Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heart Radio podcast.
On today's Therapy Thursday, We've got Liz Moody. So. She is the host of the top wellness and lifestyle podcast, The Liz Moody Podcast formerly Healthier Together. She's a world class expert. She's also a best selling author of Healthier Together, Recipes for two Nourish Your Body, Nourish Your Relationships, and
Glow Pops. And her new book One Hundred Ways to Change Your Life, The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships, and Success, is going to be published on October seventeenth by Harper Wave. All Right, so from the creator of the Liz Moody podcast.
Hey girls, Hi.
I am so sorry, y'all.
Am.
I'm not allowed to be sorry. You can't be sorry.
Here.
My little sister came and stayed in like my podcast setup room and so everything, and I was like sitting here and just like I'm missing something. I'm missing the van And that is my freaking headboots.
Story in my life. Howld your sister younger?
She's younger.
Yeah, she's finishing her PhD in psychology right now.
Okay, I had we It's funny because Janna and I have had babies at the same time, so our girls are three weeks apart, our boys are three months apart. And then I have a three month old and she's due in like not long, like eight weeks.
Eight weeks.
Oh my god.
I always want to know about sister relationships because my oldest and my youngest are both girls, and I wanted a sister my whole life.
But also, I love what you just said because you're like, you're creating real siblings for your kids, but you're also building them this community that's not just blood related, and I think that's so so special and so under talked about as well.
I really love that you said that, actually are we can?
I just go right in because I really like, Liz, this matters to me because I grew up in a pretty tumultuous upbringing, and I have not found that I feel the safest with the people I'm related to. So I do attempt to like throw out the lifelines to create these relationships and keep the family tree in air quotes.
But I do feel like, I mean, it was funny, like even when it came down to delivery room, I asked Jana to be in with me because I thought she's going to advocate for me, She's going to know how to like well, love me and take care of me better than my mom would, I mean truthfully.
So the thing is, yeah, I think that there's so much research that shows that we need community. It's so important for our mental health, our physical health, our cortisol levels, for longevity. But we often assume that needs to be something that we're like inherently related to, or there's some
sort of bloodline. I do this series on my podcast about the pros and cons of having kids, and I had on this therapist whose entire work is helping people decide whether or not to have children, and she said, a really good option can be if you're kind of undecided. A lot of people end up being really happy having one kid. You kind of get the experience, but you're not as deep into it as if you have two
or three children or more than that. And I shared that on social because it was really compelling to me. I'm leaning towards having one kid, and people erupted at me. They were like, oh, my gosh, your kid's going to be so lonely. Only children are so lonely. How could you do that to a human and I'm like, community is going to be at the forefront of my mind every step of the way. But that community doesn't need to come from my uterus, you know.
Yeah. And also I'm lonely and I have siblings, so that too.
How many people do you know with siblings where they hate each other?
You don't want that to be the.
Case, but it can happen. And I have so many friends that that's happened to.
Like, I love him and he's great today he turned forty. Actually I facetimed him this morning. I still call him the baby. You know, he has a mustache and a family, but he.
Sure he loves that.
Yeah, but it's interesting because I'm not It's not like he's not the first person I call when I you know, and then I even still feel a little guilty saying out loud to you.
I think I think a lot of people though, yeah, I think a lot of people. As you get older, their first people are more friends, not family. I know, people like the first people you'll call, the first person you want to talk to. That like you feel more connected to your friends. I feel like not everyone, but I feel like that's pretty common.
So I don't know because three out of three of us feel that way. But I'm like, do birds of a feather? I mean, I definitely feel that way, but I will say I get a little envious when I told my therapist is too or I'm sorry our therapist. You all have the same therapist we do. She was and then I was like, I talk about each other. Yeah yeah, She's like, well, the funniest thing is to this day, she still this happened just a week or two ago. She's like, I think, are you going to
want to come into the office this way today? And I was just like, I think you might want to see someone. I'm like, just tell me. I know, I know you Like like, like what always gued to me? I'm like, Amy, I already you can confirm and denight, Like do we need to sign a waiver so we can always do anyway?
I don't know.
