Inheritance

Amanda Patrick joins me for a conversation about inheritance—what we’re given, what we absorb, and what we eventually have to decide to do with it.

In this episode, Inheritance, Amanda shares the story of her childhood—marked by poverty, neglect, and profound loss—and the long, complex path of what it means to carry that forward into adulthood.

At just 13 years old, Amanda experienced a tragic event that would shape the course of her life. What followed were years of survival—leaving home at 15, navigating instability, masking pain, and building a life from the ground up without support. But as Amanda shares, survival is only one part of the story.

This conversation explores what we inherit—not just from our families, but from the environments we grow up in. The patterns we learn. The coping mechanisms that once kept us safe. And the difficult, often painful work of deciding what we keep… and what we lay down.

We talk about:

• Growing up in neglect and the loneliness that lingers long after
• Trauma, coping, and the masks we learn to wear
• Addiction, sobriety, and the turning point into motherhood
• The power of long-term therapy and self-awareness
• Estrangement, boundaries, and the grief that comes with choosing distance
• And how healing can evolve into service

Today, Amanda is the co-founder of LADR Consulting, a speaker, and the founder of Gift-a-Family—an initiative that has raised over $200,000 to support children who might otherwise be overlooked during the holidays.

Her story is not linear. It’s not simple. But it is deeply human.

And at its core, it’s about this:

We don’t get to choose what we inherit.
But we do get to choose what we do with it.

GUEST INFORMATION

Amanda Patrick is a business strategist and co-founder of LADR Virtual Assistants, where she helps entrepreneurs streamline operations and build scalable systems. She is also a speaker and philanthropist, and the founder of Gift-a-Family, a community initiative that has raised over $200,000 to support hundreds of children. Through her “Drop the Mask” presentations, Amanda works with youth to build confidence, resilience, and self-trust. She’s also a proud mom and pickleball enthusiast.

Connect with Amanda:
Instagram: @amandalelepatrick
Instagram: @ladrcoaching
Instagram: @gift_a_family
Website: https://www.ladrconsulting.com/

CONTENT NOTE

This episode includes discussions of childhood trauma, neglect, addiction, and suicidal ideation. Please take care while listening and choose a time and space that feels supportive.

SUPPORT RESOURCES

If this episode brought something up for you, you don’t have to sit with it alone.

Canada: Call or text 988
Simcoe County Crisis Line: 1-888-893-8333
U.S.: Call or text 988
Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Host/Producer/Writer/Director: Jenn St John

Editor: Andrew Schiller
Website: www.jennstjohn.ca
Follow along:
Instagram: @jenn_stjohn
LinkedIn: Jenn St John

If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it too.

Subscribe, leave a review, or just send a little love—your support helps these conversations reach the people who need them most.

Transcript

Podcast:  The Shadows We Cast

Episode name:  Inheritance

Host:  Jenn St John

Guests:  Amanda Patrick

Duration:  1:04:58

Themes:  mental health, childhood trauma, resilience, therapy, addiction, coping mechanisms, family dynamics, estrangement, grief, self-awareness, motherhood, healing, boundaries, service, survival

 TRANSCRIPT

Amanda  00:01

I turn the corner to go to my house, and as I approach the house, I see that there are fire trucks and ambulances everywhere, and my mom just kept screaming. The kids were in the trunk. The kids were in the trunk, I'm thinking the trunk of a car. What trunk she was referring to my best friend's brother and sister that lived next door. The three of them were playing hide and go seek in my house, and they climbed into an antique wooden clothing trunk. It was airtight, so in under eight minutes, they fell asleep and they suffocated and died in the trunk.

Jenn St John  00:41

Hello and welcome to the shadows. We cast a podcast about what we carry, the impact we leave, and the messy, beautiful reality of mental health. I'm Jenn st John, a writer, business owner and a mental health advocate who grew up in a family shaped by mental illness. Some of it was heartbreaking, some of it darkly funny, and all of it shaped who I am today. Here we're going to share honest conversations, stories from me, from you and from those who have walked this road in different ways, through journal entries, letters from my mom and real conversations, we're going to pull back the layer on mental health, the tough parts, the moments that shaped us and how we move forward together. So grab a coffee, settle in and let's talk

Jenn St John  01:32

before we begin. Just a quick note. This episode includes adult themes, including addiction, mental illness, trauma and suicidal ideation. Please take care in choosing when and where you listen, especially if you're in a sensitive place, or you have little ones around. I also want to gently remind you that I am not a mental health professional. The conversations you hear on this podcast are grounded in lived experience, mine and the stories generously shared by others, my reflections, questions and opinions come from that place and not from clinical training. Our goal here is connection, not diagnosis, and this is a space for real stories, honest conversations, and the hope that in hearing them, you might feel a little less alone. So today's episode is about the kind of survival that unfolds quietly over time, the kind that's shaped by what we learn to carry, what we learn to hide, and eventually what we're brave enough to face. It's also about inheritance, not just what we're given by our families, but what we absorb in silence, what we're asked to hold too young and what we later have to decide to keep or to lay down. My guest today is Amanda Patrick. Her story holds profound loss, early responsibility and the long aftermath of growing up without the safety every child deserves. It's also a story about healing that isn't linear, about therapy, sobriety, motherhood and the painful, often misunderstood work of setting boundaries with the people that we love. We talk about what it means to choose yourself after years of trying to make relationships work, and the grief that can follow, even when distance is the healthiest choice, and we explore how lived experience when met with honesty and care can sometimes become a way of giving back and of protecting others from harm. So here's Amanda sharing her story in her own words. I'm going to start this episode off with a short excerpt from my journal from when I was in my early 20s,

Jenn St John  03:27

I knew that one must look at the positive even in the gravest of negative times. That's how I survived my childhood. It was the only way sometimes to grit your teeth or to bite your tongue, because you knew that there would be better days. You hoped there would be better days, and you had to believe that wholeheartedly. So today's episode is about that kind of survival, the kind that you don't always see in the moment, but feel in your bones years later, the kind that forces you to grow up fast, to learn how to disappear when necessary, and to cling to the hope that things might one day be different. Amanda is someone who's lived that journey. She was raised in poverty, in a home where instability and neglect were the norm. Her childhood was shaped by mental illness, emotional and physical absences and a long list of moments that no child should have to carry. Still, she carried them, and somehow she kept going when she left home at 15, her story could have gone in any direction, and for a while it did, masking pain with unhealthy coping mechanisms while simultaneously rising the corporate ladder. But through motherhood, through therapy and through walking straight into the hard stuff, Amanda found her way back to herself. She built a life rooted in health, in honesty and in service, and she started a business, opened up about her past and launched a charity that now brings Christmas to hundreds of children who need to know that they matter. And like so many of us who've walked similar roads, Amanda's story includes something that we don't talk about enough, the grief that comes from setting boundaries for. Your loved ones. Estrangements are not easy, and they're not chosen lightly, and it's a loss that lingers in the background, even when it's the healthiest choice. For people like Amanda, who've done the work and still had to let go, the grief is real, and it deserves space. I am grateful. Amanda is here today to share her story of grit, of grace and of giving back. Welcome Amanda, thank you.

