The Dream I Hid for 8 Years

It's like the second I gave my voice, the second I gave my dream a voice, the fear got louder. So I did what a lot of women do when the desire is bigger than the identity that they're currently living. I put it away. I never stopped wanting it.

I just didn't believe that I could become the woman who could actually do it yet. Eight years later, my solo book is coming out and it feels crazy. It feels like all of the emotions. Welcome to the Unblocked Woman podcast.

I'm Amy Sanders. For years, I believed the next level of my life and business would come from a better strategy, working harder, figuring out that perfect plan. But eventually, I saw the real truth. The biggest ceiling in our lives is not strategy, it's identity.

The patterns we don't see, the subtle ways we play small, the version of ourselves that we keep defaulting back to even when we don't see it. We're capable of more. This podcast is where we bring those patterns into the light. We talk about identity, leadership, growth, and what it actually takes to become the woman who can truly hold the life and business she wants.

No fluff, no performance, just honest conversation about stepping fully into your power. So go ahead and subscribe and follow the show. And remember, the moment you see the pattern, you can finally break it. In 2018, I was hiking with my husband in Singapore, and I told him a secret that I had been holding inside for a very long time.

That secret was that I want to try to book. That day, we had been talking all day. And you know, when you're hiking, you start talking about all kinds of different things. Sometimes it gets a little bit deeper.

And that's where this conversation went. So at some point, we started sharing some of our deepest, darkest secrets or fears, all the things really. And that's when I told him something that I had never told another human being that I want to try to book. And as soon as I told him, my entire body was alarming.

My heart was pounding. I felt sick to my stomach. I was actually shaking. Like my body was shaking as the words left my mouth.

You would have thought that I was in front of a whole stadium announcing it to all of those people at the same time. But I wasn't. I was just in the middle of the woods with my husband. And no one was even around, except for maybe some of the furry animals that were living in Singapore.

But that's how vulnerable it was. That's how scary it was to say that one sentence to one person who actually loves me. When I said it, he was surprised. And he wasn't like unkind about it or anything.

He was just really surprised. He never thought in a million years that I would be someone that would want to write a book. Which is fair because he's a complete bookworm. He's someone that just consumes a lot of information and can fly through a book in a few hours.

And he's also extremely intelligent. And for me, when I picture an author, I picture someone who's really educated, someone who's just totally brilliant and effortless with their words. And that is not me. That is far from me.

And he also doesn't want to write a book. And I'm like, that is not me. But as soon as I said it, all of these thoughts showed up. It's like as soon as I actually made it verbal, the thoughts just kept coming.

Like, who are you to even write a book? Like, what could you possibly say that hasn't been said already? What if nobody cares about your book? What if it flops?

What if people leave bad reviews? Or what if you can't even explain what you actually mean? What is this book going to even be a real book? What if it's not a real book?

What if it's not a about? If you put stories in the book about people, are they going to freak out and not be okay with what you've said? Like, all of these things were just totally consuming my mind after I had blurted out to my husband. It's like the second I gave my voice, the second I gave my dream a voice, the fear got louder.

So I did what a lot of women do when the desire is bigger than the identity that they're creating. And I did what a lot of women do when the desire is bigger than what they're currently living. I put it away. I never stopped wanting it.

I just didn't believe that I could become the woman who could actually do it yet. Eight years later, my solo book is coming out. And it feels crazy. It feels like all of the emotions.

There's excitement, there's fear, there's vulnerability, there's literally all of the emotions. Now, obviously, there's a gap between 2018 and 2026. Which is when this book is coming out. I didn't come home from Singapore and start writing it like immediately.

And I want to be clear about that. Because what my life looked like in 2018 was complete chaos. We had just moved into our home. Oh, I mean, like two years earlier, we had but we're still in the middle of blending families.

There was a lot going on between exes. And we were even in the middle of defending ourselves in a lawsuit. There was so much happening. I was teaching fitness classes, and I was teaching people about nutrition.