But anyways, I was telling her because we were just talking about how you know our parents.
How do I say this?
You expect different things from your parents, and I think as you get older, you see that they're they maybe not they they maybe have not done the work or the they have. Maybe the stronger they have boundaries or just all the stuff, like they haven't they haven't done it, they haven't done the therapy. Like our generation, I feel like is very like therapy and talking about things, and it's like they they've just kind of stayed stagnant with
certain things. And so she was like, man, I feel like this generation, our generation is just like had a lot of clients come in this week talking about their parents. And I said, for me, though, I also see the other people on Instagram where it's like, you know, Becke Tilli and her mom were just on like vacation Hawaii, and I'm like, I would love to do that, And I was like, I'm envious of those people that get
to have those relationships. Then I realized I'm like, oh, well, it's fine, I'll just take my friend and you just have to accept the relationship for what it is. But it still kind of stings a little bit to be like I wish I had that.
Also, I think it's like anything else in life where I mean, I see so many of those things and I don't have that type of relationship either with my mom.
And what we see on social media.
Is like not the Norman. It's just the thing that we see because of course the people who are like besties with their mom are going to be gramming the Hawaii vacation, you know, right, Yeah, So I think it's like, yeah, it's like it's important to take a step back, and it's I also think it's important to have these types of conversations because same as like with friendships, our friendships
change and grow and evolve over our lives. And sometimes the friends that we make as an adult feel better to us because they reflect the selves that we like to see ourselves as as at that moment back to us, versus the people who are kind of reflecting your high school self, or your childhood self or your college self. And I think family can sometimes get stuck in reflecting a version of ourselves back to ourselves that we are no longer that person. We've evolved, we've changed, we've moved on.
And I think it's so important too if we want to keep those relationships from our past strong give space. I have a tip in my book actually about like always letting people evolve in front of you.
With our partners.
I think we do this all the time with our romantic partners. We kind of trap them in the people that they were when we met them, when we've been doing all this work in the past decade, and why wouldn't they have been doing that same work as well.
So I have a question around that because something very similar just happened to me around the friendship part. And it's someone that I had been friends with for you know, ten plus years, I'll say that, and I remember sitting there having a conversation just going, we're just we're so different now that so we've grown a part so much that I don't know if I would be friends with this person if I met them today. But I feel like I'm almost not that I have to be friends
this person. But it's just, you know, I was even thinking like wedding lists, and I'm like, well, she'd be hurt if I didn't invite her, but she's not a I don't I would be hurt.
Because I'm over here going, oh, we're doing.
The math carrying the one looks like we got extended on them. But you start to like, I start to go, okay, it's I think it's okay. Obviously people grow apart, But to have that like kind of realization that I'm like, I don't even know the effort that I would not that's not the effort because I'm like, I still care about this person, but I just like, they're not going to be on the short list, and I think their feelings would be hurt. But at the same time, we're just so different.
I don't know.
It's like a It is tricky though, because to your point, I don't think everyone's sometimes doing the same amount of work.
So but that can be something we look for in friendships too, right, It's like the in our relationships and our friendships and our relationships with our family, Like we can say it's important to us to spend time with people doing the work, and then we can kind of scale back the time with people who aren't doing the work.
Is that one of the hundred things one hundred ways to change your life in your book?
Nine?
Yeah?
Can we have distance to divide the book? The last thing, well, the last.
Tip is actually one of my favorites. That one is take the risk, and that's based on research from Dan Pink that shows that by and large, in our lives, we regret the risk that we don't take far more than the risk that we do take, even if those risks end up as failures, like even if we don't succeed at the risk, we still regret it less if we take it. So tip number one hundred, I think, is what we're saying.
And do you have one in there for how to break up with a friend.
I don't have one for how to break up as a friend. I have how to make new friends as an adult.
I have ones for.
