It’s September 1st and it’s raining.

I woke up feeling an enormous, overwhelming weight on my chest…

It caught me by surprise because I went to bed last night feeling really high on August vibes, summer energy and excitement about my birthday weekend coming up and all of the September goodness.

But the rain and my son koala-bear sleeping on me for the 4th night in a row and the faint hum of old September stories took hold before I was vertical.

For the majority of my life, like most of us - this month has meant - back to school, back to work, soft new year, fall is coming…plaid, pumpkin spice magic and so on.

Being my birthday month, as the quintessential Virgo that I am - it has also had this low key overwhelming stress wave that comes with it too.

It’s felt like a strange pressure and obligation - everyone watching me, receiving gifts instead of being the one who’s giving them…school work, deadlines, tight schedules, the need to perform…I know I’m not the only one, right? 😅

I am in a very different version of life now, wholly by design - but this morning it all landed before I had a chance to head it off at the pass.

I quickly realized this was going to be an SOS moment and I was going to need to pull out the big guns…You know, the full-on rewire, reimagine, repoint yourself before you find yourself in a ditch kind of big guns.

And since I am teaching a masterclass about The Audacious Art of Reality Creation on Thursday, it felt like a really great time to take you behind the scenes and share what rewiring in real time actually looks like for me.

Because the thing is - when I am in this mode, it can get pretty dark and dicey pretty fast. Blessedly, it’s a rarity, but the truth is - in years past it was a whole lot to navigate.

What I teach and help my clients with and through today is not just something I learned in trainings and in books - it has been road-tested and personally applied.

So this is the one where I share the real time process I moved through this morning to not only snap out of my doom and gloom, but address the underlying pattern head on and shift it.

I will also give a sneak peek of what I am teaching in Thursday’s masterclass that will give you a scaffolding of reality creation practices you can use in your day to day life to change how you manifest, magnetize and operate in your world.

These are also the baseline practices I used to build my business, my dream home on the lake, my dream family - through infertility, pregnancy loss, adoption, my books, relationships and so on…They can applied to anything in your physical existence…

I’ve come to fully embrace the knowing that it’s the way of being under the doing that changes how you live.

If you want to join the masterclass on Thursday and read the rest of this article - you can upgrade to The Signal - my Substack community here:

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ALSO - The Audacious Art of Reality Creation Masterclass is happening inside The Signal next week!! I will be teaching my top 15 reality creation practices - based on decades of learning, teachings, manifestation and materialization of my dream business and life.

We will meet at 11:00 am ET on 9/3! Save the date and join me LIVE here on Substack (for paid subscribers only).

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Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

PS - If you are interested in exploring 1:1 business coaching this fall - I have 2 openings in September - you can schedule a breakthrough chat to apply here

I broke down the $50K launch I ran back in March using nothing but a 5-day Substack challenge and a mid-week masterclass, and why I think most of us are still cobbling our marketing together when we could be building one home for it instead.

Catch me back here tomorrow for a live Q&A, day 5, where I'm answering your questions in real time!

I also announced next week’s masterclass for The Signal - my paid Substack membership: The Audacious Art of Reality Creation where I will be teaching my most beloved reality creation practices - based on decades of learning, teachings, manifestation and materialization of my dream business and life.

We will meet at 11:00 am ET on 9/3! Save the date and join me LIVE here on Substack (for paid subscribers only).

Upgrade to The Signal

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Amber Lilyestrom in the Substack app

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In this live replay, I shared my personal content creation process - how I think about each of the mediums and platforms I create on inside my Creative Operating System and how I execute on putting it all together.

We got granular and I opened up my personal playbook on my day to day creation process.

I also announced next week’s masterclass for The Signal - my paid Substack membership: The Audacious Art of Reality Creation where I will be teaching my most beloved reality creation practices - based on decades of learning, teachings, manifestation and materialization of my dream business and life.

We will meet at 11:00 am ET on 9/3! Save the date and join me LIVE here on Substack (for paid subscribers only).

Upgrade to The Signal

Tomorrow (8/27) at 1:00 pm ET I will be teaching you how I have activated Substack as marketing engine for my business - how it resulted in a $50,000 launch back in early April and the ways you can use it as the hub for your community to meet you and experience you and your work.

Bring your notebook - this will be a highly activating - electric idea session!

I’ll see you there!

xo - Amber

Tomorrow we will double down on my personal content creation process and how I approach content holistically with ideas, suggestions and prompts to help you root into your most potent and aligned method.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Upgrade to The Signal if you are ready to build out your Substack marketing engine and Creative Operating System - the 4-part trainings and workbooks are already available.

But underneath all of that was the thing I actually needed to say out loud:

You could be showing up 10x more than you are right now and you still wouldn’t scratch the surface of what people deserve to receive from you.

Most coaches and creators don’t have a leads problem- they have a depth and connection problem.

Inside the Day One Replay: Why marketing is actually a generous act (and why so many of us have an opportunity to reimagine the word), why depth is beating volume every time - especially on Substack, what happened in my own business in 8 months here and the homework I want you to bring to Day Two - when we will look at your brand ecosystem, your real metrics and the facts about what Substack is built for.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video!

Join me for Day Two tomorrow, 8/25 at 1:00 pm ET!

Last year, I came across a woman who does sound healing with actual whales. She has the most angelic voice and plays the most beautiful instruments.

It was one of those 9:00 pm Instagram finds that turns into a deep dive scroll that takes you to the website and then you’re contemplating becoming a whale singing sound healer, too.

I do no know this woman - I just know that what she does is magical and I wanted to know more.

After following her for a solid 9 months and I’ve had my eye on this one instrument she was playing on a raft with beluga whales (you can see that video here).

Fast forward to about 7 weeks ago, a video of Demetra (her name) and her friend doing sound healing with orcas popped up on my feed…

If you have read my earlier piece, you would know that I have an affinity for orcas and have even kayaked with them up in Washington state years ago.

This felt like my sign.

PS - I’m hosting a 5-Day Substack Bootcamp this week! (8/24-28) - I will be sharing daily mini-trainings right here on Substack to help you figure out what to do on this platform and how to activate it as a marketing engine for your business. It’s free to join and the replays will be shared each day after I go live!

