#073 The Rooms You Don’t Belong In with Amanda Parker
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In this episode, Amanda shares the night she sat at a dinner table full of founders and best-selling authors convinced she didn't belong there, and what changed the moment she decided she did. An honest episode about outgrowing your own story and putting yourself at a bigger table.
Read the full Show Notes below!
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“There is no one who is more of an expert in what you do or how you work or how you operate than you are.”
Today's Guest
amanda parker
Amanda Parker is the host of the Don't Step on the Bluebells podcast and an intuitive guide that helps people to deeply trust their inner wisdom, quiet the external noise, and intentionally create a life fully aligned with their true self. She is a Certified Professional Coach (ICF PCC, CPCC) and spiritual guide using a unique blend of shamanic and energy healing practices to support you on your journey towards inner knowing and deep self-trust.
Amanda is a Reiki Master Healer and a member of the UK Reiki Federation, and has trained in psychic mediumship with the College of Psychic Studies and shamanism with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.
Amanda has worked in the field of leadership and personal development since 2017 - supporting clients from organizations such as World Bank Group, World Economic Forum, UNICEF, Zalando, Nestle, and LinkedIn. She previously worked in wildlife conservation with the World Wildlife Fund - supporting projects in forest and wetland protection across South America.
Amanda is a native New Yorker who has been living in London for the last 4.5 years, after over a decade in Berlin, Germany. She now lives in North London with her husband and their two cats, Zaki & Oreo.
How to get in touch:
Inner Authority Gameplan: https://www.amandaparker.co/gameplan
Website: https://www.amandaparker.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandaparker.co/
Substack: https://substack.com/@theamandaparker
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Show Notes
Amanda left a room full of women she admires and called her husband in a rage.
It made no sense. She'd chosen to be there. She'd paid for the ticket. Every woman who had stood on that stage that day was doing something she genuinely admired. And she spent the whole afternoon getting angrier and angrier, until she ended up outside a hotel in Shoreditch on the phone, shaking.
It took her a while to understand what the anger was actually about. It wasn't the speakers. It was sitting in the audience as a consumer when she knew she could be the one sharing her own wisdom.
Then came the dinner. A private dining room, best-selling authors, founders running million-dollar businesses, a wellness influencer with a million followers sitting across from her. The only empty seat was next to her mentor. And Amanda's first thought was that she wasn't supposed to be in that room at all. Her second thought was the one that changed the night: how many times in her life has she felt exactly this?
This episode is about the gap between who you've actually become and the story you're still telling about yourself. Amanda traces the whole thread back, from picking up a book about angels and stumbling onto the mentor she almost didn't sign with, to the mastermind calls she nearly skipped week after week, to the strangers on Instagram who slowly became friends. She's honest about the resistance, the money stories, the fear of looking stupid, and the lifelong habit of wanting to appear more accomplished than she felt.
If you've ever walked into a space and quietly decided you didn't belong there, this one is for you. Because the invitation isn't to wait until you're ready. It's to go looking for those rooms on purpose, sit down at the table, and let yourself be exactly where you are.
Key Takeaways
Outgrowing yourself is disorienting before it's exciting.
Resistance is usually pointing at the right door.
Rage at successful people is information about you, not them.
"I don't want to pay for that" is often fear wearing a sensible coat.
The room only pays off if you speak.
What We Talked About
How the same boxes that make us feel safe end up keeping us small
The chain of synchronicities that led Amanda to her business mentor, starting with a book about angels
Why she hesitated to join another mastermind after years of telling people to stop outsourcing their knowing
The weekly calls she didn't want to get on, and the kitchen table conversation that got her there anyway
How intimidating strangers on Instagram slowly became friends and peers
A full day of resistance at a live event in London, and the rage that surfaced at the end of it
The dinner table in Shoreditch where the only free seat was next to her mentor
The same pattern showing up across her career, from the Center for Creative Leadership to WWF
What shifted when she stopped trying to look further along than she was
Why she's inviting listeners to actively seek out the rooms where they feel least qualified
Guest Quotes
"There is no one who is more of an expert in what you do or how you work or how you operate than you are."
