196: What if you went missing?
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This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services.

I have a couple announcements before today's episode. First, this episode is the second in a two-part series that centers around the story of a missing woman, told from both outside and inside experiences of what happened. Last week we featured Sarah Haines, who told her story of what was happening on the outside. This week we feature Amanda Eller's story, in her own words. So if you haven't yet listened to last week's episode, I encourage you to do so first to get the full scope of the story.

Also, today will be the last episode of Season 10. For the next five weeks, we will be rebroadcasting five highlight stories from the back catalog, and all of them will be listener favorites before number 130, which are currently exclusive to the Wondery Plus Premium subscription. We will then resume with all new episodes for Season 11, launching in early August.

This past season has been far and away the most significant year in the show's history, with enormous growth, partnership with Wondery, moving to weekly production, growing the team, and most importantly, engaging with all of you. From seasoned listeners who have been around since the early days to new listeners just now discovering the show, I'm forever grateful to you not only for changing my life, but for showing up every week to do something that takes courage, dedication, and compassion, and something we don't do often enough.

listening deeply and with an open heart to the experiences of other people. I wish you all a wonderful summer. Enjoy the unbelievable set of rebroadcast stories we have coming up over the next five weeks, and we'll be back with brand new episodes in early August. Until then, as always, stay tuned and thank you for listening.

So I turned around and felt as if a knife had jabbed into my stomach. It was just full chills over my body, tears in my eyes. It was that moment of, I don't know. I don't understand. I don't know. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 196, What If You Went Missing?

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I grew up in, mostly in Maryland, a very small town in Maryland called Mechanicsville, and it's the middle of nowhere in the sticks. That was to be close to the Patuxent Naval Air Base for my dad's job. My parents worked a lot, and my brother and I entertained ourselves a lot. We spent a lot of time outside in the woods. We had five acres, so just kind of exploring the woods, walking the paths, or making our own paths.

The home environment growing up was not fantastic. My family, my parents did fight a lot. My brother and I are 11 months apart, so we fought a lot growing up, fighting for attention for parents that are working a lot.

What I didn't realize about myself as a young child is I was very sensitive. So what I did in that environment, because I was sensitive and I wasn't necessarily getting what I need, although they did absolutely the best they could, I walled up. I watched a lot of TV. I ate a lot. So I was, I'd say the obese category growing up, probably until about age seven or eight when my mom enrolled me in soccer. And so they would run me.

I think at age eight as well, my mom and I, she put me on Weight Watchers because the doctors were saying it wasn't healthy. Just that unconscious eating pattern of comfort food. I mean, I would honestly say I'm 37 now. So that was when I was seven or eight. And I carry that shame with me probably until recently. It's crazy. It sticks because it happened at such an early age. It's like the foundation that your mentality and everything else is built upon.

Growing up, especially through my 20s, I was completely addicted to exercise. I felt good if my body looked a certain way. And if it didn't look a certain way, I would get really down on myself and go through all these modalities to shift what my body looked like. Aiming to somehow look like a supermodel, it's trying to achieve the unachievable, really.

My parents working a lot. My brother and I being very close in age, fighting for my parents' attention. That all led to me being kind of a bad kid, being in the shit with my parents, basically. They weren't sure what to do with me. In my family, you know, there was a lot of that masculine energy push, going after the money, the success, everything.

They had amazing intentions, but my expectation in the background was I just want to be loved. And that was the one thing that I wasn't really feeling met with.

There was deep love there. It was like, no matter what, we were a tough family. So we would always be there for one another. But there was very limited talking and checking in. It was more like, okay, you're alive. We would sit in front of the TV and eat dinner together. You got all the things you need. You're fine. So...

What I was operating from was a lot of ego because there was a lot of lack, right? So a lack of self-confidence, a lack of self-worth, a lack of self-love. I would only feel confident if I were on the soccer field and I did something good or I got good grades in school and, you know, my parents were proud of me. Acknowledgements.

I went to University of Maryland undergrad. I got my bachelor's degree in kinesiology. And then I went to University of Maryland grad school and got my doctorate in physical therapy.

And I ended up taking a traveling job in Florida and the Tampa area of Florida. So on the Gulf coast. So I move in with this roommate, Jen, who I would come home from work, just totally stressed out and just kind of expelling my problems all over the place and complaining about the world and how negative it was and traffic and patients. And she would say, you know, it really bothers me when you come and it feels like, you know, you're pouring it onto me and it feels like a lot. And,

You're controlling. I don't feel good when you do X, Y, Z. At first, I was just enraged. She's out of her mind. She doesn't know what she's talking about and just kind of put up these strong walls with a middle finger. And then about two, three weeks in, I said, maybe I should just for a second consider that what she's saying might be true.

And it was kind of my first pivotal moment of somebody close to me saying, basically, I'm too sensitive for this. I can't be around this energy. It's not healthy. And I really started to look at myself at that point because I said, I don't want to make anybody feel worse by being around me. Like the last thing I want is to push people away.

So it was kind of the first little pick at my heart, you know, showing me like there's a shield here. I know there's something better underneath of the shield and maybe we could operate from a different place. Through the time we lived together for two years, we started doing yoga together. We went to a yoga studio. That really shifted things. That really started to spark some things awake.

I normally drank every night at least a glass of wine because that was my upbringing. And it was just what you did at the end of a long day. It was the reward. So I'm sitting in the living room by myself. Jen's not home. And I was like, you know, instead of putting some kind of distraction on like TV, pouring myself a glass of wine, et cetera, I'm just going to sit in silence and see how that goes. And I lasted five minutes.

