103: Strong Inside Out—Pivoting from OCD and Depression toward Mind-Body Alignment with Amy Clover

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. I am overjoyed to be here with kindred spirit and longtime blog friend running into each other at a conference in 2012. Amy Clover Amy Clover is a writer, coach, teacher, and the force behind Strong Inside out, which is a movement devoted to helping people break free from shaming mental health, metric based health standards and helping them build individual health without scales or judgment. On her website, Amy openly and courageously shares her struggles with clinical depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and eating disorders. Everything from hitting rock bottom when she was hospitalized on suicide watch to her strategies for bouncing back and keeping moving without ping ponging between extremes or perfectionism. Amy, I'm so thrilled to have you welcome to the show.

So psyched to be here. Jenny. Thank you for having me.

We were already talking before hitting record and just so much good stuff bouncing back and forth. I really love what you're doing and there are so many places we could start.

I know, I feel like we already did start before it even began. We're just so jazzed.

So I definitely want to get to your story of what sparked Inside out and even how you brought yourself back from that rock bottom of being on suicide watch. But first, I think it's really interesting. You've recently pivoted the entire scope of your work within the last year. So let's start there and dive in. Tell us about this recent shift that you've made in your business.

Sure. So I think to start with, I should probably tell you about what my business was beforehand. Is that cool?

Yeah, please.

All right. So my business beforehand, when I met you back in 2012, strong inside out was basically a I was a personal trainer at the time I was talking about fitness, but I was also kind of like a little bit hesitantly just talking about my depression and then talking about my anxiety and being like, it's also helped me with these things. But anyways, back to working out, blah, blah, blah. And then in 2013, I was finally like, you know, eff it, I'm just gonna be open with all of this stuff that I talk about. And I actually launched a campaign to raise $18,000 on indie.

To do a 30 city tour across the US and Canada to celebrate the 30th birthday I almost didn't have, due to a hospitalization on suicide watch, like you already mentioned, to raise money for suicide prevention through the boot camps that I would teach in these 30 cities. And that's what really kicked strong inside out off. It really got my name out there as far as a place to come for people who were interested in using fitness to help with their depression, help with their anxiety. But what I found is that kept going beyond 2013 was that I was being pulled in several different directions. I was being pulled in this fitness direction and then I was being pulled in this mental health direction. But I'm not a mental health professional, so it was difficult to talk about those things or help people with those things without just making all of the disclaimers and always referring people out to other mental health professionals. And then in 2015, I realized I hadn't healed everything. I mean, surprise, we never really do heal everything, I guess. But in 2015, I actually went back into treatment for my eating disorder because it had resurged up and was really taking over a lot of my life. And as I went through that, I realized that the way that I was talking to myself, this perfectionistic kind of way, that I was beating myself up, telling myself it was never enough, I was also telling that to other people. I was also preaching that on my site. So when I got stable enough out of recovery, I started cleaning, cleaning up my whole site. I started taking out all of those posts, all of those pieces of content and all of those courses that just felt wrong and felt like I was really pushing people to these extremes that I learned was so unhealthy for me. And I just felt again pulled in different directions. Now there was this fitness element, now there was this mental health element, now there was this eating element. And I finally just brought other people onto my team to help me hone my brand. And I started working with this awesome team called Office of Awesome and they helped me create what is called a brand architecture. And so, luckily for me, they already knew my brand before I started working with them. So they kind of saw this whole just journey that I'd been on, and they were able to help me realize that what really drives me and where I am really of the highest service to people is helping them come back from these extremes. So we decided that my site now is dedicated to performance health recovery. And what that is, is, is we have these performance health ideals. I mean, you look at the fitness industry and you see performance health all over the place. You have to be this metric to be enough. You need to look like this, you need to weigh this much, you need to be able to lift this much weight. You need to, you know, all of those things. And these metrics are set on us as this standard to be enough. And it drives a lot of people insane. Not everyone. Sometimes it works for people, but a lot of people feel like it's too much. And so they either go, go, they burn out. And then after the burnout, just sit in that place of, oh, my gosh, I can't even move again, or I can't even try to eat healthy again. Because if I try, it needs to be that extreme that I was doing before.

