This week's episode comes from a deeply personal place.

A loss in our community this week brought grief back to the surface in a way I wasn't expecting. It reminded me of losing my sister to suicide when I was ten years old, a loss that happened 36 years ago but still quietly visits me every June. At the same time, families across Utah are watching wildfires destroy homes filled with decades of memories, proving that grief rarely arrives in just one form.

In this episode, I share why grief isn't something we fix or move past. It's something we learn to carry.

I walk through the framework that has helped me understand grief more than anything else. The Grief Funnel. At first, grief fills every part of your life. Over time, it doesn't disappear. It becomes integrated. The goal was never to empty the funnel. The goal is to slowly build a life that can hold it.

We also talk about why grief rewires your brain, why you can't rush healing, what the stages of grief actually look like in real life, and how to truly show up for someone who's hurting when there are no perfect words.

Whether you're grieving the loss of someone you love, the end of a relationship, a dream that didn't happen, or simply walking beside someone who is carrying unimaginable pain, I hope this episode reminds you that you don't have to navigate it alone.

What You'll Hear

• Why grief doesn't disappear, even decades later.
• The personal story that inspired this episode.
• How the Grief Funnel explains what healing actually looks like.
• Why healing doesn't mean forgetting.
• How grief literally changes your brain and nervous system.
• Why the five stages of grief aren't a checklist.
• The difference between moving through grief and trying to outrun it.
• Why acceptance doesn't mean you're okay with what happened.
• How to support someone who is grieving without trying to fix them.
• Why comparing grief only creates more pain.
• The surprising ways grief reshapes how we love, live, and see the world.

Key Takeaways

Healing doesn't mean forgetting.

Grief isn't a problem to solve. It's a process to honor.

The goal isn't to stop feeling grief. The goal is to learn how to carry it.

Time doesn't erase loss. It gives your nervous system the space to build a new map of life around it.

The people and places we lose never truly disappear. They become part of how we love and who we become.

🪞 The Mirror™

If you've been carrying patterns that feel impossible to explain or break, The Mirror helps uncover what's happening beneath the surface in just minutes.

🤍 The Unblocked Women's Collective

You don't have to navigate life's hardest seasons alone. The Collective is a space where women are seen, supported, and challenged to keep becoming.

If This Episode Spoke To You

Please consider following The Unblocked Woman Podcast, leaving a review, or sharing this episode with someone who may need it today.

Sometimes the greatest gift we can give someone in grief is simply reminding them they aren't carrying it alone.

This episode discusses grief, loss, and suicide loss with care and compassion. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or contact a local crisis resource in your area. You do not have to carry it alone.

How many times have you looked back at a decision and thought, "I knew it from the beginning"?

Not because you didn't know what to do.

Because you overrode the part of you that already did.

In this episode, I unpack one of the most quietly expensive patterns I see in high-achieving women. The habit of outsourcing your own knowing. Looking for more proof. Asking for one more opinion. Talking yourself out of the signal that was there from the very beginning.

We explore why self-trust isn't about confidence or certainty. It's about learning to honor yourself even when doubt is present. Because every time you override your own knowing, you're not just delaying a decision. You're weakening the relationship you have with yourself.

If you've ever found yourself saying, "I knew it," after it was too late, this episode will help you understand why that pattern exists and how to finally begin changing it.

What You'll Hear

• Why self-trust is not actually a confidence problem
• The difference between self-trust and self-certainty
• What the "override loop" is and how it quietly disconnects you from yourself
• Why you keep looking for more proof when you already know the answer
• How childhood experiences teach us to stop trusting our own voice
• Why honesty builds self-trust more than getting the decision right
• The personal story that changed my relationship with trusting myself forever
• The simple three-step practice for rebuilding self-trust one decision at a time
• Why women who trust themselves naturally become magnetic

One Line to Sit With

"Self-trust is not the absence of doubt."

Think about one decision you've been sitting on.

Not the one everyone else has an opinion about.