Join Here!

My birthday is coming up (9/6) and I was a few weeks out from hosting a retreat for my private coaching clients and it just felt like sound healing angels were screaming at me…

I also host my retreats in a space we call the Tree Haus and the cathedral ceilings and big open room have been screaming for a sound healing experience.

So I hit the button, purchased a Crystal Harp as an early birthday gift and eagerly awaited it’s arrival.

Sadly, it seemed like it wasn’t going to make it - until the day before retreat I got an email from UPS asking me to pay a $40 in fees in order to receive my package from Japan.

I was confused and almost filed it as a scam until the last moment - I realized IT WAS THE HARP! Arriving, perfectly - on-time, in-time for retreat!

I did my first sound healing experience at the closing of retreat on Friday and I have been obsessed ever since - playing, singing, pushing beyond my comfort zone and allowing myself to be excited about this super niche thing that seemingly has nothing to do with anything other than my own enjoyment…

And that…that right there is what I want to say to every, single person I meet.

The super niche things you love that have seemingly nothing to do with anything are actually everything.

Your passion for fly fishing, for macrame, for collecting records or first edition copies of antique books or crystal salt cellars is a doorway into your soul.

Those super niche things are what make people actually want to know more because when they are in your presence - they feel something and learn something.

So, I’m a business coach who has built a multiple 7-figure global company who is also a poet who is now offering sound healings at my in-person retreat space.

We work on your business, but mostly you - and your business gets to be the beneficiary. We crack open our shells and let the pieces fall away so we can radiate even more joy, embodied expression and truth as a result.

I am obsessed with creating sacred, intentional, exquisites spaces for women to come home to themselves…I am obsessed with stretching myself beyond the rigid constraints of my fear…I am obsessed with fluffy kittens, my sweet babes, mama nature and transcending the limits I’ve put on the love I allow myself to receive in my life.

I think everything is better - including our businesses when we bring more of ourselves to the screen, to our offers, to every, single thing that we do - and it makes all the difference in ways you could never imagine.

All of this “trying” we do is, honestly, the part that messes us up the most.

So your homework for the week ahead is to stop trying so hard and to start telling the truth.

For every ounce of “proving” energy you put in to the filed - you get exponential “oh ya? show me!” energy back. It’s the treadmill that never stops - until you get off and realize there is nothing to prove when it’s your life and your magic and your art.

It actually freaks me out to think about the fact that there are so many “experts” out there yapping about the “right way” to do things - as if they are qualified to be an expert on anyone else’s life but their own.

What a hilarious and awkward thing to think about…

We have been throttled with good advice from well-intentioned (and some not so well-intentioned) people who learned that giving us 5-step lists and frameworks was the way to win.

And that having more answers than questions was the surefire bet to true, lasting, success - when everything, and I mean quite literally everything, is somehow objective.

Gahh…are you with me?

I have 2 bins full of personal development books sitting in my garage that have got to go because I got so tired of people telling me what to do and who to be.

What a hilarious concept to consider - writing a book to tell someone what to do with their one, precious life (thank you Mary Oliver for never doing that!) rather than asking them what they think about life, itself, and how they wish to spend it?

Ok, so here’s a practical question to walk with this week:

What are you obsessed with right now?

What are you in to, hyper-focused on, can’t put it down, can’t stop thinking about it ON, right now?

If nothing comes up, dig deeper.

• What song are you playing on repeat?

• What type of content are you scrolling in your algorithm?

• What is something you want to do, but trip yourself up because you can’t figure out the logistics?

• What do you find yourself looking forward to every day?

Here’s your challenge for the week ahead:

Go off on that…create in your unique and artistic way and let us SEE you in your obsession.

Throw out everyone else’s best practices (especially the robot-people) - and see what happens next.

My guess is that more whimsy and curiosity will enter the chat and it will suddenly become a whole lot easier to create, write, speak your mind and have some fun in the process.

BONUS: Join me for this week’s free Substack Bootcamp!! - I will be sharing daily mini-trainings right here on Substack to help you figure out what to do on this platform, how to use it with intention and direction and get started with growing it in whatever direction feels most exciting to you.

Whether that is to replace your email list, platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram or just to have a new creative outlet to share yourself - these trainings will be for you.

Join the 5-Day Substack Bootcamp!

Replays will be available for each day and we will meet at 1:00 pm ET 8/24 - 8/28.

What if I told you that your relationship with YOU is shaping the reality you’re living in far more than you think?

In today’s episode, I’m pulling apart the stories we carry from the past, the projections we make about the future, and the ways that both determine what we believe is possible for us. We’re talking about becoming safe with yourself, making peace with the parts that are always trying to do more and expanding your range of what you’re willing to experience, express and receive.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

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Homeward: The Sovereign Business Podcast is for the visionary entrepreneur walking the long road of dreaming, building and becoming

Here, business is not just business - it’s a sovereign path, a portal to deeper expansion, personal evolution and true wealth.

Each episode will offer intimate conversations, real-time revelations and potent strategies to help you scale what matters most. This is where breakthroughs meet your next business move and where your work becomes a homecoming.

I’m going to say the thing that no one wants to say out loud, but it’s truer than true And that is - no one, and I mean no one, is coming to save you from your own creative frustration, mental freeze and writer’s block.

And when you know that to write is like the act of breathing, itself, and you’re not doing it - you feel like you’re running out of air.

So I say this with all the love of a coach and mentor who knows you so well that she’s going to say the true thing, like my high school soccer coach who told me I was “watching a good game” - while I was on the actual field!!

It doesn’t matter what time it is, how many kids are screaming at you, how out to lunch your partner is or how much you have to do - the only thing that will scratch the actual itch is - to write.

So, I’m writing to tell you that I got back from my trip to Florida this weekend to my family in complete energetic disarray.

I walked into the house yesterday and it felt as if I have been spit out into a whirlpool of people bouncing into one another waiting for me to calm the waters.

