From bodybuilding and diets to true embodiment, with Sarah Gaines, founder of Joy Flow

From bodybuilding and diets to true embodiment, with Sarah Gaines, founder of Joy Flow

Sarah Gaines spent her entire teens and twenties trying to control her body, from her first diet at eight years old to bodybuilding at nineteen. She finally got the “body of her dreams” but lost herself in the process. What changed everything wasn’t another protocol. It was learning how to come home to her body instead of trying to fix it. Today Sarah is the founder of Joy Flow, a mindful movement method helping women reconnect with their bodies and feel free. In this conversation, we get into the specific practices, the science of moving stuck emotion through the body, and the question she comes back to every single day: Body, what do you need? What we cover: * Sarah’s journey from extreme dieting and bodybuilding to true embodiment * Why controlling your body from the outside is what disconnects you from it * The “cookie on a Wednesday” moment that started everything * What a somatic snack actually is, and why a 60-second practice can change your whole day * The three-part Joy Flow movement practice: shake, dance, stillness * Why moving your body is one of the fastest ways to process stuck emotion * The question Sarah asks her body every day, and how to start asking yours * The simple practice anyone can start tomorrow Where to find Sarah: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahjgaines/] JoyFlow [https://www.bejoyflow.com] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/bejoyflow] Get full access to Shift Into Alignment at shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe [https://shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Walking is a shower for your nervous system — movement, emotion, and how to hear what your body is actually asking for

A founder-to-founder conversation on movement, motivation, and why the shift from forcing your body to move to listening to your body changes everything. It’s summer. The business is launching. The travel is real. And we’re both navigating a season where movement matters more than ever, but the old fitness rules don’t apply. In this short founder-led episode, Annie and Marissa get real about their current workout routines, including how Marissa built a strength training plan with ChatGPT after canceling her SoulCycle membership, why Annie’s been walking 20,000 steps a day, and the deeper conversation underneath it all: when does pushing yourself serve you, and when is it the very thing keeping you stuck? This is the conversation for the woman who’s tired of every workout feeling like punishment, who knows she should be lifting heavy but doesn’t know where to start, and who’s wondering if there’s a way to move her body that actually feels like care. Here’s how to work with us at Shift Shift 1:1 coaching is open now. Work directly with Annie and Marissa on whatever you’re moving through, a pattern you keep repeating, a chapter that’s changing, a version of yourself you can’t seem to reach. Every package starts with a free 15-minute call. → https://www.shiftinto.co/coaching [https://www.shiftinto.co/coaching] Shift Membership opens in September. A monthly membership where the work becomes a practice, not a one-time fix. Get on the waitlist for founding pricing and first access. → https://www.shiftinto.co/home-1 [https://www.shiftinto.co/home-1] Come find us in between episodes:Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/shiftintoalignment/ [https://www.instagram.com/shiftintoalignment/] Get full access to Shift Into Alignment at shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe [https://shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

"They Told Me It Was Just a Painful Period" — Chelsea Leyland on Endometriosis, Pregnancy Loss and the Journey from DJ to Founder

In this episode of In Alignment, Chelsea Leyland joins Annie and Marissa for a raw conversation on women’s health, chronic illness, and the power of community. A former DJ turned women’s health entrepreneur, Chelsea is the co-founder of Looni, and she shares how her own hardships with epilepsy, endometriosis, and pregnancy loss reshaped the trajectory of her life and led her to build a company dedicated to women’s hormonal health. Chelsea walks through her decade-long road to an endometriosis diagnosis and the medical gaslighting that left her doubting her own pain. The conversation digs into what endometriosis actually is, why women’s pain has been normalized for generations, and the staggering research and funding gaps in women’s health. Chelsea also shares a practical toolbox for managing chronic hormonal conditions, from traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and stress management to nutrition, magnesium, flax, cannabinoids, pelvic floor therapy, and bioidentical progesterone. Finally, Chelsea speaks candidly about her ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage, the isolation of pregnancy loss, and how a WhatsApp group she started for herself grew into Looni’s free community, built on the belief that “physicians should be prescribing community.” Get full access to Shift Into Alignment at shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe [https://shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Botox, Wine, And Letting Yourself Live: Finding The Wellness Middle Ground with Margaret Trainor

