175. The 15 Minute Morning Routine That Transforms Emotional Eating & Ignites Confidence + Creativity
175. The 15 Minute Morning Routine That Transforms Emotional Eating & Ignites Confidence + Creativity
What if 10–15 minutes every morning could transform everything — your relationship with food, your confidence, your creativity, even your connection to your purpose?
In this episode of The Embodied Warrior podcast, Kayla MacDonald shares the one daily ritual that radically changed her life—and how you can use it to collapse timelines, ignite your inner fire, and break free from binge and emotional eating.
It’s not another rigid routine. It’s Dance Alchemy—a soul-led, element-based movement practice that brings your entire being online in the most magical way. Kayla shares how this ritual helped her stay consistent, confident, and grounded through major life transitions—and why it might just be the portal you’ve been searching for.
In this powerful episode, you'll learn:
💃 Why Dance Alchemy has become a non-negotiable daily ritual for Kayla
🔥 The science of why movement unlocks creativity, confidence, and healing
🧠 How this practice activates your whole brain (and calms your overthinking!)
🌱 The exact ways it helped her stop binge eating and reconnect with her body
🪄 Why creating emotional “states” is a skill—and how to practice them like a pro
✨ What happened during Kayla’s 40-day challenge—and how her life transformed
Plus: the truth about upper limits, what really helps with cravings, and why replacing habits works better than trying to “just sit with the urge.”
🎧 Listen now and reclaim your morning magic!
🔗 Links + Resources:
💜 Join The Power Portal (Free 2-Day Masterclass):
https://www.embodiedwritingwarrior.com/powerportal
🎧 Referenced episode – #071: The Most Important Skill You’ll Ever Build
https://embodiedwarrior.buzzsprout.com/1797135/10735901
💫 Dance Alchemy Global on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/dancealchemyglobal/
💫 Brooke Jillian Yantzi (Founder of Dance Alchemy):
https://www.instagram.com/brookejillianyantzi/
📲 More podcast episodes + rituals:
https://www.embodiedwritingwarrior.com/podcast
Transcript
Hello, Warrior Queen. I am SO excited you're back with me for this episode because it’s about to be transformative, magical, AND wildly practical—all at once.
This episode is pure magic because:
I’m sharing something that has the power to transform every area of your life — your health, finances, relationships, career, self-worth, confidence, creativity, even your sense of purpose.
I’ve experienced more expansion, growth, and healing since committing to this one practice than in any other season of life. And I want you to feel that too.
And also… let’s be real. You don’t have unlimited time. I remember reading Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza and feeling so hyped — until I got to the part about meditating for 2 hours and 25 minutes per day by week four. I wanted to break the habit of being myself, sure — but I also had stuff to do.
What I’m sharing today? It creates massive shifts in just 10–15 minutes.
And here’s the extra juicy part: this episode was inspired by my own 40-day experiment with this exact practice. I went all-in. Every single day. And everything changed.
In fact, I got so obsessed with this ritual that I built an entire Masterclass around it. It’s called The Power Portal—a free two-day experience where you’ll dance through your cravings, alchemize your self-sabotage, and step into sovereignty. One of the practices we do together inside is the very one I’m sharing today. So if you love what you hear, make sure you save your spot. Links in the episode description or at embodiedwritingwarrior.com/podcast.
Technically, this practice is a routine… but I like to call it a ritual—because it’s not just a checklist. It’s a sacred, embodied practice that helped me end binge and emotional eating, reconnect with my body, and awaken a level of confidence and creativity I didn’t even know was possible.
I’ll tell you exactly what this ritual is, I’ll share my 40-day results, and I’ll even explain why it works on a deep, energetic and neurological level.
Ready? Let’s go.
The ritual itself is Dance Alchemy. This is a powerful modality created by Brooke Yantzi. She's amazing, and I will include links to go follow her and Dance Alchemy Global on Instagram. Big shout out to her for her beautiful modality.
I've been in the certification program since October, but even before that, I was learning the foundations as early as July of last year. For the last year, I have immersed myself in this practice, and it has changed everything.
Now, Dance Alchemy is not a Zumba class. It's not fancy choreography. It's not meant to be performative.
