The Holistic Approach to Personal Transformation: Amy's Journey From Chronic Pain to Powerful Coach

Amy shares her journey from chronic endometriosis sufferer to holistic self-improvement coach, revealing how viewing our bodies and lives as interconnected systems creates lasting positive change.

• Everything in our lives affects everything else—health, relationships, work, and personal growth are all interconnected
• Self-belief (what we feel capable of achieving) and self-worth (what we believe we deserve) form the foundation of any successful personal transformation
• The pyramid of self-worth: keeping promises to yourself, setting healthy boundaries, exercising courage, investing in yourself daily, and practicing healthy comparison
• Gratitude practice shifts us from scarcity to abundance mindset and primes our brain to notice more positive aspects of life
• Small, consistent 1% improvements compound over time and are more effective than sporadic perfectionism
• Boundaries dictate your behavior, not others' actions—focus on what you will do, not what others should do
• Your "100%" looks different every day—give yourself permission to show up with whatever capacity you have

Connect with Amy on Facebook and Instagram, or join the free "Next Level Nation" Facebook group for daily self-improvement resources and community support.

Chapters

• 0:00 Amy's Journey to Holistic Coaching
• 2:10 The Interconnected Nature of Wellness
• 5:45 Self-Belief and Self-Worth Foundations
• 9:45 The Power of Daily Gratitude
• 15:55 The Pyramid of Self-Worth
• 22:10 Small Consistent Steps Beat Perfectionism
• 26:20 Final Tips and Connecting with Amy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the next episode of Overcome Yourself, the podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole and I'm so excited to be here today with Amy. Now, amy is a coach and take it away because you do a lot of different things and I know you have some certifications. So, amy, please introduce yourself and tell us who you are and who you help.

Speaker 2: 0:22

Oh, my goodness, thank you so much, nicole. I'm so excited to be here. So I currently am a holistic self-improvement coach and that has been probably my favorite role to date, outside of motherhood and all of those beautiful things but career-wise, holistic self-improvement has been genuinely one of the biggest blessings in my life to be able to help people in a way that is holistic. So I fell in love with the word holistic, meaning everything affects everything else. So, as much as we would love to separate our love life from our work life from our parent life and all of those things, they all affect one another, and so that's what holistic means. And I actually fell in love with that word when I was on a health journey.

Speaker 2: 1:05

So I grew up with chronic illness. I grew up with endometriosis and that's a I mean, it's a whole book that we could open but it's a chronic inflammatory disease that is female related, and it was genuinely devastating for a lot of my life. I was in chronic pain all the time. I had gone through surgeries, medications, hormone therapies and all of these crazy things, but what really helped me begin to heal and become pain-free was embodying the fact that everything is affecting everything else. And when I would go and see doctors. They would just want to talk to me about one part oh, how's your uterus doing? And it was like, okay, when I finally saw a doctor who was a naturopath, he said well, what about your gut health? What about your liver? What about your stress? How is your sleep? And that, combined with my own I have a background in anatomy and physiology myself just really helped me piece together all of these beautiful pieces, and so I started looking at my internal environment as a community, not just separate pieces. And so I started looking at my internal environment as a community, not just separate pieces. And then I extended that further into okay, how is my external environment infecting my internal environment and vice versa, and that expanded even more. So through that I was able to not only become pain-free, but I stepped into speaking into women's health as a public speaker, as I got to do all of these beautiful things. But that led me to creating my own program, which led me to helping even more women.

Speaker 2: 2:30

But even as I was speaking into these women's lives, I saw that there was still a piece missing.

Speaker 2: 2:35

As much as they loved learning about their bodies and hearing what I have to say, it was more about me sounding good and sounding really smart rather than being good and being able to help these women to the deepest level, and that's where more was needed, more holistic was needed.

Speaker 2: 2:52

And so when I started tapping into self-improvement and more mental health and, yes, I always address stress Stress was the biggest actually component of my program for women because it affects your hormones so much.

