High Frequency Leadership with Samantha Warren

On today’s episode of Balance With Sam, I’m joined by the amazing Brid McNulty. Brid is a food and body coach, and she also helps high achieving women heal their relationship with food and their body. Brid grew up moving around a lot as a child but it was a move to Moscow in her teen years, taking her away from her friends and everything she’d known, when she started to feel alone. Turning to food for comfort, she started to double her dinner portions without realizing and gained 22 pounds in the last two years of high school. Like so many of us, Brid turned to dieting, quick fixes and extreme workouts to try and lose the weight but, as she experienced upheaval in her life, she spiralled even more in university She felt that urgent need to “fix” herself. Top Takeaways Mastering your mindset can make a world of difference. Be aware of what your mind and body are telling you and give yourself the space. It’s about creating an awareness of your critical thoughts and work towards letting go of them. They will always be there but you don’t need to subscribe to them. Remember, you don't have to control what you can trust. When you trust that your body will find a healthy weight and the food is going to balance itself out, it will. Find the balance and make the choice. Once we become more aware of our emotions and in tune with what we are feeling when the urge to binge hits us, we can start to move towards making a choice. It’s okay that sometimes you might want to eat that whole pizza and that’s okay. It’s about knowing that certain foods will make you feel good and finding that balance. Find body neutrality. You don’t necessarily have to love your body but if you can accept it and be neutral about it, the critical thoughts will quieten. Incentivize the shift for yourself. For example, Brid created a pot for herself and every time she brought herself back into neutral after a negative thought, she would put a dollar in the pot. Then, when she gets to a more positive place, she uses that money to pamper herself. Find the fun and reward yourself. Above all, remember to go easy on yourself and work from a place of love.

On today’s episode of Balance with Sam, I talk to one of the most beautiful souls, Stephanie Rae. Stephanie is a Somatic Experiencing and Embodiment Practitioner and an absolute ray of light in my life! We talk about how we can find healing for our trauma through tuning ourselves into our body’s sensations and how we can give ourselves permission to feel pleasure and enjoy our bodies. Stephanie has been in the somatic healing space for 13 or so years, specializing in sexual trauma and sexual embodiment. She has worked as a practitioner in yoga, breathwork, energy work and tantra. Somatic Experience was first introduced by Dr Peter Levine and is based on the theory that trauma is not cognitive, it’s actually held in our bodies. Somatic experience teaches us that until we can come into our bodies and be able to feel and release the trauma from our bodies, feel through the emotions in their totality, without the suppressing, the avoiding the dissociating, the numbing out, which we all do, the trauma will just stay there and wreak havoc on our physicality, our mental state, our mind, our body and our soul. It’s using the intuitive wisdom of sensations and experiences and using that to help find those emotional releases. Top Takeaways Everybody experiences trauma differently. You can have two people that have the exact same experience in every way and they could both walk away and process it 100% differently.  Women have been conditioned to feel unsafe in their lives and when stuff happens, it may not show up in ways that you may think. It may get buried within your nervous system and becomes invisible. It’s about noticing the sensations and noticing where you may be feeling stuck or feeling pain. Once you start paying attention to that, you can then begin to ask “How do I start to feel safe again in my body?” Befriending your body and allowing it to feel pleasure is at the heart of embodied network. Start small. What actually makes your body feel good? Maybe it’s sitting by a window and feeling the sun on your face. How does that make your body feel? How do you feel when you feel that sun or when you put your feet in the grass or what smells just really light you up? It’s really coming back to this idea of falling in love with different sensations on the outward. It doesn’t have anything to do with sex or with food or the way that you look. Take all of that off the table to begin with and just find this embodied pleasure in the sensory in our environment. Notice when you are in your head and you hear that voice that is telling you that you don’t deserve pleasure. The voice that says you don’t deserve to eat that nice meal or have good sex. That is not your authentic voice. Our bodies are meant for pleasure. We came out of the womb full of love, light and pleasure and it's other voices that have changed that. You should be able to walk outside and feel pleasure walking around on the grass, walking around on the ground and feeling the sun. That’s what our authentic voice and our bodies want us to do. Be present in your body. Listen to it.

