Using Dreams to Heal Trauma and Find Purpose with Erin Amundson

Featured Guest

Erin Amundson loves helping people reconnect to their “natural technology” by decoding the language of dreams. She is a depth psychologist who specializes in teaching ambitious people how to identify and remove barriers to success and make friends with their subconscious mind. As the creator/founder of Natural Dream Technology, Erin knows that a uniquely talented visionary lies hidden beneath the surface of your conscious mind, and she wants the world to benefit from your contribution.

After several fights with her own subconscious mind (and a recurring nightmare about skipping classes and failing), Erin finally surrendered to her own inner wisdom and collected a second graduate degree in Counseling at Regis University. A lifelong follower of dreams, Erin now began to learn something about their true power to heal trauma and guide us into our potential. Just as Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Steven Spielberg all discovered for themselves, Erin began to recognize her dreams as one of the most vital sources for guidance in living by unique design. She loves helping her clients reclaim their connection to their own natural technology and discovering its incredible power for themselves.

episode transcription

Heather Clark  00:01

Welcome to Unshakable Being, the podcast with inspiration and practical tools for purpose led leaders like you to relieve stress, build resilience, and unlock vitality in your life, body and business. I am Dr. Heather Clark, and I’ll be your host.

Heather Clark  00:19

Hello and welcome back to the show. Today, the guest is Erin Amundson. I’m really excited to talk with her. Erin loves helping people reconnect to their natural technology by decoding the language of dreams. She is a depth psychologist who specializes in teaching ambitious people how to identify and remove barriers to success and make friends with their subconscious mind. Erin, welcome to the show.

Erin Amundson  00:43

Thank you, Heather. I’m so glad to be here.

Heather Clark  00:48

I am overjoyed to have you here. For the listeners, we spoke briefly–gosh it’s been a few weeks ago now. And there were so many juicy things from this conversation that I would want to get to. But where I want to start, is you had talked about using dreams, and maybe not so much like the vision for your life, but actual dreams from sleeping. And I want to know how we can use those dreams to heal trauma.

Erin Amundson  01:18

Yeah, thank you, Heather.

Erin Amundson  01:20

It’s probably one of the more fascinating applications of dreamwork that I’ve encountered in my practice. And of course, as a psychotherapist, my main intention with people is working to heal anything in the past that may be holding them back in their lives.

Erin Amundson  01:38

So I do a lot of trauma work. And previously, I thought that dreams and trauma work didn’t actually go together. So a lot of therapists will use techniques like at EMDR, or somatic getting into the body therapy and dreams seem sort of, well, I don’t know out there to some people and a little more magical. But what I discovered was that clients were coming in with a couple of different types of dreams related to their trauma.

Erin Amundson  02:12

And one of those that’s a common experienced is called sleep paralysis. And that is a dream where the dreamer is their body is asleep, but their mind is awake. So they are sort of frozen physically. And often people who have experienced trauma will have a reoccurring experience of an intruder coming into their home or their room. And they are totally frozen and unable to do anything about it. Because they are actually in fact asleep.

Erin Amundson  02:47

Other common types of dreams related to trauma, of course, would be a nightmare, that is somehow reliving a traumatic event or related to a fear or anxiety around that event. So often people with these kinds of dreams think that they are destined to just, you know, keep dreaming this way and that they’re never going to get good sleep. And all they can do is learn to cope with and manage the symptoms of trauma.

Erin Amundson  03:16

One of the most fascinating things that I have found in my work, as I felt there was something more that could be done. As a dream worker. I found that if I could recreate the dream state but the client awake. And by recreate the dream state I literally mean slow down the frequency of the brainwaves to match the frequency that our brainwaves operate at while we’re asleep.

Erin Amundson  03:48

And that happens through guided meditation or hypnosis process. So when we recreate the dream state in the room, the client and I together can enter back into the dream and change aspects of what’s happening there. So in essence, we’re sort of rewriting the dream story in that moment. And that might include adding in helpers are heroes that may come to the rescue against this intruder. That may include writing in a storyline where there’s an alarm clock that goes off to the dream or wakes up in time. That may ultimately include the dreamer themselves Becoming Empowered to fight or chased the intruder off.

Erin Amundson  04:39

When it comes to a trauma dream that’s recreating an actual story of trauma. It’s the same kind of thing. So we can rewrite that story. And what happens then, is the subconscious that has been storing the trauma for so long, has a new neuro connection formed. So the dreamer now has a felt sense of safety, where that trauma once lived.

