Episode 165: Discipline, Healthy Love & Autism with Amanda Welch
Amanda Welch is a professional counselor in training and a passionate bodybuilder. She encourages everyone to pursue their dreams through daily goal-setting. Tune in to learn about how to build resilience so you can do hard things consistently. Plus, you’ll get to hear Amanda’s incredibly romantic love story and her firsthand experience as an autistic woman. This episode is full of motivational wisdom and tips to build a more fulfilling life.
Topics
Amanda's journey to self-acceptance and personal growth.
The Importance of Self-Love and Kindness.
The impact of bodybuilding on decision-making and intentional living.
Amanda's Love Story: Meeting her partner, Jake, and the challenges they faced in their relationship.
Amanda's discovery of her autism traits and the challenges of hiding her true self.
Links
👉Want to dig deeper into what you learned in the podcast? Let's work together! 👈
Where to find Amanda Welch:
Transcript
[AUTO-GENERATED]
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:06]:
Welcome to the Self Growth Nerds podcast. I'm your host Marie, a courage coach, creative soul and adventure seeker. Since thru hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019, I'm on a mission to help you embrace your most confident self so you can achieve your dreams too. If you're eager for deep conversations, big questions and meaningful connections, join me on the quest to discovering how we can create a more magical and memorable life.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:38]:
Hello Nerds. How are you? I'm really good because today we have someone very special on the podcast. She is a fellow dreamer and nerd. Her name is Amanda Welch. I stumbled upon Amanda on Instagram one day and fell in love with her instantly. I don't know what it is about her, there's a magic about her that makes me feel like we're from the same cluster of souls. You know the feeling? We started exchanging messages, I don't know, a year or 2 ago, and then a month ago met for coffee. Virtual coffee.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:01:18]:
I loved her, she's full of wisdom. She is a professional counselor in training, she's a bodybuilder, She is a mom. She's a wife. She is an autistic person. She has a lot to share, and so I wanted you to meet her, be inspired by her. In today's episode, we talk about doing hard things, about what it's like to leave a toxic relationship and, build a healthy one. I mean, for the romantics out there, Amanda has a super special love story that you're gonna want to hear. We also talk about what it's like to be autistic as a woman.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:02:00]:
It's a conversation you don't want to miss. The only little downside is that we struggled with the quality of the sound, especially at the beginning. But I believe it's definitely worth sticking around it gets better towards the middle. Now before we jump in, I want to remind you that if at any point during the episode you tell Self, I also want to build a life that's that feels like home, like what Amanda describes. That's in alignment with my values, with what lights me up. A life that I'm happy to wake up to every day, I can help you with that. That is literally my job. That is what I do with my clients as a coach.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:02:44]:
So if you wanna dive deeper into what you're learning in this podcast and you want to actually take action and apply it in your real life and start transitioning, transforming, creating a a life that's unique to you, then book a discovery call with me at selfgrowthnerds.com/audacity. It's free. You've got nothing to lose. We'll get to know each other and you'll get to decide if you wanna move forward. Okay. Now is the time to meet Amanda Welch, everyone. Amanda, please say hello to the self growth nerds and tell us more about who you are.
Amanda Welch [00:03:25]:
I am Amanda Welch. I am a professional counselor in training. That's like my main focus right now is going to school for that to get my master's in counseling and work towards that end goal. I am very into bodybuilding right now, which is cool, and parenting my kids and doing home life, and also still exploring ideas in the realm of manifestation and self improvement and self betterment, personal development, goal setting, reaching, achieving, etcetera. And really working right now towards, my husband and I have decided to kind of take his coaching because he does bodybuilding coaching and kind of incorporate all of the work that I've been doing with the mental aspect of it and kind of put that together and kind of coach people together. So that's another thing that we're working on, which is really exciting. Power couple. I that's how I like to think a lot.
Amanda Welch [00:04:20]:
It's like, I like to think, you know, you keep keep growing together. Right? Like, twisting your story together. So I love that visual.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:04:29]:
I wanna ask you. So on your Instagram, bio, it says you're a dream catcher and a goal smasher. So what's the you kind of answered that question a little a little bit, but I was curious to know what's the next dream you want to catch and what's the next goal you want to smash?
Amanda Welch [00:04:47]:
That's good. So I see those two things as like intertwined, the dream and the goal, because the dream is when it's still in your head. And you will know this, you're an artist, and anybody will know this. Like, the way that we create things, tangible things in the world is that we have an idea. Artists know this. They get ideas all of the time. And then the next thing they do is sketch it out. You start to bring that intangible into the tangible world.
Amanda Welch [00:05:13]:
You start to bring it into reality, and then you can turn it into a goal as you finesse it. Right? But all things that you want begin in your brain. Everything that was ever created by a human on this earth was was first created in their mind. So my dreams right now are to continue with school, to do really good. I have a bodybuilding show coming up in four and a half weeks. So I've been focusing a lot of my mental energy on that to really make sure that I'm doing all of the things that I need to do to reach that goal because it was a dream and now it's a goal. And so I would say that bodybuilding right now is, is, you know, I have, like, my focus is there and the balance of my life is kind of there. I don't believe balance in life comes in daily increments.
Amanda Welch [00:05:59]:
I don't think I can be, you know, all parts mom, all parts student, all parts wife, all parts bodybuilder, all in the same day. I don't think that that's how that works. I think when you have to think about balance in your life, you have to look at it long term, and that might be over weeks or months or years. And anybody who's ever, you know, advanced themselves through education, you would know that that college tends to be a really intense period of focus. And you might not have the balance that you'd like. Your physical body might fall off a little bit. Your relationships might fall off a little bit, you know, it, and that's the give and take of that. But then once you complete that intense period of study, you can do other things with it and you can bring balance back into your life.
Amanda Welch [00:06:44]:
And you then you might have a relationship where then you might go get the job that you like and you might find your balance there. So that's really where I'm at right now is that a lot of my energy is there. And also I started, of course, because I take on way too many projects. I started making cookies. So I've been making a lot of cookies too, which Oh, so they're wrinkling. They're taste so good. It doesn't really dull at bodybuilding, but I don't know. There's something, very enjoyable to me about being able to make things that taste good to other people even if I can't eat them.
Amanda Welch [00:07:14]:
So I'm doing that a lot too. Amazing. Okay. So, Amanda, please tell us first about bodybuilding and what you do and why you love it. I the reason why
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:07:29]:
I am asking is I have no special interest in bodybuilding, but I am always so in awe of you because it seems like such a big commitment and something you have to show up to every day, something so hard. And I'm thinking, how can she do something so hard consistently? So I'm curious to to to hear your thoughts on that.
