1st Nov 2022 AMPstigator Season Three Episode 39: How to Trust, allow & Let Go
with Guest Alyssa Rosenheck
[00:00:00] < Intro >
Lauren: This is AMPstigator, a podcast founded on purpose, but focused on the path to get there. Experience is the best teacher. And in this season of AMPstigator we're going all in on female perspective of women and wisdom, as we answer one specific question. What's the lesson here?
You'll hear from my best girlfriends and favorite female collaborators, as we share deeply about what we're here to learn and teach. As we guide other women to purpose.
From the moment I started planning out AMPstigator in the summer of 2021. The goal was always to create a platform to have more conversations like the one you're about to hear. And I was tired of taking these amazing conversations, with incredible people, and whittling them down to like three sound bites.
Three is not enough. You can't understand a person. You can't feel them at their greatest depths. So in this conversation, you're going to feel what AMPstigator was always meant to be all along. As you meet my friend Alyssa Rosenheck. She's an interiors and architectural photographer.
Her work's been in over 900 magazine features. She's a leader in her field. And a couple of years ago, she put out this gorgeous book called The New Southern Style and it features her photography. But also a ton of writing about how we can all have creative courage. The message really resonated with people and became a bestseller. And now, two years later, she still speaks at length on this topic.
But the thing I love about Alyssa is her high level of evolution, which we talk about in this episode. She was a total workaholic until a cancer diagnosis, at age 32, that completely changed her life, as you would expect.
She shares in this episode how she picked up a camera as part of her healing. She was not professionally trained. This is how it happened for her, and now, eight years later, she's created this entirely new, incredibly successful career.
Alyssa's really living in this whole lesson of non-attachment right now, and in a way, I feel like she's been there for eight years. It's the lesson that could drown you if you let it. And she talks about what's being taken away from her, just even in this very moment and how she's working through that.
She also describes how she uses meditation and visualization. To help you understand not only how powerful it is, but also how you can use it in your life, and we laugh a lot in this episode. We share deeply. And later she even hints at a new project that she's spending time working on right now.
So she drops a few breadcrumbs here, but still plays it pretty close to the vest. Alyssa is deeply spiritual and discerning. And when you're with her, you realize she sees people clearly, that's her superpower, and it's not a sensory thing. She uses her heart to see, and I could see that being uncomfortable for some people. Because she knows how to explore shadows both in herself and in others, and it doesn't scare her.
I have no doubt that you're going to learn something in this next hour, that you can apply in your own life. Lots of takeaways here. Lots of wisdom-filled quotes that you'll want to write down. So I'm excited to share this latest episode of AMPstigator. Here's Alyssa Rosenheck, with the lesson: How to trust, allow, and let Go.
This is a podcast about self-evolution.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: About who we become through the things that we go through.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: And when I think of you, I think evolution. I think of an evolved person who, I've not even known you that long, but I feel like you probably came out of the womb, like 42, and you progressed 42 and on. Does that feel true for you or is that just me?
Alyssa: I feel like I've always been an old soul. But a curious one, and a playful one, and I've always walked on my own, with my own beat, if that makes sense.
Lauren: Yes, I love that. So that's really where I want to start, is the evolution of you, of Alyssa Rosenheck. You are here in this moment because of past experience.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: When I ask you about self-evolution, what does that make you think of? And how do you think you've become the person you are in this very moment?
Alyssa: Well, there's so many areas we can go, but I feel like self-evolution, our experiences are building blocks. I don't really love to live in the building blocks of it in the past. Because I never want the past to dictate my choices in the present.
I really want to understand the lessons. I want to really take stock in some of the pain and feel it, and experience both sides of it. As a photographer and a writer, I really value both the light and the shadows. And I really like to show up as my full, intuitive self in the moment, and make healthy choices from that place-
Lauren: Was that a process, though? Because it sounds, again, so evolved how you're saying it?
Alyssa: It was. I feel like we're living in this time right now where everybody is really tethered to their dark night of the soul story. And I feel like when we live in that space, sometimes, we don't evolve past that space.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: And the thing that's so beautiful that I'm living in right now, we get to redefine who we are as many times as we want. And that's the beauty, and it takes courage, it takes bravery, and you have to have some self-awareness in terms of where you've been, how you want to show up, and the change that you want to be making for yourself, for your family, and for your community.
Lauren: Yes, I think that's so important. It's interesting that you even bring that up, as like being a prisoner to your story.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: I feel like there's so little awareness, for a lot of people, about like, "Oh, this doesn't have to be mine anymore. I can pass this."
Alyssa: "I can release it; I can surrender it." And I think when you loosen that grip, you call in for so much more growth, and evolution, and beauty. And I've had teachers in my life, painful teachers in my life.
I grew up having some emotional abuse throughout my childhood home. There was financial insecurity. There was a lot of substance abuse, with a caretaker. And I have spent some time, I talk a lot about it in my book, and I'm past that.
However, I've seen how my father living in those stories, he never grew past it. And it's always nice when you have an observer role, and you understand the mistake somebody else is making so you don't have to live through them and I identify it. I can see it quickly, and I can meet somebody with where they are.
But if they're not willing to grow and heal past that pain. There's not much more you can do except for leave the door cracked, have a healthy boundary, and the move past it and not incorporate it in your own life.
Lauren: This is an interesting conversation, to me, because I do feel like-
Alyssa: Also not expecting to go down that path, but here we are.
Lauren: Here we are, there's no expectation. Have an experience, not an expectation.
Alyssa: No, I've been an observer with a lot of people who've made crazy mistakes, crazy life choices.
Lauren: Do you find yourself going, "What are you doing?" Or "Hmmm?"
Alyssa: No, it's more of, can we curse on this podcast?
Lauren: Yes, you can do whatever you want.
Alyssa: I'm like, "What the f-?" No, but I'm like, "That's an interesting choice."
Lauren: That's a good way to say it.
Alyssa: That was an interesting path.
