If you enjoyed this episode, please share it on social media and tag Ken Joslin.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it on social media and tag Ken Joslin.
Hey guys, welcome to the as the leader goes podcast. I am your host, ken Dosslin, where we are ridiculously passionate about helping business leaders build confidence, gain clarity and create community. And I've got a treat for you guys today. For those of you guys that have followed my journey over the past 14, 15 months as far as uncovering and revealing trauma from my teenage years to sharing at the create conference about my story, amy Fieldler Fiedler I say I almost did it wrong. Do you like that? Amy Fiedler? We literally just talked about this. All fair is one of a few people that I follow on Instagram. She's a trauma support specialist, trauma survivor. She's got a podcast called connected dots bitch pod. I guess is that right? Am I right on?
Speaker 2:that, yes, awesome, i love it.
Speaker 1:But she's one of the ones that I love And so if you, if you follow me on Instagram a lot of you do you'll see me repost Interesting Amy stuff. A lot, Amy, welcome to the as a leader grows podcast.
Speaker 2:And what an intro. Thank you so much for having me here.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Hey, take just a minute. I gave you a little bit of what was on your, what was on your bio. Take a minute and tell our audience real quick about who you are and what you actually do.
Speaker 2:Sure, um. So, as Ken said, i'm a trauma support specialist and a trauma and abuse survivor myself. What really got me into this line of work was my own journey and struggling with relationships. I struggled, probably from a very young age. In my teens I started going to therapy. Then couldn't really figure out how to navigate relationships in a healthy way, grew up in a toxic stress environment as a child And, as we know, that really impacts the way we connect with people as we become an adult.
Speaker 2:And it led me down the path of ending up with a lot of different romantic relationships men who didn't really respect me, but I didn't really know how to respect myself either, and navigating those was deeply painful and challenging. When you come out the other side, you realize I need to really help myself, and as you start to help yourself you're like I need to share this with everyone else. So who I work with now are people who have been through traumatic or abusive relationships of any kind. It could be romantic, friendship, family dynamics. I work with them after they have been through those things and now we're trying to cultivate healthy, supportive, safe relationships in their life. So it's all of the navigation, of the nuances and the struggles and the triggers and the mindset that come after the facts. And a lot of people don't really dig into that because a lot of people haven't been through it themselves. So I feel like I give a little bit of an extra oomph to this work because I've been through it personally.
Speaker 1:Because it's personally in your passion about it. I shared a little bit of my story off air. A lot of you guys that follow this podcast you've heard me share my story, my big aha moment about 15 months ago with my therapist, really kind of uncovering some trauma that had been in my life since I was 13. And I was 53 years old then it was about a year and a half ago And it's 40 years of having trauma And one of the things I mentioned to you a little bit about having Lauren, who's my semantic therapist and my dating and relationship coach. She's a super good friend of mine And we were on stage at my Create conference and I came up after I shared my story.
Speaker 1:I talked about trauma And I wanted because my question was even to you off air and Maxine, my therapist 15 months ago was how in the world is this here And I didn't know about it. I really started looking and I realized that if you can't set and keep healthy boundaries or if you react versus respond, it's a sign that there's trauma. Is there that you may have no idea is there. Walk me through, amy, a little bit of your story when you had that, because that was my aha moment in that there in that office with Maxine, i went Oh my gosh, like this is so real, talk to talk, tell our audience a little bit about your story. And when you kind of had that aha moment of wow, i've got this trauma in my life and I didn't even know what was there. And now, how do I deal and process with it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so fascinating because I realized at a young age and as a teenager, you know, you're getting to know people, you're feeling out your romantic relationships, your friendships, things like that, and every time I had a struggle emotionally, i'd go to my mom and my mom would react, talk to me. And this was such a pattern that occurred. I, as the child, started to wonder like who can I talk to if I can't talk to my own mother? My mother is making it worse, like I'm already in tears and now you're screaming and yelling at me, causing more tears and more pain. This isn't helping me. So I knew this basic level of like this doesn't feel good, this doesn't feel supportive. I had yet to figure out the relationship struggles.
