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Borrowed Beliefs, Chosen Life · Is Your Way In Your Way?

0:48
Cassandra: Good day out there to all my listeners, and I'd like to welcome you to Is Your Way in Your Way.
0:54
Cassandra: And I had some new listeners on, and I just wanted you to know that that is actually the title of my number one best-selling book.
1:03
Cassandra: And I am also a transformational lifestyle mentor.
1:10
Cassandra: And what I do is I empower purpose-driven women to start living their best life on their terms.
1:20
Cassandra: So, what we like to talk about on this podcast is empowerment, self-improvement.
1:27
Cassandra: So, those are the topics that I like to select and present to you because I'm always prayerful that one of these podcasts will help you get unstuck.
1:39
Cassandra: You will start executing what it is for you to start living your best life.
1:45
Cassandra: And today, our topic is the themes of transformation, empowerment, and conscious living.
1:52
Cassandra: But I have a question for you.
1:54
Cassandra: What if the diagnosis you received in your story was actually the invitation to begin again?
2:02
Cassandra: My guest today, Babs, and we'll tell you what that stands for, she faced stage four cancer and discovered that surrender, not control, was the path to freedom.
2:15
Cassandra: Her story reveals how resilience, self-awareness, and grace can turn our greatest storms into the very wings that help us rise.
2:25
Cassandra: If you've ever wondered how to turn pain into purpose, you want to lean into this conversation.
2:33
Cassandra: So let me introduce you to Amy Lee Carol.
2:39
Cassandra: Hi, Amy, Amy Lynn, Amy Lynn.
2:43
Cassandra: Hi, Cassandra.
2:44
Cassandra: How are you today, love?
2:45
Cassandra: I am doing well.
2:47
Cassandra: I am doing well.
2:48
Cassandra: And I first I just want to thank you for being a guest on my show.
2:51
Cassandra: Is your way in your way?
2:53
Cassandra: I'm excited to be here.
2:55
Cassandra: Yeah.
2:56
Cassandra: Um, prior to us starting, Amy Lynn, I'd like to read your bio just so my listeners will get a better understanding of what qualifies you to talk about what we're going to talk about.
3:12
Cassandra: So Babs, it okay, Babs.
3:15
Cassandra: Okay, tell the audience what Babs, what does that stand for?
3:22
AmiLynne: Babs is my spirit name.
3:24
AmiLynne: And as you can see, if you're looking on the screen versus just listening, there's a butterfly after Babs, and Babs is short for badass butterfly.
3:35
Cassandra: Oh, I love that.
3:36
Cassandra: Badass butterfly.
3:38
Cassandra: So listen, Babs is a certified spiritual development, religious trauma, and life coach whose journey from stage four cancer survivor to thriving guide inspires resilience, healing, and empowerment.
3:56
Cassandra: Through her signature programs, she helps others embrace vulnerability as strength, surrender control, and reclaim their voice to create a life of authenticity and purpose.
4:09
Cassandra: Many of us want to live a life of purpose, but there's a problem.
4:15
Cassandra: There is a problem.
4:17
Cassandra: So let's find out what that problem is.
4:21
Cassandra: Okay, so Babs, or sometimes I will interchange listeners, Babs, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy.
4:32
Cassandra: Yeah, I would just who knows.
4:35
Cassandra: I don't know.
4:36
Cassandra: I'm just gonna go with the flow, okay?
4:38
Cassandra: I'm one of 15 kids.
4:40
AmiLynne: You can call me whatever you want, and I will respond.
4:43
AmiLynne: I am well trained.
4:44
AmiLynne: Are you serious?
4:46
AmiLynne: Oh my gosh.
4:47
AmiLynne: Well, listen, tell us about your backstory.
4:50
AmiLynne: Um, my backstory is I like to say it's no different than anyone else's, and yet it is so uniquely my own.
4:59
AmiLynne: Yes, because I believe that each of us, Cassandra, is here.
5:03
AmiLynne: Our journey is a journey back home, a journey back home to the divine, to God, to source, creator, universe, whatever you call that higher power.
5:16
AmiLynne: Our journey here is not to get somewhere, but to remember what we're called for.
5:23
AmiLynne: So I grew up um in a in a large numbered household.
5:28
AmiLynne: Um, although the household was small, three bedrooms.
5:32
AmiLynne: Um, I had seven brothers and seven sisters, eight girls, seven boys.
5:37
AmiLynne: And I grew up in a very rigid, uh, very fundamental Christian household.
5:45
AmiLynne: So much so that I recognized um about 10 to 15 years ago that I had actually been raised in a cult.
5:53
AmiLynne: Oh, wow.
5:54
AmiLynne: Was not aware of it during the time.
5:56
AmiLynne: And so as that matriculates into my own experience, and I move out and go on to college and you know, relationships and all of those things, our our childhood upbringing plays such an integral role.
6:12
AmiLynne: And for me, I went into, you know, I did all of the things that you're supposed to do.
6:19
AmiLynne: I went to college and graduated, got my master's, did well, excelled, moved into corporate America, and you know, took the world by storm, as they say.
6:31
Cassandra: Right.
6:32
AmiLynne: And yet, unfortunately for me, at the end of the day, there was such an emptiness that I experienced because for those first 35 years of my life, almost 40 years of my life, I spent almost every day making sure that everybody around me was happy.
