Breaking the Good Girl Script: How Emotional Energetics Changed Everything

Lori Kirstein opens up about overcoming decades of depression and anxiety through emotional energetics and spirituality after losing her mother to cancer at age 21. She shares how shifting from following rules to honoring her authentic emotions transformed her mental wellbeing and empowered her to help others.

• Lost her mother to cancer after 11 years of illness, leading to decades of clinical depression
• Discovered spiritual awakening through books and meeting the Indian spiritual teacher Amachi
• Felt temporary relief from spiritual experiences but continued to battle deep depression
• Created the Goodbye Good Girl Project to help women break free from disempowering patterns
• Experienced a breakthrough using Abraham Hicks-inspired "rampages" of appreciation and self-love
• Lifted her depression in just five days through focused emotional journaling techniques
• Maintains her mental wellbeing by putting emotions first and recognizing her worth
• Believes in creating "breakdown to breakthrough" moments in personal healing
• Now coaches other women on leadership and emotional energetics
• Offers free 30-minute strategy calls to help women step into their ease and strength

Connect with Lori through her website and take advantage of her free 30-minute strategy call. The links are in the show notes.

https://tidycal.com/goodbyegoodgirlproject/strategysession

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Lori's Journey
• 4:55 Life Before Emotional Energetics
• 11:50 Spiritual Awakening with Amachi
• 20:22 Breaking Free from the Good Girl
• 30:21 The Depression Breaking Point
• 35:17 The Abraham Hicks Rampage Miracle
• 42:00 Maintaining Mental Health Today

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Warriors, it's Amy. With Advancing with Amy, mental health warrior, neuro-spicy mama, Today I sit down with Lori Kirstein, who gets honest about battling decades of depression and anxiety after losing her mom and how diving into emotional energetics and spirituality helped her reclaim her joy and sense of self. Lori shares her journey from following the good girl script to breaking free, learning to listen to her emotions and finding hope in unexpected places. From spiritual books to healing rampages inspired by Abraham Hicks. She's real about the ups and downs, what worked and what didn't, and how she now empowers other women to stand in their worth.

Speaker 1: 0:46

If you've ever felt stuck or questioned your own path to healing, this episode is for you. Get ready for some honest stories, heartfelt advice and a dose of inspiration to help you on your own journey. Let's dive in. All right, here we are on Advancing with Amy, Mental Health Warrior and NeuroSpicy Mama, and today we're talking to Lori Kirstein and she's going to talk with us about some emotional energetics and how it's really changed her life. So, Lori, can you tell me a little bit about what life was like before emotional energetics?

Speaker 2: 1:25

O-M-G Life was like OMG, it really was tough. I mean, from the time when I was 11, my mother got sick with cancer and that set the emotional you know the emotional theater play for our lives which was like panic and fear and worry and things like that. And then she passed when I was 21. And I went into incredibly incredible depression, just decades of clinical depression and clinical anxiety. And I went when I was a little girl, girl. I was like just so full of joy and full of knowing my mastery of my world. Meaning, when you're a little kid, if you're not being, you know, in a bad situation, if you're a little kid, you grow up reasonably comfortable, reasonably protected. You might remember feeling like everything's good, everything's's going to be great. You know like I'm going to build this incredible life and it's going to. I'm going to be amazing. And and then when she died, when she got sick and then died cause it was the sickness, it was 11 years of illness you know of. Is it today? Is it today? Is it today? You know, like, for 11 years it's no fun.

Speaker 2: 2:41

Then I just became really obsessed with worry. And then I just became really obsessed with worry and I felt like there was no support from the world, like the universe, and if there was a God, then God must be against me. It was that kind of thing where I felt like I had to try to control everything about my life because there was no, nothing there to support me. There was no ground under my feet. It was. It was ridiculous. I mean I, you know, we women, we I mean this is true for men as well, but especially for we women we tend to move into this life thinking I need to follow the rules, I need to do what I'm told to do, and then I'll be happy, right, right. So it's like that idea of like I'll be happy while I'm doing it because I'm going to have fun and I'm going to create something I love. It's going to come from me, my authentic. That's off the table for a long time. So what changed? What changed was I have been on a spiritual path for a very, very long time.

