his friendsh
ip I respect his boundary 100% I don't think that it would have been helpful
for for either one of us to try to remain friends especially in the beginning yeah um and it's it's
interesting I even catch sometimes wanting to share with them like where my life is now because
my life is on a complete 180 yeah but I have to honor that he might not be excited for me he
may not he may not wish that well yeah yeah yeah the the feeling feeling of the feelings without
having the reaction or the behav
ior attached to it is such a skill like being able to feel that
feeling of longing or that feeling of wishing that you could tell him how things were without
actually doing it or doing it before you realize that you're doing it and then getting a really
negative result from it yeah is is is a superpower like being able to do that is it's something that
you know it's sitting in that discomfort it really is is yeah so in the three years that you have
been post divorce what were some of the mo
st impactful moments for you on the healing journey
in making sense of the relationship or healing with your inner child you know fill us in a little
bit around what felt the most helpful sure I think um so the the group work that you and I did in in
the container was really helpful for me to have kind of a light on of I had read codependency for
dummies I had read codependent no more but it was the first time I could kind of link it a little
I'm trying to think of how to say this it was ki
nd of like the first time I could see my part in
it like um I could see how I felt pulled in to the drama and to be the rescuer but I didn't see how
I was also the persecutor and the victim if that makes sense and so that was just kind of a lights
on to see oh it's not this like codependency isn't this just static thing and you play one role in it
no you it's a moving flowing Dynamic way of being and I had to recognize that because um I think by
the time we were doing work I was in my that
the relationship I am in currently and I could see me
slowly starting to play those patterns again yeah and be like okay if the one constant variable is
yourself yeah maybe you're part of the problem and so it was was able to and I think that the beauty
of that container and the other women that were in that group was that we could see one another
hold space for one another and it reduced the shame something that um that I work a lot with and
actually I'll get to this next as breath work bu
t um shame and guilt come up so much for me I don't
I'm still in my sleep awake cycle exploring and understanding this grief shame guilt diad that I
have going on or Triad that I have going on yeah um and in fact I'm doing a journey in two weeks
that I'll talk about in a little bit too but um so so I think so so so having a container of
women to really explore things continuing to go to therapy doing quite a bit of somatic work so
along this time I also was just physically a wreck I um I've
been battling still battling sibo which
is a small a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth that I believe started in 2020 when I got a really
bad stomach virus and it just yeah it's been a lot to try to clear it out but all of that stress
you know we talk about cortisol and all of our stress hormones affecting our body's ability to
heal itself so doing lots of I did Yoni steams um Mind Body connective meditations and then that
led me down this path of breath work and I've done breath work
years ago I had I had done it with
a A Beautiful Soul here in Denver um and I was like I think I want to try this again so I found
someone out in here and I now live in Boulder so saw someone in Boulder and I was like hell yeah
I want to do that I want to add that tool to my kit for my personal growth but also to the
work that I'm doing so I mentioned earlier this mirroring of life and career yep again I felt
that whole body yes and so started a facilitator apprenticeship and in my and and
as a part of that
I do weekly breath work with myself and the type of breath work that this is around is it's more
transformative uh we call it circular connective so it is likened to in fact there's studies right
now going on at John's Hopkins looking at the impact of this type of breath work as compared to
MDMA and LSD in treating PTSD and Veterans so it's really potent uh beautiful work that you can do
within yourself with just your own breath that's awesome diving into that has been a G
ameChanger um
and that's where I've kind of learned more about this Triad a lot of grief comes up and immediately
shame and guilt and it's it's an interesting thing that I'm exploring um lastly I'll say I mentioned
a journey that I'll be doing so I am you know I've been doing the breath work but I am going to take
it into a little bit of a deeper realm I'll be um undergoing some psilocybin uh journey in a couple
of weeks and so um what my hope there is is that I'll be able to prolong that t
hat EXP of dropping
in to help have some resolution and help me kind of rewire my brain a little bit and have a little
bit longer of a Time the breath work I typically do is about an hour um so this will be five or
six hours maybe more we'll see um so I'm hoping for just a little bit more expansive space to
