BEING HER with Margarita Nazarenko - 94: From the Brink of Divorce to Deeper Desire. Ageless & Unapologetic: Beauty, Power & Desire with Dr Amanda Hanson

Episode Date: January 5, 2025

From the Brink of Divorce to Deeper Desire. Ageless & Unapologetic: Beauty, Power & Desire with Dr Amanda Hansen.Dr. Amanda Hanson, known as the Midlife Muse, is a clinical psychologist and transformational coach who focuses on redefining womanhood and empowering women to embrace their feminine essence. She currently hosts a podcast titled "Things Your Mother Never Told You," where she discusses various aspects of womanhood and self-worth.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

maiden like a young girl than a mother and then it's like what is that third character this is the most potent you become we have found our voice we know what we want in the bedroom in the conversations in the business and so it's scary to sit with a woman who knows what she wants and if you can't give it to her we'll activate it for and within herself so I believe it's because it's so terrifying and it's you can't really control a woman who has agency could you tell me about those roles like the princess the queen so that women can have an idea of what they can look forward to. A princess is always in this victimist energy, seeking energy, where the queen is in that abundance and creatrix energy and in the belief that everything is possible. Many women do the whole performative lingerie thing. And often I

hear back from women that men are like, oh, I'm not in the mood or something feels off. What you actually want is to put the kids to bed early, greet him on the floor. with like a blanket out, with candles lit, in your pajamas and say, baby, I have to talk to you. Sit down here with me and take them by the hands and look at him in the eyes and tell him the truth of your heart. Like, I miss you. That is beautiful, honestly. Dr. Amanda Hansen, thank you so much for coming on being her.

I have never been this excited to talk to anyone in my life because, like many women who are lucky, I am aging as we all are in this world. why, why does it feel so scary? I think it feels so scary because in the patriarchal structure, the only currency, the only power that women have actually held or that we have believed we've held has been our youth and our beauty. And so we are holding onto it with such a tight grip because the belief is if those things fade, we somehow will not be worthy, we will not be chosen, we could lose love because we have built

and structured our lives around a faulty belief system that was built by men. I sat there online when I created my TikTok and I came across content where words I never heard before like over the wall or, you know, nobody's going to want you over 35. Look at her. She's in fact, every time I post a TikTok that men didn't like, it would come in contact with these kind of things like wait until you're this and that. And it struck me as there is no space for women. after a certain age or it seems like. Have you come across that as well? Yes, it seems like,

but we're creating those spaces because often women after a certain age have not felt that their voice matter, that anybody actually cared. And I'm a great example of that because I was in private practice until the pandemic. And during that time, all my clientele moved online. And then my kids started saying to me, who were in their late teens, early 20s at the time, mom, you should go on TikTok. You should go on Instagram. I myself even said, who's actually going to want to hear from me? I was like 48, 49 at the time. And they kept encouraging me, I did it. And obviously, in less, in what, two and a half years, my organic following has done so much because, and it's 98% women who followed me of the almost million. And it's because women are ready for a new message. So I am the perfect

example of, it depends on who you want your audience to be, but my message is resonating with women around the world. And I think it's time and I think we're ready. I think a lot of women are ready to be seen and be heard. And for me, if anyone's having experience similar to me, I've never not been vocal, but I don't have any shits left to give. So I don't really care if my message is not pleasing. I don't care if you don't like my wrinkles or my gray hair. I don't care if you have a problem with my confidence at my age or you want to call me a cat lady even though I don't have cats. Whatever you want to call me. Go for it. That's your own fear around a woman who is in this level of knowing about her life and her opinion. And that scares fragile people. That scares fragile people. Why do you think we were taught that we're only valuable because of our looks? It seems that men are valued in society for what they can achieve and we are valued intrinsically. I never even thought about it.

But recently, I'm realizing it's youth, even how people treat you as you grow up. I'm not going to say age. I'm going to say grow up. It's different as a woman. Why do you think there isn't a place for that third story? Because we go from like maiden, like a young girl, then a mother. And then it's like we just, what is that third, third character? This is the most potent you become as an aging woman.

When you hit this 45 to 50 mark and over, you are the most honest, the most potent you've ever been in your life. That, I believe, is what terrifies people. Because a young girl is so much easier to impress, whether it's in bed, on a date, in conversation. She's, you know, a little bit more gullible. I mean, I have a 21-year-old daughter, thankfully raised by me, so not terribly gullible. But I think that a young woman, a maiden, is easier to please. And she hasn't quite found her voice yet. Then you get to a woman in my age range. We have found our voice. We know. We know what we want in the bedroom, in the conversations, in the business. And so it's scary to sit with a woman who knows what she wants. And if you can't give it to her, we'll activate it for

and within herself. So I believe it's because it's so terrifying. And it's, you can't really control a woman who has agency. It's incredible because I never grew up fearing it because I think my mom was never scared of aging. She doesn't even talk about it in any kind of context. But I started to talk to women and do coaching. And it was never about aging. It was just about creating the life you want. But I get this message all the time. I'm almost 40. You don't understand. How am I going to date again? My life is over. And it shocks me because when somebody says, my life is over, I'm almost 40. I'm almost 40. I think, wait a minute, don't you have 50 years more? Yeah. Exactly. Because we only think of it in the context of what would attract a certain kind of a man. So I've had

