Xochitl Ashe (01:13)
Welcome everyone. I'm so happy to be here today because we have a guest that I've been journeying with. I think it's been about two years now that Amber came to one of our retreats and now she lives in Mexico City. is doing amazing things. And so I want to introduce Amber to you because I think that this conversation is going to be incredibly valuable if you are wanting to expand your healing toolbox and add microdosing to it. Especially microdosing, I believe, is a wonderful tool for these times. And here at Future Proof Earth, we are talking about, you know, what are the tools? are the practices? What is the wisdom that is gonna help us as this world is rapidly changing? So welcome, Amber.

Amber Hickman (02:29)
Yay, thank you. It's happy to be here.

Xochitl Ashe (02:31)
Yeah. So Amber is a psychedelic integrator and facilitator specializing in activating visionary creativity and guiding individuals to design the life they truly want. Through psilocybin assisted integration, she helps people break through limiting patterns, gain clarity and cultivate the drive to create their future. Her journey began in 2020 with deep personal exploration and research into the healing power of mushrooms. Since then, she's worked with hundreds worldwide, offering education and support for personal growth and expanded awareness. Amber is passionate about normalizing psychedelic conversations and creating safe space for learning. With a background in energy healing, life coaching, and art, she bridges visionary states with real world transformation. While continuously learning, she helps individuals not just heal, but step fully into their creative power and purpose.

Amber Hickman (03:35)
It's good!

Xochitl Ashe (03:39)
Yes, it's so good. So I'm happy to have you here because, you know, I always love to talk to folks who have been in the retreats, who've had those deep, large dives into the medicine world. And then, you know, it impacts their work. And so you came to Mexico to this retreat and you were starting to shift your life in a drastic way. happened prior to the fires in Maui where you were living. And you had already, before you came into our retreat in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, you were already nomadic with your partner.

Amber Hickman (04:21)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Xochitl Ashe (04:35)
and then the Maui fires happened.

Amber Hickman (04:39)
Yeah, and I was already in Mexico and there is nowhere to go home to. So I continued my journey and now I'm still here.

Xochitl Ashe (04:51)
Yeah, and I really, I thought about having you in this podcast because, you know, I just had another friend, Eden Tull, who is a mindfulness teacher and she lost everything when the floods came in North Carolina. And just more and more, you know, people that I love have gone through these experiences of getting affected by massive natural events, right? Like we just went through the LA fires and have a lot of friends. Unfortunately, that lost their homes. And I think this is gonna happen more and more and more as climate change, is increasing as the world is just going through so much right now. So when you found out that the fires were going on in Maui, what happened? Give us some of your experience so that perhaps folks can.

Amber Hickman (06:12)
Yeah, was, yeah, was, I was already, I was in Sayulita at the time and my mom and my sister and her kids and so my family was all in Lahaina in different places. And when it had happened, we were watching things through social media. unfold in different ways. And I had talked to my mom the day before and she was preparing to send some things and there was a, we were just talking and I could hear the wind in the background, slamming the windows. And it was already really intense before the fires. The winds were just incredible. And it was a little concerning, definitely even just being on the phone and hearing some of that. And then, when the following, the fires had happened that night and that later that afternoon and that night and had brushed through and the following day it was just chaos. I all just had a sickness in my stomach and looking at the damage that was done through different social media platforms and friends and hearing my sister and they had lost power so I was unable to connect with them and we actually didn't know where my mom was for a couple of days. So that was really difficult. We weren't even sure if all the houses were gone because they had, my sister and her family had evacuated and they couldn't, they tried to go get to my mom and they couldn't get to her because it was already really bad and there was fallen trees on the roads and there was so much chaos that was happening. And I just felt so helpless being so far away and not being able to go in and try to help myself personally. But we ended up, my mom ended up making it out. She, her story, she's such a little warrior. She had ridden out with somebody on the back of a motorcycle and just, but she was in a really devastating area where a lot of people had jumped into the ocean because that was their only escape. And so for a while I was like, did she end up in the ocean? What, you know, just really is just so terrifying and still the ripple effects are still ongoing for us and for everybody in the community. It's not just because it had happened a year and a half ago and a lot of people like myself who have to move on and continue because we still have to feed ourselves and live and find shelter and all of the things. the ripple effects are just ongoing and in different ways. And it was just very devastating and simultaneously really changed the trajectory of the direction that we were all going in by losing such a tight-knit, beautiful community. Everybody, even just my friends and just a bunch of people, they're all spread out all over the place now and I can still see everybody processing a lot of the grief. And so there's a lot of need and room for grieving even just a little bit out of time before we can even think about what comes next.

