The Power of Presence: Being Fully Human with Amanda Gilchrist

“Amanda Gilchrist: You're looking for advice for me, because it's not my job, right? My job isn't to give advice. It's to guide, it's to facilitate, it's to support, it's to help you to navigate, but it's never to advise you on what to do, because you are your own person.”

[OVERVIEW]

Alex Cullimore: Hello, Cristina.

Cristina Amigoni: Hello.

Alex Cullimore: We just had a great conversation with our guest, Amanda Gilchrist. It was just a fascinating conversation about human dynamics and how we help one another. Amazingly, we had it on a Wednesday.

Cristina Amigoni: I know. It wasn't planned, and then it was moved to Wednesday. Yes. It was a very good conversation about presence, dynamics, everything that stands in the way of being present to ourselves and others.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. That really ratified for me a lot of the way we structured our book, where it's a lot about, hey, what if you do yourself work first? Because that's what's important, where you can have relationships with others, where you can lead others, where you can decide what should happen. It's good reminders that there's a lot of important work to be done internally and the complexity of that work. I think Amanda does a great job of just distilling that into really usable, understandable chunks of why this is complex and yet, understandable. It's simple. It's just hard.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, indeed. Yes. We are writing a book and it's going to come out soon. We'll definitely announce it. Yes, the focus of how much self-investment is needed, to use Amanda's words. Then, how everything else is a ripple effect of that self-investment. The more we close off on what we do with ourselves and understanding ourselves and the work that we do to grow, the less we get the outcomes outside that we actually expect.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: Enjoy.

Alex Cullimore: Enjoy this conversation. 

[INTRODUCTION]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives.

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that’s with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves.

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni.

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore.

HOSTS: Let's dive in.

Authenticity means freedom.

Authenticity means going with your gut.

Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself. Not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.

Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.

It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.

Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.

It's transparency, relatability, no frills, no makeup, just being.

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. Today, Cristina and I are joined by our guest, Amanda Gilchrist. Welcome to the podcast, Amanda.

Amanda Gilchrist: Hi. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Can't wait to jump in.

Cristina Amigoni: We're excited to have you. Tell us about yourself. What got you here?

Amanda Gilchrist: It's so funny. People ask me to tell me about myself and I'm like, that's the worst question ever. I never wanted to take the place.

Alex Cullimore: That's what people start anyway. We really jump in.

Cristina Amigoni: We need to find a better one. Tell us what energizes you, Amanda. Let's change the question.

Amanda Gilchrist: Oh, that’s good. What energizes me? Honestly, I'd say, just being. Just being able to be present in the moment, not wondering, not worrying, not pondering. It just energizes me to just not have to be doing something, like not feeling I have to rush to the next thing, or I have to get this done. That's super energizing for me. Ironically, when I'm in those spaces, it's when I'm the most creative and I want to do more things, because I don't have to do more things, right?

Yeah. Bit about me is I am a licensed, I like to say about training, a license therapist by training, because yes, I am a therapist by training. I've been doing consulting, also, for many years. I'll always say, when I went into the counseling profession, I knew that I wasn't one of the therapists who was going to be seeing 40 clients a week. I was always in the macro-micro realm. I wanted to make big impact. For me, that looks like administration and clinical programs and all those other things, just different ways to help people. For me, being a therapist is more about helping people, rather than I have to be in the clinical field.

Yes, licensed therapists by training, consultant, lover of people, lover of God. I will also say that I tell people a lot like, I love people and I don't like people. That doesn't mean that I don't just like them, right? It's like, I have a love for humankind. If I'm operating out of love, when I'm interacting with anyone, they're always going to get the best version of me. If it's based on whether or not I like their mannerisms, or my own personal preference –

Cristina Amigoni: The choices.

Amanda Gilchrist: Yes, right. Any of those things, it just, yeah. I mean, sometimes I don't like me, to be honest. I'm like, “Why did you think that?” Not quite smart. Yeah. I spent a lot of my career. I've been in public. I've been in private. I've been in nonprofit. I've been everywhere. I would have this running joke, like if you looked at my resume, you would think I didn't know what I wanted to do. Really, it's just that I wasn't afraid to let myself trial the different things. That's me.

Alex Cullimore: I think a lot of people can probably relate to that idea of liking humankind, if not humans all the time for all the individual humans. It definitely makes sense to drew a line between the idea that there's this clinical portion of it, where you're helping lots of people, are helping individual people, versus some of that administrative and larger, let's try and create programs and make sure everything is supported. Both, of course, necessary in the world. I'm curious, what helps drive you one way or the other? What led you to thinking, is it that love of humanity, but not humans?

Amanda Gilchrist: Honestly, it was just that I don't know. I knew from the beginning that I was supposed to. I just felt I was supposed to make a bigger impact, a more widespread impact. I didn't know what that looked like, but I knew that I did love the one-on-one connection with people and just helping them in that way. I always do find it an honor to be a part of people's journey. It's a huge feat to come in to a space and say like, I'm about to meet a complete stranger and I'm going to tell them all of the things about my inner world and my whole soul and the things I don't like about myself, and trust that they're going to guide me in a way that's in my best interest. I never, ever, ever take that lightly.

I feel there's a part of me that loves to just have that type of connection. I also knew about me that I could not do that consistently with the way that I connect with people, okay. I think, all they are [inaudible 0:07:04], we're supposed to develop these amazing therapeutic relationships. There's all these different languages out there. I will say, in order for a relationship to be a relationship, it has to be a two-way street. For so long, there was this dialogue that, oh, therapeutic relationship, but it was very closed off. We're humans. We're made to connect.