By the way, I even used to go to yoga in that manner.

Right. Me too.

I would go six nights a week. I would go to the hardest power yoga classes. I would make sure I was dripping sweat. I would go to Pilates beforehand. Then yoga. It's like, even this practice that you would think balances mind, body, spirit, I was using in a way that had me going at that pace which matched the pace of the rest of my life as well.

Exactly. It bleeds into the rest of our lives. And that's the thing is media society, the way that we've grown up, our age range specifically, like millennials and up, have been raised with this kind of, like, shaming, like, ideal. Like, we have to shame ourselves into positive results, which never, ever, ever works, if you ever tried it that way. And if we do get results, when we shame ourselves into things, they don't feel positive when we get them, you know? So basically, I'm going off on a tangent. I'm sorry, tangent number one.

And you're right. And I think that shaming is so pervasive, I didn't even realize it was happening.

Totally.

I used to put on makeup to go to yoga. That's so ridiculous. But I did it. And. Oh, and why all the cute tops? Of course I like looking. I like feeling good from the inside out. But what was the performance for? Who's the makeup for? Like, what's the deal? And I just felt almost embarrassed to like, leave the house without some certain measurement of acceptability. And I didn't even realize I was doing it honestly, until now. My partner Michael, he said, you look so much better without makeup. And it recalls that Amy Schumer skit. If you guys haven't seen it, you have to. Like, I've mentioned it even on this podcast, and I thought no one really means that. Like, wait till you see me without makeup and you'll change your mind. I've seen that. But he's even, he says he's like, you have a glow that you cover when you put on makeup. And I just think that's one tiny example that pervades how we treat our bodies, how we treat our health and fitness and everything. You're describing how we treat food and probably how we treat everything. Money, career, the works.

Yep, yep. So what I'm focusing on is the health element of it of like the. So now that we've defined kind of what performance health is, is this like metric based ideals and standards? I'm helping people come back from that to reconnect with their bodies, to reconnect with, with what's really important to them, which is individual health. Health should look different for each person because different things are different, are important to different people. And so I help people shed all the metric based shaming stuff and just come back to their truth, their true health.

One thing I find really interesting in this pivot story that you've described is you mentioned the 3030 tour. And this was crowdfunded boot camps for suicide prevention groups, which I think is such a fascinating intersection of your love of fitness and personal training with a population that you really care about, that you are part of, and that yet you had this hesitation of not being a mental health professional. And I think so many, so many of us, myself included, from time to time fall into this. Well, I'm not an expert. Well, I'm not a, I'm not an academic researcher or I'm not a, like in your case, mental health professional. And so we are very shy or reserved or kind of shut ourselves down in advance because we pick whatever certification we don't have and say, well, then I probably can't do this work.

Yeah, I think that's, there's a lot to be said for that. And I think, you know, to the.

There's certain limits on it where I feel like a lot of us have that kind of imposter syndrome around different things like this. And.

For me, it was a case of I was helping people with these things, and people were starting to come to me because they were like, I have depression. Please help me. And I was like, I can help you by helping you with the behaviors around it, but I can't help you with the actual depression part of it. You're gonna have to see a professional for that. But. But I do know what you're saying in the idea that, like, when I just first started talking about this kind of stuff, I was always referencing out to, like, you know, Psychology Today and all these different resources and studies on, like, NIMH and that kind of stuff, because I just never felt qualified enough. And I think that's another thing that we have these, like, you know, extreme standards around is it's never enough. You can always do more certifications. You can always have more qualifications. When does it ever be enough?

