Amber Cribbs from The Holistic Whore is a passionate and dedicated Holistic Healer & Life Coach, Mind-Body Practitioner, Certified Aromatherapist, and Sound/Energy Healer. With a deep understanding of the mind-body connection, she is committed to inspiring women to transform their overall health and make self-care a priority. Amber’s approach encompasses physical, mental, and spiritual wellness, focusing on female empowerment and self-healing. She works closely with women who are ready to create positive change in various aspects of their lives, helping them uncover past traumas, release energy/emotional blocks, and overcome limiting beliefs. MysticMag has the pleasure.
What can you tell us about your own personal and spiritual journey?
In many ways, they are one of the same. My own personal journey has been anything less than a straight clear path. In fact, my roads have been more like twisted mazes at times that consisted of hard lows (abuse, trauma divorce, loss) and then absolutely beautiful highs, which I believe is common for most people. Rarely do we have a straight line to get to where we think we want to go. There are always hurdles, explosions, new paths, distractions and redirections.
I have on more than one occasion burned my life down to the ground and had to start over, from scratch. I would say in those moments is when my spiritual journey came to the forefront. At the very least, I was awakened to the fact I was on it! HA! But it’s in those moments of deep unknowns amongst the chaos and confusion, the only thing you have to hold onto is hope and faith in yourself. You also realize you have a choice. You have to choose to move forward. You also have to choose to not sour on the world around you, because magic and miracles are around every corner. You have a choice to ride shotgun or get your ass into the driver’s seat! Even if you have no idea where you are going and you’re scared as hell. My biggest lesson during some of my toughest times in life is something my dad used to tell me, “You’re going to have to do it scared” and you are going to have to do it even when you don’t “feel ready”.
We never grow in the easy times, it’s the hard times that truly test our spirit, character and soul. But down the road, remembering these “hard” times, you will find yourself looking back with a smile. Reminding yourself of how far you come and honestly, you will only remember the little miracles and magic that occurred during those tough times.
I find myself reminding myself of this whenever I am experiencing a challenge. That something amazing is right around the corner and first I have to either release the “old” or step into where and whom I am supposed to be in order for it to happen.
Can you elaborate on how you integrate various holistic modalities such as mindset coaching, sound healing, and aromatherapy to support women in their transformational journey towards physical, mental, and spiritual wellness?
Not everyone has the same experiences in life. Sure similar elements & themes, but all different and unique. Which is why each person I work with is going to have a different protocol to their transformational journey. Accepting this and knowing this as you embark down your healing journey is key. Many of us will watch what others are doing and try to emulate what they did, hoping for their outcome. That’s not how healing works.
The one consistent element is that a journey is always a mind-body-soul transformation. You might think you are starting on a physical transformation, but I can promise you, it will eventually lead to uncovering both spiritual, emotional and mental transformations.
Healing is much like an onion and once you remove one layer, there is always something underneath. It’s not to be a deterrent, more of an understanding as to why everyone calls it a journey. I myself was guilty of this initially.
I felt horrible and just wanted to hit that fast forward button. I kept looking outward for “quick fixes” because I was too scared to actually look at the things that deep down I KNEW I needed to heal and work on. Which is why I always start small with clients.
Whether you come to me initially for sound healing, mindset work, aromatherapy, etc… – starting off small is always key. We don’t want to overwhelm the system (this is referring to all 3 mind-body-soul).
Our body is ready to do the work before our mind is. Typically, our body will dictate our actions because our body will feel “safe” to release what it is ready to surface. Which is often why I meet with clients who have sought out mindset or healing work but will tell me “I’m not exactly sure where to start”. Their body is ready, their mind is still catching up. This is why we are not going to tackle 30 things at once. We are going to focus on one thing you believe you need to start feeling better. If they are even struggling with coming up with that one thing, I will typically suggest a sound healing session. This is great at releasing any energy on them that is not theirs, blocks that are ready to release or at the very least get that stagnant energy moving so they can ground into their body to find the answer to what they are needing to work on first.
