We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stacie Aamon Yeldell, MA, MT-BC, AVPT a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Stacie Aamon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

By far, one of the biggest risks I have ever taken as an artist is packing up my entire life and flying off to a land full of strangers, a foreign country where I didn’t know a soul. Frustrated and spent from years of grueling as an indie-artist life in NYC, I got a “calling” to go to Bahia, Brazil. I had only been there once for a quick birthday trip. I knew nothing about Brazil. The only directive I received from my intuition was to go and learn the language. This decision to leap into the unknown led to a profound renewal of my purpose and set forth a massive healing of the creative injury I suffered after 20 years in the music industry. Not only did I learn Portuguese, but I learned to sing and write in Portuguese. I even performed on one of those floats at the world-famous Carnaval! I became completely immersed in Bahia’s rich culture and I was welcomed with open and loving arms by its people. That 3-month trip turned into 6 months and I went back and forth from LA to Brazil for years. My life changed, irrevocably. I have come to believe that I will always have this unquenchable connection to Bahia, the land that healed my heart and soul.

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.

Hello! I am an award-winning vocalist, speaker, music psychotherapist and author. As a vocalist, it is my intention to invoke healing through inspiring music that awakens the individual power within. From my start as a rapper, to Atlantic Records in New York City, to the “Def Squad” music group with the likes of Akon, Erick Sermon and Scarface, to Brazil and eventually landing here in Los Angeles, my journey through the music industry has seen the successes and ugliness that has paralyzed many careers. One of my greatest hopes is to contribute healing music to the planet and to continue to expand my service to humanity on a global level. As a Board Certified music therapist and founder of Amöntra, a wellness company, I have had the honor to work with a range of organizations, including The Grammy Foundation, LA Opera, GoogleArts and Culture, Netflix and YoungArts. I am especially excited to announce the release of my very first workbook “Choose Yourself: A Journey to Becoming the God of Your Own Heart”. This 12-week, self-paced journey is an accessible, inspiring and sustainable guide to cultivating communion with yourself through daily self-care rituals.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I scored my first record deal at the ripe age of 15 years old. So, from day one, the lessons were brutal and bountiful. Perhaps the most impactful thing I learned during this time is the danger of externalizing validation. At school, I was bullied relentlessly so Hip-Hop music gave me a voice. As a young MC, I filled faded notebooks with rhymes and my days of bullying disappeared in the wake of this brand new identity. I still remember stepping into the spotlight for the first time, its glare sending a billion specks of luminescence onto the school’s auditorium walls, like sunshine hitting a diamond. It was a dream…and I became completely hooked. It took many years (and lots of therapy) to unlearn that please-listen-to-my-demo-mentality. Without even realizing it, I had hinged my entire sense of self being “loved” as a performer and “chosen” by some record exec. Eventually, I would learn how to self-validate and choose myself, which actually inspired the title of my forthcoming book of the same name.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Here is my message to “non-creatives”: you ARE a Creative. Western culture has the tendency to cage creativity. Flashing back to my time in Bahia, I remember marveling as the gardener sang lilting melodies outside of my window and cheering as the maintenance man from my apartment strummed the cavaquinho at the local samba club. I think the idea that only a select few “inclined” humans are born with innate talent or pop out of the womb singing like Whitney or painting like Van Gogh is a fallacy. Perhaps creativity is more than just knowing how to sing, dance or paint but rather how to craft your very existence. I like to think of creativity as a natural resource, a wellspring, a pure expression of our life force. To deny this is like denying our breath. We are creating in each moment, with our thoughts, our speech, where we place our attention…with each inhale and exhale. The same force that created the Universe exists in us…we just have to give ourselves permission to activate it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.weareamontra.com; www.stacieaamon.com
• Instagram: @stacieaamon
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacie-aamon/

Image Credits
Main Photo: Kelwin Hagan Photo 1: Courtney Lindberg Photo 2: Samuel Cruz Photo 3: Kelwin Hagan Photo 4: José Mamede