Heather Clark  05:12

There’s so much that I love about that. So if I’m understanding correctly, it isn’t just waiting for another dream. It’s really recreating the dream state, through meditation through hypnosis, and rewriting the story, which that is what creates that new subconscious neural connection. And then that heals the trauma or participates in healing of trauma .

Erin Amundson  05:38

Participates in healing the trauma, I would say. And then beyond that, yes, there is practicing those new neural connections, because the trauma connection has become so ingrained over time as as the brain repeats, that synapses and repeats that mental experience. And it’s really a chemical experience as well, the emotions, emotions release chemicals from our brain into our body that really is hardwired and has been there, usually for a long time, by the time someone comes to see me.

Erin Amundson  06:17

So the other piece of that is to practice the new way, the new storyline and make that the hardwired connection.

Heather Clark  06:26

And how does one begin to do that?

Erin Amundson  06:30

I think that we can begin actually in the dreamwork. And then if you’re talking about the pattern of practicing the rewiring, it’s a commitment. To me, it’s much like working out. So you could work out for a week, and your muscles might be sore, and there might be a little bit of change. And if you stop working out, your muscles will return to the state they were in, prior to working out.

Erin Amundson  06:58

So it really becomes more of a way of being with yourself more of a way of being in your mental space. As well as opening up that relationship to the subconscious. So many people are afraid of what they’re going to find if they start diving into the subconscious mind. And what I say often is, whatever is there is there, whether you find it or not. If you choose to avoid the relationship, that whatever’s there has power over you. And so that’s one way to think about it. Yeah.

Heather Clark  07:44

So it really has the feeling like once you make that new connection, it’s continuing to practice that new connection, which is part of it isn’t like a one and done. Oh, you’re healed! It sounds like it’s more like no, no, this is really stepping into this new way of being that is more functional. And then really moving forward with that.

Erin Amundson  08:05

Yeah, and I will say a few things there. One, everyone is different in terms of what they need to heal. So the person doing the healing is the expert on saying whether one and done is enough, or it needs to be more of a practice or it needs a lot of tending the trauma.

Erin Amundson  08:26

And two, there are I have had experiences with clients where they have healed or transformed a very big piece of a trauma in one session working on a dream. So it can be this almost reawakening or rebirth experience. But again, it’s an intuitive process, it’s a flow, there is not really like one way that it works.

Heather Clark  08:59

There’s no trauma blueprint, that’s for sure.

Erin Amundson  09:01

Yeah.

Heather Clark  09:04

But I was really getting more at the whole, not only creating that new connection, that new neural connection, but maintaining that new neural connection

Erin Amundson  09:12

Yeah

Heather Clark  09:13

and I just was wondering if Was that something more about Okay, well, this is more behaving as if it’s healed? Or is this creating new habits? Or how does one maintain that particular neural connection?

Erin Amundson  09:29

So I like to use the metaphor of hiking trails, because I’m an avid hiker, when I talk about neural connections, and if you’ve ever been on a hiking trail or walking path, where you see maybe it was muddy and a bunch of people walked around it. Eventually you see this whole new path is formed because so many people have walked that path back and forth, that it’s almost its own new path.

Erin Amundson  09:55

And our neural connections work much the same way. The more we follow a path in our brain The deeper the grooves are in terms of how, how wired it becomes.

Erin Amundson  10:08

Trauma in our brains leaves a very deep and penetrating divot initially, because it is such an intense experience for the brain to process. And then most people, whether it is subconsciously or consciously replay that trauma in different ways, repeatedly until they are able to get some kind of treatment or care for that trauma.

Erin Amundson  10:38

So, when we are rewiring when we’re changing out of a trauma and healing out of a trauma, and we have a new storyline, that’s not to deny that the trauma happened. But it is to say, I’m not in the trauma currently, because the brain when it replays the trauma thinks that the body is in danger, currently, and that’s harmful to our mental health, but also harmful to our physical health.

Erin Amundson  11:04

That’s releasing way too much cortisol into the body and creates all kinds of problems. The new wiring says something like this trauma happened. But right now, this is what’s happening. Right now I am safe right now I am, you know, thriving right now I’m healthy. So just like walking that trail over and over is what it took to make the new kind of hiking detour, we kind of went to walk those trails in our brain repeatedly for them to become wired. So then you have what looks like more of a natural pathway.

Erin Amundson  11:42

And it becomes easier and easier to live from that new neural connection from that new story. So it becomes easier to wake up feeling safe. So I you know, I didn’t have any nightmares. And I’m safe in the world today, at least in this moment. Does that help explain more of the process?

Heather Clark  12:03

That explains it  beautifully.

