Everyone please welcome my sweet friend and mindset coach, Amy McNabb, to A Broadway Body: Continued Conversations! I’ve known Amy since 2021 when we met in an online business program. She’s slowly but surely become a dear friend of mine as well as the mindset coach I work with as an actor and a business woman. Amy is a voice actor, a singer, and a mindset coach for actors and businesswomen. Amy’s work has impacted me deeply. She has a special way of supporting female actors, and there was no doubt I needed to bring her on for a conversation.

Amy shines a light on so many vital body image topics. Her thoughts on removing yourself from the societal matrix is a beautiful representation of what it’s like to be combating diet culture and the harmful side of the beauty industry. She discusses how to navigate wardrobe as an actor both on stage and on screen. She also shares her personal journey with listening to her body and intuitively eating. This conversation with Amy was wildly healing for me, and I hope it’s healing for you too. I hope you walk away reminded of just how much you sparkle, and in the words of Amy, “Shine, baby, shine.” ✨

“ [This conversation] was a cool opportunity to step outside the Matrix a little bit and observe it and also observe it in a way that's not negative. Because I think it's really easy to be like, “This fucking sucks. It sucks that there's diet culture. It sucks that we are supposed to be thin. It sucks that we're in a time that there's a magic pill, magic shot that'll make you thin,” which for some people is super freeing, which is awesome. But it's a hard time, a hard thing, and it's easy to just like, “Damn the torpedoes,” and just be like, “This sucks.” So it's fun to talk about it in a way that's like, well, we're all in it together. We're just kind of in different spots of it, but we're all here.”

- Amy McNabb

Megan Gill: I'm wondering, because you specifically work with actors and because the stuff you're working on is a lot of the mindset stuff, has body image come up for you with your clients? Obviously, please do not disclose anything. But I'm just curious to know how often that comes up, if that's something that you find yourself approaching with your clients, and just how that shows up for you in your work.

Amy McNabb: Yeah. So it does come up, I think, especially because I work with women. All of my clients know this, and I will say it here publicly, I am not a therapist. I'm not a licensed therapist. I do not have a degree in psychology, and I do not have certifications in body image management or eating disorders or body dysmorphia or anything like that. So I'm very careful in those conversations because I'm very aware, being friends with a lot of folks who are. Experts in that area and having dealt with body dysmorphia over the course of my life and disordered eating in various forms over the course of my life, I don’t ever want to say the wrong thing, and I think to each person it is such a sensitive topic, right? So I am very careful when it comes up. And oftentimes in sessions when, when something comes up, whether that's a body related thing or any kind of trauma related thing, that's typically in the conversation where I will say, “So, as a reminder, a therapist. I'm not certified in this. I'm not licensed in this. So anything that we talk about within this, this is gonna be me as a friend, and it's not a professional opinion,” because I just want to be really careful, and I, and I try to just find ways to lift up the person and remind them who they are and how powerful they are and that, you know, they’re beautiful as they are. But it does come up, right, because especially if you're on camera or on stage, you're being seen in an amplified manner. And so, you are feeling more exposed.

And so it definitely has come up. It's interesting because it comes up across the board, but you know, with newer actors, a great example is the first time that they try on costumes for a show, let's say for a stage show, and if they're newer, it's like, “I don't like the way my body looks in the costume. I don't like the way I feel. Everyone's gonna see me. Why does she get to be the pretty girl and I have to be the frumpy one? All of that stuff comes up. And in my job in that moment. My job is to really just let them know they're not alone in that feeling and that that's super normal and that no matter what, when you're doing theater, let's say, or film, when you put on the costumes for the first time, there's definitely gonna be a moment where you're like, “How do I look? How does my body look?” And how's a lot of work there as internally as a person to say, “Well, how does this serve the character?” right? But that's always gonna be the second thought.

The other area that comes up a lot is in headshots. Yeah. I think in headshots it's – the advice I typically give with headshot is, especially if you've struggled with body dysmorphia or if you've struggled with just the way you look in general, when they come back to you, do a first glance, scroll through, and then you'll get all of those thoughts, all of the negative thoughts. You're gonna notice all the things that you've hated about your body for a long time, or the things that you used to hate about your body, or the things that you love about – you might not notice the love, but the hate's gonna come first. And so, typically I’m like, “Do a flash through. Do not actually make any assessment of them and whether they're good or bad, but put them aside. Take a couple days, and then go back, and typically that nice voice will kind of come through.” So yeah, those are really the two areas where it comes up the most.

Megan Gill: This is really interesting to hear because as I'm sure you might be able to relate with this in your own ways, but as someone who's been acting for a long time, both on stage and on screen, I feel I'm so immune almost to seeing myself in these various forms, in various costumes. I mean, I haven't been on stage in a long time, so there's that. But it makes so much sense that for a newer actor, especially someone who's maybe in their adult years or post-college grad to have all of these thoughts come up. Because I feel it's a little bit different when you're a kid. I'm really glad that they have you. And yes, you're not a licensed professional, per se, but the ways in which it sounds you are uplifting your clients and you're reminding them that they're good and reminding them, “Hey, how does this wardrobe serve character?” Because ultimately that's what it's about. Just having that other – one more voice reminding you that you're okay and that sometimes we are our harshest critic.

I love the rundown of, “Give yourself some time with your headshots. Try not to be too overly critical,” because oh my god, no matter what, no matter how I'm feeling about myself and my body, I can look at a session, and we can always find something that we don't right? That's inevitable.

Amy McNabb: Yeah, and I think, you know, it's interesting, right? Because I think for maybe more seasoned actors, you could still have the moment with the costume where you're like, “No, please don't put me in this in front of other people.” But I think there's more of a muscle that's been worked over the years where you can be like, “Okay, well, I don't have a choice. Or maybe I do have a choice. Maybe I can give feedback and be ‘Hey, can we let these pants out a little bit? Because they're really tight for what I'm trying to do,’” right? So you have more options, I think, when you've been in it for a while, because you know you can ask, but also you do have that muscle of, “All right, well, it serves a character and also there's nothing I can do in the meantime, so moving on.”

But that's not to say that I don't have these conversations with people who've been in it for a while because our bodies are always changing, especially as women. I mean our bodies change over the course of a month. The different parts of our cycle have different body reactions, different hormones, different, you know, water retention, all kinds of things, and also different eating habits, which can make people feel a certain way. So I definitely talk to seasoned actors about this also. And often within that, the conversation's less about what my costume looks and more, “I don't recognize myself,” or “I don't feel like me, and it makes me anxious to be seen in this moment.” But what I love and admire about all of my clients and about actors in general is that, typically, we push through that because we love the art so much and we love an opportunity to do what, to quote a client, what makes us feel we're flying. And so, we will move through it. It is painful often, but we'll do it because it's an opportunity to do the thing we love, you know?

Megan Gill: I have to wonder how much moving through it and circumventing all of those thoughts and struggles and inner things that we harp on, I wonder how going through that all and getting to the actual art and the execution of the art, then, I don't know, helps us work through all that stuff even on a subconscious level. I don’t know. That's just such an interesting point to bring up.

Amy McNabb: So I grew up doing theater, and then I did a tiny, tiny bit of on camera, and then now I do voiceover. Theater's interesting, right? Because you have the moment when you put on the costume and you're like, “Oh boy.” I always played the nerds. I was always a character role. I was not the ingenue. I'm kind of too funny and too loud to be the ingenue. So I was always these other character parts, and so the costumes were always – there was always a moment. In college, I rememb