Latest / I Choose Me with Jennie Garth / I Choose...Micro-Moments of Joy with Liz Moody

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I Choose...Micro-Moments of Joy with Liz Moody · I Choose Me with Jennie Garth

0:01
Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone,
0:09
Speaker 1: welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about
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Speaker 1: the choices we make and where they lead us. My
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Speaker 1: guest today is someone that is using her platform to
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Speaker 1: have insightful conversations in the wellness space, and she is
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Speaker 1: not shying away from opening up about the things that
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Speaker 1: she's overcome. She's the author of one hundred Ways to
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Speaker 1: Change Your Life and is the host of the Liz
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Speaker 1: Moody podcast that I was recently a guest on. So
0:36
Speaker 1: please welcome Liz Moody to the I Choose Meat podcast. Hi, Liz,
0:41
Speaker 1: Welcome to my podcasts. For those of you that don't
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Speaker 1: know and are listening, I was recently on Liz's podcast,
0:47
Speaker 1: the Liz Moody Podcast, and we had such a good
0:50
Speaker 1: time and a great conversation about getting older, finding ourselves, anxiety,
0:55
Speaker 1: and so much more. It was a really good one,
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Speaker 1: So you guys definitely go to check that out Liz
1:00
Speaker 1: Moody Podcast. Did you have fun when I was on
1:03
Speaker 1: your podcast?
1:04
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, ed so much fun.
1:05
Speaker 3: You are so open and so honest and so vulnerable
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Speaker 3: and so helpful. I just feel like you're so adept
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Speaker 3: at taking stories from your life and turning it into
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Speaker 3: wisdom to share with other people.
1:16
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad. Oh my gosh. Let's see for our
1:21
Speaker 1: listeners who might not be familiar, I want to go
1:25
Speaker 1: back to your early years. Want to start there, if
1:28
Speaker 1: that's okay. In your book One Hundred Ways to Change
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Speaker 1: Your Life, you talk about that when you were I
1:35
Speaker 1: think two years old, your mother was in a serious
1:39
Speaker 1: accident and that had sort of this deep ripple effect
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Speaker 1: on your life, and your parents ended up getting divorced,
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Speaker 1: and you said that that accident made you aware that
1:53
Speaker 1: life is precious and unguaranteed. What was it like having
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Speaker 1: that kind of insight at such a young age.
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Speaker 3: It's so interesting because I didn't really have the insight
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Speaker 3: at that age.
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Speaker 2: Of course I was two years old, right.
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Speaker 3: But one day my mother was there, and then the
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Speaker 3: next day she was gone, and she was gone for
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Speaker 3: months and months and months that she spent in a
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Speaker 3: coma in the hospital, and at one point they were
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Speaker 3: going to transfer her to the kind of place where
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Speaker 3: they're like, you're never going to wake up from this,
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Speaker 3: and my dad had to fight to trying to keep
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Speaker 3: her alive and then she went to a rehab facility,
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Speaker 3: and the next time I saw her, she was so
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Speaker 3: different than the person I'd seen last. And I'm only
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Speaker 3: even in the last decade or so of my life
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Speaker 3: unpacking what that has done to my attachment style into
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Speaker 3: how I relate to the world at large. But I
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Speaker 3: do remember from my very earliest years having the sense
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Speaker 3: that the world was unsafe, that these one in a
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Speaker 3: million things that you don't believe will happen to you
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Speaker 3: absolutely can and do happen to you, and happened to
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Speaker 3: my mother, And so I put up those protective barriers
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Speaker 3: and I turned on all of my alarm switches very very.
3:01
Speaker 1: Do you think that you developed like a fear of abandonment,
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Speaker 1: because I know when my dad got sick and I
3:07
Speaker 1: was young, I was like twelve, and he got really sick,
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Speaker 1: and like you just said, he kind of came back
3:13
Speaker 1: from that a different person, and at that point, I
3:17
Speaker 1: feel like I lost something so vital to my life.
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Speaker 1: Did you feel that way.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And my relationship with my parents, both of them,
3:27
Speaker 3: was so impacted by that. They got divorced as a
3:29
Speaker 3: result of this accident, And it really was that one
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Speaker 3: pebble that's thrown into the lake, that has this ripple
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Speaker 3: effect that spreads out over your entire life. And I
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Speaker 3: definitely think I still to this day have fears of abandonment,
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Speaker 3: of letting people love me completely, of trusting that people
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Speaker 3: will be there, whether it's by their own volition or
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Speaker 3: something completely out of their control.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it really does impact you for the rest of
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Speaker 1: your life.
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Speaker 2: It really does.
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Speaker 3: And we're learning so much about attachment styles. I actually
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Speaker 3: had doctor Judy ho in my podcast, and she is
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Speaker 3: a psychologist who specializes in attachment styles. And I went
4:08
Speaker 3: into the podcast thinking I was anxiously attached, which I
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Speaker 3: think a lot of people who struggle with anxiety or like,
4:14
Speaker 3: oh I'm anxious, I must be anxiously attached. And the
4:17
Speaker 3: episode is the process of me realizing I'm actually avoidantly attached,
4:20
Speaker 3: which was really interesting for me, and I think a
4:23
Speaker 3: lot of that is rooted in that accident. And the
4:26
Speaker 3: thing that resonated with me the most around that is
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Speaker 3: when you're stressed or sad or having these larger feelings,
4:34
Speaker 3: instead of reaching out to other people, you don't trust
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Speaker 3: that they'll be there for you in those moments, so
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Speaker 3: you retreat into yourself. And whenever I'm feeling stressed, overwhelmed, depressed,
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Speaker 3: and my friends are all texting me and they're like, Liz,
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Speaker 3: are you okay? I love you, I want to be
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Speaker 3: there for you, And I don't answer the text. I
4:50
Speaker 3: retreat into myself. And I always wondered why that was
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Speaker 3: my reaction, Why that was my response.
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Speaker 1: I think I might be avoidantly attached.
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Speaker 2: You should have just taught me something.
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Speaker 3: You'll have the same episode arc is Mine where you're like,
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Speaker 3: you just.
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Speaker 1: Basically described, yeah, what growing up with that kind of
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Speaker 1: when you have that break as a young girl and
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Speaker 1: your mom and dad are left in some capacity or
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Speaker 1: that's how you saw it one hundred percent.
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Speaker 3: And I also just internalized so young that the world
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Speaker 3: wasn't safe. So a lot of my process of rebuilding
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Speaker 3: my sense of resilience and my sense of self has
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Speaker 3: been around making myself feel safe in myself, making myself
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Speaker 3: feel like I can take care of myself and I'll
5:38
Speaker 3: be okay no matter what happens. And I really had
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Speaker 3: to actively work to build that perspective.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because we don't know that we can turn
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Speaker 1: to ourselves.
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Speaker 2: No, we don't. It's crazy.
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Speaker 3: I have this tip in my book that's do a
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Speaker 3: resilience practice.
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Speaker 2: Essentially.
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Speaker 3: We've all heard about gratitude practices. There's so much incredible
5:59
Speaker 3: researchund it, but I think a resilience practice is really cool,
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Speaker 3: which is just reminding yourself of all of the times
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Speaker 3: in the past that you've been resilient, that you've been
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Speaker 3: faced with hard things and you've gotten through it and
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Speaker 3: maybe even gotten through it better.
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Speaker 2: I think sometimes when these.
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Speaker 3: Overwhelming things pop up, were like, oh my gosh, how
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Speaker 3: am I going to survive this? And it's like, well,
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Speaker 3: you've survived before, not one time, not ten times, but
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Speaker 3: hundreds of times before, and that has made you the
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Speaker 3: person that you are today, and sometimes seen it all
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Speaker 3: written out in a list is a really stark reminder
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Speaker 3: of that.
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Speaker 1: I love what your message is. I love that you
6:36
Speaker 1: are interested in helping people who have, you know, similar
6:39
Speaker 1: issues that you have. I think that you know you're
6:43
Speaker 1: younger than me, and I did not have any of
6:45
Speaker 1: this figured out when I was your age, so it's
6:48
Speaker 1: so just refreshing and it lights something for me that
6:52
Speaker 1: you are able to glean these messages and these these
6:57
Speaker 1: lessons out of life and share them with other people.
