Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 249. Melissa Urban, Co-Founder & CEO of Whole 30

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249. Melissa Urban, Co-Founder & CEO of Whole 30 · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Boundaries are not about what other people do. They are
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: about the actions that you are willing and capable of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: taking to keep yourself safe and healthy.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Hey, Hurdlers, Emily Abodi.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Here, you are listening to episode two hundred and forty
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: nine of Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast. Reconnect with everyone
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: from your favorite athletes to top experts and industry CEOs
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: about their highest highs, toughest moments, and everything in between.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: We all go through hurdles in life, and my goal
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: through these discussions is to empower you to better navigate
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: yours and move with intention so that you can stride
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: towards your own big potential and of course, have some
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: fun along the way. For today's episode, I am excited
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: to bring you my conversation with Melissa Urban.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: She's the CEO of Whole thirty as well.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: As a New York Times best selling author, and as
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: we kick things off today chatting about the quote unquote
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: boundary lady these days. That's because her most recent book
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: is called The Book of Boundaries, Set the Limits that
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Will Set You Free, and in today's episode, we chat
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: all about how she became the official authority on boundaries
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: she has at this point taught millions of people how
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: to establish healthy habits and successfully navigate pushback and peer pressure,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: something that she really knows firsthand about. After spending most
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: of her twenties as an addict and turning her life.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Around at twenty six.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: It was then that, with the help of her personal
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: trainer at the time, she went on a thirty day diet,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: which later inspired the start of Whole thirty. In today's episode,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: me Lissa talks to us all about what the Whole
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: thirty is and what Whole thirty isn't, who the program
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: may serve best, plus how the trauma she experienced growing
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: up has informed the way that she navigates her day
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: to day, fueling her desire to show up for her
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: community and focus on helping others sustain their health in
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: the long term. I do want to make sure that
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I point out that in this conversation we do talk
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: about some sensitive topics, including sexual assault and drug addictions.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: So if you or someone you know are struggling, know
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: that you're not alone. I'm going to put some helpful
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: resources in the show notes. Make sure you are following
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: along with Hurdle over on Socialists at Hurdle Podcast. I
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: am over at Emily a body and a little bit
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: of housekeeping here. I would absolutely love it. I say
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: this all the time, but now this is your golden
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: opportunity because I'm prepping a specific listener questions episode.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Please ask me a question. Let me help you.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: No topic is off limits, and asking it is super simple.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Just click on over to the show notes.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: There there is a link that says leave me a
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: voice message. If for some reason you have problems with it,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: don't worry, just record a voice note and email it
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: to us over at Hello at hurdle dot us to
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: be featured in the upcoming episode. And with that, let's
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: get to it. Let's get to hurdling.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Today.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: I am amped to be sitting down with Melissa Urban.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: She is the co founder and CEO of Whole thirty.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: She's also a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: How you doing, Melissa, Hi, I'm really good. It's so
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: good to be here with you. Thanks for having me.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you for making this time.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: You are a busy woman, and a busy woman that
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: also knows a thing or two about boundaries, which is
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: where I want to start us off, because I remember
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: when I saw that you were releasing a book you
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: did the end of last year October twenty twenty two,
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: The Book of Boundaries, Set the Limits that will set
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: you Free. How did you, Melissa Urban, become the authority
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: on boundaries?
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I won't say the authority, but I am known
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: to many spouses on Instagram as that boundary lady, right,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: So people would you know, be talking about their boundaries
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: with the Whole thirty program. That was really where I
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: got started. I co founded the Whole thirty in two
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: thousand and nine, so I've been helping people change their health,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: habits and relationship with food through the program for fourteen
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: years now. And you know, Whole thirty is an elimination program,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: so for thirty days, you say no to a lot
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: of foods in the name of this self experiment. And
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I quickly figured out that people struggled to say no,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: especially in the face of peer pressure and especially in
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: social situations. So they started asking me how do I
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: say no to the breakroom donuts and moms lasagna and
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the pizza at the birthday party? And once they figured
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: out I was really good at helping them say no
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to that, they started asking me about their pushy mother
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: in law and their gossiping coworker and the nosy neighbor.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So very it, very organically kind of morphed into other
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: boundary conversations, and all of it really came to a
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: head in twenty twenty in the middle of the pandemic,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: when work and home and school and kids in housework
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  Speaker 1: and relationships all blended together and we realized that we
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: had no boundaries, and especially women, especially moms, were just drowning.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: And that was really where the inspiration for the book
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: kind of hit me was October twenty twenty.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: October twenty twenty, but not your first book, actually nowhere
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: near it. When you got into writing along with co
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: founding Whole thirty, was this something that you saw as
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: a part of your path moving forward.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I never wanted to own my own business. I never
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: set out with the intention of like running my own business.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I began blogging in the early two thousands when I
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: found CrossFit, and you know, was on the message boards
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and I had a little blog spot, and I had
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: some good followers. And I always liked writing, and I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: always was good at writing. That was kind of my
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: creative outlet and my mental health outlet, and so writing
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and then discovering kind of the Whole thirty as a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: you know, little self experiment in two thousand and nine,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: morphed into writing more blog posts, creating more resources for
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  Speaker 1: the program, establishing the framework for the program and the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: philosophy and researching, and you know, then kind of the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: first book came in twenty twelve, and I think this.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I think I've written seven whole thirty books now, and
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: the Boundaries was my first not whole thirty book.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so definitely a different adventure there, it was.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: It's interesting writing the Book of Boundaries was very similar
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to writing the book Food Freedom Forever, which is kind
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: of the what comes after the Whole thirty, in that
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: as I was writing, I was really forced to examine
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: my own philosophy on this concept. You know, Food Freedom
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Forever I created. Boundaries was certainly not a new concept,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: but I was thinking about it in a way that
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  Speaker 1: had been different from any other book or you know,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: article I had read in the past. And so as
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I'm writing, I'm almost stressed testing my own ideas around it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: You know, does this work? What are people going to
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: be confused about? What's the pushback I'm going to get?
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: How would I address it. So they were similar in
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: a way, but it was a little scary to step
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: out of Whole thirty comfort zone into a brand new area.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: And when you work on Whole thirty related books, who
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: are you working with on these like nutritionists? What other
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: experts are you collaborating with to make sure that you're
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: servicing your clientele in the safest way possible.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So I do all the writing for the books, but
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: we have a huge team of registered dietitians, medical doctors,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: mental health care practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, naturopaths, functional medicine practitioners,
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  Speaker 1: researchers that I've been tapping into since the very first
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  Speaker 1: book to advise and guide and you know, create a
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: new body of research according to the latest scientific evidence,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: and help us distill it in the framework of Whole thirty.
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  Speaker 1: So I have a lot of people who are actually
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: experts in their field that I rely on, and then
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  Speaker 1: I take that and translate it into the book that
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: is accessible and easy to read for most people, and
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  Speaker 1: kind of translate it into the framework of the program. So, yes,
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  Speaker 1: we do have, you know, a large body of folks
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: that we work with. But I've always done all the writing.