Dance Alchemy is a beautiful sequencing of songs and simple movements that connects you to all four elements - earth, water, fire, and air, along with ether. If you've been listening for a while, you already know how much I love working with the four elements to create deep, embodied transformation. I'd already been doing a 4-part journal with the elements practice for myself for years by this point, so I know I was meant to find Dance Alchemy, both for myself personally and to lead others through the experience.
In Dance Alchemy, you start with earth. You get present. You get grounded. You connect to your body. And here's the thing - if you struggle with binge and emotional eating, this part of the practice alone with eliminate 80-90% of your compulsions and cravings, especially when you come back to this daily, in as little as 2-3 minutes.
Then you move into water. Here, you're allowing emotions to flow. You're creating energetic movement and softening. If you are a hard-charging, powerhouse woman, there's a good chance you need more flow, more softness in your daily life.
From water, you move to fire. This is about shaking off old energy, burning down what's not serving you. From here, you move into a state of confidence and empowerment. It's an energy boost in music form.
In air, you're in the energy of expansion. You're connecting to your big vision, to the emotions you want more of, to the energy you want to bring to the rest of your day.
And finally, ether is where you drop into stillness. You integrate all the beautiful movement you just did, similar to how you use Shavasana in yoga to digest all the benefits of your practice.
I wanted you to have an opportunity to experience this for yourself, so I've created a practice for you to use for yourself, which includes the movement through each element - one song each. It ended up being 18 minutes, not 15, but the extra 3ish minutes you spend in ether is more than worth it, I promise. I'll include a link to the practice in the episode description. We're also doing a full-length Dance Alchemy session together during The Power Portal.
As part of our certification process, we had a 40 Day Challenge where we danced to at least 3 songs every day, and journaled about our experience dancing.
Here's what I experienced after the 40 Days. And honestly, now I've been dancing almost daily for months on end now, amd these benefits continue to compound and expand, which has been absolutely amazing:
First, since starting Dance Alchemy, my struggles with food and eating has decreased drastically. We're talking, I've had periods of months on end without a single binge. I even had one recent period of 68 days straight. I've never had a streak this like ever. And now, there's more ease with rebounding from an off day.
I've also been able to do things I once thought were impossible - which include showing up online consistently. I once thought I could NEVER be someone who danced in reels... until I did it for about 40 days straight for the challenge. The level of confidence and self-trust that alone created was next-level... and Dance Alchemy helped because dancing to fiery songs helped boost energy and empowerment while water songs helped me process any fears or anxiety about showing up online.
I found myself more consistent and disciplined than ever, without resorting to old patterns of perfectionism, rigidity, or all or nothing thinking.
Dance Alchemy helped me connect more deeply to myself, to my purpose, to what I'm truly meant to be doing in this lifetime to help people.
I had SO many creative ideas and downloads come through while dancing. These were sometimes about solutions to my own challenges. Sometimes, they were content ideas. I even created an entire modality that has completely transformed EVERYTHING on an even deeper level since mid-April. This modality has been a culmination of so many different things I've learned, combined with my own unique practices and experiences, and I cannot even begin to express how playful, how magical, how deep, and how healing this has been.
And it came through during a Dance Alchemy session. And I know this is part of my life's BIG mission because if I can bottle this, if I can reverse engineer exactly what I've done that's made this so powerful and put together a system and framework that can personalized for all the magical, creative, high-performing wild women out there in the world... THAT'S going to be epic, and that is going to change lives.
Finally, I know, without question, that a Daily Dance Alchemy practice so much in my external life. It collapsed timelines because I became an energetic match for timelines collapsing and manifestations coming in with more speed, in ways I hadn't expected.
For example, I had this one BIG dream of one day leaving my full-time job and having the capacity to go all-in on my business. I thought it was going to take at least three years. It ended up happening in one. And while it took some time for all the pieces to fall into place, my husband and I created the plan where me leaving my job sooner rather than later was possible WHILE I was doing that first 40 Day Dance Alchemy challenge.
This was not a coincedence. This was the Universe responding to the energetic upgrades that came as a result of this daily dance practice.
