Welcome to Dear Amie.

These Dear Amie audio segments are a way for me to get a bit closer to you. Many of you have told me you feel like I’m sitting right next to you in your home when you’re listening and that’s what this is all about.

These episodes aren’t just about your physical wellbeing. They’re about your life and what your life can feel like when you stop going through the motions and bumping up against limiting subconscious beliefs. Dear Amie was designed to move you beyond habitual patterns, to untangle your anxiety and to let you finally feel what it means to be alive and free.

As you’ve seen with my own journey (read my story here), life is going to pull you in different directions. You can either fight the new directions or you can let go, take out your compass and ask…

“What is this here to teach me and how can I grow from this experience?”

Every person’s mind and body– and thus everyone’s life– is a landscape, and none of us have a neutral landscape. Every one of us is living in a land that has been mapped and marked by what has happened in our past, and how we’ve responded. 

You don’t have to live the way that you are, and we do not have to assume that our landscape is “fixed”.

We can shift, grow, and transform the very land beneath our feet.

Realizing this helps you believe you can be the woman you want to be.

Your Journey

What you’ll discover on your own journey is that the things holding you back are not outside of you, they’re inside of you: your doubts, insecurities, fears, limiting beliefs and so on. Let’s shift these, address inflammation and detoxification of the body, and elevate what’s on your plate so you can step forward into the life that’s waiting for you without the conditioned self-sabotaging of your past. 

Solving problems and helping women transform has become increasingly important to me. I see my own transformation and healing as a new beginning and a catalyst to bring you into a fresh, new place where you no longer feel disconnected from yourself and alone.

These episodes bring you to the realization that you are worthy of being healthy, happy, and free.

I’ll guide you there.

Listen

Here is one of our most popular audio segments about letting go from our March 2018 Playlist for you to listen to. Click the play button below to listen.

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Amie has compiled a shortlist of her favorite supplement brands she trusts and has used personally. Click on each bolded item below for more information. Please note this is a very basic list of anti-inflammatory supplements.

TheHealthyApple.com participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.

INFLAMMATION

Inflammation spans from everything like a canker sore to a bloated belly, from PMS to arthritis. Here are a few supplement products Amie loves to target and decrease inflammation.

Enzymedica’s SerraGold

Vitamin C

Omega 3

Zinc

Magnesium

Holy basil

Turmeric/curcumin

Ginger

Specific amino acids

High-quality fish oil

Glutathione oral

Glutathione suppositories

Immune System Tea

GUT HEALTH

Almost 70% of our immune system lives in our gut so if we want a healthy body, we need to focus on the beneficial bacteria vs. the non-beneficial bacteria and yeast (candida) in our body. Here are a few supplement products we love to support your digestion and gut health.

Dysbiosis //

Take 1 Tbsp. coconut oil two times a day. It contains lauric and capric acids, which discourage viruses and yeast, so it’s great for maintaining your intestinal health.

Gastrointestinal Support //

Glutamine, quercetin, aloe vera, licorice, slippery elm bark, marshmallow root, fibers, probiotics, and prebiotics. Include “prebiotics” (foods that act as fertilizers to help your good bacteria grow) like apples, berries, pears, legumes, and most veggies. Add at least 30 grams daily of real food fiber (fruits, whole grains, veggies). Other options include oregano oil, thyme oil, berberine, goldenseal, grapefruit seed extract, gut-lung therapy, raw garlic, and high-quality probiotics (see below for the probiotic section).

Lactose Intolerance //

The enzyme lactase can help break down lactose in dairy. Try Lacto by Enzymedica.

Gluten Intolerance //

Gluten-digesting enzymes DPP IV can help digest small amounts of gluten when you are eating out at a restaurant (in case of contamination). NOTE: this does not mean you can eat gluten; this is only to help you in cases of cross-contamination.

Probiotics //

Try a few of my favorite brands: Probiotic Plus, Metagenics UltraFlora, Jarrow Formulas, Klaire Labs Therbiotic Complete and Flora Probiotics.

Enzymes //

For trouble digesting beans, try enzyme alpha-galactosidase. Bean Assist by Enzymedica is also great. For sluggish digestion, proteases help with proteins, amylase is good for carbs, and lipases work well for fat digestion. Try Flora Enzymes, Similase by Integrative Therapeutics, or Digest Gold by Enzymedica.

Digestive Enzymes

L-Glutamine

HORMONE BALANCE + PMS

These supplements target balancing your hormones (endometriosis, PCOS, PMS, menopause).

Adrenals and Hormones //

Isotonic Quinton Sea Water or Hypertonic Quinton Sea Water 

Organic Maca Powder

Ashwagandha

Rhodiola

Magnesium

Adrenal Support

Stress Support

High Blood Sugar //

Fiber

Cinnamon

Fenugreek

Glucomannan 

Omega 3

Zinc

Alpha Lipoic Acid

Chromium

Curcumin

Iron

Grapefruit Seed Extract Pure Encapsulations

Biotin

COQ10

Selenium or 3 Brazil nuts per day

Vitamin C Ascorbic Acid

Thyroid

DIM 

Chastreeberry 

DHEA

B Complex

Vitamin D3

Ashwagandha

Methylcoblamin

DIM Detox

Junior Nutrients for Kids

P5P

B12

Liver-GI Detox

Cortisol Calm

L-Glutamine

Betaine HCL

Turmeric

Saccharomyces Boulardii Jarrow (use for Candida and yeast infections)

Women’s Nutrients

ENERGY

Here are a few supplement recommendations to start supporting your energy.