6:52
AmiLynne: So much so that I had no clue what made me happy.
6:58
AmiLynne: So in 2007, after many years of cancer diagnosis and traveling that journey and living through that experience, which I know so many people do today.
7:12
AmiLynne: In 2007, I was part of an experimental program at the Mayo Clinic, and my doctor actually called me in and he gave me what I now call some call an expiration date.
7:23
AmiLynne: To me, it was my very first invitation into my own life.
7:28
Cassandra: Oh, wow.
7:29
AmiLynne: He gave me six weeks in 2007, and today, as we talk and people are listening, this is 2025.
7:38
AmiLynne: So we don't think men are fallible, just take that example because I did what most people do.
7:46
AmiLynne: I went home and I fell apart, I cried my eyes out.
7:52
AmiLynne: I was a rule follower.
7:54
AmiLynne: Yeah, who is this God that would allow like he would bring me here to do this?
7:59
AmiLynne: And having fought, you know, for the past 15 years prior to that with different cancer diagnoses, and then you go into remission and then it's back, and just traveling that journey, which felt like such a roller coaster.
8:14
AmiLynne: I began to question absolutely everything I thought I believed.
8:23
Cassandra: That's good.
8:23
Cassandra: I thought I believed.
8:25
AmiLynne: I thought that I believed because there's a big difference between what we really truly believe and what we think we believe.
8:32
AmiLynne: And how do you know that that's true?
8:34
AmiLynne: We've all heard of the uh midlife crisis, or I'm having a crisis of faith.
8:43
Cassandra: Okay.
8:44
AmiLynne: What if it's not a crisis of faith, but a crisis of belief?
8:49
AmiLynne: Because our faith is something that we gain through experience.
8:55
AmiLynne: Faith is not an activity, it's not a behavior, it is a being, it's an essence of who we are, and it is part of who we are because of the experiences we have had.
9:06
AmiLynne: So, this idea of having a crisis of faith made no sense to me.
9:11
AmiLynne: But when I began to look at the idea of belief, what do I believe in?
9:17
AmiLynne: Why?
9:17
AmiLynne: Where did I get that belief?
9:19
AmiLynne: And does it serve me today as much as it did the day I picked that belief up?
9:25
AmiLynne: And so instead of beginning to talk about things like conditioned belief or conditioned thinking or programmed thinking, what if in that space, instead of operating on conditioned or programmed, we're just simply operating on borrowed belief.
9:45
AmiLynne: And those beliefs are borrowed from people who love us deeply: our parents, our grandparents, our siblings, our teachers, our professors, coworkers, friends, etc.
9:57
AmiLynne: But what we what happens is when we pick up that borrowed belief, there's not a user manual.
10:04
AmiLynne: Right.
10:05
AmiLynne: And so we are not reminded that just because we pick that belief up and it serves a purpose for a season, it doesn't mean that that belief is meant to serve us for all seasons.
10:42
AmiLynne: And so what happens is we don't want to set it down, so we now become a slave to that belief.
10:48
Cassandra: Yeah.
10:49
AmiLynne: Well, this is my belief, so this is how I better act.
10:51
AmiLynne: This is how I better show up.
10:54
Cassandra: Amy Lynn, let me let me let me ask you this.
10:56
Cassandra: And growing up, were you would you you said you grew up in a cult?
11:04
Cassandra: Was it did you all go to church?
11:07
Cassandra: Was it religious?
11:08
Cassandra: Was it relationship?
11:10
Cassandra: What where did that come from?
11:14
AmiLynne: It was rooted in a religion, okay, masquerading as Christianity.
11:21
Cassandra: Okay.
11:21
AmiLynne: Uh, we were taught um predestination.
11:25
Cassandra: Uh-huh.
11:26
AmiLynne: Only a very select few people are going to heaven.
11:28
AmiLynne: And guess what?
11:29
AmiLynne: You are not one of them.
11:30
Cassandra: Uh-huh.
11:31
Cassandra: Okay.
11:32
AmiLynne: So imagine at seven years old, knowing at seven years old that you are not a chosen child of God and that you're not going to heaven.
11:39
AmiLynne: And in Sunday school class that Sunday, they teach us about the rapture.
11:44
AmiLynne: My father was a deacon in the church, he was a deacon in this in this community.
11:49
AmiLynne: And so, well, he's going to heaven.
11:51
AmiLynne: So we're driving home after church, and all I can think about is if the rapture happens right now, I'm going straight to hell right now.
11:58
AmiLynne: Right.
11:59
AmiLynne: Because I got no control over this car.
12:02
AmiLynne: And so there was a huge sense of fear.
12:05
AmiLynne: You do what you do because you're told to do it, and the consequences of not doing it are dire.
12:13
Cassandra: Right.
12:14
AmiLynne: The consequences of questioning could be more dire.
12:19
Cassandra: Wow.
12:19
Cassandra: It's kind of like uh, as you indicated, a god or whomever the higher power one believes, like what a bad person.
12:27
Cassandra: Yeah, I'm trying to do the best I can, but I'm still I'm going to hell.
12:33
Cassandra: I'm still I'm still going to hell.
12:34
Cassandra: So my other question is okay, you worked in corporate and what at what age were you diagnosed with cancer?