How to turn friends into best friends, which I think we do not talk about enough because I think a lot of us feel like we have those acquaintances, we have those people we see at work at yoga, but we want that rider, dive bestie, that call in the middle of the night bestie. So we have a tip about that, but not how to break up with a friend. But I did have a friendship expert on my podcast once and she was a huge fan of never severing
ties completely. She's a fan of kind of a two prong approach one having a conversation, because if you're at the point where you're ready to sever ties, you have nothing to lose by just saying to this person, I
wish we had more of this type of conversation. I wish we did more of this type of thing, And actually just getting it out there in the open what you would like from the friendship, and then if nothing happens with that, she was a friend or she was a fan of putting people in sort of different categories in your life and being okay with that. Like, not everybody has to be a wedding friend. Not everybody has to be a middle of the night bestie. Some people
can be people you see a party. Sometimes you send a quick text to when you see something exciting has happened in their life life on social media, and that's completely okay.
Give us the impath guide to doing that, because I think that's where we struggle. Yeah, like I would, I'm going to invite just because I feel bad that I don't want to hurt someone's feelings.
Well, I think it ran for a wedding.
I think it really depends on how big your wedding is, what the vibe of it is, et cetera.
But the vibe is close friends.
Yeah, I think it's the finest friends you can have a conversation. I think we're all trying to live our life as best we can. And I think sometimes there is a tip in the book, Tip three I think is think about your death, and it's one of my favorite tips. That's a little morbid, but I think sometimes zooming out and getting the perspective of, like, what are the things that are going to matter to me at
the end of my life. Is it going to matter more that I didn't hurt this friend's feelings about whether or not they could come to my wedding, Or is it going to matter more that my wedding had exactly the vibe that I wanted it to have. And those answers are going to be different for different people. But zooming out and thinking about yourself literally, like lying on your deathbed, which of those things is going to be more important?
And then do that?
Right?
Well, I'm gonna have to change my middle of the night friend because I tried to call Hey in the middle of the night the other night because I was having like I was I'm violently ill from food poisoning, and she didn't answer the phone, so I heard it from I couldn't because I'm like, she's got a baby.
She's like, oh, I'm always awake. There's something else too, And I don't know if you've got a tip for this, And again I think this is like my people, please are piece of me, which is interesting because sometimes I can be so opposite. But when someone is having a conversation and they're just continuing continuing to talk, in my inner I was like, I don't want to keep talking right now, and I just would like to be like, I'm sorry, I have to go, or like I need
to just because I need to just stop. I need to I need to do stuff today, or like I but I feel bad interrupting the person to just I'm going to share something that I can say because I've never done it to either of you. Okay, my phone dies, No, I mean in person, the lions say your phone dies. I just I just hang up and then and then I'll text him ten minutes later and say, whoa my phone.
You're gonna get a lot of text from people.
Here's only a few of them, but there's people you can't catch a breath. I'm like, all right, it sis my cause I get like two minutes to myself these days.
I shall say I gotta go. You would, But this person was like telling me, like the story, I'm just like.
But here's the thing. If I'm on the other end of that, and do not take this the wrong way. Like, I'm picking up on the fact that you're not wanting to hear my conversation.
But if you're that observant, you're not going to people or not. That's the thing.
So many people don't pick up on that, and I do that too, like I'm picking up the hint. I am walking away while you're still speaking.
Some people just don't, like I remember when I hugged. When I hug people like and they're like, they're not hugs. I'm like, who okay, And I know that now for the next time, you know, because it's like you're.
Talking about me. We're just say you're talking about me?
No.
I remember the time that I met Catherine.
Are we talking abou a different one?
Oh?
Yeah?
Yeah.
She's like, how to go?
And I was just like, well, I gave her a hug, and I don't know if she's a hug like a hugging person.
So I was like and I was like, oh yeah.
Tip five in her book is don't hug people that don't want to be hugged.
It's not a better way to live a good way to.
Live a healthy life if you don't love to be hugged. It doesn't like for me, it's the holding on for a long time that's the biggest problem. Yeah, they're like, yeah, it's like if you the extended hug is where you start to get a little uncomfortable.
Well, Julie like rubs my rubs my arm. That's that's where I'm just like, all right, stop takling my arm.
That's funny. Julie does get romantic with all of them.
Yeah, okay, so we'll get I need some more tips to live my best life.
I mean, so we have eighteen categories in the book. Is there something that you feel like you in an area of your life that you feel like you would like to do some work on?