As we continue working together, the initial focus might have been “smaller” than it felt, but unearthed a deeper element in need of healing. Or in many cases, there is a complete 180 shift due to releasing a block of some sort.
In your experience, what are some common challenges or barriers that women face when it comes to prioritizing their own health and well-being? How do you help them overcome these obstacles?
The most common challenges we as women face are worthiness & deciding to choose that we matter more. Many women have been conditioned to think that putting their needs above others makes them selfish. This is usually an early conditioning we either witnessed or were taught by the adult female figures in our life. Mother’s especially struggle with this as their priorities are their children & suffer from “mom guilt” already.
In many ways, it’s as simple as holding space with them and reassuring them it’s ok to feel how they feel and reminding them they are allowed to choose themselves. In fact, in order to be human through life – it’s vital to choose yourself first. Otherwise, how can you show up for others if you are not a whole person?
I mentioned it above and I will say it again, it’s also not taking on too much too fast. First and foremost, let’s remove some s***. Typically, this starts with setting boundaries and more often than not, it’s setting them with ourselves. As women, we have been so conditioned to take on everything and DO.THE.MOST. – that the minute we recognize we feel like s*** we are ordering self-help books on amazon, singing affirmations, drinking water, setting intentions, lighting candles, putting sheep’s-placenta on your face; adding in so many additional things that we are not even sure if we like or fully align with, but read “this will fix your s***”. When in retrospect, we are just making ourselves more crazy and not even dealing with OUR OWN ISSUES. (BTW I was totally guilty of all of this too along my healing journey, so by no means am I poking fun at women for doing this!)
I recall one woman came to me once who was doing all-the-things trying to better herself and she was stressed AF and so frustrated in her life. She felt she was putting in all this work and couldn’t understand why NOTHING was working out for her. When asked what her goals were, she couldn’t even think straight to answer due to feeling so overwhelmed and angry.
First things first, we literally removed everything she was doing on the daily. In order to refocus her, I asked her what one thing makes her heart sparkle in the morning. It was her cup of coffee. So we created a very simple ritual around her cup of coffee in the morning to help her start her day feeling grounded and centered.
From there we were able to uncover what she was actually in need of and desired. Prior there was too much clutter in her life and “self-help” rituals that she was simply masking the elements needed to heal and making herself stressed AF in the process.
Your approach emphasizes the importance of healing past traumas, emotional blocks, and limiting beliefs. How do you guide women through this process and assist them in creating a new mindset and narrative that aligns with their life goals?
Yes, in order to move forward, we have to go back to where it all began. Limiting beliefs start back in our childhood and are often further solidified through our adolescence years. These beliefs live in our subconscious and play all day long on repeat in our head. So much so, that many of us find them “comforting” like a safety blanket simply because they have been there so long. Many of us also do not even realize how often this song is playing in our head, before we start actively (consciously) tuning in.
Until we access and clean out these beliefs that are likely not even ours and we most certainly do not align with; we will not be able to attract the life we want to live. Everyone struggles with limiting beliefs, energetic/emotional blocks and sadly has experienced some form of trauma in their life.
The limiting belief exercise is a great jumping off point as many of us are not even realizing we are doing it. We are like a radio station, the thoughts we think carry an energetic frequency. If we are thinking negative thoughts all day long in our subconscious, our world will reflect that.
This exercise helps tap into those beliefs. From there we are able to dig into where they came from and if we still align to them (which we most likely do not). The good news is, due to neuroplasticity of our brain, through mindset work, we are able to teach and rewire at the subconscious level a new narrative that DOES align with our life goals – but first we gotta get rid of the ick.☺
Divine feminine energy is a key aspect of your work. How do you help women tap into and embrace their divine feminine essence, and what impact does it have on their personal growth and empowerment?