"You have to stop outsourcing your knowing to someone else. Stop trusting someone else's expertise above your own."
"You're meant to be in this room. You paid for a ticket. You paid for a seat at this table with this group of people who are doing incredible things in the world and you are exactly where you're supposed to be."
"Everything I'm doing puts me on that same plane. And the only thing that hadn't quite caught up is my own story and the way that I see myself.”
"Your job is to fully inhabit yourself, to fully be who you are, and to own every single thing about yourself, your dreams, your visions, your capabilities."
"You are a hundred percent worthy, you belong in the room, and every single person in that space deserves to know what magic you bring."
Resources to Learn More
Angels Are With You Now by Kyle Gray — the Sunday Times bestselling book Amanda was reading when she first came across her mentor's name. Published by Hay House, Feb 2025.
Terms & Tools to Dig Deeper
Angels: Spiritual beings many believe offer guidance, protection and support, often explored through books, prayer and intuitive practice.
Awakening moment: A sudden shift in awareness where you see yourself or your situation in a new light.
Bridging worlds: Bringing together parts of life that are often kept separate. For Amanda, this means blending the practical business world with the spiritual.
Coaching: A supportive one-to-one or group relationship that helps people get clear on what they want and move towards it, drawing on their own wisdom.
Containers and boxes: The labels we use to define ourselves, such as profession, education, where we live and who we're connected to. They can help us feel safe, but can also keep us small once we start to outgrow them.
Corporate wellness programmes: Initiatives run inside organisations to support employees' physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
Courage: The willingness to act even when fear or discomfort is present, such as showing up in spaces where you don't feel comfortable.
Embodying your purpose: Living and working in a way that fully reflects what you feel called to do, rather than only thinking or talking about it.
Facilitator: Someone who guides a group through learning, discussion or development, helping people reach their own insights.
Holding the vision: Keeping a clear picture of what someone wants for themselves, and believing in it alongside them, especially when they're finding it hard to believe in it on their own.
Intuition: Your inner sense of knowing, the information that arrives before logic catches up. Amanda teaches this to her clients.
Investing in yourself: Putting time, energy or money into your own growth, such as mentorship, coaching or events, as a commitment to where you're heading.
Knighthood: An honour given by the British monarch to recognise outstanding contribution, after which a man is known as "Sir".
Live event: An in-person gathering, often a full day of talks, panels and networking, run by coaches, speakers or business leaders.
Mastermind: A small group of peers who meet regularly, usually with a facilitator or mentor, to share wisdom, support each other and grow their businesses.
Mentorship: A relationship where someone more experienced offers guidance, insight and perspective to support your growth.
Open mind, open heart: Approaching a new experience with curiosity and receptivity rather than judgement or defensiveness.
Outsourcing your knowing: Trusting someone else's expertise or opinion above your own inner wisdom, often by seeking answers you already have.
Owning your expertise: Fully recognising and claiming the knowledge, skills and leadership you already have, rather than waiting for permission or proof.
Peopling: An informal word for spending time socialising or being around people, which can be draining for those used to working alone.
Pitch: A sales offer made to an audience, often at the end of a talk or live event.
Psychic events: Gatherings where intuitive and psychic practices are shared, taught or experienced together. Amanda hosts these in London.
Resistance: The inner pushback (excuses, doubt, avoidance) that shows up when we approach growth or a new threshold. Often fear in disguise.
Seeker: Someone on an ongoing journey of personal and spiritual growth, looking for deeper meaning and understanding. Amanda describes herself as a fellow seeker.
Showing up authentically: Being yourself as you truly are, without hiding, pretending or trying to appear more accomplished than you feel.
Signs: Meaningful nudges or messages, such as repeated coincidences or timely encounters, that some people feel are guiding them in a particular direction.
Spiritual and healing tools: Practices such as intuition, energy work and other healing approaches that Amanda blends into her coaching.
Stories we tell ourselves: The inner narratives that shape how we see ourselves and what we think we're capable of, such as "I don't belong here" or "it's not worth the money."
Synchronicity: Meaningful coincidences that feel too aligned to be random, often taken as signs you're on the right path.