I, obviously, am appropriate clinically, but the closed off feeling, it doesn't work. I found that people really are helped when they feel seen, heard, understood, cared for. That requires them to see a bit of you, right? They need to see you as a human, rather than this authority figure. The level of energy that that takes for me, I knew I could not do that, like see so many people. Nowadays, it's like a churn. They want you to see 25 to 35 clients a week in a 40-hour work week, and then document and then case manage. I'm like, that's a lot of emotional load.

I found that I'm naturally a pretty empathic person. I can feel other people's feelings, energy really deeply. It can be exhausting, right? It takes a lot to hold space for people. I think for me, that that was that line. I want to help as many people as possible. But how can we help people in a lot of different ways? Because it's not just coming to therapy. It's the, what's their socioeconomic status like? What do they feel when they're at work? Do they feel they're making an impact? What are they experiencing at home that doesn't allow them to do the work that they need to do? There are so many things that impact who we are as a human. I want to impact the whole human. Not just, yes, the mental portion is extremely important, but we're whole people.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, and the mental health portion, and we've talked about this offline is, it's much bigger than just the one-hour a week. It's just bigger than the counseling session, especially since we spend so much time in a lot of other places. I mean, we spent the majority of – the lucky ones get the one-hour week of counseling. Everybody else is you still have the other, however, 24 times seven hours every single week of everything else impacting your well-being.

Amanda Gilchrist: Absolutely. Which is why I would say to people, I'm like, yes, anybody can go – even if you have free services with one, everybody can't afford therapy. I mean, let's just be honest. Some people are still like, “Oh, what is therapy? Why do I need to go?” They think they have to have a diagnosis. I'm like, oh, we all have problems. We could all use this objective – We could all use some objective support and guidance. It's just one of those things where, even now, the news, I'm telling people like, be very conscientious about the things that you are taking in, because there is a science to this. It's how our brain works. Our brain is meant to protect us. Meaning, it's always collecting information and a story and it's figuring out how to use it. It's figuring out, okay, if this thing happens, if you go down this road, then this is what's going to happen next.

Now, that might not be the case. But based on what it knows right now, it's like, oh, that's dangerous. You look at the news, and you hear all these sad stories, and then you look at the comparison of other people's lives and social media, and then you think about work, and you're like, “I'm supposed to be fulfilled. I'm supposed to be happy, but I'm exhausted, and I'm overperforming, and I burned out and everything else in between.” I'm like, the one hour, and I mean, the standard therapy hour is 45 minutes, okay. More times, it goes maybe up to 60 minutes, but 60 minutes a week, it's not enough to make everything in your life brand-spanking-new. It takes a lot of intention. People leave and they're like, “Oh, I feel better.” Even after the first session, they're like, “Oh, my goodness. This is great. I feel so much better.” I was like, remember, that is a state change and not a trade change. Meaning, right now, it's okay. But a day or two later, that good feeling might fade. It might fade this evening, when you interact with someone. It may fade when you get home. It takes a little bit longer for that trade change. It takes a lot of intention outside of therapy to make that happen.

Alex Cullimore: It's like being on vacation anyway, even if you have the four days of vacation, you got half day trying to get there and another day trying to relax enough. Then you got another half day on the other end trying to get back to the world. You can take 60 minutes, but it's not all the 60 minutes. That's barely any time in our 24/7 week. It's wild what we expect from this, while we continue to inundate ourselves with bad news and push notifications and whatever else that we're being just flooded with externally on top of our work-life and everything else that's –

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah.

Amanda Gilchrist: I think I'm far from speaking for myself when I say like, just our world right now, we're just overstimulated. I found myself lately, where I will just sit in silence and light a candle and just still, nothing else. I don't want to read anything. I don't want to consume anything. I just want to just sit, and that’s it. Nothing.

Cristina Amigoni: For sure. Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: We rush to get all these devices that have all of these things on it. I found myself recently ending up with things like a Kindle on top of my phone, even though I could read a Kindle on my phone, because the Kindle doesn't have push notifications. I can't get any – Just have a book in front of me that says things like this that are just, I'm now looking for other devices that are help deliver whatever the value is, without delivering every version of education in the world.

Amanda Gilchrist: Everything else. Everything else. Because we think we want to be connected. I'm just going to say, I used to not love Mac computers. I thought they were so complicated. Then I've learned how to use one, I was like, “Oh, my gosh. I have to have it.” I didn't even love iPhones either. I was like, “But I should get an iPhone, because then all my stuff is connected.” Now I'm like, I don't want to get my messages. I'm like, I don't want the popping up while I'm working. Now I'm using all these focus and work and sleep settings and telling it to – and even with my social media, I put the time limit on it and says, okay, I tried to do more than 15 or 20 minutes a day. Then when it gets to the five-minute, okay, you're five minutes away and you need to cut it off. Just got better.

I mean, just the amount of over simulation in general, we think those things are pleasurable, but they actually cause a little bit more anxiety. They impact so much else, like our inability to sleep, our inability to being attentive and be present in conversations. There's just endless impacts.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, it's a through line, and a lot of what you said is some of that need for intentionality and what you're doing. You knew that going into doing therapeutic work, there was only going to be the deep – to be able to preserve your energy, you were going to need to focus on the bigger impact you wanted to make anyway, as well as not the places that could be particularly draining. We have a world where it asks for connection, it makes connection of all of our devices so easy. We have this huge intentional push to try and reduce that and be much more intentional about how are we actually going to spend our energy, and where is this going to go? That's not an easy balance to strike.

Amanda Gilchrist: Oh, no. I mean, I believe in being very transparent, just where I am as a human being. I don't think we do anyone any favors by pretending we have it all together. Although, I used to straddle that line, I was like, “Oh. All right, you girl, you got it together.” I gave everybody that look, and it wasn't helping them and it wasn't helping me. What I realized was in terms of just being transparent, even with people that I was working with, it was just so important for me to say like, hey, yes, I am a therapist. Yes, I am trained in a lot of the ways that we can communicate healthier, that we can engage in healthier habits. Still, sometimes, I'm going to choose to do the opposite, right? Because I am also human.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, yes.