Jam Where to start? Let me?
Can I grab my whiteboard because I've got uh yeah, I think let's start with like I struggle with like finances. So again, I just bought to new how I bought a new house. She's also dating to Scottish men. So I get I talk about this a lot, especially Thursday therapies. But something you said take a risk, and I was
like this the first thing I thought. I was like, well, this house is a risk because I just don't know how it's going to look in a couple of years or whatever, and because everything is so not promised today and obviously but just work wise. So I'm just curious, do you have any other tips when it comes to just living your life? And I know you say take risks and stuff, but not you know, feeling held down because you're afraid of what might happen.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I have a lot of money anxiety. I call myself like anxiously attached to my money and an attachment issue relational style. But I think my favorite tip in the book about money, It's twofold one, is to take the decision fatigue out of money as much as possible. So I think we spend a lot of time thinking about the little parts of money that are just weighing on our brains, whether it's do I Robby at Sati, who's somebody that I interviewed.
He wrote I Will Teach You to Be Rich.
It's a great book as a Netflix series, et cetera.
Yeah, he came on the podcast for Thursday Therapy. He's fantastic. Did he help no matter how much?
Yeah?
He's like, no matter, He's like, what would you feel comfortable having in your account? And I was like, you know, trying to talk to him about it. He's like, I promise you you'd still not be happy when you have that like mindset. He's just like, you're always going to be like, no, that's not enough, or I need I need this, and yeah.
He's well, And I think it depends.
One of the things that's going to call it for him is that he automates so much of his decision making around money, so like he has a role that if he goes to bookstre and he wants a book, he doesn't think about it. He just buys the book. He knows that's something that he can always afford. And by taking the decision fatigue off the table of like do I buy this book? Do I not by this
book making these little rules about money. So for me, a rule that I've been lucky enough to make about money is that I don't think about how much money I spend at the grocery store.
I used to debate about it.
I'd hem and haf I should buy like the expensive ollie pops and poppies and whatever. And I'm just like, this is not impacting my finances in the long run. Why am I spending my time thinking about this? But I also think that He has a really nice zoom out perspective of like, we are making money outside of taking care of our basic circumstances to enable our best lives.
So what does your best life look like? If you think your best life is in a beautiful home that's going to make you feel cozy and secure and you're going to make all these wonderful memories with your friends and family, then that's something that it probably makes sense for you to spend more money on. And then outside of that, and I think a really important thing for that is like freeing yourself of the societal shoulds. Like I do not give a shit what kind of car I drive.
That's yeah, same, literally.
Could not care less.
But sometimes I'll get that little inkling when my friend drives away in like a really cool car, and I'm like, oh, should I care about that? I don't give a shit about designer bags, like having a Chanel logo on my bag does nothing for me. But sometimes I'm like, well, well, people think I'm less successful if I don't have this logo on my clothes. And I think kind of removing any of those shoulds and noticing when they spring up is really important. But it sounds like you have, like me.
Outside of that, you need to feel safe and secure, and I think recognizing that after a certain level, and I think there's definitely a level where money is going to be the thing that makes us feel safe and secure, and we need to recognize all the people who don't feel safe and secure because they don't have enough money. But after a certain level, that need for safety and
security is not around money. It's around something else that happened in your past and your childhood, and working on addressing the root cause of that is going to help you so much more than making more and more money.
Well, sure, I mean I came. I came from my mom who we'd always cut coupons, right, So it's like, hey, we were a coupon family, you know. And it was like we couldn't get that because it was too much or you know, and so I had to quit things because we didn't have I had to quit figure skating because we didn't have the money for it, and she had to work three jobs. So there was like so then I didn't I don't really think I had security until later in my early thirties, to be honest with you.
So it's so new that you know then he was basically saying, like your house and your car the things you shouldn't spend money, and I was like.
Oh crap.
I was like, I really I was about to move into it, you know, because he was giving us percentages of like what to you know, and I'm like, well, I'm over it. But at the same time, again, I don't care what kind of car I drive, So I was just like, I went less on that.
