My Story
One of the things that makes me an effective therapist and coach is that I've been through so much on a personal level. As a sensitive and intelligent neurodivergent girl with ADD growing up in the south i was deeply misunderstood. I didn't come from a particularly privileged background other than my Western European heritage and appearance, which I admit carries a lot of privilege in our culture.
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I came from a poor family riddled with addiction and abuse and grew up in an environment of child abuse, domestic violence, and even sexual and spiritual abuse. I made my way in the world alone at the young age of 17, eventually putting myself through college and creating a home for myself in Asheville, North Carolina. I spent my 20s living at a spiritual retreat center off the Blue Ridge Parkway in the mountains, studying herbalism and the healing arts.
Because of all the trauma in my background, I devoted myself to spiritual practice with a passion at a young age and spent several hours a day practicing Hatha and Kundalini Yogas and Buddhist meditation, which resulted in my first spiritual awakening at the tender age of 23. It was then I learned how to feel my feelings finally which i had shut down as a child. It felt like I had been blind all my life and was seeing color for the first time.
I studied to be a Holistic Birth Doula, as well as studying Goddess History and Goddess Spirituality with Kim Duckett, PhD, who started the first rape crisis center in America and was a Professor at Warren Wilson University for many years. I also began my personal journey of healing sexual abuse and repression at that time.
I then moved to the West Coast, where I lived for over a decade and practiced as a highly successful Tantra and Sacred Sexuality Teacher and Coach in Seattle, SF and Southern California, helping thousands of individuals and couples heal from sexual abuse, repression, and body and pleasure negative conditioning. During that time, I ran a healing community center where therapists and bodyworkers of many disciplines practiced.
I then went back to school and studied Expressive Art Therapy (EXA), Somatic Psychology, and Spiritual Activism at The California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS). I went on to attend Santa Barbara Graduate Institute (SBGI), where I studied Clinical Psychology, as well as Somatic Psychology and various body-based healing modalities at Esalen Institute, along with Pre and Perinatal Psychology, for which SBGI was well-known.
In 2009, SBGI became part of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, and my alternative education became mainstream overnight for the second half of my time in graduate school. I graduated with a degree in Clinical Psychology with a focus on Somatic Psychology, with my areas of research being Attachment Science, Trauma, Relationships, and Sexuality. I also completed an internship of 350 clinical hours working at Walnut Avenue Women's Center in Santa Cruz, a Domestic Violence Family Advocacy Community Center.
I'm very passionate about helping people heal and reach their next level of personal growth, realizing their full potential. I consider myself a healing artist and believe that despite the challenges and traumas inherent in life, happiness, joy, and peace are possible. I say this from experience.
For most of my life, I had almost no connection to sustained happiness, joy, or peace. I considered myself a tortured artist and a hopeless romantic, with no hope of experiencing ongoing happiness and peace that was not dependent on my circumstances.
During the five years it took to complete all of the classes and internship hours necessary to receive my Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) degree in California, I also studied and practiced Inherited Family Trauma (IFT) healing or Hellinger Family and Systemic Constellations.
I received extensive training with Felice Laurel of Source Constellations and obtained certification from her teacher, an author and close student of Bert Hellinger, Mark Wolynn, and The Family Constellations Institute of California. Mark Wolynn is the author of the well-known book "It Didn't Start With You." Additionally, I received training and supervision from The Process Therapy Institute of Los Gatos, California, where I learned Inner Parts Work, Sand Tray, and Embodied Dream Therapy.
Following that, I moved to Southern California and pursued online business, marketing, and entrepreneurship studies with various marketing schools. I received coaching certification and had several amazing Divine Feminine spirituality and leadership mentors, including Amanda Noelle and Akara Sophia. It was in Encinitas, California, where I had my most recent spiritual awakening, which involved healing and reversing my autoimmune thyroid condition which I had been struggling with and debilitated by for over a decade. This awakening also marked a healing of my relationship with God and Christianity, occurring around the same time that I became a practicing Buddhist.
This most recent spiritual awakening transformed everything. I now feel like a new and different person, more in touch with my true self, which has always been with me. I still retain a fondness for the artistic temperament and occasionally experience melancholy. However, I am much happier now.
Through the process of deconstructing my traumas, finding meaning in them, and making peace with what happened and those who harmed me, I've witnessed my traumas transform into personal empowerment. Transmuting trauma takes as long as it takes. It's not a quick or easy path but the rewards are immense. Life gives us challenges to grow through and overcome, and sometimes it takes everything we have to burst out of our cocoon.
After successfully managing my Hashimoto's Autoimmune Thyroid Disease and Hypothyroidism, the next health challenge for me was perimenopause, which brought about abnormal chronic heavy bleeding and chronic migraines in my 40s. Just like with Hashimoto's and thyroid issues, I had to delve into medical books and research papers, becoming an expert in hormones and women's health to find the best medical and natural treatments and regain my health and my life.
On my journey i've come to believe that the more we learn how to heal, set the intention to forgive, and embrace a spiritual perspective, the more resilient we can become and our traumas can become our superpowers.
"Amber St. Germain is fully committed to excellence and health, and she brings to her one-of-a-kind educational work a wisdom and savoir-faire that are held by few others. Amber's loving, supportive, and insightful approach helps her coach people toward their heart's desires and a life that not only serves them but others as well. She helps women find their voice in creating a relationship that is nourishing and supportive."
– Patrice Carrington
Hypnotherapist and Health & Sleep Coach
Ashland, OR
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