The Power of Choosing Yourself in Love and Life

If you have ever felt stuck in your relationships, unsure of your next move, or like you are doing everything right but still feel disconnected, this one is for you.

In this episode of The Amanda Kaufman Show, I sat down with the incredible Christy Holt. She is an author, a relationship coach, and yes, the “Happiness Hussy” herself. We explored how choosing yourself changes everything in your love life, your business, and your life overall.

This conversation was packed with powerful truths that I know you will want to hear.

It Is Not About Fixing Others. It Is About Coming Home to You

We often focus on changing our partner, adjusting our schedule, tweaking our strategy, or hustling harder. But the real transformation begins when we look inward and ask, Who am I? What do I want to create in my life?

Most of the time, what we call a “relationship problem” is actually rooted in identity. It is about how disconnected we have become from our truth. When we reconnect with who we truly are, everything around us begins to change.

This kind of shift does not rely on anyone else. It comes from choosing yourself. Not out of selfishness, but from a grounded and empowered place.

You Are Not Broken

So many people walk through life believing there is something wrong with them. They think they need to be fixed before they can be loved, respected, or successful.

But that belief is not truth. It is conditioning. You are not broken. You are whole. And the parts of you that feel unsure or out of place are often the parts that need your attention and acceptance the most.

When you stop chasing external validation and start giving yourself the love and approval you crave, everything shifts. You stop settling. You stop over giving. You stop betraying your values just to be liked.

This is where real love begins. With radical self-acceptance and truth.

From Survival Mode to Self-Connection

Many people are living in a constant state of survival. Their decisions are reactive, their boundaries are blurred, and their joy is on pause.

You cannot access clarity when you are in fight or flight. Your body is too busy trying to stay safe.

Christy shared how real clarity comes when we slow down and reconnect with what our body is telling us. When we regulate our nervous system and create safety within, we are finally able to hear our own voice.

This might mean noticing where you are numbing out or where you are saying yes when you mean no. It could mean honoring what feels joyful and releasing what does not.

Clarity is not about doing more. It is about tuning in and allowing yourself to feel what is real.

Clarity Creates Aligned Connection

Christy told the story of making the difficult decision to leave her second marriage. It was not because she did not care. It was because she knew she was no longer aligned with the version of herself that had chosen that relationship.

That decision opened the door to self-trust, deeper connection, and a future relationship that felt aligned on every level.

She got clear on how she wanted to feel in partnership. Not on what someone else should be, but on what kind of experience she wanted to co-create.

The same goes for business. When you are clear on what kind of people you want to work with and how you want your work to feel, you naturally attract the right clients, collaborators, and opportunities.

You do not have to chase. You simply show up fully as yourself.

Choosing Yourself Is the Most Powerful Decision You Can Make

Choosing yourself is not about pushing others away. It is about showing up fully in your truth.

This might mean leaving environments that no longer serve you. It might mean ending relationships that require you to shrink. It might even mean being okay with not being understood by everyone.

But the reward is real. When you choose yourself, you create space for aligned people and opportunities to find you. You stop performing and start living.

This is the invitation. To trust your voice. To honor your path. To take up space. And to believe that the people who are meant for you will meet you there.

Personal growth and relational growth go hand in hand. When you shift how you relate to yourself, everything around you transforms.

You do not need permission. You do not need to wait for someone else to change first.
You can choose yourself right now.

Your Invitation: Choose You

If you have been waiting for a sign to pause and reconnect with yourself, this is it.

Take a deep breath.
Ask yourself what you really want.
Notice what feels heavy or out of alignment.
Celebrate what is working.
Let go of what is not.

You do not have to do it perfectly. You just have to begin.

The moment you shift inward instead of chasing outward, you begin to take your power back. And from that place, anything is possible.

Chapters List

00:00 Introduction to Christy Holt and Her Work

03:15 The Importance of Self-Connection in Relationships

06:08 Identifying Patterns and Taking Responsibility

08:41 Creating Clarity in Relationships

11:33 Building Safety and Emotional Regulation

14:23 Healing and Self-Acceptance

17:04 The Foundation of All Relationships

19:58 Conclusion and Call to Action

Full Transcript

Christy Holt (00:00)

I don't believe that we ever are broken. I believe that we're whole and just disconnected from some parts of ourselves that weren't safe to be included,

Amanda Kaufman (00:07)

Yeah.