Amanda Welch [00:07:52]:
Alright. That's a really great question. How do you show up to something hard consistently? I think that having a purpose, having a why, and holding that as the cornerstone. And so I was in the gym and I was talking to a friend of mine and he said, yeah. I'm just in here to look good. Right? Just like you're in here to look look good. And I was like, no. I'm here to win.
Amanda Welch [00:08:13]:
And I was like, oh, what? Did I just like, I would never say that out loud to somebody. I would never ever tell somebody I wanted to beat anybody else, that I wanted to and I don't just mean win against other people. Right? I mean, win against myself, win against the old version of me, and push my own lives. But, no, it, like, came out, and I'm like, I do wanna win. And that is a massive driver in why I show up because I have I feel very purpose filled about it, and I try to fill my life intentionally with things that make me feel that way. Because I think if you don't if you don't do that, life sort of leads you instead of you directing your life, and I want to be in control of my life, you know, out of control of the things I can't control. That's okay too because and you have to accept that. That's that's one way that you you maintain control and and not drive yourself nuts is to know that you can't control everything.
Amanda Welch [00:09:07]:
But I think I show up because I want it really, really, really badly. I have a very strong desire, and I have assigned tasks to how I'm going to achieve that. It's kind of like a pyramid. And at the bottom are all of these daily tasks. And if you do all of those daily tasks, if you do all of the cardio that you have to do, lift all of the weights, if you eat all of the right food, if you get all of the sleep, you know, say there are 10 of them, you get to go up to the next level. And, like, maybe the next level as you start working on your posing to make sure that when you go on stage, you look really good. And you maybe only do that 3 times a week. Right? But you're only gonna look really good if you've done all of the 10 things on that bottom tier of your pyramid.
Amanda Welch [00:09:51]:
And so the bigger the goal, the closer to the top of the pyramid it goes. But it's those daily goals. I think it's those bottom ones. It's the showing up consistently that is going to make you be able to achieve that end result. And what I've really been enjoying, because this is my 2nd time competing now, it's been frustrating to, like, look back at the last time I did a prep because I weigh a little bit more or this looks different or this feels different or does it feel as easy as I remember it or, but it's been very fun to compare those pictures and say, jeez. Look at the body that I'm building. And when you can start to see the results, that too is also, adds I mean, it's extrinsic motivation. I'm I'm looking at my outer body, but it it it is intrinsically really motivating also.
Amanda Welch [00:10:39]:
And it's something that I do with my husband, and I really enjoy that with him. And we're gonna talk about autism on this Podcast. And I think being autistic and and having an ADHD mind, I can see how both would be beneficial when doing things in bodybuilding also. And so like all things, I try to play to your strengths and try to figure out how to make, you know, your differences work for you and and the things that you're involved in. I I'm curious to hear about how that plays into it in your opinion. How having a ADHD brain and an autistic brain plays that helps helps you show up, helps you in your bodybuilding journey. Like, it's my life. They're all mixed together, aren't they? Like, you could they're to me, some of them are inseparable.
Amanda Welch [00:11:28]:
And so one thing that I find, being an autistic person, you you seek order. Right? You seek pattern recognition. You seek to have sameness, and it's very comforting. I mean, I think that can be comforting to all humans. We we want that which we know, whether it's good for us or not. But especially with an autistic mind, you know, that pattern. I could eat the same meals every day for a year, and I would not get tired of them and it would not bother me because you have to do a lot of that, especially towards the end of a bodybuilding diet. You don't have a lot of room in what you eat because you don't have a lot of calories, and they need to be made up of very specific things.
Amanda Welch [00:12:08]:
You need to eat so much protein every day, so many carbohydrates, and so much fat. And so when you really are left with chicken and rice or, you know, whatever your food is, you're going to eat a lot of it. Some people have a very hard time with that. I do not because I find things that I like, and then I will eat them for months on end. And that is okay with me.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:12:28]:
Mhmm.
Amanda Welch [00:12:29]:
Come the routine of it. Going to the gym every single day is now a massive part of my routine and doing the cardio. And so it's easy for me to keep that routine once I get into it because my brain is, you know, wired to want that, to crave that feeling. Now for ADHD, which puts my brain in conflict a lot of times, because if autism is this nice straight and narrow and everything is organized, you know, I always think it's, it's more masculine energy. ADHD is more feminine energy. It's more like everywhere and all over the place. And I want this to be novel and I want this to be different and I want this to feel new and exciting. And so if so many things have to be the same in a bodybuilding prep, where how would somebody with ADHD do that? And so how I have done that in my brain is I am constantly trying for a new goal in the gym.
Amanda Welch [00:13:22]:
So every time I walk in there, there might be an exercise where I'm trying to push how many reps I did, change the intensity of that workout, how quickly I was able to accomplish that same goal. Can I lift more weight? Can I do it quicker? Can I get more reps? You know, there are there are lots of novel ways to approach your training, even though it's the same training and say, okay, I'm gonna make this harder for myself or more challenging in these ways. And in that way, it still stays interesting. It still is the same. So that that's my take on it.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:13:58]:
You're you've gotten really talented at tricky like, making it work for your unique brain. Mhmm. I love that. When you were talking about those daily goals that you have to focus on, I'm wondering if there are sentences that come back in your brain on a daily basis as a way to help you show up, as a way to keep the momentum going, like things that you tell yourself to help you show up.
Amanda Welch [00:14:31]:
There have been times, especially when I'm in the gym, like I do one big leg workout every day. And so, or I'm sorry, every week, Excuse me. One leg workout every week, and it's extremely intense. It's the longest workout. Your legs are the largest muscle group on your body, so it's very fatiguing. It's very difficult to get through. And there are different mantras that have come to me, like, while I'm in the middle of it. Like, my husband and I will say, no one outworks us because we really believe that hard work in this arena is going to pay off.
Amanda Welch [00:15:09]:
It's going to come down to who wants it more and who is willing to put in the work to get there. Things like, I don't want I'm not going to lose. And the other thing that I do during a very hard set that makes me physically feel like I can't do anymore is I close I've been visualizing now mid workout, I'll close my eyes. I will picture the body part that I'm working on, and I'll imagine myself up on stage and imagine having to hold that pose because you have to flex while you're up on stage. It's it's one of the hardest parts that I don't think people realize. Posing up on stage is very difficult because your whole entire body is tight and you have to stand there for, you know, 15 minutes maybe. And I'll just imagine myself standing next to the other competitors or the the judge is looking at me or the crowd looking at me. And I will just tell myself, like, if I was in that position right now, all of that pressure, I'm in my suit, I'm I'm pans.