Speaker 2:I just knew in that moment I needed somebody who was supportive, who wasn't going to react to me, which took me to that next step of getting into see a professional and trying to talk about what I was struggling with. And all they wanted to talk about was my parents. And as a teenager, they were like do your parents want to come in? I was like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't want to do that because they get mad when I'm just crying at home Like they come in here, it's going to be worse for me when I go home.
Speaker 2:So I think when you get to that place and you're like, well, this, this type of therapy was not helping me, my parents weren't people I could turn to for that guidance. So you start to try to figure it out yourself because you know, at the end of the day, that's all you can control is yourself. So I just started to look inward and I kind of went on a spiritual journey first to try to discover, like, how can I figure out myself and figure out why there's a disconnect between how I connect with people? Why is there this pattern of behavior where I always end up feeling this way in all of these relationships? So that's what I really noticed. I noticed a lack of support and then this pattern in my life, specific to romantic relationships for me and obviously connected to my, my parental relationships.
Speaker 1:And so you took this deep dive spiritually to try to figure out who is Amy. What does this look like for me? Why are these? you're trying to connect the dots, really, and kind of put two and two together on. Why do I keep having these problems? Walk us through kind of what you discovered in that process. Like what was the change in some of the things you did to get better.
Speaker 2:So so that took many years. That took many years. I mean it's probably started when I was around like 13, 14 years old, going to conventional types of therapy. Then they handed me medication for it. I didn't love that idea. I went off medication kind of took more spiritual route, started to get to know myself and my connection to the world from there, right?
Speaker 2:So, working inward, then outward, instead of hyper fixating on why doesn't this person like me or this person like me like really trying to connect to me, and then ultimately getting to a place where Google is your friend, I started Googling to try to understand more about different alternative methods that I could take to discover, you know, how can I help my anxiety without being medicated? Right And and again, the conventional types of therapists that I had seen were not offering me an alternative to that. They weren't really helping me understand. So it was this deep interest in myself of like I want to understand what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking, now that I understand myself and my relationship to the world at large a little bit better. And so I really dug into trying to understand my emotions, trying to define them, trying to figure out how to manage them and cope with them singlehandedly, mind you, not with the professionals help. Just really trying to self discover through books and really a lot of journaling and a lot of meditation got me to a place where I had more of a foundation of how do I, how do I manage my anxiety, how do I manage, you know, when somebody is mistreating me? what do I do? What do I say?
Speaker 2:Nobody taught me boundaries. There were no boundaries growing up. So it's ironic that I teach boundaries now because I had to teach them to myself And I just I realized I had to kind of take charge in my own life because I felt very helpless every time I turned to a person outside of myself for that guidance and support. So I needed to find a way to connect to what I was feeling and what I was doing from the inside out. And that's what I did And I started to take those practical steps and really make sense of OK, if I speak this way and I and I, you know, direct a person in the direction I want them to go, i want them to treat me, i'll get a little more respect coming at me instead of just reacting to them and shouting. You need to respect me, which is what I grew up hearing my entire life.
Speaker 1:What was the when was the moment where you said listen, i want to take what I've went through and I want to help other people get better. I want to help them under, discover and understand what's going on in their heart and in their life, and I want to. I want to help them navigate this journey so they can get through this journey a little bit faster than I was able to get through this journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think and you can probably connect to this and sharing your own story There's something that happens when you start to connect those dots in yourself. Right? You? you want an outlet, you want to share it. If that's with one person or 300 people, it doesn't matter. You want to share it with somebody because there's just like this overflow of oh my God, it makes sense to me And now I know it's going to help and, and you know, make sense for somebody else in their circumstances.
Speaker 2:For me, it started with a change in my career path. See, after college, i was working in the fashion industry. I thought I was going to do wardrobe styling And that's what I was doing for, you know, a couple years after college. But it wasn't satisfying. I was still struggling emotionally, i wasn't happy And I got to this place where I just said to myself I want to be happy. This doesn't make me happy. I need to figure out what makes me happy And I literally sat down and this is the silliest thing. But this is exactly what I did. I sat down with a journal and I made lists of everything I could think of that made me happy And it didn't make sense. I'm sure if anyone read this list, it wouldn't make sense to me. I was like the beach, you know, like the color blue. It was like just a random list of things, But something that kept coming up was helping other people.