7:00
Speaker 1: So I just think that what you're doing is awesome.
7:03
Speaker 1: You struggle with anxiety and panic attacks and agoraphobia, and
7:08
Speaker 1: for those of that don't know, a goorphobia involves a
7:10
Speaker 1: fear of avoiding places or situations that might cause you
7:13
Speaker 1: to panic or feel like you're trapped or helpless or embarrassed,
7:17
Speaker 1: and you know you just don't go out. I have
7:22
Speaker 1: had my own agoraphobia issues in the years. But when
7:28
Speaker 1: you're in that state of mind, what does it feel
7:30
Speaker 1: like for you? Oh?
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Speaker 3: I felt like at one point, So I went through
7:35
Speaker 3: a multi month period where I was a gorophobic and
7:38
Speaker 3: I would essentially have panic attacks whenever I left the house,
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Speaker 3: and I felt so many different ways. I felt like
7:46
Speaker 3: I could justify my situation. I remember laying there with
7:49
Speaker 3: my computer propped up next to me in bed and
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Speaker 3: being like, well, I have YouTube, I can send emails
7:55
Speaker 3: to people like this could be a nice life, and
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Speaker 3: kind of almost validated that I didn't ever need to
8:00
Speaker 3: go outside again.
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Speaker 2: I also felt horrifically depressed.
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Speaker 3: Also, at times I felt so uncomfortable inside of my
8:08
Speaker 3: skin because of my anxiety that I wasn't sure that
8:13
Speaker 3: I wanted to survive longer.
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Speaker 2: Because that discomfort.
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Speaker 3: The idea of facing that discomfort for the rest of
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Speaker 3: my life felt completely untenable. So it was a real
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Speaker 3: range of things. And it's one of the reasons that
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Speaker 3: I'm so passionate about sharing these things. I think people
8:29
Speaker 3: and I'm sure this happens to you to an even
8:30
Speaker 3: more extreme degree. But people see my books, they see
8:33
Speaker 3: me doing glamorous things because the podcast, they see me
8:35
Speaker 3: on TV and they're.
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Speaker 2: Like, Wow, that's so cool.
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Speaker 3: And I want to be like, this is not where
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Speaker 3: I started. I started unable to get out of bed.
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Speaker 3: And when I was unable to get out of bed,
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Speaker 3: I would look up interviews of celebrities with anxiety and
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Speaker 3: I'd be like, look, if Amanda Seifried can go on
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Speaker 3: Jay Leno and have a panic attack, then I must
8:55
Speaker 3: be able to go to the grocery store someday. So
8:57
Speaker 3: if I can be that story for even one person
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Speaker 3: who is listening to this or who engages with my
9:04
Speaker 3: work in anyway, it will feel worth it.
9:06
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. I want to ask you, what do you
9:09
Speaker 1: think was the tipping point for you? Like, how did
9:12
Speaker 1: you get to not wanting to leave your house and
9:16
Speaker 1: having those feelings?
9:17
Speaker 3: There was a number of different factors. I had a
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Speaker 3: seizure when I was traveling in Brazil by myself, and
9:23
Speaker 3: I think I had a lot of PTSD about what
9:25
Speaker 3: was happening in my body after that. But it was
9:28
Speaker 3: during my party phase of life. I was doing a
9:30
Speaker 3: lot of drugs, I was traveling around a lot, and
9:32
Speaker 3: I didn't attribute it to that. So I would sit down,
9:36
Speaker 3: I remember on the curb a lot, and think I
9:38
Speaker 3: was preventing myself from having a seizure. When I felt
9:41
Speaker 3: kind of weird and spinning in my head, I would
9:43
Speaker 3: sit down and focus really hard and be like, I'm
9:45
Speaker 3: preventing my seizure, And really I was having panic attacks
9:48
Speaker 3: and I was preventing panic attacks, and I didn't make
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Speaker 3: that association for a.
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Speaker 2: Really, really really long time.
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Speaker 3: The seizure was drug induced and anorexia induced. And I
9:59
Speaker 3: also didn't want to admit myself that I was doing
10:01
Speaker 3: enough drugs or had enough of an eating disorder to
10:03
Speaker 3: cause that type of thing. So I had a general
10:06
Speaker 3: sense of lack of safety in my body that I
10:10
Speaker 3: wasn't dealing with in any way, that I was just
10:12
Speaker 3: pushing away, pushing away, pushing away. And then my now
10:15
Speaker 3: husband and I moved to England, he got into a
10:17
Speaker 3: graduate school program, and I was so excited about it.
10:20
Speaker 2: I considered myself a world traveler.
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Speaker 3: I was like, I'm going to be sophisticated and glamorous
10:25
Speaker 3: in living this European life. And I really really struggled
10:30
Speaker 3: almost from.
10:30
Speaker 2: The get go. I had a really hard time.
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Speaker 3: Building community, and my world just became so isolated, and
10:38
Speaker 3: it really underscores the importance of community in our life.
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Speaker 3: Not having that community was the tipping point for me
10:44
Speaker 3: where my world just got smaller and smaller and smaller,
10:46
Speaker 3: and then the outside world got scarier and scarier and scarier.
10:50
Speaker 3: And now there's incredible research to back that up. The
10:52
Speaker 3: world's longest study on health and human happiness. It came
10:56
Speaker 3: out of Harvard from doctor Robert Waldinger. He runs the
10:59
Speaker 3: School of a Dealt Development, and it found that the
11:01
Speaker 3: single greatest predictor of longevity and satisfaction and happiness in
11:05
Speaker 3: our lives is the strength of our relationships, the single greatest,
11:09
Speaker 3: like greater than any other factor. So that's what I
11:12
Speaker 3: was suffering from. I was suffering from not having strong relationships,
11:16
Speaker 3: and it showed up in my life in a.
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Speaker 1: Real way because at that time, you just had that
11:21
Speaker 1: relationship with your now husband.
11:23
Speaker 3: With my now husband, and that was beautiful and wonderful.
11:26
Speaker 3: But he was off at grad school all day. London
11:28
Speaker 3: also is very spread out as a city, so he'd
11:31
Speaker 3: go to grad school almost an hour away, and he'd
11:33
Speaker 3: invite me to come hang out with his grad school friends,
11:35
Speaker 3: but it was over an hour.
11:37
Speaker 2: Away on the tube.
11:38
Speaker 3: And I regret a lot of my choices at the time. Honestly,
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Speaker 3: I wish I had understood the importance of community more
11:45
Speaker 3: and spent more time prioritizing that.
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Speaker 2: But I didn't know. I didn't know how huge that was.
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Speaker 1: And how are you feeling today with it all? Like
11:55
Speaker 1: you seem like a completely different person, but maybe you
11:59
Speaker 1: still struggle internally. I don't know.
12:01
Speaker 3: I am a completely different person, and I'm so grateful
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Speaker 3: for that. I genuinely cannot overstate that I had panic
12:08
Speaker 3: attacks when I left the house. I tried to go
12:09
Speaker 3: grocery shopping once and I abandoned my basket at the
12:12
Speaker 3: grocery store because I could not handle waiting in the
12:16
Speaker 3: checkout line. And now I fly all over the country.
12:19
Speaker 3: I get to host an incredible podcast, I get to
12:22
Speaker 3: write incredible books. I go on live TV, which I
12:24
Speaker 3: still find incredibly nerve wracking. That's like a different type
12:29
Speaker 3: of anxiety right there. But I still do struggle with anxiety.
12:33
Speaker 3: I just now have a very robust toolkit, and I
12:37
Speaker 3: also know how to take care of myself, so when
12:39
Speaker 3: I feel myself tending in a direction, I will be
12:43
Speaker 3: able to pull myself back and I know what helps
12:46
Speaker 3: at this point, and I know how to recognize when
12:48
Speaker 3: things are heading that way.
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Speaker 1: That's good, you've learned what the triggers are. Yes, yep, yeah.