people say to me forever, well, it's really easy for you to not color your hair or do Botox because you've been married 28 years. And I said, in fact, if I got divorced, I would double down on not doing any of that because you better believe if I'm somewhere in the world. I want to attract the kind of a man who would be intrigued by my gray hair and my wrinkles, who would find that so alluring. I have zero interest in attracting a prince or a little boy who needs me to look like I am something other than I actually am. I want a king who's going to walk beside me and honor the beauty of all the lines on my face. So no, I would never perform. as a princess if I got divorced. I would remain the queen that I am now. Could you tell me about

those roles like the princess and the queen so that women can have an idea of what they can look forward to? Absolutely. I think that princess energy is that girl who is seeking everything. She's seeking approval. She's seeking validation. She is seeking love. She is seeking in every aspect of her life looking out to the world. And the queen is being. She's being self-executive. acceptance, self-love, self-approving, self-assuredness. And she is that grounded, like I think of an oak tree. She is firmly planted in her knowing and her opinions and her voice and who she is. Also, the difference when you think about body, a princess stands in front of the mirror and berates her body. A queen stands in front of the mirror and reveres her body. So in every aspect, a princess is

always in this victimist energy seeking energy where the queen is in that abundance and creatrix energy and in the belief that everything is possible. Everything and anything at any age is possible. I think it's on the subject of attachment. I used to feel very anxiously attached when I was younger and people ask me how come I'm so different now. I don't want to say it to young women because it's almost like a moot point, but it's age. It's just realizing that I don't need to chase anybody that I'm very happy with myself and around my own company, but that kind of seeking energy, that princess energy is so natural to youth. And I just say to them, like, enjoy your youth. That's beautiful. But you're going to want to be around yourself in the future.

And I think there's so much of a storyline of what you can become as a woman as you, you know, grow up and you age, what are the things that you have found that are different for you in your own personal story as you've grown up? In my own personal story, I just have become, for a long time when I was, I would say, 35 and younger. I thought that maybe I was the black sheep. I thought that there was something different about me, that why did I crave so much? Why was I never fully satisfied? Why was I so ravenous all of the time? And then after 35, I started to realize, oh, because you were never meant to fall for that limited storyline. You were created for more.

And in fact, the more is your leadership. So revolutionaries see what others can't see and crave something bigger and more beautiful. So that when I really stepped into and understood, it's because you were meant to lead in a bigger way, Amanda. You were never meant to follow this patriarchalized storyline that feels so profoundly unfulfilling to you and actually felt like. a soul death. You know, I had all the patriarchal check boxes, everything. I had the most perfect life. And for all intents and purposes, for the outside world looking in, most people would say I do.

The difference now is, I had all of the boxes checked back then. Anyone looking in would have been like, I would do anything for her life. But there was an intimacy and a soulfulness in the connections and the relationships that was lacking. And that's what I was ravenous for. And now, looking in, things look fantastic. And the difference now is they feel fantastic. So it went from looking one way to feeling. And that's also that princess to queen is princesses might look on the outside fabulous in all of the ways, the right lipstick shade, the right amount of whatever they have going on with their outfit and their face and their hair. But they don't feel good. grounded, where a queen is maybe a little less, I don't even want to say put together,

but she's not as consumed and worried about every detail of how she looks because she focuses more on how she feels. And that was something that was really important to me raising my kids too. And they would ask me their opinion about things. I was happy to give my opinion, but I always said first, well, what do you think? How do you feel? Because to me, I wanted them to have their own inner compass, to understand what it meant and felt like to source from within rather than seeking from the world all of the time. How do I do that? I feel like I'm on that precipice of, you know, I'm going to be in my 40s.

What do I do? How do I make that transition? How do I become actually happy in my life as opposed to acting it? Not me personally, but anybody, you know, in that stage. Absolutely. By getting really, really honest and saying, okay, if, if, you know, if. Nobody was watching. Nobody was looking. Nobody could ever hear my inner thoughts right now. And you think about job, you think about relationship, you think about sex, you think about your closest friends,

your community, your relationship with your body. When you think about all the top categories, if I could change anything, what would it look like, what would it feel like, what would it sound like, what would it smell like? You start to make that list. And then every day, this is like a long trajectory of work, right, but to bring it down to the bite-sized, every day, every day, you day, how do I move the needle just one percent more into creating that which I desire? And it doesn't have to look like the life that anyone else is living. So I always say to people, I have clients say, well, my parents said or my neighbor said or my friend said, and I said, let me ask you something. Do they have the life that you so desire? Yes. Oh, no, no, no, they don't at all.

then why are you taking advice or listening to feedback from people who aren't living the destiny you want to create for yourself? So we have to respectfully, we can hear what people are saying and not, oh, thank you so much for that suggestion. But don't take directions for your life from people who don't have the life you want. So I stay close to and in proximity to a very, very small amount of women because I have only found a very small amount of women who have the frequency that I so desire. That is incredible. What is the urge that we have to be convenient?