The one where, deep down, you already know.

Notice where you feel it in your body.

Ask yourself one simple question:

What does this signal need from me right now?

Then honor it.

Even if it's one small step.

Because every time you choose your own knowing over the override loop, you strengthen the relationship you have with yourself.

Clip-Worthy Moments

"When was the last time you listened to yourself and actually acted on it?"

"It's not a confidence problem. It's a pattern problem."

"Self-trust is not the absence of doubt."

"You do know what's best for you."

"You cannot shift what you can't see. But once you see it, you absolutely can shift it."

"The pattern protected you. And now it's the very thing that's keeping you from the life that you say you want."

"It costs you more than the wrong decision. It costs you the relationship with yourself."

"Honesty is the foundation. Not accuracy."

"When you're not at war with yourself anymore, you're magnetic."

"You're not broken for struggling to trust yourself. It's a pattern. And patterns can shift."

Want To Go Deeper?

If this episode helped you recognize your own override loop, imagine what becomes possible when you can see the patterns beneath every decision you make.

That's exactly why I created The Mirror™.

It's an AI-powered self-discovery experience built on The Unblocked Method™ that helps you uncover the hidden patterns shaping your thoughts, behaviors, and decisions so you can stop repeating them and start trusting yourself again.

Mentioned in this Episode

The Mirror™

The Unblocked Method™

The Unblocked Women's Collective

If This Hit You in The Chest

Save this episode for the next time you catch yourself asking everyone else before listening to yourself.

Then send it to the woman who's tired of second-guessing what she already knows.

Connect

Instagram: @its.amysanders

Website: www.amysanders.co

The Mirror™: https://amysanders.co/mirror

The Unblocked Women's Collective: https://amysanders.co/collective

Email: [email protected]

What does freedom actually look like?

For me, it looks like a house full of people I love. A Fourth of July spent completely present. A business that supports my life instead of consuming it. A schedule built with intention. A life designed, not stumbled into.

In this deeply personal episode, I share why the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday, and why it has become so much bigger than patriotism. It's a reminder that while freedom may be protected externally, it still has to be created internally.

We talk about the invisible ways women give their freedom away through people pleasing, overperforming, old identity patterns, and living toward someone else's definition of success. Because having the right to build your life is one thing. Choosing to build it is another.

If you've been waiting for life to feel different before making different decisions, this episode is your invitation to stop waiting and start designing.

What You'll Hear

• Why the Fourth of July became my family's favorite day of the year
• The difference between political freedom and personal freedom
• What "unfreedom" actually looks like in everyday life
• The invisible cages ambitious women build without realizing it
• Why freedom is designed through thousands of ordinary decisions
• The question that reveals whether your life actually feels like yours
• Why most women don't have a mindset problem. They have a pattern problem.
• The identity shift required before freedom can become your reality
• How The Unblocked Method™ helps women interrupt the patterns keeping them stuck
• One simple question to help you begin building your own version of freedom this week

One Line to Sit With"You can't build a free life from an identity that does not believe it's allowed to have one."

Picture your version of freedom.

Not the vacation.Not someday.Not when everything is finally figured out.

The ordinary Tuesday.

Who's with you?

What does work feel like?

What does your home feel like?

How do you feel when you wake up?

Then ask yourself one question:

What is one decision I can make this week that moves me toward that picture?

That decision becomes your own declaration of independence.

Clip-Worthy Moments

• "Freedom is not just political. It's personal."
• "We didn't stumble into this life. We designed it."
• "The Founding Fathers gave us the container. We decide what goes inside it."
• "You're living inside a country that guarantees freedom and a life that doesn't feel free."
• "That's a cage you've built yourself. And you forgot it was optional."
• "Freedom requires a decision."
• "Freedom is the result of thousands of small decisions made toward the life you actually want."
• "You don't wait until you feel free to start building a free life."
• "What you have is not a mindset issue. It's a pattern problem."
• "Creating freedom isn't just about a document. It's about building a life that feels like yours."