Amanda Welch [00:16:08]:
I put all of this money. I put all of this time. I put all of this effort in. I made it. Would I stop flexing right now? Or would you just keep flexing? He would just keep flexing. I know because I did one already, and I was exhausted, but you don't stop because it's one of those brilliant human moments where you realize that your mind is greater than your physical body, that your physical body can keep going. It's your mind that makes you feel like you wanna give up. And so visualizing myself on the stage while I'm working out tells me, could I do another rep? Yeah.
Amanda Welch [00:16:40]:
I can. I can do another rep because if all of those people were looking at me, I could do another rep.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:16:46]:
Wow. I love that so much. It reminds me of when I was on the Pacific Crest Trail, I would my brain would say, we're tired of walking, and I'd go, but are we done? No. We're not done. So we keep going. And it was like, okay then. And I would visualize it. It's like the same mechanism.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:17:06]:
I would visualize myself getting to the end of the trail, like hugging the terminus. Even though I had like months of walking left to do. I would just visualize the end. I was like, I can get there, but I I love that. Outsmarting your resistance, basically.
Amanda Welch [00:17:22]:
Yeah. I think you are. I think that that you have to do that. And the more times you prove to yourself that you can, the more that you do it, the further you realize you can go. I often say like bodybuilding has shown me new depth to myself that I did not realize that I had. I have more. I don't even know if willpower is the right word. I'm I'm not I'm not in love with the concept of willpower.
Amanda Welch [00:17:49]:
I think that's a hard thing to do because I have a desire to do something. I'm going to do these things because I I'm holding that as the cornerstone of everything. I'm still very driven by that. And so willpower for certain things comes very easily. If it was something I didn't want to do, I, you know, willing myself to do it. I don't I I kind of choose not to do those things. You know, though, as a business owner, there are things you're like, I have to do my taxes. I still didn't turn in my business taxes yet.
Amanda Welch [00:18:17]:
And like I that I'm gonna have to build myself to do, I guess. But I don't like any
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:18:21]:
of it. It's the difference between you you you've talked you've talked about drive a lot. Are you driven, by ego desires or by soul or heart desires? Sounds like it when it comes to body building, it comes from your heart versus some people choose a goal that they want to want. That would look good or sound good. And so that's it's much more difficult to show up when it comes from that place, from a place of ego, I think.
Amanda Welch [00:18:51]:
I think that makes a lot of sense. I used to be involved in strength sports. I used to do strongman. I've lifted now for well over a decade, maybe almost 15 years. And I always thought bodybuilding was extremely ego driven. I always thought that it was, you know, you're looking at these people and they're parading themselves around. And I thought, oh, that's that's so silly. Why would you ever do that? That's, I don't know.
Amanda Welch [00:19:16]:
It's so surface level. It felt so surface level to me because I didn't understand it. Right. And so I judged it and maybe I felt a certain way because those people looked really great. And I was like, maybe a little bit jealous too. Because I look at women now and I'm like, I don't see it that way anymore. I think how much effort they have put in to look that way, how much they have given up. You know, I I try not to say it's not a sacrifice.
Amanda Welch [00:19:41]:
I'm choosing to do this. I don't have to sacrifice anything. I'm just simply making choices. But it has really changed my whole life because I'm a much better decision maker. You have to be. When you only have so much time or so much food or what you know, so much energy in a day. You have to make lots of these decisions. And if you're not a good decision maker, jeez, you could waffle and really mess it up.
Amanda Welch [00:20:03]:
If you don't start to figure out these things that you want, I've become a more an even more intentional person through it. I've become much better at executing things in my life, and it's it's really it's put a lot more, I think, than I ever expected it to be. And right. Maybe that's because when you let the heart lead you or your soul lead you into these things and you kind of just go with the flow, like I, I had put it on my vision board two and a half years ago, but it wasn't, it was a woman who does bodybuilding, but it wasn't with the intent of bodybuilding. It was with the intent of getting a healthier body. That was kind of where I started. I had started menopause, and my body shifted very quickly. I, all of a sudden, had all of this belly fat that I had never had before.
Amanda Welch [00:20:51]:
You know, I'm not even 40 yet. And my doctor said, well, you're just getting older. And I was like, no. No. I absolutely not. I do not accept that, that I just get older and then all of a sudden I have a body that I don't like anymore. You know, as women, I think our bodies can change a lot, and I've had 2 kids. And so like that, you know, that can be a really hard shift in all of these things, but that was one that I just did not accept that this was just how I, I was destined to look.
Amanda Welch [00:21:20]:
And it took a long time to overcome that, and I'm still, you know, sort of fighting the hormonal battle that is menopause, but it's easier having things in place that help me do that. So that's another big reason why I started.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:21:35]:
I love that. Was there a moment before you decided to start where you were like, oh, it's
Amanda Welch [00:21:39]:
not for people like me. And then a moment where that shifted. My husband had decided. So Jake used to do power lifting. And when I had met him about 7 years ago, he had just had to stop power lifting because he injured his back really badly, and that was very, very difficult for him. 1, because he just he loves lifting. He loves lifting heavy. He enjoyed power lifting a ton.
Amanda Welch [00:22:07]:
That was a massive ego shift for him. Right? Like, he identified as being this power lifter. Now he's like this hurt power lifter who can't do a lot of the things he wants to do. And I watched him struggle with that for years to maintain his drive to work out and to to reach all of the goals that he wanted to physically. Like, he had this massive desire to still be in the gym, but he didn't really have a purpose. And so it was it was hard to balance all of that. And he found, he's a famous bodybuilder. His name is Branch Warren.
Amanda Welch [00:22:37]:
He was taking clients and you had to apply. And Jake said, should I do that? And I was like, yeah, you should do that. I was like, that's exactly what you need to, like, you know, get that fire going again. Cause I had brought it up to him years, you know, earlier. I said, what about bodybuilding? Okay. You can't do that. And and we both were like, no, I'm not a bodybuilder. I was like, okay.
