BONUS: Empaths & Weight Loss: Nourish Your Body with Amber Romaniuk

As an empath, do you struggle with weight gain, thyroid hormone, inflammatory or even cortisol issues? Well, today my guest Amber Romanyk goes deep into the relationship we have with our bodies, our health, food and our own empathic nature. You'll be able to view your health struggles in a bigger light as we connect the dots between what our bodies want really versus what our minds are telling it that it wants. Let's give some attention to our health today as we fold flow nutrition and deep body awareness together in this fabulous discussion. Flow Dreaming Still Kinda Woo Woo is just what it sounds like. An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how to feel happier, wiser and more self aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power power. We'll explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encountered, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else. We just have to figure out what. That's right. We're a dash of woo woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap of problem solving and pattern busting, and a giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion, purpose, self love and confidence in you that you practically stagger. I'm Summer McStravik, your host and welcome to Flow Dreaming. Still Kinda Woo Woo. Friends, I am so happy that you're here with me today. I had such a great conversation and I'm giving it to you right now with Amber. We talked about our emotional connection to physical symptoms that we might be having, how we retain weight when our bodies are feeling unsafe, why we stay in certain looping behaviors, even how emotional eating impacts our ability and frequency to manifest. So if you stick around, you're going to get some really good insights into what your body might be trying desperately to tell you right now. So a little about Amber. She is an emotional eating, digestive and horrible hormone expert with 11 years experience helping mostly high achieving women create a level of body confidence, intuition and optimal health through powerful mindset, healing self care and overcoming self sabotage with food. She herself has been in the trenches with having to rehabilitate her own relationship with food and she is glad to share that with you as well. One last thing. Apologies in advance for my very funky vocal sound in this interview. I was having mic problems at the time but they're since resolved. But still, I really wanted you to have this episode.

Are you ready?

Here we go. A quick note for newcomers. Flow Dreaming is Both an energy practice and a way of seeing the world. It teaches you how to manifest, heal, and use your emotions to create a sublime life. You'll find over 300 recorded flow dreams, which are similar too, but not the same as meditations. And a free short training@flow dreaming.com. this show dives into Flow dreaming and other concepts to help you live a more powerful and fulfilling life. Now let's get to the show.

Amber, hello. Hello, and welcome to Flow Dreaming, the podcast. Happy you're here today.

Thank you for having me, Summer. I'm so excited.

So let's just. Let's just jump in. All right, Ready?

I'm ready. Let's go.

All right. Okay. When did you start realizing that your body and your emotions are intimately connected and responding and reflecting each other, getting away from just the regular old diet and blah, blah, blah that we hear so much out there?

Yeah, I would say I was about 23 years old. I just thought stopped binge eating and healed food addiction, binge purge, emotional eating, like, all of it. But what I had noticed was my body was continuing to hang on to weight and put weight on. And so what I started to realize was, okay, weight is a protective mechanism. My body is hanging onto this weight because she doesn't feel safe. My nervous system doesn't feel safe on some intellectual, unconscious, subconscious level. Like, I don't feel safe from everything I've just put myself through, Right. And I didn't feel safe accessing my intuition, accessing my spiritual gifts, trusting myself. And so all these levels of this, plus hormone issues, gut issues, like tons of suppressed emotion, right? From years of unconscious emotional eating and a few really intensive years of the binge cycle. There was just so much stuck in my body emotionally. And so I started to get curious. I think curiosity is such a powerful emotion for us to dive into with our body because I started to get curious, like, why is my body hanging on to weight? Why doesn't she feel safe? Why does it feel like for her, there's a bear getting ready to pounce and attack 24, 7. And that's what really led me to, like, okay, well, physically it's because I have hormone stuff. I just put my body through hell and back with binge eating and restriction diets, over exercising. My gut's a mess. I'm heavily inflamed. Right. Emotionally, I've spent my entire life up until this point not feeling safe, feeling my emotions.

Right.