At the time, I was also coaching women, but not in the capacity that I do now. I was basically coaching the women that were coming to my fitness classes, and I helped them with their nutrition and weight loss. But I wasn't quite understanding what I understand now when you look at it. At that point, I had lived a story.

I had stories and I had lived a story. But I hadn't yet seen a thread that was running through all of it. And I wasn't even sure what the book that I wanted to write would be about. So through the next eight years, between when I said I want to write a book, and when it's actually coming out, I have logged 1000s of coaching hours.

I have five certifications that I didn't back then. I've built programs, I've studied human behavior. I have sat with women in the middle of, real decisions and real pain. And I've even built the mirror so that we can help women catch their patterns in real time.

Instead of six weeks later, when they're in the shower, and they're like, Oh my gosh, I did that thing again. I've also lived more life. So all of these experiences that I've had, have taken me deeper into my own work, my personal work, I have had to look at what I actually believe, I've had to really examine how I work under pressure. And I've even seen lots of gaps where I still abandon myself.

I've also had to come to peace with trusting my own voice, and helping women be able to trust their own. And all of these things, you can't really manufacture, you can't walk a woman through something that you have not been through before, or that you refuse to go as a coach. You just can't do it. You don't have the depth or the understanding.

So those eight years have been a lot of work. And I've also had to eight years were not a delay, they were actually becoming. And some of the best stories in the book are from those years that hadn't happened yet, when I was sitting on the log talking to Chris about a book. The book needed more than the woman who had dreamed it back in 2018.

It needed the woman I turned into along the way. And by the way, I'm still not perfect, far from it. But the book that stands now, I couldn't have written back then. Here's what actually got the ball running.

So I experienced life, life was happening. I was coaching doing all the things. And then in 2024, I decided to be part of an anthology. And it's where a bunch of women come together, and they all write different chapters, and you get to write your own chapter.

Now, my chapter was published in the book itself was published in January 2025. During that year, I learned and grew a lot. I learned how it feels very exposing and vulnerable when someone else is reading your chapter. I also learned that it's going to feel different when strangers read your book versus someone that already knows you and loves you.

Another lesson that I learned was being part of this cohort, writing these vulnerable chapters. Writing helps you heal parts of yourself that you didn't know you need healing. And I learned that when you're reading your chapter, you're not alone. You're not alone.

You're not alone in the world. After I went through this, we had an amazing, what would you even call it? Book launch. I guess it's called a book launch.

We had a book launch where we all came together, and there was even red carpet, and there was photography, and there was all kinds of things that happened. We were on a panel. It was an amazing experience. But when I came back from that experience, I immediately knew that there was so much more for me and that I really did need my own solo book.

The next step was I became part of another anthology, and then two more. Every single time I was part of an anthology like this, it gave me evidence that maybe I could do my own. Maybe I could tell the truth. Maybe my help, my story could help another woman understand herself better.

It helps me understand that my voice doesn't have to sound like anybody else's to be worth something, and that I don't have to be the best writer of the book. I don't have to be the best writer of the book. I don't have to be the best writer alive to say something true, and thank God that that is true. Because I am not the best writer alive.

When I look back at everything that's come to pass leading up to this book, I was running what I call on the podcast the aligned loop before I even finished naming it. I didn't wake up one day believing that I am an author. All I did was take an aligned first response. My identity had not caught up yet.

It was very uncomfortable, and it did not feel true to call myself an author. But I still believe in myself. I believe in myself. I submitted the chapter anyway.

I let the words be seen, and that created evidence. The evidence made the next thing slightly more believable. And next thing you know, there was three anthologies before my own book. More evidence to show that I could do it.

And that I had to do it. That I had so much more to say than a chapter could hold. And I wanted the freedom to be able to talk about whatever I want to talk about. I didn't become an author the day the book got published.

I became her and all of the decisions that came before it, which include the way I grew up. The story behind the book starts long before me sitting in Singapore on a log talking to my husband. When I was young, I learned from culture, family dynamics, you name it, that it wasn't safe to trust myself, to trust my voice, to speak up. And so I got really good at asking for approval.