Amanda  05:24

What a lovely intro.

Jenn St John  05:27

Well, I'm very happy that you're here to share your story. I'm going to start at the beginning here you have shared that your childhood was marked by poverty and instability and a lot of absence, not just physical, but also emotional. When you look back now with the perspective and the healing that you've done, what stands out the most for you in those early years?

Amanda  05:48

Well, a lot of my opinions now have been shaped also by me being a mom, and a lot of my reflection on my childhood changed after becoming a mom. But when I think back on my childhood, Jenn, I just remember feeling very lonely, and that's the feeling that I get when I reflect on it. Now, I didn't realize at the time how lonely I really was. I didn't have a dad in my life growing up, and my mom wasn't really there. So it was an overwhelming feeling when I look back

Jenn St John  06:15

on it, yeah, and I find that because we had a similar childhood, that even though there are other adults around you, they're not there in all the moments. They're not there in the really tough moments too. Because usually, at least for us, the really hard stuff was never in front of other people. So it's really difficult. Because even though, yes, you have some people in your lives, the loneliness is just so palpable. It's hard to explain to explain to somebody if they haven't gone through it.

Amanda  06:43

And to your point, there were adults here and there. So when I speak to them now it's interesting, they didn't understand the full picture of what I went through. They'll say things like, oh, yeah, I just remember your house was really dirty, or, yeah, I would remember you'd come over and you'd ask to bring food home, yeah, but they didn't understand. And when they hear the full story, they're shocked about what it was really like. Luckily, there was moments of kindness, and you always remember that as a kid when you grow up in neglect. And I'm grateful for those adults and some of the kindness they did show,

Jenn St John  07:14

I very much agree with that. So what kind of a child were you inside of all

Amanda  07:18

that I love these questions. I was definitely a very outgoing child. I was funny. I loved being outside and running the neighborhood and playing hide and go seek and all sorts of different things with my friends and especially my sister. And as I got older, I got really good at hiding a lot of stuff. And then that type A personality really shone for a long time, because I was masking a lot, but as a child, I was definitely

Jenn St John  07:49

outgoing, so hyper vigilance became a coping mechanism for

Amanda  07:53

you very much. Yeah, I was terrified of people finding out what it was

Jenn St John  07:56

really like. So can you speak about your relationship with your mom during childhood?

Amanda  08:02

Yeah, that's a tough one for me. As a child, I admired my mom. She was my superhero. I remember doing a report when I was in grade five, and it was about superheroes, and I chose her as my superhero. And it wasn't until I became a teenager that I really started to see things differently with my mom and some of the decisions she had made, but I loved her so much as a little girl, and I think I longed for her to be there more for me, if that makes sense, I longed for her presence and her support. Because what happened was, as I started getting older, I started to become more aware. I started to realize, Oh, my mom said she'd come to this basketball game and she didn't show up. Or there was a point in time when I was running track and field, and I was really good at sports and track, and I was first place in all of Barry, and she told me she was going to be there, and I I was coming down the finish line, and I'm in first place, and I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm looking, and she's not there. And so it started to erode my trust in her and my respect for her over time. And what happened was I actually started feeling angry towards her, but I didn't know how to express that to her, so it started to be expressed elsewhere in my life. You know what I mean? As you get older, you start to see your parents, you start to see who they really are, yeah. And that was really difficult for me to admit to myself that she's not who I thought

Jenn St John  09:34

she was. Yeah, she wasn't that superhero, yes, yeah. And your needs aren't being met. I mean, that really is at the bottom line, as a child, that's what you're feeling. You get to that point where, as you said, when it happens consistently enough, then there is disappointment and there is anger and there is resentment, because the person you thought who was going to meet your needs isn't meeting your needs.

Amanda  09:54

The disappointment piece is big. That's what I started to feel. I would be disappointed. You. Know, after basketball practice, I'd be the last kid to be picked up. It might be two hours in the dark. Can you relate to that?

Jenn St John  10:05

Jenn, oh, my god yes, by

Amanda  10:08

the way, we both use humor to deal with trauma, and I appreciate that about you. But you know, and then I with my coaches or my teammates, I would start making excuses because I was embarrassed, and I didn't want to be the only kid. I didn't want them waiting for her to show up. So I'd say, Oh no, I talked to her. She's on her way, even though some days I'd have to walk myself home an hour in the dark from basketball practice because she didn't show up. So the disappointment you start not to trust anybody. That's what I started to do. I started not to trust anyone. And if someone did disappoint me. It was like proof that, see, you can't trust anybody, but that's what you're

Jenn St John  10:44

being shown. It's natural that that's going to happen to a child who's raised this way, because you're literally being shown, I can only depend on myself and I can't depend on anybody else. That's right, yeah, so you wouldn't have called them this when you were growing up and you were going through this. But what other than the hyper vigilance, which you've already talked about, what other coping skills do you think you just by pure survival, had to create in order to just get through this period

Amanda  11:11

in your life? The biggest one is the mask developing this ability to pretend everything was fine out of straight fear that people would find out how messy my house was, or the fact that I was alone a lot of the times, or my physical appearance at times, you know, the neglect with going a week and not having my hair brushed or maybe having a bit of a smell, so I put a mask on. I also tried to hide a lot. I didn't spend a lot of time in friend settings like after school, for example, Jenn, we'd go to one of the friends houses, and I knew eventually they'd ask to come to my house. I knew eventually It'd be my turn, so I started to just go home after school, because I didn't want anyone to ask me that. I think just like the ability to hide and camouflage and put the mask on, was my number one coping mechanism growing up. And then I would say the second one for me is sports and pouring myself into basketball. I played rep basketball, and I worked my way up, and I poured myself into that as well. And I do feel that that was a great coping mechanism for me as well, just having such a positive outlet, in spite of my living situation, all of

Jenn St John  12:24

us played lots of sports, and so it was like an instant family. But it's also an instant connection that you're missing at home.

Amanda  12:32

It also put me in an environment with other parents who didn't realize that just by them being the type of parents that they were and would check in on me, Hey, how are you doing today? Even though I would lie and I'd say, it's all good. It being around positive influences and parents that love their children, I saw something different, so that later in life, as I'm a mom, I have something to pull back on a reference point for me, I do think that's a big difference for people who grow up like we did, did you have a positive influence in your life or not?

Jenn St John  13:05

No, absolutely, and it comes from any adult like you said, it could be friends, parents, teammates, parents, teachers, if you're in a community setting in some other way, it only takes one person to really see you and to help you. Yeah. So when you were 13, you experienced a pretty traumatic event. Did you want to share some of that with us?

