Episode 77: Pursuing YOUR Path with Stephenie Zamora

🎶 Podcast Intro: Welcome to the pursuing uncomfortable podcast, where we give you the encouragement you need to lean into the uncomfortable stuff life puts in front of you, so you can love your life. If you are ready to overcome all the yuck that keeps you up at night, you're in the right place. I am your host, Melissa Ebken let's get going. 🎶

🎶 Episode Intro: Stephenie Zamora struggled with PTSD,  memory loss, and an abusive relationship with a drug addict. The trauma affected her entire life causing severe physical and mental health issues, including anxiety, panic attacks, back and hip pain, adrenal fatigue, and dysphasia, which is the inability to swallow.

She's here to share her incredible story back to health and vitality. 🎶

Episode: 
Melissa Ebken  0:00  
Stephanie, welcome to the Pursuing Uncomfortable Podcast. How are you today?

Stephanie Zamora  0:05  
I'm so good. Thank you for having me. 

Melissa Ebken  0:09  
I'm really excited to dig into what you do and your backstory at such a young age, you've had so many ups and downs and twists and turns. And it's really fascinating. And it's really given you a lot of insight, a lot of goodness to share with other folks. And I think people are really going to resonate not only with your story, but what you have to offer them. Tell us a little bit about what you do.

Stephanie Zamora  0:38  
Yeah, I always say the purpose is my purpose. I was a very existential child, teenager, one of those people. And there's a lot of us that feel like I was born on the wrong planet at the wrong time. And life just never made sense to me from a very young age. And I was very depressed and suicidal as a result of that for a while, but really started to try to understand who am I here to be like, why am I here? What is the point of me in this life? And so purpose has been a pursuit of mine, personally for a very long time, and is the central focus of my work. And with my company, I really focus on helping people live their purpose, which to me is being who you're here to be and doing the work that you feel called to do like contributing to the world in the way that only you can. And I get to help them at all points on that journey from healing and rising up after challenging chapters and big life transitions to uncovering their passions and purpose and building a life and business around it to actually building a brand and launching a podcast and writing a book and getting their message out into the world. And so I just really love what I do.

Melissa Ebken  1:42  
You know a little bit about those ups and downs in life, don't you? 

Stephanie Zamora  1:46  
Yes, definitely.

Melissa Ebken  1:48  
Tell us a little bit about some of the challenges you've had some of the difficulties you've experienced, if you would.

Stephanie Zamora  1:56  
I like I said, I struggled with depression and suicidal ideation for a good chunk of my teenage years and a little bit into my 20s. But really, one of the biggest things that I experienced was the end of 2014. And at that point in my life, I was in a really good place, I was on a really good path. I had built my business in such a way that I had an incredible team and I didn't have to work a whole lot. But I was doing the work that I loved, and I was making good money and paying myself well. I was healthier than I had ever been and was building really incredible community and relationships, like life was really good. And the exception to that was the relationship that I was in was not right for me. There was some manipulation, there was some smothering and control and jealousy. And overall, he was a good kind hearted person who just wasn't right for me. And so I ended that relationship after two years. And he started showing up and, and stalking me for a couple of weeks. So when I finally asked him to leave me alone and I was very clear and that. He ended up committing suicide a couple of days later, and that that loss just broke me. It really unraveled my sense of self what I thought I knew to be true about life and other people and brought a lot of guilt and shame. I felt really responsible for that just because it happened right after our breakup. And that loss left me with PTSD and the PTSD, I didn't know you could have PTSD from sudden loss and sudden bereavement and traumatic loss. But I did. I had PTSD so badly that I would forget what I did the day before and couldn't put my own life story in order. I didn't know who half my clients were, I couldn't remember how to build websites. And I would drive in circles around my house because in the time that it took me to lap the block, I would forget that I was going home like multiple times. And 

