Lori Kirstein Interviews the Host, Amy Taylor.

Listen to Amy an Lori talk mental health, neurodivergence and spirituality. This time Amy, Mental Health Warrior & Neurospicy Mama, is on the hotseat and Lori Kirstein from the Goodbye Goodgirl Project has the interviewer's mic.

Check out Lori's Youtube show under The Goodbye Goodgirl Project.  Make sure to subscribe and leave a thumbs up on this episode. https://youtu.be/d4ZR5Eu7iwI?si=K9TfxTf2bL1Bd1LZ

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Chapters

• 0:00 Role Reversal Introduction
• 9:43 Defining Neurodivergence & Personal Journey
• 14:31 The Gift of Being Different
• 20:39 Breaking Free From Fear & Being Seen
• 24:56 Challenging Perfectionism & Social Expectations
• 30:44 Struggle, Spirituality & Finding Light
• 37:53 Transforming Beliefs & Self-Talk
• 43:59 Final Thoughts & Self-Acceptance

Transcript

Amy Taylor: 0:00

welcome back to Advancing with Amy Mental Health Warrior and NeuroSpicyMama. Today we're flipping the script and turning things upside down. Lori Kirstein from the Goodbye Good Girl podcast is going to be interviewing me. Yes, you heard it right. I'm not going to be interviewing today. I'm going to be in the hot seat. Get ready for a fun and real conversation as Lori takes over the interview mic. If you like what Lori's doing, don't forget to give her a big thumbs up on YouTube and show your support. Let's dive in and make some magic together.

Lori Kirstein: 0:58

Hi laurie here with the goodbye good girl podcast, and today I have the indomitable amy taylor, and she is the mental health warrior and neuro spicy mama. You can't pay enough for a title like that, honestly. She's a life coach, a spiritual coach, a podcast host and a social worker who's basically built a career out of turning chaos into clarity. Sounds good to me. She helps women with mental health and neurodivergent challenges stop spiraling, start thriving and maybe even laugh a little along the way. So Amy I met very recently. She is real, she is funny, she is just boundless, and I am so happy to have her with me because I think she's one of the coolest women in my life. So how the heck are you, amy, welcome?

Amy Taylor: 1:50

wow, I'm doing great. Now I have some chill. That was great. Thank you, I'm very excited to be here. Where the heck did you come up with neuro spicy mama, I gotta know, actually, you know, one of the first people I interviewed it was just mental health lawyer and one of the first people I interviewed said they were Neuro Spicy and I decided I was going to be Neuro Spicy Mama. I liked it, it's absolutely brilliant.

Lori Kirstein: 2:19

Yeah, it's like it's saying I'm going to be my free flag self, you know, but you don't have to say it, you just go'm going to be my free flag self. You know, I'm going to be my free flag self, but you don't have to say it, you just go.

Amy Taylor: 2:27

I'm neuro spicy, right exactly Like it or lump it.

Lori Kirstein: 2:32

Like it or lump it. So have you all know, first of all, what is neurodivergent. For those who don't know, and also have you always known this about yourself.

Amy Taylor: 2:42

Great question. Neurodivergent is just that your brain thinks differently, it operates a little differently. It could be autism, it could be ADHD, it's really anytime. Your brain is different than the neurotypical person, the average person. It can even be people with a traumatic brain injury. My specific one is bipolar disorder and ADHD and my daughter's on the spectrum with ADHD. And did I always know? No, I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until I was in my 40s and I got diagnosed with bipolar in my 30s.

Lori Kirstein: 3:26

So nope, didn't always know, did that change your life in some noticeable ways? Learning that this was happening and it was a thing, and it wasn't?

Amy Taylor: 3:36

it gave me help, because once you have a label, people can help you.