Speaker 2:And then I was like, well, maybe I should help other people, and I didn't know what that would look like. I didn't necessarily. I mean like I went to college, i graduated I I my focus was photography and art, though it wasn't psychology. I switched majors, so it started off psychology and then went in a different direction. I didn't want to go back to college, but I wanted to be able to help people and support them in the way that supported me most, which was more alternative, right and a little unconventional, but it helped me and it changed my life. And so I genuinely thought I made up the profession of life coaching. That's how, like little knowledge I had of life coaches at that time.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And this was like 2012, 2013. So it's not like they didn't exist, but they weren't as popular and known, i feel like, as they are now. I googled and I was like, oh, life coach is a thing I can do that, and so that's that's where I went with it, i was like I can help people. I don't have to go the conventional route and go become a licensed therapist. That never resonated with me, but I can do it in a way that is more authentic and works for me, and so that's what I did, and from there I've obviously expanded my education and really dove into a more kind of niche area with trauma.
Speaker 1:Walk us through. Walk us through a little bit of your relationship history, because that's the one thing that I've seen over the past. I know, right, I feel the same way you do. Somebody asked me that question. It's like it's like some of the things that are in are that are in you, or some of the trauma or some of the effects of trauma. You have no ideas in there until you get into an intimate kind of partnership relationship And then stuff just starts to surface Walk, walk, walk us, walk us through that. Is that normal? Is that okay? What do you do when those things start happening in your relationship?
Speaker 2:Well, i think it depends on the relationship right, like if you're with somebody who is not able to take accountability or self-reflect or even hear you, which was my pattern. I went after men in my life who seemed successful, seemed to financially have it all together. So we could say on a very surface level, rich, successful men. And it wasn't like a conscious thought process either. I just remember like that's what was attracted to me and that's what I leaned into And so I felt safe. And I know the reason I felt safe was because my mom couldn't always support me emotionally but she could support me financially. My dad was very non-emotional. He was. it was hard to just get him to say you look pretty today or I love you. So I begged for his attention and I had the stability of my mother's financial support, but everything lacked that emotional support. And so I chased after these emotionally unavailable men who abused that power and authority with their money, who I there was a dynamic of me kind of fawning and chasing after and not having any self-identity. So, in other words, my pattern I knew, was I needed a man to accept me and approve of me and want to keep me, and I chose people who I thought could take care of me, because I didn't feel taken care of growing up And so I could see that strong.
Speaker 2:I mean all the way back to high school, like my first boyfriend came from a well-to-do family who owned like a chain of McDonald's And I was like I felt like a hotshot going to senior prom in his BMW And I was like, oh, this is the trajectory of my life, and it did. it became that. but it wasn't really something to brag about, because it was these empty relationships where I felt discarded, unimportant. I felt only valued by the way I looked or how I could please and appease somebody by acquiescing into what they needed or wanted. And I felt the same way. I felt as a child, neglected, dismissed, unimportant, begging for attention, not having anyone who really understood me or could support me emotionally. but you got money, so yeah, you'll take me on vacation.
Speaker 1:Walk me through the moment where you had that oh my gosh, i've got to stop this cycle, like when you were like I cannot do this anymore. Walk me through that kind of that moment.
Speaker 2:You had That moment was I was in a relationship with somebody and it lasted a little under a year And I thought at that time I'm gonna marry this person. This is the person. But there were so many signs beforehand that were like you are not marrying this person, one being my brother say and I am very close with my brother, i trust my brother's perspective, his judge of character. He was like he is not a good guy And I was like you just don't like him because you were in the same grade.
Speaker 2:They happened to go to high school together. He was like no, he's not a good guy. And I defended my boyfriend at the time And so that was like sign number one where I was like why are you not supportive of me being in a good relationship? finally, Well, everybody looked at it as not a good relationship, and not me. So when it ended a little under a year, I really was convinced in my own mind this is it. And then he went and moved on to somebody else, unbeknownst to me, while still contacting me And knowing that I still had feelings And this cycle of me not knowing he had moved on with somebody else and me still trying to be mature and change my own patterns. So not just diving in, saying we can talk about this, Like I'm interested, I would like to get back together, but we have to talk.