And so I did - with an exercise I asked my daughter to start by cutting out a big heart from a piece of paper and then subsequently cut 4 puzzle pieces from that heart that we could write everyone’s names on.

I used it to articulate the metaphor that we cannot have the whole heart without each puzzle piece/person. My son, 4, and my daughter, 12, got it instantly and I rejoiced at how clever I felt.

From this, we created a new practice to communicate our feelings to one another with a physical signal of tapping our heart two times and holding our hand up in a pause motion. This then signals to the person to ask the question, “What are you feeling?”

I am happy to share that it’s working already…

People are expressing their feelings with words, communicating without hitting and yelling and witnessing each other.

It’s working so well, Alex is using it to tell us about his “hurt feelings” after he does something he should not be doing…but you get the jist.

It has been a useful practice and it has opened somethings up for all 4 of us in our little family pod.

But I think it’s important to note that despite this clever practice, all of the neat and tidy things we think will make us feel better it can still feel like taking an Advil for the soul when they are distancing us from our truth - like temporary treatments for a deeper condition.

And the real thing, the actual thing that soothes the ache is to say the real things out loud in a way that feels as honest and spine-tinglingly true as possible.

Now, it might just be a me-thing, but I do not know any other way to exist.

Anything other than the truth, delivered with empathy/care, of course, just feels like a colossal waste of time to me.

My clients are flying in and driving to the Tree Haus as we speak. I am hosting a retreat for them at our home here on the lake on Thursday.

We will be focusing on expanding our range together - opening the aperture to access more of ourselves, how we feel and what is true just beyond the horizon of what we’ve allowed ourselves to have, accept and claim.

We are all being changed and it’s only Tuesday! I can feel the squeeze, the tension, the questions, the deep breathing and the list-making preparations from here.

My own family is in frenetic anticipation, too.

Ben is finishing rebuilding the front steps, power washing the back deck and weed whacking like the champ that he is.

And all of this preparation is a beautiful thing…to be excited and nervous and ready to walk through the portal of an experience you’ve been waiting your whole life for - even if you didn’t realize it until you were in the room.

What I know is that we will not leave the way we came in and I am so looking forward to being held up and holding with the women I have coming to facilitate, co-create and support the group with me.

And it is my solemn vow to myself that in the midst of all of it - I will write.

Because writing is a form of oxygen that some of us deny ourselves when life gets full and that hurts in a way that we can pin on 1,000 other things than the simplest truth…

Carving out the time - however short - to take what’s inside and make it visible is like throwing a life ring to a person who is in over their head in the ocean of her life.

So here I am at 9:45 pm on a Tuesday, buoyed by words in my bathrobe - a little bleary-eyed - breathing my way to the surface.

xo - Amber

PS - I am hosting a Substack Bootcamp next week - 5 days of taking action to build your Substack, discern what moves to make and how to make this platform work in your business.

It’s free and will be deeply clarifying and needle moving.

Join the Bootcamp Here

I have wanted to write to you, my God, have I wanted to write…

But, you see, to remain in integrity with myself as a mother to these children, a coach to these beloved clients, a human being in a body on a spinning planet feeling every, single thing that moves and rustles and unfolds…

These words have been buried beneath bickering children and rescheduling of appointments and the sap I sat in that is now on my favorite shorts and the piles of laundry and life on the kitchen counter.

I have a bag of clothes by the door ready to leave and 200 books in bins in my garage and a fleeting plan to wallpaper a room and rearrange the furniture and sell a couch on marketplace…

Listen, I promised you the truth here.

And so the truth is, I just slammed the sliding glass door so hard I actually surprised myself and thought it might shatter - and I came outside to write words to you with caffeine pumping through my veins and not a bite of food, yet in my belly.

I can hear my children continuing to yell at each other over a waffle iron and mixing bowls…and I want you to know that anger is a form of catharsis and living to your limits - really owning them is too.

My life is idyllic and beautiful and realer than you want to imagine.

I live with humans, healthy humans, who need support and love and tending.

They also need the truth.

And the truth isn’t always soft and gentle and flowery - it’s raw and sharp and biting like a mama mountain lion keeping her kids from getting eaten by the bear.

It’s honest and fierce.

It’s full contact, full bodied.

It’s accountability in the form of cellular synapse and that drop of the stomach that only comes when you know you need to own what’s yours.

It’s tail between the legs.

It’s I love you no matter what.

It’s I love you so much I am going to be the most honest person in your life.

Good God, I love being this kind of mama - the one my kids are a little afraid of - never - because she will hurt or harm them, never ever ever, but because they know she will roar truth at anyone, anywhere - forever - including them.

And on this sweaty Friday morning, where the air is thick and the sun will send us into the lake - fighting for each other is the only fight worth stepping in the ring for.

The blue jays are screaming in surround sound across the channel and my kids are quieting now.

I can feel their nervous systems through the walls. I can hear them working it out. I can feel my daughter tracking me even though she’s not watching me - the way I tracked my mother when I was her age.

I can feel our pulses slowing as the transmission settles into our systems…and the maple syrup drips are all over the table now.

The June bugs are singing and I am teaching my children how to honor truth over chocolate chip waffles and the most important friendship of their lives.

Homeward is the place for conversations about life and business as an art form, falling madly in love with your existence and putting down the patterns that keep you spinning your wheels.

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I read this piece at an event last week after writing it in the car on the way there.

I often wish that I was a person who could retrieve what I need weeks and days prior to the moment that it’s intended for, but it’s just not how I’m wired.

I’ve learned to trust this flow, and myself, albeit - reluctantly…

By some miracle, somehow - what comes forth always seems to meet the moment.

Orcas

I came here today with a plan to tell you about this thing I learned about orcas, about how zero humans have ever been killed by a killer whale in the wild, about how the matriarch passes down what is food and what is not, and how somehow, by some miracle - we were simply never on the list.

The whale we named killer has never once killed us out into open ocean.

Never, Not once.

I had a plan to talk to you about how we are conditioned to live a certain version of reality and then we play it out and we fight and wonder what’s wrong with us, silently asking the heavens “why can’t I be the thing I see on my Instagram feed?”

On these screens flashing before our eyes all these the days of our lives.