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Speaker 3: But I also think it's important to say, and I
12:58
Speaker 3: think you said this when you're on my podcast as well,
13:01
Speaker 3: that it's not like a oh my gosh, I'm better thing,
13:04
Speaker 3: you know. And I don't want to promise like, oh,
13:06
Speaker 3: your anxiety just will all go in and you won't
13:08
Speaker 3: ever have to think about it again.
13:09
Speaker 2: It's a ongoing.
13:11
Speaker 3: Front of mind thing for me. I have a tip
13:14
Speaker 3: in my book that's called find Your Why, and the
13:16
Speaker 3: idea is that in the health and wellness world, we're
13:19
Speaker 3: often stacking our routines and spending all this money and
13:22
Speaker 3: we don't even know the reason why we're doing that.
13:25
Speaker 3: We're just doing it because some influencer told us to
13:27
Speaker 3: do it, or we read about it in some book,
13:28
Speaker 3: or we sat on TV or something like that. And
13:30
Speaker 3: we always need a reason behind the habits that we're
13:33
Speaker 3: engaging with the things that we're purchasing, so that we
13:36
Speaker 3: don't just have this huge, long list of to dos
13:39
Speaker 3: and we're so overwhelmed and we're not actually engaging in wellness,
13:42
Speaker 3: which is supposed to make our life better. And my
13:45
Speaker 3: why to this day is my mental health. It's my
13:47
Speaker 3: number one why. So if I'm trying a new supplement,
13:50
Speaker 3: if I'm spending my time on something, usually it is
13:53
Speaker 3: around my mental health. And you can see that in
13:55
Speaker 3: the things that I prioritize every single day. For example, Yeah,
14:02
Speaker 3: so I work out every single morning, and I have
14:06
Speaker 3: that set in my calendar. I don't have meetings that
14:09
Speaker 3: get in the way of it. I preserve that time
14:12
Speaker 3: because I know that my anxiety on a day that
14:15
Speaker 3: I don't move my body in the morning is so
14:17
Speaker 3: much higher than.
14:18
Speaker 2: My anxiety on a day where I do move my
14:20
Speaker 2: body in the morning.
14:20
Speaker 3: And I've figured that out for myself and now I'm
14:23
Speaker 3: deeply protective of that time.
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Speaker 1: That's such a good thing. What about when you're traveling though, Like,
14:28
Speaker 1: it's when I'm traveling like this last month, I was
14:31
Speaker 1: home maybe five days out of the whole month, and
14:34
Speaker 1: I was so hard for me to stay on my
14:36
Speaker 1: routine of wellness and taking good care of myself and
14:39
Speaker 1: working out in the mornings and doing all the things.
14:42
Speaker 1: Are you able to manage it when you're traveling so much?
14:44
Speaker 3: I have a travel wellness routine and then I have
14:47
Speaker 3: a home.
14:47
Speaker 2: Oh okay, you do.
14:49
Speaker 1: I love.
14:49
Speaker 3: So they differ from each other, but it also takes
14:52
Speaker 3: the decision fatigue out of it because I'm not like, Oh,
14:54
Speaker 3: I'm traveling, what am I going to do? I'm like, no,
14:55
Speaker 3: I'll just go to my travel wellness routine.
14:58
Speaker 1: Wait, what's what's your travel well I need to know.
15:00
Speaker 3: So I have online workouts that I love to do.
15:03
Speaker 3: I like Megan Roup the sculpt Society. She has these
15:07
Speaker 3: workouts that are like fifteen to thirty minutes. You can
15:10
Speaker 3: choose and you can do them in a hotel room
15:11
Speaker 3: and you get a pretty good workout in or in
15:14
Speaker 3: an airbnb. Sometimes I'll go to the hotel gym if
15:17
Speaker 3: it has a nice gym, But I do that first
15:18
Speaker 3: thing in the morning when I wake up. I also
15:20
Speaker 3: always travel with purely Elizabeth oatmeal or what is it
15:25
Speaker 3: called seven spoons or something like that. They have a
15:29
Speaker 3: protein oatmeal. I'll travel with some sort of oatmeal, and
15:32
Speaker 3: I'll travel with a protein powder that I'll mix into
15:34
Speaker 3: that oatmeal so that I know that every single morning
15:37
Speaker 3: I'm getting a fiber and protein rich breakfast, so that
15:39
Speaker 3: my blood sugar is more likely to stay stable throughout
15:42
Speaker 3: the day. That's something else that I've identified as a
15:44
Speaker 3: really big anxiety trigger for me.
15:46
Speaker 2: So if I'm starting the day with a.
15:48
Speaker 3: Croissant, I will never feel as good mentally for the
15:51
Speaker 3: rest of day the croissants for later in the day.
15:53
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I've had my.
15:54
Speaker 1: Protein bad advice. This is so good. I travel also
15:57
Speaker 1: with my protein items, all my powder, and I always
16:01
Speaker 1: get stopped at the chef airport.
16:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, but.
16:04
Speaker 3: It's dry and you can bring it on. I've never
16:06
Speaker 3: gotten it taken away from me. They'll always just kind
16:08
Speaker 3: of like take it out and look at it.
16:10
Speaker 2: So I'll do that.
16:11
Speaker 3: I also, so we have a cold plunge in our house.
16:14
Speaker 3: That was our big pandemic purchase that I love so much.
16:18
Speaker 3: I actually went away on a trip and my husband
16:20
Speaker 3: had bought it when I got home, and it's like, it's.
16:23
Speaker 2: Like, Wow, this is a big purchase. But I love it.
16:25
Speaker 2: I love it so much.
16:26
Speaker 3: And cold plunging is really helpful for balancing dopamine levels.
16:29
Speaker 3: But in my travel routine, I'll just take a cold shower,
16:32
Speaker 3: which is what I did before I had the cold plunge,
16:35
Speaker 3: and I'll end my shower on a minute or two
16:38
Speaker 3: of cold, and that's really helpful for again keeping those
16:40
Speaker 3: dopamine levels balanced. I always travel with an eyemass so
16:44
Speaker 3: that I can get good sleep. There's really good research
16:47
Speaker 3: around how any light reaching your eyes impacts your quality
16:51
Speaker 3: of your sleep. Even if you're getting the same quantity
16:53
Speaker 3: of sleep. Even if you're like, oh I've slept for
16:55
Speaker 3: eight hours, you haven't gotten as good of sleep if
16:58
Speaker 3: light is reaching your eyes.
17:00
Speaker 2: I do that those are like the big, big ones.
17:02
Speaker 3: I travel with a silk pillowcase, which that's good, that's great,
17:08
Speaker 3: but I like it and I like feeling like my
17:11
Speaker 3: head isn't touching the hotel sheets kind of it gives
17:14
Speaker 3: you that that sense of home a little bit and
17:16
Speaker 3: a little bit less of the grossness of thinking about
17:20
Speaker 3: how many heads have been on those sheets?
17:22
Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah, When anxiety or panic attacks are something that
17:33
Speaker 1: you are feeling and your partner hasn't experienced it, how
17:38
Speaker 1: do you suggest people make their partners aware and like,
17:42
Speaker 1: what should a partner be doing to support someone who
17:45
Speaker 1: is struggling with anxiety.
17:47
Speaker 3: It's going to be so different person to person. So
17:51
Speaker 3: I like to do an inventory in my own brain
17:53
Speaker 3: and the times that I've had panic attacks and the
17:55
Speaker 3: times that I felt the most anxious. What have people
17:58
Speaker 3: done that's the most helpful? And that can range from
18:00
Speaker 3: left me completely alone and didn't try to make a
18:03
Speaker 3: conversation with me at all, which is still what I
18:05
Speaker 3: need my husband to do. On planes, I'm a very
18:08
Speaker 3: anxious flyer and he'll like be sitting next to me
18:11
Speaker 3: trying to make jokey comments, and I'm like.
18:12
Speaker 2: I'm holding the plane aloft with my mind.
