Navigating Mental Health with Agency and Art with Anna Drew

Embracing Art and Healing: Insights from Anna Drew

In this episode, Anna Drew shares her transformative journey through art, mental health challenges, and the discovery of metabolic psychiatry. She discusses the influence of her creative upbringing, the healing power of art, and the importance of agency in personal growth. Anna emphasizes the significance of community support and living without urgency or guilt, while also introducing her upcoming art show, 'Mana,' which reflects her current state of being and artistic exploration.

Key Topics

• The transformative journey through art and mental health challenges
• The influence of a creative upbringing on personal growth
• Art as a healing portal and its role in self-discovery
• The importance of agency and making choices aligned with one's true self
• Community support as a crucial element in navigating mental health journeys
• Living without urgency and embracing a fulfilling life experience
• The interconnectedness of spirituality and creativity in the healing process
• Insights into metabolic psychiatry and its impact on mental health treatment
• Trusting the process and journey of self-discovery
• Embracing discomfort for significant personal transformation

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction to Anna Drew's Journey
• 03:57 - The Influence of Creativity and Art
• 06:45 - Art as a Healing Portal
• 09:41 - Navigating Mental Health and Identity
• 12:36 - The Role of Art in Understanding Self
• 15:33 - The 'Yay of Little Faith' Series
• 18:25 - The Triad of Healing: Biology, Creativity, and Spirituality
• 21:26 - The Impact of Mentorship on Confidence
• 24:26 - Integration of Fractured Parts
• 27:12 - Suffering and Creativity: A Dual Perspective
• 29:15 - Healing Through Connection: The Journey of Resilience
• 36:15 - The Role of Social Work in Understanding Trauma
• 40:42 - Art as a Portal: Creativity and Healing
• 42:19 - Metabolic Psychiatry: A New Approach to Mental Health
• 54:44 - Living Without Urgency: Embracing Safety and Presence
• 55:40 - The Intersection of Science and Spirituality
• 59:16 - Art as a Reflection of Healing
• 01:02:28 - Agency and Personal Growth
• 01:06:16 - Trusting the Process of Life
• 01:10:04 - Embracing Change and Transformation
• 01:12:47 - A Message of Hope for the Struggling
• 01:16:23 - Life is Grace and the Unimaginable
• 01:17:48 - The Journey of Healing
• 01:18:16 - Science and Honesty in Healing
• 01:18:23 - Building a Life of Fulfillment
• 01:18:52 - Tools for Self-Discovery and Growth

DISCLAIMER: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. 

Resources & Links

• The Mental Edge Diagnostic

Connect with Anna Drew Ryan

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Anna's Website

Connect with Host 

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• YouTube

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Life Is Podcast, where creativity, culture, mindset, and intentional living come together through real conversation. I'm your host, Cloy Brown. Each week I sit down with entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, travelers, and visionaries who didn't stumble into a life they love, they built it. We go deep into how they think, how they reconstructed themselves, and what became possible on the other side. This is not just about what people have accomplished, it's about the internal work that made it sustainable. Because when you build from the inside out, life expands. Let's get into it. This week I'm sitting down with someone whose art was born out of her most fragile moment, and whose healing became the subject of her work. Anna is a full-time artist, a formal social worker, and someone who found her way through bipolar disorder, not through the traditional path, but through metabolic science, ketogenetic therapy, mitochondria research, and a complete reimagining of what the brain actually needs to function. She has a solo show in development called Mana, a TEDx talk on the horizon, and she's building all but without urgency, without pressure, and without a deadline. She does not choose herself. Here's what that reconstruction actually looked like. All right. Well, uh, good morning to you, Anna. Uh, welcome to the Life of this Podcast. I'm your host, Choy Brown. And uh, as I mentioned for the audience, I do have a fabulous guest, Anna Drew, with us today to share about her journey and what life really is. Um so for beginners here, Anna, if you can, um, can you kind of just tell the audience, you know, you know, who you are, where you're from, and uh what do you currently do, right? That's kind of the the the party questions people always get to is like, what do you do for a living, right? So you can kind of tell us, you know, where you're from, what do you do, and and how you're feeling today.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, thank you. I'm really happy to be here with you, Choy. Um, so it's a I it's layered what I do. So I professionally I am an artist. I have a BFA from the University of Michigan, and then I have a master's in social work, but I would say I do less social work in the traditional sense anymore. So I do some coaching, I do some mentoring. I am a thought leader in the field of mental health and a mother. I've been married about 20 plus years, and um yeah, so I make a lot of art, I talk to a lot of people, and I try to move the needle, I think is pretty much what I do.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Yeah, no, absolutely. That's I love to because your your rhythm, right, for the audience, disclaimer, I know Anna outside of here, but your rhythm is so uh not to the to the same tune as everybody else, right? You find your own rhythm and you're proud of that, right? You express that in a creative way. So uh, no, I I'd love that you're uh that you're doing that. Now, I guess as we gently kind of ease into this next transition, when when you when people meet you you know for the first time, right? For kind of listeners listening in, um what do they what do you hope they feel, right? And you kind of talked about just briefly that you know you meet with a lot of people, you talk with a lot of people, um, but what would you hope those people feel when they first meet you?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Well, think my authenticity or my truth, but I hope I don't necessarily am not thinking about how they're gonna feel about me.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

In terms of like in in terms of what I what is taken away from an interaction with me, I hope is something of that's what it feels like to be around energy where someone is uh 99% okay with who they have become and who they are becoming.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Yes. Yeah, no, that's uh I think that's where we should all be, right? That's that's the biggest takeaway. I think you hit it on the head. Like you should be whether it's you, right? Because I kind of asked you the question, but you get in someone's presence and you can feel that uh radiance of like they're they've accepted themselves 100%, right? Through and through, ups and downs. They're comfortable essentially in their skin.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yeah, and I think there's a uh certain capacity, someone like that holds that when other people are around that, they can soften into what that means for them, or they can have that reflected on what that means for them.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Yeah, no, absolutely. So I want to kind of go forward, right? We're gonna kind of peel back some layers here and kind of go back in time. Um, you know, we talked offline, right? You said you you uh, as you mentioned, your identity and art and where that kind of came from. You grew up obviously surrounded by creativity, entrepreneurship with your mother, uh, through her retail stores and art spaces. What did that environment uh teach you about beauty, space, and even the idea of possibility?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

I think my mother, her, you know, I her name is Nancy Drew. I she was so creative, almost to the limits of nothing was was off limits.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

There was there was a door, you know, that my dad didn't want to put a window in, and then he came home from work the next day and she had painted painted a window there. Um so she just created such beauty and spaces, and she continues to do that. But it was very much even at the time, culturally, she was doing things that weren't being done by a woman necessarily. So that was a a touchstone for me to just witness that.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