I think you're a great example of owning your story and the experiences that have worked for you with integrity. So you're not claiming to be anything that you're not. I love that you are mentioning you refer out absolutely. As appropriate. But you are saying this. This is what pulled me back from the brink. And I would love if you could take us to that low of being put on suicide prevention. What was going on in your life at that time and what were those first early steps of realizing there was a way out.

At that time was just super, super dark. It was just like.

Accumulation of lots of years refusing recovery because I didn't think it was possible for myself. You know, it was recovery from depression. From depression. Yeah. And so I was diagnosed with clinical depression when I was in high school, and I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder also in high school or late middle, remember, actually. And those two together are not a great mix if you've ever had them. They don't go well together. And, you know, for so long, I was just trying to hide it. I was just trying to stuff it down because I was taught, like, so many of us are. And this kind of, like, goes over to the eating side of things, the fitness side of things, to just stuff it down, just suck it up, just deal with it, just be strong. And I was taught all of these things and taught to just be silent. So I struggled silently for a long time, which doesn't really work well either. I mean, if you struggle silently, it's bound to explode here and there, and you just have a lot less control over It. And so it just kept getting worse. I started using drugs and alcohol to medicate myself. I started getting into horrible relationships where I was treated horribly as a way to kind of validate this lack of self worth or to give me some semblance of worth that I didn't have at all. And none of it worked. And then I finally got to this place where I had just tried everything and I just was done. I just felt like I was done. And so my roommate actually stopped me in the kitchen with a knife to my wrist, and she was like, please just go call someone. I don't know what to do anymore. And so I called an ex boyfriend who was still a friend of mine at the time, and he convinced me to call a suicide prevention hotline. And. And they convinced me. They talked me down and said, if you don't feel better in the morning, just go to bed right now. And if you don't feel better in the morning, go to the er. And, you know, I didn't know really at that time. I wasn't really thinking straight. I mean, obviously I wasn't thinking straight. I didn't know what would happen if I went to the er. But I did go to the ER the next morning because I still felt like I just didn't want to be here anymore. And they put me in the hospital against my will, on suicide watch in psych ward. I've never been so angry in my entire life. I did have a bit of a problem with authority. We should just get that on the table.

It's amazing that you got yourself there that something. What was the peace in you that took you there? Because I could see if you have. Especially if you had an issue with authority, you'd be like, there's no way I'm gonna go have all those doctors tell me what to do.

I had no idea that. That I just. It wasn't in my mind that that could even be a result. And I think honestly it was spirit sent because, I don't know, brought me there. It's just. I was just so lost. I didn't. I just didn't know what to do anymore. I felt like I wasn't even taking my own actions. I was just in this haze of lost, you know?

And what happened once you checked yourself in?

Well, so I was checked in, unfortunately for me at the time. But it was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me because it was a wake up call. So what happened was I was in that hospital against my will. And I just realized in There I was like, I've never been so angry. This is a true. Just loss of control. I'd never felt so out of control. You know, they control when you eat. They control what meds you take. You don't have any say in that. They control where you're at a certain time when you go to bed, all of those things. You just don't have control in places like that. And it made me realize that I had choices before I got there that I had never even known I'd had. I had these choices to maybe try to act differently, maybe try to get better. I'd always just accepted that my depression, my ocd, was a life sentence because that's how I was taught to accept it, that there was. You know, it was lifelong. You could never do anything about it. You just needed to medicate and shut up about it. And so that's what I'd always done. But then when I was in that hospital, I started questioning that. And that questioning that followed me as I left that hospital. And I tried all these different things to try to feel better. And I kept trying and failing and trying and failing. But the difference was this time, I just kept getting back up. I kept trying things, just having this weird faith that I'd really never had before, that something was going to work for me. And what finally worked for me was finding fitness at the same time as going to a therapist who I felt like really got me working on cognitive behavioral therapy at the same time as going to the gym. And what I found was when I went to the gym, I used mantras. When I went to the gym and I started, yeah, it was really, really helpful. I was introduced to them by a kickboxing instructor, actually, who always used I can and I will, I can and I will all through class. And so I was like, I'm going to steal this. And I used them for my workouts. And what I found was that I started feeling so empowered in the gym. And also when I left in a new way that I'd never experienced before, the work that I was working on with my cognitive behavioral therapist was sticking better. I felt like I was more capable. I felt more confident. It just kind of like bled into every area of my life as I started getting into fitness.

