She Left it All Behind to Finally Be Herself: On Trusting Yourself with Amanda Baudier

What does it really mean to trust yourself after 40? In this episode of The 40 Portal, Catherine Zack sits down with Amanda Baudier for a raw, funny, and deeply honest conversation about spiritual awakening, midlife transformation, and what it actually looks like to stop living for other people's approval and start committing to the bit of being yourself.Amanda is a former nightlife industry insider, startup founder, and self-described recovering cultural-capital addict who left a Brooklyn brownstone and a buzzy startup to move to the woods and build something "weird, low-cost, and deeply spiritual." A journey of personal growth, self trust, and following the winks from the universe even when it made zero logical sense. Everything she did was against her own best advice by conventional metrics. And that, she says, is exactly how she knew she was on the right track."If it didn't come from logic, where'd it come from? Somewhere cooler. Somewhere more magical."This conversation is electric. Amanda is one of those women who has done the excavation work, the real kind, not the Instagram kind, and come out the other side with a point of view that is sharp, funny, zero-bullshit, and deeply generous. I took notes the entire time. I laughed out loud multiple times. We talk about: winks from the universe and how to start seeing them. Why you were probably on a great path that just wasn't your path. What happens when the medicine of external validation wears off, and it always wears off. Heart surgery at 28 as a portal no one saw coming. Why "trust the process" is actually kind of bad advice. The anti-aging industry as the current strongarm of the patriarchy. Why your choices are not going to make sense to other people, and why that is the cue, not the warning. How women in their 40s are done proving themselves and ready to just be themselves. And the thing I wrote to myself the night before my 40th birthday that Amanda basically tattooed onto this entire conversation:Commit to the bit of being yourself.No halfsies. No halfway in, halfway out. Whole ass living only.Amanda Baudier is a spiritual guide, somatic practitioner, earth medicine worker and entrepreneurship coach for growth-minded humans. She is the founder of becoming collective, which is rooted in the belief that we are all meant to unfold according to our unique and divine design in this one precious life. She is a wife, the mother of two wild children, and currently resides in the Shawangunk Mountains of the Hudson Valley after 21 years in NYC.Find her: Website - www.becoming-collective.comIG: @amandabaudier Submit your wisdom, your voice belongs in this podcast. If you're over 40: what have you learned, earned, and burned?If you're under 40: what's the open question you're living? the40portal.com/submitJune retreat, Hudson Valley. June 17-19, 2026. Two spots left. Details and application at catherinezack.com.New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe, rate, review, it genuinely helps more women find this show. Substack: substack.com/@the40portal Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.com Instagram: @the40portal Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Amanda Baudier | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.