00:00
We approach everything from a very cognitive perspective while, you know, a lot of our thoughts and everything obviously are like happening in our mind. A lot of times that bypasses the body and the subconscious kind of reactions that we have, the sensations, the uncomfortable sensations that come up in our body, because it's totally possible for us to keep on telling myself, oh, I believe I'm where I believe I'm worthy. But then when there's like an opportunity to show that I feel I'm worthy, if my body contracts and I get overwhelmed with fear and panic and anxiety, I'm not going to be able to move forward even if I'm telling myself in my mind, you're safe to do this. Like you're worthy. Blah, blah. 

 00:43
I really found it empowering to learn more about somatic healing and connecting to your body and really working on releasing this trauma that's stored in your body so that these new beliefs actually feel safe in your body and you can embody them rather than just think them. 

 01:02
Hello and welcome to the Ally show. My name is Ali Eslamifar and I'm your host for the show. We are here with our episode number eight where we are chatting with Amanda Grover. Amanda is a director of brand marketing at Hireinfluence. She also founded a storytellerGrove to help creatives build and promote their personal brands. In our very open conversation with Amanda, we will be talking about a lot of things that happened to her growing up and dealing with a lot of bullying and harassment that she has been facing. So if these are sensitive topics to you, please skip this episode and we'll hope to see you in the next episode of the Ally show. Also, if you're suffering from any mental health issues, please immediately contact your medical or mental health experts to get the help that you need. 

 01:52
Amanda is currently going through a yoga teacher training program, so she actually brought a very special gift to our episode and she will be practicing a body scan meditation in the end of this episode. So hopefully you will stay through the end of it and you will practice that with us as well. Amanda's accountability campaign for this episode is also related to the practice that she is bringing to the show, which is a combo of body scanning and journaling. She will talk more about it in the end of the show. As always, the best way to support our show is to subscribe to our channels wherever you're listening to your podcasts, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Also, you may actually share this content with whoever that you know who is in the need of such content. 

 02:43
This is the best way to spread the love and spread the word around. There's also one housekeeping item that I would love to share. Starting March 1, I've started this new project called Wepause, which is a 30 minutes weekly meeting which is happening through Google Meet. For now, everyone is welcome to join in every session. We have at least a guest that is bringing a practice so that all of us can improve our mental health together. To sign up, please go to Wepause space signup for every week. We are also aiming to leave a recording of those conversations into our podcast so you may start seeing them popping up. I'm so excited for the next few weeks that we have ahead of us as we have a great lineup of our guest instructors. 

 03:34
Now, without a further ado, let's start our conversation with Amanda Grover. We are here with Amanda Grover. I think the story for how we met is so cool and interesting to me. It just summarizes my life as far as how lucky I am to meet people in the most random places. It was just a few months ago, I was in Vancouver catching up with some friends and we decided to go to a techno show. And there we go. You were also traveling to Vancouver because you're not from there, you don't live there. You were also traveling to Vancouver and you and Sid showed up there and I met you guys and we chatted. And how many things we had in common was honestly so crazy at the moment. 

 04:26
And the more we talked following that event, the more I felt like this is absolutely a conversation that everyone else has to hear. So I'm so happy that you're here. I'm so excited. It would be amazing if you can introduce yourself. 

 04:42
Yeah, definitely. And I couldn't agree more. It was just such a crazy meeting, and I know we're both into yoga and all these synchronicities and everything, and so it just felt like it was meant to be. And when you're an open channel, these opportunities that are meant for you just come your way naturally. And to give some background on me, I am a marketer. I worked in public relations for about five years, and now I work for an influencer marketing agency while I work on building my own personal brand as well. I'm the founder of Storytellers Grove, which helps people looking to build personal brands really connect to themselves and connect to their beliefs and their mission to really make an impact in the world. 

 05:26
And through my work, I really blend my background in marketing with my interest in all things yoga, spirituality and connecting to your body. So that's a bit about me, and I'm so excited to be here today. So thanks, Ali. 

 05:39
I also heard your other podcast recording with another friend. I thought that was great. We can talk about it whenever you had time and introduce that episode so people can tune into that one if they're interested to these types of conversations. Also, I thought one thing you said before this call to me was very interesting. I want to start the conversation from there because you mentioned you are feeling a little bit not prepared, but you started doing yoga before this call. I want to hear that story a little bit more and understand why. Nidra, yoga, why did you do that? What does it do to you? 

 06:21
Yeah, of course. So when I first started my spiritual journey, I became really interested in learning more about masculine and feminine energy and really learning how I can balance the two to really have the biggest impact in my work and feel most connected to my work. And so I see the masculine energy as preparing. Before this call, I had all of my notes to really think about the talking points that I wanted to bring to this conversation so I could feel confident in the message I had to share. But then the other aspect of that is making sure that I feel really safe and connected to my body so that I can share this message from a really authentic place. And so prior to this call yesterday, I spent the time on the talking points. 

 07:03
And then the hour before this call, I sat down, I laid out my yoga mat, I put on a blanket, and I listened to a yoga nidra recording who I got from my friend Ashley. We actually recently just hosted a retreat together to really help people connect to their voice and feel safe to unleash it. And so HER YOGA nidra practice. Yoga nidra is actually more of a still practice. So it's a little similar to a meditation. It's not as much movement as typical yoga, and it's referred to as yogic sleep. And so this practice is really meant to slow down or it's supposed to help your body kind of fall asleep while your mind remains awake, which is kind of the opposite of regular sleep. 

 07:47
And so throughout this specific process practice, it was really focused on connecting to your voice, connecting to your throat chakra, and really understanding that your voice matters to the world, and it's safe for the ideas that exist within your body to exist out in the world. And so I really love to bring in those types of practices to ensure that I'm really coming from a very authentic place and kind of quieting those voices in my mind that tell me, oh, it has to be this way, or this is what you should be saying, or all of those little things that kind of come in and get in the way of your true, authentic message. 

 08:25
So I really love to blend those two and make sure that I'm having a balance of the masculine energy and the feminine energy, because I really feel like that's where the best work comes from. 