Want to Go Deeper?The life you want isn't waiting for a better strategy. It's waiting for you to recognize the pattern that's been quietly keeping you from it.

Start with The Mirror™, my powerful diagnostic designed to uncover the identity patterns running beneath your behaviors so you can finally stop repeating them.

Mentioned in This Episode

• The Mirror™
• The Unblocked Method™
• The Unblocked Women's Collective

If This Hit You in the Chest

Save this episode for the next time you find yourself living by expectation instead of intention.

Then send it to the woman who's ready to stop waiting for freedom and start building it.

Connect

Instagram: @its.amysanders
Website: www.amysanders.co
The Mirror™: https://amysanders.co/mirror
The Unblocked Women's Collective: https://amysanders.co/collective
Email: [email protected]

Have you ever had a breakthrough, felt unstoppable for a few days or weeks, and then somehow found yourself right back in the same patterns?

You raised the rate and then discounted it.

You became visible and then disappeared.

You trusted yourself and then started asking everyone else what they thought.

Most women think they need another breakthrough. More confidence. More motivation. More healing. More strategy.

But what if the real problem isn't creating growth?

What if the real challenge is learning how to hold it?

In this episode, I unpack what I call the Expansion Gap. The distance between what you've created and what your identity, nervous system, and self-trust currently know how to sustain. I explain why so many ambitious women cycle through growth and collapse, why discomfort often shows up the moment expansion begins, and the four shifts I've seen women make when they learn to hold more. More success. More visibility. More responsibility. More of the life they say they want.

What You'll Hear

• What the Expansion Gap actually is and why it keeps pulling you back into old patterns

• The hidden cycle of breakthrough → expansion → discomfort → collapse → repeat

• Why your nervous system chooses familiar over possible

• The difference between creating growth and sustaining growth

• Emotional safety and why discomfort is not the same thing as danger

• The truth about self-trust and how it's built one promise at a time

• Why standards create identity more than motivation ever will

• How future-you is built through today's small decisions

• The four practices women use to hold more success, visibility, money, responsibility, and growth

• How to close the gap between who you've been and who you're becoming

One Line to Sit With

"Your future is not built from the breakthroughs you experience. It's built from what you learn to hold."

Your Invitation This Week

Pay attention to where you're expanding and where you're collapsing.

Notice where you pull back after growth.

Notice where you abandon yourself after making progress.

Notice where discomfort convinces you to return to what's familiar.

Then ask yourself:

How can I close the expansion gap today?

Not next month.

Not next year.

Today.

Clip-Worthy Moments

"Your next level is not built in the breakthrough. It's built in what you normalize afterward."

"The breakthrough opens the door. The woman you become afterward determines whether you stay there."

"Discomfort is not danger. Most of the time, it's evidence of expansion."

"Certainty is something you wait for. Self-trust is something you build."

"Your standards create your identity. Not your motivation. Not your circumstances."

"The woman who holds more doesn't wait until she feels like her future self. She practices being her today."

"You don't become her when the evidence arrives. You become her through the decisions you make before it does."

Want to Go Deeper?

DM me the word EXPANSION on Instagram and tell me where you're seeing the expansion gap show up in your life. I read every message.

Mentioned in This Episode

The Unblocked Women Collective

https://amysanders.co/the-unblocked-woman-collective-33

The Unblocked Method™

If This Hit You in the Chest

Save this episode. Share it with the woman who's tired of starting over every time she grows. And if this conversation resonated with you, leave a review and subscribe so we can continue breaking these patterns together.

Connect

Instagram: @its.amysanders

Website: www.amysanders.co

Collective: https://amysanders.thrivecart.com/unblocked-woman-collective-77/

Email the Show: [email protected]

If you've been waiting to feel confident before you do the thing — post the offer, raise the price, send the pitch, go visible. This episode is going to reframe everything. Confidence isn't a feeling you wake up with. It's not a personality trait. It's not something the women you admire have access to and you somehow don't. It's a reputation you build with yourself in private, one kept promise at a time. In this episode, I unpack why most ambitious women are quietly damaging that reputation without realizing it, the five subtle ways it happens, and the small practice that rebuilds it starting this week.