Speaker 2:And him playing these games lasted six years. And so in the midst of this six year cycle of me answering these sporadic text messages from this person who was just playing these head games with me, I got tired and I was like enough. It just slowly peeled back these layers where I was like I don't deserve this. What am I doing? Why this is not changing. It's dragging on. I'm doing things differently, I'm speaking differently, I'm responding differently. It's not changing my circumstances. So why am I staying in this circumstance? I need to do something very differently here, And so I cut contact completely and I went ahead and that's really where everything kind of cracked open for me and I was able to move forward and kind of break that pattern of chasing after these unavailable men.
Speaker 1:I love that. One of the things you talk about a lot is trauma survivors in relationships, and you really do hit a lot. I'm sitting here looking at your IG page right now It's Amy the Life Coach for those of you guys that wanna follow her And I'm just telling you therapy. I've been saying this for 20 years, even when I was in the ministry therapies preventive maintenance. You change your oil in your car every 3,000 to 5,000 miles, not when your engine locks up, like it's something you constantly need. I have two therapists that I talk to all the time. It's something you need people in your life to have a 10,000 for you, especially if you're in a partnership. If you're in an intimate relationship, somebody's gotta be able to have a view that's gonna be a little different, a little different angle than you and your partner do.
Speaker 1:One of the things you talk about a lot is the trauma survivors nervous system and how they react in safe environments, and I realized this in the last year As I began to discover oh, normal for me is craziness. So when it is normal and it's safe, my central nervous system goes whoa, hang on just a minute. Then what I found myself doing. I didn't realize this until I don't know, probably eight months ago, seven, eight months ago. I would cause friction and elevate the temperature in the relationship because that was normal to me. That meant we were loved, that meant everything was great. If we're arguing or bickering or I'm, we're raising our voice or yelling and then we'd make up everything's fine, but that's not normal. Walk us through somebody who's listening to this podcast today, amy, that goes oh my gosh, i'm hearing your story and I've heard Ken's story. Man, there may be some things inside of me that I wasn't aware was there. What are some more symptoms or some more things that people can recognize in their life that will reveal some unresolved trauma?
Speaker 2:So always start with looking at patterns, right, if you have a pattern of relationships ending a certain way or a certain fight in a relationship that you have again, any kind of relationship, even if it's not specific to romance, because I think people tend to group it there it could be within your family or a friendship. So, patterns is number one. Number two, as you said, recreating chaos is a very common symptom of trauma. I had something very similar to you where, if I defined love as chaotic without knowing that was my definition of love, right, we lean into what feels familiar to our nervous system, and it's not always a conscious thought process. We lean into the things that you know, like I naturally leaned into men who had qualities that my mom had or my dad had. Right, it's familiar. So familiar feels like home. But if home was not healthy, then what you're leaning into might not be healthy for you. So, looking at what is familiar for you, is it familiar to connect with people through complaints and gossip? Cause, that's another symptom of that.
Speaker 2:Do you not know how to be honest and open and vulnerable in your relationships? right, we talk about intimacy problems. We talk about somebody who's emotionally available. Well, you're able to self-reflect. You're able to acknowledge your feelings. You're not uncomfortable when somebody expresses their emotions to you, so this can work both ways. You can look at yourself, but you can also look at how you're reacting to other people. Are you extremely uncomfortable when someone opens up to you? And you know we need a little more context to that. What is the reason why you're uncomfortable? right, are you uncomfortable seeing somebody cry? That's something worth looking at.
Speaker 1:And what would somebody who has something like that, like they're afraid to like when somebody, when a partner, would bring something up in a romantic relationship, they immediately feel attacked or they immediately feel like they need to. And I read this in my good friend GS Youngblood's book The Way of the Masculine, or the Masculine Relationship, about how the Masculine's role in a partnership is to hold space. So the so their female partner feels safe, seen and heard. Well, i had to. I had to send an email to my ex and my ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend because I realized when I saw that I was like, oh my gosh, i did not do that. I immediately went into defend and explain Well, here's what I did, or here's what my heart was.