Today’s mini-episode of Balance with Sam is another snippet from Breakthru The Binge where I discuss the power of acceptance, even when you don’t like your body. It can be hard accepting your current reality, especially if you are on a journey to food freedom and body acceptance. I remember constantly thinking to myself, “Why is it taking so long to get there?” or “Why can’t I just lose those last five pounds?” But here’s the thing- now is now. You can’t change what it is. It’s all we have so we might as well accept it. Top Takeaways Learn to be okay with your current body. You don’t have to love it. Or even like it. Just accept it. Practice body neutrality. We often get so fixated on what we aren't, or what needs “fixing,” and it feels a lot better to focus on everything you are already right now. Remember, you can be okay with your body and still have a goal to change it. Not being okay with yourself right now will only lead to so much frustration and negativity. Have compassion for yourself and remind yourself that your body is amazing no matter its form. Write down this mantra every day and repeat it to yourself: “I am becoming satisfied with where I’m at and eager for more”. If you’re consumed with where you “aren’t”, you won’t have the mental capacity or energy to make the changes. Take your power back and get in control. Grab life by the horns. You are good enough where you are. Then you can change from an empowered place!

Today’s episode of Balance with Sam is a recent recording of a group coaching call with my amazing girl gang. We talk about recent wins and individual struggles that have come up within the group through the month and discuss everything from internal/external motivations to what foods are “worth it” for us (spoiler- for me, it’s pizza!) Top Takeaways You are your purpose. You may feel like you need it to be more than that. But your life experience is your purpose. That’s all you ever need to be. One practice I love is making a life mission statement. Imagine if you were your own company. What would your mission statement be? Write it down on a sticky note and have it in on your desk. It will remind you why you’re doing what you’re doing. Who you are showing up for and why. It will affirm you are your purpose. To motivate yourself, motivate and uplift others. Sometimes when we need something, giving to others fills our cup with what we are filling for them. For example, instead of saying, “I'm going to wait until somebody motivates me”, think, “ I'm going to motivate somebody else right now. I'm going to inspire somebody else right now”. Create your own opportunity and use this time for “being”. Remember, every day you get to get a little closer to being the type of person that you want to be. Think about that future version of you. What would she be doing right now? Would she be making these certain choices? What is her heart? Turn inward right now and be in this “messy phase” of not knowing and enjoy it. Do things that make you feel good until you have some more clarity and some more answers. Use this time to sculpt the person you want to be.

This week’s podcast is another snippet from my signature course, Breakthru The Binge. I talk about the difference between getting healthier, feeling better on our bodies and just wanting to lose weight. Using the law of attraction, changing how you think of your journey will transform your success. What you focus on EXPANDS. Focus on getting healthier, stronger and making decisions and thinking things that the healthiest version of you would think. That’s it. Weight loss WILL happen as the outcome, but shift your focus to GAINING health, not LOSING weight. The law of attraction basically says what we think is what we get. So, if we think to ourselves, “I just want to get rid of this weight”, you’re thinking about something you don’t want and that won’t work. But switching our mindset to thinking “I’m doing this because I want to feel better and get healthier.”, it will happen. We have to shift our focus more onto the things that we can control and that we do actually want, which is getting healthier and feeling happy and confident. Top Takeaways Remember you’re human. Diet culture loves to catastrophize. It’s always all or nothing. Oh my gosh, if we had creamer in our coffee, it’s the end of the world, right?! No, that’s not how our lives work and it’s not how we think as humans. Learn to be kind to yourself and trust you’re on the right path. It’s okay if you had that extra creamer. You will mess it up but forgive yourself and get back on track. This whole thing takes practice. It is a skill. Imagine picking up an instrument and like expecting to be good at it. That’s not going to happen and you’d end up feeling really disappointed. Give yourself some grace and treat yourself like you would your best friend. If you mess up, take a lesson from it. Look at what it is teaching you. What could you have done differently? Then adjust and try it again. You’ll get there.

