I Choose...Micro-Moments of Joy with Liz Moody
48:31 Share

Hi, this is Jenny Garth from the I Choose Me podcast. If you're managing a challenging mental condition, weekly therapy can sometimes feel like it's not enough. You may be looking for a way to spend more focus time on you. That's where Amend Mental Health Treatment Center comes in. I recently took a tour at Amend in beautiful Malibu, California, and the facility is so gorgeous and serene.

The dedicated team of doctors and therapists with deep clinical expertise were amazing. Designed to give you the time and space you need to have that breakthrough. They have two unique locations in Malibu that surround you in natural beauty and pure calm. Find out more at amendtreatment.com slash start.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more.

After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about the choices we make and where they lead us. My

My guest today is someone that is using her platform to have insightful conversations in the wellness space, and she is not shying away from opening up about the things that she's overcome. She's the author of 100 Ways to Change Your Life and is the host of the Liz Moody podcast that I was recently a guest on. So please welcome Liz Moody to the I Choose Me podcast.

Hi, Liz. Welcome to my podcast. For those of you that don't know and are listening, I was recently on Liz's podcast, the Liz Moody podcast, and we had such a good time and a great conversation about getting older, finding ourselves, anxiety, and so much more.

It was a really good one. So you guys definitely go check that out. Liz Moody podcast. Did you have fun when I was on your podcast? Oh my gosh. I had so much fun. You are so open and so honest and so vulnerable and so helpful. I just feel like you're so adept at taking stories from your life and turning it into wisdom to share with other people. Well, I'm glad. Oh my gosh. Let's see. For our listeners who might not

be familiar. I want to go back to your early years. I want to start there, if that's okay. In your book, 100 Ways to Change Your Life, you talk about

that when you were, I think, two years old, your mother was in a serious accident and that had sort of this deep ripple effect on your life and your parents ended up getting divorced. And you said that that accident made you aware that life is precious and unguaranteed. What was it like having that kind of insight at such a young age?

It's so interesting because I didn't really have the insight at that age. Of course, I was two years old, right? But one day my mother was there and then the next day she was gone and she was gone for months and months and months that she spent in a coma in the hospital. And at one point they were going to transfer her to the kind of place where they're like, you're never going to wake up from this. And my dad had to fight to trying to keep her alive. And

And then she went to a rehab facility. And the next time I saw her, she was so different than the person I'd seen last. And I'm only even in the last decade or so of my life unpacking what that has done to my attachment style and to how I relate to the world at large.

But I do remember from my very earliest years having the sense that the world was unsafe, that these one in a million things that you don't believe will happen to you absolutely can and do happen to you and happen to my mother. And so I put up those protective barriers and I turned on all of my alarm switches very, very early. Mm-hmm.

Do you think that you developed like a fear of abandonment? Because I know when my dad got sick and I was young, I was like 12 and he got really sick. And like you just said, he kind of came back from that a different person. And at that point, I feel like I lost something so vital to my life. Did you feel that way? Yeah. And my relationship with my parents, both of them was so impacted by that. They got divorced as a result of this.

accident. And it really was that one pebble that's thrown into the lake that has this ripple effect that spreads out over your entire life. And I definitely think I still to this day have fears of abandonment, of letting people love me completely, of trusting that people will be there, whether it's by their own volition or something completely out of their control. Yeah. It really does impact you for the rest of your life.

It really does. And we're learning so much about attachment styles. I actually had Dr. Judy Ho in my podcast, and she is a psychologist who specializes in attachment styles. And I went into the podcast thinking I was anxiously attached, which I think a lot of people who struggle with anxiety are like, oh, I'm anxious. I must be anxiously attached.

And the episode is the process of me realizing I'm actually avoidantly attached, which was really interesting for me. And I think a lot of that is rooted in that accident. And the thing that resonated with me the most around that is when you're stressed or sad or having these larger feelings, instead of reaching out to other people, you don't trust that they'll be there for you in those moments. So you retreat into yourself. And whenever I'm feeling stressed, overwhelmed, depressed,

And my friends are all texting me and they're like, Liz, are you okay? I love you. I want to be there for you. And I don't answer the text. I retreat into myself. And I always wondered why that was my reaction, why that was my response.

I, I, I think I might be avoidantly attached to you. And you'll have the same episode arc is mine. You just basically described. Yeah. What growing up with that kind of when you had that break as a young girl and your mom and dad left in some capacity, right?

