We were lucky to catch up with Stacie Aamon Yeldell, MA, MT-BC, AVPT recently and have shared our conversation below.
Stacie Aamon , so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
For me, there is no “arrival”. I am still developing my confidence and self-esteem…I am in a continuous practice of becoming. Interestingly enough, my journey to self-love, self-esteem and confidence has unfolded through experiences that were quite the opposite. For most of my adult life, I was seemingly stuck in a debilitating pattern: I would constantly attract people that were emotionally unavailable or presented with a fear of intimacy. In each of these scenarios, the end result was always the same: a deep sense of abandonment, utter heartbreak, devastation and an overall experience of feeling unloved. Realizing that I was the common denominator and the lead protagonist in these repeat performances, I embarked on a deep and intense healing journey. I discovered that I had been “plugging in” to people, circumstances and even my career path in an attempt to meet my core needs: to be loved, seen and validated. With this discovery, I was able to connect even more dots. I realized that I had been operating with the false belief system that I had to be “perfect” to be loved or at the very least, I had to “perform for love” – which was further enforced by a music career that began when I was 16. It was no wonder that love and connection seemed to elude me – I was searching for it outside of myself.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
As the Founder of Amöntra, a wellness consulting company, I’ve had the distinct honor and pleasure to work with a range of organizations, including The Grammy Foundation, LA Opera, GoogleArts and Culture, Netflix and YoungArts. It’s been a joy and a wonder to blend almost 20 years of clinical work as a music psychotherapist and 30+ years as a vocalist into programs and consulting services designed to expand self-awareness, enhance self-expression and encourage daily acts of self-devotion. I am especially excited to announce the release of my very first workbook “Choose Yourself: A Journey to Becoming the God of Your Own Heart”. This 12-week, self-paced journey is an accessible, inspiring and sustainable guide to cultivating communion with yourself through daily self-care rituals.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Empathy. Self-awareness. Trust. The dynamics of my early childhood – namely growing up with an alcoholic dad – forged astute empathy. Although I now consider it a gift, if not properly understood, it can feel more like a curse! Empathic folks can become easily drained, depleted and caught in disempowering situations without proper boundaries and…self-awareness. My saving grace has been my daily spiritual practice, which consists of contemplation, meditation and affirmative prayer. Without these tools, self-awareness would be merely a mental concept and mental chaos would reign supreme. I can attribute any and every success to placing my intuition in the driver’s seat…and my ability tune out the noise of the world and tune into the “still small voice within.” Lastly, as a recovering perfectionist who by default lives in my head, Trust still feels to me like the final frontier. Learning how to trust myself and my journey – with all of its twists, redirects and seeming missed opportunities – is an ongoing process, but the rewards are endless. When I am rooted in trust, I am free from the tyranny of worry, doubt, fear and anxiety.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
Learning how to meet my own core needs has been an absolute game changer. The first step was figuring out what those needs are – a quick hack is to tune into where you feel others aren’t meeting your needs or even any unmet childhood needs. For me, I was able to determine my needs based on what I craved – and what eluded me – in my relationships. Once I was clear on my needs, I went about the business of meeting them. I made a list of the activities, practices and experiences that met those needs and transformed them into daily acts of self-care. The result has been a complete and total paradigm shift. I have a healthy, loving and supportive relationship that is built on choice vs, need. Since I practice being my own “power plant”, I don’t have to plug into him – or anyone else – as my primary source of love. As a result, my connections with others are lighter, more joyful and mutually fulfilling.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.weareamontra.com
- Instagram: @stacieaamon
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacie-aamon/
Image Credits
Main photo: Courtney Lindberg
Photo 1: Petra Kovacs Photography
Photo 2: Samuel Cruz
Photo 3: Samuel Cruz