12:46
AmiLynne: My first diagnosis diagnosis was just after my 21st birthday.
12:52
Cassandra: Okay, okay.
12:53
Cassandra: Now, when you were diagnosed, what did your parents say?
12:58
Cassandra: How was that?
12:59
Cassandra: How was that uh whole experience when you shared it with your family, or did you share it with everyone?
13:08
AmiLynne: My parents at that point in my experience had passed away.
13:11
AmiLynne: Oh, really?
13:13
AmiLynne: And so it was not only navigating life now without that direction, but navigating life in a space where, and this is important because this is part of those belief patterns that were raised with children.
13:28
AmiLynne: Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, and cancer is bad, and so I must be a bad person.
13:36
AmiLynne: And though, even though I had been this rule follower and continued to be a rule follower, I was a vegetarian.
13:43
AmiLynne: I actually, as a matter of fact, I learned my very first cancer diagnosis.
13:47
AmiLynne: I learned because I'd gone in for a physical, because I was running a marathon, I was running the leukemia foundation marathon in Maui and wanted to have a physical before I left and then found a lump.
13:59
AmiLynne: Oh my gosh.
14:00
AmiLynne: And so it's like I'm I'm a rule follower, I do all the things I'm supposed to do.
14:04
AmiLynne: Somehow we believe because we're taught, if we do what we are told, then the outcome will be what we expect, right?
14:16
AmiLynne: And God is not transactional, and God is also not the purveyor of harm or deficit, right?
14:30
Cassandra: So it sounds like your story is not just about overcoming adversity, it's about embracing the journey of self-discovery and reclaiming the power to shape your own destiny.
14:48
Cassandra: Because um what what I what I've learned is we're gonna always have struggles in life.
14:56
Cassandra: All right.
14:57
Cassandra: And when I think about the experience at the age of 21, what you had gone through, you actually had a choice.
15:05
Cassandra: You could be better about it because you already was somewhat conditioned that I must be really bad because I have cancer, and and I wasn't sure whether God loved me.
15:16
Cassandra: So now I know perhaps He really doesn't because he gave me this, and plus I did all the right things, and it and that whole aspect to me had to be confusing.
15:27
Cassandra: So, what is it or what occurred for you to be drawn closer rather than drawn away from your faith?
15:40
AmiLynne: For many years, my faith was in a season of the chrysalis, the butterfly, and then go into the cocoon.
15:49
AmiLynne: It was very quiet, yeah, it was very confusing, as you said.
15:53
AmiLynne: It was such a good word, but in 2007, when I received that prognosis, I chose to go home.
16:04
AmiLynne: Uh, so I went home and I cried for three days.
16:08
AmiLynne: Like, it's not fair, this is awful.
16:11
AmiLynne: But then all of a sudden, just this little God whisper entered my mind.
16:17
AmiLynne: And that god whisper was when Dr.
16:21
AmiLynne: C gave you that prognosis, he said, My best understanding, my best opinion is that your prognosis is not good.
16:31
AmiLynne: Opinion.
16:33
AmiLynne: Opinion, right?
16:35
AmiLynne: And so I said, Well, if I don't understand what the difference between right and wrong and what's good or bad or what's black and white, then how do I how do I answer that question?
16:45
AmiLynne: How do I know for certain?
16:47
AmiLynne: Because that's his opinion.
16:49
AmiLynne: But his opinion doesn't have to be fact, and at that point I was dealing with fact versus opinion.
16:55
AmiLynne: Now, what I functioned from is a place of truth, capital T, divine idea is immutable, unchangeable, it's omnipresent, it's all knowing.
17:07
AmiLynne: What got me to that place of transformation and transition is after that third day of tears and tantrum throwing, yeah, I began to question absolutely everything I thought I believed.
17:23
AmiLynne: And I picked up every spiritual text I could find and I read it for myself.
17:30
AmiLynne: I read the Christian Bible, I read the Jewish Torah, I read the Quran, I read the Gita, I talked to people and read part of the Vedas, I talked to people in faith circles who understood faith, not belief, but faith.
17:50
AmiLynne: And I wasn't asking them questions to be a rebel to prove them wrong.
17:55
AmiLynne: Yeah, I wasn't asking them questions to invite them to proselytize, but to help me understand that we are here living this human experience, but we are divine beings.
18:12
AmiLynne: The clothes we wear are our is our human, it's the human vessel that carries us through this experience.
18:21
AmiLynne: And so piece by piece, day by day, truth by truth, I began to see my health improving.
18:34
AmiLynne: I went cold turkey off of all the meds, every last one of them, not a single med.
18:42
Cassandra: So you you got off of them.
18:44
AmiLynne: I got off of them.
18:45
AmiLynne: I stopped the treatments, got off all meds, went whole food, began to learn what does it mean to pray?
18:54
AmiLynne: Because I grew up with a pair of a prayer of petition, that's how you pray.
19:00
AmiLynne: Yeah, you worship and petition, and worship is telling God that He's good, and petition is telling God what you want, as if God doesn't already know what you need.
19:10
AmiLynne: And so I didn't deep dive.
19:14
AmiLynne: What is prayer?
19:15
AmiLynne: Yeah, and prayer is our life.
19:19
AmiLynne: Prayer is God being expressed through each and every one of us, and that we need to choose what that looks like.