If this doesn’t make you want to start this practice, like, yesterday… I don’t know what will. But I’m going to break down exactly why this practice led to these miracles—and how you can call in your own transformation, too.
The first thing this practice does is help you break free from misaligned patterns of self-sabotage.
One of the most impactful things I've ever heard came from one of my mentors, Elizabeth Benton. And she once said, "You don't have a binge eating problem. You have a binge eating practice."
This practice served a purpose, as all patterns do, even when they seem to be at odds with our desire for health, growth, transformation, whatever it might be.
The practice was turning to food in times of difficult emotion.
Then I began my Dance Alchemy challenge. Here, I created a new practice where it was possibly to safely and constructively process any emotions that came up in a day. Over time, THIS way of facing emotions became my default, instead of turning to food in times of high stress and emotion.
Another powerful thing about this is that it replaced the pattern of binge eating. This wasn't me using white knuckle willpower or force to try and stop the habit - because it's SO much harder to stop a habit than it is to replace it with one that's more constructive and soul-aligned. Replacing the habit of compulsive eating with dance meant I was still getting the need of emotional comfort and regulation met, but with movement instead of sugar or white bread.
And also: If you've struggled with binge and emotional eating for a while, you've probably heard advice about learning to "sit with" the urge. Just take some breaths and ride it out. Basically, you're trying to stop the habit, which again, way harder than replacing the habit.
I've heard this advice SO many times over the years, and it's never worked for me. Not once. Sitting with urges makes me want to crawl out of my skin. Maybe you can relate?
But dancing with urges instead? Moving my body in an intuitive way - maybe shaking or stomping or releasing stored energy through hip circles and figure-eights? I've found this works a thousand times better than sitting with an urge.
So... this is how Dance Alchemy has helped me break free from binge and emotional eating. And here's the truth - I still need this practice. I still do it every single morning. And when I don't do it - my old mindless, compulsive eating habits threaten to creep in. Not always, but right now - when I've just left the full-time job that was my anchor and security for almost four years, when we're getting ready to sell our home and move to a brand new town, when I'm working through my blocks around fear of judgement and being visible so I can serve people who need it on a deeper level - without Dance Alchemy, I'm liable to run right back to the pantry.
I had a less present, more indulgent day two days ago, AND I was moody AF to top it off. Later that day, I realized, "Hey, I didn't dance this morning. There's 70% of the problem right there."
The next morning, I returned to my Dance Alchemy practice. My presence returned. My focus returned. It became effortless to make aligned eating choices and to eat with presence and mindfulness once again.
To recap, these are the three ways this ritual helps you transform binge and emotional eating:
1. It creates a new practice that addresses the needs for emotional support and regulation you once received from eating.
2. It replaces the old habit of binge eating with something that feels good, so you're not trying to white knuckle yourself out of an unhelpful habit.
3. If you find it super hard to sit with an urge, dancing could be the more aligned go-to for you.
Now, what about igniting confidence and creativity? Here's how Dance Alchemy can make this happen.
Dance Alchemy gives you the ability to create states on demand. One of the most impactful episodes I ever recorded on this show was called "The Most Important Skill You'll Ever Build". I'll link it in the episode description if you want to check it out.
That skill is states. Every state is a skill. Confidence is a skill. Creativity is a skill. Joy is a skill.
All skills need to be practiced if we want to improve them, and one of the BEST ways to practice states is through Dance.
I dare you to put on Confident by Demi Lovoto while doing power poses and NOT feel more confident. Or putting on Joy by Andy Grammer while doing some little shimmies and not feel happier.
You get to decide how you want to feel and you can choose music and movements to match those feelings. And every time you do, you're practicing the skill of confidence or joy or peace.
This is powerful for two reasons:
1. When you feel better, you naturally make better choices, both with food and everything else in your life. It's another reason why this practice helps eliminate emotional eating and self-sabotage.
2. By practicing the skills you states you want to feel more regularly, you're also raising your inner thermostat for how good you can stand it.
Maybe you've heard about this idea of an upper limit, which I learned about in the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. He talked about how we have this internal thermostat for how good we can feel. If some big thing happens to increase our joy and expansion, we often have something happen to lower our good feelings so we're in our zone of comfort once more.