I was using food as a coping and holding everything in. I felt afraid to express myself, speak my truth. So my thyroid suppressed. Right. We can go into that throat chakra if you want to. And then there was this whole dynamic around, like I said earlier, like, I was terrified that my intuition was coming online. I didn't know how to navigate that. I was an empath and very sensitive to energy. I didn't know how to navigate that. So it's like this unknown kind of put me into this fear state. And I think that all of these things really cause my body to hang on. And the lack of self love. Right. I still didn't have that self love worthiness piece. And so all those things were contributing to the hang on. And so the curiosity helped me, like, explore each layer over a period of time. We must be patient. We're exploring what I call our weight loss blocks. Whether they're spiritual, energetic, physical or emotional, it takes time to understand them. But if you're willing to have the patience game and be on a healing journey instead of a weight loss journey, you're going to get the answers. Your body is your wisest teacher, the weight loss box are teachers. It's just us shifting our perception from, oh, I'm, my body's out to get me, I'm frustrated with my body, blah, blah, blah, blah, to no, my body is my, my like, teacher. And she holds the map and the key to help me get the answers. Am I willing to take a different approach and really address this from the roots?

I love what you just said. I had to make notes of it. A healing journey versus a weight loss journey. Because, you know, in my experience, and a lot of people I know, we do the weight loss journey over and over again. It doesn't stick, it doesn't stay. It ends up burning us out. And we become very discouraged and then resentful, angry at our own bodies and destroying the relationship between us really and our body. So you mentioned being an empath and I. That's another thing. I've seen a lot those of us who have that empathic intuition, we are in constant protection mode, constant protection mode.

And it's like our body picks up.

On that and says, okay, I'll help. Let's put a few more layers around us. Let's wrap ourselves in wool and cotton so nothing can get through. What's your take on that for empaths and weight loss and, you know, just the, the relationship we end up making when all we're focusing on is the physical.

Yeah. So with the empath piece, I think it's so important that we really learn how to have a really good Energy hygiene practice, where we are either like clearing energy, we're checking in with our field, clearing our field, emotional residue, learning how to tap in and go is what I'm feeling right now, even mine. Because what I started to realize is I was processing a lot for the collective that wasn't even mine or process for people around me. And when I started to claim my power and go, no, it's not my responsibility to process. The collectives lack today or their fear or whatever, not only did that help me learn how to like, give it back and, and, and let it go, but it helped me realize, wow, a lot of the stuff I'm feeling isn't even mine and there's nothing wrong. And, and then integrating different, like nervous system regulating practices like somatic shaking, I call it sacred rage, where I'd like scream into my pillow and beat it up to like move out all the motion or stuff in my field. Staging energy clearing. We all have different things we can use. But I just found the more I could set beautiful energy hygiene boundaries and then regulate my nervous system with different tools and go, like, I can protect myself, but my body doesn't have to hang on to weight. And by taking those steps with these practices, my body's like, oh, okay, I feel safe. I don't need to hang on. So it's like it was, it's like this trust and confidence and this deep inner knowing of like, I can process through. I don't need my body to hang on. So that was a big part of the empath piece. And yeah, I think with the weight loss journey, well, we've been heavily conditioned by the weight loss industry in the diet industry in Hollywood that like, you've gotta eat less and exercise more, you've got to cut calories and burn more of them. And that couldn't be further from the truth. And the only thing that happens every time we cut more calories and burn more calories is we suppress our metabolism. And that's why most women really struggle. And they will maybe lose some weight and have short term success, but then gain it all back and then potentially gain more. Because you're after four days of heavy restriction, you are suppressing your metabolism. And then eventually the metabolism gets so sluggish that the only thing the body knows how to do is hang on. And if we do enough chronic yo yo dieting and then maybe overeating or emotional eating or, you know, the deep guilt of and shame of like having a dessert, our thyroid will start to go sluggish. Metabolism and thyroid are very connected. And so I find the more we diet and restrict over time, the metabolism gets upset, the thyroid gets upset, slows down, and then we have a really hard time losing weight and keeping it off. So, and, but that. What's interesting that stems from that, from a. A hormonal standpoint, is we have the stress hormone cortisol, which is produced by our adrenal glands in the middle of our back. They sit upon the kidneys. And what I often find is all the stress from the yo yo diets, the weight loss, the quick fixes, the overstimulation, the not feeling safe, processing your emotions, it really stresses out our adrenal glands and our cortisol kind of skyrockets. And so to tie back to what I was just talking about, the more stressed the body, the more cortisol in the body, the more puffy and inflamed and retention we retain. Abdominal weight gain happens more easily, and this really inhibits thyroid function as well. So I find the first domino to go hormonally is cortisol stuff, adrenal fatigue, and then the thyroid starts to be impacted. So if we don't feel safe processing our emotion, if we're not aware we're processing for the collective or we're taking on other people's stuff, we're going to just be like, oh, my gosh, why can't I ever feel calm? Like something's wrong with me. We get so hard on ourselves and so critical, and all of that fuels more stress response, which makes it easier for the body to hang on. We also don't realize that, you know, physical symptoms and physical feelings in the body are the last plane of manifestation. So if you have bloating or you're gaining weight or you have a skin issue or whatever it is, what you have to know is this is your body's last way to try and get your attention that, hey, something is off, something's out of alignment. Can you pay attention to me? Stop putting me last. Whatever the reasons are, right? And we haven't processed it emotionally, mentally, energetically, or spiritually. But we're not taught any of that. It's like physical symptom, physical resolution only, right?