What You'll Hear

• Why "waiting to feel confident" is the wrong strategy

• The confidence lie — and what the women you think are fearless are actually doing differently

• The reframe: confidence is a reputation you build with yourself in private

• Your nervous system is keeping a ledger — how every kept and broken promise gets filed

• Quiet wins — why reputation isn't built in cinematic moments

• The five ways you're quietly damaging your reputation with yourself (the uncomfortable middle of the episode)

• The rebuild — two rules for starting today

• Your one-promise practice for this week

• Go keep a promise

One Line to Sit With

"You don't need to become more confident. You need to become a woman whose word means something to herself."

Your Invitation This Week

Pick ONE small promise. So small it feels embarrassing. I'll drink water before coffee. I'll close my laptop by 7pm. I'll send one outreach DM a day. Keep it for five days. Notice how you feel about yourself by day five. That's the work.

Clip-Worthy Moments

• "You don't have a confidence problem. You have a reputation problem with yourself."

• "Confidence is a reputation you build with yourself in private."

• "The women you think are confident aren't fearless. They've just stopped using fear as a reason to abandon themselves."

• "Self-trust isn't built in the breakthrough. It's built in the quiet wins."

• "Your nervous system is keeping a ledger. Every kept promise is a deposit."

• "Every time you gaslight yourself to keep the peace, you fracture your relationship with reality."

• "The woman you're becoming is shaped by what you do when nobody's clapping."

Want to Go Deeper?

DM me the word PROOF on Instagram and tell me the one promise you're going to start keeping this week. I read every single message.

Mentioned in This Episode

• The Unblocked Women Collective (https://amysanders.co/the-unblocked-woman-collective-33)

• The Unblocked Method™

If This Hit You in the Chest

Save it. Send it to the woman in your life who's been waiting to feel confident instead of becoming it. And hit subscribe, we're just getting started.

Connect

• Instagram: @its.amysanders

• Website: www.amysanders.co 

• Collective: https://amysanders.thrivecart.com/unblocked-woman-collective-77/ 

• Email the show: [email protected] 

If you've ever said "I don't know why I keep doing this to myself," this one is for you. Most ambitious, self-aware women aren't actually stuck — they're loyal. Loyal to a version of themselves that used to keep them safe, but no longer fits where they're trying to go. In this episode, I unpack the four identities I see women silently loyal to (you'll recognize at least two), share a personal story about a loyalty that cost me more than I want to admit, and give you the one question that changes how you move from here forward.

What You'll Hear

• Why "I don't know why I keep doing this to myself" is the wrong sentence — and what to say instead

• Stuck vs. loyal — the reframe that gives you your agency back, and why your nervous system picks familiar over free every single time

• The four loyalties — meet the Over-Functioner, the People-Pleaser, the Hyper-Independent Woman, and the Second-Guesser. See which one is sitting in the room with you right now.

• The loyalty that almost cost me everything — the personal story I've been scared to tell, the retreat that almost didn't happen, and the cost of staying loyal to who I used to be

• The question that changes everything — swap "Why am I stuck?" for one better question and watch what shifts in real time

• Awareness → Embodiment → Practice — why insight isn't the work, and what actually makes a new identity stick

• Go withdraw a loyalty — what to do this week

One Line to Sit With

"You're not stuck. You're loyal. And loyalty can be withdrawn."

Your Invitation This Week

For the next seven days, when you catch yourself mid-pattern — over-functioning, people-pleasing, refusing help, second-guessing — pause and ask one question instead of judging yourself: What pattern am I still loyal to? You don't have to fix it. Just name it. That's where the work starts.

Clip-Worthy Moments

• "Most women aren't stuck. They're loyal."