Speaker 2: 3:06

But I started working with Kevin and Alan at Next Level University, I was like, oh, here is how I'm going to expand, how I help people, because I started to learn about self-belief and self-worth and fulfillment and all of these different pillars that I can see show up as a positive or a detriment in any journey that anyone is on whether it be health, monetary, success, relationships and so I started to kind of deep dive in with these guys. Initially they brought me on as their MC for their live events because they saw I was a public speaker and it just proliferated from there. So now I am assistant coach and director of group coaching at Next Level University. I have my own coaching program Holistic Self-Improvement through them, and we do just a lot of other daily self-improvement things behind the scenes. I run the Facebook group, we do free book clubs, monthly meetups and it's all kind of come together into where I am now.

Speaker 1: 4:02

That is amazing, that is so cool, and I love the journey right and how we have to do things one step at a time, like you couldn't jump from where you were in pain to running what you're running right now. Like you had to go step by step and as you were able to I don't want to say resolve, but as you were able to face what was going on, put a name to it. Then you know now that's like taken care of as much as it can be, right and then. But then we can focus on something that's a little bit bigger, right, and I it makes me think of my back pain.

Speaker 1: 4:45

So I was in a boat accident when I was about nine years old and then nothing happened until I was 21. And I finally went to a doctor and they were like, hey, you have a back of a disabled elderly woman, and so I thought that I had three different problems. I thought that I had shoulder pain, I had mid back pain and I had lower back pain, but that wasn't the case. The lower back pain was cascading all the way up because the rest of my body was trying to support the bottom part right. And so I love how you talk about how everything is connected because it is. So tell me a little bit about that journey. Tell me a little bit more about that connectedness.

Speaker 2: 5:24

Yeah, so let's go. So I used to give a presentation at events called Holistic Healing for your Hormones and women would love what I had to say. They felt so seen talking about their hormones, talking about their cycles, things they didn't know, struggles that they had that they could connect other women with, because I think we feel really alone in those things sometimes, when in reality, like nine out of 10 or eight out of 10 women on average suffer with one of these things related to their hormones, and then they would do really well with the principles I had given them for a little while, but they would kind of just fall away and they wouldn't keep implementing it into their lives or they felt the need to just stop, or however it was. Whatever their story was, and I kept going back to why is that? What is going on here? I'm missing something, because in the beginning it's really really powerful for them and they're really really motivated. But what's the underlying thing when we stop and aren't motivated to continue to do habits and goals and all of those other things? And it came down to I was not tapping into their individual level of self-belief and self-worth. So self-belief is what we feel we're capable of achieving in the external world and self-worth is what we believe we're worthy of internally. And those two can butt heads a little bit sometimes, but they're two of the biggest pillars that, through all of my coaching, everyone that I have worked with, all the women that I have worked with, I can see where those two are either supporting them or they need a lot of work to support their journey, any journey but we'll stick to health.

Speaker 2: 6:58

And so they didn't believe it was possible for them. So they've seen that it was possible for someone else, but they didn't believe it was possible for them or that it would be worth it. And so those things really matter. When I ask you, oh, do you believe this thing is possible, someone's going to say, oh, yes, do you believe it's possible for you? That hits a little differently, and if the answer is no, then that's the first barrier right there. And then convincing someone that it is worth it. It is worth it to be sustainable and consistent long-term. I know we would all love this quick, sexy fix that is, oh, be pain-free in 10 days or whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 7:35

Whatever that toxic positivity slogan, marketing comes your way, but unfortunately it's a long-term game a lot of goals and a lot of journeys, and so when we can have small, sustainable success, that helps not only build self-worth but pours into our self-belief or, yes, belief as well, and so that was the first thing that needed to be addressed. And then self-worth If we don't believe we're actually worthy of feeling healthy and feeling good, that is going to create a glass ceiling as well, and I know that sounds ridiculous. Logically, right here we're like well, of course I'm worthy of feeling healthy who isn't? But there's this part running in the back of our brain that actually deeply believes that we are not worthy of being healthy and thriving, and so assessing that level as well and bringing those components into anyone's journey that they are on has genuinely been life-changing to witness, not only in my own journey, but to help other people.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Yeah, yeah, um, yes, yes. There's just so many thoughts because it is so true. Learning to make trust deposits is what I call them, and so it's learning to do these little things, learning to trust yourself again. Doing something small, like writing down and we're going to talk about gratitude in a second but writing down three things you're grateful for, that's like a starting place right. Things you're grateful for, that's like a starting place, right.