This week’s podcast is a snippet from my signature course, Breakthru The Binge. In our journey to food freedom, we often focus so much on the food and the weight loss. Often we forget about the simple things like learning to love ourselves and to give ourselves a break. When I think back to times I restricted or didn’t give myself permission, I didn’t allow myself to have fun. To enjoy myself. To slow down. Now I look at it and think “Where did that get me?” And the answer? Absolutely nowhere. One of the most important shifts we can make in our journey to food freedom is to come at it from a place of love and compassion. We need to be our own best friends and take care of ourselves. Top Takeaways Give yourself a break. Judging ourselves and giving ourselves a hard time will not create change. Be kind to yourself and remember that you’re doing the best you can. You can't beat yourself up into success or yell at yourself into changing. We have to do it with love. Take steps to start liking yourself. Start by just introducing the possibility to yourself. How would it feel? If you let in the possibility of liking yourself, the journey you’re on will become more grounded in a place of love. You want to have a healthy, confident feeling and most of all, you want to feel good about you. If you don't believe in yourself fully right now, that's okay. Remember to be kind and take each day as it comes.

On today’s episode of Balance with Sam, I talk to a former client and now an amazing friend of mine, Alex Chang. Alex made such incredible progress working with me over the past year or two, and is now transitioning into another phase in her life. We have an open and honest conversation about what it's like to make the leap from a 9 to 5 and to take total control, feel good in your body, build up the confidence to be able to make that leap. Top Takeaways The unknown can feel so scary and it can be hard to take that leap. Where do you find the courage and faith? It’s about cultivating the trust within yourself that you will figure it out. You’ve probably been through the hard stuff in your life but you got through it. You know how to look after yourself. You might need to face down some opinions from your friends, your family or your coworkers. Hold on to that belief inside you. Find your mentor and someone you can borrow belief from. Someone who's where you want to be. If having a business of your own means freedom and family and the life you want and balance, being able to create your own schedule and clients and all of these things, talk to someone in your life who has that. They won’t have the exact path and the exact steps you need to take but they can guide you, they can keep you on your path. They will be your cheerleader. You are your purpose. Your life experience is your purpose. You get to teach others from your life experience. Whether it be the skills you've learned, the experiences that you've had or the mistakes you've made. When you teach from your place of purpose, that’s where the magic happens. You can rewrite your story and reclaim your most authentic self. Think about what freedom means for you. What does that feel like? What does it look like? What does it taste like? What does it smell like? You'll know when you're ready. Trust yourself to carve your own path.

In today’s episode of Balance with Sam, I share a coaching call with one of my clients (for the sake of the podcast, we’ll call her “Amanda”). Amanda shares with me the struggles she has with persevering with her food journey when she doesn’t see or feel an immediate difference. We discuss using breathwork as a tool, being in tune with your body and how breaking the journey down into priorities can help it seem more achievable. Not seeing immediate results is something we all struggle with. As Amanda puts it, “How much longer do you need to do this work?” For example, breathwork is an amazing tool for emotional eating. It allows you to calm yourself, especially if you are in a heightened state of fear or anxiety, and consciously brings you back into your body. But it takes time to see the results of it. It’s underwhelming to begin with but it’s the continued repetition using breathwork as a practice that will teach your body to change its response. The same goes for your emotional eating journey. Top Takeaways If something brings out a fear or anxious response, the longer you avoid looking at it, the bigger and more scary it becomes. The only way out of that is to just take ownership and accept it. Do your breathwork. Tell yourself “I’m here. I am alive. I am safe”. It's acknowledging the fear that happens and then breathing your way through it. Breathwork allows you to use your body to move the emotion, instead of your head. All the steps in the journey might feel overwhelming. The working out, the eating, the breathing. The last thing you want is for it to feel like a chore. Remember, you’re creating a toolbox and you can make a conscious choice in those moments. If we aren't aware in time, our body will just default to the autopilot of “I'm going to eat or drink” unless you make the choice to think “Oh wait, I have other tools in my toolbox.” Prioritize being mindful of your calorie intake and take time to learn when your body is actually physically hungry rather than emotionally or mentally hungry. When we start getting a healthier relationship with hunger and fullness, like when to eat or when to stop, that is when we can turn back inward and listen to our body. Our body is way smarter than our head at making food decisions. Find what your non-negotiables are. It might be just doing some movement throughout the day. Or doing 2 minutes a day of breathwork. Something doable. Something is better than nothing and you lift up those around you by just being you and by taking care of you. Set boundaries and nurture yourself.

