What Happens When You Let Go Of Control - Amber Howard

How do you face your challenges in relationships?

There are obvious barriers to communication and the host of What Would Amber Do, Amber Howard, is not shy about exposing the experiences that make connection challenging.

I'm honoured to have the wildly authentic Amber Howard speak on how to handle being triggered and what it means to be 100% responsible for your communication.

Today's episode: What Happens When You Let Go Of Control.
Tune in every other Tuesday for a new episode on Heart of Humans!

3:37 Amber's story
8:15 How you feel doesn't invalidate your contribution
13:27 The experience of your results
14:54 Letting go of control
17:17 Shame removes connection, intimacy, and play
21:28 Being 100% responsible for your communication
23:37 Collecting evidence for our mind
26:12 Do-overs in communication
29:21 How to respond when your brain is triggered

Amber Howard:
www.amberhowardinc.com
www.instagram.com/amberhowardinc
www.facebook.com/amberhowardinc

Transcript

Jen Li: 0:01

The heart of humans podcast explores the secrets to building flourishing relationships. We demystify the elements of desire, trust and love by interviewing conscious lovers and providing reflections to help you create the relationships of your dreams. I can't help but be inspired by my guest, Amber Howard to fall more in love with myself, even when I don't want to. I have a tendency to overcomplicate the way things should be done. And I'm really working on simplifying it to what's most easy, or easiest to understand, especially for this podcast. So I brought on who I consider the communication expert who knows how to handle the most stressful and challenging communication in relationships, Amber will expose the barriers to connection, intimacy, and play. She is the host of the what would amber do podcast, she is a certified resilience practitioner, a business analyst, coach and professional speaker, we talk about what it means to let go of control, take 100% responsibility for your communication, what to do when you're triggered, and more. I hope you enjoy this episode. Really, really want to thank you for you being here and making the time Amber, I want to thank you for being here. Because Well, I've known you for a couple of years now. Our relationship in self development has really grown in a beautiful direction where I've seen you coach some powerful people, thank you for being on the show. Oh,

Amber: 1:46

thank you, thank you for the opportunity to connect with you always just love having the to just be in your energy and be with you. It's just a beautiful experience and to have this conversation with you and to contribute to your audience and, and just talk about, there is nothing more important to me in life than relationships. Like that just like guy yeah, I don't think there's anything else that needs. It just is like it is who I am. It's what matters to me the most. Yeah, and so an opportunity to not just talk about my experience, but you know, share with yours, and who knows what's gonna come out of this conversation. It's just exciting.

Jen Li: 2:30

I'm excited. I'm excited because I want to hear more about your story. My question is, how did you become such an unstoppable force and helping others grow? Like, what is the story behind amber?

Amber: 2:51

It's so funny, because I've actually asked, like, I've asked for people for some, like, contribution around how to tell the story, because there's a lot, you know, I went to therapy once, Jen. And it was one of these, like, six sessions EAP, like through the employee assistant program, and I was like dealing with, like, a particular issue in my life. And so I told the therapist, kind of, you know, they're like, tell me about your life. And so I told her about my life, and she's like, you've lived like 100 years. At that time, 35 years on this planet, like, we have successions. What do you want to talk about? Right? So it's been a lot and and I can kind of get caught up in all of the story of it. And really, what it boils down to is my story is a love story. And, and it's a love story that starts and I just got this for myself very recently, with two human beings, my mother and my father, who were extraordinarily broken human beings who came from very traumatic experiences in life, and found one another on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand and decided to create a life together and in my parents, love of people and grace and mercy and forgiveness is unpredictable. Given their experiences in life, like it's just unpredictable, that they would have become human beings who love with the capacity that they have to love. And for a long time, I didn't relate to their story like that i related to add something like these two crazy people who met like, two weeks after they met, my dad was like, I want to have a baby and my mom was like, Sure, let's have a baby. And then I came along and it's like, Who does that? But we're really I got like, how amazing it was and I you people have often said to me even is like in a conversation yesterday that one of the things that they love they really like about me is how much I love people and like my capacity for loving people and and I realized that that comes from them. Like this whole have that ability to love is I was I was brought into this world by two human beings, who in spite of all the reasons not to love, loved, and for most of my life that love was like outward. Like I loved people, I loved other people, but I hated myself. And you never would have known it even like, even through the time when I first met you at landmark I got I was still living from the default context that I was worthless. And that was like june of 2018. So it's, it's my story is one of falling in love. You know, I was born in New Zealand, I came to Canada when I was 10. My, my mom was raised by a single mother, I've been a single mom, since I was 20. You know, there's, there's a lot I put myself through university and my 20s, I dropped out of high school when I got pregnant with my eldest son, Matthew. And for a long time that that drive that you talked about came from, I've really screwed up, and I've got to make it make amends. It came from not a very empowered place, like I brought these children into this less than ideal circumstance. And I have to make that right.