Speaker 1: 8:57

And then something that helps me, that has helped me, is reminding myself that future me is going to be really grateful that I did the thing now, right, and so you know that that helps me a lot too, cause then I get to the future and I'll see that the thing is done and I'll be like pass me, like thank you, right. And so that's been really helpful to me with like let's do it now instead of putting it off later, because future, you, future is going to be like future is going to come back. You're not going to want to do the dishes, like you know, let's, let's do it now. And then, when I get to the future, right, I still think past me, and so it's it's still like this, this cycle of gratitude, right, but that's what I wanted to ask you next Could you talk to me a little bit about the role that gratitude plays in this picture of like self-worth right?

Speaker 2: 9:45

Absolutely. First of all, I love that lens that you use past me, now me, future me oh, I love that so much. I do that too Like, oh, future me is going to hate myself if I don't do this, and then you're in the future.

Speaker 2: 9:59

You're in that now, present moment and you're like, damn it, past me. But even that, even recognizing hey, I would have done better if I had done this previously. That's the first step, right, that's the awareness. And the next time you're going to be like, oh, I was kicking myself last time that I didn't do this. Future me is going to be so happy about this, and so I love that lens. That's a really powerful lens to start looking at life through. I love that so much. So gratitude is actually something that's really important.

Speaker 2: 10:24

In my house we all have a daily gratitude practice, even my boys I homeschool, and my boys have a gratitude journal and cute little they're like made for kids. It's so sweet and we all write in them every day. For me, gratitude keeps me in a state of abundance rather than scarcity. It's really easy to get into a space of lack and scarcity, especially nowadays. I mean prices of everything are going up, like there's so much to feel scarce about. But when you can have a gratitude practice, it really does help you stay in an abundance state, and especially if you can learn to bring it in from like a 24 hour perspective.

Speaker 2: 10:59

What am I so grateful for? That happened in the last 24 hours, and I love this tool because it primes our RAS, our reticular activating system, in our brain. It primes it knowing that we are going to do gratitude every day. Your brain's like, oh, you are interested in this. I'm going to show you more of this, because I know you're going to want to write it down tomorrow. And so you start just seeing more things you're grateful for, not just the three things that you write down in the morning or in the evening.

Speaker 2: 11:24

However, that works for you and so, yeah, I deeply love gratitude. It is. It's, I think it's one of the deepest forms of self-love as well, which does tap into self-worth and, of course, if you can do it every day in a sustainable way. So, like 10 things might be too much. One thing kind of doesn't seem like it's worth it. So I always recommend three to five, and if you can keep that up every day, then you're also going to tap into building self-belief as well, because you're keeping a promise that you make to yourself yeah, that's the, that's the trust deposit and um and future me thing.

Speaker 1: 11:57

By the way, I call that leaving surprises for myself, because I'll do it and then I'll forget, and then I come back and I'm like, oh my God, it's done. Like you're, when you have so so many things, um, and so that that just really helps, has helped me, like, just stay in the game and, you know, stay on things, make it kind of fun so that I'm not like yelling at myself all the time, right, and so, yes, I love that um. So talk to me a little bit more about um, your certifications, because you do certifications. How does that work?

Speaker 2: 12:41

Oh, I mean which one? My own personal certifications that I have done throughout time.

Speaker 1: 12:47

Well, you work with Next Level University right, so like you help people get certified in things, so can you tell me a little bit about that?

Speaker 2: 12:55

Oh we. So I mean the main thing we do right now is we graduate people through group coaching. That's kind of the main thing. We are slowly working on bringing out a coaching program for coaches to create holistic self-improvement coaches, so that's, I mean, really exciting, but it's more that's definitely future orientated, for sure. Right now our biggest focus for external people outside of the team is group coaching, and so we take every quarter, because it takes 12 weeks to go through group coaching. We bring on 10 new people. We only take 10 because we like it to be extremely intimate so we can make sure we get to know everybody and help everybody, not only as a group but as the individual as well.