Speaker 2: 4:09

When I was about 30 or 29, I read a book by Shirley MacLaine like to be kind to people, to make the world better, to make my world better. You mean that's spirituality, that's what that's called. Really. I had no idea and it really did light me up. It turned on a switch and for about four days I walked through my regular life, going to work and doing all this. I was in such joy, 100% joy. For four days I would walk past people and look at them and they would smile, they'd light up too. It was just like amazing, yeah. And so from that moment on I was going okay, so I have to look into this spirituality stuff.

Speaker 2: 4:44

And then I met the great hugging saint, amici, in 1988. Now Amici, she was a young girl. Her Indian name was Sudamani and she lived in a little fishing village called Kerala in India. And she knew from the moment she was born. She knew, coming in, who she was. She knew that she was one with the divine. She didn't have to go on that journey we all have to go on.

Speaker 2: 5:11

She knew, like at six months old, she was walking like a normal person like you and me. She wasn't toddling, she was walking. She started like when she was I don't think. I think it was like a year old she started singing songs to the divine. I mean, she's just.

Speaker 2: 5:26

She is proof that we are really one with that universe, that God, that spirit whatever you want to, however you frame it met her when I was about 31, 32, something like that. I was blown away because I could feel it. I could feel how one with her I was, but that didn't mean I could be her Right, right, right. So like she was there for 10 days. This was in Boston and she was there for 10 days and I just quit my temp job and just sat with her for the entire morning program and the entire evening program. I wanted to be nowhere else and I felt all the pores in my skin just open up and like they were streaming light. It was that extreme, it was that complete and that blissful to be with her and 10 days later, when she left.

Speaker 1: 6:30

I crashed.

Speaker 2: 6:30

I crashed because I was back with my normal mode of feeling and my normal mode of thinking, and it was crap thinking. It was like I was hard on myself. I didn't think much of myself. There was really nobody home, honestly. And so over the years I went and I searched and I asked questions, and that's where my company, the Goodbye Good Girl Project, actually comes from. It's all of these questions that I asked because I didn't want to have a belief. I wanted to have that experience.

Speaker 1: 7:13

And I wanted it to come from me. So did you always feel like you had?

Speaker 2: 7:15

been a good girl and that was what was keeping you back. No, I actually I did know that a lot of us, most of us in this culture, are pretending. Right, we're all just sort of pretending so we can get by right.

Speaker 2: 7:29

It has nothing to do with anything but our training, right. And yet we tend to blame ourselves for that right. We go oh my gosh, there must be something wrong with me or I must be stupid, or whatever it's couched, we all we're like, oh me, it's me, it's me. And the thing about truth, real high vibrational, emotional, spiritual truth, is that it's like a coin and we're just looking at the wrong side. Oh, wow, yeah, it is me, it is you. But it's not what's wrong with you, it's let's look at all that's right with us, right, what's all what is strong about us, what is amazing, and and that runs against all of our training. So it's not really that we have to go and fix us.

Speaker 2: 8:21

I don't know about you, but I've spent so much money going to workshops and right like, just help me, fix me, fix me, and, you know, even going to see Amachi, who we call mother, because ama in the other countries means mother and Amachi, the chi part, is the honorific, which means beloved or dear, or honored. So a lot of people get really addicted to the guru. Oh, I bet Right, because they want that hit. They want that hit of like I'm in bliss, but I was very fortunate. In a very bizarre way my depression wouldn't let me alone. So after I'd met her, that first year and was totally, yeah, everything is fab. And then the second year it was a little less things are fab. And by the third year I was like full on depression, even sitting with her.

Speaker 1: 9:15

Did she have to say about that, or did she?

Speaker 2: 9:19

She doesn't, she didn't, she talks about that we, we must meditate, and I had questions about that as well. Like what? Like, I suck at that. So what does that mean? Like, what's? What am I doing it for? Is it supposed to bring me joy? Because all it does is make me look at all the things that I'm already thinking and that I'm miserable about. So, like, how does that help? She says that we really are one with all that. And she says all kinds of remarkable things. Like she says mother has no special place to dwell, she dwells in your heart. Oh, wow, mother is always with you. That's beautiful and it's a it is, it's a beautiful concept.

