The Podcast · 27 August 2026 · 46 min
Choosing Herself Over Staying Fine | Amala on Self-Abandonment, People Pleasing & Finding Her Voice
Content note: this episode includes a discussion of violence and sexual violence in a war zone.
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Self-abandonment rarely feels dramatic. It looks like calling something fine, long after part of you already knows it isn't.
You will hear why Amala kept telling herself a job was fine long after she felt it wasn't.
You will hear what thirteen years inside someone else's rules taught her about trusting her own voice.
You will hear why she says noticing is always the first step, long before you know what to do next.
After a decade as a medical scientist and humanitarian worker, serving others in some of the world's most demanding places, Amala found herself asking a quieter question: when do I get to matter too? That question became the beginning of a long, unglamorous unlearning.
The pattern ran through much more than one job. From the age of seventeen she lived inside a marriage that shaped nearly every choice she made, what to study, where to live, who to become, until thirteen years later one small decision to do something for herself became the first crack in a habit she hadn't fully recognised.
Amala also talks openly about surviving a hotel bombing in Jakarta, the fear she didn't let herself feel until she was safe, and the eight months it took her to find her feet again after years in conflict zones.
Amala is a former medical scientist who spent over a decade with the United Nations, the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, across more than ten countries. She is now building Maison de Rêve, a sanctuary and pilgrimage experience for women in France, centred on rest, reflection and reconnecting with your own voice.
What you will hear
Why she kept telling herself a job was fine long after she felt it wasn't
What thirteen years inside someone else's rules taught her about trusting her own voice
Surviving a hotel bombing in Jakarta, and the fear she didn't let herself feel until she was safe
What humanitarian work in active conflict zones can cost, physically and emotionally
The eight months it took her to find her feet again
Why she believes real alignment, once it arrives, never asks you to look back
The sanctuary she's building for women in France, and what it means to include yourself
What “walking the way of love” means to her now
If you're in a job that no longer fits, a relationship you've quietly outgrown, or you simply keep calling things fine that aren't, Amala's story offers an honest, unhurried way of understanding what might be happening beneath the surface.
Read the full transcript
Hi, I'm Debbie Thompson, and this is a stone in my shoe. Like a stone, we all carry things that quietly shape the way we walk through life. Through honest conversations and powerful stories, we discover the wisdom that helps us understand ourselves and walk a little more freely. Amala is my guest today, and she has spent more than a decade working as a medical scientist with major global health organisations, including the United Nations, and living and working in more than 10 countries, most of them in conflict zones. After years of serving humanity through global systems, she made the courageous decision to walk away from the life she'd built to create one that felt more
deeply aligned with her values, her heart and her purpose. Today she's building healing spaces for women in France, leading transformational pilgrimages, writing books and creating a sanctuary called Maison d'oreves, where women can connect with themselves in nature. Amala, welcome to the stone in my shoe. Thank you for having me. It's lovely to have you here all the way from France, and what I love about nowadays is being able to just connect to women from all over the world, all walks of life, and although we've all had different experiences, there's so many commonalities between all of us. Absolutely, yeah, it's so nice.
Yeah, and it's so nice to connect with you from Australia too, because it's a place that I still miss a lot, so. Yeah, you can tell with the accent that you were here. But before we begin, I'd love to ground this for the woman who's listening to the podcast. As she listens to your story today, what do you hope she begins to see or understand about herself? I think probably that there's more strength and power within than she ever believed was possible, and she can literally create her reality at any moment by just making that choice, that simple decision.
Let's go. And Anna, I love the way you've put that, like that, that there's so much strength and power, and she can create her reality by making that decision. And I think once you see it and you realize that it's not this complicated thing, it's actually these steps. But at the beginning of the journey, it's hard to see the simplicity in it. Yes, absolutely. And I guess I feel a little bit lucky. I've always been able to see a vision, but then I would count back all the steps I need to get to that vision. And then I would just follow the very next step I plan, and the very next step I plan. And some steps are a little bit bigger, some steps are a little bit smaller, some steps you have to leap,
but I just keep having faith that it will eventually take me there. Yeah. And I'm not going to fall into the midst of nowhere. And that sounds like a lot of courage and a lot of faith and a lot of surrender as well. But I'm sure it wasn't always like that. But before we get into the stone, I just wanted to find out a little bit more about you. Where are you in this season of your life and what feels the most important to you? I think in this season, I think I'm, if you talk about the whole life, I think I'm in a period when I'm finally blossoming for the first time.