 08:33
I replied with a word to that message, and I said, balance. And I think this balance of energies that you're talking ABOut, this balance of powers, I would even call them, not just energy we have as human beings, we have all these powers inside and really releasing and unleashing them at the right time that they have to be released. Really understanding and finding that balance inside is really a hard work to be done. Practices like yoga, things that taking you back to your origin, things that taking you back to your body, your actual connection that matters, those things really help you to start figuring out if you have that balance and how to use that balance and how to empower that balance. So that was a very interesting thing you said before the show. 

 09:23
I'm also curious how you're using that in your day to day life has a lot to bring to you every day. Are there other things? Are there other situations, like recording a show that you say, you know what? This is the time I need to take it, ten minute, 15 minutes, and go and practice either yoga or meditation? 

 09:46
Yes. So I think that there are so many times in my life that I feel that way. And I think my healing journey really was rooted in women's empowerment group coaching containers. And in those group coaching containers, we really studied what does it mean to be a feminine being? And so we really thought about these principles of trust and surrender and connecting back to the body. And something that I learned while reading this book called Specter of Sex is that Plato argued that women had this greater association with their body, and men signified the rational soul, which I found so interesting because in the power of now, it talks about how men's biggest obstacle to enlightenment is the thinking mind, whereas women's biggest obstacle to enlightenment is the pain body. 

 10:41
And so I found this super interesting because I feel like we're living in such, like, a hyper masculine energy type of world, where throughout history, it's kind of been almost demonized, all of these feminine characteristics. And so I feel like it's led to a lot of women feeling like they have to show up in this very hyper masculine way. Meanwhile, these feminine characteristics are very inherent to us and they're very natural to us. And that's where we feel most powerful when we're able to tap into these things and we feel this connection to our body. And so one of the things that really got me interested in women's empowerment coaching is I followed this girl that I went to elementary school with and middle school and high school. 

 11:24
We didn't really talk much growing up, but I felt so drawn to her instagram content because she was talking about all of these concepts of reclaiming the feminine, and she was talking about cycle thinking. And for a while in my career, I was kind of like, oh, my gosh, I go through these cycles where I feel like this week I'm so productive. And then the other week I'm struggling. And I was just trying to understand why I wasn't able to show up in this way that I was expected to. And so her content just resonated with me and made me feel seen. And I was like, wait, maybe this is just like how my body works. Maybe there's nothing wrong with me. Maybe I just don't understand how my body actually works. 

 12:02
And so taking that time to really connect to all of these feminine ideas of what it means to be a feminine being. And of course, along with that, as you said, it's very important to have balance, right? And so we can't just throw the masculine energy out of the window. It's very important. And both feminine and masculine energy are so important. And it's really about striking that perfect balance between them and not seeing either one as good or bad, seeing them both as necessary parts of the process and really honoring both of them. And so I think the reason why we're seeing all of these people on instagram talking about reclaiming the feminine is just because currently, the way that society operates is very in this masculine place for various different reasons, in my opinion. 

 12:54
You, I cannot not ask this question from you because being in mental health and being in this path, there are a lot of people to follow. There are a lot of content to see or watch or to read. And I found it very hard to really distinct between contents that are just flashy and just try to go after an audience versus content that actually come from what truly people experienced. I'm following you, and I think it was interesting to see how genuine and everything you're posting is just very genuine. You're sharing experiences of your days, like, hey, today I'm going to be doing this, but I feel this. And you're very open. How do you, as a marketing expert now, how do you differentiate between what content? 

 13:47
Because there is a ton, like, in mental health, in this path that we are all in to heal, there's a ton of content. How do you differentiate as a marketer? 

 13:58
Yeah, totally. So this is something that I think can vary from person to person. I generally believe that I'm just, like, an open person. I've been that way since I was a child. I always felt really comfortable sharing what's on my mind and the things that I'm going through, but I understand that's not something that everyone is comfortable with. So I think it's really getting to know yourself and getting to know how you can be more of who you are. And one thing that a previous coach of mine said in the past, which I think is so powerful and so true, is that a lot of times when we see someone else in their power, which means just them being authentically them, they're being as much of who they are as they possibly can be. And that's what makes us really drawn to them. 

 14:45
A lot of times when we see that, we think, oh, she's an amazing dancer, and I'm so drawn to her because she dances like this. And then so we feel like, okay, I have to learn how to dance, or I have to go dance on my Instagram Stories. And that's not really the case. It's like, that is her. That is her how she is. And like you said, I share things that I'm doing in my day, so I'm just kind of sharing the behind the scenes of my life and who I am. And so I think that's really the thing that draws people in and gets people connected to you is by really showing who you are. And that can manifest in various different ways. 

 15:19
If you're a musician and you're releasing a song, take people along on that journey of you creating that song and infuse your personality into it. So it doesn't always have to be like, oh, I'm being really vulnerable right now. I'm sharing this stuff that makes me super uncomfortable. Like, yes, it's important to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try new things, but at the same time, everybody has their own way of discerning what do I want to share and what feels like too personal to share. And so I think it's always kind of toeing that line of, how can I show up as the most me I can be? And I think figuring that out takes a lot of. It's a very inward journey to really understand, okay, who am I? What do I like? What lights me up? 

 16:06
What am I interested in? How can I really show people who I am? Because I think a lot of people don't even know who they are, sadly, because we're so clouded by conditioning and all of the things that we think we should do, that a lot of times, we do not follow the things that actually really excite us and make us really happy and make us who we are. So it's really about connecting to yourself so that you can show who you are to others. 

 16:28
I think it's covering the side that, hey, if I want to share something, how to share it now, if I want to absorb a content, if there is hundreds of these pages and influencers and amazing people that I have the choice to go and follow their content, how can I differentiate if this is a content that actually helps me in this path or not? Do you also have a secret for that? 

 16:54
I think I have a story I can give about this as well. So, as a business owner, I wanted to invest into a lot of programs in the beginning to learn as much as I could. Okay, how are these other people doing it? And so I had invested in one coach, the well being, on Instagram. Her name is Lauren Tabie, and I love her. She has made such a huge impact in my life. I'm so grateful for her. And then I had another experience where I worked with another coach, and it was a completely opposite experience where I feel like I wasted some money on that experience, and it kind of set me back. The reason why that experience set me back so much was because they were these sales coaches, and they had a very copy and paste type approach. 

