IE089 Amy O’Meara: Crafting a Life Meant Living: The Art of Personal Transformation

Our guest for this week is Amy O’Meara, life coach, educator, author, and CEO of “Life Meant International”.

About Amy

Around 7 years ago, Amy had gone through some significant changes in her life. A bad break up, followed by some of her closest friends moving away had left her feeling lost and alone. Having lost her support system, Amy went on to explore the ideas of self-growth and self-development. It was in November 2013 when she came upon a Ted Talk by Ian Usher where she first learned about the idea of “selling your life for a new one”.

In the midst of trying to discover the life she was meant to live, her own personal brand was born. By founding Life Meant, Amy took on a mission to make a change in the world by empowering the lives of women and children across the globe. Six years after, Amy has traveled to 25 countries, taught and lived internationally, and become an internationally recognized educator, trainer, and speaker.

She also published a self-help book called “Letters to a J.E.R.K.”. A collection of practical advice and personal experiences, Amy aims to empower women all over the world and how to let go of fear and self-doubt. It is a guide that will show you how to identify difficult emotions, process them, and transform yourself to live your Life Meant.

Connect with Amy:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifemeant/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lifemeant 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amy_lifemeant/
• Website: https://www.lifemeant.com/

In This Episode We Canvas:

• Starting Somewhere

At the beginning of our conversation, Amy reveals details about how exactly her transformation went down. What caused it, the context, how she came up with the inspiration to change… But ultimately we get down to one of the key tips residing in her message. The encouragement to dive into action even if you don’t feel like you have everything figured out.

“Even if you don’t know a lot... just start somewhere! You don’t have to know everything about diving deep into the core of who you are.” - Amy O’Meara

• Free Range Education

We talked about some of the founding principles of the free-range education theory. Amy developed an inclination for this modern approach while she was teaching abroad. She fell in love with the idea because it allowed her to “dream big” and reconceptualize her role as an educator.

“It really shifted who I was as an educator which dove me deep into the personal growth, coaching… That’s when I started becoming a coach and said, ‘Okay, how can I use coaching language with children?’ This is an amazing gift because I’m their guide and facilitator, I’m not their dictator! - Amy O’Meara

• Using Coaching Language to Educate Children

Amy noticed in her teaching sessions with young children that they were actually bogged down by the same insecurities and challenges we would usually connect with the situations of adults. She recognized the notion of “I’m not enough” in children as young as nine! It was this discovery that eventually inspired her to add coaching language to her approach of educating children. All with a clear goal in mind - to encourage the development of emotional intelligence.

“We’re developing their EQ and we need to really pay close attention to the word choice that we’re using. And that’s why I’ve developed that coaching language with the kids because when we are using coaching language we’re holding space for them to grow. Grow emotionally.” - Amy O’Meara

• The Value of Being Able to Trust Yourself

We go all-in on the concept of trust and Amy’s philosophy is so empowering because she is guiding back to focus on the way we treat ourselves. The relationship we have with ourselves. By doing so, she reminds us that power is always within ourselves and subliminally encourages us to take action.

“When we dive into trust and communication one of the things that we have to be very careful of is the lies we tell ourselves… Trust starts with you. Trust of yourself is the very first key. If you can’t trust yourself, how are you going to show up in a relationship and be trusting of other people?” - Amy O’Meara

• The 4 Steps of Making a Relationship Agreement with Yourself

Amy shares her teachings on making a relationship agreement with yourself. She was inspired by a scene from a very popular TV show and you’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out more because there’s no way we’ll be spoiling that one here!

Anyway… Her idea is founded on 4 basic steps that each of us should define and understand prior to opening ourselves to a new relationship.

“It starts with your non-negotiables.” - Amy O’Meara

The first step concerns things that we are not ready to step away from. These lie at the core of our values and represent our “line in the sand”.

“The second part is self-love.” - Amy O’Meara

Once we’ve defined our non-negotiables, we can then move on to explore the relationship that we have with ourselves. What kind of self-talk are we using? Are we treating ourselves positively and if not, why? Are we taking active steps to improve this? Answering these questions will help us identify the key changes we need to make in order to love and support ourselves more.

“The third thing is self-development.” - Amy O’Meara

We know what our values are, we’ve defined ways to improve our self-love and now it’s time to think about other ways we can improve. Self-development is key according to Amy and we need to adopt the best practices so that we can live the lives we were truly meant to live.

“The last and final thing is... a support team.” - Amy O’Meara

And finally, having a clear and defined support system in mind is the best way to preserve mental health. Knowing who are the people in your life you can always rely on will never let you fall off your path and will also quickly nudge you in the right direction when you get lost. The power is within and we need to do everything ourselves but being guided by those who have faced similar issues can be a major advantage.

Amy’s Message of Inspired Evolution

This was such a fun and diverse conversation. We’ve covered all sorts of topics and I think we got a chance to explore some of the key points of Amy’s self-growth philosophy. I’m really fascinated by how subtle she is in spreading the idea that we, ourselves, are in fact in control. But her enthusiasm for self-love is truly mesmerizing.

“I’m starting a revolution of self-love!” - Amy O’Meara

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