And I also disagree with that slightly, Like I think it's he's obviously the expert, and I sed to his expert advice largely, But I think we have to think about what our home means to us. And I think even if your home isn't going to be the best investment that you ever make, and Remy has really interesting numbers around that that are contrary to a lot of what we hear, our home matters emotionally, and I think getting really clear on what your home means to you
from an emotional level can be helpful. And it sounds like, especially if you had a lot of insecurity and lack of safety in childhood, creating that secure and safe space for yourself would be really really.
Important, yes, especially peace that and that's the piece that makes me want to cry because I'm like, all I want is just a safe place for not only me, but for my children, you know, and just like that the things that I would never want to happen in past homes to happen here, like this is like my sacred like ground.
So I'm like, and now you would Steve.
I always go to Steve Harvey, but he's just like, you know, it's it's and I don't know if this is a tip that you'd agree or not agree, but he's like, you should be uncomfortable, like you will work harder when you're uncomfortable. And I'm misquoting it, but basically like, yeah, it's I can pull up the exact one, but it's just like I'm constantly uncomfortable. Yeah, but this home does matter to you on a different level. I think that's the thing too, Like it's it's not a superficial thing
to me at all. It's a new chapter.
It's you. I mean, this is it right?
I just think failure, though, is in me is a deep route too from like past. So it's like I don't want to fail. So that's you know, I lot of.
Tips about that.
I love failure. I just did an entire podcast about how to get out of a slump, and one of the listener questions that I addressed was like, I am too afraid to take to take risks and to do things I want to do in my life because I'm afraid of failing. And I was, like, every successful person that I know has failed so many times.
Oh, I mean I have many, and those I've learned the greatest lessons from them.
You learn the.
Greatest lessons, including the lesson that like, you can take those risks and you will be okay and you are resilient. And I think you can only teach yourself that through practice. So you learn like the practical lesson like oh I should do this differently next time, I shouldn't trust this person whatever, but you also learn the lesson of like I can fail and I can be okay. And I also think to an extent, life is sort of a
numbers game. So if you take a lot of rest, you're probably gonna have a lot of failures and some rewards. But if you don't take rests, you're not going to have any rewards and you're not gonna have any failures.
Yeah, I feel like you do a really good job at though, like you just are like we're doing this when it comes to like your kids, and.
Like, yeah, I was thinking about the grocery store thing, though I'd probably have a lot more money if I actually looked at how much I'm spending at the grocery store. That I'm just like whatever, I'm gonna get whatever I want.
But I'm going to go on these great vacations, like and that's my priority.
Like I will probably not end up. I mean, I would like a bigger, nicer house, but that's not like my top. I spend more time in my car, so I kind of want my car to.
Be you know.
So it's just priorities are just so different. You're always hosting. I never really hosted my house, you know. So it's just all different. So vacations are top for me. And I'm just kind of my husband is always freaks out about money. He definitely has anxiety around money, and I'm just like, this is what we're gonna do. My priorities traveling and you know, so it's just a balance just and everyone has different priorities.
Yeah, I'm married a preacher's kid who grew up with nothing, So we have a huge scarcely mentality issue at our Well.
I grew up with nothing, but I kind of went the opposite way.
Same same like, I'm like, God has proved so many places where I thought I would hit a low yeah, and I've just never it. I see it's a I get scarcy mentality to say never, but just always has provided for me. So I feel like it's okay. Then why aren't you moving into the neighborhood because you're so My next question, because my husband's in music, is there a chapter on scarcity in the music industry?
I mean, I am in a career that's also sort of inherently up and down. You never, it's dependent on your audience and people being engaged in algorithms and are people gonna buy my buck? Are people going to listen to my podcast? And I think the thing that's helped
me most is building belief in my own resilience. And I think that for your husband, he will building the belief that no matter what the world throws at him, he has the skills, the mindset, the ability to handle that thing because we can't control obviously so much of what's coming from the outside. But over the years, I've been able to build a belief that like, I can I can pivot. I'm scrappy, I'm adaptable, and I think that that serves me more than any outside assurance possibly could.
Yeah, and he's a hustler, Like it's the thing that I'm most like. All the people that I'm most drawn to are these like the grit having hustler people. I think we all are like never going to settle for just like hanging out on a couch.