You just said we put our bodies last, which is something that I repeat all the time when I'm talking with people and we're discussing their health. Why do we do that? Like, why do we say we prioritize our bodies? We love our bodies. We always want them to look a certain way and be a certain way, and yet when it comes to giving them loving attention and consistency. We just, they're like, like almost like a friend that you don't like. You know, it's a frenemy. It's a frenemy situation.

Yeah.

Why?

Well, why do you see us doing? A lot of it stems from unworthiness. We don't feel good enough. Um, so therefore we are chasing perfection, trying to prove to everyone that we've made it or that we're successful or that we look good enough. Because we were told maybe when we were younger that we weren't smart enough or we weren't good looking enough or we didn't have good enough grades. Right. So we create this story in our minds that we aren't worthy and we aren't good enough. Maybe you've gone through trauma. Maybe it was like me, I was told I was fat and ugly when I was five on the bus by the older boys and then the whole bus made fun of me. And I took on this identity for the next 20 years of my life of I'm ugly and fat and I don't look good enough. And so, you know, that's where the chronic dieting and all that came on. But I think specifically with putting ourselves last, it's like there's a lack of self worth and you're so busy needing to overbook your schedule to either be in perfection and chasing that or to be in people pleasing to make sure everyone else is happy with you for fear of. Right. Like, oh my gosh, I can't have anyone be upset with me because then I'll get abandoned and I won't have my tribe and I need my tribe to survive. It comes down to those, like, survival mechanisms. But all you're doing is spreading yourself too thin and then you are literally giving your power away to other people and letting them dictate whether you're good enough or not. And as long as you stay in that and you keep yourself on the back burner, your body is going to stay highly stressed and she's not going to feel safe and she's probably going to hang on to the weight. And this is also what easily fuels emotional eating behaviors and hormone issues because we're putting ourselves last. Also, if you were raised in a family where your family said it is so selfish and bad for you to prioritize yourself, shame on you if you do that. You've got to take care of everyone else. That is like, you know, there's a lot of, you know, courage and bravery that it takes to break a paradigm like that and go against the grain and not worry about what your family is going to think if you're to make a change like that. And then I know a lot of my clients have the mom guilt. They've had kids, they already weren't putting themselves first. Now they are like, these are the center of my universe. Like, I can't take 10 minutes for myself. Like, what if they need me? And it's like, no, your body needs you. You can take 10 minutes from your kids. But the guilt freezes us. The fear of what other people are going to think freezes us. So this is coming from our own insecurity, our own level of unworthiness or a lack of self love, and we're out of our power. And that's what leads us, unfortunately. And so on this healing journey, as you release the weight or whatever you're trying to do physically, you're going to work on claiming your worth, setting healthy boundaries and opening up time for yourself. Because you're not a robot. You can't put sand in a Ferrari. We need to stop treating our bodies like they're robots. They're not.

Yeah. And of course, all of that leads to what you were saying just before this. And then the cortisol starts to go up and then the domino effect of the thyroid and everything else starting to get caught up in this cascade, if you will.

100. Yeah. That's what happens when you, when you.

Start working with someone to take them on the healing journey as opposed to the weight loss journey. Where do you begin?

Yeah. So the first step is really around understanding what kind of relationship they have with food, what kind of relationship they have with their bodies and their self talk. And then we also really thoroughly look at things like their hormone imbalances. I do testing with all of my clients because we cannot be guessing on that piece. We have to know exactly what's going on. And then we'll look at, you know, their inflammatory load. You know, are you sensitive to energy, like looking at all these different aspects? But we start working on healing their relationship with food first. Because I would say about 99% of my clients are struggling with some form of emotional eating, binge eating, food addiction, or the binge purge cycle. We're using food as a coping mechanism, and that is one of the biggest stressors, aside from putting ourselves last, that is going to keep the body in that fight or flight stress mode and, and keep the body hanging on to protection because we're punishing ourselves with food. Also, the other thing.