Xochitl Ashe (09:51)
And then you took a trip to back to Maui, I remember.

Amber Hickman (10:00)
Yeah, I ended up back in Maui for, well, because I was already traveling, all of my stuff and everything that I had owned was also with my family. So we all lost everything. My mom, she's a master oil painter and she was going to have an art show at the gallery she worked at, which was also in Lahaina. So she lost a huge body of work and and her computer with her hard drive and all the backups and everything. it's just such a big loss for her. And then as well as all of our pictures and diplomas, just everything is just wiped away in such a quick amount of time. And so I had started to reinvest in my business with people in Maui and then that ended up... not working out. So I had to go back and get the little things that I had reinvested in and then help my mom with her storage space because she had like a small storage that ended up not burning down, which was kind all there was. And so when I went back, it was actually really interesting part of my process that I didn't realize that I needed because I had been gone while all this was happening. I definitely was. processing from afar with people, right? Just, man, it's, and for me, because yeah, I wasn't there physically, a lot of my focus went into helping other people and I didn't really realize my need to process this as well. And so when I went back, was... very therapeutic to be able to sit with some of my friends who were still, and this was a year later, who were still living in hotels and very much still displaced and talking about all of us sharing our different experiences. Some people who were there, some people who weren't there, but all of us so connected in this trauma. And that was really... healing for me to be able to be in physical space with people while we're processing together and see how my experience was also part of that, part of that whole. I feel it was really interesting because then I, with that, it actually gave me a lot more, I did feel like a release. of some of the grief by being able to process it with others in the community. It was really helpful for my heart and my healing process. And then within days, I just felt so much more strength in my ability to stand and walk forward on my journey. And I ended up supporting other people, other friends of mine that I ended up connecting with with their process and their grief as well. And... And when I came back from that trip, I felt that I had gone through a piece of a soul retrieval experience, which I had not had that type of experience before, but it really felt there was a whole part of my spirit that I identify as being in my left leg that I had retrieved on that trip. so when I came back, I recognized that huge shift of me being able to walk with my whole self. I didn't, it's because of that contrasting experience, I recognized that there was a piece of me that was, still had my spirit in Maui and was still with them throughout the year and, and like feeling like I was straddling two different realities and had a really hard time moving forward when so much of me was still over there and felt in a way guilty and having survivor's guilt as well of not being able to support my community in the way that I would have liked to. So it was in a way beautiful for me to be able to see through that lens of my own personal experience of what it is like to not only witness such a big trauma, but experience it and then see how my mom is processing it as well. And then my sister and my nieces and nephew who also, man, my niece, she was I think seven or eight at the time. And before they had driven out of town to try to get out and evacuate because there was no evacuation notices. So people were very much in that space. Should we, shouldn't we? And it was... very much a big question because there was no alarms, there's nothing that went out for everybody to be able to prepare themselves. And my little niece, my sister told me she started crying and looking at the trees and saying the trees had scary monster faces on them and the trees were very scary. And so it was because of her vision and her... ⁓ fear really that got my family to get out of there. And I think that if they had waited any longer, think the story would have been completely different. So, ⁓ yeah. So for me, it's been interesting to have such a variety of different experiences within my very close personal family and then my friends and be able to, ⁓ I think that it's helped me a lot to understand these bigger traumas in a different way and there's no time limit on grieving them as well. It's not, I did that thing and now I went over there and I healed in this ceremony and then it's just over now. That's not the way that these things process through the body and the spirit. And so in a way, I am humbled and grateful for the knowledge that I have gained in this experience and the humility around such a big event that I also feel that in some ways it has prepared me for things for the future as well. And then when the hurricane or the floods happened in North Carolina, a really close friend of mine was there as well. And I just, I knew how to step into a support even from afar. I sent him a grocery list of things because he couldn't even think about how to even take care of himself. just like, I remember this. You don't even know what to do, what to eat, what to wear. If you should even brush your hair. It's just so much confusion because you're in the trauma. So there was just a lot that came with that experience for me.

Xochitl Ashe (17:09)
Hmm. I love that. This way, we've you shared this with me because it had just happened, and I think that's when we met in Mexico City and you shared that you had talked to our friend, Colter, and and. And he was in our ceremony. No, he had come before on retreat before you came. So.

Amber Hickman (17:25)
Mmm, yeah. Yeah.