Amanda Welch [00:22:58]:
Like, that's okay. It's just another way to compete that you could, you know, you could still do the things that you love to do without injuring your back any further and actually, you know, still strengthening your back. And we came, he came back around to it and watching him light up over it. And then I was like, like, this is fun. And and we really enjoy, you know, doing a lot of things together. And so it has just been so much fun because we both came from different strength sports. But to be able to do this new endeavor and to do it together, and it's like, sometimes when you blend your family and you come from divorces and you come from you already have children, you don't always get a whole lot of firsts. You know? You don't get a whole lot of, like, this is new to us as a couple.
Amanda Welch [00:23:40]:
Mhmm. Because we got married. We both had already had a wedding. You know? We both like, we didn't have children together. Now we we did an adoption together. That was, you know, a first for us, but it it also feels special in that way that this was neither of ours. And so it gets to be completely our thing together. That's beautiful.
Amanda Welch [00:24:00]:
Beautiful. And oh, okay. I'm excited to talk about your relationship, but last question about bodybuilding is you were talking about how you felt about your body. What's for you the relationship between how you feel in your body and about your body and your mental health? So between that, your physical health and your mental health, and your body image and your mental health. That's a really great one. I think this is not an uncommon experience. I grew up not loving my body. I grew up and I don't know if I was conditioned to believe that.
Amanda Welch [00:24:36]:
I don't know if it was, like, all of the people magazines that were laying around my house because my mom would consume that. I don't have a lot of memories of my mother eating in front of us. She would kind of like, she was like a closet eater because she had a lot of issues, and I remember her talking a lot about her own body negatively. And I've always kept that in mind, and I heard someone say, oh, I know who it was. Like, Casey Davis, I think is her name. She, how to keep house while drowning or something like that. She's she's wonderful. She's on social media.
Amanda Welch [00:25:09]:
I cannot think of her tag right now. She had posted something that said like, just a reminder, when you talk negatively about your body, if you have a biological child in front of you, you should watch because they are most likely going to get a body just like yours. So they're gonna grow up and they're gonna have that body. And so that has always been on my mind, the way that we talk about bodies and the way I I talk or don't talk about my own body in front of my children to help them navigate that because that's not something you're gonna get away from. I don't think I think the pressure to look a certain way is always going to exist. And there was a tipping point there. It was about the time I met Jake because I was starting, like, and I and we'll probably get to this. The reason I feel that I was able to to start that journey with him was that I was in a good space mentally.
Amanda Welch [00:26:01]:
And I started to really like myself. I couldn't I don't know that I could say I loved myself at that point, but I really liked myself. And I was I was being more intentional about taking care of my body. I had I was doing yoga a lot at the time, and I was still lifting. This was, yeah, 7 about 7 years ago. And it's funny because I look back on pictures now, high school, and I'm like, I look fabulous. Like, why did I ever think I didn't look fabulous? Like I did. I looked so great.
Amanda Welch [00:26:31]:
I was so cute. Whatever. I was so full of life, but I didn't feel that way. And so that's just a story you're telling Self, and you get to rewrite that story. And I don't think bodybuilding is for people who hate themselves. I don't think entering physical exercise should ever be from a place of self low self loathing. Because to your point, if it's ego driven, you're not gonna stick with it. You're not going to keep doing it.
Amanda Welch [00:26:59]:
And if you love and respect your body and and want it to try to do harder things, like, that's what I'm loving about this. I'm pushing my body. I keep finding those new depths and those new ways to push it, and I'm like, wow. Like, I am really awesome. Like, this is really, really amazing. But I think that that is just as much work as everything else. I I have taken to in the last 2 years. Sometimes I hug myself in front of the mirror.
Amanda Welch [00:27:25]:
Self And I'll just remind I was like, I'll be like, you are doing such a good job. This is such a hard thing. Like, just like you would talk to anybody else that you really, really cared about. And I'm like I remind Self. I'll be laying in bed. I'll be like, Amanda, you did really hard things today. Were they perfect? No. That's okay.
Amanda Welch [00:27:42]:
Like, you're trying so hard. You're trying and you're accomplishing. And, like, I've really my self talk has has shifted to, like a loving big sister ish. And I think that is important. And and the only people can give that to you, extrinsically people can give that to you, but when it comes from within and you hear it from your own voice And and you have to say it out loud. I think you have to you can think it sometimes, but I think saying it and then hearing it back is really, really powerful. Yeah. I talk about this all the time on the
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:28:17]:
podcast and with my clients. Because when people tell you things, it goes into your brain, but you want it to go into, like, your whole body into at a cellular level. You wanna rewrite that at a cellular level. So you need to, like, I I I put my hand on my heart. That's what helps me really record it. I don't like this Nerds, not recorded, but really integrate it. I love it. They like say it out loud.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:28:47]:
Hear yourself say you're reparenting Self. You're rebuilding your relationship with yourself, giving yourself what you always needed.
Amanda Welch [00:28:56]:
And I think that's so grounding too, like the hand over heart. You know, I think that that that is so powerful and where all of that your energy is and how it flows, and it's just such a caring act for yourself. And the more that you can care about yourself, the more capacity you have to care about everybody in your whole entire life. And, like, you just become a better human when you care for yourself better. You're better for everybody.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:29:24]:
That is so important. Many people tell me like, oh, but it's cringe. It's embarrassing. You know, being so kind to Self. It's just so cheesy almost. The opposite of like what we've been taught to value. But you're so right. It then overflows.
Amanda Welch [00:29:39]:
If you can love yourself, care for yourself, it overflows to everyone around you. It expands your capacity. It does. And so you become a better person by doing nothing to anybody else, just by working on yourself. Ram Dass would always say, the only thing I can do for you is work on myself, and the only thing you can do for me is work on yourself. And that's all we can do for each other is show up as the best possible versions of ourselves. And when we are moving through life with that, with that intentionality, with that love, with that care and compassion, it just changes. I mean, think how that would trickle through a community.
Amanda Welch [00:30:21]:
If you lived in a whole community of people like that, what an experience that would be. Yeah.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:30:28]:
That's how I felt my 1st week on the PCT. Everyone was so kind, like, over the top kind. And I was like, oh my God, I need to match that level of kindness. And then people are like, I need to match that level of kindness. And this like cycle that goes on and on and on that that's really beautiful. So can we can we do that in our day to day communities? At least on, like, on a smaller level with our friends and our families. So inspiring.