Amanda Gilchrist: I also believe in just being having candor, right? I know you've probably heard online, they've said it for several years, people will say, choose violence. When I say things like that, it's like, I'm not actually – it's not that I'm actually choosing violence, but it's that like, hey, I know the right things to do, and still, sometimes, I choose violence. Meaning, I choose the harder way, or I choose the better informed way. I just like, you know what? I don't want to be the good person. I don't want to be responsible right now. I just want to be where I am. That's it.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes. That's a very good distinction.

Alex Cullimore: It's also super helpful, I think, to give people that candor, because that gives that permission that there's going to be a lot of pressure to feel like, you have to do this perfectly if you're going to go engage in this work, try and do it well all the time. Now that you know what the right thing to do is, you have to choose that every single time, or like, why did you even learn this? Helping people understand that, no, it’s just we're not perfect. We're not going to do it that way. That doesn't make things better. It actually makes a lot easier for people to engage in the work when they realize, oh, this doesn't have to be a I score 100%, or I don't get this at all.

Amanda Gilchrist: Which is why I have to give the caveat. I'm like, hey, I'm not your teacher. This is not one of those instances. If I give you and I call it, I would call it self-investments. I would not call it homework, because whoever wanted to do homework? Never wanted to do homework. There's nothing motivating about it.

Cristina Amigoni: I like this. Self-investments.

Amanda Gilchrist: Yeah. Here's your self-investment for the week. I was just like, if they come and they're like, “Oh, my goodness. I didn't get a chance to do it.” I'm like, listen, you don't owe me an explanation for anything. I'm not here for an explanation. I want you to know what got in the way. I want you to understand what got in the way. Because if this is your investment in yourself, then what prevented you? What was more important than this investment in you, right? That's not a judgment. It's another point of learning ourselves and learning all the things that we unintentionally put ahead of the things that we need to take care of ourselves, right?

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I recently saw something that said, when we have something on our plate, whether it was something that other people are expecting of us, or we expect of ourselves, and we don't do it, the bigger damage is not the person that is expecting us to do it. It's to ourselves, because we can no longer trust that we're going to do what's best for us, or what we said we were going to do. Rebuilding the trust of ourselves is a much bigger mountain to climb than the trust of others who may totally be like, yeah, that's fine. You didn't have time, no problem. For ourselves, especially if we're constantly doing that, we're constantly telling ourselves we can't trust ourselves.

Amanda Gilchrist: The fact that you bring that up, one, I'm going to say, that most of the time, many people don't realize, they're struggling with a lack of trust in themselves. It's not uncommon. I think sometimes people are like, how did I not know that? I mean, there's a lot of ways you didn't know that, right? We're not set up to know that. We're set up to be distracted and consumed with everything around us. That leaves less time for us to sit with what's happening for me. What do I need? What am I experiencing? That lack of self-trust is so important, because it also impacts your ability to trust other people. Not only yourself, but now you don't trust the people around you.

Then, more times than not, if you're not aware, you end up in this cycle of guilt and then shame, and then condemnation. Then it just keeps going, right? You have to be the one, or you have to have an experience, or something that brings you to awareness that says like, “I'm in a cycle and I don't want to be in this cycle anymore.” That trust, it's so, I think, paramount to who we are and how we show up in the world. I would ask if anyone knew any of my clients, they could probably ask them, “What's one thing Amanda to ask you that you thought was really strange, probably?” Most of them would probably say like, “Okay. I'm curious, who's been living with you for the longest? Your thought, your feelings. Who knows you the absolute best?” You'd be surprised the answers I would get.

I would also say, like, well, then who is the most qualified to know what you need for you? Because I was quickly trying to disqualify myself from being this – you're looking for advice for me, because it's not my job, right? My job isn't to give advice. It's to guide, it's to facilitate, it's to support, it's to help you to navigate, but it's never to advise you on what to do. Because you are your own person, you have different needs, different goals, different values, different belief systems. It doesn't matter if I like any of those things. It doesn't matter if I agree with them. Because this isn't about what works for me. It's not about what works for your mom, or your sister, or your friends, or your cousins, it's not about any of them. We don't care what they said, right? We can take those things into consideration. But you are uniquely qualified, because you know you better than anyone else.

We just get caught up in all the different voices that we take in from other people that we do trust, and that we believe care for us, and they want the best for us, but. they're not us, right? Now that I've lost that trust, because I can't make the distinction between my own voice, and everything else that I've been taking in, it's hard. It's not easy. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that to the forefront. Trust is just – trust, and also, forgiveness of yourself. Forgiving yourself for the mistakes you made, or the things that didn’t turn you hoped, or even the decisions, right? I used to get caught up in decisions like, “Oh, my gosh. Why did I do that?” I'm like, well, you don't know what it's going to turn out like, until it turns.

Cristina Amigoni: No. Exactly.

Amanda Gilchrist: Even then, guess what? We still have the ability to make another decision.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Most things can be repaired, or most things can be somewhat changed in a different way. The story doesn't have to go in a certain directions, like you said at the beginning, just because this and this and this happened. You can still do something to change that direction. If you have the awareness, and you make the conscious choice to say like, “Yes, that happened. I did this. No, it was not the best decision, or the best action, or the best way for me to show up. What can I do about it? I don't have to continue down this path. I can actually do something about that.”

Amanda Gilchrist: Yes. I think that's the thing. Our sphere of influence is so necessary. Yes, I was probably the poster child for I want to control everything around me, okay? That controls nothing, but a false sense of security. Well, if I had done this, then this could have happened. That was my way of soothing. I was soothing myself and saying, well, it didn't have to be this way. Because if I would have done this, then this would have been the outcome. In most cases, probably not. Probably, 99.9% of the case. Probably not.

