Hi, I'm AMARA
I have a high-integrity life hack going on for 10 years now that says I don’t get out of bed unless I’m absolutely inspired to do so. If not I stay and work through my mind-set challenges until I’m ready for an ALL-IN day.
Hi, I'm AMARA
I have a high-integrity life hack going on for 10 years now that says I don’t get out of bed unless I’m absolutely inspired to do so. If not I stay and work through my mind-set challenges until I’m ready for an ALL-IN day.

Here's The Thing!
I choose to live ALL-IN! It’s a standard I’ve honed over years of trial and error. Today, I hold myself accountable with self-reflection tools that keep me aligned with my goals and inspired.
I’m here to help you cultivate the courage, mindset, and life skills needed to live your version of an ALL-IN life. This is the power of InnerGuidance Method™. When we’re inspired, grounded in self-awareness, and supported with aligned communication skills, we can realize our greatest potential in any area of life.
Fifteen years ago, I hit a wall—personally, relationally, and
spiritually. I had a nervous breakdown, feeling lost, broken,
and afraid. I was repeating my mother’s story of desperation.
Then, I made a decision that changed my life: I chose to find
my inner guidance and true strength.
Today, I guide leaders, experts, couples, and parents — growth-minded individuals dedicated to living their full potential. I offer a modern, multidisciplinary approach backed by contemporary psychological principles and advanced Buddhist self-reflection tools that accelerate self-understanding. When this self-knowledge is aligned with empowered communication skills, greater relational intelligence rises, revealing the truth behind what it takes to live a masterful life.
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R- Ready for the next level evolution
(now, not later) -
A - Able to give themselves a chance to change
(progress, not perfection) -
W -Willing to commit to the journey
(even though the rough parts)
What If Finding Your Way
Wasn't As Mysterious As You Thought?
About Amara
Amara Samata is an evolutionary pioneer in the “Guiding Arts”, elevating what’s possible with in-depth transformational, therapeutic support for unified personal, relational and professional wellbeing.
In the last decade Amara has quietly built up a word-of-mouth reputation as “the real deal” and “go-to expert” for growth-minded people seeking breakthroughs, and the skills needed for life mastery.
She has facilitated over 2000 private, signature, breakthrough sessions with clients from over 35 countries. From children to grandparents, tech giants to billionaires, she’s empowered people in their relationship to self, to others and to what matters to them most.
Her life changing methodology includes:
- IGM – InnerGuidance Method™: For Self Guidance, Wellbeing, Healing and Awakening
- ATLR™ – Above The Line Relating: Relationship Mastery
- InnerMirror™: Conflict Resolution & Empathy Accelerator
- Manafestah™: Opportunity & Life Design


What If It Was You Who...
Listened first?
Stopped making excuses?
Broke the vicious cycle?
Took that extra time?
Made a significant contribution?
Knew how?
What If...Fear Wins?