And maybe people would think that in those past careers I already blossom, but actually I feel like I'm blossoming for the first time because this is the first time I'm living a life that I really can call my own. Not set by anyone else's rule, but mine. So it's a very exciting time for me that wow, I could do that. Yeah. And what's your second question? And what feels most important to you right now? Yeah. So what feels most important to me right now is continuously just every single second, a minute, just following what my heart and my inner voice is saying. I feel like if I'm able to do that,
then literally every moment I feel peaceful and happy. Yeah. And I feel thriving and contributing. It's yeah. And it's like a very, it's a feeling of great deep fulfillment and satisfaction. I feel like for a long time in my life, I had strong values but I had to play by other people's rule and suppress a lot within. And I think it's finally the time in my life that I'm done doing that for the end time. And this time I really, there's no more going back. I'm going to live by my own rules for the rest of my life. Yeah. And I love what you said there and blossoming because just having read your bio, other people would have seen you as blossoming
but it's interesting that this blossoming is an internal thing. It's not external. It's your values coming out. It's your intuition. It's you feeling that you are living by your rules and no one else's. And that is incredibly powerful. And I could just see that beautiful internal blossoming coming out. So I can feel your energy. It's wonderful. Thank you so much. Yeah. I haven't been happier even in this restaurant that I haven't been for several years in Geneva since I quit my job. But even a waitress I haven't seen for a long time that I saw every week when I used to live here when I recently went back. I said, hi, I'm back. I don't usually, but I have to come and visit my favorite restaurant. And she, and I told her what happened.
I left my job and how I'm doing now and everything. And she said, you look so much happier. You literally, your whole, she said, you look very stressed before but now. And I'm like, it's like being entrepreneur can be stressful too. But she's like, you just look really happy. You're like glowing. Yeah. So I have that, this feeling that just feels, it's indescribable. And there were moments when I thought I had that already. But this feeling right now, sometimes some days I feel like it's a blissful feeling and not just bliss. It's also feeling very blessed. Yeah. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. And I'm sure it wasn't always like that. So let's go back to the stone. Absolutely not at all.
And if you had to name the stone that we're going to talk about today, what would you call it or describe it as? Let me see. I think it's like, for me, it's definitely something relating to value. It's being very surprised and shocked how the will is more self-focused than others focused. And that aspect has always bothered me so much that when a place display that I don't want to use the word self-centered, but it's like more self-centric or self-towards oneself rather than the act is out of love towards
others and outside, when I get to a state that is way too intense, that's the moment I walk away from almost everything in my life. Because I just feel like this is just not okay. This moment should be focusing on others, not self. So a lot of the malalignment is like the very first one I probably had in my life was my first job in pharma, which I felt like, wow, they were so profit-focused. I was young and not really understanding. And then at that time, I was not okay the way they were like instructing the doctors to tell the patients how to get their next script to make sure they stay with
the pharmaceutical companies one rather than a generic or competitors one. The way they did it, it felt to me as manipulative. And the moment I felt that I started feeling deeply unhappy, so unhappy that I just literally felt lost in my life for the first time that wow, after the PhD and the pharma, I thought it was going to become a CEO, not knowing anything what all those meant. And then feeling like really unhappy, what is this, what is this? And then later on, it became a theme. It's not just money or manipulation or whatever, wherever people were more serving themselves and others. And when I get to a state that I feel like it's not okay, I walk away. Okay, so let's go back to that first career of yours
in pharma. And you started realizing that your values were misaligned. It was about serving humanity in the best possible way. And this was about profiteering and manipulation and various other things. And when you walked away from something like that, and you thought you were going to be the CEO, so big plans. And then you walk away from what looks like an amazing career to everybody else, right? That takes huge courage. What gave you the confidence to trust yourself to make that leap? I think it was not definitely not easy. But at the same time, I think what you were saying earlier at one point, sometimes a stone
can be just a little bit prickling. And sometimes it gets so sharp that you can't ignore it anymore. I didn't know as a kid that I had such a big love for humanity until that moment that I realized, oh my God, I didn't really know I was young in my 20s. I didn't know what I really wanted in life at that moment. At that moment, I thought I wanted to be a CEO. I always thought I wanted to be in upper management. I didn't really know why even, but now thinking about all that, I understand the back story behind it. I think I enjoy kind of guiding people or leading in a way that is aligned to my own values and actually why I