But I dropped my son off with my parents this morning

At the house I grew up in - the place that taught me what to fear, taught me how to fly, taught me the rules I’m still out here trying to rewrite.

As I backed out the driveway, the one with the giant bump in the middle that forces you to swerve onto the grass, my mother and my son were at the front door jumping up and down - waving in full bodied joy.

I beeped the horn and waved as a lump formed in my throat.

You see, our stories.

They write themselves in real time every moment that we exist.

And what I learned about the orcas is that every pod in the ocean has a different story. A different dialect.
A different inheritance.

When I was 20, I went to the San Juan Islands with my best friend.

We paddled our kayaks out into those mystical waters as a pod of killer whales rose from the depths half a football field’s length away.

Dorsal fins standing six feet out of the sea.

Let me tell you - you don’t know AWE until you are dwarfed by fins, until you hear the spray of an exhale just a few feet from your whole being - whole body - whole life.

And I have to admit - my whole being, whole body, whole life went into a full-blown grip of fear - they are killer whales after all.

But later on, we stood on safer shores and I learned that this particular pod only eats Chinook salmon.

And that the only human deaths ever caused by orcas happened in a tank.

The whales who had been plucked from their mothers and stripped of their natural born knowing.

So here is what I actually came to tell you today…

The fear I felt in that kayak was real: the panicked heart in my throat moment.

But I was sitting in the safest waters on earth: the world’s largest dolphins playing next to our boats searching for salmon.

The whales don’t hunt us - not because they can’t - but because nobody taught them we were food.

And, unlike the whales, I feared them because somebody taught me - they meant death

Two inheritances shaping alternate realities in the same ocean.

Homeward is the place for conversations about business as an art form, falling madly in love with your life and putting down the patterns that keep you spinning your wheels.

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What if the thing standing between you and the business you’re dreaming of isn’t what you think it is?

In today’s episode, I’m talking about the difference between hypothetical growth and the kind of wisdom that only comes from full-send living.

We explore why it’s impossible to just think your way into confidence and what happens when you stop trying to “get it right” before you ever even begin. The growth, the clarity, and the business you’re building all live on the other side of taking the next step- even when you don’t know exactly where the road will lead.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

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Homeward: The Sovereign Business Podcast is for the visionary entrepreneur walking the long road of dreaming, building and becoming

Here, business is not just business - it’s a sovereign path, a portal to deeper expansion, personal evolution and true wealth.

Each episode will offer intimate conversations, real-time revelations and potent strategies to help you scale what matters most. This is where breakthroughs meet your next business move and where your work becomes a homecoming.

I want to tell you about all of the romantic things happening in my life and in my days, about my adventures and the ways that I’m luxuriating in my life.

But I’m running around the house cleaning for the cleaners and getting ready for a full day of coaching people that I love, helping them grow things that matter and stretch into versions of themselves they haven’t dared become until now.

I’m packing bags for my daughter’s weekend trip and managing the world that is our home.

I’m moving at warp speed, wearing my sneakers in the house - doing intervals between rooms.

I haven’t showered - my hair still looks beachy cool and from the waist up, my outfit does too.

But there are dahlias in a mason jar on the counter my son and I cut last week and a sunflower in the living room that we picked at the festival yesterday before the thunderstorms started.

And my family ran out the door to soccer camp, mostly happy, only protesting that the shoes felt weird and the socks were wrong and I’m calling that a win.

I’m in love with my life and when I slow down for a millisecond I’m in the rhythm of it all - I feel it in every cell of my body.

I’m in love with the way that we’re doing it here.

I’m in love with how I feel in my body - the source from which all things radiate.

I’m in love with the ways we meet our hard edges head on with a fine grit, softening it out in real time - safe spaces to be known, to be true, to be whatever we be.

I have that same sandpaper square in my own back pocket for the moments when I meet a hard edge - getting curious instead of critical.

I’m safe with myself - no matter what comes next.

I’ve worked a lifetime for this feeling.

There’s a smiley face sticker on my shirt that my son gave me before we left, the one my client sent to us in the mail with handwritten notes and gifts for my children.

I cried when I opened the package at the depth of care that she wrapped in every little inch of these beautiful things her hands made with love for us.

And I think about how life is wrapping me up with care in every minute, from the timing of when I walk out the door when I think I’m late to the time that I put my head on the pillow.

I started doing this new thing my friend Sarah recommended: writing down a question, something I’m turning over, and putting it under my pillow, letting the universe and sleep bring the answers to me.

Last night’s question was: how am I going to hold it all?

This morning, I read about quantum physics, about coherence, and how “how” is really none of our business - how incessantly asking it only creates more momentum for the things we don’t actually want.

Most people build a business and spend every waking moment wrestling with this question when they’re the ones keeping the clients away with their fear and worry about how to make it all work.

The secret lives in falling in love with exactly where you are - no matter what you’re facing - no matter which page you turn to next.

It’s finding that love in smiley face stickers and tender hands tending and sunflowers turning toward the sun.

We are so held.

My God, we are held.

I had it tattooed on my wrist after Alex was born. I didn’t want to forget.

And yet, here we are, on a full to the brim Wednesday morning, being reminded together.

It’s all working out, always in all ways if you decide that it’s true.

xo - Amber

Homeward is the place for conversations about business as an art form, falling madly in love with your life and putting down the patterns that keep you spinning your wheels.

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I don’t drink. I don’t need to with the life I’ve lived.

I’ve already numbed so hard and far out to the edges of myself I went beyond the razor - and I lived it all without telling a soul - not because I didn’t want to, though.

Because there was no confessional booth - only editors trimming scraps of truth and calling it the fat.

There was no sounding board, only the silent void inside my dad’s teal Honda Accord - the one that was totaled when he got rear-ended by a school bus on that icy morning.

My mom called me from work to tell me what happened and asked me to go.

I drove with my heart in my throat and when I got there, I followed the nurse through the hallways of the ER until saw my dad’s dress socks and burgundy leather shoes peeking out from behind the curtain on that hospital bed.

His favorite purple fleece jacket streaked with dried blood and his silver hair clumped together where the visor clip cut into his skull.