For sure. So you had to get by that. And if you want, you can kind of share about your mother. I think you know, her trailblazing, I would say, past and history of what she's done is is is amazing. It's nothing to you know scoff off. I think that was a huge imprint from what you know, from my impression from the outside looking in to see those possibilities. Like you said, she was doing things women weren't doing at that time and pushing the limits. So if you want to talk about her, what she did, feel free to share.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Well, she just she embodied like this fearlessness around her artwork and her creativity, and she was in flow a lot of the time. Um and when it meaning like just to be around her, it was like, okay, we're gonna go to the beach and yeah, we're gonna get a whole chocolate cake. We're gonna take it down to the beach, and we didn't bring any forks, so we're just gonna make some chocolate cake on the which sounds like oh my gosh, but it was very much her reference point of like free and fun and just creativity, and she made a lot of art and she made it very quickly, and that definitely influenced my own perception of like art as a craft or art as something you have to masters and you have to take it slowly or something. She did not do that.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Hesitate, yeah. Once she got locked in, it was she she just kept yeah. Well, as a kid, right? Obviously, you've been around this all your life, so that's a huge um blessing in in itself. What did art give you that maybe nothing else did?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

I think art is very much a portal, you know, it it's a portal to be able to have almost your nervous system become more cohesive when you're in flow, right? So it just gave me this sense of like a way to have a knowing in my body of that that sensed, felt, you know, sensed uh experience. And then just to have it be something that is a way to communicate and reflect your own experience or your own interpretation of the world and how unique that can be.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

No, booth beautifully said. I agree. I I wanted to give you an opportunity too, um, before I go to my next question, because maybe some viewers are maybe curious. What type of art do you create? I don't know if you can I don't want to use the word boundaries, but you can kind of categorize or give some idea of, you know, a type of art.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

I yeah, I'm a contemporary American painter, I would say. Uh, and then I take that painting to non-traditional um pieces like fashion. I cross over fashion, so I layer that. I have a substantial, you know, over 20, 20 plus years. Um, really, I think it's 30 now. It's crazy, like three decades, of uh artwork. And a lot of them are figurative and self-portraits, and so yeah. But I would say contemporary, uh, if we want to be very specific, contemporary woman American painter.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Okay, good. I was just I was I'm sure some are probably curious of what type of art you create as we're diving diving deep here.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Looking kind of looking back, right? Do you see art as something you chose or something that chose you?

SPEAKER_00 8:47

I think it chose me in the greater sense that something resonated within my makeup to bring that towards me. And I mean, like my my it's mother was an artist doesn't mean that you're going to be an artist, but it definitely drew me to um that space.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Yeah. No, I you know, hearing you speak, you know, the whole idea of like portal, right? Once again, this art was like a portal, uh, or maybe this energy source, if you will, that kind of pulled you in this direction. Um, there were still happen, you know, maybe maybe some layers, as we'll talk about later, that kind of uh enhance that right feeling. But I feel like once again, is this this portal that kind of just pulled you closer and closer. And in the result, you found more of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Um, so I want to kind of switch gears here. We're gonna we're gonna kind of go back once again to your time, you know, finding your voice, right? Kind of a breakthrough, uh, and also before Michigan, right, as you went to U of M. So for those who are uh Wolverine fans, uh, and I did go to Michigan, but you shared openly openly um about manic episodes, right, early in your life and prior to your time at Michigan, uh, if you will, or comfortable enough, you know, how how did that experience change your relationship with yourself um also in relation with art and as you were evolving too?

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Well, I think again, there's many lay layers to I feel like the answer. But the I mean, when I was when I went away to my first school and went to uh Flagler, and um I experienced all this freedom and I had a very intense manic episode at that time. And it pulled me out of any sort of being grounded. It was very there's trauma that happened during it, and um so I was 18, you know, so I was when I came back from that trauma, uh, this is in the 90s, and I was diagnosed with they said ADHD and then changed the diagnosis to uh bipolar diagnosis.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Um so that that really I guess was a when the the journey started of how do I understand myself?

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

So it was like I couldn't not follow the thread of what that meant for me in terms of the bipolar piece of it. Um was there like a yearning?

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, for sure. I I think was there a yearning or maybe an eagerness to to want to like, hey, now that I have this like diagnosis, I want to dive deeper into this. Like I want to understand it all.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

No, I was like F you, people I don't want this.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Um and and I think the pathology that existed back then, uh, or I guess I should say paradigm that existed back then was a very, you know, they're going off of a DSM and it's like these are your symptoms, and this is basically your trajectory, and we'll try to like make it as easy as possible, but like these are the medicines you can take, and I mean, I don't I think that's kind of where they were at that point with the piece of it. So I didn't dive in or feel like I wanted to claim it. I felt like I wanted to not tell anybody about it.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yeah. I mean, honestly, that's shocking for anyone to find out like you, for myself included, I'd be like, you know, I wouldn't want to accept it. I wouldn't believe it's real, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Well, it's only because the identity that we have and and and then the perception of that diagnosis, culturally or otherwise, is that that you are limited to your potential. Basically is what how I how I distill it down. It's like, okay, well, you could only do this because you have all these issues with your emotional temperature and like how you can sustain homeostasis, whether you're inpatient hospital, just like a lot of different components. So it wasn't for a long time that I started to talk about it openly. Maybe 2016, 2016.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

17, maybe?

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Yeah, it's some time. Yeah, good for you. And after that kind of took place, I mean, how was that for you? I mean, you're 18, I'm obviously undergrad. How did that journey kind of navigate? Whether I guess maybe where I'm maybe I'm asking more pointly pointedly, is like, how did that that journey go from, you know, college student and then, you know, post grad now in the real world?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

How did that Yeah, and if I can take it back to the portal word again for a minute? The the art was a portal for the healing that needed to take place when the diagnosis and with all of the trauma that went into play. So in 1995 or whatever, I started doing these portraits. Much of that work was to try to introspectively understand what was going on with my brain, what was going on with my um temperament, um what had happened to to in my life or whatever. So I started like I describe it like it's kind of um like it was just one starting, like the portal came back full strength when this happened to help me uh be able to just thrive or get through that experience.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

The creativity did, I think.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

So yeah, no, it's a huge uh I mean obviously I know you do, you know, therapy and uh relate that to art as well, which was huge. And it sounds like that was almost a natural um experience that kind of unfolded in that moment. Uh the art was kind of that anchor to help you out, you know, kind of transitioning here. You you said, you know, uh obviously years pass, and we're gonna go back and forth here, but for the listeners, but you talked about now recently, um, because of that experience, right? And what you've been going through, your you're you have a self-portrait series coming up, or you're working on, excuse me, called The Ye of Little Faith, which emerged after the aftermath that period. What were you trying to oh go ahead?

