PODCAST: Episode 13 with Amy Rushworth – From PTSD to Freedom

Introduction to who Amy is:

[LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE]

Amy is a healing at priestess and a woman on a mission to really change how we show up for ourselves. She’s not scared to talk about sensuality, money, abundance, creation manifestation, all of the incredible empowering things and a woman who takes huge quantum leaps in her life.

“Yeah, we were like just talking before we hit record about how like sometimes people come across my Instagram, or they see the life that I’m living which like, people always reflect to me the this word of like, you have this, this vision board life like this dream life. And then that can bring up like a lot of feelings of I guess comparison to some people and like a lot of other women get triggered by me and like make assumptions but my journey is pretty colourful like I wasn’t always living this life. So, when I was younger, like earlier in my 20s I had a mental health rock bottom, so I’ve been not okay for a very long time but I was kind of in it, so I like didn’t really realise until I got a bit of, as I call it now a spiritual bitch slap.

 

How PTSD showed up for Amy:

Yeah, and then I was like, well, Okay, like something needs to change and I eventually went to therapy because I was struggling with really bad panic attacks, out of nowhere and it turns out that I had PTSD. And if I sort of track this back to the original point of that happening, I’d been walking around with PTSD since I was 11 undiagnosed and just pretending that everything was fine. So I went on this journey into healing that and dealing with things like flashbacks and views and panic attacks and really rebuilding my life because my life was in a shambles at this point I went through like a really bad breakup with one of my best friends over that. I was struggling at work because I was struggling to keep it together at work with everything going on and I couldn’t talk to my bosses about my mental health it like wasn’t something that was very, like, open and very safe and yeah I kind of like unravelled, and then I spiralled backups I rebuilt my life from them. And I eventually moved overseas. I left my career in fashion behind that I’d worked really hard for but it just was no longer in alignment for me and I became a holistic health coach to start with, because I’ve been working on my own health for a couple of years. And then I started getting deeper into, you know what’s beneath all of these habits for women, and I’d also learnt this for myself because I’d had all of these crazy patterns with food and exercise myself and my body image and I realised like it was never about the food it was never about the gym, it was about how I felt on the inside. As I was really on this path of helping other women to discover that for themselves and giving them the tools that I didn’t know were available when I was first feeling I was like figuring everything out randomly on my own. And then, all of that, you know, then it led to me meeting my now husband, we had this beautiful relationship which was super healing for me as well, and building this business that’s now this global business with like so many facets to it and I do everything from like breathwork, somatic healing to business coaching money mindset pleasure work it’s really like quite dynamic and living this life of my dreams I didn’t really think was possible, but it all started because of the rock bottom with my mindset my mental health.

 

Finding Freedom from PTSD:

It was actually really healing for me but, you know, that were to healing, it sounds really beautiful, you know I use all the time, I feel like it sounds like really gentle, like, nice but actually you know healing can be really fucked up healing can be really messy and really hard, and starting my business and starting to share more online, it was really hard. I actually had quite a few friendships that like ended and fell out and like people judging me. And it was also a journey of like showing more and more revealing more and more. It took me quite a while to actually speak openly about things like the sexual abuse and the flashbacks, so it was talking more kind of vaguely, and because conceptually about certain things that I’d gone through. And over time I just started getting more and more courage and I was being met with, you know, compassion and with people who are really inspired by that online and that was really helpful for my self esteem actually to take something that had been so traumatic and so shameful and to actually turn it into a light for other people, and that really was part of my healing as well we’re sharing that with the world, and still is, you know, every time I show up online and I unapologetically express myself my truth and my life and I don’t do myself down. I know that, like, it triggers some people, but there’s a tonne of other people who are so inspired by that and so that kind of just keeps me going, you know.

A lot of people messaged me and say I used to be triggered by you, and now I’ve been loving you so much. Yeah, so I hear it after the fact so it’s kind of okay then I’m like, Okay, we’re good. It was really interesting because I did a guest speaking literally the start of this week in one of my friends masterminds and we were talking about this like this cancelled culture and being afraid of like saying something and then people coming to you. And I was saying like all my audience is so lovely I’ve never really had anyone like properly troll me. And then literally the next day I went in my message requests and for some reason I don’t like just seen a series of messages from this troll, and it was like the worst messages I’ve ever received like I can’t I don’t even want to say what they were saying it was like, and they knew things about my families I was like, Is this someone I know or have they stalked me? Situations like that I mean, for a moment I was like my heart was like hurting for a second I was I do people think this about me, and it brings up that like, tiny, you know, a child or that little girl inside of you, you know, wants to be understood and doesn’t want to get rejected by the other girls or bullied you know we’ve all had situations like that, probably when we’re younger. It was so funny, because the night before I’d settle this, and I wrote a post the night before about like letting people not letting people misunderstand you like just let them not get you let them make assumptions because you know who you are, so I was like, Okay, I read this last night I’m gonna like take my own medicine right now. And, you know, block bless, and I literally said a prayer for that person because the things that they had read in. I was like, You must be going through so much pain right now to actually, you know, be on my profile making a fake profile just to send those messages, and then to reply to photos of me just eating fruit on the grass just like having a nice time living my life to descend those things you know there must be something really painful going on in that person’s heart so that’s the thing that I sort of keep coming back to is like this vibration of love and recognising. It’s okay to feel the feelings of being judged, but also recognise like in that moment, you get a choice you can like dim your light to try and please someone who is committed to misunderstanding you anyway or you can just have compassion and keep doing your thing and so just keep doing my thing.

 

Coping Mechanisms:

I would describe it is like in those moments. I like create this internal archetype within myself of like an inner mother, and this inner mother has like different moods, maybe sometimes she’s strong and maybe sometimes she’s more soft but it’s like this mothering essence that comes out when I feel like that that I’ll usually just strike myself or like hug myself and I’ll be be like I’ve Got You Babe, don’t worry we’ve always like, got each other. You’re okay. You’re enough, I love you. And, yeah, this is like a really big thing for me because like I have a lot of like wounding with my own mom and stuff she’s amazing, but just the way I grew up and so doing that for myself now as an adult is really empowering like knowing I always have my own love my own bag my own support, and it’s in those moments that you need advice for sure.

I think a lot of people don’t necessarily process certain imprints wins even traumas. Because of that, because it’s like, you almost feel like why be ungrateful, like who am I to say that that was harmful to me or like, you know, really hard for me as a child when all of these amazing things were happening. Like a lot of my clients, you know, and the inner child work that we do and like the attachment style stuff that we do. They have to really like get that sort of in their brain that even though all their physical needs are met. If their emotional needs are not met if they weren’t told ‘I Love You’ by their parents which like lots of people’s parents don’t tell them I love you, right, that that is huge for you to go through and that is going to impress upon you how you then relate to certain situations and people in adulthood and then how you also relate to yourself, like how you love yourself, how you emotionally regulate yourself how you see yourself. And so, This is also my journey of like recognising the PTSD because PTSD, people think of that as like you’ve been to war, or you were, you know you had this really big thing that happened that’s the big T you know the big obvious traumas, there’s a lot of people have complex PTSD, there’s a lot of people who have PTSD from things that maybe weren’t traumatic for other people but were really really traumatic for them. And I had that I had like loads of privilege, my parents if I can amazing and literally like, 999 ways, but you know when they weren’t looking, I was abused by someone else, so it’s like, it was really powerful for me to actually own that and to like own like this is valid, and I’m allowed to process this while also being very grateful for all of these amazing people and grateful for so much of my childhood but also like acknowledge like that wasn’t okay and that, you know, had a really big influence on what ended up happening for me.

Picture the woman or the person that you want to be and, you know, five years or even picture yourself when you’re really old right when you’re really old and you’re wrinkly and you’re wise and maybe you just say, all the unfiltered things because you don’t give a fuck anymore, and imagine like what that version of you would say to you now, you know, and usually when I ask people there’s it’s like telling stop worrying about that like let them go like do this like follow your dreams, you know, say the thing and, you know, be in your truth. And I think that was something that was really like a North Star for me as well. I just like felt so lost and I just didn’t think that any of the things that I had now where even possible are available like they were just beyond my awareness, but I almost just created like an imaginary like archetype of who I wanted to be. And I remember I made a little vision board, and I like put it next to my bed, it was like a really little one. I didn’t even know what it is my friend was like make a vision board, I mean it’s kind of like help you to like get better. And, you know that’s slowly what happened but it’s like, it’s a constant choosing and like recommitting to that so even if you feel so distant like from that person, like I did, just ask yourself every day, you know, what would I choose today by loved myself or if I was tapping into the essence of that woman that I know that I can be, and just start with really small steps because I always say like quantum leaps happen because you take a lot of small steps before you know they create the conditions the environment the confidence the resilience over time that allow you to take those really big leaps laid off so that would be my advice.

 

Mindset Hack:

Rebirthing breathwork. I’m sure you know that I’m like a huge advocate of this, this changed the game and if you want to talk about like quantum leaps in the consciousness and healing. That was the thing I’ve done a lot of things like anyone who knows me or follows me you know I do all the weird things right. Like, I’m a 3/5 in human design. So like any, anything that you ever want to try, just send me a message and describe me Have you done this before, I’ve probably done and can give your review because I’m like the kind of person, I’m having that profound human design means that we, we learn by bumping into ship by trying everything fucking up like, and then basically telling everyone. Hey, I tried 100 things, these are the three that you should do. But the thing that really, really like shifted something deeply inside of me and helped me to really own my power and also to just heal my body like my skin and like my body and all of these different aspects, was rebirthing breathwork, and that’s why I teach it as well because it’s just a game changer.”

 

 

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