Lauren: I feel like, too, story is everything, my whole foundation as in my career is on stories. And I think we as humans developed and evolved on stories.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: Before we ever even wrote things down, we were expressing things through spoken word.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: There was through pictures, and through spoken word.
Alyssa: Well, and survival. I think its survival, and story, and community, and you have to have a balance between all of those.
Lauren: Yes, so it's interesting-
Alyssa: And not be a savage.
Lauren: There are so many entrepreneurs that struggle, I think, with finding their story, grabbing their story.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: But then-
Alyssa: I don't think you have to find the story, though. I think you have to live. I think that you have to be curious. I think that you have to put one foot in front of the other. I'm a big believer in work, build, create. It's really simple work, build, create, and whatever that is, for you, family, work, build, create your family. Work, build, create your community. Work, build, create your passion. You have to really lean into that and not manufacture some story, you have to live.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: You have to live rather than produce it.
Lauren: Because the story is, often, the past. I like where you're going with this, this is good because you have to evolve past it. You have to go past it. Let's talk about your photography, obviously, you're such an accomplished photographer.
But I love the evolution there, like the origin story of how you got into it. Because you were not a photographer, you were a woman who was killing yourself, in the amount of work that you were doing.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: But you were going over the top in your career, to the point that it made you very sick.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm, my past is counterintuitive to where I am today. I spent a little over a decade in the corporate world, working for two Fortune 100 companies. And I was chasing these arbitrary levels of success. I was motivated by fear. I was making 99% of my choices from that place, and photography, for me, I want to say it was a happy accident.
I was diagnosed with cancer in 2014 and that was one of my greatest teachers. It taught me stillness. It taught me to go inward. It taught me to release every notion I had up until that point. Release the toxic relationships. Release the work that was not serving me, and it was a process and it was a challenging season. However, I started to listen to what my heart space was saying rather than my head, and it kept nudging me to pick up a camera.
Lauren: That's so amazing, to me. What did it feel like? Give me the body sensations? You see a camera, do you have a, a reaction? What was it?
Alyssa: Of course, I am a highly sensitive human being to my physical environment, and I'm very intuitive. And for the first time it felt like peace. It felt like I was able to lower my shoulders. It felt like I was unclenching my jaw. It felt like a form of prayer, it made me come alive inside.
Lauren: Wow.
Alyssa: It was reconnecting me to my more feminine parts because I was leading so much in my masculine. During that time, I am confident to say that it was my companion to healing, and western medicine physically saved my body, but creativity saved my life.
Photography saved my life, and it gave me a really great perspective. In terms of allowing myself to embrace the shadows of my past and the way I grew up. To intensify my light, to show me my range and depth, and to understand that when I'm constantly looking for light through my lens, I'm able to see it in other areas of my life too that aren't affiliated with photography.
Lauren: Isn't it interesting how things can look different? And I'm just talking about the sensation of sight. Things look different when you're just looking with your eyes and then when you look through a camera lens, you see things, totally, differently.
Alyssa: I'll challenge this.
Lauren: Okay.
Alyssa: After eight years of having my own business in the photography, and my niche which is interiors and architectural photography. And having been in spaces and meeting incredible humans, I've taught my heart to see before I judge with my eyes.
Lauren: Hmm.
Alyssa: And that's what photography, I get emotional, that's what photography has been for me.
Lauren: I love that.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: I just know sometimes, even on the simplest level, let me tell you how simple this can be. When I can't make a decision on what to wear. What I find myself doing is I say, "Well, just take a quick picture."
And when I can look at it as a picture and I'm telling you it's crazy, and I work in front of the camera. I work in front of the camera for a living. And, so, the way things look when you can just, for me, it's an exercise of take out all the noise and the noise is everything that's past that. That 16 by nine square or whatever, that's not a square, 16 by nine shape.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: Everything outside of that is noise. But if I can see just what is the camera see, almost, to me, the camera operates without judgment and, so, then I can see it. Do you think opposite?
Alyssa: I kind of disagree.
Lauren: Oh, okay, I love it. I love this, tell me more.
Alyssa: First I want you to have a capsule wardrobe.
Lauren: A capsule wardrobe? Tell me more.
Alyssa: No, I think that you need to have clothes that make you feel really alive.
Lauren: Oh, no, that was like if I'm in a dressing room.
Alyssa: I know.
Lauren: But I very rarely go shopping, let's be clear.
Alyssa: But you have such a brilliant mind. It's less time I'm picking out what you want to wear, and more time in putting it into the things that are going to be giving back to you.
Number one, in my world with photography, my lens identifies holes. So I can walk into a space and I know the lens is going to identify holes in a space. And what I mean holes, it's where your eye is visually landing in one area of the room that's missing a layer.
And in the world I live in I style a space. I photograph a space and I help build women-owned businesses with the marketing I do around the collaborations we have. So I use layers to invite your eye to move, organically, around a space.
So I look at the lens and I'm like, "Okay, when I'm in a space it identifies holes." If I'm in a community, or group, or on the street, and I'm just using my camera for my own passion. It is not only capturing a moment in time or helping you decide what to wear.
Lauren: I know; I really don't do it a lot. I really don't because everything in my wardrobe is there, I have to love it or it's not there.
Alyssa: No, but it makes sense visually it can make sense. It's the whole puzzle piece for you to identify what's making sense, and what's not making sense. I do think an image it's a universal language, visual language, that can yield emotion. It's a powerful tool and it can attract. I look at photography more as a magnet in terms of what you're wanting it to attract.
Lauren: Mm-hmm, so do you think of emotion in image?
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: Are you thinking of because there's some-
Alyssa: A lot of people think that an image is just there to capture a still moment in time, and that is great, for sure. However, I think that there's a universal power attached to it. I think there is a universal visual language attached to it, where it does yield emotion and it is recognized by the heart, and it is magnetic and it can attract aligned clients. It can attract the right partnerships, it can attract nourishing teammates. It's a powerful tool-
Lauren: If you allow it.