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah, so the ye of little faith, like uh that series, part of my collection of self-portraits. So I have like a range of probably at least a hundred self-portraits, probably. So the first self-portraits that were created were under the umbrella of ye of little faith. So that's when I started making these portraits with the halo, almost like when you go into a Catholic church or any kind of church, the aura of the halo of the saints. Um, and then I would just write on it ye of little faith because I didn't have a connection at that point to the part of what I'll kind of I feel like go into a little bit of triangle that that came out of knowing all of my experience, but part of my this concept I feel about um what I've been through, my lived experience, has been part of the triangle of my own healing and cohesion is the spirituality piece, right? And then part of it is creativity and that's the mind, and that's all the the things related to um the mind. And then the other part is the biology piece, right? So I I blanket the most of my experiences can be blanketed with those three things. The and the inaction. So when the ye of faith, I'm just trying, I know I'm hopping around a little bit, but when the ye of faith was developed, that is like when that part of the triangle of spirituality was really like a little weak, right? So it wasn't holding up much of the yeah, it wasn't uh holding up much, but it was a it was an entry point to the conversation of spirituality. Like, uh is there something greater than myself? If there is, why would I suffer? And why would all these things be, quote, happening to me? Um, so that is part of what I've observed looking back. That was part of me connecting in the beginning of my artwork to the spiritual piece.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Yes. Yeah, good. You you answered my question, uh, because I was gonna ask, you know, what were you trying to see or maybe forgive of yourself? And it sounds like there was a there was a connection there to that through that artwork. And I love what you you know mentally you have this triangle biology, creativity, the mind, uh, and then also spirituality. Like that was huge.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Was that something you just naturally came about, or you were kind of departmentalized and like here's these departments of my well after my uh most recent, you know, experiences with my my difficult year in 2025 of really um trying to figure out what was going on with me in terms of the bipolar piece. So like the bipolar piece has been at the center of the equation for over thir three decades, 30 years of trying to figure out what is this uh bipolar and how do I um nurture myself and exist within this diagnosis and what is it and what's happening, because a lot of those answers weren't out there. Um, and so I looked back at all the things I had tried, all the things I had, you know, going to retreats, signing up for coaching, going to do acupuncture, going to the medicine bowls, going to taking the lithium, taking the drugs from the doctor. Like, and I I saw a pattern emerging that it it wasn't just one thing that I was doing. It was really could be summed up into these three conceptual parts that that could not survive on their own. Like I've never been just be able to have a drug and be fine. Right. Like I think it's it goes beyond bipolar in terms of the functionality of the concept, but for my own lived experience, it's been what has helped me toward a regulated nervous system.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yep. Yeah, I mean, my mind mentally, I'm like, that's a stable, that's a stable equilibrium for you, right? There's this constant variable, if you will. My mind was a science, right? You mentioned biology, but this this constant variable that's always there in your life. These three kind of pillars are what hold everything together.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Um, yeah. And I appreciate you sharing that too. For the for the for the view viewers that are listening, I think that's good to conceptualize where did this come from? What does this really mean? Attach some meaning to those uh those departments. So when you were when you were at Michigan too, you mentioned you um had a mentor, right? A female mentor who was a professor through those through those times. How did potentially her as a mentor shape your confidence or voice during that fragile season um during college?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

I think that she was able to create containment and a place for me to be vulnerable. A lot of experiences in the traditional art school model are you do your pieces and then you kind of have you're evaluated or given feedback in front of a lot of uh people. And I was not at a place after the things I had been through to be in that container. So they said you could do these um self uh is like a series, and you could do them uh independent studies, sorry. And the um woman would just allow me to see like the mirror that I created. And I think that just to see to have whatever you're going through mirrored to you, whether it's you're going through something and it's like you're in triumph or whether You're in just there, um, just to have that mirror. So it was like a way that I could continually have a safe mirror that it's real, what you went through is real, correct? It matters, and you can create what that looks like and what that means, and you have some sort of agency to how you want to commune that communicate that to other people.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

And then have that resonate with because the thing about my artwork is if you were to sit with the five faces that I've made, there will be pieces that touch parts of you somewhere in your whole physiology. I don't even know, you know, but there's something that's resonant in them to the human experience. And so that is a tool, a portal for you and for me. So it's like you can look at it. Like I had this friend come over because I always had a submission to New York and I had all these self-portraits out. And I said, just tell me like what you think. And she's like, Right. I just she said, I feel like I can there are all these parts where I can see myself in the pieces, and they they resonate, like somehow they hold these parts of me. And so I think that's because yeah, they're done with that kind of presence though. Like I turn away from it, I turn towards it.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

That's really important too. Uh I think many, you know, even myself at times, you want to shy away from those parts, right? Those fractured parts that we think are so um I don't know, condemned or bad, but really that's that's the power, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:52

That's that's the power. And it's the power that you'll yeah, and that's the integration of those parts, you know, and many people are doing work on this in the field, but the the integration of those parts can give such relief to your overall quality of life because so much of this goes on in our heads.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Yep. And many times, in my own opinion, I would express that I feel like those parts you're kind of uh explaining here are the parts that also hold you back. Like you shying away from it is kind of keeping you right restricted in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yes. And I feel in my own arc of my story, and I think everyone has this, there's a survivor part, right? So there's a survivor Anna, there's a survivor coy, there's a survivor Mary at Starbucks. There's a part of us that has gotten us so far, but it's the part that's led, front-led with a lot of protection, a lot of layers, a lot of safety, a lot of programs from our parents or whatever's happened to us. And that survivor part keeps us in familiar, you know, territory.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

So it's just a way to um integrate, I think, and become more empowered in general when we start looking at those parts.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

So I totally agree. Totally, totally agree. Actually, another question, a great question for you here, too, Anna, is like, do you do you believe suffering sharpens creativity? Or, you know, does it simply strip things away until what true remains?

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Well, you know, this is interesting because I was just at the University of Michigan yesterday and someone brought a similar question. Uh someone on their research team said, you know, what about Kurt Cobain? Like, is it like the suffering that people have? Like, is it does it make good art or like so similar kind of that's where you're going? And like I think that we don't trade creativity for health. So we don't trade we don't have to trade that like being in a homeostasis place or being in good health doesn't hurt creativity. True creativity like comes from a homeostasis place anyway. Like it because even if you're in flow, like you're in this place that's so does that answer your question, or did I not answer it?