Even still, I take on that responsibility, not because it belongs to me, but because it helps me feel safe, right? Because if I can take that on, that means I have the ability to change it, I have the ability to impact it. That just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy temporarily. I realized, okay, in order to gain control, you have to relinquish it, right? In order to have it, you have to relinquish it. I was like, I don't like these kind of paradoxes this. I was like, I don't know how I'm supposed to live by this. How does that? I was like, practically.

What it really looks like was, I'm realizing, whatever I can't control, so be it. But there are things that I can influence. How do I use my influence? My sphere of influence. What do I have the ability to change, or impact? That's it. Still working on that, too. Every now and then, one of action back. Action back and be like, “Let me do it. Let me.”

Alex Cullimore: I like so much that that goes back to the trust in yourself and being able to trust what you can control, trust what your decision on, what you can control. Even if you can't do it right now, or trusting that, hey, if something goes off the rails, or the decision I make feels it went to the wrong outcome, what do I do next? The trust that I will just make the next choice and another choice and trust that I made the decision I could at the time, even if now I can look back and be like, “Oh, damn. That would really take a left turn on me.”

There's so much trust that we have to build with ourselves. That takes so long, because of exactly that you're talking about, the voices that you end up installed in your head that you may have even truly had good intentions for you. Some of them may be less, but some of them truly had good intentions for you. It's looking to deliver the actual trust for yourself that will actually help you.

Amanda Gilchrist: Yeah. I had this huge revelation, which wasn't really a revelation. It was just the, okay, now I'm accepting this as truth is that everybody can make the best decision in hindsight. You know more now. 100% we can make a better decision in hindsight. Of course, right? It's like we're constantly judging ourselves, or rating ourselves on the places that we were in in our lives, right? I'm not giving myself credit for what I knew then, or the mindset I was in, or the resources that I had. Or, I don't know if that decision honestly would have been different if I would have been in the same circumstances, without the knowledge that I have now.

It's like expecting, everybody says like, “Oh, I need to give 100% of myself.” I'm like, okay. How do you give 100% of 60%? Because if you are here today and you only have 60%, how do you squeeze 100 out of 60? All right. What our 100% looks like on a day to day, 100% today might look the 60% that I do have, right? I'm giving that. We’re constantly saying like, “Oh, every day, I need to give this amount. If it doesn't meet this mark, and if it doesn't look like this, then I didn't do my best.” No. There is a such thing as a best for today, a best for the moment, a best for this very instance in life, where I am right now. But that best, it looks like one thing is a trap that I got caught up in a lot.

Cristina Amigoni: It's usually externally determined. It's all this surface stuff. I had a conversation with a friend over the weekend and we're talking about being a good mom. We're like, okay, let's break down what being a good mom is. A lot of the answers, the initial answers that come out when saying like, okay, define a good mom, it's all external stuff. It's organizing the best after soccer event for the whole team. Or it's about how the kids dress, or it's about the perfect vacation. It's like, none of that is internal. It's all external. Not only, but it's not even objectively judged, because everybody's definition of providing these things is going to be completely different. Like, the best team event after the soccer game is going to be different. My opinion of a best team event is going to be different from the next mom, or the next parent next to me. What is internally, does it actually mean to be a good mom? That has nothing to do with completely subjective external surface stuff.

Amanda Gilchrist: Mm-hmm. Not in the slightest. I will say, as someone who spent a lot of time sitting in front of people, and I did actually spend some time working with children, it's really about attachment. It comes back to attachment. I used to do so much attachment work with people. It wasn't about having the best things. Your parents, they could have, I'll say, especially even in my mom's generation, some of mine, it was like, do you have a roof over your head, clothes on your back? Are you being fed? All of those things were like, again, this means good parent, good mom.

Really, what it was was attunement, right? It's what is your child experiencing like? Do they believe that you hear them, that you value them, that you understand, or that you're trying to understand? Do they feel like your response matches the needs that they're trying to elicit from you at that time, right? If we had to boil it down to anything, it's presence, right?

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It is presence.

Amanda Gilchrist: It's presence. What does my child, what is my friend, what's my spouse, what do they need for me in this moment? What are they asking me for? Even if they can't always put words to it, right? I'm not saying, go out here and try to read minds, because none of us were equipped to do that. It is sometimes just sitting, right? Saying, “I'm here if you need me, or if you want to talk, or need space, I'm okay to give you that. I'm still here when you're ready, right?” It's just the connectedness.

I, too, was like, “Oh, yes. I'm going to be the mom who has all the things. I'm going to do all the things.” No. I want to know, does my kid know how to name proper feeling words? And they articulate what they're feeling in this moment? Now, those are the wins for me. It's so funny when you said, define. I'm like, there are probably so many people who would quickly be like, I don't know if we could just have normal conversation. Because I'm like, they'll ask me a question, I'm like, we'll define, because I believe normal is overrated. I'm like, well, define normal, because what does normal mean to you?

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Exactly.

Amanda Gilchrist: If you come and I ask you, I said, “Hey, how are you doing?” Especially if we're just sitting in depth and conversation. They'll say, “Good.” I'm like, “Okay. Well, what does that mean? What is good? Describe it for me. What's happening when things are good?” Because we just tend to let words mean this big, broad thing. But we all have a different big broad definition based on our experiences. We grew up like, normal for me is not necessarily normal for someone else, right? It's about my experiences.

Let's just talk about cities, okay? I grew up in a very small town called Enterprise, Alabama. The only way people know it is because of either the Boll Weevil, or the school was actually a high school was destroyed by a tornado back in 2001, and George Bush made it, and was there at the campus. And/or there's an aviation army base that’s nearby. That's really only way people know that little small town. At the same time, right, what you do know is I grew up in that area. Even if you don't know a lot about that very small town, you could probably assume that normal for me there is different from someone who grew up in Chicago.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Probably a good assumption.