He was fine, naturally - he survived Vietnam, a divorce, the heart attack that took his dad - but, also, he wasn’t…

Like half empty wine glasses tucked in cabinets and the dent in my closet from that time I threw a softball at the wall and the matching ones in my brother’s room in the shape of his fist covered up by newspaper clippings.

I always wondered how anyone could live like a dropped can.

It would take a bout with mono my freshman year in college, 20 pounds and transferring back home plus another decade and a divorce for me to find out.

Add on another 10+ years to that and I’m sitting on this couch letting Noah Kahan egg me on while I sip cold tea knowing every “right” thing I should be saying to you…

But no one’s favorite song comes from that kind of album.

No one gifts their best friend who’s going through hell that book.

We want heart in hands, beating in open air levels of truth around here.

And the truth is, we don’t have time for anything else!

Thirteen years ago, I lay on that table and saw the actual light.

My planets stopped spinning and started back up - orbiting in the opposite direction - and the doctor said everything was fine, like they always do - the ones with the vault of secrets too afraid of their own truth to liberate themselves from the strangle hold it has on their entire family line.

Then there’s us: the truth tellers. The cycle breakers. The ones asking the questions no one wants to hear the answers to.

And because I love you - I am going to say the real thing out loud…

No one can save you from the pain you aren’t willing to face or the secrets you keep locked away.

I believe that we - yes, you, dear sweet soul - are the ones to drop the batons.

I want you to clock in that every single person you meet is projecting their predominant energy onto you.

And that energy - how they actually feel in their life is their version of reality.

Which means, that in many cases, they are trying to save you from getting hurt inside the echo chamber of their own pain.

Ask me how I learned this.

Every great thing I’ve ever wanted to do in my life was a decision I had to make on my own.

The people who love me told me it was a bad idea - that I was “throwing away” what I had earned, what I had worked so hard for…

What they didn’t know was how far out on that edge I was, that the house was on fire and no one was coming in to save me - not even them.

They also didn’t know what it meant to be Amber Eve.

The girl who testified in court at 5, who took the stand and spoke truth to complete strangers, who’s power was halved - over and over again and still, she knew who she would be one day.

The moment I saw the light I started really living - rearranging my world - getting ready to quit my career in sports and go all-in on my own business - smashing through my own ceiling.

You stop wasting time when you realize no one is coming in that burning building for you and you start to live each day like the one before it is already in the ash pile.

That’s what we’re doing here, btw.

Rearranging, reordering and saying the real things.

We have graduated, my loves.

We don’t need to teach or talk about the thing at a 5th grade level - the bros and their babes can keep their 5-step frameworks and glossy growth strategies.

Can you imagine your favorite poet, writer, artist thinking they needed to dilute their work down so people could understand them?

Gag.

We’re too busy writing the words our beloveds dream boats will discover. We’re full to the brim with truth and whimsy and radical candor about what being here and human really means.

And we’re too tired to spend a second more on anything else.

This life is a gift.

Cheers to you,

xo - A

I was 29, on the backside of a divorce. I had taken a bat to my beautiful, perfect life just one year after culminating it with the dream wedding.

Every detail was inspired by Jessica Simpson’s wedding book I coveted and run through the filter of the happily ever after world I was creating for us.

I was almost 15 years into what would later be labeled an eating disorder, though I fought this idea tooth and nail.

I can remember my therapist saying, “Amber, do you have an eating disorder.”

My response: “Thank you, I realize it seems that way.”

And fought it with every cell of my being because I understood what labels do to us - even when they are warranted.

At the same time, I couldn’t open the refrigerator without crying. I didn’t know how to live in a day without my workout schedule, silently panicking about my clothes or overwhelming myself with anxiety about food.

Somewhere in there, after my college soccer career ended, I started fitness competitions, which was really just code for “these people can help me figure out how to get out of the hellscape I live in every day.”

I meant my body, btw.

Not surprisingly, this made it 1000 times worse (the bonus: I met countless amazing women who are still dear friends to this day).

When I walked through the door of the old colonial with chipping cream colored paint and took a left into Mary’s office - I knew my entire life was about to change.

I sat on the brown loveseat and waited for her to get my file and roll over in her desk chair to start our session.

We went through the typical protocol of me telling her every terrible thing that ever happened in my life, about my childhood, testifying in court when I was 5, the estranged family members, the achievements, the rules, the ways I saved myself over and over again.

I had been in therapy since I was 6 - this wasn’t my first rodeo.

She nodded a lot, wrote things down and assigned baseline mirror work before our next session.

I pretended I was going to do it, but had absolutely zero intention. Looking in the mirror was the scene of the crime.

She gave me a workbook, and I cherry-picked the prompts that felt doable and left the rest.

I really believed I was going to follow the steps to fix myself - lose the weight for good once I cracked the code and feel amazing forever.

I love that version of myself so much.

But Mary had my number and she was in it for the long game.

One day about a year into our work together - I had made major progress and subsequently convinced myself that I was ready to do another fitness completion “the healthy way.”

Mary sat in her chair staring at me daring her inside thoughts not to show on her face.

She asked me a series of questions cautioning me without cautioning me - reminding me of what I knew - but I was already signed up.

Cut to 4 months later, I had strep throat so bad it felt like I was swallowing razor blades. It was August.

I was sicker than I’d maybe ever been. I had to miss a major work event and this was not a good look for my job.

My body was putting her foot down and I was listening this time.

I think it’s also important to note that the spark of ownership, of defying labels and testing my own limits is what has given me my life to this day.

Staring down the barrel of a challenge, of being told who I was when I knew different, of being underestimated, of falling down and getting back up - had become the flashing red sign that I was on the right path and it served me well.

So I started focusing on pattern interrupting, recognizing the way that my behaviors and habits were actually setting off these cycles and perpetuating them.

Learning about my brain and recognizing that the pathways that needed a new source of inspiration became my canvas for a new version of reality.

Most of all, I was starved and seeking someone who could offer the kind of care that sounded like a person who was vested in my well-being - blessedly, that person was slowly becoming me

I should also add that growing up in the millennial era of Britney, Christina, and Jessica, bless their souls, really took us all for a ride.