Amanda  13:26

Yes, I describe little T's and big T's. The little T's are dramas that, if just one time, wouldn't have made an impact on your life. And then you have your big T's, which is those big life events that happened that are completely out of your control. Also called them life ambushes. And so this one was my big life ambush. And I was 13 at the time. I was out with my friends, and I went home to get changed that night. It was a beautiful Friday night, and as I got home, my sister, who's two years older than me, said to me, Amanda, we can't find the kids. The kids are missing. And she was referring to my best friend's brother and sister that lived next door to me, Campbell, who was seven, and Paulie was four, and Renee, who was part of my family, who's three. And she said, Oh, they're playing hide and go seek and we can't find them. And Jenn, I kind of explained a little bit about how I grew up and there wasn't a lot of adult supervision. So to me, it did not strike me as odd that these three kids were

Jenn St John  14:30

missing, especially our generation. Our parents were just go do your thing, come back in eight

Amanda  14:37

hours when the light posts turn on, come home. So so I get changed, and I left with my friends, and about 20 minutes later, I started to feel guilty because I left my sister to deal with this on her own, and I said to my friends, I'm going to head back and I'm going to help her look for them. I turn the corner to go to my house, and as I approach. Approach the house, I see that there are fire trucks and ambulances everywhere. I'm thinking to myself, Oh, maybe they're here to help look for them. And I see the body of one of the children coming out from my house limp, and when I saw her, I was frantic, what's happening? And my mom just kept screaming. The kids were in the trunk. The kids were in the trunk. I'm thinking the trunk of a car. What trunk? And if you can imagine, Jenn, it was complete chaos. People were screaming and crying, and I didn't know what I'd stumbled into. So to get away from everything, I went to go into my house, and it was a small house, about 1100 square foot, white stucco house. I went in the side door, and when you go in that door, you're right into a very small kitchen, and the kitchen table's right in the center. It takes up the whole kitchen. And I saw Renee, the three year old, getting CPR and life saving support done on her. I froze, and I eventually turned around and ran back out of the house, back into all the chaos. And I found out later that night that the three of them were playing hide and go seek, and they climbed into an antique wooden clothing trunk, and it was airtight. And so in under eight minutes, they fell asleep and they suffocated and died in the trunk.

Jenn St John  16:28

Before we go any further, I just want to take a pause here for a moment. What Amanda is sharing is very heavy, and if you're listening and feeling it in your body, that makes a lot of sense. These stories aren't meant to overwhelm us. They're meant to remind us that survival often happens quietly, long before we have the language for it. Unfortunately. Oh, my God, that's huge.

Amanda  16:54

Amanda, yeah, it was very devastating,

Jenn St John  16:57

especially because it was so connected to you guys, these kids like you were growing up together. It's just that ripple effect of that event. It's like a why in the road. It's kind of like before

Amanda  17:09

and after. It was terrible. And you know, it was two weeks before my 14th birthday. So from that moment on, birthdays cease to exist. Christmases didn't exist. And then six weeks later, I had to graduate grade eight,

Jenn St John  17:23

and this is after already having the childhood that you've already had.

Amanda  17:27

And I'll tell you what, Jenn, the resilience that I had already built up to that point that I didn't realize I had been building was the reason I was able to graduate, or was the reason it was a Friday I went back to school on a Monday? Yeah? Well, the mask, right? The Mask, and no one spoke about this event. After no one in my family spoke about it. We didn't get therapy. I never even grieved it, aside from the funeral,

Jenn St John  17:50

my gosh, that's so hard, especially for you, because I know you're a parent now to and I know your son isn't 13 yet, but to see him at these ages, and to realize what you were going through at those ages. My daughter's 12, going on 13, and sometimes I just think, wow, like when I was that age, this is what I was going through. And it's this realization of how much weight we were carrying that we shouldn't have been as children well.

Amanda  18:19

And I also think that, you know, I had my son at 30, and so up to that point, I knew that what I'd been through wasn't right, and I knew that my mom had made bad decisions. But until you have a child and you realize, Wow, I never would have not spoken to him, I can't imagine me not sitting him down multiple, multiple, multiple times, talking to him about what happened, getting him into therapy, doing whatever I could to help him. And so when you realize that that didn't happen at all, it's validation for all of your feelings up until that point, you have more validation now as

Jenn St John  18:53

a parent, luckily, we're living in a different generation as well. Mental health wasn't really spoken about like I don't know about you, but I didn't know anybody who went to therapy when I was growing up like it wasn't, it wasn't.

Amanda  19:04

It certainly wasn't talked about, no,

Jenn St John  19:06

no, no, obviously it existed. Yeah, like you said, even to talk openly about mental health and then talk openly about a very difficult thing that's happened, a tragic event that's happened, and how everybody's grieving and dealing with it openly that just didn't happen when we were younger, let alone in the home situations that we were dealing with. Now I'm assuming that this had a lot to do with you leaving at 15, although I'm sure there's other things that happened as well. Could you walk us through those last two years that you were living at home?

Amanda  19:39

So again, when I speak about a life ambush, that was my first big one, the second one came very shortly after, which is that within a year of that happening, my mom, who already Wasn't there a lot growing up like I have early memories of being six years old and going to bed and she's not there. I don't have a dad. Aside from my older siblings, I'm alone, and I'd have to put myself to bed and then getting up the next morning. She's still not there, and me having to get off to school with no breakfast. So by the time this happened, I'd already experienced a lack of security as a child, so she abandoned my sister and I in the house within a year after this happened, and so by the time I'm 1415, it's my first year or so of high school, I am living here alone with my sister. It's going into the winter time. She's not paying any of the bills, so all of the heat and the hydro gets cut off. We would sleep in our winter clothes or hat, gloves, everything. We would steal food from the corner store just to be able to eat. And at the same time, I'm going to high school and talk about a mask, I wouldn't tell anyone what I'm going

Jenn St John  20:51

home to. And nobody's checking in on you guys. Like you guys didn't have any relatives, neighbors, nobody

Amanda  20:57

checked in. I had one set of grandparents that never checked in. Certainly, if anybody knew, they didn't do anything about it. I remember having head lice at this time, and I was in high school, and it had gotten so bad, and I would be sitting there trying to focus on class, and I would feel it, and I would just be doing everything I could not just scratch it, because I was afraid that, you know, something would jump out. And so just a lot of neglect at this time, and within nine months, what happened was I ended up having a night where I'm laying in bed, I'm wearing all this winter clothes, I'm watching my breath come in and out. And I was so lonely, and I was so depressed at the time that I decided that I was going to commit suicide. And in the moment that I was deciding how I was going to do it, I had this feeling just wash over me, and I now know what that feeling is and what the feeling is is complete self awareness. I look at this as a gift that happened to me, because the voice said, No, you have to get yourself out of this situation. No one is coming back here to save you, this complete knowingness that I had to do this for myself. And so the next morning, I got up, I got paper and a pen, and I hand wrote a bunch of resumes that went out on foot. And it was really hard to do that because, first and foremost, I didn't have much to put on the resume.

Jenn St John  22:19

You're like, I'm I'm here.