You mentioned words like spirit, sent of moving you forward and even having a newfound faith as you pulled yourself out of this depression. What role does spirituality play in all of this, if at all, for you?

Oh, yeah. I think it was around that time when I started choosing to believe that Everything happens for a reason. And it was around, around that time I got released from the hospital. Everything has to happen for a reason. I believed it because I had to believe it. It was the only thing that was helping me cope with all of these horrible things that had happened to me. This kind of, like, hand I'd been dealt with life. I had to believe that everything happened for a reason. And because I chose to believe that, things started to reveal themselves to me. You know, answers started to reveal themselves for me. Like things on the other side, like realizations that the good things that were happening in my life were happening only because the bad things had happened and like, laid the path for these good things to come to me. So now I am quite a spiritual person, but I haven't always been. You know, I grew up in an atheist family. I grew up with, you know, a scientist and software engineer as my parents, which was amazing. But I didn't ever have any semblance of faith. And I kind of wish that I did because I think that if I had grown up with knowing that everything happens for a reason or believing some kind of semblance of faith, that there's. That you're not just alone here in the world. I think I might have been able to cope a bit better with my depression and anxiety, for sure.

Right. Even just some higher power, higher force or. I think what that provides is a feeling of being held and supported somehow by something other than you, like the small you or the small self, because I can relate to that so much. I also identified as atheist for many years simply because I just. Even what religion I was taught as a kid, going to Sunday school or different things, I. For some weird reason, I also had this problem with authorities. I didn't like people telling me what to do or what to believe. But what ended up happening was that in my 20s, similar to you, I felt so exhausted and just life was so exhausting and hard. And when things stopped working and I couldn't control everything or I was burning out, or my perfectionism, just like you, when those things weren't working, it's like there was nowhere else to turn. And I just couldn't live like that anymore. It was this most exhausting, depressing way to live. And that was for me.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

No, go ahead, go ahead.

I find a lot of the time when it's that rock bottom that really brings people to that understanding, that opening up to a belief that there might be something else out there that we just don't fully understand. And you know, and I think there's, there is a stigma right now around the word God. And so spirituality, that term, spirituality is so closely connected with God. I think, you know, people have immediately this, this thought in mind of what God is for that person when they hear that word. And for me, that scared me because I, you know, God was a bad word growing up in my house, to be honest. It was. My house was anti established religion. And so I was like, I, oh, okay, I can't even open up to that. Like, opening up to that would make me a stupid person. And then it took me a long time out of my house to realize that's not actually stupid stupidity. It's actually a source of strength for me now to believe in spirituality. And I don't necessarily call my higher power God, but you know, call it whatever you want, whatever works for you. But you know, it's, I think that the willingness to believe in something other than us is in fact kind of like a rebellion for me anyways, or like this, this personal revolution to set my own beliefs and not, like you were saying, not be dictated what I'm supposed to believe. That kind of anti authority kind of punk rock spirituality, if you will.

I also remember during my lows I started to think, okay, every, just like you, everything that happens is for my highest growth and evolution. And, and also everything happens for a reason. And I remember, like I have the atheist choir in my mind that when I say everything happens for a reason, and I believe it does, now I would say this is my belief, but I have the choir in my mind, like, oh, that's so Pollyanna. But the thing is, whether it's true or not, objectively speaking. And who can say I feel so much better when I ascribe to this. When I look at, as you said, every up and down as perfectly timed, perfectly organized, with the perfect cast of characters, all for my highest growth and awareness and contribution. And almost daily I give a surrender prayer of show me how to serve, show me how to serve. What can I do? And it's, it's not connected to an organized religion, I would say, though I'm very respectful of many different ones. But it's almost like to my former skeptical rationalist self, it's like it almost doesn't matter if you can prove that it's true, because I live better, I have a higher vibration, I have better energy, more love when I believe those things. So why not look that way? If the jury's out anyway completely, it's.