to amplify and to integrate yeah I think breath work and and um medicine work and whatever type
of medicine you're working with go really well together again because of the The Body Conn
ection
yeah and breath work being more accessible in that you know typically it's an hour hour and a half
you could you don't have to be really screened there's no contraindication or there may be
contraindications but maybe not to the same degree as medicine work it's just a little bit
more accessible more of the time and to your point about like dropping in deeper that gives you also
so much fertile ground to then bring to integrate with breath work yes and integrate in your therapy
and
it's like the experience because I helped to co-create and co- facilitate uh plant medicine
retreats in Costa Rica and the company that I work with they they put a lot of intentional effort and
like specialty in the integration piece because if we go and have these experience experiences and
then don't have integration support like what the [ __ ] is the experience it's just it's just
an experience right we're not we're not bringing the wisdom we're not bringing the learning the
uncovering
we're not integrating those into into how we live our life and therefore we're not going
to see change so for you having having both in in like your your medicine kit of healing tools is
is so beneficial and I'm such a a big supporter of all that you do but I'm so excited for your your
journey I am too and you know it's not um I think sometimes people um think like oh you're gonna
you're gonna take some plant medicine and just drop in and you know it's it's so intentional
right yeah so I'm
two weeks out I've been off caffeine for three or four weeks now um off of
sugar I alcohol you know all of these um when kind of cleansing the body and spending more time in
nature you know cyon especially has that mycelium connection and so I'm doing lots of grounding
meditations like naked feet in the ground letting my my celium connect with the nature outside and
this may seem a little woo woo to folks but but it really is this connective piece of I want to
connect with nature so that wh
en I take in nature as a plant medicine I've already been working with
it to a degree and I've already cleansed my body of some of the toxins that I might have built up
I love coffee so it's you know that's that's been a journey but um you know just kind of clearing
all that out so that I can receive the medicine in its purest form and and really do the work and
setting intentions I'm journaling every day about what's going on but also intention setting for
what I hope to get from the exper
ience yeah and really treating this with respect yeah and not
just respect for the medicine but respect for yourself and this this choice that you've made to
put your your money and your time and your energy and yourself in this container it's like you
intentionally showing up is a way that you are showing yourself that you matter yeah and again
choosing myself right yes yes and I know that breath work for you has been sort of an Open Door
back into trusting your body trusting yourself trus
ting your intuition share a little bit about
how that how that came to be yeah oh I'd love to that's a great question um so I think one of the
things I tell folks who come to do breath work is that this type of breath work is similar to taking
plant medicine but it's just your breath doing it and so therefore you're in control the whole time
and just that piece of knowing that you can stop breathing you can you know you can come out of it
pretty quickly at any point you need to there's some
thing so empowering there but also leaning
into it if you start to go there you know I've had times where shit's getting real it gets you know
I might be reliving a memory or some emotion might be coming up really intensely it's like I know I
could just stop or I could lean into it and know that the reason this is coming up because again
it's it's not a substance I've ingested it is just me and my breath and my brain chemistry that maybe
there's something that I need to look at that maybe I
'm ready to look at it maybe I'm already
processing it it's just you because we've got this um this is such a computery thing to say we've got
front end and back end so what what we see on the website is not necessar what's all happening in
the background right our body IES are the same way and so I might be seeing a visual or having
an emotion that's the front end pieces but stuff in that back end has been going on whe whether I
know it or not like the whole stuff going on with my gut heal
th is an indicator that things aren't
great in my ecosystem that needs to be looked at right and so there's this trust and saying okay
breath have your way with me that's what my mentor always says that have your way with me breath
and I really love it because it's it's kind of this I trust you implicitly and what that means
is I trust you implicitly and this I Got You Babe kind of energy that's so interesting about the
control piece because because people who want who reach out to us about
plant medicine and we work
with aasa so it has the you know the reputation of being like the the big one the grandmother you