 17:39
And that's not something that I believe in. I believe that everyone has their own way of doing things. Everyone needs to find their own groove and figure out, what do I like to do? How do I want to show up in my marketing? How do I want to sell? Because there's not one way to do it in business. There are many different ways, based on your business model, based on your personality. And so when I went to this coaching program, it was very like, you have to do it this way, and if you don't do it this way, you're wrong. You're a failure. And they also used a lot of manipulative sales tactics, in my opinion. And my husband's also a salesman, so we talk about these things all the time, and we can understand when something is like, okay, it makes sense. 

 18:20
It's a sales practice. But then where is it crossing the line almost? And in that situation, I definitely feel like they don't use the best practices there. And so I had that experience and although I felt like I wasted money, it also showed me what I don't want. I think a lot of times we learn a lot through those experiences. I think now when it comes to discerning between who should I follow, who should I invest in, really make sure that you're investing in them for the right reasons. Make sure that you know exactly what problem you have and are they the person that's going to solve that problem? 

 19:00
Because I think a lot of new business owners in the online space, especially almost like invest into coaches thinking that they're going to solve all of their problems, when really that's not like the best approach to take. And so that would be some advice. When it comes to investing, just make sure you know exactly what the issue is and what the solution is and then sure, spend your money. But when it comes to just following people, I think it's always great to follow people on social media. But I also think it's good to have a balance between, okay, how much social media content am I consuming versus how much long form content am I consuming? 

 19:33
Because when it comes to social media, a lot of times these social media posts, especially if the person is trying to sell these posts, are aimed at providing bite sized pieces of content that also create FOMO. If you're consistently consuming a bunch of different people's content on social media and all of them are literally just trying to provide bite sized pieces of content to create FOMO to get you to buy, it's going to lead to a lot of confusion. And that's definitely something that I experienced. And it became very clear to me when I took a break from social media. I took like a month off and I was like, I need some space from all of the noise. And I ended up investing in medium and finding a lot of bloggers that I was really interested in. 

 20:17
And through reading those articles, I felt so much more educated when I left. Obviously, I've read a lot of books and everything, but just having those long form pieces of content like articles, of hearing other people's perspectives, I felt so much more educated after reading it, opposed to feeling like I was on this never ending hamster wheel when I was just consuming all of this stuff on social media and not really getting the answers that I was seeking. 

 20:42
That was an absolute expert comment on this question. I think one thing you said, and I would love to add this, if you don't mind? You mentioned something about what problems of yours it's solving for a very long time. Like in general, I had a hard time organizing my life and organizing my day. I'm not perfect now, still dealing with that. One thing that I noticed recently, and I've been practicing it recently, is type down my life problems, like in a form of absolute user problems. Just like type down what is my problem? By typing it down every once in a while, like every couple of months, I notice that it actually helps me to decide so much faster and easier on what should I do today. Like for example, hey, this is my problem. 

 21:39
And based on that, today this call with Amanda is absolute priority. Today this next call that I have with the developer is absolute priority. But the other call, no, then I'm not going to do that. Or for example, this hangout that friends are saying, let's hang out tonight, that doesn't become priority because it's not solving some of my big problems I have today. Of course, we have a lot of these fillers in our day. I'm not questioning those. But the point being is really knowing what problems we have in our lives and just typing it down, two, three problems in a lifetime every two, three months. That's been helping me a lot. And I think what you said is really important. Like a lot of times we don't know what problems we have. We just think we have to go through this path. 

 22:26
But why? What problem do you actually have? I'm not going to say if you know the root cause or not, you're going to find it in million sessions of therapy probably, but at least know what problems are you feeling? I feel so anxious. For example, I'm anxious. I'm consistently anxious in my day to day. Okay, that's your problem. Write it down. Then next time when you're given something, because all these bite sized advertisement or posts or things that we are receiving on daily basis, the signals we get as soon as we leave the door of our homes, those signals, then you can decide. Then your brain can decide, okay, this is not helping you. This is not helping you. This is helping absorb it. 

 23:10
So I couldn't agree more on figuring out the problems and figuring out what your goals are. And I think that also takes a lot of time. I read a book called Uturn, which really helped me connect to myself, and that was kind of the beginning of all of this. So I also recommend that for people, if you don't really know what your problem is or you don't know what your goals are. It really helps you connect to yourself to figure out what are the things that you want to do and what are the things you want to follow rather than what you think you should do. Going into my mental health story, so growing up, I felt like mental health issues followed me everywhere I went. 

 23:53
I felt like most of the people in my family struggled with mental health issues, some of them more severe than others. And at the same time, I was going through my own struggles with depression, anxiety. I think all of us can really face those moments, whether it's something that happens consistently or something that comes and goes. I think it's something everyone can relate to because life has a lot of ups and downs. And I specifically really got into women's empowerment coaching because I personally felt like so many of my issues came from all of these social constructs and pressures and ideas of what a woman has to be. And so going from people calling me stupid a lot, growing up feeling and saying that I was, like, blonder than my cousin, who was actually a blonde. I'm not blonde. 

 24:46
And kind of, like, inserting these dumb blonde stereotypes onto me at a young age, I always felt like I had to kind of prove my intellect. Also, I have two older siblings. Both of them are extremely smart, and so following in their footsteps, that was another thing, I think, kind of added to that layer of feeling, like I always needed to prove myself. On top of that, I've also dealt with disordered eating for a lot of my life, which I think almost every woman can understand. And men, too, of course, but especially women, because of all of these unrealistic beauty standards that are out there. Really messed with me for a while. And so that was something I definitely wanted to heal from and grow from. And I felt like women could really share that space with me. 

 25:33
I will say that in pretty much every job that I've had, I've dealt with sexual harassment, besides the PR agencies that I worked in, because they were primarily women. So that was not as much of an issue. And even throughout school, so many of those types of experiences. One of the things that I find the most sad is I feel like I've had a lot of issues in female relationships due to this underlying feeling of competitiveness and jealousy. And I think a lot of these things that I've struggled with really came from how media depicts women, making us a lot of times feel, like, crazy and emotional and dramatic. And all of these movies that you watch, it's like, always, like, the two girls fighting over the guy or all of these different storylines that we tell ourselves. 