Liquid B12

B Complex

Methylated Folate

Methylated B12if you have the MTHFR mutation

Taurine

Hypertonic Quinton Sea Water 

High-quality white sea salt 

Zinc

SLEEP

Focusing on the quality of your sleep and your circadian rhythm is key for a good night’s sleep. Here are a few supplements I’ve used in the past.

Boiron’s homeopathic medicines work naturally with the body without causing drowsiness or sleeplessness and do not interact with other medications or supplements.

Passionflower (I suggest this instead of Melatonin)

Taurine 

Essential oils (lavender)

Chamomile tea

Magnesium

Calcium + Magnesium

TRAVEL

Headache //

Mix chamomile tea, pure coconut water, and peppermint essential oil with almond oil. Apply onto temples, forehead, and neck (avoid the eye area).

Essential oils

Vitamin C

Zinc

Magnesium

Isotonic Quinton Sea Water or Hypertonic Quinton Sea Water 

Motion Sickness and Nausea //

Ginger one hour before moving.

CONTACT SUPPLEMENT BRANDS

If you are concerned about potential allergic reactions, call the companies before using any of the following.

• Vital Nutrients
• Xymogen
• Pure Encapsulations
• Designs for Health
• Thorne
• Metagenics
• Flora
• Gaia Herbs 
• Organic India
• Terry Naturally
• Quinton

The products and claims made about specific products on or through this Site have not been evaluated by the United States Food and Drug Administration and are not approved to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease. This website is not intended to provide diagnosis, treatment or medical advice. Products, services, information and other content provided on this Site, including information that may be provided on this website directly or by linking to third-party websites are provided for informational purposes only. Please consult with a physician or other healthcare professional regarding any medical or health-related diagnosis or treatment options.

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self-worth.

Let’s talk about it.

It’s not something that I really started to fully grasp until a few years ago. Why? Well, because it’s not something we’re taught in school or in our careers; it’s something that we have to learn for ourselves and unfortunately the majority of us have very LOW self-worth because of all the things that have knocked us down a bit in our past (breakups, layoffs, losing people close to us, divorce, health issues, etc.). 

Self-worth is key for anything that we want in our lives because if we have low self-worth, we’ll be broadcasting that from our subconscious mind, which is the vibe we give off. I’m sure you’ve seen people walking down the street with their head held low or looking down and you can FEEL their energy (heck, if you’re a highly sensitive empath like me, you can probably feel their emotions and those emotions are HEAVY). Who’s with me here? What you’re picking up on is that person’s energy of what they are broadcasting out. It’s all ENERGY as we discussed last month in our Unraveling column.

So, what does self-worth have to do with this?

A lot.

If our self-worth is one of the deepest roots of where we broadcast our energy from, then what we’re giving off is a match to the worth we feel for ourselves. Sadly, as mentioned above, due to past painful experiences we’ve created a bunch of stories in our heads about what happened to us in our past that shut us down physically, emotionally and energetically. When you take a step back, you can start to see how your past has shut you down beyond just the physical, which means a bunch of kale and superfoods is only going to get you so far. 

Your Bird’s Eye View

It’s key for us to get a bird’s eye view of what’s going on in our life and what happened in our past to be able to become conscious of what’s lurking in our subconscious mind that we repressed from our past because it was too painful to feel. This might be the trigger that popped your balloon like my breakup was for me or maybe it was a divorce or the shame you felt as a child for your body or the humiliation you felt from a parent who didn’t respect your boundaries. We all have lots of ‘stuff’ lurking inside of us and it’s all stuck energy inside our bodies because emotions are just energy in motion so when you start to understand this, you can rewire your brain, recreate yourself and step into the woman you’re meant to be. I’ve talked a lot about the subconscious mind over the years and it’s key to understand how powerful it is in creating our lives, our beliefs, our perceptions and so much more.

Our Subconscious Programming

Our subconscious programming and pain from our past (especially our childhood) overrides our conscious desires so if we’re wanting to be healthy, or find a fulfilling career or manifest a conscious loving partner, we have to pull out the weeds from our subconscious that are outdated and no longer serving us. As we start to see how our limiting subconscious beliefs are getting in the way from everything we desire, we realize we don’t need them anymore and we’re ready to start creating healthier beliefs that match what our conscious mind desires such as “I am worthy”. If you’re saying “I am worthy” in your mirror and you feel hate or anger or shame and so forth, you know the message your subconscious is giving you and this tells you that even though your conscious mind says “I am worthy”, your subconscious does not agree. Your resistance that you felt in your body is a dead giveaway you’re not in alignment and there is a war between your conscious and subconscious mind. This is where the real work begins. This is how we transform our lives. This is how we manifest the health we deserve and anything else we want to call into our lives.

As you start to work with your subconscious mind and you truly FEEL worthy instead of just consciously repeating those words to yourself in the mirror, you allow the conscious and subconscious mind to align with each other. That is how we create our lives. That is how we heal ourselves. That is how we step into our power. And, it’s also why the saying that we all roll our eyes about “the answers are all within you” is TRUE! They are all within you but these answers are not accessed by using your analytical mind because that part of your mind is filled with fear and anxiety that’s run by memories and trauma from your past. 

Think about this for a moment and really let it sink in with you how powerful you are and how much power you have to shift and create and manifest your own life by shifting what’s going on internally inside of you. You can do this yourself. You don’t need anyone else to save you or fix you. Your job is to allow you to be your own expert on your mind and body. That is powerful! That is how you take back your power and that is my whole philosophy around this work…to empower you to realize you are your own expert.