I wanted desperately to feel good in my body as I straddled identities.

But the truth is - before I even got vertical in the morning, the harassment would begin

I’d pinch my sides before my feet hit the floor, the vicious tapes would start playing in my head.

So I made a decision:

I would not allow myself to use a mirror to get ready in the morning if I was going to talk shit to myself.

Pattern interrupt.

I laid out my clothes for work the next day before I went to bed - no negotiation about pulling an audible in the closet.

Pattern interrupt.

I made my lunch and got my breakfast ready so there were no decisions to be made.

Pattern interrupt.

At night, I would keep myself busy preparing for the next day instead of obsessing about rice cakes and peanut butter and chocolate chips.

It was the only safe “treat” I allowed myself to have in the house.

What I know now, all these years later, is that it was never about rice cakes and chocolate chips, or even the unrelenting “training” I had signed myself up for.

It was about who I was while I was doing all of these things and the endgame in my mind.

It was about the stories I had written about myself with the villain’s pen.

When I tell you that I live in such a way now where I feel free in my body, free in my spirit - it is a true miracle.

When I tell you that the way I’ve made over my life to be centered in love and self-reverence and devotion - that’s a miracle too.

Building a life that I am madly in love with, that spotlights and celebrates every single thing that matters to me and gives me the space to tell my stories and helps other women do the same - this was truly the least likely outcome when I think back to the version of me sitting on Mary’s couch.

What I learned to do there changed the trajectory of my existence.

I think this is true for all of us: that it takes a radical demonstration in your current reality, in your relationship with self, in order to enter the life you want to be living.

A moment of saying - enough is enough, no more…to you - before you can say it to anyone else.

And then you will learn how do this over and over and over again for the rest of your life.

You will live the happily ever after that was always meant for you - not the one printed on the pages of a fictional representation of a person who hated herself, too.

I want you to know this: one day it goes from being excruciating to exhilarating.

And because I know who was waiting for me on the other side - I am so excited to meet a woman who is drawing a line in the sand with herself and her life.

I wake up saying kind, loving, adoring things to myself and meaning it

Here is a piece of the final email I sent to Mary at the conclusion of our work together 15 years ago,

“All I can say is that you helped me to get to this place and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that.  I committed to healing myself and setting myself free from the disordered and dysfunctional thinking I lived with.  The universe brought me to you. I am so proud of the strides I have made and will share what I've learned with others, honestly and unequivocally.  They deserve to live life freely and to celebrate the gifts that they have right in front of them.  I see this now and feel as though I will accomplish anything I want to in this life.  I believe it now and will give myself permission to do so.”

This version of me was always in there…

You are a miracle. I love you.

Your life is here for you.

xo - Amber

I write about life and business, motherhood and money consciousness - most of all reality creation and breaking free from the chains that bind us.

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I’m recording this week’s episode live from the middle of what I am now lovingly calling my pain portal.

After two weeks of unexpected physical pain, I’ve found myself in a deeper conversation with my body, my stories and the places where I’ve been unintentionally shrinking myself.

In this episode, I’m exploring what pain has the capacity to reveal when we stop fighting against it and start listening. Because sometimes the moments that feel the most uncomfortable are the ones that invite us into the deepest levels of honesty & growth.

We’re talking about scarcity versus abundance, the stories we carry about who we’re allowed to be, what happens when we stop apologizing for our power and the invitation to fully step into the creativity, dreams, and aliveness that are already within us.

This is a personal conversation about telling the truth, trusting the wisdom of our bodies, and entering the question: What is this moment here to show me?

This is the first time we are bringing the Homeward Podcast to Substack to connect the dots on our Creative Operating System - you can listen here inside the Substack app or at the buttons below wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Homeward: The Sovereign Business Podcast is for the visionary entrepreneur walking the long road of dreaming, building and becoming

Here, business is not just business - it’s a sovereign path, a portal to deeper expansion, personal evolution and true wealth.

Each episode will offer intimate conversations, real-time revelations and potent strategies to help you scale what matters most. This is where breakthroughs meet your next business move and where your work becomes a homecoming.

I just want you to know that from the minute I open my eyes in the morning, until I sit down to work I am being touched, prodded by tiny elbows, demanded from, asked to do something very specific and so on.

I also want you to know that I am very much a person who cannot stand being told what to do by any person on the planet, yes, even my children, especially before the sun rises.

And yet, I am a mother - joyfully, graciously, triumphantly.

I have oriented my entire existence for motherhood and will do it again and again in every lifetime to come.

I also have the kind of children who would swallow me whole, crawl back into my womb space, exist in my cells and on my body in a baby Bjorn forever if they could.

I love this about them.

And it has required me to build the most rock solid, loving boundaries you have ever witnessed in order to exist in this world as a feeling, tender-hearted thing that can sense a shift in the wind or my own mother’s mood from 100 miles away.

This morning, I heard his little feet land on the hickory floors and find their way to my side of the bed before he army crawled over me, slapping me in the face with his floppy fox stuffy and kneeing me in the bladder as he found his place between us.

I half-slept for the next hour until it was too much for any of us and groggily rolled out of bed to start this day, eager to write to you, eager to air out my brain and feel the romance of a fresh morning.

But I want you to know that I have to work for this…

And that seeing the way the sun filters through the trees isn’t always effortless and being a person who holds the line at loving every little teensy detail - even the dead flowers in the vase or the cat fur on the carpet - is a lift some days.

Especially when it’s on the back slope of 4 1/2 years of being a human jungle gym and tuning fork for my little pod here on the pond.

I want you to hear me say that being the visionaries of our families has a gravity to it - a weightiness that cannot be measured in the ways most people measure.

And yet, I know you will understand this without me having to explain.

This chapter of motherhood feels like walking a tightrope over the Grand Canyon carrying your most precious heirloom and your baby on your back while everyone is yelling at you telling you not to fall.

It’s breathtakingly beautiful…

And it’s death-defying every, single day.