know and people are really afraid of of not being in control of that situation and to your point
it's like whether it's the breath or the medicine it's it's going to show you what's already there
that you are it's not going to give you more than you are able to handle and it might be more than
you thought you would see in that moment yeah and like you said it's it's
in the background already
so it's not it's not bringing up these things that are completely like I don't know in left field
I guess of your experience yeah but that that piece about being able to control and being
a I think that opens again the accessibility for people where it's like because we all want
control in some way we want to be control have control over the experience and in breath work it
sounds like you you dance and you flirt with that edge of of how how expansive can I feel In
This
Moment moment without pulling away and how much can I trust myself without you know losing that
connection to to my inner guidance and I mentioned that um I do breath work with myself I am trained
to do that so it isn't something much like I would never suggest someone take a plant medicine and
go off on their own as a medicinal Journey would never suggest that I would not suggest someone go
off and do transformational or circular connective breath work on their own either have a guid
e um
you know either doing an individual session or there's groups um which can be really amazing too
because you've got a group of people who are all having their experiences so you might hear someone
over here laughing hysterically someone over here screaming or crying and you're kind of in the
middle you know you may or may not be having any of those emotions right or sometimes you're on
the precipice of wanting to release some emotion but hearing somebody else's emotion push through
al
lows your floodgates to come open so it can be really beautiful but but yeah I I 100% recommend
someone having someone there to hold that space so knowing that yes I'm in control as I'm flirting
with that edge I'm still being held and there's so much medicine just in the experience itself like
you're talking about someone laughing or someone screaming I had an experience um with plant
medicine where I someone was laughing and I got pissed I was so angry that this person was having
so much f
un in their experience and I'm over here like having some sematic pain and just it wasn't
a happy experience for me and what that allowed me to see was how often I I allow other people
to experience joy and pleasure but don't believe that I am worthy of that or don't believe that
I can relax or not you know be the responsible one yeah yeah and that not even from the medicine
it was just the experience of hearing the person laughing gave me so much Insight so doing group
experiences whether
it's breath work or coaching or plant medicine it's like the the how we learn
from other people and the mirrors that other people get to be for us it's it's incredible you
can't you can't create that intentionally like I always talk about the people who come into my
groups I'm like I couldn't have chosen you all to be in this more perfect place together where
it's typical where they all share family Dynamics or they're all share you know really abusive
partners that they're leaving at the s
ame time like it's just it's different every time and it's
like just when I open a container there's so much trust that's like okay I'm going to have two or
three or four people in here and it's going to be perfect whatever it needs to be beyond what I can
see right now I had that thought last night I had a um a brand new client just signed up they saw
one of my flyers at the climbing gym and signed up for breath work I didn't know them and like
beautiful soul and I just after they left I j
ust like put my hand to chest and was just like oh my
gosh Universe you bring me like the best people thank you so much so grateful and and even to
your point I remember in your coaching container I mean first of all just lovely group of women and I
remember one woman in particular her ex was almost like her story with her ex was nearly identical
to mine and I needed that I needed someone else to say I see you girl yeah he's he's not a bad guy
he's not you know he's not narcissistic he's no
t abusive yeah and yeah here it is and you're not
happy and you can you can end that relationship yeah we don't have to wait for it to be something
that's abusive or like you know giving yourself the permission to leave whatever relationship
even if it's a wonderful person but you're just not compatible anymore or you're not aligned
with where you want to go it's like it's okay it's okay for you to choose what's best for you
hands down full stop period life it's your life yeah what does you
r mug say I remember you sh me
your mug I love it oh it says live the life live the life you imagine you see it yeah I know it's
once we once we can see our tendency to choose other people or the reason that we people please
the fear that's behind that we get more skilled at tending to that inner child and therefore can
validate her fear and still choose the thing right I can validate that she's [ __ ] terrified