This is exactly why I created this next level of my work, which will be taught in both of my upcoming retreats and is reviewed in my private sessions. What makes me so excited about this is that I wish I had something like this that connected the physical with the emotional and energetic layers of the body a decade ago when I felt helpless, alone and confused wondering who to trust and what to do next. This is the answer so many of you have been waiting for and I’ve searched high and low to see if anyone else is combining these practices and have yet to find someone who truly deeply understands how to heal the physical, emotional and energetic layers from inflammation to limiting subconscious beliefs to creative expression and manifestation and more. It’s been a really beautiful journey discovering and learning all of this first-hand and I’m honored to be healthy enough now to share this work to help you heal yourself and take your power back.

Start with Awareness

For now, awareness is the name of the game as I talked about in my series Why Staying “Safe” Makes You Feel Stuck and How to Move Forward. I suggest you start there because that will help you become more conscious of what’s going on and why you do the things you do. Then, you’ll be ready to dig into the subconscious, which is the operating system for your entire body and of course controls all your organs, so you can imagine the impact this has on your health.

Take some time for yourself, take a nice bath (try my favorite bath ingredients below) and spend some time alone. If you don’t like being alone, look at what the fear is beyond that. Do you not feel worthy of being alone? Do you feel abandoned? Do you feel scared? Do you feel like you’re not enough? Is it causing you anxiety because of all the thoughts going through your mind when you are alone because you don’t have anyone else to talk to? Look at this and start to journal it out…you’ll start to see patterns that will help you gain awareness into what’s limiting your self-worth. That’s a great place to start.

SHOP the STORY

My upcoming Whole Body Transformation Retreat in Santa Cruz, California in August a great place for you to start to dive into understanding these deeper layers of healing and to understand for yourself first-hand that healing is a journey. This retreat is my lowest price point yet, which is a great opportunity for anyone looking to meet me in person and understand the missing pieces keeping you unwell. This retreat is based on the groundbreaking new method, which I developed to help you understand and discover the emotional, energetic and physical aspects of healing. And that’s exactly what I’m here to help you with because somewhere deep inside you know that there is more than just eating clean to really bring yourself back to life. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix or magic pill for health issues. 

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PHYSICAL LAYER // the foundation