Threshold: The edge of a new stage or level in life or work (Amanda also calls it a precipice), often the point where resistance and fear show up most strongly.
Wellness influencer: A content creator with a large online following who shares health, wellbeing or lifestyle content.
Worthiness: A deep sense that you deserve to be in the room, to be seen and to receive, just as you are.
Thanks for listening!
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Episode Transcript
Amanda Parker (00:01.58)
Welcome to today's episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and today we're going to be talking about putting yourself at a bigger table. So here's what I mean by this. We so often see ourselves in a certain frame or a certain perspective. We know who we are, we know where we live, we know the people that we're connected to, what our profession is, what our education is. There's so many different
Containers and boxes that we are able to identify ourselves by. And that can be a great experience on the one hand, because we feel secure, we feel safe, like we know who we are and what our place is in the world. But it can also be a box that we trap ourselves in. Because what happens is when you start to outgrow that view of yourself, that vision.
That perspective of who you actually are, you don't know how to contextualize it because you still see yourself in the same confinement, in the same position as where you were before. So, to take this out of the theoretical realm, I went to an event just the other day where I was in the room with a business mentor who I've been working with since January.
Now I met her sort of by chance last year. I was reading a book by Kyle Gray called Angels Are With You Now, and it's all about angels. The whole book is about angels. And in that book, Kyle mentions a good friend of his who joined him at an event, or he joined her at an event, and he had wonderful things to say about her. So I go and I look this woman up. Her name is Nick Pigeon.
I find her on Instagram and I see that she's hosting a live event in London just a couple days later. And I'm thinking to myself, like, what are the chances that I pick up this book, that I'm reading it right now, and that this woman is actually going to be here in London in just a few days? Now, for whatever reason that I can't fully remember right now, I couldn't attend the event. But I got really curious about the work that she does and who she is because it felt like
Amanda Parker (02:24.078)
Too much synchronicity happening at the same time. I'm sure there were other signs that were leading me to that as well, but to be perfectly honest, I can't remember what they were anymore. And so I started following some of her work on Instagram and reached out to her. I found out a bit more about the events that she was hosting and I knew that I wouldn't be able to make it.
But I stayed curious and she started sharing with me that she was beginning a mastermind starting in 2026 and that I could join. There were still spaces free. So this must have been in November last year. And I was sitting there thinking, my God, like I don't want to be signing up for any more spaces. You've heard me go on and on and on about this. Like there is no one who is more of an expert in what you do or how you work or how you operate than you are.
And that you have to stop outsourcing your knowing to someone else. Stop trusting someone else's expertise above your own. But something about her really spoke to me. She had a very different way of moving throughout the world. She was a British woman who has moved to the United States. So that also really resonated, having lived in the same places as her, although different cities, different locations. And
I've been following her work and I have been in her mastermind now since January. And there have been times where I didn't even want to get on that call because I didn't know what to ask. I felt out of my depth because some of the women in that room are earning millions. They've got a huge following. They're published authors. They're all women that I want to be in the room with, but who I felt like maybe I didn't fully belong there.
But every single time I felt like I didn't want to join, most of the time sitting at the kitchen table talking to my husband, saying, I don't think I'm gonna go on the call today. And him saying, You know what? You always seem to get something from it. Maybe you just go and listen this time. And so week after week after week after week, I show up to the calls. And over time, you know what? These women
Amanda Parker (04:31.574)
We're no longer intimidating women that I'm seeing online who are running these successful businesses. They've actually become friends. They've become people that I trust, people that I could rely on, that I could reach out to or ask for support. So just a few days ago, as I said, Nick was once again in London hosting her unstoppable success live.
I gather she's been hosting this event for 15 years, and I had so much resistance to being in that room. But also I really wanted to meet Nick in person. I hadn't ever gotten the chance to actually hug her, actually, you know, engage with her. And I knew that there would be a lot of women from the mastermind that I'm in who would be there in the room with us as well. So I booked my ticket. It was a full-day experience. It included dinner.