Because when you were talking, that's what came up for me and what comes up to a lot of women who talk to me and write to me. They almost would rather be unhappy than inconvenient to people around them. Why? Because they've never learned to put themselves as the main character of their lives. They'd rather be chosen and not fully fulfilled than choose themselves. So we've not taught young girls to choose themselves. We've seen young girls are set up.

When you think about little girls are handed like a baby doll to take care of, right, from the time they're little. So it's automatically this conditioning of caretaking and service, caretaking and service. That's where your worth lies. That's how you'll get love. And so anything that threatens that makes us feel like we'll somehow be unworthy, as if the worst mark in the world would be a single woman. Right. So most women are willing to stay in really miserable relationships because they feel like they're more of a failure. if they're happy and single.

Yeah, the whole storyline of also being, I saw a post that you did about emotional labor. Right now I've got a 12-month-old baby and a four-year-old son. And I am seeing this like incredible, and women talk to me about it a lot. The emotional labor of it all is intense. Could you talk to me about what that means and how it appeared in your life

and how you traversed that part of your life as well? The emotional labor is still happening. We just came off of a long holiday with 13 extended family members from my husband's family and mine. And the emotional labor is more exhausting than any of the physical labor. From the time they're small to now and including extended family. Like I am hyper aware of if there's 13 of us sitting at a table, who is in need of something? Who is feeling uncomfortable in their seat?

Who might be searching for something on the table? more salt, right? So I'm not fully allowing myself to be in the experience because I am emotionally caretaking and assessing what's going on. And my husband's first thing is like, he looks at his plate to see what's missing or what he needs more of, where I'm looking at everyone else's face and body language to see what they need. And as much as I work to, I don't want to say shut that off, but at times zone into myself. And I create spaces for that. The emotional labor of raising children is intense, and I think more often than not, more intense than the physical laboring as a mother ever was. And I have kids now who are 18 to 26, and the emotional labor is, while they're all living their own soulful, beautiful journeys,

there still is emotional labor in just being concerned and making sure that they are really, you know, honoring themselves and choosing partners that honor them. And that emotional labor, I don't believe ever fully goes away. How do you not lose yourself in the experience? The way I decided when my first child got car keys, I thought I was going to go mad. I was a wreck when he was out on the road. And for good reason, he did end up having two car accidents. He was kind of like our craziest one of all of them. Never was where he actually said he was going to be and always had a story for, you know,

He's phenomenal in every possible way, but as a teenager, and he really scared me the most. And so I remember one night laying in bed waiting for him to come home. It was well past when he should have been home. He wasn't answering his cell phone. And I already had prepared, like, what the consequences of that were going to be. But I was laying there thinking, he's only the first one. I have three more who will receive car keys at some point and go off to college and do all of things.

How will I handle this? How will I survive this and stay intact? And as I laid there, I got this download that just simply said, Amanda, they are on their own soul journey. Your job was never to control or micromanage. And while I knew that it landed differently, so I remember exactly the house we were living in, the bed I was laying in thinking,

okay, my job is to walk on the path next to them and do the best I can when they need advising to be there. But ultimately, everything that happens from here on out, I have to believe is part of their soul's destiny and is meant for them to grow into the beings that they are meant to be. I cannot explain to you what happened, but it was such a profoundly liberating moment that evening. And it doesn't mean it's always been easy, but that has been my lighthouse of what I've returned back to over and over again.

is that and all four of my kids have had tragedies, have had friends die, have had rejections in their own way and major triumphs. And every time I'm there to be their support system, but never to over intervene because I trust now deeply that they are meant to go through every one of those heartbreaks. That is beautiful, honestly. I'm on that journey as well. when it comes to you and your partner or your husband or women in general when you're raising children, a lot of the labor falls on the woman. How do you traverse that without building resentment?

Oh, well, I did build a lot of resentment. So much so that I filed for divorce 17 years ago. I built a... Wow. Can I hear that story? I'm leaning in. Okay, here we go. I had a mountain full of resentment. You know, my husband's career was such that he left every Monday and came back every Friday. Travels internationally, runs a large global business, right? So the reality is the resentment compounded and compounded to the point where if he would walk behind me, I would get like a shiver down my spine. Like I didn't even want him near me.

Right. And so there came this place of like, we need to figure something out because this is just not working. We couldn't figure it out. And he kept saying it was going to get better. It was going to get better. He was going to try to travel less. That was not happening. So I finally, after falling on deaf ears for enough time, I thought, well, you've shown me

that it's not going to change, so I'll create the change. I filed for divorce. And we were in our very final mediation appointment. And we were about to sign the papers. And on the way there, we had drove together. And he was saying to me, Amanda, I will literally do anything. I will walk away from my career. I will do anything. And I said to him, if you walk away from your career, three, six, nine, 10 months from now, you're going to resent me. It's going to be a role reversal of resentment. That's not the answer. The answer is some kind of balance, right? And so at that moment, the mediator looked at us and said, I have been doing this for 15 years.