It’s the dance of the past due insurance bill and that poem you want to savor and come back to later and your kid’s camp telling you to pack sunscreen and bug spray and that Thursday is crazy hair day - and then a text from your mom pops up telling you that the neighbor’s dog died and your best friend’s name follows asking “how you’re doing today?”

The knotted nervous system, the dreams quietly spinning in our heads and the absolute hilarity of it all could take me out.

And so, when my precious clients come to me asking me “what to do next?” what they’re really saying is, “Please, Lord and angels above, I am holding up the whole world. I’ve become Atlas and my muscles are bulging and I need some relief, please, I’m begging you, make this thing work.”

And I want you to know that I think this silent, end of the tight rope kind of prayer is the Hail Mary that actually does.

When we break the rules, unfollow the experts and send our representatives home - that’s where we find the rich bits.

It’s in the after hours, gather round the campfire, curled up in blankets truth telling moment - that only the risk to be seen can invite out into the open.

It’s the heart on the page, deepest darkest, “f it - here I am” move that becomes the only option…and thank gawddddd for that.

I’m crossing the threshold of 45 in a little over a month.

This one feels big - like the age I never spent a second thinking about, the end of another 7-year-cycle…the one where I compost every, single rotten story I’ve been carrying with me.

What a wild, radical, miraculous blessing!

Just writing these words is changing me.

Just thinking about this next era of my life is too.

And then Sarah McLachlan comes on and every version of me who has ever heard this song closes her eyes and feels herself here.

“Take me to a place so holy that I can wash this from my mind.
Memories, I’m choosing not to fight.
If it takes my whole life, I won’t break, I won’t bend.
It will all be worth it, worth it in the end. ”

Squeeze my heart like an orange.

Wring it of the sweetness I’ve been saving up all these years so I can sip the nectar of every beautiful thing I’ve ever felt.

And I take the elixir with me - tucked in my waist band - offering a sip to the weary and worn out - those of us who can’t bring ourselves to believe another lie about us or the world or what’s possible for one second more.

Drink, dear sister, drink.

xo - Amber

PS - Now through my birthday, September 6th!!, I will be writing diary entry style posts here.

I will be sharing them with all of my subscribers until August 1st and then they will only be available to my Substack Signal/Homeward members.

You can subscribe here to make sure you get each entry to come.

Nothing is off the table…

I’m in awe and terrified and relieved all at once.

I’ll see you later this week with Entry 2.

Read more

In this live session I get into:

• Why most business owners are stuck in “wait and see” mode, waiting for some expert to tell them which platform matters and why that’s an inverted relationship to your own power

• The two questions that change everything: What do you want this platform to be for you? And if your vision was inevitable (not a question mark, an ellipses...), how would you move today?

• The real talk on business development: a colleague who works with executive coaches prescribes a minimum of 15 hours a week and most coaches I know aren’t putting in one

• Why your six-figure year or five-figure month is just math (I attempt this math live on camera, calculator-free, with mixed results 😂)

And the client stories: the one who’s quantum leaping but still marketing to a client she’s outgrown, and the one who told me this week, “I’m taking action like I’ve never taken before. I’m actually excited about my b…

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In the interest of helping us grow here - I am committed to understanding not only what works - but also why - through the lens of human psychology, marketing trends and a 22-year-career studying consumer buying behavior and pattern recognition.

I got myself warmed up to write this post by scrolling back and forth between the Substack Bestseller lists and Instagram and back again - I got myself inadvertently caught in what became a doom scroll riptide for about 20 minutes until I audibly groaned, put my phone down and came back to write this article.

Let me start by saying I am acutely aware that leading with Substack on Substack is the oldest (insert eye roll here) trick in the book. It’s giving Instagram growth expert on Instagram and the AI-gurus telling us to get on the AI-bus before we’re left in the dust.

And, because I love you and believe in your work as a coach, creator, consultant, service provider, artist, visionary-type person, I am writing this one about why Substack as a platform matters in this moment and how to grow here in a way that feels congruent in your weary spirit and soul.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been combing the best-seller charts. I’ve been taking in different categories, noticing trends, paying attention to well and lesser-known people jumping on the Substack bandwagon and there are a few key themes I’ve been noting.

But before we go any further, I have to get these observations out into the open so we can proceed from the same page:

1. The Substack Bestseller charts are black holes into strange worlds that span everything from politics to religion to AI-coded dystopian universes.

   It’s odd in an unfamiliar way I would do not wish to become familiar with and it’s proof that the internet ocean is a gigantic place and there’s room for all kinds of fish - including you and me. Working hard to get on said charts is a fruitless pursuit, especially when there are far better things to spend your time and creative juice on.

2. The articles and creators I see popping off on my personal feed are talking about two primary things: How they grew to XYZ $$ of ARR on Substack OR the AI tools they are using to make their life perceptually better. While these topics are relevant and appropriate puzzle pieces on this platform - it’s feeling narrow, myopic and, if I may, mildly annoying. The good news? It’s also giving “Blue Ocean Strategy” for artists and creators with alternate perspectives and things to write about - which is very exciting.

   Lastly, and this is the part we are going to double down on in this article:
   

3. There are real people, sharing their personalities, their hot takes and a glimpse inside their world with a level of intimacy like we have never seen (think Netflix documentary-style articles, live streams and long-form truth telling). There’s room to stretch our legs out, to share our stories and selves in ways the other platforms optimize away from. Upon further examination - it’s working and that’s a really good thing.

This one is what I want to focus on with you because it’s at the root of what I believe is the way forward for coaches, creators, writers and humans trying to build brand worlds in this moment.

If you’re craving something deeper than what Instagram can offer and are on the verge of exhaustion with the style of content creation happening over there- I urge you to read on.

What I am going to share here applies to really any platform (take notes!), but I’ve found it to be especially compelling here on Substack.

After months of watching who is crushing it on this platform, I've noticed the difference comes down to these 4 core human patterns.

Let's break them down:

1. Humans love a secret

Writing your titles like you’re unveiling something hidden (”the thing nobody tells you about...” or “what I learned that changed everything...”) works because our brains are wired to close open loops.