• The Trigger that Pops Your Balloon – Something always triggers something in the body to react. Either it’s the pollen outside that’s causing you to get allergies or a parasite that you got from drinking a raw green juice that caused your autoimmune issues, or a really intense, angry parent who made you cry and have breakdowns as a child. We all have triggers. We’re just not quiet enough with ourselves to actually sit back and think, “Hey, what caused this?” Let Amie give you her honest answer about what she refers to as ‘Your Balloon” in a way that makes you understand ‘healing’ as simply as possible: “Think of your life and your body as a balloon. A big, blown up balloon. Throughout your life, you hit bumps, you have heartbreaks, you lose people you love, you catch colds, you may eat a certain food that gives you a parasite, you deal with traumas, etc. All of these things press up against the balloon and there are some people who have been sailing along their whole life and their balloon has been pressed here and there – sometimes pressed harder than other times, but their balloon doesn’t pop. Or perhaps it pops when they’re 50 or 60 years old in the form of a health issue. For the rest of us, something….some trauma, some food, some parasite, some accident, some breakup, some heartbreak, some traumatic moment pops our balloon. For me, it was her college breakup. I had no idea that my college breakup shut me completely off until 6 months ago. I was on a date with a lovely man who was telling me about his sister who had just gone through years of health issues and I asked what the trigger was and he said, ‘A breakup with a man she loved.’ BOOM. I almost couldn’t talk. ‘OMG’, I said to myself. That was it. Wow. Your mind is blown, right?”
• The Nervous System – Think of your nervous system like an antenna that picks up on subtle signals around you that you can’t see but you can feel. People who have chronic health issues are dealing with a collapsed nervous system, which needs to be addressed in order for the body to heal and repair itself.
• Fight, Flight, or Freeze Mode – This is the mode (fight-or-flight) of the nervous system that is also referred to as the Sympathetic Nervous System, which is where most of us live these days in our fast-paced go go go lifestyle that revs up our adrenaline and cortisol. This is the mode you should be in only if you are running from a tiger or dodging a truck coming at you. It should not be where you’re living day in and day out. Your body cannot heal when you are in this mode so you can do the math here as to why most people do not heal; it’s because they’re trying to heal when they are stuck here and they must get out of this mode to heal.
• Rest and Relaxation Mode – This is the mode of the nervous system that is also referred to as the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which is the mode you should be in when you’re sleeping and eating and repairing your body. This is the mode your body must be in order to heal.
• The Limbic System – This is the emotional center of the brain, which must be addressed for true healing to take place.
• Neuroscience – This is a form of science that deals with the function of the nervous system. We now know we can rewire the brain through neuroplasticity, which is what Amie used to heal herself and what she uses to help my clients heal themselves, as well.
• Detoxification – Our bodies were built to deal with natural pollution created by digestion, respiration, and metabolism, but they’re not designed to handle the enormous amount of artificial pollutants we’re exposed to in today’s chemical-filled world. The only way to deal with this toxic overload is to assist the body’s natural self-cleansing mechanisms with detoxing. Amie’s best-selling cookbook, Eating Clean, is a great resource to start detoxing toxins from your lifestyle.
• Epigenetics – epigenetics, which says that it is NOT your genes that determine what happens with your health, it’s about your environment! This means you have more power than you think because if you can remove the toxicity from your mind, your tap water, your food and other places in your lifestyle such as your beauty products and your personal care products, you have the power over your genes. Your genes do not determine your life! Dr. Bruce Lipton, MD, has an incredible book, The Biology of Belief, which Amie wrote about and he discusses how he discovered this fascinating research in his laboratory.
• Inflammation – Inflammation is very common topic these days because it’s the root cause of unwanted symptoms and health issues. When our immune system is imbalanced, inflammation can lead to chronic health issues. Inflammation can be caused by stress, mold, pesticides, mercury, hidden parasites, bacteria and viruses as well as by eating an inflammatory diet filled with table salt, sugar, white flours, refined vegetable oils and processed foods, all of which lack nutrients that our body needs on a daily basis to function optimally. Amie’s best-selling cookbook, Eating Clean, is a great resource to start detoxing toxins from your lifestyle.
• Mitochondria – These are the little worker bees in your body that keep you functioning. Mitochondria production is key for anyone going through a chronic health issue.
• EMFs – We are exposed to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from just about everything these days (our phones, our computers, our microwave, cell phone towers, wi-fi, etc.) and just because we cannot see these frequencies doesn’t mean they’re not negatively affecting our health.
• Toxins – Toxins may seem harmless in small amounts, especially when you don’t have an overt reaction. But they’re sneaky—they can lie dormant for years, accumulating in our bodies and eventually overwhelming the liver to cause inflammation, which then leads to disease. Inflammation can occur anywhere in the body where toxins exist. If it exists in the joints, then you may get arthritis. If toxins are harbored in the colon, you may get colitis. Amie’s feature on Body Burden from Toxins is important to read to understand the levels of toxicity in our environment. Amie’s best-selling cookbook, Eating Clean, is a great resource to start detoxing toxins from your lifestyle.