Wait, punishing Ourselves with food. Don't we always, we feel like we're rewarding ourselves with food or is it a weird double edged sword here?

Yeah. So we may intellectually think that, oh, I've had a bad day, I'm going to reward myself with food. But if you're actually not physically hungry and, or the food that you're choosing to eat is going to give you bloating, pain, discomfort, brain fog symptoms and, and impact the way your body can function in a negative way. We are now punishing ourselves with food. Emotional eating, binge eating, binge purge cycle. They are acts of self hatred. And I don't say that to make the listeners feel bad. I say it because it's a huge wake up call moment to realize I am hurting my body with food. Just like how I can hurt my body with diets and punish my body with diets and I can punish my body with exercise. If I binge and then I panic and I feel the need to skip breakfast the next day, go to the gym for two hours, that is punishment. That is not coming from a place of self love and respect. That is coming from a place of self loathing and insecurity and fear. So what we need to start to become aware of is what is the intent behind my choices. But that's one of the first things I start working on with my clients. And a lot of them have like diet addiction, food fears, food rules. So we have to work on disposal, dismantling all of that as well. Because a healthy relationship with food is really going to help all the other things come into balance.

Yeah, I can see how you could have a lot of fear around food and your relationship with it. You cannot have this, you cannot have that. You must eat this even though you don't like it. And a slow buildup of rules over your entire life.

Yeah.

And then to have to go in and completely deconstruct that set of rules, that's scary.

Yeah.

And, and you have. How do you build trust around that? How do you begin trusting that, that that'll work or that you're even allowed to do that? Yeah, well, you know what I'm saying.

Yeah. Well, I think the biggest part is what we have to understand is our nervous system and our subconscious mind have been wired by the decades or years of habits of the dieting, of the you can't eat this. Of I use food as a coping mechanism, of I count calories to lose weight and keep it off. And so of course when we consider a completely different way, it doesn't feel safe, it feel familiar. Who would I be without using these things? This is like my safety comfort zone. And so it takes time. This is not a quick fix journey. It takes time. Almost always saying like, the average amount of time I work with someone is at least 12 to 18 months. Because we have to rewire the brain, we have to shift the subconscious, we have to shift over the nervous system to help you feel safe and comfortable and familiar. Not dieting, learning to have a mindful relationship with food. Having healthy ways to cope without food, food, but that you can enjoy food. It's about loving food. I love food. I love nourishing my body in a way that's going to help me stay attuned, to source my channels, stay open, my frequencies, stay high. I love to physically feel well and I love to have good mental health. So I choose because I love myself to nourish myself in a way that is alignment for me and my state of being. I also mindfully enjoy indulgence and that's also okay. But I don't do it every day, all the time because I don't feel optimal. Right. So to me that's the ultimate space of like freedom with food is you, you. You fuel out of a place of love and confidence, which is clear of diet and food rules. But I also give myself permission to have my piece of cake and eat it too. But the guilt's gone. I don't feel the need to eat the whole cake. There's no shame. I can move on. But it has. It took time from healing my relationship with food to being free to get to that point. Right. So patience is a virtue on this journey.

Yeah. I'm sure you've already spoken of a couple of these and thinking you talk about 10 common weight loss blocks and I know on your website you've got a masterclass on that people can listen to. What are some of the ones you haven't yet mentioned that are important that we may be overlooking or missing?