19:28
AmiLynne: We've all uh we've all heard the uh phrase, you've made your bed, and so yes, yes, and I was 42 years old.
19:40
AmiLynne: I had, of course, I've progressed now from that 35 years old with that prognosis.
19:46
AmiLynne: Yes, and uh I remarried.
19:49
AmiLynne: Matter of fact, my husband, I I give credit to to this day.
19:55
AmiLynne: I am here physically in this realm because of his love and his healing power.
20:01
AmiLynne: He loved me through those questions, he was patient with me.
20:06
AmiLynne: He never tried to give me answers, yeah.
20:09
AmiLynne: He allowed me to travel that journey, as you said, to embrace the journey along the way and recognize that that's look, that's kind of why we're here.
20:21
Cassandra: Will you did he marry you after the prognosis?
20:25
Cassandra: He did, or or after, he did, okay, okay, okay, awesome.
20:31
AmiLynne: Matter of fact, when I called him, because I lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and he lived in Woodland Hills, California.
20:38
AmiLynne: So literally on complete opposite ends of interstate or US 10.
20:43
AmiLynne: And we had had a couple of telephone.
20:46
AmiLynne: Conversations.
20:47
AmiLynne: Uh matter of fact, I got the prognosis in April, but he and I had only started talking on the phone in January of that year, 2007.
20:57
AmiLynne: So we I called him and just said, Look, this is the prognosis, this is what they've said.
21:03
AmiLynne: And he said to me, That's a lie.
21:06
AmiLynne: That's a lie.
21:08
AmiLynne: The prognosis is a lie.
21:10
AmiLynne: And at first I was like, dude, you don't know me well enough to be calling me a liar.
21:14
AmiLynne: Yeah, yeah.
21:15
AmiLynne: What he was saying was this spiritually, that's not true about me.
21:19
AmiLynne: And now, all of these years later, I recognize that invitation that not that he was calling me a liar.
21:31
AmiLynne: Sure.
21:32
AmiLynne: But that this belief was a borrowed belief.
21:36
AmiLynne: And at that point, I didn't call them borrowed beliefs.
21:39
AmiLynne: It's only been like the last three or four years that I've understood the difference between just regular thinking and beliefs versus a borrowed belief.
21:49
AmiLynne: Because if a doctor tells you you're going to die, we assume that that doctor knows everything.
21:58
AmiLynne: The expert, right?
22:00
AmiLynne: What if God knows more?
22:03
Cassandra: Of course.
22:04
AmiLynne: What if God is guiding that doctor and they are giving you their absolute best sense of right?
22:10
AmiLynne: This isn't about vilifying, but it's about recognizing that from a human from a human standpoint, we only have so much understanding or experience, but God has all, he's all knowing.
22:27
AmiLynne: Not holy God, please don't make me go through this challenge again.
22:42
Cassandra: Um, it's so to me, your husband, it was like a divine connection.
22:50
Cassandra: No doubt.
22:51
Cassandra: And when I listened to you, I had a friend that was stage four, she diagnosed, and and it actually just our conversation brings back to my remembrance.
23:05
Cassandra: She did the same thing.
23:07
Cassandra: I'm not taking this.
23:08
Cassandra: Uh, she's she was a dietitian, she knew the right thing, she knew the food and blah, blah, blah.
23:14
Cassandra: And then it was something that really stuck with me, and there were certain things that she wanted to do in her life.
23:21
Cassandra: And that's why I had this burden, so to speak, for women to start living their best life on their terms, because we're all here for a reason.
23:31
Cassandra: We all have purpose.
23:33
Cassandra: And then I even questioned when she passed, she did all the things you did, faith strong, but she didn't make it.
23:41
Cassandra: And I was like, hmm, now why did she not make it?
23:45
Cassandra: And plus, she never lived the dream that she had, but others do.
23:50
Cassandra: So, and then by thinking that it's like, I'm not God.
23:54
Cassandra: There's a reason for you, and I can actually see the reason because you are speaking of um, based on what you've experienced, not taking any medication, that had to empower you, you know, and and conscious living, you know.
24:13
Cassandra: So I don't know what God's story was for her, um, but you know what's for you.
24:21
Cassandra: And I I'm loving this conversation because you found your purpose out of your pain.
24:30
Cassandra: Oh, absolutely.
24:34
AmiLynne: Absolutely, yeah.
24:35
AmiLynne: What would you suggest, Cassandra, that your friend is no longer not here, she's living on through you.
24:43
AmiLynne: That's true, yeah.
24:46
AmiLynne: And so the physical body is one thing.
24:49
AmiLynne: If we fast forward into my experience to October of 2022, I had a stroke.
24:55
AmiLynne: And it was a result of the cancer.
24:59
AmiLynne: Yes, and it left me a quadriplegic.
25:03
AmiLynne: And in those days, those early days, to be just transparent, I don't have a whole lot of memory of it, and I'm grateful that I don't just hearing what my loved ones and friends had a dear friend who lives in Grenada, the the Caribbean uh island.
25:20
AmiLynne: She literally came up and sat at my bedside for two weeks, and she prayed and she sang, and she was just present for me.
25:30
AmiLynne: Yes, and in that coming out of that that phase, that season, that experience, I recognized that what God had given me again is another invitation.