Lori Kirstein: 3:41

Right, got it. Is it one thing about having a label on? Because I know, when I was in my 20s I was in therapy and I was told you have depression, anxiety, you have. What was the other one I get? The one that vets have when they come back PTSD. I had PTSD, all these things, but that helped them give me the right medications, but it didn't help me heal from it and I wanted to heal from it. But I know at some other time we've talked about, you know, the fact that what we go through, what we are made of, is also very, very sacred in that it creates certain aspects to us. So would you talk to us about the sacredness and the gift of being quote unquote different?

Amy Taylor: 4:38

I think it makes you really take a look at who you are and what your belief system is. And I'm very spiritual and I believe there are a zillion pathways to God and I personally believe there's a source of energy that combines all of us, brings us all together and as one. It's a very powerful energy of love. So learning that I was bipolar especially made me look at, because I was not happy in the beginning. I was like, oh my gosh, that's a horrible diagnosis. But then when the meds started to work, I was like, oh okay, well, that's much better, I'm not as volatile, I'm not yelling at my kid. So it was relief that I got.

Lori Kirstein: 5:32

I'm going to ask you a question I know I've asked you off air before If you could heal from it and no longer be neurodivergent. If you could take that magic pill, would you and no longer be neurodivergent? If you could take that magic pill, would you?

Amy Taylor: 5:44

No, because I am who I am and I like myself now. Haven't always, but I have for a while now. And, like for my daughter, she has autism. I wouldn't change that for anything, because she is so creative and so funny and she's just her own wonderful being, so I wouldn't change it.

Lori Kirstein: 6:07

That is beautiful. I wouldn't change my past now, although a lot of it was really hard. I wouldn't want to do it again. I think I've learned. I think it served its purpose. I think it had a purpose, but I had to decide the purpose.

Amy Taylor: 6:28

Exactly, and I've had some very, very dark periods in my life that I definitely don't want to live again. But I also am appreciative that I've had them and survived. Because that does two things it allows me to help other people that are going through that and, secondly, it makes me know that I'm a survivor, that I can go through a depression again. And it's different when you go through it. Now I'm 54. And when I go through a depression now I go okay, this sucks, but I know that it's going to end at some point and I need to get help and I know I have tools to go get help now. So it's a totally different ballgame.

Lori Kirstein: 7:18

One of the things that I do in my work with people is really challenge the in my work with people is really challenge the things that we think are just givens. Yeah, you know, I think that you do the same thing in your own way, so can you talk to us about how you break the rules and how you question the isms that we're just supposed to believe are real?

Amy Taylor: 7:43

Well, I'm not. I would like to say I'm fearless, but I wasn't in the beginning when I first decided to what I call come out of the closet as being bipolar. Only my closest friends and family knew, like even my extended family did not know. And I was very, very nervous and I had had cancer previously and that's what kind of made me go. You know what? I survived cancer. I'm going to be myself from here on out. It's just you. What you see is what you get. And so I put it on Facebook and I started a blog at the time and I decided to, you know, start a podcast.

Amy Taylor: 8:29

And the first week that I had done that, after it was out on Facebook, I literally woke up one night in a cold sweat. I sat straight up in bed out of the sound sleep and freaked out. Bed out of the sound sleep and freaked out. I thought, oh my God, what have I done? And my poor family? You know they're probably embarrassed and now I can't ever take it back. And so, you know, I had to wait until morning time and call my mom and she was like we're not embarrassed and you haven't changed who you are and who cares. And I was like oh yeah, I'll pay them all right wow, what is that?

Lori Kirstein: 9:13

what is that? That thing when we step outside of our, of our comfort zone, that first moment of like, every single fear coming up and going shouldn't have gone yeah that's just's, just this. It's an energy. It's not real. It's like ghosts going boo.

Amy Taylor: 9:31

Well, your body wants you to stay in status quo, and so your body is fighting to keep everything the same. And so when you step out of sight of that circle or that box, your body goes, wait, this is not safe. And so you have to spend a little time to build that up and get to where your body feels safe.