 26:26
I really believe that all of these archetypes really end up embedding themselves into our subconscious and they just become our beliefs about the world. I ended up joining a women's empowerment coaching group led by Lauren, who I mentioned earlier. It was so amazing because it just completely flipped everything I've ever thought on its head. And she was just like, what if we stopped believing that our worth was determined by how much we accomplished? What if we believed that were worthy just as we are? And going into money mindset and all of these limiting beliefs that we kind of just accept as reality, went into each of them one by one. And also just being in a safe space with women was super empowering and healing for me. 

 27:16
Just being able to share my story, share the things that have happened to me, share the impact that they've had on me, and also listening to the other women's stories, because I thoroughly believe that we are all just mirrors for each other and we can all find similarities and threads where someone might be sharing their story. And it's really healing for you to hear because you're like, oh, I went through something super similar and you can kind of connect on that. And even just hearing my coach reply to other people's stories was extremely healing for me. Really taking that time to finally invest in myself was such a huge, pivotal moment for me, because prior to working in women's empowerment groups, I was constantly googling, how do I get rid of my anxiety? 

 28:05
I was always seeking out these answers, but I never really felt like I found them until I first and foremost worked on understanding all of my limiting beliefs and kind of creating more expansive beliefs for myself and really working on embodying them. But I think the disconnect that a lot of people face when it comes to unlearning these limiting beliefs is we approach everything from a very cognitive perspective. While a lot of our thoughts and everything obviously are happening in our mind. A lot of times that bypasses the body and the subconscious kind of reactions that we have and the sensations, the uncomfortable sensations that come up in our body, because it's totally possible for us to keep on telling myself like, oh, I believe I'm worthy. I believe I'm worthy. 

 28:57
But then when there's like an opportunity to show that I feel I'm worthy, if my body contracts and I get overwhelmed with fear and panic and anxiety, I'm not going to be able to move forward. Even if I'm telling myself in my mind, you're safe to do this like you're worthy, blah, blah. I really found it empowering to learn more about somatic healing and connecting to your body and really working on releasing this trauma that's stored in your body so that these new beliefs actually feel safe in your body and you can embody them rather than just think them. 

 29:46
You mentioned you started understanding this anxiety and you just wanted to get rid of it. Googling, like, what is this feeling? Like my, I have a. I have a pain in my chest. Like, these things that I know a lot of the folks who are listening right now, they may have been in the same situation. I can say that was a lot of time for me. The same way I had to just leave the home, like in the middle of the night because I just felt this pain on my chest and I just felt I couldn't breathe anymore. Like that kind of feeling that you're like, enough is enough. Your body is like, come on, dude, just google something. At least drink some water. That basic survival methods. So it's so interesting how you started seeing those signals. 

 30:37
Have you seen the same paradigm in other friends, in your network? Has it been the same for them? Is it how they also started realizing that, oh, I need to do something? 

 30:48
Yeah. So I think this is a common thing for everyone because emotions, I see them as energy and emotion. So before, when you first feel an uncomfortable emotion, it's that sensation in your body, and then your mind is like, this is uncomfortable. I need to make a story about this to understand why I feel this way. And going back to the book that I mentioned, u turn, it's by Ashley Stahl, that book spoke a lot. Know, investigating your emotions, know, understanding what's causing this sensation in my body, and also just recognizing it as a sensation in the body. Because a lot of times when we experience these uncomfortable emotions and our mind jumps to make a story about it, we can end up projecting onto people around us. 

 31:35
Meanwhile, that person around us may have nothing to do with what's going on inside of our bodies. And I know that this is true. Even just from experiences with my husband. There are definitely times where I project onto him. And then later I'm like, okay, sorry, that had nothing to do with you. I'm just like, I've been up for a while, I haven't had breakfast, and I'm starting to feel a little cranky. So sorry, I didn't mean that. And so I feel like having that awareness is a really beautiful thing, because then you can realize, okay, this is just a sensation that's happening in my body. And I think it's so important to learn how to not intellectualize every single feeling because it's a very normal process to happen. 

 32:15
But sometimes when we do that, we cause more pain and suffering for ourselves because we keep on latching on to these stories that may or may not be true. And that's something that even today, I still work through. Because, again, when you feel those emotions, like you said, it's like this pain in your chest. Like, you feel like you can't do anything. And for me, too, when you were talking about social media, it's like I consume all of this stuff about somatic healing and all these tips and tricks. And then sometimes when you're actually experiencing that emotion, it feels hard to actually get up and go do the thing, even if you know that's going to help you. And I think that also goes back to fight or flight responses. When you are in that state, your body might just freeze. 

 32:58
And so even though you know all of the things you can do to pull yourself out of that state, it might feel really difficult for you to actually get up and do it. And that's something I experience a lot. And sometimes even just creating a list of ten things that you can do that are really simple and don't take that much effort and keeping it in places that you can see often can really help you get out of this state. And it's not something that happens overnight at all. I can definitely say that's true because like I said, you have to go from having a belief in your mind, feel safe, and also make sure that it feels safe in your body. And your body stores so much trauma, not even just your own, but your ancestors trauma as well. 

 33:43
And there's this study that I think is so cool and so powerful that illustrates this is there was a study done on mice or rats, and they showed them this picture of a cherry blossom tree and they shocked them. And then these mice or rats became super afraid of the cherry blossom tree anytime they saw it because they just were associating it with the shock. And then they bred them. And two generations later, they showed the rats a cherry blossom tree, and they freaked out and ran away. And they had never experienced that shock, but their ancestors, like, two generations before, did. And so it kind of shows how trauma can really be passed down through generations. And so because of that, we have to be very patient with ourselves. And it's also cool to learn more about your ancestors. 