• Herxing (A Healing Crisis)– This is also known as ‘die-off’ symptoms when your symptoms get worse before they get better and it’s a sign you’re healing. This happens when the patient is trying to remove heavy metals or candida (yeast) or some other toxic material from their body and their liver cannot handle the process of removing toxins fast enough; therefore the patient ends up with flu-like symptoms that can last days until the liver is supported appropriately. This is a very scary process and Amie went through years of die-off with biofilm, heavy metals, mold, Lyme disease and more and trust us, it is not a pretty picture.
• Healing – For true healing to take place, the patient must focus on the physical, emotional and energetic layers of the body. After years of focusing solely on food and alternative treatments such as infrared saunas, coffee enemas and more, Amie realized that she was missing a crucial step that she needed to address if she really wanted to heal and feel better and that’s exactly why she introduced the emotional and energetic layers to her work to help her clients heal.
• Conventional (Western) Medicine – This is a form of medicine that some people refer to as allopathic medicine and it focuses mainly on ‘fixing’ the body with Band-Aid approaches such as pills and creams (think dermatologist and gastroenterologists). This form of medicine is WONDERFUL for when someone breaks an arm or gets in a car crash or is having a heart attack. However, while it seems to excel with these acute issues, it fails in chronic health issues because conventional medicine doctors lack the knowledge to actually heal the body. This form of medicine saved Amie’s life many times with c.diff colitis and put her on steroids when she had myositis, which was very helpful at the time; however, it did not know how to heal her body, and the antibiotics and steroids and water pills she was put on made her conditions much worse by kicking up yeast (candida) and mold in her gut leaving her with something called Hairy Tongue, which is when your tongue turns black from too much mold in your gut from numerous antibiotics and steroids.
• Functional Medicine – This is a form of alternative medicine that looks beyond Western medicine blood work and basic testing. This form of medicine is meant to help the patient understand the underlying causes that are manifesting as physical symptoms. Amie has worked with many Functional M.D.s who she believes in such as Mark Hyman, M.D., Susan Blum, M.D., and Jeffrey Morrison, M.D., amongst others. Amie’s best-selling cookbook, Eating Clean, is a great resource to start detoxing toxins from your lifestyle. Here is a list of our favorite Functional Doctors in New York.
• Integrative Medicine – Unlike Western medical doctors who follow a disease model (seeking the problem in one area of the body), integrative doctors want the whole picture and they also include forms of energy work (energy medicine) to heal the body at the root cause. Amie’s best-selling cookbook, Eating Clean, is a great resource to start detoxing toxins from your lifestyle. Find an Integrative or Functional Doctor in your area.
• Survival of the Fittest – Our society is all about the no pain, no gain and rewards us for pushing ourselves with everything we do and it seems like this outdated model of survival of the fittest is doing nothing but making everyone stressed out, anxious and feeling like they’re not enough, which affects our health on the physical, emotional and energetic layers. This is a big reason so many people see symptoms pop up ‘out of nowhere’ because they’ve been pushing themselves for decades and they’re like a ticking time bomb so it’s not long before the underlying symptoms just need one little thing to occur (food poisoning, verbal abuse, dealing with a negative colleague, etc.) before the physical symptoms manifest as a chronic health issue.
• Survival of the Nurtured – This is what we all longed for as children, isn’t it? Unfortunately, we were brought up with shame, guilt, and many other painful emotions even if we were a part of the ‘perfect’ family. We cannot go back into the past and turn back time to change anything but what we can do is heal our past by rewiring our brain through neuroplasticity, which Amie describes. We don’t have to hold onto these painful emotions and push ourselves like ‘survival of the fittest’ as mentioned above. To truly heal, we must nurture ourselves so that our bodies can relax and get out of the fight, flight or freeze mode and heal. A nurtured childhood is what we craved as children because a lot of our subconscious pain and memories were from not being nurtured. And yes, everything is connected; the emotional pain you feel in your body when you think of a past painful memory proves that to you. Healing that pain is the name of the game.
• Nourishment – As Amie mentions in her best-selling book, Eating Clean, foods have so much more to them than calories, and yet many people think the caloric intake is the bottom line. Au contraire, my friend! The number of calories a food has is merely information, and as with any other kind of information, less isn’t necessarily better, just as more isn’t necessarily bad. A 100-calorie snack pack is in no way equal to 100 calories of an avocado. Counting calories is the last thing you should worry about when you’re trying to eat clean. A handful of nuts may be calorically dense, but there’s a lot of goodness packed in there you can’t get somewhere else. Choose foods based on how they nourish every cell in your body, rather than by how many calories you believe they will glue to your waistline. When you’re eating clean, believe it or not, those calories don’t add up to love handles and saddlebags.
• Clean Eating – Food in its whole form is the healthiest version. That’s our rule of thumb, and it should be yours. The majority of what you eat should have one ingredient. What’s in cabbage? Cabbage. What’s in an orange? An orange. If most of your meals come from a box, then it’s worth rethinking your diet.