Today’s episode is a recording of my recent masterclass, Hello Food Freedom! I discuss my own history with disordered eating and give you practical tools you can use to kick-start your own journey out of emotional eating. I always used to feel like my external world and physical body didn’t match who I was on the inside- a strong bad-ass. I felt misaligned. Growing up, I was really short (I'm still short) and all my friends were tall. All my friends were “sticks” and I was the athletic build. I never felt like I fit in. I was also taught from an early age that feelings are weak. I didn’t cry. I didn’t express emotion. Instead, I ate. Food was the accessible thing for me. It helped me cope with hard things. It helped me soothe and helped me numb out. Food was the one thing that always had my back. And then I got sucked into dieting culture. Restrictive eating. Dieting culture taught me that skinny equaled happy. I broke free and now I teach women to do the same. Top Takeaways You are good enough right now. Generally, emotional and disordered eating is not about the food. It's your beliefs and conditioning that have held you back from reaching your goals and potentials. Through societal conditioning, you’ve been led to believe that being smaller means you are worthy. That is not true. You are worthy and deserving and good enough right now. Make this a mantra in your life: I am good enough. I am deserving. You are conditioning your truth. You can start living your life right now and you can start putting yourself out there right now. Listen to your body and its needs. You're in a partnership. Your body is always trying to reach homeostasis and it will tell you what it values and what it needs. We can then learn to trust it, instead of fearing it and trying to control it. Listen to your inner child and ask her what she needs. Listen to your hunger cues. Are you eating for hunger? Or something else? Change the language you use. It's a really small shift but it makes so much difference. You can use tools like mantras, affirmations, visualization, breath, work, meditation or  journaling. Tell yourself every day things like “My body loses weight naturally and easily” “I eat enough to maintain a healthy body weight” “I eat for hunger and health, not to avoid feeling.” It might sound cheesy but it works. Food freedom is about finding the middle ground. All foods are good foods. Some foods are good for your physical health. Some foods are good for your mental and emotional health, but they're all important as part of the overall health. Listening to your body's needs is the middle ground. The goal is to stop dieting and to start giving yourself permission to eat the things you love in an amount that feels good. This is about finding a balance.

On today's episode, I’m joined by my amazing friend and client, Laura! Laura is a marriage and family mental health clinician and one of the most badass, epic human beings I’ve ever met. Laura came to me about six months ago wanting to improve her relationship with food, feel more confident in her body and just feel better about herself. She was caught in a spiral of binging and wanted to find a way out. We started to work together and she got to a really good place mentally and physically but then something interesting happened. She started to spiral but while she was feeling she was going “downhill” physically, she felt like she was spiraling up mentally. The shift looked different than how she thought it would. It meant she really stepped back from the fear of healing, my relationship with food and embraced it. While this has led her to put some of the weight back on, Laura felt different. She was a better mental and emotional headspace. She was aware of her triggers and the binging stopped. She gave herself the permission she needed. She started to ask herself “Do I feel happy with my body?” “Do I feel healthy?” “Am I healthy?” Top Takeaways If you are going to heal your relationship with food, you have to embrace what that means for you. Whether it means weight gain, whether that means eating things that you tell yourself you're not allowed to eat because they will make you fat or you will never stop eating them or you will overdo it. Allow yourself to tell yourself that you’re going to heal and by healing, we have a little less emotional baggage. It’s about allowing your body to be where it is and take the pressure off yourself. You don’t have to eat that donut when it’s offered because you can have it anytime. Look at it as a full integration of health- spiritual, mental, emotional and the physical Be kind to yourself and be present. Especially during COVID, there’s been a weight on all of us. You might get to a place where you feel like you can’t hold yourself in that space anymore. The space where you have to be “on'' 100% of the time or you always have to be on track. Give yourself a little bit of grace, cut yourself some slack and be compassionate. Focus on what you’re great at. For Laura, when she worked out, it used to be about punishing herself but when she gave herself the space, it became about seeing what she could achieve. She was in awe of what her body is capable of. Give yourself permission to not be perfect.