I've never met a couple who cares so deeply for one another. I don't think that you are ready for divorce, Amanda. I think you're just deeply, deeply sad. And so I'm going to close this case. I'm going to suggest I close this case. You go and spend the next six months really doing some deep repair. And if you come back to me before the six months is up and want to continue, we'll pull out the papers, sign them and it's over.

And so I had a millisecond of a moment where I thought, you know, I've never actually fully 100% bared my soul to him. I've never been deeply vulnerable. I was recreating the story. My dad left when I was 10. So every Monday, my husband would leave. I would watch my husband leave. and I would re, not imagine, but I would feel that trauma all over again.

And I would play it out and I would play it out. And it kept, I would have never believed this. But I understand now it kept me so safe because I got to keep up a wall because it's so much easier to be angry than it is to be vulnerable. So I stayed angry and resentful because it was so much easier. If I, because what I would say to him is we've got to figure something out. This is not working. I'm not doing it like this anymore.

But when I walked away from that mediation appointment and we went home and I said to him, do you actually want to see what it feels like to be married to you? He said, I do. And I said, okay, I got on my knees in our bedroom. And I started crying and I wept for hours upon hours. And I was in the fetal position at one point. And I said everything. I said everything I'd been holding back.

I said every time you walk out that door, it's like my dad leaving when I was 10 years old. And I rehashed and showed him my internal experience. He got on the floor behind me and was like holding me and I was crying. And I was like, I am going all in. I'm going to show him who I really am and what's actually happening every week when he's gone and how I feel so profoundly abandoned by him. And when I took him on that journey, it completely, opened his eyes, his heart and his mind to a woman and to my experience that all the resentment

in the world was not letting him in for. I hide myself behind a wall of competence. I learned to be so competent because my father was never around, not at the age of 10 like yours, but he was just never around from day dot. And my mom is an incredible woman who raised me, he worked many jobs. So even in my relationship, as much as I am in tune with what I want and I can communicate, I can talk to the cows come home. I'm a talker. I know what I'm thinking, but I hide behind the wall of, well, if I can do it, I'm not going to ask someone else. So when he goes off and he's working full time, he works full time. He's a surgeon, so he does surgery. And then he also decides to take on building projects and he's doing everything. He's like, I'm going to go. I need to do this for us,

for the family, you know, it's a project. I'm like, yep, good, go, fine. Because even though inside, I might be like that kid who wanting to say, no, stay, please, I need attention, I need time, I need love, I need this. On the outside, I'm like, well, I grew up without a dad. I was competent. It almost makes you feel safe because to say to somebody, stay, I need you and then be rejected is way harder than doing the thing you always do. Exactly.

And saying, no, stay, I need you, and then receiving their care. That one is a whole other level. It's just a whole another level of, and it's something I've had to practice and work at. I think I'm becoming, I would say, very, very good at it now, but it was uncomfortable to actually receive what I so needed. Now, give an example of that in just a second. But I want to back up and say that this energy of being so competent, my literal phrase was when he's like, babe, listen, I've got to go to Tokyo for this long. And then he'd call from Tokyo and be like, they've extended it. I have to go here.

And my phrase was, I got it. I got it. Don't worry. I got it. I'm working. I've got all the kids. We don't live near family, right? No worries.

I got it. And he would say to me at every event, every party, it was like my badge of honor. My wife, unbelievable. She just holds it down. She's unbelievable. I couldn't do what I do without her. And so this became my identity. This became my badge.

I'm like, look how strong I am. until the truth almost broke me. And the truth was, I remember right before I filed for divorce thinking, just once in my life before I die, once, it makes me want to cry just even remembering that moment. Once in my life, I want to fully surrender. Once in my life, I want to know what it feels like to lean back and someone else is there. I just want to know what that feels like. And I could think that all I wanted, but I was very, very much.

terrified to do it. Not so much that I'd get rejected, but that he would actually do it. And then I would have to lean in and be vulnerable. What does that mean? What does that mean? I don't even know how do you be vulnerable? Because my phrase is do what you got to do. I'm saying, do what you got to do. Do what you got to do. And then, you know, this moment happened a while ago where I was saying how difficult it was because she's very small and my toddlers are active. And he said, you're amazing, though. You can do it. And I was like, I don't want to be amazing. I don't want to be amazing. I want to be human and not amazing, you know. Sometimes I just want to sit on the floor and say, I just can't do one more thing, right? So I want to give you two examples of what this looks like. One, I was working with a woman and she said to me in front,

it was a large group called like a couple hundred women. And she said to me, so my husband are really struggling. We have a one-year-old and a three-year-old. We haven't been intimate in quite some time. And my therapist said to me, buy some lingerie and put the kids to bed early. And when he comes home, greet him in the lingerie. And I said, oh, okay. Did you do that yet? And she's like, no. And I said, why not? And she's like, something felt off about it. I'm like, right, because it's not about the performance. It's not, that will change nothing. What you actually want is to put the kids to bed early, greet him on the floor with like a blanket out with candles lit in your pajamas and say, baby, I have to talk to you. Sit down here with me and take him by the hands