wanted to be maybe be a CEO or be in management, which I always walked away from, is actually because I want to create a place with my value and my culture. I want people to feel safe and happy and empowered. That's what I want. I want to create my community, my way. So actually a lot of the time it was more like that. But for me, at that moment of walking away, I think the biggest thing is that I was so feeling so caught to thinking that I really want to do something that is a worthy cause that feels to me that is aligned to my heart. And at that time, all I thought about is how can I help humanity in one way or another
without thinking about profit? And at my young age, at that time, how I articulated at that time was I want to do something that is completely altruistic and not profit driven. That's what I said when I was in my 20-somethings. Not really understanding exactly what I was really meaning at articulating. And even now, you never finish your journey, right? I'm still, I think, refining what exactly it is that I'm trying to create in this world, right? So yeah. I had a quick question from you. You said there's a backstory there. And when we first started, you said I'm blossoming because I'm actually living according to my rules and nobody else's rules. And I get that at the farmer. You had the rules of the farmer,
which was profit first. Was there something else underneath it about what success looked like and what a good career looked like? That's often society and childhood and whatever that could have been part of the backstory as well. Yeah, I think so. I think not so much from my parents as such, but I did, I was married kind of young around straight after my PhD. And then I got divorced at 30. So during those 13 years of being with this ex-husband of mine, basically, he was also very strict in his rules and his ways. And he is a top student and he had very firm ideas about what I needed to be and what is
okay for me, the way I dress, the way I eat, the way I looked and what I studied, what career I had. So I had that from when I was 17 till 30. So that is a very long time. That's when you are becoming an adult, right? So I almost felt like I came out of childhood from my real parents into another parental child relationship, but even more strict one. So I actually didn't have a chance to live by my own rules and my own will for about 13 years in this relationship that I don't want to give it any specific names, might be as a lot of names people give it to these these days. But yeah, but so basically when I merged from that, that was a moment that I started
my career in CDC in US or alone. And so that was a moment I was going through the divorce. And the moment I realized enough is enough. So actually the farmer moment was the kind of like the preemble to the big moment. Because at that farmer moment, I think it was two years into our marriage. And it was two years after my PhD and two years of not being with him 24 seven and being like continuously had been told what I need to do, how I should do whatever. And so it was two years with let's say less brainwashing than before. And it was the moment that I started having my own ideas and realizing that I really wanted so much that there's something amiss.
It's insatiable. I just needed to go for it. Yeah. So just so that I've got this right, you were within this in this relationship. And as you said, living by someone else's ideals and standards and rules and whatever. And you were in this job that just didn't feel aligned. And it was only when you finish your relationship with him that you were able to go, hang on, this is just not right for me. I need to change. And that's when you went from big farmer into the CDC. Is that correct? Actually, from farmer to CDC, I needed to do another degree first because I didn't have anything in public health. And so yeah, the first time I let's say disobeyed him, it was when he said that you want to quit your job. So we are living off my one-person salary
to support you to go back to study again so you can pursue your career in something that he didn't particularly agree with. And I said, yes. Is that okay? That's what I wanted to do. He said, you want to live away from me in Sydney instead of Melbourne for a year doing this? I said, yes, it's very important to me, more important than anything else. I have to do it. And he wasn't happy. But that was the moment that I started realizing, wow, when I said no to him and yes to myself, things started shifting. And that was the moment when I started realizing when I'm further away from him, the more I can hear my own voice. And this is the feeling of what
we were talking about before about safety. About the feeling of being able to hear one's voice to live one's true life and blossoming. I think there's way too much external voice continuously whether it's a parent, a sibling, a friend or a husband, or even your own little self talking to you and diminishing yourself. And so sometimes when I'm away from all of that and I can really hear myself wherever it is and usually it's nature, it's when I feel happiest because, wow, here's my voice. That was so tiny. I was like a whisperer if I hear it now. Wow, and that's amazing that your intuition was there and you heard the whisper.