Within those five minutes, I had some kind of crazy emerging feeling that scared the hell out of me. Something in me said, absolutely not. I'm not interested in whatever this feeling is. Just sitting with myself was too much to bear. I went and poured myself a glass of wine, put on music and said, okay, everything's fine now. That was the beginning of me realizing that there's something more I just have to sit and listen.

I was in New York City visiting a friend for her birthday. We were going out to bars. I was still drinking super heavily at this point in my life. I was 29, something like that. And I met this guy at a bar in New York City. He was the bartender. And he said, oh, yeah, I'm moving to Thailand. It just sparked something in me like, whoa, you could just get up and move to Thailand like that? What is this? Who is this person? How is he doing that?

So we kept in touch and then he actually came to Florida and ended up visiting me. And he said, there's a book I want you to read. It's called Four Agreements. I said, that's funny because I bought that book on Amazon. It's just sitting in my nightstand. So I brought it out. I showed it to him. He ended up flying out on a Sunday. I had Monday off and I just read the entire book within a day. Truth resonates and it resonates deep within you.

I put myself in the situation of if I were to live my life in that way, how would my life feel or look differently? It was that N word question that put me in a whole new frame of mind. And at that point, it's as if the blocks and the blinders of what reality had to look like were completely gone. And it was just this open world. I was starting to realize my own ego activity and that of those of others and

I didn't understand it. I just knew that, you know, people have this cutting edge to them. That's not really necessary. I just started to feel differently about things. I said, I don't need to be in Florida anymore. Like, why don't I do something totally amazing and cool and I'm young and I have money. Why not? So that's what brought me to Maui. When I moved to Maui, I came here as a physical therapist. It was a good job, but my priority was just being in Hawaii. I'd never been before and just enjoying the space.

Before I knew it, I'm, you know, three days later in the back of my friend's truck on the road to Hana. And I'm just looking up at this jungle landscape like this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen with my eyes. My heart was like blasted wide open. A week into it before I even started my job, I said, there's no way I can leave here after three months. You know, I absolutely love this place.

My intention of moving to Maui was yoga and outdoors and sobriety. And then when I got here, I met friends through the partying. So that's what my first six months looked like.

Christmas Eve, I was in a bar and kind of a seedy bar with some friends taking a shot. And it was after that shot that I was like, oh, like, I just I feel awful. You know, it's not just an I feel bad. It's it's as if like my soul is escaping me. Like, I don't feel good. I don't feel right. I don't feel like this is where I should be. Like, I need a shift.

I had met some friends living in Haiku on the east side, which is a whole different vibe. I went to their little Christmas celebration at the farm. And then probably within the next few weeks, I moved out of my apartment on the south side and then moved to the farm, sharing a kitchen with 12 people and a bathroom and then working on the farm while also working as a physical therapist.

The goal of the farm was to wake people up. So bringing consciousness to the people that came here and showing them a different way to live, you know, a more holistic way to live in the world and know that you're connected to all things and that anything you do or say or believe has an effect.

So the six months there in that environment really started to shape me. And it was kind of like the gauntlet because it was a multitude of factors that were challenging, very challenging. At the same time, I was signed up for yoga teacher training, a 200 hour teacher training starting in April. And the first weekend, it was, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, all day. I was driving home. I had no music on.

I felt so at peace. It was as if the silence was comforting for the first time in my life because whatever that noise was, it was gone. I just remember coming back to the farm and looking at the man I was dating and saying, I've never felt better in my entire life. And I don't know why this is, this is something big.

I ended up quitting my job at Kaiser because that wasn't my passion. And I started my own physical therapy practice to treat people the way that I knew they needed in order to heal. So I started to meditate more. I was more interested in listening than speaking. That was the beginning of that. I would say it was just an opportunity for things to get quiet. It was also around that time where I signed myself up and I went and drank medicine and

I came in with a lot of fear. And then what I was shown was just the most immense love that you could possibly imagine while being in a physical body. It was like sparkling through every cell. It was tangible. You could feel it and sense it on every level. It was showing me there's nothing to be afraid of. I thought my heart was going to explode into a million pieces. It literally felt like it could not take any more.

When I came out of that ceremony, I was so blissed out and I was just having these visions and this communication with something bigger.

That's when I really opened to the weird, different things within that realm that I never would have tried before. Things like Reiki, energy healing. I was also doing ketosis, which will get you super clear. I was doing infrared sauna almost every day. I was going into the ocean almost every day. I was doing yoga almost every day.

So I was going full throttle, like running towards something that I could not see and I didn't care. But throwing as much into the pot as possible, taking all of these adaptogen supplements. Anybody in the outside world would have been like, you're crazy. But it was shaking things loose is what it felt like.

It's as if flashes of the people that I had interactions with in life or my family or my friends, they would come front and center right in my awareness. And I would just see myself in that relationship and how I wasn't working and how things could be better, how to bring harmony into those relationships.

It's as if I just saw the clear way to make everything more harmonious, seeing as if I was looking down or looking back at those parts of myself that needed healing. At that moment, you know, I'm just overwhelming myself and my system with spiritual information and in a fierce state of like, I actually don't know where I'm going. And it feels very uncomfortable and kind of like shaky.

Between 2018, 2019, a lot shifted. I ended up meeting a man, Benjamin. It was very much that big collision of two people where it's like, wow, this is definitely something. We were catalysts for change for one another. And my goal in life at that moment was to become a clear channel, like a crystal clear quartz channel.

