#74 - Finding the Connection Points + Softening into Life ft. Amber Lilyestrom
If you're an achiever or someone who has ever struggled with BURNOUT and letting yourself take a DAMN BREAK...OR if you’re someone who is a navigating a big life and career transition and are feeling OVERWHELMED, then pay attention and tune into this episode because you need to hear it!
Today on the podcast, we have my mentor and coach, Amber Lilyestrom. Amber is a transformational business coach and brand strategist, speaker, author, mentor and so much more!
It's been a long time coming getting Amber on this podcast and I'll be completely honest...there was a part of me that I think felt a bit unworthy. But there was so much that I learned when I worked with Amber. I learned so much about balancing my perfectionism, have a little grace with myself, managing my desire to achieve, and softening when life is hard! She taught me that lesson and I STILL hear her voice in my head!
In today's episode, she teaches all of us some of those same lessons. She talks about balancing that achiever, hard worker mentality with giving yourself what you need and so much more! I'm so excited to share it with you!
For show notes, head to coachellyn.com/podcast and, of course, post on instagram and tag me @coachellyn so that I can shout you out and say thank you!
WHAT WE TALK ABOUT…
The achiever mindset and how we grow that kind of a mindset
How having her daughter was her “wake-up" call
How her Division 1 Athlete, “Do it all myself” mentality was driving but also something that she took to extremes
How her birth experience with her daughter really shaped her life and future
Surrender and connection getting you into a position where there’s an absence of fear
Things to do that can help you get into your highest vibration…
Going outside in nature
Moving and exercising
Stretching
Music
Connecting with friends and mentors
Writing
Playing with her daughter
Important questions to ask yourself to find how to get yourself into the highest vibe you
Keeping it simple when you’re trying to find your joy
The importance of recognizing when you’re burning yourself out and how to take that break
Find the connection points between your past life and your future life
Honoring the past versions of yourself that got you to where you are
Serving everyone, even the little steps you take and the small groups you help…
Why learning to soften is the best gift you can give yourself
Embracing your multiple facets
quotes from this episode:
“I wanted to have bigger, deeper conversations about our souls, meaning and purpose…and you couldn’t have those conversations there. It wasn’t part of that environment. I was evolving in a different direction than what my job was requiring of me.”
“Unbeknownst to my doctor, I drove myself to the hospital. She thought I was going to have an Uber drive me, but I just lied. But that’s just how I lived back then. I’ve got this. I’ll handle everything myself. Not a big deal.”
“Mind you…division 1 athlete is equivalent to insanely high pain threshold. Pain means you’re doing it right! And that is an ideological way of showing up in your life that many people who are listening to this can probably resonate with, which sets you up for some success but also keeping you separate in many ways from truth.”
“That’s something I’ve had to work on resolving and reconciling. What do I need to do to be the most effective version of me? If I’m training for a marathon, well, then I do have to push through some pain to get to the next level in my fitness. But there’s a difference between that and being the girl who has a torn VMO muscle and is still playing and doing her fitness tests and getting cortisone shots and taking 4 Aleve a day. I didn’t know how to switch that off!”
"I live on a game by game basis…I don’t have to prove myself!”
“The only thing that was left, after being in the space between motherhood and my life being over, I felt this sense of: ‘I’m not really doing what I know I’m here to do.’ And in the same breath, I felt completely wrapped up in love….And I knew in that moment that if it was my final moment that I was ready to go.”
“It gave me infinite opportunities to keep surrendering and keep opening and to keep myself from going to this place of separation.”
“All that is real is love. And fear is the absence of love. And we operate in a place of fear, we live in a place of fear.”
“What are we most afraid of? That we’re unworthy of love…that we’re not enough. That’s really helpful insight!”
“You have to stop clinging to the ways in which you have been doing life which is from a place of terror and fear. Ego, protection, separation, competition…keeping people at arms length to preserve your significance…”
“When you think of the people on your path that make you feel the most significant, aren’t they always the people who make you feel the most connected?”
“[My daughter] wakes up happy and it’s realizing that I can wake up happy too!”
“All we have is now! And so I get to choose how I feel in my now and that’s it. I get to take radical personal responsibility for my vibration.”
“What makes you feel in the highest vibe state you can be in? What makes you feel joyful? What makes you feel happy? What makes you feel relaxed? What makes you feel satisfied? Content? It can be the simplest of things…”
“What have you accomplished? What skills do you have?…Making that list can help bridge the belief gap. That part where we’re thinking I’m so far away from the thing I want to do.”
“My tenacity was next level. And I never let failure be an option…it wasn’t even on the table. And I mean failure in the global sense because I was not a failure and I was not going to failure. If I had to get a job at Starbucks, I was going to do that. Because I was not going to sacrifice anymore missing these parts of my life that I could never get back.”
“Nobody knows what your vision is except for you. So, be brave enough to pursue it and show people what’s possible! Get your ego out of the way.”
“I just want to help all of us soften. I want us all to stop walking around with our dukes up and open up our hearts and acknowledge that we’re so much more alike than we are different. And the world could look really different as well if we’re allowed to live with our hearts wide open.”
“When we’re so afraid, raging, and lashing out against ourselves…isn’t it always the tenderness that soothes our souls and takes away all our fire and soften us into the fullness of who we really are? Which is, yes, these multidimensional human beings…”
Resources in this episode:
Book a transformation call here
Join the Growth Tribe Academy or learn more here
Follow Amber Lilyestrom on her website, Instagram, email or send her a direct email at amber@amberlilyestrom.com, Amber’s Podcast, and Amber’s Mastermind and application…
Books and resources…
Anything by Mark Nepo, but here are some great ones:
“The Book of Awakening” - click here
“7 Thousand Ways to Listen” - click here
Mark Nepo on Amber Lilyestrom’s podcast - “What Opens Us Up to Authentic Living” - here
“The Untethered Soul” - Michael Singer - here
“Becoming Supernatural” - Dr. Joe Dispenza - here
“A Return to Love” - Marianne Williamson - here