Resilience Expert | International Bestselling Author, “A House in the Sky”
Amanda Lindhout is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir A House in the Sky, one of the top-selling Canadian books of all time. Recipient of Amazon’s “Best Memoir” award, it is currently under development as a limited series for television with A24.
Amanda is a global speaker and has delivered keynote lectures on resilience and mental health in 28 countries. The rare expertise and authentic insights she offers are hard-won. As a young journalist, Amanda survived 460 days as a hostage in Somalia, digging deep to find reserves of resilience, tenacity, and hope against all odds. Afterward, a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder led her to a decade of treatment, research and study of trauma physiology and a deep understanding of the biology of the nervous system. Uniquely positioned as both victim and expert, Amanda brings to audiences what she has learned, combining her own compelling firsthand experiences with resilience research, neuroscience, optimism, and fresh perspective. She looks at resiliency and adversity from multiple angles and shares practices that build capacity in ourselves and others. Inspiring and relatable, Amanda is trusted by company leaders, associations, first responders and medical professionals to facilitate transformational personal development through her dynamic and always customized keynote speeches.
Amanda Lindhout has travelled to 90 countries. She lives in Nelson, BC.
TOPICS
The Emergence of Health
Our emotional patterns have origins and stories to tell, expressed as behaviours and chronic body states. Developing emotional awareness is a skill that can evolve to notice the edges of nervous system activation, de-escalate old trauma patterns, and recognize the emergence of health. Growing capacity for emotional regulation strengthens resilience and transforms one’s experience of adversity.
Challenges as Assets
Wisdom and character are built through adversity. Challenges forged can become assets. But this doesn’t always happen because it can be hard to look straight on at things we don’t want to face. Acknowledging and integrating adversity reveals its value, meaning, or inherent lesson. A resilient mindset enables profound growth, and tenacity can evolve out of great disruption. Resilience is adaptable, flexible and able to respond to the current moment, and knowing how to harness it will help you respond to changing circumstances.
Resource and Resilience
Your presence is your capacity to feel resilient. When you are present, you are attuned to your body and emotional states with the ability to see your own edges of activation. Yet, when we have difficult emotions, our impulse can be to avoid, distract, and numb feelings instead of slowing down and connecting with our inner resources. Resilience dwells in each of us to use and knowing what it is, how to find it, and how to utilize it can empower us and fundamentally change the experience of adversity.