and still choose choose to leave and and both of those things are necessary for
us to be able to
function healthfully in the world otherwise we're staying in things where we're building resentment
and it's hurting us it's hurting them it's just we think we're doing the kind Thing by staying in
something that's not serving and it's not kind to anybody it's really not yeah yeah when we're not
living our best lives we are not showing up for others in the best way yeah yeah way I I like this
phrase being selfir is not selfish I like that yes there's a quote by um Glennon
Doyle that I like a
lot too about boundaries where it's boundar people can be nice and nice people can have boundaries
I love I love Glen oy and I love that quote I am going to start saying that more often yeah yeah
um okay we got off on a little tangent so I want to Circle back to the breath work and I want so
the circular breathing we'll link to ways that people can do circular breathing with you if
they're here in in Colorado yeah um but what's something that somebody could use you know
a quick
breath experience or tool when you're feeling the overwhelm when you need to regulate the nervous
system and or if they're trying to really do this reconnection to themselves to their body to
intuition what would you what would you recommend for us 100% yeah I've got you babe so um what
I love about breath is yeah you can do so many different things with it but it's so tied to
our Vegas nerve and our nervous system so we can actually bring our nervous system back into
alignment um
one of my favorite quick hits that I like to show folks is just box breathing and
it's called box breathing because you're going to breathe in the shape of a box if you will so
you pick the count that that works for you and I will be the first to admit when I first started
doing any kind of breath work I've always been a super rapid shallow breather entire life I went 40
probably 41 years it's been a long a long journey to learn how to expand that breath I'll be 43 in
January it's taken me
two years to to get better at this U but I was a very shallow breather so if
you told me to breathe for six counts I would have I would have breathed twice I just you would
have passed out I would have passed out yeah so you pick the count that works for you and
you're going to inhale for that count hold for that same count exhale for that count and then
hold for that count I like to suggest that folks start with a count of three or four a lot of times
that can feel attainable if you're lik
e at count two you're like start with count two that's
totally fine but you would inhale for three so inhale one 2 3 hold one 2 three exhale one 2
3 hold one two three and then go right back into that inhale and I would suggest um starting off
with just five minutes you know make it attainable I think that's the piece that I love teaching
my clients that I do any kind of coaching with is that you've got to start with attainable baby
steps that's how we build healthy habits that will be repe
atable is if you're gonna say I'm G do this
20 minutes three times a day prob probably not yeah yeah and also instead of saying I'm going to
do this for five minutes every day say I'm gonna do this five minutes this week then I'm G to do
five minutes twice next week and see if you can build it up to five minutes a day and then see if
you can do it for a little bit longer and so just just work with what frequency and duration works
for you and again and and you can even build up let's say yo
u started with two counts maybe in a
three to weeks to a month you're going to build up to three counts or four counts nowadays I can
do a sixc count breath pretty easily but it took time so you know again that that self-compassion
meeting yourself where you're at and um letting go of any of those expectations of if so you
know I think I've got even a YouTube video on box breathing and and I might suggest four counts
on that you do what works for your body where you are right now oh yeah we
'll definitely link to
your YouTube too because you got some some juicy stuff but so the the the goal be it that you want
to start to expand the breath because that helps to tone the vagus nerve or helps to calm the
system is that is that sort of the intention yeah so yeah what you're doing is um when we
expand the breath so we have this Vagas nerve for folks who may not be uh familiar with it
starts in our brain but it connects through our larynx and into our lungs and into our belly
so a
s you're breathing too I have a whole other YouTube video on diaphragmatic breathing uh when
we can do a full core breath we are stimulating the vegus nerve in two different points but it
really brings it out of fight or flight this is a great box breathing is incredible if you're
in that sympathetic fight ORF flight um state of being it also can work though if you're feeling
kind of um free in the freeze the Freez are fawn so if you're feeling just down disconnected this
can help too so ju
st having rhythmic breath in of itself tones at Vegas nerve we talk about
sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system sympathetics that fight or flight
and parasympathetic has always been known as rest or digest we're now learning there's actually