Alex Cullimore: Slightly different. Yes.

Amanda Gilchrist: Yeah. Just a smidge. Not much.

Alex Cullimore: Just subtle differences. Yeah.

Amanda Gilchrist: Purpose level, you don't even have to know both places really well, but you could just think. Your mind goes all these places, right? Normal for me and normal for someone else looks completely different. I'm always asking those probing questions and they're like, “Oh, you're doing this therapist thing.” I'm like, no, it's really not a therapist thing. It's that things mean something different to all of us. I want to make sure that if you're asking me a question, or I'm asking you the question that we're at the same baseline, okay? I want to make sure we're having the same conversation here.

Alex Cullimore: There's definitely the giant differences. The easier, like yeah, you can point out Chicago and Enterprise are very different experiences. Yet, even within two people that are raised within Enterprise, even if you can understand some of the dynamics of the town, or you could both articulate them similarly, your relation to that is going to be entirely different. What you believe is normal, or good or not good, or great or not great about any of those is going to be entirely individually based in having space for that for yourself, as much as for other people, is not an easy task, but a very important one, if we're going to understand and connect both other people and ourselves.

Amanda Gilchrist: Yes. So, so true. It just highlights, there's just so many intricacies. I love saying like, we are the most simple and complex creatures. Very simple, but also complex. It's like, we could be in the exact same space watching the exact same movie, or concert and still walk away with different experiences. Although, nothing changed about the show, right? Yeah, we're all just living in our own worlds. We're the star of our own reality show, the unscripted version.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Well, and it's fascinating, because we do have very completely different experiences all the time. Very different perspective. It is one of the biggest gaps is not pausing, to make sure are we having the same, or at least similar? We're not going to have the same, but we are at least on the same plane of understanding and experience and communication right now? Because most of the times, we don't even pause to do that. We just assume that somebody else's understanding is the same as ours, so we can continue to like, okay, these are the action steps and let's do this and this and this. We don't even know we're in completely different universes of understanding.

Then when we have those glimpse of – I just read an article this morning about the importance of bits of connections and responding to bits of connections, no matter how small they are. I think part of the response, it's finding that even minuscule validation, I'm like, oh, wait, that person's experiences are validating that we may be somewhere in the similar plane of that. I was like, “I'm not alone in this reality. Somebody else is seeing at least a tiny little bit of the same reality in the same way.” Doesn't have to be 100%, but it's those, almost little pieces that come in that make us feel seen, because of like, “Oh, I'm not alone.”

Amanda Gilchrist: Mm-hmm. The world's way more interconnected than it's ever been. I would hear my grandma say like, “Oh, my gosh. The world is just falling apart.” I was like, I don't think it's falling apart as much as it already was, except for there just wasn't all these news outlets then.

Cristina Amigoni: You just didn't see it.

Amanda Gilchrist: You just didn't know it. You were just –

Cristina Amigoni: You just didn't know it was [inaudible 0:34:30].

Amanda Gilchrist: You’re just in your own little sphere, right? You didn't know what was happening across the country. All this information wasn't as accessible. It's just recognizing that we're in such a different space, like yes, we have access to so much information. There's so many ways to connect people. I can't even tell you now, I've lost count of the amount of people that I've met, that I've never seen in person before, but we were still able to really connect, right? Then you have social media and people can feel very connected to you and have never met you. We're also the most disconnected we've ever been.

I'm like, even yesterday, so very small short story. When I was really young in elementary school, I was playing softball and I got hit in the mouth. Don't even know how it happened. It was very traumatizing. After that, I was like, “Huh. No. No, thanks.” Well, interesting enough, I ended up marrying my husband. He loves baseball. How do you continue doing it? He probably, at least, would have been minor league. I told him, I was like, “You could have been major if you wanted to.” He still does intramural adult, softball and stuff like that. I was just like, “No, thanks.” I just think it was so boring. It's funny, because I love it now.

Yesterday, for the first time in my adulthood, I went to the batting cage with him and I actually softballed. You probably would look at me crazy with the amount of excitement, confidence, and just energy that I walked away with. Was I amazing? No. But I did this thing. I hadn't felt that excitement in quite a while. It's not because I'm about to go start playing intramural softball, or anything. It's just being able to disconnect. My husband taught me something that I was, “No. I'm not worried about that. I don't need to know how to do that.” it was just that I could.

I wasn't attached to a phone to do it. I didn't have to tell the whole world about it. Now, it probably will show up in a story later. Just there's a story and everything right there. There's a life lesson in everything. Just those small moments. Coming back home, I saw a kid outside of the basketball and I’m like, man, a kid outside with a basketball. It's made me think of all the simpler times of being outside, playing basketball. I used to cook in the dirt with a little stick, like grandma's yard. I go pull different plants and pretend I was making greens, or something.  Anywho, I mean, just the simple disconnected, but connected things that we used to be able to do just allowed you to enjoy life, period, that wasn't connected to a device. Yeah. Little things.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I remember watching it. Ironically, I was on Instagram at the time, but I was watching a community on Instagram talking about how when he was growing up, there was no such concept as mindful, because nobody had a cellphone. Every moment, you were just sitting, or waiting for a bus, or just whatever was happening in life, there was no other distraction. You all had just mindful moments at whatever times, just because that's what was available. Instead of having the ability to instantly flip open a phone and go on the Internet, or do whatever else to just distract and be away. There were a thousand other moments just for a chance for ourselves to be attuned, understand what we're doing, understand what we care about and what we want to do. Those are harder to come by, without significant intentionality now.

