Welcome, Welcome, guys, Dia Amada and you're listening to Exactly Amada, a production of Ihearts. Thank you so much for tuning in as usual, and don't.
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We say yo me dah. It's just so much drama happening right now.
Between taking care of my girls, I'm doing my podcast, working on my real estate, trying to be the best mother I can be, trying to be the best daughter I can be.
I mean, and every day I'm trying to come up with a new project.
Now I want to do like a salon or a restaurant or I don't know why am I such a hustler? Is that like a Latino thing that you can't just have one job. You always feel the need to have several things going on in your life.
I don't know. Maybe I need to slow down.
But you know who can help me balance out my mind is my friend, my co host sometimes producer. He puts up with all my nonsense.
Alex is in the house.
I want to say, I put up with your nonsense. I mean, I'm here and I love it.
I thank you. I know this. Sometimes I can be a lot. Sometimes I'm you.
Know, say yo, I get upset, I get angry, I'm happy, I be depressed, I'm excited, I be all over the place.
Sometimes you don't think so.
You wouldn't be exactly a matter if you weren't.
Oooh yeah, love the answer, and you know what, talking about my craziness in life. I need to zen my ass down somewhere. I need to have the energy that our guest has because even though she's the party and her energy is so flowy and just good vibes, and she always has the best advice, and I just love how she just handles life. I need more friends like her that can zend me down and be like a Mada. You might be going too fast, or you might just be having too much coffee, Alex hol do we have today?
Today's special guest is Clear Fountain. She's joining the conversation. She is a multi talented psychotherapist, yoga instructor, and writer who brings a unique an honest approach to health and well being. With years of experience teaching yoga and working with top athletes, musicians, and major brands. Player's an expert in the intersection of well being. Oh, I'm trauma healing, somatic healing and self worth as a human right, ladies and gentlemen. As I mentioned before, Claire Founday, I.
Am so happy to have you on my podcast exactly. I'm ada because usually my podcast is.
Super you know, late and hype and this and that, and I always do think it's important to have moments where we don't necessarily need to be talking about sex and the you know, raunchy, naughty way, but more.
In an educational aspect.
And I know that you and I had an opportunity of meeting and working together at one point. We reconnected because God's tending is so perfect. We reconnected at the cheesecake factory.
We did.
We had some great, great conversations. We had a little cotail here and there. And I invited to to my podcast because I just think that you have so much to offer. Tell me about being a yoga instructor, first of all, because I definitely need some of that.
Yeah, yoga started a really long time ago. I started doing yoga when I was in high school because of depression and anxiety. And I had an aunt from California and I just she told me about yoga and I thought this could maybe help me feel better. And the things I learned in the relationship with my body and the amount of feeling I was able to do through this practice was a bit life changing. And then in two thousand and nine I started actually teaching, and there
I say, the rest is history. But it's been something that I practiced, like on the map, but also off the mat.
Had you always been this chill, this zen, this relax about life or do you think you went through a stage in life or did anything impactful happen that made you transition into you know what?
I just need this this evolution.
I think I was always really a pensive and thoughtful, but I had a lot of anxiety when I was younger, so much anxiety, ruminating thoughts, fixation on body. Just couldn't calm down. And then once I got more into the practice, I just knew there was another way. I know there was another way to live.
Your work right now already does focus a lot on the intersection of well being, trauma, healing, self worth and all these other things. Can you tell us more about how you bring these elements together in together for your clients?
Yeah, I don't think we can really separate it. For a long time, I was thinking, well, maybe I do this one thing, or maybe I do that one thing, And then I realized it's all connected. Right. We can't separate our mind and our body and our spirit, and we can't separate the environments that we're in. We can't
separate the things happening around us. So I take a very holistic approach, and I think we're all a sum of many stories, and we have to look at all our stories as a way to possibly feel better or more so, get better at ceiling.
You'll get us some achievement. I want to know the gossip, I forget about that.
Listen.
And I know that you've worked with ath leads, with Ladis, with all these people you know say in power they got all that stuff. Can you tell me, like, what is their trauma looking like? What is you know like do you find that they have similar things in common?
Is healing a little bit.
More difficult for these people because they are in the spotlight or a lot of people expect a lot out of them. How do you help them, specifically those that are in the spotlight consistently, how do you help them heal from these traumas that they've had in their past.