Xochitl Ashe (17:37)
Yeah, I wanted to bring this up because, as I said, know, it it it takes agility. This time really takes agility. I've been thinking a lot about, you know, the word resiliency and how we've already been so resilient and resiliency is a powerful quality to have. But I think that the world right now is asking us to be agile. Like resiliency is is like staying in one place and and just making the best of it and just moving through the muck. Agility is exactly how you showed up for Coulter, which was like, OK, I've been through this before. You're so confused. You don't know what's going on because it's so traumatic. Let me give you a shopping list so you could be a little bit lighter through this moment. And so how I just want to tie that in, because now you are based in Mexico City. which I really love that about you. You decided to just make a whole new city your home and a city not in your same country, right? And then you have been supporting people in Mexico City with microdosing. So tell me about that journey.

Amber Hickman (19:00)
Yeah, it's been really interesting. I will say one more thing about the experience with the fire first, and then I'll talk a little bit about this. But what really helped me in the time that that was happening was that my neighbor in Sayulita, I was freshly crying and just telling her as things were happening. And she had told me something that she had heard on somebody else's podcast. So I'm not sure where this came from. but it has helped me so tremendously. And she was saying that when there's a big trauma, like a big event like this, it creates a crater. And everything that has been impacted by that trauma is in this giant crater. And sometimes when we are encountering and talking to people that have also been affected, a lot of times people just want somebody to look at the crater with them and not necessarily try to fix it, try to make them feel better, not necessarily like bypassing things like, well, at least you didn't die or saying, you know, things that people tend to say because they're not sure how to handle that type of emotion and grief. as easy as, you know, as small as the little pencil that my grandma gave me is gone. It might seem insignificant, but all of these little things are part of this giant crater. And so a lot of the support from that little statement that she had told me about, we came from this idea of like, yeah, sometimes we just need somebody to witness this with us and say, yeah, your grief isn't... bigger than this other person's grief or smaller and there's no comparison. It's just all part of this crater and sometimes we just have to be there to look at it with people. And I think that this has been supportive in my journey here or in my process of supporting people just overall because each person comes with a whole universe of experiences and generational trauma and generational blessings and so much magic that is involved with each spirit that I connect with that at times I am assessing. Like, is this a moment where you just want me to witness your story with you? Or is this, there's something that I can support you with? So the way that I approach this being here as well as anywhere really is that I am part of the community. I am an active participant in your community for whomever comes into my space. And I want people to feel empowered to follow their natural guidance that's with them, their guidance from their ancestors or their spirits, as well as the guidance of others, right? Because I don't know everything, of course, nobody does. And it was interesting coming to Mexico because I was thinking, ⁓ this is where the indigenous peoples have held this medicine for so many generations. I was so excited to come here and to be a student and to learn more. And which is what led me to actually go to your retreat, Xóchitl. And just be in community and just be with people that have longer lineage of this understanding and I still am on that quest in my learning. But when I came here I was like, maybe I am not going to do this business anymore because there's already so much, so many people, so much medicine here, there's so much and I'm just, I'm stepping into somebody else's world. This isn't my world in a way, right? Very quickly, the mushrooms were like, nope, like there's still a need for this. And so what I found the need was from my perspective in the people that I was encountering was the need for guidance around how much do I take? What is too much? What am I supposed to expect? So I tend to work with a lot of people. that have never tried it before or just have very limited knowledge and experience and want to engage or feel curious for themselves about engaging or learning how to heal, whatever it is that they're trying to heal, and just need some guidance around what's safe. How do I know that this microdose that I'm getting at the farmer's market is okay? you know, or they'll, you'll buy microdoses and they might be stronger for some people and not as strong for others. And so I've met a lady that early on that had said that she was microdosing with somebody and it was very obvious that she was microdosing way too much. And she ended up developing an anxiety disorder through it. And the person that was helping her ⁓ was just telling her, just push through it and take more. And she was having paranoid issues at home and not able to leave the house. And I was like, wow, I would have immediately told you to just stop and like, let's get centered and, and reevaluate why, you know, so the way that I handle this for myself and with other people is I'm not here. In a recreational way that's that's there for people that need that or want that. but I'm here to really take it very slow and be very intentional and help people see where their boundaries are in the exploration of it of Yeah at this level you're not functional. You're not able to work So that's probably not gonna be your baseline dose and at these levels you want them to be sub perceptual for this or that reason and Some people use this protocol for this reason and some people use that protocol for that reason. And so just building a space for the conversation. So I actually have microdosing groups come to my space and it's really this turning into this other thing where I realized that now I have some religious trauma from just growing up in the past. And so. There's something though about having a spiritual or relationship with spirit and having a place like for example, a church where people get together and intentionally pray and commune with their spiritual beliefs. And I think that that's something that's missing in some, in a lot of our... like new agey, it's like not new agey, but just in general, it's like that spiritual connection, I know I was missing. And because I didn't have that and because I was told I was going to hell because of my preferences for this, that, and the other thing, even when I was just so young and didn't even know who I was, I was like, wow, I'm going to hell? Well, this isn't the kind of spirituality that I need then. And I became completely destructive because I felt very much abandoned by spirit. And I didn't realize that that's what I was processing, but I find that that is very common for a lot of us that have been cut off from our ancestry or from our cultures. I'm not Hawaiian and I grew up in Hawaii, so I always had this, I'm not Hawaiian, I'm an outsider, I'm a foreigner. no matter how you look at it, that's been my story since I was a small child. So I had to really learn how to engage with other people's cultures because that's the only thing I had exposure to. And then the culture that I was given was damning me to hell. So I called myself a lost soul for a long time because I didn't have a home and I didn't know what that even meant. I just felt completely... an outsider at all times and I find that this is so very common for so many people. And so part of my journey has been how do we help to bridge people that don't feel any sort of ownership over their spiritual journey and they're trying not to appropriate and trying not to be disrespectful but still wanting to connect and find a real anchor point in some of these bigger questions like, why are we here? Who's protecting me? Who's, you know, and when I met you Xóchitl, I was saying, I think I had said this to you, but I was like, I don't have a relationship with my ancestors in this way because I just was never taught. And there was a lot of the ones that we did know about were not the ones I was trying to call on, you know? So that was some really beautiful pieces that I had learned from you just by being in your space. which has now helped me to shift in the way that I perceive that and can practice into that. that's where this part of me that can be very visionary in a way is like, how do we support the modern day and create bridges to some of these ancient indigenous knowledge in a way that's respectful and allows people to feel inclusive because there's a lot of people that feel very excluded for. For very good reason, think that that was maybe on purpose.