Speaker 1:And what happened was, every time they would get elevated. You know, instead of holding space, i would get elevated. And then they got elevated and you know, you got to train wreck. You know, two to three minutes later, and then you're like the one thing that I needed out of each of those relationships that I never got was an apology for the way they came at me, because I took that away from them by getting elevated myself. Walk us through just being able to have healthy conversations. That may have some, because I think when we hear healthy, we think tension-free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:But I think that, especially people that have had trauma, they think healthy is like tension-free. I mean, how do you have a tension-filled conversation with your partner and it not have to necessarily go to the next level?
Speaker 2:Well, we have to take responsibility for ourself and our emotional state first, and this is where a lot of us a lot of us are lacking those key foundational skills, right? If we've never been taught how to self-regulate through parental co-regulation which is what teaches us to self-regulate Like if mom and dad didn't demonstrate that self-soothing and help us regulate our nervous systems as children, then we grow up lacking the skills to self-regulate, and a lot of adults lack the skills to self-regulate. And so what happens is we get into a relationship and we're not managing our emotions and we react instantaneously to the way somebody is communicating with us, whereas now, if you communicate with me, it also comes down to how you're communicating, right, cause you might not mean to sound like you're attacking me, but the way you're using your words might be received that way. So we have to watch both ends of this. But if I'm managing my emotions, i have the ability to then say to you I don't appreciate or I can't hear what you're saying to me. When you speak to me in that tone, or when you come at me this way, or however you wanna say it that's authentic to you, i can't hear you. So if you can speak to me in a way where you take ownership over your emotions. And this is what I teach when it comes to healthy communication is speak from the eye perspective.
Speaker 2:Take claim over what belongs to you your behavior, your feelings, your thoughts, your belief system, your words. They're yours. So I feel this way, i perceive this situation this way, and then you can address them and their behavior and what they're doing. But if we can't take a breath, hold space in our body for that uncomfortable emotion first and foremost, then we're not gonna get to the point where we can then communicate that way. So it's like this building process, right Of these skills, where you gotta manage those emotions. Managing those emotions means practice, breath work, practice taking a breath before speaking, before reacting to something. Return to the text message or the email or the voicemail An hour later, reread it, re-listen to it. You're in a different mindset at that point. Your nervous system will calm down in 15 to 20 minutes. So you'll come back and you'll have a whole different lens, and I've done that a million times.
Speaker 1:So, amy, you're saying it's not good to just fire off back a text message or an email or a voicemail.
Speaker 2:I mean, listen, I'm a very quick responder to most people, So I get the urge. But if it's a neutral subject, yeah, go for it. If it's a little emotionally charged, no, I'd take a pause, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, right. Talk about some of the skills in a relationship, having a conversation to be able to. You talked about breath work. What are some of the other things you can do when you feel like you're getting elevated when you're having a conversation with your partner?
Speaker 2:We exit the environment, you know.
Speaker 1:And how do you do that the right way?
Speaker 2:Well. So I teach people to witness their behavior right. So if you know that when you have a heated conversation or, let's say, you perceive conflict as always being bad, let's say you fear conflict and you, like myself, for a long time felt like it always was gonna lead to abandonment. So the minute conflict arose in my relationship I was like we're not doing this right. So if I know that about myself, later, when I'm regulated, i'm gonna sit down, and that's when you do the work right.
Speaker 2:Sit down and reflect on what is my pattern of behavior every time And people don't like to do this, but this is so worthwhile And this is how you change your patterns Take the time, even if it's five minutes after the hard conversation, after that conflict, to reflect on it. Then what you'll find is I get uncomfortable, i get triggered. This is the trajectory of that. I will do this. I will do this, like you. I'll sabotage, i'll pack my bag and leave. Whatever it is right.