Amanda  22:22

Here I am. And secondly, just to have no adult supervision or guidance in that process and take it upon myself to go out and do this tells you how strong that feeling was that I had. And I got my first little job at an ice cream hut, making $7 an hour, and I used it as a springboard, and I just told myself that I'm going to work so hard to build a reference from this job so I can use it as a stepping stone to get another job and do the same thing and repeat itself, till I pulled myself out of my situation. And so that's really what led me to being on my own at a young age was the actual abandonment.

Jenn St John  23:03

Wow. So okay, so first of all, that's such a strong will to survive that voice that came over you. But, and I know everybody calls it resilience right now, but that constant problem solving mode of something's happening. It's not good, it's not healthy. I can only rely on myself. I'm going to figure this out, that energy is just unbelievable to have at such a young age, and I know it comes just purely out of survival mode and having to do it, I just have a couple of questions. For example, my mom had multiple accidents, but the worst one was when she broke her neck, and I was already in post secondary. My youngest sister was still at home as her last year, and she basically was barely at home. She was basically living at her boyfriend's place, but school was very difficult for her because it was a situation where mom wasn't working. It was already very low income housing. Teresa was literally trying to put food on the table, and there wasn't a lot of support. She doesn't remember from school. It was more so like, How come you can't get this assignment handed in? How come you can't be in band anymore? Questions like that. How was school for you during this period of time? Well, I

Amanda  24:10

was a straight A student, actually in school, but I don't ever recall any teachers talking to me or checking in on me. You know? What I really remember is, I remember they had a food program, but it was not what it is today at all, but the office I knew had some, you know, little fruits or whatever. And I remember wanting to go in there so badly, because there was a lot of times that I was very hungry, but the shame and the embarrassment of walking in there, or the fear of having other kids catch me in there, stopped me from doing it, so I actually would prioritize starvation over embarrassment, yeah, and it's funny, because a lot of my memories of school is actually around food. I remember there was this little closet and they would sell chips at recess. Do you. Remember that, yeah, the student

Jenn St John  25:01

councils would do it right?

Amanda  25:02

Yes. And I don't know how much it was, maybe a buck or 50 cents or something for a bag, but obviously I could never afford the bag, and so it was a lot of like, yearning for what other people had. And I just remember being outside at recess, and I'd see all these kids eating their chips, and like, this hunger is that feeling that I have. But I would never ask, I would never say anything. And I just remembered like, as you get older, you just feel less than you know, you just realize that you're different, and it just really erodes your self esteem. And those are a lot of my memories from school. But as far as the teachers go and the friendships, like, I was able to make friends, but it never extended past school, I was okay. I kind of hung out right here in the middle. I wasn't bullied, I wasn't the most popular. I hung out right here. It was a safe space, but I never hung out with anyone except one person outside of school, really, right? So it

Jenn St John  25:50

was like when you're at school, you're at school, and the home was separate, and that was a totally different life that you were leading, that nobody was really

Amanda  25:56

involved in. And as a result, I never formed deep bonds. So when I see people that have friends from way back, I don't have that. Well, that

Jenn St John  26:05

was part of your mask, right? That's how you survived, yeah, did you guys eventually get kicked out of the house, or did you just leave? Like, how did that end for you at 15? Well, there was a period

Amanda  26:15

of time where and I had to go back to my sister actually, to fill in some of these gaps. And we chatted a few years ago about this, because we had actually rarely talked about this, either, the two of us. And there was a time where we had come back to the house after school, and the bank had seized the house, and they had boarded up the house, and so she actually had to break in. We now essentially were squatting, yeah in the house, yeah. And what she told me was that my mom did eventually come for me and not for her. And she took me with one of her many boyfriends at the time, and we moved in with him, and then I bounced around from there. I lived with friends after that, and there would be periods of time I would go back until she would kick me out for ridiculous reasons. So this kind of went on this way. Talk about abandonment issues. I had some

Jenn St John  27:02

bad Yeah, wow. And so then you just eventually went from couch surfing to, like, being able to work enough to get your own place, and you're just on your own.

Amanda  27:13

Okay, that's right, I think about the age of 19, finally, I'd been renting a room

Jenn St John  27:17

in a house, okay, okay, so that would have been the first like, now I'm in control. Now I know that this is a place I have to stay in, yes, or secure it. Yeah, the food scarcity thing is so interesting. I don't know if it comes up for you in adulthood, but I've become more aware of it, and it's just ingrained. But I've never had issues with food scarcity. I mean, yes, of course, there are times when I was going to school and I didn't have a lot of money, but I was never hungry. But it still creeps in. It's not that I don't know where my next meal is coming from, but that's almost what it feels like the trigger comes up sometimes I know I have a pantry full of food, I have a fridge full of food I have for 30 years, but there's this little part of me from childhood that still is triggered around

Amanda  28:05

food scarcity that's really interesting for me. It shows up a little bit differently for me, it took me a long time to realize that I could never leave anything on my plate, and so as a result, I was overeating, and I would yo yo a lot, and it took me years to realize like, oh, wait a minute, it's because I wasn't quite sure when I was younger when the next meal was gonna be, yeah, yeah. That's really interesting. Jenn, do you still struggle with that today? Or is it something?

Jenn St John  28:30

It just pops up sometimes I become aware of it. So for example, we're going to this place now. We're going to be there for three or four days, and I'm very on top of food for those three

Amanda  28:41

or four days, it's a priority

Jenn St John  28:42

for you. Yeah, and I find it fascinating when the connections are all made, and once you're aware of it, then you can deal with it. So it's just interesting how as an adult, you start to put the puzzle pieces together.

Amanda  28:54

Well, I think the most important thing is to develop the self awareness so that you can make different choices, because the things that protected us as children, people like us who grew up not in the typical household, you do carry that into your adulthood, and you no longer need those protective measures anymore. For example, you know you said you never went hungry again, but yet you're carrying these protective measures for yourself, and when it becomes a problem is when it starts affecting your life in some way, whether it's your career or whether it's your personal relationships. And only with the self awareness can you make a change. So for example, for you, it may always be there, but you're able to catch it now you're more so observing it. Oh, that's interesting. That's happening right now.

Jenn St John  29:37

When it comes up, you're like, Oh, this is why it's Yeah, and it's that child in you that went through what they did go through. And so it's kind of like talking to that child and you telling that child of you that you're safe, that you're okay, the awareness has to be there in order for you to be able to do that and for you to help yourself.