Great question. So I think one of the biggest so poor sleep. If you are rebelling and staying up late, getting three or four hours of sleep because you got to binge watch your net Netflix show, you are sabotaging your hormones, you are sabotaging your dopamine, you are sabotaging every aspect of your being and it's going to feel very difficult to lose weight and keep it off because you're fueling inflammation, cortisol, stress issues, hormone imbalances. Your body needs rest. So I think setting healthy boundaries with tech and Having a good sleep hygiene routine is very important. Negative self talk, your cells are listening to your thoughts. Okay? So every time we're negative toward ourselves, the body senses I'm being attacked, goes into fight or flight, we produce more cortisol, right? And that helps the body go, okay, well, I don't feel safe. She's against me, right. So I need to protect. And so that just keeps the layers coming on. So we have to start to work on dismantling our negative self talk and becoming aware of it because you're going to continue to be fighting with your body and we've also got to take the pressure off. So the more pressure you put on yourself that I've got to lose this amount of weight by this time. You put deadlines on it. You do heavy restriction, like I said earlier, you're going to temporarily damage your metabolism. The more pressure you put on about anything, the more you actually repel it. It's like, I feel like it's part of the universal laws, right? Like, the more pressure I put on someone that they need to do this work or put on myself that I have to make a certain amount of money, the more I repel it versus when we're not so much focusing on the numbers and the need to lose weight in a certain amount of time, but we focus on the healing and getting curious about our blocks, it happens a lot more easily. I also think that I know I've touched on like the thyroid. So hypothyroid, underactive thyroid and Hashimoto's, which is the autoimmune condition, as well as any level of adrenal fatigue and burnout are going to be weight loss blocks and make it feel a lot more difficult to release weight and keep it off, as will elevated estrogen or estrogen dominance. Where your estrogen levels get too high, usually progesterone gets too low. I had all of these when I was 24, and it definitely all, like, was part of my weight loss blocks. And then I had to quit the gym. So another weight loss block, when your body's really overwhelmed and overstimulated and you're really tired is to push yourself in the gym. And if you were like me, I had a limiting belief of I have to exercise to lose weight and keep it off. But the irony was I was exercising and I was gaining weight. And so what I had to do for myself is go, you know what? I've got to let go of control. What do I have to lose? And so I stopped the gym. That was a Personal choice. But my hormones were a mess. I had the worst cortisol level I had ever seen. Even still my 11 years of practice, it's still the highest level that I had ever seen. And I was exhausted, but that was the limiting belief that was calling the shots. And so once I chose to rest and like start sleeping more, napping, just being in nature, getting more grounded, using my self care practices, eating well and forgiving myself and, and really like building the self love, which takes time. It's the repetition of reprogramming. The weight just started to fall off. I didn't have to do anything, I didn't diet, I didn't exercise. I got to my natural set point through safety. But I just bring up the point about the exercise because a lot of women are overdoing it and they think more is better, but it's definitely not always better, especially if you have a hormone issue. Another weight loss block is inflammation. So inflammation will show up in the forms of redness, swelling, heat or pain. The emotional connection is suppressed. Anger, frustration, irritation. And we will have a lot of inflammation because of all the things I've been talking about in this episode, as well as elevated inflammatory markers in the body like some C reactive protein, poor gut health, candida and fungal overgrowths. Feeling like we have to hold the weight of the world on our shoulders. Okay. And this inflammation will keep growing, especially if you're not sleeping well, you're not hydrated, you're not eating enough or eating, you know, good quality food. And then you just have this overspill of inflammation. A lot of people don't realize we can retain up to £25 of just water. So we have to deal with this inflammatory block because that's another big one that will keep the body hanging on. It's not necessarily all weight. A lot of it can be water retention because you're heavily inflamed. So if your rings are fitting tighter. Right. If you have a lot of chronic pain or heat in your body, these are all signs of inflammation. So those are some of the ones that I definitely see all the time. From a spiritual standpoint, sometimes it can be past life stuff where maybe in a past life you were either a starving prisoner like I was, or you were, you know, very large. And, and it's like something didn't get healed. And so it's coming in again for clearing in this lifetime. So there's many things to dig into.

Yeah, I'm, I'm thinking, I hope I don't have every single one of Those. I'm sure we all have a, you know, a spectrum of 2 or 3 or 4. Interplaying. And we. The journey starts with figuring out which our particular ones are. Like when you talk about cortisol and stress, I'm. Yeah, that's probably me. But then you talk about hormones and say menopause. Oh, that's me too. Which other ones? I don't know yet because I haven't had, you know, all the tests done that you suggested. Do you think it. It.

Do you.

Do you see people ending up with their own unique kind of mix or chemistry of things that are playing into each other and everyone's a little. Everyone's kind of different? Yeah, I mean, there's no one size fits all.