But it was also incredibly brave of you to go, no, this is what I want and stood up for yourself and advocated for yourself and went, this is really important to me and that's when things change. I'm intrigued. What gave you the courage at that point to go, this is what I want and that's where I'm moving to and this is how it's going to be. It sounds like a lot of courage came from somewhere. Yeah, actually that's very interesting that you mentioned it because it made me realize before I actually quit the job and decided to do the Master of Public Health when somebody in Farmer, they had a sister who worked in WHO as kind of a volunteer. And so she said she could also get me there as a volunteer as well in Jakarta, Indonesia.
And this is back in, I don't know which year it was, but literally while I was there doing the work that we were doing there and I felt so fulfilling, I felt like, wow, I'm like just two years out of my PhD. I don't have much experience. I'm only my 20s, but somehow I was working with the Ministry of Health here and I was able to somehow do something to support. It doesn't matter if it's big or small, but I felt like I had something that I could help. And actually what was most shocking as well was there, the hotel that we were in, the water when I opened it, it was yellow and then the electricity plug that I was plugging into
literally didn't have a plug, it was wires that had to connect. It was a bit terrifying, but what was most terrifying was the last morning when I woke up, I received a phone call from the person who took me there and she said that, okay, don't be scared, but if you turn on the TV just letting you know two hotels just got bombed and it's five minutes from us, so I'm just telling you it's okay. I don't think we're going to get bombed because we're staying in a three-star hotel and they're usually targeting five-star hotels, but don't go down to the breakfast room and stay in your room until a taxi can pick you up. Is that okay? And I said okay. And then
that was the last day I was about to go to the airport, but I was in so much shock. I've never experienced bombing terrorist threats or anything in New Zealand, Australia growing up and so I was in shock and then at that time my phone started going off because I was in Australia at that time and a lot of people go to Indonesia from Australia, right? So the people in my organization, they saw on the news that two hotel, I think it was Ritz Carlton and the Marriott got bombed and there was a New Zealander who was killed and so they were all freaking out thinking it was me and so they said, are you okay? Are you okay? Because there's not many New Zealanders there
and then we usually stay in the Marriott in my organization, so everyone thought I died and so I was like, no, I'm okay. I'm in my hotel room and I'm going to the airport. Now I'm just waiting for a ride, but the whole time I started hearing about car bombing on the streets and everything and it was really terrifying. Yeah, sorry. You know what's interesting is that for you to have gone through that, for most people that is incredibly terrifying and to get through that as calmly as you seem to have, that took a huge amount of courage, internal courage. So obviously you had this courage in you to be able to be brave.
Do you know that's what I'm hearing? Just somebody who's really brave in what was happening and then to be able to say to your husband, it was always there, wasn't it? That I don't know if it was always there, but it's what's so interesting is that I didn't realize how scared I was until my flight landed in Singapore and when the moment I landed in Singapore, I called my parents and I just broke down crying and crying because that was a moment I felt safe because even in Jakarta Airport, every single television was playing the bombing and so I didn't feel safe at all. Even on the plane, I think I was shaking and the moment I landed in Melbourne and when I was on the road and I wasn't looking on the side of the
road looking out for car bombs, I literally was so grateful for the first time in my life for the feeling of a safe place and so I think that's what shaped a lot of it and then there was a moment when I realized, you know what? There was so damn terrifying and yes, I could have died, but you know what? I want to do it again and I want to do it again and again because that was really meaningful and that is worth risking my life for. That is because most people don't have to to realize that risking their lives. That was such a profound, strong in your in your face moment is I could have died, but actually
I love this and so I'm prepared to be brave and give my career away, give my husband whatever it was because this is actually so meaningful to me. Yes and that's been a theme in my life and the same thing is when I later on joined CDC in the US and then Doctors Without Borders, some of the country I go to with Doctors Without Borders, I don't even know which country I'm going to next. I just have a heart's prayer that says that God, please take me to the place where I can be most of service and then I just tell the world, surprise me. But and I never researched the country because it would freak me out if I didn't know everything.