Speaker 2: 13:34

And originally it started as holistic self-improvement. So we went through six modules, all focused on health, wealth, life and love. Quality of life was a big one, but you're learning about fulfillment, self-worth, self-belief, all of these really beautiful things. But what Next Level University also does is they have this whole podcasting section of the business and so, like the guys have a daily podcast, next Level University is a daily podcast. They have a podcast that comes out every day, and we now work with a lot of podcasters. They produce podcasts and there's this whole section of the business. And so what we've started doing for the last two rounds of group coaching is we've actually gotten all podcasters come in and that's been really neat, so we've actually shifted the program for them. And so we actually do holistic self-improvement for the first two sessions, and then the next two it's grow your podcast, and then the next two are grow your business. So grow yourself, grow your podcast, grow your business. Because in the future we really want to have three levels of group coaching. We want it to be holistic self-improvement over here, we want you to have podcasting group coaching over here and business group coaching over here. And it's kind of Kevin, alan and myself we're kind of all putting our flag in these three corners of this whole business, and so that's something that we're really excited about to look forward to as well.

Speaker 2: 14:47

But me being a holistic self-improvement coach has been working very closely with Alan himself, the CEO of Next University, and coming in from past coaching, that I've done myself as well. But yeah, so there's a few I've done. I mean acceptance and commitment. Therapy I have my certification and diploma in registered massage therapy. That's the anatomy and physiology background there. There's a bunch of things. I was a doula at some point I did like my doula certification and I'm always really stuck with helping women In my practice things. I was a doula at some point, I did like my doula certification and I'm always really stuck with helping women in my practice. When I was practicing I did a lot of pre and postnatal care for women and pelvic balancing, and so it's always been this, this obsession with helping women grow and expand and learn. And when I found I loved educating more than I loved treating, that's when it all kind of shifted into different things.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Oh, that is amazing and that's that is just like a next level thing, right? Because then you get to share what you do with someone else and you get to impact so many more people through other people. That is amazing. So talk to me a little bit about when you're coaching your clients. We're working on our self-worth. What are some of the big tips that you have for them? Like what you know? What can you recommend for our listeners?

Speaker 2: 16:01

Good question. So we have a framework and it's a simple pyramid If you can picture a pyramid in your mind and then it goes from the bottom to the top. We always want to build a solid foundation, and so the beginning, the bottom foundation of the pyramid in this framework is keeping the promises you make to yourself, which is really beautiful, as you have just said, in so many different, amazing ways. I love your perspective on that. By the way, it's connected very deeply to self-belief. So those two frameworks connect at the bottom, or keeping the promises you make to yourself is the bottom.

Speaker 2: 16:32

The next one is boundaries learning to hold healthy boundaries and what I find is people get really upset that their boundaries are not being respected and they're not being listened to. And oh, I put a boundary out there, but someone didn't listen to me. They're not honoring my boundary. The biggest mistake people make when they're setting boundaries is they're actually setting rules instead of boundaries. There's a subtle difference and so rules dictate other people. So if I'm in an argument with someone, let's say I don't want to be in an argument. Let's say we're in a healthy disagreement, and they start elevating their voice, or maybe they start calling me names. Me. Setting a rule would be hey, you can't talk to me like that, knock it off. In reality, they kind of still can. I can't control what comes out of their mouth, right? So the boundary would actually be hey, if you continue to speak to me this way, I am going to choose to leave this conversation. Boundaries dictate your behavior, and that's just you expressing what is going to happen if someone keeps interacting with you in an unaligned way, and so there's a subtle difference there. So, instead of trying to control other people because we really can't we can have influence over people sometimes, but we can't actually control them, and so how can you work on having more control over what is aligned with you and how you're going to interact in that space? That helps build self-worth.

Speaker 2: 17:52

The next one is courage, especially social courage. So being who you are, what you want to say, doing what you want to do those two, the boundaries and the social courage, go really hand in hand, and if you struggle with social courage, then boundaries are going to be really challenging for you, but they are both very important for building self worth. So how can you learn to be a little more authentically yourself over and over again and speak your truth and again, baby steps. In all of this, we always want to expand out of our comfort zone, but only slightly into our growth zone. We don't want to step into the anxiety zone and slingshot ourselves back into our little comfort zone and convince ourselves that this is not for us out here. And so that's the third layer.