Speaker 2:If that's what I do, what do I wanna do instead? Who do I wanna be? This isn't rocket science, it's a choice. Who do you wanna be instead? What is more aligned with you as an individual? now, and write it out, give yourself direction. I can't tell you how many times in my journal I've sat down and said we are doing this instead of this, amy, like that is what we're doing And that is how I retain it. And then the next time it happens I go. This is my little one-liner. I'll say I need time to process this. Can we have this conversation in a few hours? once I have I exit the environment, i go, i sit down, i calm down, i take some time and then I return and I have a clear mind and a more regulated system.
Speaker 1:I love that. Just even in my life you know I talked a little bit about my story off air and a lot of people have heard my story before was even in relationships. Now I've told myself that you're not leaving, you're not packing a bag, this is what you are not going to continue this behavior Because and I look what you said just a minute ago you said something about you know, looking at you, you know it's the eye point of view, not what my partner's doing, not what somebody else is doing to me. But how am I, am I going to take accountability over my behavior, over my actions, over the things that I say, over getting you know? am I going to take accountability over me getting you know heightened or, you know, taking a conversation to the next level? What are some things that some somebody that's listening to this podcast today this is kind of triggering some things with them. They're going, oh my gosh, like I grew up in this kind of a situation, where I've been in this kind of relationships. What do they need to do?
Speaker 2:To start, they need to acknowledge it to themselves. That's always step one right, get honest with yourself And awareness. That's the first step. So what's the second step is what do I want to do next? What do I? what do I need to change? What am I struggling with? What do I? and that's different per person, a lot of people when they apply to work with me.
Speaker 2:One of the questions on my application is what do you see as the problem that you're struggling with right now? Detail it out to me, just tell me the story And then from there, the way they explained it, what happens is people type paragraphs and I read it and I go okay, no, no, you think it's these surface problems, but the root issue is really this unprocessed trauma or the root issue is whatever. And so then I email back and I go you're accepted and this is what we would focus on if we work together. And I get to, and then they're like how did you know? How did you? well, i'm good at what I do, but also everybody gets stuck on these surface things. We think it's that person, we think it's you know, whatever is easy to see. It's tangible. We can see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, but the issue is in here.
Speaker 2:This is the issue.
Speaker 1:Why do you think we don't look there first?
Speaker 2:That's uncomfortable, are you kidding? Like radical accountability is not what people like to do. A lot of people find it easier to deflect, to project, to avoid, to hide from those emotions. It's just some of us, like myself, learned in a very messed up way, mind you, but learned that you know I can't depend on anyone else to take accountability in the house I grew up in. I have to and it's all I can control. And when you learn that very quickly, then you're like okay, well, this argument was my partner or my friend. I can't control them, but I can control what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, what I'm believing, how I'm behaving. And if I can control that and set my boundaries with this person, everything else is gonna work itself out, even if working it out means we realize we don't value and respect the same things and we can't have the same type of relationship.
Speaker 1:You talk a lot about self-sabotage Somebody that's had trauma, self-sabotaging And we shared a little bit earlier, and maybe even off air, about how I understand now that if I'm in a relationship and I'm with my partner for you know, six days in a row, seven days, eight days, i'm telling myself after about three or four days, and this is normal, this is healthy, this is good, because it's almost boring. I guess is that what you would say, because nobody's gotten elevated, that, okay, my nervous system it's subconsciously is gonna try to create some shit. That's not really even there, so it can feel normal to me. I thought you were shaking your head going yes, that's exactly how that works, ken. Walk us through what do you, because it took me a while to get to where I was aware that that's what I would do. Walk us through that process of self-sabotage and how it really reveals trauma from our childhood.
Speaker 2:Well, everybody's style with Taj is different, right, but let's take yours, for instance. If have you ever been to Disney World?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. So like, let's say, you go on Tower of Terror, right, and when you know, when you've been on Tower of Terror, you know that thing is gonna drop. And it's gonna drop very unexpectedly and you're gonna get that thrill and that adrenaline rush. And if you haven't been on Tower of Terror, you don't know what to expect In a relationship. When you're sabotaging, you're the dude who's been on Tower of Terror 10 plus times. You're dating someone who's going on it for the very first time And suddenly it drops and you're like yeah, i saw that coming, that's great, this is the high for me. And they are screaming at the top of there. This is not normal, this is gonna break, this is not good, okay.