Heather Clark  12:06

just beautifully. Love that. Thank you. Um, so here’s I just really interested on your take on this. And I understand that this is kind of a really big question, but tell me what are dreams?

Erin Amundson  12:22

Oh, gosh, that is the big question. like, Well, I can tell you what I have come to understand up until this moment in time in my own experience with greens and and I will say that that is going to be limited in terms of the definition of what dreams are. But since I have been in relationship to my dreams for my entire life, I have studied and learned and intuited a lot about them.

Erin Amundson  12:57

So to answer what are dreams, dreams are many things.

Erin Amundson  13:00

Sometimes dreams are premonitory. There are several people that I work with, who have dreams with information about people in their lives that may be warning signs or alerting them to something coming. So common dreams like that would be dreaming that a friend is pregnant and then finding out a week later, your friend announces that she’s pregnant. Sometimes people have dreams about accidents or deaths prior to them happening, that can be frightening for people. Because I think we’ve become somewhat disconnected from the purpose or meaning of visionary information and our common culture and our modern day world. But that’s what it is visionary information. So prime premonitory dreams are one type.

Erin Amundson  13:53

Dreams also can be visitation from loved ones who passed on. And I myself have had a few of those dreams. They’re quite powerful and they don’t actually, they don’t actually feel the same as but like a standard common dream. And I’ve talked with many people and heard many stories about loved ones coming through the veil, either to give some guidance to the person or just maybe to say, Hey, I’m okay. Things are alright. Those are two of the big types of dreams.

Erin Amundson  14:29

So dreams can also be as in the trauma dream indicators of blockages in our subconscious. So dreams can tell us the storylines of what might be holding us back in life. And those often look like anxiety dreams, you know, missing the bus or failing a test or having to go to the dentist. So if you have to struggle with anxiety, your dreams might present you with that material. But dreams can also give you information about relationships, jobs, living situations, and habits that are holding you back that are blocking you from maybe your next level of expression or your full potential.

Erin Amundson  15:19

And then the other thing that I’ll say about what dreams are dreams, on the other hand, will alert you to undeveloped strengths, undeveloped talents, or unconscious talents, and showing you a little bit about your path as its unfolding. If that’s something that you are willing and able to see there.

Erin Amundson  15:47

The last kind of dream that I mentioned briefly is lucid dreaming. And that is, for people who don’t know when you become conscious inside of a dream. So you’re dreaming, but you know that you’re dreaming, and you can kind of write the dream as you’re in it, you can decide what to do next. So it’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure kind of experience.

Heather Clark  16:12

I love that. There is a lot really fascinating about all of this. And I think the first place I’d like to go is the dreams that are alerting you to your undeveloped talents and strengths. That I’m not sure that I’ve heard very much about that before. Can you share more about maybe what those dreams are like? What types of things are shown? And then how can you use that information to move forward?

Erin Amundson  16:41

Yeah, so the best example that I can use is from my own life, because that’s all really right on the surface for me. Oh, about 10 years ago, I had a reoccurring dream about going back to college or something. And I was studying astrology at the time in my waking life. And in the dreams, astrology was like half of my curriculum. And the other half was really unclear to me. But I was never prepared for it. I always had a test that I hadn’t studied well for.

Erin Amundson  17:20

And being a prolific dreamer for most of my life, this one stumped me and I worked with it a lot trying to understand the significance, you know, what, what is the symbology of going back to college? What’s the deeper meaning.

Erin Amundson  17:36

And it turned out that there actually was no deeper meaning that I really was meant to go back to graduate school and get my master’s in counseling. And the moment that I had that insight and awareness, the dreams stopped, I just stopped having them after I’d had them at least once a week for two years, and worked very, very hard to figure them out. So for a lot of people, it’s difficult to understand what is the dream, telling me what is it about, and sometimes there is a deeper meaning.

Erin Amundson  18:09

I have had other dreams about speaking in public places, with everything upside down or backwards. And I kept thinking, am I supposed to become a public speaker. And at the time, a lot of my good friends were taking, you know, National Speakers Association, his trainings and doing all this legwork to become speakers. And none of that felt right to me. And if I had just gone with the message of that dream, and kind of what I knew, I probably would have pursued a path. That wasn’t right.

Erin Amundson  18:47

But the backwards upside down nature of those dreams, told me my way of doing it is not going to be quote unquote, normal. I’m not following a linear path to speaking and sharing my wisdom, it looks different. And yet, I never would have recognized myself as a speaker or an orator or a communicator, had I not had those dreams.