Well, hey, hey, welcome back to the Amanda Kaufman show. And today I get to pick the brain of Christy Holt. She is a.k.a. the happiness hussy. So fine. And she is an expert in how do you live your life in a way that feels very aligned and very in love. And she is a relationship expert and she is here and also has very good, very good taste in country.

of origin because I was also born in Canada. So hello and welcome to the show.

Christy Holt (00:57)

Thank you so much

for having me. Yay Canada! ⁓

Amanda Kaufman (01:02)

Yay, you can.

So good. Well, why don't you just take 30 seconds and catch us up on what you're working on these days. And then we're going to just like dive right in. I want to pick that brain about relationships and loving yourself.

Christy Holt (01:15)

Yeah, amazing. Yeah, and as you mentioned, I call myself the happiness hussy. I am an author of several books, but I'll say that my signature book on the topic that we're going to be talking about today is called Love Unstuck. And this is ultimately about creating those healthy, happy relationships in which you can truly thrive and be happy. So I think that's what most of us are looking for. And with with the twist, which we'll get to in the conversation.

I'm also a podcaster. have my own show called Create Your Happy, which is all about, you guessed it, conscious relationships and with others and with yourself. And I knew this was going to be a juicy conversation because when we were chatting, we realized that so much of what your message is and so much of what my message is, even though we're not necessarily both speaking about business or coaching per se, it's the same message. So here's an opportunity for us to take some stuff.

audience that you might already know and apply it to a different area of your life so that you can really maximize that love experience, not just the success experience. So yeah, super excited to dive in.

Amanda Kaufman (02:21)

Well, and I'm so excited

and thank you so much for being here on this show because I just actually finished a coaching call in our first five club and I was talking about how in business it really is ultimately all about relationships. So, you know, when we struggle as business owners, very often like one of the things that zoom in on right away is how are your relationships? Like, are you somebody who's just hyper vigilant around relationships and you don't have very many?

Christy Holt (02:43)

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (02:48)

Maybe you have a lot of relationships, but there's not a lot of depth. There's not a lot of trust there. And it's kind of interesting because usually when people are coming to me, it's more about like, yeah, how do I build a business? How could I grow my revenue? How do I get my marketing to work a lot better? And those are all amazing, valid questions. But when you double click down, when you really get into it, it's how do you connect with other human beings?

It has a lot to do with how you also connect with yourself. So, okay.

Christy Holt (03:15)

I was just gonna say, and then you double click again and you realize

it's all you, right? That, you and just like you kind of touched on, I'll say lots of people are wondering how can I get my husband to blah, blah, blah, or how can I get my wife or how can I get my partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever to change? And I'll say, you don't. You're the one who you can change. That's it.

Amanda Kaufman (03:21)

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Christy Holt (03:41)

And listen, two hands up because I've done this more than more than once, more than twice. Let's be fair. I have waited for someone else or circumstances to change, which was not me and my power. Hmm. I think we've all done it. Right. So yeah, this is about shifting that really reclaiming your power and ultimately shifting the focus to where it's going to make a difference, right? Instead of looking and chasing outside of yourself for all of these circumstances and other people to shift the magic happens.

Amanda Kaufman (03:53)

Yeah, been there.

Christy Holt (04:09)

when you shift first.

Amanda Kaufman (04:10)

Okay, so we got to unpack that, because, but what if it really is his fault? You know, like, can you give us an example of, you know, how this tends to show up a lot with people that you work with?

Christy Holt (04:12)

Yeah.

I know.

Yeah, for sure. And you know what? I also have been that person who has pointed the finger and spent a great deal of my own energy blaming, complaining, pointing fingers and making sure it was everyone else's fault because that feels more comfy to me. But I was still stuck in it as long as I was doing that. I was actually just stuck in it until I sort of had this aha moment. Like, holy crap, I'm the common denominator, which

Amanda Kaufman (04:48)

Mmm.

Christy Holt (04:48)

could have gone down a shame spiral. Thankfully, I have the tools in my toolbox to recognize that wouldn't be helpful. And it allowed me the space to realize that I'm also the common solution to all of those same problems. And so I often say it's not a relationship problem. And I know this, this might like get someone activated and that's fine. I'm totally here for activating people into their power. It's not a relationship problem. It's an identity problem, which

If you solve that identity problem, you solve the problem of other people mistreating you, right? It's yes, maybe it's not a healthy relationship. I've been in one of those and I'll tell you what, it was the hardest decision that I ever made to leave my second marriage. And it was the most worthwhile decision and most life changing trajectory that it put me on.

that I like I can't say there was another decision that I've made that has been as important as that one where I chose myself in my in my relationship. And that's really what I mean. It's not. Yeah, relationships are can be challenging. And if you're not in the right relationship and I just don't know right or wrong, but the right one for you, like where it's a match, where it's aligned, if you're not, you're going to have a lot more challenges than if you actually know who you are.

