Today, we dive into a heartfelt conversation with Amy Krause, a youth empowerment speaker who shares her journey of resilience and healing.

The main point we explore is the importance of not hiding from our past but instead embracing it as part of our story. Amy opens up about her struggles with self-esteem, the loss of her father, and the traumatic experiences that followed.

She emphasizes that acknowledging our pain and speaking about it is crucial for healing and empowerment.

Through her own transformation, Amy now dedicates her life to helping others recognize their worth and navigate their challenges, showing that we can all emerge from our darkest moments stronger and more self-loving.

A Warrior’s Spirit can be found on all the major platforms at lnk.bio/daryl_praxis33

Be sure to like or subscribe so you never miss an episode!

Hey, welcome back to another episode of A Warrior Spirit where we let the inner warrior out to light.

Today I have the opportunity to speak with the amazing Amy Krause.

Amy is a youth empowerment speaker and a friend.

And Amy, I appreciate your time today.

Thank you for joining us.

Of course, anytime.

I'm glad to be here.

I like that you labeled this year or start of last year.

No more hiding.

And for a lot of people, that can resonate because we all tend to hide between our past and, you know, some of our other things.

I know that your story, you know, kind of started when you, when you lost your father at 19.

Can you share a little bit about that?

Yeah.

So I grew up in a very traditional home.

I'm the youngest of four, mom, dad, both work full time jobs and what have you.

And you know, as the typical kid, I got good grades.

I did what I was told.

I was not running the streets or anything like that.

I had terrible self esteem growing up.

I was an overweight kid.

I dealt with a lot of inner voices.

I dealt with bullying.

And I had a really hard time accepting that I was lovable based on what I was seeing in the mirror.

And when I went through high school, did, you know, kept my note, my nose in a book as I was told to do.

And when I graduated high school, my dad got ill.

He got ill the month after I graduated high school and just a few months later, he was gone.

There was no, we had a very, it was not volatile by any means.

It was just very distant.

We were in the same household, but I always thought that he favored my brothers over me.

I had an older sister, she was already out of the house and whatnot.

So I never really thought that my dad loved me.

And again, it was those little voices growing up that I didn't feel worthy of love.

I didn't feel lovable.

After my dad passed away, I went into a very downward, deep, dark spiral between alcohol, trying to find that love outside and relationships and things like that.

Still managed to go off to college, still managed to graduate top of my class.

But I was still searching for the one thing that I never heard from my dad.

And that was I love you.

And so for me, I was trying to find it in whoever I could find it in.

And unfortunately, that led to some very scary relationships.

When I was 23, someone said all the right words.

And when I met that person, within 30 minutes, I was sexually assaulted.

Geez.

And that then spiraled into really threats.

He threatened my life, he threatened my mother's life.

Told me if I said anything that he would kill me.

I didn't feel like I had an out.

I was not only dealing with still the loss of my father, but now this on top of that.

And I felt like at that time I didn't have a choice but to stay with that person.

And that led to so much more sexually, physically, emotionally, mentally trauma.

Until somewhere within found strength to make a phone call to the one person I knew I could call, and that was my mom.

And within minutes, she was helping to get me out of that situation.

And I packed that away for a very long time, over 20 years.

I didn't want to talk about it.

So if I didn't talk about it, it didn't happen.

Right?

That's what I kept telling myself.

But that also led to not healing.

I stopped hiding that part of my story.

3.

Three years ago, I was on the edge of suicide because I couldn't deal with the inner turmoil, and I was dealing with external turmoil, of just my job, the place I was in in life.

I wasn't happy.

All that stuff was packed in there, all of that stuff, not no healing.

I still hadn't dealt with the death of my dad, and I still hadn't dealt with learning to love myself again or in general, because I don't think I ever really did.

So for me, three years ago was a turning point.

Thankfully, the universe, or whatever you believe in, connected me with somebody that helped me to find my worth, helped me to see that I am lovable.

It led to massive breakthroughs.

It led to having really uncomfortable conversations with myself, with the people in my life, and opening that door of what had happened 20 years ago.

And that was not easy.