Lori Kirstein: 9:58

Well, this is you're on something that is really dear to my heart, because I bring acting and improv into the work that I do with, say, executive women or women in groups, which is get people visible. This is the one thing that we are terrified to do. Yeah Right, we're just terrified that all of the physical and emotional securities we've built up will somehow magically not be there. People will see us, you know, and they'll see how scared we are or how flawed we are, and I think that's a universal, but it's also not the human condition. I think it's conditioning. I think we've been conditioned to judge ourselves negatively never positively.

Amy Taylor: 10:56

We have to actually work to judge ourselves positively. You definitely get that ground into you as you grow up that you need to be hard on yourself and push more and and not settle for less and all that stuff. But it's a weird dichotomy because at the same time you don't want to be seen it's being seen that makes you feel better.

Amy Taylor: 11:22

You know what I mean. Say more about that. Yeah Well, I just mean that, even though it's scary and so you don't want people to see that you're afraid, maybe, or see that you have a what do you call it? Like you have a sore spot or something they can get to you with, but at the same time, once somebody really truly sees you and who you are and you know they accept you that way, oh my gosh, that just is so fulfilling yes, call it emotional intimacy.

Lori Kirstein: 13:02

When I know that not only am I okay with what I'm sharing, but that you're okay with what I'm sharing, but that you're okay with what I'm sharing, wow Bliss multiplied by two, I'll take it. Yeah, take it every day, yeah, when I'm in a really bad spot. I mean, now I know how to shift and if I'm not being stubborn, if I'm not being stubborn, then I can go and I can shift it really quickly, really easily. But when I get stubborn, then I can spend four days, you know, miserable.

Amy Taylor: 13:40

Isn't it interesting when you do that, when you get stubborn, it's like you want to be in that bunk. It's like don't make me feel better, don't take me out of the house, don't you know? Make me get in nature, you all the things that you know will help. You're just like I don't care. I just feel like this and I want to feel like this everybody, leave me alone. But as soon as you get that little pinprick of light, it's like oh, that's what it was like before. Oh, yeah, I want that back.

Lori Kirstein: 14:13

And then you start to do those things oh yeah, you used to feel like, yeah, oh, my god, and I, I too, call it that little pinprick of light. You know it's that's. All it takes. Is that little tiny, yeah, that little bit of light? You're coming back, just coming back. I wonder. Given our conversation up to now, I'm thinking I wonder if that stubbornness is another part of the conditioning of saying things are supposed to be hard, of saying things are supposed to be hard and I'm supposed to really hurt my way to the payoff, which is feeling good, you know, I'm just wondering right now, is that what that is?

Amy Taylor: 15:06

I think it's that, and I think it's also like I talked about before, that once you're feeling a certain way, your body wants you to stay there and be safe in that, whatever it is that you're feeling. So I think that's part of it. But I also do think that we definitely think life is supposed to be hard. I can't tell you how many times my dad said to me when I was little no one promised you life was fair and you know life is supposed to be hard and you have to pull up your bootstraps, put your big girl panties on.

Lori Kirstein: 15:37

No, no, no. I had the same crap on my way, and so did probably everybody who's going to listen to this, right, and that is extremely damaging. Oh yeah, knowing what you and I know, which is then what you believe and what you focus on, is what you're going to get, right, right? Henry Ford said it Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

Amy Taylor: 16:01

Yes exactly Well, and I remember also when I was young, everyone said I was so sensitive. My parents always told me quit being so sensitive, quit crying. And now I'm like you know what I like that I'm sensitive. It's part of who I am. It's why I'm a social worker and a coach in the first place, and that's important to me and I'm proud of that.

Lori Kirstein: 16:23

Now, oh, that's beautiful. Yes, and that's that's incredibly true. That's that's incredibly true. There's nobody like you, yeah there's nobody like you there, never will be, never, you're it. So who are we waiting for to come along and go? You're good enough. It just it's not. It's a losing game.

Amy Taylor: 16:47

No, you have to come along for yourself. You have to say I'm good enough.

Lori Kirstein: 16:52

Right Now. You gave me a really interesting list of rules that you break. You challenged the perfect mom myth. You normalize mental health conversations in bold, unfiltered ways. You help women rewrite their lives after devastation. I am most interested in this moment about your challenging the perfect mom myth. Could you say something about that?

