The Self Led Woman Podcast: emotional eating and nervous system healing for self-leadership
The Self-Led Woman is a podcast about emotional eating, the experiences that shape our relationship with food, and the path back to self-leadership.These conversations explore emotional eating beneath behaviour, through trauma, the nervous system, nourishment, and lived experience, with deep respect for the intelligence of the body and what it learned to do to keep you going.This is a space for understanding, relief, and reconnecting with your inner world.Hosted by Megan Darnell, Internal Family Systems therapy practitioner and psychedelic-assisted therapy facilitator.
Episodes
46 episodes
Episode 35: Why Emotional Eating Isn't a Willpower Problem - An Open Letter to Women Who Are Ready to Hear the Truth
This episode is for every woman who has been trying harder than anyone around her knows — and still can't make it stick. Who has reset more times than she can count, spent years on the merry-go-round of starting over, and quietly wondered what ...
Episode 34: What Ozempic Is Actually Doing to Your Brain | GLP-1s, Food Noise and Nervous System Healing
There's a conversation happening right now about weight loss medications. And almost everyone is either for them or against them.But that's not the conversation I'm interested in.What I'm curious about is what's actually happening...
Episode 33: Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm | Somatic Healing, Body Image and Eating Disorder Recovery With Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti
What if the body you've been at war with has actually been trying to protect you this whole time?In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti, transpersonal psychologist, somatic psychotherapist, and author of Your Body Never Me...
Episode 32: Emotional Eating, Bingeing & the Search for Something Food Could Never Fix
In this episode, I share a deeply personal story about emotional eating, bingeing, loneliness, shame, and the nervous system patterns underneath it all.I take you back to my late 20s, living alone in Melbourne during a cold winter while ...
Episode 31: The Desire to Be Smaller Didn't Start With You
There's a question I come back to again and again in sessions with clients.Is this actually your belief, or is it something you inherited?So much of what women carry around food, their bodies, visibility, and taking up space was n...
Episode 30: Emotional Eating & the Hidden Cost of “I’ll Deal With It One Day”
How long have you known that your relationship with food or your body is something you want to change?Not how long you’ve been trying.How long you’ve known.In this episode, I’m talking about the hidden cost of tolerating emotional...
Episode 29: Emotional Eating, Control & Parts Work with Ivana Legnerova | IFS Therapy for Healing Your Relationship with Food
In this episode, I’m joined by Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist Ivana Legnerova for a deeply compassionate conversation about emotional eating, control, and healing your relationship with food.Ivana specialises in working with eat...
Episode 28: Why Knowing Your Emotional Eating Patterns Still Doesn’t Change Them
A woman said something to me recently that I hear all the time.“I already know where this comes from. I know it’s my childhood. I know it’s because of trauma.”And then she paused and said something incredibly honest.“But I’...
Episode 27: All the Things I Tried to Stop Emotional Eating (And Why None of Them Worked)
For years I believed my emotional eating was a discipline problem.So I tried everything to fix it.I tried hypnotherapy. Acupuncture. Kinesiology. Past life regression. Affirmations on my walls.<...
Episode 26: The Hidden Link Between Emotional Eating, People Pleasing and Boundaries
When people talk about emotional eating, the conversation usually focuses on food.Cravings. Discipline. Willpower.But when I work with women around emotional eating, the pattern rarely begins with food at all.It often begin...
Episode 25: Emotional Eating Isn’t About Food | Dr Anita Johnston on Body Image, Cravings & What Your Body Is Really Saying
In this episode, I’m joined by depth psychologist and eating disorder specialist Dr Anita Johnston, author of Eating in the Light of the Moon, for a powerful conversation that will completely shift the way you understand emotional eati...
Episode 24: Why Weight Loss Is Not the Goal of Healing Emotional Eating
In this episode, I talk about something that might surprise people who are new to my work.Even though I work with women who struggle with emotional eating, food, and their bodies, weight loss is never the goal of this work....
Episode 23: My Bipolar Diagnosis and the Gut Brain Connection: How Nutrition Changed My Mood Stability
In this episode, I share something deeply personal about my own journey with mental health.At 35, I was diagnosed with bipolar type 2. At the time, it felt like a life sentence. I was told I would likely need medication for the rest of m...
Episode 22: What If Your Hunger Isn’t About Food? Understanding Developmental Hunger
In this episode, I introduce a concept that can completely change the way you understand your appetite.It’s called developmental hunger.Many women believe their hunger means something is wrong with them. They tell themselve...
Episode 21: ADHD, Food Noise & Healing Your Relationship With Food with Kiah Paetz
In this episode, I’m joined by Accredited Practising Dietitian and Credentialled Eating Disorder Clinician Kiah Paetz for a deeply compassionate conversation about healing your relationship with food.Kiah specialises in supporting people...
Episode 20: The Missing Piece in Emotional Eating Recovery
In this episode, I’m talking about what I believe is the missing piece in emotional eating recovery and it’s not more discipline, willpower, or another plan.It’s support.So many women are trying to heal emotional eating, binge eat...
Episode 19: What Your Food Cravings Are Actually Trying to Tell You
In this episode, we’re talking about food cravings and what they actually mean.Most women have been taught to see cravings as a lack of discipline or willpower. But cravings aren’t random and they aren’t a personal failure. They’re infor...
Episode 18: A Healed Woman Is Not Profitable
If you’ve tried plans, tracking, food rules, mindset work, resets, “I’ll start again Monday” — and you still end up back in the same loop… this episode is going to hit.Because emotional eating isn’t a behaviour problem.And the rea...
Episode 17: You Already Know: Reconnecting to Your Body, Hormones & Cycles with Lottie Davies
In this episode, I’m joined by UK-certified naturopath and yoga teacher Lottie Davies for a grounded and deeply validating conversation about hormones, cravings, nervous system healing, and cyclical living.We explore what it actually mea...
Episode 16: What Happens to Your Nervous System When You Stop Using Instagram (Body Image, Comparison and Emotional Eating)
Recently I took time off Instagram and it changed a lot more than I expected.It didn’t just make me less distracted. It changed the level of presence I have in my relationship. It shifted my creativity. It brought back gratitude in a way...
Episode 15: Your Relationship With Food Is a Mirror
In this episode, I’m talking about something that’s been sitting in my system for a while.That my relationship with food was never actually about food, it mirrored my relationship to my emotions.For years, I thought I had a discip...
Episode 14: Your Body Isn’t the Enemy
At the time of recording, I had two cysts removed from my scalp, and the next morning I couldn’t stop thinking about how incredible the human body is.Because without instructions, without micromanagement, and without force, it immediatel...
Episode 13: Training for the Body You Need at 60 with Naz Demirtas
What if strength training had nothing to do with getting smaller and everything to do with living better.In this episode, I’m joined by Naz Demirtas, certified strength coach and sports nutrition and health coach, to talk about what chan...
Episode 12: The Tiredness That Food Can’t Fix
There’s a kind of tiredness I want to talk about today.Not the tiredness sleep fixes. Not the tiredness a holiday fixes.But the exhaustion that comes from carrying too much for too long.If you’re someone who is cap...
Episode 11: Your Body Was Never the Problem
In this episode, I want to gently but firmly challenge one of the most damaging ideas we’ve been taught about our bodies.That our body is the problem.That our eating is the problem.That weight changes, emotional eating, restricti...