In fact, just this past year was the first time that I had ever admitted that it had happened.

I mean, you're talking 20 years of pretending it didn't happen, because somehow I thought if I say that this happened to me, I was broken, or there was something wrong with me or I wasn't lovable, that I deserved it, because those were all the things, all those beliefs that were running through my head.

And so for me, I made a commitment three years ago to step away from the job I was doing.

I was a teacher for 20 years and help other people, help other children see how lovable they are.

And that's where I started my business of empowering children and women to see the value in themselves.

I had to do it for myself.

And so I started sharing both on my social media and in interviews and things like that about what had happened.

And it was both healing for myself and for so many other people.

And I didn't do it for any other reason but to help other people realize that they're not broken.

That was the biggest thing.

Yeah, it's also enlightening when you do something like that to find out a you were never alone.

There's way too many people that have experienced similar type stories.

And because a lot of society is taboo to people speaking out and empowering themselves that way, we tend to bury that.

And then that causes, at least when, when I buried my own pain, more health issues, anger, all these things.

And we think that just because we've addressed it that we've dealt with it.

And there's a vast difference.

Did you experience additional health or anger issues or did you stay on drugs and alcohol or.

Yeah, no, the alcohol.

I learned that when you drink too much, you get your stomach pumped in the middle of the night and they're in a hospital bed.

So that ended that very quickly.

What ended up happening, it was something that I had dealt with my entire life was I'm an emotional eater.

I was an emotional eater.

So I immediately went to food.

Anytime there was any kind of hurt, pain, upset, anger, any of that, that's how I dealt with stuff.

My children were 12 weeks old, so I was raising 12 week old twins on my own.

And I, at that moment, when you become a parent for the first time and you have tried and tried and tried for years to become a parent, I swore to myself that I would do anything that I could to make sure that I was here for them in a healthy way.

So I started on a healthy journey.

I was almost, I was probably £300 at that point and, and I started walking.

I started taking the kids to the park and running whatever I could do to be active.

Going from completely sedentary and eating my emotions to now finding that the gym, working out, walking, that became my obsession.

That's where I put the emotions at, that's where I put all of that at.

And I dropped 130 pounds over the course of about two years and managed to have kept it off 10, 11 years later, 10 years later.

And I absolutely have become obsessed with the gym.

Not in a negative way, but that's my time, right?

That's my me time.

I had high blood Pressure at the time when I.

When I was 300 pounds.

After putting all of my energy into being healthy, I don't have to take medication for anything anymore.

There's no medication needed.

I am not on any kind of depressant or anything like that, because all the work that I did was internal.

It was all up here for me.

Yes.

Did I need to lose weight?

Absolutely.

But I had to train this before I could do everything else.

And that meant unpacking all of that uncomfortableness that we so easily want to pack away.

You know, for me, it was understanding what happened in my marriage, understanding that it wasn't just one person at fault.

It was a combination of things.

And I have a better relationship now with my children's father than I had when we were married.

So.

Healed.

That happens, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Because I am in a better place.

Not because he's in a better place.

He's in the same place he was.

I'm in a better place to handle it differently.

And I think when you do that healing, it doesn't just.

It's not like one day, okay, you're fixed.

That's not what healing is.

Healing is a process.

And for me, it was a process of not just about myself, but of other people.

I had to learn to forgive.

That is a huge thing when it comes to healing, especially if you're talking about some type of trauma.

I realized three years ago, when I started on that journey that I was blaming my dad for not loving me, when in actuality, he did, just because he didn't say it, he showed it.

So I actually went to his grave on Father's Day the following year, and I apologized to him, and I said, I'm sorry for making you the bad guy.

You were never the bad guy.

You were just dad.

You did it the best way you knew how.

And I think that's one thing that people forget, is people.

People deal with things the way they were raised.

If they were raised in an environment where love was not shown, it's gonna be really hard for them to show that.

So I had to accept that and see that and apologize for him, to him, for me to continue on.

And I share that story to let other people know that forgiveness isn't for the other person.

It's for yourself, so that you can move forward.

And now, you know, I also had to sit and have the conversation with my siblings and my mom about what occurred 20 years ago because they had no clue.

Not like there was.

Nobody knew anything.

And when I say the shock and just tears that were there from two grown men, my big brothers, who never show that, because it was one of those things where.

And we hear it all the time when there's some kind of trauma, sexual trauma.

The.

You feel disgusting.

You feel like you have.

It was your fault.

And the one thing that my brother said to me was, it was never your fault.

It was never, never, ever think that.

And I can tell you, since that.

And that was just last year that I had that conversation, I have gotten a lot closer with those siblings because of that.

Because of that openness.

And it's almost as if it is healing our relationship along the way.

And I can assure you, if anybody hears us and they have gone through that, it is not your fault.

Well, I think the other piece of the forgiveness.

It's important that you also forgive yourself, because you know it's okay to forgive others around you because that still puts you as a victim, but forgiving yourself puts you in control.

And we're less likely to lie to others than we are to ourselves.

And forgiving ourselves is a huge part of that.

Not lying to ourselves.

Right?

Yep.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah.

I. I had the hardest time forgiving myself because, well, I put myself in that situation.

Well, I must have deserved it.

Well, you know, I played.

I played every situation until I took my power back and said, no, wait a minute.

I didn't deserve that.

No one deserves that.

But I think when you put into place for yourself a Forgiving yourself.

For.

Thinking those things, forgiving yourself for, you know, that you wanted to.

You wanted something so badly, and that's how the situation played out.

It wasn't.

It wasn't because I chose that to happen.

I didn't.

But also embracing and loving myself enough to heal, enough to say, I'm ready to heal.

And it's interesting because I had a very good friend who actually pushed me to heal, to start the healing process.

He said, you know what, Amy?

You're in such a great place right now.

Loving yourself.

Part of that is healing.

And I was like, oh, I don't.

I don't know if I'm ready for that.

Like, that was terrifying to me.

He said, no, you are.

He said, I can tell from an outsider's perspective, I can tell you're ready.

And I go, I don't think you're right.

We went back and forth for a long time.

And he goes, it takes one step, just one step to say, this is who I am.

He goes, it doesn't define who you are, what you went through.

And in my Head.

Of course, we've heard that before.

Whatever happened to you in your past does not define you.

I go, yeah, I know.

Uh huh, yeah.

He goes, do you know that?

Do you believe that?

And I went, well, yeah, yeah, sure.

And he's like, no, you don't.

You know, he called me on my bs, There was no doubt about it.

And I went, you know what?

I think it is time.

And honestly, the first step that I took was to take to my social media and admit that I was the victim of rape.

And it wasn't for anybody else, it was for myself to put it out there so that I could go back and actually look at it and say that it didn't define me, say that just because that happened, it doesn't change who I am.

I'm not broken.

And I can't stand when people say, well, I'm broken.

You're not broken.

You've just had some shit that's happened in your life and you're learning how to put your puzzle pieces back together.

And I can tell you, when I shared that the outpouring of people that connected with me because they had been through something similar was mind blowing.

I mean, I had people that do podcasts and they were like, we want you to speak on this.

And I was like, what?

You know, it was one of those things where I was like, no, I'm just me.

I got, I got caught up in saying, well, I'm just me.

And I was like, wait a minute, I am me.

I'm not just me, I'm me.

And I have a story to tell.

And that is part of my story.

Doesn't define me, but it's part of my story that I have had to go through.

So I encourage people to talk about it.

I actually just signed on to another platform that does different groups and things on sexual trauma, and they asked me to help run the group in the community.

And I'm like, yeah, absolutely, 100%.

I mean, that's part of why I started this platform, you know, to give people's messages, turn it into their message, so it can be your survival guide for somebody else.

And it's been amazing to, to hear these stories and to see people realize that they're not alone and that there isn't an empowerment by sharing it.

When I work with my clients, one thing I try to convey to them is that our goal is to take that scab and make it a scar.

Because if it's a scab, you're still picking at it and it still hurts.

If It's a scar.

Now, it's just part of your story.

Like the scar on my neck from my fusion.

Right.

I can't pick at it, and it doesn't hurt me anymore.

It's just the woven tapestry of my life.

And I think that's a thing that.

That is very empowering about sharing, is.

It is a healing process as well.

Now, your friend must have known some of your story in order to say that to you.

So you did share a little bit in small pieces.

But what, other than forgiveness, what steps did you take to start to mend and make that a mosaic instead of brokenness?

And he did know very, very minute details.

He did not know to what degree, but he did know that there was some kind of trauma there, some kind of sexual trauma.

And actually that was part of how we had connected, because he had gone through some things as well.

But I think for me, when putting back the pieces, it was opening up little by little.

It was learning how to handle those triggers.

For me, it was certain music.

For me, it was seeing people that looks similar to that person.

I can remember I was in Chicago with some friends, and we were walking down the sidewalk, and this person was coming the other way, and he was dressed like him, he was tall, whatever.

And I froze.

And my friend said, are you okay?

I go, please, just hold my hand.

And she was like, okay.

She had no idea what was going on.

I said, just hold my hand for a second until that person passed.

And that was really difficult for her because she didn't understand what was going on.

But since that point, I've been able to share with her.

I have been able to talk to her about it.

But for me, learning that when those types of triggers were to come up, what I could do, you know, I do a lot of breathwork, a lot of that for myself, I journal.

That was one of the first things I did when I started to step into this healing space was I put it out all out in writing.

And I'm actually getting ready to be a coauthor of a book that is sharing my story.

So that's a little terrifying, I'm not going to lie.

Little terrifying because it will be in print for everyone to see, but in.

Print with your social media.

So, yes.

Yeah.

But I think for me, the biggest part was talking it out.

I'm a huge advocate of talk therapy.

So talking with about the people that are in my inner circle, my friends, my family, that was the biggest part for healing for me.

And I think falling in love with myself and Understanding that situations don't define me.

That was massive.

I can now.

And it was funny because probably about six months ago, I was driving to the gym and a particular song, this particular person was a musician, and he played the same song all the time.

And that song came on the radio and normally I would change the channel.

It didn't even dawn on me to change the channel.

Like, I was.

I'm singing along and then I'm halfway through it and I go, oh, okay.

Like, that's that awareness.

But I just kept saying, like, it didn't have such a massive hold on me anymore.

It didn't take my breath away.

It didn't freeze me up anymore.

And I'm like, okay, there's another step towards healing.

When I could do that without freezing up.

I can now, you know, walk down the sidewalk and not be triggered by someone coming the other way.

There's still more healing to be had.

There's no doubt about it.

But the fact that I am comfortable talking about it, the fact that I just did a podcast the other day and I brought it up out of note, like we were discussing things, and it does not terrify me to talk about it anymore.

And that's a huge step towards healing that I think a lot of people, that terrifies a lot of people.

Well, you received your power over it a hundred percent.

So your healing is recent, but your children are not.

So how has it changed your dynamic with your kids from where you were to who you are now?

Well, I can tell you, as my children were growing up, I was a yeller.

I was that parent that was triggered very, very easily.

I have both my children, they just turned 11.

I have a daughter and a son.

My daughter is going to rule the world one day, I always say, or her own company.

She's very strong willed, she's very intelligent.

Both my children are, you know, straight A students, what have you.

But there are things any parent that hears this knows.

There are little things that just get under your skin.

And you, you know, you can react for the sake of reacting, which is what I talk to parents about.

Are you reacting for the sake of reacting to just get that, you know, final word in or what have you?

Or are you reacting because you want to take the high intensity down a level?

And I had to do a lot of work on that.

And I talked with multiple play therapists in psychology, child psychologist on positive parenting.

And for me, a lot of what I was doing was about myself.

It wasn't about them, it wasn't about her reaction.

It wasn't about her, you know, having a meltdown or whatever.

It all came back to me.

And so now when I feel myself getting triggered by, you know, her attitude or whatever, I turn it back on.

What is she dealing with?

What is she going through?

And this is something I talk to parents all the time about, think about, is she hungry, Is she tired, Is she thirsty?

Those basic needs, are they being met in that moment?

