Breaking Free from External Validation to Inner Power with Lyndsay Grace (Ep. 15)

In this raw and unfiltered conversation, clinical psychologist and host Sky Maree Steele sits down with Lyndsay Grace — psychic, medium, healer, and mentor — to explore the journey from chasing external validation to discovering true inner power. 

From Lyndsay’s transformation from a fitness competitor to embracing her intuitive soul work, we dive deep into building authentic confidence, trusting your intuition, and healing the nervous system to fully show up as yourself. 

If you’re tired of the hustle, the self-doubt, and the pressure to “do it all,” this episode offers real talk and actionable insights on how to step into your power with ease and trust.

No fluff, no judgment — just a reminder that the most lasting confidence comes from within.

Connect with Lyndsay:
Instagram: @healingwith.lyndsay
Website: lyndsaygracetransformations.com

👉 Hit play, take the challenge at the end, and tag @skymareesteele on Instagram to share your thoughts.

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Transcript

Sky: 0:00

Welcome to Confidence Unfiltered. I'm your host, sky Marie Steele, a clinical psychologist, business owner, A DHD, and recovering people pleaser. If you've spent your life trying to keep everyone else happy while feeling like you're never quite enough, you're in the right place. Here we ditch the people pleasing, silence, the self-doubt, and have real unfiltered conversations about confidence, boundaries, and building a life that feels unapologetically yours. No fluff, no perfection, just raw, real talk to help you trust yourself, show up fully and own your dam power. Let's dive in. Welcome back to Confidence Unfiltered, the real, raw and unpolished space where we talk all things self-trust, bold moves, and building life and business your way. So in today's episode, I'm joined by an amazing human who has been through a massive shift in her business life and leaning fully into the work that lights her up. We're talking about what it really takes to trust yourself and when you're doing something new. How to move through the fear without needing all the answers. But before we get started, could you please introduce yourself?

Lyndsay: 1:13

Yes. So my name's Lindsay. I'm a psychic, medium healer and a mentor. And I do, I help with, um, inner child healing and aligning you with your truth to create the best version of yourself.

Sky: 1:26

You started in the fitness world and. And I'm really curious, like what did confidence look like for you back then and how has that definition kind of evolved for where you are now in terms of like your soul work?

Lyndsay: 1:41

Mm. It's a good question.'cause I feel like it's evolved so much even from like 20 years ago. And it's always like, I think, I feel that my fitness journey started through a lack of confidence. So that's where it really. Kind of stemmed from. And then as I got through, I would say like 10 years, it really grew in a way of like inner confidence rather than external confidence. And that's just been the whole journey in itself. Now it's at a whole different level because I've transitioned out of bodybuilding and fitness completely, as you know. Um, so I think there was definitely an element that started it too. Which was like complete and utter outside confidence that it gave me by transforming my physical body. And so through that phase, um, of like 16 to 18 to 20 was like where I really got to the point of like, okay, this isn't just a physical journey. There's so much more here. There's so much internally that I have to look at. It's not, it's like very minimal of the external. So all the, my actual confidence and our confidence as women comes from within, I would say 99%. It actually doesn't physically matter what you look like unless you have the internal confidence and you grow that relationship within yourself because you can look like. As I did 8%, 10% body fat and not feel confident whatsoever within yourself. But when that grows internally and it matches, you can have both. And then you go past the external, that's when it truly hits as in like you don't care what anyone thinks. That's that's true. Freedom in your physical being.

Sky: 3:25

And do you feel like for you that was like a journey that you had to figure out on your own of that? The external is. Almost smokes and mirrors. Right. And it's actually the internal where we need to do a lot of the work too. Mm-hmm.

Lyndsay: 3:40

It's definitely an internal journey. That's, yeah. I think because I would get so much external validation. Mm. Especially with social media and just competing in itself. Like there's so much praise that comes from that because. You lose a lot of weight, like you start seeing different definition parts and people will say to you all the time, like, oh, you've lost so much weight, or you look amazing, and it's a constant feedback of like, you look great. And so there is that external validation. That means nothing. It would be like short-lived. So it's like, oh cool, that feels amazing. Little bit of a dopamine hit and then you are back to your own insecurities and your own stuff. So it it's a real, yeah, it is smoke and mirrors and it only lasts till as long as that little bit of validation is it. So if you take all that away, what are you left with?