Amanda  29:55

I found that mothering myself. I remember went to therapy and she said, You have to mother. Of yourself. And I remember thinking, How in the world am I supposed to do that? But the truth is, as you start to do it over time, and you start to separate yourself from the little girl or the little boy inside you, you can start to nurture it. And it does work over time. Jenn, it's, I've been doing it for about 10 years, and as those memories or those flashbacks come up, it's almost like I'm like, It's okay, it's and I'm aware of it, and I can reshape my mind frame around it,

Jenn St John  30:23

I know. So leaving home at 15 is obviously a very pivotal, defining moment, and it takes a lot of courage, but it also comes at a cost, and I imagine at that age when you were stepping out without much guidance and carrying everything that you'd been through without any support, and then come your 20s, and it's a time that for many of us, is about figuring out who you are and how to survive, although you already know how to survive, at this point, you've described those years as chaotic but high functioning, excelling at work, but while also self medicating in the background. So what did survival look like for you in this chapter of your early adulthood,

Amanda  31:04

I think a lot of women are going to relate to this around building your career while feeling like an imposter. And for me, I was medicating that imposter feeling with alcohol. So looking back, I started to use alcohol at 15 as a coping mechanism to deal with my trauma. I had mentioned that I had never been to therapy for any of it. You know, some big traumas had happened in my life, and so as I'm building this career, and you know, by the age of 20, I was the youngest manager at the Hudson's Bay Company, where I learned a lot about business and leadership. And then by the time I was 25 I was the youngest event director at a different company producing big trade shows and events in Toronto. And the whole time I would be sitting in this boardroom with people over the age of 40, plus, many of the men talking about million dollar budgets, and I'm sitting there as a 25 year old and talk about imposter syndrome. I was like, they're gonna find out I'm a fraud. I don't belong here, right? Even though, by the way, even though all the external evidence was rewarding my hard work, you are excelling at this. You are the youngest event director in this company, and I was running a conference with professional speakers from all around the world, people on President Obama's team coming to my conference to speak, and I'm leading this conference. But all the while, I haven't dealt with any of my trauma, and I'm drinking. So as my 20s progress, the drinking progressed, and I would be blacking out two times a week, drinking just to the point of complete blackout. I'm waking up the next morning. I'm not remembering not remembering what happened the night before, lot of my anger started coming out when I would drink. Day to day. I was really good at masking when I would drink, it would come out. And of course, that would come out against any loved one in my circle. That's where that rage went. And by the time I was 29 I knew I had a problem, but I did not know what to do. I could not stop it. And then I got pregnant with my little guy when I was 30, and it forced me to get sober like that. Now, did I have to get sober? No, I could have continued to drink, but because of what I've been through as a kid, I knew this would cause him damage, and that was just not something I was willing to repeat any sort of pattern with him. So I stopped cold turkey, and it was something I purposely did that was hard, and I always say he actually saved my life because it forced me to deal with the traumas.

Jenn St John  33:39

So that clarity for you was just instant that you were going to be a mom and you wanted to break the cycle.

Amanda  33:44

Yes, but what I will say, and for anyone listening that's gone through this or wants to go through it, it was not easy. It wasn't like because I felt strongly about it, that it was easy to do. I didn't know who I was without a drink in my hand at a party, when you talk about a mask that was another mask I'm holding this drink. It gave me confidence, you know? It made me more outgoing. And I got a lot of social anxiety at that point in time, and I didn't know what to do with it. And so I had to really put the work into who is Amanda, who are you?

Jenn St John  34:14

And who are your friends, too? Because at that point, I'm sure your friends were also drinking and socializing with you. And so then sometimes I know, because I know a lot of people who've become sober, and it almost it shifts everything. It changes every part of their lives. But sometimes the friend groups change too, because, oh, it changed.

Amanda  34:34

That was Amanda 2.1 you're looking at Amanda 2.2

Jenn St John  34:41

and also, I was going to say industry wise, sometimes more industries than others are also very much a part of a socializing scene. I would think event managing is probably one of the lines. It's very much.

Amanda  34:55

A lot of them don't actually want the education. They just come for the party. So, yes, yeah. And I was really good, by the way, of putting on a good party. But you know what, Jenn, interestingly enough, in my career, I was very reserved. I would have one or two drinks, but it's because I knew what I would get like if I had too many. And so I was very reserved.

Jenn St John  35:15

Yeah, no, but I just mean it's like, it's the whole scene is there, right? And so, yeah, and as you said, once you're done your work and you can then go socialize with your work friends. And I'm sure you don't have to think about, oh, I'm at work anymore. And then you get to, you know, socialize however you want to socialize, right? So committing to long term therapy, I know, was also a really big part of your story at this point, and that's no small thing, especially when you come from a childhood where mental health isn't even talked about. You know, you don't, I don't even know, even know if you knew anybody who had done long term therapy at this point. Can you talk a little bit about how you got to that point, and you know, how you were able to actually commit to this long term therapy? Yeah, I

Amanda  35:56

had dabbled in therapy in my 20s, so I struggled a lot with depression in my 20s, like debilitating at points in time. And so when I got sober with being pregnant with my son, what started to happen was everything that I had been suppressing with the alcohol, the lid blew off. And there was a point about two years into me being a mom, where I was almost shaking in terms of mental illness, it was showing up physically for me, where with social anxiety, the inability to get up out of bed, and these flashbacks I was having to my childhood stuff that I hadn't thought about in forever, all of a sudden, was front and center, and I had this moment Where I almost had, like, a mental break, I honestly couldn't take it anymore, trapped in my own mind. And so I did finally find the most amazing therapist, and I committed to doing this really hard thing, which was, I'm going to do it until. I'm not going to just go a few sessions. I'm going to go until, and I went every week, starting with two hours a week for a year and a half. Wow, I did group therapy. I did one to one therapy the entire time, and I really healed my stuff. And there was, like, I remember a year into it. And funny enough, my therapist actually looks very much like my mother.

Jenn St John  37:16

That's interesting.

Amanda  37:18

Did she know that? No, I never told her until a year into it, and so I found it really therapeutic Jenn, because I'm looking at a woman that looks just like my mother, but her communication skills was completely different. It was very healthy. And in my family, we don't communicate. The only communication is to ice people out and close the door. That's the communication. And so for a year, without her realizing it, I'm getting this amazing experience, like I'm talking to my mom, in a sense, and I'm never going to get closure from my mom. It's never going to happen. But this woman is giving me a little taste of that. And so I remember, I was sitting with her in the room one day, and I said, I have to tell you something. And she's like, what? And I said, I have to show you a picture of my mom. I showed her a picture. She goes, she knew instantly, right? And she's like, Why didn't you tell me I look just like her? But I said I didn't want to ruin anything.

Jenn St John  38:15

Like, it's actually even helping me.

Amanda  38:17

Yeah, it's helping me. So a therapy is something I encourage everyone to do. Because Jenn, a lot of times people will say, just be positive, you know, and it's not enough. You have to go and heal your your shit to be able to live your best life and to be able to help other people. So I feel blessed that I healed most of it.

Jenn St John  38:38

Yeah, I think this whole just be positive. Always think positive. It can be toxic. Obviously you don't want to be super negative, but what you have to do is get through this stuff and get on the other side of it. It's not about always trying to put a mask on and think that everything's going to be okay, because that's not the truth. It's not the case when you're talking about going to therapy, and obviously, a year and a half of you know, individual and group, that's a lot that's very intense. So what do you feel that you learned during this time that shifted things and how you saw your childhood, but also how you saw yourself at this point in your life?