I had resistance throughout the entire day. I would be lying if I said I just went, I had an open mind, open heart, which is the thing I always try to coach my clients into. I really went with a lot of resistance and uncertainty about why was I going? What did I want to get? And am I just letting a room full of strangers pitch at me again? Because that very often happens in these live events, especially when
branders or marketers or you know sales people come together in a room. There's always gonna be a pitch. And this is a story I probably need to work through on my own off the camera. So I'll take my homework and I will go do that. But my point is that I just felt frustrated. So the whole day was it was amazing. People were really standing up, sharing their genius.
Giving presentations. There was a panel conversation. The women on the stage were amazing. They were inspiring. Many, if not all of them are running like million-dollar plus businesses. It was really truly inspiring to listen to them talk about how they got there and what they were building. But I found myself feeling really resentful. And I had to really sit with that. When the presentations concluded, I was still so grateful that I was in the room, but I left the hotel.
Amanda Parker (06:45.996)
I went outside, I called my husband, and I was like filled with rage. And I knew it wasn't directed at the people sitting on that stage. I knew that this had nothing to do with my mentor or the wonderful other business owners who were up there with her, but it had everything to do with me not fully owning my own expertise and my own leadership.
And so as I'm watching every single woman on the stage doing what I know I want to be doing and what I can be doing, I felt so angry that I was there sitting in the audience as a consumer, as opposed to being the one that was on the stage sharing my own wisdom.
There was a dinner that evening and I decided to join the dinner. I had already booked in advance, although I was considering just calling it quits for the day because I was quite exhausted. I'm not used to peopleing that much for a whole day. Anyone who's listening who's still in an office job, you may think that I'm insane, but anyone who is working solo or remotely will know that a full day of people can be a lot for someone who's used to spending a lot of time on her own
So I decided to join the dinner. And I remember even before walking in that room, just thinking to myself, Am I sure I booked the right ticket? Did I actually get the dinner ticket? Am I just showing up, but I'm not invited? You know, all these stories are running through my head. Like all it was just major, major, major resistance. And then I walk in the room, and the dinner is this super intimate dinner in a private dining room at the Virgin Hotel in Shoreditch. And
The speakers are all there sitting around the table. There's other successful entrepreneurs and people who have published multiple best-selling books and who are running these like super successful corporate wellness programs. And this woman who is sitting across from me, who's a wellness influencer with like a million followers, and I'm sitting there and my seat is right next to my mentor. And anyone who knows me well thinks that I am.
Amanda Parker (09:00.65)
super confident and well adjusted. They have no idea that as a kid I was very shy. And so I walk into the room and I realize the only available seat is next to Nick and that I'm now sitting next to these highly successful founders. And all I felt inside was I don't belong at this table. I'm not supposed to be here in this room.
And it really hit me. How many times in my life and my career have I felt that? How many times have I entered a space and thought, I don't belong here? How many times have I gone into a new job or a new client or a new setting and thought, I just don't belong here? This room isn't for me. You know, I was one of the youngest.
Facilitators and coaches for the Center for Creative Leadership at the time that I was brought in. I'm sure by now I've matched the age of the system. And at that time I remember also thinking, like, do I belong here? You know, I'm in my low 30s, and so many of the other facilitators and people working there were in their 50s. And
Every single space when I started at WWF, I was 10 years younger than anyone else on my team. Like there have been so many situations in my life where I on paper, like and by all rational counts, really didn't belong in that room. And yet there I was in that room. And the same thing happened at the dinner.
I sat around that table with all of these successful founders feeling completely out of my depth, not wanting to sound stupid, not wanting to look stupid or say the wrong thing or give away that, you know, I'm not earning a million dollars a year or whatever it is, whatever the counter for success was in my mind in that moment. And so at first I felt a bit nervous and I was trying to settle. And then I just reminded myself, you do belong here.
Amanda Parker (11:11.074)
You're meant to be in this room. You paid for a ticket. You paid for a seat at this table with this group of people who are doing incredible things in the world and you are exactly where you're supposed to be, even down to sitting next to this mentor who I've been working with. There's no one else who should have been in that seat. No one else who should have been at that table but me.
And as the night wore on and the conversations became more about just getting to know each other and getting to know who we all were as individuals and the conversations that I could also have with my mentor and learn more about what's been happening in her life because our conversations are usually just revolving around business and her giving her insight and perspective and wisdom. And there's not as much space to find out what's happening for her behind the scenes.