Sky: 4:29

Yeah, I think and I think, oh sorry. Go.

Lyndsay: 4:32

Yeah, I think we're social media and I feel for young girls now 'cause we had it, but. Not to the level that it is now, and I feel that social media increases that. So you could put on, you know, a filtered photo of your body, completely posed, distorted, all those sorts of things, dressed up, whatever, and get a whole heap of likes and engagement from it. But is that actually seeing you for who you are? Or is it an external?

Sky: 5:00

And I think that kind of leads into my next question of like, then these like young people or young girls get really caught up in like having to do, do, do, do, do like, and so I'm, I'm curious for you, because I know there was a time where you were like, really hustle, discipline. Um, and doing like everything, right, according to like fitness, but it wasn't actually aligned with you and your body. I think you've talked to me a lot about that, and I'm curious like what cracked for you, for you to actually shift from doing what you should do to what felt aligned for you and how did you do that?

Lyndsay: 5:31

And what was the last bit, sorry.

Sky: 5:32

And how did you do that? Like how did you create

Lyndsay: 5:34

that shift for yourself? Ah, it's such a good question. And so many layers.

Sky: 5:40

Yeah,

Lyndsay: 5:40

so many layers. Um, I think like I've always, and this plays into my business as well because all of my presence have been online, especially now. So I think. For, I always knew this, who I am now to be myself internally. So it was like I had this within me and I would share this with my clients physically. When I, or my close friends, they would know me for this version, which is like really intuitive psychic and like I'd share that with people. But externally, I was this fitness person, right? And so that's how the world knew me. But internally I was like, I know I have so much more to offer than. Physical looks, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the last, like I've known it for so long, like that I've wanted to go down this path, but it was always an image thing of like, how is, because being a psychic, being an intuitive, like it's not, it is becoming more welcomed now in the world. Um, 'cause people are opening up a little bit more. But I think for so long it was always like woo woo, or it was like. Don't, you know, don't speak like that or don't even talk about energy. Don't talk about. Readings and it was just very like, it was like a, they were very separate industries, let's put it that way. Yeah, a hundred percent. It was like this could not coexist with this. And if you were that, then you couldn't be that. And there was a time, and that's where we were working together, where I was integrating both and I was transitioning, which was all a beautiful unraveling of stepping into what I did. Because I think, and I think this is a big thing, when you are transitioning through anything, it's like you can't go from this to this. Instantly, your nervous system can't keep up with that. So it's like, we'll give you pieces and pieces of little unraveling, little bits of a shift here and there. It's like that's what you need to trust. It's not going from one version of yourself completely into this whole new version of yourself that you know that you wanna be, you know that's there. But can you step from this into that straightaway. Not, not generally. You can't because there's so many different things you have to learn about yourself, things, fears that you have to face, different parts of yourself that you will be revealed to. By stepping into your actual purpose. So it's like, and even through my whole journey, I always thought it was my purpose. I was never like, this isn't my purpose, but I'm just gonna do it because like, it was never that, but I knew that there was a deeper purpose and meaning to life, which is the deeper work that I do now. So the transition in itself was probably the hardest, I would say like one of the hardest transitions that I've. Gone through in a way of trust as in trusting that to be seen it was safe. And to get, to get to that point, I had to regulate my nervous system a lot. Had to do a lot of either child healing to actually get to the point to be like, I'm willing to be seen. For who I truly am. Yeah. Authentically, and also be seen as that and not care what other people think about me speaking about this, about showing up this way, and that's where I truly am now. But it took a lot of unraveling to get there. It's not just going from a bodybuilder to a psychic killer in the public eye. So I've always been that, obviously it's been there as a gift and something that I have, but something that wasn't. I wasn't ready to step into fully. So the transition in itself, there was a lot of trust, but I also just knew I was ready to make that leap of just like, okay, I trust you.'cause there was an injury that happened when I was doing my last comp, and that was the biggest catalyst. I was like, okay.'cause I, a lot of the work that I do is like, what's your body telling you? What is your body telling you through injury? Through disease? Like what's it telling you? And I was like straight away, I said, what is this trying to tell me? Because it was a, I couldn't train, I couldn't do what I was normally doing, and I just trusted exactly what my body said. It's like, it's time to let go of this phase, move into the next phase. I had no idea what that would look like. I had no idea that I'd. Be where I am today with my online business, working with people around the world, like zero idea. Even like when I was starting it, and I think I mentioned to you like I used, would do some channel videos. Yeah. Didn't expect it to take off where it has now. And I just trusted in that path of like. This is working. This is clearly what I love to do. There's an energy there that comes when I do it and I feel alive when I do it. Whereas training, and like as much as I loved working with people, I always was leading into like, oh, but what about the deepest stuff? And like, let's talk about your childhood. It's like, even though I was physically training people, we'd always end up there somehow. Yeah. So it was like I knew that that was there. I just had to get out of my own way really. So, yeah, the rib injury was just like, okay, I, I hear you. I understand now I just have to surrender and trust and it's time, which still wasn't like an instant. Okay, here you go. Here's your platform. Here's your platform on Instagram to grow. It still wasn't that shift, but it was internally like, okay, I'm gonna trust that this next step, this next phase, this big move that I'm doing is gonna lead to something in alignment.