Amanda  39:16

Well, a lot of this was the first time I ever opened up to anyone about any of this stuff. And so for me, one of the greatest gifts was the validation that I got when I would speak about it was the look of shock, whether it was on her face or as I slowly started to open up to other people, which therapy gave me some confidence to start opening up a little bit, the reaction that I got was like, okay, because your family has a way first of all, especially When they're not healed themselves, and we're all blocking out trauma, your family has a way of making you feel crazy when you start to want to discuss these things or explore what really happened, and so getting that validation in therapy allowed me to start not blaming myself for being unlovable or people. People abandoning me or leaving me, because for a long time, I thought it was me, until you realize it's not about you, it's about the other person, and what happened to you is valid, and these were not okay, and there's a bigger reason for why you're choosing to be around people that would abandon you consistently in your life. So that, for me, was the biggest takeaway, I think, and just facing stuff head on and truly not sweeping them under the rug and exploring it and seeing, you know, why do I do this? Oh, it's connected to that in my childhood, 99% of it's about my childhood, right? So it was really fascinating for me to go through the process. Yeah, I

Jenn St John  40:40

equally find it fascinating, like this puzzle that you're putting together always amazes me. I'm very, very interested in it. So can you talk a little bit about what it's like to carry this clarity while still feeling disconnected from the people who live through this with you?

Amanda  40:57

First of all, I actually look at what I went through as a superpower. That's the honest truth, once I healed from it, and then I started sharing it, and I started impacting other people in a positive way. I'm like so grateful that I went through what I went through, because it gives me a unique ability to connect with people and show them you can go through hard things and be okay. So I truly appreciate it now the people that were in my past, including family members. It makes it challenging, because once you heal and you have realizations about the truth of what happened, not the story you've been telling yourself to protect yourself. But what really happened? Unless those people heal with you, or they appreciate and understand the journey you're on, it severs relationships, and some of them severed on their part, and some of them severed on my part, to set up healthy boundaries. And you may be able to relate to this, but when you start healing a gaping wound, and you're slowly closing the wound up. Every time you spend time with people that trigger that wound, and it splits it back open. It's devastating. And I realized, what am I doing? The therapy for and all the work for when, every time I spend time with these people, it's being ripped back open and and so I had to sever most relationships from my past and to start this new life, this new Amanda, 2.0 and who do I want to surround myself with? And so it's challenging because you're grieving these relationships, while you can't un switch the light switch, once you have those aha moments, you can't go back so absolutely.

Jenn St John  42:36

And to speak what you were just talking about, too is I saw it in my mom. I've seen it in lots of people who have gone through hard things and who are dealing with, for example, unhealthy coping mechanisms like addiction or untreated mental illness or just have gone through hard stuff in life. And I think we all have the choice to either be a victim of it or to be a survivor of it. And I think that that's a very strong line. You're either on one side of it or the other, and your life will be lived from that space. And not to say that it isn't easy to get on the survivor side of things, but I think if you stay on the victim side of things, I think it's really difficult to ever get to the point where there's awareness and clarity and therapy and help, etc. I want to name something here, because survival can sound very decisive in hindsight. Growth isn't linear, and clarity usually comes after, sometimes, well after we've lived through the confusion. If you're listening and you're not quite there yet, it doesn't mean that you're failing. It just means that you're human, you're trying and you'll get there.

Amanda  43:41

If you're constantly thinking that life is happening to me, instead of I'm creating this life for myself, whether good or bad, you're actually staying in a place of suffering. The only person it's hurting is you. And so I love this quote I heard from Oprah years ago, and she said her and her and her friend had had a major falling out in her 30s. It had been six months later, and she'd been harboring this anger towards this friend. She did me wrong, and it was her fault, and all these things. And she ends up seeing her in New York on a very busy street, and there's all these people crossing back and forth, and she sees her, but the friend doesn't see Oprah, and in the moment, she sees her friend light as air enjoying the day, and she realized in that moment, wow, I'm holding on to this, and it's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It's you that dies inside. So I think that if you can gather self awareness and put yourself through therapy or whatever hard thing you need to do to build some resilience and some self awareness, what a

Jenn St John  44:40

gift to yourself, yeah? And I mean, that's where my mom did eventually get in her 50s, she was able to give that gift to herself. She was able to forgive because she obviously had a lot of stuff that she had dealt with, let alone when, after she became a parent. And so yeah, it's a very big journey. It's a very hard one. And I mean, it's probably one of the hardest things we have to do, is. Human being, but it does pay off if you can get there. So that kind of clarity that comes from the therapy and doing all of that personal work can really feel incredibly isolating when the people who you share your story with aren't ready or aren't willing and aren't willing to go there, and it's a quiet kind of loneliness, I'm sure, even when you know you've made the right choice. I think that's kind of the hardest part about it, especially, like you said, when you have to cut out basically all the relationships that you've had in the past. And yet, instead of turning inward, you turned outward, and you channeled all of that heartbreak into something much bigger and something very generous. And I just want to touch on one of the things that you're doing right now. So you've created a way for kids who are growing up like you did, overlooked and under supported, to feel seen at Christmas. So can you take us back to that moment when you decided to launch this campaign and just walk us through what that first Christmas looked like?

Amanda  45:56

Yes, this is my passion. Now my purpose. So I did my very first podcast in 2023 and it was actually at my gym, and one of the hard things I had purposely put myself through was to get a trainer, and I had put on a ton of weight in an unhealthy relationship, and I lost 47 pounds with the trainer, and so they invited me on this podcast, and I decided to, for the first time, open up about my childhood publicly when I did that, which, by the way, is was really scary to do for the first time, because you feel like you're going to be judged.

Jenn St John  46:31

Well, that mask that you've been carrying for how many years at this point is coming off.