I got really good at questioning myself and also just listening to whoever it was that had authority, which my young self believed was anyone that was older than me and especially adults. If anybody sounded more confident about anything, then I just took it as truth, like they're more confident and they know more than me. And truly, I became incapable of knowing what I wanted because I didn't ever practice it. I promise all of this has a point.

So after years and years of being very obedient and doing what I thought was right, I learned that that's what you do. You just agree. Which, as you can imagine, led to some really fantastic decisions. And by fantastic, I mean like marrying a man after three weeks of dating.

Three weeks. I want to be clear that I dated him for less time than it takes to return a sweater. And that journey that I knew was not right for me from the minute I said yes, led me into single motherhood, three kids and living on $24,000 a year. There was no trust fund.

There was no safety net. There was no trust fund. There was no rich parent or aunt that were going to hide in the wings and come save me. It was me, my three little humans, and a lot of figuring out to do.

Now, the reason why this matters is because I didn't have an option to fall apart. I didn't really have an option, or at least I didn't think I did, to ask for help. So I got capable instead, and I learned how to make things happen. I learned how to build things.

I learned how to survive. I became a woman who can't carry a lot. And I learned that asking for help wasn't something that I could do because I felt like it showed weakness, and I didn't want anyone to think that I was weak. I didn't want anyone else to be burdened with me or my children.

Now, when I look back, I see that that woman truly saved my life. I love her. I'm grateful for her. She was amazing with what she knew.

I would not be sitting here or living this life if it wasn't for her. But I'm grateful for her. I'm grateful for her. The identity that saves your life can become the identity that runs your life.

I got so good during that time at carrying everything that I couldn't let anybody carry me. And I got so good at surviving that resting felt irresponsible, like something was wrong if I turned on Netflix. Being capable, I wore like honor, like it was so great that I could hold so much. Well, as my life unfolded from the point of being a single mom to being a single mom, I was able to hold so much.

Even now, like I went to go build my new life. I built businesses. I made some money. I did things.

And I now live a life that that single mom could not have pictured. But some part of me was still waiting for all of it to vanish. Because sometimes your circumstance changes faster than your identity does. And that's what happened for me.

You can have support and still feel like everything depends on you and you don't actually ask for the support. You can be deeply loved and have a totally new life, but you can still be bracing for the next exit, thinking that this can't last. You can have success in your hand and immediately wonder if you can do it twice, or if you're going to lose it all. You can say that you know your worth and still feel like you're working on trial trying to prove it, that you're worthy.

And that's what I'm doing. I'm doing it. And that is when I finally understood that the thing that I need to write about is what this entire book is built upon. You can build a completely new life and still run it from an old identity.

Your circumstances can change faster than your identity does. And you can be standing in the middle of the life that you prayed for, like I had, but still be responding like the woman who had to fight for every single inch of it. This book isn't about judging who you learned to be. Because frankly, she had her reasons, and they were good ones.

They helped her survive. But maybe they were only there to help her survive. And now it's time for her to step into her true self. When I say true self, that version of you that you know that is in there.

So like I mentioned, that is what this book is built upon. But before I went live, I also think that it is valid to talk about what almost stopped me, from launching it, because it wasn't writer's block, and it wasn't a lack of material. I had plenty of material, and knock on wood, but as it stands right now, I have never struggled with what people call writer's block. Except for maybe when I write captions for Instagram.

But when it came to my book, that was not it. What happened was that I could have edited this book until I died. It's like the infinite edit. There's always another sentence you can change.

There's always like a story that you can soften. Or even sharpen. Make stronger. There's always going to be another quote that you can add.

Or paragraph that you need to rewrite. So that one specific stranger on the internet can maybe wake up and understand what you're trying to say. And that was me. I got to a place where I genuinely kept picking apart this book.

I kept thinking maybe if I just, I even took this to chat and Claude. Add famous quotes to my book. I didn't do it. But I was second-guessing myself, thinking that maybe if there's famous quotes, my book will land harder.

Instead, I used my own quotes. Like apparently, my own life, thousands of hours of coaching, certifications, and entire method that I have written were not enough for my nervous system to handle this book going published. I thought that maybe I needed a quote from someone like Dead and Famous for it to actually land and for me to be able to read it. relaxed.

Is it smart enough? Is it polished enough? Is it deep enough? Is it impressive enough?

Are people going to like it? And if I'm being truly honest, which is what I love to be on this podcast, is yesterday, I had to take the manuscript and read it cover to cover and make our final edits. I'd already turned it in. We have a launch date.

That's happening. But even then, I was like, I actually think I need to rewrite this whole thing. I didn't, but I still feel that way. Editing had turned into a very respectable looking way of hiding.

Perfectionism doesn't always say don't do it. Sometimes perfection is saying, keep working on it until nobody can criticize you. Keep postponing the launch day because you can write a better book. P.

S. We did extend this launch date. Thing is, is it's not coming. The book is never going to be perfect.

That day, that you're looking for is never going to come for anyone. But it was scary. It was scary to say, okay, yeah, we are actually launching on this day. Because when it comes to posting, like if I write a post on Instagram, and I hate it, in an hour, I can delete it.

And everyone who may have seen it can agree that they like didn't actually see it. It never happened. But with a book, it stays. The methodology inside this book that I'm teaching, it's going to stay.

It's going to stay. It's going to 10 years from now, a woman that I've never met could be reading this book. And she's forgotten to trust herself. She happens upon this book.

In 10 years from now, I want to be able to stand behind its words. That's incredible. And it's terrifying. It's scary.

I can edit a caption, but I can't really pull up a chair with the person that's reading the book and sit there and talk to her about why I wrote it and all of the things. So for a woman, me, who spent most of her life looking outside her self-performation, putting my voice into something permanent was a really big deal. It also feels extremely vulnerable. Some of these stories include people I love.

I have been careful not to name names, but they do include people that I love. It also feels weird when you're writing about your life, wondering if people actually care. One minute you're deciding about whether a comma should go here or not, and the next minute you're wondering, am I going to get crucified at Thanksgiving because I'm putting this story in the book? I'm not using this book to weaponize anyone or blame anyone, but when you write a book and you put in stories, there's going to be people in them.

One thing that was funny when I was part of that cohort was that as we were being vulnerable and being kind of scared to share and going through all the emotions, one lady says that there's this famous writer, which I don't remember who this is, but the famous writer says, if people didn't want me to write about them, they probably shouldn't have been mean to me. Which I thought was funny, but also valid. I'm like, okay, if that's true, then I can be honest about what my experience was when it came to the book. So it came down to this.

Was I going to tell the truth, or was I going to soften it until it was technically accurate and completely lifeless? Every single time I would edit the book to make it less than, it lost the life of the book. So finishing it turned into be one of the last aligned responses that I could make towards the book that the book actually required of me. Even though last night I wanted to burn it all down and rewrite it.

I had to ask myself, is this enough to be published? Because it's never going to be perfect. Is it true? Is it useful?

And does it sound like me? So I took my hands off it, which, for the record, feels really terrible. But I did it anyway. So, the book.

Unblocked. See it, shift it, become magnetic. It comes out October 6th. And we have pre-sale going between September 22nd and October 6th.

And the book moves through. My method. Awareness, alignment, abundance, the unblocked method. Awareness is where you stop mistaking your patterns for your personality.

Alignment is where you see it turning into choosing differently. You see it, so you can choose differently. And abundance is your capability to actually hold more without rebuilding from exhaustion. And they all work together.

There's also an unblocked journal that's going out live with the book. It's 90 Days. Because if you want a companion that's going to help you become that version of you that you know is in there, that's what this is for. You can read a book and underline half of it, which feels amazing for a few days, but then it sits on a shelf and then what?

So the journal is where you actually integrate everything that we're teaching from the book. The book helps you understand the work and the journal makes you practice it. Awareness is great, but only takes you so far. You need to learn.

You need to learn how to change your identity through lived experience. And that's what the Unblocked Integration Journal is really about. So here's what I want to actually have you take away from today. I want you to think about what you've wanted for a long time and that you keep talking yourself out of.