Sky: 11:09

There's two things that you just said that, um, I think are really, really important, and one of them is like, like your nervous system only knows the level at which it knows now, and you actually need to be with. That and teach that to get to the next level. Like you can't just expect, which I think is why we get that whiplash back and forth. Right?

Lyndsay: 11:27

Yeah.

Sky: 11:28

And equally, I think something that I took a lot when I was working from you is that you can't think your way to do something. Like you actually need to connect with your body. And I think for a lot of us, like we, we don't do that. Like we are stuck from the neck up. Right? Yeah. And I'm curious for you like two things, like how, how do you work on that mind body connection? Um, and, and what would you say for people kind of stuck in not being able to kind of do that yet? Like what's, what's something that they can start doing to support that for themselves?

Lyndsay: 11:57

The first thing that came up for me was meditation, but I also know that with a dysregulated nervous system, it's very hard.

Sky: 12:04

Yeah.

Lyndsay: 12:05

And with a, a busy mind, it's very hard to just tell someone to go and meditate. Um, so with my clients, I generally will start. Just sitting for one minute a day in silence, like no distractions. Put your phone away and actually just have like a specific space in your home that you sit in that's kind of peaceful. That can be away from, you know, external. Even just like phones, emails, kids. If it's possible, if you need to go in the forest, do it like, but have a minute, like one minute a day. Like it sounds wild, right? To say just take one minute of silence. But when you are in so much chaos and you are unregulated, your emotions all over the place, your mind's just busy. You are disconnected from your body. It can feel so uncomfortable to sit for one minute. And I remember like, it'd be like 10, 15 years ago when I started to do this, like. I just need to sit in myself. Just that in itself shows you so much. So if you are sitting with yourself for one minute and you're trying to, there's lots of things going on, right? Because you're trying to quieten your mind, your body is trying to tell you all these things. So there's a lot that's gonna happen, and it becomes very overwhelming for people. It becomes uncomfortable because. Why do people get so busy in the first place? Yeah, because they're trying to avoid something, right? So they're trying to avoid their actual emotions. And if you're avoiding your emotions, you can't connect to what your body's telling you. And so I feel like starting with just one minute a day and being like, this is the time that I need to sit with myself, be present with myself, and just have no expectations at this, at the start, and just to say, this is what I need to do. For myself without, 'cause we are so stimulated with like everything, but if you can start your day, or even if you can't start your day with it, but just prioritizing, definitely. Um, that's the starting place. If someone's very chaotic and all over the place, that's where I feel like I would start someone because. There's no point being like, okay, let's connect to your womb or your, like your body if

Sky: 14:12

Yeah. I remember being like, fuck you Lindsay.