Erin Amundson  19:12

So that began me on a path of finding and figuring out where my platform is for sharing what I have to say. And it’s not the National Speakers Association. In fact, as you may know, many of those events were canceled Of course in the last year, and many of my friends who were following that path had to regroup. And meanwhile, I was doing speaking engagements over zoom throughout through through the year which seemed like the backwards upside down way until the world itself kind of turned upside down for a while. Yeah, so anytime that someone’s having dreams about a pursuits, whether it’s personal Professionally that feels unfamiliar. I would pay attention to that.

Heather Clark  20:09

So it sounds like it’s it’s information. And it’s a matter of sitting with it and exploring it.

Heather Clark  20:16

What could this mean? What could that mean? And just using it as well, basically information to kind of inform what the choices are? Is there something here for me?

Erin Amundson  20:25

Yeah, and I would say that, you know, a really simple way of getting more information from your dreams is what Carl Jung called active imagination. And that process is simply quieting the mind meditating for a few moments. And in a meditative state, you choose an element of the dream.

Erin Amundson  20:51

So it could be like the upside down of my speaking dream, for example. And you have a dialogue with that. So hey, hey, upside down. Why are you showing up? In my dream world? What do you have to tell me about my life? What do you have to show me about this dream.

Erin Amundson  21:10

And the upside down, then would speak back to me and say, your path is not the linear path, you do not follow others pathways, you create your own. And that’s both through my work with helping people with neural pathways, and literally in life, they mirror each other, you create new pathways, that’s what you do.

Erin Amundson  21:32

For someone else, having that exact same dream, the message may be completely different. It could be something like, Yes, speaking is in your destiny, but your life is turned upside down, and you need to right side it in order to get there. So I think that would be the most important message that I could offer with understanding the information is that it is unique for each dreamer, based on a course personality, soul, path, life, path, culture, upbringing, and all of it

Heather Clark  22:09

yet, so there’s not some checklist, oh, I dreamt about this. That means that therefore I do this other thing. It’s just, it’s just never going to be that clear.

Erin Amundson  22:17

Yeah, Dream dictionaries may be useful in that you may find a definition of something that really resonates with you. So if there’s a resonance in what somebody says about your dream, I go with that. Otherwise, dreams are really, I think, an invitation for us to get to know ourselves much more deeply. And that’s the work that I’m doing with clients, both individually and in groups is really teaching. How can you work with this, to empower yourself? So I’m not actually the expert of anyone’s experience? Just the expert on how to decode dreams.

Heather Clark  23:03

Well, that sounds like and the expert of helping them find the path creating that new pathway and helping them find it.

Erin Amundson  23:08

I’ll own that one, too.

Heather Clark  23:12

I’ll take that. I’ll take that. Um, so

Heather Clark  23:18

I’ve heard before and I just am very interested in your take on this. I’ve heard that in order to really not in order to but what can really help people enhance the interpretation of their own dreams is to give themselves a language to use.

Heather Clark  23:33

So some people use the dream dictionaries and just declare I here’s the dictionary I’m going to use Bring me the information through this dictionary because this is where I’m going to look it up. Other people Oh, I’m really into tarot cards bring me Tarot imagery. Like I’m super into archetypes, use archetypes to communicate with me. Have you found that that’s been really helpful either for yourself or your clients are a different approach that might facilitate that?

Erin Amundson  23:59

I have such a direct line into dream work that I have never myself played with, like the Tarot and dreams or a dictionary and dreams. I didn’t realize until I was well into my 30s. But not everybody. Not everybody has this directive, a line of understanding dream content or just opening dialogue.

Erin Amundson  24:24

So I absolutely encourage people to find whatever tool feels resonant and works. I think playing with tarot cards and dreams could be a lot of fun. Actually, it’s something that I’ve seen some of my clients do and retreats, they bring their tarot card decks, and they are they’re kind of doing their own thing. I know.

Erin Amundson  24:48

I am a verbal communicator. I’m a words person. So my intuition speaks through words and symbols and some people People are very visual. And for a visual person drawing a dream or painting a dream, or sketching or coloring, maybe actually the language that helps them to understand it. So again, this is about every person coming to know themselves more, and not subscribing to anybody else’s way of doing it, necessarily, but to approach what the way that works for you.

Heather Clark  25:32

Beautiful, there’s no step one, step two, it’s it’s all what works for you.

Erin Amundson  25:37

It could be a step one, step two, but I feel like I would be filling people full of hot air, if I said, My way is the way. And it’s the only way. Yeah, I’ve seen people engage all kinds of creative ways of working with and understanding freedoms.

