Amelia Kriss is a Drama Therapist and Certified Coach in private practice in the Bay Area, California, where she lives with her husband and two powerhouse daughters. She works primarily with recovering people-pleasers and "Nice" girls who are ready to deconstruct self-shrinking patterns, and find more ease & joy.

 Amelia is also deeply committed to Birth Story Medicine work; helping birthing parents integrate, and move forward from, unresolved issues connected to the experience of giving birth. She believes that supporting parents through birthing as a rite of passage is an important (and too often missing) piece of creating healthier & happier families.

 Amelia is also a Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator and a director for therapeutic theatre. She is deeply interested in the connection between our personal healing journeys and our collective liberation.

 What we discuss in this episode:

• Amelia shares her own postpartum journey and the moment her husband asked her how she was. Her answer surprised her and helps to frame her transition into motherhood.
• What it really means when we get the message after a birth that says "Mom and Baby are healthy and happy."
• Why it is so important to prepare birthing people for the psychological and spiritual identity changes that come with the physical experience of birth. 
• Why the information preparing families have access to leans towards one of two extremes and why both sides are just not complete. "Most of us hold both sides; fear AND trust."
• Growing humans is a bad-ass thing and we are strong enough to think about, and prepare for, all potential outcomes.
• What it means to be "empowered" as a parent. You have life experiences you can draw on as you prepare for birth. And how birth is like going on a hike.
• Amelia shares about her Group Coaching program - how she designed and it and how it will help expectant parents.
• How society steers us wrong in birth and motherhood and why Redefining Motherhood exists. How motherhood is not a role or an archetype but an experience.
• Lynn shares the experience that jolted her out of "survival mode" in motherhood.
• Amelia connects for us that there is a level of death/change/rebirth that takes place in the transition into motherhood. How it is mixed and messy and dynamic. How there is a ying and yang. 

Resources and Links:

• Website: https://ameliakriss.com/
• Instagram: @akcollaborative
• Uncharted: Anchoring Yourself in the Wild Terrain of Giving Birth Group Program: www.birthingforreal.com 
• To book a Birth Story Medicine session with Amelia: https://ameliakriss.com/birth-story-medicine
• Newsletter for Pregnant People called Soft Cheese: https://ameliakriss.com/soft-cheese

Connect with Lynn on instagram @HappyMamaWellness. Looking for more support with parenting and motherhood? Check out the Happy Mama Wellness Community here!