Melissa Ebken  3:52  
This is serious than it's not just some forgetfulness,

Stephanie Zamora  3:55  
No, it was bad. I would lose moments, like I would just, I would be holding something and then somehow it would be on the other side of the house. Like just life didn't make sense. My brain just didn't work. And that PTSD led me into an abusive relationship with a drug addict who I believed was the love of my life because it was so cracked open from the trauma. There's this concept and Post Traumatic Growth work of energy boundary rupture, which is essentially like the trauma is so intense that it kind of ruptures the realms between consciousness or experience and so I was kind of wide open in such a way that I connected with this drug addict like heart to heart soul to soul, without considering whether or not that was good and wise on like the the human realm. And yeah, that was very there was different forms of abuse. There was controlling manipulation. He was masterful at the art of confused and overwhelmed and I had PTSD so I had no idea what was going on half the time. I couldn't track anything. And that relationship really broke and destroyed me further. My health started to deteriorate rather rapidly. So I would have massive anxiety and really intense, almost violent panic attacks, like I would think that I was just rocking gently and I'd be like throwing myself into a wall or I would bruise my hands because I would be hitting things. And I had severe back and hip pain, like it just hurts to exist in my body and try to move at all, I had adrenal fatigue that would exhaust me to walk from the couch to the kitchen. And the worst of it was I developed dysphasia. And dysphasia is the inability to swallow. And so for nine days, I couldn't eat or drink and I would choke on my own saliva, I had one IV in the middle of that. And I ended up getting some support and some process work because it was just anxiety. And even then it took a year before I could eat and drink normally. So I had these experiences that really shattered my sense of self really just tanked my self worth my sense of deservingness. And the year after I finally got out of the abusive relationship, I was really reckless with myself and my life, like I just didn't care anymore, for one, but I was also grateful to just be alive and sometimes eating soup, like I had just been through so much that I was in this really neutral place. And because I didn't care about myself really, or my life, and I wasn't really concerned even with making money, like I ran out of money. I ended up having to file bankruptcy. And it was, it was quite an intense, traumatic journey. That took me a while to really find the thing in me that said, you know what, like, I don't want to tolerate this anymore. I actually want to be here. I want to make money. I want to care about myself and my life like it was it was quite a journey to come back to that place.

Melissa Ebken  6:46  
I can't imagine. And you know, so many people are so quick to write off anxiety. And, you know, we hear things like just pull yourself together, calm down, get over it. And the symptoms you describe, and the well, I think they're well beyond symptoms and manifestations of this anxiety in your life was so far beyond any of those things. And if anyone has never seen a panic attack, they are frightening. Yeah, they can manifest in different ways. But they are terrifying to see. I don't know what it's like to experience one. But having witnessed it, I can say I don't want to experience that. And then not even being able to swallow.

Stephanie Zamora  7:37  
That was the, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemies like not that I have enemies, but I wouldn't. It took a long time. I mean, I was even just a year ago still having to drink carbonated water at the end of the day to keep hydrating, it took a long time to heal my throat. But it was a direct like you're saying manifestation of the anxiety but also specifically swallowing my truth for so long being in the abusive relationship and just shutting down and dissociating, and it it showed up through my throat closing. And to this day, if I'm not honoring my truth, I have a little bit more like space and leverage to kind of tolerate things for maybe a little longer than I would want to even being somewhere I don't want to be used to cause my throat to close up. And so I had what I called my honey badger phase. I don't know if you've seen the honey badger. Because I've had to not give a hoot about what anyone else wanted or needed for me. I literally to continue eating and drinking had to do exactly what I needed in the moment. And so I had to flip from being so shut down. Letting other people control me abused me push me around, take what they wanted, feeling trapped and stuck to like opposite. I do what I want when I want because otherwise I literally will stop swallowing. And so it's one of those things that's like, really inconvenient and unfortunate and hard, but shows how incredible our bodies are when they feel like we're not listening to them, they will find a way to get us to listen.

Melissa Ebken  9:08  
Absolutely. And our brains are so magnificently terrifyingly complex. And the wiring matters a lot. Yeah. So you began to heal, you began to come back to yourself, you began to want to engage and achieve and experience things again. What happens next?