Amy Taylor: 17:18

Sure, well, I have two children and I had them 18 years apart.

Amy Taylor: 17:24

So I have one that is 32 and has his own family, and my grandkids are there and everything.

Amy Taylor: 17:30

And then I have my teenage daughter, who I told you is on the spectrum, and I, you know, in the beginning, with my daughter she would act out and everybody just kept telling me, amy, you know she's spoiled and you let her get away with so much and you need to discipline her more and she needs spanked.

Amy Taylor: 17:56

And you know, and I tried, I wanted to be a good mom and so, when everyone kept telling me that I did, start to discipline her more and then it got worse, she just acted out horribly and I couldn't get her back under control for a while. And so I finally after we you know, got her diagnosed and everything and got her help. I started reading all these books on parenting and autism and all this stuff and I just told the people that were still telling me that she was spoiled, that they needed to basically mind their own business, because that's not the case and I had to be the mom that I knew I had to be for her. And now that I've done that, her and I have an incredible relationship, so I'm so thankful that that happened. Oh my God.

Lori Kirstein: 18:56

That is to me, that is like the biggest step that women can take, that mothers can take, is I'm doing it my way and I know I'm not deliberately causing harm and I know I'm not being blind to any harm I could be causing Exactly, but I'm doing it my way. Yep, did I tell you the story of these two people who had a child on the spectrum? I don't know if I had told you that story before. I don't think so and I can't, for the like of me, remember their names. This was back in like the 1980s.

Lori Kirstein: 19:27

I read some stuff from these people and they had a child on the spectrum, and very deeply on the spectrum he was. He would sit and turn in circles and he would bang his head against the wall and you know really extreme sorts of things. And they heard from someplace that if you just sit with him and do what he's doing, it's going to really help, it's going to normalize things, it's going to change things. So's going to normalize things, it's going to change things. So they thought, well, we've tried everything else. So they went on a 24-hour schedule where they took turns, you know, probably four hours at a time, and whatever he did, they did, and when they were giving this talk, it was 25 years later. He was 27. He was no longer autistic and he was leading workshops with them.

Amy Taylor: 20:15

Wow, Well, that's another point for being seen. He had to feel like he was finally seen and accepted as he was, and then he could grow.

Lori Kirstein: 20:32

Yes, then he didn't have to spend that energy defending himself. Is that what you mean?

Amy Taylor: 20:36

Yeah, he didn't have to be like the odd duck out. His parents finally looked at him and said we're going to just do what you do, because we see you and what you're doing is okay and we love you and that's. That does everything for a kid oh, my god, you're right.

Lori Kirstein: 20:59

That's like that's the foundation. Wow, that's gorgeous. I'm gonna have to hunt down their names. I can give the title of the book to you and put it in here.

Amy Taylor: 21:12

Yeah, I would love that, oh God.

Lori Kirstein: 21:14

Amazing people, Amazing. I love people who think outside the box. Yeah me too, and challenge their own fear, to go live out there and try it out, see if it works, see what happens. I also wanted to ask you you say that you don't sugarcoat or sanitize personal development and ditto. Right, I can't take it. Tell me what, tell me what. Do you find that you most particularly have to wash away when you're talking to people?

Amy Taylor: 21:46

Well, I just think that positivity has a place, but I don't think you can always be that way and I don't think that we should force people to be positive when they don't feel well or when they are in that funk or they want to stay in it. You have to accept people where they're at and be okay with that. So I just you know there's a lot of good personal development tricks and tips out there and they're good, but I just think they're not for everybody at every stage of their life. Does that make sense?

Lori Kirstein: 22:28

I think that's spot on for my money as well. I mean, almost everything out there has worth. You know it helps somebody.

Amy Taylor: 22:37

Yeah.

Lori Kirstein: 22:39

But maybe not today Exactly, yeah, yeah, and I've been thinking I haven't yet started this task, but I've been thinking it would be really awesome to put together a way of looking at the personal growth path.