Jen Li: 6:16

And that it's my responsibility to fix everything.

Amber: 6:20

Well, it lives more like built blame and guilt. Not like responsibility, like I, like I'm a bad human being and I should fix this right. And, and as much as it wasn't a very empowering place to come from, it's a very powerful driving force. As a mother as a woman. You know, there's a lot of that gives you a lot of drive ambition. And I had a very powerful like Bob Proctor talks about, or not Bob Proctor, sorry, I'm Napoleon Hill and thinking Grow Rich, like, the stronger your desire, the less persistent you need to be, because it's that fire burning within you. So for me, I had a real burning desire to make it, you know, make up for bringing my kids into less than ideal circumstances. And, and it looked all good from the outside, but I really hated myself inside. And it's only been in the last five years, really, since I started my journey into personal development, that I started that I fallen in love with myself. And what's so beautiful about that is now that my love includes me. It's like, there's so much more love for everyone else. So, you know, what, what's at the source, you ask the question, kind of, you know, one of the things you said is, what's the source of my, my commitment to growth for myself and other people is like, I've seen a lot of harm and pain cause to human beings in my life. And I'm just so committed that people get that they're not stuck with anything.

Jen Li: 8:00

Yeah, it's really tremendous for you to, to not just internalize that harm and pain that you experienced. And you you actually say that, you know, I see people's pain, and not just my pain. And I think that in our world, we get really self gracious about our pain, and victimize where we are, you know, and it's easy for anyone to do that, you know, you have you have a child, you're a single mother at the time. How do you move past that and, you know, really recreate a new life. And I'm speaking for people who are listening that are that have to rebuild their lives, and they, they recognize that, hey, maybe I don't love myself, as much as I would like to. I'm

Amber: 8:55

just one of the most extraordinary conversations I ever had in my life was with I don't know if you know him from the landmark community, a gentleman by the name of Ray, this conversation of how much I loved myself came up. And he asked me, well, how am I honest, you know, out of at 100 like, or on a scale, like out of 100% How much do you love yourself right now? Like if you're really being authentic about it, and I said, 10%. And his response changed my life. Because he said, I can work with 10% I can have you go lead the room at 10%. And in that moment, I just got like, I didn't have to fix. I could just I could still be a leader. I could still go to the front of the room and be authentic. And in fact, that was more authentic to go to the front of the room and be that all I love that I love myself 10% right now, but that doesn't make me in some way unworthy of being a leader of being And that doesn't in some way invalidate my ability to be a contribution to other people. I just really got a good night. And that was like a real turning point for me inside of this because I think up until that point in time, john, I'd really been like, there's something wrong, I gotta fix about myself to get to this, like, 100% loving myself, I still don't love myself 100% every day, even though I love myself, 100% I look in the mirror like, okay, that's not where I want it, you know? Like, I mean, maybe some people walk around,

Jen Li: 10:33

fluctuate throughout the day, when you wake up, and go back down. Keep on fluctuating.

