Meet Amy Amdahl

 

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amy Amdahl. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amy below.

Amy, so great to have you sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our readers and so let’s jump right into one of our favorite topics – empathy. We think a lack of empathy is at the heart of so many issues the world is struggling with and so our hope is to contribute to an environment that fosters the development of empathy. Along those lines, we’d love to hear your thoughts around where your empathy comes from?

I think that growing up in very humble beginnings is what helped shape me into becoming a very empathetic person. I was raised by a single mother who had mental health issues and battled with addiction. We lived in a ran down two-bedroom trailer that was infested with bugs and rodents. Because of our living conditions, I was often bullied. I know what it feels like to be the underdog. I remember what it was like to be teased for things that were outside of my control. I recall thinking if they only knew what my life was like maybe they wouldn’t be so mean to me.

Walking this world, knowing how ugly it can be, when I see someone struggling, I always try to have empathy for their situation, no matter what it is. A lot of times the situations we find ourselves in as humans are outside of our control. None of us are given handbook on how to move in this thing they call life. I try and always assume positive intent and believe that we all just try the best we can. After all, we’re only humans and for all we know this is our first time here on this earth, we should be cut a break if we don’t know what and how to do it right away!

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

As I mentioned before, I grew up with very humble beginnings. Growing up in a rough neighborhood with a mom who battled addiction left me in some very vulnerable spots as a child. When you are living around people who have given up on making a positive impact on this world you get exposed to some very ugly things. I lived with my older siblings off and on throughout my childhood. I moved out when I was 15 and I’ve been pretty much on my own since then.

For the first 13 years of my life living alone, I was in a domestically toxic relationship. This relationship was with my daughter’s father. When I was 28 years old, I decided to leave and take a chance to find a better life for myself and my two daughters. It was just us 3 for the longest time. It was a long uphill road that would lead to 21 different addresses, with my daughters in tow. When I looked into their little faces, I felt like I could conquer the world, so I kept putting one foot in front of the other until we found our way.

When I was 36 years old, I finally met someone who I could trust with my heart and to be around my daughters and we invited him to become part of our family. A couple years later we bought a dream house in the mountains of Colorado, where we married on the front lawn the following year. We lived and loved in those mountains for six years. During this time the girls grew up graduated high school, while I worked on completing my undergraduate degree in business where I graduated with honors.

In 2021 my new husband, Matt and I moved back home to my home state of Florida. He was going to continue being a truck driver while I was going to continue working in financial services, that was the plan anyways. Turns out Life had something else in mind.

Three months after we moved to Florida, we ended up buying a small community advertising paper, which turned out to be a dream job I didn’t even know about. I have always dreamed of being an author, this role has allowed me to meet so many people in the industry who can encourage me on my own writing journey while I get to run this fun community paper that brings so much laughter and joy to our community, it is a blessing for sure.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Blind faith would be one of the biggest qualities I would say you had to have to walk the path I walked. I didn’t have anything to fall back on if I didn’t make it my kids didn’t make it either. I held onto the blind faith and knowing that if I continued to be a kind, honest, good human being and I kept putting one foot in front of the other and trying my very best that it would all work out.
Another vital quality was being hungry to learn. Early on in my solo journey in life, I obtained my GED and enrolled in a community college where I received my associate’s degree in business. I had always heard that education was power, but I didn’t truly understand how powerful it was until I had it. Having a better understanding of the world around me definitely helped me navigate my journey better. Luckily, I’ve never lost that hunger to learn. Not only did this hunger to learn lead me back to college to obtain my undergraduate degree some years later but even today you can find me watching a TED talk, reading an educational journal, or learning a new program. I hope my love for learning is something that never goes away.
Finally, I would say the quality that drove my journey, the most was passion. I remember growing up in those humble beginnings and wondering why I wasn’t able to live the life that I see so many other people living. Their homes were clean, their cars had air-conditioning, they went on vacation and weekend getaways. As a child, I said that I wanted those things when I grew up. I guess even as a child I was passionate enough about that dream to put in the work to make it happen.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

The book that I owe the most credit to in my journey would be the New York Times best seller, “Embraced by the Light” by Betty J. Eddie. Even though I grew up in extreme poverty, I grew up in a very religious household. After moving out on my own, I had lost my faith. In all honesty, I was mad at God for dealing me such a crappy hand of cards in life. A good friend gave me this book when I was 29 years old. I read it, and it changed my mindset.

This book ignited a thought, what if I had chosen this hard life, what if I thought that I was tough enough to handle all of the things that this life threw at me. According to this book, we choose the life that we need here on earth for a stronger, higher, spiritual fulfillment. This changed my thought pattern from, “woe is me, why am I having such a hard time,” to “I chose this life, I am the cycle breaker in the family, I can change the trajectory of my family’s journey on this earth, and it is worth the fight.” After I changed my mindset, life has never been the same.

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Paula Joy

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