Alyssa: ...if you yield the attention around it.
Lauren: And if you imbue it with that power.
Alyssa: Yes, there's a mindfulness into it.
Lauren: Exactly, and that's exactly where I wanted to go with that because I feel like...
Alyssa: I look at it in terms of think of where I've been. I am an untrained photographer. I'm a self-taught photographer. I entered into a niche where it was antiquated when I came into it eight years ago.
Lauren: And probably male-dominated?
Alyssa: Very male-dominated. There were not really, hardly, any women interior and architectural photographers. And I knew having had my entrepreneurial background and being this fresh set of eyes, I wanted to innovate a new path in the industry. And, so, what helped separate me, as I was focusing on a part of the industry that nobody was focusing on at the time. However, photography, back to your point, it's planting seeds in terms of where you're wanting to go.
It's visualizing what you want, a vision that's so much greater than yourself and following it up, daily, with choices. But, for me, visuals in planting those seeds and the impact I want to make in the world, and how I want to drive humanity forward in my community.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: So it's mindfulness, really.
Lauren: Yes, it's mindfulness, totally, and this is something that, gosh, I'm so passionate about. Because I, for myself, have dropped nuggets everywhere throughout my life and my day, that remind me to come back to.
Alyssa: You do that well.
Lauren: And you know where I do it? And this is going to come back, this is so funny how we're on an adornment wavelength there today. I'm thinking about, because I'm about to talk about my jewelry. Literally, everything that I wear, every ring I wear, every bracelet I wear, everything I wear is on purpose.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: It's not because I'm like, "Oh, I think this is pretty, I'm just going to wear it."
Alyssa: Same. What does the bracelet mean to you?
Lauren: This one is after my hospitalization. I don't take it off, these are Arabic jasper beads that are for healing my sacral chakra. Like, "Let's heal all of the problems that happened in my stomach during my hospitalization.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: So I look at this and it represents, not only healing and wholeness, but it also represents that time.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: So it's, for me, "Don't forget that that woman who laid in that hospital bed." This bracelet represents, my dad gave this to me. I'm going to cry and talk about all of these, anyway, I'm going to stop, beautiful things. These are my rings represent the energies that I want to embody each day.
Alyssa: These are moments that root you.
Lauren: Totally, and, so, that's what mindfulness is.
Alyssa: And we need moments that root us. We need moments that bring us back into home, within ourselves, we need those moments.
Lauren: What do you use as that? It can't just be your camera. It's got to be other things that happen, too, right? Other tools you use.
Alyssa: I like inner stillness. If I am outside myself and I am spiraling, we all have that.
Lauren: Oh, totally.
Alyssa: We are human no one is perfect. We have very human experiences and life is coming at us at a million miles per hour. I root myself in grounding exercises and I can spiral quickly, and I am fierce in the way I live my life.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: And that energy is not always productive for me. And, so, I really have to tether myself to my moment.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Alyssa: I have to recognize, through my senses, my physical body feeling senses, what is around me. And then I have to return home within myself and go back to my peace, my stillness, and the world can be spiraling out of control around me. But as long as I'm internally still, I am my most powerful in tuned human creative self. Receptive to hear my gifts. and that is the most important thing for me.
Lauren: When I hear you say that, I get the picture of an arrow. I think of an arrow. Because I feel like when any person, when a person cultivates stillness and silence, and spend time in meditation doing quote-unquote, "Nothing." Making something out of nothing, coming inside going still, that time spent ends up really helping you focus and be a laser, be an arrow into what it is with major intensity.
Alyssa: It helps you listen. I feel like if most of us went through our life listening more than we spoke, we would have less issues and we would be able to connect more. And I was really fortunate with my mother growing up. She is highly intuitive and she would always instill visualizations with me. "Alyssa, visualize a white light around you to protect you if you feel unsettled, return home to yourself." She really had that language with me, as a young girl growing up and that was a gift.
Lauren: Wow.
Alyssa: And I think her mother taught her that, and her grandmother taught her that. And it's within that lineage that has helped root me as well, that history.
Lauren: Just hearing you explain some of like when you get disconnected, you use some of the same words that I do. I say I get airy AF.
I just feel so untethered, and the way I see it is I feel like a balloon sometimes that's just like floating. And I realize when I start feeling like I'm just floating away, not in a good way, like floating away as in like, "Someone grab the string of this balloon." I find that I have to come within myself.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: But, more than anything, I have to just go outside. I have to, literally, I have to touch nature. I have to touch a tree. My feet need to touch grass because it's the physical road back down. "Come back down to earth."
Alyssa: Yes, for sure.
Lauren: Are you someone who needs nature or is it just, literally,-
Alyssa: One million percent.
Lauren: Okay.
Alyssa: I'm a big believer in energy. I also believe that we are responsible for our own energy. And I prioritize whether I feel alive or depleted, I understand that very well with my body. Are you into Human Design at all?
Lauren: Yes, what are you?
Alyssa: I'm a generator.
Lauren: I'm a Manifestor.
Alyssa: Okay, so tell me a little bit about Manifestors.
Lauren: Oh, God, we're one of not many, less than 10% of the population. Everything is a gut instinct and it's what's called Splenic Authority, it's like "Khkk" then it goes "puih".
Alyssa: Sacral Authority,
Lauren: Right there, immediate.
Alyssa: So it's like an immediate yes or no? It's like you could feel?
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: I respond better if you present a yes or no question to me. "Hey, Alyssa, do you want Mexican food tonight or Italian food tonight?" I immediately know. But if you give me an open-ended question, I'm like, "Oh, I have decision fatigue."
Lauren: Oh, do you really?
Alyssa: Yes, and as generators, I think we're 37, 40% of the population. But if I feel alive inside, if I am passionate, I am a workhorse. I can go morning, night, until I complete that passion-filled, I am alive, I am joyful. I am highly devoted and focused. As soon as I lose interest, I'm like, "We're out, I'm delegating that, we're done."