All about how you feel, what your personal experience is, because that's. This is what I call mental optics. And I'm actually creating a course on this. I'll tell you about that later. But it's all about mental optics. You know, the world, our reality, is created by the way we perceive our world and the world around us and who we are and who we label other people to be. And if we say everything's random, everything just happens. Like, for me and Jenny, I don't know if you're like this too, but some of the things that you told me lead me to believe that maybe you are sometimes need a semblance of control.

And so me have a control problem?

What?

What?

In the past, it sounds like you come a long way since. So I'm not saying you're like that now.

Just a quick timeout, I realized I was. I had a relationship coaching session. I'm like, why do I have so much fear around relationships, my career? I feel so relaxed. And she's like, because it involves another person that you have no control over. I was like, damn it, she got me. You know? Like, I didn't even realize I was still exerting this obsession with control. But anyway, your turn. Go on.

It's bunches of layers of an onion, girl. It's just, like, ever unfolding, right? Totally. But that's the thing, is when everything's random and you're a person who enjoys having some semblance of control, it's just. It's too much. That alone, I think, was a huge driver for me to go into deep, dark depression. But when I started to believe everything happens for a reason or just like, almost act as if I believed it when I didn't even believe it yet, I was like, oh, this feels like a little bit better for me to just be able to release my death grip on controlling everything I can't control anymore. When we can just give up and just trust that things are being taken care of by, you know, spirit, by universe, by nature, by mother Earth, by science. You know, it just allows us to just take a deep breath of relief and, yes, feel better. That's what matters. How you feel day in and day out.

So beautifully said. There's so much I want to ask you. One thing you mentioned is having a relapse of your eating disorder in 2015. And I find that really interesting timing. Just you'd been running your own business, achieving momentum. What do you think sparked that relapse? And what did you learn from it? What have you learned from It. In the years since.

So the, the relapse, I actually was getting ready for a. A series of fitness videos and it was with this big company and I was, I was so excited. I was like, it was like this big break for me, right? And I was like, okay, well, this is my chance. I'm going to show everyone what I can do. It was this kind of like, I have to be perfect because this is my one chance to show the world how great I can be in my mind, through my body, right? I had to, like, get into perfect shape and be this perfect presenter. And I had no idea that perfectionism was part of my eating disorder, a huge part of it. But so I was practicing and getting ready for all of this stuff. And, you know, I was a fitness trainer and I had done some recovery for my eating disorder. But since, since the behaviors. I was bulimic. In my early 20s, I was diagnosed with bulimia. But since I'd stopped throwing up, I thought I was cured. But what happens is if you don't use those behaviors and the eating disorder is untreated, it finds other ways as an outlet. And so my bulimia started to transform into anorexia. I was eating maybe 1,000 calories a day, and I was working out two and a half hours a day.

And I got into crazy shape. I got to 13% body fat, which, if you don't know for a woman is when you stop having your period, is when your hormones go crazy. I hit adrenal fatigue, but I felt so powerful, this obscene high that I was riding on. And as soon as those workout videos were done and shot, I was like, what do I do with myself? And I started just binging non stop. I gained 10 pounds in a week. And I just didn't. I was like. I cried to a friend of mine, a mentor of mine, and I was like, I just can't stop. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't understand. I'm wasting all of this, all of this hard work I did. And I just feel so ashamed. I feel so bad. I just can't stop. And she was like, you need to get back into recovery. You need help. And thank God she said that because I don't think I would have been able to come to that decision on my own. I think I'd still be cycling through it if she hadn't told me that. And so I finally got back into recovery and started realizing a lot of what I coach people on now is that these extremes that you go through.