Amanda Gilchrist: So much harder to come by. There's just not a moment where, especially if your phone is not on silent. My family and my friends at this point, they have my husband's phone number, because they know they can't get to me for my phone. They're going to have to call him. My dad doesn't even really call my phone. He calls my husband. He's like, “Hey, I'm just checking and seeing how my daughter is.” Because I will leave it in another room, somewhere else. If I can completely disconnect from it, I will be in my own little world and I would pretend it does not exist, and it works for me.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. My phone is permanently on silent. Then when I put it on do not disturb, I always forget to take it off of to not disturb. It's just, the emergency people can get through. Other than that, I don't know what's going on.

Amanda Gilchrist: Right. I don't even know what a ringtone sounds like anymore. I mean, unless I hear someone’s else’s ringtone, but my own phone, no. My husband’s like, “Why don't you ever have ring your own blah, blah, blah.” I'm like, “Why? I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. I don't need it.” The people who need to get me, they know how to get to me. That's probably why I have an Apple Watch now. He's like, “At least if I call her, her wrist will vibrate.” That's about it. Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yeah. What do you see at the macro level? You talk about in one-on-one counseling at the macro level, what would you like to see change, improve? What investments are needed there?

Amanda Gilchrist: I would definitely say, for years, so I said, I used to do public and private. But for years, I used to be in state government and funding was always a huge thing. Honestly, I was short-sighted then, right? Not necessarily in a bad way, but it was like, we're the mental health agency. There's a responsibility that we have. If we create the funding, if we develop all these programs, then we can make the impact. Really, the impact is also helping others to make impact, like employers.

Employers actually have a much greater impact on our mental health, like our job. Okay. I mean, our managers, direct line, CEOs have a much greater impact on our mental health than going to therapy for 45 or 60 minutes a week. So much time, right? It has a lot of impact on how we show up at home and how we’re interacting with our families. I can recall instances where I was working at the mental health agency, ironically, I was traveling all over the state and helping develop this mobile crisis program. I would smile and have a million interactions throughout the day that I felt were frustrating and barriers and things that just were like, felt they were pushing me 10 steps back. I'm like, you told me to do this. Then it's like, I'm not supposed to do it. I don't know. What do you want me to do, right?

I would keep it all together, because we have to get things done. You've got to maintain professionalism. When I got home, anybody could ask me one question and it could be a very simple question. It was like, I would just explode. It had nothing to do with them, or their question. It was like, “Well, what do you want for dinner?” “What do you mean what I want for dinner? I've been gone all day. I've traveled the road. I had to commute back home.” This person said, we could do this. It had nothing to do with the question. The question itself was not a bad question. It wasn’t the tone. It wasn't the approach. It was just that, I was carrying so much in my work environment, from the place that I was spending more time that it was just bleeding into everything else, all right. My life was being controlled by work. 

Work was the thing I needed to do to make sure that we had a life, right? How do you even do this? Imagine me, right? In government, therapy. I'm like, how do you work so that you can have a life, but the work starts dictating your life? Now you don't have either of the things that – Nothing feels aligned. Everything is off-kilter. If anything, so much of what we experience from a mental health stance comes from all the different ways we're engaging. One of the biggest though is work, right? Can you get away from that?

I'm like, now, today, my answer is different. Before I would say, oh, more funding, so we can have more programs. Now I'm like, no, let's figure out how we as a human collective, humankind, and just help make the work environments better, right? The places where we're all having to spend so much time, why does it have to be such a big source of stress, or mental disparagement, or burnout, or ailment and everything else in between, because we're trying to do, do, do and need all these outcomes.

Okay. Well, who came up with the outcomes and who said how to do it? We have so much more control and much more power. We're just yielding it, because we got to get these things done. I'm like, said, who?

Cristina Amigoni: Another human.

Amanda Gilchrist: Right.

Cristina Amigoni: Who probably didn't sleep last night and had bad food, and now was making this decision that everybody’s just marching on and bringing home in their frustration.

Amanda Gilchrist: Chances are, you can usually track that back to a human.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Amanda Gilchrist: Who is also in a space where they're trying to chase the next milestone for their fulfillment, happiness. It's not in the milestone. It's in navigating the journey. It all just comes for me as just so simple. It comes down to people. If you're chasing the next destination, the next milestone, the next outcome, you won't get to a place where you feel fulfilled.

Cristina Amigoni: No. You won’t.

Amanda Gilchrist: Even when you get to the milestone, I think if most people took the time to realize like, it doesn't feel as great, you don't really celebrate it. It's like, mm. Now, I think there's even, I heard someone say this lately that, I think they were talking about Michael Phelps. For as many, this man is so decorated and still felt the most disparaged to press on a compliment, because of having hit all of those milestones, because it was about the next thing, right? The person who wins is the person who usually ends up being suppressed.

The second and third place, they still are striving towards something. There’s still a journey for them. When we keep treating life like it’s a destination and not a journey, you don't ever get there. Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: We treat business like it's a destination, not a journey. It's always about, yeah, the next goal, the next milestone, the next quarterly sales report, the next whatever revenue goal. Then you get there, like you said, and it’s like, oh, well, okay, next one. Figure out what the void is and stop making people's lives miserable. Figure out what your own void is.

Amanda Gilchrist: Right. I would tell, so for a little while, I did work with couples. I'd be like, if you really want to help your relationship, do self-work, right? Focus on yourself. Take care of you, invest in you. If you want to know how you can help make your relationship better, work on making yourself better. Not the comparison checking box version, but the, how can I be – who do I want to be? How can I get one step closer to that? Or, how can I be a better version of myself today than I was yesterday? It's not competing with who looks like they're the greatest, because everybody can look like a great spouse on the surface.