And usually we can figure out that it's something they're tired or just.

Or they had a rough day and just be there, sit with them, not try to fix it.

I was always the one trying to fix it.

Like, what can I, you know, okay, well, you know.

But I also had to be mom and dad, which is extremely exhausting.

It's extremely stressful.

Thankfully, I have great support.

My mom is a huge support, which is fantastic.

But trying to.

And my mentality when they were younger was I have to have it all figured out.

And I didn't have it all figured out.

And I still don't have it all figured out.

I probably never will have it all.

Figured out that we ever get to that.

But I'm okay with that.

And I own my mistakes.

I own when I've, you know, when I pop off at my child and I apologize, and that builds that connection better.

I try to find the gratitude in every single day that has been massive for my own growth and for my relationship with my kids.

Find something to laugh about every day.

I know that you just gave a talk at a school as a youth empowerment speaker.

You get to see children of all ages and to have some of the younger ones still continue to talk about how good your speech was or how good your talk was after you've left the room is.

Is pretty telling of how quality information you're passing.

So what is.

What is your main message to these youth that you're.

That you're helping?

The main message is you are amazing just as you are.

Never change just because somebody else wants you to change.

You know, I was that kid in middle school who was bullied.

I was that.

That kid that was told, well, you're stupid, you're ugly, whatever.

I don't ever want a child to feel unworthy of love or feel unlovable.

So for me, going into these schools is teaching kids how to just be themselves.

You like sports.

Great.

Surround yourself with other people that enjoy some of the same things you do.

When you're talking middle school kids, a big part of it, especially right now, is the aspect of social media and Everything they are inundated with in social media.

So I do talk to them about how you can turn social media into a positive atmosphere.

How when you're having conversations with other friends, that you're not gossiping, you're not pulling each other down, you're building each other up, you can do that with true friends.

So for me, it's just really.

Especially for your middle school.

I talk real talk with them.

And I can tell you, when I left the room on Friday, the principal said to me, she goes, that was exactly what those kids needed to hear because they had had a very big issue with bullying.

And so when I talk.

When I talked to sixth, seventh and eighth graders and said, you know, your age, I was contemplating suicide for the first time.

There was not.

Their facial expressions said it all.

Um, there were a couple of them in tears, which tells me that they have probably considered it themselves.

And so a part of what I do is to make sure that they feel loved when they walk out of the room just as they are.

And.

And I will forever fight for children to understand and believe that they are lovable.

Yeah.

I think as I look back on the kids that used to bully me, you know, and now as an adult, with adult eyes, you know, it's hard to understand that everybody's going through something, you know, and if you can impart that information to the child, like you're going through crap, but so is the person next to you.

Right.

It gives a little bit more empathy, it gives a little bit more support.

They don't feel as alone.

And.

And it does empower them to take ownership of.

Of battling through that.

Right?

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And even our youngest of kids can understand what it means to be kind.

Yes.

My business is called kindness starts with me.

So one person, it takes one person to be kind to another person who you have no idea if they're going through something or not.

But simply saying, hey, I'm here, or hey, you know, for the younger ones, I talk about being, you know, your.

Your younger kids, I talk about being a kindness superhero.

I come in with cape on all of that fun stuff, but the real message is use words that you would want to hear from somebody else.

And I made a very big point this past week of telling middle school children, really think about the words that come out of your mouth, because words can either hurt or they can heal.

And I think for me, that that was a really healthy reminder for myself that words that have been said to me have hurt me, but a lot more have started to help Me heal.

And it started with me talking to myself.

Right, exactly.

I was going to say, I tell my wife and I tell my kids and I tell my clients all the time.

If you speak to others like you speak to yourself, are you going to have any friends?

Yes, exactly.

So, yes, be kind to others, but be kind to yourself.

Right?

Yep, 100%.

I mean, and we do, because we have a very huge epidemic right now of children self harming.

We have a huge epidemic of children feeling they need to be on a diet or look a certain way, drive a certain car, whatever it is, and not feeling they can 100% love who they are as they are.

And so I share my story with the kids when I'm there.

And one of the kids, I heard as they left, they were like, wow, I didn't think anybody else felt like that.

Right.

And I was like, yep, sure is.

Sure is.

I have a background in psychology, so I love that awareness.

But I, I'm curious, just on, on your story, you said you were almost £300.

When you see the before and after photos, do you notice a huge difference in just your eyes?

You seem to sparkle a lot more now.

Yes.

And then it's funny, I, I was.

That was what I was getting ready to say because I have heard that from so many other people.

They, like, you glow, your eyes sparkle more.

And I said, you know what?

That's an internal thing.

You just see it externally.

I am more in love with myself.

And that's not being pompous, that's not being arrogant, but I am in.

I am completely, 100% in love with myself.

I look at the before pictures and it's interesting because every year, my Dad's birthday is September 26th.

So every year we go out to dinner for his birthday to celebrate his life.

And I always make sure that I take, and I take a picture for myself to show what I looked at even just a few years ago to now.

And the difference just in physically how I look, but I can look at it and go, that's a different Amy.

That's, that's.

I'm glowing differently.

Yes.

And that's a good feeling.

I think it's a amazing how that subtlety is noticed by anyone who pays attention.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You know, because it is an internal thing.

And we enter our aura, enters a room before we do.

And that's part of the essence of entering the room, you know, that energy that sparks through your eyes.

So as we kind of wrap up this episode, Amy, what's one piece of Advice you give to anyone who's listening, who.

Who may have gone through some of the things you did or is trying to take their own power back.

I would probably say it's okay to talk about it.

That's the biggest thing.

It's okay to have a conversation about it.

Sweeping it under the rug, hiding it does nothing for your healing.

It just continues to eat away at you, and eventually it's going to come to blows in an unhealthy way.

So the healthiest way is to talk about it when.

Whether it's to someone close to you, whether it's to a counselor, whoever it is, find somebody that you can have a conversation with so you can open the door to healing 100%.

And I think an important component of that is that it doesn't have to be an expulsion of everything.

If you just start with a small piece, and as you heal and get better, then those other pieces can be added to it.

Because I think sometimes when people say, oh, you got to talk about it, they envision, oh, I gotta word vomit everything that's inside me.

Yep.

No, start small.

Start with admitting that it happened.

There you go.

You know, admit that it happened, but it doesn't define you.

It's.

It's the best.

Like I said, it's the best way to start healing is to say, you know what?

This happened to me.

But I'm going to, you know, I'm going to take my power back and tell my story in a way that works for me.

And that was the biggest thing, is I had to tell the story in a way that I felt comfortable with, in a time that I felt comfortable with to the people I felt comfortable with.

Find that safe person or persons to open the door and say, this happened to me doesn't make you weak.

It doesn't make you a victim.

That actually transforms you into being victorious into your life.

Absolutely.

And I think also it's important to understand that those around you who didn't know may feel a certain way about it after it's shared.

So you can't control their reaction to your story, but you do have to tell your story.

Yep.

100%.

Yeah.

Because I did have somebody that said, well, I think you need to go to therapy.

Like, that was their initial reaction.

And I said, okay, I appreciate your thoughts.

Whereas everybody else, within that given situation, we're like, how can we help?

What do you need from us?

So everybody's going to handle it differently.

Everybody's going to either give you advice or stay silent or embrace you.

But you can't control how they react, how.

What you can control is how much of your story you're willing to share in a given time.

And it's healing and it's cathartic, and it.

It will open doors for you that you never anticipated in a good way.

And the final question that I ask all my guests, as a part of my tribe and a part of a warrior spirit, what does a warrior spirit mean to Amy Kraus?

I think I would say a warrior spirit is someone who doesn't give up on themselves 100% and goes after the things that they truly want rather than just saying it.

They fight for themselves.

I think that's perfect.

Amy, I appreciate you joining me today, and thank you for your time.

If there's a way for people to get a hold of you, we'll put the links down below.

Yeah, absolutely.

So that they can reach out if they'd like.

And I just am grateful that you started sharing your story, and may your healing journey continue.

Thank you very much, Darrell.

I appreciate it.

Alrighty.

Have a great day.

You too.