And the more that the night wore on, the more that I really just felt grateful and almost blessed to be in that room. Like it was exactly where I needed to be. It was exactly the space that I was supposed to be in. And that these were actually my peers
It was a massive shift for me and a huge awakening moment to realize that I'm sitting in a room with people who are so inspiring in what they've created and so mirror so many of the things that I am building in my own life in very different ways, of course. Like I am writing a book, but it will be in my own way. I am
Coaching my clients and blending in all of those spiritual and healing tools. And I'm creating psychic events in London. Everything I'm doing puts me on that same plane. And the only thing that hadn't quite caught up is my own story and the way that I see myself. And the moment that I could shift from deciding that I belonged at that table.
Amanda Parker (13:19.918)
To allowing myself to be who I was, where I was in my business, in my life, not trying to hide or pretend or look smarter or more successful than I was. And I know that I'm smart and I know that I'm successful. It's just about allowing myself to really be where I am, which is a big deal for me because throughout my life I always wanted to appear to be more accomplished or to have done more than I really had.
And so this was a moment where I could just show up as myself authentically, talk about the work that I'm building, talk about this vision that I have of bridging these worlds of, you know, the business practical world with the spiritual, the events that I'm holding, and just really truly feeling like I'm embodying my purpose in a way that I haven't felt before. Being able to share this in that room and ask for support.
and receive it was one of the greatest gifts that I have had. And so this whole story, because it's it's very personal what I'm sharing, but I think the the feeling is so universal. So many of us are standing between different worlds or we feel like we don't quite fit in one box or another or we feel that we have t
More clearly define who we are so that we make sense to the outside world. I want you to hear this story and realize that that's not your job. Your job is to fully inhabit yourself, to fully be who you are, and to own every single thing about yourself, your dreams, your visions, your capabilities.
Where you are in your life today, where you're headed, where your dreams are going. And I invite you to look for the rooms where you feel like you don't belong, because you feel like you're not quite there yet, or everyone else is so much further ahead. Look for those rooms, actively seek them out and put yourself in them. Now, one of the stories that I've told myself so often over the years is.
Amanda Parker (15:47.417)
That I don't want to pay for that. You know, I am so willing to invest in myself and my business and mentorship and coaching. Like I have invested more money than you could even imagine. And I don't care to share it right now. I'm not afraid of putting money on the table. But there are moments where I'm reaching a threshold or reaching a precipice, and I know that that next step.
That next level is waiting for me just over there. And I start to come up with the excuses. It's my resistance speaking, the fear. No, no, no, I don't want to pay for that. I'm not going to spend, you know, $500 on XYZ or I don't want to put whatever, $97 into that program. It it doesn't feel like it's worth it. And what I want to say is even paying for that event somehow felt like it was going to be too much money for what I was getting, but it 100% was not.
So, whatever the story is that you're telling yourself of why you can't participate, why you don't belong in that room, why you shouldn't be there, why you're not good enough or far enough along, set that aside. Experiment, if you will, with what it feels like if you start telling yourself that you do belong there. And put yourself at that table as I did with hugely successful business owners and speakers and authors.
And allow yourself to sit at that table and feel like yourself and ask for what you need.
As a result of that, I'm going to be supporting in a live event with a man who has been knighted in just a couple weeks' time. And another woman offered me to come and teach what I teach to my clients and talk about intuition inside of her private mastermind. So if you don't put yourself at that table and you don't speak up, these opportunities won't come in.
Amanda Parker (17:54.228)
I hope that this storytelling and courage, because that's really what it was for me, facing that resistance, being courageous enough to show up in spaces where I really don't always feel comfortable. I hope that it inspires you to go and do the same because you are a hundred percent worthy, you belong in the room, and every single person in that space deserves to know what magic you bring.
Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells. Please do share with me the rooms that you are stepping into, how you're getting out of your way to do it. Definitely share that with me. I would love to encourage you and also to hold that vision that you have for yourself along with you so that you know you can do it.
Thanks for tuning in and see you next time.