25:43
AmiLynne: There was a reason I was still here, and I didn't have to know what the reason was to know that there is a reason.
25:51
AmiLynne: Because I will tell you, since that stroke that left this very athletic and able-bodied woman, a quadriplegic, I have done more with my life since that stroke than I did in the 50 years that led up to it.
26:11
AmiLynne: Wow.
26:12
AmiLynne: I've published a book, Amazon's best seller.
26:16
AmiLynne: I've done a TED Talk with over 100,000 views.
26:19
AmiLynne: I've looked at the life charter, which is just, and for me, the life charter is just this is what works for Babs.
26:26
AmiLynne: This is what brought Babs back from the brain.
26:31
AmiLynne: That question.
26:32
AmiLynne: And so it's a space of if we could see the things that we call challenges, if we could see them instead of challenges as invitations, yeah, yeah, into our own experience, that is so empowering.
26:48
AmiLynne: Yeah, but it also requires that consciousness of being that awareness, that presence of saying, okay, this is absolutely not how I would have had this unfold, but it's how it's unfolding.
27:03
Cassandra: So that's the invitation here for me to live out loud, right?
27:11
Cassandra: Consciously living, yeah.
27:14
AmiLynne: And that's the subconscious, and I can oftentimes I'll use the example of um, you know, we've all driven and we get home, we put our keys where they go, we take our shoes off, and we go in right, and then all of a sudden we think back, I don't even remember the drive home.
27:30
AmiLynne: Oh, and that's unconscious living.
27:34
AmiLynne: Unconscious.
27:35
AmiLynne: Now, our unconscious is very important because it got us home safe that day.
27:39
Cassandra: Sure.
27:40
AmiLynne: We don't vilify, we thank it for what it is, but in that moment, that moment of recognizing that we didn't remember the drive home is an invitation.
27:50
AmiLynne: How can I be more present in my experience?
27:55
AmiLynne: Yeah, how can I be more aware, more conscious, and in that space, that is an invitation for God to shine through more brightly because God's always present, always dampens.
28:12
AmiLynne: I'm the one who dampens the light because I think I know the way.
28:19
Cassandra: But when I recognize that my way may be in the way, yes, absolutely shines through right, and you know, something else you say is vulnerability, you know, vulnerability.
28:34
Cassandra: I I didn't well, actually, that was one of the reasons it took me so long to write my book because of those barriers.
28:44
Cassandra: I didn't want to be exposed, I didn't want people to know my life, you know.
28:49
Cassandra: Like I had a girlfriend, she said, You told everything.
28:51
Cassandra: I'm like, No, sweetheart, I didn't tell it all.
28:54
Cassandra: I just told what I felt led to share.
28:58
Cassandra: And you and I loved it when you said vulnerability is not a weakness, it's a strength.
29:04
Cassandra: Unpack that for us.
29:07
AmiLynne: Well, well, we're taught in society that again, weakness is bad, uh-huh, and that vulnerability would mean that we don't know everything we need to know because we're gonna take a step back.
29:23
AmiLynne: To be vulnerable is to say I don't know.
29:28
AmiLynne: To be vulnerable is to say I don't understand why, where, how.
29:35
AmiLynne: I don't understand where what I'm going through right now fits into a bigger picture, and I can't talk about it until I can see the bigger picture.
29:44
AmiLynne: Right.
29:45
AmiLynne: And that vulnerability is a human confine that is put onto our soul that dampens our light.
29:53
AmiLynne: Because we don't come here to figure things out, we don't have this human experience to figure out the big picture.
30:03
AmiLynne: We we are here in this human experience to be the expression of God.
30:09
AmiLynne: In those moments that, from a mortal perspective, a human perspective, we would call vulnerable.
30:17
AmiLynne: I choose to call those authenticity.
30:22
Cassandra: Authenticity.
30:23
AmiLynne: I love that just authenticity shining through, but we have to understand our true essence.
30:31
Cassandra: Uh-huh.
30:31
AmiLynne: We have to understand not this human experience and the when, where, why, and how, but just to know that our absolute presence, our essence is foundational and rooted in nothing more and nothing less than God.
30:51
Cassandra: Yeah.
30:51
Cassandra: You know, I like that because it's also bringing back to my remembrance, and I'm certain my listeners have experienced this, or no individuals that have.
31:02
Cassandra: We're so focused on, and it's okay to be focused on the future in regards to what you want to do, but okay, because things aren't going right.
31:12
Cassandra: Well, I wonder how things are going to be later on.
31:15
Cassandra: And and then they call these psychic people, and then they, you know, you pass by a house and it says psychic reading, turn to the right, go to that reading, and and listen to all of that.
31:26
Cassandra: And it's all about being in the present as you indicated, because I don't want to know.
31:34
Cassandra: This is just me, whether I have the Alzheimer's gene, or whether I have, you know, it's like whether, you know, the the cancer.
31:43
Cassandra: I mean, it it I mean, everybody has their individual individuality, which is fine with me, but I don't want to know.
31:50
Cassandra: I want to live each day, I want to stay in the present, you know.
31:54
AmiLynne: And here's the thing that takes us back to that idea of a borrowed belief.
31:58
AmiLynne: When we think back to the 80s, we think back to the 80s, a cancer diagnosis was essentially a death certificate.
32:06
AmiLynne: Absolutely.