18:15
Speaker 3: I need you to not mess with my concentration in
18:17
Speaker 3: this moment. But sometimes it can be holding you. Sometimes
18:21
Speaker 3: it can be putting ice in your hands or doing
18:23
Speaker 3: one of those little tools or techniques. Sometimes it can
18:26
Speaker 3: be guiding you through a breathing exercise. I think reflecting
18:30
Speaker 3: on what were the moments that were most helpful that
18:33
Speaker 3: other people did, and then almost writing those down so
18:36
Speaker 3: you can have that as a list to give to
18:38
Speaker 3: somebody that that loves you and that wants to be
18:40
Speaker 3: there for you and experiment with different things. For me,
18:44
Speaker 3: it's either usually be left alone because I don't like
18:48
Speaker 3: being around other people when I feel really anxious, back
18:51
Speaker 3: to the avoidantly attached thing that I just discovered about myself,
18:56
Speaker 3: or I guess on the opposite side, it's really holding
18:59
Speaker 3: me and giving me that physical contact or the other
19:03
Speaker 3: thing that my husband can do and I've asked him
19:06
Speaker 3: to do this at this point, is if I'm in
19:08
Speaker 3: sort of a spiral, if he can get me to
19:10
Speaker 3: take a walk or offer to take a walk with me,
19:12
Speaker 3: getting outside, changing what my vision is taking in literally
19:16
Speaker 3: changing my perspective is really really helpful.
19:19
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. That's good. Getting some fresh air, I'm sure
19:22
Speaker 1: helps too.
19:23
Speaker 3: What helps you? What do you ask people that love
19:25
Speaker 3: you in your life to do?
19:28
Speaker 1: I well, I don't ask my girls really of much.
19:33
Speaker 1: They they kind of just know when I'm having anxiety
19:37
Speaker 1: or when I'm stressed, and they kind of take care
19:41
Speaker 1: of me a little bit more than a little bit
19:43
Speaker 1: of role reversal. But my husband, I like him to
19:48
Speaker 1: hold my hand and hug me, like just hold me.
19:53
Speaker 1: You know that what you said, like hug me. So
19:56
Speaker 1: it really is like there's something about when my husband
20:00
Speaker 1: touches me. It just calms me down. And I am
20:06
Speaker 1: so thankful for that that it released me.
20:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's same with my husband, and I love
20:13
Speaker 3: it so much. But also if you're listening and you
20:15
Speaker 3: don't have a partner, get a lot of those benefits
20:17
Speaker 3: with a pet. I think pets are very underutilized. Oxytocin
20:21
Speaker 3: sources a pet.
20:23
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, I do. I have a picture of right here.
20:28
Speaker 1: What's her name? This is a kitty I'm looking at.
20:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a cat.
20:32
Speaker 1: I have.
20:32
Speaker 3: My friends got me this when my book came out.
20:34
Speaker 3: It's my cat reading my book, so you know that
20:37
Speaker 3: she's very smart. Her name is Bella, and which is
20:41
Speaker 3: the most basic name. And there was a period my
20:43
Speaker 3: husband kind of looks like Robert Pattinson and so there
20:46
Speaker 3: was a period during the Twilight Heyday where people thought
20:51
Speaker 3: I'd name my cat Bella. And I was dating a
20:54
Speaker 3: guy who and I haven't seen the movies, but I
20:57
Speaker 3: was people thought I was really into it.
20:59
Speaker 1: For A that's so funny that you bring up twilight.
21:03
Speaker 1: Oh my god. When you're working and you're in your studio,
21:07
Speaker 1: do your lights give you anxiety? Because I'm really affected
21:12
Speaker 1: by LED lights.
21:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting.
21:15
Speaker 3: They don't, And I think that's because of what I
21:19
Speaker 3: am doing in my studio. I think if I was
21:21
Speaker 3: doing anything else than I was around these lights, I
21:23
Speaker 3: might feel more sensitive because I am in general sensitive
21:27
Speaker 3: to lights and noises. One of my top anxiety tips
21:30
Speaker 3: is to get noise canceling headphones, particularly the Bose noise
21:33
Speaker 3: canceling headphones. That will completely change your experience of flying,
21:37
Speaker 3: walking down busy streets. It just lowers your cortisol level
21:41
Speaker 3: against all of those inputs. But for me, when I'm
21:44
Speaker 3: in my studio, I feel so in flow and in purpose.
21:48
Speaker 3: My podcast is my favorite thing that I do. Getting
21:50
Speaker 3: to have deep, meaningful conversations with people is my favorite
21:54
Speaker 3: thing that I do. So I think that maybe distracts
21:56
Speaker 3: from that a little bit.
21:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're focused on something bigger.
22:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the human connection. For me, the human connection
22:04
Speaker 3: comes above all else, and I think it's something that
22:07
Speaker 3: the wellness world gets wrong, is we want to prioritize
22:10
Speaker 3: the cold plunging and the supplements and all the things
22:13
Speaker 3: we should be eating, and red light therapy and SNA
22:15
Speaker 3: and all these different things, and we forget that the
22:17
Speaker 3: thing that has been studied the most to help our
22:20
Speaker 3: health is our relationships with other people. And that's the
22:22
Speaker 3: thing that we should be making sure that there's time
22:25
Speaker 3: for instead of having it fall to the side so
22:28
Speaker 3: that we can get all of.
22:29
Speaker 2: The other things in our routine done.
22:30
Speaker 1: There are so many other things. I feel like every
22:33
Speaker 1: time I turn around, there's somebody else telling me how
22:36
Speaker 1: to live better.
22:37
Speaker 2: You know well, and that's why I love to find
22:40
Speaker 2: your why.
22:40
Speaker 3: Figure out your why so then you can always be
22:42
Speaker 3: running that script in your head. Is that something that
22:45
Speaker 3: is relevant to me? Is that a why that I'm
22:47
Speaker 3: looking for? And it's going to change all the time,
22:49
Speaker 3: And this moment, maybe you're looking for whys around your
22:52
Speaker 3: mental health. In another moment, maybe you're looking for whys
22:55
Speaker 3: around your gut health, because that's the thing that's dominating
22:58
Speaker 3: your experience.
22:59
Speaker 2: Of this world at that time.
23:01
Speaker 1: M hmm. That's good. In your book, you have a
23:03
Speaker 1: chapter titled Think about Your Deaths, And we all know
23:09
Speaker 1: that death is part of life. But break this down
23:11
Speaker 1: for us, because when you think about death, what do
23:15
Speaker 1: you envision?
23:17
Speaker 3: M Yeah, this is one of the very first chapters
23:21
Speaker 3: in my book which shows how important I think it is.
23:24
Speaker 2: I think it's one of the things you should be doing.
23:26
Speaker 3: The rest of the book is really written in a
23:28
Speaker 3: poo poo platter style, where you can take what you
23:30
Speaker 3: need when you have a certain why. You can work
23:32
Speaker 3: on your relationships, you can work on your longevity, all
23:34
Speaker 3: these different things. But think about your death as something
23:37
Speaker 3: I think all of us should be doing to get
23:40
Speaker 3: a sense of what we want our life to be
23:41
Speaker 3: at any given moment. And this is just a zoom
23:43
Speaker 3: out picturing yourself at eighty ninety one hundred years old.
23:47
Speaker 3: You're looking back on your life and this can be
23:50
Speaker 3: so helpful in terms of the decisions that we're making.
23:54
Speaker 3: Do I want to move to this city? Do I
23:56
Speaker 3: want to go on a date with this person? What
23:58
Speaker 3: is ninety five year old me? Who city there? Think
24:00
Speaker 3: about the choices that I'm making in this moment. But
24:03
Speaker 3: it can also really right size our perspective. If you
24:07
Speaker 3: are on the beach and you're thinking about the way
24:10
Speaker 3: that your thighs look in your swimsuit.
24:12
Speaker 2: Is ninety five year.
24:13
Speaker 3: Old you going to be like, Yes, that was a
24:15
Speaker 3: great use of your time, or are they going to
24:18
Speaker 3: be like I would give anything to be back running
24:22
Speaker 3: on that beach, feeling the sand in my toes, feeling
24:25
Speaker 3: the sun on my skin. And that can be really
24:28
Speaker 3: sense making. Will ninety five year old you'd be glad
24:31
Speaker 3: that you stressed over that work email for two hours
24:34
Speaker 3: and that you beat yourself up for missing a word.
