Ep 45: Marking moments (and why it matters!)
By Lauren Lowrey
Released Feb. 15th, 2023
Wow!
Welcome back to AMPstigator! It’s been two months since I released my last episode. Two months since I recorded. Two months since I sent an AMPstigator email. Two months since EVERYTHING. I took my creative winter. It was great. It was much needed. And now I’ve primed the pump. I’m ready to get going again so I’m glad you’re here with me. I’m still feeling my “what’s the lesson” vibes and I’ll keep releasing episodes within it as long as I’m on that train.
I always knew that February 15th would be the day I’d restart Season 3, specifically for the mid-season relaunch.. Is because February 15th is the anniversary of AMPstigator. On this day one year ago I released all 13 episodes from Season 1 – all at once. That was the hour-long video episodes on Youtube.. The hour-long audio episodes.. The promotional content.. Everything.
It about killed me and all the people who worked with me. It was a huge undertaking and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It completely exploited my unhealthy lack of boundaries and how freaking intense I am. It showed me that I could teach myself absolutely anything if I took the time to learn.
It all started in June of 2021, I began building everything you know as AMPstigator. My website, my interview format, my marketing plan, my look, my brand… My standard operating procedures for production and post-production.. But in the final 2 months of that 8-month stint – it GOT REAL.
We recorded all 13 episodes in 3 days.. And then we had 2 months to turn it all around. I started working 20 hours a day between my work at the TV station, my work on the podcast and then doing mom things. My editors also had full-time jobs - so they were doing extra work on nights and weekends right along with me.
And when all 13 video episodes went live on February 15th 2022… I practically collapsed. One editor quit. Another said to me “we need to set boundaries.”
(pause laugh)
I’d like to say “I learned something from that” but the truth is, even while I was going through it, I knew it was absolutely insane. I knew I’d never do a batch release ever again. And I also knew it was temporary. But I’m grateful because it showed me my absolute limits in what my body would do before it finally shut down.
You guys the stress was so intense there were a couple days where I was actually vomiting because I was so overwhelmed. I’ve never had that happen before except for this instance. My husband said to me “I’m really worried about you.” And I was like “look – it’s almost over. I just have to make it to February 15th.”
So, February 15th is an important date for me.
And while it’s part-celebration… for me it’s more like an Armistice.
I had been waging a holy war.
On one side was my future self – my calling – my destiny.
On the other side was current reality and my physical body (which was shutting down).
And February 15th marks the day we came to a truce.
The fighting was over.
So, February 15th is a date of relief. It’s a date of celebration. It’s a date that marks a major accomplishment. I had built something. I had launched it! It was done! And can we also acknowledge that **I DIDN’T LOSE MY JOB FROM DOING IT, EITHER!!!** That was a really big deal that I’ve talked about in earlier episodes.
I had a co-worker at the TV station say to me just a couple weeks ago “yeah, you took a huge risk and it paid off.”
In that moment I saw a reflection back to me. I saw it through her eyes. And I realized that’s how everyone around me saw AMPstigator: a huge risk that -only now in hindsight- they can say paid off.
And it really has. In the two months since I started my break… Spotify notified me that AMPstigator is in the Top 10% “Most Shared Globally.” That one blew my socks off. I still can’t believe that.
I also was just named to Nashville’s 40 Under 40 by the Nashville Business Journal. They saw the podcast launch, the hospitalizations in August and my TV News work and honored me for it.
And then the American Heart Association named me a “Woman of Impact” for 2023 because I survived a heart event in 2018 and they asked me to advocate for other women with the same history. If you follow my “Lauren Lowrey” pages, you’ll see all the work I’m doing in real time around women’s hearts. I’m incredibly passionate about telling the stories of survivors and I’ll be asking for your help a little later.
ALL OF THAT happened while I was resting. Let this be a lesson to you right now.
There was a part of me that was really afraid to take such a big break. I mean – two months is a long time! What if people stop listening?!?
My initial inclination was to churn-out interviews and keep the streams going. I didn’t want to lose my spot in the TOP 10%!
But that’s when the wise side of me – the soul side – the place that knows – reminded me to follow what I felt deeply was calling to me……
And it was to take a creative winter.
I took a break and I got to see beauty! I would NEVER have been able to soak in those moments if I was churning out weekly episodes!
In Episode 44. I detailed the 4 reasons why we all need to take a break from our creativity every now and then. My favorite reason was #3 - that creativity absolutely dies with drudgery.
I could feel some of that coming on. I was feeling the stress and pressure of turning things around and getting them done and it was interfering with my ability to create from a place of wholeness.
I was creating from my head.. When true creation comes from your heart - from your soul. It comes from your embodiment. It doesn’t appear from rational thought. It springs from your daydreams when you surrender yourself and you open yourself up to inspiration.