Speaker 2: 10:07

But I wanted it real. And I went to her at one point and I said how do I keep you with me? Because I knew I wasn't moving to India, because I knew that when I'd asked, when you go to India, to her ashram, where do you sleep? How does that work? Oh, you're in a dormitory, basically with tons of people. I'm like, no, I'm not going. No, I snore, I'm not going. And also the heat. I'm really bad with heat. So I knew I wasn't going to live there.

Speaker 2: 10:40

And what she said to me when I asked her that question, she said she said, don't worry, mother is always with you. And I said yes, but I don't know how to feel that she said just imagine I'm right there next to you. Did that help? No, not at the time. Not at the time.

Speaker 2: 10:59

See, the thing is that my journey has been one of asking a lot of questions about everything. That seems like it should work like that, because, you know, we live in a culture that says you sit, take pill, right, right, are you unhappy? Fix it Like. There's just like this instant sort of situation thing that we've been told it. There's just like this instant sort of situation thing that we've been told. And, in fact, what's missing? What's been missing and what was missing for me for a long time was actually the feminine, and the feminine is something interesting because we don't usually define it and we women have abandoned it because we've been told we must. The toxic masculine has been put forward as our gold standard, and what I mean by the toxic masculine is you're not good where you are, have a goal and maybe someday you'll be happy and work your butt off right.

Speaker 1: 12:02

If you work hard enough, you'll get what you deserve.

Speaker 2: 12:04

Yeah now how many of us know that that is not true oh, it's in my hand, yeah yeah, yeah, oh my god. And women, we don't have to only work twice as hard as men, we have to work five times as hard as men.

Speaker 1: 12:20

And apologize for it at the same time. And apologize for it at the same time, and.

Speaker 2: 12:23

And apologize for it at the same time and ask permission. And then we also do that to ourselves, because what we've done is what any good victim does, because that's a victim system Okay, that's just a victim system. And so what we do is we learn to should on ourselves. Oh, yeah, right, really hard. And so there are all of these things that we do that when we stop doing them, we suddenly feel odd because it's like wait, I'm just allowing myself to be me. How is that possible?

Speaker 2: 12:57

So little things like and your audience will be able to see this, but they can imagine when you're talking to somebody who is a man in power, a man who's like the VP or the CEO or something, the normal thing we'll do is sort of like hitch a shoulder and like tilt our head and say you know, yeah, nice to meet you, and we go into total physical disempowerment mode. We will also I just was thinking about this today If you stand with your feet together and you're talking to somebody and your feet are right, just right next to each other, feel your feet touching each other, you're easy to push over physically. You're easy to push over If you separate your feet to your shoulder width and stand like that in your power, two things are going to happen. You're going to feel stable. You're going to feel like, oh my God, I'm taking up space. Actually, three things are going to happen. The person across from you may get a little uncomfortable if they're used to you standing with your feet together because you cannot be easily pushed over.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Right, so you've changed the dynamics.

Speaker 2: 14:07

Absolutely, absolutely, and realize about that it doesn't mean that you have to say something special or do something special other than just separating your feet and standing upright, not letting your shoulders sort of fold in, but like letting yourself stand up. You know, titties up like less than like everybody. Just be who you are, I'll stand up. You know. You are a human adult woman, mm, hmm, you exist, you are worth. You don't just have worth. You are worth. You don't just have worth. You are worth.

Speaker 1: 14:48

So are these things you learned when you were questioning, or is this something that you came into later?

Speaker 2: 14:55

This is definitely from questioning, and I'll tell you what brought me out of the depression. But the coming out of all of the beliefs that keep us all down was because I relentlessly questioned. And you know, if you're a good girl, you don't ask questions other than the ones that will help you behave better. Better quote unquote Right, yeah, I mean, how often have you sat in like a meeting and everybody's talking and what's going on in your head is I have something to say, but I don't know if I should. I don't know this is really important, but Should I? What should I do? Like there's this whole like symphony of garbage going on in your own head.

Speaker 1: 15:41

Well, and part of that is because women are hard on each other. I actually started a new job in October last year and the first meeting I went to I spoke up and talked and I found out later one of the other managers said why is she talking? Is that a man or a woman? Was it a woman, a woman? And I thought why do we do that to each other?

Speaker 2: 16:03

I have an answer. I don't know if you'd want an answer to that. Yeah, it's only mine, but yeah, I think it's because we have bought into the masculine, the toxic masculine system. You was probably I mean, in a way it wasn't about you in a big way it probably kicked your butt because it activated all those I shouldn't, I shouldn't, you know, messaging I was quiet at the next few meetings and I I'm still sort of feeling my way.