Erin Amundson  25:55

It’s part of the joy that I get from, you know, hosting a retreat, for example, is just coming up at dinner and seeing people you know, they’re like, playing dream Scrabble or something, and just having fun with it. So yeah. It’s cool.

Heather Clark  26:10

Love that. So tell us about your origin story. You told us a little bit about what got you into graduate school, but like, tell us how did you come to be doing the work.

Erin Amundson  26:21

So I would say the beginning of my origin story is is a trauma that I experienced myself, I was sexually abused as a child, probably around the age of three, I’m not totally sure. But I do have some memories. I had some flashbacks. And of course, that had a tremendous impact on my entire life. I got into several different ways of coping.

Erin Amundson  26:46

When I was young, I had almost every eating disorder that you could name on the list. I got into drinking and drugs as a young teen. And that mix with eating disorders was I was in a pretty dangerous place. And actually, my mother intervened by setting me up on a blind date with a shaman. So my mom bought me a Shamanic healing. And when I finally got over my resistance, and whence it opened me up to this entirely new sense of power in myself, so I was 19 years old.

Erin Amundson  27:30

My first time really doing anything spiritually based other than maybe hallucinogenic drugs, which I thought were quite spiritual back then. And this shaman saw something in me that I’ve come to develop since which was this connection that I have, to the subconscious, this connection that I have as a healer. And this connection that I have to, really to the language of dreams, and symbols, and astrology, and all of it. So that was really my initiation point.

Erin Amundson  28:03

And working with healing myself over the next several years. That’s when I allowed my dreams to really start speaking to me. So I remember dreaming, when I was very young, but having a lot of nightmares. And at 19, it shifted into a wait, my dreams can be a method of healing for myself. And I started to use them that way. And then ultimately, what was always just a personal interest or hobby, so I thought became a passion. And then in my 30s became my career path. So I got certified as an astrologer, and a past life regression artist and in dream work and as a therapist, and now I sort of mix and mingle all of those systems of symbols together, to help others really see that power inside of themselves that I was shown once upon a time by this shaman on my blind date.

Heather Clark  29:17

That’s gorgeous. And like, I love that you refer to it as a blind date. That’s,

Erin Amundson  29:21

it was a it was a total setup, and it was like a mother’s maybe last resort or last hope. You know, she’s quite worried about me and and I was like, if I do this, I’ll just get her off my back. And little did either of us know that one meeting would change my life changed the course of my life and put me on a path. You know, of taking my greatest wound and making it my biggest gift to the world.

Heather Clark  29:57

That’s beautiful. So what you’re experiencing right now is me struggling to find a way to ask this. So I’m just going to babble for a few minutes. I am very present to the power of dreams, especially through this conversation with you.

Heather Clark  30:19

And I just I’m really interested in it can point to problems. Like, here’s a problem, here’s a shadow to integrate. Here’s, you know, here’s a trauma, but it feels like it can also point to here is your greatest joy. Here is something to accept about yourself. Here is an so how can people really more consciously, if that even makes sense with dreams? use that as a tool to move forward?

Heather Clark  30:48

And then just to further frame that up while you have a chance to think the answer is? So I often deal with in my work, people who are certainly feeling very stuck, I have tried everything, and nothing works. And I’m just deeply fascinated as to how to use this as a tool to say, Well, here’s a way forward that’s completely aligned with you.

Erin Amundson  31:09

Yeah. There’s so many ways to answer this. So let me just tune in. I’m going to start simple. One method is dream incubation. And that is the practice of throughout the day, in your conscious mind, setting an intention around how you want to dream for yourself.

Erin Amundson  31:34

And then before bed, doing maybe a short meditation, writing out an intention in a journal, asking a question. And then whatever shows up as the answer. And sometimes people will set an intention to have a very joyful dream, and wind up having a dream about their biggest fear. And that answer that dream about the biggest fear says, if you want to live a joyful, happy life, you must come and sit with me and face me.

Erin Amundson  32:10

And if you’re willing to do that, this is I am the roadblock on your way to this joyful dream. That’s movement. If, if I know what it is that I’m facing and how to face it, or I can get help facing it, that’s no longer stuck. That’s actually taking some action. When when you talk about people feeling stuck, that is one of the most difficult states of being for me to work with, or to experience.

Erin Amundson  32:43

And I think it feels the same for many people. So one of the things that I would use trains to do with someone who’s feeling stuck. So I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t even pay attention to their sleeping dream as much. I mean, I wouldn’t, because I always do, but I might bring them into a session. And I might have us embody stuckness for an hour or so to really feel it in your body to maybe imagine that you’re just in this mud, or are you sinking down into quicksand.