I'm not talking about the dream that you outgrew that's like no longer valid. I'm talking about the dream that won't leave you alone that's still inside you. The one that makes your heart go fast. When you imagine it or when you say it to anybody, just like mine did with the book.

I want you to name it right now in your car, wherever you are, however you're listening to this. And then I want you to listen to what shows up about four seconds later when you name it. Those questions like, who am I to do that? I'm not ready.

It's too late. People are going to judge me. What if it fails? All of those questions that can come up when you name something, that you're dreaming.

See what comes up. You don't have to get rid of the fear first. Because if you did have to do that first, you'd literally be waiting forever. And we don't really have that kind of time here.

So when all those questions come up, I want you to ask a different question instead. And I want that question to be, what's one response I could take that would give me evidence for the woman who can hold this? Abundance is all about capacity. Learning how to hold.

And that's what I'm asking you to do here. So what is one response that I could take? Maybe it's writing the first page. Maybe it's making the call.

Maybe it's telling a person about your goal. Or submitting the application. Maybe it's just speaking up in the meeting that you continually hold your voice because you're scared about what people will think about you. It might just be something small, not like a complete big dream.

Something small can help you start reinforcing, the identity that can hold the dream. Throughout this journey of writing this book, I have continually thought about the woman on that log. How she was shaking. How she was terrified.

And that by admitting something out loud that she wanted, made her entire body shake. When she said that out loud, she had no idea what the book was going to be about or what it was called. She didn't know how much more life she'd live before she actually wrote it. And she didn't know how many times she'd have to pick her own voice over the part of her that wanted to stay quiet and prove and be safe and be approved of.

She just knew that there was something in her head that she wanted to have said. And here's what gets me. Her whole body shook to say one sentence to one person who loved her. I'd argue who loved her more than anybody else.

And it was so scary. So, this book is going out. And it's going out to strangers. People who don't know me.

People who will have opinions about my life and write them down where I can read them. There are going to be comments made. But I've decided that I'm okay. Even though it still feels vulnerable and there's some fear around it, I'm okay because I've spent eight years becoming the woman who can hold it.

And that's the whole thing. That's the entire book in one sentence. Is becoming a woman who can hold more. So, Unblocked is for the woman who knows that she's capable of more and is exhausted by the idea that more means more effort.

It's for the woman who's done the work and keeps seeing the same pattern showing up in her life and it's driving her crazy. And more than anything, it's an invitation to stop making yourself smaller so that everybody else around you stays comfortable. I want you to use your voice. Take up space.

Make the thing that scares you. Specifically because it might still be here in ten years. Like mine. Let your work outlive the fear it took to release it.

As I always say, you're not broken. Your pattern and pattern changes. And that's what we're here for. The Unblocked book is coming out.

By the time you hear this episode, it's probably out. So go grab it. And then, read it and let me know what you think. When you do get it, I would love, love, love if you would screenshot this episode and put it on your stories and tag me.

I read every one of them. And I am going to be refreshing my stories like a lunatic over the next couple weeks as this book goes out. So give me something to look at and give me a shout out. I would love the support and to help as many people get their hands on this book as possible.

So, last but not least, if you've named your thing out loud today, DM me the word. Or DM me what it is. I would love to know. I would be happy to be the first person you told it to and I will cheer you, lead you all the way through your journey.

Anyway, I can't wait for you to read the book. More on that to come. And I also can't wait for you to stop hiding what it is that you actually want to do. With that, take care.

I will be back here with another episode next week. Bye. Okay, before you go, don't let this become another episode that you listened to, loved, and then did nothing about. Take what came up for you today and bring it into the mirror.

Bring it the decision that you're overthinking, the conversation you're avoiding, the pattern that you keep repeating, or simply say, here's what's happening. Help me see what I can't see. The mirror knows your patterns, your enneagram, your human design, and it remembers the work you've already done. So the reflection is personal to you.

Find the mirror in the show notes or at amysanders. co forward slash mirror. And until next time, see it, shift it, and become magnetic.