Stephanie Zamora  9:33  
And there was still so much to go through. I did some really good things for me. So first, I started just living my truth and speaking my truth in real time, my honey badger phase and that helped me start to heal physically. And that helped me start to get clear on what's important to me and who am I now and the aftermath of all of this and allowed me to start reorienting to myself, my life, my work, my relationships. And I did some dramatic things. I pulled down seven years of content and websites. I had a massive online presence and I pulled it all down, which was the worst thing I could have done, strategy wise. But the best thing that I could have done for me because I couldn't, I couldn't find myself anymore, being surrounded by so many aspects of my old self, who I just, I wasn't anymore, I had changed so dramatically, because of all the experiences. So I pulled everything down.

Melissa Ebken  10:31  
I just got an image, if I can jump in real quick, I have this image of being in those little funhouse mirror things. Only the reflections aren't current, they're of someone else or a past version of you.

Stephanie Zamora  10:45  
And anytime I would try to do anything different with my work, I would feel like I couldn't, I couldn't get away from myself. So I did a really dramatic thing. And I pulled it all down. And that helped me get clear on who I wanted to be going forward in my business, what I actually wanted to create, the conversations that I wanted to have. And eventually everything kind of came back online in a different way. But that was something, my mentor fell out of almost fell out of his chair when I told him what I had done, but it was one of the best things I could have done. And then I realized that I needed to be somewhere else, I actually needed to get away from all relationships, including my friendships and my mentors, because I couldn't hear myself anymore. I had given my power away, because I stopped trusting myself to make the right choices, especially in relationships. But in my own life, like who was I to think that I had any right to make big decisions about myself, after all the bad decisions and all the chaos that I had been through. And in feeling that way, I had leaned too heavily on the people around me and the people around us can love us. And they can have our best interests at heart and still make harmful comments and decisions and give us the wrong advice. And that had really been happening with people I really loved and trusted they, they got it really wrong around certain things. And that made me realize, I don't, I don't trust myself anymore. I can't hear myself anymore. And I need to get away from this place from where my abusive ex lives from where my other ex passed away. And I was feeling really more and more drawn to nature. So I, I bought a FourRunner, I moved up to the mountains, three hours away from where I had been in Boulder, Colorado, and moved very intentionally to where it was less convenient. And I didn't know anyone, because I needed to hear myself again. And I needed to figure out like, what am I doing, who do I want to be. And of course, not everyone knows me. But part of my pattern is I would just fall into relationships all the time. So I met someone out there and I fell into a relationship with him. And he was he was very neutral. He was kind he didn't have a controlling or manipulative bone in his body. And he was safe. And he was safe for a long time because he was just so neutral. You know, just very passive, very shut down in his own ways. And that was safe for a long time. And I tried to kind of tuck myself into his life. He had some kids, he had like a very established life. And that valley that I lived in, I tried to just kind of fit myself into it, thinking this will be the thing, right? Like, this is a good healthy relationship. There's no abuse here. And I can make a life here. And I can find meaning here. But I was I was still tucking myself into a place that I didn't belong without really knowing myself. And as I started to heal more that relationship became traumatic in its own ways. Because he was very passive and neutral and very checked out in his own ways. And there was a lot of abandonment and unavailability, that I started to feel really isolated, living out there in the middle of nowhere and I couldn't connect with anyone there, there wasn't any community that felt really resonant for me, it was very alone even being in a relationship. And that started to tax me in its own ways. And I'm really grateful for that whole experience because ultimately, when he and I finally ended our relationship, I realized that I had fallen so far self worth wise, like if you looked at the trajectory of my life and where I was at what I was creating, and how I was feeling before my ex passed away, I was on this, this upward path. And when he died and the abuse happened, like I came from up here like high self worth high sense of deservingness all like loving myself taking care of myself and I just like face planted way down here. And so I could see that the relationship that I had been in with the man in the valley was I was going up, but it was still so far from where I had been. And it made me realize my self worth is still garbage. And so I spent a really intense year in 2021 going deep into that into what's left from the abuse, what's left from the loss, what's left from the bankruptcy and the struggles and what's still stored in my body that is keeping me down here. And what do I need to do to really start loving myself and so 2021 was this, even bleeding into 2022, this like epic and intense and aggressive, like, I'm going to rewire this now I'm going to raise my self worth and love myself again. And yeah, it was intense, but it really gave me myself back. And this last year has been one of the best years of my life. Truly, like I have gone above and beyond where I was before, in different ways, because I'm a different person living a different life. But I have really come back into alignment with myself, I've really gotten to know and love myself again. I have raised my self worth, like crazy. And it is being reflected back to me and the experiences and relationships and opportunities. And so, yeah, it was intense work. But it was fruitful.