Erin Amundson  33:21

And you use that active imagination process to bring the stuckness to life because even the stuckness has a message. And if we can invite that into the room and start to experience it differently and ask questions that creates movement. And then I would be very curious about how that person would start dreaming, or how their dreams might be different after that particular experience. So I think sometimes when nothing is working, it’s because we’re trying too hard. And we’re avoiding what’s right in front of us what’s really present. And the stuckness is present. It wants our attention. If anxiety is present, it wants our attention if depression is present, it wants our attention.

Heather Clark  34:16

We are so on the same page with this. It can be challenging for people to like, oh, if I sink into the stuckness I’ll be stuck forever. Oh, if I really pay attention to anxiety, I’ll never be calm. Oh, if I allow depression, any place in my brain to live, you know, I’ll be stuck there forever or even anger welfare really tuned into my anger. I’ll get enraged. So let me just ignore it. And I’m like, Well, you know, it’s there anyway.

Erin Amundson  34:44

Yeah.

Heather Clark  34:45

ignoring it doesn’t seem to be helping. But yeah, that can certainly be a challenge for some people. And it sounds like part of it is not only paying attention to it, but creating the space for it. But not an open ended space. Like, let’s just be in the stuckness and embody it for one hour. And then do you find that that helps people really be present with it? Or is it still sometimes a little bit of a struggle? Even with a clear end point?

Erin Amundson  35:12

Yeah, I, I am always offering an invitation. So if someone does not want to be present with their stuckness, I’m not going to force it. So usually, there’s a willingness. And what might surprise a lot of people is that if you spend an hour in stuckness, it will move, it won’t be the same at the end of the hour that it was at the beginning.

Erin Amundson  35:36

So the the answer to becoming unstuck is to sink into the stuckness. And I don’t know how else to say it. But as you said, it will be there one way or another. So we might as well at least figure out what does it mean? Why is it here? What is this experience telling me about my life, and my healing and my path.

Erin Amundson  36:02

And sometimes I think there’s a cultural impetus to the feeling of stuckness. Because I know in American culture, we are supposed to be, you know, an air quotes, upwardly mobile and always creating and always producing. And I think sometimes we just need to rest, but it feels like stuckness. And that, you know, that could be revealed. if somebody were to sit in their stuckness I do invite people to, to kind of wear their emotions, like a garment, right.

Erin Amundson  36:38

So just imagine you’re just, I’m just wearing this jacket today. I don’t have to wear it for the rest of my life. But right now it fits, and it’s with me in it. So it’s, of course, it’s gonna come with me. So think about, you know, I’m gonna wear my anxiety, like a snake around my shoulder for the day. And that’s uncomfortable, a snake on my shoulders is uncomfortable for me. Anxiety is uncomfortable. But if I can wear it, I can also conceivably take it off, when it’s time to take it off.

Heather Clark  37:15

I really love that. I love that particular imagery, not just the snake on the shoulder, but that it’s something that you’re wearing. And it’s something that’s there anyway, just wear it, see what comes up, see how you move through it, see what shifts, and then something else you said, which struck for me, it’s it’s especially using the example of stuckness. Here we are in late stage capitalism, it’s not really socially acceptable to just be like, I need a break.

Heather Clark  37:43

So I wonder, are you finding that people discover, oh, this stuckness is simply a socially acceptable expression of I need a break or a socially acceptable expression of I have not been doing the right thing with my life. Right Thing in quotes, obviously. But it’s difficult to face that. So here I am with this experience of stuckness, which is socially accepted.

Erin Amundson  38:04

Yeah, I think for many people, that is an experience of being stuck, and not not everyone. But stuckness, to me, represents an inner conflict of some sort. So I might say, instead of saying I’m stuck, I might say, I don’t have full clarity. And do you see how those two are different thing I don’t have full clarity is not a statement of suffering.

Erin Amundson  38:34

In this culture, saying, I’m stuck seems to be a statement of suffering. Right? It’s I don’t know what what’s happening or what to do or where to go? Or how to change this. I’m stuck. So I think there’s in inviting the stuckness in to find out origins of that feeling. I think there’s the opportunity to understand what it is it just a lack of clarity, which means take a break and rest and allow clarity to come to you.

Erin Amundson  39:02

Or are you fighting what you think you want with what your soul wants in your life? Because that can create stuckness? Or have you been living someone else’s dream and calling it your own? That will create a stuckness? Are you trying to push through doors that are yours to open? Right? And there’s so many different sources of being stuck? That the only way to know which one it is is to be with it on an individual basis.