This happened to me when I started dating my now-husband. I was MADLY in love with this man and, for numerous reasons, thought it was an impossible relationship. When I discovered he returned my feelings and asked me to be his girlfriend and it was all more magical than I could have even imagined... I started binge eating again.
I used binge eating to bring myself back to a place of familiarity and comfort. It felt unsafe to have THAT MUCH of an elevated state from this beautiful relationship dream coming true. I want you to think about places you've seen this happen in your own life? Maybe you got the dream relationship, the dream job, and all of the sudden, you found yourself struggling in a new area of your life.
The good news is, you can use dance to deepen your capacity for all emotional experiences, including joy and expansion.
Dancing and feeling into these elevated states can also help you prepare for big, joyful life changes and HOLD the energy of these changes without trying to bump yourself back down below your upper limit.
Now, what about igniting creativity? I get basically all my BEST ideas when I'm running or dancing. And while I knew this happened, I wasn't sure why exactly it was happening.
I wanted to understand the neuroscience behind why I get all my best creative downloads while dancing or running. And yes—I asked my pet robot. His name is Mason. He’s named after the door factory I used to work at, Masonite, because honestly? He’s the door to knowledge that does more, so I don’t have to do it all myself.
I think it’s important to be transparent about when I use AI, because I never want to pretend I know everything off the top of my head. But I do know how to ask really good questions. And what Mason found for me? Honestly… it blew my mind.
The Science of Movement & Creativity
Aka, why Dance Alchemy opens your creative channel like nothing else.
1. Bilateral Stimulation = Whole-Brain Activation
When you’re dancing or running, especially with rhythm and coordination, you activate both hemispheres of your brain—this is called bilateral stimulation.
The left brain handles logic, language, and structure.
The right brain handles intuition, creativity, and symbolism.
When both hemispheres are engaged through physical movement (like the rhythmic sway of Dance Alchemy or the steady pattern of your running stride), they start communicating better, which leads to creative integration—those a-ha moments where an idea just clicks into place.
2. Movement = Flow State Trigger
Dance and running both meet several of the key criteria for entering flow state, according to research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:
Clear goals
Immediate feedback (your body tells you instantly how you’re doing)
A slight challenge that requires focus
A sense of losing yourself in the moment
In flow, your prefrontal cortex temporarily powers down, which allows you to bypass overthinking and access deeper creative insights. And if you struggle with overthinking like I do, this is everything.
3. Exercise = Dopamine, Endorphins, and Neuroplasticity
Both running and dancing increase:
Dopamine – the "idea fuel” neurotransmitter
Endorphins – which elevate mood and reduce stress
BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) – which enhances learning, memory, and neuroplasticity (your brain’s ability to form new connections)
Translation: When you move, your brain becomes a more fertile playground for new ideas to bloom.
4. Default Mode Network (DMN) Activation
During low-effort, rhythmic movement, your DMN kicks in—this is the brain network responsible for daydreaming, idea generation, and connecting unrelated concepts (aka the birthplace of your most magical ideas).
That’s why ideas come mid-run or mid-dance—they’re not random, they’re a result of your brain finally being in a state where it can play freely.
All of this to say, if you want to become more creative, Dance Alchemy is your medicine. And maybe you're not a podcaster, writer, artist, or content creator. Creativity is still something you want more of. When you're more creative, you can come up with new ideas for breaking through challenges in your life. You might come up with a new, revolutionary pathway for a goal you're working towards.
There is nothing in your life that isn't improved by creativity, no matter what your vocation or hobbies.
Alright, I could continue going on for another hour about how amazing Dance Alchemy is... but I won't. Instead, I'd much rather you experience this magic for yourself, whether that's in my upcoming Masterclass or downloading the 15-18 minute practice for yourself. Again, get those links in the episide description or at embodiedwritingwarrior.com/podcast.
I'm not even going to give you journal prompts because I want your embodied activation from this episode to be dancing. Even putting on three of your favourite songs and letting yourself dance is going to be magical. Happy Dancing, and we'll connect again very soon.
