A story of transcendence and transformation just for you. Let me show you how I got there so you can get there yourself.
When this journey started, I was a 20-something single woman living in Manhattan, working in fashion, dating, and climbing the corporate ladder at Vogue and Ralph Lauren. I was doing everything “right” until I started feeling like something was very wrong. Then, overnight I went from feeling like a normal 20-something working woman to an unwell little girl on disability from my job desperate for answers. For 12-years I was on a health crisis rollercoaster (scroll down to see my TIMELINE below) and exhausted over 500 doctors, specialists, energy healers and experts from all over the world, including a full week at the famed Mayo Clinic. During that time, I was diagnosed with 15 chronic illnesses, went through two bone marrow biopsies, thousands of vials of bloodwork, CT Scans, MRI’s, X-Rays and protocols yet no one had answers; they only had guesses. Finally, lying in a hospital bed, unable to move, I was told I had 24 hours to live with c.diff colitis.
Because I was so contagious, my dad stood above my bed in a medical gown and mask in my hospital room, looking down on me with morphine dripping into my arm and put his hand out for me to see. When he opened his hand, there was a tiny bouncy ball in it. “Remember Amie Jo, You have the power,” he told me. And then he started sobbing.
When I was little, my dad, my sister and I used to play a game. It was called, “You’ve got the power.” My dad would hold a tiny bouncy ball in his fist and my sister and I would have to pry open his massive fist to get the ball. The ball was the power. If you could get the ball, you had the power.
What my father was telling me in the hospital room that day was that I had the power, I just had to find it within myself. He knew I had the power to heal my body, my mind, and my life but I had absolutely no idea where to start. Neither did he.
Throughout the next decade, I felt as though I tried every quick-fix and “hack” we’ve ever been sold about how to be healthy because I just wanted some form of relief to get my life back, see my friends, go on a date, put on a dress and feel like a human instead of an isolated and depressed medical lab rat.
Trauma and stress were always the chapters I skipped in every book. Perhaps you can relate. I didn’t really understand what trauma or stress was and how it drove our bodies into fight-or-flight (survival mode). But I’ve since learned the place it holds in our lives and what it can do to our bodies and our minds. We come into this world a blank slate then we may encounter mean girls, ex-boyfriends, abusive partners, inflammatory foods, toxic bosses, and the stories we tell ourselves all of which are part of the physical, emotional and energetic toxicity that can keep us stuck and cumulatively contributes to us feeling unwell over time.
During this journey, I learned the incredible power of the human spirit and I spent half a million dollars out of pocket trying to understand what was going on inside my body on a deeper level. What I’ve learned is that you can detox your food, your home, your personal care products (all of which are outlined in my first book, Eating Clean: The 21-Day Plan to Detox, Fight Inflammation, and Detox Your Body), and you can even detox the deep subconscious limiting beliefs in your mind, reset your nervous system from your past and allow your conscious desires, such as wanting to be healthy, to manifest in your life.
What I didn’t learn from Western medicine is that our brain is malleable like plastic, which means we can train it any way we like, rewire it and reprogram it from what no longer serves us. This is neuroscience. You can go from the victim and blaming to power and agency with the right support and a deep dive into the subconscious mind of our past, which is completely out of our conscious awareness.
What I share with you goes far beyond conventional medicine, and the wisdom that I offer about transforming your mind, your body, and your life aren’t written in any of the textbooks. I had to discover all of this myself by myself because no one else was putting together the missing pieces for me. It took me 12 long and painful years to understand all of this and to truly embody all of it and live it in my day-to-day life.
Our health is so much more than what’s on our plate. Yes, anti-inflammatory food is a piece of the puzzle but there’s far more that needs addressing that can surprisingly shift the way we approach our health and our lives. While you can see a therapist for your anxiety, a western medicine doctor for your physical aches and pains, and take a yoga or meditation class to calm your nervous system, there was no approach that was combining all of these pieces simultaneously for true health and wellbeing in my mind and body. While these approaches offered me some short-term relief, they did not lead me to true health because I was suppressing the underlying root causes and before I knew it, suddenly another symptom would pop up a few months later.