Melissa Ebken  16:15  
You know, something that really stood out to me, when you were describing this whole process, you made a decision, that was not a strategically good decision. But you needed to make it for yourself. And the results of that the good results from that weren't immediately apparent. In fact, it took a while for those to become apparent. And I find that so intriguing. Can we talk a little bit about that? Absolutely. You know, when you hear that what comes to mind for you?

Stephanie Zamora  16:51  
Well, I appreciate that, that you want to talk more about that, because I don't think that people really understand it. And I wouldn't necessarily recommend that particular action to everyone because it has to be this discernment itself. And this, this intuitively led decision because what that looks like for all of us, is very different. And I have to say also, I was very privileged in the sense that I didn't have anyone to answer to, was not in a relationship. I had two cats, who at the time, we're not needing any fancy prescription foods or treatments or anything. Like I had the freedom to make decisions like I did. And for me, that was really important. And so I was willing and able to take certain risks. And I still think even when we have dependents, even we have certain circumstances, taking those risks at times, is, is really essential to our healing and our growth. But we have to discern for ourselves how we take care of our lives and other people and do that. So I just want to disclaim all of that. But for me, there was a lot that I did that looked really crazy. So realizing, I have to get away from myself in order to figure out what's next was the first like intuitive hit. And then understanding what that meant. And being willing to just do it without question. Like, I didn't hesitate when I realized that's what I needed to do, I gave myself a little time. I actually went and drove around for a little bit like the impulse was to delete, delete the mailing list, delete the websites, delete, make it go away. And I'm glad that I took that pause to drive around because it was like, okay, there's another option, we can just archive. We don't have to delete. And I'm glad I did that. Because a lot of it has come back in different forms in different ways. But it was, it was that clear internal impulse and call and it didn't feel impulsive. Right. It was just this intuitive. Like, this is what we do now. And I could feel that it was important. And truth be told it was really disorienting for me. So the first two weeks after I pulled it down, I pulled everything down. I left up my design website, because that's how I made money. People wanted to pay me cool, they could pay me I didn't care, it wasn't gonna market it. And I put up like an email opt in for everything else. And I laid in bed for two weeks, because I'm not making any money at that time, not trying to. So I'm not trying to work. I'm not building anything. I laid in bed for two weeks, and I felt more lost than I had ever felt in my life. I didn't know who I was, if I wasn't building this business I had been building for seven years, which was the point but it was really disorienting for two weeks and I had friends that were worried about me just being so aimless and directionless. And it was shortly after I pulled everything down that the dysphasia happened. And I remember one of my mentors saying is because you're you're locking everything down and you pulled it, he was just so upset that I pulled my website down because it didn't make any strategic sense. And I remember knowing that that wasn't why. But I pulled everything down. I drifted aimlessly for two weeks, in kind of a haze of depression and just feeling lost, the dysphasia happened. And after those things happened, a friend said to me, she looked at me and I was, I was a hot mess, like I had lost a ton of weight, because I couldn't eat or drink. I was just floating aimlessly. But I was also peaceful. I had nowhere to be in nothing to do nothing to create, no online persona to uphold, no clients at the time to respond to. And I was content to just be sometimes eating soup, and sometimes drinking juice. And she said to me, she looked at me and she said, you're in the space of all possibility and ultimate choice. And I was like that, that gave me goosebumps. That is it. And it was actually this really incredible time that sometimes I miss. And I knew that I would miss when it was gone. And I relished in it while it was there. Because in that moment, it would be easy to look at the circumstances and say, this is really scary. This is not smart, what are you doing with your life? But what I felt was, I have a blank canvas, I could literally do, be, go anything anywhere. And so I'm just going to sit here in this, and I'm going to enjoy how peaceful it is to not be striving, doing, creating, being. And I'm going to wait for the clarity to come in. And it was a handful of weeks later that like everything dropped in and everything got back in motion. But yeah, it was this really magical space. And I don't think we let ourselves get to those places, because we're so fearful, especially when we're not making money. When we're not doing if we know ourselves as a doer. If we're suddenly disconnected from everything that defined us. But it was this beautiful place, that I would not have the business that I have today the life that I have today, if I wasn't willing to do that.