• "Familiarity feels safer than expansion. Even when familiarity is killing you."

• "Hyper-independence isn't strength. It's a trauma response with a glow-up."

• "You weren't being fake. You were being strategic. But strategy has a shelf life."

• "Awareness without practice is just expensive insight."

• "Stop being loyal to a woman whose conditions no longer exist."

Want to Go Deeper?

DM me the word UNBLOCKED on Instagram and I'll send you more on how we do this work inside The Unblocked Method™.

Mentioned in This Episode

• The Unblocked Method™

• Upcoming Park City retreat details to come soon!

If This Hit You in the Chest

Save it. Send it to the woman in your life who needs to hear it. And hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

Connect

• Instagram: @its.amysanders

• Website: www.amysanders.co

• Email the show: [email protected] 

Recorded on a Memorial Day drive through the Utah mountains, this episode is a meditation on gratitude, sacrifice, and what becomes possible when you stop running long enough to notice your life. Between reflections on personal loss and the people whose decisions made your comforts possible, you'll hear a challenge: your heart has more room than you're using. And when the deal falls through, the relationship ends, or the door closes, you'll have five words to carry with you — if not this, then something better.

What You'll Hear

• The retreat announcement — a Park City, Utah gathering coming in the next few months, and who it's for

• The cost of "busy, busy, busy" — what you stop seeing when you stop slowing down, from blooming flowers to the people who built the life you're standing on

• Your heart isn't a fixed container — the case that your capacity to love and connect is exponential, not finite

• Abundance is a posture, not a prize — why worthiness and openness are the prerequisites, and how gratitude for what's already here pulls more toward you

• "If not this, then something better" — the mantra at the center of this episode, and how to use it when a door closes

One Line to Sit With

"Your heart has more capacity to connect at deeper levels than it has right now. It's like an ongoing thing. It can be exponential."

Your Invitation This Week

Pick one challenge that's been sitting heavy — a stalled deal, a hard conversation, a "no" you didn't want. Say out loud: If not this, then something better. Notice what shifts.

Mentioned in This Episode

• Park City, Utah mountain retreat details to come soon!

Connect

• Website: www.amysanders.co 
• Instagram: @its.amysanders
• Email the show: [email protected]

I’m going to describe three women in this episode.

And I need you to be honest with yourself about which one makes your stomach tighten.

Not the one that sounds the worst.
The one that feels a little too familiar.

Because that recognition is not the diagnosis.
It’s the doorway.

In this episode, I’m breaking down the three money identity roles I see show up in women over and over again.

The Survivor.
The Prover.
And The Avoider.

These are not personality types.
They are protection strategies.

They are the roles your nervous system created to keep you safe around money, worth, pressure, survival, fear, and uncertainty.

And most women are running them without even realizing it.

We talk about:
✨ Why the Survivor struggles to feel safe even when money is in the bank
✨ How the Prover ties achievement and income to self-worth
✨ Why the Avoider disconnects from money completely
✨ The nervous system patterns underneath overworking, scarcity, and avoidance
✨ Why awareness alone does not create transformation
✨ The hidden cost of protection mode
✨ The difference between surviving and thriving
✨ How identity patterns quietly shape your financial reality

This episode goes deep into the emotional side of money.

Not budgeting.
Not strategy.
Identity.

Because you cannot out earn a belief that says you are not enough.

And you cannot create expansion while your nervous system is still trying to survive.

I also share more about The Unblocked Money Reset, my free training designed to help women interrupt the deeper identity patterns shaping their relationship with money, abundance, safety, and self-worth.

Because naming the pattern is awareness.

Interrupting the pattern is transformation.

✨ Ready to go deeper?

Join The Unblocked Woman Collective™ and step into the work of identity, nervous system regulation, emotional safety, abundance, and becoming magnetic from the inside out.

If this episode resonated with you, send it to a woman who needs to know there is nothing wrong with her.

She’s just running an old pattern.

I want to say something that might challenge what you have believed about money for a very long time.