Don'T need to be the norm, don't need to be where you live. A lot of these feelings that we need to be perfect, a lot of this shame of not being enough because we don't look a certain way or can't lift a certain amount or can't run a certain speed are totally flawed. They're installed upon us by some performance health guru that says that's what you need to be to be enough. But we already know I have a problem with authority. I just never seen those people as the authority problem before. You know what I mean? So that's kind of how I got back into it. Yeah.

And isn't it, it's so powerful what you're saying, just associating the perfectionism with the eating disorder. I mean, it can connect to so many things and then how, you know, and I've heard you talk about this, where some of these things there's a, even a perfectionism that can come in, in recovery, you know, like, okay, well, I'll never relapse again and I'm healed. You know, you just want to close the book and, and just declare it done. And often I'll notice myself falling into this tendency where it's like anything short of total enlightenment and I'm failing.

I'm also, at the same time, one of my mind mindset is I'm open to non linear breakthroughs. So I try not to tell myself the story that, oh, this is going to be a slog. You're going to, like you were told when you were young, this is going to be with you the rest of your life. Like, you use such a powerful phrase of a life sentence. And so I think it's interesting how you strike that balance between not seeing it as a life sentence and yet having that compassion with yourself that like, you can't apply perfectionism even to healing. Like, that's not gonna work.

Totally. It happens all the time with the people that I coach. I'm like, you can't be perfectionist about healing. Your perfectionism, like, it's just not going to work that way. Yeah, but you're so right there. Yeah.

I heard you on a podcast called Two Wolves, which I love because this is one of my favorite parables and I share it in Pivot. So for those uninitiated, there's a story where the grandfather says to his grandson, we have two wolves inside of us. Love and joy or fear and hate. And the grandson says, well, which one lives? And the grandfather replies, the one you feed. So and the wolves are fighting. So there, I left that piece out. I really loved your response when you were talking about this with the host because it's very tempting to say, well then, duh, don't feed the one that's fear based and you know, causes problems. But your answer was that, but be careful because you can't ignore it completely. And if you try to ignore it, that wolf gets very, very hungry and he's gonna come back out with a vengeance. Can you share more about how you see this metaphor in this story as it relates to, to physical, mental, spiritual, well being and even the struggles that we often have within us?

Yeah, definitely. That was one of my favorite interviews that I've done actually. That was a great one. And I love that parable too. It's such a great one. But the thing is, you know, we already talked about extremes and if we go to one extreme or the other, it's still on either sides of this extreme spectrum. And extremes are just not great for our psyches or for our behaviors because what extremes lead to is, duh, extreme actions. So extreme actions are going to lead us either to burnout or to not doing anything at all in most health cases. And extreme thoughts are going to lead us to holding ourselves to perfectionistic standards, never thinking we're going to be enough, a lot of shame, or it could even go to the side of narcissism. But as far as health goes, it's really important to acknowledge those dark sides of us. So that fear based on wolf we'll say is going to get. If that figure based wolf becomes a starving wolf. You don't want to be around a starving wolf. And also your love based wolf is over here super stuffed and can't protect you from starving wolf. Right? So what we want to do is we want to turn around a starving wolf and we want to basically just talk to it. And I use this analogy a lot actually on my site. You know, the monster that, that comes into your head and is like, you're never going to be good enough. That voice that's just like, this isn't enough. You're not, you know, thin enough, you're not fast enough, you're not eating well enough. And that kind of stuff, when we push it away and say, no, no, no, I can't think those thoughts, I can't think that stuff, I got to run away from it, I got to do something else. That voice is just going to get, stay there and fester and get stronger and bigger. But when we turn around to that voice or to starving wolf and just say, I see you. Like, what do you, what do you really want? Like, why are you saying these things? What we do when we investigate that starving wolf's voice is we actually get to what we're really lacking, what we feel like we really need under that, all of that fear and stuff like that. And for me, let's use just an example for me is, you know, I have that never enough voice in my head. So let's use an example from when I was in my eating disorder of you're not in shape enough, you're not thin enough. If I turned around to that voice and said like, what's really going on under there? And really took the time to listen, that starving wolf voice would have been able to tell me. You feel like you have to show people you're enough because you don't believe it for yourself. Like that's a belief that you have within yourself that you have to show it to other people because that's what you were taught, you know. And so we have to give both attention. But yeah, we do want to give a little bit more attention to the love based wolf, but we can give a lot of that love to starvation based wolf. Does that make sense? Am I going way over one of four?