SPEAKER_02 26:30

No, you did. No, you did. I think I mean you can go to another another discussion on that, but I I see where you went with that.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Um I just think like it's like the suffering is not here to be it is here to make us more awake. It's gonna happen all the time. And so I don't think that I think it's just an and it's more of an and or a both. Like that, you know, you can't live a human experience without suffering. I don't think that's possible. I don't think it it's the ideal. I think you have to go through things so that you are propelled to do more.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Because that's where we get to like evolve, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:12

And I I don't even think the suffering has to necessarily be bad, right? We always have this connotation of suffering is, I don't know, being stabbed, right? Of what we can't do or have to do something. I think it can be good. And uh to your point, I don't think the suffering is the primary engine to creativity. If I think of what you were saying, like creativity is gonna be there whether it's suffering suffering or not in this homeostasis um realm, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Yeah. And I think that the more the more it's thought of as not, I think suffering really is, you know, like in Eckhart Tolle's lane. It's like if you are convinced that you should not be suffering, that's like causing more suffering.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

So it's knowing that like there is a level of suffering, but you can, I think there's a gradation of what you will experience suffering as if you can build your awareness and support your biology, your creativity, and your spirituality that allows you to have less of that suffering in terms of what you have agency or control over.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Yes, 100%. And personally, I think I'm at a stage two, kind of share. I think to your point is like feeling safe in change or feeling safe in suffering. Whatever use you want to use where you want to use or interchange, right? Knowing suffering, change, those things are gonna happen, but you can still feel safe in those moments and not shy away from it, right? You can still grow.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yes, and the familiarity of like you won't, you know, Joe Dispenza. Like, you aren't gonna change until your identity changes. So until you're out of survivor coy, and the thing that survivor is familiar to you in your environment and what you're creating in your psyche, then you're not gonna be able to create that next place. So you have to be uncomfortable. It's like you have to choose to be uncomfortable. You have to be like that, I'm all in, like, and we'll get to that part of my story. But like, I've you know, I think that you just get used to like, okay, fuck it. Like it's time to jump. Let's jump.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Again, like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, and speaking of your story too, we're uh once again, we're kind of going back and forth here. I'm I'm kind of building this story timeline, if you will, for our audience as well. Um, I know we didn't talk about your work of what you've done specifically, but we'll get to it now, kind of at a point in time in your life where you were healing others, but also healing yourself, right? And this is where you were working with the youthful um youth attention, the juvenile detention, excuse me. Uh inner city kids and women's shelters. Um what did those spaces or being in those environments teach you about either pain and resilience?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Uh or if you want to open it up, it could just what what did those those those I think it it first I think the thing that comes in is contrast. Um contrast of just the level of the range? Are you talking about like maybe the range or like of like uh of suffering?

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Or um, and also I've just worked with a lot of people and held a lot of stories for people, you know? And the biggest part that I can um reflect back is that like just to build that presence of um I don't know how well I can articulate it. It's like I I have been in the trenches and then in the trenches with other people. And I think that has allowed me to build my own capacity for change and my own ability to also know there's something greater and not get like um overwhelmed by the minutia of things.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Like that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Um like doing what I can control because it was very when I was early into getting my master's, it was very difficult to not it. I don't love the word empath, but I'm definitely more energetically, I think, inclined than a the maybe the average person, yeah. Which I mean that would be nice sometimes to be the Joe out there or whatever, not really but um I just think I had to um it was like a training of sorts to to be able to hold my own vibration almost around such discourse because the way I way I feel in my lived experience that you can change discourse is to uh elevate that that uh light or resilience in yourself to eliminate your own mental discourse, biological discourse, you know, and then be able to inform change that way.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Um so you ever notice how sometimes you know exactly what you want to do, where you want to go, but something inside keeps pulling you back. It's not strategy, it's not effort, it's not even fear, it's the patterns running underneath everything. The beliefs you didn't choose, the loops you inherited, the internal static between who you are and who you're becoming. I created something for that. It's called the coherence diagnostic, a free assessment designed to show you exactly where those patterns are and what's possible when you shift them. Whether you're an athlete chasing flow or an entrepreneur building from vision, this diagnostic reveals a subconscious filter shaping your decisions, your confidence, your next move. It's free, it's deep, and it's in the show notes. Take it, see your patterns, and let's talk about what comes next. Because life is art in motion, and you deserve to create from coherence, not chaos. Yes, that's that's good for for myself and what I'm hearing. It's like eliminating this dis decoherence, right? This you know, we use the word resonance, right? But like this decoherence, this perturbation of like getting off off scale, and you know, build I said it's to your point, I think it's a little hard to articulate, but building this internal like engine, if you will, to be grounded in that and hold that space to your point with others and hold space for yourself. And it sounds like, right, you were training yourself for the moment to even where you're at now and where you'll be in the future of like, hey, I've been in the trenches to your point. I've learned how to create this energetical presence of myself to not waver or be uh maybe not the word afraid, but um unwavered by what's happened.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Yeah, and I think it's so much uh what is external, like some things we can't help but see, or like what we can't can like control. But what is internal is completely within reach to like have your own program, have your and have your own mental state and your essence and your soul essence be be programmed to be like, okay, that that person just said that to me and it was terrible or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 34:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

And then okay, maybe they were having a bad day. Maybe I was meant to hear that, so I felt this way. Everything's happening for you, nothing is happening against you. There is not any victim mentality when you get to a certain phase of your life because you you don't have time to waste your energy thinking that you're like or being embodied in any victim mentality.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Yeah. I think you had a good point. I think it's a good that period is a good time to learn to absorb. And uh kind of a side question I had for you in those moments, you mentioned uh, for lack of better terms, developing your own consciousness, right? Internal, controlling the controllables, right? Were you measuring your own self-data? Like whether it was someone said something or um I don't know, you know, some you know, you get in an argument or you go to work and something happens. Were you measuring this deviation, if you will, from your kind of stability?

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Well, I don't know if you want to jump there yet, because I don't know what the next question is.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Yeah, well, we'll keep going. But I guess that's that's just me being curious, right? Kind of offline here.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

That question is more about what I mean, the biology of things and how that came about and and really being able to, in my own experience, uh factor in some um things to measure like cohesion.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

It's kind of abstract, but I don't want to jump ahead before you want to tell me what else you want to ask me.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Yeah, good. We'll we'll we'll uh we'll keep that there. Um so kind of diving in, obviously, still here, you're you're kind of in this attention center, right? You're a social worker for those who don't know. Um, how did you or I guess how did becoming a social worker influence um the way you understand trauma, not just intellectually, but maybe somatically? And you've kind of briefly touched on this kind of already. Um so if you want to answer that, how you kind of learned um, you know, develop these skills somatically, uh working with other people as a social worker.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

I think that I, well, I didn't wouldn't call myself a social worker anymore. I would say I've like retired from that um identity or doing what I would call social work. Um I think that I was trying to uh, you know, help people, but I was also trying to get a seat at the table that I always felt was not present within the current paradigm of mental health. So I thought, I think that if I go get this master's, somebody's gotta figure out what's going on. Then I can at least help figure out what's going on. Right. I can be part of it. Um and I uh I think that that did help my journey.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Um, so my experience was I think what it needed to be at the time, and it the skills definitely I still you can utilize some of the skills, but not in the paradigm in which they exist.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

Correct. Okay. Um, speaking of art and healing, right? Kind of side by side, I feel like these are kind of things you've kind of interwoven, you're constantly um navigating through both, right? Throughout your experience, whether it's now or through your past, what kind of kept you tethered to both? Was there something a unifying um with paradigm or ideology that kind of kept you tethered to both, or was it just um a natural level?