Yeah, I mean this adds another layer, right, any public facing persona and like, can you mail this? There's a lot of expectation. There's a lot of people projecting, and the Internet has given everyone a space to say whatever they want about whatever they want. Yeah, And it's like, I think it can be really dehumanizing. They don't think you're a real person, they don't think you have feelings,
and that can weigh on people. And I know there's also this voice of well, you chose this profession, and it's not that simple because that means to say, well, you don't get to have feelings because you chose this. That's not fair. That's not fair. And I realize, like humans are humans, right, We have feelings, and our feelings can get hurt, and when people say nasty things about us, it's hard to just let it bounce off, you know.
And so it's great, I work a lot. It's how can we process that and separate, you know, truth from fiction? How can we stand in our truth?
Well, no, do me a therapy right now, because let me tell you something about me.
What's going on?
Girl? Let me tell you what the people have said that I had heard because it's the truth. But it really ain't the truth, but the people it's making it see I it's the truth.
There's so obviously you know that me being.
In the public eye reality TV, a lot of people believe one hundred percent of the things that they see.
In many occasions, they forget that this is a reality show, pint pint.
Some things are blown out of proportion, and by the time something really happens, by the time they hear it out of the tenth person, the story has already changed. And in many occasions, my feelings do get hurt. And I know that I am in the public guy, and I'm supposed to just suck it up and.
Act like it's all good.
But how am I supposed to deal with the commons of society being judged, rumors created on you.
Know about me? How do I deal with this in a way.
That it doesn't affect me personally? And I still have to deal with it because it's part of my job, is part of what I do for a living.
Yeah, that's so true, And that's so honest that your work, it does. It really kind of stings sometimes, I've sound Usually the stuff that stings the most is attached to deeper stuff that's happened to us, right, So if it's someone could say something that just doesn't affect us, right like nah this and that and know, yeah, we'll bounce it off not really real. But the stuff that maybe touches at our worthiness, our lovability, our physical appearance. I
feel like that we've got our worried about that. Media loves to go in about how we look or how our body was shaped, or who we loved or who we weren't block with. So a lot of it is really thinking about what's the core, like when did this happen? And it may have been long before this profession.
I've realized as an only child, this is an only child's syndrome. And if you're out here listening, I know that you've been through this. I've realized that it works for me when I go to my bathroom, when I'm in the shower, I cry, I talk to myself, I give myself advice. Sometimes I give myself words of encouragement.
Sometimes you got to do that, whether you look at yourself in the mirror, whether you go into that shower and you cry a little bit and get it out of your system, because sometimes you hold in so much information, so much feelings and emotions inside.
You don't have anybody to talk to.
You feel like everybody's going to judge you. You may not know exactly how to go about it, and you need to get it out of your system. If not, there comes these occasions where people become super angry. There they're you know, extremely frustrated. And I give myself affirmations all the time. You are a Babbage, You're smart. I'm so proud of you. You've come such a long way. Like I look at all the things compass. Sometimes you need to be able to be your own hype person
when nobody is doing it for you. And I think that this conversation is important because a lot of people feel so lonely these days. Everybody's so caught up in their own world, and everybody has so many traumas and things that they're going through that they have no one to communicate with honestly, if they find a professional like yourself. But when you don't have that, what are some things that you can do to help yourself heal. I know
that yoga is one of those ways. I know that physical activity, whether it is that you like pilate is dy like running day, Like, what are some of the things that you recommend.
I think you've had great examples, Like I would say the same thing. It gets stuck in your body. We get angry, we snap on people, we get sick, we wonder why our bodies ache. The body will speak in so many ways and so we've got to get that stuff out. And you're right, I think taking a shower that can be a massive redset. I'm going to cleanse what's happening. I'm going to talk to myself. Having a conversation with yourself is great. I mean, having trusted friend's
family walk once is also wonderful. Leaning into community it's great, But like you said, sometimes that doesn't feel so safe. Having informations, keeping a journal, just hyping yourself up, having a conversation. What would younger you want to hear? How would you talk to younger you? How would you talk to someone you love and then talk to yourself? That way that reset can change a walk.