Heather Clark  39:36

That goes with anything that people might ascribe a negative relationship to, like anxiety, like fear, like something like that. I just really love that approach. I love that it’s gentle.

Heather Clark  39:48

And I love the framework of there’s some there’s some information in here, and we can’t receive the information until we really sit with it or embody it or whatever phrase that people want to ascribe to it. That’s. It’s a very gentle

Erin Amundson  40:05

Yeah. And that is dream work applied to emotional states, essentially. Yeah.

Heather Clark  40:20

There’s just so many different places that I want to go with this, I find that I’m having trouble choosing.

Heather Clark  40:32

So tell us more about natural technology. What is–because some of your work is really helping people get in touch with their own natural technology. Can you flesh that out?

Erin Amundson  40:44

Yeah, I first started to notice that technology was resembling human evolution, back when I had my first iPhone, and I no longer have an iPhone. But I remember being amazed that it could communicate to my computer and my iPod and write to it could do all these things. I’m like, this is almost like a human.

Erin Amundson  41:05

And I started thinking about our brain and about computers in terms of technology. And I was like, you know, the hard drive and a computer is kind of like the subconscious mind. It stores all the programs, write all the code, and somebody has written that code. And do we know who writes our code? And do we know that our code is bug free? Do we know that it’s operating correctly, most of us, don’t take the time to ask those questions as to whether our hard drive or our subconscious is running efficiently for us, or is operating the way that we want it to.

Erin Amundson  41:48

And then you have the software on the computer, which is more like the conscious mind. And the software programs are the ones that we have a tendency to understand at least the basics of right. And most of us understand the basics of how the conscious mind works. And most of us use our software, far more than we ever use the hardware on a computer, just like most of us use our conscious mind far more than we ever use the subconscious mind.

Erin Amundson  42:16

So it occurred to me that it might be a useful metaphor. In our modern era for people to start to understand, wait a minute, there’s this whole operating system behind the scenes that I know if something goes wrong, and my hard drive and my computer, the whole thing crashes? And it’s a nightmare. So what if something goes wrong with my own hard drive with my own stuff? What if something’s not working in my subconscious? Could it be crashing my life?

Erin Amundson  42:47

Yes, is the answer. It does, I see it. Probably every day, I see examples of someone acting or creating out of a subconscious program that is not authentic to them or is not in their best interest. So maybe recreating another bad relationship choice or repeating the same pattern at work, sabotaging success, whatever it might be, we all have these patterns that we live out. So what I what I do with people in terms of helping them connect to their own natural technology is I,

Erin Amundson  43:23

I attempt at least to introduce them to their programmers, and their programmers, our family, culture, epigenetics, ancestry, DNA, teachers, friends, religious institutions, school institutions. institution institutionalized racism and sexism, right. So there, I mean, there are so many inputs that go into programming our subconscious mind.

Erin Amundson  43:54

And when we become aware of what they are, and what kinds of code they have delivered, or programmed in, we can decide if we want to continue out of that operating system, or we want to change that so we can become kind of our own coders of way. And that loops back to what I was saying about, you know, creating a new neuro pathway in the subconscious mind when we were talking about trauma.

Erin Amundson  44:22

So we’re reprogramming that faulty code that’s running with a bug that tells this person they are not safe in their body ever. And we’re putting in a new program that says, I am safe in my body right now. And that’s what matters.

Heather Clark  44:44

So this cleaning up all the code corruptions that’s really, that is a really fascinating way to explain it. In part because, so my own personal work, I’ve looked at I don’t if you’re into astrology, you’ve probably heard of Human Design, Gene Keys and all these sorts of things.

Heather Clark  45:04

So as I dive into that to start try and cuz I love stuff like that, who am I really? How can I express it in the world. And that’s one of the things that’s part of my work in the world is helping people certainly go from stress to bliss, and get that unshakeable, really strong equilibrium. But really, the way of doing that is cleaning up all the code corruptions, all this programming, somebody input that, but that doesn’t actually work for you, when you execute that program, the whole thing crashes.

Erin Amundson  45:33

Yeah

Heather Clark  45:33

And that’s, and it clears it up. So I really, that was unexpected to hear that Oh, my goodness, or other people on the planet doing similar things with this particular framework. So I love that so much. And I really like that you’re coming at it from a different perspective, you’re using dreams to really indicate what what’s the path forward? What is there to do? What is is there work if and then letting it indicate what that is. And it’s almost really helping people access their own path to healing through the information that they’re already being given.