You bring that to the table with confidence and then you find your people. I think a lot of people go off track because well, listen, the good girl conditioning is strong. The the nurturing, people pleasing tendency amongst all humans, but more so women as is just the gender stereotypes.

gets in our way of actually helping meaning or creating meaningful connection, right? It blocks us from the very thing we want most because we are not showing up authentically as ourselves. We are showing up as the version of ourselves that we believe will be accepted, will be, you know, fit in, will be loved instead of owning who we truly are. Being brave and courageous enough to be that authentic version of ourselves.

and letting the people who are for us come into our world. We try too hard, right? Sometimes we're just doing too much. And so if we can scale back and refocus on who am I, what is it that I want? What do I want to create in my life? And we start from that place. It just gives us so much more opportunities to create something really, really epic.

Amanda Kaufman (07:18)

So you mentioned like you discovered so much of this based on an aha moment that you had and you referenced like, I had tools in my toolbox to do that. But can you tell us a little bit more about that originating moment? Like how did you snap to? Like how did you realize that you were in patterns that were not helpful to your relationship? Like, can you tell us a little more about maybe what some of the signals were or the signs?

Christy Holt (07:48)

Yeah, you know what, Amanda, I had sort of this like wake up call and the analogy that I like to use to describe it is, you know how sometimes you're driving home, but you're, you're, I know, you're in the music, you're in your head, you're not really paying attention to driving. Like you're just driving an autopilot. You get home and you don't recall stopping at the stop signs or the stop lights or whatever else. You don't really remember the drive at all. You just, you're home now and you got there. So yay. That's how I had.

how I kind of came to this realization in my marriage, something happened. And it's not about the details because the details could be anything. But something happened where I was like, hold on. Like, how did I get here? Because I don't remember allowing whatever I must have allowed and tolerated to get to this point where this situation arose and like he thought it was okay.

And so I kind of just had this moment where like, I have been tolerating some things, justifying things, making excuses for things, putting up with things, silencing myself, making myself small without needs. I know everybody out there has probably done this, you know, in one way or one way or another in their life. And I just got to the point where I was like, I, this, this isn't working. It's not working. And I had been working with a therapist at the time who

Amanda Kaufman (09:04)

Hmm.

Christy Holt (09:08)

walked me through an exercise of getting clarity about what it was that I really truly wanted in a partnership. And now a lot of people have a list, right? Sixth five, blue eyes, trust fund. I don't know. There's a song. it got caught in my head for a second. my list was none of that and not because those aren't, you know, fine qualities to have in a partner, but my list was something different. And I think this is what actually shifted everything for me. My list was the things that I wanted to experience in partnership.

Amanda Kaufman (09:19)

you

Christy Holt (09:36)

how we wanted to feel in that partnership. Not physical characteristics or financial statistics or anything like that. was how was my experience going to be? I wanted someone to laugh with. I wanted someone who like, we were just passionate and couldn't keep our hands off of each other. And you know, we got a deep, meaningful conversations. We could talk about hard stuff and not threaten each other with any kind of, you know, breakup or anything like that. to be able to just be with each other and accept each other.

And so I had this list, which I'll tell you why. found my partner who matched everything on the list and then some when I wasn't looking, because I think that's also how it works. Is you get clarity and then you just take your hands off, right? And you wait and you meet people. You go out and do the things that you love to do because that's probably where you're likely to meet other people who like to do those things that you love to do. yeah, I met my current partner. been together seven years now. We met while running a marathon.

Amanda Kaufman (10:06)

Mm.

Christy Holt (10:33)

like a literal marathon. He was the pacer for my goal time of four hours and 15 minutes. And we just got to chatting because running a marathon is really freaking hard. So near the last hour or so, the wheels were starting to fall off the bus a little bit. You know, my knees were like screaming at me, like, what are you doing? My brain was just like just chattering. And part of me was like, it's just one more hour, which sounds absurd. know. I like, but

Amanda Kaufman (10:34)

Thanks.

Christy Holt (10:58)

when you're in it doesn't seem that absurd. So I ended up chatting him up and we just connected and it was so crazy how at that point in my journey, I was not looking for a partner, but I had this clarity so I could recognize it when this amazing human came into my life. I was like, okay, I wasn't looking. I actually didn't want a relationship. I was actually pretty content to just have some space for myself. But there he was. And so I think like one of the key.

first steps is really getting clarity and not just about those silly things that the world has taught us that we're supposed to care about, but how it's really going to feel for us.