32:07
AmiLynne: And then the 90s change thought is what is changing.
32:13
AmiLynne: Yes, there is more medical intervention and things that are being made available, but it's not because of that medical intervention that I am here today.
32:22
Cassandra: Right.
32:23
AmiLynne: My thought about cancer changed, my understanding of cancer changed.
32:31
Cassandra: Changed.
32:32
AmiLynne: Take an example of um allergies.
32:37
Cassandra: Uh-huh.
32:38
AmiLynne: Pretty mundane.
32:39
AmiLynne: They can be very difficult for some people in different seasons of the year.
32:45
AmiLynne: Sure.
32:45
AmiLynne: But when I began to realize that an allergy is not a deficit, it's actually an overactiveness to our immune system.
32:56
AmiLynne: It's over-achieving.
32:59
AmiLynne: And we hear more and more about allergies, and we also hear more and more and more about needing to achieve and overachieve and be an overachiever.
33:10
AmiLynne: And look, I was all those things because that's what I was raised to be.
33:14
AmiLynne: You're a valedictorian of your class.
33:16
AmiLynne: You you graduate college, Kuma Sunla, like you get perfect on this, that, and the other.
33:21
AmiLynne: Because if it's not perfect, I literally grew up in a house where if it's not an A, it's an F.
33:27
AmiLynne: Wow.
33:28
AmiLynne: And so it's it was so black and white.
33:31
AmiLynne: And so we strive for these things that we think will make us successful.
33:37
AmiLynne: Striving for success, and what we should be working toward is a sense of fulfillment.
33:44
AmiLynne: Yes.
33:45
AmiLynne: Success doesn't play a role in fulfillment because I can tell you today, from a human perspective, I had failed at so many things.
33:56
AmiLynne: But my sense of fulfillment today versus what it was 10, 20, 30 years ago.
34:05
AmiLynne: Yeah, I didn't understand what fulfillment was.
34:08
AmiLynne: And fulfillment is knowing who you are.
34:11
AmiLynne: And I would say that it's not just knowing who you are, but whose you are.
34:17
Cassandra: Yeah, that authenticity.
34:20
AmiLynne: Exactly.
34:20
Cassandra: Yeah, yeah.
34:21
AmiLynne: And being able to live from that place and owning, we talk so much about, especially here in the Western, you know, Western world, about you know, being unique and being able to have a voice and finding your voice and speaking from your truth, you know, speaking from your truth and your experience.
34:39
AmiLynne: But if we recognize that our truth is God's truth, and we get to learn how to navigate that in meaningful and practical ways, yeah, that's going to be different for me than it is for you.
34:55
AmiLynne: And different doesn't make it wrong, it just makes it different.
34:58
Cassandra: Exactly.
34:59
Cassandra: The uniqueness, I love it.
35:02
AmiLynne: So vulnerability is really just being able to say, okay, this is where I'm at.
35:09
Cassandra: Uh-huh.
35:10
AmiLynne: And I may not necessarily like it, but in a space of vulnerability, we also recognize the power of the duality of a blessing and a lesson.
35:22
AmiLynne: Absolutely everything that shows up in our experience is twofold.
35:28
Cassandra: Yes.
35:29
AmiLynne: In that twofold, it is singular because it is always there.
35:33
AmiLynne: It's always a lesson.
35:36
Cassandra: Yes, it is.
35:37
AmiLynne: And as long as it is a lesson, it's also always a blessing.
35:41
AmiLynne: That we call the lesson good or bad is our own perception and our own marker.
35:49
Cassandra: Right, right.
35:51
AmiLynne: Light shows up, and we get to engage, or we get to choose not to.
35:58
Cassandra: Right.
35:58
Cassandra: So it sounds like your journey has been a masterclass.
36:03
Cassandra: Oh, and relinquishing control and embracing uh command, a shift from the pursuit of control to the sentencing of autonomy and self-mastery.
36:15
Cassandra: Absolutely.
36:17
AmiLynne: Absolutely.
36:17
AmiLynne: I invite your I invite your listeners to just imagine the fullness of their schedules.
36:25
AmiLynne: Today we call it busyness.
36:27
AmiLynne: Yeah.
36:27
AmiLynne: Shifted from a place of busyness to having a full calendar.
36:31
AmiLynne: There's a difference in feeling it full versus full calendar.
36:35
AmiLynne: Yeah, it's full.
36:36
AmiLynne: My calendar is full.
36:37
AmiLynne: I'm blessed.
36:38
AmiLynne: I'm not busy because I'm not chasing something.
36:41
AmiLynne: But we're all these really busy, overscheduled, overwhelmed people.
36:47
AmiLynne: Now imagine waking up and you can't move from the neck down.
36:57
AmiLynne: You learn that it's not vulnerable to ask for help.
37:01
AmiLynne: It's actually a blessing to the other person because that's their chosen path is to help another, whether it's daily activities or whether it's setting up technology or taking the dog for a walk or helping my like we get to choose how we see things that show up in our experience.
37:21
Cassandra: Yes.
37:22
AmiLynne: And just because we've always been taught that to ask for help is a weakness.
37:27
Speaker 5: Right.
37:28
AmiLynne: We can set down that borrowed belief and we can choose to believe something deeper, experience something deeper.
37:37
AmiLynne: And in that same place of learning that lesson, we are blessing those around us who want nothing more than to help in this case of need.
37:48
Cassandra: And I love that because I even have a chapter in my book, um, the love letters written to women.
37:54
Cassandra: And then one of the chapters, like Dear Women Who Want to Know Their Purpose.
37:59
Cassandra: And there's no big or small purpose, but purpose used to drive me like, why am I here?
38:04
Cassandra: You know, what is my purpose?
38:07
Cassandra: And as you indicated, a purpose could be helping someone, caregiving.
38:13
Cassandra: It could be, and it can change, you know.
38:16
Cassandra: So never, you know, a lot of people think, uh, I like like I have a cousin who is phenomenal.
38:22
Cassandra: She is a true caregiver and she loves it, and she does a phenomenal job, and that is her purpose, and she's okay with that, and she and that's what she believes.
38:35
Cassandra: And man, she is just as happy as ever.
38:38
Cassandra: She's fulfilled because that's what she believed she was called to do.
38:42
AmiLynne: Yeah, it's the difference between going to bed at night, fulfilled and tired, no, versus overwhelmed and exhausted.
38:52
AmiLynne: Yes, that was me.
38:54
AmiLynne: Yeah, overwhelmed and exhausted.
38:56
AmiLynne: We don't rest well, our body cannot let go, and our body heals when we rest.
39:04
Cassandra: Yes, that's so true.
39:06
AmiLynne: So if we can begin the process thought by thought, moment by moment, the best we're able to at any given moment surrender into that place of autonomy, yeah, divine truth and power and purpose.
39:26
Cassandra: Lovely, wow.
39:28
Cassandra: Um, could you uncover for my listeners layers of your true self?
39:43
Speaker 2: Oh, I I love, love, love this question because, like so many of us that are on that path, I gotta find my voice.
39:55
Cassandra: Right.
39:55
AmiLynne: And when we're on a path of finding our voice, it's because we feel like we've been silenced at some point in our experience.
40:03
AmiLynne: And if you're anything like me, when you find that voice, now you think everybody wants to hear it and needs to hear it because for the love of all things good and great, I finally found my voice.
40:15
AmiLynne: Yeah.
40:16
AmiLynne: But those layers, as you were just pointing out, the layers of our true self is where we learn to actually engage with discernment and wisdom.
40:28
AmiLynne: And it's the space of knowing that just because I have a voice or I have something that I want to say, yes, is this the right place or time to say it?
40:41
Cassandra: Exactly.
40:41
Cassandra: I love it.
40:42
AmiLynne: And it matters how I say it, because I can tell you.
40:46
AmiLynne: That I love you and be snarky about it, and that can be harmful, or I can tell you that I love you, and that could be the one sentence that saves someone's life today.
41:03
AmiLynne: It's not about achieving for me the layers of that true identity and that true self are it's about casting off the expectations of others, and not from a place of not caring, but not picking up someone else's expectations.
41:24
AmiLynne: Girlfriend, let me tell you, I spent a lot of time learning how to put down other people's expectations, just set them down, let them go.
41:34
AmiLynne: And all of a sudden, I had by doing that, practicing it, practicing it with grace and humility, so that it wasn't intended to hurt another, but we teach people how to treat us.
41:49
Cassandra: Yes, we do.
41:50
AmiLynne: So for decades, some of us have been just we've been seeking their agendas and their expectations because that's how we keep them happy, right?
42:01
AmiLynne: So when we begin to shift, to begin to listen to that still small voice, it is scary for those around us.
42:12
AmiLynne: Right.
42:12
AmiLynne: So we it's so important that this transformation, which takes a lifetime, that it's done with grace and humility and alignment, divine alignment, because our aim is not to hurt another.
42:28
AmiLynne: Right.
42:29
AmiLynne: It doesn't mean that they might not feel hurt by our transformation, right?
42:34
AmiLynne: But we can be in command of whether how we are expressing this transformation to do our best to mitigate that hurting them purposefully.
42:44
AmiLynne: So it's setting down the expectations of others, the agendas of generations, not just our own parents and grandparents, but generations of our family that have come before based on where we were born.
43:00
Cassandra: Exactly.
43:01
Cassandra: Right.
43:02
AmiLynne: Setting those down and saying, what does that mean to me?
43:04
AmiLynne: That borrowed belief of this is how a woman acts.
43:09
AmiLynne: This is how a wife succeeds.
43:12
AmiLynne: This is what you know, a sister or a brother or a father, whatever.
43:18
AmiLynne: Right.
43:19
AmiLynne: Like you and I were talking before we connected on the podcast today about the difference between a coach and a travel partner.
43:28
Cassandra: That's right.
43:29
AmiLynne: And for me, that was setting down that borrowed belief that in order for me to help people, I needed to use a word that people understood.
43:39
AmiLynne: And it was very vulnerable too, because especially, you know, in the last five to ten years, coaching has really come about.
43:49
Cassandra: Yeah.
43:51
AmiLynne: But for me, I had to find something that felt in alignment with who I am.
43:57
AmiLynne: And that's setting down the expectations of others.
44:01
AmiLynne: And it's not that we don't care, it's that we don't take them on as our own without consciously being aware of it.
44:12
Cassandra: That's true.
44:13
Cassandra: Yeah, and it's unfortunate, but it's a reality.
44:16
Cassandra: Um, people judge others by the expectations they have.
44:23
AmiLynne: Absolutely.
44:24
AmiLynne: That's that's the whole idea.
44:25
AmiLynne: This is the misunderstanding about comfort zones.
44:28
Cassandra: Yeah.
44:29
AmiLynne: We think that the comfort zone is about keeping us safe.
44:33
AmiLynne: Yes.
44:34
AmiLynne: What if the comfort zone is about protecting the people around us?
44:39
AmiLynne: Yes, and so we play small in those spaces.
44:42
AmiLynne: Right.
44:43
AmiLynne: We don't live to our calling in those spaces because it would be quote unquote uncomfortable for those around us.
44:52
Cassandra: I know.
44:53
Cassandra: And I thank you for that because um I I have high expectations, you know, and uh, and I need to just we're all created.
45:05
Cassandra: I mean, I can't I can't judge.
45:08
Cassandra: Who am I to judge?
45:09
Cassandra: You know, so I've learned that part through my journey.
45:14
Cassandra: Um it's been been been tough, you know, like two people can have the same thing and one happy and one not because that's not their expectations, yeah.
45:25
Cassandra: So it's very interesting.
45:27
Cassandra: Babs, I tell you, we could I could talk to you all day, but I just can't.
45:33
Cassandra: Me too, girl.
45:34
Cassandra: I know your wisdom and insight is just unbelievable.
45:39
Cassandra: Now you have a call to action on your website, and tell us what that is about purposeful life.
45:49
Cassandra: What is that fulfilling?
45:51
Cassandra: What is that call to action on your website?
45:54
Cassandra: Absolutely.
45:55
AmiLynne: Our call to action is about living with purpose, living with clarity, and living with aligned action.
46:03
AmiLynne: And so, what we do in the work with the life charter is that we don't pull out the cookie cutters and say which one do you want to be?
46:13
Cassandra: Right.
46:14
AmiLynne: We're vulnerable.
46:15
AmiLynne: We throw those cookie cutters out and we teach you how to listen for who you already are.
46:22
AmiLynne: Forgot along the way.
46:24
AmiLynne: That's your life charter program.
46:26
AmiLynne: Yes, and the life charter program is six months.
46:30
AmiLynne: There are 12 dimensions in our life, everyone's life, and those 12 dimensions are things like my intellectual life, my love relationships, my parenting, my character, my financial life, uh, my career.
46:45
AmiLynne: So those 12 dimensions, each one of us has all 12 of those dimensions, and each one of those dimensions is interactive, it's it's interspersed.
46:58
AmiLynne: And so in the life charter program, what we do is we help you create your life charter.
47:04
AmiLynne: We look at the premise.
47:06
AmiLynne: What's your belief pattern?
47:07
AmiLynne: We look at the purpose of those dimensions.
47:10
AmiLynne: What do you want to who do you want to be in your character or as a parent or in your love relationships?
47:17
Cassandra: Yes.
47:17
Cassandra: And help you put a plan in place that will help you be who you have been called to be.
47:28
Cassandra: Wow, that's beautiful.
47:30
Cassandra: That's beautiful.
47:31
Cassandra: Bet, tell my listeners how they can connect with you, get in contact with you.
47:37
AmiLynne: Absolutely.
47:38
AmiLynne: I trust, Cassandra, that you're gonna have my name spelled properly in the show notes.
47:42
AmiLynne: And that's the easiest way to say this because if I was to spell out my name, people would be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
47:47
AmiLynne: I know Amy Lynn.
47:48
AmiLynne: Amy Lynn.
47:49
AmiLynne: Right.
47:50
AmiLynne: Everything is Amy Lynn Carroll.
47:52
AmiLynne: My website, my Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, any of my socials, YouTube, just Google Amy Lynn Carroll, and whatever modality you want me to show up in, I'm gonna be there.
48:06
Cassandra: Right.
48:06
Cassandra: It's A as an apple, M as in Mary, I as in I no, and I'm I as an ink, L as in lady, Y as in yellow, N as in Nancy, N as a Nancy, E as an eager.
48:21
Cassandra: Yes, I love it.
48:23
Cassandra: Thank you.
48:24
Cassandra: Thank you.
48:25
Cassandra: Well, my listeners, wow, what a conversation! And I know I just something tells me this conversation resonated with you.
48:35
Cassandra: It gave you some more insight.
48:37
Cassandra: Um, it it just did something inside where your perspective and the way you see things uh have has is transforming as I talk.
48:49
Cassandra: And I'm so grateful for that.
48:51
Cassandra: And I'd like to thank Amy Lynn, and I love just calling her Babs, um, for her intuitive insight, her wisdom, her knowledge and helping us to understand what it is to be about your transformation, your self, your self-discovery journey, empowerment, and to start living consciously.
49:13
Cassandra: And I also want my listeners to share this with someone that you know this will be a blessing to.
49:20
Cassandra: And also, I just want to what I always say, I want to say bye for now.
49:26
Cassandra: God bless you all.
49:28
Cassandra: And Amy Lynn, thank you so much.
49:32
AmiLynne: Thank you, Cassandra.
49:34
AmiLynne: And to each of your listeners, may God bless you all.
49:37
AmiLynne: Thank you.