No, there's no one size fits all. Each person is unique. But I see the same general things. Emotional eating, high cortisol, high inflammation, poor gut health, poor thyroid function, putting yourself on the back burner, unprocessed trauma and emotion. Actually, the wounded inner child who's been ignored her whole life. That's a huge weight loss block. And I've had some clients who will heal their relationship with food, balance their hormones. The weight still hasn't budged, but once we start the inner child healing, that changes everything. So I would actually say most of my clients have an average of at least 10 to 12 weight loss blocks or more. So. Yeah, because if we look at it from a physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual standpoint, there's many potential things that could be contributing. Right? So. So be forgiving and gift yourself grace, because we're not taught any of this. We're not taught to look at weight loss blocks. We're taught to eat less and exercise more, which is so archaic and couldn't be further from the truth. So this is why it's like you can release weight and keep it off. It doesn't matter what your family history has been. It doesn't matter what your genetics have been. It is about understanding you are powerful. Your body's always trying to heal. It's just that we're, by accidentally getting in the way. So, yeah, if we stop fighting and start getting curious, it changes everything. And age doesn't matter. So that's one of the paradigms we hear all the time from Western medicine. Oh, well, once you're over 25 or 35 or 40 or whatever, like, that's it. You're just gonna have to accept your body's gonna just. Just let herself go. That's such B.S. it's. It's got nothing to do with that. I work with women from their 20s to their 80s and they've all made the changes. If they show up and they do the work and they get curious.

Yeah, I, I fall into that. I fall into that fallacy of it's menopause weight, it's medication weight. Maybe it's a piece of it, but maybe 1/10 of it. If, you know, we're all kind of have 10 to 12 things that are all in interplay with, with one another.

Yeah, that's what it sounds like. 1. And this is the thing with perimenopause and menopause. Or it's no different with like your period and your PMS symptoms. Like, the more out of whack your hormones are before you get into that phase, like perimenopause or menopause, the more likely you're going to be to have a heightened, maybe more intense experience with menopause because your hormones have probably been out of whack for a long time versus if you're able to start working on those hormones, you can have a completely different experience through the rest of your phase of menopause. Just like a woman who's got horrible PMS symptoms. They come in two weeks before her cycle. She's got a heavy period, or maybe it's really short. This is signs of significant hormone imbalance and inflammation. And so if we can start working on that, guess what? She's probably going to have a very calm and easy, breezy time through perimenopause and menopause unless significant stressors come up through that time. Right. But often, like most women are not getting their hormones tested at all and. Or the doctor does one test and it's not even. Or they just browse through and go, everything's fine. Unfortunately, the normal ranges are far too big. So you can have hormone issues in the normal range and then you're ignored and shoved to the side and just told it's in your head. And that's not okay. You're smart, you're intuitive. If something feels off, you keep digging and advocating and finding those who will be willing to help you on your journey to get the answers.

Yeah, I've often wished there was a specific in, in the medical field, a specific role called women's health specialist. That's all I focus on. That's all I know. And forget the silly thyroid tests that always say you're perfect when really you're terribly not perfect. Unfortunately, I don't, I don't think that has come to pass in the medical field yet. But my hopes are out there.

Yeah, it will come. It's going to shift just.

Yes.

Yeah. But it's going to take some time. Yeah. And, and it is that, that one thyroid test. Well, it's important that they do, they'll just say, oh, that's normal, you're fine. But that, that one test is called thyroid stimulating hormone and the range is a lot smaller than what's on the paper. And most of my clients, including myself, had thyroid issues in the normal range. So.

Yeah, I've seen that as well.

I've seen that too.

Okay, so you, your, your basic umbrella is to build body awareness, right? Everything we've been talking about is you to become more aware of your body. But can you, you unpack that a little bit? Like what does that actually mean?