three pieces there's the sympathetic which there's the figh or flight but then there's the um the oh
gosh I always switch these two but I will I'll be sure to like get this right for you for the notes
but yeah um I want to say it
's the dorsal branch of the Vegas nerve is actually our freeze and
that's where if we're feeling depressed we're feeling down we're feeling disconnected we're just
not wanting to re-engage with folks that's also not where we want to be we want our ventral branch
of our Vegas nerve to be activated and so toning that Vegas nerve brings us more um in Balance
rather than being so calm that we comos and it takes us out of that like really really franatic
energy and just balances out where you're
calm but alert yeah and we want to become skilled with
our bodies to go from the if this is our Baseline nervous system whenever we get activated one way
or the other to First be able to recognize we're activated and then bring ourselves back because
you know our bodies have these systems the fight ORF flight systems in order to protect us it's
the survival part of the bra brain so it's not like you're going to stop that from happening
but how skilled can you get at being like okay I'm fee
ling really anxious and panicking I
need to do some box breathing to bring that down because otherwise we get stuck on the stress
response is stuck on all the cortisol is pumping and our bodies aren't made to handle that type
of that type of response for a prolonged period no and I love the example of the gazelle running
from the lion so two things that the gazelle is different than us in in from us in in a fight
or flight so the gazelle first of all once it escapes the lion it shakes its b
ody and then it
completely forgets that it was just chased it was like this close to death five minutes ago and goes
about grazing again we replay our trauma over and over and over and over again yeah traumatizing
ourselves making that pathway even more robust yeah gazelle also the other way it's different
than us it doesn't stop mid fleeing to be like why am I escaping this lion right now I need to
figure this out before I can actually escape the lion right right so if you're in either one
of
those those activations you don't need to figure it out while you're activated so if you can use
box breathing or some other breathing component or some other somatic I think the the work you
do with EFT is beautiful too of of bringing that nervous system back to Baseline and once you feel
more centered then you can reflect on okay what activated me you can kind of do a retrospective
why was I so triggered in that moment how much of it was that moment and how much of it was like
little
childhood things that you know we we have picked up along the way then you can start getting
introspective with that yeah I share with clients when when we're activated when we're outside
of the our Baseline when we're in some sort of stress or trauma response our Reptilian Brain
is on and we have four options the fight flight freezer fwn so we're not in a place to we don't
have access literally to the parts of our brain to the rational part of our brain the lyic system
the emotional part
of our brain we don't we can't access those because the other part of our brain
is firing like [ __ ] the line is coming you need to do something okay yeah so if you are activated
and you're trying to problem solve or say you're trying to logistically figure out how you're
going to leave a relationship it's like you can't that you're not you don't you're not at
your full capacity in your mind unless you come into your nervous system more regulated state so
box breathing tapping going for a
walk in nature right whatever you're doing to help bring yourself
back down is vital to be able to then make sense of what's Happening take the next step heal the
inner child whatever needs to happen outside of those four options and I want to normalize that
you might tap and you might breathe you might do yoga you might do meditation you might feel it
go back to Baseline and then as soon as you're done it go back up or down that's okay I want to
normalize that right it might take doing it
over and over again I think one of your um one of your
podcast uh guests had mentioned uh that there was days when she left her relationship where she was
just crying all day yeah and it's it's I want to normalize that you've got to express the emotions
and and know that it's going to be all over the place when you're making a big decision or or
you know whatever that emotional trigger is we a lot of times that masculine energy once again
tells us to push through suck it up buck up you know
yeah don't do that don't do that yeah there's
also a difference in understanding a feeling and feeling a feeling so I know in my experience
for forever I was very detached from feeling things and I was like well but I understand that
this doesn't feel good I understand that this is not a healthy Dynamic anymore but I wasn't letting
myself feel the emotions around that that needed to process right I wasn't letting myself feel the
sadness or the Betrayal or the outright anger that I had spen
t years with this person under a false