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  Speaker 2: All the writing. That's so great.
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  Speaker 3: We have so many awesome experts installar people in your corner.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: I know that, if we're going to wind it back
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: a little bit, you didn't always feel like you had
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: a wide net of people to rely on. So talk
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: to me a little bit about your upbringing and what
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: your support network looked like or didn't look like from
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: an early age.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it really it kind of varied. I
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: feel like I went through this like really sharp kind
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: of record scratch, you know, right turn when I was
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: about sixteen. But I grew up as part of a
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: large Catholic Portuguese family. We always had aunts or uncles
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: and cousins hanging around. There were thirty people, you know,
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  Speaker 1: for every holiday. I always had aunts or older cousins
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  Speaker 1: picking me up and taking me to McDonald's, are taking
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: me to a movie. It really was sort of a
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  Speaker 1: I was raised by the village of my family, and
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I felt like I had a lot of support and
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: you know, from my parents. My mom stayed home with
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: us while my dad worked, and my younger sister. But
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: then at sixteen, I had an incident of sexual abuse
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  Speaker 1: by someone who was in my family, someone I was
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: really close to, and I didn't know how to handle it.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: When I finally told my family a year later, they
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to handle it. And that was the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: point where I felt like I lost all of my
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: support system. I felt really abandoned. I was really confused.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I was so young, and that led me, you know,
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  Speaker 1: to this journey of trying to escape from that trauma
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: and the uncomfortable feelings and the you know everything I
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to process, and that led me to drugs,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: and I spent the next five years addicted to drugs,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: also with you know, no support system, really hiding my
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: behavior and existing in isolation for as long as I could.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: So I've had a kind of a ABC after school
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: special I think story when it comes to my life.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: But you know, I entered into recovery. It was twenty
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: three years ago now, and you know, from there I
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: found health and fitness and wellness, and that really led
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: me to sort of the second half of my life.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's been rocky.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: I can't even imagine what that roller coaster must have
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: felt like for you. You mentioned finding ultimately health and wellness
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: and fitness and so many good for you habits, But
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: in terms of the trauma that you would experience, what
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: would you say really helped you navigate that when you
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: finally got to a place where you knew what you
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: needed to deal with it.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean therapy. I happened to be matched with
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: a therapist in rehab. He was just the one randomly
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: assigned to me, and I could not have found a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: better therapist for what I needed. He was so direct,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: he had so many really unique perspectives, and he was
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: not afraid to call me on my bullshit. Can we
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: say bullshit? I assume that we can. And so all
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: of the tactics that I had used in the past
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to sort of manipulate and keep people at a distance
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and try to get them to like not look at
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: me and you know, not pay attention, none of that
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: worked with him. So really, spending time in therapy unpacking
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: my trauma, kind of learning to maybe forgive myself and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: view the situation from adult Melissa perspective rather than the
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: sixteen year old perspective I had been stuck in for
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: so long was super helpful. But then I combined that
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: with I started going to the gym, I made a
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: group of like minded friends. I started setting boundaries around
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: my recovery, which was brand new. You know, all of
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: these things kind of worked synergistically to help me feel
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: like I was a healthy person with healthy happy instead
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of someone who, like four weeks ago, was snorting heroin.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: You know, yeah, yeah, and I'd love to talk about
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: I started setting boundaries around my recovery because whether it
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: is overcoming this situation when it comes to substance abuse
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: or so many other areas. Of course, your expertise here
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: lends to the importance of setting boundaries so that you
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: can get to where you want to be, which can
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: be very challenging.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, I consider boundaries like the supportive hammock for all
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: of your health and wellness habits. I won't say foundation
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: because the best boundaries are flexible, but if you want
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to start a new habit, or maintain a habit, or
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: start practicing self care, all of those require that you
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: have a solid set of boundaries to protect your time,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: your energy, your space. When I went into rehab the
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: first time, I had a year in recovery and then
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I relapsed, and it felt like it came out of
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: nowhere and in looking back. Of course, it did not
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: come out of nowhere. I had not changed anything about
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: my life except to say I'm going to try not
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to use. And the second time I entered into rehab,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I realized that I had to change a lot about
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: my life if I was going to actually maintain my recovery.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that happened in a complete
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: kind of random situation, as I found myself at a
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: party I didn't belong at, with people I didn't know,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: with a friend who didn't know I had relapsed, and
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I felt so unsafe and so afraid for my recovery
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and my life that an honest to God boundary tumbled
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: out of my mouth. I said to him, this is
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: not good for me. I can't be here. I need
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to leave. And I thought that he was going to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: make fun of me. I thought that he would like
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: abandon me. And he was a really good friend, and
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: he was like okay, asked me a couple questions, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: we left. And that was the moment where I was like, oh,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I need to start telling people how I feel and
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: what I need, and I need to start advocating for
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: myself and if they can't keep me safe, I need
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to figure out what I can do to keep myself safe.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: That changed everything for me.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that level of personal accountability right, because I
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: think a lot of people may get to a place
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: where they're ready to do what you did. They're ready
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: to say, hey, I don't think that this is serving me.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: I need to leave X situation. But then what you said,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: I thought that he was going to make fun of me.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: What do you say to the person that's navigating that
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: kind of dichotomy on their journey to trying to emphasize
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: their boundaries.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I think in that moment, if he had pushed back
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: or made fun of me or minimized, I don't know
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: if I would have had the strength or the tenacity
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to say, Okay, then I'm going to get myself home.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I'd like to think I would now that I have
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: more experience, and now that I'm helping people set and
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: hold boundaries, I want them to be prepared that that
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: kind of pushback or response is a possibility. Most of
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the time, when we try to set a boundary, we
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: do so out of a desire to improve the relationship.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: And the other person loves us and they want us
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to be healthy, and they probably just didn't know that
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: we had a need, and once we express it clearly,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: they're happy to meet us in it. My friend was
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: more than happy to go Oh my god, I had
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: no idea. You didn't feel good, Let's go home. But
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: there is always the possibility for pushback. And what I
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: want people to remember is that your boundary does not
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: depend on anybody else's reaction or response. You do not
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: need to have anyone agree with or understand your boundary
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in order to enact it, because boundaries are not about
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: what other people do. They are about the actions that
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: you are willing and capable of taking to keep yourself
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: safe and healthy. And I think once people make that
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: shift in their head, oh I don't need them to
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: hold my boundary, I can hold it myself. That brings
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a real sense of empowerment and a sense of comfort