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It was May 8th, 2019 and had plans with my friend to go for a hike or have some coffee or something. And she called me and said, Oh my gosh, I found my cat dead in my yard. I'm going to have to, you know, reschedule. I'm so sorry. And I said, Oh my gosh, yeah, please like just go do whatever you need to do. And I'm so, you know, I'm sorry for your loss. I kind of sat there for a second with myself and said, well, what should I do?

A month or two before this, I was doing this exercise that a teacher of mine recommended writing with your left hand to express the emotion that's being withheld from that side of the brain. The reason why I was doing it is because I would wake up with severe debilitating anxiety as if an elephant was inside of my rib cage.

I'd wake up and feel like I was going to lose it right away. And so I'd go to do this left-hand writing activity that would relieve the anxiety. After the emotion cleared, my hands still writing different messages were coming in. I said, who is this? You know, I was having a dialogue between the right and left sides of my brain is what I thought. So this actually led to me having a conversation with what I thought to be my guides or angels.

That morning on May 8th, I'd gotten up probably at like 6am and done about an hour and a half of the channeling. So I asked myself, where should I go? I have the whole day to myself. And I just heard very clearly as if it was on a loudspeaker, Makawa Forest. It's like, huh, that's interesting. You know, it came through really clear.

I felt this like push to get to the forest. So I was like, okay, what should I bring? Just kind of having a conversation within myself, like, okay, backpack, water, snacks, cell phone. Obviously I had like a journal with me. I think I had a little, little mini flashlight and like a towel.

On the way there, I dropped off a package at the post office for my mom for Mother's Day and got to the forest. And when I got there, I looked at my backpack and the first thought was like, I don't need to take that because I was thinking I wanted to go for a trail run, which I hadn't really done since grad school. Got out of the car, hit the key behind my back tire and then walked towards the gate about, I don't know, 10 steps in. My legs started to feel really heavy like lead.

I was like, huh, that's weird. Like maybe I should grab my water or something. And then I was like, no, like don't, you know, don't be a baby. You're fine. You don't need anything. Like, it's just going to be a short, like I'll just do three miles and then I'll come back.

I started to try to run and my legs weren't really lifting. Again, it's as if they were led. So I was like, wow, you know, and it's at a higher elevation. So I just figured I'm out of shape. Like, let me just walk and warm up and then maybe I could run like a little bit into it. We'll just see how it goes. So I'm walking on the path and it's a pretty big path. There's all these massive eucalyptus trees that are down. So I'm going under them and over them, around them, etc.,

And I get up to this flat part of the forest floor. I was looking around kind of scanning, okay, like what's the biggest path. So I just followed the widest path that I could find. There's a lot of trees, but it's pretty open. So I just continued on this little path, finding my way until I, I just said, okay, this is the midway point. I've probably been in here for an hour and a half and I'll turn around and head back.

And so sat down on a horizontally down tree. And then I laid back and with my feet on the ground and just meditated. When I got up from that meditation, probably 20 minutes later, I got up from that spot, went back the way that I came and reached a dead end, which was just kind of weird. I didn't think anything of it. I was like, Oh, I must've taken a wrong path.

So I went back to the tree where I could see the tree and I was like, okay, which it's, it's that way. So which path is it? And then I tried a different path. So this continued probably for about 10, 20 minutes or so. And then I started to get a little freaked out because I was like, okay, it's definitely that way. Why am I not finding the path?

It's as if the path just completely disappeared. And what I thought to be true as far as the direction of the path and what the path looked like, it wasn't an option. It's as if it just was gone. So I was like, I don't understand this. It's literally as if the path disappeared. But when I got up from the meditation, I wasn't confused. I was like, oh, it's yeah, it's just this way. Because that I just went back the way I came. It was kind of obvious in that moment. And then it was gone.

And there's the side of me saying, okay, I'm getting a little emotional. There is fear. I'm feeling afraid. I don't know why this is happening. I need help out of here. This is not okay. At that point, I was like, okay, let me just, you know, drop out of fear. I'm not going to let my thoughts run away with any of that.

So I'd spent probably about two hours at that spot, trying all the paths and ending up either down into a dead end or like, you know, the, if I continued on the path, it would have led me down this super steep ravine. And I didn't see any path at the other end of that.

And at that moment, I was like, okay, I need to say a prayer because there's just too many weird thoughts creeping in of, you know, the obvious, like me being lost and I don't have a phone and I don't have any water and just the initial scary feelings. And so I said a prayer and I said, you know, please help me find my way. This is silly. I know the path's here. So just direct me in the right way.

Yeah.

And then, of course, you know, your intuitive knowing, which is beyond the knowing of the physical brain. The brain's not getting me there. So let me try the other intuitive centers. So what my intuition was telling me and right after the prayer, it was like, oh, it's that way. And I said, huh, I don't remember coming from that direction. But at this point, I felt very turned around.

There was definitely that sense of disbelief and like, no, I know this force is not that big. There's no way that this is happening. I'd say every five minutes I would check in with myself. Okay, stop, say a prayer, make sure am I still on the right path? Is this still the right way? And I'd wait for that like intuitive body. Yes or no.

Because I wasn't sure where I was anymore. I just had to trust that intuition that it was guiding me the right way. The good feelings in your body that would promote that guidance forward.

I continually reached dead end after dead end. It wasn't working. It wasn't working. And then each time it didn't work, there was more fear that crept in, more ideas of what could happen from that point. So I was doing everything I could to keep that at bay, just singing to myself, saying prayers, mantra, just anything I could do to kind of dull out the voices, just the negative thoughts that circulate through our head.

So a few times it got me and I said, okay, you know, it doesn't make sense to me. So it's as if I just said, screw the intuitive thing, screw the prayer and anything I'm receiving in that way. I'm just going to follow, you know, my brain, which is telling me to go back the way I came. So I turn around and immediately I got nauseous. I had exhausted the logical. I felt like I had a map in my head and it's as if the whole map was X'd off. And I said, okay, give me something different.