Speaker 2: 18:33

The next one is investing in yourself, and I think people also, when they hear this, they think, oh, it would be so nice if I could invest in myself, spend thousands of dollars on a program, go on a ladies weekend, whatever it is. No, I mean yes, if you can do that, absolutely Go nuts, but it's daily. How are you investing in yourself every day? And it doesn't have to be monetary. So someone listening to this podcast right now, that's them investing in themselves. That's them putting time and energy into listening to something really beautiful that could shift even just a small perspective in their day. So how can you invest in yourself a little bit every day? That's a sustainable way. Like me, I love making myself a really aligned tea every day. I have lots of teas throughout the day but, I, make sure that one is very specific.

Speaker 2: 19:21

What mug am I using? What herbs am I using? What does my body need right now? How am I going to sit and enjoy this and have it while it's hot, instead of heating it up six times? That's me having a moment to invest in myself. Maybe it's a couple extra minutes in the shower, maybe it's. However it is. You're listening to an audio book. You're taking a moment to listen to your favorite music and dance around a little bit Like it doesn't have to be these big, elaborate things, but it's a deposit you want to make every day.

Speaker 2: 19:46

And then the last one tip of the iceberg, there tip of the pyramid is comparison. What is your relationship with comparison? Is it for inspiration or is it detrimental to you? So a lot of us are comparing to others in a detrimental way. We can use comparison in a super healthy, inspiring way, but most of us are doing it detrimentally. So how can we look at someone and be inspired by them? Who can we be comparing ourselves to in a healthy way?

Speaker 2: 20:14

I love using fitness as an example. So if I'm on Instagram and I'm looking at someone who's 20 years old 21 years old, who lives in the city. She's got a gym in her basement, she has no kids, her job is whatever else it is, and she gets to go spend three hours in the morning at the gym crushing her morning routine and all these other things. And I look at her and be like man, I should be doing that, I suck because I can't. I don't do that and it's like well one. I'm almost 40. I homeschool my children. We live on a dirt road in a small town that actually doesn't even have a gym. I'd have to go 45 minutes to get to the closest gym. So this is not someone I should be comparing to. Now, if I see someone on Instagram who is also pushing 40, who has children or is homeschooling her children and still manages to stay fit and honor her body with movement every day, that is someone I can be inspired by and look up to in a way.

Speaker 2: 21:10

So are you comparing apples to apples? We call it equal comparison Someone who is ahead of you in a way that feels really exciting and inspiring to you. Or are you comparing apples to frigging broccoli? And it's just not even the same? What are we doing? It's detrimental. That is the pyramid of self-worth, and if you can try and tap into each one of those things not at once. It's not sustainable to change five things all at once. But going back and looking at what I just said, which one are you already excellent at? So keep thriving in that one? Don't pay too much attention to it, you're already doing it. And then, which one do you see out of those five that needs the most work and how can you make like 1% improvement towards that so that it's sustainable each day?

Speaker 1: 21:52

I love that, I love that so much. And, you know, I want to remember, like the big domino, like what you just said is let's go to the one that's going to have the most impact, right, so like, if you're right, like you can't go to the top of the pyramid if your self-worth is not currently available, like it's not going to work. And so, yeah, finding the big domino. But once we make that shift and once we you know we we topple down that big domino, um, like, the change that happens is like you can't even imagine.

Speaker 2: 22:27

Like it is the only way to make lasting change is genuinely through leveraging the compound effect, which you need to do. It's like that small thing every day. It's that saying seven apples one apple a day is better than seven apples on Sunday. That is so true for so many things. So how can we have the humility, the accurate self-awareness to do something that is so small to start, so that it is sustainable and we can build self-belief and self-trust by starting small and doing something every day, trusting that you can build on it as you need to.

Speaker 1: 23:03

Yes, I was going to mention the 1% improvements that you mentioned. Every day, like, when we compare, we just compare, like, did I do 1% better than yesterday? Then that's a win and I think that's a big deal because, like you said, baby steps, you know, and if you do something every single day, if you record a podcast episode every single day, you end the year, like exactly to your point, with 365 episodes. If you take a few days off, 350 episodes. That's still a heck of a lot of episodes, right?

Speaker 2: 23:35

And what that's going to mean is you're compounding the skill You're getting the reps in. So even on the days of where you're not feeling your best, let's say, you only have like 30% to give to your podcast that you're committing to do every day Maybe it's like a quick 10-minute podcast or something every day and you're committed to doing it. Well you know what? Now you're committed to doing it. Well you know what. Now you're 30%. After those 365 reps, your 30% is better than your 100% at the beginning.

Speaker 2: 24:04

So that's the beauty of the compound effect you can show up and do better than when you started, even if you're not feeling your best or not feeling that energetically, however that looks, because our 100% genuinely looks different every day. It really does, Especially as women. Our energies fluctuate, our even our abilities to articulate and connect with other people fluctuates with our cycle. We're just so different day to day and so learning to trust that, even if not even trust, giving ourselves the permission and the grace to show up with, okay, I only actually have 40% to give today, but I'm going to give 100% of that 40% and be okay with that, so your 100% doesn't have to be the same every day. That perspective actually really helped me let go of that perfectionism mindset.

Speaker 1: 24:50

I love that. I love that and I tell that to my clients all the time. They're like I can't put this out because it's ugly. And I'm like you're ugly is so much better than what's out there, right, like you're comparing yourself to this really high standard and like it's already so good and you're just picking out the little details. So like, give yourself credit right. And like you said, giving yourself grace details. So like, give yourself credit right. And like you said giving yourself grace Because, yeah, you're 30% is better than than your 100% used to be. Like I'm like, look how far you've come. Like what are you talking about? All right, so, amy, let me know how can the audience stay in touch with you?

Speaker 2: 25:32

I mean, I'm all about Facebook and Instagram. I'm on there. You can message me anytime, genuinely, I love talking about this with anyone. I do offer free connection sessions to start. Those are always free, and we do have a daily self-improvement Facebook group that anyone is welcome in. It's free as well, and we're in there just posting anything that's going to bring you more self-awareness, motivate you that 1% each day towards your goals, and that's just called Next Level Nation and you have the link for that. So if you're looking for people who are also just dedicated to getting 1% better every day or, honestly, we're all about even 0.01% better every day it all compounds over time, whatever that looks like for you. We're so celebratory of the individual journey, and so if you're just looking for like-minded people who like to grow just a teeny bit every day, then we would love to have you.

Speaker 1: 26:20

I love that. That is amazing. So be sure to check out Amy inside the group. That sounds like so much fun. And now, before we sign off, what is your big final juicy? Like the tip that you give to your clients. That's just like the revolutionary tip. Like give it to us.

Speaker 2: 26:40

It genuinely would be learn to build your self-worth and self-belief, so tapping into that pyramid that I said earlier. And then self-belief is genuinely three steps. It's just state, prove and self-assign and so say you're going to do something, get it done and then celebrate the fact that you did it. Like we said, it's not about perfectionism, it's not about giving it 100% A lot of days it's actually about just checking the box. Did you check the box? Was it crappy? Whatever, do it again tomorrow. State, prove, self-assign. That's celebratory. So how can you increase your self-belief and your self-worth a little bit each day and it genuinely will help you with any journey that you are on. Success is such an individual journey and so whatever success means to you health, wealth, relationships, life, anything like that those two are going to be pillars in that journey and if you can learn to build those each day, you're going to be more successful.

Speaker 1: 27:40

I love that. That is amazing. And celebrate yes, celebrate your wins. That's such a big deal, yes, cause we're so good at moving the goalposts Right and then just being like, well, you know, like I was already there, but that is what we need to celebrate, that's what we have to be grateful for, and so I love that. So thank you so much for joining us today, amy. This has been amazing, and we will catch you guys next time on the next episode of Overcoming Yourself Podcast. Bye, thank you, thank you.