Amanda Kaufman (11:33)

I love that, really deepening into what is your value system. And I think sometimes when it comes to relationships, and again, I spend more time talking with people about business relationships, but I really actually see this as being true there too, where if you have a lot of clarity about, love working with people like this, I don't love working with people like that, right? Like if you can get really, really clear before you go networking, before...

Christy Holt (11:49)

Same, yup. ⁓

Amanda Kaufman (12:01)

before you go join the masterminds, before you go do the things, and like literally follow more of your joy. But it does require just like slowing down and saying like, well, what's my joy? And giving yourself that vote, right? And so I'm curious, like what's your take on why people...

struggle, I think, to get into that clarity moment. What do you think is the... Because you had somebody you were partnering with, right? Like you were working with your therapist at the time and she was asking you those questions. So like, what would you recommend to somebody who is like, okay, great, I get it, I have to have clarity, but maybe they feel a little stuck in actually doing that.

Christy Holt (12:32)

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the first step would be creating safety because a lot of times we cannot see clearly when we're in survival mode. And if we don't have tools to regulate our nervous system and we just haven't been taught and that that's okay. It's not something that they're regularly teaching in school. Not for me anyway. We need to just be able to create space to breathe because when we are regulated, we see more of the available options for us and we can consciously choose which of those things.

feel really good in our bodies. And also we can feel what feels good in our bodies, right? When we're in survival fight or flight, we tend to dissociate, disconnect from our bodies and so we can't really tap into what we know inside. And so in order to, and this is actually kind of the topic of my first book, not specific to this, but getting out of those states of overwhelm and overthinking.

is so powerful. That is essentially what my first topic of my first book was about because you can't consciously choose when you're on autopilot and your past experiences are just recreating themselves over and over. It feels like you have no control. That's a little bit how I felt in that that relationship until I realized, well, hold on a minute. I'm actually just along for the ride and I'm not actually consciously choosing or creating.

the things that I can, which essentially is my response, my experience, how I deal with what life throws at me. yeah, maybe, you know, maybe end up in a relationship with someone who is not emotionally intelligent. Maybe they use some other tactics like shame or gaslighting or stonewalling, experience them all. And yeah, that's not healthy, but there's a part of you.

that's they're tolerating it. And the whole aim of this is to take back your power so that you're not tolerating any of those mistreatments, right? So that you're standing up and saying, hey, I deserve better because everyone deserves better. Nobody deserves to be mistreated or, you know, looked down upon. And I actually see sort of like this whole healing industry, I'm gonna even say, because it has become an industry.

Amanda Kaufman (14:33)

Yeah.

Christy Holt (14:45)

I see it differently than a lot of people which strive to point out where you're broken so that they can provide the solution to fix your problem. And I don't think that you're broken. I don't think you're broken at all. I think that the world has told you that you're broken. I agree that at times we can feel broken, but I don't believe that we ever are broken. I believe that we're whole and just disconnected from some parts of ourselves that weren't safe to be included,

Amanda Kaufman (15:09)

Yeah.

Christy Holt (15:10)

right? So,

often our emotions can end up in that category. And especially, you know, as women, we're not supposed to be angry, right? We're it's okay if we're a bit sad, but don't be angry. Don't be raging because that will get labeled all kinds of things that are not a good girl or not a nice girl, even though those emotions are entirely valid. So anyways, I view healing not as like some like method of fixing yourself, but a return, a remembrance of

Amanda Kaufman (15:19)

Absolutely.

Christy Holt (15:39)

the wholeness that you are because you're not broken. You don't need fixing. You know, you're just a human who sometimes forgets the magical wholeness that is you.

Amanda Kaufman (15:51)

It's so true. you know, I being in the coaching space, the coaching industry and just like talking about that, that the vibes healing thing. Right. It is unfortunate because I think a lot of people thinking about relationships, they're kind of suckered into magical thinking instead of like that reinforcing thinking. And something that occurred to me as you were as you were sharing is like, you know, gosh, thinking about my own life.