and look at him in the eyes and tell him the truth of your heart. Like, I miss you. I really miss you. I miss the connection between the two of us. I miss your touch on my body. I miss where we used to lay in bed for hours together before the kids were born. I miss you. And I'm scared that we're slipping away from each other. And maybe we're going to find comfort somewhere else. And I don't want that to happen. And she then did that thing. And it was a different kind of connection than had she been waiting in a sexy piece of lingerie when he came home, you would have never got to the real deep concerns of her soul. They would have had maybe some great sex, if at all. But the real root cause wouldn't have been addressed. But it made, she needed to get vulnerable enough to say,

I miss you and I'm scared. Yeah. And the irony about men is that they're more astute and emotional than we give them credit for. Many women do the whole performative lingerie thing. And often I hear back from women that men are like, oh, I'm not in the mood or something feels off or because they see this person who's inside broken on the outside performing just to keep them. Oh my gosh. Yes.

Absolutely. And so, you know, I just did a live event. for several hundred women a couple of weeks ago. And leading up to it, for 10 days leading up to it, my schedule was so intense and so busy. And I was as a real sleeper, someone who's never struggled to sleep in my life, I was struggling to sleep. I had so much on my mind. And I was averaging like three to four nights, three to four hours a night. And my husband was saying, this is not sustainable. You're going to be on the stage for a few days in front of all these women performing. Like, you need to be in complete queen energy. I'm like, I'm like, I

No, I don't know what to do about it. He said, I know what to do. He said, I'm going to, every night, I want you to be in bed by nine. I'll be there waiting for you. I'm going to have, and this is what he did. I walked in. He had the lights completely dimmed, almost off. He had candles, all my favorite candles burning, my favorite spa music station on. And my heated eye mask plugged in, my warming blanket get plugged in, my favorite cozy socks and my favorite oil. So he's like, just all I want you to do is brush your teeth, get in bed. I don't even want you to talk to me when you come into the bedroom. I want you to know that the minute you're walking towards the bed, this is your time to like start, you know, relaxing. And I'm going to rub your feet until you fall asleep because it's my

most favorite thing in the world. And I laughed. I was like, oh, that's, he's like, stop talking. Just lay back and receive. And I said, and I did. And then. the next morning, I hugged him over at the coffee maker. I'm like, babe, that was unbelievable. And then he showed himself out and went to the guest room every night because he wanted me to get the most restful sleep. I slept for nine hours every night. So I thank him the next morning at the coffee machine. I'm like, babe, that was unbelievable. I think I slept like nine hours. He said, and we're going to do that for nine more nights until you leave for your event. And I'm like, oh, and then the old me comes in and is like, oh, no, that's too much. That's crazy. You're working like an insane schedule.

He was home that week, right? Which is so rare. He was actually home. He's like, nope, nope, I'm going to do it. And I let him do it. I surrendered. And I let him massage my feet and do that whole entire thing for nine more nights. How did he change as a person when you allowed yourself to be vulnerable?

Did you see a different person in him? He's so much more. He's even more tender. The more vulnerable I get, the more tender he gets and the more he shows up for me. He's always been more physical than me. me, but he's even more physical. And he's just like in this energy of so much honor. I walked in the room the other night. We had all of our family here. I walked in the room and he turned and looked at me and he just, he shook his head and he's like, you are so breathtaking, Amanda. Oh, my gosh.

And it's not and it has nothing to do, right? I mean, I'm certain this isn't like a physicality thing. It's an energetic, right? And it's this beauty of like, I'm this incredibly powerful woman. But the difference is now before I was strong and guarded, now I'm powerful and surrendered. Oh, my gosh. That is just a whole different frequency that we are operating on. And of course, our sensuality and our sex life has completely transformed because of that because I'm in this really surrendered energy and it's so beautiful and it's so pure. If a woman's watching this and she's afraid that, you know, she might be vulnerable,

but the person she's with is essentially a narcissist or avoidant. Those are the terms that go around online. I saw a post by you where you said if you meet a narcissist, you might be neglecting, looking after yourself. And if he's neglectful, then you might be not loving yourself properly. How do you identify whether it's you who's not being vulnerable versus the person you're with who you have chosen poorly perhaps? So there's a difference.

I think it's important to differentiate between a distance. This is regulated energy and presentation versus powerful vulnerability. So let's think about the princess. The princess comes in and is really dysregulated like how I was acting for so long. This isn't fair. I'm sick of it. You don't do these things for me. I bet I could find someone who would treat me better.