Lauren: Yes, part of the work I'm having to do right now, personally, is understanding that when my heart's no longer in it to stop, just go. Because if I'm someone who's so freaking intense, that I'll just push my way through things I don't even really enjoy. So I'm having to-
Alyssa: You need to really listen because that can-
Lauren: Yes, I need to bring awareness to that and just stop.
Alyssa: ... that will create so much resistance, if you're not in alignment with what you need to be doing.
Lauren: Totally, right. Do you think you're ready to talk about the lesson? You want to talk about lessons?
Alyssa: I'm like, "What else do we want to talk about?"
Lauren: I know. So I like to title these episodes based on the lesson you feel like you need to teach, so it's open-ended. This season is all about lessons. I'm only talking to women about life lessons.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: Because I feel like in the same way that you were saying, "I got to learn. I got to see other people's mistakes. I got to learn from those."
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: What lesson are you either consistently learning over and over again? Or is there something you're learning in real-time right now, that's coming up for you today?
Alyssa: So much of this, yes, life is speaking to us every day, and it's up to us to listen. Currently, I am going through something where it's affecting my physical environment right now and it's fully out of my control. So rather than focusing on what you cannot control. It's really important to shift that energy and focus on what you can create and that's where I am. Also, I'm into really releasing attachments.
Lauren: Hmm.
Alyssa: I am really trying to understand and go deeper into what I need to be releasing. What I need to be calling in within myself. How I need to be finding those things that I need to be releasing within myself, and that's it.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: And just showing up. Also we live in this like self-help and I am perfectly whole how I am. And I am allowed to experience all of my feelings. And I feel like for so long I have a strong dichotomy on both ends. And it's really important for me to not ignore the shadows just to get to the light and vice versa.
Lauren: Life won't allow you to do that.
Alyssa: No.
Lauren: Life won't allow you to just ignore the bad parts.
Alyssa: So it's really embracing all the parts. It's releasing the things that I can't control, focusing on what I can create from a whole nourished service-driven path and moving forward in that, every day
Lauren: I'm hearing non-attachment. I'm hearing allowing. I'm hearing just allowing what needs to be to be.
Alyssa: And listening, really listening, and also part of my journey is being discerning. I am loving where I am in this stage of my life. I don't need more, I'm pouring into what I have. And I'm discerning in terms of who I'm around, and what I'm focusing on, and the projects I'm taking on in my creative pursuits. Because I really want to leave behind a creative legacy that future generations can step into.
Lauren: I love that. I want to back up, we need to go deeper in the lesson. Let's go deeper in the lesson.
Alyssa: Okay.
Lauren: Let's start with non-attachment and I want to break it down physically and spiritually, okay?
Alyssa: Okay.
Lauren: So what is non-attachment, physically, for you right now in this lesson?
Alyssa: Right now, currently?
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Alyssa: Right now, specifically, we are living in a city where there's a tremendous amount of growth. It's happening right next to us. And I am really driven by justice and the people.
Lauren: Oh, I love where's this going. I love it.
Alyssa: I am your local lunatic; I am really driven by justice. So I have this inner cadence where I'm like, "Okay, this feels really off, what's going on?"
I'm like, "Oh, this is ego, or greed, or what's happening." And it's happening next door to us. And, so, there is something where the house coming up next to us has eliminated, fully, our light downstairs, and I live for my light.
Lauren: Yes, because you shoot in your house.
Alyssa: I shoot in my house. I work from home. I write in one of my favorite areas, I talk about it in my first book and it is now gone.
Lauren: Because there's, not even a shadow, it's just there's a complete blocking of the light.
Alyssa: It's a full structure and I've allowed myself to mourn that, as silly as it is.
Lauren: No, you're an artist in there so that's your muse, almost. The light source is the muse.
Alyssa: It is. So I've allowed myself to mourn it. I've also allowed myself to be aware enough that there's a lesson there. And that light never goes away because it's within me, it's within you. And, so, that has been a constant mantra and a reminder the light lives within you, nowhere else and you get to exercise it.
Lauren: Hmm.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: I just love you so much.
Alyssa: No, but it's really, back to it, it's really releasing. It's focusing less on what we can't control and really shifting that energy and calling in what we can create. And that is my saving grace and that is creativity, for me, has been a healer.
Lauren: Well, what I'm hearing is what started almost as a physical lesson has become a spiritual lesson.
Alyssa: Always.
Lauren: And that's always how it works, right?
Alyssa: Life is always speaking to you, and we have to listen, and we have to be open enough to explore the teachings.
Lauren: Right, I like to say, "Let it wash over you." Here it is, kind of, let it wash over you. And actually it comes down to suffering, too, I mean what a downer. But we can suffer well, and people, I think, are so resistant to feel negative emotions. I mean, all we want to do is just stuff them down. We want to ignore them.
Alyssa: Well, there's a big culture of toxic positivity and it's just bullshit.
Lauren: I was raised in a household, toxic positivity.
Alyssa: Really?
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: Now, you have to show up fully and you just have to meet people with where they are. And, at the end of the day, I mean, the more you resist it, the more it's going to present itself.
Lauren: So I want to work through this with you because this is something that I've had to work through being raised in a household that's, I mean, gosh, I love my family. I love my family like, I need to lay that baseline, I love my family.
But we all get raised in situations that are like, "Oh, my, wow." Okay, I didn't learn, for example, me personally, I didn't learn coping mechanisms in the way that I should have because everything was, "Oh, well, it's okay, you're fine. You're going to be fine. Just go on, it's going to be great."
So I want to work through this, specifically. If we choose not to be toxically positive. If we choose, "I'm going to accept this, that's happening to me. I see this emotion, I don't love it, but I'm going to feel it. I'm going to allow this to happen."
Alyssa: You're going to sit with it.
Lauren: "I'm not going to judge it."
Alyssa: "I'm going to let it flow through me, and then I'm going to find a healthy outlet to release it."