illusion like it was like I knew those things but I didn't feel those things and when I would let
myself feel it I would be on the floor crying like ugly cry notnot just letting yourself go full
Primal almost in your expression and I'm sure people have had the experience of after a good cry
you're like oh I feel lighter I feel better it's like that's not just a psychological thing like
a woo thing that's like a literal you're moving denser energy out o
f your body body and it's so
important to in your healing to actually feel that and integrate it and move it and not just
stay up here with I understand these things yeah because that will only take you so far and then
you'll find yourself in another relationship doing the same thing because that like you haven't
actually shifted the the internal piece thank you for sharing that too because that reminds me
I've also experienced that where I'm just like can rationalize the feeling but I can'
t feel the
feeling yeah one of the reasons I think I'm drawn to the circular connective transformative breath
is we do it through our mouth and so you are actually intentionally activating your sympathetic
nervous system yeah in a way that'll allow stuck emotions to arise to the surface so if if folks
are kind of like cool cool yeah yeah I totally get what you're saying but how do I feel the feeling
right somatic therapies can be a tool to help get you there you have to feel safe yeah again
to the
point of the lion you know I don't have time to sit down and think about how I'm feeling and and
cry because the Lion's coming at me first I need to get away from the lion yeah and then and then
I need to bring myself back into safety and when we're safe then we're not in the hypervigilance
and we can turn inward and start being you know introspective inquisitive around what's happening
but if if we're never getting to that safe place then that work isn't going to work which is also
why it's so important to find a practitioner that you feel safe with yes because if you have
a therapist or a coach that you don't really feel safe with or you find yourself performing for
or trying to take care of you know it's like you might be talking about your problems but you're
not you're not allowing yourself to really drop in to be witnessed in your pain and to be held in
that experience of crying about whatever for the first time and really letting that come through
or yelling f
or the first time about something that you you just need to get out of your body yeah
so if if you're listening and you're you have a practitioner that you don't feel like you can ugly
cry in front of you know that's it's something to be aware of as you're as you're shopping for for
um people to hold safe space I fully 100% agree yeah yeah oh my gosh I could talk to you forever
and for the sake of everybody's time um is there anything you want to leave people with that
we haven't touched on
in terms of anything but inspiring them to keep going if they're in some
part of this journey yeah I think you know um my brother brother and I just had this conversation
he was visiting me a couple months ago and he's also um you know we grew up in the same house
and he also went through a divorce in his 20s and I asked him do you ever regret you know that
marriage because it was a very Whirlwind chaotic marriage because we were talking about my my ex
as well and he said you know I though
t long and hard about this I don't regret any decision I've
ever made or any way that all of this has played out because now he is married with this beautiful
beautiful 2-year-old little girl that we adore so much he said all roads led me to this and I would
never trade this and I can Echo that when I think about my life and I know that I'm still on this
journey but man my life is so good right now so when I think about those times of I should have
left earlier I don't know how that would h
ave played out and so it how it needed to that I felt
ready and I didn't pressure myself to leave before I was ready and I wouldn't be I would be somewhere
I'm sure it would be amazing but I wouldn't be where I am right now and I wouldn't give that up
for the world and so it's okay if you are someone who just left a relationship and are in that
mode yeah I I've been there I see you but know that there is no matter where your journey takes
you there's always Beauty on the other side and ever
ything is unfolding as it should yeah there's
a lot of Blind Faith a lot of blind trust in the next chapter and I'm I'm smiling because of a
conversation that you and I had not too long ago where you were reminding me of all of these
different chapters in our life and you were like if you had the full scope of what your entire book
was going to be like and they showed you that you were going to have a real [ __ ] relationship for
four years you would have been like no thanks you know like w
e we are we take or we are given things
one thing at a time so that we can handle one thing at a time and trusting that like yeah that
chapter was [ __ ] up and it's led me to this this conversation with you having a podcast having
a business helping women heal from this type of [ __ ] like what I could never I could never have
