Aware Me Up — Trauma, Relationships & Why the Problem Is Never Really the Problem
Episode 15 of Wellness Me Up — Wellness Me Up Diary Entrywith Trauma Conscious Transformational Coach Amanda Kirkland
You've been showing up ready to do battle every day and you don't even know it.
Amanda Kirkland is a trauma conscious transformational coach who helps you see what you can't see yet — because awareness is always the first step. And she's been there. Done that. Got the tattoo.
I cried before we even hit record on this one. Not during. Before. Amanda just sat with me and let the tears flow. Didn't rush me. Didn't fix me. Didn't try to make it stop. Just held the space until I was ready.
And then we hit record.
If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about how this woman works... keep reading.
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Two Amandas. Both Done Pretending Everything Is Fine.
Amanda Kirkland is a trauma conscious coach with a master practitioner level certification in transformational coaching. She also has certifications in evolved neurolinguistic programming, quantum time release, quantum change process, hypnotherapy, and more.
She's been estranged from her family for over twelve years. She developed an eating disorder at 21. She spent 22 years in a psychiatrist's chair. She got a tattoo that says Positive Mind. Positive Lives. Positive Life. during one of the hardest periods of her life as a reminder to keep going.
And she is genuinely one of the easiest people to talk to you will ever meet.
We've known each other for a couple of years. And every single time we get together something gets said that stops me in my tracks. This episode was no different.
The Problem Is Never Really the Problem
This is where Amanda starts with every client.
Someone comes to her struggling in a relationship and doing the same things over and over — trying to change the person, trying to get someone to listen, trying to get a different result from the same dynamic. That's the presenting problem. The thing on the surface that made them finally reach out.
But that's not actually the problem.
I brought up road rage as an example — like why am I that person? Why am I reacting like this? And Amanda said exactly. That's just the presenting problem. What's really going on underneath it? Are you not being seen? Not being heard? Being overlooked? There's always something else going on below the surface.
And then she gave her own example — the kid at Canadian Tire who shuffled over, looked down, and half blew them off. And instead of getting annoyed Amanda found herself wondering... I wonder if he gets bullied at school. I wonder what his life at home is like.
That's the shift. From this person is being rude to me... to I wonder what's going on for them. And it's not a small shift. That's years of work showing up in a two second interaction at a hardware store.
You've Been Showing Up Ready to Do Battle. And You Didn't Even Know It.
This was the moment in this episode that stopped me completely.
Amanda shared that one of her biggest personal realizations — the one that only came after years of doing deep work — was that she had been getting up every single day and putting on a suit of armor without even knowing it.
Ready to do battle. Before anything had even happened. Before anyone had done anything. Just... armored up and braced for impact as a default setting.
And she didn't know. Until she knew.
That's what this work does. It shows you things about yourself that you genuinely cannot see on your own. Not because you're not smart enough or self-aware enough. But because some patterns are so deeply embedded they just feel like... you. They feel like personality. They feel like how things are.
Until someone asks the right question and the whole thing cracks open.
Hurt People Hurt People. And Most of Them Have No Idea.
Amanda talked about her family estrangement with such clarity and such zero victimhood that I just sat there nodding.
She said the work she does now — understanding why people show up the way they do — helped her look at the people who hurt her and realize they were carrying trauma they didn't even know they had. Acting out of unconscious wounds. Doing things that caused harm without any awareness that they were doing it.
That doesn't make it okay. But it changes how you carry it.
And she's clear about her own role too. She developed an eating disorder. Her behavior wasn't easy for her family either. She owns that. She takes accountability for her part in the dynamic without making herself the villain and without making them the villain either.
That kind of nuance is rare. And it's exactly why her clients trust her so quickly.
I Just Want People to Be F*cking Happy
This came out during a moment that genuinely surprised me.
Amanda was talking about how she found her purpose — during a two hour coaching session where her coach kept pushing her on what she actually wanted. And after all the tears and all the Kleenexes and all the circling around... it just came out.
I just want people to be fcking happy. And I just want to be happy.*
That's it. That's the whole thing. That's why she does what she does.
And she said it with the kind of simplicity that only comes from someone who has spent a very long time not being happy. Who knows what it costs. Who has been on the other side of it and clawed her way back and now wants to throw a rope down for anyone still in the pit.
I shared something in this episode that I hadn't thought about in years. My estranged mother used to say she wanted happiness for Christmas. Just happiness. And one year someone gave her a box with the word happiness written inside it. Empty box. Just the word.
And sitting there talking to Amanda about choosing our happy... that memory just surfaced. Because we do get to choose so much of it. Even when it feels like we don't.
Relationships Are Everywhere. Not Just the Romantic Ones.
Something Amanda said early in this conversation that I want to make sure doesn't get lost.
When people hear relationship coaching they immediately go to romantic relationships. But Amanda works with the full spectrum. Family dynamics. Workplace dysfunction. Friendships. Even the stranger at the checkout who's having a terrible day and taking it out on everyone around them.
Because the way we respond to people who are struggling says everything about where we are in our own work. And Amanda used to be the person who poked back. Who called it out. Who made the cashier's bad day worse.
Now she gets curious instead. That's not a small shift. That's years of work paying off in a two second interaction. And it's exactly what she helps her clients learn to do too.
The WTF Wheel Question: A Belief About Wellness You Used to Hold That You Now Laugh At
Yoga.
Amanda Kirkland is now a full on yoga devotee — power classes, restorative classes, barre classes, the whole thing. And she used to think yoga was for other people. Not her people. People she had a certain stereotype about that she's now fully become.
She laughed telling it. And I laughed with her because I have the exact same story about walking. I used to think people who just went for walks were bizarre. Why would you just... walk somewhere? For no reason?
And now I marinate in forests for fun and call it wellness.
We become the things we used to laugh at. And that's not embarrassing. That's growth.
What Wellness Me Up Means to Amanda Kirkland
Getting to a place where energetically you feel at peace. Where you know you're good. Where you're supported. Where you're not wrong or a problem all the time.
And then she said something that I want to put on a wall somewhere...
Aware me up.
Because awareness is the first step to everything. You can't change what you can't see. You can't take accountability for something you don't know you're doing. You can't shift a pattern you don't know you have.
Awareness isn't the whole journey. But nothing moves without it.
The Suits of Armor We Don't Know We're Wearing
I keep coming back to this image.
All of us out here getting dressed every morning and not realizing we're also putting on armor. Bracing. Defending. Ready for impact before anything has even happened.
And the work — the real work — is figuring out when you put it on. Why you put it on. Whether you actually still need it. And what it might feel like to take even one piece of it off.
Amanda Kirkland helps people do that. Gently. Messily. Without a script. Meeting you exactly where you are.
Even if where you are is crying before you've even hit record.
Want to work with Amanda Kirkland? Amanda Kirkland is a trauma conscious transformational coach specializing in interpersonal relationships — with family, at work, in friendships, and with yourself. She's been there. Done that. Got the Positive Mind. Positive Lives. Positive Life. tattoo. And she's genuinely one of the easiest people to talk to you'll ever meet.
👉 amandakirkland.com 📱 Instagram & socials: @amandakirklandcoach 📞 Free 30 minute discovery call available — hop on and see where you're at
If this one hit different... share it with someone who's been showing up ready to do battle every day without knowing it. And subscribe to Wellness Me Up wherever you listen.
🎧 Listen to the episode here:
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