Lauren: Okay, so that was the next part I was going to ask. After we feel that, how then do we still keep our eyes on the north star. Or our eyes on intention, or our eyes on what it is that we're manifesting in that moment? "Yes, I can feel this negativity, but I can still move forward."
Alyssa: I think it's important, for me, at least to be curious with what's going on, and understanding the terminology around it as well. So, for instance, emotions versus feelings. So emotions are physically downloaded through your body. They're sensations felt, they are immediate, they're not in intellectual. Our feelings are intellectual interpretation of our emotions, and some of those aren't real.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Alyssa: And, so, you have to really understand what's real for you. What's a false narrative that you've been routinely sharing-
Lauren: It's stored in your body, right?
Alyssa: Correct.
Lauren: Like all of that is stored. So it's somebody is just the program that's running.
Alyssa: And it's also being gentle and allowing, you may not fully release it, it may reappear next week or next month. And it's, again, going through the same system of letting yourself experience it, not judging it, and releasing it, and focusing on what is real in that moment.
Because when you're living in that mental, intellectual space, you're out of your body. You're no longer in your heart space, and you're missing the very gift that's right in front of you. I've been-
Lauren: Which is the moment.
Alyssa: Which is which is the moment.
Lauren: The moment, again.
Alyssa: The moment, and I think when you're fully tethered to your moment, you are aligned, you are, hopefully, present enough to be making choices from that space and not your past.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: And not having the anxiety of what's in the future or an agenda, that's ego. It's connecting to humanity in the moment. I mean, that's where I think the gift is.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: I also go back to, "How do I want to show up today? Who do I want to be today?"
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: And I have a clear sense of who that is. I want to be kind, I want to be gentle, I want to listen to the human standing in front of me or next to me. I want to, fully, explore my creative gifts and anything deviating from that is not on my path.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: Anything that's taking me out of my peace, or nourishment, or ease is not meant for me.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: The things that feel like love, and peace, and kindness, and humanity, and nourishment, and connection, and community, those are the things that are meant for me. So I also have to have a discerning lens as well.
Lauren: Right, which I love for you. For you sitting in front of me, this is not for everybody for you.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: I love that you've been able to really just hone your space, and be alone to find that because you are so intentional.
Alyssa: But it took me living 32 years.
Lauren: Unaligned?
Alyssa: 32 years unaligned. I never felt comfortable in my own body when I was in the corporate world. I felt like a round peg trying to fit into a square hole. And I felt like I was constantly trying to prove myself and nobody could see me.
Lauren: Yes, because they were struggling doing the same thing. They couldn't see you because they couldn't see themselves, and other things.
Alyssa: That's a whole another podcast. But it just was not in alignment for me, and it took me hitting my bottom.
Lauren: Cancer.
Alyssa: To rebuild a more beautiful, nourished life that reflected the life that I wanted to live. Create the life that you want to live. And I know that sounds big and ambiguous.
Lauren: I don't think it does.
Alyssa: But it's small baby steps forward in the vision. It's believing in a vision so much greater than yourself.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: That your day-to-day may not be reflecting, yet.
Lauren: Yes, for me, that's been a journey of my heart is speaking this, follow this. Was it a heart-centered intentionality for you? Or did you feel it somewhere else in your body?
Alyssa: No, it was heart-centered and I would be able to visualize it. I'm a big believer in visualization.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Alyssa: I was a high-level international gymnast, growing up, and I had a freak accident. I was doing a round of back handspring, double back. And I, instead of doing the double back, I shot straight up and landed on my neck.
Lauren: Oh, ouch.
Alyssa: And it knocked me out, and my mother was such a strong advocate for me.
I went to one of the top sports psychiatrists/psychologists in the country, and did visualization practices with them. To get over the fear of going backwards, and I was 12 then, and it taught me how to visualize where I want to be going in life.
Lauren: Mm-hmm, the power of our mind.
Alyssa: And to create the discipline around me to really change the way I want to live. And when I had cancer, I went back to that point as a gymnast. To when I was in the dark room visualizing my routines, and rather than the routine, it was my life and how I wanted to recreate it.
Lauren: Yes, I feel this so strongly because just a couple of months ago, when I was in the hospital laying there. Having all of these stomach issues happening, which I have a podcast about, if this is the first time you're hearing about it. Go back a couple of episodes, you'll hear about my entire hospitalization.
I would lay there and do visualization. I would do guided visualization, specifically, for this region where I was having issues in my stomach. And, so, there were open eight-inch long tracks in my stomach that needed to heal. So what did I visualize? I visualized light just pouring into those spaces.
Alyssa: Healing.
Lauren: And then I saw myself running.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: I saw myself happy. I saw myself physically active and using these core muscles that had been just assassinated.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: And, so, it's that same way of healing yourself through seeing it.
Alyssa: And everybody has their own language attached to their rituals. I interchange visualization and meditation together. I believe mindset fully matters. I also believe in western medicine healing.
Lauren: Well, your husband is a doctor. I mean, there's something with that and he diagnosed you, essentially, of the cancer.
Alyssa: He did. We also didn't meet that way, clarification for anybody watching and doesn't know our story. They're like, "Were you as patient?" No, we met at a bar.
Lauren: Let's be clear.
Alyssa: Let's be very clear. No, but visualization, meditation, it is so pivotal for you to reclaim the control over how you want to show up in your life. And how you see your life and not let society, or social media, or your friend group dictate that for you.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: You have to be the captain of your own ship, and the way to do it is through a strong meditation practice, visualization practice. Even with the most simple questions before you wake up, "How do I want to show up for myself today." Period.
"How, do I want to feel today?"
"What would make me proud today of myself?"
"What's one thing that I can do where I can create more stillness and peace in my day?"
"How can I exercise my creative gifts today?"
"How can I listen to myself more today?" It's those questions and being curious, and rooting yourself in who you are, unattached to all this other stuff that just creates more noise.