Amanda  46:36

Yeah, and so when I did that, I got hundreds of messages from people that heard my story and were really touched and inspired by it. And this was end of October 2023 and I decided to do something that I've been wanting to do for a while. I wanted to help kids. I didn't know how ultimately I wanted to help kids, but I knew I wanted to do it, and because it was near Christmas, I just had this aha moment, and I'm like, I'm going to start a Christmas campaign for kids. For Kids. So I'm sort of an action driven person. I've learned that in my life, if you want something done, you got to take immediate action, like if you have the thought, take a step, take action. And so I decided to start this thing. I get it up off the ground in two weeks, called gift of family. And the purpose behind it is to find the pockets of kids like I was, where no one came to help, the parents didn't reach out for help, and no one stepped in to help. So they're forgotten about. And the hardest time is Christmas for these kids, because when we go back to school, it's very hard to hide it, the spotlights put on you. You don't have the new clothes. You're not talking about the family time and the dinner you're not talking about all the things all the other kids are talking about. So you hide yourself, you make yourself small, you try to get through the week, and it erodes yourself a seam and your confidence. So I decided I'm not just going to find kids and give them presents. I want to give them the full experience so they feel special and seen. So we do everything from the gifts to the Christmas tree to the Elf on the Shelf, the Christmas cookies, you know, everything the gingerbread house, everything required for a real Christmas. And through an anonymous nomination process in the community, coaches, teachers, friends, neighbors, can nominate these kids. And I personally call and I speak with the parents, and I offer them this experience. And so in five weeks of launching it that year, I started sharing my story publicly, I raised $75,000 in contributions, unbelievable. And we gifted 91 kids with full Christmas experiences. It was really hard. It was a full time job on top of running my business. It was a lot, but I was so passionate, because I know they're out there, then I decided to do it the following year, and we were able to raise a total now of a year and a half, we've raised $200,000 in contributions and gifted 231 kids with full Christmases, and it's now one of the fastest Growing charitable initiatives in Simcoe County. So oh my god, I want to say something, which is that talk about the best way to heal from my childhood is on Christmas Day, because I don't see any of my family on Christmas, my son goes to his dad's. It's just me. I got videos and pictures of 131 kids, December 25 just coming at me, the energy coming at me, and it made all of the hard work and the decision to take action worth it. And I just want to encourage people that through doing hard things and purposely putting yourself through hard things in your life, whether it's leaving an unhappy relationship, maybe it's losing the weight, maybe it's stopping a vice and getting help, it can lead you to extraordinary things that you never set out to do in the first place. Because if I hadn done all these things we've talked about, I never would have stumbled upon this mission in my life. So look at all the kids that are being helped now. Yeah, and it's in memory of Campbell, Paulie and Renee, who passed away in my house when I was 13. It's very special. It's a full circle moment.

Jenn St John  49:59

Yeah. Wonderful soccer. And I am sure on Christmas morning, it's very healing for you as well.

Amanda  50:05

Like, talk about that little girl, exactly. Yeah, that little Amanda. I see her coming in with all these photos.

Jenn St John  50:12

Yeah, it's incredible. Oh, it really is incredible. And I know that it'll just continue to grow. So where do people go to if they want to support the campaign. And obviously we'll have information, you know, aside from just verbally here, but just quickly, can you let us know where we need to go?

Amanda  50:28

Yeah, there's an Instagram page called gift a family. And if you head over there, all the information's there, you can get caught up on videos and campaign stuff. And there's a ton of inspirational stuff on there too, with lots of cute little kids.

Jenn St John  50:40

Okay, that's fantastic, and we will have all those links. Okay, so, Amanda, something that really struck me with your story is that it just doesn't stop at survival. It's also clearly about service. There are so many ways that you're now advocating for children who are growing up in situations that mirror parts of your own. And I know that you talked about how gift of family is in memory of the three children that lost their lives in your house that tragic accident, can you tell us a little bit about the awareness campaign that has grown from that accident, and the work that's been done by the families to prevent this from happening to others?

Amanda  51:16

Yeah, this is the special part of the campaign. So Campbell, Pauline and Rene's families are very much involved in the campaign, and so we're able to spread awareness around the dangers of these antique wooden trunks. They were meant to be airtight to transport on ships across the oceans, and a lot of people have these in their homes. They're handed down by grandparents and relatives, and simply drilling holes in these trunks would have prevented the accident had they had a few air holes drilled in it. So there was a major recall after the accident happened, of the locks on the trunks. And you know, don't just give them away. Take off the locks. Drill holes if you're going to give them away. Jenn, I have had people come up to me, and just recently, actually, and a woman say, wow, my grandmother just passed and she gave me one of these antique trunks. I had no idea, so she went drilled holes. Another guy was so upset about it because he had one in his basement. When he heard the story, he went and he told me he smashed it into pieces. So, you know, a whole new crop of moms are coming up that weren't around 25 years ago. I'm positive we have made a difference with the awareness

Jenn St John  52:22

piece, with the safety. Yeah, absolutely. And in some ways, as we've talked about, this is so full circle for you. Do you feel that honoring their memory turning this into a prevention campaign? Do you feel that this work has also helped you process more that event that you weren't able to process when you were a child? It's been

Amanda  52:40

incredibly healing. It's been surprising at times to not only relive it, but talk about it publicly. This is something I hadn't spoken to my own family about, rarely over, you know, the course of those 25 years. So just recently, I put on a 25th anniversary Tribute Event for the kids. It had been 25 years since the accident, and we wanted to celebrate all the good that was coming from it. And one of their mothers had sent me an old video on, you know how that it was originally on VHS, then they had converted to a DVD, and then we were trying to get the digital file, and eventually, a friend of mine was able to get into 12 minutes of it. And so I started watching because I thought it was home video. Well, it wasn't. It was the original news reporting and live footage of the funeral. Last time I saw that, I was live watching it myself, and this is just a few weeks ago, and I was overcome. Jenn, I it was a trigger for me that I didn't even realize was still in here. But the beauty of when things like this happen and you face it head on, is you do heal from it. It was such a healing moment for me, and I just feel like I'm getting stronger and stronger, and I think this is better than any therapy could have possibly done for me.

Jenn St John  53:48

Is facing it this head on. Yeah, well, and because you've done all that work, I think it's just like another component or layer that you're able to absorb in this way. Yeah, okay, so I just want to shift things a little bit so you shared that you are estranged from a lot of your family, immediate family and extended family and kind of past relationships. And obviously that's a boundary that you had to set for your own health. And I mean, I've been in that position. I had to set that boundary with my mom for a couple of years, and my personal family situation with my mom getting help doesn't happen very often. I think we are the anomaly. I think your situation is more of the norm. So I think there are a lot of people who are dealing with this kind of relationship, the agony that you go through to set the boundary, and then the grief that you go through. So it's such a misunderstood kind of grief, because obviously it's something that not a lot of people have to go through unless they're in a very toxic and unhealthy situation with family, which you obviously hope is not the norm for people, people assume it's anger. They assume it's bitterness, but it's usually the opposite. It's devastating heartbreak. And it doesn't just touch one area of your life. It casts a shadow across every birthday, every milestone, all. Obviously you as a mom now raising your son, and you don't have these relationships in your life, so it's a kind of grief that resurfaces when you go throughout your day and throughout each month and year, and I'm sure when your child hits certain age that you remember being or when you realize there's no one to connect with on Mother's Day, whatever those triggers are, how has this kind of grief shown up for you in unexpected ways?

Amanda  55:25

It is very challenging when you have, for me, two parents that are alive, that are not in my life. It's a kind of grief where, at least, if they had passed away, I would go to the funeral, I would get some closure, but there is no closure, because they are alive, and I have to give that closure to myself. And so some difficult times are things like Mother's Day, Christmas, some of those big family holidays like Thanksgiving, where social media can be very triggering for me, and just that longing for not my family, but that type of family, and it is a constant trigger. And you know, despite everything I've talked about is I think about my mom all the time, and my siblings. I love my siblings so much, and so it's tough when you set that very strong boundary and that line in the sand that no matter what, I can't go back there. And it can be very lonely because I don't have family at all. There is no family except I do have some nieces and nephews that I am still in touch with, but it's very triggering. And anybody that is dealing with either an estrangement from a family member or thinking about an estrangement with a family member. There's a double edged sword there, because it's more peaceful on the holidays, but you're triggered by either people talking about how great their parents are, what a trigger. Yeah, for me, I'm both happy for them and sad for myself.