So I put one hand on my gut, one hand on my heart. And I was like, okay, what is my intuition showing me? If I'm not operating from fear, then which direction is it? And that's when I found that lightness of a new path I hadn't tried yet. I did find a path that direction, and then it led to a larger path, and then it led to a road. So I was like, perfect. So all of these were like little check boxes of like, I'm definitely heading the right way.

I had reached a road and I saw like a mailbox for the, I guess the Mockwell forest looked like the Rangers might check that mailbox. And so I was like, okay, why don't I just wait here for some kind of truck to come by? And as I'm sitting there, I'm just thinking, this doesn't feel good. Like I can't imagine being out here at night. Like I'm not spending the night out here. No way.

At that point, it was probably about two, three in the afternoon. And my mission was I need to get back to my car before sunset because I'm not going to be out here in the dark because it's kind of creepy. So I continued down the road. There was a gate there. It said private property. And I said, hopefully nobody's going to meet me with a gun.

So went all the way down this road until I saw a little house, which was super exciting. Well, the house ended up being like a debilitated old shack. And I was like, ah, damn. So I continued on the path until I reached the end of the path. And that's when I was facing going into the jungle. Okay. I must have not listened. I must have lost, you know, that intuitive guidance along the way, because this is definitely not right.

I was praying to anything and everything that I could think of saying, please, I need like some clear guidance. And so what I heard in prayer was your car's 30 minutes that way. It was that kind of surrender of like, okay, I'm being asked to go into the jungle by myself without anything right before sunset.

So I kind of look on the ground. I see like a tiny mini path. It's probably where it bores walk. And so I was like, okay, just trust, you know, because the guidance that was coming through me was very clear. And then three minutes in, instead of walking, I'm having to like army March because the brush is so thick, closer to the grounds that I'm having to like push it down with my feet and kind of send my body over the top of it.

I did a few like steps of that. And I said, no, this is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not doing this. So I turned around and took one step back and felt as if a knife had jabbed into my stomach. It was just full chills over my body, tears in my eyes. It was that moment of, I don't know. I don't understand. I don't know. I don't know why I can't go back that way.

This is ridiculous. I don't care. Like I'm throwing up all the intuition, all the prayers. When I get back home, we're going to have to do some like serious work to check in with like what's guiding me. I said a really strong prayer. I just said, I need support. I need guidance. I need clarity.

What I was getting in return was like, you've really faced a lot today. You have to trust that even though you can't see the path looks tumultuous, you have to trust it's 30 minutes that way. I trusted enough that this was guiding me beyond my knowing.

I continue that way. I'm like trying to keep track of time, although I have no watch on bear crawling, army crawling through the jungle, just breathing and like trusting. And the whole time I never felt alone. I was very much like, okay, my angels, my guardians are on my back. It's us doing this together. I'm, you know, 30 minutes in what I believe to be 30 minutes. And I'm

The sun is setting and I'm thinking, okay, I've got to be close because, you know, the guidance was that I'm going to get there by sunset. I keep going and I keep hearing, okay, 10 minutes more, five minutes more. Oh, that now it's 20 minutes more. And I didn't understand it. I was like, did I lose my way? I mean, am I not listening? But at this point, I mean, it's like hands in the air. You just have to follow the guidance that's leading you because there's no other way.

The sun starts to set. It's getting darker. It's getting colder. The fear really started to creep in at that point because I've always kind of been afraid of the dark. There's just too much of the unknown. So I stopped in place and I said, I don't know why this is happening, but I need to know that I'm going to be safe and that I'm going to find my way home. I just got this full, as if something warm washed over my whole body and

And that was my, okay, that was the physical feeling I needed to confirm that this is in fact the right thing, even though I don't understand or believe what's happening right now. On the other side of that prayer, when I opened my eyes, I felt so clear and so grounded as if, yeah, it's nighttime. Yeah. I'm in the forest. I'm finding my way, but I'm not afraid. Okay.

So I was like, okay, now it's just me and nature. And I feel pretty comfortable in nature. So I just kept going. It was close to full moon. So there was enough moonlight to kind of light the path. And I hiked in the dark until...

Probably about 1am. And at that point, I was having open eye visions because I think I was really dehydrated. I hadn't eaten all day. And I hadn't drank any water besides maybe a handful stopping by a stream and just hoping that it was clean enough to drink. When I started having open eye visions, I said, I need to lay down. So I found like a bore path in the mud to lay down and to just wait until morning when I could find my way again.

I was out there in like a three-quarter pair of leggings that don't go all the way down to the ankles and a tank top. And that was it. It was pretty cold. It was drizzling. And I was just curled up in a ball and tried to sleep. But really, I was pretty awake all night long. My nervous system was on high. I was just waiting for the first sign of daylight. So when it came, I got up and I looked. And the first thing that I saw was what looks like an opening.

So it looks like just as far as my eye could see that there was like a big grassy lawn. And I was like, oh my God, I've ended up in somebody's backyard. I waited until it got a little bit lighter. I put on my soaking wet shoes and then did my whole jungle crawl through the brush and went down into a stream bed and got some water. And then when I got to the other side of where the back lawn was, I saw that it was all just ferns.

These ferns are very unforgiving. They were like thorns sticking into the front of my ankles constantly. Going back wasn't an option at this point. I had no perceived notion of which way back was. At this point, I have to be dehydrated because I'm hiking all day in the sun. And I didn't really drink a whole lot of water because I was afraid of what the water would be contaminated with.