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: such that if they do push back, I still know
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: what my backup plan is to get myself out of
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: this dangerous situation.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Definite la.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: And if you don't mind sharing, what other boundaries did
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: you enact after your second trip to rehab that really
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: helped you move forward into this new chapter of your life?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I start it was like a boundary room spring, you know,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: where like the Amish kids go off and kind of
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: like live their life for a year before they finally commit.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: I started setting boundaries anywhere and everywhere. I told all
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: of my friends, you cannot use in front of me,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: you can't ever offer me anything, you can't bring drugs
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: into my house. If you do, we can't be friends.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And there were some people who were not able to
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: respect that, and I literally cut the relationship off. People
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: at work would say, you know, oh, do you want
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: to go out. We're you know, celebrating the big win
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: after work, and I'd say, yes, I don't drink, but
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to come out with you, and like, I
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: definitely want to celebrate. I'll have glass of water. It'll
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: be really fun. So I was super clear upfront that
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I was not open to invitations to alcohol, but I
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: still went and had a really good time. I set
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: boundaries with myself, like if I had an early gym
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: session scheduled for the next day, I would make sure
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: that I was home and in bed by nine pm.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I got rid of clothes that reminded me of using.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I got rid of music that reminded me of using.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: So I set boundaries anywhere and everywhere I could to
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: create as much of a buffer as I could between
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: my temptation to use, which was still there and the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: actual action that I know was going to set me
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: back and cost me my recovery. And all of those
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: boundaries were incredibly protective and they felt so damn.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Good that sentiment.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: I got rid of clothes that made me think of using,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: and other you know things within the home that reminded
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: you of that time.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: That's really powerful.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, my Cypress Hill T shirt gone, my red
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: baseball hat with the pot leaf gone. I was like,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: why am I still Why do I still have this around?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: This is not who I am anymore. I had this
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: mantra that I was a healthy person with healthy habits,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and I was looking for evidence every single moment of
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the day to prove that I was a healthy person
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: with healthy habits. So I would see this hat with
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the pot leaf and I'd be like, that's not I'm
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: not going to wear that. That does not vibe with
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: like my current energy. The playlists, you know, I wouldn't
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: suffer through a Portois Head song if it made me
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: feel icky in my stomach. I just stopped listening.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: To it.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I changed my friends, I moved apartments, I got a
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: new job. Like I really did not only add things
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: to my life, but subtracted things, using boundaries as a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: way to just carve out this new space for myself.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Aside from that therapist, who else was helping you on
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: your journey to implementing this more boundary filled positive life.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I made a group of girlfriends at the gym. I
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: started going to the gym every morning at five am.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I had never gone to the gym before in my life,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: but that's what a healthy person would do. And I
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: met a group of girls there who ran, and I'd
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: never run in my life, but I started running with them.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And they didn't know drug addict Melissa. This was a
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: new city, a new gym, a new group of friends.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: They only knew I was like Melissa who showed up
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: at the gym five mornings a week and wanted to
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: start running. And they helped me to see myself through
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: their eyes, which was so incredibly important. And eventually I
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: did tell them that I was in recovery and not
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: that long out, and of course they were incredibly supportive.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: But that group of girlfriends were really, really helpful for me.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: My writing was also really helpful. This was around the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: time that I started writing my blog, and you know,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: while I wasn't talking about my recovery yet, I had
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: not ever talked about it publicly. Just sharing some of
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: my feelings and some of my workout challenges and how
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I was feeling about running, and some of my adventures
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I found really cathartic as well. So those were two,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I think kind of groups of things that were helpful.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: We are the people that we surround ourselves with.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: It's interesting to me that line that you said, that's
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: what a healthy person would do.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: How often are we inundated with that? Right?
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: This concept of well, that person is living a life
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: that looks great, so that's what I should be doing.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Or this person looks like they really have it all together,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: and I see that they do hit classes twice a week,
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: so I should start doing hit classes twice a week.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: When you started running regularly with this group of women,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: I'm curious, did you like it?
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: I I did?
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I did. You can't pay me to run by the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: way right now, Like I would not run to the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: end of the block unless like someone was chasing me.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: But at the time I did, and it was because
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't know anything else. I had never weightlifted, I
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: never played sports, and our runs, you know, I was
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: running a ten minute my old talk in the whole
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: time with this group of women, So it was really
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: really fun. Eventually, within just a matter of two years,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: my body told me it did not like running, and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: so I found something else to do and still stayed
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: in touch with these women. But you know what I
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: chose to do at the time was really it served me,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and I think it was less about the activity and
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: more about that I was committing to doing something on
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: a regular basis with a group of people that made
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: me feel really good about myself, and I kept showing
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: up for myself.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: When did you first publicly acknowledge your recovery journey.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I had been doing Whole thirty workshops for about a
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: year and a half. It was like twenty ten, and
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: we had been traveling from CrossFit gym to CrossFit gym
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: talking about the Whole Thirty's. It's kind of where the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Whole thirty grew and started to take off and spread.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I was very involved with CrossFit, and after the end
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: of one of my workshops, someone came up to me,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and they said, I'm going to ask you a question
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: you don't have to answer, are you an AA?
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: And I was like what?
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And she said, there's language that you use when you
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: talk about the Whole thirty, when you talk about your
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: own experience, That is recovery language. And I was like,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: oh shit. I didn't even realize it. And AA and
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: NA were not a big part of my recovery, but
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I had been to plenty of meetings and of course
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: had absorbed the things that worked really well for me.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: That was the point where I decided I probably wanted
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: to start talking about my recovery publicly. That and the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: fact that I was talking about the Whole thirty with
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: people talking about the idea that food is so deeply
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: emotional and we can get stuck in this spiral of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: craving and over consumption and the guilt and the shame
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and the isolation that brings, which brings us more stress
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and more over consumption. And people would look at me,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: a thin body, he'd fit woman, and say, what the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: hell do you know about craving and over consumption and
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: guilt and shame? And I just really wanted to say,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: because drugs and food are not that different when it
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: comes to that cycle. And so I finally did. I
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: wrote one blog post and I just said, this is
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: my story, this is my backstory. I was terrified, and
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: of course the response was nothing but supportive and positive
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and encouraging.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: So did you set any boundaries when you shared your story?