Lauren: Yes, I just love listening to you because, honestly, I feel like I'm listening to a mirror. Because the things that you're saying, these are things I record solo episodes on.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: Like in the industry that I've worked in now for 16 years, as a journalist, questions are everything.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: And, so, what is my self-talk? Mine, Lauren Lowrey self-talk, is questions.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: And oftentimes it's not even about the answer. It's being willing to ask the question.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: I love that, "Who do I want to be today?"
"How do I want to show up today?" I find myself asking that question all the time, and it comes back to the rings that I put on. I say, "Oh, I do want this energy and this energy."
In some days I only just wear one. I'm like, "No, I'm going to lean into this today." It's not even the, "This is the person I'm going to be." But it's when I look down at my hands, I go, "Yes, this is the energy that I'm claiming today. That's going to help me through the day because this is what I need or this is what the people I'm going to be with need, this part of me as a gift, as a service."
Alyssa: Same, there's intentionality with the things that we do. And I think the more mindful we are, the more tethered we are, the more supported we are in exploring that curiosity.
Lauren: Yes. Hold on, my shirt's undone, I knew it. Did you know my-
Alyssa: It's not that type of podcast.
Lauren: I know. Did you know my shirt was open?
Alyssa: No, it just said, "Hi".
Lauren: You weren't staring at my boobs?
Alyssa: No, I wasn't.
Lauren: Isn't that funny?
Alyssa: It just popped up but it was like, "We are open to receiving."
Lauren: My heart space wants to do a camera stare?
Alyssa: I'm like, "We're not starting our only fans channeling just, yet."
Lauren: You know what my husband said to me? He's like, "If this AMPstigator thing doesn't work out, you could change the name to titstigator and you can make it your only fans' page." That could be your only fans' page thing.
Alyssa: Or it can be like a foot finder situation.
Lauren: I want to ask you about masculine/feminine in this very sacred way.
Alyssa: Uh-huh.
Lauren: At what point did you have a realization or an understanding that maybe you hadn't ever embraced feminine up to that point, and then moving forward. I want to know a turning point was there?
Alyssa: It really was when I was 32, when I was exploring my creative side. When I say it was reconnecting me to parts that I thought were forever lost or parts of myself that I didn't know, it was softening a side of me. It was training the feeling of releasing control and surrendering.
Lauren: Hmm, surrender is such a good word.
Alyssa: To receive and to sit back. And I am in my, as a generator as well, back to Human Design. I am in my most powerful self when I just allow things to happen and unfold, organically, and I attract what is aligned for me.
I am not chasing things outside myself. I'm not going outside of my integrity to force something to happen, and I am very quick to listen to any of that resistance. So my feminine side is very similar. I'm sitting back almost, and I'm pouring, it's not that I'm not doing anything, I'm pouring into my creativity. I'm pouring into the things that I have to nourish.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: It's a little bit more of a slow-living process, it's mindfulness. But also there's a dichotomy here where I have to be in my masculine. I'm a business woman, I'm running a business.
Lauren: With employees.
Alyssa: And it's a juggle, sometimes, the masculine wins one day and sometimes the feminine wins the other. Or I schedule, I'm in a creative incubation period right now. Because I'm working on my second project and I haven't announced anything yet. But I am scheduling time for my feminine to show up. To create space for that side so I can really call in the gifts that I want to share with the world.
Lauren: Yes, the feminine brings things into form. Which is interesting when you think of it that way because oftentimes-
Alyssa: It receives, when you're in your feminine, you are receiving. When you're in your masculine you are pushing and making it happen. Receiving, "I am receiving."
Lauren: Right.
Alyssa: And, sometimes, I don't know what will show up that day. I was really in my feminine when I was writing my first book. And being in my receiving mode allowed me to write a project that was, I didn't know it at the time, that was so specific to the time in history it was released.
Lauren: It was deeply impactful and continues to be.
Alyssa: And it's an evergreen project, it will continue to be. But I wrote a book about creativity, building bridges, and humanizing our differences. In a time in history where there was so much unrest and division, and I didn't know that at the time. And that was a story that had been brewing deeply inside me for years and years growing up, all of it. But sitting in my feminine, I was able to receive it and listen.
Lauren: Yes, I think about the feminine as what you're going to birth and all the things that happen inside.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: If you're growing a baby, it's gestation. So what's actually growing and then the masculine does push. It does push, but it can't birth. It can't birth.
Alyssa: I was just in New York with a girlfriend who was helping moderate an event and she was like, "My agent's always like, 'If you're pregnant, I want to work with you because you're your most powerful self. All of your projects around your pregnancy are amplified.'" She's like, "Pregnancy is good for business." I was like-
Lauren: Do you know who actually says, Psychic Frank actually says that, "A woman, any woman, is most powerful in the two specific times." Well, it's not just two singular but he says, "When a woman is on her cycle." Like actually menstruating.
Alyssa: Really? But then why do we feel so drained?
Lauren: Because I think it's the calling to go back inside and come back to yourself.
Alyssa: Can I tell you something, while I forget we're doing a podcast.
Lauren: Wonderful.
Alyssa: Wonderful! I'm in full cadence with the moon right now, with my cycle.
Lauren: I'm so glad, I want to be. Because when the moon comes full-
Alyssa: Does that mean I'm a powerful witch?
Lauren: Yes, actually, it means you're in alignment. That's actually what we're supposed to be because the moon cycle is 27.93, 28 days, sometimes it's 29. And that's what a typical female cycle is. So as the moon gets fuller and what does the moon do to water in the earth? It brings water up to the surface. Same thing with our feminine bodies, it brings the liquid into the surface
Alyssa: Every full moon is my first day.
Lauren: How long has that been?
Alyssa: Like months.
Lauren: Good.
Alyssa: Yes, probably like six months.
Lauren: You need to step more into that.
Alyssa: Yes, I know.
Lauren: So here's more of this that I want to tell you. I'm going to pass on Psychic Frank wisdom. Because when he told me this, it was funny, it was actually my season two. He had come in for a day because he was going to do another episode with me, and I was just almost like releasing to him.