We naturally fill in the blanks and our curiosity gap works in favor of person who knows how to use it.

If you think about the list of hooks that the IG growth strategist is encouraging you to use, they always contain an open loop, it’s why the Real Housewives teasers suck you in to watch the full episode when you should be writing your next article.

Here’s the paradox:

The coaches and creators who are winning aren’t manufacturing secrets - they’re stepping into their content creation process like a confession booth. They’re sharing their truth in such a bold and transparent way, it actually FEELS like a secret.

It’s simpler and, yet, way more challenging than it looks because it requires you to put skin in the game.

It requires you to tell the internet about your nail biting habit (hi, that’s me) or that time you created a ghost email address to access the webinar hosted by the creepy coach all the manifestation girlies and gurus were raving about - so you could verify exactly what you suspected (hi, me again).

The secret is that there is no secret.

Sincerity and transparency are the chess game - and while our nervous systems may not find relief in this at first, the more reps we put in - in places like Substack - the easier it becomes.

And bonus, the more authentic it feels.

2. Humans are wired to respond to scarcity

It’s the oldest trick in the book: tell them quantities are limited and make them feel like they’ve won the golden ticket.

And it works - it will always work because it plucks the survival strings.

Hey, humans are going to human.

This is also exactly why it has become the most well-worn lever on the internet.

Everyone’s cart is always closing - and the last call emails are dropping to remind you that price is always going up at midnight.

Can we also just pause for a moment and ask why this tactic actually still works?

The price for the program goes up $5,000 at midnight because why?

Your faux sales price was a “steal” and you are doing exactly what you told us you were going to do - use scarcity out in the open to get people to buy the course that sells us into the next level of the course so we can receive the next training on selling the next level of the course before midnight?

Gotta hand it to them - it seems to work - fully proving my point about scarcity…

But here’s what I’ve noticed on Substack: the same old same old scarcity strategies still work, but the felt scarcity that comes with getting a glimpse of a creator and wanting more does too.

Your process, your behind-the-scenes shares, your next article sharing your personal lived experience is giving a level of intimacy and richness that we can’t access on other platforms.

Here’s what’s even better:

Natural scarcity - Giving in a way that feels like your favorite donut shop running out of cruellers before 9:00 am. (I’m looking at you Lil’s - if you’re ever in Kittery, Maine - you must visit!). People lining up around the block for a finite number of donuts or cramming in to get to hear the fireside chat with their favorite author.

Experiences that feel unique, rich and real are where it’s at. How can you weave this into your brand?

3. Humans respond to energy, not information

Nobody needs more information right now. What people are starving for is the transmission: the felt sense and lived experience of a real human being moving through life.

This is why the personality-forward creators who offer value while being their iconic selves are crushing it right now. It’s not enough to talk about what you do or just offer intell from your seat - it’s about allowing yourself to BE yourself consistently and fully.

A hot take outperforms a tired 10-step list.

A contrarian POV on some hot goss is trending.

Where is there momentum for you? What do you love to talk about? What hot take or thing no one else has the gumption to say out loud is begging you to grab the mic?

Bringing this to your content and firing the good girl rule follower from your content team is a solid move

4. Humans can smell a performance

This is the one nobody wants to hear, so I am going to say it louder:

It’s time to fire your representative.

This is not an easy task when every, single one of us has learned along the way which version of us to bring to the party.

The reason “nothing is working” for so many good, smart, talented coaches and creators right now is not the algorithm - it’s that they are performing connection.

And that plastic film is keeping us from feeling them in hi-definition.

Performing expertise, sending in the representative and taking us through your webinar “script” are all sure-fire ways - especially in 2026 - to never land the sale.

People are building a rapid immune response to performative tactics - and I actually think this is a really wonderful thing.

Here’s the paradox:

The harder you study the tactics and try to emulate them, the more obvious it becomes.

Your favorite musician is iconic in their own way.

We are all being asked to reinvent ourselves, peel back the layers and bring forward our own personal credibility - which actually looks like your imperfections, your nihilistic outlook, your intensity, your humor - the things you have been programmed to hide.

Again, these are really good things for the humans.

So what now?

If you’re stuck in the swirl feeling like nothing is working, I am going to give it to you straight -

The game has inverted.

Everything that used to be an actual liability (being small, being personal, being “too much,” having a niche of one) is now the unfair advantage.

Platforms, like Substack, finally exist for depth, for bingeing, for intimacy that transcends fandom, for building connection that rapidly leads to conversions.

Scale is becoming secondary and a very natural effect to building community that craves and inspires your next offer or creative move.

And the best part is that you don’t need to enter the blackhole best seller chart or flex your ARR screenshots or even hire an AI agent team to get there.

You need to open the door and invite people into your world, by sharing the truth about what matters to you (your secrets), your hot takes and unique POV (your energy) and your invitations to experience deeper connection, process and more of what you do in a way that makes it feel safe for people to connect with you.

Over the last 7 months, I’ve been taking notes on this platform and what I am seeing in the market - I recorded 4 training videos on how to start your Creative Operating System here on Substack and have written specific activation posts with prompts you can use in your messaging, a full masterclass on sales, money and a 5-Day Money Codes Challenge event that provides 5 days of prompts and audio trainings all available to my Signal peeps.

It has been fun to watch this community grow steadily without much effort or hype!

In September, I plan to host another Challenge experience and will continue to share live business coaching Q&As each month just for The Signal crew. You can join for $88 for the year or as a free subscriber to access my free content.

Subscribe now

Whether you tap into the trainings or not, I want to continue to decode this platform and the anatomy of why some coaches, creators take off and others don’t.

I want you to hear me say that what I believe is genuinely, structurally possible for you, probably for the first time since the internet began is to build a soft place to land for the people who resonate with you and your message and are a great fit for your offers. Substack is the place for that!!

We’ve been worn down on the tactics and the oversimplification of social media and I see this platform as a way forward that actually works. We’re doing things differently here…for the long game - the human game.

I’m so glad you’re here!

I wrote a post sharing explicitly why I have zero chill about Substack where I spell out my Creative Operating System approach to this platform - you can read that over here.