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I did in that I only shared the things I
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: chose to share, and I would only answer the questions
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: that I chose to answer. So there were some things
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: that felt too intimate for me to share. I was
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: not yet talking about my trauma at that time at all.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: So I did, and I told myself that if the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: comments were not positive or were hurting my mental health,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I would literally turn that off and would not look
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: at them anymore. Like that was it, And I of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: course was pleasantly surprised by how again supportive everybody was.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: But it was important for me to really own my story.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: And even if people had said to me, wow, this
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: makes me trust you less or this makes me really,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you know, question your credibility, I needed to stand in
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: that and say, okay, like I know who I am,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I know what I bring to the table. I am
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: embracing all parts of myself, including the you know, teenager
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and young adults who was a drug addict, like she's me,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and it was really important that.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: I do that.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: You know, something else that you said really resonated with
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: me when you were talking about individuals who you were
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: speaking with. We're wondering, who is this small, thin, fit
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: woman to talk to us about struggling with food? What
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: does this woman know about struggle? And then not knowing
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: at that time that you had a background with substance
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: abuse and of course that trauma history. But there are
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: so many individuals, and I want to say specifically women
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: although obviously this doesn't discriminate based on gender, that truly
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: do struggle with so many deep rooted issues, as you know,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: when it comes to food, and they are made to
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: feel like they are not allowed to have issues because
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: of their size and stature. What do you say to
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: those individuals, because I know that you are hearing from
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: them often.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a really complex and nuanced topic and
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I'm still learning more about my privilege in this space.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: But there is an enormous amount of privilege associated with
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: being thin bodied in today's society, the societally accepted standard
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: for what is pretty, but also what we have conflated
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: with healthy. So though I was a drug addict and
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: I did have this these issues even as an addict,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and even in my recovery, I still wasn't faced with
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the same kind of marginalization that people living in larger
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: bodies work. I was all I mean, even in I
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: remember getting out of rehab and people are like, why
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: you look so thin? You look so good, and I'm
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: like cool, I just quit Heroin, Like come on, So
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you know, I I'm always careful when I talk about
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: this sense of shared experience that I do know what
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: it's like to feel out of control, to feel guilt,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: to feel shame, to kind of use the thing that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you hate yourself for the most to self soothe from
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: that stress and guilt and shame. But I don't know
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the societal marginalization and discrimination that comes along with like
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: physical signs of that struggle. And so there's a delineation
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: there that I'm always really careful to make for.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: The individuals that come to you, maybe without this similar
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: path of different traumatic experiences or substance abuse in their history.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: What do you say to those that may be in
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: smaller bodies that still feel as though they are struggling
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: with their relationship with food.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, I mean, I think struggles with the relationship with
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: food are relatively universal, totally even across genders. But I
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: do think that it is more heavily felt by women,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: for whom the patriarchy and stereotypically rigid gender roles and
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: diet culture and religious influences and trauma and the media
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and advertising have just weighed so heavily on us to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: be smaller, to be compliant, to be you know, small.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I think that is the kind of intersection of Whole
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: thirty and Boundaries, is that Whole thirty really tries to
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: provide a different avenue that is not weight loss for
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: people who want to improve their relationship with food and
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: discover the foods that work for them. And much like
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: my work with Boundaries, we are unlearning and railing against
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: this idea that in order to be good and loved
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and liked we need to be small and compliant. So
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of overlap there.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Before you co founded Whole thirty, what were you doing
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: for work?
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I worked in insurance. I started Freshutter Rehab as an
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: administrative assistant and worked my way up to managing a
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: group of business analysts and operations analysts in three different offices.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: So I had a team of about twenty mostly young women,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: reporting to me, and I was there for ten years,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and I loved it. I loved that work. I loved
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that job. I went back to school and earned my
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: business degree while I worked at that job. They had
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: tuition reimbursement, so I was able to finally graduate from college.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: But then, you know, towards about two thousand and six
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: or so, I started my CrossFit blog and I started
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: writing about diet and nutrition and training, and started doing
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: more work with CrossFit and opened a small CrossFit gym,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and you know, then in two thousand and nine, kind
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: of the whole thirty self experiment came about, and I
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: started writing about that, and I realized I was doing
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: both of these things kind of poorly at this point,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and I would either have to like take the leap
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and see if I could make whole thirty work, but
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: that meant quitting the best paying job I'd ever had,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: or I was just going to continue to do this
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: job that wasn't filling me up as much as this
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: other work for the kind of safety of it, And
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: then whole thirty would kind of flounder, so I took
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the leap.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: What I'm hearing you say through talking about your previous
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: job experience is that you found a lot of motivation
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: after you got out of rehab.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: The second time.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: To be able to head up a team of twenty
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: is super impressive, and then to be doing that while
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: also pursuing your other interests really shows a lot of
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: tenacity on your part.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I was always incredibly motivated. I was always just thrilled
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: by the idea of hard work. All of that made
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: me a very good drug addict. When I tried drugs,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I dove in so hard and so deep and so fast.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I did not have a drug of choice. I loved
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: them all. So all of the things that made me
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: a really good addict also make me very good at
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: other practices. I'm just kind of able to steer that
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: energy into other areas. And I really liked feeling successful.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I really liked working hard and doing a good job
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: and learning. And you know, again, as someone who had
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to quiet this voice in her head that I was
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: just this worthless drug addict, you know, piece of crap.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: It was nice to get promotions, it was nice to
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: graduate from college. It fed me. It all fed me,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: and it all felt really exciting.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: Which is no wonder why when you got to this
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: crossroads realizing that you were doing two things not to
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: the best of your potential, that you had no option
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: but to pick one and run with it.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I really again had no desire to
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: own my own business, and if I knew how hard
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: it was going to be, I don't know if I
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: would have done it. And honestly, I had no idea
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: what I was doing for many years. But I loved
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: whole thirty I loved the impact that it was having.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I felt like I could talk about it endlessly, and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: when people would send me their success stories, like really
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: life changing stories, I was like, man, this feels good.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: So it felt easy to make that leap and then like, okay,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: well we'll figure out the business stuff. But I did
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: go back to school and I got a business degree
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: while I worked in insurance my earlier degree, like I
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: was a pre med major my first time around through
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: college before I had to drop out and my insurance
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: company would only pay for a business degree because that
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: was related to the industry I was in, and I
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: was like, whatever, I just want to graduate and then
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: my business degree served me really well building the brand.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Talk to me a little bit about what it was
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: like for you to know that you wanted to build
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: this company and pursue your passions with whole thirty following
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: that excitement, but not really knowing the first thing about
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: going about that or how to do so.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I mean again, I didn't know what I didn't know,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and that made me blissfully happy and excited. Right. I
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: had note people talk about like, oh, what was your
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: strategy for growing? And I laughed because I'm like, Oh,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: it's so cute that you think I had a strategy.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: All I cared about was helping people do the whole
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: thirty and that was and honestly still is my north star.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I am not a profit driven CEO. I'm not a
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: growth driven CEO. All I care about is impact and
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: all I wanted to do was help people do the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: whole thirty. And so every single thing I did was
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: so community focused. It was it was connecting, it was listening.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I gave everything away for free for such a long time.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: You know, it was two years before we started charging
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: thirty bucks for a nutrition seminar or a you know,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: downloadable like ebook, but all of that time was just
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: spent listening, looking for pain points, creating resources to help
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: solve those pain points, refining the messaging, refining the support,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: adding to the free stuff in resources that we offered,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and that was, it turns out, a really great strategy
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: to grow business. I didn't know that, but I knew
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: that I was helping a lot of people find success
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: with the program and that was actually changing their lives.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Why was that important to you?