I remember feeling as though every “method” I tried or every professional expert I sought advice from was trying to squeeze me into a one-size-fits-all approach that wasn’t addressing what I needed. I started to rely on these “experts” as the authority and trusted their advice more than I trusted myself. This meant I lost complete trust over my own intuition and I also completely lost myself in the process. However, as I remembered what my father told me that day in the hospital bed, I slowly year-by-year guided myself to a place of balance, self-worth, self-acceptance, and deep reverence for a body that was running on empty and self-hatred for so many years.
My father was right, we can take our power back, we just have to find it within ourselves. While we’re all brought up believing that the answers are out there somewhere, my philosophy has always been about making you the expert of you and not relying on anyone else to “save” you or “fix” you. While I know this can be hard to digest because I didn’t want to hear this when I was suffering, the power IS within YOU and only you. When you tap into the physical, emotional and energetic layers of your body and you start to realize you are in charge in every moment creating your life from deep within your subconscious, everything (and yes, I mean everything) in your life will shift. What we shift internally, always shifts externally…something I never believed until it started happening in my own life.
I am here to tell you that most of us are living in a millimeter of joy, and we can actually have miles. This is not about self-help or positive thinking. This is about what it means to advance to the next level of yourself- to reach a true and very vast potential that’s waiting on the other side of our work together.
After my first book, Eating Clean became a bestseller, and I dove into another handful of years of deeper subconscious work to heal my body, I entered a new chapter of my life that I’m ready to share with you. Together we’ll take a look at the deep layers that are often overlooked that play such a profound role in our health and wellbeing. By sharing the missing pieces I put together along the way, I have moved thousands of women and myself to a place of true alignment, mind, and body.
I share my own passion and stories to spark your curiosity and help you to feel less alone. After shedding my old skin and identity from being unwell for so long, I’ve had to look inside myself and say, “What am I all about?” to really think about my place in the world and all I’ve been through.
As you’ve probably seen from what I share on Instagram, the healing process is a long process of unraveling and does not happen overnight or even in a few years. Each year I reclaim more parts of myself that were lost for over a decade. In 2018, my personality came back. In 2019, my creativity came back. And now, in 2020, at the ripe age of 37, my self-expression is emerging in full force and I feel alive. More and more comes back to me each month, which is what lead me to create this work that’s designed to bring you to a new level of deep self-acceptance and worthiness within yourself to recognize your own inner power.
Knowing you can reach this level, too, is what inspired me to create The Valpone Method™, which shows you step-by-step how to detoxify your body, your mind, and your life so you can step into who you’re meant to be and realize you have the power and creative energy within you to manifest the life you desire. I have yet to find a book, method or technique that offers all of the components of this groundbreaking method while shifting the physical, emotional and energetic layers of the body and I am so excited to share it with you. If you’d like more, we can work privately together. My goal is to set you up for a path of hope and to teach you how to have more autonomy over your health and your entire life.
My creative drive, my child-like curiosity, and my passion to share science-backed research to get you to the next level of yourself are what make me feel alive. I am always seeking growth in myself, in my craft, and in my relationships and I deeply believe we must embody the connection between the physical, emotional, and energetic layers of our body for true health and happiness to manifest in our lives. This doesn’t have to be a chore, it can empower us to step fully into who we are and add to our sense of self-worth on a daily basis.
I have a pretty strong engine to keep growing so you can expect to see a lot of shifts and a-ha moments in your own life from what I have created for you as I guide you in creating what you desire and deserve with your physical health, emotional well-being and energetic alignment – a reflection of your true identity and essence. Now it’s time to step into the very next version of yourself as well.
My 20’s
The Trigger that Pops Your Balloon
Unworthiness + Not Enough-Ness
How to Become Brave & Fearless with Your Health
My early 30’s
Before and After: How I Overcame a Toxic Situation
How to Get Out of Survival Mode to Heal Your Body
My #1 best-selling cookbook, Eating Clean
Mid 30’s
My Year of Healing: The Breakthrough that Changed Everything
Defining Trauma & How Trauma Impacts our Health
How to Trust Your Body Again Part I
All retreats are postponed due to the Corona virus.