the MISSION

Hi, welcome to Mental Health Rebels! I'm Amber Cummings, founder and Mental Freedom Evangelist. My mission is to:

Help people who struggle with mental suffering achieve real healing & mental freedom.

When I say “mental suffering” I’m talking about the kind of mental, physical and emotional suffering society labels “mental health illness.”

When I say “mental freedom” I mean being healthy + happy without mind-altering drugs.

You'll get REAL healing here – drug free!

I took mental health drugs like antidepressants, mood stabilizers and benzodiazepines for 22 years! These drugs are a band-aid solution at best; they could not cure me. In fact, all my worst mental health disasters happened while heavily medicated.

Frustrated, I searched for alternate solutions! I found lasting REAL healing through a holistic approach that does not involve drugs. Now I offer this healing to everyone.

Mental Health Rebels is my platform to share the mental shifts and energy work tools that transformed my body, mind and soul. I want to you to be mentally free too!

Or read on for the deep dive story ↓

GROW WITH ME

Hire me: I currently offer 1<>1 mental freedom coaching – Learn more HERE
Book me: Reach out to interview me, invite me to be a speaker or feature my story on your blog, podcast, or other news source
Learn: Read about real healing here on the website or follow me on social media for regular new content:

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AMBER FUN FACTS 🤩

Born in Alaska & grew up in the Northern California mountians
Personal practice is chanting mantras! Play harmonium & lead Kirtan events
Lived in 4 countries: USA, Spain, Argentina & now Mexico
Speak fluent Spanish – I offer coaching sessions in Spanish too!
Graduated as a "Medicine Woman" after a yearlong Shamanism & transpersonal therapy training
Yoga Teacher Training drop-out
Spent 11 years as a project manager in tech & ad agencies
Also own a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) digital marketing company past 5 years
Elderly cat named Emmy Lou Harris
Use the Tarot to make important decisions
Haven't owed a TV nor microwave since 2018
Check the astrology every morning – according to me that's the "news"
Pisces ☀️ Virgo 🔺 Gemini 🌙

Video Version of Amber’s Story

THE STORY

“What if you don’t need to be taking all of those meds?”

When I first heard those words, I thought it was a ludicrous. There was NO WAY someone like me could be drug-free.

Anorexia first landed me in a psychiatrist’s office at the venerable age of 12. I was told I had inherited the family crazy and would need to be medicated for life. Over the next 22 years my many medical professionals focused on drug management; permanent healing was never presented to me as an option.

I believed I was broken and lived out that destiny

My many doctors + therapists gave me mental health diagnoses like bi-polar, depressed and anxious.

Somehow I survived abusive relationships, an eating disorder, alcoholism, millions of cigarettes, kneeling in the street screaming, hospital visits, hyperventilating panic attacks and two drug overdose suicide attempts.

I was a legit mess, desperately trying to disassociate from gnawing emotional pain, crippling anxiety and doomsday mental loops.

I know what mental suffering feels like

I know about affliction and angst. I get it, and I can offer you deep compassion.

I’ve lived this: depression so great I couldn’t leave my bed. Raging at the gym with tears streaking down my face. Social events making me nauseously nervous. Blackout nights. Huddled in the stairwell at work hiding during hyperventilating panic attacks. Trying to put on the happy show. Trails of failed relationships. Wishing I could crawl out of my skin and escape myself.

"If this is my life, I don't want to be alive."

33 years old: in my second failed suicide attempt I hurt my left shoulder. Then I had left hip surgery. Between the two, I lost the use of the left side of my body for 9 months. My lowest low.

I realized that if I kept trying to kill myself with drug overdose I could end up permanently disabled. I felt trapped in life. My level of suffering was unsustainable. I began to brainstorm ideas, I began to question everything.

My second suicide attempt resulted in a black eye, a hurt shoulder and deep emotional pain – my lowest low.

My suffering was unsustainable. 20+ years of psych drugs had not fixed me. There had to be another answer.

Drugs were not fixing me.

I got disillusioned: “These drugs are NOT working! All of my worst mental health disasters have happened while heavily medicated!” I was so tired of the side effects: brain fog, stomach weirdness, cystic pimples, tremors. After 20+ years of unsuccessful drug experiments, I wondered:

“Who am I under all of these substances? What if they’re actually part of the problem?”

Yoga was my healing gateway

It was in a gentle restorative yoga class, trying to rehab my hip, when the message of self-love finally stuck, and I decided to start taking care of myself. I looked myself in the mirror and said:

“Amber, I’m so sorry for how horrible I’ve been to you my entire life. I promise to start taking care of you from now on.” That mirror moment changed everything.

Time to clean up my act!

Practicing self-care meant I had to make real changes. Once I was taking care of myself I couldn’t be an alcoholic, I couldn’t be in toxic relationships, I couldn’t be trying to kill myself.

I stopped accepting answers from other people and turned inward. I began asking myself big questions: “What does Amber want? What does Amber need?” and my heart screamed: Amber wants to live with soul.

Launching a healing journey

It wasn’t like I just magically morphed from hot mess to healed overnight. It took a full two years of soul work before I was able to address my pharmaceutical drugs situation.