Lori Kirstein: 22:55

Um, now I don't know if that's possible because we're all very different, but I know that it's been done in four consciousness stages by the uh. Let's see the centers for spiritual living. They teach a whole course about how we grow and the fact that you can grow up to the fourth level, but you're still always going to touch on the others.

Amy Taylor: 23:19

Interesting. Yeah, I don't know much about that.

Lori Kirstein: 23:22

Yeah, I wish, if I'd known I was going to mention it, I would have looked it up for you, but oh well, everybody will talk again. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, for sure, um, so, uh, I think it would be really awesome to either look at those, those levels, or um, or say what are the sort of stages and what should we know that we take along with us on the journey, because it's not like we learn this thing and then we leave it behind and we learn this thing. It all comes with us, right?

Amy Taylor: 23:59

Right, but I also think I mean you know Maslow's hierarchy. You couldn't say it for a second. That always really hit me as so real. Because if you this goes back to what I said, that you can't always be positive and you can't always use the tips and tricks If you're not getting your basic needs met, you're not safe, you don't have a roof over your head, you don't have food, you know anything like that. How can you even think about spiritual enlightenment? It's not.

Lori Kirstein: 24:34

Oh my God. I spent three years homeless. I did, and I was in my 50s, so this is like what is happening, and I didn't have to be on the street. Thank God I didn't have to be on the street. I didn't have to be in my car. There were friends who took me in. So over that three-year period there were places I could stay that were indoors. What was I going to say?

Amy Taylor: 25:01

I went and lost my train of thought we were talking about how you can't be thinking about spiritual enlightenment when you're suffering.

Lori Kirstein: 25:12

So I met a lot of homeless people at different events, like the Jewish Family Service was where I went to get food, where I went to get some counseling and things like that, and they have like get togethers where we would do artwork or we would watch movies about Judaism and it was some really amazing people. But quite a few of them, and quite a few of them were freaking brilliant and quite a few of them were mentally ill, yeah, and absolutely focused on the misery. Like there wasn't a spark of hope there that was showing that maybe I can come out of this. That just wasn't there and I was a mess, you know, especially at the beginning. I was like how did this happen? How could I possibly have been? How could I become homeless? Like this is a shaming of my whole family, like I went deep with the whole shame thing and um, but I was determined. I was like, if this is the way I end, I'm going to gather up my pride. I'm not going to beg for for help from friends. I'm going to get help where I can socially, like from Jewish family service and other places, but I'm not going to appear like a, like a wimpy. Oh, I'm just, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to keep my pride and and I'm going to also stick with the very little I've been I've managed to really identify as practical and true about spirituality.

Lori Kirstein: 26:44

And so one of the things I did was I would look around me always to see what was positive, what was good, what was fulfilling, what was a little bit better than the current moment. And I want to tell you about this one bus driver. I was going downtown on the bus every day to and from work for this telemarketing job, and this one bus driver was so epic, he would pull over to pick people up and when they would come on he'd go hello, good morning, how are you? It is so good to see you. He was effusive and warm and real and I fell in love with him. And then when he would pull away to get back on the road, he'd say to the whole bus OK, family, here we go. I love that my heart, oh my heart. I only saw him that one day.

Lori Kirstein: 27:38

Every time he is a light book, absolutely OK. Family and I felt like his family. I felt not alone for the first time in months. That's amazing, oh my God. So really I was looking for these clues of you know, proof of life, yep, and that's the one thing that I see that people who are homeless and mentally ill, they don't necessarily have that knowing that there is life to have proof of Right and that's what it's at.

Amy Taylor: 28:13

The sad thing is is when you're there and you're saying, oh my God, everything is so awful and I'm never going to get help and I'm always going to be on the street, Then the universe conspires to say what you're saying is true, and so you're not going to get off the street and you're not going to find the help you need. It's a horrible situation to be in because they've got to at some point hopefully find some shimmer of light to turn their thought process around so that they can think of better things and start to pull that into their universe.

