We recently connected with Amber Todd and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Amber thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
After graduating from Indiana University in 2007, I joined the Teach For America program, a leadership development organization with the mission to bridge the achievement gap between affluent and low-income schools. With a two year commitment of service in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a part of Americorp, I began my intensive training in the inner city of Atlanta. This was one of my first experiences of truly confronting poverty face-to-face..
I remember my first week of teaching, I was surprised when I noticed one of my students not eating lunch and saving the food in his pockets. At the end of the day as my class was packing up bags for the bus, I knelt down next to his desk and quietly whispered a curious question, “I’m wondering if you could tell me about the food in your pockets?” His eyes softened as he shifted his gaze to the carpet and quietly whispered back, “My family only eats one meal a day so I take this home for all of us to share at dinner.” Tears welled in my eyes and I gave him a hug, encouraging him for his thoughtfulness and generosity toward his family. I also asked if I could bring his family groceries that evening.
Naive and full of determination, I bought a whole grocery cart of food and delivered it to his family. They were incredibly grateful and we had a sweet interaction, as this was my first time meeting them during my first week of teacher training. My heart was full and I felt grateful that I was able to help in that way. The rest of the week was fairly smooth and I began to love my students as I learned about each of of their stories in the coming weeks.
The following week, I realized that the groceries had run out and it occurred to me that the need was still there and would continue to be there unless there was systemic change. I was also working without a salary yet and my generosity began to feel impossible. Students needed clothes, backpacks, new shoes, supplies, glasses, food and the list goes on. I think I wept a whole weekend in my bare dorm room inside of Georgia Tech. With tears falling to the floor, I cried out to God and surrendered it all. The need surrounding me far exceeded my capacity. In some ways it felt hopeless. But then I had a huge ah-ha moment and my perspective began to shift.
I may not be able to solve every problem or meet every need, but what I can do is create a safe, loving, supportive and nurturing environment during the hours my students were in my classroom. I could really SEE each one of them. Look into their souls and give them hope. Let them see the light within that shined brightly through the reflection of my brown eyes kneeling at their level. Yes, they needed things. More than that, they needed hope. As I had my own classroom in Charlotte, I discovered that my students needed to know that I was an adult who wouldn’t leave. No matter how hard they tried to push me away, I would stay. I would remain. My classroom would be a refuge and respite in their weary world.
I carried this lesson with me into my jobs that followed: college advising, victim advocacy and counseling. I am a holder of safe space. The atmosphere in my office is holy and sacred ground. As a counselor, people entrust me with their most vulnerable moments and deepest secrets. I may not be able to change what happens to them or around them, but I can hold space for each client to come and unfold; to know and be known. I am in the business of reflection, deep introspection and meaning-making. I don’t come into sessions with all of the answers. I view my job as the privilege to guide my clients to discover the greatness within and access what they need that has always been available. Free from the entanglement of trauma, bondage and triggers, lies our truest, highest self. I set that part free and inner peace is the fruit of our mutual labor. Peace is the greatest gift I could ever offer and it is my honor to be a peacemaker.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
As a young child, I dreamed of being a pediatrician. I was fascinated by the human body and how the brain functions. I loved helping people. I was a direct admit pre med student at Indiana University and fortunate to receive a full ride scholarship through the Eli Lilly Foundation. Going into my freshman year, I was really curious about God but faith wasn’t a huge part of my life. My own healing journey started in counseling that year when I first confronted the devastating impact of generational trauma, addiction and mental illness in my family line. You could call me a cycle-breaker or codependency escaper. I began attending a campus ministry gathering and through those connections, my life perspective began to shift. For the first time, I really understood the depth of God’s love for me and how He created me for a specific purpose.
My dreams began to grow from helping people physically to providing support mentally and emotionally. My grandfather was a graduate psychology professor at the university 40 years before I attended and when I switched my major to psychology and human development, I began to stumble upon his research. Even though he was no longer alive, he became one of my teachers during that season. It was a full circle moment to carry on the legacy he started through his cutting edge initiatives of combining psychology with informatics during the decades that computers were just becoming more accessible. My passion for teaching about the mind/body connection and utilizing online learning to provide encouragement to more people is partly made possible by my grandfather. I am forever grateful for his influence and the long line of educators in my family.