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess everyone wants to make a difference.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not one of those people who think about, like, oh,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: what's the legacy I'm going to leave behind? Like now,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I don't really think about that. But I noticed the
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: incredible transformation that the Whole thirty had on me. It
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: identified kind of holes in my relationship with food that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I had never seen before and allowed me to create
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: other healthier coping mechanisms for discomfort, anxiety, boredom, you know,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: when I needed to show my self love. It really
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: radically transformed my relationship with food, my relationship with my body.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I felt like the Whole thirty was the first time
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I was able to get off the scale and out
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: of the mirror. And because it was so impactful for me,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: like I wouldn't shut up about it. I wanted to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: tell everyone about it because I felt like it had
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: such potential. And when I ran the first little group
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: of one hundred people through the program in July two
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: thousand and nine on my little blog and they started
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: coming back with remarkably similar, equally stunning stories, I was like, Wow,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: I think we're onto something here. This is like a thing.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: So you know, as long as I I think, as
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: long as I was connected to the community and hearing
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: those stories and seeing the difference that the blog post
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: I wrote made in someone's life, I was really happy
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: with that. And I was like, well, we'll figure out
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the money thing, you know, on the way, And we'd.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Taking a break from today's episode to give some love
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: to my sponsors. First up, my friends at Open. For
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: those of you that may not follow along with me
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: on Instagram, then you may not know just how obsessed
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: I am with Open as a part of my morning routine.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Open is a mindfulness studio.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: It's a space to become alive through breathwork, meditation, movement,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: and sound. The Open method is rooted in the science
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: of transforming the brain and training the body for longevity
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: and as the creators of breath and sound with an
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: app that's sweeping the world in this industry, opens proving
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: what they set out to do to make the benefit
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: of the present moment accessible to all. I start every
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: morning with my Open app. I do a three to
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: five minute breathwork routine and it helps me just come
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: back into my body and prepare myself emotionally and mentally
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: to take on whatever the day is going to throw
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: my way. Of course, the app offers so much more
• 34:11
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• 34:32
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• 34:33
  Speaker 2: To practice on the.
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  Speaker 3: sitting here with my bottle right in front of me,
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• 36:07
  Speaker 3: So you get to a point where you finally start
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: charging something like thirty books Shore Nutrition seminar, and I
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: mean I will like cut to the endgame here. I mean,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: now Whole thirty, I feel like it has everything right.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: There are products that are certified Whle thirty. You do
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: so much more.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: So what happened from let's say, like point B to
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: point Z.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I know, I mean people are like, wow, it seems
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: like Whole thirty came out of nowhere, and I'm like, yes,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: a fourteen year overnight success, right. You know, there's a
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: lot of time and energy put into that. But we
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: started doing workshops. The workshops led to me thinking I
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: wanted to write my first book, got the first publishing deal.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: The first book came out. Our community was rather large
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: and really super engaged in Whole thirty. The book at
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: the New York Times list that got us some national media.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: We started working with brands who made products that were
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Whole thirty compatible because I didn't want to make food,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: but these brands were making awesome food that my whole
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: thirty years could eat, and I was like, wow, what
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: a great like win win for everybody if I connect
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the community to these brands. So we started licensing the
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: logo to brands like Epic and Sea Snacks, and now
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: we have one hundred and forty Whole thirty approved partners
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and Whole thirty Salid Bowl in Chipotle, and you know,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: so that really grew. I continued to write more books.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: We you know, created our Whole thirty Certified coaching program
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, and that went on strong for a
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: solid couple of years where people were able to get
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: one on one coaching from you know, people who were
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: certified through the program. We launched a Salid dressing line
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, so it's definitely continued to grow.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: But through it all, all I am ever really doing
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: is looking at the community and saying, how can I
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: help you be more successful? Every offshoot of that, like
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: that's the litmus test for every single thing we do
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: at Whole thirty is is this going to help someone
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: be more successful with their program.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: I'll be honest, I've never tried Whole thirty, and I'm
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: curious to get your perspective on this because the reason
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: that I haven't personally tried Whole thirty is as someone
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: with a history of weight loss, I definitely struggle with
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: the idea of completely restricting things from my diet.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: When you hear that, what do you say?
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: I say that that you should listen to that, and
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: the whole thirty might not be right for you. The
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Whole thirty is not designed for anyone with a history
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: of disordered eating or disordered eating patterns. This is not
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: the program for that. There are other programs and other
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: philosophies that are so great for that community.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: This is not that.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: And also, any restriction can lead you down a path
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: to disordered thinking around food. We are all swimming in
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: diet culture. And if you find that on your Whole thirty,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: you think to yourself, Okay, I'm not eating you know,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: this is a self experiment. It's not about weight loss.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I'm going to eliminate things for thirty days, then add
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: them back in and compare my experience. But if in
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: that elimination you find yourself saying, well, I'm giving up
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: you know, all grains. Maybe I should give up fruit
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: too because fruit has a lot of sugar. Or I'm
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: giving up you know, these foods, but maybe I should
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: also restrict my portions or restrict my meal timing. That's
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: a red flag and that's a you know, a prime
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: sign to say this program is leading you down a
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: path that is not healthy for you, and I would
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: highly recommend you'd, like take a time out, go talk
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: to a counselor or therapist, or a support group, or
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: you know, find another protocol that works for you. The
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Whole thirty works incredibly well for millions of people, but
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: it is not for everyone. There is no one size
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: fits all. And if you're worried about the idea of
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: restriction leading you to an unhealthy brain space, I would
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: highly recommend looking at a program that does not involve restriction.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Right And at the same token, also like speaking one
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: on one with a registered dietitian, right, Yeah, And I
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: know that we haven't completely homed in on exactly what
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: whole thirty is just yet, you know, thirty five minutes in,
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: but I want to make sure that we give that
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: some air as well. So whole thirty means no dairy,
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: no grains, no added sugar, no alcohol, no legomes, am
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: I missing anything?