Probably not just sounds to me that just sounds so courageous number one, so curious number two and being so able to just hand it over to the universe to see what happens because so many people are so caught up in control. How can I control my life? And you were like the antithesis so I'm curious you then flipped and you went to medicine, is it medicine, self-regulation, medicine without borders? Yeah exactly. And the CDC and you were working in countries all over the world. How long were you there and at what point did you go, I don't want to do this anymore? Yeah, different places. I went to several different countries. I preferred shorter missions than longer missions. I went, I tried to go for three months,
six months missions or one year missions. So generally that's the time frame but probably the longest I've been in a place maybe up to two, three years. So I kept moving because I think there was an insatiable desire as well of me learning new places and be able to contribute in many different places, environment and everything. So that's why I kept moving around. Each place when I left, they had their own unique reasons. I think the conflict zone part though, I did, there was last place I worked with medicines on frontier was in Diacongo, which right now the Ebola outbreak is happening. I was there as an epidemiologist to prevent and prepare for epidemic prone diseases. So it's actually a little bit more
in that line about what's happening right now, but it is a conflict zone. 50 kilometers away from where we were living, it's active shooting and war zone. And so some of our doctors even stand back in the hospital still get shot and die and then people are locked in for two weeks at a time. And it's so it's quite difficult because in a conflict setting, we had to always use the kind of radio to say where we were, who we were with, where we are going. And so it's the utmost when I said I wanted freedom or self being able to live a life according to my way. When you're living in a conflict zone in order to keep you safe, everyone has to know everything about you and your way about everywhere. And so basically you have very little privacy,
which then drove me a little crazy because it was a felt so suffocating that the way they're trying to protect me in the end actually made it very challenging for me to actually survive that place. And yeah, so in the end, I realized that conflict zones was probably not the easiest place for me and for mental health wise for me. Some people can do it and that's so amazing. But for me, a person who love like freedom and having the self autonomy and being yeah, it was hard. And also I think energetically, I'm very sensitive. So I think a lot of the past trauma and massacres that has happened there, I think somehow I could feel
the energy. So I got into a darker and darker place where I was there until I completely, I think had a disintegration, you know, of myself and probably yeah, I probably had a little bit of a it's kind of like a meltdown. Everything just became too intense. So I had to go because actually the energy I think of the massacres that happened there and the energies and the feeling controlled was too much for me. Yeah, I can't even imagine what you were describing there, being in a war zone with potential outbreaks like Ebola and your safety, you don't know from day to day. That must be just hearing from it just so stressful. When you came out and you had to leave,
how did you heal your mind and your body after so much conflict and trauma and I don't even know what else there would be in there. But that sounds like a huge amount of letting go when you got back and I'm just I'm curious how you did that. Yeah, it was not easy because then I also experienced a few, yeah, let's say abuse that happened there, whether it's emotional or physical. And so for me, it was a lot of healing. And I'm not even sure if one completely ever heal from everything. I think it's a process. But it was that moment that also when things get so bad, you know how
there's a law that we can go really bad, the only way it can go is up, right? Yeah, so I think that's probably what happened when you hit rock bottom, it can only go up. And so that moment was also another defining moment in my life when I realized that, okay, I need to be very cautious with my relationships, my friendships, and who I want to choose to be with or associate with work I want to do. And so I became very intentional. And I become having much more discretion and selecting friends, partners and workplaces and countries I go to a little bit more. So and that's so it took me about eight months of healing. And like I stopped everything.