And almost in tears, I was like, "Something is not right, I had a guest that set me off, triggered me." And then how it felt like, "Well, hold on, I'm going to get [Crosstalk 00:47:58] You're like "I need to know."
I was like, "This person just sort of left, the energy wasn't right, and left a power on my operation and I can't seem to shake it. And I'm like, "Frank, I just don't know what to do." And he just stopped and he said, "Are you on your cycle?"
And I was like, "Yes."
And he said, "Here's what women don't understand." And then he asked me, specifically, "Were you on your cycle the day this person was there?"
I said, "Yes, that was the day I started."
And he said, "Women don't understand, but the most powerful you are is when you are menstruating and it's a threat to a man."
Alyssa: Interesting.
Lauren: Now you know it was a man.
Alyssa: Well, no-
Lauren: But so he was saying like that man could feel it. So you weren't even trying being a lion.
Alyssa: Similar to that, I want to expand on that. When you're living in your light. When you are living in your light and you are just showing up in your most human form, not ego. When you're living in your light, you are service-driven and you are powerful, and you are fully in your creative gifts, it exposes other people's shadows.
Lauren: Yes, oh, it's a trigger, for sure.
Alyssa: 100% and that is not your responsibility to take on. It is your responsibility to be kind, to meet them with where they are, and then protect your energy.
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: Protect your peace, move on.
Lauren: It was a good lesson, for me, that day that I remember thinking, "I'm not, challenging this person. I'm not trying to affront, I mean, there's nothing here."
Alyssa: No.
Lauren: But this person was, they were, oh, my gosh, it was interesting.
Alyssa: They were projecting-
Lauren: Even the other women in the room told me, too, after that I was like, "Did you feel that?"
Alyssa: Yes, palpable.
Lauren: One of my girlfriends goes, a dear friend who works with me on this podcast. She said, "Oh, yes, he didn't..." She's like, "You asked a specific question." And she was like, "I thought to myself, 'He ain't going like that. He's not going like that, Lauren's pushing.'" But here I am, I'm five two. I'm not a large person in stature. But, to your point, it's-
Alyssa: Because if you're living in your light, it exposes other people's shadows, and that's their lesson.
Lauren: What am I pushing out into the world.
Alyssa: That's their lesson. I'm a big believer in leave the door cracked, but protect your peace, protect your energy, and have healthy boundaries.
Lauren: I love that. Leave the door cracked, that's nice. I say that actually with my children, when my children go freaking AWOL.
Alyssa: I'm big believer in communication. I also like giving a space room to breathe, but there's always room to come back, and have a conversation. If you can show up and be kind, be intentional.
Lauren: Yes, I love that
Alyssa: But I will shut that door, too, for a while. Like, "We are done."
Lauren: Yes. Because you realize you have to protect yourself.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: I know, I won't call it a struggle, but a thing. A dance, maybe, that I have to do is because I work in a newsroom for so many hours a day, I'm around so many people.
Alyssa: So many personalities.
Lauren: And so it's this dance of like-
Alyssa: How do you protect yourself?
Lauren: That's the dance is I have to spend a lot of time in silence.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: I have to put my headphone, my ears in.
Alyssa: Do you recharge in silence?
Lauren: Oh, yes.
Alyssa: Okay. I know some people who really recharge and get energy off of those around them.
Lauren: I'm the opposite.
Alyssa: And I, personally, re-energize when I'm alone.
Lauren: Yes, I always knew I'm that I like being alone.
Alyssa: I'm like a hermit.
Lauren: But look at what beauty you're creating in that. And I feel like, especially, when people are deeply intuitive or empathetic, you have to protect yourself because you feel. I feel people so deeply and distinctly, that I realize that the only way I can shed that is by coming back to myself in silence.
Which is hard when you work in a place, and you have children, and then coming back to yourself. When do I do that? I find that's why the mindfulness comes back, for me, it's being so important. Because any moment, meditation doesn't have to be sitting on a pillow with your legs crossed, staring out a window.
Alyssa: No.
Lauren: That's not how I meditate.
Alyssa: There's a theory around, even a precursor to meditation. It's when you can find five minutes by yourself. You can be sitting in a quiet space and you just focus on one thing in the room. Just focus on one thing in the room and let that be an introduction to your thoughts. To not judge them, but just to really get your mind and start prepping it again and reclaiming control over it, again, because we are so tethered to our screens.
Lauren: I feel like we've got to do the digital detox because the screen is such a big thing.
Alyssa: I know. Maybe you stay tuned for my second book.
Lauren: Oh, tan-tantara, tan-tantara. I do want to ask you about this because I feel like this does bring some of the themes back together, of what we've talked about.
Alyssa: Yes, we've been all over the place.
Lauren: But, have we, though?
Alyssa: No.
Lauren: I don't think we have.
Alyssa: I love. So you called me up and you're like, "We don't really prep." I'm like, "Those are my favorite."
Lauren: Yes.
Alyssa: I'm like, "I've been looking forward to this so much." Because, I don't know, I just think that we get in the habit of prepping too much and you lose the nature, the organic, the soul of the conversation, and you do it so beautifully.
Lauren: Thank you. I had to learn, that was a learned skill. I learned that. I'll never forget the teacher in college who taught me how to do that, the first time I sat down-
Alyssa: That takes experience, though.
Lauren: Yes, it does.
Alyssa: Do you remember your first anchoring job? Your first podcast?
Lauren: Of course.
Alyssa: I'm sure you were so nervous, you prepped.
Lauren: I mean, gosh, my anchoring, that took me years to. I mean, if mastery is 10,000 hours, I'm past 17,000 hours of anchoring.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: Sitting in front of camera, reading a teleprompter, speaking ad lib, wall-to-wall breaking news covering. I am 70% past mastery, so that stuff is like an old hat.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: To me, interviewing has always been a conversation. These are the types of stories I like to do, and the types of conversations. I like to have. The kind that require me to be fully in the moment. So like I'm a yogi, you are my drisht. You are what I have to focus on right now and nothing else matters. I don't care if someone's called or texted, I have no idea. That's not where my focus is.