Amanda Welch [00:30:56]:
That's such an interesting experience thinking about, because I find that in sports too, that people tend to be really nice to each other because you're all doing this really hard thing. You don't even have time to worry about all that other the pettiness of life. Right? Like the the small things that that might stand in your way of making certain connections kind of disappear when you're all working towards the and you're not working against each other. Right? You're not competing. You had somebody to see who can do the hike better. You're just all trying to get there. Was very cool. Yeah.
Amanda Welch [00:31:30]:
So cool. Okay. Let's talk about love. So you've mentioned Jake a few times already. Tell us how you both met, because it's quite a unique story. How long ago was that? And and and how did it go? Okay. So we met in the summer of 2017. Again, Jake was involved in powerlifting and his wife at the time, his ex wife now, she used to do strongman.
Amanda Welch [00:32:01]:
And so I promoted women's strongman events. I actually met them both in the summer of 2016. Like I met Jake in person, although I have to laugh because I always laugh at him. He's, I never experienced this with him because he and I talk a lot, but he's he's actually rather quiet, you know, out in the group. He didn't speak. Like, we didn't speak to each other. I just kind of saw him. It just was the first time I ever saw him.
Amanda Welch [00:32:24]:
I didn't actually meet him. And so they after I met them both in 2016, they ended up getting a divorce. You know, they went through some of those things. And the following summer, 2017, Jake was, in a pretty bad spot. I could tell we were friends, you know, on Instagram online. And there was something about the way he was experiencing pain or maybe talking about what he was going through that just really spoke to me. And I wrote him a message and I just said, you know, I feel like I know what this pain is. I I remember saying, like, when you break your own heart, because I had gone through a divorce, like, sometimes you break your own heart and it because it all feels like your fault, but it's really you know, I've said something about, you know, you're never out of time.
Amanda Welch [00:33:11]:
There's always there's always time to to write a new story and to to change. And he responded, and I don't think we've ever stopped talking a single day in you know, since those messages were Self. And it was just we lived 700 miles apart. It was not with any intent other than to reach out to another human and to kind of connect with them and maybe be able to offer some words that I wished I had had when I had gone through, like, a similar a similarly dark period in my life. Normal. And then, you know, a couple weeks later, I was like, I'm pretty sure this boy is in love with me. And although he tells it differently, he acts like I was way more into him, but he never tells what people are into him, so he wouldn't know that anyway. He is a terrible like, he does not know if somebody's trying to flirt with him, not that, like So he doesn't actually count in his opinion.
Amanda Welch [00:34:07]:
He asked me if I would fly to see him In the most baller move on planet Earth, he was like, I'm gonna fly you. And I was like, oh, okay. Well, nobody's ever phoned me anywhere, so let's do this. And, you know, some people in my life were very concerned about that because that seems like a massive leap to just fly somewhere for the weekend and the with to a person's home that you've never met. But again, I had met him. Like, I knew he was real. I knew he wasn't catfishing me. I knew that he existed and he's really isn't human.
Amanda Welch [00:34:36]:
All of these things, you know, I don't know that I would have just flown to somebody's house. It sounded more adventurous than I felt that it was at the time.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:34:45]:
It sounds like the move like the start of a movie.
Amanda Welch [00:34:49]:
It does. This is my favorite part of it. So I was like in I'm terrible at navigating these things. I was in the Boston airport because I couldn't fly to Bangor because all of the flights were canceled, which happens all of the time. And he had to reroute all of my stuff, and I ended up only getting to spend, like, 24 hours here at the house. I didn't even it wasn't even the full weekend because everything had been so delayed, and then I had to leave. And so he was, like, trying to tell me where he was at in the airport when I landed. I couldn't figure it out.
Amanda Welch [00:35:18]:
And he was like, just stand where you are and, like, I'll just find you. He's like, just tell me where you are and I will find you. I was like, oh, like, I'm like, great. That sounds great. So I'm standing at baggage claim and there's like an escalator and he just descends. He's at the top of the escalator and I'm standing at the bottom and I just watched this man, like, come down that I knew I was in love with also at this point. You know, we had been talking for a few weeks, I don't know, a month. And he comes down the escalator and he just swooped me up in his arms.
Amanda Welch [00:35:50]:
And I put my head into his chest and then he gave me a big smooch, like, right in the middle of the airport. We were blocking, like, everybody, and I pick him up all the time because he works offshore now. So he always descends an escalator in our airport and, like, comes home to me. And, like, I just I love that continuity of that because it it, I mean, it always feels special when he comes home, but it feels like extra special because that's how he comes home. Yeah. I love that special moment coming back again and again and again. How, how was this relationship different from the ones you were in before? Like, what stood out for you in the first few months? That's a really great question. So prior to meeting Jake, I came out of about a 7 year relationship that was abusive.
Amanda Welch [00:36:40]:
It was a domestic violence situation. I had 2 2 sons with that gentleman. And I was pretty down on myself. I was in therapy at the time. And I had said to my therapist, like, I do not trust myself. Like, I'm scared to date. I'm terrified of all of these things. Like, I clearly make bad choices.
Amanda Welch [00:37:00]:
What do I do? And my therapist, Bruce, at the time was wonderful. And he said, well, I'll help you. Like, you have me. That's why you're here. We'll we'll work it out together. And I tried, you know, like Tinder, I think, at the time for, like, a month. And I was like, this is not for me. The and the this is not for me.
Amanda Welch [00:37:19]:
And I just decided to kinda close-up shop, and I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna work on myself. I'm gonna do yoga. I'm gonna enjoy my kids. I'm gonna do all the things that I love. I started doing tons of projects around my house, and then I sent a message to Jake. So, like, I enjoyed, like, 2 months of finding Self, and then the universe rewarded me. They were like, oh, great. You're ready.
Amanda Welch [00:37:40]:
Because I like I had just been like, you know what? I'll just be single forever. I don't if that's what it takes. Like, I don't care. I'll just have 35 cats. I didn't even get to be, like, have, like, a hot girl single era. I was, like, really into it. Because I don't want that. Right? Because that's not even me.
Amanda Welch [00:37:57]:
I I love love. I'm a I'm a romantic. I want, like, this big Growth love. Like, I always wanted that, which is a really easy trap if you're, like, an empath who's susceptible to narcissistic abuse because they'll do that for you. They will they will show you these massive displays of affection and then just rip it away from you. And I had a really hard time. So Jake and I had to go through, 2 years later, we decided we were gonna get married. The boys and I wanted to move.