Day two, I had gone up and over many different mountains because I was thinking, I don't know where I am in context to the park, but I know what I'm looking for within the forest itself is kind of this like overlook point. For some reason, this was the vision that was my goal to reach. And so this was the fourth or fifth mountain that I climbed up.

When I looked at this last one right around sunset, I saw a picnic table right at the very end point of this mountain. I was like, oh my God, that's civilization. I saw two people sitting at the picnic table. At that point, I was screaming. I was yelling, hoping they'd hear me just through the echo effect. And I didn't see any movement or any acknowledgement that they had heard me. So I scrambled up the mountain as fast as I could.

The whole time I have my eye on the prize, I see the picnic table. It's not moving. The people are still there. I'm yelling, but they're not moving. They're not acknowledging that I'm there. I get closer and there were two people. And then all of a sudden there was three people. Whoa, where'd that other person come from? That's interesting. And there was like a small white dog. I get 20 feet away and the whole thing disappears in front of my eyes.

It's hard to put into words what happened in that moment. It was just shock and disbelief and overwhelm. You know, there were, there were tears. I don't know what just happened. The sun is setting. I need to find a bed for the night. I'm walking back the way I'd come because that's what felt best. I look over to the left, something draws my attention there. And I see this like grassy flat area and

I was like, that's weird. I didn't see that a second ago. In the middle of that grassy flat area is a twin bed in the middle of the circle where there's all these other like beds set up around the edge with my favorite blanket and my favorite pillow. And it looks like a ceremony. And I was like, what the heck is going on? And I just heard through my right ear in a very creepy voice, we've been waiting for you.

I looked up as if I'm looking to God for an answer. And I just heard run. And I ran as fast as I could back through the ferns like like I needed to get somewhere else before the sunset. And then when I got far enough away from whatever that creepy energy, whatever that was, that mirage, I landed myself in some ferns and just said, OK, this this feels like the best place for the night, the safest place.

I spent the next three hours saying prayers until I finally started to like find some form of sleeping because I knew my body needed sleep so that I would stop hallucinating. And then about 3 a.m. I was having a nightmare. And I say 3 a.m. because of the moon position. That just seems to be right. I woke up because an owl swept over my body. And I just felt this. And I woke up to the owl flying away in the moonlight. Yeah.

I stayed awake until the sun rose. When the daylight hit, I realized I was on the side of a cliff. Had I walked 10 feet forward, I would have fallen 250 feet down a rocky mountainside. Probably about midday, the helicopter started circling and I knew they were looking for me.

So the end of day three, I found this big open clearing. I'm like, perfect. They're going to be searching by a water source for a person because you can only live three days without water. So they say, so I positioned myself there. It felt safe. It felt comfortable. Then it's as if the forest or the jungle around me came alive at night.

I was noticing the trees were dancing as if they were like taking on personalities, the way that all the plants were moving around me, the way the wind was blowing. It's as if everything was fully alive, like it all had a personality just like I did.

So I was working on calming down my nervous system, healing my wounds that were on my ankles. My psoas, which is the fight or flight muscle, was in complete spasm, more on my left side than my right. So I was doing techniques to try to unlock that.

I woke up one time and my knees were like chattering. My hip flexors weren't spasms. And it's as if I couldn't control it. And what's fascinating, and I even knew it at the time, I was like, wow, my body, this is very much like a traumatic release exercise. My body is releasing the trauma. So I got through night three. I didn't really sleep. And when I woke up,

I tied some plants around my ankles because my ankles were pretty scarred up at this point. It was like open wounds from the thorns of the ferns and probably 10 steps into me hiking away from that point. Those bandages fell off and I just had to really bear the continual like stabbing pains into open wounds at my ankles as I was hiking the whole next day.

Day four was interesting because it became very obvious that I was dehydrated. I was in the wide open sun. I made my way to this big, wide open flat area and I could see down to the ocean and I could see up to the mountain. I was like, okay, I think I just need to surrender to the helicopter rescue because I'm not going to find my way going back into the forest.

And so I stayed there. I just, I was like, perfect wide open area. They're definitely going to see me like somebody has to see me out here. So I stayed out there all day. I hadn't eaten much food at this point. I had picked a few strawberry guavas, which are small little fruit. And I hadn't really had any water since the morning. And I was getting really sleepy. I was experiencing symptoms of heat stroke. So I was starting to become afraid that I could pass out out there and just die. And,

So what I was doing is I would notice on plants that were hiding in the shade, they would have little beadlets of water. So I was drinking that and I found some guavas, thank God. And I ate some guavas, which has some water content to them. I was feeling a little bit better towards, you know, four o'clock in the afternoon. And then something told me to make a bed. So I made a bed there as a just in case.

Right before sunset, there was a helicopter that I saw from the distance coming my way. And so I climbed to the top of that like old dead tree and I'm waving and I'm waving and it just passed right by. And I was like, oh, how could they not have seen something moving out here like a person waving its arms? And I still felt like there'd be more helicopters. So I stayed nearby and

And then I heard a helicopter. I looked around and it was coming fast, like right towards me as if it knew exactly where I was. And I was like, oh my God, they had to have seen me. This has got to be it. So I stand up on the top. I'm waving my arms. I'm screaming and shouting. And it went right over me in my mind. It's like I could have reached my hand up and touched the belly of it.

I felt pretty defeated. I looked down at my bed. Something creeped me out at that point because I knew there were boars nearby. I was thinking, okay, I need to get some water because if I don't, I could wake up in pretty bad shape tomorrow. And I had heard waterfalls nearby. I followed the sound and went along the edge of the waterfall.