Lori Kirstein: 28:56

Or simply not have anything, like the night when I was completely going down for the third time emotionally and I just said to, and I meant it as a statement of like this is the truth.

Lori Kirstein: 29:10

Now, I've got nothing, like I don't have an idea, I don't have a concept, I don't have a hope I don't have, I've got nothing. And it wasn't a I've got nothing. You got to do something. It was just like this surrender moment, this allowing moment of like yeah, I've got nothing, and in that letting go of having to have the answer my way, yeah, I got a spark of yeah, right, um, but I think that it is. I think the time we're in, I think the evolutionary period we're in, truly is about us coming to an understanding of how to be self-actualized, how to have our personal agency, so that we go I'm not feeling particularly satisfied or fulfilled or happy or joyous or whatever. The thing is that we're hoping to feel. I'm not feeling that I can shift it. I can actually choose to feel something a little better than what I'm feeling right now and I have that power.

Amy Taylor: 30:15

Yeah, I agree, and I think it's interesting that, like you said, we're all going through that now, because what happens is sometimes you say you know happens is sometimes you say you know, oh, now I can shift my thoughts or I can, you know, get into a better space. The universe goes well, let me just test that. And so you have all these things going on in different areas of the world and you're getting tested. So it's kind of hard, but it's also like you have to dig up all the dirt so that you can plant flowers.

Lori Kirstein: 30:54

That's so pretty. That's so pretty I use that phrasing too that I get tested. But I don't really believe it. I mean I don't, I don't. If what you mean is there's somebody who's testing me, I, I don't know, I don't think so okay.

Amy Taylor: 31:10

No, I mean it like the universe when you. I know that when you send something out there, it wants you to prove it's true. It's like when you're looking for something, you find it do you know what I mean?

Lori Kirstein: 31:25

I just think it's our energy, our accustomed energies, that are still rolling out. Okay, that could be. I just think it's that thing where you're driving 100 miles an hour and you can't come to a dead stop just because you want to yeah, roll to a stop.

Lori Kirstein: 31:41

But as far as what's going on in our country right now, holy God you know. So I feel very, very fortunate because I went through a load of poverty and homelessness and all this stuff that nobody wants to face, nobody wants to ever have, and most everybody will do anything not to face, not to go into including me, but I did it on that, to go into including me, but I did it on that. So, and my, my challenge to myself was can I find a way to shift this energy? And I had to learn that stuff that I just said to you, like I had to start investigating. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Why am I still? Why am I still without money, don't you? If you focus on on that, you're not going to focus on feeling your abundance and you're not going to be seeding that future. These are very tough, yeah, tough things to commit to, even working on.

Amy Taylor: 32:36

Forget making them, you know, but tough right well, they, yeah, and I think, like we were talking about earlier, in your childhood you're taught all these things, like in my family, I was taught money was dirty, don't touch it, it's dirty, and rich people are jerks and you know money was not something, and no, kids do not get to talk to their parents about money. We don't have any and it's none of your business. That's what I was pretty much taught. So, yeah, it was like this is adult stuff, and so I never learned about it. The only thing I learned was that it was bad.

Amy Taylor: 33:19

And so, yeah, the first like 20 years of my adulthood I was living so poor. If my parents had not helped me I would have been homeless. And so, yeah, I had to get to a place that just in the last year or so, where I worked on those money blocks and worked on my misconceptions, rocks and worked on my misconceptions, and, oh my gosh, I like, within a year's time, totally turned it around and brought in a job that was making like major more than what I was making before, and it just all turned around.

Lori Kirstein: 34:03

That's so exciting to me to hear yeah, just by working on your beliefs. You know, I've never been um, that's never been my best mode. Let me look at the belief and let me change it and what I, what I found is stronger is if I focus on the emotional setting and start to change that and then allow the energy that is now improved to do the, to do the right thing for me. So tell me how, how do you work on on belief in a way that's effective?

