We were lucky to catch up with Amanda Tallman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I remember falling to my knees as I received the news that my team leader from my deployment to Afghanistan, had died by suicide. The sobs that came out of my mouth revealed my uncontrollable grief. In that moment it felt like someone had cut a piece of me a way. I was hurt and raw. That was Oct 13, 2019. The following year I would take a risk I never thought I was capable of. I would apply for my Masters Degree in Social Work and start a nonprofit in honor of my team leader. The risk to go back to school was the hardest. I barely graduated high school, then I failed out of college twice before getting my bachelor’s degree, but I took each task day by day. Then class by class and then I graduated. Today, I am helping veterans and first responders along with their families by partnering them with horses. It has been something I continue to grow moment by moment and step by step. I have learned something from every single person along the way and the grief that still lingers, now has tears of joy mixed in.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an Equine Assisted Psychotherapist. I bring people together with horses and allow them to discover their own strengths and resilience. I am most proud of the people who have come along side me to make this dream a reality and who share their stories of their loved ones to help continue their legacies. I became a therapist because I wanted to provide a safe and supportive environment for those who need support. When I first began therapy myself, I was overwhelmed and felt frustrated. My therapist helped me to discover my own strengths that have helped me overcome so much adversity and give me capacity to hold space for the challenges others have faced or are facing.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The nonprofit world has been something I have learned about the hard way. I spent a lot of my own money to get it started and honestly at times I wanted to give up, but I began to reach out and ask for help. Some of those people are younger than me and some are older than me, but every single person has encouraged me and taught me something. I live in Arizona and I bought a very young citrus tree to try and grow in my back yard. I trusted the little tag on the front that said “Full Sun,” but after a few weeks the desert scorched the tree and it died. I felt a lot like a tree in the desert as I couldn’t really make a lot of impact when we were a young nonprofit, but as we continue to grow and mature, we can withstand the challenges and learn to anticipate the growth periods. I am happy to say I bought a more mature lime tree and it is thriving, even in the Arizona heat. Trees really do get stronger as they mature and so do nonprofits.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Adopting through foster care wasn’t our plan. My husband and I wanted to be foster parents, but we wanted to be able to help the reunification process. We had taken all the classes on trauma and how to support almost anyone. Except when reunification wasn’t possible, we had a choice to make. Do we adopt the little girl who had lived with us for 18 months or do we decline and help her transition to another adoptive family? It wasn’t something we had planned, but the day came when I knew we would adopt her, but husband didn’t know what the right answer was. I waited and thought about all the ways I wasn’t good enough to be her mother. All the ways I thought I would fail or people would look at me and judge me. Thoughts ran through my mind about all the reasons I wasn’t good enough. I stayed as silent as possible as I waited to hear my husband’s insight. Then one day he was listening to a podcast and begged me to listen to it. I blew him off for several days until he told I had to listen to right at that moment. So I stopped and in the middle of this seemingly unrelated podcast, the host, Francis Chan, began to share about adoption. I looked at him with tears and said Should we? He nodded yes. In that moment I let go of all the ways I could fail and held onto the humility to fail and try again. To be 1% better for my daughter and to give myself grace along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.first-page.org
• Instagram: Amandatallman576
• Linkedin: Amanda Tallman

Image Credits

Christopher Oshana