 34:35
What did they go through? How can you bring that into your awareness and really bring in more compassion for yourself. Because when you cultivate all of this self awareness, it's really easy to get sucked into this shameful awareness where you become aware of these things that are holding you back. And then you get mad at yourself and you're like, why is this holding me back? I want to move past this, but it's really like, you have to have that loving investigation to really be like, okay, this is probably coming up because of XYZ or whatever the case is, and really being like, I love and accept myself anyway, and I'm going to move at my own pace. 

 35:11
And I think that's really the best way to approach it, is because these things really can be really hardwired into our bodies, and that's why so many people struggle with them. 

 35:20
In my perspective, the word loving investigation, I think it should be trademarked because it's just so powerful. And you said something even prior to that sometimes were just overanalyzing these feelings. And most, sometimes, at least not most of the times, but sometimes those things are even out of our understanding or out of our knowledge. I can't even go and dig into my ancestors back in Iran, all the traumas and the wars and everything that they went through. All I can do is accept that there is a possibility of that. And to your point, there are scientific research that approves at least some of these hypotheses and just say that, hey, there is a possibility and start accepting it in a loving way and doing that investigation in a loving way. I think the combo of these two actually matters. 

 36:19
We can't just say, I love myself, like, whatever it is, I'm okay. That makes sense if we also accept the fact that there is a possibility that there are so many unknowns. But what does this feeling tell me in a loving way? Let's understand it. No matter what, I'm going to move forward. I'm going to get the help I need. I'm going to go to people who can help me. I'm going to put the shame away and talk to people about my traumas, like the things that you're doing and all of my guests have been doing on this show. I'm going to go and stop this cycle. I'm going to go talk about this thing and stop this cycle. So just doing the thing in a loving way, I think that's the shift of the paradigm we are talking here. 

 36:58
And that's why I love that phrase that you said, the loving investigation. It just makes it so much easier to understand how to do it. A lot of time. We know the what I think the loving investigation is a how, which I love. Here's. I'm going to go back to some of the stories that you mentioned earlier. We may have skipped those quickly. There was a list of things that got you to this point. There was a list of things you experienced as a kid, things you experienced in the family, things you experienced because you've been exposed to this complex, sick media that we are all dealing with on daily basis and things that may have not been any intention behind it. Like there are so many things that you've been exposed to that brought you to that point. 

 38:04
Pain in your chest and your body. I'm curious, and if that's something that you want to share, what was some of the biggest of those, at least based on your understanding so far, what was some of the biggest of those events? 

 38:19
I think there are few root causes that I have come to realize when it comes to struggling to believe in myself at times, because that's something I've really been working on is just building up confidence in myself and really believing, like I said, that I'm worthy. All of these beliefs that we kind of worked on in those women empowerment groups and some of the stories that come to mind that really impacted me when I was younger is I had a cousin who often called me stupid, which I mentioned a little bit earlier, but that's something that lived in me for the longest time, and it still does. I'm always afraid of people calling me stupid because it was just something that was so hardwired into my brain growing up. 

 39:02
I constantly am reminding myself that I'm smart and all of those things and having that loving awareness of, like, okay. And also in the beginning of my healing journey, I did a lot of inner child healing. And so the things I'm talking about are things that really came forward when I did inner child healing to really kind of find out what are the root causes that are making me feel this way. So that was definitely one of the big ones is just kind of feeling a little bit bullied growing up by him. Then the next story was in elementary school, there was a boy who had a crush on me, and he also went to boy scouts with my brother. His sister danced with me. 

 39:46
And so I would see him in school all the time, and then I would see him also outside of school, and he was pretty influential with the other boys as well. And so in fourth grade, it kind of came to a head where he had been kind of like teasing me for a while, and it kind of felt like harassment to me. It made me really uncomfortable, but everyone around me kind of just thought it was cute. And so for me, it felt weird sometimes to express how uncomfortable I was because I didn't feel valid in that. My brother had said something like at one point when I was crying over it because he brought a gift to my house which felt so intrusive and everything, even though maybe he didn't mean it that way. 

 40:26
Of course, my brother said, because also, since he was influential with the other boys, it turned into all of the boys in my class liking me and all of this attention that I just didn't want. And so my brother was like, oh, if all the boys in my class liked me, I mean, girls in my class liked me, I would be thrilled. But it's also like, I was probably, like, ten at the time, so I wasn't really interested in male attention at that point of my life. And I just wanted to be free to feel like I wasn't being watched all the time, which is definitely something that I had felt from that. And then on top of that, it's like the culture, I will say, which I feel like he was a young boy, but he had older brothers. 

 41:07
So these older brothers may have been speaking about women in specific ways that he picked up and then brought it to school and was teaching me all of these really inappropriate words that I had no idea existed. And so at this young age, I have this person using all of these inappropriate words towards me, all of this unwanted attention that I didn't know how to speak up and advocate for myself about. And so even when I did, there's this one vivid memory I have where he sang this song about me saying that I had a big dick, which, again, doesn't even make any sense. And especially as, like, a ten year old girl, I don't know, it was just, like, not something that I was particularly excited about. 

 41:51
And so I started crying and I spoke to the lunch aides about it, but I got kind of dismissed. And then I spoke to my fourth grade teacher about it, and she was like, stop being a baby. And so from a very young age, I felt like if I'm being mistreated by a man, nobody really cares because nobody really heard me or validated me during that time. And I feel like that was one of the areas that led for me to have this lower self esteem was because, one, I felt like I was always being watched. I also got this feeling a lot growing up, especially from male attention, that I was always being looked at, but I was never seen or respected for who I am as a person. And I feel like some background on me as well. 

 42:44
Me and my current husband got married pretty quickly. We were together for about two years and got married. And so it was kind of a shock to some people. But the reason I was able to make that decision so quickly was because I had never felt more safe and seen by somebody. He was just somebody that was different than any male I had ever experienced before. And I was like, I can't let this go. I need to hold on to this because it's so beautiful. And I think it's just a testament to the culture. And I think that the patriarchy a lot of times spews all of these negative characteristics out. And it hurts women in the most obvious ways that we see all the time through the metoo movement stories like mine. But it also hurts men. 