Speaker 2: 16:33

You know, with this kind of growth it's never ending, and that's actually the fun. Once you can get to how to do that, it's actually fun because you're in a constant state of a discovery about all the stuff, little by little, that you're going oh, that's garbage, I don't have to do that anymore. Oh, oh, and look what I'm doing now. And that's really me. Ooh, I like that me. Ooh, she's cool, I like her, I love doing that. You start to have so much fun being you, yeah that's great.

Speaker 1: 17:08

It's good for anything. Did you ever talking about your depression? Did you ever try conventional methods to get rid of the depression? Yeah, oh, I'm still on antidepressants, by the way because, if the worst forgetting they.

Speaker 2: 17:21

I'm on. Uh, what's it called? Effects are I'm I'm on the. I do that as well, yeah, and it's the worst of all of them, it wraps itself around your brainstem. Yeah, yeah, it's like getting off of that Horrible withdrawal to get off.

Speaker 2: 17:38

Sorry, horrible withdrawal to get off that For me, I can't. Well, I have a story about that too, but I can't. Well, I have a story about that too, but I can't. I had to go back on it. I got off it once. Wild, crazy story.

Speaker 2: 17:52

There was a shaman I met who I'm not kidding, I'm not making this up, this is like crazy, utterly cuckoo. But this guy lives in, I think, alabama and he went. He was a an army guy, I think, and he was over in iceland and he ran into some group. He went to some group where they were doing all of this shamanistic healing and he was absolutely enraptured by it. And after he got out of the military he went back and he studied to become a shaman and so he is a major like he can. He doesn'taman, and so he is a major like he can. He doesn't every single time, but he's a major energy healer.

Speaker 2: 18:33

Somebody told me about him. I called him and he talked to me and he said what's up? And I said here's what's going on and I really I don't want to be on these meds anymore. He went okay, hold on a second, and I'm telling you. Within a few minutes he said to me okay, you're good, congratulations, you're off of them. And I went, yeah, sure, right, cause you know what it's like to miss a dose. Oh, yeah, you feel it, your head goes squirrely, you're like it's not pretty. And so I thought, yeah, that's funny. But I said to him oh, thank you so much, I really appreciate it. And I said, well, I said to myself you know, I usually take this at night, but I'll skip it tonight and I'll see how I feel tomorrow and I'll bring it to work with me. I went to work, I was fine. I was fine all day. I was fine all night. I know it's like what, what? I was fine all night. I know it's like what, what is happening that night? I'm like do I?

Speaker 2: 19:45

And I went to work the next day I still had all of it in my purse. You know I'm like anytime I need one, I'm popping a pill Nothing. For four months I didn't need any of it Any of it, I know it blew my freaking mind. Then what started to happen was I was in a terrible job. I was trying a different career path wrong career path for Lori. Oh, it was torture and I'm really actually I'm being. I mean, I don't mean that they were torturing me, but it was torture for me to do, to try to do this and and I just persevere too much. So I was like I'm going to make it work. And the more that it stressed me, the more whatever it was he had done started to not work as well and I started to have a little bit of the withdrawal symptoms. And then and then I had my third nervous breakdown of my life. Yep, and this is, this was actually one of those things where you go this is the worst and yet it gave me the best.

Speaker 1: 20:49

Really, what was the best that came out of it?

Speaker 2: 20:52

What happened was are you aware of somebody named Abraham Hicks?

Speaker 1: 20:57

Yes, I've listened to some of his material.

Speaker 2: 21:01

Yeah, and for those listening who don't know, I mean it's a channeled collection of beings and it's this lovely woman named Esther Hicks, right, who channels them and their entire message. And they've been doing this for 30 some years. Like this has been going on for freaking ever, like a massive band, like I've got to listen to everything, but they're all on YouTube, it's free. It's like I could do this. So, as I was sinking, as I was just going into incredibly deep depression, having I had two weeks straight of God, what is that thing called? Oh God, what is it where you're just totally freaked out, your can kid that can't call yes, yes, yes. It was literally a 24-7, two weeks without rape panic attack. How horrible, oh my God.