And you better be careful because one day I'm not going to be here anymore. But then I make it super ambiguous. And he has no idea what I actually really need. Threatening to leave all the time, but not giving him directives, not getting vulnerable. at all, right? Like walking around the corner and like slamming a door. So that's like a dysregulated energy. So he couldn't show up for that. He didn't even know what the hell I needed, first of all. And it just got him probably further away from me. The regulated energy of vulnerability is very powerful, right? And it just states what it so desires. And then if you have a man who in you state and a very

regulated energetic, what it is that you so desire, and over and over and over, you're so, and over, again, he can't meet that, it doesn't, we don't even have to label him as anything. It's just not an energetic match. If you're a woman who is stating what you desire in relationship and over and over again, they cannot meet those needs, the question would then be, why are you there? You know, why do you believe that you have to beg for your needs to be met? How do you differentiate between needs like him taking the trash out, the prolific trash that everyone for some reason struggles with and something that is more deep because there is

two camps you know if a man even sets his foot wrong sneezes wrong leave him just leave him girl just leave him you deserve better and then there's women who put up with everything and anything what is the fine line how do you differentiate between when a person is worth kind of pursuing the relationship with and not yeah I think it really comes down to whether or not you see like the curiosity versus being critical. My husband, one thing I, I mean, there's many things I can give him credit for, but one thing I would say about him, he's always been very curious-minded instead of critical. So if I was bringing something up, rather than criticizing the thing that I said or needed or we were exploring, it was more of a curious energy. So if you have a partner

who's curious, why is so infuriating to you that he keeps forgetting to take out the trash, or he's curious about how we can create a resolution around the trash situation. I'm using that as example. Then you have something to work with. But if you have someone who is adamant that they are not budging on anything, or this is just the way it is, or this is how it was when I grew up, this is how my parents' roles were, then again, when we talk about energetic match, you just might not have an energetic match. You know, I don't know if it hit Australia. You're in Australia, correct? Yeah. I don't know if it hit Australia, this idea, this whole thing around man versus bear, you know, in the woods if a woman's walking. So, you know, the difference is. The difference is,

is when that conversation came up at a family dinner with extended family, my husband hadn't heard of it. My sons hadn't heard of it yet. My daughter and I knew about it. And what I loved and commented on around the table that night was, you know what I love about each of you? Rather than jumping into any kind of defense, you went right into curiosity like, why? Why would most women pick the bear over the man? Where I know a lot of men, because I had a lot of my clients were pointing back, that their partners or their sons were like, attacking when they heard the stats or the results and making fun of. So I think that's a differentiating. Pay attention. If you have someone who's curious, you've got something to work with.

Yeah. In my husband's case, he's lighthearted. Like he's just got this light spiritual energy. Like you'll be like, why is the trash still here? He's like, oh, is it here still? Oh, sorry. And it's infuriating because it's almost like childlike, but that's also the beauty of his spirit. So when I told him about the bear and the man thing, he's like, but why is that a question? Who's, who's the bear who's the man what he just thinks in such a different way i'm like you don't get it simon it's christ but yeah i think it's about the internal like spirituality of the person you can tell if somebody i think intrinsically comes from malice or comes from a pure place yes i um wanted to talk to you about masculine and feminine energy what is your take on what they mean and are they useful or

is it just something that goes around online i think they're really really I don't get over-focused on it. I have a ton of masculine. I probably spent most of my life operating in my masculine energy. I have learned in the past 15-plus years, 17 years to really harness and value my feminine energy. And I'll say more about what I think they are. But why I think we all run more heavily masculine and why we value masculine energy more is because that is the patriarchal structure.

It's like production, bottom line, how much can you? you get done. How much did you achieve, achieve, achieve? And that feminine energy is that surrendered energy. It's more that artful, soulful, emotional energy. And until we as a society value that as much as production, we will all run more heavily masculine. And so obviously we have components of both inside of us. And I think that the way I explained it to my kids a long time ago is the bottle, if you will, is the container. That's like the masculine energy, whether we're talking about male, female relationship, or literally within our own selves. So my business would not be a business if I didn't have a lot of masculine energy. I couldn't run it. But the feminine part of me is the

one who takes my clients on these journeys, right, who we get up and we do all of these somatic experiences together, whether it's in person or online. And so the container, the structure the water bottle, if you will, the external bottle is the masculine energy. The fluid inside of the water bottle that moves, depending on how you shake the bottle or what you do with it, is that feminine energy that's constantly in flow. Similar to the moon, the average woman having a 28-day cycle, there's no coincidence that the moon is on a 28-day cycle. The sun is static. The sun is always the same. The moon changes every day. Right. And we don't. We don't look at the moon and think, well, what the heck?

Why is it like that today? It was different yesterday. We're in awe of it. It's a mystery. It's beautiful. We trust it. So until we can revere feminine energy inside of all of ourselves and in women and in men, I love when my husband like lets that feminine energy come through, it's so beautiful.

Until we value that as much as the masculine, we're going to have a very unbalanced society and unbalanced relationships within ourselves and with others. I think that question, what do you bring to the table that men love to ask women, is a symptom of not understanding feminine energy. And you see women scrambling to say what they bring to the table, support, love. I can pay 50% of the bills. And it's just like this strange conversation about seeing people in almost like a value system as opposed to a connection. What do you think of that question?