Xochitl Ashe (29:17)
Mm, I love that. just love I want to I just want to acknowledge, you know, just the work you're doing. And I'm always like, you know, a proud, a proud friend, just seeing, seeing how much you're shining and and and exactly that, like you've come to a place of great insight in that. think my my work has always been Like how do you give access with honoring, right? And so I hear you doing this as well and that makes me so happy because ultimately it's like I never wanted to be a gatekeeper. I don't think that the reason why you go to an indigenous person to...

Amber Hickman (29:51)
Yeah.

Xochitl Ashe (30:10)
to learn some of the indigenous traditions is because they are the gatekeepers of these traditions, but it's more because you just want to hear the more authentic wisdom. And ultimately, if you're an indigenous teacher that has a deep understanding that the bigger picture of it all is that we are really all brothers and sisters here. Right? And that there, for me, it's not about being a gatekeeper, it's about being a wisdom keeper, which is very different. There's like such a deep distinction that I've really had to make in my work. And I hear you making that same distinction, which is, know, a gatekeeper is like, well, I have the knowledge and you can only get it from me if you are allowed, if you are special or...

Amber Hickman (31:04)
Mm-hmm.

Xochitl Ashe (31:09)
if you come to me in the right way. A wisdom keeper is I have this knowledge because it was transferred to me through generations and I don't want it to get lost. Therefore, I'm safe keeping it to be shared because it's needed at this time. Right. So it's it's like being a wisdom keeper is really

Amber Hickman (31:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Xochitl Ashe (31:37)
like a guardian of information that is meant to be shared at a moment when it's most needed. And I think this is now the moment when it's most needed. don't, mean, I don't, what other moment have we needed this information, right? And I also, like as an indigenous person myself, also love to say that, like, it's not, it's not like the knowledge.

Amber Hickman (31:53)
Nyeh.

Xochitl Ashe (32:07)
has to stay the same. Some people are really like sticklers for like, no, it has to be this way exactly. And I'm like, no, we are evolving humans. so we have to evolve, the traditions have to evolve in a way that they become practical for people during this time. And so even though microdosing is an indigenous You know, it has an indigenous background like it evolved for this time and that other people came, you know, and said, ⁓ we want to take mushrooms in small doses and we want to make a protocol around it. We're going to call it micro dosing. But it is an like indigenous people that worked with mushrooms have micro dose that they haven't. called it microdosing. And so I'm really happy that you're holding the space in the crater, as you said, you know, for people, because I think it's like losing everything is a trauma that is so ancient, but is now once again being experienced by humanity. Like I think a lot of generations have gone through like,

Amber Hickman (33:27)
Mm-hmm.