Money mindset doesn’t work.

Not because the concept is wrong.
Because the location is wrong.

So many women are trying to change their financial reality at the thought level while the real pattern is living much deeper. In the nervous system. In identity. In survival.

In this episode, I’m breaking down why affirmations, journaling, visualizations, and “thinking positive” often create temporary relief but do not create lasting change.

Because your money thoughts are not the cause.
They are the symptom.

We talk about:
✨ The real reason money patterns keep repeating
✨ How your nervous system shapes your financial decisions
✨ The “money thermostat” that pulls you back to familiar income levels
✨ Why survival mode cannot create abundance
✨ The Default Identity Loop running underneath your money patterns
✨ How childhood experiences quietly shaped your relationship with money
✨ Why you cannot think your way out of a body response
✨ The difference between money mindset and money identity

This episode goes deep.

Because the truth is, most women are not broken.
They are simply running old programs in a new season of their lives.

And eventually, the old identity becomes the ceiling.

I also share the framework behind my free training, The Unblocked Money Reset, where I walk women through identifying and shifting the deeper identity patterns connected to money, self-worth, safety, abundance, and nervous system regulation.

If this episode resonates with you, I want you to really sit with it.

Notice what happened in your body while you listened.

That reaction tells you more than your thoughts ever will.

✨ Ready to go deeper?

Join The Unblocked Woman Collective™.

This is the space where women break patterns, shift identity, regulate their nervous system, and become magnetic from the inside out.

You are not broken.

You are becoming differently.

Connect with me:
Instagram: @coachamysanders
Website: amysanders.co

If this episode spoke to you, send it to a woman who is ready to stop surviving and start becoming her next level.

In this powerful episode of The Unblocked Woman Podcast, Amy sits down with Andi Byers for a conversation about resilience, healing, identity, and what it truly means to become unblocked.

Andi shares her journey through trauma, military combat, chronic illness, and a life-changing heart attack that forced her to slow down and reevaluate everything. What followed was not just survival, but transformation.

Together, Amy and Andi unpack the emotional weight high-achieving women often carry silently. They talk about nervous system regulation, self-trust, burnout, leadership, healing through stillness, and why “healing is in the pause.”

This episode is a reminder that your hardest seasons do not disqualify you. They often become the foundation of your greatest purpose.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, disconnected, or exhausted from constantly pushing through, this conversation will meet you exactly where you are.

Because becoming unblocked is not about becoming someone else. It’s about returning to yourself.

✨ In This Episode, We Cover:

• The biggest misconception about resilience
• Andi’s experience navigating trauma and chronic illness
• What her heart attack taught her about life and leadership
• Why women struggle to slow down and receive support
• The connection between healing and self-awareness
• Empowering youth and women through coaching and mentorship
• How to protect your energy without guilt
• The power of identity shifts and emotional regulation
• What it really means to become unstoppable

✨ About The Guest

Andrea “Andi” Byers is a multi-published author, motivational speaker, U.S. Air Force combat veteran, and Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. She is the Founder & CEO of Chronic & Iconic Coaching and the creator of the UpLifted Mentorship Program. A cardiac arrest survivor and chronic illness warrior, Andi helps high-achieving women, athletes, and youth regulate stress, build resilience, and move from burnout to aligned, sustainable living. Through coaching, mentorship, and performance-based wellness, her mission is to help people stop surviving and start living—on purpose.

🔗 Connect with Andi Byers

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chronicallyiconiccoach

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chronicallyiconiccoach/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chronicallyiconiccoach?_t=8lHQXyBdAS3&_r=1

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-b-53392190?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Website: www.chronicandiconiccoaching.com

💫 Continue Your Unblocked Journey

🌟 The Unblocked Woman Community

If this episode spoke to you, share it with a woman who needs the reminder that healing does not make her weak. It makes her powerful.

And if you loved this conversation, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and tag Amy on social media with your biggest takeaway.

Your next level begins the moment you stop abandoning yourself.