Amanda Welch [00:38:25]:
The boys' father at the time said no. So we had to go through a relocation hearing. And that was really hard. And I felt like I was never gonna get here. And I was really scared of all of that, But we we made it. It was a it was a difficult journey to have to go through all of that to relocate their lives, and we hadn't heard back the court decision. And I moved all of my stuff from Pennsylvania to Maine. Jake against Jake's better judgment.
Amanda Welch [00:38:50]:
He's like, don't do that. You don't know if you can move yet. And I said, you know what? Well, if I'm not coming now, I'm coming at some point. And I feel like I made that decision. And I think when you make decisions like that and you tell the universe, this is happening, I'm doing this. I already have my heart set on it. It was gonna be hard. I was gonna have to shift jobs.
Amanda Welch [00:39:07]:
I was gonna have to do all of this change. Like, my whole life, you know, had to be uprooted. And then it happened, and it came through. And the 1st year, year and a half were hard. You had asked, like, what were green flags? At the time, I would have told you every single thing was a red flag because I could not disconnect. I could not yet rewire my brain to know that I was in a safe, loving environment. And I'm so thankful that my husband had as much patience and love for me as he did, because I think a person with less of it may have said, you know what? I'm I'm I can't deal with you. I would flip out about everything.
Amanda Welch [00:39:49]:
I was so scared about every little thing that happened. I read into everything. I thought his intentions were always ill intentions. You know, I hadn't lived with anybody in a while. Everything about it felt very, very difficult. And he was steadfast through all of it, unbelievably, to me. Wow. And so, I mean, that there's a huge green flag.
Amanda Welch [00:40:12]:
Right? Like somebody that will that will let you tell them things. And we've worked on that a lot because Jake is a an engineer. He is a problem solver. I mean, he's got a mechanical mind. And so he's wired to just hear a problem, find a solution, hear a problem, find a solution. And, and he's been so amazing because when I've been telling him, no, I just, I just need you to hear me. I actually don't want a response at all. I just need a body with ears that, like, cares about me to listen to this.
Amanda Welch [00:40:44]:
And my number one favorite thing about him is that he is always willing to learn. Is he get it perfect every time? No. He's always willing to try. He's always willing to try in our marriage, as we parent our children, when he's at work, when we're working on projects together, he always has a willingness to grow and to learn. And I think being aligned with, with the person you wanna spend your time with in those ways is really important. I think when you value the same things and he and I both value lifelong learning, we Growth value personal development, growing the betterment of ourselves because I I would say, I think everybody wants that. I think everybody wants to self actualize. Actualize.
Amanda Welch [00:41:29]:
I think if everybody got out of their own way, everybody would work towards goals. Everybody would achieve. I think humans are driven for more and better. Now sometimes it's not, you know, you don't need to amass more materialistic things. You might amass more peace and quiet, but it's still, you know, it's always this, whatever your goal is, you might want betterment. And I believe humans are wired that way, but not all humans are there. And, you know, you can only meet people where they are, but he and I are so aligned on the things that we value that matter to us. And that was a big one for me.
Amanda Welch [00:42:04]:
That's that's a really big part of of our relationship.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:42:09]:
I I had to give myself that permission. It's a it's okay to wanna be with someone who prioritizes growth. Mhmm. But not like you said, not everyone is there. And when you're there and the other person is not, it can feel very lonely.
Amanda Welch [00:42:26]:
We went through a period last summer where I had to say that to him. He was he was kind of like he had just competed and things were going well at work. His his work schedule's interesting. You know, he's at work for 2 weeks, then he's home for 2 weeks, then he's at work. And so when he's home, he's home. Those are like his weekends or his evenings off that that people would normally have, and he doesn't get that. But when he was at home, I was kinda like being kind of loafy, you know, like I'm not, I'm not super impressed. And I was starting to feel like I was pulling away from him and that, Marie, it scared the crap out of me because that's not what I wanted.
Amanda Welch [00:43:04]:
I'm like, this is this person that like I'm like obsessed with him and he's like obsessed with me. And I was like, how are we here? And you know what we did? We just sat down and talked about it and we realigned ourselves. And it would like it was a conversation. Like, man, I would have had this conversation before. And he was like, yeah. You're right. I am feeling that way. And I was like, you're right.
Amanda Welch [00:43:23]:
I should do these things better. We can communicate. And, like, so often we wait so long to communicate the thing that's driving us nuts.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:43:32]:
I don't know if
Amanda Welch [00:43:33]:
we're just like waiting for the other person to figure it out. But so giving yourself that acceptance to to voice that. And you're right. Sometimes maybe you would say this isn't right for me. I'm going to voice it and you're still not going to change because you don't want to be there with me. But I think I prioritize that. I prioritize wanting to be there, and I'm thankful that that we're both there. And I I can't honestly see us see that ever changing, but I do know that, like, we we've done more check ins, and so we can help be intentional and direct our lives together so that, you know, we don't get neither one of us gets too far from the path that we're on.
Amanda Welch [00:44:12]:
We kind of have a checks and balance system with each other, I think.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:44:16]:
I love that. I not being afraid to to to speak what's bothering you. Because it's it's easy to, oh, there's a problem and be conflict avoidant and run away, as as soon as there's an obstacle, then you lose out you you lose a lot. So check the importance of check ins and honest communication. Now one one last question about your relationship. Or actually it's no, it's advice for others. So we've Growth of us have been these people and there's a lot of people right now that are in a relationship that is broken, that is not right for them. And they know deep down, but they struggle to let go.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:45:04]:
They're very attached. I've been there and I I needed I needed to hear from someone that's on the other side. So you being in that relationship that you are now, what would you tell your past Self? Or what would you tell someone who's in a situation like you were to help them find courage?
Amanda Welch [00:45:24]:
I think the number one thing is that it's always okay. You're not gonna make the change until you're ready. Like, that's the that's the thing to hold in because people, especially when you're in an abusive relationship, everybody in your life wants to tell you why are you still there. They wanna they they actually add more pressure to you. They add blame to you. You then feel guilty for being in an abusive relationship. And something I don't think is always well received is you are the one that put yourself there because of the way that you entered that relationship, the way you felt about yourself. I was able to be abused because I didn't think I was worth seeing more than that.
Amanda Welch [00:46:04]:
That's how I view my story. I'm I'm not gonna speak for anybody else, but I put myself there, and I kept myself there. Was it dangerous at times? Yes. Was I being held there at gunpoint every single day? No. I was not. The the discomfort of thinking about change often will keep us there. We would rather deal with the familiar pain than the discomfort of change. And I think the thing that I would pose to anybody, especially my old Self, is how good could your life be? How different could it be? Like, what? Like, see, visualization is a huge part of it.