24:36
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
24:37
Speaker 3: So I find it really really helpful. And there's another
24:40
Speaker 3: little trick that I learned from doctor Cassie Holmes. We
24:43
Speaker 3: did an episode of the podcast around unlocking how to
24:46
Speaker 3: use our time in ways that will make us happier,
24:49
Speaker 3: and she has this exercise where it's kind of sad,
24:54
Speaker 3: but you think about the amount of times that you
24:56
Speaker 3: have left to do a thing that you love. So,
24:59
Speaker 3: if you have a dog that you love walking, actually,
25:02
Speaker 3: how many times do you have left to do walks
25:05
Speaker 3: with that dog? How many Christmases do you have left?
25:08
Speaker 3: How many summers do you have left?
25:10
Speaker 2: Oh?
25:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is sad, it's sad, but it's really beautiful
25:16
Speaker 3: almost to realize it's so many less than you think,
25:19
Speaker 3: and then you treat them with the reverence that they deserve.
25:22
Speaker 3: This Christmas should matter, because you don't have infinite Christmases.
25:28
Speaker 3: This dog walk you should be present for it.
25:30
Speaker 2: You should be appreciating it. She told the story on this.
25:32
Speaker 3: Podcast of a guy who realized how important his dog
25:37
Speaker 3: walks were to him, and he started taking his dog
25:39
Speaker 3: to this beach that she really loved and doing their
25:41
Speaker 3: walks there. And then a few months later, the dog
25:44
Speaker 3: got cancer and ultimately passed away, and he was so
25:47
Speaker 3: glad that he'd done this exercise and that he'd realized
25:52
Speaker 3: the preciousness of those moments before those moments were gone.
25:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, we get so caught up in doing and thinking
26:01
Speaker 1: and tasking and that you stop thinking about the preciousness
26:07
Speaker 1: of them, and.
26:07
Speaker 3: We think it's all going to last forever, and it's
26:10
Speaker 3: really really not. It's really not. And I don't say
26:14
Speaker 3: that morbidly. I say that because how beautiful does that
26:18
Speaker 3: make this moment? How beautiful does that make this conversation?
26:21
Speaker 3: How beautiful does that make it? That you can hold
26:23
Speaker 3: your pet, that you can write in your journal, that
26:25
Speaker 3: you can feel the sun on your skin, that you
26:27
Speaker 3: can drink that delicious glass of water. All of it
26:30
Speaker 3: is so so beautiful, and unless we have that sense
26:34
Speaker 3: of perspective, we can just let it pass us by.
26:37
Speaker 1: I think it feels like what you're saying, it's just
26:39
Speaker 1: tapping into gratitude for what you have left, what you
26:43
Speaker 1: have right now.
26:45
Speaker 2: Gratitude and presence.
26:47
Speaker 3: I would say, I think I suffer from, and I
26:50
Speaker 3: know a lot of people that I talk to suffer
26:52
Speaker 3: from a real struggle of presence. And there's a lot
26:54
Speaker 3: of factors working against us being present in our lives
26:57
Speaker 3: at this moment, and I think we're all all.
26:59
Speaker 2: Looking for ways to tap into that presence.
27:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. So when you say think about your death, you're
27:05
Speaker 1: not saying like, think about how you're going to die?
27:09
Speaker 3: Hey, what to But no, No, use it as a
27:13
Speaker 3: perspective maker, Use it as a way to help you
27:15
Speaker 3: make decisions. Use it as a way to help you
27:17
Speaker 3: gauge what's important. Use it as a way to help
27:20
Speaker 3: you gauge what matters in life.
27:22
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll think about my death if you insist. Liz Moody,
27:26
Speaker 1: did you know that my this is just completely off topic.
27:30
Speaker 1: But my husband always when I get like in a mood,
27:33
Speaker 1: you know, he'll say, you're being so rudy Giuliani.
27:36
Speaker 2: Rudy.
27:37
Speaker 1: Like he'll say, I'm being rudy. Now it's if I'm
27:40
Speaker 1: in a mood. He'll say, you're being so Liz Moody. Wait,
27:44
Speaker 1: I say your name all the time in our house.
27:46
Speaker 1: I'm feeling Lis Moody right now.
27:48
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
27:49
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I just had to tell you that.
27:51
Speaker 2: Have you ever had to die on screen?
27:54
Speaker 1: Die? Completely die?
27:56
Speaker 3: I feel like they put you through so much and
27:59
Speaker 3: all of the stuff that you've been I don't think.
28:01
Speaker 1: I've ever really fully died. Yeah, like I've almost died
28:04
Speaker 1: a million times.
28:05
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
28:05
Speaker 3: I always wonder that for actors, like how dying would
28:10
Speaker 3: on screen and tapping into all those emotions would impact
28:13
Speaker 3: how you lived your life.
28:14
Speaker 2: I've always wondered.
28:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, can let me know if you ever have a
28:17
Speaker 1: death scene? Okay, I will report back. So you say
28:28
Speaker 1: that finding happiness is such a key part of our
28:32
Speaker 1: mental health. So how do you find your happiness? Like?
28:35
Speaker 1: What makes you happy? And how did you find that?
28:37
Speaker 1: How do you find that on the daily.
28:39
Speaker 3: I don't think that happiness is a state. I think
28:42
Speaker 3: that what I aspire for is peace, contentment, connection, and
28:48
Speaker 3: I aspire to pepper my days with these little moments.
28:51
Speaker 3: So I've identified the things that make me feel the
28:54
Speaker 3: way that I want to feel, that make me perform
28:56
Speaker 3: the way that I want to perform, and then I
28:58
Speaker 3: sprinkle them throughout my days that I'm not spending my
29:01
Speaker 3: weekdays waiting for my weekends. I'm not cycling in and
29:04
Speaker 3: out of my happiness. I'm not waiting for a time
29:07
Speaker 3: where if I achieve this, if I do this, if
29:09
Speaker 3: I get this friend, if I win this project, whatever,
29:13
Speaker 3: I'll be happy. That's a really interesting neurochemical process where
29:17
Speaker 3: our dopamine is released by us wanting things. Dopamine is
29:20
Speaker 3: the chemical of motivation. It makes us want to do things,
29:25
Speaker 3: and when we get those things, your dopamine is like,
29:27
Speaker 3: well that doesn't feed me.
29:29
Speaker 2: I want you to want more things.
29:30
Speaker 3: So we end up on this perpetual cycle of desire
29:33
Speaker 3: without ever feeling satisfaction. And I take a lot of
29:36
Speaker 3: pains to build that satisfaction into my life. So these
29:40
Speaker 3: micro moments of joy look like I do my Cirque
29:43
Speaker 3: walks every single morning. I love that so much. That's
29:46
Speaker 3: just going for a walk outside as soon as I
29:48
Speaker 3: wake up. That's going to help set my circadian rhythm.
29:51
Speaker 3: But also on those walks, I look for little moments
29:55
Speaker 3: of AWE.
29:56
Speaker 2: This is a.
29:57
Speaker 3: Trick that a professor named Dhaker call Wultner, who studies
30:01
Speaker 3: the psychology of emotions, taught me. He's researched AWE and
30:04
Speaker 3: he says his AWE prescription is six minutes a week.
30:08
Speaker 2: Not very much, but we.
30:09
Speaker 3: Need to infuse our lives with six minutes a week
30:11
Speaker 3: of AWE. It's going to help our inflammation levels, it's
30:14
Speaker 3: gonna help our happiness, it's going to help our contentment,
30:16
Speaker 3: it's going.
30:17
Speaker 2: To help our sense of being part of the universe.
30:20
Speaker 3: So on these cirqualks, I'll look for these tiny little
30:24
Speaker 3: things like, oh, that flower is blooming over there, and
30:27
Speaker 3: I didn't notice that yesterday. I've been noticing around my
30:30
Speaker 3: neighborhood we're starting to get some fall colors, which is
30:33
Speaker 3: really exciting and cool, And it's just having that real
30:36
Speaker 3: sense of presence of looking around, looking at the clouds,
30:39
Speaker 3: looking at the neighbor walking their dog. So you're taking
30:43
Speaker 3: this thing that's already physiologically and psychologically good for you,
30:46
Speaker 3: a walk in the sun, and then you're adding to that,
30:49
Speaker 3: these little moments of awe that are going to begin
30:51
Speaker 3: to rewire my brain and make me feel happier throughout
30:55
Speaker 3: the rest of my day.