My professional background of teaching in the inner city through Teach For America and working in crisis response as a victim advocate exposed me to the depths of pain that a human soul can endure. Through my own personal story, I have found the courage to use the hand dealt to me as a catalyst to provide for others what I wish I would have had at the beginning of my healing journey. In my time as a college advisor, I loved coming alongside students to identify and draw out their gifts, passions and interests. It only takes one person to believe in you and ignite a spark inside that paves the way for future possibilities. I am intuitive by nature and see the greatness that God has placed inside of each person, sometimes even when they don’t see it for themself. My mentors over the years have called out the greatness inside of me, provided opportunities for me to learn and supported my evolution as a thought-leader.
I am incredibly grateful for people like Rob Stoppard, life coach and pastor, who invited me to join him on stage for my first large speaking event in 2013 after I shared about my master’s thesis, Inside Out, which was focused on how to identify the gifts God has put in you in order to call it out of you to impact the world around you. Robb Holmann, leadership expert and executive coach, provided my first paid speaking engagement in front of a room of business owners, which gave me a sense of confidence that what I have to offer truly has value. Tracy Clark is a mentor and fellow-visionary who has sewn financially into my vision and been a catalyst to stretch me to dream bigger. Dr. Christopher Stroud, OBGYN & medical practice owner, quickly saw my passion for supporting other moms struggling with mental health during the postpartum period, and gave me a huge opportunity by providing office space and endless referrals as I really started building my private practice after the birth of my fourth child. Dr. Avery Jackson, neurosurgeon and medical freedom advocate, has been a pioneer in teaching other clinicians about the mind/body/spirit connection and provided me with so much wisdom about the power of approaching brain health through an integrative and holistic lens. Finally, my biggest support system includes my husband, Nate, who is on this journey with me to pursue inner work and continue to evolve together as husband and wife. Our four children, Emma, Ruby, Deacon and Jonathan, are also my greatest teachers and we truly pursue wholeness, depth and connection as a core family value.
Through the guidance, support and wisdom of the incredible people in my life, I have become an ambitious visionary, strong empath and people-centered go-getter who feels the weight of the current mental health crisis. I can no longer be on the sidelines while so many people are struggling to find good support for mental and emotional health. There are simply not enough good counselors to meet the growing need of the current mental health crisis. In the last three years alone, we have witnessed major spikes in both depression and anxiety, occurring alongside deep feelings of loneliness and isolation. We were never meant to live a disconnected, segmented life. We were created for connection; deep, authentic healing connection. This is what inspired me to launch my podcast, Life Interconnected, in April of 2023. I’ve turned my pain into promise and poured the wisdom of years of inner healing work into each episode where I interview integrative doctors and invite others to join this movement of mindful mental health. Nate and I have also partnered together to create an online course called Peaceful Postpartum: Emotional Wellness for Postpartum Parents and we just purchased our own building to expand services offered, both in person and online. Our vision is to reach more people with encouragement, tools and education to approach emotional health support through a holistic and integrative framework, beyond the traditional mental health model of individual counseling.
My practice, Life Interconnected Counseling & Coaching, embraces a foundational belief that each person ultimately wants to feel empowered to have agency in their own healing. We provide an innovative approach to mental health through holistic counseling, group coaching, online courses and professional collaboration. Imagine if the treatment of mental health didn’t only focus on the mind, but also took into consideration a person’s physical symptoms and spiritual beliefs. How profound would it be to treat the whole person, rather than just merely managing thoughts? Our mind, body and spirit are so interconnected that our thoughts impact our physical symptoms and our beliefs can change our neural pathways. What if counseling didn’t just happen in an isolated therapy room but within a community of people who are also pursuing healing? I am a pre-med student turned counselor who has refused to buy into the traditional approach and built my practice within medical offices to cultivate cross collaboration with medical providers as we redefine mental and emotional wellness.