Just the way that people – I’ll ask my husband, “What it’s like being married to a therapist?” I mean, I will say, there's different seasons in our marriage where he will just say different things. In the beginning, he thought I was trying to analyze him all the time. I was like, no, because I actually don't want to do that. That's a lot of work. It's too messy. Okay, we're too close to each other for me to do that. Now, he's just like, it can be great if you allow it to be. I wouldn't even really say that it's because I'm a therapist. It's just, because I've spent so much time not only sitting with my own feelings, but sitting with other people's feelings, and empathizing and connecting and seeing them and having understanding, even for things that I don't necessarily think I would ever do, or agree to, but I still can understand how they got there. Or I still can empathize with the place that they're in. I think that just puts you in a different position, relationally to people.

It's like, I don't think that really has anything to do with being a therapist. I think it just has everything to do with it, could we all learn how to be a little bit more empathetic? Could we all learn how to like, just not even walk. We don't need to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Let's just look through their lens. Let's try to see what it looks like, embedded in the circumstances that they are, right? That's it for me. I try to keep it that simple. Because I mean, I'm still trying to grow. We are all still trying to grow. I will quickly tell anyone who's going to see a therapist, I'm like, “Does your therapist have a therapist?” “No.” This doesn’t mean they have to be in therapy all the time, right?

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes.

Amanda Gilchrist: We have therapy all the time. It means like, they need to also have things that they believe in. Are they practicing it too? Do they invest in themselves? Because some people would frown upon it. But if I didn't have the emotional depth, or I wasn't in the headspace to see a client and be fully present with them, then I would cancel the session. Because I'm not doing them any good, and I'm not doing myself any good. If I am there really for them, then I need to be able to give the best version of that. Just showing up half – I mean, one, let's just say, interns are not, therapy is not cheap. Also, two, people are sitting to share their entire world with you. What does it say about my level of respect for that if I'm showing up all over the place, right? Not present.

Cristina Amigoni: Indeed.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I like that, what you said about needing, that presence being so important. You answered it when you're talking about good parenting and stuff. It's trying that attunement and trying to be attuned. I think one thing that people sometimes get caught up on is like, well, I'll never be able to understand everything that's going on in the world. That's not the point. The point is the intention. The point is the presence. The point is that people will feel that intention. They will understand when you make a mistake, we're going to step in it. We're going to misinterpret things from other people sometimes. If we can trust that that intention is trying to be in the right place, and trying to do better next time, and trying to understand what we have to say, when it has to be corrected, it's so much more powerful than getting it right. We're never going to get it right. We'll just work to be in a space to show that we are continuing to try to get it right.

Amanda Gilchrist: I love the point that you brought. You don't necessarily have to understand. You're not always going to understand. That's the thing. I think so many times we've attached understanding with permission, or acceptance, or validation. Really, understanding is not a requirement for any of those things. I don't have to agree with you, or understand to love you, to trust you, to empathize with you, to be present with you, to care for you, to be patient. Understanding is not required for any of those things, right?

Cristina Amigoni: To believe you.

Amanda Gilchrist: Exactly. I can believe you. I can believe that in this moment, this is the choice that you feel you had to think. I can believe all of those things, and not understand, and also, not even agree and choose. I still care for you. I'm still here. You're still a person I value. Those things aren't synonymous. I'm like, if they are interconnected, then it's not a real relationship, right? There's something that you say they're there, they're not really there, right? Because I don't understand you, like everything else gets cut off. It's transactional, right?

Cristina Amigoni: You're not in the same relationship.

Amanda Gilchrist: Not at all. I'm pretty sure, I don't necessarily read all the terms and conditions when I sign up for new apps and stuff like that. At the same time, I'm thinking that most people aren't signing up for terms and conditions where they say, if you don't understand, if I don't understand you, that means I don't care about you, right? I mean, I don't understand some things about me sometimes.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. We don't even understand ourselves most of the times.

Amanda Gilchrist: Right. There's this concept that is called Johari's window. It's like a window pane. I would share this with people, because I think it just really – it gives you a great framework, or a big picture of life, and even just getting to a point of understanding yourself. Johari's window is four panes, and in each pane, it represents something different. One pane is the things that you know about yourself and other people also know about you. The second one is the things that you know about yourself that other people don't know about you. The third is the things that you can't see about you, but other people can see them about you. Then the fourth is the things that aren't ever revealed to anyone else, or yourself about who you are. Because we're always growing and evolving and changing. We're changing, even if we don't want to change, right? You don't even have to try to change and you'll change.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Exactly. You’re still changing.

Amanda Gilchrist: Internally and externally. It just speaks to the fact that this is a journey and not a destination. You're never going to get to a place where you are a 100% I know all the depths and intricacies and every single thing there is to know about myself. Because if I'm always evolving, I'm always discovering, and there's still more to discover. I mean, come on. If we just look at it in that way, right? It gives a greater appreciation for the fact that I gained so much, probably, confidence, relief when I gave myself permission to not have all the answers.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Amanda Gilchrist: Quickly got comfortable with the phrase and it was so freeing. It was like, I'm not sure, but I'll get back to you on that one. I'm not sure, but I probably know somebody who does, right? I'm not really certain. I mean, here's my thought. It's just freeing. Yeah, I don't know all the answers. I mean, when we get into right and wrong, right? It's semantics, what is right and what is wrong. Yes, morally, we know certain things are right and wrong. We know based on law. When it comes to individual decisions about our lives and our future, what is right and what is wrong? Where do those standards and criteria come from? All internal. Yeah, it's again, simple and complex.

Cristina Amigoni: Simple and complex.

Alex Cullimore: Simple and in no way using.

Amanda Gilchrist: I am excited. I felt for my husband sometimes. I’m like, “Man, are you okay?” Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: He probably is now that you went to the bed in cages together.

Amanda Gilchrist: I bet he is. I gave him his process. Like, “You're a pretty good teacher.” Let's just be honest, there are still times that I will overthink things. I'm like, “Oh, my gosh. No, I don't think I'm going to –” I’m like, “So, what if I fail? What if I don't hit the ball out there?” I tried. It was fun. I laughed at myself. The only stipulation I gave to him was like, just don't laugh at me too hysterically. It doesn't need to be over the top. Like, ha, ha, laugh and then just let it be, right? Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: It's a good stipulation.