Yeah, so it means over time, keywords, over time, you learn to become very attuned to your body. Why she's speaking to you with physical symptoms, what's triggering those physical symptoms? Right to your emotional state. Am I in my power, which is where I lead from my heart, or am I out of my power, which is I'm giving that power way to my head. The analytical critical mind. I like to call the ego, the negative voice that is always putting you down, always triggering you to be critical of yourself, telling you you can't put yourself first, all of that. So that's a very important part of becoming attuned and aware because your thoughts and emotions are dictating your habits and the way you do or don't show up. And so if your ego critical mind is calling the shots of the, out of the all the time, you're going to be, you know, really probably reacting a lot. You're going to be taking a lot of your action steps and of fear and worry. So we must build a deep level of awareness of how do I take my power back? Who's calling the shots right now? And then I think also being aware of, yeah, am I a sensitive empath? Do I know how to manage my energy? Do I have good boundaries? Right. If I have a friend who's constantly sucking the life out of me and is an energy vampire, like, why am I not setting boundaries to, to distance if I trial my stuff and it's not working Right. So I think that building awareness takes time. I never used to have any awareness of my body. I was planning to be an entertainment reporter. Like this was not on my radar. And then the healing journey catapulted me to a level of awareness where I can feel if my thyroid's off, I can feel my adrenals producing cortisol. Like, I can feel right. And I've gone through some pretty significant physical symptoms that have taught me how to really up level spiritually, energetically, emotionally and physically. Because sometimes the body is like. Like, we need you to get a message. The only way we can get you to get it is by giving you a pretty intense symptom. So you stop reacting and you learn the mastery of responding to your body instead. Like, I used to get horrible urethra pain. Felt like I had a UTI for a couple of years straight, but I didn't. Of course, nothing was physically wrong with my body. They want to just be like, oh, just take low grade antibiotics for the rest of your life. I'm like, no, there's something else. And so what I learned is my urethra became my kind of like thermometer. And if I was tolerating too much or I had a ton of unprocessed shame and guilt around money from when I was younger stuck there. And so I started moving all this stuff out and it completely went away. Right. So it just goes to show us how, you know, I started talking to my urethra. I started asking her questions like, this is how we heal by being willing to go. Like, I don't care what anyone else thinks. This is what I need to do and this is helping me.

Right.

So I think awareness is a muscle you build over time, but it's something you will never lose. It will only get stronger. And then if you pair your intuition with awareness, it's like the most incredible superpower. Yeah.

Yeah, Perfect. I believe exactly the same when it comes to that.

And.

And you mentioned talking to your body. I'm a big fan.

Yes.

Of opening up an actual dialogue, an actual communication.

Yeah, me too.

So I'm glad to hear you state that too. Where should people go to get started with you? I mean, obviously you've got an amazing podcast, the no Sugar Coating podcast. Your website Amber Approved ca. What should people do first?

Yeah.

With you?

So definitely check out the podcast and then if you're wanting to connect, to explore, support, or you want to learn more about me and Body freedom, the website Amber Approved CA. I have a 30 minute complimentary body Freedom consultation that you're welcome to book in so we can connect on zoom and talk about going on the journey. Like I said, the podcast is a great resource. And you mentioned earlier when we started the episode, I do have a free weight loss box master class as well. As an emotional eating master class. So if you want to like, start building more awareness, those are also great. And that's all available on the website. Amber approved.

I love that.

I, I love it when people offer some of their best teachings for free. Like right there. Because one, a person listening can say, oh my God, I found it. I struck gold. You know, it's, it's a way of, of letting people know there really is something here. And I'm not going to put it behind a paywall. It's right here. Now what do you want to do? And then, you know, you could decide. But so I'm grateful that you have that out there.

Oh, my pleasure. Yeah. It's important. And there's so. See, this is the thing. You think in a 90 minute masterclass, you're going to get through so much. I'm like, I could literally make ten 90 minute masterclasses on each trigger or weight loss block. So, like, there's so much to dive into. So yeah, it's important to have those resources.

Well, Amber, thank you so much. This has been really enlightening and inspiring and I think everyone listening is also going to take the back burner and put it to the front.

Yes.

And realize that a lot of the things that we're trying to make and create in our lives, whether it's to grow our business or our income, or fix relationships without the body stuff handled underneath that supports it all. You wonder why the other stuff doesn't take off and change. So we take that step back and go, ah, foundation. Yeah, that's right here.

Yeah.

And then everything else can move. So that's why it's inspirational.

Well, I'm glad. My pleasure. Yes. And you're so right. In order to get what we want and create and manifest, we must heal. Yeah.

100%. Thank you, Amber.

Thank you for having me.

If you're serious about healing and manifesting through Flow Dreaming, I invite you to join me in the Flow Dreaming mastermind. Every month we hold powerful workshops aligned with the moon and the seasons. They're fun with grounding rituals combined with transformative Flow Dreaming energy. Think of it as a series of exclusive events and you're invited to each one as a Mastermind member. Beyond live events, you also gain immediate access to to 36 Flow Dreaming courses, complete with 42 Flow Dreams and worksheets. Plus, it's incredibly affordable. You'll connect with like minded souls worldwide for joyful Flow Dreaming parties, energy cleansing, and even some witchy rituals. The lighter and brighter you become, the more your life reflects it. Check it out@flow dreaming.com because our next Flow Dreaming event is right around the corner. I hope to see you there.