Speaker 2: 21:57

I think I might be my favorite badass currently, because I actually went and filmed a commercial. One of the things I've done is acting and I actually filmed a commercial while having a full things I've done is acting and I actually filmed a commercial while having a full-on panic attack. That's incredible. I could not believe I was doing it, but I was like I'm kind of I'm a Capricorn and I'm kind of it's well, it's just go. Yeah, I'll make it work, but here I was having this incredibly hard time and I was off the medication and I'd been off it for four, four and a half months, you know. So I was just, I was going down and a friend of mine. I called her and said you've got to take me to the hospital. And I went to the hospital and they said, okay, well, I said I don't want to go back on effects or I don't want to go back.

Speaker 2: 22:47

So they gave me another drug, but it really didn't work. Though I'm still miserable, there's like no relief, none. So I ended up going back two weeks later to the ER and they go what do you want to do? I go, put me back on the effects, or I at least know it works, and I'd rather be alive. Right, I give up. Yeah, I, yeah, uncle. Yeah, so I took it, I took it, and, but I still had like two weeks to wait until it kicked in. Do you know what I mean? Takes a little while. Two to four weeks, yeah, two to four weeks, I know.

Speaker 2: 23:21

And I was like, oh, dear God. And what they said to me before I left was you know, you can always come back, but all we could do is lock you up. There's nothing more we can do for you. I'm like that's not the mission. Yeah, yeah, I don't want that. No, oh, so, but there I am sitting there in July, middle of the night, and I'm I mean, I'd been in bed for weeks Like I was doing the last bits of the of the job they were letting me work from home because I was a serious mess and middle of the night I can feel myself. I'm going down for the third time and I can't go back to the ER, I mean, unless it's absolutely the last thing you know, but I can come up with 16 million ways of doing something Like this is one of my strengths.

Speaker 2: 24:15

But at this moment I had nothing. I was empty. I had nothing and I said that to Spirit. I said I got, I got. And I didn't say it like can you give me I? I got, I got. And I didn't say it like can you give me. I was just like I'm out, I'm done.

Speaker 2: 24:30

And Abraham was playing on YouTube because I had that going, because I hoped it would bring up my energy, and what dropped into my consciousness at that moment was why don't you try to do one of Abraham's rampages? Now, I don't know if you know the rampages, but they're not angry. They're rampages of appreciation, rampages of self-love, rampages of forgiveness. I mean, they're beautiful and I've watched them over the years. You can find them on YouTube. If you look up Abraham Hicks rampages, you'll find a million of them. Okay, okay, and try to find the ones where it's somebody has asked to hear a rampage so that they can have their energy ramped up, because then you'll be able to get the context and the result. Oh, you went through. Yeah, and Abraham doesn't teach you how to do your own rampage. I mean, there's not like a step by step that they ever teach.

Speaker 2: 25:29

But I'd noticed a few things about that that it seemed to be very small steps. It seemed to be tiny, very humble shifts upward. It seemed to be it built on itself Something maybe I could do. Yeah, like I didn't really wow, but I said, well, you know, I got nothing else, I might as well try it. So I took out a journal and a pen and I started writing and I said, okay, I don't know how to do this, but I feel I'm really in danger here and I feel horrible. And then I hear, every time I start I did this all night, by the way and every time I would stop, I'd be at a place where I go. I don't know what to write next. I don't know how to elevate my emotion, my emotion. At that second I would hear the YouTube say something amazing, and I'd be like, and I could keep going and keep going with my own thing.

Speaker 2: 26:32

What happened was I said something like I feel terrible, don't know how to do this, you know, but Abraham says that if you just have a slightly better feeling, thought that that's going to help. Okay, so what I did, that I didn't realize was native to me but had come to me also through years of therapy, was I had become very, very aware of my own emotions and my own sensing. Oh yeah, right, yep, and so I was focused, I was very focused inside on how I felt, because that was what was killing me. I was feeling like terribly depressed, so I went. But abraham says a slightly better feeling thought will help. Huh, just that, like that's a better feeling. Thought than I think I might be going to die, right, so that's a better feeling. Thought than I think I might be going to die, right, so that's a better feeling thought. It's not, hi, I'm living under a bridge Now. I have a million bucks and you know wrong.