Jenn St John  56:52

So yeah, it's tough, yeah, especially, I think it's hard for people to wrap their heads around decisions like this, and the world kind of expects reconciliation at some point, right? They think, oh, this is just going to last for a little while, and then everything's going to go back to the way that it was. Though it's really tricky to navigate that ongoing tension. And like you said, sometimes you question yourself, but obviously if you've done the work, you go back to realizing that you trust your decisions. But it's really, really difficult, and sometimes holding those boundaries means that you're protecting the life that you worked so hard to build and that you pulled yourself up out of, but it doesn't stop you from aching what could have been. So how do you hold space for both that relief of the distance, but then also that ache of the disconnection? Well, I

Amanda  57:36

definitely have learned not to ignore the ache. I actually do allow myself to sit in it for a short period of time. For me, journaling has been really helpful to me. So before, when I used to pick up a drink, when I would have that uncomfortable feeling, I actually pick up my journal now and I will start to journal it out. And that's been incredibly helpful. And to your point, when you do go through the therapy process, and whatever that therapy might look like for you, and you get stronger, it's the balance between, now I'm stronger, and I know that my boundary is okay and it's the right decision. And on top of it, I'm dealing with those triggering moments, you know? I'm able to actually address them, right?

Jenn St John  58:17

You start to deal with them differently. You recognize them. There's the awareness. And then, like you said, you said, you reach for your journal quicker.

Amanda  58:22

Yeah, you're replacing one bad habit with a positive habit. For me, has been very helpful, yeah.

Jenn St John  58:27

So what do you wish more people understood about this kind of loss, especially the people who judge or question your choice?

Amanda  58:35

I love this question because I was embarrassed for a long time to tell anyone I had no relationship with my mom, because there is a judgment there. Everyone goes, Oh, it's your mom, you know, like there's something wrong with you, and you must be the problem child, and that's why your parents not speaking to you. And what I learned, first of all, I had to get the point where I didn't give sorry my language a shit about what anybody thought about that, because what I came to realize is that and anyone that has a severed relationship with their parent will understand that when there's a severed relationship between a parent and a child, there's an invisible connection there that we can't explain, where there's a longingness from that child to that parent, that they want that acceptance, and they want that love. And I don't know why that is, it's something on a soul level that that child wants to be connected to that parent. So when I hear that someone's disconnected from their parent, I know that parent has done a lot of damage for that child to make that decision, and it's not natural to disconnect from your parent, and that's why so many of us forgive our parents for a lot of terrible things they might have done, we forgive them almost instantly. You know, there's so much that we accept in our parents, and so I had to accept the fact that I would be judged for it, and be okay with that. And I also give a lot of understanding and respect to anyone that has severed that relationship.

Jenn St John  59:57

It can be any kind of relationship. There's parents out there who have had to suffer the relationship with their children, or a sibling, or it's whatever family member, friend, whatever it is, it's never a decision that is made lightly.

Amanda  1:00:11

I had a moment, Jenn, just briefly, I'll tell you, is I just had this moment where I couldn't explain it anymore to anybody, because I also had to end a 14 year relationship with my son's father, and I was severing a lot of relationships at the same time, and I just kept saying to myself, I'm not happy, yeah, and if I just use my happiness as my beacon here, I know I'll make the

Jenn St John  1:00:28

right decision. Yep, that's a good one. Thank you so much for being here, Amanda, and for sharing your story. I know, as you said, it's something that you only started to do recently, but it's a story that resonates with a lot of people, and I know you have a new part of what you're doing in your life, which is coaching. And so do you want to tell people a little bit about that and how they can find you?

Amanda  1:00:50

I would love to part of me stumbling upon. My passion is I had a 10 year construction business, and I decided to start something new and reinvent myself. So I have started the company called ladder, and ladder is defined as taking a big goal and breaking it up into manageable steps to achieve a goal. And so I've taken everything I've learned in terms of building resilience and building the kind of life you want for yourself, and I'm now life and business coach, and I get to work with women every single day that are sick of starting and stopping and starting over again, and they're looking to actually make real change in their life. So how lucky am I that I get to help children and I get to help women in their lives make real change. So I'm really very blessed to be able to do this well, and that's so full circle for you. You're talking to a resilience expert right here.

Jenn St John  1:01:42

So thank you so much for being here today. Amanda, it's very difficult to open yourself up and be vulnerable, especially when it's a difficult past and it's a past that not everybody can resonate with. So thank you very much, because I know that there are a lot of people who are feeling seen and heard, possibly for the first time, by you sharing this

Amanda  1:02:01

while you are doing great work with this podcast, I'm more than excited I get to be a part of it. So thank you.

Jenn St John  1:02:08

Okay, so I'm going to be honest with you, this was definitely a hard conversation. Amanda's story holds a lot and it's not always easy to hear, but listening to Amanda speak about the loss of those three children in such a sudden and tragic way, and about growing up in the shadow of profound abandonment, it's not easy to sit with because it shouldn't be. You know, these are the kinds of stories that don't just stay in our heads. They also land in our bodies and in our hearts at the same time, what stays with me about Amanda's story is not just what she endured, but the way she chose to meet it slowly, imperfectly and with a great deal of courage. Through therapy, through setting painful boundaries, through motherhood and through service, she shows us that healing doesn't erase the past, but it can change how we carry it. This conversation is a reminder that survival doesn't have to be loud and that hope isn't always simple. Sometimes it looks like doing the next hard thing, telling the truth or choosing a different path, even when it comes with grief, and sometimes it looks like turning what we've lived through into something that makes space for others to feel seen. I can definitely resonate with that statement. If this episode stirred something in you, I hope that you can be gentle with yourself as you move through the rest of your day and remember that you don't have to make sense of everything all at once. Also, I would love to hear from you. You can connect with me through the show notes on social media or at my website, which is triple W. Jenn st john.ca, and that's j, e n, n, sharing an episode, subscribing or leaving a review is one of the simplest ways to help these conversations reach others who may need them. And if something difficult came up while listening. Please remember that you don't have to sit with this alone. In Canada, you can call or text 988, anytime for free, confidential mental health support, and if you're in my local community, you can connect with the CMHA Simcoe County Crisis Line at one, triple, 88938333, in the US, the 988, suicide and crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text for anyone experiencing emotional distress. And for our listeners in Australia, Lifeline is available at 13, 1114, day or night for free and confidential support. Thank you for listening, for being a part of this community and for showing up with openness and care. We'll be back next week with another conversation, and until then, take good care of yourselves and each other, and we'll keep finding our way forward. You.