30:56
Speaker 2: I also like to pepper.
30:57
Speaker 3: In micro movement throughout the day, which really helps keep
31:00
Speaker 3: my mental health feeling good. And I also like to
31:04
Speaker 3: do micro connections throughout the day. I have literally time
31:08
Speaker 3: put into my calendar where it's like call a friend
31:11
Speaker 3: for ten minutes, go hang out with Zach for ten minutes,
31:14
Speaker 3: so that I just have these little breaks.
31:16
Speaker 2: It's my husband, he works for You're.
31:18
Speaker 1: So smart, Liz.
31:19
Speaker 2: How'd you get so smart?
31:21
Speaker 1: I have so much knowledge.
31:23
Speaker 2: I study it. It's been over the course.
31:25
Speaker 3: I mean, we have two hundred fifty six podcast episodes
31:28
Speaker 3: with the world's leading experts. So I feel like I've
31:30
Speaker 3: gotten so lucky to be able to interview these people
31:33
Speaker 3: and assimilate all of their knowledge and also help people
31:37
Speaker 3: make it actionable.
31:37
Speaker 2: I think that's a big thing for me.
31:38
Speaker 3: Is like one thing to have the research, it's another
31:40
Speaker 3: thing to put that into your life other little tricks.
31:44
Speaker 2: Do you know?
31:44
Speaker 3: Reading reduces stressed by sixty eight percent in so minutes.
31:49
Speaker 3: That's a big number, sixty eight percent, six minutes. So
31:52
Speaker 3: I love reading, and sometimes if I'm feeling really overwhelmed,
31:56
Speaker 3: I'll just take a fifteen minute break and read some
31:58
Speaker 3: fiction and it feels so completely decadent and it's just
32:02
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes, and then I can get back to the
32:04
Speaker 3: rest of my workday.
32:05
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite favorite things. I need you
32:08
Speaker 1: to design my daily calendar.
32:11
Speaker 2: Send it to me every fifteen minutes. What to do.
32:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, by the end of the day, I'm gonna be
32:15
Speaker 1: like floating on a cloud.
32:19
Speaker 2: I do think.
32:20
Speaker 3: I think calendars are also important, and we don't talk
32:22
Speaker 3: about that enough because we put our meetings, our tasks,
32:25
Speaker 3: are to dos on our calendars, but we don't put
32:28
Speaker 3: the things that are gonna make us feel our best.
32:30
Speaker 3: And so then we're cramming in the things that are
32:32
Speaker 3: going to make us feel our best in the leftover time,
32:35
Speaker 3: and we're sending this signal to our brains that the
32:38
Speaker 3: thing that it's a priority is all the to dos
32:40
Speaker 3: and meetings and tasks and feeling the way we want
32:42
Speaker 3: to feel and being present and connecting to other people
32:46
Speaker 3: in our one life on this planet is something we
32:47
Speaker 3: should be squeezing into these little leftover moments.
32:50
Speaker 2: If they are still there.
32:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you're so stressed out by all the to doos.
32:55
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of room left for those moments.
32:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'm a huge fan.
33:00
Speaker 3: Put on your calendar, put your meditation on your calendar,
33:02
Speaker 3: put your work out on your calendar, put a phone
33:04
Speaker 3: call to your mom on your calendar. And if you
33:06
Speaker 3: can fit in more than that, great. I'm not saying
33:08
Speaker 3: you have to be so rigid about it, but if
33:10
Speaker 3: you don't carve out the time in the first place,
33:13
Speaker 3: it will likely take last priority and not happen.
33:16
Speaker 1: I think that's a great thing for people to try.
33:19
Speaker 1: And I know my daughter Luca has talked to me
33:21
Speaker 1: about this too, and help me with this before actually
33:23
Speaker 1: is writing down how I want my day to go,
33:26
Speaker 1: like moment to moment and what I want to do,
33:27
Speaker 1: and just following that for a day or following that
33:31
Speaker 1: for a week and seeing how it changes things, and
33:36
Speaker 1: then thinking, well, I love feeling this good. I'm going
33:39
Speaker 1: to keep doing that, you know, and like I'm going
33:41
Speaker 1: to keep that in my schedule.
33:43
Speaker 2: Did what did you learn from that time?
33:45
Speaker 1: I learned that it's better for me to have like
33:48
Speaker 1: a scope of what I want to achieve in a day,
33:52
Speaker 1: and not just the toa dooo's, because I have plenty
33:55
Speaker 1: of those. But yeah, like take a little walk, stretch,
33:59
Speaker 1: go to the kitchen and have a glass of water,
34:01
Speaker 1: like I'm going to add in fifteen minutes of reading
34:03
Speaker 1: because I get for sixty eight percent.
34:06
Speaker 2: Isn't that wild?
34:07
Speaker 3: I love that sat so much because reading is also incredible,
34:10
Speaker 3: But it's essentially a meditative exercise. Your attention will drift away,
34:14
Speaker 3: you'll bring it back to the words on the page.
34:16
Speaker 3: Your attention will drift away, You'll bring it back to
34:18
Speaker 3: the words on the page, which is a mindfulness meditation.
34:21
Speaker 3: But you're getting to do it with like a juicy
34:22
Speaker 3: rom com.
34:24
Speaker 1: I love this. It's so good.
34:26
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
34:28
Speaker 1: I mean along that line, sticking to habits is really hard.
34:33
Speaker 1: You also cover that in your book. You say that
34:35
Speaker 1: sometimes if you can't get a habit to stick, you
34:37
Speaker 1: might have to focus on the how might You might
34:41
Speaker 1: be focusing on the how more than the why what
34:44
Speaker 1: you talked about before, So explain that, because I'm sure
34:47
Speaker 1: that we are all we've all experienced like giving up
34:50
Speaker 1: on a new habit and then feeling like such a
34:52
Speaker 1: loser when you are like you want something and you try,
34:56
Speaker 1: like reading fifteen minutes a day, Like if I don't
34:59
Speaker 1: do that now but feel mad at.
35:02
Speaker 2: Myself one hundred percent.
35:03
Speaker 3: I mean, I can use the example that I talked about,
35:05
Speaker 3: which was I exercise now for my mental health to
35:08
Speaker 3: illustrate this point. I tried to stick to a workout
35:11
Speaker 3: routine for years and years and years. Everybody told me
35:14
Speaker 3: I should do it, But the reason that I was
35:16
Speaker 3: doing it was because I wanted my body to look
35:18
Speaker 3: a certain way. So I would go to the gym,
35:20
Speaker 3: I would do my workout, I'd lift up my shirt,
35:22
Speaker 3: look at my abs. My abs looked the same, and
35:24
Speaker 3: I was like, what this is bullshit? Like why am
35:27
Speaker 3: I spending my time doing this? And it wasn't until
35:30
Speaker 3: I was able to connect my workout with a why
35:33
Speaker 3: that actually resonated with me, which is not conform my
35:38
Speaker 3: body to society's arbitrary beauty standards, but feel the way
35:42
Speaker 3: that I want to feel in my brain every single day,
35:44
Speaker 3: have the energy to do the things that are important
35:46
Speaker 3: to me every single day. That I was actually able
35:48
Speaker 3: to wake up and make that workout stick. So this
35:52
Speaker 3: is from the tip in the book is from Daniel pink,
35:55
Speaker 3: and he says that often we are over indexing on
35:58
Speaker 3: fitting it into our schedule, which Jim should I go
36:01
Speaker 3: to and what are the exact logistics, instead of stepping
36:04
Speaker 3: back and saying, what is the reason that I'm trying
36:06
Speaker 3: to incorporate that, because when we can tap into that
36:09
Speaker 3: intrinsic motivation, the rest will fall into place, and asking
36:15
Speaker 3: yourself what are the roadblocks? So for me, the roadblock
36:17
Speaker 3: around working out to have my body look a certain
36:20
Speaker 3: way tapped into my anger that my body was expected
36:23
Speaker 3: to look a certain way and that this was part
36:26
Speaker 3: of my value in society. So of course I was
36:29
Speaker 3: subconsciously pushing back on that versus I deserve to feel good,
36:34
Speaker 3: I deserve to feel calm, I deserve to feel energized.