Amber: 10:41

Absolutely. And I think like one of the things that I'm really starting to discover, like, as I look more into spirituality and feminine energy, on my podcast last week, I interviewed like Leslie Edwards, she's amazing, I think you're going to be interviewing her, it's up when we keep changing around amazing human beings, and I'm gonna have you on my show, it's gonna be great, I can't wait for that conversation. And I'm, like, I've really, what didn't work for a long time is inside of that need to fix. And it wasn't just me, by the way, like, I was, like, you know, hell bent on fixing everyone around me. I, you know, I knew what was best for their lives, and I was gonna make sure that they had the best lives possible, it was not, not a lovely place to come from, right. And most of it was because I couldn't be with myself and I couldn't deal with myself. So it's got to fix the environment around you. And, um, but I did so from a lot of masculine energy, like just pushing and soldiering on and keeping going and to the point of exhaustion, not taking care of myself. And the more I've fallen in love with myself, the more I want to be kind and gentle with me. And, and the more I learn about feminine energy I get there's a flow to it, there's like, there's cycles to our energy. It's, we're not on all the time, and like we, you know, and to be able to discover, and I'm still like, it's, this is very new for me, like, you know, probably baby like, you know, like learning how to walk, but learning to listen to my body and know when it's like, No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop for all I'm gonna rest.

Jen Li: 12:21

Yeah, I want to go back to when you just said that. I was fixing everything I knew better for everybody else. And I realized that it was me that I was not able to accept at that moment that I needed to change my environment. And that was, when you said it was coming from a masculine approach, I really got that, because it was coming from the lens of power, or masculinity, it's about power. And that's actually neither good or bad. It was what helped you get in front of that mic? at 10%. That was powerful. One interesting distinction, that you're now moving into this place of being able to master both the masculine and the feminine once

Amber: 13:21

you see master I don't know, I don't know, like any kind of level of mastering, but there's an inquiry. And this is like been my most recent, like series of development has been in white becomes available, like the kinds of results you can cause in life. Not from like, raw determination and grit. And not that there's anything wrong with those things, they serve a place and there are times, there are times when what they're what's called for is determination, and perseverance and grit and just soldiering on. And that, you know, for anyone who's in that place, listening to this right now, I I've been there, I honor you, I get it, and you know, you totally, you've totally got this. And it's just that, that creates one kind of outcome, and not just the results, but the experience of living. Because this is something that I think it's really important for us to get as human beings that it's not, we get to create not just the results we want. But the experience of causing those results. Like we're also in the driver's seat of our experience of creating the results. And if and you could have all of the the the vision for your life, the purpose for your life could could bring you so much pleasure. But if you don't love the day to day experience of achieving that vision and that purpose, it's not going to come out in the wash. And that was me for a long time to write. It's like, oh, I'll sacrifice enough now and then one day the pleasure will come no. Like you get you have the opportunity to make choices in life that have your fulfillment. Have the vision of your life be one that gives you lots of pleasure as well. So it so in what's opened up is it's more of a noticing. And it being an inquiry about things like less of a less of a need to find the answers to things. And no. And that was me for a long time. And anyone who has known me over the last five years, like, I wanted to know, and if I didn't know, it was like, you know, because it was very related to control. Right? Like, if I could know, and I had the answers, then I could be in control. And then I didn't have to feel vulnerable, or weak. And on the other side of that, like, because that was like, the 2020, for me was a journey into wonder, like, every year, I take a journey, and I journey into something. So it's been like love and gratitude and joy 2020 was a journey into wonder. And when I really got how much like the need to control everything, just robbed me of the wonder, because what's because what, I don't know, there's so much more that I don't know. And that's where the joy is, is in, in the discovery of like, what's beyond what, what I could even imagine. But I couldn't get there from trying to control everything. And on the other side of that, allowing myself to kind of be more interested in the inquiry, because that's actually where the growth is. The growth is in the inquiry, not an answer.

Jen Li: 16:44

Growth is not the answer.

Amber: 16:48

lectron like, play with it, you know, like, what if? Yeah, someone said to me recently, like, answers have a very short shelf life. Like, we get an answer to something and like, within a week, it's like we've moved on, or it becomes something we know. And then it's useless. And, you know, kind of like like that, right? And, but the inquiry like that, like inquiring for the sake of incurring playing with things not like, I used to have playing fun collapsed, but just like playing with ideas like where in my life, do I not have the freedom to play with it? Oh, well, money and men. That was the big ones. For me, I didn't have money to play with money in that. Right, like, there was some way. And it didn't just show up when it came to men and money, but it showed up the loudest. I think it's really, it's no accident, that the areas of life where we do a very In my opinion, always, in my opinion, in my beliefs. We do i less than ideal job of teaching our children about money and relationships and sex like these are just things that we don't traditionally, most families don't educate or talk school, we don't do a particularly good. And if there is any con, there's a lot of like, generational beliefs that get passed down from one family one generation to the next round. And and is it an accident, then that these are some of the biggest areas in life that we have shame that wears no freedom to talk, and converse openly. So I think that is a big part of it really takes something for us as human beings to open ourselves up. When it comes to topics like sex when it comes to topics like money. Because we just don't, we don't have a lot of really great.

Unknown: 18:44

And

Amber: 18:46

I don't even know the word I'm looking for right now. We just don't have a lot of really great examples, role models like to demonstrate our parents didn't like our parents and talk about those things. Right. And now we're becoming in some ways more and more vocal about them, but not really. Right. Like it's there's sex everywhere. And there's conversation about money everywhere, like it's in our environment, but it's not in a way that is really talked about from a place of connection. And if you're not, I mean, like their second money becomes things to consume. Not it's not inside of a conversation about intimacy and connection, which I think you know, I think that's what makes a real difference when there are safe spaces where you can start to have conversations about sex and money in a way that is coming from connection and intimacy. I think that makes a huge difference.

Jen Li: 19:50

That is very valid. I totally, totally appreciate you. coming full circle to the idea. We we need to come from a place of connection and love. So that's funny because it started off as a love story and where we are deficient in those tools to examine the parts that we feel shame about the answer to, is through love and connection and being able to love ourselves despite the inappropriateness, it means the

Amber: 20:36

heavens. One, it's funny, because I've met some people now that I'm talking about appropriate, and it's like, I've met some people who are like the complete opposite. And they're like that net, like, I get in trouble from people in my life, because they're like, you're oh my lord, you're inappropriate. You know, like they, because it's not a conversation they ever have. Right, which is like, it's so beautiful, because it takes all of it in this world, like it really does. Like, there's a space for all of it. And you're

Jen Li: 21:06

creating that space right now. Yeah. And brings me to another question like, you're really good at helping people identify opportunities, like from challenges in their business, or relationships. So what do you think is the key to good leadership in relationships? When challenges happen?

Amber: 21:36

Back to kind of you and I were chatting a little bit before we got into this conversation, I, I recently met a gentleman on a thread on LinkedIn. And, you know, he was trying to communicate something to the world. And I now have gotten to know him a little bit better. So I really understand more what he was trying to communicate, but the way his communication was landing, just was not was not being heard. And, and there's, like, when we're out in life, choosing to be responsible, like, I'm 100% responsible, that you get my communication. So, like, I'm going to, I'm going to make sure that the environment is safe, that I'm communicating in a way that you can hear through whatever noise might exist between you and I. And this is like when I teach a course on leadership it in a number of different places, and we teach about communication, but like, the physiological, like, the physical noise in the environment, is it loud? Is it too hot? Like, you know, is the physical environment one that that fosters communication?

Jen Li: 22:42

you're checking all the variables of any interference in your communication?

Amber: 22:48

Yeah, like, Am I am I sitting down to have an important conversation with you, when you've just gotten out of work, and you're grumpy, and you haven't eaten, and here I am about to like, drop this major piece of relationship advice in your lab or like, you know, conversation about our relationship in your lap and have a you know, I do this, I'm still I, it's a, it's a practice, I still regularly wake my children up in the morning with some thing that's important to me, and they're half asleep, right. So it's not about being perfect in any structure, but I think it really is communication. And, and not just being responsible for what I communicate. But really getting that I am always like, this is my belief for my studies in neuro linguistic programming, we are always we do not have an experience of reality that has not been filtered through our own perceptions. So whatever anyone else is saying to you the tone of voice the way they're saying it, your brain, your subconscious mind is filtering that, generalizing it, comparing it, all of this stuff. And so being in life, like if someone says something to me, what what did I, what did I make that means? How did I, how did I, you know, how did I perceive that? Was I listening from a place of grace? Was I listening from a place of love? Or was I listening because I want to be right about something and get my point of view, in my opinion across right, like, I was just talking, I have a Sunday night, Monday night call with one of my business partners and they had an experience happen. And they were talking with someone they got let go from a job. And the person said, like they were talking with a friend of theirs about it. And they said, Oh, it's you know, it's because you're a person of color. That happened to me. And, and maybe it's possible, but like, we're always creating and collecting evidence to prove ourselves right about our points of views, about how we perceive life, and is Is it possible in the world of all things being possible that that was the reason he got let go of that job? 100%? And we don't know. So you're either going to be out in life and in relationship, like if we bring it back to relationships, I'm either going to be out in life collecting evidence for my point of view about my relationships, or I'm going to be out in life out to discover something new. in relationship with Pete,

Jen Li: 25:27

that's a great, that's a great frame of reference. Am I asking yourself, Am I looking for evidence to prove my point of view, this, for example, this relationship isn't working. Any other example that you can think of? The one that you said is that it can be from a place of discovery? I really appreciate how you look at it from I can be responsible for this communication. But what happens if you know somewhere in the in this communication, you're not going to be perfect? it? How do you be 100% responsible for your communication when it's not going to be perfect?

Amber: 26:21

I love that. So when you all you need to do to, you know, to get the true goods on me is talk to my children, they will with no uncertain terms, make it clear that I am not always 100% responsible for my communication. I mean, it's like, that's the place to stand, right? But I'm like, I'm out to be that way. Like, that's the commitment I have. And so I love like one of my, my friends has this comment like this saying, like, I love the do over. I think that do over is very powerful. Like when you when you realize that you've communicated something or been with someone that you care about in any relationship, or just any human being, I think, in a way that's not aligned with who you say you want to being. It's like you could request a do over like, I was a real jerk earlier today. Can we just Can we start again? Can we just did the report, you know? He was like, stop, delete. Hi, good morning. How are you? Let's, you know, we can come back, we can come back. Yeah, so I think that's grace, right? Seeing past someone's behavior to their heart. And having the humility, I think another big important part of leadership and is is having the humility to be able to own when when you did take an action from a place that wasn't aligned, and I love the word congruent. And there's this I share this often, and I will I'll share it till the day I die. This is great story about Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela. So Desmond Tutu was like, Mandela was giving this speech. And he was talking to a hostile crowd, like they were not there in support of apartheid, like what he was out to accomplish. And he spoke for hours and eventually won the crowd over and afterwards, Desmond Tutu was being interviewed by the media and they asked the question, like they said, How like, Nelson, he never has any cue cards. He never has a prepared speech. Like he, he always is on, you know, a message he's, you know, how is that possible? And Desmond Desmond Tutu, his response was that Nelson Mandela was 100%, congruent in what he thought and what he believed and what he did. So there was no need for cue cards or speeches or because he literally he embodied in every way, shape or form. His his met who, what he was his commitments, and his values. And that, for me, isn't something I strive for in life. I'm not always 100% congruent, maybe Nelson Mandela wasn't always 100% congruent, maybe there were places in his life, where he wasn't that I didn't know him personally. But I think, for me, as a heart centered person who's committed to being with people, you know, and really honoring the inherent dignity in them. Yeah, that like, that's something I strive for is to be congruent. And yeah, the other thing I'd say about it, Jen is I think it's important to just like, literally things happen. Like from the work I deal with people in resilience, you go, you could be going through life, you're having a conversation with your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your business partner, and it's great and they say a word or they use a tone of voice and your brain is hijacked. Like you are triggered, you know, or the conversation starts you have some expectation for how the conversation is going to go. And then in reality, the conversation is not going that way. And there's your brain, your your automatic sympathetic system kicks in, you're in your sympathetic nervous If you do not have access to your tools, you do not have access to your like awareness and your enlightenment and all of that stuff, your brain is hijacked and, and so the minute you become a thing, this is a practice that you can develop over time when you start to notice, you start to pay attention to what's your body, like when it's hijacked? You know, and you can usually tell by the response of the people back from you, like, energy, right, that it's not going well. That's a good litmus test people in their faces, are they angry? Like, you know, and then and the first thing to do at that point in time is like, stop the action, like, unless you are driving your car, but the minute you notice that you are hijacked, or that you're triggered, stop, do not keep pushing, do not take more actions. Because literally, your brain is succeeding hormones designed for your survival. So no action you take from that place, no communication you gain from that place, is going to really help you in the long run. So and so the first like the first building block for resilience that we that I train people in is calming. So literally 90 seconds, it takes 90 seconds of breathing. Like it's not the kind of breathing I did for most of my life, which is like, not present to breathing like I'm sure my but I broke because I'm still alive. But I didn't was not consciously aware of breathing for most of my life, like guttural breathing, breathing from your belly, holding it in, you know, releasing, 90 seconds of that will switch your brain from your sympathetic nervous system into your parasympathetic nervous system. And your brain literally starts secreting different hormones and, and you start calming and relaxing. And so that's the other thing I would say is like, start to notice and build like, registers for when you're, when you're triggered. And it you may not be really present to it at first, because that may be just how you've lived most of your life. It's like in survival mode activated. And so that when you start to notice, and not judge yourself for it, right, we all do. And it's part of like, we all get triggered and activated when there's a gap between our expectations of how things are going to go and the reality of how life's happening. So