  Because we live in the twenty-first century, we get that there are a fair amount of packaged convenience foods you probably won’t cut completely out of your life. If the only way to know what you’re eating is to read about it on the side of the package, though, you are, as Amie always says, eating sawdust. The more a food is processed, the less of its original nutrition remains. Sure, some foods need to be heated to make them palatable and to ease digestion, but we’d rather you do more of the processing yourself, be it heating, blending, or chopping, and leave less of it to manufacturers. More information about clean eating is in Amie’s best-selling cookbook, Eating Clean, which is a great resource to start eating clean. C

• Organic Food – When looking for organic produce, look for the #9 on the sticker to confirm the fruit or vegetable is organic. When looking at other food products and lettuce, look for the USDA certified seal to confirm the food is organic. More information about the organic food farming process HERE.

EMOTIONAL LAYER // the clearing

• Subconscious Mind – This part of your mind stores and retrieves data based on your past experiences, which have programmed you to do the things you do unconsciously. You can’t necessarily ‘see’ what’s in your subconscious mind because it’s hidden from your conscious mind and was developed from ages 0-7. Think of this part of your mind as what’s keeping you in your own way when you feel stuck and you’re scratching your head, “why?”. The unconscious mind communicates with the conscious mind through the subconscious and it provides us with meaning to every interaction we have with the world as filtered through the lens of our beliefs and habits. It communicates through dreams, emotions, imagination, sensations, and feelings. Things that the conscious mind wants to keep hidden from awareness are repressed in the unconscious mind. Whatever is in the unconscious mind is only available to the conscious mind in disguised form.
• Conscious Mind – This part of your mind that you’re conscious of all day long while you are living your life. It consists of everything inside of our awareness. It’s the part of us that we can talk about in a rational way. Doing a math problem is a great example of using your conscious mind. Or having a conversation is another great example. However, if you are driving a car and having a conversation at the same time, your conscious mind is having the conversation while your subconscious mind is driving the car!
• Limiting Beliefs – A false belief that we acquire as a result of making a conclusion about something that is not correct. It’s just a belief. It’s not true or false. It just is. The belief that all thin women are beautiful is not true, it’s just a belief you have that someone installed into your brain through movies, advertisements, friends, colleagues, and these beliefs end up negatively affecting our life. In this case, having that limited belief that only thin women are beautiful is what led me to have an eating disorder. I was unconscious to not even realizing that it was just a belief and it was not true, yet it had a huge impact on my overall health and life. Limiting beliefs are often about ourselves and our identity. We can change our negative beliefs by working with the subconscious mind, which is where our beliefs are stored.
• Beliefs – How you perceive your experiences is based on what you believe. Eight people could see the same event take place and be in the same spot at the same time and they would all have a different perception of what happened and they would all have a different reaction to what happened. The reason for this is because they have different beliefs based on their past experiences and what beliefs are lurking in their subconscious mind that they cannot see. Your beliefs create you to act a certain way every day so it’s helpful to start looking at why you do the things you do and why you feel the way you feel around certain people, situations, etc.
• Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) – These people absorb other people’s emotions. Amie is an HSP. Most HSP’s can walk into a room and sense the moods of people immediately. It’s like we have extra sensitive antennas on our bodies that pick up on subtle frequencies that other people who are not sensitive cannot feel or pick up on. This can have a tremendous effect on your health, which is what Amie discusses with the Energetic Layer of the body.
• Empath – Someone with a strong ability to feel the thoughts, emotions, and energy of others very easily. Amie is a highly sensitive empath, just like many of her clients. Many people, women especially take on the pain and emotions and energy of others and it affects them on a physical layer, manifesting as physical symptoms. This can have a tremendous effect on your health, which is what Amie discusses with the Energetic Layer of the body.
• Trauma – A deeply disturbing experience and anything that your nervous system registers as a threat. Trauma gets lodged in the body and can manifest as physical symptoms, which is why trauma is a huge part of Amie’s work, where we address how to rewire the brain through neuroscience and heal ourselves by healing our traumatized minds and body from our past. This is what it means to truly heal yourself. The mind can hurt just as much as the body can so addressing trauma is key for health to take place.
• Consciousness – The state or quality of awareness of being aware of something within yourself. Being aware of what’s going on in your mind as your brain brings the information to you and being aware of the experiences you’re having as a result. If you are not aware of this, your choices will be driven by the oldest areas of your brain which is to fight/flight/eat/reproduce! When people start to become conscious they start to see how they’ve been in a trance-like state for the majority of their life running on programs that were installed into them by teachers, parents, movies, TV, etc. For example, when you become conscious, you can see all the ways you numbed yourself out with food or alcohol or drugs and at the time you didn’t even realize what you were doing but now that you’re conscious of it, you can see and probably can’t believe what a trance-like state you were in for decades without realizing it and unconsciously reacting to everything around you or being triggered by other people when it has nothing to do with them but everything to do with why what they’re doing bothers you.
• Unconscious Behavior + Actions – When you’re unconscious to your behavior and your actions, you have no filter and you could just do things such as yell, scream, fight, etc without pausing to become conscious of what’s going on in your mind before you lash out. This is an unconscious behavior. Other unconscious behaviors as noted above are people who have addictions and they can’t see what’s going on but everyone around them can see that they’re addicted to certain things. This could be an addiction to TV, junk food, alcohol, cigarettes, etc…the list goes on and on. The issue is that there’s something unconscious going on that the person is not aware of and so instead they resort to numbing behaviors to keep themselves from actually feeling anything.
• Victim Mentality – When someone recognizes themselves as the victim of the negative actions of others in a situation and by doing so, it causes self-harm unto themselves and others around them. We all know someone who plays the victim “poor me” etc.
• Disassociation – When someone disconnects from their body, their thoughts, and their feelings. It’s a loss of identity of sorts and Amie went through this after traumatizing experiences that shut her down emotionally, physically and energetically. At the time when she was disassociated from herself, Amie clearly could not see this because she was in her own way and in a trauma trance just trying to survive while her body and her brain were stuck in fight/flight/freeze mode. All of Amie’s clients have experienced disassociation of some sort from their body because when you go through a chronic health issue and you’re in so much pain and so confused about what doctors to believe and what to do, you cannot cope and so you disassociate from your body and resort to not feeling and numbing yourself out.
• Charged Triggers – These trigger past trauma. The only reason someone reacts to you and the only reason you react to someone else or something else instead of responding is because this situation triggered a past emotional wound for you that you haven’t dealt with and so you’re triggered and you react, which may look like yelling or losing your temper or fighting etc.
• Limitations + Barriers – These are the blocks you have in your life that are put there by you unconsciously and they keep you “safe”, stuck and in your own way. Read our series Why Staying Safe Makes You Feel Stuck & How to Move Forward.
• Comfort Zone – This is an imaginary zone that we create inside our heads and we believe (and have a limiting belief) that we cannot go out of this zone because we fear what’s outside of it. This zone is nothing but an illusion inside of our heads based on our limiting beliefs, traumas, fears and more.
• Fear – Fear is nothing but an illusion, as well, which we discussed in Why Staying Safe Makes You Feel Stuck and How to Move Forward. Fear is an unpleasant emotion that is created by a belief that something is scary or a threat or dangerous. Fear keeps us stuck and in our own way whether it’s being fearful about dating after a chronic illness, fearful of flying an airplane, fearful of getting a promotion, etc.
• Self-Destruction – Behavior that is harmful to the person who engages in the behavior.
• Self-Loathing (Self-hatred) – The underlying feeling that we are not good at this or that, not good enough such as when we compare ourselves to others and find fault with ourselves or the harsh inner critic that we listen to in our voice.
• Self-Doubt – Lack of confidence in yourself and what you can do.
• Negative Spiral – When one isolated incident triggers a spiral of negative thoughts. It is often a symptom of anxiety and/or depression but happens to many of us every so often.
• Reticular Activating System – Filters out unnecessary information so the important information gets through. It takes what you focus on and creates a filter for it, which means you see only what you want to see in situations because it seeks information that validates your beliefs!
• Anxiety – Excessive worry, fear, apprehension, and nervousness.
• React vs. Respond – Reacting happens when your conscious mind doesn’t have the awareness to be conscious of the situation so you react unconsciously. When you respond, on the other hand, you pause and allow your conscious mind to take a step back and look at the big picture and instead of reacting, you gently respond in a more conscious manner.
• Emotions – A state of mind that manifests from your mood, situations in your life and your beliefs.
• Feelings – Read How to Feel Your Feelings.
• Intuition– Read How to Trust Yourself and also Intuition. 
• Worthiness – Believing that you are enough and that you deserve respect. There are no conditions attached to worthiness– it is unconditional.
• Self-Compassion – Being compassionate and warm to yourself when you’re experiencing discomfort, pain and unpleasant situations instead of beating yourself up with self-criticism.
• Self-Reflection – Taking quiet alone time to become conscious of/reflect on your motives and actions.
• Nourishment – Nourishment can also happen on the emotional level and doesn’t just refer to physical nourishment through food. We can nourish ourselves emotionally by taking alone time for ourselves, saying “No” to others when we don’t want to do something, trusting our intuition and getting into alignment with ourselves so that no one can knock us out of balance.