36:37
Speaker 3: You can see how those two messages are going to
36:39
Speaker 3: be perceived differently on a subconscious level and result in
36:42
Speaker 3: different actions.
36:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean I can relate to that
36:47
Speaker 1: because I used to work out for how I looked also,
36:52
Speaker 1: and I would always get frustrated that I wouldn't look
36:55
Speaker 1: the way in my mind I thought I should look
36:57
Speaker 1: when what is in my mind, as you said, is
36:59
Speaker 1: unattainable societally put on us. So now when I work out,
37:04
Speaker 1: I to do it for my mental health and I
37:07
Speaker 1: do it for my physical health. And those are the
37:09
Speaker 1: reasons I drag my ass out of bed at six am,
37:13
Speaker 1: three days a week because it's really important to making
37:17
Speaker 1: me feel better. And I don't necessarily notice the difference
37:20
Speaker 1: in my body, but it makes me feel better.
37:22
Speaker 2: It makes me feel so much better.
37:24
Speaker 3: I also have two other little actionable tips for sticking
37:27
Speaker 3: to habits that I use a lot. One is a
37:29
Speaker 3: commitment device, So if you have a hard time sticking
37:31
Speaker 3: to something, we are better at keeping commitments when they
37:35
Speaker 3: happen outside of ourselves.
37:36
Speaker 2: So you can make a.
37:37
Speaker 3: Wager with a friend where you have to buy them
37:40
Speaker 3: dinner one night if you don't turn in the manuscript
37:42
Speaker 3: to the book that you've always wanted to work on.
37:44
Speaker 2: You can make a workout date with a friend.
37:46
Speaker 3: You're going to be so much less likely to disappoint
37:48
Speaker 3: that friend than you are to disappoint yourself. For me,
37:51
Speaker 3: this was another part of my workout journey. I started
37:54
Speaker 3: booking non refundable classes in the morning and because I
37:57
Speaker 3: didn't want to lose that money out of bed, and
38:01
Speaker 3: I will go to the class, and that was really
38:02
Speaker 3: the thing that kicked off me being able to do
38:04
Speaker 3: it on a consistent basis. So commitment devices are really
38:08
Speaker 3: really lovely. And then also you can tie habits that
38:11
Speaker 3: you really don't like to things that you really really love.
38:14
Speaker 3: So watching your favorite reality show but only while you're
38:18
Speaker 3: doing a workout or folding laundry, eating a little snack
38:22
Speaker 3: that you really really like, but only when you're doing
38:25
Speaker 3: your taxes or answering your emails or whatever. The habit
38:28
Speaker 3: is that you don't like, save the thing that you
38:30
Speaker 3: really really love to only do during that time, and
38:34
Speaker 3: you'll find yourself much more likely to do that habit.
38:37
Speaker 1: To stick with it. That's good. Yeah, Okay, well I
38:42
Speaker 1: feel like I've learned even more than when I was
38:45
Speaker 1: reading your book. Did you also give me a box
38:47
Speaker 1: a game? Yeah, Conversation Cards, the conversation Cards. I'm loving
38:52
Speaker 1: your conversation We've been playing them for the last week
38:54
Speaker 1: solid and it's so they're so great.
38:57
Speaker 2: Thank you.
38:58
Speaker 3: I am so into conversation. I actually just did an
39:01
Speaker 3: episode of my podcast that's about small talk and how
39:04
Speaker 3: we can all be incredible at small talk and we
39:06
Speaker 3: don't have to be so anxious around it anymore. And
39:09
Speaker 3: I do feel like there's a lot of anxiety around
39:12
Speaker 3: that conversation piece. But we all want to connect, so
39:15
Speaker 3: I like to empower and enable people to do that.
39:18
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, small talk, how do you do that?
39:22
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, there's a lot of interesting research.
39:24
Speaker 3: And first of all, it's a whole it's a whole episode,
39:26
Speaker 3: so definitely a listen episode. But I mean, some of
39:30
Speaker 3: the most interesting research in that episode I found was
39:32
Speaker 3: that we don't we think that we don't like small
39:36
Speaker 3: talk because we're afraid of getting rejected. So we're afraid
39:39
Speaker 3: that we're going to try to talk to somebody and
39:41
Speaker 3: they're not going to want to talk to us.
39:43
Speaker 2: And then it's all going to be a flopper.
39:45
Speaker 3: We're going to start to talk to somebody and they're
39:46
Speaker 3: not going to have an enjoyable experience. But study a show,
39:49
Speaker 3: that's not true at all. It's literally true zero percent
39:51
Speaker 3: of the time. So if you get rid of in
39:54
Speaker 3: your head the idea that you are going to be
39:55
Speaker 3: rejected either for the quality of your conversation or for
40:00
Speaker 3: even trying to have a conversation in the first place,
40:03
Speaker 3: studies show that we actually do really like small talk.
40:05
Speaker 3: We think we don't like small talk because we're afraid
40:08
Speaker 3: of being rejected.
40:09
Speaker 2: But if you remove that element.
40:11
Speaker 3: And actually are able to survey people after they set
40:14
Speaker 3: up this whole thing on the subway where they like
40:17
Speaker 3: assign certain people to talk to people, it's a really
40:19
Speaker 3: interesting study. But people actually really enjoy small talk, but
40:22
Speaker 3: we're just so afraid of getting rejected that we don't
40:24
Speaker 3: think that we do.
40:25
Speaker 1: So you're telling me that I like small talk, I
40:29
Speaker 1: don't like to find leave.
40:31
Speaker 2: According to the research you do.
40:33
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because it's these little moments of human bonding.
40:37
Speaker 3: There's a concept of micro connections and that's just like
40:40
Speaker 3: the little talk in line at the grocery store, smiling
40:43
Speaker 3: at your neighbor, and these are the things that they
40:46
Speaker 3: they're shown to boost our optimism, they're shown to support
40:49
Speaker 3: our immune system, but they also just remind us that
40:52
Speaker 3: we're human beings having this experience on the planet with
40:55
Speaker 3: other human beings, which is such a nice contrast to
40:58
Speaker 3: the online world of us live in where you're so
41:01
Speaker 3: able to disconnect from that.
41:03
Speaker 1: That's so true.
41:04
Speaker 3: And then I have a little small talk tip that
41:06
Speaker 3: I like, tell tell me I share in the episode,
41:08
Speaker 3: which is okay. So in the Victorian era, if you
41:11
Speaker 3: were like a fancy lady, one of your jobs was
41:15
Speaker 3: to show up at social events armed with conversation. So
41:18
Speaker 3: one of your jobs was to kind of keep abreast
41:21
Speaker 3: of what was happening in the cultural world, in the
41:24
Speaker 3: social world, and the arts world, so that you could
41:26
Speaker 3: have sparkling conversation on hand at any point. And I
41:30
Speaker 3: have no interest in being a Victorian lady. Like I
41:32
Speaker 3: love oral hygiene and I love being able to vote.
41:36
Speaker 3: I think these are wonderful things. But I actually think
41:39
Speaker 3: this is a really stealable tip.
41:40
Speaker 2: So what I'll do before I go to a party
41:43
Speaker 2: or the hair salon where you have to make conversation
41:46
Speaker 2: for like.
41:46
Speaker 1: Hours, two hours, for so long.
41:50
Speaker 3: Anytime I'm going somewhere that's going to be a small
41:52
Speaker 3: talk rich environment, I'll literally listen to a podcast that
41:56
Speaker 3: would be interesting to talk about.
41:58
Speaker 2: I'll read an article.