I had been living in a disassociated, afflicted crazy spiral for decades and it takes time to climb out of a hole like that. First, I had to deal with my alcoholism.

I had to do an entire healing journey that meant falling over and getting back up many many many times. I’d been in talk therapy for decades, but it was moving my body, breathing, praying and chanting that day by day gradually transformed me. Healing happens in daily practice, in beautiful little baby steps.

Healing was a process – To start, I had to wake up my fierce warrior goddess, face myself and clean up my act!

A vacation in Panama reminded me what it felt like to live with soul. I decided it was time for a new chapter.

My life was wildly incongruent with my heart’s desires

I had this San Francisco life that looked successful on the outside but felt vapid and void inside.

It checked all the boxes based on what society says we’re supposed to want: corporate job with a fancy title and a lucrative salary, adorable apartment, cute commuter car, swanky dinners, craft cocktails and an admirable shoe collection. It looked good but it felt so empty! None of those things brought me true joy.

So I tore it all down

Sometimes big destruction is necessary to make space for something new. I sold everything I owned, quit my job, waved goodbye to my friends and went to Bali. It started off bumpy :/

Once distractions like long office days and gym sessions were gone I had to face myself. It was like I had an inconsolable wound howling inside; my body forced me to confront waves of grief. I had to drop out of a yoga teacher training because I couldn’t stop weeping and hyperventilating during practice.

Finding freedom in failure

I tried to travel but was crippled by migraines and dizzy spells. My body forced me to stop, I basically collapsed. I spent two weeks crying alone in the jungle. BUT here's the cool part:

I had learned new spiritual tools. I began seriously practicing what I had previously considered woo weirdness: meditation, breathwork, chanting, prayer. And that’s where I found my salvation: inside of ME.

It was through these ancient healing techniques that the ache in my heart lifted. I felt connected to the divine. I was finally learning to calm mind and my nervous system; what a relief.

Time to ditch the drugs

I made it to Mexico City where I serendipitously found a Transpersonal therapist and shaman who said to me what no USA doctor would have dared: “Amber, you’ve done a lot of work. Maybe you don’t need to be taking all of those meds.” She prodded me for weeks insisting that I was at a place in my healing journey where the drugs were now holding me back.

Curiosity won. I decided to take the leap and detox. I just wanted to know who I was under the drugs.

In Bali, where I got serious about doing energy work practices: mantras, yoga, meditation, prayer!

Detoxing off my mental health drugs was difficult but I had FAITH it was worth it! (and I was right)

My detox was gnarly

Before I continue, I want to say: it does NOT have to be this difficult for you. A major motivator behind founding Mental Health Rebels is to support people through this process in a loving container.

My awesome Mexican shaman therapist was not a mental health drug detox expert. She didn’t know how to help me plan for or survive the process. I didn’t dare consult my psychiatrist.

Uninformed, I did a quick six-week taper for three drugs including a benzo. That was WAY too fast! It should have been at least six months; maybe six years! I experienced extreme withdrawal symptoms.

I was dizzy, my body hurt, my bones ached! My period paused for months. Later I became critically depressed, unable to work, alone in a foreign country. It was rough, but I didn’t give up. I trusted something beautiful was waiting for me on the other side.

So freaking worth it!

The first three months were the worst. Then I slowly started feeling better and regaining strength.

I rented a co-working space and at first it was an achievement to just show up! Little by little I was able to return to work and socializing.

After six months I began feeling like Amber again. After nine months I was shocked by how good I felt!

A year post-detox I felt better than I'd dreamt possible

Getting to be drug-free fully me is GLORIOUS!

I began sleeping for the first time I could remember. I had so much more energy! My head was always clear! No more panic attacks! My mental health was admirably stable. My spiritual connection to the divine deepened.

I'm not broken at all

It was shocking to discover that I am just fine without drugs.

Since I was 12, “having mental health issues” had been a core part of my identity! So it was wild to discover that was a LIE.

Feeling great finally shattered that horrible story and made me realize that I’d never been broken at all. I had just received bummer life skills from a parent with a severely dysregulated nervous system.

My energy work practices had taught me be sane and stable. Now I knew how to calm myself down and flow with life’s waves.

In Mexico City a year after drug detox. I felt better than I’d dreamt possible. I am not – and never was – “broken.”

A period of intense grief after I lost my baby showed me just how much I’ve grown and how strong I am now.

The test: I lost a baby

It's easy to be a zen yogini when life is groovy, but it's when things fall apart that we discover what we're made of.

I have always wanted to be a mother, so it was devastating to lose a baby at my three-month mark. My partner walked out on me three days later. A lot of loss at once.

A former version of Amber would have crumbled, would have drowned herself in booze, would have tried to kill herself. But no! That’s not who I am now. Instead of spiraling, I grounded.

Practicing what I preach

I sat with the pain, I cried, I wept, I screamed. I let friends hold me. I did healing rituals. I prayed, I chanted, I meditated, I tapped, I breathed. Instead of fighting the pain, I went in and faced it with an open heart and deep presence.

