We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amanda Henry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amanda below.
Amanda, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
In 2010, just before I turned 20 years old, I decided to start a career in the adult industry. I filmed some videos in my small midwestern town and worked with a webmaster to promote and sell them. I traveled to Miami to meet with other producers and agents and eventually I learned that I needed to become independent and be able to do all of the things I was having others do for me. I learned every aspect of being an entrepreneur and made a living building my own website, and filming, editing, producing and marketing my own videos. Over the next 5 years many bigger agents and companies in the adult industry took notice and disliked my independence because it paved a way for many others to learn from me and become more self-serving. Cutting out these middle men allowed me and many other women to create better content, and overall safer, better lives for ourselves. After 5 years in the industry, I was ashamed and felt so guilty for everything I had filmed that I couldn’t talk about it for years. In late 2020 I finally joined a therapy program and learned how to work through my past, and help others now like I did before. The lessons I learned in the adult industry relating to technology were extremely helpful to be able to build my own website to help others get past their past now, but I think more importantly than that, the lessons I learned emotionally around sticking up for myself and believing I can do anything are even more helpful to myself and others. My direct experience in almost every aspect of the adult industry gives me the ability to be a wounded healer and help those who have been lost in that same darkness for a very long time.
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?
Hi! I’m Amanda Henry and I got into healing work after going through my own transformational healing journey in 2020 and 2021. Years before that, I spent half of a decade in the adult industry and it took another half of a decade to come to terms with the guilt and shame that I had been carrying around in secret. Now I help others through that same journey, helping you understand your past and discover so much more about yourself and your potential. I have 6 virtual courses that are 4 weeks long and include one-on-one coaching throughout, or you can take them all together as one bigger journey. Working through forgiveness, spirituality connection and discovery, emotions, relationships and so much more, you are able to truly forgive yourself and take action toward your biggest goals and dreams with support and love! I incorporate horses into my healing work as well which is very unique! My courses are all on strongerthanmypast.com and I have also written a fiction book based on my past experiences in the adult industry. You can see information about that on the website too and contact me there right on the home page with any questions! I am an open book quite literally! I am on instagram.com/amandacannabliss and I have a private Facebook page if you’re interested in joining let me know!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
When I was 20 years old, I had just visited Miami for a week to work for some big time adult video companies. I had a Twitter profile and I would spend all day long messaging other actresses giving them compliments, asking them if they wanted to work with me when I came to town next, or getting in fights with some about the silliest topics, just to get them to reply so that their followers and “fans” would see me and my brand would build a following faster. I learned in that industry that taking advantage of others is how you can make it to the top quickly, and after years of confusion after “retiring” I had to unlearn that, and learn that working hard and having a passion for what you do can lead you to the top more quickly, but I was doing those things in my past also. Taking advantage of others’ low points in life or picking fights for no reason was not what got me anywhere in that business, and it’s not anything that will take me anywhere in the future. It was not an easy lesson to come to terms with, knowing that I unintentionally and sometimes intentionally hurt a lot of people with my words and actions, but it was a lesson worth learning so that now my business can thrive helping others without the mistakes that I’ve made.
If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?
If I could go back to age 19, knowing what I know now I would not go into the adult industry in any way, shape or form. My past in that industry definitely has shaped my life, and has allowed me to do the healing work that I do, but I believe that you can be whole and love yourself without having to first treat yourself poorly. Everyone makes mistakes, and we all can learn to forgive ourselves for those mistakes, but not everyone needs to treat themselves and others with the disrespect that I treated myself and others with for so long in order to learn valuable lessons in growth and transformation. However, I will say, if I had to do it again and go into the same industry, I would choose to do it the same way I did, standing up for myself to producers who pushed the limits, and learning to edit my own videos and website so that I could control my own content and take home the profit I deserved. I had to learn these things slowly over time, but the actual business side of that industry taught me a lot of good too that I will never forget.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.strongerthanmypast.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandacannabliss/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1197369527061099