Of course, I'm asking my guidance, like how far to the water? I heard 20 minutes. Great. So I'm going there and I get right to the edge and I'm lowering myself down the same way I've done at least 15 times by now.

And I'm feeling around with my feet because it's getting dark. I can't really see underneath of me. And then all of a sudden, instead of there being like a declining slope, before I know it, my legs are dangling, hanging down. I'm searching for some kind of rock or something to anchor my feet onto. And the ferns, they ripped out of the ground and I dropped and I fell 20 feet onto a straight left leg. My left foot hit a rock in a little tide pole.

My left knee immediately ballooned out. And so I'm screaming, you know, shouting at everything. And I pulled myself out of the water and off to the side and I was freezing and my knee is crazily swollen. It's just that moment of, oh my God, like I could die out here.

right after I broke my leg, my initial thought was I need to heal this as fast as possible, which means I can't eat. Think about, you know, if an animal gets injured in the wild, they fast, they basically started themselves so that all of their energy goes straight to the injury site rather than having to be used for digestion. So I did that. I fasted for the next day and a half or so. And then I think I might've had like a guava or two, um,

Two days later, I knew that the body could survive for like 40 days without food. I knew I was on day five or six and that I wasn't worried about food. There were hunger pains, but the focus was so strong on survival that when we're in that fight or flight mode, hunger is like the last thing that we think about unless we truly are starving.

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About 3 p.m., I would say on day five, it started to rain. It was the kind of rain where I looked at the sky and was like, oh, God, I found myself in a little nook that was kind of covered up on top by some ferns. And I was like, OK, I'll be fine here. And I'm just sitting in there trying to stay as warm as possible because it's pretty cold up there already. And then it started flash flooding.

I was tucked away as far back from the stream bed as possible, but the water was surging so much that at that point I was sitting in a foot and a half of water and it was rising. It was in that moment of disbelief, of just...

of the whole situation saying, what else? I don't understand this. And why? Why would this happen to me? I have so much to live for. I'm here helping people. And I just didn't understand why it would happen to me.

I kind of put that aside and said, okay, if this is it, you know, if this is truly it, if I'm, if I'm done with my body and I get wiped out here tonight, what else is there to learn? And what I heard very loud and clear was unconditional love. Oddly enough, I had gone to a healer four days beforehand that had given me a guided meditation on unconditional love.

I sat there and did that guided visualization, seeing inside of my body all the little cells that exist and then seeing the cells as if instead of just being little cells, they were now this like glittery light pink energy that was sparkling. And that was the color and the feeling of unconditional love. I spent about an hour doing that visualization and

When I opened my eyes, I felt myself to be very calm and very peaceful and almost glowing. It was the most fascinating feeling maybe of my entire life of, yes, I love my family and my friends and my clients and everybody I've met along the way, but I'm totally fine right now. Like I don't, I don't need anything. I'm just at peace.

It was that pulsating energy throughout my body that said, if this is it, I'm okay with it. I was pretty sure that was it. That was the end of my life and that I just wished everybody I knew well and I just sent them so much love and gratitude for everything that's happened.

I was just so grateful, like so grateful for my life up till that point and how much I had lived and the people that came in to help me do that. When I opened my eyes, I said, well, I'm okay with dying, but I want to live if that's an option.

And I know that there's some intelligence that's so far beyond me that knows better than I do. So I trust that is going to make the right decision allowing me to live in this body or taking me somewhere else. From day five on, there are many moments of refacing mortality and choosing life.

I'd gone all the way to the top of the stream bed until basically it narrowed into nothing. I spent a couple days there. Nothing happened. Something told me, OK, go back down the stream. I got to the point of breaking down many times where I was like, I can't do anymore. Like my body cannot physically take this. The tantrum that would be thrown in the breakdown process was pretty significant.

I got to the point where I was just having a conversation with God, basically. And I said, F this. I'm not doing this anymore. This is completely ridiculous. You know, princess syndrome. The helicopter needs to pick me up right here. I'm over this. And I heard very clearly and very calmly, you can sit there and die or you could keep going and live. And I felt like a three-year-old throwing a tantrum.

So I got up from my pity party and then kept going. And what kept me going at that point was I'm choosing life. I'm overcoming the victim mentality. The mantra that kept me going at that point was right foot, left foot. I choose life. And it was like this rhythmic little song that I was saying as I was like sideways stepping down the waterfall stream, right foot, left foot. I choose life. And I did that for hours.

And what I would hear often when doubt would creep in, as if it was on a loudspeaker, this is not your punishment. This is your soul's journey. This is all happening for a reason. And I tried to find enjoyment in the present moment because after I surrendered, I said, well, nothing is guaranteed and I'm still alive, even though I thought I was going to die. So there's no reason not to just find the full beauty of the now.

I would just watch nature and just be open. Over those 10 days, I got very quiet, remembering people I love and feeling gratitude for all those moments in my life and just saying a lot of prayer. So I think day 15, 16, I ended up, I was going all the way downstream. I had a seat on the side of the stream on a hot rock. And I heard very clearly, this is where the helicopter is going to pick you up.

It was just this confirming voice of, yeah, that's exactly right. I had just swam in order to get to where I was. I was freezing cold. Mind you, you know, I've probably lost at least 20 pounds by now.