And if women are asked, what should they say? I wouldn't even be able to answer that question. You know, my husband claims that he's been married to 18. different women and 28 years of marriage to me because like a snake, I'm constantly shutting my skin and stepping into a new version of myself. And that is the, just like any beautiful thing in nature, every tree is different every year. It's constantly going through a shedding and a growing. And I'm always releasing limiting parts of myself. So if somebody asked me, what do you bring to the table? How do you explain magic? How would you get someone to see magic?

in a human three-dimensional structure, I would say you'd have to experience me to understand what I bring to the table and make your judgments based on that. Wow, I love that. And in the conversation when it comes to if you're a couple together, 50-50 relationships, what do you think about that? Or do you think it's up to each individual couple? Or do you think that takes away from her femininity and all that stuff? I mean, women want to know.

I think that's really individually based. and what, you know, I think I know with this big trad wife movie going on, but I believe is supported by the religious organizations trying to bring women back into the home. Nothing against it at all. I think that if you can be a traditional wife and really deeply feel incredibly, phenomenally fulfilled and honored and respected, I think that's wonderful. I really and truly do. I, I, I think that there comes a point in many women's lives where they would like to be the main character. And most women don't even scratch that surface if they're honest with themselves until about 50.

So if you're okay being a support character of everyone else's lives, fantastic, if that works for you. But I would pretty much challenge that most women at some point hit that point of, gosh, I wonder what it would be like to be the main character. I can't imagine not being the main character of my own story. I love being the support role to my extended family, my partner, his career, my kids and their successes. But you know what I love the most? I love the story that I'm writing for myself.

Same. It's exactly the same for me. And I think it's interesting that when we talk about trad wife or being traditionally feminine, we only go back to like the 1950s or 40s. We don't go back to like tribal living or the way women appeared throughout history. We only go back to this like immediate time right now. that is, if we're talking tradition, why don't we go way, way, way, way, way back, where women had a biggest role and women actually worked, not in some kind of, you know, industrial workplace, but everybody had a role and were our main character of the storyline,

essentially. Absolutely. And I write about that in my book that it doesn't come out until March, but I write about that in my book, right, breaking down, how did we get here? How did we get to this patriarchal structure where women are not anywhere in any of the religious stories or in the Bible or the Quran? where are the female leaders? Where are the women literally leading? We remove them from the patriarchal storyline when we remove the goddess and her leadership because it's so incredibly feared.

So women were in leadership and in power. And if we're talking about feminine, trad wife is a performative feminine. That is not. That is, and actually, that's masculine energy. I said the same thing. Doing all of that is still performance. When you're performing, you are in masculine energy. When you are surrendered and in receiving energy, that is feminine energy. So we're thinking that the apron with the beautiful, fancy dress on your hair pulled back, a whole full face of makeup, making like muffins from scratch at 630 in the morning is feminine. That's performance. And it's also unrealistic. I think that whole thing's going to crash and burn. But that is not feminine. That is performative. Yeah. It's like the lingerie, putting it on suddenly.

It's masculine energy. It's performing. It's trying to achieve a goal for a certain. Result, can you tell me more about your book because I'm customer number one? Well, it's up for pre-order already, and it already became a bestseller just through pre-order. It's called Muse, the magnetism of women who stop abandoning themselves. Can you tell me how you went about writing that and what we could expect inside? Yes, I really had no intentions of writing a book until I was approached by an agent. And so I thought, well, what the hell? I'm up for the challenge.

Let's do this. And it was quite an incredible journey, really understanding. I have so much to say and so much to teach. But if I only have so many pages to work with, what 10 things do I really want them to know? So I kind of broke it down and helped first, how did we even get here? How do we get here that being a woman sometimes feels so misunderstood, so unsafe, so difficult? It's supposed to be this really incredibly beautiful journey. So how did we get here?

And now what do we do? Now that we understand how we got here, what do we do to create that kind of connection with ourselves and in our relationships? And so it is a lot of practical tools, very tangible everyday things. But it is a way of thinking that even my publisher, there's language in that book where they were coming back to me in the editing process. They're like, this isn't a word. I'm like, in my world, it is.

We're keeping it. Because I have created words. I'm like, yeah, in the patriarchal structure world, that might not be a word, but it's a word in my world and in my work. So I'm creating new language around what it means to be a woman who is magnetic. And it begins when she stops abandoning her truth and her voice and her body. I cannot wait to read it. I want to touch on one thing before I let you go.

When I see you, and I'm not saying this as a compliment, I'm saying this as a truth, you are undeniably beautiful. It feels really scary to age in today's beauty environment. how did you break through that because I have been having my kids and, you know, feeding them, breastfeeding them. So I have not had worked on Botox, all that stuff. And I'm sitting here and I'm like, oh, everybody does that. But I probably won't is my new thought.