 43:38
It gives men this feeling that they have to always have it together and they have to be strong. And it's almost accepted the way that they talk about women, like this locker room talk. And it's like, are you even thinking about what you're saying? Are you thinking about the impact it's having? And I don't think that it's benefiting most men. These societal structures that we have. As I said, it impacts women in the most obvious ways. But I also think it has a really negative effect on men, where they feel like they can't express their emotions. They bottle everything up. I mean, the suicide rate is, like, highest for men. All of these statistics. And that's why I'm so passionate about reclaiming the feminine is because I don't think it's only for women. 

 44:20
I think it's so important for everybody, because we all hold these masculine and feminine energies. And it's about finding that balance, about finding compassion. How can you think about other people and how your actions are impacting other people? And how can you have that compassion towards yourself? Because I think if you're not giving that compassion to yourself, how are you going to give it to other people? 

 44:44
First of all, if Sid hears this conversation, hi, Sid. He's such an amazing soul. I gotta say, like, just a beautiful soul. We met once. I was also, like, chatting with him on this other thread that we had. He's just, like, all the positive energy, genuine positive energy. I just love his energy. So, hi, Sid. We love you. And your story resonates also, I think, in so many different ways. Although I haven't experienced as a male, I haven't experienced this side of the story that you're mentioning. But I think it's very interesting how similar these paradigms are in different countries. For my iranian listeners. They know probably how the situation is actually very similar, even probably worst in some cases. And it doesn't matter if it's worse or better. I think what matters is these stories are true. 

 45:45
And what matters is there is still happening. There are still kids in the school, there are still kids in families. There are still kids in our societies, regardless of the boundaries, regardless of the country names that these things are happenings to them, similar to this generational trauma were talking a few minutes ago. There are still wars happening in so many corners of this world, and there are still generational traumas being created one after another. And I think the awareness about how sensitive every one of these stories can be and every single person's lives matter in this case. This is just mind blowing to me, how these stories are similar from the contextual perspective. There is story that someone is feeling being watched. There's a story that someone doesn't know how to behave. It's just happening over and over. 

 46:38
And that's why these stories matter so much to be talked about. I think there's also another point here that I want to call out, which I talked about it probably in previous episodes. I definitely talked about it in my farsi podcast. I turned it to a meditation of how to feel free, how to feel the freedom. And for me, growing up, there was always, like, this concept of freedom that I was hearing from people, but I didn't know what that means. And just recently, I had this development in the past year that I started really understanding. Freedom means I don't care I'm being watched. Freedom means I'm not being watched. No one has the right to just continuously watch me. 

 47:28
But on top of it, I think what I figured finally, for me is feeling and not caring that I'm being watched and that level of freedom. And for a society that these things exist, these stories exist. None of us are free until we all really respect everyone's freedom in a way they deserve. So I think that's also, like another way that your story resonated with me, which I think is really powerful again, comes back to the source of everything. Our world is messed up because we have a hard time defining and understanding the definition of freedom for ourselves and respect it for others. 

 48:09
That really resonated. And I think freedom for me, too, I completely understand what you're saying is because I have become so much more comfortable in who I am and really learning how to trust myself and develop that self trust and always having my own back and realizing the places that I'm giving my power away to other people. Like a silly example I can give as well is recently I had someone coming into my dms debating me over things that I had shared and it was really causing all of this stress in my life. And I'm like, why am I letting this stranger pretty much impact me this much and cause this much stress in my life? And so I kind of stated my boundary because I wasn't going to just write him off right away. 

 48:53
I said, if you don't agree with me, that's fine. You don't have to keep coming into my space like this because I don't really think it's productive. And then even after saying that, the boundary was crossed again and I had to block them, and this was such, I felt like I was gaslighting myself. I was not sure if I should trust my own instincts about the situation and trust that it's okay for me to decide to block somebody. And I think through that experience, I was like, I'm just like giving my power away to these people by letting them have this impact on my life. When sometimes you don't have to, sometimes you do have the opportunity to walk away and place that boundary, which can also be difficult and it takes time to get to. 

 49:33
I'm still working on that because it is really difficult. And of course you have to determine, is this person worth putting that boundary? Like it's situational, it's not, let's cut everybody out of your life that you don't like. But finding that line of like, where am I giving my power away? How am I letting this person impact me in a way that I can take that control back? And I could say, no, you can't have this impact on me. I trust myself, I trust my instincts, and that's just like that for me. So that made a lot of sense to me. And I think that's been a huge, liberating piece of my healing journey as well, just trusting myself more. 

 50:11
I think it's very interesting because a lot of time we think we need to find the people that we can trust, but the reality is you need to find the version of you that you can trust, then the rest just will follow. Then you are a trusted individual, then you attract trusted people. Then you can also have the potentials and capabilities to understand what to trust what not to trust. I think a lot of times we can't trust other people because we are not trusting ourselves. And this concept, I think is very interesting. We always put it, when it comes to trust, we always put it on other people. Oh, yeah. I cannot trust this friend. I cannot trust this partner of mine. And why not actually invest in trusting yourself? Because it comes handy in a lot of places. 

 51:04
Even if somebody doesn't give you freedom, then you can first start trusting yourself about wanting freedom, about trying to defining freedom for yourself, trying to defining your boundaries using the tools you have, such as simple blog features. Like in this story, it's a feature is provided to you, use it. But when you trust, you are in the right state. And that's a process. It's a process for you to trust yourself so that you can use these tools, these societal benefits, and also try to define those. If the society doesn't define it for you, then by trusting yourself, you can start being that person that defines these. We can start becoming a role model for other people. Eventually that can define what does trust mean in a social media, or in a friend group or in a country. 

 51:54
So I think that concept is something I'm consistently thinking, like, do I need to trust anyone or do I need to just trust myself? 

 52:05
That resonates a lot for me because in my past I've had a lot of difficult relationships, and in certain situations I've felt like I was really manipulated. Or in situations I've looking back on, I'm like, why did I go along with that? Why did I allow this to happen? And I think that goes back to me just like not having strong self esteem at the time where I just kind of went along with it because I didn't think anything better was going to come along. But as I went through my healing journey and started, there was some friendships that left and some that came in, and I was nervous when I started making new friends because I was like, I don't want to find myself in that situation again where I'm getting manipulated or someone's crossing my boundaries consistently. 