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: So those are the food groups that we eliminate. But
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: to take one little step backwards, Whole thirty is based
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: on the framework of an elimination diet. Elimination diets have
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: been around since in nineteen twenties. They are still considered
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: by many medical doctors to be the gold standard for
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: identifying food sensitivities, even with all of the lab testing
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: we have, which requires time and money and privilege. Even
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: with all of that lab testing, an elimination diet where
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: you leave something out for thirty days, add it back
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: in and compare your experience, is still such an accessible
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and relatively short period of time to learn about the
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: foods that work best for you. So that's the framework
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of the program. When you get into the things that
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: we are eliminating for thirty days, it is based on
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the idea that these foods are commonly problematic two varying
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: degrees across a broad range of people. We don't eliminate
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: foods because they're bad. We don't think you should never
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: eat these foods. Again, what we're saying is the clinical
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: research and our experience have shown that these foods can
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: be problematic. So let's do an experiment where you pull
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: them out for thirty days, like one hundred percent. Though
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you got to do elimination diets really by the book,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: it's not like you can pull them out for a
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: couple of days and then kind of a day off.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: That's not how elimination programs work. And then at the
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: end of those thirty days, we have a reintroduction schedule
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: where you're bringing those foods back one at a time,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: very carefully and systematically, like a scientific experiment, and comparing
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: your experience. So that's the body of the program. If
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: people don't understand that it's an elimination diet, they might
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: just hear, well, you give up alcohol, you give up sugar,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: you give up grains, and they might think it's some
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: kind of like boot camp or a hazing or some
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: kind of nutrition challenge, and that's not at all the
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: case with whole thirty. So I always like to start
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: with sort of the basic foundation. All right, all right,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the very basic foundation.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: So, but that's super helpful, right because then through the
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: reintroduction phase, you have an opportunity to compare your experiences exactly.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: So if you take dairy out and you just happen
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: to notice on week two that you're breathing better, you
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: haven't had an asthma attack, your skin is clearer, your
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: seasonal allergies are better, and then you reintroduce dairy and
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: those symptoms come back. That gives you valuable information about
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: the way dairy works in your system. We are still
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: not saying, oh, you shouldn't eat dairy. Then, what we
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: are saying is, now you understand the way this food
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: affects you, and you can make your own conscient just
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: deliberate decisions about when and how often and in what
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: format you include these foods into your diet. Because sometimes
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: they're just delicious, or they're culturally significant, or they're family significant,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: and you want to keep eating them. But at least
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: now you'll be able to eat them understanding the effects
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: that they have on your body, and ideally be able
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: to mitigate those effects with the frequency or the quantity
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: in which you're eating them, if you choose.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: Is there a specific food or category that you learned
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: for yourself really wasn't serving you when doing Whole thirty
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: and you still are mindful of that today.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: So dairy was the big one. I used to eat
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: so much low fat yogurt, low fat cottage cheese, tons
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: of string cheeses, like, all of these kind of higher
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: protein foods that dairy based, And it wasn't until I
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: gave them up and realized that having diarrhea like every
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: day was probably not normal, Like I was pooping so
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: much every day and was like, well, that's just how
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: my body works. And then I gave them up and
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: was like oh, and then I reintroduced them and it
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: was like an alien in my belly and I'm like, eh,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: but that was fourteen years ago. Now I've improved my
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: gut health and I've been kind of eating this like
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: food freedom Whole thirty style plan for fourteen years. And
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: now I can definitely eat some cottage cheese, no big deal.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I can definitely enjoy cheese, no big deal. I can
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: have like the occasional ice cream, no big deal. I
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: don't notice those same consequences, but I don't miss it
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a ton, so I don't bring it back a ton.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: Right, right, So definitely education that has stuck with.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: You and enables you to learn your body better.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: I think that that is something that's so interesting with
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: just us as humans, right, is that we get to
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: a point, especially as we age, where we almost surrender
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: and think that we have to with certain aches or
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: pains because that's just.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: How it is now, and it doesn't have to be
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: You don't have to have a constant headache, you don't
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: have to continuously wonder if going to the bathroom four
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: times a day is normal, Like it's not normal to
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: be regularly in chronic pain.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, food, of course, is not going
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: to like magically fix everybody's symptoms or health condition, but
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: it can have a powerful impact and in ways that
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: people may not associate with what they're eating. So if
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: you are a smoker, if you smoke cigarettes and you
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: have this chronic cough, and I said to you, hey,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: your cigarettes are probably making your cough worse, you'd be like, yeah, fine,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I get it. But when my mom had this chronic
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: shoulder tendinitis that was so bad she could not lift
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: my child or like even put her own shirt on
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: over her head. And I said to her, boy, I
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: wonder if some of the stuff in your diet is
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: impacting your tendinites, Like I wonder if maybe you have
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: a gluten sensitivity. She could not put together the idea
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: that eating bread might make her shoulder hurt worse. So
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: it can have a powerful impact in ways that we
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: may not associate. Some of these foods have been marketed
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: blanket marketed to all of us as universally healthy, and
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: we know there is no universally good or bad food.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: So doing a self experiment like this can give you
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: valuable information about what works well in your unique context
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: in a way that a scientific study or a headline
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: never could.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: We mentioned a slew of books you've authored, obviously being
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: the co founder and CEO of Whole thirty, such a massive, massive,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: massive company. Also, you just mentioned your child. How has
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: it been for you driving this company forward while also
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: having and managing your personal life.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: My son is now ten. I remember having him and thinking, well,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I will I'll just write blog posts while he naps.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: And I just want to smack myself for all the
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: things I said about having a kid before I had
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: a kid. I was the best parent before I had
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: a kid. You know, there have definitely been challenges. But
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: this is the point again where I'm like reminding people
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: of all the privilege that I have, because I'm not
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: one of those people who are going to show up
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: and say, like, well, we all have the same twenty
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: four hours in a day and we all just have
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: to like make it work. Because no, I have a
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: full time nanny and a halftime child because he said
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: his dads every other week. I have a job that
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: lets me show up whenever I want, and my gym
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: membership is a business expense, like I don't. I have
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of privilege in this area, and it's made
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: it a lot easier to run the business and you know,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: raise my kidd. Oh. But yeah, there were challenges. I
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: had to figure out how to set boundaries, mostly with
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: myself around my work time and what I said yes
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: to and how much I would take on to make
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: sure I had enough time to nights and weekends like
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: not work and spend that time with my kid. And
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: there's you know, it's always changing because as your kid
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: changes and grows and your business changes and grows, you
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: have to flex. But I think I found a pretty
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: good balance.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it's interesting, right because you can try
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: to set those boundaries as I have. When it comes to,
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: for instance, editing the show on the weekends, I always
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: tell myself I'm not going to edit on the weekends.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: But then you let that boundary fall by the wayside,
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: and you realize, like, oh, was it really that bad
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: that I had to edit the show on the weekend,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: knowing that I didn't want to do it.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Can you give us an example of a.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Boundary that you may have flexed on at one point
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: but finally became able to concrete for yourself.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was no phone in the morning. I have
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: a boundary now that I don't look at my phone.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: I don't look at sluck, I don't look at email,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: I don't look at social before my morning routine is done.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Sometimes my morning routine is like a half hour. I
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: wake up, I go for a little walk with dog,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: I feed my kid breakfast, I get them off to school.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's like ninety minutes. This morning, I woke up,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I took myself to the gym for a full hour.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: I like ransom errands, but my workday does not start,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: and it was it's so hard to maintain that boundary.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: But what would happen is, you know, I'd wake up,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: I'd roll over. I look at my phone in the
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: morning out of habit, and I would think to myself,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: who's gonna know, right, nobody's gonna like jump out of
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: the closet and slap the phone out of my hand.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: What harm is going to cause? But when I started
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: thinking about the impact to future Melissa that this small
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: little action had, I would wake up. I'd roll over,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: i'd look at my phone. Chances are I would either
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: get sucked into something and end up scrolling longer than
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: I wanted to, which eats into my morning routine time.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Or I would see an email that was a fire
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: or a tweet that outraged me, or somebody's terrible comment
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: that I would feel like I had to reply to,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: and that would set the tone for the rest of
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: my day. I would feel reactive instead of proactive. My
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: mood would tank. Maybe I would get so distracted that
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have enough time for my workout, which really
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: hurts my mental health. The consequences of this small action
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: to future Melissa are actually pretty significant, and once I
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: started framing it like that, it became easier to pick
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: my phone up and go, no, I'm not going to
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: do that to her, right, And then an hour later
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: future me would be like, sweet, high five, thank you
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: so much for taking care of me here.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: The consequences of this small action can be detrimental to
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: your future self. That's really powerful and a really great
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: way to frame it, right, because we think, oh, it's
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: not that big, not that big of a deal, like
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to do it, and then you do it.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: And you're like, but was it a big deal?