And when I see you, it's so empowering because I'm like, wow, she's undeniably beautiful. Why did I think that I have to, you know, do all these things in order to fit in? How did you decide that? How did you learn that? Where did that come from? Well, first thank you, and I fully received that and I feel that. You are reflecting back to me what I feel and I feel because it's a magnetism that radiates from within, right? Because I am living in such deep joy. And I started a mirror practice several years ago. I had found an old photo of my

daughter who at the time was nine months old. And I'd just taken her out of the bath and she made her way over to this big mirror in our bathroom and pulled herself up on it. And she was standing there looking at herself in the mirror, a chubby little tiny thing. And she's staring with the most awe and wonder you've ever seen in your life. And I remember the day I took that photo. And when I saw it several years ago, I thought, oh my gosh, when do we as women stop looking like that in the mirror at ourselves? When do we stop with the awe and the wonder? I'm just as much a miracle, if not more now than I was then. And so I took myself that afternoon to the mirror. And it was so awkward and uncomfortable because my only experience of going to the mirror prior to that was to critique something,

to look at how tired I was or some new line that showed or some sunspot. And so I was like, oh, this is so awkward. Yeah, no, it doesn't work. And then later that night, I remember thinking, what if you were really intentional, Amanda? And you showed up in front of the mirror every day in the morning when you woke up, before you turned your phone on, before you brushed your teeth. What if you went to the mirror and promise yourself that you would stand there until you saw the miracle, until you felt the awe, until you felt the wonder? What would happen? So I did that for 90 days.

It literally changed my cellular structure. It changed my nervous system. It changed everything. There were mornings I was standing there, weeping. I am undoubtedly the most in love with myself I have ever been. And a huge part of that trajectory started when I actually saw myself in the mirror. Because if I sit with it and I'm honest with myself and I'm on some deserted island and the outside world doesn't exist. And somebody asked me, what do I believe it means to age as a woman? Do you know what I think

it really means? And I'm not talking about social media influence. I think it's exquisite. I think of my grandmothers and all the lines on their faces and how beautiful they were. I think of the nursing home I worked in when I was in college and how fascinated I was by all the stories of the women that they would share. I think it's one of the most revered landscapes. And it's a part of nature that I feel like we're missing out on because women are not allowing themselves the beauty and honor of that. I also see it as one of the greatest gifts I can give my daughter. And interestingly, when I'm on the streets of the world, no matter what country I'm in, young women come up to me, almost every time in tears, saying to me, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

you for doing this work. There are so few role models for us to look to. I don't even know what it looks like to be 30. I've never seen an actual 30-year-old face. So thank you for showing up for us so that we don't have to feel afraid. My husband told me that one of his colleagues came home and said, my daughter follows your wife and told her fiance, I'm not afraid to age anymore. I'm watching Amanda and I'm not afraid to age. That's the experience I've had because we really buy into also how men see us. And I know it's hard to accept because we want to be like strong and I don't care what he thinks, but you want your partner to find you attractive. So if you're constantly told by everyone, oh, you know, men only find young women attractive. You're only beautiful like this.

It's hard to be like, well, I'll age. Let everyone else be young, you know. It's hard. Well, if you make it hard. If you make it luxurious, it's luxurious. I've made it the most sensual, beautiful journey. My husband's like, there's no amount of Botox or youthfulness. There's no amount of any of that that I would ever trade in the world because I will tell you, there is nothing quite essential as a woman who is raw and in her body and connected to in that kind of a place as a performative doll. Nobody is interested long term because that's exchangeable. And underneath that, there is a message of fear. There's something different about walking. into a space in a room and being a revolution simply for existing. Every space I walk into,

I have a revolutionary message that precedes me, especially living out, you know, in Miami, where everybody's doing work just to literally exist out in the world is a revolution. And it's outrageous because women are like, oh my God, what is your husband thinking? I'm like, I didn't ask my husband permission for any of this, just like he didn't ask me permission when he started aging. It's a double standard. And I have no interest in being with someone who's going to try to control my, it's so cheap. It's so insulting that my three-dimensional experience, the way I look is the least interesting thing about me.

It's everything inside that's so fascinating. You know, women are most scared to become invisible with age and you are so not invisible. It's incredible. And we only become invisible if we allow it, right? Like Eleanor Roosevelt says, we only allow those kinds of. kinds of comments, if you give someone permission to make you feel inferior, as long as you center the male gaze, you will feel invisible. I don't center the male gaze. I am so uninterested in what men think of me. I am so busy helping women put out the fires in their own home and in their

own souls. So when you do that, I don't have any time energy to even read the comments of what people say or don't say on my social media. I don't give a shit about the male gays or the, or the patriarchalized female gaze, the woman who's bought into that system. I bless them and I wish them peace on their path, but I have bigger work to do than worry about the lines on my face. And it just struck me the irony that we were even talking about this and in reference to you when you're not even aged yet. You're not even, you know, 90.

You know, that is the true, like you are young. And I can't wait. I cannot wait. I can't wait to usher in my crone, right? Like I have a vision of her already. She's 102 and she's got long gray hair and the most creviced tan skin. I already see her. And so much of what I'm doing now, I'm also doing for her in honor of her.

That's amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You are a revolutionary human being. I think, yeah, you're incredible. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.