We were lucky to catch up with Amanda Appelbaum recently and have shared our conversation below.
Amanda, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
When I was in my mid twenties, I was newly married, fresh out of law school, and living in a condo in Georgetown, DC. On paper, everything was perfect. But under the surface, I was a mess. I had been struggling with different physical ailments for decades (some more serious than others) and my physical and mental health was in shambles. I was so unhappy. I remember laying on the floor of my bedroom, truly at rock bottom. And in that moment, I received a message of sorts – one I will never forget and that looking back was definitely a defining moment in my career and in my life. I am not Buddhist, but all of a sudden, I thought of The Dalai Lama. Don’t get me wrong, my knowledge was limited, but my perception of him was that he was a great spiritual master: a person who clearly experienced what I wanted – peace, love, joy – yet didn’t need any “thing” to be in such harmony with life. And it dawned on me that while yes he is a revered figure, at the core, he is a human just like me. In other words, there was nothing he “had” in him that I must not also possess in myself. The next thought was, if he can be happy regardless of his circumstances, so can I, I just need to figure out how to do it. In that moment I learned the power of shifting my perspective. I was always introspective, but I was determined to change my inner world in order to affect my outer one. I purposely chose thoughts of gratitude and love when my tendency was to feel despair and anger. I worked to listen to my body and learn what served it best instead of just being a victim to my symptoms or whatever diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment protocol a doctor gave me. Now, as a health coach focused on inside-out transformation, including emotional regulation and physical optimization, I know that was the moment it all began.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I struggled with various health issues from a young age that never truly got resolved which rippled out into every area of my life, affecting my confidence, relationships, “success” in my career, etc. As a young adult, I was physically unwell but also emotionally completely lost and unfulfilled with my job as an attorney. I was never the kid who knew grew up with an idea of what I wanted to be or do – I just knew I wanted to “help” people. When I was in college, I deeply desired to be some kind of therapist, psychologist, or counselor. However, because I was really struggling with my own mental health issues at the time, imposter syndrome took over, and instead, I decided to go to law school. Looking back, it’s no surprise that taking the LSAT was such a struggle for me (causing my health to decline even more by the way!); it was 100% the universe trying to push me back on track. Nevertheless, I did go to law school and held various jobs in the field, always trying to find the right fit; but no matter where I worked or what type of law I tried, it always felt like I was living a lie. And the worst part was, while I genuinely thought I would be able to help people by practicing law, I never felt fulfilled in that way.
At the same time, because I was still struggling so much with my own physical health, I was constantly seeing various specialists, getting tests done, and still getting nowhere. Sick and tired (literally) of hearing doctors tell me “your tests all look normal,” “there’s nothing more we can do,” “take this prescription indefinitely,” or the best one: “it’s in your head/it’s stress,” I decided to take matters into my own hands. Back then, functional medicine is not what it is now. I took to Google and somehow found my way to underground herbalists, kinesiologists, and meditation instructors. I started to experiment with how various diets and foods made me feel. I took to yoga and breath work. I began a new religion of gratitude. And I was shocked at what happened. All of a sudden, it clicked for me that my everyday choices had a profound impact on how I felt – physically and emotionally. I was able to find the right holistic doctors and practitioners to help guide me and I started to understand the biology and physiology of the way the body worked and where my symptoms were coming from. It all made me feel so much more in control, at peace, and connected to my body. It was so liberating but also so confusing. Here I was finding answers to lifelong questions just by tuning in and using intuition, but my whole life I was taught the opposite – that the answers lie outside of me in things like prescriptions or diet plans. I was taught that doctors knew my body better than I did, and so to never question what they said. And all of this fueled the very disconnection that was contributing to my “dis-ease.” Instead, we need to be taught truly know ourselves: how to tune in and determine what our bodies like and don’t like; how to cultivate a lifestyle that is aligned with what our bodies need – where health is a natural byproduct of the way you live instead of something you try to force but can’t manage to attain.
I felt an urgency to share my newfound sense of empowerment with others, so, while practicing law and raising kids “by day,” I went back and got my holistic nutrition certification “by night.” I started a small online practice on the side, coaching people through nutrition and lifestyle changes to foster self-connection, self-love, and intuition in order to achieve the physical changes they were seeking. My business grew slowly and organically as my clients started to find the joy and peace that comes with achieving health and inner freedom without the counting, restricting, and toxic food noise with which they had become accustomed to living. While still coaching, I went back for more training in functional medicine, diving deep into gut health, hormones, toxic load, inflammation, autoimmunity and more. I coached on the side for several prominent functional medicine practitioners around the country, working with different populations on different health issues. But the one thing I realized was missing from my coaching was a fool-proof plan to help clients execute the health and lifestyle plans I was laying out for them. While I have always had an innate sense of how to get through to people and motivate them appropriately, over and over I would hear things like “I just can’t get out of my own way.” There were certain clients where it was 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. And no matter how I tried to coach people out of their “all of nothing” habits, many of them felt stuck in this pattern, with “nothing” eventually taking over. Feeling like I needed more tools under my belt, I got certified as a Mastery Method Coach, which means I now specialize not only in providing customized strategic health and wellness plans but also in the emotional mastery, nervous system regulation, and behavioral change necessary to execute those plans with effortless ease. It has been the most rewarding work to truly hold space and facilitate complete inside-out transformations where my clients are able to achieve their physical health and wellness goals from a place of total inner connectedness, freedom, and unshakable confidence. By combining inner work to break through subconscious patterns that otherwise block change and success with precision-based nutrition, lifestyle, and supplement plans, I help my clients cultivate a deep sense of empowerment, recalibrate their bodies, and elevate every aspect of life—health, productivity, relationships, fulfillment—to its highest level.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
Intuition! I tell all of my clients all of the time – if you trust your intuition, you can never go wrong! It worked for me and I have seen it work for the hundreds of people I have coached. Whether it’s what to eat, what career move to make, relationships – anything. Your intuition always knows the right way, even if it feels like scary or hard. The problem is that most of us are too disconnected from ourselves to know ourselves on that level. I certainly struggled with disconnection, leaving me physically and emotionally unwell. And it works the reverse way too – when you are struggling with your body or different symptoms, it perpetuates the disconnection to self because you feel like you don’t recognize, respect or understand your physical body or the emotions inside. The greatest gift in life is to know yourself, love yourself, and then take action from that place. This is the greatest gift I can give my clients and the greatest gift I can use in my coaching. Coaching is an art, not a science. When I show up with love and presence and trust my intuition, the sessions, plans, and progress flows for the highest good of my clients.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start?
I love this question because the answer is – I started with nothing! And I hope to inspire others to do the same. We can all get caught up in thinking, I need “X” to start – X amount of money, X amount of experience, X amount of time, X amount of training, etc. This type of thinking always leaves you “waiting until Monday” to start. The truth is we all have within us what it takes to just get started, no matter where we are starting from. I started coaching for free after building a very low-budget website and meeting my clients on park benches. Yes, I was working another job at the time so I had income but it took time to start generating money which I could then put back into my business to continue building it the way I wanted to. My biggest piece of advice is to follow your intuition! If a new idea is nagging at you and you know in your heart it feels right to pursue it – do it, no matter how small the step. Once you start moving down the path, if it is aligned with your highest good, opportunities and circumstances will unfold to allow you to keep moving, growing, and building.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amandalaurenwellness.com
- Instagram: @amandalaurenwellness
- Facebook: AmandaLaurenWellness
Image Credits
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