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Yeah, I don't think they're ever separate. I don't think that um people can do art and not be uh affected in some way. And that's like the creativity vein of the triangle. Because it it is a way to process, it is a way to reflect, it's a way to like get your brain in that state, like you said, and it's um it's an entry point too. Like I will do it with clients that you know, they'll come into my studio and there'll be a six foot by six foot canvas, and it's like they look at it and they're like, What? And I'm like, what I was like, what I was like, what would be it be like for you just to go over there and get the paint and pick out some paint colors and just like and then they'll squeeze like just a small amount of paint out, and then I'll be like, Do you look at that canvas? You're gonna need some more paint. And so then they squeeze out, and they're just like you can see their whole nervous system when they're like kind of uncomfortable. Like, what is going to happen? And this is like, I don't, we don't have to go to Mount Rushmore, like not Rushmore Everest, or like go to some like high intensity even thing. It's just the matter of someone standing in front of a space that they normally don't take up and doing something unfamiliar to signal to their brain that it's actually safe to do something that's unfamiliar, to do something that could, you know, create more confidence in their ability to show up big, you know? And so I think that that is like a way that the art and the healing and the portal can can connect to whoever you are, whether you're like, and I love it when people are like, I'm so not creative. I'm like not creative.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

I'm like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

You are from creation, like there's not anyone that I could ever meet that doesn't, you know, maybe they're not, maybe they don't remember, maybe they don't they're not tapped in. But uh, you know, so that's how I see it in my own like practical practical sense of like exposing other people to how creativity can be like a portal.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Yeah, for sure. And I think too, when they're in front of this canvas, right? I think for so many of us, we want to have the answers. And this is a blank canvas with no right or wrong answer, right? You're just telling them, hey, go create.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Well, and that's maddening. And then they say to say uh no direction on purpose, like no direction, just like make some marks. Oh boy. Could you tell me what to paint, where to paint it, what color to use?

SPEAKER_03 41:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

But that's just the beautiful brain doing its job, but then you can see it as a highway. There's one lane and there's another lane. There's a lane where you can put it on auto and you can just like breeze by, or you can figure out that there's this other lane where you have intention and you have agency over all that survival part in you, and you can actually start to make the decisions from the major part of you, which is your soul, which your godseed came here to do, and you know, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Right, let's get going.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

We're all right.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

So we're we're gonna get obviously to what we were talking about a little bit about biology, because as you progressed, right, you you kind of stumbled upon. I love you, you said agency in the beginning of the podcast. Um, I think it's such an important word, but also just having that within yourself. You you journeyed, right, through your uh through bipolar disorder, took a major turn, and you encountered from what you shared metabolic psycho psychiatry. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 42:21

It's so it's metabolic psychiatry. I'm gonna go back to a minute because the so the I feel like for the first 29 years of this, or maybe what I can remember. The biological pieces that have been tried for me specifically for the people that might know someone with bipolar or whatever, have been lithium, which is a gold standard um for the diagnosis of bipolar. And the um I've used like some antipsychotics, uh, and that's been like in terms of the biology piece. I've also utilized ECT. ECT is a electric convulsive therapy. You are administered a what do you call it? No, you get the anesthesia. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Anesthesia, sorry, put I was gonna put down or put under, put under, and then you get this seizure, and the seizure um triggers the brain to give a neuro response. So the brain thinks there's a seizure, so it um starts like forming new neurotransmitter pathways. So that's what it like it's the body is almost trying to heal itself from being triggered by the seizure.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Right. So to the trigger to death.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Yeah, so I had the E so I've had the ECT and I had a lot of it in 2025. So much of it that you know I was I had two manic episodes in 2025. 2025 and was not hospitalized. My goal was I don't want to be hospitalized. Let's just try to do this with the ECT. Well, I lost like much of July, I can't remember. I was physically having a lot of uh pain from the ECT treatments. And so I started to wonder about like health coaching, like functional medicine. And because after one of the ECTs, I literally was like on my knees, like in my room, like on my knees, just like, please help me. Tell me what I'm supposed to do. I'm like doing everything. I've taken all the drugs. I've done all the spiritual things. Like I have like, you know, at that place where you're just like surrendered.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

Yeah, what else?

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Surrendered.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Another pro is the procedure long? I don't mean I always want to chime in and ask. Is that a long procedure, the ECTs, or is this like a You're in and out the same?

SPEAKER_00 44:56

I'm in and I go to Chicago to do it, but I'm in and out like in a couple hours. I would say it's like you're only having this seizure. You're supposed to only have it for about a minute. Mine were running running longer, so it was causing me more uh problems, but I was home by noon. Like I'd go to Chicago and like be home by noon.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

That's not that.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

And so I had this this situation where I really like had surrendered. Like I was leaning really heavily into the spiritual piece of there has got to be, I cannot control these things anymore. I can do all the my palette tanto is not fucking working.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

It's not like there is something beyond me that I cannot control. Yes. Right. And so in August, and I've always been very connected to the divine and and to God. And I've gone through different phases, but right now it's God. And I, you know, even in my artwork, a lot of my artwork like started with that OE of little faith, and then it's ended with this crown that is a symbol of worthiness for me. And like that was, I felt like given to me in a in a painting session from God. Like I heard do a crown and it was like, what? Anyway, so I I felt like I was leaning a lot on that spiritual part this last 2025. And then I decided I got up one August, and I let's say I love champagne, okay? I love champagne, I love tequila, I love everything, okay. But I was doing that like all the time. It's like part of my identity. It was like this is just what we do.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

And in August, I was like, I woke up and I was like, I can't, I'm not gonna do this anymore. Like I heard like total thank God thing, we're not doing this anymore. Dumped out, like I was in a movie, I dumped out all the liquor things in the bathroom, right? I'm like, I'm not doing this anymore. Um, because I was gonna be hiring a functional med health coach to kind of help me with things. So at that point, I stopped drinking and I still have not drank since then.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Good for you. Yeah, good for you.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