It’s time to address the mental health crisis with a mental wellness awakening. Life Interconnected is a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to mental and emotional health. Every person should feel empowered to take ownership of their own healing; mentally, physically and spiritually. The vision of Life Interconnected is to create a mindful movement of clients who have the tools and resources to understand how the mind, body and spirit are interconnected and practitioners who can teach how to cultivate mental, physical and spiritual health. Rather than waiting to struggle before getting help, Life Interconnected invites others to take the first step toward healing now, whether through individual counseling, completing an online course, participating in group coaching or engaging with the collective community through a monthly membership. With a holistic approach to mental wellness, we will no longer have to wait for desperation to be the open door to change.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
As a counselor, I can only lead a client as far as I have gone personally in my own inner work. I can only help someone else grow in self-awareness to the degree that I am self-aware. Being book smart and knowing counseling theories will help start the healing path but what truly allows me to make an impact in the therapy room is my own familiarity with suffering, struggles, anxiety and loss. I understand how to change generational patterns because I have done it, not just read about how to do it. My hope for my clients is that my ceiling would be their floor and they wouldn’t have to struggle as much as I did because I am providing them a more direct path to healing through the wisdom of my own experience.
Nate and I got married shortly after I finished the Teach For America program. I applied to graduate schools for counseling and planned to start a few months later. I also started a new job around that time as a victim advocate. Our nonprofit provided support services to victims of sexual assault and other crimes. While working the hotline, I would get called out to a crime scene, hospital or police station to provide support and crisis counseling to the victim and their loved ones. I was on the front lines of suffering. Once I got accepted to graduate school, I immediately felt in my spirit that it wasn’t time to go yet. God whispered to my heart, “Amber, you say you want to heal the broken-hearted and I’ve put you right in the middle of them. I will teach you, through my Holy Spirit, what no man can read in a book.” This revelation opened my eyes to the complexity and power of lived experience and how to become a peacemaker.
Ultimately, this is what we do as counselors. We are cultivators of inner peace. My clients are not just buying my time. They want peace. They long for freedom. They want to feel whole again. It is my wisdom and life experience that serves as the “secret sauce” in how I offer that, more so than anything I learned in graduate school. My encouragement to any young person pursing the field of counseling is to get real world experience helping diverse populations and address different types of pain points in order to determine the best niche area and provide context for what is learned within the classroom.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Being pregnant and breastfeeding for 10 years definitely took a toll on my mental and physical health. Shortly after we moved from Pennsylvania back home to Indiana, I was pregnant with our second baby. We also purchased our first home and closed when I was only 3 weeks postpartum. Surrounded by boxes and overwhelm, it was the first time in my life that I really experienced paralyzing anxiety. Even as a counselor, I didn’t immediately recognize it in myself and failed to seek out the professional support that I now recognize I needed.
Fast forward to sitting in the OB office pregnant with my 4th baby, I realized that every postpartum experience got better and better because of the ways I learned to advocate for my own mental health and how Nate and I grew as a couple in supporting one another. At my wellness visit that day, I began reflecting on my own mental health journey with my OB, Dr. Stroud, and he shared about the current postpartum mental health crisis. So many women struggle in isolation and don’t often reach out for help until they are vulnerable with a newborn and drowning in depression or anxiety. This began a series of conversations Dr. Stroud and I had throughout my pregnancy. I knew as a fourth time mom and counselor, that I could offer a unique approach to supporting women in this season that I was coming out of. Dr. Stroud believed in my vision and we began forming a partnership to address the issues and gaps of traditional approaches to perinatal mental health. By launching my counseling practice within an OB office, I was able to build quick momentum and a trustworthy reputation.
I believe collaboration and partnership is essential to building reputation within the market. By having a group of 4 OB’s and 5 midwives who know me well and often send counseling referrals, I have been able to scale and grow my counseling team by hiring two new therapists. Reputation within the field of counseling specifically is all about integrity, character, confidentialy and trust. Starting a solo practice requires a greater amount of effort and time to build that. Collaborating with other professionals has allowed me to gain momentum because if their patients trust them, then they trust me. Dr. Stroud and I have also recorded several episodes on his podcast, All Things Women’s Health. It’s been a win-win partnership and truly a joy to learn from one another. We have all benefitted from the cross collaboration and even developed our own perinatal mental health protocol that provides an assessment at 16-weeks to help pregnant women identify any risk factors for mental health struggles and information on how to find the support needed throughout pregnancy in order to greatly reduce her risk for struggling in postpartum. My online course, Peaceful Postpartum, was birthed through this collaboration. That is why education is such a key component to emotional health. I am truly grateful for the professional support and opportunitiesI have received!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lifeinterconnected.com
- Instagram: @lifeinterconnected
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifeinterconnected
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-interconnected-christian-counselor-emotional-health/id1683167467 www.peacefulpostpartum.org
Image Credits
Abigail Edmons Photography