Amy Taylor: 34:36

Well, I think you have to realize that you have that belief, because a lot of us go through the day and we don't even realize that we're talking to ourselves in our head. We don't realize that, like I didn't know, I had all those beliefs about money, I had forgotten all that I had learned. You know what I mean, or I didn't forget what I learned, but I forgot that that was what I was being taught, right? And so I think the first way is to really do an assessment of yourself and figure out what you believe. Like maybe do some journaling every day. I'm a huge journal fan and I like to do brain dumps where I just throw everything on the page, and I also like to write letters. I've written letters to my mom that I will never give to her because I love her too much. But you know, sometimes you have to get things out, and that helps you realize what your beliefs are, and only then can you start to work on changing them.

Lori Kirstein: 35:44

So how do you change them? Do you talk to yourself about, like I was saying before, like, um I don't actually I don't know if I said it on this podcast or another one, but you know, um, are you really, are you really less than I don't think? So okay, so are. Do you have qualities that are really great? Yeah, yeah, I actually do. I have this and this cool. How does that feel really good, feel better? Yeah, you know, thankful yeah, been there.

Amy Taylor: 36:16

yeah, I think for me personally, I had to. When I'm listening to something in my head, I had to start catching myself saying things like, oh my god, I God I'm so stupid. Or oh my God, I can't believe I did that. You know things like that I had to. Once I realized I was saying those things, then I had to actually try to stop them. So I would actually write down what my thought was and then write and switch it around, like you just did, and like if I thought, oh my God, I'm so stupid, then I would write beside it. Where I wrote that, I would write I have a social work degree and an MBA and if I'm an intelligent woman, there's no reason for me to be calling myself stupid. So I mean, you have to counter everything it's funny.

Lori Kirstein: 37:11

There's something so magical about appreciating oneself and daring.

Amy Taylor: 37:15

There's like a daringness aspect to that for women, oh yeah because we're supposed to be petite and we're supposed to be modest and quiet all those things sexy, why, young, uh, what you list as long as your arm.

Lori Kirstein: 37:38

Yeah, yeah, can't, you cannot, you cannot match up to that there's no, nobody who can match up to that. To that? There's no, nobody who can match up to that. Maybe Martha Stewart, I don't know. No, not even like. Come on, you know, martha Stewart is very interesting. That woman is capable as hell, isn't she?

Amy Taylor: 37:57

yeah, and she got thrown in jail for something that no man's got thrown in. Well, maybe some men have, but a lot of men have done what she did and didn't get thrown in jail, I know, but she was female.

Lori Kirstein: 38:12

How dare her you know I was thinking while you were talking about how the wise men and wise women I hope it's and the wise women down in South America and stuff, are the people who really are neuro spicy. Do you know more about that than I do? No, I don't know about it. I've just come to understand that, that you know the people who think differently, the people who are more spiritual, more creative, more out of the box, not making sense according to the norms.

Amy Taylor: 38:44

Those are wise people. Well, they're more innovative. They come up with ideas that other people don't. If you look back through history, I think Albert Einstein was considered neurodivergent. There's a ton of people. If you look through, you can Google and it'll tell you tons of people that have created things and they were neurodivergent. And so, yeah, I mean, even entrepreneurs are more likely to be neurodivergent than not.

Lori Kirstein: 39:15

Well, I'm going to claim it for myself, then, because, honest to God, I was trying to schedule something. I hope this doesn't turn out to be offensive, but honestly, it's a miracle that I'm grounded. Thank God I'm a Capricorn. Thank God because I'm always out here, I'm always deep within or way out, and I don't know if that's neurodivergent. It makes me really question if the term neurodivergent simply means individual in a way.

Amy Taylor: 39:46

I think it could. Except for then I I'd be very careful of saying everybody's a little neurodivergent because they're individually themselves, when I think the world is set up to help neurotypical people, like the school system and things like that. So if you think differently, you have a very hard time sometimes in the government or in the school system.