Well, and I think that's like a cool compliment to give him instead of like, oh, this is so cool you worked with it. I don't know what he does in the music industry, but I feel like, if oh this is so cool you worked with this artist, you got this award, those are cool, but he's already those are things that are ephemeral and they can go away. But instead like saying to him, I so admire how scrappy you are. I love that you're a hustler. I
think that's so cool. Like I think it's amazing that you're gonna do whatever you want and succeed no matter what.
And I told him, I'm like, dude, you didn't marry, like we will team up and we will handle shit like I'm a stay at home mom now because I can be. I still want to do things and need to do things, but also like we're just never going down.
I think he's witnessed so much of I think he doesn't understand the balance of like what he has seen is because there's an equal level of effort that matches what he's seen and our level, even his level sleeping is gonna well surpass where his family came from, Like he can't, you know, so we just won't be that.
We can't be. We're like it's not in our DNA well.
And going back to what we were talking about with feeling, you know, insecure, feeling like everything might go away, I've had to realize that the thing that's going to make that feeling go away is it going to be making more money. It's going to be giving my childhood self what they never got, which was love, acceptance, the reassurance
that I've got this. I did not get that as a child, and so I've been really working on giving that to myself, and that's honestly impacted my anxiety and my sense of safety and security far more than any amount of money. I've ever been able to make.
That's a real out of your book, And that might be it, But what is the what is the number one for you out of the hundred that you're like, this is what I will live and die by, Like your kind of thing that gets you through your to make your best life.
So the thing is it does change.
I really wanted this book to be a resource. First of all, it's really pretty, So I wanted it to be the kind of book you would put out on your coffee table and you would flip through as part of a morning routine or when you want a motivation moment you're just kind of like, if I can't get off the couch, I'm scrolling on social media a lot.
You pick it up, you read a tip.
The tips are about five to ten minutes of reading each and you get the science and then you get action to do with that science. So I wanted it to serve as a resource for there's a time you're really struggling with gut health issues, we have a section for that. If there's a time where you're struggling with friendships, we have a section for that. If there's a time you're struggling with relationships. We have a section for that, but right now, the tip that's really resonating with me
is about rewiring your neural pathways for happiness. Have you guys heard about this concept at all? I love it.
So.
It's from doctor Rick Hanson. He is a psychologist at UC Berkeley, and he does all of this amazing work about how we can literally rewire our neural pathways so that we feel more happiness on a moment to moment basis in our lives.
That we do that is by when we feel good things when we notice a sunset.
These gonna be like little little little things when you're in a hug, if you like that hug for a little bit longer to just kind of sit in it, when you're smelling your dog's like fur, your kid's hair, or anything like that, These little tiny moments you want to sit in it a little bit longer than you normally would sit in it, and then you want to turn up the dial on feeling it a little bit more. You just kind of want to like, oh, yeah, the sunset is so good, my cat's first smell so good.
And what that's going to do.
That lingering in that amplification is going to literally rewire your neural pathways. Your neural pathways are like a meadow, and if you were going for a hike, you're kind of like making a path in the meadow, making a path in the meadow, making a path in the meadow,
And those are all different thoughts that you're thinking. So if you're thinking, I'm so stressed, the world is against me, I'm never going to complete this, I'm ugly, I'm stupid, those are paths that you're making in that meadow in your brain, and your brain is going to take the most easy path to take. So if it is the most well trodden path, I'm stupid, I'm ugly, I'm stressed, I hate the world. Your brain's like, cool, got it, that's the path I'm going to take. That's an easy
way through this meadow. But what you're doing through this practice, through amplifying the good and setting in the good, is you're making new pathways and you're cementing those pathways, and you're making them much easier. So the next time your brain doesn't know where to go, instead of feeding you be thoughts that make you feel like crap, it's going to feed you really good thoughts. That are going to make you feel amazing.
I love that, well, Liz, Thank you so much for coming on everyone, Get one hundred Ways to Change your Life The Science of leveling up health, happiness, relationships, and success. Thank you for sharing some of your tips with that.
Thank you guys so much for having me