Amanda Gilchrist: I mean, it made me took it.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Last couple of questions for you. One is, where can people find you?

Amanda Gilchrist: One, I'm just going to be fully honest and say like, I've got to get back into my social media. I used to be on it a lot, but not so much, right? You could find me on Instagram @amandagilchrist_lpc. Or, you can also find me on LinkedIn, Amanda Gilchrist. I also, on Facebook as well. I don't do Facebook as much, but I mean, I still share some different things, some insights. I'm picking back up on doing it. I will say, I'm entering a newer season in my life and you guys know about it. I'm finding my flow in that new season. Now I finally, I'm starting to have the creative bandwidth and space to really start sharing again.

Then, if you're curious about what I do, because I, of course, I'm in business with Matt Ley, who was also a guest on here previously. We co-founded IPN Advisors together. That's also why, for me, this work that we're doing is so important. We do work with organizations and leaders just at their inflection points, right? At the points where things are shifting and you're not exactly sure how, or what to do, or why, but I can tell you what, if you focus on the people with the systems and the processes, the organizational health and operational, you can't have one without the other, right?

Yeah, we are doing that work together now. My hope is that we are able to support the development of a lot healthier workplaces that actually have really good impacts on people's mental health, right? The impact on the way that they make their impacts on the world. If we have to spend a lot of time there, why not let it be a place that you feel valued and seen and heard and understood, and you also get to be a human who also gets to produce things that affect other people's lives, right? Yeah. ipnadvisors.com, I think. Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: Lastly, what's your definition of authenticity? Talk about defining. Something that's really hard to define.

Amanda Gilchrist: Yes. Interesting enough, this is a journey for me a little bit. I think, I actually said at the beginning, I said, just be. It's because we are human beings, right? Think about, it means many things. We’re human beings. Not doings. So many times, you find that we're doing first and not being, right? Behind that, just be, it's present, intentional, impactful, and boundary, right? Because presence is the greatest gift that you can give anyone, including yourself. Intention is the foundation for all of these things, because the world is set up to constantly distract us. It's so important to know where you want to go. Or even big picture, just where you're headed and make the small decisions with intention that get you in that direction, get you headed towards that direction. Impactful, because I'm like, we are all based on this earth for purpose, right? There's definitely something more to life than just being born, growing up, working, and paying taxes and dying, right? There's so much more to it.

Cristina Amigoni: Hopefully.

Amanda Gilchrist: There’s so much more, right? Tangible, like what's that thing that you want, the gift that you already have, the story you have to tell, that impacts the world? When I say the world, it could be one person, it could be a million people. Of the people you impact, you may never know all their stories, you may never know how many people you impacted just by smiling at them, even if you don't know them. Then that final one is boundary, which is the thing most of us struggle with, because we feel we have to. Boundaries are about safety, security, and respect of yourself. The better that you get at learning what it means to hold the line for yourself and safety and security and respect, the better you get at relationships with other people, and the easier it is to know who's supposed to be part of your life and who's not.

Everybody will be part of your life when you're giving them everything you want at the cost of your sanity and your well-being and everything else in between. When you're taking care of yourself, when you are the very best version of yourself, and you respect yourself, who's around then, right? Because there are a lot of us who love the not-so-taking-care version of other people. What does it mean they are taking care of themselves? Yeah, for me, that's what authenticity looks like. It's just knowing what you need for safety, security, and holding the line, being impactful, being present, being intentional. That's it for me.

Cristina Amigoni: I like that definition.

Amanda Gilchrist: It took me a long, long time to give. It was different things. It's almost to a place in my life where I thought I was being authentic. Really, I had just gotten really good at being the version that I thought people wanted me to be. Also, very, very hard wall to run up against.

Cristina Amigoni: That could be a whole podcast episode.

Amanda Gilchrist: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Then the turmoil that it causes in your life when you start showing up authentically, because everybody's like, “You're just this and that and the third.” I'm like, I don't know. I'm just, I’m not trying.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Well, thank you, Amanda.

Amanda Gilchrist: Thank you.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you so much.

Amanda Gilchrist: You all are amazing. I still am always excited when I meet people who just want to impact the world, right? Who want to focus on people first. Because I mean, the world is the world, because of all the people that are in it.

Cristina Amigoni: People who exist. 

Amanda Gilchrist: Yes. Yeah, Call me and to have a conversation anytime. I'll probably talk to you all.

Cristina Amigoni: I'm sure we will. I'm sure Matt's waiting, too.

Amanda Gilchrist: Oh, yeah. Listen, Matt's like, “Oh, Amanda. I'm the one who talks a lot.” I’m like, “Actually, I do talk a lot.” It's just that I just ebb and flow sometimes. It's just, sometimes I'm just there and present. Then others –

Cristina Amigoni: Presence.

Amanda Gilchrist: Yeah. Presence. That's it. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you. Thank you, everyone, all for listening.

[END OF EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Thanks so much for listening to Uncover the Human. We Are Siamo, that is the company that sponsors and created this podcast. If you’d like to reach out to us further, reach out with any questions or beyond the podcast, please reach out to podcast@wearesiamo.com. Or you can find us on Instagram. Our handle is @wearesiamo, S-I-A-M-O. Or you can go to wearesiamo.com and check us out there. I suppose, Cristina, you and I have LinkedIn as well. People could find us anywhere else.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, we do have LinkedIn. Yes. Yeah. We’d like to thank Abby Robinson for producing our podcast and making sure that they actually reach all of you. And Rachel Sherwood for the wonderful score.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you guys so much for listening. Tune in next time.

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you. 

[END]