I took off all my clothes to dry them out before the sun went down, laid them out on hot rocks and then laid on the hot rocks totally naked at the top of this waterfall, just hoping that if anything's going to lure a helicopter pilot, it's going to be a naked woman on top of a waterfall. So I just...

laid there and all my glory for about an hour and a half two hours and I kind of just I dozed off just saying okay if the helicopter comes wake me up I'll hear the noise you know I'm just awaiting my rescue it's the end of day 17 the sun's starting to set I just get to that point of like oh it didn't happen again you know like I trusted I believed it would happen it didn't happen

Logistically, I need to get my bed together. I need to eat something and I need to drink some water before the sun goes down. And it's like a program now. It's just survival 101 in the forest. There wasn't really food at that site. So I needed to try different plants. So I was collecting some plants. I look up because all of a sudden I heard something and there's a helicopter right on top of me.

I have this like surge of overwhelm and just like, I can't believe this is actually happening. Almost like I couldn't breathe. And I'm just kind of crying, but crying isn't even an option at that point. Helicopter pilots pointing at me. I'm waving my arms. It's obvious like we're connected. At that point, I just lost it. I was just crying. I was like, oh my God, this actually happened. I cannot believe it.

The first voice I heard, I heard Amanda. And then right after that, I heard this other voice that was Javier, who was my dive instructor, who's just this personality that's completely unforgettable, this voice that's unforgettable as well. And they get closer and I see them and I'm just like laughing. I just can't even believe it's him. He's like, what the hell are you doing out here? You know, they're all around me. They're like hugging me and just like screaming, like enjoy.

And of course, they're just lit up and excited and like, do you even know what's going on in the world? Mind you, the whole time, I had no idea. I figured some people were praying. I figured there were some people, you know, searching for me. And Javier is telling me what's going on with the news outlets. And, you know, all these networks are following the story and it's all over the world. And there's this GoFundMe for the helicopter rescue.

I'm just in this like altered state of disbelief and also like silence, you know, they're having to pull information out of me because I'm not used to talking. I get in the helicopter and as they're flying me out to go to the hospital, something told me to look back at the forest, even though I did not want to. I looked back as I was flying away in the helicopter and it was as if

Where I was on the top of that waterfall disappeared so fast from sight. It's so hard to put into words, but it's as if you're trying to find one star in the Milky Way. It was that small. That was like an act of, you know, the mystery of life. They took me back to the helipad. Everybody's asking me a lot of questions, you know?

They wanted to give me food and water and I just, I didn't need anything. It's as if I learned how to exist without those things. I didn't need to talk and I didn't need food or water. I just wanted to see the people I loved. That's all that mattered. So I went to the hospital. I'm in the ER. My dad was the first person I saw. We were just crying and hugging and, you know, I'm reunited with my family and with Benjamin and all those people that I thought a lot about when I was out there.

It's just the best feeling in the world. Like nothing is missing. You're so whole and complete. And my heart felt really full. And I was just in awe of all of that time of trusting my guidance and trusting my intuition and trusting what I was hearing in prayer like paid off.

not on the timeline that I wanted. But the truth was, is that this is not your punishment. This is your soul's journey. It's all happening for a reason. And believing that anything is possible if you have faith. Sarah, she, you know, she came in that the next day when I was in the hospital and said, well, we need to put a video together for the news outlet. So everybody can see how you're doing. Cause everybody's like, wants to hear like how you're doing and what happened. And

And so I put that little video out from my hospital bed and I

It was a lot of gratitude for all of the people that had showed up and prayed for me and contributed to the GoFundMe that helped to pay for the helicopter rescue and pay for the people that showed up and searched that were missing out on work, you know, because they still had to like pay their bills and feed their families. And so money that people donated went to a really good cause of like this whole thing being orchestrated and then having a happy ending. And like my family and my relationship, we were all united again.

Three days after I got out of the hospital, I did a press conference with all the news outlets and it was a lot of Q&A. Coming back into the real world after that experience of a sense of enlightenment, the language I was using during the press conference was very much the language I was using when I was out there.

I was very much during the press conference in this place of like, oh, yeah, of course, everything happens for a reason. And this happened to me. And look, as a result of me being lost, what has happened to the outside world? Like, look at that unity and the community that's come together for one reason, one collective reason. Wow. We saw the best of humanity. That is amazing.

saying that and taking my experience as, oh yeah, of course everything happened for a reason, instead of hashing out the details of, well, how did you get lost? Did you take drugs? And like, that's what people wanted to hear about. So I wasn't giving them the answers they were looking for. I was speaking spiritual language and talking about the unity of all things. I said things that really set off a lot of people.

There was a lot of weird stuff going on on social media where people that loved me were having to defend me against these trolls. So at some point I had to get involved because the people that were defending me were saying, we can't keep doing this for you.

These ideas that came about a conspiracy that I was kidnapped, murdered, people thinking that I did this on purpose because we wanted to raise money. I didn't even know how to handle it at first. I was like, they're completely delusional, but it was still hard to receive when I was in this place of love. This all worked out. We gave it some power and we were trying to defend it and correct it, but there wasn't any real correcting process.

And we all kind of got wrapped up in that. And so everything kind of came to a darker place for me. I was threatened a few times after coming out of the wilderness. One was like pretty soon after I was walking through the streets of Paia and I'm walking towards this woman. She's she looks local and I just smile.

And she just started cursing me out and said, you know, we want you to go home, like leave this island. We don't want you here anymore. Like I was just in awe that this was happening. So I started laughing, which is kind of what I do when something weird happens. And then I just was like waving my hand and saying aloha to her because there was just nothing to remedy that situation because she was just stuck in her mind loop.

What it really feels like, because I've heard a lot of people's experiences of this story and how it affected them. Some people are saying, I knew you'd be alive. I knew you'd be found. And I'm so glad you're here. And then some other people are like, oh, I thought you were a goner, you know, hacked up like on the TV shows and so on. It's as if it highlighted their inner reality and everything became a projection of that.