Not at all. I absolutely love it. And I talk to myself in many similar ways. Of all my various parts. What it's bringing up, especially around working out is I think there's a third like a tough love wolf that I even have a hard time discerning where sometimes tough love wolf will be like, man, you're getting lazy, you know, like you're just having inertia is setting in and if I haven't worked out in a certain, certain number of days, tough love wolf starts barking.

But it's very hard for me to distinguish when. And you know, and there's a lot in the like I say more men, but certainly some women where it's like, how do you get more disciplined? Be disciplined? You know, like it's really fierce about like, well, you don't have to want to work out. You need to just decide.

Where do you fall with, with this voice nest that ostensibly seems helpful? Like, yeah, if we just felt like working out or not, maybe we wouldn't ever do it and that wouldn't be a good thing. But.

Sometimes it's not helpful or how do we know when it's helpful or not, especially around working out.

I'm so glad you had, glad you asked Jenni, because this is something that Comes up a lot for my clients and a lot of people who come over to Strong inside out. It's, you know, when you first start working out, you're probably not going to want to work out a lot because it feels hard. Your body's like, this sucks. Like, it's really hard to move in this way and to push myself a little bit. What I always like to ask myself when I'm feeling that tough love voice of just like suck it up and go do it kind of voice is I like to ask myself, okay, and this isn't actually one of my upcoming courses as well, is does this feeling loving? Does this feel loving or punishing to go work out right now? Because if you're punishing yourself, that's something you want to just maybe inject a little bit of self love into. Be a little gentle with yourself. But if it feels like loving, if you know your body's going to benefit from this, I always say try to make a deal with yourself. If you're feeling that kind of tough love, maybe it's not time for a class. Maybe it's time to just work out on your own a little bit. Commit to 10 minutes only. And if at that 10 minute mark you still feel like you want to go home, let yourself go home. In the beginning especially, it's important to stay connected to your body as you start to work out, because your body is going to be your best gauge as to what kind of movement you're gonna love and stick with. And what kind of movement is gonna drive you away from working out ever again. So really getting in touch with your body, asking yourself, is this loving or is it punishing for me to go to the gym? And if it is punishing, what do you really need? What can really fill that thing that's driving you to want to go to the gym and punish yourself? What does it really need? Asking yourself that?

I love that distinction. And I'll also highlight, I really love that you describe it as movement. So I hear you even moving away from language like working out, which just sounds hard.

Thanks for doing work.

Yeah. So movement. And that's a shift I've tried to make for myself as well, where I actually inquire for the first time probably ever in my life, what movement feels good? What would be joyful, what would be fun? Like, not just what's going to get XYZ results.

Yeah, totally.

I know you also prescribe different approaches for depression versus clients. Let's say that come to you with anxiety or stress. Can you speak to that briefly.