Amanda Welch [00:46:37]:
You sat down and closed your eyes and said, what do I want to feel? Because those relationships, the relationship I was in did not teach me a damn thing about love. Not how to be loved, not what I not what I needed, but what it did teach me was the exact opposite. I knew that I never wanted to feel like that again. I knew how that I wanted somebody that was super duper duper into me, that that it was just crazy about me, and that love has been transformative. That extrinsic person saying, you are so great. You are so wonderful. You are so valuable. I am so happy you were put on earth every single day to me.
Amanda Welch [00:47:14]:
Maybe go, damn. I am really great. I am I should take out space. I am wonderful. You're right. I am beautiful. And that has helped, like, rewrite my whole life, and I don't think it was ever possible for me. And now that I have something like that, I think it's possible for everyone.
Amanda Welch [00:47:32]:
Mhmm. You know, it totally flips the script, but I can understand how hard that would be, like, when you're in something to say, no, this is just what life is. Right? I just expect it to be like this, or I'm okay with it being like this. And I think I'm done living like that. I want to live only with, like, the very best things in my life.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:47:54]:
Oh my god. Me too. That's what I think so often, when I'm with my partner. I think, oh my god. I cannot believe I could have settled for less. And my last partner was okay, you know. He it was a healthy relationship, but it's nothing in comparison. Like, I can't believe I could have settled full ends.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:48:18]:
I'm so thankful to my past self for having believed that more was possible. Like you say, like, to be with someone who admires you, who thinks you're amazing, who's just overjoyed to have you in their life. I didn't think that was possible. I kinda hoped, but I thought it was a little bit unrealistic, and turns out it's not. So, yeah, it's believing in the possibilities.
Amanda Welch [00:48:43]:
It does. You know, it's like it's like a pinch me love. It's like, this should be in a movie kind of love. And and for a long time, I was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm like, this can't last. Something bad is gonna happen. Right? Because you never think that you deserve something that good. I'm like, there's no way.
Amanda Welch [00:48:59]:
There's no way. And, like, I'll catch myself. I'm like, no. Something bad. This this can't. Like, okay. Last summer, we started to to not align. I'm like, here it is.
Amanda Welch [00:49:07]:
I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:49:10]:
No. It's too good to be true.
Amanda Welch [00:49:11]:
Right. Oh, wait. No. It's here we are a year later. No. It's not. It's even better than it was because we work through hard things together and that builds your bond even more. Like so no.
Amanda Welch [00:49:21]:
It it is possible. And I I'm a hopeless romantic, and I'll say it forever. You can have the love that you want. You have to know that you deserve it. And you have to know, like you said, at a cellular level. You can't just tell yourself that. You have to really embody that. If you were the type of person that could have anybody in the world, like, have the love that you want, how would you show up in the world? If you could have any job that you wanted and start being that person.
Amanda Welch [00:49:44]:
You may not have the job yet. You may not have the guy yet. You may not have whatever thing it is that you want. But when you start showing up as the person who has it, it's it's bound to come to you. It it can do nothing but come to you.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:49:55]:
Self, yes. Hell, yes. I like I'm sitting in moments these days and I think back to the times in the past where I was dreaming about this. When I was thinking, oh, how wonderful would it be if I could have this kind of moment with my partner and then it's happening? That's because of how I I believe that's because of how much. I don't know. I just believed that
Amanda Welch [00:50:29]:
I was struggling to put words on it. It's that's how it works. Right? Like, that's what we were talking about. That's the dream.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:50:35]:
Yeah. And that was
Amanda Welch [00:50:36]:
it coming to it's it's manifesting and, like, people it's it's not the woo woo manifesting. It's just the way that man things manifest into into reality. We dream them. And if you're in a bad spot or a bad relationship and you can allow yourself those dreams to just creep in and come in more and more and more, how could this feel? And really focus on that feeling because that is gonna that is going to drive it into your heart because your heart connects to the emotions, not the thoughts.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:51:03]:
Yeah. How would that feel? And you feel it in that moment and it changes how you show up in your day to day. Mhmm. I read somewhere, I don't remember who said that, what you want is going to be delivered at the address of peace. So so I mean, it sounded wiser than that, but when you're in alignment with yourself, when you're in a place of peace, what you've always wanted is going to get to you. But you've got to work on yourself and work to get to that place of alignment, and then you'll receive what you most want.
Amanda Welch [00:51:42]:
I 100% subscribed to that. Yeah. And both of
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:51:45]:
us are enneagram fours. So we're big idealists And I've been I've been shamed for that a lot in the past, but like I just I just love being a little bit delusional because quite often, honestly, it it works. It leads me to what I want. It actually works. So yeah.
Amanda Welch [00:52:04]:
It does. Everybody could use that and, you know, be a dreamer all you want. I think people probably find that inspiring about you. I know people find that inspiring about me. And so the world needs people like that to say, no, no, no. This is possible. You can have everything that you want. You literally can.
Amanda Welch [00:52:22]:
And it's going to shift. But, like, I'm living a life that I really love, but I feel like I created all of it, like, intentionally. And that makes me love it even more, and that makes me even more grateful Self think that that's a big part of it. I think that that anytime you judge anybody, you'd have to ask yourself why. Why are you judging that? They don't feel good about that somewhere.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:52:53]:
I probably would have judged us a few years ago. I would have rolled my eyes. Oh, there's they were so annoying. But that's because I was in a place where I was just in denial and trying to convince myself that I was happy about where I was at when I was not.
Amanda Welch [00:53:10]:
Yeah. Okay.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:53:13]:
Last last few questions. So I I know you're autistic. When did you get diagnosed and how did that what's the story? How did
Amanda Welch [00:53:25]:
you figure that out? Okay. So my son is 10 now, my oldest son. And when he was a baby, I remember it was at, like, 11 month checkup. And then at a checkup he had when he was, like, 15 months, the doctor said that she thought he was autistic. And I was like, no. Like, that couldn't be like, I didn't know that much about autism, but I knew that my son looked me in the eye sometimes. I knew that he was affectionate with me, and I I was like, that's no. I didn't think anything of it.