Strong & powerful

A few months later I felt better. Nothing was stuck because I hadn’t resisted. My miscarriage proved to me I am a truly transformed woman who does NOT have “mental health issues” nor an incurable condition. In fact, I’m admirably stable.

I discovered a well of strength within me. I realized I am strong enough to support to others too. That tragedy gifted me with the confidence to launch this company and share my story.

So I founded Mental Health Rebels!

This hard-earned story of mine is the medicine I'm meant to share with humanity. Evangelizing mental freedom is my life purpose.

Since detoxing off drugs I’ve been voraciously studying + practicing mental health wellness, shamanism, transpersonal therapy, coaching, energy work and holistic healing.

Living mentally free is absolutely delicious! Now I call Mexico home and spend my time with inspiring conscious friends. I chant mantras every day! I play the harmonium and lead Kirtan events where we sing in loud groups. And I founded this company.

I want to help you, and all humans, be mentally free!

My story of suffering also holds the medicine I am meant to share with YOU. I am turning pain into healing!

Let me be your mental freedom coach – I’m living proof it’s possible and I can help you make it happen!

What brings YOU here?

Are you frustrated with mental health drugs as the solution? Want help detoxing off of them? Want to avoid taking them? Want to transform your life with energy work? All great reasons to talk to me 😉

Let me be your coach on your path to mental freedom. We’ll arm you with holistic healing tools. We’ll give you a mindset makeover that will leave you magnetically vibrant with total access to your power and joy.

You do not have to cry in the jungle or move to Mexico. That was just my crazy ride to find the resources I needed; now I can give them to you. Transformation can happen on zoom in pajamas too!

Let's talk

I want to hear your story. Book your completely FREE no-obligation consultation now and let's discover how I can help.

DRUGS I've taken

I may not be a doctor but I am UBER-informed about mental health drugs. I’ve personally tried many unsuccessful drug cocktails! I’ve experienced withdrawal. I have FELT the wild side effects in my own body like brain fog, drug tremors, sexual dysfunction, brain zaps, emotional anesthesia and akathisia.

Most important of all: I’ve learned how to be healthy, sane, stable and joyful using ZERO drugs. I want to help you do the same!

You won’t get medical advice from me. I’ll insist you work with a licensed medical professional for detox. What you’ll get from me as your coach is great LIFE advice, smart survival tips and wells of deep compassion that only someone who has personally experienced mental health drug struggles can offer.

Benzodiazepines

Antidepressants

Prozac
Celexa
Paxil
Zoloft
Lexapro
Brintellix
Pristiq
Comenter or Remeron
Wellbutrin
Viibryd
Trintellix
Effexor

Mood Stabilizers & Antipsychotics

Sleeping Pills

Amber's professional

CREDENTIALS

Alright, here is the more traditional training list 😃

Spiritual Therapist Training in Mexican "Shaman School": graduated as a Medicine Woman after a yearlong intensive shamanism and transpersonal psychology training experience called Camino Medicina (The Medicine Path) guided by Ná Áak Paola Ambrosi, internationally renowned medicine woman and Mexican mystic (2020)
Coach Training: completed my coaching fundamentals course through the Co-Active Institute, the largest and most established professional coach training organization in the world (2022)
Coach Mentorship: intensive year long mentorship program with Alexandra Roxo including an embodied energetic practice, aligned living classes and live coaching sessions. (2022)
Yoga and Meditation Training: studied yoga and meditation philosophy with Rayim Ferrera through his Mahadeva Escuela de Kirtan (2020) and attended a yoga teacher training in Bali with Frog Lotus Yoga (2018)
Reiki Initiation: received my training + first initiation with Naomí Itzakatzin from Spain (2024). I regularly use energy healing in client sessions!
Self-Study: I'm a voracious reader and an intensely curious human who devours information on topics like trauma, somatic healing, mental health, spirituality, astrology, mysticism etc!

Amber's personal

PRACTICE

I value alignment of words + actions, so I practice what I preach. I have personal experience with everything I recommend for you.

Yoga student and practitioner since 2010
Lead Kirtan events – a musical mantra meditation practice
Regularly participate in spiritual events and ceremonies like ecstatic dance, sound healing, meditations, moon rituals, temezcals, etc…
Daily mantra chanting practice morning and night
Lifetime exercise aficionado: along with yoga I lift weights and swim
In a crisis, my favorite tools are EFT Tapping + breathwork
I do not drink alcohol nor take synthetic drugs
Careful about the food I put in my body – what we eat affects our mind
Yearly work with consciousness-expanding plant medicines

That's it. The content ends here & it's time for you to take action. 😉

WORK WITH AMBER

I offer 1<>1 personal mental freedom coaching.

We’ll work together on the project of YOUR mental freedom. That might look like a mindset makeover, finding more joy in life, learning the energy work modality that most connects with you or helping you achieve freedom from mental health drugs.

MORE COMING SOON!

The vision for Mental Health Rebels is much bigger than personal coaching. We’ll be doing community groups + classes soon. Want to know about launches? Sign up for emails to be the first to know: