Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 106: Healthy Aging: Everyday Habits for More Energy, Connection, and Joy

Transcript

106: Healthy Aging: Everyday Habits for More Energy, Connection, and Joy · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:47
  Polly Mertens: Hey superstars, welcome back.
• 0:49
  Polly Mertens: Polly here.
• 0:50
  Samantha Pruitt: And Sam Pruitt.
• 0:51
  Samantha Pruitt: What's up, beautiful humans?
• 0:53
  Polly Mertens: Well, this episode is going live on New Year's Day.
• 0:55
  Polly Mertens: So we thought what a better topic than ever, talking about healthy, happy living.
• 1:00
  Polly Mertens: People are probably looking for like, you know, the latest fad and trend.
• 1:03
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, we're gonna take a little bit of a different slant on this today.
• 1:07
  Polly Mertens: It's about dispelling anti-aging and longevity and you know, all these like money-making industries out there.
• 1:14
  Polly Mertens: We've got a little Polly and Sam spin for it today, don't we?
• 1:18
  Samantha Pruitt: And you notice you said happy and healthy, right?
• 1:22
  Samantha Pruitt: And we've talked a lot in the podcast in the past about those two things being interlinked and directly impacting one another.
• 1:31
  Samantha Pruitt: And I think that's part of it out of the gate.
• 1:34
  Samantha Pruitt: We want to make sure people understand that those two things need to happen simultaneously.
• 1:39
  Samantha Pruitt: If you are not healthy, you can't feel happy, not truly, and vice versa.
• 1:45
  Samantha Pruitt: If you are having health issues, it's very difficult to be joyful and happy.
• 1:49
  Samantha Pruitt: So it's so important that people understand that and they do the work in both of those ways.
• 1:55
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I think they're they're deeply lane.
• 1:57
  Polly Mertens: So we'll go over seven, you know, healthy, happy habits, you know, because people love, you know, getting our list of things that we're up to and what what keeps us living long, living happy.
• 2:08
  Polly Mertens: But what are some do we want to start with the myths, or where should we start with this?
• 2:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, let's debunk some shit.
• 2:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 2:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 2:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's debunk.
• 2:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Debunk.
• 2:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, so there's lots of misconceptions about aging and what it, you know, what to expect, what it looks like, what to accept.
• 2:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, that's my pet peeve right there.
• 2:29
  Samantha Pruitt: It's an idea that we should be accepting of certain societal norms.
• 2:34
  Samantha Pruitt: First of all, over the history of humanity, it's changed and evolved.
• 2:38
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, we didn't even used to live past 30 and then 40 and then 50 and all of these things.
• 2:42
  Samantha Pruitt: We're now living into our 80s, 90s, some people into their hundreds.
• 2:47
  Samantha Pruitt: And so having misconceptions is really ludicrous.
• 2:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, why would we allow that to drive our decisions and our way of living and our way of thinking and feeling about ourselves?
• 2:58
  Samantha Pruitt: So it's it's default.
• 2:59
  Polly Mertens: It's default and it's subconscious, you know.
• 3:01
  Polly Mertens: Like we uh people don't always know how they're being externally influenced or programmed by the environments, the communities they're in, the things that they read, study, whatever, right?
• 3:14
  Polly Mertens: It can often be um an unconscious act, right?
• 3:18
  Polly Mertens: So, so this is where we're like, hey, yo, wake up over there.
• 3:21
  Polly Mertens: Nope, nope, that's that's not for you.
• 3:23
  Polly Mertens: You don't have to keep drinking from that Kool-Aid.
• 3:25
  Polly Mertens: Let's go.
• 3:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, put the glass down.
• 3:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Also, you know, you and I have talked before, I've shared my experience many times um around health practitioners or people in my fitness and health space who have tried to give me messages, or I see them imparting messages upon the masses or others around what to expect and what is normal with aging.
• 3:46
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's all these limiting beliefs that they have about themselves that they're putting onto others.
• 3:54
  Samantha Pruitt: And I do see that with people when they reflect back on their family's health.
• 3:57
  Samantha Pruitt: So I recently did some genetic testing around cancer in my bloodline, things of that nature, because I have quite a bit of that, and I'm very fascinated in science.
• 4:06
  Samantha Pruitt: As you know, I'm a total nerd on this stuff.
• 4:08
  Samantha Pruitt: So I went to talk to the people who do the testing, and it's the same thing.
• 4:12
  Samantha Pruitt: It was all like, you know, yes, you have to look back on the history of your genes, but your genetic impact.
• 4:20
  Samantha Pruitt: So, for example, if your mother aged early and did this thing, or your father or whatever, they that information is important in your health information to provide to practitioners.
• 4:32
  Samantha Pruitt: For sure, I'm not unvalidating, but it doesn't rule or make the decisions for your life path.
• 4:38
  Samantha Pruitt: And so a lot of people will look back at their family and go, well, all the women in my family, you know, died early, were overweight, had diabetes, blah, blah, blah.
• 4:48
  Samantha Pruitt: And so they just start charting their course towards that.
• 4:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Like there's a gravitational like an acceptance.
• 4:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Acceptance.
• 4:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes.
• 4:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 4:55
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's just kind of if people need to take an inventory of their beliefs around all of these different pieces, their family connections, their lifestyle connections, who they associate themselves with, and really say, Am I choosing that?
• 5:10
  Samantha Pruitt: That default.
• 5:13
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know, I think two things I want to say on that is, you know, the culture and the people that you hang around with, right, are largely, A, they're gonna impact your religious beliefs, you know, your religion is largely dictated by your zip code.
• 5:26
  Polly Mertens: It's just a fact.
• 5:26
  Polly Mertens: It's not like not this isn't me, this is a fact in the world.
• 5:30
  Polly Mertens: You know, you're if you're spending time with people who are, you know, like you with all your ultra running, right?
• 5:38
  Polly Mertens: Like, if you spend time with people who are ultra running, you're going to just have a different paradigm of the world and what's possible.
• 5:46
  Polly Mertens: I mean, like people, you know, 40 years ago, would well, very few of them ever thought of running more than, you know, maybe a marathon, right?
• 5:54
  Polly Mertens: And it's like we've the further we get, the further we can get, right?
• 5:58
  Polly Mertens: So it's like, what are you surrounding yourself with?
• 6:01
  Polly Mertens: And remembering it's absolutely a choice what you believe.
• 6:05
  Polly Mertens: It's a choice, you know, and I I appreciate how you said it is like, you know, oh, you know, I I heard that this morning on a hike.
• 6:13
  Polly Mertens: Uh I was like, oh, so you know, do you have we're talking about health and stuff and uh insulin resistance?
• 6:18
  Polly Mertens: And he's like, oh yeah, well, you know, my um my sisters and brothers, they all have, and I was like, Do you live like okay, so what?
• 6:27
  Polly Mertens: You know, like they live in a completely different area of the country than you do, they have a completely different lifestyle than you do.
• 6:33
  Polly Mertens: What does that have to do with you?
• 6:34
  Polly Mertens: Like those people over there have uh, you know, I mean, it's a such a small percentage, right?
• 6:39
  Polly Mertens: So the environment, who you're spending time with, the things that you're allowing yourself to be indoctrinated with.
• 6:45
  Polly Mertens: So you have to like protect the doorway of your mind.
• 6:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally.
• 6:49
  Polly Mertens: Do I want to believe that?
• 6:50
  Polly Mertens: Like, what else is possible, right?
• 6:52
  Polly Mertens: And we see this too with diagnosis.
• 6:54
  Polly Mertens: I mean, like, placebo effect is a great example of this, right?
• 6:57
  Polly Mertens: Give somebody a sugar pill, tell them, I mean, but they have shown that you can do surgery.
• 7:01
  Polly Mertens: You can tell somebody they're gonna do knee surgery on them.
• 7:04
  Polly Mertens: They don't even do the surgery, but they tell them they did it and they have the same results.
• 7:10
  Samantha Pruitt: That's insane.
• 7:11
  Polly Mertens: That's how powerful these minds are in one way or the other, whether we use it for our best, you know, our betterment or not.
• 7:18
  Samantha Pruitt: So basically, people need to carve their own path, right?
• 7:21
  Samantha Pruitt: We're talking specifically about like the difference in joy and health span and pursuing lifespan, right?
• 7:28
  Samantha Pruitt: And really, happiness and health are at the forefront.
• 7:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's talk about misconceptions of aging.
• 7:33
  Samantha Pruitt: I have some really fun.
• 7:34
  Samantha Pruitt: One eye people have literally told me, oh, health and fitness professionals, that I should stop exercising or exercise less as I age.
• 7:45
  Samantha Pruitt: What the Tom Effery is that?
• 7:48
  Samantha Pruitt: First of all, I immediately go, You have no idea who you're talking to.
• 7:53
  Samantha Pruitt: You're terribly confused.
• 7:55
  Samantha Pruitt: But also, don't be telling me this and don't be telling any middle-aged woman or human this.
• 8:01
  Polly Mertens: What kind of a prescription is that?
• 8:03
  Samantha Pruitt: What the hell?
• 8:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Right?
• 8:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly, exactly.
• 8:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Or that you should slow down.
• 8:07
  Samantha Pruitt: You hear that a lot too.
• 8:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, it's time to for you to slow down.
• 8:09
  Samantha Pruitt: I just am recovering from back surgery, right?
• 8:11
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm on three and a half, four weeks out from that.
• 8:13
  Samantha Pruitt: And I'm working out, you know, they're small workouts, but two or three times a day.
• 8:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, many people are like, Well, I guess you're gonna be slowing down now.
• 8:20
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm like, what?
• 8:21
  Samantha Pruitt: I triple down.
• 8:23
  Samantha Pruitt: I used to have to double down.
• 8:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Now I have to triple down on my effort and commitment.
• 8:29
  Samantha Pruitt: It's not true, right?
• 8:32
  Samantha Pruitt: So other ones are um, well, okay, so just accepting that illness and decline will be part of what happens next.
• 8:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Don't be accepting anything.
• 8:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Determine for yourself with education, knowledge, empowerment, support, etc.
• 8:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, you know, don't just, it's not the wild west, there's plenty of resources available to help you on the path, but don't be accepting, be creating what you want.
• 9:00
  Polly Mertens: Like, I so have it, like, as I just even imagine, which our brains are so awesome at this.
• 9:05
  Polly Mertens: Like, I just imagine, like, if my life are, you know, if you're looking at a chart and it's like, oh, you know, you're you're you're a baby and you're getting faster, bigger, healthier, stronger, whatever, you know, and you're going up.
• 9:15
  Polly Mertens: Like, I feel like I'm like I'm just gonna be like healthy, healthy, healthy, and then it's just gonna be and dead.
• 9:20
  Polly Mertens: Like there's no, like, it doesn't, it's not like my graph starts to go down really slowly for a lot of years, you know, like the last 10 or 20 years of my life, I'm just like plugging along.
• 9:31
  Polly Mertens: Uh-uh.
• 9:32
  Polly Mertens: No, I'm like nope, I'm just nope, and then gone.
• 9:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 9:36
  Polly Mertens: Why not?
• 9:36
  Samantha Pruitt: It's a perfect scenario.
• 9:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Another one is the acceptance that people have around being isolated and lonely.
• 9:43
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, creating, and they will do this, you know, not even consciously, but some people will consciously retract and remove themselves from society and less and less engagement socially and things like that.
• 9:58
  Samantha Pruitt: So A, be aware if you're doing that or if you think that that's normal or that that's accepted, but it's not healthy at all.
• 10:06
  Samantha Pruitt: It's actually the biggest determinant of health is that connection, right?
• 10:09
  Samantha Pruitt: We've talked about that.
• 10:11
  Polly Mertens: Well, and we'll talk some more about that.
• 10:12
  Polly Mertens: But I just think, you know, depending on where a stage of life and stuff like that, and I just, you know, in the leadership program that I'm in, we talk a lot about how this mind of ours is very isolating.
• 10:23
  Polly Mertens: It's it just is like a like it wants to, you know, protect us and all these things, and protection isn't necessarily going out, right?
• 10:32
  Polly Mertens: So if you're depending on the phase of your life, if you've had a career and you leave that career or you, you know, had you know all this, depending on you know, pre-COVID, you had a job that you went to and now you're whatever, like lifestyles can shift.
• 10:46
  Polly Mertens: And by you know, if you're not thinking differently, you can just become so much of a homebody, right?
• 10:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Absolutely.
• 10:55
  Polly Mertens: Over home body, like there's one thing to be like, oh yeah, I nest and I rest and I take care and you know have my little home and that feels good to you.
• 11:03
  Polly Mertens: And then there's like an overconsumption of like hermiting, you know, it's like nope, nope, nope.
• 11:09
  Polly Mertens: Like, like stay out.
• 11:10
  Polly Mertens: Like, what could you create in your life to you know turn that around?
• 11:14
  Samantha Pruitt: So and if you are aging and transitioning from roles, so from like parental role or a relationship is no longer there, a partner relationship or something like that, or family relationships have changed because of whatever dynamic, or a job, either changing of job or retirement, you have to make a conscious effort to socialize, to engage, to participate.
• 11:37
  Polly Mertens: Because what used to be force fed into your day, taking the kids to school and you know, outings with them and all this stuff, yeah.
• 11:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, people aren't just knocking on your door.
• 11:46
  Samantha Pruitt: I remember telling that to my husband when he retired.
• 11:48
  Samantha Pruitt: I was like, dude, people are not gonna just knock on the door and be like, wow, you look like you're really into horticulture and farming.
• 11:54
  Samantha Pruitt: You want to come hang out and play?
• 11:56
  Samantha Pruitt: You're really into like classic car.
• 11:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Should we go?
• 11:59
  Samantha Pruitt: They're not gonna do that.
• 12:00
  Samantha Pruitt: You gotta go like find those people.
• 12:02
  Polly Mertens: It's not like when you were kids, you lived on a block and your friends just came over.
• 12:06
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, they're just like, hey, you want to come out and play?
• 12:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Miss those days.
• 12:09
  Samantha Pruitt: And I'm so thrilled that we have neighbors across the street that we actually do do that.
• 12:12
  Samantha Pruitt: We're like, hey, what are you doing over there?
• 12:13
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, come out and play.
• 12:15
  Samantha Pruitt: But like a lot of neighborhoods aren't like that, and so you have to really intentionally get out and about, which does mean you need to make an effort again, self-reflection, self-investment.
• 12:26
  Samantha Pruitt: And what do I actually like to do now that I'm not with that person, doing those things, caring for others, having that job?
• 12:34
  Samantha Pruitt: What am I even into?
• 12:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Right?
• 12:38
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, a lot of people don't know that, but it's it's a good inquiry.
• 12:42
  Polly Mertens: Okay, what else we got?
• 12:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, one more, one more, one more.
• 12:45
  Polly Mertens: I have one too.
• 12:45
  Samantha Pruitt: This is such a ridiculous myth.
• 12:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, I already said about you can't meet new people.
• 12:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Obviously, we talked about that, but you can't learn new things.
• 12:53
  Samantha Pruitt: What the heck?
• 12:56
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm literally like getting a new certification, reading probably two books a week.
• 13:01
  Samantha Pruitt: I listen to I don't even know how many hours of podcast content a week.
• 13:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, you know, I blow you up, girl, and I blow up all my people I care about in my life.
• 13:09
  Polly Mertens: You're growing more than you're probably learning more than you did as a teenager, you know, when you were like force-fed school hours and hours a day.
• 13:16
  Polly Mertens: You're like, you can't get enough.
• 13:18
  Polly Mertens: You would enjoy that.
• 13:21
  Samantha Pruitt: 100% I'm learning more than I ever learned in my youth.
• 13:24
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't learn diddly squat.
• 13:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 13:26
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 13:27
  Samantha Pruitt: And even in my young adulthood.
• 13:29
  Samantha Pruitt: But you can learn.
• 13:32
  Samantha Pruitt: You might learn differently, you might learn at a different pace.
• 13:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Definitely my pace of like taking knowledge in and absorbing it.
• 13:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Like again, with the certification under Dr.
• 13:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Stacey Sam's, I'm going way slower and I'm having to like reread and re-listen and retest or whatever.
• 13:47
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't probably have to do that before, but who cares?
• 13:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Who cares?
• 13:50
  Samantha Pruitt: It's so rewarding.
• 13:53
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 13:54
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 13:54
  Polly Mertens: So old dogs can learn new tricks for sure, for sure.
• 13:57
  Polly Mertens: And the one I heard this um on a podcast recently was talking about the whole beauty industry for especially anti-aging, and it's all about these little lines on our face, wrinkles, right?
• 14:10
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, you know, how to make it fluffier and less visible, and all and it's like wrinkles are wrinkles, man.
• 14:17
  Polly Mertens: Like all this money that you're spending and all the things that they want to tell you, right?
• 14:21
  Polly Mertens: Like, you're like, what what is it that about that that we don't like, right?
• 14:27
  Polly Mertens: And I think one of the things I was telling you is this over emphasis in our Western culture on youth.
• 14:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, right.
• 14:35
  Samantha Pruitt: And beauty.
• 14:37
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 14:37
  Polly Mertens: We just over well, and the definition of beauty, too, right?
• 14:41
  Polly Mertens: So, like a definition of beauty tied to youth, not tied, I mean, because I there are magnificently beautiful women at all ages, men at all ages, has nothing to do with like the number on your birth chart, right?
• 14:53
  Polly Mertens: Or your you know, your birth certificate.
• 14:55
  Polly Mertens: So just knowing like not focusing on that and not being afraid of what shows up on your face or your body or whatnot.
• 15:01
  Polly Mertens: It's like, oh, you know, like new things that you know, I talk about girlfriends with and like, oh yeah, yep, got that too, you know.
• 15:08
  Polly Mertens: It's like, welcome to the club.
• 15:11
  Polly Mertens: Like, welcome to the club.
• 15:12
  Polly Mertens: Like the like you talk about your the wisdom of your gray hairs, right?
• 15:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally, totally.
• 15:18
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm freaking, I got so much self-love and self-acceptance going on in this hairline every day.
• 15:23
  Samantha Pruitt: But yeah, your body is going to age from a cellular perspective.
• 15:28
  Samantha Pruitt: It is a normal part of aging.
• 15:30
  Samantha Pruitt: You can do a lot of healthy things, and we're gonna get into those habits next to help those cells, autophagy of the old cells that you do want to eliminate from your body, but then an actual building of new cellular tissue in the body and more mitochondria and all the things that we want for our brain and body.
• 15:46
  Samantha Pruitt: But this whole idea, this anti-aging industry, and really the media just gets behind it right, it's tons of money to pump up and fluff up and buff out, if you will, our life.
• 15:59
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, like I look a certain way, I just look like this.
• 16:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Is there some reason I shouldn't be proud of how I look over my lifetime, right?
• 16:12
  Samantha Pruitt: So is it like, well, I was cute when I was younger, but now you know, that's just totally nuts.
• 16:18
  Samantha Pruitt: That's totally nuts.
• 16:19
  Samantha Pruitt: The self-love and self-acceptance muscles that people have are really weak, and we need to really strengthen those.
• 16:26
  Polly Mertens: Well, I think something I heard, and I I hadn't prepared it for this, so I don't know if I'll get it right, but it's like um one of the most appealing or radiant or sexy things I've heard for women is confidence.
• 16:38
  Polly Mertens: Oh, totally.
• 16:39
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 16:40
  Polly Mertens: So it's like it's not the cream that you put on your face or the color in your hair or the whatever.
• 16:46
  Polly Mertens: It's like a woman who owns her body and herself and her expression.
• 16:51
  Polly Mertens: You like you're just radiantly confident.
• 16:53
  Polly Mertens: It's like you walk into rooms like it's all of me.
• 16:55
  Polly Mertens: Hello, right?
• 16:56
  Polly Mertens: Wear that damn confidence.
• 16:59
  Polly Mertens: Welcome to the damn club of yeah, like your favorite no fucks given.
• 17:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, no fucks giving after 50.
• 17:06
  Samantha Pruitt: For sure.
• 17:08
  Samantha Pruitt: And then one more thing is about this anti-aging is like society and really commercialism in the industry will try and create an environment, a sense of lack or urgency around us spending money to not feel like a burden on society or on our family, or not feel like you know, we're creating some sort of need disparity.
• 17:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Like I hear a lot of people like, I don't want to be a burden on my kids, I don't want to be a burden on society, you know, like there's this I'm not worthy of love and care and connection and investment in my health and happiness as I age.
• 17:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Like I'm just gonna be put in a home or put off somewhere to the side.
• 17:53
  Samantha Pruitt: That's totally ludicrous to me.
• 17:56
  Samantha Pruitt: That person, the aging person, has so much to offer.
• 18:01
  Samantha Pruitt: The family unit, their community, their society, frankly, they're brilliant.
• 18:05
  Samantha Pruitt: They have a lifetime of experience to share the amount of resource that is available for mentorship and for connection is tremendous.
• 18:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally.
• 18:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Nothing that a 20, 30, or 40-year-old can even touch, but we very rarely talk about that.
• 18:23
  Polly Mertens: And I think it's very our culture, you know, because there are cultures definitely in Scandinavian cultures and I think some Asian cultures where absolutely it's a village, you know.
• 18:33
  Polly Mertens: They don't live in this, you know, put the old people out to pasture kind of feel.
• 18:39
  Polly Mertens: No way, not in a hundred years, no?
• 18:41
  Polly Mertens: Like, and in some, I was reading about one culture where something about the way that they earn their money and they plan for it is like, you know, your peak earning years, let's say your midlife, whatever that middle phase is.
• 18:54
  Polly Mertens: So your younger years, you're you aren't really working, you're educating, and you know how that looks.
• 18:59
  Polly Mertens: So the middle group is helping support that group.
• 19:03
  Polly Mertens: And then you get into your middle years and you're producing and you're generating, and you're also supporting the next phase, is like that's when they go into what you're actually doing, is they talk about like you go on these quests of knowledge and wisdom and things like that.
• 19:18
  Polly Mertens: And then there's the later, and so the peak earning years, they're supporting all of those other quote generations, if you will, in whatever phase they're in, right?
• 19:27
  Polly Mertens: And it's just accepted in that culture of like it's giving and receiving, giving and receiving in all of those ways, right?
• 19:34
  Polly Mertens: Not just like going off a cliff and then see a bye, right?
• 19:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and from a parenting perspective, this is very confusing to me.
• 19:43
  Samantha Pruitt: A, I was parented by two people and raised a particular way, and then I um parented and now have grandchildren, right?
• 19:52
  Samantha Pruitt: So I see this really, and you know, in-laws and whatever interesting like circle to all of that sort of give and take relationship.
• 20:00
  Samantha Pruitt: And I don't understand why somebody who's aging would feel like they'd be a burden upon the children that they raised and educated, or that my mother-in-law, for example, who's 97, would be a burden on us, right?
• 20:15
  Samantha Pruitt: She obviously contributed and contributes still at her age to this entire family unit.
• 20:21
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, it's 18, 13 grandkids and 15 great grandkids.
• 20:25
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like a tremendous amount of humans, right?
• 20:28
  Samantha Pruitt: And so in many cultures, this is normal that the children are raised and the parents are dropping time, energy, attention, education.
• 20:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Money into them.
• 20:40
  Samantha Pruitt: And then they get to a certain point that those kids are giving back.
• 20:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Culturally, you see this in a lot of other cultures.
• 20:46
  Samantha Pruitt: But in the US, you don't really hardly see this, which is really a shame.
• 20:51
  Samantha Pruitt: We can change that, by the way.
• 20:55
  Polly Mertens: All right.
• 20:55
  Polly Mertens: So let's get into some like what to do's.
• 20:57
  Polly Mertens: Like, what are you doing?
• 20:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, by the way, my children, grandchildren, when I'm old, will be so damn lucky.
• 21:02
  Samantha Pruitt: First of all, they already are.
• 21:03
  Samantha Pruitt: It sounds freaking amazing.
• 21:05
  Samantha Pruitt: But like to have me around, what are you talking about?
• 21:09
  Polly Mertens: You get nana all the time.
• 21:11
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 21:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 21:11
  Samantha Pruitt: How fun am I?
• 21:13
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 21:14
  Samantha Pruitt: All right, let's get into the habits.
• 21:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, dang.
• 21:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, we got quite a few of these, but we'll try and keep it succinct.
• 21:20
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 21:20
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 21:21
  Polly Mertens: We'll stay on track.
• 21:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Um my number one thing.
• 21:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, there's well, there really isn't a number one, but this is my number one, probably, is to um include movement into your everyday activities.
• 21:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Movement is a normal part of your life.
• 21:35
  Samantha Pruitt: You were evolved as a human being to move, not to sit in your car, sit in a cubicle, or sit on the sofa.
• 21:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Those things didn't exist when humans were evolving.
• 21:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, so now we're devolving because we have decided to sit and then sit and then sit and then sleep.
• 21:55
  Samantha Pruitt: So all the health impacts that we're having are lifestyle health impacts.
• 22:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, there are some environmental elements that are contributing, but it's primarily lifestyle choices that are determining the health, the wellness, the longevity of the human being.
• 22:11
  Samantha Pruitt: So movement.
• 22:13
  Samantha Pruitt: What do you what do you think?
• 22:14
  Polly Mertens: You know, one of the things we talked about before we aired is like looking at so I like the study of the blue zones for some things.
• 22:20
  Polly Mertens: I think there's definitely things about the community aspects and the relationships and some of the, you know, they are very plant-based and you know, timing of day of eating meals and things like that.
• 22:30
  Polly Mertens: But one of the things I studied was um in blue zones, people move roughly every 20 minutes.
• 22:35
  Polly Mertens: Like, think about that, like moving, not just like moving the pan across the table or you know, reaching for your cup of coffee, but like they're not and they're not working out.
• 22:45
  Polly Mertens: We're not talking like they like jump down and do push-ups or something like that, but like movement is incorporated through their day, you know, doing stuff.
• 22:52
  Polly Mertens: So I think, you know, their environment nudges them to be active and and doing things.
• 22:57
  Polly Mertens: So, like, what could we just like thinking about that?
• 23:00
  Polly Mertens: Like, how could we not just sit in one particular motion for for too long, right?
• 23:06
  Polly Mertens: And I don't know if 20 minutes is practical.
• 23:08
  Polly Mertens: I do like um getting in focus work sessions.
• 23:10
  Polly Mertens: I usually, you know, can get into like a zone of like 50 minutes and then I'll do a 10-minute timer and just like, okay, get up, walk around.
• 23:17
  Polly Mertens: Like, and part of it too, I don't know, you know, is the eyes age is you know, shape shifting from, let's say, looking at a screen that's so far away from your brain or whatever, and you're looking at type font or whatever, and they talk a lot about like and then looking up and out a window, right?
• 23:33
  Polly Mertens: Or looking further away.
• 23:34
  Polly Mertens: So, like shifting that eyes, keep that eye muscle active.
• 23:38
  Polly Mertens: So it's like looking little than looking far away.
• 23:41
  Polly Mertens: Looking, you know.
• 23:42
  Samantha Pruitt: So you know what else this does?
• 23:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Uh I want to reference Dr.
• 23:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Rhonda Fitzpatrick.
• 23:46
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm a super fan of all the work she's doing in this space.
• 23:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Dr.
• 23:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Rhonda Fitzpatrick, she has a great uh podcast, she's amazing.
• 23:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, but one of the things that happens specifically to what you're talking about is this really focused visual line of sight, you know, the blue light and all the things that we're experiencing, and then shifting your gaze to the horizon the outside is nervous system regulation that downregulates your nervous system.
• 24:12
  Samantha Pruitt: When I heard that, I was like, what the hell?
• 24:17
  Samantha Pruitt: And it made perfect sense to me because I feel so good in nature, and one of the reasons I feel so good is because my nervous system feels safe.
• 24:28
  Samantha Pruitt: And the reason it feels safe is because I can see the vast expanse.
• 24:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Think about the evolution of humanity.
• 24:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, if you're hovered in your cubicle waiting for someone to come behind you, the boss or whomever, or in your car while people are speeding 80 miles an hour down the freeway, or any of these very small isolated spaces, it is anxiety-inducing.
• 24:50
  Samantha Pruitt: I would definitely prescribe the every hour, so on the 15-minute mark and set yourself a damn timer.
• 24:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 24:58
  Samantha Pruitt: And anyone who tells me they can't do this, they need to call me and we're gonna talk about it because I will help them figure out a way to do it, right?
• 25:04
  Samantha Pruitt: There's different ways to do this.
• 25:05
  Samantha Pruitt: But the simple is like, okay, every 50 minutes set a timer, get up.
• 25:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Dr.
• 25:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Fitzpatrick, Rhonda Fitz, she's the one that calls them exercise snacks.
• 25:13
  Samantha Pruitt: So you're getting up and you're doing a snack of 20 air squats or a hot lap around the building or the block or whatever.
• 25:22
  Samantha Pruitt: You're moving your body to again regulate your nervous system, but from a physical perspective, cellular health perspective, critical.
• 25:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Critical.
• 25:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Your cells are literally getting poisoned, if you will, with so much cortisol and insulin and all these things.
• 25:40
  Samantha Pruitt: It's just trying to process all these hormones and all of these substrates that we're putting into the body.
• 25:45
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's very difficult to regulate any of that in a sitting position.
• 25:50
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 25:51
  Polly Mertens: So get up, do some movement, you know.
• 25:53
  Polly Mertens: You work from home, run a vacuum, sweep something, do some dishes, do some.
• 25:58
  Samantha Pruitt: I stand most of the time.
• 25:59
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, I was working at the library the other day because I've got to take all these tests, right?
• 26:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 26:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my, it was killing me to be in a quiet library sitting for two hours, and I was like, I cannot believe there isn't standing desks here.
• 26:13
  Samantha Pruitt: So I'm gonna have to investigate and inform said librarian.
• 26:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, this is not the modern world has standing desks.
• 26:20
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:21
  Polly Mertens: Well, that's just the way you live.
• 26:22
  Polly Mertens: So more of us for sure.
• 26:24
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 26:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's do it.
• 26:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, so let's move right on to food because you um nuanced that plant-based, primarily plant-based, so plant-heavy.
• 26:33
  Samantha Pruitt: So at least 50% of your uh, if you don't want to do vegetarian or vegan, 50% of your plate should be plant-based or should be actually vegetables of a variety of colors.
• 26:43
  Samantha Pruitt: And then additionally, doing um some protein, so beans or lean meat, if that's what you're choosing to do, or fish, and then whole grains.
• 26:51
  Samantha Pruitt: So a whole food diet.
• 26:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Again, this seems like health 101, but in a processed, fast-moving world, we've decided that food isn't all that important.
• 27:04
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's the building block of everything you see standing in front of you, including my brain function and my eyes and my emotions and my energy and all of that stuff.
• 27:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Imperative, right?
• 27:15
  Polly Mertens: And I think um two things I would say on that.
• 27:17
  Polly Mertens: Definitely loading up with vegetables and I love fiber as another thing to just introduce, you know, foods with fiber, right?
• 27:25
  Polly Mertens: Um, and I think this grain thing, like, I don't know.
• 27:29
  Polly Mertens: I when I did that glucose monitoring, there weren't many grains that were good for my glucose except quinoa.
• 27:34
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, and quinoa is a protein source as well.
• 27:38
  Polly Mertens: So I'm just like a super fan of like when it comes to grains, I just go quinoa, that's what that means for this girl, right?
• 27:44
  Polly Mertens: And the other thing is as close to the source as possible.
• 27:49
  Polly Mertens: I'm not sure how quite to say this, but like there's so much processed stuff.
• 27:54
  Polly Mertens: So if it has a good long shelf life, avoid it, right?
• 27:58
  Polly Mertens: Like if it can just stay in that store or stay in your frit, you know, your cabinet for a long, long time, avoid it.
• 28:04
  Polly Mertens: You know, we haven't totally found out, I think, what canned things are doing to us yet, but I have a feeling there's something, you know.
• 28:11
  Polly Mertens: So as close to fresh as possible, right?
• 28:13
  Polly Mertens: Like I even think about my life and I'm like, man, you know, I have to go to the store quite a lot because I eat so close to fresh, you know, like it just, you know, I couldn't go.
• 28:22
  Polly Mertens: Well, some people do the Costco thing.
• 28:24
  Polly Mertens: I just don't have that much many people to purchase for or whatever, but like that much food?
• 28:28
  Polly Mertens: Like, holy smokes, like, how do you consume that much food?
• 28:31
  Polly Mertens: So there's things in those things, things in that food, if you're not eating it within four or five days, you don't want it.
• 28:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, so this is so simple.
• 28:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you actually read the ingredients of what you're putting in your mouth?
• 28:43
  Samantha Pruitt: If you don't recognize, and don't you all be telling me that you're scientists all of a sudden and you know what all of these chemicals and things are, preservatives.
• 28:52
  Samantha Pruitt: If you don't recognize it, then it's could be problematic and highly likely it's problematic.
• 28:58
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 28:58
  Polly Mertens: So as close to fresh as possible, and there's so much that gets really technical, like, oh, this was made in these kind of oils and seed oils.
• 29:06
  Polly Mertens: And it's like that just starts to make people like really not want to look at food, right?
• 29:12
  Polly Mertens: But just as close to fresh and fresh by your own hands, even better.
• 29:16
  Polly Mertens: I'm not saying I do that all the time, but so just things that can sit on shelves a long time, avoid them as best you can.
• 29:24
  Samantha Pruitt: And one of the blue zones elements they say is eat until you're 80% full.
• 29:29
  Samantha Pruitt: So again, it's you know, regulating of the blood sugar, regulating of the food, the macro intake, right?
• 29:35
  Samantha Pruitt: So protein and vegetables being your primary sources, carbohydrates being the smallest unit that will, you know, impact or have an the body has a need for, because we all have excess of that on board already.
• 29:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So ideally, we would use the fuels that we have on the physical body, not overeating, and then a timing, you know, looking at the timing of eating is a huge thing.
• 29:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Not everybody's going to be into fasting, but there are definitely proven, scientifically proven things around, especially based on your age.
• 30:06
  Samantha Pruitt: And we're talking about aging populace here or you know, middle aged and upper whatever, that there are certain times of day you just shouldn't be consuming calories.
• 30:16
  Samantha Pruitt: They have nowhere to go.
• 30:18
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know, I was telling someone, I love this um story.
• 30:21
  Polly Mertens: It's like eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen, dinner like a pauper, right?
• 30:26
  Polly Mertens: We invert that typically in the Western culture that we've grown up in.
• 30:30
  Polly Mertens: You come home and you have these giant meals right before bed.
• 30:33
  Polly Mertens: It's like, where do you think what are you fueling up for?
• 30:36
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 30:36
  Polly Mertens: I was telling um Alan, my hiking buddy this morning, I was like, Yeah, my breakfast typically looks like people's dinner.
• 30:42
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's got like quinoa and Brussels sprouts.
• 30:45
  Polly Mertens: Like my breakfast looks like a lot of people's dinner, right?
• 30:48
  Polly Mertens: And I'm you know, one of my other things is can I get vegetables on every meal?
• 30:51
  Polly Mertens: Like, where's the vegetable?
• 30:53
  Polly Mertens: And I pref preferably I say, where's the green in every meal?
• 30:56
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 30:56
  Polly Mertens: Like, where's green?
• 30:57
  Polly Mertens: Where's green?
• 30:58
  Polly Mertens: Like, can I put something green in this?
• 31:00
  Polly Mertens: Whether it's little, like little sprouts on top of something or whatever.
• 31:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Got microbiome, baby.
• 31:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Alcohol, limiting the alcohol, or eliminating, yeah.
• 31:12
  Polly Mertens: Limit limit or eliminate, yeah.
• 31:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, in the blue zones again, they prescribe red wine.
• 31:16
  Samantha Pruitt: They say red wine is you know, so there are too many sulfites in our wines these days.
• 31:22
  Samantha Pruitt: No, we have too much our that's because of many people have some kind of experience around that for some reason, and that's fine, whether it's rituals or cultural or whatever the thing is.
• 31:36
  Samantha Pruitt: What you and I are saying is like examine you're you just spoke about the quality of what it is, so that's enormous, right?
• 31:44
  Samantha Pruitt: I think of like a bottle of two buck chuck, which was the Trader Joe's wine that first came out, the red wine, and it was two dollars a bottle, versus like an organic, maybe sulfate-free or whatever, whatever red wine over here.
• 31:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I get that that's twelve dollars and that's two dollars or something like that, but you're putting it in your body, right?
• 32:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Uh the blue zones is big on those things because they feel like there's a sense of ritual family and connection around the drinking of the wine, not like going out and binge drinking or partying or drinking late.
• 32:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Again, it's pure sugar.
• 32:19
  Samantha Pruitt: It's so alcohol is a toxin and it's a sugar.
• 32:24
  Samantha Pruitt: There's no nutritional value go in that glass of anything that you are picking up, right?
• 32:30
  Samantha Pruitt: So if that's going into your body at whatever after the sun goes down, good luck sleeping tonight.
• 32:37
  Polly Mertens: So all I would say to that, you know, as I was out hiking this morning is um, you know, whatever we assign pain and pleasure to is a choice, right?
• 32:47
  Polly Mertens: And so culturally, like you're talking about in blue zones or wherever, this assignment of consuming alcohol as like a pleasure, whatever.
• 32:57
  Polly Mertens: Like, yeah, there's a placebo effect in that, and there's a counter, you know, contrary effect is like it's a toxin and it's got sulfates in it or sugars and stuff like that.
• 33:05
  Polly Mertens: So just intentionally create, like, you know, I have a uh apple cider vinegar drink that I enjoy, and I've replaced it with my evening like glass of wine or whatever.
• 33:16
  Polly Mertens: I get so much pleasure.
• 33:17
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, I'm drinking, I'm like I'm I'm aligning my energy and my what I assign pleasure to to something that I know is good for me.
• 33:26
  Polly Mertens: Like it's better for me than any alcohol.
• 33:28
  Samantha Pruitt: So it's so this is so funny because we haven't even talked about that.
• 33:30
  Samantha Pruitt: But I started doing apple cider vinegar as a gut primer before my meal.
• 33:35
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm not so in love with it, but I do see the benefits of it and how you could make it like a mock tail or whatever.
• 33:41
  Samantha Pruitt: But you and I didn't even talk about this, and it's hilarious that we're doing it.
• 33:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Got microbiome.
• 33:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, uh, other habits belong to a community and engage in it.
• 33:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, stretch your emotions.
• 33:55
  Polly Mertens: So, three things on the happiest people out there.
• 33:58
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, can I just drop a couple of bombs?
• 34:00
  Polly Mertens: Because okay, so I just had these I want to drop in here.
• 34:03
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so three habits from Harvard studies of like the happiest people is let's see.
• 34:10
  Polly Mertens: Oops, sorry, hold on.
• 34:12
  Polly Mertens: They prioritize high-quality relationships, they live with purpose and alignment, and they practice daily emotional hygiene.
• 34:20
  Polly Mertens: Okay, okay, so go for it.
• 34:22
  Polly Mertens: But yeah, talk about relationships.
• 34:24
  Polly Mertens: We'll come back to those as well.
• 34:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, so the first one is that sense of connection and belonging in the world, right?
• 34:31
  Samantha Pruitt: And unfortunately, I do think that people are still working out the post-pandemic, you know, isolation and way of retraction and you know, all of that stuff.
• 34:42
  Samantha Pruitt: And the politically there's a lot of chaos, but whatever.
• 34:45
  Samantha Pruitt: So people are responding to that.
• 34:46
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm not saying I'm saying that it's gonna take work to like overcome that, but it's imperative because it is critical to your health span.
• 34:56
  Samantha Pruitt: So your literally the physical health of your body, and then of course, your happiness scale.
• 35:02
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:03
  Polly Mertens: So they say that deep, consistent okay, first we're deep.
• 35:08
  Polly Mertens: We're not just talking superficial S stuff, like, oh yeah, I just show up at the gym and there's people there.
• 35:12
  Polly Mertens: That's not what we're talking about.
• 35:14
  Polly Mertens: Deep, consistent, meaningful connection is the single strongest predictor of lifelong happiness.
• 35:20
  Polly Mertens: The happiest people invest in friendships, nurture partnerships, cultivate compute communities that help them feel seen, supported, and understood, right?
• 35:30
  Polly Mertens: Warm relationships protect your mental health, your physical health, and even your brain.
• 35:36
  Polly Mertens: Yes.
• 35:37
  Polly Mertens: So good, right?
• 35:38
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 35:38
  Polly Mertens: And this doesn't, you know, and some people say, well, I have my family, you know, and look, it's like, it's not necessarily where we're talking, you know, deep, meaningfully connected, you know, depending on the family that you're nurturing and around and what that's like.
• 35:52
  Polly Mertens: Especially, I think, um, you know, I was I was having a conversation with someone about how, you know, when I've studied relationship therapy and stuff, they say, you know, years ago, years ago, we had these communities, right?
• 36:06
  Polly Mertens: And so like women would have, you know, women friends and this and that and what, you know, and all this stuff.
• 36:11
  Polly Mertens: And we've really shrunk that down to you go to a job and then you come home to that one person and your family or whatever.
• 36:17
  Polly Mertens: And it's like you rely on that one person to be everything for you, to be your lover, to be your play partner, to be your, you know, oh, okay, cry on your yeah, cry on your shoulder.
• 36:27
  Polly Mertens: Can you provide for me?
• 36:28
  Polly Mertens: Can you, you know, all this stuff, right?
• 36:30
  Polly Mertens: It's like, is one person designed to give us all that, right?
• 36:34
  Polly Mertens: It's like we need to ex, you know, expand that out.
• 36:36
  Polly Mertens: And I think that's why women, and you see this in men too, they have these little coffee clubs or book clubs or knitting clubs or women's circles or whatever it is that gives you something that you don't have to just get it from that one person.
• 36:50
  Polly Mertens: Like that person's like, go, go to your bike club or you know, go to your hiking thing.
• 36:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 36:56
  Samantha Pruitt: And you create circles with intention for this reason because people are starving, they are malnourished in this area.
• 37:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Deep connection, deep, you know, association and relationship with others where there is that camaraderie, shared values, positive energy, you know, a place to have confidence and things of that nature.
• 37:16
  Samantha Pruitt: And no, it is not your partner's responsibility.
• 37:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Hell, they can barely take care of their own stuff.
• 37:20
  Samantha Pruitt: I wouldn't want to be that all for somebody, whether it's my children or my spouse or a family member or whatever.
• 37:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 37:28
  Samantha Pruitt: That's not okay for that additional burden to be put on others.
• 37:32
  Samantha Pruitt: That's our responsibility.
• 37:34
  Samantha Pruitt: It is.
• 37:36
  Polly Mertens: You know, we I have just one of the gals that was in the Come Alive program, and we did it.
• 37:40
  Polly Mertens: We had we did it, it was originally eight weeks, and then we extended it, so it became 15 weeks.
• 37:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh wow.
• 37:46
  Polly Mertens: 15 weeks we were together total.
• 37:47
  Polly Mertens: And so now, you know, I'm running the return to light right now as we record this.
• 37:53
  Polly Mertens: And, you know, the group we had our last call sometime maybe 30 days ago almost, and they're still texting with each other, they're still like sharing wins, like, you know, one like one of them in the beginning, you know, we did some identifying, like, what do you want?
• 38:08
  Polly Mertens: Whatever, you know, and then it was like, and one gal wrote down, like, own a house in March of next year.
• 38:14
  Polly Mertens: And that seemed like so far off.
• 38:16
  Polly Mertens: This was like in August or something, and it was like, yeah, Java.
• 38:19
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, why don't you move it up?
• 38:21
  Polly Mertens: Why don't you say by the end of the year?
• 38:23
  Polly Mertens: She just got the keys to her house last week.
• 38:25
  Polly Mertens: I am not even kidding.
• 38:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, she was like, you know, she sent a video, she's like, look at me in my house, whatever.
• 38:31
  Polly Mertens: You know, we're all cheering her on, right?
• 38:32
  Polly Mertens: Like these communities, these connections can go on.
• 38:35
  Polly Mertens: You're like you're saying, like, people crave that, and and really, and she said in her text to us when she shared, she's like, there was something about being in this group that I was able to have this happen and like push past things that would have gotten in my way ordinarily, or just have the courage to, or you know, and like pursue that instead of like, oh yeah, someday, right?
• 38:57
  Polly Mertens: And now she's freaking living in her house.
• 38:59
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 39:00
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, a lot of it in my um observing of myself and other humans is people get trapped in their own head around these limiting beliefs or these ideas or these walls or barriers.
• 39:12
  Samantha Pruitt: And we have this idea that we have to have all the answers, we have to have all the resources, we have to do it on our own, and all of this bullshit.
• 39:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, it's not reality.
• 39:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Like we again, how did humans evolve?
• 39:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Native humans evolved in tribal societies.
• 39:29
  Samantha Pruitt: That's how they literally survived.
• 39:31
  Samantha Pruitt: You weren't part of a community or a tribe, you didn't survive.
• 39:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Like we instinctually, we're still the same humans.
• 39:38
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, okay, yeah, we're a little more advanced in some ways, not in all ways.
• 39:43
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, those primal instincts are still there.
• 39:46
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 39:46
  Polly Mertens: So keep keep those people that you love close to you, nurture those deep, committed, connected relationships, and whatever way that looks like, you know, and your life in various phases can be more or less connected to those communities, depending on, you know, you got soccer every weekend, and you know, I mean, things can be quite consuming, but have some core deep relationships, even if it's like four women that have a lunch date or something like that, you know.
• 40:12
  Samantha Pruitt: You mentioned the having purpose and having why.
• 40:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, and I want to just attach to that uh the learning, you know, using your brain, continuing to use your brain to explore your why.
• 40:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Right.
• 40:26
  Samantha Pruitt: So your why is a sense of purpose.
• 40:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Why do I get up every day?
• 40:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Why do I have structure to my life, right?
• 40:33
  Samantha Pruitt: To my days, to my time, to my calendar.
• 40:36
  Samantha Pruitt: I see a lot of people once they retire.
• 40:38
  Samantha Pruitt: They want to throw away the calendar and eliminate any sense of obligation and any sense of structure.
• 40:45
  Samantha Pruitt: And they're like a wild, uncaged animal for a hot minute.
• 40:49
  Samantha Pruitt: And then they very quickly are just sitting on the sofa.
• 40:52
  Polly Mertens: I was going to say they go out to pasture.
• 40:53
  Polly Mertens: And what do cows do at pasture?
• 40:55
  Polly Mertens: They just get fat and hang out.
• 40:56
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's like, no, no, no.
• 40:59
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know, I can tell I had the benefit of, you know, I did my um had my midlife transition, not midlife crisis, you know, like sold the house, jumps in the RV, all that stuff.
• 41:10
  Polly Mertens: So after, you know, 90 days of driving around an RV and doing whatever the hell I wanted, I was like, I want to go back and get up to stuff, right?
• 41:18
  Polly Mertens: And I hear this.
• 41:18
  Polly Mertens: I just heard somebody's like, oh, she retired, and I'm like, she's gonna want to be back up to something.
• 41:24
  Polly Mertens: You know, like it's just, it's just how we are.
• 41:27
  Polly Mertens: Like, not like the same way though.
• 41:29
  Polly Mertens: You know, like there's so much of the way we come out of high school, college, whatever, it's like, um, you know, I was asking someone this morning who's like, well, what if you had to do it over, would you have chosen that career?
• 41:39
  Polly Mertens: And it was like long, long, painful pause, long, painful pause.
• 41:44
  Polly Mertens: I was like, okay, okay.
• 41:46
  Polly Mertens: So, like, all right.
• 41:48
  Polly Mertens: So when you shift into some other phase or like what you want to do after quote retirement, or if you just want to choose your life deliberately, right?
• 41:56
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, choose it with purpose.
• 41:58
  Polly Mertens: You can, you can make it full of money, you can make it full of joy, you can whatever, but like make it meaningful to you, right?
• 42:05
  Polly Mertens: And that's what makes the difference, I would say.
• 42:07
  Polly Mertens: And you know, as they as I read this about the study, it says the happiest people have a clear sense of why they get up in the morning, just like you said.
• 42:14
  Polly Mertens: Purpose gives direction, resilience, and energy.
• 42:18
  Polly Mertens: It doesn't have it doesn't have to be grand, right?
• 42:21
  Polly Mertens: It's about living in alignment with your values, your strengths, and what matters most to you.
• 42:27
  Polly Mertens: Fulfillment comes from meaning, not achievement.
• 42:31
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 42:32
  Polly Mertens: Like I'm gonna be the damn, like I got a vision I did um in Return to the Light, I walked them through a guided visualization for like what you know, where like what's the new landscape look like in the future, right?
• 42:44
  Polly Mertens: Because a lot of times we envision from the past, right?
• 42:46
  Polly Mertens: And I just got them clear to like nothing.
• 42:48
  Polly Mertens: Like, what if?
• 42:49
  Polly Mertens: And in my own vision, going through the exercise was like, oh my god, the gardens I'm gonna have.
• 42:55
  Polly Mertens: I was like, oh my god, like super garden.
• 42:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Not like super gardener, like I'm not gonna, you know, make a big old thing, but like you might, I might, yeah, or you might belong to a community that that's the thing, exactly, exactly, right?
• 43:09
  Samantha Pruitt: So definitely with the animals to live, places for butterflies to live and bees and all hummingbirds and all these things.
• 43:15
  Polly Mertens: All of it, yes, yes, getting up to that.
• 43:18
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 43:18
  Samantha Pruitt: So maybe we shouldn't use the word retirement, right?
• 43:21
  Samantha Pruitt: You can retire from a job.
• 43:24
  Samantha Pruitt: That is what is a thing, right?
• 43:27
  Samantha Pruitt: I have moved on from a career path or a job, yeah, but I didn't retire from my life.
• 43:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Last time I checked, I still have one.
• 43:34
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm alive, I'm breathing.
• 43:36
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't retire from this physical body or from this brain.
• 43:39
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't retire from my community or my home or my family.
• 43:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, what in the hell is this?
• 43:44
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm retired now thing.
• 43:46
  Polly Mertens: I know, I know.
• 43:47
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 43:47
  Polly Mertens: I I you and I need to come up with better words for this.
• 43:50
  Polly Mertens: We'll we'll do a whole episode on that, I think.
• 43:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Like rescripting, you know, because like the second half.
• 43:57
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, depending on what that, you know, and I when I read the four-hour work week, it's like many retirements, like inside of your life.
• 44:03
  Polly Mertens: Like that's what I feel like I've been doing.
• 44:04
  Polly Mertens: It's like, oh yeah, like don't put off, you know, till someday, like 65, you know, and then fall off a cliff, and then six months later you're in, you know.
• 44:14
  Polly Mertens: My my um cousin right now, he is was working for government, you know, high-paid pentagon, pentagon, pentagon job, work, work, work, work, work, you know, just crazy.
• 44:25
  Polly Mertens: I have liver cancer, and we're not sure how long he's gonna live.
• 44:28
  Polly Mertens: Just retire.
• 44:29
  Polly Mertens: Like, just just it, yeah.
• 44:31
  Polly Mertens: Oh god, so it's not looking good, right?
• 44:35
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, and how was how was this life for you?
• 44:38
  Polly Mertens: Like, was it just about that, right?
• 44:40
  Polly Mertens: Like, what else?
• 44:41
  Polly Mertens: But it's for each of us, like your own values have to be in alignment with what you choose.
• 44:45
  Polly Mertens: And maybe that I wouldn't necessarily say he was happy, you know.
• 44:48
  Polly Mertens: I think he's drinking a lot.
• 44:49
  Polly Mertens: So but you know, what what makes you happy and you fulfilled?
• 44:53
  Polly Mertens: So you don't need to drink.
• 44:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Right.
• 44:56
  Polly Mertens: Go for it.
• 44:56
  Polly Mertens: All right, you want me to hit the last one?
• 44:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Yep, hit the last one.
• 44:59
  Polly Mertens: So the daily, they practice daily emotional hygiene.
• 45:02
  Polly Mertens: The happiest people tend to have to tend to their inner life the same way others tend to their physical health.
• 45:09
  Polly Mertens: They downshift, they reflect, process emotions, regulate stress, and intentionally cultivate gratitude and or optimism.
• 45:20
  Polly Mertens: So micro-moments of presence, gratitude rituals, self-compassion, reframing thoughts, small acts of joy, rest and recovery like you're doing right now.
• 45:29
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's like happiness is built in daily moments, not big breakthroughs, is what we want to say.
• 45:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, you've created a whole discipline in your morning ritual around this.
• 45:37
  Samantha Pruitt: And a lot of people might know what a morning morning ritual is, some don't.
• 45:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Doesn't matter what time of day you do it, but why do you think those rituals are so important?
• 45:47
  Polly Mertens: Well, I look at it as setting the compass and the rudder for my day, right?
• 45:50
  Polly Mertens: Like who, you know, when I first started it, like early, early on, one of the things was like, I want to get out of bed, love and happy.
• 46:00
  Polly Mertens: And I'm not getting out of bed until I am the essence of love and happy, and that's who I'm taking into the world.
• 46:05
  Polly Mertens: Like that's just how small it started.
• 46:07
  Polly Mertens: Like, and I was like, if I didn't wake up feeling love and happy, I'd be like, wait, and like, what do I need to do?
• 46:12
  Polly Mertens: And then I'd be like, love and happy, and you know, and it just whatever.
• 46:14
  Polly Mertens: And then I'd like to bounce into my day.
• 46:16
  Polly Mertens: So that's how it started.
• 46:17
  Polly Mertens: Now it's much more, you know, reflective than that, and you know, do meditation to connect with higher things than just you know, who I'm in this physical world being, right?
• 46:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Mm-hmm.
• 46:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 46:30
  Samantha Pruitt: And if you don't do it in the morning, you could do it like you were just saying, in these little micro moments throughout the day of aware of awareness, mindfulness, being awake, basically.
• 46:40
  Samantha Pruitt: I call it being awake, or even awake, or are you just sort of zombie rolling through the day?
• 46:44
  Samantha Pruitt: So carving out little, and maybe it's these exercise snack moments, right?
• 46:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Where you're going outside and you're looking at the horizon, you're doing a hot lap around the neighborhood or whatever, but like having awareness to how do I feel right now?
• 46:57
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 46:58
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, what's going on inside my thoughts, inside my heart right now?
• 47:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Am I operating from a place of my values at work, at home, whatever the thing is?
• 47:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, am I really being the person I want to be?
• 47:12
  Samantha Pruitt: And if not, being willing to think about that, reflect on that, and start taking some action rather than just ignoring it or numbing it through, you know, alcohol, drugs, whatever.
• 47:25
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I think um for me anyway, and I I think this happens for a lot of us, is you know, this mind of ours is quite an adept tool, right?
• 47:35
  Polly Mertens: It can be very monkey mind-like, it can like be all over the place.
• 47:39
  Polly Mertens: And it just like all of a sudden it takes us out, and we're in like a meeting three weeks from now that we haven't, or like we're regretting, you know, regretting something that happened, whatever.
• 47:47
  Polly Mertens: And we're like, wait, wait, wait, I'm right here.
• 47:49
  Polly Mertens: I was just right here, you know, brushing my teeth.
• 47:51
  Polly Mertens: How did I get to that meeting?
• 47:52
  Polly Mertens: You know?
• 47:53
  Polly Mertens: And one of the things I'm doing, and I think this is actually shown up in us recording some episodes and my alarms go off because I forget to turn them off, is doing this hourly presencing, right?
• 48:03
  Polly Mertens: Like remembering I'm the seed of the soul, I'm not this mind, right?
• 48:07
  Polly Mertens: I'm not saying I'm doing it perfectly, but the seed of the soul, the essence of who I am, is present for all of this.
• 48:14
  Polly Mertens: This this what do you call personality that I get to be in this lifetime, right?
• 48:18
  Polly Mertens: And if I just get stuck in the thoughts and what's going on up there and the scarcity and the, you know, you know, chatter, I'm not being who I've really came here to be.
• 48:30
  Polly Mertens: I'm not present to like all the magic and the miracles that are here to to see, right?
• 48:37
  Polly Mertens: I'm in the regrets, I'm in the doubts, I'm in the whatever, right?
• 48:41
  Polly Mertens: It's like this mind is not a good place to hang out in.
• 48:45
  Samantha Pruitt: And that mind is responding to the nervous system that we talk about time.
• 48:52
  Polly Mertens: And vice versa, yeah.
• 48:53
  Samantha Pruitt: And then the nervous system is telling the mind to do things, and then the mind is telling the body to do things, and so on and so on, right?
• 48:59
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like this loop, this it can be a vortex for some people, but if you learn some self-mastery, it can be the opposite.
• 49:08
  Samantha Pruitt: It can be incredibly powerful to take ownership, if you will, of that experience, that nervous system, those thoughts, and really conscientious, values-driven actions, right?
• 49:23
  Samantha Pruitt: But that takes time, that takes space, it needs oxygen.
• 49:28
  Samantha Pruitt: You gotta literally breathe oxygen into some space of your life, of your day, yeah, of your day.
• 49:36
  Polly Mertens: And I'd say, you know, if you don't have like 30 or 60 seconds to pause in a line in a day, like really um, and I'm I'm doing it, you know, on the hour, you know.
• 49:47
  Polly Mertens: Like I um I think you know, you're gonna get to the end and and have more regrets.
• 49:53
  Polly Mertens: I think you're gonna miss a lot, you know.
• 49:55
  Samantha Pruitt: I think there's a very famous bird Buddhist saying about this, so I'll just interject it because it's quite hilarious.
• 50:00
  Samantha Pruitt: And basically the layman goes to the Buddha, like, Well, how long should I meditate every day, right?
• 50:06
  Samantha Pruitt: And the Buddha says, Oh, okay, well, how about try to start at you know, 10 minutes?
• 50:11
  Samantha Pruitt: And the guy says, I don't have 10 minutes.
• 50:13
  Samantha Pruitt: He goes, Oh, okay, all right, start at an hour.
• 50:15
  Samantha Pruitt: In other words, if you don't think you have 10 minutes, you are in such bad shape.
• 50:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Literally, this is on fire this work for you, right?
• 50:28
  Samantha Pruitt: The calming of your nervous system, the regulation of your body systems, of your thoughts, of your ideas.
• 50:34
  Samantha Pruitt: You need to carve out 10 times the amount of time.
• 50:37
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's how this works, people, is if you're going around saying I don't have the five minutes.
• 50:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Now, everybody does, by the way, because they're going to it, there's in-between spaces of our life.
• 50:47
  Samantha Pruitt: So just to get like operational from a perspective, right?
• 50:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 50:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Whether you're parenting or working or whatever the hell your thing is you're doing, there are in-between moments.
• 50:55
  Samantha Pruitt: You have a morning ritual that is so exquisite and beautiful and rich, and you have curated this for yourself and you know the power of it.
• 51:03
  Samantha Pruitt: For somebody just starting, it could be as simple as can you just get up 20 minutes before anyone in your house gets up?
• 51:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Why are we setting the alarm and then immediately having the same alarm for our partner or our children or whatever?
• 51:17
  Samantha Pruitt: So everyone's getting up at the same time and it's total chaos is raining in the house.
• 51:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Don't do that to yourself.
• 51:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Or if you're going from appointment to work or picking up kids or whatever, again, that car space.
• 51:27
  Samantha Pruitt: I used to do this a lot when I was raising kids and also self-employed and doing a lot of, you know, whatever, community shenanigans.
• 51:34
  Samantha Pruitt: My days were really full.
• 51:36
  Samantha Pruitt: So I would literally, with great intention, carve out car time.
• 51:40
  Samantha Pruitt: My car was like my sanctuary.
• 51:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 51:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 51:43
  Samantha Pruitt: I it's kind of hilarious.
• 51:45
  Samantha Pruitt: I a little bit lived out of my car.
• 51:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 51:47
  Samantha Pruitt: And I just found such space and calming, and I would park somewhere by the ocean or whatever.
• 51:53
  Polly Mertens: Transition time.
• 51:54
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 51:54
  Polly Mertens: It's really good transition time.
• 51:56
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 51:56
  Samantha Pruitt: And I would chill the fuck out.
• 51:57
  Samantha Pruitt: And sometimes I would literally just close my eyes and be like, I got nothing right now.
• 52:02
  Samantha Pruitt: And I don't want to go into the next thing with my community, with my family, with my team at work or whatever, offering nothing.
• 52:12
  Polly Mertens: I did want to say something that was just sort of like I'm hearing in the back of my mind that I feel like I want to share with people about my morning routine, you know.
• 52:22
  Polly Mertens: And I have been an early riser.
• 52:24
  Polly Mertens: Um I I love how people say, I'm not a morning person.
• 52:27
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, I wasn't necessarily a morning person when I started this either.
• 52:30
  Polly Mertens: You know, like it actually started, thankfully, out of necessity because I live somewhere I had to commute, and if I did, you know, whatever.
• 52:37
  Polly Mertens: So I had to get up earlier.
• 52:38
  Polly Mertens: And this is pre-me putting my intentionality between, you know, about my heart space and connecting with my source and stuff like that.
• 52:47
  Polly Mertens: Um, but I would invite people, you know, we talked about that pain or pleasure, what you associate with, right?
• 52:52
  Polly Mertens: And so people who anti-mournings or whatever, they just haven't associated pleasure to morning time or whatever.
• 53:00
  Polly Mertens: And I just want to give you a taste of something that is so exquisite for me anyway.
• 53:05
  Polly Mertens: And you asked, like, why it was like, yeah, I like that, whatever.
• 53:08
  Polly Mertens: Um, as a conscious being and an energy being, and I work a lot with, you know, energy fields of my own field and actually in the consciousness of the planet and stuff like that, is when people are asleep, right?
• 53:22
  Polly Mertens: Um, you know, that 3 a.m., 4 a.m., kind of 5 a.m.
• 53:26
  Polly Mertens: time when there's not a lot of there's no cars going by my house.
• 53:30
  Polly Mertens: There's, you know, people aren't stirring, you know, that kind of a thing.
• 53:34
  Polly Mertens: You you are tapping into a field before all that other consciousness is back in the field, right?
• 53:42
  Polly Mertens: So like your energy can like really be expansive and be out in that field while all this other franticness and all the minds are awake, if you will.
• 53:51
  Polly Mertens: So when all those minds are asleep and they're not there, it's like you can tell, and so I would say, just as you talked about that beauty of like looking at a horizon, right?
• 54:00
  Polly Mertens: Or seeing like some beauty in nature, right?
• 54:03
  Polly Mertens: I find that the beauty and the exquisiteness of quiet time in the morning, that stillness is so, like you said, calming for the nervous system.
• 54:14
  Polly Mertens: It feels absolutely magical.
• 54:16
  Polly Mertens: So I don't look at it like uh, oh God, you get up what time?
• 54:21
  Polly Mertens: Uh I'm like, oh my God, I'm so glad to get up before people because it's it's a it's a beautiful energetic time if you tap into it, if you allow yourself to be present for it.
• 54:33
  Polly Mertens: So, and and you don't have to do anything, you know, it's not like I'm jump up and go, you know, gym and all this stuff.
• 54:40
  Polly Mertens: It's like just grabbing my tea and sitting on my meditation chair and just like being in that there's not a lot going on in the world right now.
• 54:48
  Polly Mertens: Right near me, anyway, you know, on the other side of the planet, sure, but like energetically, like my aura kind of thing.
• 54:54
  Samantha Pruitt: I love that.
• 54:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, it's like um none of the channels are turned on yet.
• 54:59
  Samantha Pruitt: If you think about the TV or the internet, you know, like back in the day when I was growing up, there was no TV at night, the channels went off and then they didn't come on until the morning.
• 55:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Isn't that bizarre?
• 55:10
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't remember that.
• 55:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow.
• 55:12
  Samantha Pruitt: I was just little, and but that's like how our parents grew up for sure.
• 55:16
  Samantha Pruitt: There was not TV 24 hours a day.
• 55:19
  Samantha Pruitt: There wasn't a stream of constant things coming into the energetic fields, right?
• 55:26
  Samantha Pruitt: That's funny that you said that because I do like getting up earlier too, not as early as you, but early still.
• 55:32
  Samantha Pruitt: I like to be up right at that, like right before sunrise.
• 55:35
  Samantha Pruitt: So I keep my blinds open or at least half open.
• 55:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, I keep my window open.
• 55:40
  Samantha Pruitt: I want to hear the birds are stirring.
• 55:43
  Samantha Pruitt: That's literally my alarm.
• 55:45
  Samantha Pruitt: And then I'm like hearing it off in the distance or in my yard or whatever.
• 55:48
  Samantha Pruitt: It's time to get up.
• 55:50
  Samantha Pruitt: And then I have my cup of coffee.
• 55:52
  Samantha Pruitt: I look forward to like these are rituals that I look forward to, and that quiet time of nobody is talking to me, nobody needs me.
• 56:02
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't have to be anywhere.
• 56:04
  Polly Mertens: And I think people rob themselves of that, you know, people that just either surround themselves free, by the way.
• 56:11
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:12
  Polly Mertens: I so I just, you know, if this is one thing that you could maybe take away from this episode, is what if you tried that on for 30 days?
• 56:20
  Polly Mertens: You know, what if you got a taste of it, see if you like it, right?
• 56:25
  Polly Mertens: Because once I've had a taste of it, I'm like, it's it's not a chore for me.
• 56:29
  Polly Mertens: You know, I mean, you know, it's like something I look forward to, right?
• 56:34
  Samantha Pruitt: And I want to assign Dr.
• 56:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Rhonda Fitzpatrick's um workout snacks.
• 56:39
  Samantha Pruitt: So every 50 minutes you set an alarm, you get up and you do 20 of something.
• 56:44
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't really care what the hell it is.
• 56:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Jumping jacks, squats, a hot lap around or whatever, and then go back into your whatever.
• 56:51
  Polly Mertens: Clean your house, clean your office, vacuum, go, you know, like it can be also productive things, you know.
• 56:57
  Samantha Pruitt: You can be doing something, but it's more of a physical activity than um how hard it is for me not to start squatting right now.
• 57:08
  Polly Mertens: All right, are we do we cover them?
• 57:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Do we cover them all?
• 57:12
  Polly Mertens: All right, good.
• 57:12
  Polly Mertens: All right, so your one thing is get in your exercise snacks.
• 57:16
  Polly Mertens: I love that.
• 57:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, that's my assignment.
• 57:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, but I do have one closing argument.
• 57:21
  Polly Mertens: Please, let's hear it.
• 57:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 57:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Do you want to live happy and healthy?
• 57:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Or do you want to live long?
• 57:28
  Samantha Pruitt: What is the number about?
• 57:32
  Polly Mertens: Right, right.
• 57:32
  Samantha Pruitt: That's like waiting and healthy.
• 57:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 57:38
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 57:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Living long without the happy and healthy, I'm out.
• 57:44
  Polly Mertens: I would say it's I want to just double down on choosing, you know.
• 57:49
  Polly Mertens: So like choose how this life is gonna go for you.
• 57:52
  Polly Mertens: Choose what you're gonna believe, choose the things that you're up to.
• 57:56
  Polly Mertens: Don't let it be either dictated or spoken to you or adopted or inherited or all those conversations that are not yours, right?
• 58:04
  Polly Mertens: Like come from nothing, like, okay, knowing all of that, what do I choose?
• 58:08
  Polly Mertens: Like, I choose to, you know, have a healthy lifestyle, you know, that looks different than these other people, or I choose to, you know, take my fitness on this year, and not from a like starvation or like punishment perspective, but I choose to make it fulfilling and dance or whatever lights you up.
• 58:25
  Polly Mertens: So choosing the life you want to get up to, right?
• 58:30
  Samantha Pruitt: I love it.
• 58:30
  Samantha Pruitt: I love it.
• 58:31
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, all right.
• 58:32
  Polly Mertens: What do we okay?
• 58:33
  Polly Mertens: What are our final closing things that we want to remind them of?
• 58:36
  Samantha Pruitt: And then closing, closing.
• 58:39
  Polly Mertens: The real, real closing.
• 58:41
  Samantha Pruitt: We have so many closing arguments today.
• 58:42
  Samantha Pruitt: It's freaking hilarious.
• 58:44
  Samantha Pruitt: But obviously, how your life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 58:48
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
• 58:51
  Polly Mertens: And happy new year, everyone.
• 58:53
  Polly Mertens: Year two for us going into year three.