Speaker 1: 27:34

You know that's a lie, yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:38

So what I did for the next 10 minutes, starting off, just that, I just I just kept writing, coming up with slightly better feeling thoughts, but also letting myself know that what the argument was with the better feeling thought. So I have this, I'm journaling the whole thing, okay, yes, which, according to Abraham and now according to me, is brilliant because it keeps you very focused when you're writing, so, like with your head, you can go off in 12 directions really fast, right, but if you're writing, you have to keep writing, and I'm not talking about typing on your computer, I'm talking about writing with a pen and paper, being focused. Yeah, yeah, and so I okay. So Abraham says that a better feeling thought is what's going to help. Well, I don't know what a better feeling thought would be, but just the thought that the better feeling thought could help actually is a pinprick of light in this massive darkness. That's very interesting.

Speaker 2: 28:35

And then I hear Abraham say when you come up with something that feels even a tiny, the tiniest bit better, focus on it, give it room to breathe, let it grow. So it grew a little bit. And then I went yeah, and I still feel like crap. Okay, what else is true about that. Well, I'll tell you something that's true about me is that I persevere like crazy, and I think that's really a strength of mine, and I'm very proud of myself that I'm just going to keep breathing right now.

Speaker 1: 29:07

Right, not everybody can do it, not everybody does it.

Speaker 2: 29:11

And I felt it and I was focused on me as I said it, so I could feel the shifts. I could feel myself starting to lift. Here's the part that's crazy. This is crazier than healing from it to me. After 10 minutes I realized that I had shifted what Abraham calls my emotional set point. I was no longer in danger. Oh good, I was still a mess, I was still depressed AF, I was not good in any stretch, but I wasn't in danger of death. I had some of my strength back, and so I kept doing this exercise for another five days, and at the end of five days not that I was aiming for five days as a specific number, but it just so happened that the fifth day I suddenly hit a point in my writing and I went wait, something's different. And what was different was that black cloud I'd carried for almost 40 years just wasn't there.

Speaker 1: 30:14

After five days.

Speaker 2: 30:16

After five days, I know, I know Hold on. Yeah, it is, it's, completely it's, it's, it's. It became for me proof of, spiritually, what I understand but had not been, had not been able to put into practice in my regular so-called regular life.

Speaker 1: 30:38

You understood, it intellectually, but you hadn't experienced it.

Speaker 2: 30:42

Right, right which I think is the case with most of us about spiritual things that what we're really hungry for is to take those beliefs and make them practical, make them be our truth, live them not live our head. Not live them with our physical behaviors, but know them in our being Right. Yeah, that, yeah, yeah, and that's really.

Speaker 1: 31:07

That's the ground under my feet now that's how long it's been since that happened that was july of 2022. Oh, wow, so it's been like three years almost three, yeah close yeah, that's amazing, and you haven't felt that deep despair again.

Speaker 2: 31:28

I had, there were two times. One, I started to feel the depression come back. I think this is like a month after that and I sat down with my journal and my pen immediately and it was gone in three minutes. It is, it's incredible. And then the next time that I felt depression was due to medication, because I had to have a knee replacement and they put me on these horrific meds that they put you on so you don't feel anything for a while and I'm apparently highly allergic. And in coming off of those there was massive situation, massive medication, depression.

Speaker 2: 32:05

Wow, yeah, that took a few days and then I was through that, I was through the withdrawal of that and yeah, so that was that.

Speaker 1: 32:15

Well, we know, healing isn't always linear. There's some back steps and some forward steps, so I assume that you weren't always 100%. What would you say to someone right now who feels like they're down in despair and they don't know what to do?

Speaker 2: 32:35

It would. So I don't mean to be evasive at all when I say this, but it is a truth. It really depends on the beliefs of the person I'm speaking with. Okay, energy, we can shift the energy and shift our entire reality, and because our whole reality, everybody's reality, is based on energy yeah, the universe's energy yeah right and I don't have the connection to the, to the religious thing of.

Speaker 2: 33:20

I need the approval of, and right. I mean I had, I've had, my fair share, just because I did as a child, but no longer. And I mean I was, I was raised in a mostly non-religious Jewish family and because of not having that sort of being steeped and all that, you would think I had no attachment, but I I've had all. I've had all of the oh god, god hate me, hates me, and yeah, I've had all this stuff and it's so prevalent in society, you can't miss it.

Speaker 2: 33:52

Yeah yeah so. But here's the thing. Here's what I would say to somebody who was really depressed. What is it that gives you relief? Let's not go for happiness. Forget that. Forget that, because if you're really, really down, if you're really seriously depressed, you probably don't believe in happiness right now anyway. But you might be able to believe in relief Because you might be able to understand that you deserve to maybe be a little less miserable than you are right now.

Speaker 1: 34:27

I love that because I always you think of like I have bipolar disorder and I think of the ups and the downs, but like right now, I just feel at peace and content and that's what I strive for.

Speaker 2: 34:42

I just saw a video on that, a little like reel or something it looked like. I didn't check out who he was, but it seemed to be some kind of monk, and he was talking to one of these famous podcasters. Who said to him are you happy? And the man said that's a very difficult question to answer. What do you mean by happy? Right, because he said I don't strive to have things he says, because if I have happiness, then I can also have, you know, sadness or depression or whatever it was he mentioned as the opposite. He said where there's up, there's down.

Speaker 2: 35:22

He he said but I strive for peace with where I am. Yeah, he said do I have bad moments? Of course I do, right, but it's a different relate. This is not him, this is now me. Now I have a very different relationship to my moments or days of any kind of discomfort or misery or you know old patterns that will come up because now I know, oh wait, this isn't reality. Like this is not me. If people could understand that their depression, the bipolar, the being on the yes, it is what you live with, yes, it is what you're dealing with, but it's not who you are.

Speaker 1: 36:08

Right, yes, yes, I agree. And happiness is such a fleeting thing, like I might be happy one moment because I'm laughing with my family and the next moment I'm doing dishes and I just feel fine. You know what I mean. So and that doesn't mean I'm not dishes and I just feel fine. You know what I mean. So and that doesn't mean I'm not happy. It just means not happy in that moment, like overjoyed. You know what I mean, right.

Speaker 2: 36:34

Right, and you know, abraham says that you can have, be and do anything you want, anything you want, and that resonates with me on a very high level. But then the question is how, how Can I get over being bipolar, can I get over being autistic, can I get over being depressed? And the answer is you can. It doesn't mean you will, because there's another part to this. That is the part most people have a really hard time with and some will actively argue with it, and I say keep arguing with it. If it's not your truth, let it go, don't let yourself be miserable. And the truth is that we, we choose. It's like we've chosen a story to follow. Yes, you know, now we can decide we don't want to do this story anymore, but then that requires a great deal of dedication and and and making a real decision of like okay, wait and making that decision over and over, and, over and over again correct I agree with that yeah

Speaker 2: 37:52

making it over and over again. And yet what I've experienced, with what I've been, I mean I am so different than I, than I used to be. I'm still so much me, you know, but the old me, if you showed her one, one hundredth of what's going on in our country three and a half years ago, I would have instantly gone into deep clinical depression and anxiety and fear and I would have been a mess and I would have been calling my friends going oh, I need help, help, help I. And fear. And I would have been a mess and I would have been calling my friends going oh, I know how well I mean in now upset, you bet, yeah, and I know how to work with to up, level my emotions, to bring truth in my truth, not anybody else's truth, but you know, it's your truth when you can feel it.

Speaker 2: 38:46

It's about feeling. It's not what you think, it's what you feel, what makes you feel strengthened, and so it's very different for me now. I mean I went and found some amazing political tarot readers and psychics who are not telling you this is what's I mean they're. They're saying this could have, this is what it looks like it's going to happen, and I love it because it's the vibration, it's the feminine side of everything, it's the vibrational stuff. It's great stuff, yeah. So it gives you more of a 360 degree place to stand and it reclaims the feminine. It reactivates not reclaimed, but reactivate the feminine.

Speaker 1: 39:26

And we and all the things that are happening right now as like an upheaval, and sometimes you have to have that big upheaval to have a shift, and so it doesn't necessarily mean it'll end out bad, but it might be bad right now yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 39:44

It's what is the cognitive dissonance? You know the term. This is like the biggest freaking cognitive dissonance in our lifetime so far. Yeah, you know, this is like it doesn't even be. There's no way to make it compute that there could be this much deliberate insanity, cruelty, damn it, like it. Just it makes your mind want to explode. But what you just said is what rescued me, because I realized wait a second, wait a second. This is because we're having a breakdown in order to have a breakthrough.