Lyndsay: 14:15

No, thank you. So yeah, it's, whereas I used, I've learned more along my journey of how um, I feel uncomfortable it can be for people to be with themselves.'cause there is so much suppressed. So, um, as much as I can feel what's there, and I'm like, if you lean in. You'll feel it and you'll be able to move through it, but it's not possible if you're not regulated, if you're not able to even just sit in your body. Right? So there's definitely a first connecting point of just sitting and being, and it's so it, it sounds very ridiculous saying one minute, but if you do it every day. Seven minutes a week, right? So over a week's period, if you haven't done that before ever, you're gonna be getting closer to being able to do two minutes and then five minutes. And then once you get to like five minutes a day of just sitting and being, then you can introduce like, okay, what are you feeling in your physical body? What does your breath feel like? Is it restricted? Do you feel expansive? Like all those sorts of different things that. Come with the body can be explored. But until there's at least like a pillar of stillness, I feel like nothing can, there's really not much that can happen otherwise. It's all a lot of mind work. And mind work is powerful as well. Yeah. But if you're wanting to tap in, tune into your physical body and understand what's happening, definitely needs to be that part first as a fundamental.

Sky: 15:42

What have you noticed with your relationship with your body coming from that, like you said, to the external confidence and the fitness industry and to sort of now where you are, what, what's shifted with your relationship with your body?

Lyndsay: 15:55

It's like, so like it's just amazing.

Sky: 15:59

Yeah. So

Lyndsay: 15:59

beautiful because there's other ways that I appreciate my body now. I still look at myself physically and I appreciate my body. It's not that I disregard that part. I still keep healthy. I'm always moving and stuff like that, but just not like in the masculine gym sort of way. So I'll do like Pilates and stretching and walking and stuff like that. So it's been just such a beautiful, it's like a, I would say coming home would be the feeling and like, I like that really deepening the connection to obviously the self, the soul, the spirit, all those sorts of things. And the intuition first, and then deepening the appreciation. For what my body can actually do on a daily basis. I think that's been the most transformative part of it. And also just giving so much forgiveness of like what I put my body through, because it was a lot, like, it was a lot over those years and it was just tired. So in between that transition phase, there was a good like six months where I just did nothing, just walking to let my nervous system reset to regulate. To just rest.'cause I wasn't allowing myself fully to rest. And if I was, I was like, oh, I need to be doing something else. I should, I'm not allowed to rest. But now it's like rest is the most important thing for a woman. I can't even explain that.

Sky: 17:26

I think you just highlighted something there for my next question, which is like, I think as women when we start to prioritize self or do things our way, it can or rest, it triggers that like guilt or judgment or resentment, or we should be like doing things for other people. I'm curious, like how did you support you to keep prioritizing you when it wasn't easy?

Lyndsay: 17:49

Mm. And when, when you say not easy, what do you mean?

Sky: 17:52

I mean, like, for me as mom, like if I'm prioritizing, like the guilt comes up or the anxiety comes up. And so for me, as you know, like the feelings can be super uncomfortable and I find that hard. And so when, when that hard in terms of feeling shows up, mm. How do you be with that so you can, like you said, walk, rest, do Pilates instead of weights?