Alyssa: They have been really nourishing themes, today, for sure.
Lauren: Good, so let me get back to what I wanted to ask you because this does come back around for me. In addition to seeing you as an evolved soul, way more evolved than, I would say, 99% of the people I know.
Alyssa: Oh, my goodness, no.
Lauren: Yes, you're super evolved, and we're going to look at your astrology chart. I'm going to show you more why.
Alyssa: Oh, my goodness.
Lauren: One day, we'll do that.
Alyssa: I'm like, though, a savage. Just the other day I was screaming at somebody to quit. I'm, literally, may end up on the news right now with what's going on next to our house. I also purchased a decibel meter because you're like, "You are so evolved."
I'm like, "I am kind of a savage right now, but thank you." I really try to hold myself accountable, though, and I have awareness.
Lauren: You really do. Okay, so I'm really going to get to the set of this question, I swear, you are evolved my friend, you are. We all have our moments, we're human, this is part of being in the form, but you don't love living in the past. So here's where I'm just really intrigued by this, you have an artistry. Anybody who writes a book or just really taps into creative energy all the time.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: You are an artist.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: So you as an artist create this work, The New Southern, beautiful, bestselling, amazing book that's not just like aesthetically beautiful but also very thoughtful and thought-provoking.
Alyssa: Thank you.
Lauren: You create this project. I mean, you created it years ago, but then it came out two years because the process is a while. It takes a while.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: And here you are in present-day still talking about speaking on, presenting on this project that was a past creative work.
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: So how does a creative, an artist, continue to push forward but allow themselves to tap what is a past creation, all the time?
Lauren: It just depends on the community in which I'm speaking. I just got back from New York and it was a lot of business owners, and it was more of an entrepreneurial week. And, so, I want to use those resources, in terms of how I got published for anyone in the community who has those same aspirations.
The project is also community-based, I founded the New Southern, which is a movement grounded in community and creative prosperity. Showing our creative tools such as a camera, a chef's knife, a poet's pen, all reveal that we are far more alike than different. That is a universal theme that will never die, and it is a key to community. And, so, that still makes me feel very passionate and alive inside to discuss, especially, as we are still tackling some of those conversations.
Lauren: Well, because the work must have been so true for you then, and the truth doesn't fail.
Alyssa: The truth will never go away there. When you are doing a project that is not a vanity project, and you are making it service-driven, for a higher good. There are universal truths that will never conclude.
Lauren: I love that. Because it feels like when I listen to that, when I think of you, I never think that vanity or success, that was never the north star, none of it has it.
Alyssa: No.
Lauren: And I just feel like we can never find true success unless-
Alyssa: It, literally, was a story, Lauren, that I couldn't silence anymore. It became so loud within me that I really wanted to put it out, and open it up to a community that also was experiencing something very similar. And I wanted to bring substance into a industry that only celebrated style.
Lauren: Hmm, well, and aesthetic.
Alyssa: And aesthetic surface and I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to pull the cover back and really shed those layers, to see what was underneath that. And it was curiosity, creativity, life pivots. Why? Because we all have them. They are hard, they are really tough transitional seasons that no one is immune to.
Lauren: Right.
Alyssa: And I wanted to show an expansive blueprint and conversation, to hold somebody else's hand that was going through that. And that will never...
Lauren: Yes, because that's who you are, right?
Alyssa: Yes.
Lauren: You're a fellow person who hates surface.
Alyssa: I am
Lauren: Which is, probably, why I love you.
Alyssa: The book represents two creative courage, and there are so many women out there wanting permission to give that to themselves and they don't know how. And I wanted these conversations, and to be expanders for them to start carving out five minutes a day. To start pursuing it for themselves, for their daughters.
Lauren: I love that you used the word expanders.
Alyssa: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: from the point that I wanted to create this podcast. I said, "I want to create a podcast of expanders. I want to bring people on, women on, who can show other women what life can be." We get so stuck and we get stuck in the story, we forget. It's almost like-
Alyssa: I don't want to get stuck in the story.
Lauren: Right.
Alyssa: The story can also prevent growth. You need to learn from the story. Take that as a resource and propel yourself forward and who else you are birthing into, so important. It is a dance.
Lauren: Alyssa, thank you for being here,
Alyssa: Aw, thank you. This was so wonderful.
[00:59:57] < Outro >
Lauren: I love this idea from Alyssa about pulling the cover back. And if you listen to this podcast, often enough, you likely also love exploring the depths of a person's journey. That's what these episodes are all about. Listening to a person share something so deep and meaningful, that you feel something and that you're able to learn their lesson as they share it.
I encourage you, pick up Alyssa's book, The New Southern Style, it's so gorgeous. It makes me want to curl up with my hot tea and sit there and flip pages, as I stare out into nature.
While you doing that go to ampstigator.com, sign up for emails from me. I send out one email a week. It's always about the latest episode. Oftentimes, I share extra nuggets about the person you're about to meet and, sometimes, even special worksheets and extra printouts to help you work through some of those issues and questions that we pose in an episode.
I'd love to have you as part of my AMP family so just sign up there. Again, ampstigator.com. And coming up next week on AMPstigator Dr. PaQuita Pullen is a therapist. She is one of only 4% of therapists in this country who identify as African American. Did you realize that? Because I did not. 91% of American therapists are White.
So Dr. P's episode is a hybrid of her personal story, but it also mixes in therapy too. And in a way I feel like that's what all my episodes do. They are like this mix of heart therapy, part laugh fest, sometimes tears, so it's another one to look forward to next Tuesday.
As you go through this week, I encourage you shine your light, lead with your heart, and live life purposefully.
I'm Lauren Lowrey and this is AMPstigator.
[01:01:35] < Music >