Speaker 2:When you put that into the relationship context and you are suddenly realizing I've got this pattern right Of, like I need to recreate this high. I need to recreate that adrenaline rush that I'm so used to. You have to get sick of that before you can change it. And people hate when I say this because there's like someone could point it out to you a dozen times can until you're ready to see it and hear it. You're not gonna see it and hear it. Right, you gotta be open and willing to see it and hear it. And really that means you have to be connected to it, you have to in some way, shape or form, be sick of that feeling yourself, be sick of that outcome yourself, and if you're not sick of that, you're gonna keep doing it until you get sick of it.
Speaker 2:And that is undetermined for every person, right That? there's no timeline to that. So when people are like, how do I spot these patterns? Well, you've gotta be curious and you've gotta have at least a desire for something healthy or something better. Because if you're desiring a sustainable, safe, supportive relationship and then you notice, well, my pattern is that I create a problem when it feels safe or, by definition, is safe and supportive and kind of smooth sailing. Do those align? No, right, but until we get to that openness to wanna look at that, it's just our default setting. We're on autopilot and we go, go, go, go, go, go, go, until we bang our head into a wall and we wake up.
Speaker 1:I love that. Talk a little bit. We got a couple of minutes. Talk a little bit about what healthy conflict looks like in a relationship.
Speaker 2:I love this question Because I was somebody who never had it modeled to me Like healthy conflict was non-existent growing up. For me It was screaming and yelling and punishment and name calling, and it wasn't a safe environment for a kid. So when I became an adult I thought, hey, that meant love, and I didn't know how to actually resolve conflict with people because that wasn't ever anything we dealt with growing up. It was just you're to blame, amy, take accountability, go apologize, even if you did nothing And I think I just said this to someone the other day actually in our house if one kid I have two siblings, so if one of us did something, all three of us got punished. It wasn't. Oh, amy, you were wrong. We're gonna hold you accountable. It was Amy. You did something. All three of you were in trouble And so you never learned how to navigate your own stuff. You're always grouped together with everyone else, so anyway.
Speaker 2:So when you get into a situation and you realize I don't know what this looks like and I don't actually believe it exists like I deemed all conflict unhealthy, i had to realize that it was safe to disagree Like you're allowed to. I wasn't allowed to growing up. You're allowed to disagree with people, there's a respectful way to do it. You don't have to name call, you don't have to, you know, degrade someone or shame someone, but you can disagree with them. You can have a different belief system or a different perspective. You can argue about dumb little things, but you can also then sit down and have an honest conversation. You both can take ownership over your part. It's not about who's right or wrong. It's about where a team, even if you're friends, even if you're family, you're a team, and I just wanna understand you better. So let's seek to understand, let's hear each other out, let's feel validated and then let's work towards repair, because that's important too to reconnect, to feel safe again with each other after that conflict.
Speaker 1:I love that, Amy. best way for people to get in contact with you.
Speaker 2:The best way to get in contact with me follow me on Instagram at AmyTheLifeCoach, or head to my website, amyfiedlercom.
Speaker 1:Love it. Girl. This has been amazing, i love. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love your. I post it all the time. I've got several of you that I'll repost your stuff constantly because I read them like, oh my gosh, that's good, and because I lived it out. And I just wanna say, on behalf of the hundreds and thousands of people that listen to this podcast, thank you for taking some time, thank you for doing what you do, and I know the fulfillment, the reward. It's gotta feel super rewarding for you doing what you do and watching You, being able to change and help navigate people's destinies and futures to where they wind up, different than what yours started out to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. Thank you so much, ken, for having me, it was such a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 1:You're amazing, Guys. Go check her out AmyTheLifeCoach on Instagram. Again, her stuff is phenomenal. I'm reposting it all the time. But, guys, thanks for joining us on this episode of As the Leader Grows. If this as as always, this is added value to you, do a couple of things for me. Number one, hit that subscribe button. Number two, snap a screenshot of this today. Share it. Amy and I will give you a love on our Instagram as well, And we appreciate you guys joining us. I'll see you next week with my good friend, Jake Butt, former All-American from the University of Michigan. Go Blue, Have a good day.