Recently, something sacred happened.

We held our very first alumni panel—a live conversation with women who have walked through The Shift and emerged on the other side forever changed. I knew it would be powerful. But I wasn’t prepared for just how real, how vulnerable, how profoundly human it would be.

You might wonder why we hadn’t done this before, “what’s so special about an alumni panel”  - after all, plenty of businesses share the experience of their alumni. 

But, for me, this used to make me uncomfortable. When I got my graduate degree in clinical psychology, our training was VERY strict for how we interacted with clients and the amount of personal or informal connection we were “allowed” to have. Connecting with alumni students and asking if they wanted to share their story was unheard of. 

But that world is changing. 20 years ago, we didn’t know what we know now about the brain and nervous system and the aspects of treatment that TRULY help someone heal. 

Fast forward to this year when I invited some alumni to share their experience with others. The invitation was optional (of course) and authentic. 

“I just want you to be real," I told them. “Just share whatever comes to your heart about what it was like to experience The Shift.” 

And share their hearts they did…..

These women cracked their hearts wide open for everyone listening. And what they shared? It wasn’t fluff. It wasn’t curated. It was truth. And not the Instagrammable kind.

This was the kind of truth you feel in your bones.

It was the raw, tender truth of what it means to grow up believing your worth lives in the size of your body. It was the truth of weaponized wellness, where diet after diet promised freedom but delivered deeper shame. It was the truth of trying to “fix” yourself with food, only to realize the thing that actually needed healing was never on your plate to begin with.

And through it all, one theme kept rising to the surface:

It was never about the food. It was about safety.

Angelique beautifully spoke about hitting a wall at 40. Her patterns of bingeing and restriction were escalating. She truly believed that her options were either to eat rabbit food forever or to consume everything she could get her hands on in a shame spiral. There was no in-between.

But something radical happened in The Shift. She learned to pause. She learned to listen. And she learned that freedom wasn’t about controlling the cookies. It was about no longer needing them to feel okay. As she said: “I didn’t even want the french fries anymore. Not because I was white-knuckling, but because they weren’t going to solve what was going on. I pushed them away because I just didn’t want them. Who am I?” she told us. 

That’s nervous system healing.

This work isn’t about food journals or macro counts (though we’ll talk about food when the time is right). It’s about regulation and trust. It's about teaching your body that it's safe enough not to turn to food as your only relief. That’s what every single person on this call had in common. Whether they were navigating childhood trauma, perimenopause, parenting through chaos, or decades of diet cycling—their systems were fried. And what they needed most wasn’t another plan.

They needed to feel safe in their bodies again.

Tara spoke about how that started with one tiny but revolutionary question: How do I want to feel? For most of her life, she didn’t know how to answer that. But when she finally stopped trying to “get it right” with food and instead started asking what her body and soul needed in each moment, things started to shift. Slowly, softly, powerfully.

Noelle reminded us that change doesn’t have to be immediate—or look like anyone else’s. For 12 weeks, she didn’t change a single thing about what she ate. She just showed up. She listened. She learned to recognize when she was in a survival state. She built trust with herself. And when it came time to start making changes, they didn’t feel like punishment. They felt like self-respect.

This is the difference between compliance and capacity.

Diet culture tells you to comply. Follow the plan. Stay in the lines. Restrict. Obey.

But The Shift teaches you to build capacity—to stay regulated enough to choose what’s aligned with your long-term goals, not just what numbs the discomfort in the moment. That’s how change becomes sustainable. That’s how you stop bouncing between restriction and rebellion. That’s how you create your own system, instead of outsourcing your autonomy to someone else’s rules.

Cindy’s story was a masterclass in this. She didn’t identify as someone who struggled with food, but she did struggle with being invisible in her own life. Her needs were always last. Her energy was always depleted. Through The Shift, she learned how to take up space again. She started going to Muay Thai. She got a dog. She found her voice. And all of that was weight loss work—because it was nervous system work. It was worthiness work.

Sandy reminded us of the same truth: this work is powerful at any age. At 60, after a lifetime of weight cycling, she made a decision to stop doing it the old way. She showed up scared, overwhelmed, but willing. She immersed herself in the program. And once her system began to heal, the changes followed. Not because she was forcing it—but because she was ready. As she said, “It’s about the weight, but it’s also not about the weight.”

The Shift is a practice—not a plan.

We don’t hand you a one-size-fits-all protocol. That’s not healing. That’s outsourcing your power. Instead, we guide you through a framework to come home to yourself. And that looks different for everyone. For some, it means learning to pause before reaching for food. For others, it means learning to rest without guilt, to say no, to walk instead of run, to eat the damn cookie without spiraling.

There’s no badge for doing this “perfectly.” That’s not the goal.

The goal is to live a life where you trust yourself again.

And if you’ve spent decades feeling like a failure—if you’ve internalized that food is your enemy, that your body is broken, or that your worth is conditional on how well you “follow the rules”—then I want you to hear this:

You are not broken. You are dysregulated. And we can work with that.

These alumni didn’t “fix” themselves. They found themselves.

They gave themselves permission to feel good. To rest. To choose. To take up space. And yes, many of them lost weight. But what they gained was far more important: peace, joy, connection, self-respect, and the radical realization that they are already worthy—right now, as they are.

If you’re on the fence, wondering if this is too soft or too different or too late, I want to lovingly call you in.

You haven’t tried this yet. And you deserve to.

If you’re tired of chasing diets that leave you empty, and you’re ready to experience the kind of transformation these women shared, I invite you to apply for The Shift.

You don’t need another plan—you need a practice that helps you finally feel safe in your own body. 👉 Click here to begin your journey.