anticipated or expected that in a million years if you would have told me before I met him that that
was the trajectory I would have been [Music] like I don't know i
f you watched the Barbie movie but
when she is off her you can stay out the shoe or it's like you can stay exactly as you are or go
to reality she's like the shoe I want to go back the way things were she's like let's try this
again yeah wrong answer wrong answer yeah yeah yeah yeah it's important to to remember and and
even proving that to yourself by looking at your life thus far like what has happened where you
thought you would never get through it and then you got through it and someth
ing beautiful came
on the other side of it it's like using your own past as the proof I know I do that often where
I'm like get into the mistrusting place with the universe or whatever and it's like okay but all
these other times it's actually worked out so let's just take a beat do some box breathing we
have 100% % well we have I'm sorry I said that wrong we have survived 100% of the things that
have happened to us if we're listening to this podcast right now yeah that doesn't mean that th
ey
all feel good or that it wasn't traumatizing and painful and all the things but but trusting in
the bigger picture trusting in the bigger Story the bigger you know reason for for why yeah it'll
make for a good book a good book it's gonna be a great great read New York's bestseller week yeah
I always like to end these with a card pull oh yes please I love that deck yes if you if I can have
you close your eyes I'm gonna have you help choose the card that is for the highest and best of all
of those who are listening so just putting your intention in the deck and whenever you feel like
the shuffle is complete just tell me when to stop what do we get seethrough oh this just came up for
a client of mine yesterday I'm G to read it to you because I don't have these memorized and they
have very comical messages sometimes seethrough brings a message of transparency and Clarity it
reminds you to not get lost in the content others may want to spin you a tail but don't be fooled
cut t
hrough the drama and see well cut through the drama and the noise to see or hear what
is really going on what is beneath the surface of the skin seek to understand what is behind
the words or actions of another the underlying need don't trust the words alone see-through also
reminds you that transparency is a brilliant tool for living and relating authentically how are you
showing yourself to others are you clouding their ability to see you with too many words are your
words not aligned wit
h your actions where might you unveil the parts of yourself that would be
helpful for others to see you more clearly I love that yeah it aligns nicely with our or with
your vulnerability and authen authenticity in sharing some of these pieces that you haven't
said out loud before yeah you know align with your higher self be authentic and put yourself
out there I love it yeah where do you want to leave people in order to find you for breath work
or to connect get you so um I have a website A
my Jinx coaching.com I also can be found um at Amy
Jinx on YouTube and Amy Jinx on Instagram and the Jinx is j i NX um so yeah and if you're in the
Colorado area or even traveling through and want to come do either individual or group breath work
I do um hold those sessions and I do also do um virtual coaching um and I'm hoping to actually
be launching here very soon a breathing Circle that will be virtual and in person for folks
um to do other kinds of breathing modalities and just can hol
d a Sacred Circle for folks
love it love it yes if you are looking for a practitioner who can weave in the physical the the
nutrition the educ or the education the nutrition and the exercise piece of body awareness and body
shifting with more of the mind-based work and and the body based with breath work and the spiritual
based with your crazy intuitive skills we didn't even touch on that we'll have to do another
episode on connecting with your intuition um yeah I couldn't speak more highly
of you as a
woman as a practitioner as a space holder um your heart is just so big for the people that you work
with the people who are in your life like you are just such a gem you're such a gem you are such
a light in my life and I appreciate you and I'm grateful and honored to be on your podcast today
I I I'm always just applauding you and rooting you on and you're doing such beautiful work and
it's so beautiful to see as your friend and as a former client and as a colleague so I adore
you
yes yes well we I'll be sure to put all of the links to everything that you shared in the podcast
description so those of you who are listening be sure to check out um all that she has to offer
and if this was beneficial to you subscribe to the podcast share it with a friend this is how
we help spread the word and help people feel like they're less alone so until next time thank you
Amy so much I appreciate you I love you and I'll see you all next time love you remember that the
holida
y promo is good through all of December for $200 off my Awakening private coaching program
all of the information is in the show notes
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