Amber (gould) wysocki - MOTHER, ARTIST & shamanic healER

Like many people, I inherited a load of generational trauma  and many of my years were filled with  emotional, sexual, physical, and religious abuse. For  years I felt misunderstood.  I was born with heightened sensitivities and psychic abilities, but no elders who were attuned to my eccentricities.

I had been in a constant state of survival and dysregulation for as long as I could remember. I grew up in the American 80's where it was common for children to be left to fend for themselves . I felt alone in the world and often found myself in nature for solace. My father was an angry man with chronic PTSD who used drugs and alcohol to cope and I watched my mother under constant stress trying to work full-time and manage a household. 

The misunderstood child grew to be a rebellious & depressed teenager with a nonexistent self-worth.

And my life shifted dramatically when I  became a mother very young in life.

Becoming a mother wasn't an easy choice and I  didn't have the greatest examples of what healthy parenting looked like. I knew that by bringing children into this world, a lot of changes needed to be made. My healing journey started the minute I held my son for the first time.

Let me remind you , healing is not linear. It's a spiral. It deviates. And many crooked ways are taken.

I spent most of my 20's in the church tring to find "salvation," I became an ordained pastor at 23 and was very involved of the wellbeing of the flock. I watched people stay stuck, hide secrets, and leave though. Yes there were these profound moments. Yes there were miracles. But something was deeply lacking and I decided I needed to find what that was. 

 I left the church when I was 28, an unhealthy marriage at 29, and embarked onto a wild and dark initiation.

My 30's were spent "making up for lost time." It was a freedom I had never experienced and I felt like I had wandered out of the desert and found water. My thirst was unquenchable.

 But this  newfound liberation slowly consumed me and the self-sabotage made an everyday appearance. again.

I had gone from one extreme to the other and realized I needed to stop wandering.

 6 years ago I  decided to cross into unknown terrain and began a fully embodied transformation. I had met the love of my life and for the first time felt completely safe with a partner.  I gave up drinking, dove into intense shadow work, and faced my darkness buried within my bones.. I studied large amounts of healing modality work and became certified in: somatics, massage therapy, energy healing, light/shadow work, divination, astrology, nervous system regulation/tending, Goddess teachings & mythology, practical herbalism, rites of passage, and birth & death work. I began a lifelong process of decolonizing my mind and way of life. I reclaimed ancestral gifts of shamanic healing and the path of the Medicine Woman. 

I found my salvation, path, and healing when I returned to my roots and to the Great Mother.

My days are now spent mostly with homeschooling our youngest daughter, in communion with the land we are tending, folk crafting medicinal goods for our community, reading, writing, dancing, teaching, and honoring the sacred, slow path of archetypal embodiment.