Amanda Welch [00:53:57]:
He, you know, had a speech delay, which is is really pretty common, for little boys. And then about the time COVID hit, we started taking him to a therapist, virtually. He would meet with somebody because he had a lot of anxiety. And when his anxiety was well managed, I said to Jake, he was like, jeez, you know, this is not this is not the whole story. And really with anxiety, is it ever really the whole story? Because anxiety is most likely a symptom of something. And he said no. And we started to I started to do some more research and I was like, you know, I really am feeling like this is autism. This is what's going on.
Amanda Welch [00:54:34]:
The the way that he speaks, the way that he constantly reads, the way that he withdraws from people. And they started to look back at, at old videos of him. And I would say his name over and over and over again, and he wouldn't answer. And I'm like, how did I, you know, hindsight's 2020. Like, how did I not know? Like, everything I know now, I'm like, I'll I'll look back at pictures and videos of my son. I'm like, oh my god. Like, it's glaringly obvious. And I have to laugh because the doctor was so kind.
Amanda Welch [00:55:00]:
She didn't push me into it. And I was thinking that woman could have pushed me a little bit more and been like, no. I know that your son is autistic, but she didn't. And she was gracious, and she let me come to it. So Vinny was diagnosed, about two and a half years ago. And so I I do what I do with a lot of things. I went full force into learning about it and researching it and figuring out how I was going to help him. And as I was reading and researching and thinking about this little human that I'm responsible for, who is more like me than anybody I have ever met on the whole planet.
Amanda Welch [00:55:36]:
There is nobody Vin and I have such a good relationship because we are so similar in in the way that we show up in the world and the way that we feel things and the way we experience the world, because that's what autism is. It it you can't necessarily look at somebody and know that they're autistic. It's how they process. Right? It's how they how they experience everything. And I was like, oh, shit. Oh, right. I'm just like Vinny, and Vinny's autistic. Vinny's just like me.
Amanda Welch [00:56:04]:
Well, I'm autistic. Equals. Right. And I was like, oh, I've read this book and it's called it was an audiobook. It was like 22 things your Asperger's girlfriend or wife or woman wants you to know about her. And, I balled through the whole thing, and I sent it to Jake. And I was like, because it talked about meltdowns, and I did not realize the way that I would shut down or the way that I my life would completely fall apart at times really was not in my control now. I am because of all of this information I have, I am much better at recognizing when I'm close to a meltdown and it has been eye opening for me.
Amanda Welch [00:56:45]:
But another thing that that book said, because as an adult, you can't really be diagnosed with autism. A lot of adults go to a doctor or they'll go to for adults. Some doctors have used childhood information, like they'll they'll wanna talk to a parent or they'll wanna talk to somebody that was there so that they can use the children's diagnostic measures and say you are autistic or not. But there there is no there's no actual medical adult diagnosis. It is used and until 10 years ago, it was only used to diagnose little boys. It's you know, women have only been in the fold of being able to be autistically diagnosed for, like, 10, 12 years maybe now. Why do you think that is? Because little boys and little girls present very differently. Because boys have a lot more outward symptoms or they will do things that that girls won't.
Amanda Welch [00:57:49]:
And I think even with ADHD, little girls tend to be easier. Like, in a classroom, they'll just become quiet. They'll just they'll be very complacent. They won't try to stand out. Autistic women are very, very good at what, you know, they call masking. They'll figure out the social norms and they will just fall right in line. I have to laugh because Vinh was just he was just identified as gifted. Now I just had his meeting for it this morning.
Amanda Welch [00:58:20]:
I was in the gifted program as a kid, and, like, there's a lot of talk on social media platforms about the gifted tests really just being a measure for whether or not kids were autistic because so many of the kids in there are autistic. And, you know, when Vin was talking to this therapist and we were kinda getting him diagnosed, she's like, well, sometimes, you know, he's really bright, really bright kids. They just don't there's all up all of the social skills because those things you know, talk about balance. Like, his brain's developing all of this other stuff, so that just falls behind them. Like, yes. But that's because he's autistic. Like, all of the great minds of the world has probably been autistic minds. Steve Jobs, autistic.
Amanda Welch [00:58:59]:
Einstein, autistic. Like, Newton, autistic. You know, Elon Musk, autistic. Because you're right. You can't hold certain. You can't do it all. Your brain can't do it all. It you know, you can you can learn it.
Amanda Welch [00:59:14]:
I have learned, you know, as an adult how to function in the world, how to talk to people. In fact, you know, people on the Internet will say, well, you're very good on camera. You couldn't be autistic. And I'm like, right. Because that's not a learned skill and there's nobody in front. Like, I'm always I'm always puzzled by that one because I'm like, actually autistic people make great actors because they've had to act. When you lead it to adulthood as an autistic person, you, you know, with some semblance of normalcy, whatever that means, you've learned how to act. And that's another reason it can be very, very difficult to, diagnose adults with autism because you just spent 40 years masking and changing yourself and and rewiring and relearning, a way to be in the world that helps to protect you.
Amanda Welch [01:00:06]:
It helps to keep you safe. It helps to make you look and seem, you know, like other kids.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [01:00:13]:
Yeah. So like in a previous episode, I was talking about the masks we wear. And sometimes when we worn them for so long, it's hard to see where the masks end and where your true self begins. The longer it's been, the hardest it is to figure out what's my authentic self versus, like, everything that I've learned, all the learned behaviors. Yeah. Right. You are fascinating and we could talk about autism for a whole episode, so that'll have to be for number 2. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Amanda Welch [01:00:52]:
Please, can you tell my listeners where to find you to hear more about you and your wisdom? Oh, excellent. So on Instagram and on TikTok, it's amanda.rose.welch. And you can also go to lead from the front on Instagram now. That's gonna be some cool coaching and bodybuilding stuff, but that's where I'm at. And I love love to talk about all of these topics. So I'm always into that.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [01:01:20]:
And Welsh is w e l c h for everyone, but it's gonna be in the show notes. So if you're not sure what Amanda's links are, just go to selfgrowthnerds.com/podcast, and you'll be able to find them there. Thank you again so much, Amanda.
Amanda Welch [01:01:36]:
Thank you.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [01:01:42]:
Hey. If you love what you're hearing on the Self growth nerds podcast and you want individual help finding a new direction for your life and developing the courage to make your dreams a reality, you have to check out how we can work together on selfgrowthnerds.com or message me on Instagram at self Growth nerds. My clients say they would have needed that support years ago. So if you're tired of feeling like you're wasting your life, don't wait. Get in touch now and I cannot wait to meet you.