And literally, it was hard because I was in anxiety overdrive. Because every day when I was there, every moment, every morning, we have the security briefing. Every morning, it's really sad. I hope it's not too sad for your audience. Literally, we are told of another village got attacked by the group. And this many women were raped, this many men were killed, and this many babies were taken. And how do we help? How do we even bring food and support there, even just getting people to that zone which had experienced a conflict? We don't even know if that person can be kept safe because the road to going there is so unsafe. And so after hearing that
every single day, and I think I was there for about three months when I totally broke down, because it was just too much to hear every day of the atrocities that happened there. Yeah, it was a lot to hear. So it took me about eight months to get back on my feet. And it was another, it was actually not really the last one. It was the Doctors Without Borders Medicine Frontier. My former boss from Myanmar asked me, please come back to Myanmar. We really need you here. And I said, you can really hire another person. It doesn't have to be me, but he asked me 10 times. So in the end, I decided, okay, if I want to go back, I need this condition to make me feel safe this and this. So I would say that in the beginning, there were courage. But I would say
there was also a little bit of naivety. And in a sense, as a young adult, I didn't know how bad things can get when they get bad. And so there was a little bit of learning by experiment as well, but which I don't think I regret anything in my life though. And so I actually went back to Myanmar next time. And then after that, I went to and then that's usually that's where the rest of my journey came back to France. Most people wouldn't even go through something like this, but just to get your purpose to help humanity, but then to be under that stress. And I can't even imagine every day hearing which villages has been wiped and the human distress and everything about what
you want to do is to help them. And yet it's it's out of it's out of your control and helpless and you're helpless. And but you persevered and your courage and your your curiosity and your compassion for humanity is extraordinary. And then as you as you left and said, no, I need this and this is it's like, I need to look after myself now. Yes, I need to look after other humans. But actually, I really need to look after myself as well, because without that, everything falls apart and there's no blossoming. There's survival and survival. Yeah, you're surviving, but you're not thriving or blossoming, are you? Yeah, exactly. And it's a lifelong lesson. I wouldn't say I've got it right yet. There's still many moments I still want to
help or want to support or just forget myself in the process of supporting another. And then I realized I'm a little bit drained right now. What's going on? And then I realized, okay, self care. So I think it's a every moment exercise because I seem to have I feel like I have one wire missing in my bones, which is I often forget myself. And that's why my hope is to help not just myself, remember myself, also help others remember themselves. And then so they can really do what it is that light them up the most. And so it's a continuous journey. I feel like it's every second conscious act. Remember yourself, remember to take care of yourself.
Because it's interesting, when you get on an airplane, before you help anybody else, you have to help yourself, you've got to quit your oxygen mask on before somebody else. But it's funny how so many of us have to learn to do that, even though we told without the self care, it's hard to be everything to everybody else. And hold the beliefs that if you are, and I'm not saying this is for you, but I know for me a little bit, if I'm helping everybody else, then I am fulfilling my purpose, which is making humanity be a place. But without me being filled up, how can I fill someone else's cup? Yeah, exactly. So I think this is a continuous learning for me because it's a little bit like this roller coaster or this journey. I feel like I'm
getting better and better at it to remember myself. And so I can better take care of others. And each time there is maybe a mount down or occasion when I think, Oh my God, I need to do this better. I need to do this better. And each time I'm getting better and better, but there's always a little bit of a setback again. And on the journey, you go up and then you go a little bit down again, a little bit up again, but generally the trajectory is going higher. And so the fact that right now I can decide to say, I'm walking away from the career that seems to be helping humanity, but actually I'm going to help humanity in another way, because this is even more aligned with my value. And this is really taking care of myself. And so that is a big thing for me. Yeah. So before we go into that, because I'd love to
hear about that. But what have you learned about purpose that you could only have learned by going through this story that you've been through? What can learn about purpose? Or maybe yourself. He doesn't have to even be purpose, but only this story could have taught you. I think until things gets really hard, you don't know how much you want it. And so I guess that purpose or whatever it is that lights you up or motivates you in life, sometimes you don't know how much you want it until maybe when either some people, they lose it, or some people, they, they, it's so scary, but they want to do it anyway. And for me as more the latter,
I've been tested again and again that is this your true purpose? It's almost like God or heaven asking, is this really what you want to do? You want to serve humanity? Then you're going to go through this. Do you want to go through this? And I'm like, again and again, I'm like, it's so freaking scary. But yes, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Yes. And but I also did have this faith behind me that I think I was sharing with you I was sharing with you that my one of my career when I did, when to leave CDC and started traveling the world with medicines on frontier, I had one sentence. I continuously keep saying that I only have the purest intention in my heart to serve humanity. So with pure intentions, I'm sure that the universe won't lead me astray. So they will take care of me because