Yeah, sure. And, you know, this has actually been part of the pivot in my brand as well. I used to say. I used to just go on science and research and be like, okay, so stressed out. People need to do this kind of program and depress. People need to do this kind of program. But what I was doing was I was a performance health guru in that place because I was saying, this is a category. This is a category. This is what you need to do. Right. What I wasn't taking into account is a lot of people with depression also have anxiety. A lot of people, and vice versa. And so certain people need certain workouts at certain different times, and they're different. So what I advise now is that you check in with your body. And this is. I keep coming back to the course thing, and sorry if I sound like I'm just, like, super pitching, but I'm actually not. I'm super psyched about it.

No, please do tell us about them after you finish this course.

I'd love to hear. This is actually what I'm teaching people in this upcoming course that I'm releasing is how to connect with your body in a way to really be able to listen to it and hear what you really want to do. And this is, like, the most individual way we can go about health because our body is our own and no one else's. And it really. It's kind of sad because through a lot of the performance health stuff, we've just taught our body to not talk to us anymore or we just shut down listening.

You know, I also have said, like, we treat our body like it's the enemy or just some kind of slave. Like, do as I say.

Yeah, yeah, Just like. Just like, totally do what I say. I love that, and that's totally true. But when what we really need to do to find individual health, to find true health for ourselves is. Is to really make friends with our body again, to really listen to it and ask her or him what they need in order to feel really vibrant and alive or however you want to feel that day. Whatever values you have in your individual health. So as far as that goes, as far as different workouts for depression and anxiety, I do think that's true because your preferences are gonna change depending on what affliction you have at the moment. So just checking in with your body and asking her or him what she or he wants is gonna be the most important thing you could do.

I'm so glad you said that. Even after I asked the question. I'm like, oh, but you just said this connection to your body and I love that you highlight that. And then when you were talking about how we talk to our body, I started to think of mine as like the most adorable dollar, like man or woman's best friend. Like, it would be my job to walk it every day, to feed it regular intervals. It doesn't need more than that to play with this amazing, friendly dog. You know, like that way of looking at my body was new for me. I used to even call it like a well oiled machine. And I do try to treat it like that as well. Like only the highest feed at the highest, whether it's what I'm reading, what I'm eating, how I'm sleeping. But the dog metaphor has somehow worked really well for me because, like, I love dogs so much and they just love us back. They just need a little care, you know, they can't exactly necessarily, if they're living in domestically, fend for themselves altogether. But they're certainly not the enemy. They're the friend, they're the signal, they're the teacher. They have so much wisdom. We have contained in our bodies.

Yeah. You know, I used to spend so much time angry at my body because she wouldn't be the shape or size that I wanted her to be. And now I feel so bad, like I'm constantly apologizing to her for that because it's like, it's like she's always doing. She kept me alive this whole time. Like, isn't that a freaking miracle? Like amazing. Like she supports me through so much.

Amy, I could talk to you all day long. Unfortunately, we're out of time, so can you please. I always like to leave listeners with one small next step, which I know is a big part of your philosophy as well. And then please tell us where to find you and learn more about your courses as well.

Sure. So I guess the next step, you know, would be the most basic of steps. If you're not used to connecting into your body, start with just putting your hands either on your belly or your heart or one hand on your belly, one hand on your heart and hey, stick with me. If this sounds woo, I know it sounds woo, but just like give it a shot and see what you feel and just take deep breaths into those spots, feeling that warmth from your hands into your body and just see if anything comes up. I think that would be absolute first step as far as connecting into your body and as far as where you can find me, I'm online all the time. Probably too much. You can find me over@stronginsideout.com that's where I live. And I'm also on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter stronginsideout. And you can find out all about my upcoming courses. They're not released yet, but I have one course called Mental Options and one big course about everything we talked about, including body connection and things like that that you'll be able to find about by signing up for emails on my website and even get a few free goodies as well.

Awesome. Amy, thank you so much for doing this work and for being so open and authentic and vulnerable and sharing your ongoing story, not just this perfect little capsule moment in time, but what's actually real for you now and as you go forward. Thank you so much.

Thank you for giving me a space to be real.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot Lists, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter Ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.