And -since AMPstigator has always been a creative expression for me- a soul-led project for me… I wanted to keep my process around the podcast sacred. So I knew I needed to take a break.
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The beauty in that.. Has been seeing what sprang up in the absence of my legit-15-hours-a-week working on the podcast.
Things that had taken a back-seat, suddenly got top billing.
I started sleeping more.
I started working on more stories at the TV station.
I also started spending a lot of time advocating for women who survived heart events. I didn’t plan for that. It just sorta happened because I was available to step into things in a way that ONLY I COULD.
Earlier I mentioned the American Heart Association asked me to share my story of survival? Well.. I started working toward that in my creative winter.
I planned to do one story on what I went through and then case-closed I’d be done.
But what’s happened has been pretty incredible. Each interview has led to another story and another story. The response has been massive. Women coming out of the woodwork to share similar heart stories with me – or to finally take charge of their health.
I’ve shared the story briefly in a couple episodes – like within a paragraph – but I’ve never shared the whole story of what happened with my heart in 2018.
In August of that year, I had just given birth to my 2nd child, Landon. It was 37-weeks on the nose. I was in active labor during one of my regularly scheduled appointments and my doctor was like “you’re in active labor, I can’t let you leave the hospital. YOU’RE GONNA HAVE A BABY TODAY!”
So, he was early – but he was okay and I was okay. We leave the hospital. Everything’s fine.
But on that 5th day post-partum… I started to get this headache that wouldn’t go away. I was sooo swollen, so I weighed myself and I weighed THE SAME AMOUNT as I did when I gave birth 5 days earlier. The math just didn’t make sense. I should’ve been at the very least 12 pounds lighter because of the baby and the placenta and all the things.
Over the course of that day, I found it harder and harder to breathe. I had a weird pain in my upper back. And then my heartbeat started plummeting.
I started to get really scared when I had this feeling that if I closed my eyes, I’d never wake up.
I went to the hospital around 7 o’clock that night with 5-day old Landon and my husband. They were testing me for all sorts of things, but every test showed I was totally normal. In my BONES I knew something was wrong but it wasn’t showing up.
I kept thinking “i know I’m not crazy. Something’s there. Check again.”
By this point it’s like 11 o’clock at night. My doctor - who, to this day, I will say is the best doctor I’ve ever had. She came back to me and very respectfully was like “hey – all your tests are normal, we can’t exactly keep you here at the hospital. What do you wanna do?”
And that’s when I was like “listen, I know I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what other tests there are that you can order for me. ALL I CAN TELL YOU is something is WRONG and I feel like I’m dying.”
My doctor paused and told me “okay there’s only one test left in the whole hospital that I can call for you and it’s a CT scan. If that test comes back normal, I have to send you home.”
While I was waiting for the results, just before midnight, suddenly my blood pressure SHOOTS UP TO 199 OVER 120. Let me just tell you – that is STROKE LEVEL BLOOD PRESSURE. Anything that goes above 180/over/120 puts you in the highest crisis category for blood pressure.
Because I practically begged to stay at the hospital, I was still wearing a blood pressure monitor and when my blood pressure shot up – an alarm went off and within 3 minutes I was being given blood pressure medicine to try to bring it back down.
About that same time the CT scan results came back. They showed my lungs were almost completely full of fluid… I WAS DROWNING. It’s why I couldn’t breath and I had this pain in my back. The CT also showed my heart was severely enlarged. My body was so overwhelmed with all the fluid that my heart was working over-time to try to pump blood… but it was failing.
So, just imagine for a moment.
What if one hour earlier, when my doctor said ‘everything’s normal; whadya wanna do?’ – what if I had said: “Okay, I guess it’s nothing” AND JUST WENT HOME?!? I would’ve reached stroke level blood pressure AT HOME.. and WITH CERTAINTY my ride BACK TO THE HOSPITAL would’ve been in an ambulance because I would’ve had a heart attack or stroke in my bedroom. My doctor tells me that –if that kinda thing goes untreated– I would be dead within 24 hours, probably less.
It’s scary. So I’m a passionate advocate for women listening to their bodies – especially their hearts.
In the U.S. 1 in 8 pregnant women have preeclampsia – which is what I had. It’s actually the leading cause of death in pregnant women. It also causes more than 10,000 stillbirths each year.. And it all comes back to a woman’s heart.
So, in my series of stories right now – and in my Woman of Impact campaign, I’m making sure we rebrand preeclampsia. IT’S NOT A PREGNANCY DISEASE. IT’S A HEART DISEASE. AND YOU HAVE TO BE SCREENED NOW AS A WAY TO SEE IF YOU NEED ESCALATED CARE EARLY IN LIFE TO PREVENT HEART DISEASE.