42:00
Speaker 3: I'll arm myself with conversation topics intentionally so that when
42:04
Speaker 3: I get to the hair salon, I can be like,
42:05
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I was listening to this really interesting podcast,
42:09
Speaker 3: what do you think about this? And I go in
42:11
Speaker 3: with those conversations prepared, and you can also use conversation.
42:14
Speaker 2: Cards to do this.
42:15
Speaker 3: It can feel a little weird sometimes to break out
42:18
Speaker 3: conversation cards with about your cards, but you can say like, oh, hey,
42:22
Speaker 3: I was doing this conversation card with my husband earlier
42:25
Speaker 3: and we got this long talk about it. What do
42:27
Speaker 3: you think about this? And then you just say a
42:29
Speaker 3: question from a conversation card, and then you're often rolling.
42:32
Speaker 3: It's just about giving you that little initial push, which.
42:36
Speaker 2: We all want. We're all rooting for that. So people
42:38
Speaker 2: are going to be really receptive.
42:41
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna try just not trapping.
42:44
Speaker 2: In your pocket, be a Victorian lady.
42:46
Speaker 1: Okay, well, yeah, because I kind of can understand what
42:50
Speaker 1: you're saying, Like when I'm in the grocery store line
42:52
Speaker 1: and someone will talk to me and I will connect
42:57
Speaker 1: with them and talk back, like it does feel good.
43:00
Speaker 3: I think it feels so good, and I think we
43:02
Speaker 3: need it now more than ever, because otherwise we begin
43:04
Speaker 3: to associate our fellow humans with all of the comments
43:09
Speaker 3: and the things that we're seeing online, and that is
43:12
Speaker 3: not an accurate portrayal of human humanity.
43:16
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah, it's so so important to connect.
43:20
Speaker 1: And I have a tendency to not do that. Like I,
43:25
Speaker 1: I don't like to make eye contact when I'm kind
43:28
Speaker 1: of out in the world because I feel like if
43:29
Speaker 1: I don't make eye contact, there won't be that awkward moment,
43:32
Speaker 1: and then maybe it might be a little different. Because
43:36
Speaker 1: I was wondering.
43:39
Speaker 3: With me, we're so young, has impacted your ability to
43:44
Speaker 3: have those micro connections in a way, And that makes me,
43:46
Speaker 3: honestly really sad that it interesting side effect of fame
43:50
Speaker 3: that I feel like we don't talk about.
43:52
Speaker 1: It's true and I but sometimes I break out of
43:56
Speaker 1: it and I do it and it feels good. So
43:58
Speaker 1: I think I should try doing that more. You're so inspiring,
44:03
Speaker 1: Liz Moody.
44:04
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. You are too.
44:07
Speaker 1: Okay, before I let you go, Liz Moody, what was
44:09
Speaker 1: your last I Choose me moment?
44:13
Speaker 3: A big I Choose me moment in my life is
44:16
Speaker 3: that I'm an intentional drinker. So I gave up alcohol
44:19
Speaker 3: almost completely about two years ago, and I choose on
44:23
Speaker 3: a pretty regular basis to maintain that choice. I call
44:26
Speaker 3: myself an intentional drinker because I've never struggled with addiction,
44:30
Speaker 3: and so I still have alcohol on the table for myself,
44:33
Speaker 3: which I find really helpful as somebody who used to
44:36
Speaker 3: struggle with eating disorders and restriction and that type of thing.
44:39
Speaker 3: I like the idea that I can have something if
44:41
Speaker 3: I want to have something, which usually results in me
44:44
Speaker 3: drinking like once a year, like a great champagne or
44:47
Speaker 3: a really delicious cocktail or something like that. But I
44:51
Speaker 3: used to drink four or five times a week. It
44:53
Speaker 3: was a real transition for me to change my relationship
44:57
Speaker 3: with alcohol, and it's made my life so much much
45:00
Speaker 3: better and I'm really excited about that choice. It feels
45:04
Speaker 3: like a choice for myself. It was inspired by a
45:07
Speaker 3: study that showed that alcohol was the second leading cause
45:09
Speaker 3: of cancer.
45:10
Speaker 2: It was right after.
45:11
Speaker 3: Cigarette smoking, which blew my mind because I think in
45:15
Speaker 3: my head I was very much like, of course, if
45:17
Speaker 3: I was going to choose to smoke a cigarette, of
45:19
Speaker 3: course that would be causing cancer. But when I was
45:21
Speaker 3: throwing back drinks most nights every week, I wasn't making
45:25
Speaker 3: any cancer connection there. So once I read that research,
45:29
Speaker 3: I really reflected on my life and it's been incredible. Honestly,
45:34
Speaker 3: I get messages from people all of the time who
45:36
Speaker 3: are so worried about everything that they might be giving
45:40
Speaker 3: up if they give up alcohol, or if they refine
45:43
Speaker 3: their relationship with alcohol a little bit. And I felt
45:45
Speaker 3: the same way too. And that time when I was
45:47
Speaker 3: giving it up, I was like, how will I have
45:49
Speaker 3: a social life? What will I do after work? How
45:51
Speaker 3: will I destress? And I quite literally could not fathom
45:55
Speaker 3: how it would work in my mind.
45:57
Speaker 2: And it's been.
45:59
Speaker 3: I have felt like I'm giving up anything. I felt
46:02
Speaker 3: like I have gained so much, and I wish we
46:05
Speaker 3: could switch the conversation around it to be more about
46:08
Speaker 3: what are we gaining versus what are we losing. I'm
46:10
Speaker 3: gaining back a sense of vibrancy on all of the
46:13
Speaker 3: days that I was hungover. I'm gaining back a sense
46:15
Speaker 3: of energy both the nights that I was going out
46:18
Speaker 3: drinking and the hungover days. I'm gaining so much connection
46:21
Speaker 3: because I remember the conversations that I'm having with my
46:24
Speaker 3: friends and my family. I'm gaining so much more fun
46:27
Speaker 3: and adventure because I do fun stuff with the people
46:30
Speaker 3: that I love instead of just going to a bar
46:32
Speaker 3: and drinking and having that be the go to. I've
46:34
Speaker 3: gained so so so much, and I wish we could
46:38
Speaker 3: have that conversation more.
46:40
Speaker 1: I love that. That's a really good I choose new moment.
46:45
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
46:47
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. You're just You're
46:49
Speaker 3: so lovely and I love talking to you.
46:52
Speaker 1: Dittoh, right back at you, Liz Moody. I'm gonna always
46:56
Speaker 1: call you your full name.
46:57
Speaker 2: By the way, it's a good name. I like it.
46:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, bye bye oh. That was such a great conversation
47:07
Speaker 1: with Liz Moody. I hope you all check out her
47:11
Speaker 1: book and her podcast. Be sure to listen to the
47:15
Speaker 1: episode that I was on. We had so many giggles.
47:19
Speaker 1: As we continue to choose ourselves each week, I want
47:22
Speaker 1: you this week to take some advice from Liz Moody.
47:25
Speaker 1: I love this. Do a resilience practice. I was really
47:30
Speaker 1: into this when she said in our conversation that a
47:32
Speaker 1: lot of us practice gratitude, but so often we forget
47:36
Speaker 1: to remind ourselves about all the hard things we have
47:39
Speaker 1: faced and overcome. So this week I want you to
47:43
Speaker 1: write down and reflect on some of those difficult times
47:47
Speaker 1: you've had over the course of your life. Or even
47:49
Speaker 1: if you just spend some time maybe you're driving, turn
47:53
Speaker 1: the radio off and ask yourself you know, look at
47:57
Speaker 1: all of those moments and reflect and congress, gratulate yourself
48:01
Speaker 1: for how you got through that dark time. Thanks for
48:04
Speaker 1: listening to I Choose Me. You can check out all
48:06
Speaker 1: our social links in our show notes, and are you
48:10
Speaker 1: following us on social because that would be so cool.
48:14
Speaker 2: We post great.
48:14
Speaker 1: Content, So open up the show notes now and go
48:17
Speaker 1: click follow, leave us a review on whatever platform, and
48:21
Speaker 1: make sure to use that hashtag I Choose Me. I
48:24
Speaker 1: will be right here next week. I hope you choose
48:27
Speaker 1: to be here too,