Xochitl Ashe (33:31)
They were born and they died without the experience of losing everything. Right? Like maybe they got sick and they died, but their family home was still there. So I think it's been multiple generations for some of us. can't say that it's everyone in the world, because I think this war has been ongoing, violence has been ongoing, poverty has been ongoing, but for a lot of us,

Amber Hickman (33:43)
Yeah.

Xochitl Ashe (34:01)
especially in the Western world, we haven't had that experience in our lifetimes of having to lose everything. And yet... You know, we must honor everybody's experience and so many people have their own personal craters that they're going through. Right. Like they were hit and there was a crater and maybe it's, you know, the death of a loved one. Maybe it's moving to a new city and everything or losing a job or, you know. But I think that there's a collective. I was going to say collaborative, but it's a collective.

Amber Hickman (34:34)
Mm-hmm.

Xochitl Ashe (34:44)
crater that we're feeling right now. And so how do you think that in this collective crater, we're watching massive change unfold so rapidly, I think that that's what it is, know? The speed of it unfolding. How do you think microdosing is to support us at this time?

Amber Hickman (35:57)
Well, I think in general, mushrooms are such a connector, right? The mycelium network and the spirit of the mushroom being very playful and there's so much about that spirit that is so powerful that as we engage with it, I mean, Not everybody has the time and space to go and do big ceremony, should everybody do that, especially if they're in very acute trauma, traumatic situations and can't maybe process everything. I mean, you know, there's reasons for everything, but I think the microdosing has been supportive in a way of, because it is such a support to the nervous system, I find that people can access some healing in small bits along the way while working with this very intelligent spirit. just with, same with larger macro journeys as well as micro doses, there is a lesson or a learning or an experience or a teaching that can come every time you take a microdose. And what I've been working with my groups with is to be very intentional and treat it as it should be as a sacred medicine where you're not just taking a microdose and going about your day. I mean, you kind of are because that's what microdosing is supportive for so you can still be present in your life. kind of like opening up the awareness of what is the teacher trying to teach me, right? And helping to maybe flush some things out of the nervous system as well as create new connections. And I find that on this subtle level, some of the ladies that I'm working with are healing some really deep stuff in it's coming through in such a gentle way that just Just the other day, one of the girls was talking to me about or saying how she has the story of how she was very severely rejected by her father and her grandmother. And it's a story that whenever she tells, she gets very emotional and she's bawling and she's had depression for quite a long time. And the microdosing has supported her, first of all, to not feel so depressed every day. It kind of helped to flush out some of that, that she just doesn't need. And then she did have an experience of talking with us in our integration circle and telling her story and crying. And then the next week she had said that after that cry that she had, in that integration circle, being witnessed by... a community of other ladies. Within a few days, she had told the same story and it was the first time she could tell the story and didn't feel all of the emotions come out and explode in her body. It's like, wow, that is so, it's like not just subtle, it's actually a really big shift for her to experience that having had this story for so many years. And it's just beautiful to see how people can kind of flush some of the old stuff out of their system so that they can work on the things that are at hand. so microdosing also has been supporting people with just being very present, right? The presence is where the awareness is. So getting into the habit, and I tell them the rituals or the habits that they're practicing while microdosing, essentially the way that the science talks about it is that you're practicing these new neural pathways to be more proactive. with your self-care as opposed to feeling very reactive when there's just so much to deal with. So that in and of itself has been such a beautiful gift that I see these ladies giving to themselves just by being curious and wanting to go down a path that is not, you know, at this point it's kind of normal, I guess, in some areas, but it's just, it's not antidepressants and just, Thinking good happy thoughts and hoping that you're just gonna feel happy after a cute little mindset shift, know? So there's just such a physiological shift that can happen with this beautiful medicine.

Xochitl Ashe (40:50)
Thank you for that. Yeah, I think that what I appreciate most about microdosing is the gentleness of it. And even though it it doesn't feel gentle at times because it brings up, know, people think that like, microdosing, it's always going to be good. mean, I think sometimes it will bring up things that you need to see that you haven't seen.

Amber Hickman (41:18)
Absolutely.

Xochitl Ashe (41:20)
And that might be hard, but what I love about it is that it kind of gives it to you in small ways that you can handle versus something that could re-traumatize you because it's so intense to your system to see. Yeah, so how has it been to be in Mexico for you?

Amber Hickman (41:39)
Yeah. It's beautiful. I really love it here. This is one of the more beautiful cities that I've been to. And I'm taking all my Spanish classes and working on being even more, having more ability to have these deeper conversations with people that just speak a different language than me, you know, so. That's been really an interesting process because language is a technology as well. So seeing how the lens of seeing things through a different language is also different than maybe the words and the context and the way they use the verbs, right? It's just a, can be a totally different technology that you can tap into. So. It's been really beautiful for me to experience different levels of the culture and the progressiveness honestly that's out here. And this, feels safe. It feels really safe to me. So that has been lovely because I, there's definitely unsafe places everywhere. So I feel very lucky and very privileged to be able to have kind of a nest while I try to take care of myself and figure out how to build my life back up again in a different way. And it's bringing in different puzzle pieces I didn't expect. And it's helping me because my family lineage is from Panama on my mother's side. So it's really nice because it's quite literally a bridge in a way as land masses go is a literal bridge to Panama for me. But it has been helping me to get closer to my own like bloodlines, I guess, and I threw a different avenue because there's just so much trauma all over. I'm like not ready to face it directly in some ways, but I think that I've been with the support of the way that the culture here believes and communes with spirit. It's been really helping me to heal some of those generational wounds actually. And yeah, and even on my deep dives with bigger medicine journeys, which I don't do very often, but the last two times in this last year and a half that I have engaged in that way have been deeply, deeply healing with generational trauma and ancestry coming up. So I believe that it's because I'm here, something about the energy and the way that people have been working with their ancestors and spirits here on this land has been really powerful and feels like it has invited me in. And so that feels really beautiful. I mean, come from Hawaii. Hawaii is also its own beautiful, incredible culture and incredibly charged land. So I think that that kind of helps me to be able to feel the energy of the land in and of itself and the different vibration that I'm now communicating with in a way. And it's just been really lovely. It's been really lovely. It's making me even more curious of what other doors can I open or how much deeper can I go or what other things are out there that I just have never even considered or I'm just so curious to see what else is presented.

Xochitl Ashe (45:32)
Well, thank you so much. I'm so glad you came on the podcast. I have one last question for you. As we're closing, what is one piece of wisdom that has really helped you navigate these massive changes? You know, the fires burning, one of the things that you didn't share here, but I know from our conversations is that the fire burned. You were storing all of your stuff at your mom's.

Amber Hickman (46:02)
Mm-hmm.

Xochitl Ashe (46:02)
So thinking like, I'm gonna travel and this is my safe space to put all of my childhood objects and all of the things that are most important to me that I didn't sell to go on this big journey of travel. And it all got burned down. So, you know, what is one, and I know that there's many, right? But one piece of wisdom.

Amber Hickman (46:06)
Totally.

Xochitl Ashe (46:31)
that has supported you throughout all these massive changes and transitions that you've gone through, that you know that if you share it with our listeners, it's gonna be so helpful to them, such good medicine for them.

Amber Hickman (46:48)
Yeah, thank you for the question. For me, it continually comes back to presence, where I find that I'm having to reflect constantly. Where am I? What am I experiencing right now? And what can I do to support myself in this moment? And that question, the answers can very much be different from day to day. So on some days is a day for grief. Some days, some moments are a day for remembering. Some moments are a time for, okay, I got to put on my pants and go and make things happen and look forward. And some moments are confusing. And in those moments, I find that There's always a third option. It's not just a left and a right or an up and a down. There's a whole other potential that can be here. So sometimes I look at, well, what's the third option that I'm not considering? What's the creative collaboration between these potentials that I might be engaging in right now? so in that moment where I feel very confused on what it is I need to do, I try to tap into some creativity if that's there for me. Otherwise, it's just moment by moment self-care. And it's helped me to, you know, at times just let go and just move forward and look forward and see the potential that life has to give us because life looks very different than it did in our trajectory for me and my family, but it's not worse. It's in some ways has has gifted us a lot of things. And I think that because of the immense community support that came in after the fire was a huge support for our healing to be able to see how the community comes together. So for me, again, it's just presence, just getting into the present moment, figuring out what it is that could support you the most right now and just act on those things. So yeah, it can be very different, but I think that's a proactive way to just not abandon yourself in the situation when it's hard.

Xochitl Ashe (49:21)
Yes, I love it. Do not abandon yourself when it's hard. Thanks everyone. Thanks Amber for joining us. Yeah, so much love.

Amber Hickman (49:31)
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah.