The Isabelle Bridges Show

The Isabelle Bridges Show

By Isabelle BridgesEducationSelf-Improvement
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The Isabelle Bridges Show episodes

  • 015: What Your Nervous System Has to Do With Your Dinner, with Stephanie Valentine

    You know what you want. You know what's good for you. So why do you keep eating lunch at your laptop and running until your body pulls the emergency brake?

     

    In the Season 1 finale, holistic nutritionist, clinical hypnotist, and mental health coach Stephanie Valentine shares the crash she's still coming back from. She explains why your body can't digest while it thinks it's being chased, and she guides a 60-second practice to bring you back to rest and digest before your next meal.

     

    In this episode:

    • Why eating at your desk keeps your body in fight or flight
    • The "runway" of capacity, and why reaching the end of it is human, never a failure
    • What's happening underneath "I know what I want, so why don't I have it?"
    • The 10-minute rule for when your body would rather stay on the couch
    • A guided 60-second practice to use before any meal
    • How to carry less pressure into the holiday season
    •  

      Timestamps 

      00:00 Welcome to the Season 1 finale

      01:49 When food alone wasn't the whole answer

      03:53 Stephanie's story: from the bathroom floor to holistic nutrition

      08:07 It's not just what we eat, it's how we eat

      11:22 Rest and digest vs. fight or flight

      17:44 Stephanie's crash and the end of the runway

      21:37 Having the tool, knowing the tool, using the tool

      24:06 "I know what I want, so why don't I have it?"

      28:21 The 60-second practice before a meal

      30:50 What to carry into the season ahead

       

      Resources

      • Stephanie's free What's for Dinner app
      • Love What's On Your Plate cookbook: svliving.com
      • Stephanie on Instagram: @s.v.living
      • Free Nourishment Menu and freebies: isabellebridges.com/freebies/
      •  

        Feeling the pressure? Download the free Pressure Relief Kit: isabellebridges.com/pressure-relief-kit-2/

        36 min
      • 014: The Body Whispers Before It Screams

        You know something is off. You're tired in a way sleep doesn't fix, your digestion has changed, words slip away mid-sentence. And then the doctor looks at your labs and says everything looks normal.

         

        In this episode, Isabelle sits down with Dyna Vink, an Integrative Health Practitioner who came to this work through her own perimenopause story: 30 to 40 hot flashes a day while her results kept coming back "fine." Together they unpack why traditional testing is designed to find disease rather than understand a biological transition, why fewer than 20 percent of doctors have any real education in perimenopause, and what your body's earliest whispers are trying to tell you before they become screams.

        Dyna decodes the phrase so many women are living inside, tired but wired, and walks through what functional medicine testing actually measures: cortisol patterns, the full thyroid picture, and the gut's surprising role in clearing hormones. If you have ever been sent home with "your labs are fine" while your body insisted otherwise, this conversation is for you. You matter. This matters. And there is a path through.

         

        In this episode:

        • Dyna's story: 30 to 40 hot flashes a day, "normal" labs, and the search for real answers
        • Why most medical testing is built to find disease, while perimenopause is a transition
        • Fewer than 20 percent of doctors have any education in perimenopause
        • The cortisol reversal behind "tired but wired," and why it's measurable and fixable
        • Why a normal thyroid result can still leave room for better: T3, T4, reverse T3, and antibodies
        • The gut and estrogen connection, and how imbalance sets off a chain reaction
        • The earliest whispers: 3 PM fatigue that doesn't bounce back, digestion changes, brain fog, joint stiffness
        • What working with Dyna looks like: deep intake, a 3-week liver-opening detox, testing, and simple protocols
        • Isabelle's word to every listener holding a lot right now: you matter
        •  

          Dyna Vink is a certified Integrative Health Practitioner and founder of Holistic Nutrition Lifestyle. Inspired by her own perimenopause journey, she helps women uncover the root causes of symptoms often dismissed as "normal aging" using an evidence-based approach that combines functional medicine testing with personalized nutrition, lifestyle, and mindset strategies. Dyna's mission is to replace confusion with clarity, empowering women to regain their energy, confidence, and quality of life while ensuring they feel heard, supported, and equipped to make informed decisions about their health.

           

          You can learn more about her here:

          Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/perirelief

          LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dynavink/

          Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerimenopauseRelief

          Website: https://holisticnutritionlifestyle.com/

           

          Resources and links:

          • Dyna's free guide, 7 Hidden Perimenopause Triggers Your Doctor Isn't Testing: https://offers.holisticnutritionlifestyle.com/optin-568651
          • The Pressure Relief Kit (free): https://isabellebridges.com/freebies/
          • The Sistering, a home base for women doing big things: https://isabellebridges.com/the-sistering/
          •  

            32 min
          • 013: She Made the Sickle Out of Her Own Body

            There is something you want that you have not said out loud in a while. Not the polished version you'd offer at a dinner party. The other one. The one folded up in your pocket.

             

            In this episode:

            Why the woman carrying something she cannot get out of her body is not flawed, and what the myth says the pressure actually is

            The two-part move Gaia makes, and the half of it most women skip

            What the word decide actually means, and why every real decision feels like grief

            The beautiful house that produced nothing, and how to tell when structure and desire are living apart in your life

            The golden net, being seen wanting something, and why shame shows up right at the edge of an evolution

            Harmonia, and what only arrives on the far side

            A place to start: if you want a quiet way into your own version of this, the Vision Keeper Workbook is free, and it is built for exactly this. It is a page for the thing you have been carrying.

            20 min
          • 012: Treasure Hunting in the Underworld: Lillian Eve Moore on Self-Love and Trauma

            You've done the therapy. You've read the books. You can name your pattern in one sentence. And there is still a part of you you've been managing instead of meeting.

             

            My guest today is Lillian Eve Moore, a trauma expert and teacher with more than twenty years of experience blending somatics, nervous system work, energy medicine, and mindset tools. She has worked with veterans, with severe mental health conditions, with the things that happen in people's homes that we don't need to name out loud. Her optimism comes out of that, not around it.

             

            We went straight into self-love, and Lillian took it somewhere I wasn't expecting. She started with a question: do you know what love feels like in your body? Because that feeling moves through your own body to get anywhere else. That's the biochemistry of it. Hold that sensation and hold awareness of yourself at the same time, and you're already there.

             

            Then she took us down. Into the underworld, into the containment practice, into the list most of us have been carrying since childhood without ever writing it down.

             

            JOIN US in the decent!

             

            In this episode:

            • What self-love feels like in the body, and why self-loyalty, self-respect, and self-trust all belong to the same practice
            • Lillian's containment practice for being with something hard without going under, including the line I keep coming back to: you leave the therapeutic process the moment you leave well-being
            • Why trauma is unintegrated information rather than damage, and what "treasure hunting" actually looks like
            • Why receiving love is your responsibility, and what shifts in your relationships when you take that on
            • How the identities we build out of "what I'm not" and "what I should be" become the whole basis of insecurity
            • Why affirmations often miss, and what to practice instead
            •  

              Your practice this week (Lillian's invitation):

              Write the list of what you think you're not. Then write the list of what you think you should be. Go line by line and forgive yourself for each one.

              I don't think I'm smart. I forgive myself for not thinking I'm smart.

              I think I'm supposed to be smart. I forgive myself for thinking I'm supposed to be smart.

              Feel the forgiveness as you go, as best you can. Then tell Lillian what you found.

               

              Find Lillian:

              • Her book, Treasure Hunting in the Underworld, on her website or Amazon
              • Her website: https://www.lillianevemoore.com/
              • Her community section, where the audio, her app, and her free courses live
              • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asklillianevemoore/
              •  

                A gentle note before you listen: this episode goes into trauma, and Lillian teaches a practice for being with hard material. She's clear that you move the thing further away the moment you leave your own well-being. Listen at whatever distance is right for you today, and get an adult in the room if you need one.

                 

                Come home to yourself.

                If this episode landed, Come Home to Yourself: Your Personal Nourishment Menu is a soft place to start. It's free: https://isabellebridges.com/freebies/

                 

                And if you're ready to be witnessed rather than fixed, The Sistering is where that happens: https://isabellebridges.com/the-sistering/

                37 min
              • 011: Family, Food, and the Table That Changed Everything with Grammy Award-Winning Musician and Superfood Friends Creator, Prescott Ellison

                What if the most powerful thing you could do for your child's health started at the dinner table, with a conversation?

                Today's guest is Prescott Ellison — Chicago native, Grammy Award-winning drummer, composer, bestselling author, inventor, entrepreneur, and educator. Prescott is the creator of Superfood Friends, a nutrition and fitness curriculum he developed after returning to a childhood memory: his mother gathering her three kids at the kitchen table and teaching them why they were eating what they were eating — before they took a single bite.

                That one habit sparked a movement. Prescott's work has been recognized by the White House, earned him the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award, the Childhood Obesity Prevention Award, and a $250,000 grant to expand his program into schools across Las Vegas. His K–5 curriculum has reached classrooms, medical schools, and city halls and now, a Superfood Friends television series is in development.

                In this episode, we talk about what it looks like to build a family food culture from the ground up, how to start conversations with your kids about what they're eating, and why the dinner table might be the most underestimated classroom you already have.

                 

                You'll hear:

                • The kitchen table ritual Prescott's mother used that wired her kids for nutritional literacy and lifelong self-awareness
                • How Prescott's childhood drawings became a universe of 100 fruit and vegetable characters
                • The Michelle Obama moment that changed everything
                • A simple, pressure-free framework for starting food conversations with your own kids tonight
                • Why what we eat is always connected to how we feel and how to use that as an entry point with children of any age
                •  

                  Connect with Prescott: 

                  Instagram & Facebook: @PrescottEllison Website: www.superfoodfriends.com

                  Free resource for you: → The Pressure Relief Kit — isabellebridges.com/freebies

                  24 min
                • 010: Weekly & Daily Planning

                  In the final episode of the Levels of Vision Planning series, Isabelle brings the vision all the way down to its closest, most immediate level: the week and the day. She covers the difference between a to-do list and an actual weekly plan, the importance of protected white space, and shares the ancient origins of the names of the days of the week, from Babylonian astronomy through Roman and Norse mythology, and how each day's original meaning can inform a theme for how you move through it.

                   

                  In this episode:

                  • Why a to-do list is not a plan
                  • The difference between a Moonthly plan and a weekly plan
                  • Where the names of the days of the week actually come from (Sun, Moon, Mars/Tyr, Mercury/Odin, Jupiter/Thor, Venus/Frigg, Saturn)
                  • How to give each day of your week its own theme
                  • Recap of the full four-level arc: life, season, month, week
                  •  

                    Resources mentioned:

                    • The Sistering: https://isabellebridges.com/the-sistering/
                    • The Alchemy of Becoming retreat, September 19th in Santa Barbara: https://isabellebridges.thrivecart.com/alchemy-of-becoming/
                    •  

                      Catch up: Episode 1 (life & 3-year future self planning), Episode 2 (seasonal planning), Episode 3 (Moonthly planning)

                      12 min
                    • 009: Seasonal Planning: Building Your Life on the Rhythm of the Equinoxes and Solstices

                      In part two of the Levels of Vision Planning series, Isabelle comes down one level from the three-year future self vision into seasonal planning: her framework for building a ninety-day plan around the actual turning points of the year, the equinoxes and solstices, rather than an arbitrary calendar quarter.

                       

                      You'll learn the four elements of a seasonal plan, why planning this way protects your energy and your calendar, and how this level of planning lets you prepare for a future season while you're still living in the current one.

                       

                      In this episode:

                      • Why the equinoxes and solstices, not January-March-June-September
                      • The four elements of a seasonal plan: have-tos, important dates, want-tos, and your becoming statement
                      • Why this is the level where real recalibration happens
                      • How seasonal planning protects your time before life fills it for you
                      •  

                        Resources mentioned:

                        • The Sistering: https://isabellebridges.com/the-sistering/
                        • The Alchemy of Becoming retreat, September 19th in Santa Barbara (complimentary invitation for Sistering members closes September 10th): https://isabellebridges.thrivecart.com/alchemy-of-becoming/
                        •  

                          Catch up: Episode 1, Your Vision Is Priceless (life & 3-year future self planning)

                          15 min
                        • 008: The Descent and the Return

                          In this episode, Isabelle talks about the quiet pattern that leads so many women toward burnout, and why the answer was never to push harder.

                           

                          She unpacks how energy tends to build in whatever direction it's already moving, why our culture rewards constant outward energy while leaving almost nothing for rest, and what it actually looks like to build a sanctuary in your home before you need one. She also shares the ancient story of the goddess Inanna's descent into the underworld, and what it teaches us about the messier, quieter side of real healing.

                           

                          You'll walk away with a clearer sense of why you feel depleted even when nothing is technically wrong, and a few real, doable ways to start coming back to center.

                          In this episode:

                          • Why energy out of balance tends to keep tipping further out of balance
                          • The gap between how much energy we give out and how much comes back in, and why that gap is where burnout starts
                          • How to create a healing sanctuary in your home before a hard season hits
                          • Why a good decluttering pass is really an act of choosing your future self
                          • What self massage actually does for your nervous system
                          • The myth of Inanna's descent, and what it teaches us about the unglamorous side of healing
                          • How small imbalances build into something bigger if they go unheard, and how to start listening sooner
                          •  

                            This month in The Sistering, we're going deep on everything from this episode, building a real healing space at home together, layer by layer. If you've been curious whether it's the right container for you, you can try it for 10 days and see how it feels.

                             

                            Try The Sistering for 10 days → isabellebridges.com/the-sistering

                             

                            Join before September 10th and you'll also receive an invitation to our yearly retreat here in Santa Barbara, The Alchemy of Becoming.

                             

                            Loved this episode? Take a screenshot, share it to your stories, and tag @isabellebridgesboesch. I love seeing what lands with you.

                            19 min
                          • 007: Life & Three-year Future Self Planning

                            This episode kicks off a four-part series called Levels of Vision Planning. Isabelle introduces the four layers we'll walk through over the coming weeks (life, seasonal, moonthly, weekly) and takes a deep dive into layer of your three-year future self.

                             

                            You'll learn the difference between feminine desire and masculine structure, why your vision doesn't need to be practical yet, and how to start meeting the woman you're becoming three years from now, before you ever touch a to-do list.

                             

                            In this episode:

                            • What feminine desire actually means, and why floaty isn't a flaw
                            • What masculine structure means, and why your vision needs it
                            • The difference between goal-setting and future self planning
                            • How to start meeting your three-year future self
                            • Why identity has to come before milestones
                            •  

                              Resources mentioned:

                              • The Vision Keeper (free): isabellebridges.com/vision-keeper
                              • The Sistering (10-day trial): https://isabellebridges.com/the-sistering/
                              • The Alchemy of Becoming retreat, September 19th in Santa Barbara: https://isabellebridges.thrivecart.com/alchemy-of-becoming/
                              •  

                                Next episode: Seasonal planning, built on the equinoxes and solstices. Airs September 1st.

                                16 min
                              • 006: Your Vision Lives In Your Body

                                You can think your way to total clarity about what you want, and still not be able to live your way there. In this episode, we talk about why almost everything you've been taught about calling in your vision was taught from the wrong organ, and what actually has to happen in your body before a new vision can take root.

                                What you'll learn:

                                • Why the heart's electromagnetic field matters to your vision work as much as your mindset does (yes, there's real research behind this)
                                • What negativity bias is, and why your body can mistake something good and new for a threat
                                • Why "high vibes only" actively works against you, and what emotional suppression research says about the cost of pushing feelings down
                                • A story about two deer, a nervous system, and the discharge-and-return cycle most of us never learned
                                • Why you have to practice feeling what you want before it arrives, or you won't recognize it when it does
                                • Resources mentioned:

                                  • The Vision Keeper — free at isabellebridges.com/vision-keeper
                                  • The Sistering - IsabelleBridges.com/The-Sistering
                                  • The Alchemy of Becoming retreat -
                                  • P.S. If you haven't listened to Episode 1 yet, start there. This episode builds directly on it.

                                    CTA: Join The Sistering before September 10th and you'll also be invited to our in-person retreat, The Alchemy of Becoming, September 19th in Santa Barbara. isabellebridges.com/the-sistering/

                                    17 min

                                  About The Isabelle Bridges Show

                                  From the publisher's feed

                                  For the woman who is capable, connected, and maybe a little bit stuck. (Aren’t we all!) Each week, Isabelle Bridges sits down with the guides, teachers, and thinkers who help vision-driven women…