What healing means to this modern woman. A forever journey.

We laid down on the floor of Amie’s new yoga studio in Margate. It’s a beautiful space Amie has created for the community to practice everything from meditation to ballet. Amie is 29, a yoga teacher from Birmingham and now living in with her boyfriend in Margate. Amie teaches me yoga and we have only met a few times but I was struck with her openness. During one her classes she asked me to breath into the back of my heart. Bam! My kinda women.

Straight of the bat we were right into the conversations that sometimes take years to have even with people closest to you. I am grateful to Amie for opening up her space and sharing her story with us.

Sam: The Gate for me is about opening up our healing journeys. I want to know what you think healing is and what it means to you? 

Amie: “I think to heal firstly you must break down everything you think you are or wanted to be in the past. Maybe your life has been surrounded by trauma or a specific event occurred which usually creates walls around your true self. Then one day, maybe its a breakdown you start to realise it’s not you, you are not the person you have created. When you start to see the blocks and attempt to start healing it’s the most fucking painful thing in the world, and the most terrifying thing in the world. You in effect have to become nobody to start finding who you really really are.”

Sam: With your personal journey, what has happened in order for you to get to where you are now?

Amie: “When I was 16 my boyfriend committed suicide. He was my best friend. We were so young but it felt like we were together a lifetime, everything is so heightened at that age. He cheated on me and a week later he killed himself.”

“I never knew why, I didn’t know if it was my fault, If I could have helped. He text the morning before he killed himself I responded to the text but still I don’t know if he saw my response. It left for me so many questions un answered. I know that if I did stop it that time then it’s likely he would have found a way of killing himself another time, I know now people have to take responsibility for their own healing.”

Sam: Jesus, that’s life changing. How did you cope?

Amie: “I had to escape. I moved to London, it took five years of a lot of drinking and drugs to see I was having a breakdown. I was having a terrible time, in a destructive relationship, home life with a friend was awful and then I started to self-harm. It was a way of me turning the anger back on myself. Then one day after not being able to leave the house for a long time I just walked into the doctor’s surgery and said I need help. From that moment on my whole life changed.”

Sam: What were the steps you took after the moment of realising you needed help? 

Amie: “It was beautiful yet awful all at once. The doctors told me I was having a breakdown, they signed me off work for 6 months and told me to leave London and go home. I moved back to Birmingham. The sadness and embarrassment of having to tell my Mum and Dad was huge, it was the worst thing.”

Sam: How brave you were though, how much courage it showed being able to start the healing process. How were your parents?

Amie: “Just heartbroken, my Mum is my best friend and she had no idea what I had been going through, it was such a raw time and that’s when I started to find yoga. So many conflicting feelings of anger and sadness and I slowly started to heal.”

Sam: Do you think we need to have suffered trauma in order to experience your true self?

Amie: For me yes, I wouldn’t be who I am now without that. I am so proud of myself now and I’m so happy with my life now and I really feel like me. It’s such a privilege to feel like me.

Sam: Did you have a belief system through all of this? 

Amie: “I don’t believe in anything really, I believe in people and energy mostly. I don’t know much about it but I know there is more to it all, shifting energy, connecting with people, its magic. I believe in nature as God. “

Sam: What do you now think happens when you die?

Amie: “I think you go back into the earth, and you become a part of it. To me that’s reincarnation. Becoming part of the grass and trees. It’s magic really. There is so much magic in the world.”

Sam; I ask people about a key event that made them wake up, what do you think yours was?

Amie: “It wasn’t when he died, because when he died I went to sleep, it was when I took action to start healing, walking into that hospital in London.”

Sam: Have you ever thought about him dying in some way being a gift to you?

Amie: “Yes, I was spoilt, nothing was ever enough, I was self centred. Today this is life, this is where I am meant to be. If it hadn’t had happened I can’t imagine my life. Gifts come in strange packages.”

Sam: With all this I think back to our younger selves, what would you tell your younger self? 

Amie: “The most important thing is don’t be scared of being yourself, so much shame about being a bit weird and awkward. When you meet someone who is 100% who they are its beautiful. We are so conditioned for approval of others. Just don’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks. Embrace who you are.”

Sam: An then for your future self, what do you want future Amie to have?

Amie: “I want to give less, I know that sounds strange! I have a way of giving so much of myself away, making people feel safe and I need to learn to remember the balance. If I give my whole self away then I’m left with nothing for myself. Collapsing. In a year I want to have found that happy medium of feeling strong in my yoga practice for others and make sure I’m still on my journey.”

Sam: Is there anything you struggle with now? 

Amie: “I don’t ask for help enough. I don’t reach out to people. Especially with my new studio venture. There is a sense of shame somewhere in me for asking for help, its ego! I didn’t even realise it was ego until we just said it!”

Sam: Can you recognise when you are the best version of yourself?

Amie: I am the best version of myself when I meditate and just after, I feel so connected. Liberated from worry of self-comparing and what others think. Worst version is when the past comes back and I react to now situations with old thought patterns, learning to know that I don’t need to prove myself anymore, the closest people to me aren’t going to kill themselves and I am enough.

Talking with Amie could have lasted for days and I am sure we will do this again and focus in on certain areas of her practice and experiences. One thing Amie said really stuck with me and I leave you with this:

“I think healing is a forever journey, so many smaller traumas that we live with and push down. For me healing is about finding your true little vulnerable self and nurturing that person. “

Interview for The Gate. Instagram @the.gate___ Site: https://the-gate.online/about-contact/

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