Speaker 1: 40:23

Yes, yes, that's what I hold on to Me too.

Speaker 2: 40:28

Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1: 40:32

And yeah, that makes sense. Tell me a little bit about what you do to maintain your positivity or maintain your health, your mental health.

Speaker 2: 40:42

Something deceptively simple. It's not simple at first, it gets simpler, but my, my emotions come first.

Speaker 2: 40:51

Yeah, that's it, that's it. And if you're used to, as I was, if you're used to looking at the negative side, trying to protect yourself from bad by always looking at the bad, yeah right, then that's then you. You're like I don't understand. What do you mean? My emotion is important. How can I possibly be happy when I am so focused on making sure that I'm not damaged by these possibilities that could happen, and I actually was doing some journaling for myself this morning around that, because it's funny, you'll still. I'll still find, and I probably always will. I mean, there's just always more growth, right?

Speaker 2: 41:31

But, this little bit of untrust hanging out in this corner of me, like I've just made this decision, as of yesterday, to not keep looking for full-time work. I just finished a contract position that was, you know, short-term, like 12 weeks, and I'm beginning to, I'm beginning my speaking career and I wonderful right, and I've begun my podcast about two, two and a half months ago and I'm like this is what I'm here to do.

Speaker 1: 42:09

This is what I meant. Your podcast was great. Yeah, you were talking about the three things to do to get out of the struggles.

Speaker 2: 42:17

Thank you. Oh, my God, that's so exciting for me.

Speaker 1: 42:24

I know Sometimes we just want to be heard Always.

Speaker 2: 42:28

I always want to. I'm not, I'm not just be honest with you, I just want, I mean, and I want to hear too. Like I love learning about people, yeah, I do. That's why I'm doing the podcast, like, let's, let's get together, let me learn about you and let's also upset some apple carts. That are apple carts, yeah, yeah, but rotten apples right and give.

Speaker 1: 42:51

I want to give people a place where they can come and feel safe to talk about the the lows, the highs, the in-betweens, just a place to say I'm human, here is what I like and that's not so odd.

Speaker 2: 43:06

That is the most beautiful calling on earth to me.

Speaker 1: 43:10

Well, thank you.

Speaker 2: 43:12

You do it beautifully.

Speaker 1: 43:14

Oh, thank you. Well, I've really enjoyed talking with you today.

Speaker 2: 43:18

I could talk with you every day, Girl me too, and I'd like to have you on my podcast.

Speaker 1: 43:25

Oh, I'd love to do that, yeah, and did I see on your website that you actually do some coaching?

Speaker 2: 43:32

I do, I do. I do leadership coaching for women, for like high level people. That's like the stuff that's expensive, the stuff that people can afford is workshops. So I'm putting together right now something called acting off, and you are an actor, I'm an actor, and one of the things that is so this is one of the things that brought me out of my shell even before I was out of the depression was acting, because it was like you get on stage and people expect you to be kind of nuts. You know, like they expect you to be a little bit out there and self-expressive. Here's something else I do I can help people with their talks. So if they have to give a talk, I will do that kind of coaching as well, and we can write the speech, get them on their feet. Like you, I'm very good at helping women step into their ease and their strengths.

Speaker 1: 44:28

That's giving them this space. Yeah, well, I saw you actually had like a 30-minute free coaching. You'll give somebody I certainly do. Oh, absolutely that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 44:38

Well, make sure I put your website in the links in the show notes awesome, yeah, and if you could put that 30-minute strategy call in there, yeah, definitely Great. Thanks for mentioning that I can't believe I forgot.

Speaker 1: 44:50

Yeah, definitely, All right. Well, I want to thank you again and I hope we'll get to talk again soon.

Speaker 2: 44:56

I can't wait, you are absolutely lovely. Thank you so much for having me on.

Speaker 1: 45:01

Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you. That's it for today's episode of Advancing with Amy, mental health lawyer and NeuroSpicyMama. Huge thanks to Lori Kirstein for getting honest about her journey, her struggles, breakthroughs and how emotional energetics helped her find real peace. I hope you found her story as inspiring as I did. If you want to connect with Lawyer, snag that free 30-minute strategy call. The links are in the show notes. Don't miss out. And hey, if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, review and share it with a friend. It really helps us grow and bring on more amazing guests. Thanks for hanging out and keep advancing, warriors.