Melissa Ebken  22:11  
Yeah, that's, that's amazing. I want to shift gears for a bit. And the link to your website is in the show notes. So feel free to follow us over to this site for this conversation. If you're listening to the podcast, unless you're driving, then know that you can go back later and click on this link and check it out. But on your website, you have a tab called Shop. Shop Our Products, and one of them near the bottom is called Make the Impossible Happen. That is so compelling to me. It's intriguing. Can you talk to us about what that is?

Stephanie Zamora  22:52  
Yes, I would love to. Incredible. Yes. So I became really obsessed about five years ago, six years ago now with this idea of making impossible things happen. And that's because I don't have it near me. But the book, the last word on Power by Tracy Goss is one of my personal Bibles for life. And her book is about executive reinvention for leaders who need to make the impossible happen, like in corporations and business and companies. But I find that it really applies to everything. So this is where my fascination with making the impossible happen started. But what I learned was, and this is what I say, in my marketing, like the secret to making the impossible happen isn't a secret. It's a process. And I know that to be true. Because I have studied this, in so many ways for the last five, six years of what is the actual process for making impossible things happen. It's not this woowoo magical thinking idea. It's not think happy thoughts and everything will change. It is an actual process that you can live. And so this, what you're looking at on the store is a is a workshop that goes into it, but I also have a free workbook that people can grab. And it's five different phases. And the first one is claiming your desire, you have to know what impossible thing you want in order to make it happen. And it has to be yours. So you have to know yourself, you have to be in alignment with what you care about what your values are, what you desire, your visions, your purpose. It can't be what you think you should be doing. It can't be ego based, it can't be what's expected of you. You have to want it or you won't be able to make it happen. So it starts with claiming the desire. And then the second phase is eliminating your stoppers. And so this gets into the subconscious stuff like we all have this winning strategy for how we stay as safe, secure, successful as we have been, up until this point. How we have achieved whatever level of love and belonging that we have comes from this winning strategy that was developed, like when we were babies. And so our conscious mind doesn't come online until about five to seven years old, which means until we're five to seven, we're just this wide open vessel who has no say about what we accept or reject. And so this belief system is formed. And we start to believe that some things are possible for us and others aren't. And then this winning strategy develops and further develops us as we grow. And we go out and live trying to be safe, secure, successful, have love and belonging, based on this belief that only some things are possible and others are not. So we behave and we engage with life in a very specific way to achieve results that we know are within our reach. And this winning strategy is what has kept us safe, secure and successful as you are right now. But it is the very thing standing in the way of what it's what makes what you desire that feels impossible, actually impossible. So anytime you're in your winning strategy, you are perpetually pushing it further and further away. And this is such a mind bendy thing. It was for me, what do you mean, the thing that made me this successful is why I can't have that like, that doesn't make sense. But once you see what it is, and you see how it's been influencing your life, and how it comes from this limiting belief system, you're just like, oh, and so our stoppers are the way our subconscious gets us to stop. And anytime we're in our subconscious winning strategy, like we've stopped ourselves from making the impossible happen. So we all want to skip this work. Because it also involves like our core traumas and core wounds. And this is ugly, and we don't like it. But you have to look at what stops you. Because it's stopping you, you have to understand it. And so that's the second phase. And the third one is, it's all about deciding and declaring. So I talk a lot about energetics, which, again, to me that's not woowoo. That's not magical thinking, we live in a frequency based Universe, it's measurable science, everything vibrates. And you know how it feels to be decided about something and to move in expectation of it. Even if that's just I decided that I'm ordering the burrito, and I expect the waiter to bring it to me, that's different than I don't know, maybe it would be nice if I wonder if maybe that will happen, it probably won't. So I should think that's different. energy, absolutely. So we have to be decided that it's happening, and declare that what we want is what we want and move in expectation of it. So that's kind of like energetics work, which is really just your state. Your decision. And then we move into a way of being work in the fourth stage. And that allows us to be the clearing for what it is that we want to come through. So if I am moving through life as the person who has what I want, this is not fake it till you make it this does not act as if, that has its place. This is again energetics and embodiment. I am embodying the version of me, that has the thing that I have decided I'm going to have that I expect to come regardless of whether or not my circumstances are anywhere near that. So if I decide that I'm going to make seven figures next year, I'm decided about that I am expecting it to happen, I am moving as that leader and that business owner, that person, they make this different decisions, they believe different things, they think different thoughts, they engage with life differently. So when we do that, we become a clearing for what we want to start moving towards us. Because now we're aligned with it. Like we're always in alignment, we just don't think about what we're in alignment with. But if I'm aligning myself with what I say want and I'm moving towards it, as a person that has it, it can't help but move towards me. And it shifts the odds in our favor. Because again, think about your odds of getting a burrito are different if you have decided that that is what you're getting, and you expect it and you move as a person who went to the place and ordered the thing. Versus someone who's thinking maybe I'd have a burrito that could be nice, like you're the odds are just inherently different. So we become the clearing for it through way of being work. And then the last stage is action, and bridging the gap. But when it comes to making the impossible happen, the action that we actually want to focus on is conversation. So conversations that we're engaged in internally and externally, are actually what move us towards what seems impossible versus just the doing like yes, we're doing but what conversations and how many of them are you engaged in around making the impossible happen? And the, I know I'm saying a lot, I'm almost done. The internal conversation is the really important one because as humans we interpret everything. So something happens, let's say my impossible desire is to I don't know publish number one best selling book, and I get a no from a publisher because I want to go the traditional route. If I tell a story about that, then I trigger my core wounds. And I tell stories about myself, other people, the world the universe is out to get me, nobody believes me this was a stupid idea. I activate my winning strategy and I go back to producing the results that feel within reach for me and I push number one best seller further and further away. All because I interpreted what happened. So the questions that we have to learn to ask ourselves are what really happened? Literally all that happened is that someone said no to you. Anything beyond that is a story and interpretation which just sends you on a spiral in the wrong direction. So if all that happened is I got a no what's missing? And what's missing is not what's wrong. What's wrong with me the book, the publisher, the world, what's missing for me to have what I want is a publisher that says yes, or just an option for publishing. And so when we can skip the interpretation and the spiral, we can look at what's missing without saying what's wrong, then we can ask what's next? Like, what conversations do I need to be engaged in? Either in what I'm doing or who I'm talking to, to get the thing that's missing to have what I want. So it keeps us in motion.

Yeah, the publisher that said no, actually got you closer. Yeah, because you had this big pool of possibility and you're narrowing it.

And no moves us forward as much as the yes.

Melissa Ebken  30:45  
This is fascinating. And I invite you all to click on that link. And check out Stephanie's website, there are so many different ways that you can benefit from working with her from her products, the book she has, so many things on this website, I really encourage you to check it out. And Stephanie, as we close today, I'm going to give you the last word, what would you like to leave the audience with today?

Stephanie Zamora  31:14  
Hmm, build the relationships yourself and your intuition. Because these journeys that we go on, all of them, the good ones, the expansive ones, the bad ones, the contractive ones, if you don't really know yourself, and you don't have that relationship to your intuition, like your body communicating with you what feels right, and what doesn't. It's really hard to discern what steps you need to take. And it's really easy to give our power away to other people and let them make decisions for us and to trust in them more than ourselves. And my story is an example of doing seemingly crazy and stupid things that were the best decision I could have made for myself, and I have so many of them beyond what I shared. And I couldn't have done that if I didn't have a relationship to myself and my intuition, and I couldn't discern what was right and wrong for me. And yeah, build that relationship and build that trust with yourself.

Melissa Ebken  32:09  
That's another function of the throat, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you, Stephanie.

Stephanie Zamora  32:15  
Thank you.

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