And something that's been amazing. My sleep is so much better, all the things. So I hire the health coach, Gina Shade, awesome woman. Um, and we start doing things and I start to feel some changes. But then my friend, who uh is an amazing doctor shaman, sends me a podcast with Dr. Hyman and Ian Campbell. And she says, Well, this is kind of scientific, um, but maybe you should check it out. So I checked out, and like in this podcast, they start talking about metabolic psychiatry. They start talking about my con mitochondria health.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

There's the cells in the brain. This is, you know, things that you need to help with inflammation of the brain. They started talking about how bipolar could be, you know, could be put into remission from a diet. And I finished that podcast and I was like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Yes, on fire.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

On fire. Like this is like something that's true. Like, if these people are doing this research and like this could be true, it was so I sent it over to Gina and I said, check this out. And she's like, Okay, we're gonna do keto now. And I was like, Okay, we're gonna do keto now, because the whole premise of this is like to increase your mitochondria health through ketones in the brain, which they've shown research with bipolar specifically to be very effective. Gina says, Okay, and then the next in the next three days, Gina's like, your blood work's all back from your functional labs. And she, I'm like, great. And she's like, and I go in there and she's like, okay, I just want to say that I don't have I have a lot of patients, I don't have a lot that have this outcome on this specific, you know, specific, yeah, result. Result. You're all your mitochondria and your metabolic markers are extremely low.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

And you're like that, good, bad?

SPEAKER_00 49:15

That's good compared. Like of the podcast that I listened to, it said that bipolar, diagnosed bipolar people have a low-functioning mitochondria, and the metabolic health is compromised. And so I could not basically, my brain was not getting fuel from glucose, from carbs, and so it basically my brain was functioning like on fumes. Like it's on the highway, it's in the lane, but it's on fumes. I couldn't, like the biology of this part was not, you know. So fast forward to the I started the keto probably in October. December, I hooked up with a new uh metabolic psychiatrist. This is a new field. If you are have a mental illness, if you have some mental health problems, Google metabolic psychiatry. It is not mainstream, and it is very in in a lot of cases, not in everyone's case, can be very helpful for symptom elimination. Okay. So I hired Dr. Calabrese in December, and now I feel like I have a new brain. And I mean, that was a lot of information for you, but no, you you you literally answered it.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

Um and if you can, describe, if you can articulate it in a in a in a way that you notice differences, right? You say, I got a new brain. In what ways do you feel like, hey, these are new experiences, events?

SPEAKER_00 50:56

There's a lot of markers. My um what's even okay? Let me answer the question first because I get really excited about this.

SPEAKER_03 51:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Um like my ability to pause before speaking, my ability to pause, like um, in a situation where normally I would just say what I thought right away. Um, the pace my brain can interpret things around me is slower. I'm not as emotional, I'm not as fractured. I am able to remember things better. Uh I sleep better. Um, but it's like, I mean, coy, I think that you have a brain similar, probably to a normal person. I mean, I don't know. But for me, it's like to have had this experience biologically where I couldn't tap into what it really felt like to have a full tank of gas. My only way to feel that way was when the brain misfired and became manic, it would, it almost would mimic what's happening to me now with clarity, but like it would go towards an edge of psychosis. So now it's like this like high-functioning brain, and then all the other things that come with it from eating food. Like I just want to just uh say that, like, because this is not a pharma thing, and it's not like I stopped taking the pharma things that I take, but lithium is a salt, and it's um, I think, you know, great. But this isn't, it's not like this is the magic answer. I'm not saying that. And I'm not saying like that that ketosis that it will work for everyone. I'm saying that once I spent so much time in my life with the spiritual aspect and the creative aspect that once my this other component came in, it all could integrate. So we can't treat people like um with just one thing. It's like exactly multidimensional. People are multidimensional, they're in contexts of like their life, and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

No, it's I was taking notes here, and you know, you you said car analogy, right? I'm like, it sounds like you were just missing one piece. The food was kind of the activator, right? That food kind of triggered some things. Now you find this therapy, or not therapy, but this type of science that hell you know holds up, and it's like boom, as soon as that clicks in, night and day difference, right? Night and day difference.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Night and day.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

Um you know, my my mind, we we we kind of talked about physics offline, and shout out to uh a gentleman I follow on uh Twitter, not X, uh Brandon, but you know, you when you talk about you said spiritual, right? I'm definitely in the spiritual realm, but it sounds like kind of using his his line of thinking, those things kind of collapse under pressure. Uh and your science is kind of being held up, right? Like when you when you put those things to test, they they collapse, right? They don't hold up, and it sounds like this mitochondrial um I would want to say, I guess, information, if you will, has done wonders, and it's it's it's showing the evidence, right? Um so, anyways, I guess my little two sense of what you were saying is that all these little pieces just clicked, right? And and it started with you. Um you answered like three of my questions in one, so I'm not gonna go back, which is great. No, no, no, hey, you're good. You you made it easy.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

And I just kept going.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

No, it's it's good because that's that's the flow, right? You just let it let it continue, let it come out naturally. Um so you you also talked about you know living without urgency and guilt uh now, right? Especially now after all these changes. What does that feel like in your body? Uh I know you talked about um you know emotional things, your pace is slower, but just not having the the the urgency of feeling guilty.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Well, I think that it's like now that it's feels embodied, um it feels very safe. Like I feel so safe, like in my body.

SPEAKER_03 55:19

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

And I feel like I don't have to try. Like I don't have to convince anybody. I just you know, keep following these things that have given me a direction and and then I just get to see yeah, witness.

SPEAKER_03 55:46

Yeah, witness.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Yeah, and it's not because it's interesting it's not like woo-woo, you know, it's science, and then it's layers of other experiences, like with the creativity and with the connection to something greater that really puts me in a place where I can articulate what I'm articulating to you, which I hope can help other people because it's possible, but but it does take that agency. Like an agency isn't urgency, an agency isn't you get what you want all the time, or someone does what you say, right? Like an agency is being able to adult into different experiences without collapsing into a survivor.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

Yeah, that's powerful. That is so true. And that's a good way to put it. That's a really really good way to put it.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

Um there was something else you said that was really that was so good.

SPEAKER_03 57:07

You said safe, safe, and you don't have to try.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

Like that's such a huge like movement internally.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

Well, yeah, and it's like you don't have to um like someone said uh they would describe it as kind of like unbothered.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be a good way.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

Um, but it's just like you're so comfortable with what and this is all from the inside. This isn't because you got the new house or because you talked to the therapist even because you got the medicine that you needed. This is something that's transcends all those things. It's something that, you know, is hard to accomplish.