 52:53
And how do I avoid that? How do I make sure I'm trusting the right people? How do I make sure I'm letting the right people up to my space? And the more that I go on with my life, after all of this healing that I've done, I've realized that it's not really about who's allowed to be in my space and who's not, but it's about where do I put down my boundaries when I need them. When do I say no? When I feel I should say no. And so I feel like I don't have to have these explosive moments anymore in relationships because I feel like I know how to set my boundaries better and make sure I don't go super far down something that isn't right for me. 

 53:30
I feel like learning how to trust yourself to know when to put boundaries and when to say, okay, I don't think this relationship is working or whatever the case is, but I feel like I have this weight lifted off of me in my relationships. I'm less scared in my relationships, and I'm more empowered because I know I can say no when I need to. Where? In the past, it was really hard for me to say no, and I would get super worked up because I wanted to say no, but I felt like I couldn't. And so it caused all of this stress and struggle in the relationship, which I feel like now has really lessened for me, which has been a really nice experience. 

 54:08
I'm curious if there are examples of those hard conversations or that ended up ending a relationship or a friendship. How can I start saying no? Or how can I start actually having those difficult conversations? How do you navigate that? 

 54:24
Yeah, so I had a recent friend breakup, which was really difficult for me, actually. And I still have a lot of love in my heart for this person, but the relationship itself just wasn't really working out at the time. And so we had multiple conversations. I voiced how I was feeling multiple times because I really wanted to express what was on my mind because I had felt for a while I was getting frustrated in this relationship. And these little tiny things were just, like, building up that sometimes I didn't even know if they were really significant or not, but they were just, like, weighing on me for some reason. And it was just making the relationship really hard for me to be a part of. And I decided, you know what? 

 55:09
I'm not going to hold these things back anymore because I was always afraid to cause a fight or hurt someone's feelings. But I was like, you know what? I feel more empowered at this time. I'm going to just share what's on my mind because this relationship isn't really working on my end. So let me try to fix the areas that I feel like it's not working. I tried to have a few conversations, and I felt like some of those conversations went well, where were able to hear each other. But a lot of times when I had initially shared those feelings, it would end up I would get a FaceTime, and they would be screaming at me or really angry at what I said. And I was like, listen, I really wasn't saying this to make you super angry. 

 55:46
I was just trying to express how I'm feeling right now and so that we can talk about it and move on from it. And so, because I wasn't really getting that. And even after we had conversations where I had expressed these boundaries, I felt like they were still continuously being crossed. And I think that's really my way of knowing when to end a relationship. It's like I, of course, always first try to communicate with the person and express how I'm feeling. And if I state my boundary and I place that boundary and it's still just consistently getting crossed, then it's like, okay, I think I need space from this. 

 56:25
And so in that situation, I did say I needed space, and I said indefinite space because I didn't know how much time I needed, but I just knew that I needed space from their relationship, and I didn't want to put a timeline on it because I didn't want to feel pressured to come back and revisit this because I literally had no idea how I was feeling. I was just kind of at my wits end because I was frustrated and I was in the heat of the moment, and so that's how I approached it. And then there were a few times after that where I did try and reach out again to say, like, hey, I never meant for us to be enemies. I just was really feeling overwhelmed in that moment. I needed space and tried to reconnect and just share. 

 57:04
I didn't mean to hurt her or anything like that. And it was just crickets. Both times I tried to reach out times that I would see this person. There was just no interest in connecting with me. And so at that point, it was like, you know what? The relationship is over, and I'm moving on, and I had to heal from that. But in my opinion, it's like if you try to clearly communicate your boundaries and the person is just not listening, they're continuously doing the same thing over and over again. You have to get to a point where you're like, okay, I don't deserve this anymore. I've done my part of trying to communicate, and nothing is changing, so it's time I move on, and that can be a really difficult decision. I was friends with this person for a really long time. 

 57:47
We had a lot of really close memories, but ultimately, it was the right decision for me. And I feel like, through making space. I attracted so many connections that are truly right for me and support me and give me all the things that I would expect in a friendship, especially just like respecting boundaries. That's like a number one thing for me. 

 58:13
I think it's very important to have these examples discussed, because a lot of the times we are so stuck in all the good stories. Like, you're a pro storyteller. Sorry if I'm preaching here, but a lot of time we are so focused on the good stories, good friendships. At the same time, I think these stories of friendships not going the way they had to, and it's totally fine. The friendships that we are losing or the friendships that didn't work. These stories also matter a lot because hearing them tells me as Ali, that, hey, it's normal folks go through friendships, go through breakups with their friends. It's totally normal that sometimes in a conversation, if you feel that way, that you have to, at least for a while, put a pause on a friendship, do it. You have that power. Just be transparent. Be communicative. 

 59:14
Now I have the tool. Try to make sure your feelings are thoroughly communicated without disrespecting that other friend. And if they don't have the capacity and the love to understand it's also totally fine. Maybe they're also, like, going through their own stages of lives. We don't have to always align. We don't have to always align because friendships can also break, and it's totally fine. So thank you so much for sharing that. I said all of this to share my genuine thanks for why I think sharing the other side of the stories matter, too. And that, to me, is a storytelling. If we're always bombarded by these bite sized fun stories, then life starts feeling unreal and I feel down. But this really helps me as a person to understand life has everything together, good or bad, doesn't mean anything altogether means something. 

 01:00:09
And one thing that I'll say when you were talking about the boundaries is I think it's really important for the person on the other side of the boundary if your friend is setting some type of boundary with you, especially in the case of me and my friend that went our separate ways. I can say that I was setting that boundary not because I hated her, but it was more so just to protect myself from what I was experiencing. That was really unsettling for me. And so I think it's important for people to know that I can have so much love for you as a human and always care for you and always want the best for you, but at the same time feel like I need to set this boundary for myself. 

 01:00:48
And so I think that's important to recognize as well because I think sometimes it can really feel like rejection or something in the moment. And then that kind of causes a lot of other normal human emotions and reactions, but kind of recognizing that maybe this isn't really anything about me as a human, but also just about how she's experiencing the situation. And maybe it's best if we do have space. Maybe I can focus on myself while she focuses on herself, and then maybe we can see where it goes. But I think it's important to not always just immediately jump to the worst conclusion and that feeling of rejection, because sometimes that's not really the case. 