What I Believe
My Path To Awakening
12 years studying and teaching yoga and meditation, 5 years co-
facilitating with an energy healer, taking Bodhisattva vows and receiving empowerments from notable figures, I committed 2 years to intensive, private, daily study with a female Buddhist Lama. This journey led to a transformative awakening and an unexpected career shift, fundamentally changing my relationship with all of life.
Amara's Timeline Of Events
- 1967-1972
- 1973-1979
- 1980 – 1985
- 1986- 1998
- 1999
- 2004
- 2010
- 2012
- 2013 -2023
- 2024 – Present
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– TODDLER NDE
Born in Topanga, California, as a small child we moved to Arkansas. I’m a shy country preacher’s daughter, my mom a homemaker and a nurse. In the process of moving, I experienced an NDE (near-death experience) at the bottom of the deep end of a hotel pool. What happens that day shifts my outlook on life and death forever.
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– CHILDHOOD MY PURPOSE EPIPHANY
My mom raises me to believe in myself. She tells me I can do anything I want when I grow up, and I believe her. I run into the kitchen one day and proclaim, “I figured it out! I know what I’m gonna do when I grow up! You can either work with animals or plants or the ocean or the sky or people. I choose people!” Understanding the human condition becomes my life’s north star.
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– TROUBLED TEENS
Parents divorce, and we moved to Portland. Cue troubled teens. One rainy night, I get hit by a car at a crosswalk. I’m taken to the hospital for days of testing. I’m having some kind of transcendental experience, no one knows what that is. I see a mix of specialists and I’m given an IQ test, scoring eligible for Mensa. When they release me, the neurologist tells my mom I need to live “a quiet life” as I’m “too sensitive” and suggests she keep me at home on antidepressants indefinitely. We all see how well I followed that stellar advice! I stabilize myself with the help of therapy and off to New York City I go! Having attended a performing arts high school, I received a talent scholarship to NYU! Sorry, Mensa, I was young; I thought you’d be boring.
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– INTO MY TWENTIES AS THE ACTRESS
In college, even on a scholarship, I work 3 jobs and eat canned soup most days. I study screenwriting, dance, voice, and acting. Through ETW, the Experimental Theater Wing abroad program, I’m one of 15 selected to study commedia dell’arte with the Théâtre du Soleil in Paris. After Paris, I go to Hollywood on Christmas break. I get my SAG card, and acting parts on TV shows like Charmed and Friends (nice people) and my career begins. I almost ended up as a lead on several big TV series. I eventually took a part in an erotic thriller rated R to pay the bills. They promise me an “outfit” to wear, we fight over the nudity contract; producers threaten to sue me. Fed-up, I decide ‘the industry’ is not for me, and I come back, fire my agent, quit the biz for good and follow my passion for Yoga.
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– THIRTIES SPIRITUAL GROWTH
A friend gives me Tony Robbins cassette tapes, and I discover personal development. I overcame my eating disorder and decided to follow my real passion for spirituality, well-being, yoga, and meditation full-time. I meet Bikram, but after one class, in which he tells me, “I will make you a star!” I decided NOT to study with that guy! I get certified in ParaYoga Level 1 with Rod Stryker, Kundalini Yoga with Yogi Bhajan, Gurmukh, and the teachers at Golden Bridge California, plus Prenatal Yoga with Gurmukh Khalsa. I received the name Amara from Yogi Bhajan personally. (There’s another story there navigating him.) I meet Amma Chi, the hugging saint, who gives me the last name Samata, and I attend her meditation sessions annually for 15 years. In 1999, Amara Samata became my new name, a new leaf to turn over, and a way of remembering the true essence of self within its meaning: Infinite Oneness.
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– FAMILY LIFE
I long to be a mom. I ask the “Universe” to support me in starting a family. I meet my husband, have our son, and choose a completely natural childbirth—pure chaos and magic! We move to Hawaii, where I implement children’s yoga in multiple school districts and teach adaptive yoga offering Hatha/Kundalini classes for many years in California, New York, and Hawaii. I embrace pottery, gardening, beach picnics, and camping. I dedicate a decade to being a stay-at-home mom, wife, and caretaker of a menagerie of pets, including a guinea pig named Water Lily.
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– MY FORTIES THE BREAKDOWN
The breakdown begins. Old patterns of insecurity emerge. The marriage becomes unhealthy, the financial crisis hits, and we move to Singapore, where my son’s father is from. Our relationship and ability to communicate worsen, and I’m away from friends, family, and my supportive community in a country where I can’t legally work. I’m scared. Things escalate, and I seek refuge from a stranger at a meditation group who affords me a lawyer. It’s time to make a major change, and I know it starts with me. I beg the universe for another change and the guidance needed to overcome the root cause of suffering and my own blind spots. I ask, “Show me the way and make sure I don’t miss it!”
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– THE BREAKTHROUGH & AWAKENING
I meet a series of spiritual teachers who, like a 1-2-3 punch, shake me to my core. I discovered energy work, advanced Buddhist philosophy, and non-duality. I travel to India and Malaysia to co-facilitate energy healing. In November 2012, guided by a female Tibetan Buddhist-trained Lama who lived with me for a total of 2 years, Awakening unfolds. My entire worldview falls away and turns right side up. We all moved to Bali. My husband and I separate, focusing on co-parenting and my son’s education. Lama Dolma takes a villa nearby, and I lay in a state of nearly unbearable bliss for seven months. My ego dies, rallies, and subsides as I watch, surrender, and integrate over the next three years. Encouraged by my Lama and her teacher, His Holiness Sakya Trichen, to teach “outside of the order”—meaning without robes while maintaining a Bodhisattva vow of service—I offer private sessions and monthly group programs by donation. This leads to the unexpected birth of the InnerGuidance Method™.
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– THE WORK
Word quickly spreads and, “Go see Amara” leads to catalyzing major change in thousands of people’s lives. I started to teach and take private coaching clients. I see up to 15 people a week at times. I’m holding retreats on tour, refining my methodology for accelerated, integrative, life mastery. In 2019 I’m invited to meet and give sessions to a few prominent industry disruptors and innovators. I become the life coach for a private company offering the world’s best transformation to multimillionaires and billionaires, seeking in-the-know guides offering optimization for their well-being and mission. I start to focus on relational wellness as my clients naturally bring me into their relationships, partnerships, families, and consulting needs around family and teams. My private ATLR™ program is launched and Couples Coaching and Mediation services become the secret behind my clients’ relational success. I formed two companies to secure the InnerGuidance Institute™ events and IGM methodology. From 2020 forward, I focus on blending both online support and grounded onsite programs for high-impact human evolution through my private practice and the certified graduates at IGI.
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– FIFTIES & FORWARD
I launch the Institute’s InnerGuidance Method™ Certification Training 2.0 with in-depth theory and tools crafted into scripted frameworks, refining everything I learned over a decade of service for serious experts and committed up-and-coming guides in the field of human evolution through what I call ‘The Guiding Arts’.
Fifteen incredible people join, including a university psychology researcher, a doctor of psychiatry, a nutritional wellness entrepreneur, a breathworker, a social worker, a speaker, and an internationally known yoga trainer. They all came to learn the secrets of what my students call THE BOOM: deeply impactful guidance leading to breakthroughs and integration in life and relational empowerment and mastery.
From 2024 forward, I focus on the artful balance of self-care and continued reflection, supportive family and friends time, team building, collaborations, and being of greater service at scale while maintaining high-touch integrity and heart. I’m just getting started. I’ve learned integrity is key and we are nothing without each other’s support.
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