for me to stay alive is of I can help more people. So why don't you keep me alive? Negotiating with the universe. I really want to help keep me alive so I can do more. How about that? And do you know, Amala, this is, it's just I've never had a conversation like this because most people are not trying to stay alive to do that. And they just not tested as much. So because so many people I don't really know what I want to do. And maybe there's something in there that the struggle opens the door to to what you really want and really refines it, you know, where you've gone and you've refined it. And as you said, the trajectory hasn't been straight, but you keep refining it. So that takes us into the next chapter, which is what you're doing in France and serving humanity. Can you just tell us a bit more about that? Yeah, I know I'm a
scientist by training, but I'm actually deeply spiritual. And I had a spiritual awakening in this last maybe seven, eight years or so. And during this time, the more spiritual I became, the more connected I became, I became very connected with Mary Magdalene. And after the crucifixion of Jesus or Yeshua, a lot of them, Mary Magdalene and other apostles and other Mary's came to Southern France, I believe wholeheartedly that I came to the butchery in Geneva so I could live in France. So it would be easier for me to get here. But the final destination was never that final destination is just get me to the sacred land. So I can bring more people to
remember what happened on the sacred land and walk the way of love, which is what Mary Magdalene was doing. And two days ago was her feast day. So basically walk the way of love. I love that. So what does walk the way of love mean to you? Yeah, I don't know if anyone could ever truly define it, everybody have their own way. But for me, it's a full embodiment. It's not just saying it is every single moment, every single act, every single word, you're coming from a place of absolute unconditional love. And I think that is very rare. It's so rare that I think it's hard to see it in this world. But that's why I think it's so important to be it
and live it and walk it and share the story of Mary Magdalene here and to let woman to feel it and then become it themselves too. Because I think everyone have it within them, but they might have forgotten. And so I think it's an embodiment of the fullest version of ourselves and of humanity. I think a lot of us truly forget that. Yeah, I think we forget that others is a mirror of ourselves and we are all one. And so there's a lot of separation and a lot of borders and a lot of labels and everything. But for me, everything is unconditional love. And so I want to fully embody that demonstrated and help others remember that too. Yeah.
And you know what's really interesting, you said at the beginning, it's women have more power and strength than they think. And that too, it's just a choice. It's a simple decision and to live this life there and it's a simple decision to just come from love and everything you do is come from love. So when you're telling your children something or do that, what would love do in this situation? Keep going. So it's a simple question. What would love do? What would I do in love? And so it sounds and it is no one can living like that permanently because we go in and out of love. Don't get frustrated. But to keep going back decision after decision, to just keep going back to love. I love that. That's beautiful. Yeah. I love that question that you mentioned that we can ask our children because almost
you can think about love almost like love as a person. What would love do? What would love do? And then ask them to personify it. And then maybe that is a way of teaching children, how do we operate from a place of love rather than fear? And that's the question I ask myself. Every single day or every single decision I ask, am I operating out of love or out of fear right now? And when I realize it's fear, I think, okay, shift gears, reset. What's going on? That's beautiful. Yeah. And I've just so enjoyed listening to you today. And let's just finish by speaking directly to the woman who's listening. If she's sitting in a life that looks successful on the outside, but something inside knows she's no longer living
in alignment with herself. What would you like her to know? What wisdom would you like to share with her? I would like to share with her that there's no rush. It's okay. The first noticing the awareness that something is not quite aligning is the very first step and it's okay to be in it until she feels she's ready and she want to walk out of it. But if she want to walk out of it, I want to let her know that once she is in total alignment with herself, life can be so joyous, so blissful, so blessed. And there will be no looking back. And at that
moment, there will be many other women who would like to support her on her journey towards finding her own alignment and to not have fear and also to have patience and also not to overly judge oneself that they're in that stage of not aligning for too long. Like when is it going to happen? Because yeah, it can take a little while to find that final moment of breakthrough of thinking, I'm going to do it and it could be a moment of meltdown. It could be a moment of another person showing you, I did it, you can too. But if any of your listener or anyone ever need a kind of a helping hand or a little bit of strength, they are very feel free to reach out to me and I would
love to support anyone who's wanting to get into a more aligned life to give them that extra courage, extra be the cheerleader to help them find that. And because I, for me, I feel like the kind of happiness I found now and the liberation I found now, I would like every woman to be able to enjoy that. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's beautiful. And what I'm hearing from you and is just the curiosity to just go, where am I right now? And then the courage to take a step, know that there's community there to support you and then just be compassionate with yourself. And don't try and push it, things, things take time just, and your strength and your love shine through. Amala, thank you so much. And if anyone else wants to find out more about her work, her
pilgrimages and the beautiful sanctuary she's creating, you'll just find all the links in the tab below. Thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. No, thank you. I so had fun. I had so many stories I've forgotten about that came up. That's beautiful. So as you finish listening today, perhaps it was a moment where you recognised something in yourself or perhaps something was a little uncomfortable. And if it was there, just stay curious, because sometimes another woman's story helps us finally see our own. Thank you for listening.
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