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: And it can be.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: You mentioned, have your energy for the entire day is
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: a big deal.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Yes it is. It's a really big deal. I mean
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: it affects how I show up at work, It affects
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: how I show up with my kid later on, it
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: affects myself talk, right you yeahsh Melissa, You're so stupid,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Like just get off of Instagram. Why are you so
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: on Instagram all the time? And you didn't even work
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: out today and that's going to make you probably sleep
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: like crap. And then what if you have a bad
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: day tomorrow, like the you know, the negative self talk
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: really starts turning. It can create this swirling tornado. All
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: that stems from like the butterfly flapping its wings when
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I pick up my phone.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Totally the butterfly flapping its wings.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: It is really beautiful to hear you talk about this
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: because it really just is an example of how upholding
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: boundaries for yourself is truly you giving a gift to yourself,
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: and that gift keeps on giving not only to you,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: the person that's executing on these boundaries, but then also
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: to the people that you care about, whether it be
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: co workers, employees, friends, family, so on.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, boundaries are a gift. They are a gift to
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: all of your relationships. When I take responsibility for my
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: own feelings and needs and I communicate those clearly, I
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: am creating a sense of trust and safety in our relationship.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: You know that when I say something, I mean it,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: and if I can't do it, I will say no,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to show up resentfully or begrudgingly
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: or anxiously or be mad about it later on. This
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: is especially important with kids. Boundaries create such a sense
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: of safety with kids. And we've had boundaries with my
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: son since he was so early, and now he feels
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: comfortable setting and holding boundaries with us, which is such
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: a healthy dynamic I think for a relationship. And when
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: you set a boundary with yourself, it goes beyond just
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I'm protecting future meat from the consequences. It is I
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: am worthy of having this need and meeting this need myself.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: I know that when I say to myself, I don't
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: want to pick up my phone in the morning because
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: it does not serve my highest good, and then I
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: put the phone down or I choose not to look
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: at it, there's this feeling of yes, I had a need,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I identified it, I'm worthy of meeting this need and I
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: was capable of doing it all by myself. And that
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: feels good, and that really spills over into every area
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: of your life.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: What are you working on right now? Melissa?
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: And I asked that in like a what's one area
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: of your life that you personally are struggling in or
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: trying to work on? Because someone listening to this right
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: now might feel a little bit frustrated, thinking, Wow, this
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: woman's got her boundaries on lock. He has this company.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: A cute little ten year old kiddo, like, what are
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: you working on? Let's get real.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm in still in therapy. I will
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: never stop talking about therapy. And I got back into therapy,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I take breaks from it to let myself
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: kind of like take the skills that I've learned in
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: therapy on the road. But I got back in a
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: few weeks ago because I felt like there's still some
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: work to unpack around my trauma and some of my relationships,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm doing a lot of repairing right now. So
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of like talking to younger Melissa and healing
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: some of those relationships, which is good. I always struggle
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: with my mental health in the winter, and I feel
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: like we're finally coming out of the winter now, but
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: there's a little bit of like repair that I need
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: to do with relationships where I withdraw quite a bit
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: in winter from friends and family and connections. So now
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: I'm really you know, even with my husband, like we're
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: trying to go out more and have more date nights
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: and do more fun things. So you know, I'm working
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: on that. The things with Whole thirty are fantastic in
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: terms of the impact, but there's always, you know, it's
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: a business, there's like always stuff that's going sideways, so
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: you're always kind of like trying to figure that out
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: on the fly. I am working on the next Whole
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: thirty book right now, so being on deadline again is
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: so stressful. And I have bad dreams about book deadlines
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: every time I write one, so that's happening. But yeah,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: and I'm I'm working on some of my physical fitness again.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: I've battled a respiratory infection for like six weeks over
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: the way winter that left me feeling like I couldn't
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: even walk up a flight of stairs. So I'm just
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: you know, getting back into the gym and rebuilding that
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: like kind of slowly and being super graceful with myself. Yeah,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: thank you for that vulnerability.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: And I think also when it comes to your note
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: about the going in and out of therapy, that's something
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: that we don't talk about a lot, that that is
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: actually like a pretty regular and super normal practice that
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: we should be okay with. People say, well, I was
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: in therapy and now I'm taking a break, Like, yes,
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: take a break. Do what you need to do for
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: you to take care of your mental health. And when
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: you get back to a sticking point where you say
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: to yourself.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: You know what, something's not feeling right, then it's okay
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: to go back. I think that's such a smart idea. Honestly,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: we can't. I can't work on myself twenty four seven
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: three sixty five. It is exam like I need breaks
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: from like thinking about my feelings and talking about my
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: feelings and doing the work. Like I can't do that
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: all the time. I just want to like sometimes live
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: my life and enjoy it. And also if I'm always
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: in therapy, I never have the opportunity when my husband
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: and I get into a conflict and I want to
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: revert back to like my old behaviors, to go, Okay, wait,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: why am I feeling triggered? What skills have I learned?
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: And how can I approach this differently? I want that
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: opportunity to like test drive my skills. So my therapist
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: and I have an understanding where I'll say, like, hey,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: I feel really good about this, think I'm going.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: To take a break.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: I will reach back out to you in a couple months,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: and I'll make sure that like it's not you know,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I try to reach back out before there's some kind
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: of emergency and she's like cool with that.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that also, you said, like I'm
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: gonna let her know I'm going to take a break
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: for a few months. Oftentimes, I've certainly had friends who
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: have been like, oh, I feel so bad telling my
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: therapists that I need to take a break, like this
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: is a working relationship. Like if you have to take
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: a break, like you get to say.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: That, yeah, I think that you should. I mean, especially
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: if the idea of therapy is stressing you out more
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: than it's relieving stress. We enter seasons in our life
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: where we don't have the time, we might not have
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: the financial resources, we might not have the energetic capacity
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: to like unpack and start going through all that stuff
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: in therapy. So yeah, so you don't have to worry
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: about hurting your therapist feelings. If they're not the right
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: therapist for you, you should tell them if you want
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: to take a break, you should tell them. Yes, yes, yes, clearly.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: You were saying and I would totally co sign on
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: this that for many myself included, those winter months can
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: certainly be challenging. So I'm grateful that you and I
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: are getting to do this at the very beginning of
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: spring here where we might be a little bit better
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: of a mental space. What else right now excites you, Melissa,
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: That's a really good question. I mean, work always excites me.
