We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anna Del Amor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Anna, thanks for joining us 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 never was a risk taker. I grew up in the conventional school system aiming to please by doing the “right” thing. My path was clearly laid out for me by mainstream society – graduate high school with outstanding accolades to be accepted into the best university, graduate university with honors to be hired into a prosperous career, marry, welcome children into the world, and work until retirement. Risks didn’t seem to yield much reward at that time when the way life was meant to be lived was so apparent.
Though, a year into university, I found myself broken, depressed, and unsure about life itself. Something needed to change. After weeks of contemplation, I realized I needed a break from school – I needed change. Lists of pros and cons of leaving versus staying in school covered my journal pages; the cons of leaving were few and the pros many. And yet, the official withdrawal decision required total surrender and trust in myself. More than a risk, this was a leap of faith into a new way of being that was simply a mystery to me at the time.
This leap of faith brought me to exactly where I needed to be. Total surrender carried me back home to myself. From age 19 to 23, I lived in Latin America exploring intentional community, the plant path, permaculture, yoga, and healing modalities of all kinds. I realized that how I desire to live my life is far, far from the prescribed path of the dominant culture. From this risk, I came to know my ideal lifestyle: slow, cyclical, communal, and regenerative. In taking the risk, I came to places of deep suffering, ecstatic bliss, and everything possible in between. Within these spaces, I found my purpose – to steward my heart and the hearth of the Earth, to heal my lineage backwards and forwards, and to decolonize and revillage my mind and ways.
Taking risks can be terrifying, though it is within this all-seeing portal of the great unknown in which we can truly find our way.
Anna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Hi, I am Anna del Amor, a Georgia native with Colombian heritage. As a doula who tends to the earth and our people through threshold spaces, I am devoted to women’s health and wellness, cyclical living, the plant path, and embodied expression. I deeply believe in the power of healing in community and am passionate about curating sacred and safe(r) spaces for connection and growth. My core values include curiosity, integrity, presence, diversity, humility, fortitude, justice, gratitude and love. I hold many roles – daughter, sister, postpartum doula, kitchen herbalist, womb care educator, ceremonialist, eternal student, among many others.
Coming into this way of being has been an organic unfolding in following the threads that excite me, as well as the threads that weave me deeper into the tapestry of my own wellbeing. My interest in holistic health began in my teens with the yogic lifestyle and later on, veganism. Veganism carried me to different lands in Central America where I eventually landed at an intentional retreat center called the Mystical Yoga Farm. I lived there for 1.5 years learning to live communally in a healthy way, connecting with plants, and catching and sharing countless songs and stories. It was at the MYF where I found the way to call my power back, to source my authority within my own womb and heart, and to share my gifts with the world.
The gifts I share are open-ended and ever-evolving, just as I am. Those most present and resonant for me in this season involve my work in the birth and postpartum realm, as well as my work in holding circle and ceremony. The thresholds of conception, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum are potent and sacred times. The transition from maiden to mother is a miraculous initiation that the overculture is often times letting go unrecognized. Soon-to-be mothers and mothers of youngins truly need the support of a village around them. My mission in working with blossoming families, especially postpartum mamas, is to ensure they feel well held in these beautiful yet sometimes confusing times of change. I do this through giving the home and family love – making food, doing laundry, giving a listening ear, providing references and information, as well as holding circle and ceremony.
My favorite shape is a circle – no one is in front of or behind anyone else. In the circle, we are whole. I am passionate about bringing community together in intentional circles of all kinds – talk circles, song circles, prayer circles, touch circles, dinner circles, wombyn’s circles, medicine circles, and more and more circles always. I’ve grown into facilitating these circles through experience, research, intuition, and a few wise teachers along the way.
My current offerings include in-person postpartum doula care, Womb Care – Wombyn Opening to the Mystery and Beauty of Cyclically Aware Raw Experience, an 8 week immersive course on female hormonal health, cyclical living, and embodied expression, and curated Rites of Passage cacao ceremonies. Most of my work is in person though I sometimes offer Womb Care and other circles/seminars online. I am based in Atlanta, Georgia though am traveling through Spring of 2025.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
At age 18 I went on hormonal birth control (HBC). While I did consent to it, my consent lacked information. I was simply following the way of countless women who came before me. Had I known then what I know now, I would have never consented. This is a story exploring positioning authority outside of ourselves and my experience reclaiming and resourcing that power from within.