That's the only thing that makes sense to me. What I found over the next few months is I definitely took a turn for the worse. You know, it was back in the real world. All my problems came back. They were still waiting for me. I thought I had like risen above all of them. I had, but within the context of the wilderness, yes.

The PTSD that I was experiencing initially and has trailed off over time was from definitely what I experienced in the wilderness for sure. But then I almost think that it was worse what happened afterwards. In the human realm, that definitely created a lot of wounding that I needed to work through. And I put up some major shields and walls after that happened.

I couldn't deal with real life. Initially, even having like a cell phone was like it would give me anxiety. Sitting in front of a laptop would be debilitating. I was very sensitive. The situations with me would escalate very quickly. I would get stressed out and the stress would turn into this like explosion.

I started to see the world in a dark light. And then I wasn't able to go back into the experience. So when I would try to write about the experience, because I wanted to write about it, I would be so overwhelmed. I felt like I couldn't breathe as if my whole chest was locked up. You know, I started drinking again. I hadn't drank in a really long time. I reached a rock bottom, a lot of sadness, a lot of resentment, a lot of mistrust in higher power.

From that low point, I really had to pick myself up and work through my things on a very real grounded, constructive level of, okay, well, how do I deal with PTSD? And how do I deal with negative people? And how do I deal with myself and all the things that are coming up, you know, my insecurity or my doubts?

A few months in, I realized I wasn't crying and I didn't know why. And it's because I was so locked up that I couldn't access that part of me that needed to release and feel, start to feel again, because I just felt numb. I would do TRE, which is traumatic release exercises, which helps to release the stored trauma or emotion from your fascial tissues, which is where it stores within our body.

And that technique, when I would do that, it would actually entice some crying and some moving. I spent the next year and a half just healing, really going inward. I got to the point where I had to leave Maui to go through an intensive training that would help me to heal up in the Himalayas.

And then I came back, I spent two months at a frequency medicine center in Maryland, helping me to heal PTSD through a variety of machines and techniques. I ended up in Oregon, you know, just letting nature heal me. And then finally, I've made my way back to Maui. But since then, it's been very real as far as having to deal with life and deal with people the way that they are, and not let that affect me.

My healing process has been going right into it, you know, not really tiptoeing around it, but talking about the story, working with healers and speaking it out loud and having them help me through those deep emotional states.

Writing about it has been extremely cathartic, you know, huge releases when I was writing about it, then putting myself back on the island where it happened and then being out in public again, teaching yoga again, opening my practice again. Those were some of the biggest fears I had. You know, my whole life fell apart after I came out of the wilderness and I thought I could never face it again.

The distrust that I had in my guidance system has really surfaced that I still had distrust and I still didn't fully trust my intuition and my guidance. I was still a little upset about what happened. Every day I would wake up and I would hear, okay, today's the day you're going to be rescued. And who knows if that was just my mind saying that, but that's what I wanted to believe.

When you're out there in that situation, you need to hear, yep, you're going to get rescued. Today's the day. Helicopter's coming. They have dogs that are searching for you and everybody knows you're alive. That's what you need to hear in order to say, okay, I can do this.

That's what I take away from that experience, from my guidance. Had I heard, nope, it's going to be day 17 at the end of the day, I don't know what would have happened. I don't know if I would have been easily along for the journey. I probably would have thrown in the towel and stopped listening to whatever that was. It was the baby steps that got me to the big step of landing me at that spot where the helicopter saw me at the end of day 17.

I would by no means say that I'm an enlightened being at all, but I had an enlightening experience. Coming back into the real world and then seeing where other people are in their frame of mind and their reality and how stuck they feel and how miserable they feel, that's really tough. It took me a long time to really feel for those people that had daggers out for me.

I think that's been the toughest part because that's what I really needed to do in order to heal from the experience was have compassion for the people that were trying to hurt me the worst. When I see a really strong ego, I realize that's just symbolic of a lot of deep wounding. At this point, I'm happy to say that I don't get triggered by it. By addressing it through kindness totally dismantles it and it might confuse it, which is great.

But it takes us really, it takes me moving beyond my own ego structures to get there. Now, since the experience, I fully believe in miracles. I believe that anything is possible through the power of humanity at its finest.

The kindness of humanity when we group together and we come together for a collective, you know, that one purpose, that one mission and the one goal in mind. And we're all like unified in doing that. It is an unstoppable force of nature because it's just that force working through all of us.

It was amazing to see like a little micro example of that at work and to see this actually can happen and it does happen. And now it just needs to happen on a greater scale.

Today's episode featured Dr. Amanda Eller. You can find out more about Amanda by going to amandaellerpt.com. That's amandaellerpt.com. You can also find her on Instagram at amandaeller, that's amanda e-e-l-l-e-r, and on Facebook at amandaeller as well. Amanda is currently living on the island of Maui and is offering her healing services to both the local and global community through in-person and online sessions.

From Wondery, you're listening to This Is Actually Happening. If you love what we do, please rate and review the show. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Wondery app, or wherever you're listening right now. You can also join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app to listen ad-free. In the episode notes, you'll find some links and offers from our sponsors. By supporting them, you help us bring you our shows for free.

I'm your host, Witt Misseldein. Today's episode was co-produced by me, Witt Misseldein, and Jason Blaylock, with special thanks to the This Is Actually Happening team, including Andrew Waits and Ellen Westberg. The intro music features the song "Illabi" by Tipper. You can join the This Is Actually Happening community on the discussion group on Facebook or at Actually Happening on Instagram.

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Thank you for listening.

Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away.

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To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.