Erin Amundson  46:14

And, and in my experience, dreams are one of the most direct efficient ways of finding out what code is in the subconscious. What are the programs in there? And what what Yeah, what needs to be fixed in terms of the corrupted code? And and what is the real code? And absolutely, I think it is one of the most astounding realizations of a lifetime to me that we have this natural technology available to us for free, on a nightly basis, and most of us have no idea what to do with it.

Erin Amundson  46:57

And most of us spend so much money on books, and workshops and classes, trainers and coaches and therapists. And I think all that stuff is great. I mean, I’m a therapist, right? And I have my own therapist, and I spend money on those things, too. And I’ve had so much healing and value just from my own dreams, but I have a passion about teaching people who want to know how they can do that for themselves.

Heather Clark  47:29

How do you typically answer people who say, you know, but But wait, I don’t remember my own dreams?

Erin Amundson  47:34

Yeah.

Heather Clark  47:35

I’m not sure that I even dream. I’ve heard that before. So how do you?

Erin Amundson  47:39

Well, there are a couple of I mean, the very first question would be about sleep hygiene. And like brain health hygiene. So for people who use substances daily, that definitely impacts dream recall, because it impacts your brainwave process. And so you might not get into delta, brainwave sleep, if you’re under the influence of some kind of substance, when you go to sleep.

Erin Amundson  48:03

The other the other piece to sleep hygiene is, you know, how many hours of sleep Are you getting? Is it enough for your constitution? And then the biggest piece probably is how are you waking up. Most of us are waking up to an alarm clock and a big to do list every day.

Erin Amundson  48:24

That will wipe out a dream recall in an instant. So most people are dreaming and remembering. They just don’t know that they’re remembering because they switch from delta into beta so quickly in the context of whatever stressors life has for them, that those in between brave brainwaves, which is where we remember dreams, so we become conscious, but we’re still in a slower brainwave get skipped.

Erin Amundson  48:53

So the number one thing that I suggest for people who would like to remember their dreams more, is to consciously one keep a recording mechanism near their bed. So you can audio record on your cell phone and write in a journal or whatever works. And to wake up and focus on what did I dream something?

Erin Amundson  49:14

What did I dream that should be the first thought the first focus and that takes training and practice, especially for somebody who has, it just sort of always jumped up into the world. The other the other piece of advice that I have is go to a dream group or a dream training, because I can’t tell you how many people have showed up saying I don’t remember my dreams, but I’m curious.

Erin Amundson  49:40

And then they email me after the event and say I’ve been remembering three dreams every night since that event. So there’s something that happens but the intention can turn that on. And if somebody tries all of that and they’re still struggling, I would I would invite more of a personal exploration with that person. That There’s there’s other things you can do to problem solve for sure.

Heather Clark  50:06

Great.

Heather Clark  50:08

What’s it mean to you to be unshakable?

Erin Amundson  50:10

Gosh, to be unshakable to me means to be able to withstand being shaken up, like to be able to shake it. Yeah. That sounds like a strange answer. But it really is about being able to go through difficult times, and potential chaos and loss, and all of those challenges that we all have in life.

Erin Amundson  50:35

And to stay true to my heart, and to recognize and honor my resilience. I know that I will find a way to recover.

Erin Amundson  50:47

I just I have total faith in that. And I think that’s a process that I would say if you know, some of your listeners, maybe don’t feel unshakable, that may be an opportunity to find someone to help you figure out how how you become resilient how you become that way.

Heather Clark  51:11

Especially because it isn’t about Let me control my environment and control my circumstances so that I never experienced stress because that that’s not going to work.

Heather Clark  51:22

But yet, like how I’m shaking, how can I return to balance? How quickly can I return to balance? So love that. Love it.

Heather Clark  51:32

So where can people find you?

Erin Amundson  51:35

I have a website. That is naturaldreamtech.com. My email is Erin@erinamundson.com. Pretty simple. And so far, I am not on social media much. And that that could come across as like, Oh, I’m stuck. And I don’t know what to do. And I could I could make a whole victim statement about it. But it actually just feels to me. Like it’s not right right now. So yeah, my website would be the best way or just to reach out Personally, I do offer consultations to anybody who’s really interested in learning more about how this kind of work could work for you.

Heather Clark  52:23

Love that. Love that.

Heather Clark  52:26

Thank you so much. It’s just such a joy.

Erin Amundson  52:28

Thank you Heather, having me on the show. Great chatting with you.

Heather Clark  52:35

Thanks so much for listening. I’d love to hear from you. Go to unshakablebeing.com and submit your question, comment, or topic request. May you be unshakable, unstoppable, and vibrant again. Until next time.