So often women view their feminine energy as bad, or weak or tie it to shame of their physical sexuality. For so long, women were taught our bodies are bad, shameful and shouldn’t be seen. Which further instills that “not seen” component into our subconscious & directly impacts our self-esteem. It also teaches us to no longer be attuned with our bodies, almost as if we are looking at them from the outside and then criticizing them!
Also, in today’s society most women are required to activate their masculine energy in their careers and it can be challenging to turn that off, even outside of work settings. Feminine energy is vulnerable and if you ever suffered trauma or abuse, it can also feel unsafe or even weak to dip outside of your masculine vibration.
There are a variety of ways to reclaim and reignite your feminine essence. First and foremost, I always start with teaching women how to ground themselves in their body. Grounding into your body helps you to reattune & realign vibrationally and feel present in your body. It’s quite literally impossible to activate your divine feminine power if you are not present in your body!
Once you are “present” in your body, a big part of that is becoming COMFORTABLE in that feeling. So many of us have been on the outside looking for so long, it initially can feel uncomfortable to be present within ourselves. This is especially true if we are trying to hide from various parts of ourselves (I refer to these parts as our “feral selves”) that are in need of deep healing. This is almost always where the deeper healing work begins as we are becoming more present from within and our body is ready to release what has been keeping us on the outside. In order to elevate that, we must become vulnerable with our inner self. Which initially is going to activate our feminine energy. As we start to work through those emotions or energetic blocks that arise as we are becoming more and more present in our body, we start to eventually feel more safe in our body and thus in our feminine energy. As I always say – WE GET TO BE BOTH! We can be badass business women in our masculine and magical powerful goddesses in our feminine!
A favorite tool I have, that is actually part of my online program Balanced + Fierce, is the heels exercise. Once we are starting to feel more comfortable in our bodies and with our feminine energy, I always recommend “throw on a pair of heels”. Reason being, is when you put on heels you are immediately elevating yourself (physically) to be seen. Also, depending on the height of the heel – you best be grounded in your steps, girl.
This can be done walking around at home, going to the grocery store or hitting the club! Regardless, it’s physically elevating your body vibrationally and powerfully. Not to mention, who doesn’t feel badass wearing heels. You stand up taller and let’s be real – your booty looks amazing, too! Lol.
As a “hype betch,” what strategies or techniques do you employ to inspire and motivate women to follow their passions, step into their authenticity, and live their most fulfilling and empowered lives? Can you share any success stories or transformations that have resulted from your guidance and support?
I mean, who doesn’t need a hype betch?! Who doesn’t perform better or dig deeper when they have people around them cheering?! Think about going to a performance or a sporting event. The more your fans cheer you on, the harder you work. That’s high vibrational therapy right there!
I am there to hold space, celebrate the wins, cheer you on, provide guidance and support. Some women have suppurative families, friends and spouses, but not all do.
When you are going through a growth journey or even just trying to make a change, it can be scary. It can feel isolating. You are making changes, removing old habits and others might not understand them (nor do they need to), but it can make you question yourself and even give up on yourself.
I am here to ride shotgun with you on your journey. No judgment, just freedom to say and do anything. I am also very direct and will always give it to you straight. That’s really what we need when making a change. Someone to give us permission and remind us that we in fact are allowed to do and CAN DO this! I am here to cheer and celebrate the wins! So often, if we hit a challenge when we are healing and/or making a change, we view that as a sign to quit because we don’t know what to do next. In those moments I am going to hold space with you, provide support where I can and encourage you to keep going.
As far as success stories, all of them. My favorite ones are the ones who have come to me for relationship/dating coaching. Usually after a divorce or a breakup. Watching them step out of the old version of themselves and stop looking outward for validation. By the end, the relationship we are actually working on, is the one they have with themselves. They show up different, seriously THEY GLOW! Their eyes and even their skin. But really it’s their soul glowing thru because through working on the relationship with themselves, they awakened and reignited their soul again. ☺