I like what you said about about the showering part, because that is soothing. Another thing is like I'm the type of person who like I'm up till super late, But that's just because of my own trauma with a PTS and everything, Like, I can't sleep at night, so that is one thing I do, Like I'm about two thirty three o'clock in the morning, go take a shower, and it just like calms me down and just it's time for bed.
It can be totally rounding exercise too.
You know, having issues with your sleep does affect your system, your nervous system, in many different ways, and that also can create a lot of things. I'm one of those people that have issues, especially now with my daughters that are up you know, inconsistently and and now like sometimes that wake up being angry for no reason but nothing has even happened, and that's just the sleep deprivation, huh.
Does does affect a lot. So by the way, talking about showers, you know that I gotta be exactly myself.
Sometimes you might not even just have to, like, you know, masturbate sometimes, especially for men, in many occasions, if you just think, like do what you gotta do, boom, you feel more happy when you get out of there, life seems to be better.
Sometimes not just about crying.
Sometimes it's just about getting whatever it is out of your body, out of your system, and those are the things that nobody wants to talk about. But I do think that it's the truth and it's important. And I want to ask you, Claire, as a sex positive, sexuality gender kinky, affirmative and body liberational, you know, a counselor, you have a very unique perspective on the importance of
body image and sexual trauma. Can you speak a little bit about ways in which these issues impact the mental and physical health and.
How do you navigate that with your clients.
Well, it's like everything, I mean, every story is different, right, No two people have the same experience exactly in the same history, or the same environment, or the same cultural idea of body and sect and all these pieces. But the impact is like a ripple effect, right. But I think not just about healing, but also about having pleasure, being able to feel good in our bodies and whole in our bodies and not shaming or pathologizing anything like that.
I agree. I think masturbation and a connection with one's own body is an amazing stress reduction. It's also a way to connect back to self. And like you were saying, who's going to love me more than me? What's one of the most loving. Things we can do is find a way that we can feel safe and empowered in our bodies, especially if that has been taken from us. I mean, I know women as actually before, our bodies are not our own. They go onto everyone but us.
And so it's a really big moment to say all these things might have happened in society, things in our environments have happened. But I can take my body back. I can be the leader and the driver's seat of my body and things.
And who knows you more than you?
You know, I definitely know me. I can do me in five seconds. And that's what I love about me. I've taken enough time forget to know.
Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus.
No, that's grateful. I think it's wonderful.
What are some boundaries that you know, our listeners are people, oh raw can put in order to conserve their their peace. What are those boundaries that you consider people should implement.
Yeah, I mean boundaries are for us. They're not about the other person. It's not you won't do this, it's I won't. I'm not going to tolerate this or I don't go in these spaces. So boundaries will protect us.
Yeah, and so really it's.
Anything like we can give something a silent blessing and be like, you know what, this isn't going to work, and then we can move along. So I think boundaries are a really good way to just again, like you said, you get to a place where you're like, I've seen what I needed to see. The lenses are cleared, and I don't want this type of energy around them.
I've always wondered when you are a therapist, a counselor when when whenever you're helping, whenever you're that soul that you know that I feel that God has selected to give you that power of being able to be that healing heart for other people? How do you deal with all that pressure? And I don't want to say negativity, but when you're that person, it's like an attorney. An attorney wakes up knowing that you got to deal with everybody's shit. You got to deal with everybody's problems the
same way that a doctor does. A doctor has to heal with everybody's illness. How do you how do you yourself as a person not overwhelm yourself with everybody's issues because you have to be healing, you know, for them.
Yeah, it's like I've done so much of my own work, right It's like training. It's like when you train for a sport and we think, oh my god, I could never run as much a soccer player's run. Well, they train for it. Does that make sen I trained for this work. I take a lot of care of myself. I do a lot of practices. It's like, my shoulders are strong right to hold this and to be able to hold a space for people. And it's like, have I not seen some of the darkness of life? I
don't know if I could do this. So it's like because of my life experiences, because of things I've been through, it, I can hold more. And that feels good. It feels like, let me do this. And then if I ever need to take a moment and take a break because I can't hold as much space, I do that.
You know.
That's like an offering more. I'm like, hey, I can't hold as much right now. But yeah, it's just a lot of care, a lot of care and keeping of self. And I also don't see it all as negative. It's more like the human experience.
When you think of the word human rights, what does that mean to you?
The human rights.
Oh, kind of my idea, but like everybody has a right to wellness. But it's also looking at like systemic issues and environments that don't serve everyone.