I thought I was doing the safe thing, the “right” thing by taking HBC. What I didn’t know nor was provided a single resource on is how birth control works in the body. The pill is promoted as a cure-all that blocks conception, decreases PMS symptoms, and can lower the risk of certain cancers. What is not clearly promoted is that the pill stops ovulation. When there is no ovulation, there is no true menstruation. Given that the menstrual cycle is widely thought of as the fifth vital sign along with other vital signs like body temperature, respiration rate, and heart rate, not ovulating nor menstruating is a serious health issue. HBC causes a total disruption of one of women’s most important cycles.
After about a year of being on HBC, my prescription ran out while traveling and I didn’t bother to refill it. I intuitively felt I didn’t need it. Without consulting anyone other than myself, I stopped taking HBC. This was the first step in calling my power back. I was in for a wild ride in regulating my hormones and health after abruptly stopping the synthetic hormones my body learned to live with. I lived through a season of not bleeding for about 6 months followed by a season of bleeding every 2 weeks for 6 months. I felt exhausted, depleted, and unsure of how to navigate this confusing experience. I saw a local herbalist for support. She asked me if I track my cycle. I said no. She recommended I track my cycle. I began to track my cycle. Over time, I became more intimate with my anatomy, my patterns, and my being. Her simple recommendation took me on a path of remembering the answers are within, not in a faraway doctor or health guru.
Through tracking my cycle and eventual hormonal testing, I was able to implement lifestyle and diet changes that supported the regulation of my hormones. I began menstruating regularly and with no pain. I became fascinated with all things hormonal health and cyclical living. I learned that women move through four distinct phases every cycle – menstruation being just one of the four phases. I began working with and healing my womb space. I wholeheartedly believe it is the womb space that is the seat of a women’s authority and power – and I do my best to live from this space. My womb has become a guiding light for me – a blueprint for how I can show up for myself and therefore how I can best relate with the world.
I don’t believe that birth control is bad or good. I do believe information about how HBC works in the body and the complications that can arise within a female body that is not ovulating nor menstruating should be more openly discussed. I advocate for informed choice/consent because it’s my perspective that blind consent is not true consent. I strongly believe that all women hold the capacity to reclaim and resource their power from within. It is my belief that as more women come into intimate connection with their womb and cycles, society will grow healthier, stronger, and safer. When we let go of externalizing authority, we are able to live as our true, whole, and grounded selves with high capacity for riding the waves of life with grace and beauty.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
Holding space for others wherever they are on their journey is what I love so much about my work. It is also this holding space for others that absolutely requires me to show up for myself. There’s an age old saying that goes something like “there is no pouring from an empty cup”. Caring for myself through lifestyle choices and energetic hygiene is foundational to being successful in my work.
There are certain practices that truly give me life – they guide me to my center so that I may relate with the world in a grounded way, sure of my truth regardless of circumstance. Engaging in these practices in a committed and consistent way ensures I am in integrity with myself, as well as when showing up for my clients and community.
One of these practices I would consider a way of life, and that path is cyclical living. Cyclical living is many things and today I speak on it through the lens of menstrual cycle awareness. As menstruating women, we move through four distinct phases within every menstrual cycle. These four phases closely parallel the four seasons of the earth; winter as menstruation – a hibernation and death, spring as follicular – a rebirth, summer as ovulation – a peak time of creation, and autumn as luteal – a slow settling in preparation of winter. A core teaching of cyclical living is to honor all of ourselves within each season. We experience widely fluctuating nutritional needs and physical, mental, and energetic abilities as our hormones ebb and flow. Taking note of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual experiences within one’s cycle can be liberating. We notice patterns, we take grounded action, we call back our power. I’m not sure where I would be without cyclical living. This is why I am so passionate about sharing this way of being with my fellow sisters; living in tune with and from our unique cycle of creation is where I believe we’re meant to be.
Most of my practices are found under the umbrella of cyclical living, meaning I intuitively engage in them based on where I am in my cycle. Certain ones are foundational in my day-to-day although they look different when I’m bleeding as compared to when I’m ovulating. These daily practices include breathwork, meditation, movement/shaking, song/sound, self-massage, and connection with the elements. When I “open” and “close” each day with the practices that nourish me, my cup runneth over and I can then nourish my community. As facilitators, medicine people, and those who hold space for others, it is paramount that we show up for our community in integrity. Each has their own path to walk in this Earth garden, though I strongly encourage all who hold space for others in a professional capacity to ensure they are filling their own cup before pouring from it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @annadelamor
- Facebook: Anna del Amor
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@annadelamor
- Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/dEri7o1kcYbVjLMp9