Jen Li: 32:36

I want to also remind people that to, to see ourselves, that's perfect, something that I struggle with in my own perfectionism is just it's so debilitating. And it definitely works into my benefit and not some ways and not to other ways. And I want to thank you for that reminder, I, I think that greatly sums up strategy is to not be afraid to take, take a redo, like, let's let me start over. And then another is to take a 92nd breath. And then lastly, to not judge yourself, because we all we all have those instances,

Amber: 33:29

I spend most of my life, like, in my own mind, just eviscerating myself, for not, you know, there were like, I used to, you know, I was an insomniac for most of my life. But what that look like was like I would, I would work till really late at night because I knew that I had to be utterly exhausted to even try and fall asleep. Because I was afraid of being with my own mind. Because the minute I would lay my head on the pillow, it would start and I would go through every conversation I had that day. And I would be looking for like, Where did I say the wrong thing? Oh, did I upset that person, you know, and then I would like I would inevitably find something because remember, you find, you can always find evidence for what you're looking for. So I would go through my entire day. And then I would find the moment where I screwed up. And then I would pull out the like, you know, the box of all my past screw ups. And I would like you know, revisit them and I would like beat myself up about them again. And I would be like, Look, see, you know, you're not you're not this incredible person that you're not like you're not a great person and that that was my life for for up until 2016. And for a lot of people in my life. It was really hard for them to see that when I started sharing openly about that, because I was the kind of person who no one was ever going to know about my shame and my self loathing. Because I never wanted to occur as weak. And people don't like a loser. And so I walked through life and people like I even had friends who were actors was like, You have self esteem stuff going on, come on, like you walk with your head held high, you like appear like you're confident, because I was like, no one was gonna see that. And it put distance between me and people because they, I would never allow people to see all of the parts of me. Because that was a part of me. And that was a part of my experience of being a human being.

Jen Li: 35:31

Thank you, Amber for being so present. And reminding us about the beauty of these these in consistencies the Incan growing seas and make us so so human. Thank you, I think you and I'm so glad that I spoke with you. Thank you for coming on the show.

Amber: 35:55

Thank you for having me. And thank you, I really want to take a moment to just honor and acknowledge you for being someone putting yourself out there into the world and speaking about something that's so important to me. And just so important, you know, I'm going to say it it's my personal point of view, people can agree or disagree, but like fundamentally important to human beings and and to our future of being able to really deal with a lot of the things that don't work on this planet, Jen, so just I really honor you for being the kind of person that is willing to do that. And thank you for your leadership.

Jen Li: 36:30

Thank you. Last thing ever tell us where people can find you?

Amber: 36:38

Yeah, well, you can. Um, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook at amber Howard. Like at amber Howard Inc. I also have a website, which is www dot ambra. Howard inc.com, where you can learn about my services. And I'm pretty you can google me and actually, I think I come up with a top four times. So amber Howard. I'd love to connect with anyone. And then my my podcast is on Apple and Spotify. What would Amber do.com

Jen Li: 37:06

she talks about love there and how it helps relationships too. So definitely. Entrepreneurs But hey, you and I love people. I mean is so when we do not at all. I'm never gonna apologize for neither. Thank you so much Amber mainecare. Thank you