SPEAKER_02 57:54

I also do want to add before we transition, I like that you said it's not woo-woo, because this is just your body reacting. Right? The science kind of gives the parameters, the constraints of what's possible, right? And you're kind of operating within that, and your your body's changing in that in that process. So it's not like there's you know some something abstract happening outside of you. This is all internal, right? And it can it can be tracked.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

Right. And another good person for that I just want to say is Dr. Lisa Miller does a lot of work on spirituality and connection, and she's a a psychiatrist, but there is there is a bodies of work out there talking about how spirituality helps brain function. Like it helps your relational connection to other people. Um there's a very grounded way that they're trying to uh put that science uh with the spirituality. I mean, there's you know, front runners that are doing that, so for sure.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

Yeah, no, I'll I'll mention that as well in the show notes. Um as we kind of you know, kind of hit the the back portion of the podcast here, um, talking about you know healing and embodiment, which we we've been kind of talking about already. You you mentioned your upcoming show, um, going back to your art is it's called mana, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Yes, and that's oh it's mana and the so I was talking to someone several months ago, probably in September or something, maybe, and they talked about that I should say some more about mania and like my art and mania. And at the time, I hadn't quite jumped from or kind of put survivor Anna in the backseat totally. Um, she was still like kind of pulling on the wheel, and so uh so I didn't like that word mania, because it's I think it goes with maniac and like there's just like throughout cultures.

SPEAKER_02 59:58

Yeah, the connotation through propaganda through just all type of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

So I said, Well, I was in my studio, I was like, Well, what if I called it in just the word manic, ma manna, like combining my name with manic. And then I met the next day with my friend um who said, Do you know that that is in the Bible? And I said, No. And she said, Yeah, manna is the nourishment that came from the sky from God, and it was a form of food uh to, you know, feed, I don't know who it was. Feed the yes, and then so it's like a big thing in the Bible. And I just I then that made it it make much more sense to me now, and even like in the connecta connectivity of like the fact that I was given that word, and then now, you know, I'm talking to you, and basically a big part of my nourishment and the biology that has supported me is would be called mana. That's that's food from the highest level of food.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

Um, so yeah, so there's a show I'm going to do probably in the fall surrounding that. And then the next, like the thing I just um right off of this meeting at the University of Michigan, the Heinz Prector Bipolar Research Program, where I have been, I think since 2008, a part of their longitudinal study. And then I was gone for a couple of years, but now um I'm really excited because they have so much data on me from now I'm going to get back into the study with them to help find more data of how I did what I did and how my body reacted and all the things and things that have changed, and also do a case study. So that just like so exciting to me because then, you know, the potentiality of helping other people, um, because there are other Annas out there that are, you know, just would love the answers, and maybe some of my answers would fit to what's happened to them. So that University of Michigan thing is a big, big deal.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

So excited about that. Yeah, you can kind of be a pioneer for many people. Other women, other men, like you you can kind of be uh you can say guinea pig, but you're you're going through it. You you want to get the get the answers and uh give it back to them. Um I know we're we're run up on time because I want to be respectful of your time here. Um you good? Okay. Now with Mana, right? I do love that name. How does that work? Um reflect where you are internally, like now, um, and not just aesthetically.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

Well, you mean with the art show or with Yeah, yeah, like the art show.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:02

Like how yeah, how would that represent, you know, who Anna is today, now with all this information, all the experiences, and well, my studio time is the art that I'm making right now for the mana show is slow.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

It's much slower than the art I've made before, like the girl making her mom go fast. It's like, no, it's like we have so much time, like we're not in a hurry anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:30

Yeah, not a rush.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

It's not a rush. So it will be uh compiled pieces of kind of showing that embodied regulated nervous system. Uh and I don't the the practice that I keep having is I don't need to know. I don't need to know. I don't need to know the outcome. I don't need to know where the show is gonna be. Now I can have intentions for sure. Um, and but I just need to do the one step in front of the other. I need to make the work. I need to meet with whoever at the U of M place. I need to talk to you on a podcast, I need to keep writing my book. Uh do I know how to get it to a publisher yet? No. Can I figure it out? Yeah. But like it's just like this unfamiliar being okay with the spaciousness of like not having relief because people want relief. I love relief. Yeah, no, in knowing. You know, like in knowing the the thing that's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:47

Yeah, you know what to expect.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

Training your brain to understand that it's totally safe when you don't know. It makes things happen. It's like, what are you talking about? Like, I didn't have this meeting with the University of Michigan five days ago. Yeah, it was three days before I went. I sent one email. They responded in five minutes. I spent an you know, like sent another email. I will be there actually. I'm going to a concert. Like, okay, come by, meet with us, present to the team. I didn't have to plan any of that out.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

Yeah, and it's there's no uh like rigor, there's no like fighting this resistance. Hearing you speak and kind of the flow that you're going, it's like you're very much in this calm, relaxed state. Not saying you're not moving, right? You're not just sitting there and you know meditating, right? It's like you're you're calm and you're not worried about the outcome, which is so powerful because I feel like even myself, right, we want this expectation, we want to know the rug's not gonna be pulled out from underneath us, right? So having that you know obliterated and just taken away, I'm sure, is transformed for you new heights mentally, emotionally, physically. Physically. Um and just overall, I just I just hear this on this beautiful path, this beautiful pace that I am unraveling one step at a time, as you said, and everything's gonna come is gonna come, right? There's this trust. Maybe that's what I'm really trying to articulate is there's trust in this process.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:19

And I'm not worried about failure or right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

And I think that, Koy, it's like the trust comes from also that knowing and by practicing through your life that you have agency.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:40

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:41

So I'm the one that decides how heavily to trust myself or trust in something greater that's gonna happen, or trust that despite how the world is, that this is something is going to go a certain way to where it's gonna be for all everyone, like, or just like that view, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:01

And when you don't have the other survivor part weighing you down and trying to drive from the front seat of the car, all this like you realize you're in a freaking Lamborghini.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:11

Like you're like, wait, yeah, hold up, hold up now.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

You were you were in a Chevy 76 before, and like now you're like, wait a minute. Like I and it's all accessible from yourself, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

Yeah, yeah. I love you. So you control it, right? You're in the driver's seat, you don't have to control it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

That's funny. You said Lamborghini. You're in Italy right now, driving.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:38

Like, yeah, it's like in the hills. That's what I thought of. Lamborghini. I think it's because I was started watching Pretty Woman last night. There's like a Lamborghini.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

Yeah, that's I've I've yeah, I've seen that. Well, I haven't watched it, but I've seen, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:53

It's like an 80s version of the Lamborghini.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:58

Anyway. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:00

We're we're we're uh obviously getting and you tap in, you said agency, so that's where I'm kind of leading here. Your philosophy, agency, life is type idea. So you kind of blend a lot of science, mutuality, uh, right? You said biology, you're kind of your triangle, right? Your personal agency all together. Um how do you hold all of that, right, all together without needing certainty? It once again, you kind of touched on this already, but if you want to maybe explain in in deeper depth, how do you keep these all um together, yeah, without needing that certainty on the back end?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