With the way things are going in the world right now, fundamentally, people need mental health, people need closure, people need some type of boundaries where they can attach themselves to like minded people to help each other out. That is a human right, you know, to be able to take care of each other without judgment man, because right now the world seems to be always wanting to judge you for every single thing that you try to do to help yourself out. It's hard.
It's hard.
Well, we all want dignity, we all want safety, we all want to feel connected and like we have a sense of belonging and we all deserve we should all be able to access that and to feel our most optimal selves. And again, optimal self is really subjective. What's optimal for you? What's optimize else? But you get to define that, and that I think is.
Like we all I just think that when we talk about human rights, in my eyes, there's just two versions of it. It's like what we deserve, what we are supposed to have, just in nature and then here comes the government. We are failing each other and I think that in many occasions, nobody wants to talk about it. That's why I love this podcast because we talk about the things that we may all think but don't want to talk about.
How can we heal?
Because if we heal, we pass that energy onto someone else. Or even just watching you become a better human being makes me reflect on the fact that I need to do better with my life and myself. You know, I think that's super important. And like I said, nobody wants to talk about it. But I just feel like we're feeling each other as humans right now.
And that's why you have Claire, and that's why you have her, you know, speaking the good word and helping so many people out because someone like her has taken the a chance on helping others.
And talking about, you know, helping and changing others. Claire has a really big following on social media. How do you use your platform or social media to help those that are following you.
To some extent? I feel like a professional helper, like a help we need a resource finess. I got you. You want to talk about a subject matter that you don't hear somebody talking about I got you, let me talk about it. Just a way to share resources, a way to bring people together, a way to connect people.
Because I think we were talking about like humanity has been a bit lost, and I would agree, but there is a lot of strength and like minded, loving people coming together, and we can always move in a way of compassion. You know, we can stand up COVID to right and still move in compassion. And I think we've got each other right. Well, people come together, there can be a lot of healing and a lot of powerful movement.
Even with all the crazy, big money people happening, we can still have a lot of power within people.
So here it comes this because I really want to know what is next for you. You know, what projects are you currently working on, and what are your goals for the future in terms of promoting wellness and mental health.
Long term, I'd love to have a holistic platform where everything lives in one place and you can get resources, you can get connections to people, to networks the things you want to learn about. Again, it's like moving the
power back to the people kind of aspect. But right now I'm working on a sexual assault survivor's workbook, which will be a little sprinkle of memoir, but also a work book where people can work with their own pace, they can have a better connection with their body, with themselves, moving through trauma, healing all these pieces, and then maybe a podcast, but we'll see. And cocktails are going to have more cocktails. That's what we're going to do.
Yes, they definitely have some more cocktails. But I am so grateful that you know, you gave some great pointers and I'm grateful that you came on exactly, Amada. If there's anybody out there that hasn't been able to have the opportunity of funding on social media, they would like to talk to you. They need some counseling, they need some heating, that need some of your energy. Where can they find you?
You can find me on the internet at CB quality or look up Claire Fountain and you can hit me uf. I'm always there.
I love it.
You know what, You always need a friend, You always need a support system. And if there's anything you could take home with you today is never feel like you're crazy for wanting help. Never feel like you know. There's always going to be out there the world is judging you. There's always somebody out there that's willing to listen, that's willing to be your friend, that's willing to support, that's willing to give you great advice, that's willing to share
their story with you. Because you trust me, You're not the only one. There's so many people out there. I feel the same way that you do that have gone through the same traumas that you have, and everybody has, you know, a different timing. It's some things just take time to heal, to grow out of, to process to overcome. Don't feel that it is impossible for you to go back to being how you were, or whatever the case may be.
There is somebody out there.
We have amazing people like Claire who dedicate their lives into helping other people and becoming that light for others. I am so grateful that you came on the show today, Claire.
Thank you so much. You're so amazing.
I am always so happy to have amazing women on exactly amount of Alex. You are just as beautiful. You have a beautiful soul, and I'm grateful that you were part of exactly I wanted today as well.
Please feel free to hit me up on my Instagram. So a lot of them my dms and.
What can I say? I feel so zen, I feel so at peace. I think it's clear that she just passes that energy onto me. This has been a production of Ihearts Mike. We do that podcast network. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.