ENERGETIC LAYER // the transformation

• Paradigm Shift (the shift) – A change in your assumptions and/or beliefs/and or approach in the way you see things. This often happens when something you’ve been doing for years no longer works and you see there is another way that you didn’t know about. Hence, you don’t know what you don’t know. This happens a lot when people go beyond Western medicine into energy work and alternative medicine.
• Energetic Boundaries – Listen to our feature on Boundaries. Having clear boundaries is essential for your health and well-being.
• Flow State – This is a state of mind you can get into when you’re doing what you love and time seems to fly by. It could be when you’re cooking, meditating, playing with your children, engaging in work you love- you simply are in your flow without resistance.
• Pleasure – After experiencing the trauma of any kind (medical, verbal, physical, etc) many people including Amie could not enjoy pleasure because it was too scary to actually feel pleasure when you’ve been in such traumatic experiences previously. On top of that Amie had a limiting belief that she did not deserve pleasure and that she had to work hard and believed “no pain, no gain” which did not allow any pleasure into her life and led to her feeling depleted, deprived and shut down on the physical, emotional and energetic layers.
• Receiving + Allowing –  The act of receiving and allowing plays a role in our health because many of us do not know how to receive and this can be tied into worthiness (above). To heal the body, we must be able to receive love, care, abundance, etc. from yourself and others.
• Letting Go – allowing what no longer serves you to be left behind to free yourself. Listen to our feature about Letting Go.
• Synchronicity – Events that happen in your life that are quite hard to believe because it feels like ‘magic’. The events seem to be related but they have no causal relationship. This happens often when you’re in the flow state (above) during the healing process.
• Resistance – The heavy momentum you feel in your body (usually in your chest area or your head) when you have a belief that is not in alignment with what you’re thinking or doing.
• Alignment – Living in the present moment and living your truth (not doing things that you don’t want to be doing, saying, etc.) is a great way to start to align your energy with your lifestream. When people get themselves into alignment, they often experience synchronicity (above) very often in their lives and they feel that their lives are in a constant flow state (above).
• Conditioning – The associations we made (and continue to make) based on our surroundings. We all have conditioning from our parents and teachers and coaches and friends and movies and commercials, etc. that have positively and negatively impacted our lives through beliefs we created and we’ve taken these beliefs on unconsciously as children (as well as throughout our adult life).
• Inner Power – Realizing the power is inside of you and all the answers you need are inside of you. We’re taught that all the answers are outside of us but they’re not. The ‘noise’ outside of us in the form of social media, TV, etc. is made to distract us from ourselves and when we realize that and get quiet with ourselves, we can access this inner power to transform our health and our entire lives.
• Manifestation – Creating and curating the life you desire and deserve by releasing subconscious blocks (glass ceilings), getting into alignment with yourself and healing your past emotional pain.
• Clarity – Feeling clear, vastness and openness in your mind like there aren’t a ton of thoughts going through you pulling you around. Clarity comes from being in the flow state (above) and in alignment (above) with yourself and it often leads to incredible breakthroughs in your life.
• Energy Work + Energy Medicine – Working with the deeper layers of the body beyond the physical symptoms to address past traumas and blocks of energy in the body and the mind that are keeping you stuck and going in circles.
• Transformation – Shifting who we are to enter a state of wholeness. This is where the real healing takes place!

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What many people don’t realize is that you cannot fix hormones with synthetic hormones. It will not work. It will be a band-aid and will at some point cause your other hormones to be out of balance. I know this because this happened to me and because everyone that walks into my office is experiencing awful hormonal issues and someone tried to ‘help’ by giving them birth control or a synthetic hormone cream and down the road, it turned into a nightmare.

That said, today we’re discussing the best ways to support your hormones because let’s face it, almost every woman out there is dealing with PMS or some sort of hormonal imbalance that is manifesting as weight gain, acne, yeast infections, body odor, oily hair, anxiety, depression and more.

SO, HOW do WE do THIS?

Easy.

Amie is going to show you how you can start incorporating these foods into your lifestyle today.

Our favorite foods for hormone balancing:

Broccoli

Well, let’s face it. As kids, none of us liked broccoli. It made me want to cry and I avoided it at all costs. I’m sure you can relate. Broccoli is quite a powerhouse when it comes to hormones because it helps support the liver with natural detoxification. When I learned this in my early 20’s, I decided I was going to have broccoli a few times a week because I was going through so much liver toxicity from my body burden of toxins and so many hormonal imbalances.

WHY WE LOVE IT // Broccoli is quite easy to cook. It may seem complicated but it’s simple when you know how to do it (see below for How To Make It)! It’s also incredibly versatile, meaning that it can be tossed with anything from olive oil to balsamic vinegar to lemon juice and beyond and you can call it a meal. You can do anything with broccoli! Remember that and don’t let it intimidate you.

HOW TO MAKE IT // The easiest way to prep broccoli is to cut off the florets and discard the hard stalk. The florets can be tossed with olive oil, sea salt and pepper and roasted in the oven on a rimmed baking sheet for about 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees F or until they’re golden brown and crispy. I like crispy! I like them very very crispy in fact, so I leave them in until they’re nice and crispy. Your roasting time will depend on how large your florets are; the larger the florets, the more time it will take to roast.

HOW TO SERVE IT // Have FUN with broccoli….meaning you can jazz it up with whatever you have in your fridge. My favorite combo when it comes out of the oven as noted above is to drizzle it with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Then I crush a handful of walnuts and sprinkle them on top with a pinch more sea salt and pepper, if desired. That is IT, folks! Easy peasy.