So I’ve had women comin’ out-the-woodwork in these last two weeks sharing their stories – telling me they had no idea they were supposed to get screened and monitored.
So, I’m raising money AND i WANT YOU to donate. I’ve got a link to my fundraising page in the show notes of this episode. You could give $5 or $5,000. I’m grateful for ALL OF IT. I am SO FREAKING PASSIONATE about women… and specifically moms. MOMS we need you. Your heart is what makes you so beautiful and so strong. You have to take CARE OF IT!!!!
So, I realize now that part of why *A BREAK* was calling to me.. was because I needed to make space for these stories to come through me. I know without a doubt I’m changing lives. I know I’m bringing healing to women who’ve had similar traumatic hospitalizations over their health.
Let this story be an encouragement for you to listen to the nudges. Whether it’s a nudge to take a break - to create space for something that you can’t even imagine yet but is calling to you…. Or a nudge to advocate for yourself in a health crisis.
LISTENING TO YOURSELF IS CRUCIAL. It’s CULTIVATED. It’s a muscle you exercise and you have to pay attention because it’ll save you. It saved me.
Again - donate to my campaign. The direct link is in the show notes. It’s blind – I won’t even KNOW what you gave, I’ll only ever see your name. So, thank you in advance for whatever you’re able to give.
So…. think about that… because I took a break… I was able to do something ONLY I COULD DO – and it’s this advocacy work based on my own personal lived experience.
This calling to step away –EVEN FOR A LITTLE BIT– I realize now it gave me space. It gave me “altitude.” It gave me perspective.
It was also THE ABSOLUTE PERFECT WAY to go into the one-year anniversary of AMPstigator, which is the date of the release of this episode: February 15th.
One year ago, I hadn’t healed enough to be able to share the trauma of that experience.
One year ago, I wasn’t bold enough to think that I could make a difference.
But AMPstigator did that for me.
It showed me that my voice mattered.
It showed me that I had answered a calling and I would be carried through it. **That’s the highest form of surrender – when you know you’re being called to do something that makes ZERO EFFING SENSE BUT YOU DO IT ANYWAY?!?!?!?!?!?! That’s been the journey of this year: how to surrender and trust.
So when I think of February 15th. My personal Armistice Day. That day where my soul-calling and my body made a truce… that date deserves honor.
I hope on every February 15th I pause to reflect on my growth AWAY FROM that intensely overwhelmed woman who was vomiting from stress… and I show her compassion. I’ll look back and lovingly remind her how much she’s healed and grown.
Dedicating an entire episode to anniversary vibes also made me realize we don’t celebrate enough. We don’t mark special times. We don’t allow ourselves to just stop and breathe in the moment.
I feel gratitude and satisfaction for this podcast and the community we’ve built around it.
If you listen to this podcast… it means you LOVE DEPTH. YOU LOVE WISDOM. YOU LOVE TRUTH. To me, what started as a podcast about purpose has become more about liberation from what ties us down – and in the process ties us together.
So, I’m gonna celebrate it’s launch! Because the launch of the podcast was the beginning of an entirely new world for me. It all comes from creating this thing that nearly killed me. And that needs to be honored.
NOW…. I WANT YOU TO DO THE SAME.
(music starts)
Were doing your favorite meditative mind prompts. If you’re in a place where you can close your eyes. Just take a minute to notice your breath.
Think about a day or event that represents something important you should mark.
What made it so memorable?
Who were you on that day?
How have you changed?
What will you do to mark that day?
I encourage you to think differently about the things you’ve overcome. Some things are obvious celebrations. But other things need to be honored. They deserve a moment of recognition and reflection. They deserve you saying “this was important.”
Maybe like me - its an armistice. A day you call TRUCE.
Maybe it’s an all-out party or clear your calendar for time at the spa. I want to make sure that you honor those moments in your life because when you’ve been faced with the REAL SITUATION where you could’ve died… you start to see how precious it is to celebrate your life.
(deeep breath)
I’ve cried so much in these last few weeks as I’ve been working through these heart stories. We’ve all been touched by the disease. It would mean everything to me if you would make a donation. Again – link in the show notes.
(closing music starts)
We’re doing a double-dose of AMPstigator. Since it’s been 2 months since our last release, I’m giving you back-to-back episodes today and tomorrow. Today was this solo convo with me. Tomorrow is my conversation with my soul sis Jessica Zweig. I’m telling you, you’ll feel SO EMPOWERED by what she has to say. Make sure you’re following along on our AMPstigator Instagram page for my favorite clips from the show AND that you get weekly emails from me. Just email me at [email protected] and I’ll sign you up.
For now, I encourage you, shine your light, lead with your heart, and live life purposefully. I'm Lauren Lowrey, and this is AMPstigator.