Well, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you don't keep them all together.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

That's a real that's so true.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

Sorry, they just like don't. I mean, and ideally, I mean, how do I do it? I think that I, in my lived experience, have really developed uh resiliency in a way that is like I I was put here to do something, and I just keep on going. I just keep going. And I have people around me that love me deeply, and I yeah, and I believe Yeah, that's a big deal. I believe like in myself and I believe like it's not just a part of a triangle. I believe that God is like supporting me at a level that I can't make up, and I keep not being able to make it up, like that's when I know it's something greater than myself, and I can feel uh even more supported.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:43

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:46

You you kind of already answered it as we talked through conversation, but you know, how how would you compare agency to your prior self, so your other maybe earlier version of Anna to now? And it sounds like maybe trust, but if you want to elaborate, you know, what's the difference there?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:04

She just yeah. There was a lot she thought agency was basically telling someone that they should do what she wanted to like that that agency was if she didn't get what she wanted, then she was failing. She also thought that she had to like fight the world. Like she thought everybody about anything, um to feel like what meant something to her was important to them almost. Like to get them to understand why it was important.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:48

Um and this this new identity does not have any of that. Like it it it's very uh but she'll come in sometime. I will like I will recognize like when I'm like, okay, now she needs rootbacks in the back seat. Like, what do you want? You want the go-girt? Like that's but what I really found about that is that when the Survivor Anna parts come up for me, the most important thing I think, and this is because of a wonderful therapist, Dr. Rosenberg, Joan Rosenberg, is that they want to tell their truth. And if you try to to, you know, like squall it down or like that's not the way we do it anymore, without them being able to say, but I needed to do this to protect you so that you understood, like and the people didn't do whatever to you, and like I needed to fight, and like we need to fight or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:54

Um, but then to to say, we're not you know, to let the voice be heard, the truth be heard from the other space. And then I love saying, up until now, up until now, we did it that way. But yes, right now we're not doing it that way anymore. I got this.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:18

And that's a gentle reminder, right? Yeah. To your to your other parts, right? Saying, hey, I appreciate you trying to help.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:25

And another, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:26

Oh, to that is a lovely gentle reminder to to ease that part of you and say, hey, we're we're going this way. But I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:36

Uh last two questions here. Uh, you know, if if someone's listening, you know, struggling with their mental health, feels broken, what would you want them to know? If you have anything to share.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:47

I would want them to know keep going.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:50

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:51

I would want them to know that it's possible to feel better. It's possible to live a life that you can't make up. It's possible to take one small step, you know, to stay connected to the people that love you, people around you. That there are more answers out there.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:18

I mean, I just think that I I have been I can't I think I lost count at seven times in inpatient hospitalizations. Inpatient hospitals like a girl interrupted type shit. I and I am sitting here today very much regulated. Now I could have something happen, I don't know, but like it's possible to be in a space where you can contribute and be a participant in this life, in this world, and be fully alive. It's possible.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:02

And I think you're a living testament to it, honestly. I know. I think one, I would say probably you've had this tenacious, right, in a good way, tenacious journey to figuring out the answers, wanting to know, right? You want to know what's going on, right? There's diagnostics, dice, not uh dice uh diagnostic. Yeah, thank you. But more importantly, I think um it's possible because you're not speaking from theory. You know, keep going impossible may seem basic to people, but really you're living it. Like you're saying, hey, I've got to the other side, I'm living it now, right? Like I've been there. So I'm I'm talking about knowledge and experience that is true for you. Um so I think that just in general, just those two things hold weight, especially coming from you because you're you're doing it. And you've been that person who's probably listening who may feel that way. That hey, I wanna I want change, I want to live that life, right? This new life.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:01

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that I so much like in my heart just like didn't want it to be for not. You know, every time that I'd get out of the impatient and have to explain to Max where I'd been or what, like, like I just didn't want it to be for not. And I kept on having that motivation, like, this is not for not. Like, other some girl is gonna be driving her car, might be a Chevy, and you know, she wants to drive a Lamborghini.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:34

You know, she deserves the Lamborghini. Nothing wrong with the Chevy, but maybe she wants that. Like, just to know that that um literally it felt and it has felt so much since I've started this metabolic uh ketosis stuff, um, the psychiatry, that it's it is very much available to me to have the life that I have wanted and continue to try to want.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:04

Yep. Yeah. My last question here, Anna. Uh, so all my guests, as they know, with the close out, right? I finished a statement. If you could fill it in the back end, right, I would say life is, right? This is the whole life is podcast. You could think about right now, and I ask you, you know, life is what? What would you fill in that blank in right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:24

Life is grace and everything you can't make up.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:30

Take that. I love it. Grace and everything you can't make up. Well, good. Before we we hit the exit, where can uh the audience, the viewers, find you if you want to plug in your social medias or any websites, where they can they can find you, connect with you, or get in touch?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:47

Um, my Instagram is a.r.drew.art. And then it's ardrewart is the website, and Facebook is also, I think, AR Drew Art. So I think all of them AR Drew Art and um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

Okay. Well, awesome. I appreciate it. I appreciate your time, Anna, for being on here. Uh, also up in the show notes your your social media handles so people can follow, connect with you. But uh truly thank you for your time and um being willing to share your experience, right? The journey of the never-ending journey um that just keeps on getting better.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:27

Well, thank you, Coi. And I think that you are a remarkable human being. And I appreciate that you have this container and that you will just keep going.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:39

That's that's the plan. That's the plan. So thank you, and uh, we'll see you on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:46

All right, take care. What Anna showed us today is that healing is not a destination. It is an architecture you build cell by cell, choice by choice, day by day. She did not find her way through willpower or optimism. She found it through science, through honesty, and through the willingness to look at what her body and mind actually needed rather than what she had been told was possible. Her art is the proof of that work. Mana, nourishment, divine light, stabilizing force. That is what she's building toward. And the fact that she is creating it on her own timeline, without pressure and full ownership of her process, that is what internal coherence looks like when it is finally real. That's a wrap on today's episode of the Life Is Podcast. If something in this conversation landed for you, a shift in perspective, a reminder, or something you needed to hear, don't let it stay there. Take it with you, put it to work. If you're ready to go deeper, I have tools built specifically for this journey. A self-discovery blueprint, a diagnostic designed to show you exactly where your foundation needs attention. Links are in the show notes. And if this episode had a value, share it with someone who's building, leave a review, help us grow this community of intentional people doing real work. Remember, fulfillment isn't about, it's built. Life is our emotion, and you are the artist. Until next time, keep building.