OUR FAVORITE RECIPE USING THIS INGREDIENT // Winter White Detox Soup

Cabbage

I’m a red cabbage kinda gal. I prefer red cabbage to green cabbage any day. There is SO MUCH more flavor in red cabbage in my opinion…it’s naturally sweet and hits the spot on top of a salad or tacos unlike green cabbage, which doesn’t have the natural sweetness found in its red cousin! Also, I like to call red cabbage “purple” cabbage because it really IS purple. Am I the only one thinking this way?

WHY WE LOVE IT // It’s crunchy, it’s flavorful, it’s full of fiber and it’s ideal on top of everything from soups to tacos to your favorite sandwich recipes. It’s quite versatile…all you need is a bit of creativity to play with it in the kitchen and don’t be afraid to try it in recipes.

HOW TO MAKE IT // I love to eat it raw because it’s crunchy so there’s nothing you need to do but finely chop it. And I mean very finely chop it so that it’s easy for you to digest. You can thinly slice it or finely chop it, however, you want to do it. It’s up to you but the smaller the dice or slice, the better and the easier to digest! Find yourself a nice sharp knife and a wooden cutting board and slice or dice away!

HOW TO SERVE IT // As I mentioned above, I love using cabbage as a topping for tacos to add a nice crunch and bite to the recipe. I also love adding thinly sliced cabbage to salads to brighten up the colors and add a crunch factor in there, as well. Lastly, cabbage is delicious served as whole leafs (remove the stem at the bottom, which is tough to chew) and use it like you would a lettuce wrap by putting your ingredients inside, wrapping it up like a burrito and eating it!

OUR FAVORITE RECIPE USING THIS INGREDIENT // Simple Green Apple & Cabbage Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing

Walnuts

I fell in love with walnuts a few years ago when I learned about their anti-inflammatory properties thanks to their Omega 3 fatty acids. I love adding walnuts to my meals and I eat about 1/2 cup of walnuts a day sprinkled throughout my meals and snacks. They keep me satisfied and add a great dose of protein to keep me full and happy!

WHY WE LOVE THEM // Their Omega 3 properties as mentioned above are the main reason I love walnuts above all other nuts. It’s the deciding factor when I’m shopping in the nut section because walnuts are loaded with anti-inflammatory benefits that no other nut or seed has. That alone is a reason to reach for walnuts! Because they’re high in protein and a good source of healthy fats, walnuts will keep you full and satisfied, which always makes us happy campers.

HOW TO MAKE THEM // You can toast walnuts or roast them in the oven. Toasting them on the stovetop in a large skillet over medium heat is a great idea. You can add a handful of walnuts to the dry skillet and toss them for about 3 minutes (be careful not to let them burn) or until golden brown and fragrant. The stovetop method is much easier and quicker than roasting them in the oven!

HOW TO SERVE THEM // Walnuts are ideal on parfaits, salads, chopped up and tossed on top of tacos, and even enjoyed right out of the bag, which is what I do a few times a day when I need a snack and I don’t have time to make a full meal in my kitchen. 

OUR FAVORITE RECIPE USING THIS INGREDIENT //  5-Minute Arugula Pesto

Avocado

Avocado is quite possibly one of the greatest foods because it’s so incredibly versatile and can be diced, sliced, pureed, mashed and more. It’s ideal for everything from guacamole to adding creaminess to a dressing like from our Fajita Lettuce Wraps with Hazelnut Avocado Crema recipe.

WHY WE LOVE IT // Avocado has a nice mild taste, which makes it ideal for adding creaminess to smoothies, soups, ice cream recipes, dips and spreads. It’s a great way to reap the benefits of healthy fats and you can enjoy it any time of the day because it pairs well with everything from breakfast toast to evening fajitas. 

HOW TO MAKE IT // Well, that depends on what you want to ‘make’…you don’t need to really make anything at all as you’ll see below in the serving suggestion but you can easily turn a very ripe avocado into a delicious pureed soup or smoothie. Those are two of the easiest ways to use it. I highly suggest purchasing a ripe avocado so that it’s flavorful. If you purchase a hard avocado and try to use it right away in a recipe, it will taste awful and will be too difficult to slice. In that case, store the un-ripe avocado in a brown paper bag overnight or until the avocado ripens up.

HOW TO SERVE IT // No need to ‘serve’ anything with avocado when you can simply peel it, pit it and sprinkle sea salt on top, then eat it with a spoon. That’s really all you need. But, if you want to get creative you can check out my best-selling cookbook for a bunch of ways to use avocado to add creaminess to recipes.

OUR FAVORITE RECIPE USING THIS INGREDIENT // Kale Avocado Salad with Creamy Almond Dressing

SHOP the STORY

My upcoming Whole Body Transformation Retreat in Santa Cruz, California in August is a great place for you to start to dive into understanding these deeper layers of healing and to understand for yourself first-hand that healing is a journey. This retreat is my lowest price point yet, which is a great opportunity for anyone looking to meet me in person and understand the missing pieces keeping you unwell. This retreat is based on the groundbreaking new method I created and called The Valpone Method, which I developed to help you understand and discover the emotional, energetic and physical aspects of healing. And that’s exactly what I’m here to help you with because somewhere deep inside you know that there is more than just eating clean to really bring yourself back to life. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix or magic pill for health issues.

If you have further hormonal needs, you can schedule a private session with me to go into detail about how to help yourself balance your hormones. STILL HUNGRY? For more of our anti-inflammatory recipes, check out our 3 Month Anti-Inflammatory Meal Plan, which is only available for a limited time through April.

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The post Elevate Your Plate // The Best Foods For Hormone Balancing appeared first on Amie Valpone.