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: I'm always excited about the possibility of new people discovering
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: whole thirty That is really exciting. However, I feel like
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: over the last year or two, I've come out of
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: a mental health kind of fog or slump. My depression
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: was really bad for a couple of years, to the
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: point where I tried ketamine therapy, which was helpful. But
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: I feel like that, Yeah, that's like a whole nother conversation.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: It's very interesting to do Ketymine therapy as someone who
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: used to be a drug addict.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: That was like, definitely, but it was very helpful. I
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: found that it definitely pulled me out of my the
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: worst of my life lumps. But I feel like over
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: the last six months or so, I've really resurfaced and
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to see more of the like open, wanting
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: to be connected, wanting to be outgoing me than I
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: have seen since the pandemic began. So I think what
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: I'm excited about is like tapping into that energy. Right
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing like light parting through the clouds, and I'm like, cool,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: let's take advantage of this. Do you want to meet
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: for coffee? Can we do an outdoor yoga session? Can
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: I take the dog for another walk? Like just that
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: idea of feeling like I want to be more connected
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: right now and then acting on that to be more
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: connected to friends and family is I think.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: Really exciting for me, you know, as someone else who
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: has certainly navigated my own situation with suppression, I think
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: that that analogy is really powerful. And also this concept
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: of like utilizing your potential when you truly feel like
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: it is within you and not judging that one day
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: you may feel like you have a greater bandwidth than another.
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: I know that it's super easy to feel frustrated and
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: angry and so many things on those low days, but
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: really just making advantage and having grace with yourself to
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: do the best you can with what you have, it's
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: just such a beautiful and empowering message.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've definitely learned to that for myself, and I've
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: also learned to do that with the people that are
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: close to me. So it's not unusual now for me
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: to say to my husband, I love you, everything is great.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: I am having like a really rough mental health day,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: so if I'm I'm feeling disconnected, it's just that. Or
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: I'll say to him, I would love to sit on
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: the couch with you and like watch something together, but
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: I'm really struggling to be connected right now, so like
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: if we could just be alone together, that would be great.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: And he's, you know, really good about responding, and I
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: feel like that allows me to give myself that grace,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: so I'm not worrying about what he's thinking or if
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not showing up for him the right way. Yeah,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: it's been a work in process.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: Though, that communication though, is what's up?
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't mess around in this house.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: We really don't. I love it. I love it. Okay.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: So as we start to wind down here, Melissa, I
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: want to know right now, someone goes to your Instagram page,
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: they like from their first scroll, they see a co founder,
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: a CEO, someone with something over three hundred thousand followers.
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: But when you look in the mirror, what is it
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: that you see looking back at you?
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, first thing I see is like, I'm thirty two.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I am just thirty two inside my head, and the
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: idea that like I am definitely going through menopause right now,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: or at least premenopause. Maybe we don't know, we never know,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: but maybe that's what's happening. And I just bought my
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: first pair of reading glasses. So like, officially, I would
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: say I'm like an older person, but in my head,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: I'm still thirty two. I see someone who is relentlessly
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: committed to showing up as me all the time. That
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: is something that I decided many years ago when I
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: started to have more of a public presence and I
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: realized that other people's compliments could really fill me up,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: but other people's criticisms could really tear me down. I
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: decided the only thing I really can't mess up is
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: showing up as me. And I have this big platform,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: and I think one of the best things about it
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: is that I get to use it to talk about
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: my values and the things that are meaningful to me
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: and important to my community. So I don't away from that.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: When I look at it, I see me if you
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: met me in person, I'm not any different than the
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: way that I show up online. And people tell me
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: that all the time, and I consider it. I think
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: one of the best compliments. Why is that because it
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: means that I'm doing a very good job honoring me.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: It means that I'm no longer trying to image craft
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: to get other people's approval. I'm no longer hiding pieces
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: of myself that feel shameful or less than or imperfect.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: It means that you know, no matter where I'm showing up,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: you are actually meeting like me where I am in
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: that moment. That feels really good. Takes a lot of
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: pressure off.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: It does take a lot of the pressure off.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: It's an exercise I do often in some of the
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: workshops that I run, prompting if you were to walk
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: into a room and you only had fifteen minutes with
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: a group of new people, and then you walk out
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: of the room, what would their impression be of you?
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: And is it who you want to be? Is it
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: who you think that you are? Right?
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: And that can be really challenged, right because oftentimes, especially
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: with new situations, we will walk in with a guard up,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: and the question is why why is your guard up?
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: I think again, as women, we so want to be liked,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: and we are so conditioned that we have to show
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: up in a certain way to be liked. But like,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: if you had asked me that question fifteen years ago,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: I would have said, oh, I would want them to
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: go walk away saying she's so smart, she's so well spoken,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: she's so pulled together. And if you ask me now,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I would want them to say as I walked away,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: like wow, she's a really good listener. Oh she like
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: I really liked her energy. Like That's what I would
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: want them to say. So you know, I'll probably have
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: a different answer ten years from now, but I definitely
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: think I am showing up with boundaries, but not guarded. Right.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: We don't have walls, we have fences. My fences are solid,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: but I am showing up like what do they call it?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Kind of strong spine, open heart.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. I love that you fence.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: You're like Wilson looking over the fence, trying to help
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: everybody else with all of their boundaries.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: What's the boundary that you're working on right now.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Melissa, Oh, it's really with work. I mean I'm struggling
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: a bit more with work right now because I'm on
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: book deadline, which means I have to say no to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: a lot more things like podcasts like this. But then
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: I get an invitation like this and I'm like really
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: excited about and I'm like, Okay, I'll say yes to this,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: And I know it's going to mean that I might
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: have to like go in a little bit early one
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: day or stay a little bit late. So there's always
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: that tension between you know, wanting to say yes because
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: it's either a good opportunity or it's going to be fun,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: and saying no to protect my capacity and my work time.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: That's always a struggle, but it's an especially struggle when
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: I'm on a deadline.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's totally understandable.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm so truly happy that we were able to
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: make this happen. I have been wanting to have you
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: on the show for what feels like forever now. So
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: truly when I say your time means the world to me,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: it really does. How we wind down here on hurdle
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: right now, I'm going to ask you, looking back at
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: that hurdle moment of you going back into rehabs, struggling
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: with your try and past substance addiction, you have an
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: opportunity to offer yourself a piece of advice.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: Knowing what you know, now, what do you tell yourself?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: Sixteen year old Melissa would not have listened, but imagining
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: that she did, I would say, trust yourself. You have
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: received nothing but messages your whole life that you can't
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: trust yourself. You've received those messages from every outside influence.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: Always listen to yourself, Always put your own needs and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: feelings first. Always trust your gut like you are trustworthy.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: That's the message I would send.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: I love it, Melissa Urvin again, so happy that we
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: were able to do this. If they don't follow you
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: just yet, how do the hurdlers keep up with you?
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: How do they follow along with you? Give us the details?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, I am at Melissa, you on Instagram. My website
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: is Melissaye dot com. I'm on TikTok Melissa underscore you.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Those are all the great places to find me.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: I'm over at Hurdle Podcast and at Emily Abodi another
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: hurdle conquered.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Catch you guys, next time
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: To