Christy Holt (16:08)

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (16:18)

in the relationships over the years, I just didn't have skills. Like I wasn't raised, know, I was raised as I was raised, just like so many of us were. And it's like, you know, it's a more recent thing, I think, for society to be like, emotional regulation. Let's talk about our feelings. Let's talk about emotions. And I do think that because so many people

Christy Holt (16:21)

Yeah.

you

Amanda Kaufman (16:42)

just didn't have a lot of that conversation when they're cruising the internet and they come across like, you will be healed with this magical way of doing things. And it's like, it seems a little more like you're building skills and that you would be building like ways that you assert yourself, not looking for again, like kind of a magical answer so much as realizing you're already magical. Yeah.

Christy Holt (17:04)

Some soft skills. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of people didn't have a healthy example or healthy role models. listen, it's not our parents' fault either. They also just didn't know what they didn't know. And research now is definitely giving us more information. Heck, people in our parents' generation would have probably thought that our brains finished developing at a certain age, and that's that. We now know that's not true.

Amanda Kaufman (17:15)

They didn't know. Yeah.

Christy Holt (17:28)

Our brains continue shifting, changing, growing, developing. We can change those neural pathways at any point in time in our entire life. So, you know, when we have these challenges to the existing thought paradigms, wait a minute, we can do things differently. And I think that we're alive in a very exciting time because we're now connected globally, which means we can share these things so much more easily with so many more people. And just like you said, like these things, this is not just about your romantic relationship.

It's not, it's about the way that you collaborate with other people, it's the way that you interact with your clients, it's the way that you interact with the neighbors or people around you, it's the way that you receive things on social media. Now what we're talking about here is the foundation of all of it. Relationships with everything external to yourself. Excuse me. That's where the real change happens is when you work on that foundation and that's.

learning to love yourself. it is not like bubble baths and pedicures. It's honoring yourself. Those are nice. Those are great. Those are those are self care, not self love self love. I recently heard it put that self love is really loving and accepting yourself no matter what's happening. Right. And I was like, yes, it is owning that you are worthy of love.

Amanda Kaufman (18:27)

Although we like those, we love those. Right. ⁓

Radical self-acceptance. Yes, here for that all day.

Christy Holt (18:50)

even if you make a mistake because you're gonna make a mistake. We all do. We're human. We can't help it. That's how we learn and grow. And honestly, if you're not making mistakes, I don't think you're trying hard enough, right? To learn, to grow, to evolve, to have experiences. And I guess everyone teaches their own. Some people like a different kind of like, I love growth. I love learning. I love exploring and trying new things. That's my personality and having a lot of fun doing it.

Not everyone likes that, but nonetheless, your experience of the world around you, it doesn't exist apart from going through your filter. So when you shift how you are experiencing, how you are receiving the information and how you're responding to it, things change around you. It's not like magical woo-woo like law of attraction and it is. It is and it isn't. It's not just like some magical thing. It's the way that we create.

our experience, right? We just, can't, we can't, it can't just happen over there. We have to perceive it and interpret it. And if we're not intentional about how we're doing that, it might not be what we want.

Amanda Kaufman (19:53)

Mm-hmm.

Exactly, I love this. And Kristy, if people wanted to keep up with you and learn more, what is the best way for them to do that?

Christy Holt (20:06)

Well, as you know, I am a Facebook girly through and through. I'm all the places, but Facebook is where I mostly love to hang out. I love the sense of community there. And so I would love to connect with new people. Please tell me where you came from so that I can accept you right away because, I know that, you know, the friend request and the bots and everything on there is a lot to weed through. So I would love to connect with real genuine human beings.

not with bots. So definitely let me know that you heard this show and that's where you're coming from and I would love to have a further conversation with you.

Amanda Kaufman (20:39)

Love it. And dear listener, we've got Christie's contact information and her website and everything in the show notes for the episode. Christie, thank you so much for joining us today.

Christy Holt (20:50)

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I hope that all of your listeners took a little nugget, something that they can go forth and just think about things a little bit differently, whether they apply it to their romantic relationship or their relationship with business or food or money or anything.

Amanda Kaufman (21:05)

Exactly. And you know what? I'm willing to bet that they did. And dear listener, if that is true, make sure that you share the love and you grab the link to this episode and send it to three of your friends who are working on their self love, working on their relationships, their connection. Just send it along to three of them and brighten their day. And by the way, before you go, don't forget to hit subscribe. Don't rely just on my Instagram posts to find out when a new episode is out. Make sure you hit subscribe and

the thing that will help like the most, like just if I'm being completely honest, if you want to share some love, it is to leave us, of course, an honest review. So if you're loving the show, tell us how you love it. And when you do that, it lets new people decide whether they want to spend some time with us. And we are always, always so grateful for you doing that until we meet again. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode. And we will see you on another one very soon.