Lyndsay: 18:12

Hmm. I think for me, I was never really doing it for anyone else. As in like even my health, my fitness, bodybuilding and nev, it was always a priority for me to be doing that, whatever it was. If it was the comp, if it was to be healthy, if it was to look a certain way. I think apart from the early years when it was like 16 to 20. So once I realized, okay, there's, there's more internally, I was always very much like this is a priority for me to do this in my life. And then. Um, I think when I transitioned into like that, that, that period of rest, I remember just laying on the beach and being like, okay, we've gotta go do something. I can't remember what it was. Yeah. We've gotta go do something like, you're not allowed to rest like this. It's not allowed to be this easy. Mm. You have to prove yourself and you have to. Do more to get more, basically like you have to work harder to achieve. Yeah. Um, I remember just laying on the beach and I had to just literally just be like, no, we're not doing that anymore. Like, that's the old version of you. You can't keep doing that. Like you cannot keep. Trying to do things to prove your worth to be successful or to be seen as successful just because you're doing more. Like, it's because I've done a lot of, um, obviously a lot of reading, a lot of podcasts, a lot of videos about energy and what if you're pushing more, like you're pushing harder, you're pushing things against you, away from you. And I was just like, in my mind, I was, I was understanding it and then I couldn't comprehend how to physically integrate it. I was like, but I've been taught to do the opposite for my entire life. Like I was a, a, a competitive swimmer. I was a competitive dancer. Like there was always something that I needed to work hard on and work towards. And it's not saying that you don't have a goal, but it's saying that you can actually just sit back and allow things to happen. Like, I'll tell you the years that I spent building my business for fitness to now what I do, like I don't, I, I would say the effort putting out. The effort, I would say is energetic alignment. If that's an effort to someone then, but for me it's like alignment is, and energetic work is easy for me now because it is, it's internal, whereas hard work, externally, um, I guess was always that hard. You know, it was like a slog and it was the grind. So when I shifted into, when I was integrating, okay, so energy work means you do more internal. Allow it to shift internal and then the external will flow to you. So how does that play out in the physical role? Well, you can't be forcing yourself to be doing everything every, every day. So you've gotta relax, you've gotta sit, gotta be with yourself, calm down, and just chill and actually still rest and allow yourself to be, and that was. Honestly, it was just like a day by day practice, almost like learning how to meditate. Yeah, the same thing. It was like, no, you don't have to do that. You can, there's a different way of being. There's a different way of being. It was just like on repeat, just listening to those sorts of videos, reminding myself affirming and then like falling asleep at night. Just being like, I enjoy a life of ease. I love that things come to me easily. I don't have to work for it. Like things like that has reprogramed my subconscious mind. Into believing that it's true. And so this business side of it, this is what I was getting at before, has been so easy, like so much flow and so easy. Even just growing a platform, I was like, how did, how did I get to that number in that amount of time when I was spent X amount of time Yeah. In fitness, trying like grinding to get followers and this, I just be myself and people will come. Yeah. And it's like, yeah.

Sky: 22:03

So I don't know if the, like if you could come back. And with, there's something to that version of you that was chasing, like you said, that external validation. Is there anything that, that you now would say to her or would like her to know?

Lyndsay: 22:16

It's all within

Sky: 22:17

Mm, everything that's powerful.

Lyndsay: 22:21

The literally everything that you were seeking from someone externally, you need to give to yourself. Even if you get the external validation, it's not gonna fulfill you because you're seeking it from within. It doesn't matter what it is.

Sky: 22:34

And if there was one message today, however powerful, that one just was actually, that you wanted to share with, um, everyone listening, like what would you like them to take away from this conversation that I've had with you today?

Lyndsay: 22:47

Um, I feel that so many, but I would to do the work to be able to trust yourself so. To say to a woman who's unregulated, not calm, not present to trust their intuition is just silly. Because how do you actually do that when you can't get quiet? So I would say to her, um, no, sorry to your your audience now. Yeah,

Sky: 23:13

yeah.

Lyndsay: 23:14

Do the work that you need to do to be able to trust yourself. It's worth it. Even though it's challenging and it's hard and it can be confronting.

Sky: 23:22

Mm-hmm.

Lyndsay: 23:23

Do the work to get what's in the way out of the way. So that you have a relationship with yourself, with your body, with your intuition. And then allow yourself to trust in that, to trust the process to move forward. Because once you get past that, um, it needing to be hard and it needing to, you needing to prove yourself and all those stories that we have from being young on social media, it's worth every minute of being able to. Make decisions based off of what you know and feel within yourself, and also just trusting that whatever you are in right now is just a beautiful unfolding for your next step. Whether it's what you exactly want right now or if it's not hurrying up or if it's taking too long. It's all for a beautiful purpose of learning more about yourself so that you can actually step into it when it comes and not be scared. I love that.

Sky: 24:19

Now, if people are listening are like, would love to find you. How do they find, you can find

Lyndsay: 24:25

me on Instagram would be the place. And so what would they look up healing with Lindsay? I think it's healing Lindsay Great. No healing with. We can link it in't we, oh God, I healing Lindsay. You'll find it. But be careful because there are like a lot of scammers and there are, there is a ton of fake accounts. So I've just got that blue little tick thing

Sky: 24:48

and we will link it. Definitely. Thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. I really appreciate your time. Love you very much. You too. Bye.