Margaret Trainor, founder of Atmo Home, spent years burning “nice” candles in her Berlin apartment. When she moved out, every wall and appliance was coated in a layer of soot she had never noticed. That moment became Atmo, a modern home care brand built on the radical idea that the air inside your home matters as much as the food on your plate. We spend over 90% of our lives indoors, and almost no one is talking about what we’re breathing while we’re in there. Margaret breaks down what actually makes a candle clean (hint: it has very little to do with “beeswax and essential oils”) and why combustion, not raw materials, is the real story. We get into the science of why your wick matters, why cheap candles are cheap for a reason, and the truth about synthetic versus natural fragrance that no one in the clean girl space wants you to know. But this conversation goes so much deeper than candles. Margaret has one of the most refreshing perspectives on wellness we’ve ever heard. She has Botox. She drinks wine with friends. She also goes to the gym every day, reads in the sauna, and has built her entire brand around the principle that we should not have to give up the things we love to live well. Her stance on perfection cracked something open for both of us. This one is for anyone who has felt squeezed between the cool girl who doesn’t care and the wellness girl who cares too much. Margaret lives in the middle, and the middle is where being well actually exists. Find Margaret and Atmo Home: Atmo on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/atmohome/] atmohome.com [https://atmohome.com/collections/candles?srsltid=AfmBOoqMzZQWI1d2xcdu3PAVW9lLUvJAPsMZzUwCsP2-3fFGxbHFuP0e] Margaret Trainor on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-trainor-0389064a/] Here’s how to work with us at Shift Shift 1:1 coaching is open now. Work directly with Annie and Marissa on whatever you’re moving through, a pattern you keep repeating, a chapter that’s changing, a version of yourself you can’t seem to reach. Every package starts with a free 15-minute call. → https://www.shiftinto.co/coaching [https://www.shiftinto.co/coaching] Shift Membership opens in September. A monthly membership where the work becomes a practice, not a one-time fix. Get on the waitlist for founding pricing and first access. → https://www.shiftinto.co/home-1 [https://www.shiftinto.co/home-1] Come find us in between episodes:Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/shiftintoalignment/ [https://www.instagram.com/shiftintoalignment/] Get full access to Shift Into Alignment at shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe [https://shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

How to Make (and Keep) Real Friends as an Adult

This week on In Alignment, Annie and Marissa go solo for an honest conversation about female friendship: why it’s one of the most nurturing forces in our lives, how to find and keep great friends, and when it’s time to walk away from the ones that aren’t serving you. They open up about the qualities that define their closest friendships: authenticity, grace, active listening, and the gift of friends who genuinely celebrate your wins without a hint of competition. Annie shares how she learned to give grace after a younger life shaped by betrayal and a fear of abandonment that made her quick to cut people off, while Marissa explains how dropping her perfectionism and showing up as her full self transformed her relationships. The conversation gets tactical, too. They cover how to actually make friends as an adult, why your friends’ friends are the best vehicle for expanding your circle, and the underrated power of being a connector who merges friend groups instead of siloing them. They also tackle the harder stuff: how to tell the difference between a friend who’s genuinely wrong for you and feelings that are really your own work to do, and why “just because someone hurt your feelings doesn’t mean they did something wrong.” Finally, they get real about not losing yourself, or your friendships, inside a romantic relationship, and why, as Marissa’s grandmother’s independent-living community makes vividly clear, the female friendships you nurture now may be the relationships that carry you through the rest of your life. Get full access to Shift Into Alignment at shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe [https://shiftintoalignment.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]