 01:01:31
If you don't mind, I have a couple of usual questions I like to ask. Now, you're an ally on this show, so as an ally, we would love to know to keep your mental health in a good state. In general, what are some of the things you do if you don't mind sharing those with us? 

 01:01:50
So I am actually super excited because I'm starting yoga teacher training this next week. Actually, I just got all of my books and everything, so I'm reading. But I would first say that reading has been a huge positive for me. Just like going towards books that have information that feels helpful. And someone who I love to read his work is young pueblo. And I was going through a tough time this past summer. Just a lot of life stresses weighing on me, and my brain was feeling super scattered. I was feeling like I was in a funk and I just was grasping at straws to try and keep myself sane. And I ended up picking up lighter by young pueblo. And it was just like the words were medicine for me. Some other things I'll do is I'll try to keep a consistent morning routine. 

 01:02:44
But I feel like every morning is different for me and it's hard for me to be very rigid with that. So I'll also journal a lot. If there's things on my mind, I'll just write it all out. But I would say for the most part, I'm pretty open to any type of practice that will help. I recently just started doing eft with one of my prior clients. She's getting into that space, and so it's tapping on different points. It's almost like a needleist acupuncture, and it really helps you kind of rewire your subconscious through tapping on those points. So that's something else that I've been doing to really help work with my inner narrative. 

 01:03:21
And so what I will say is there are so many different ways that you can do it, and it's kind of just like about figuring out what works best for you. Some people may have one thing that they live and die by, but I kind of will just try a bunch of different things. And I think the most important thing for me is just finding an avenue to connect back to my body or release the things that are weighing me down. And so those are some of the examples. But like I said, it's always changing. 

 01:03:48
Yeah, I think that's an interesting summary of finding a way back to my body holds the secret answer here, and I think it's an interesting summary, and thank you for gifting that to us. With that said, with all of our guests on the show, we are holding them accountable, or we are trying. You don't have to. We are holding them accountable to do an activity with at least a few of our listeners for about a month. And if you were to choose that activity, what would that be like? What would you like to do as far as an activity with a group of our listeners? 

 01:04:26
I would say for a month, do a body scan every morning. Just scan your body. Think about each part of your body, think about your head, then go down to each other body part, and just tap into what sensations are you feeling in your body at that time and then journal about it after. Because I think that obviously, emotions live in the body, and we learn so much from our emotions if we're able to just listen to them. And I think cultivating that awareness and that ability to listen to our emotions and what they might be telling us, a great way to start doing that is by starting with a body scan and really paying attention to what you're feeling, because it can be difficult sometimes to think back and be like, how can I describe that sensation I was feeling? 

 01:05:18
So it's always good to kind of cultivate that awareness and become more clear on that because it can really open up so much for you in terms of mental clarity and just improvements in your life overall. 

 01:05:30
That's awesome. Is there a quick version of that you can guide us through right now? Like a two minute version of it? And I encourage people to journal after it. Maybe they can just start actually now. Sure. Can we ask you for that gift? 

 01:05:45
So this is kind of similar to the yoga Nidra practice I did earlier, so it works out perfectly. But if you want to start by closing down your eyes and first start by focusing on your throat and really connect to your voice or your passions, the things that make you. Next, bring your awareness to your right shoulder and imagine it becoming still. Or focus on any sensation that arises. Next, bring your awareness down your right arm to your right hand. Now we're going to take it in reverse. So go back up your right arm, back to your right shoulder. Now the other side. Focus on your left shoulder down your right arm. I'm sorry, left arm to your left hand. You can take it in reverse to see if any other new sensations come up. And if there's nothing there, don't force anything. 

 01:07:46
Don't overthink it. Just let it be. Finding your way back at your left shoulder, travel up to the top of your head or your crown chakra. Notice any thoughts that may be coming up that are distracting you from this practice and just let them drift away from there. Travel down to your torso. Is there any tightness or contraction? Can you release that a little bit? Or if it's really overwhelming, what might it be telling you from there? Move down your legs to the bottom of your feet. Maybe you notice the ground beneath you and you ground into that a little bit firmer. Now take the time to revisit any part of your body that may have felt the most tension or the most uncomfortable sensation or somewhere that you felt the most expanded. 

 01:09:28
And just take some time to sit with it without questioning it. And when you feel ready, maybe bring some wiggles back into your feet and your fingers and slowly open your eyes. Bring yourself back into the space and reflect on any of those sensations that you may have felt through that practice. 

 01:10:18
That was fantastic. I'm going to write down my journal after it to commit to what you're committed to. I told you earlier before the show that usually almost every time before any of my recordings, I feel down. And then after it, I'm like this sharp baby. Our conversation was amazing, and I hope everybody enjoyed it, but this part of it just took it to another level. So thank you so much. Thank you for guiding us through this. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about? Is there anything else that you want to say? 

 01:11:02
Yeah. Well, first of all, just say, thanks so much for having me. This is so fun. It's always so nice chatting with you, and I hope all of the listeners gained something from this conversation. No matter who they are, whether they're a woman or a man or whatever their background is, I hope that they can find a piece of it they connect to. If my story did resonate and you want to reach out, you can find me@storytellersgrove.com. At storytellersgrove on Instagram or storytellersgrove.com. I always love to hear from people and connect with others who are on a similar path and similar journey. So yeah, that's where you can find me if you'd like. 

 01:11:38
That's, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that resource. I will also put the links into the show notes. So thanks again, Amanda, I hope to see you back again on the show. This was a great conversation. Wishing you the best in your path that you're taking. I know a lot of exciting things already happened. And coming up, thanks again. 

 01:11:59
Thank you. 

 01:12:08
That was our conversation with Amanda. I hope you also enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As we discussed, the accountability campaign for this episode is a combo of body scanning, meditation, and journaling in the morning. If you would like to join this campaign, please use the link in the show notes and I hope to see you all in the next episodes of the Ally Show.