Lori Kirstein: 40:14

Well, given that I am the founder of the Goodbye, good Girl project, I have to say I think the norms are ill in their rigidity. Yeah, I don't think that they're healthy. I don't think that they're that they're healthy, I don't think that they're correct. We are, we are spiritually blossoming, amazing people and no, I would never say well, everybody's a little bit divergent.

Amy Taylor: 40:39

Yeah, there's a lot of people who do say that, though I know you wouldn't. Oh yeah, thank you. Yeah, when my daughter got diagnosed with autism, she was diagnosed from a hospital behavioral health department by two different doctors who both put her through three different testing periods that we had to go to three separate times, two, three separate times. And her PCP, when she got the notification, said they'll give anybody an autism diagnosis these days and I said thank you very much and I went to the register or her checkout desk and I said we won't be coming back. Good for you, good for me, yeah, good for you Did she ask yeah, good for you.

Lori Kirstein: 41:27

Did she ask why Did you get to lodge a complaint or anything?

Amy Taylor: 41:31

I got to tell the receptionist why, yeah, and she, the receptionist, had just watched my daughter stim. You know what stimming is?

Amy Taylor: 41:39

Oh, no, no Okay stimming is what neurodivergent people, especially if you're on the autism spectrum. Timing is what neurodivergent people, especially if you're on the autism spectrum. They do it as a comforting kind of thing to get themselves calmed down. My daughter what she does is she walks back and forth, she paces and she just goes and goes. She can do it all day long. Wear out the carpet, and so they had just watched her do that before we went into the doctor's appointment. So the receptionist, when I told her what the doctor said, was just like appalled. She's.

Lori Kirstein: 42:13

She's like uh, that's crazy yeah, okay, I want people held accountable for the crap that they do. Yes, that's like a wish of mine. Well, this is the best conversation that I've had all day Me too. Awesome, totally awesome. I'm so grateful. We have to keep this conversation going, yes, and is there anything that you would like to share with the audience before we sign off?

Amy Taylor: 42:49

for now, yeah, I'd just like to say again that you need to love yourself for who you are, all the good, the bad, the ugly. It's not bad and ugly, you know. Just because someone told you that, forget that, be yourself, love yourself and anybody who doesn't accept you the way you are. They don't need to be in your circle anymore.

Lori Kirstein: 43:15

That's how I feel and that's the way it is. That is so self-supportive and beautiful message.

Amy Taylor: 43:26

Thank you, thank you so much for having me today.

Lori Kirstein: 43:29

Oh, my goodness, thank you too. This is. This really has been fantastic, and I'm going to put your information in for people to get in touch with you to get your help, and I understand you're taking a big professional step soon. Yes, when you're ready to announce that, then people will be able to to come to you for that kind of thing.

Amy Taylor: 43:49

Yeah, and can I just mention my podcast real quick? Please, I would love to have people check me out on Mental Health, warrior and Neuro Spicy. Mama, put it in any podcast player and it's there. It's been. There's probably about 61 episodes, so you got a lot to listen to if you want to check it out.

Lori Kirstein: 44:10

I got to be on it. It was fantastic.

Amy Taylor: 44:12

It's just fantastic oh, everybody should listen to that episode. That was just a week or two ago, wasn't it? Yeah, it's just a couple weeks ago.

Lori Kirstein: 44:19

Yeah, yeah, check that out, she was great. Thank you, we were great. Yeah, my friend, um, keep on being you and I'll see you next time, all right?

Amy Taylor: 44:32

Bye, bye. Wow. Can you tell that we really hit it off? We are good friends now. We really did turn things upside down though today. How fun was that. Huge thanks to Lori for inviting me to swap seats and let her work her signature magic as the host of the Goodbye, good Girl podcast. I hope you enjoyed this Inside Out episode as much as we did making it. If you loved what you heard and I know you did don't forget to hit that thumbs up on YouTube and show Lori some love. Make sure you're subscribed so you never miss another one of her real bold and inspiring conversations. Until next time, keep embracing your true self, stay a little wild and remember keep advancing, warrior.