Or that's how you saw it. A hundred percent. And I also just internalized so young that the world wasn't safe. So a lot of my process of rebuilding my sense of resilience and my sense of self has been around making myself feel safe in myself, making myself feel like I can take care of myself and I'll be okay no matter what happens. And I really had to actively work to build that perspective. Yeah. Yeah. Because we don't know that we can

Turn to ourselves.

No, we don't. It's crazy. I have this tip in my book that's do a resilience practice. Essentially, we've all heard about gratitude practices. There's so much incredible research around it. But I think a resilience practice is really cool, which is just reminding yourself of all of the times in the past that you've been resilient, that you've been faced with hard things and you've gotten through it and maybe even gotten through it better. I think sometimes when these overwhelming things pop up, we're like, oh, my gosh, I

How am I going to survive this? And it's like, well, you've survived before, not one time, not 10 times, but hundreds of times before. And that has made you the person that you are today. And sometimes seeing it all written out in a list is a really stark reminder of that. I love what your message is. I love that you are interested in helping people who have similar needs.

issues that you have. I think that, you know, you're younger than me and I did not have any of this figured out when I was your age. So it's so just refreshing and it lights something for me that you are able to glean these messages and these, these lessons out of life and share them with other people.

So I just think that what you're doing is awesome. You struggle with anxiety and panic attacks and agoraphobia. And for those of that don't know, agoraphobia involves a fear of avoiding places or situations that might cause you to panic or feel like you're trapped or helpless or embarrassed. And, you know, you just don't go out. I have had...

my own agoraphobia issues in the years. But when you're in that state of mind, what does it feel like for you? Oh, I felt like at one point, so I went through a multi-month period where I was agoraphobic and I would essentially have panic attacks whenever I left the house. And I felt so many different ways. I felt...

Like I could justify my situation. I remember laying there with my computer propped up next to me in bed and being like, well, I have YouTube. I can send emails to people like this could be a nice life and kind of almost like.

validated that I didn't ever need to go outside again. I also felt horrifically depressed. Also, at times I felt so uncomfortable inside of my skin because of my anxiety that I wasn't sure that I wanted to survive longer because that discomfort, the idea of facing that discomfort for the

It was a real range of things. And it's one of the reasons that I'm so passionate about sharing these things. I think people, and I'm sure this happens to you to an even more extreme degree, but people see my books. They see me doing glamorous things because the podcast, they see me on TV and they're like, wow, that's so cool. And I want to be like,

This is not where I started. I started unable to get out of bed. And when I was unable to get out of bed, I would look up interviews of celebrities with anxiety. And I'd be like, look, if Amanda Seyfried can go on Jay Leno and have a panic attack, then I must be able to go to the grocery store someday. So if I can be that story for even one person who is listening to this or who engages with my work in any way, it will feel worth it.

That's beautiful. I want to ask you, what do you think was the tipping point for you? How did you get to not wanting to leave your house and having those feelings? There was a number of different factors. I had a seizure when I was traveling in Brazil by myself, and I think I had a lot of PTSD about what was happening in my body after that, but it was during my party phase of life. I was doing a lot of drugs. I was traveling around a lot, and I didn't attribute it to that. So I would

Yeah.

I didn't make that association for a really, really, really long time. The seizure was drug induced and anorexia induced. And I also didn't want to admit to myself that I was doing enough drugs or had enough of an eating disorder to cause that type of thing. So I had a general sense of lack of safety in my body that I wasn't dealing with in any way that I was just pushing away, pushing away, pushing away. And then my

Now husband and I moved to England. He got into a graduate school program and I was so excited about it. I considered myself a world traveler. I was like, I'm going to be sophisticated and glamorous and living this European life. And I really, really struggled almost from the get go. I had a really hard time building community and

my world just became so isolated and it really underscores the importance of community in our life. Not having that community was the tipping point for me where my world just got smaller and smaller and smaller. And then the outside world got scarier and scarier and scarier. And now there's incredible research to back that up. The world's

longest study on health and human happiness. It came out of Harvard from Dr. Robert Waldinger. He runs the School of Adult Development. And it found that the single greatest predictor of longevity and satisfaction and happiness in our lives is the strength of our relationships. The single greatest, like greater than any other factor. So that's what I was suffering from. I was suffering from not having strong relationships and it showed up in my life in a real way.

Because at that time, you just had that relationship with your now husband. With my now husband. And that was beautiful and wonderful. But he was off at grad school all day. London also is very spread out as a city. So he'd go to grad school almost an hour away. And he'd invite me to come hang out with his grad school friends. But it was over an hour away on the tube. And I regret a lot of my choices at the time, honestly. I wish I had understood the importance of community more and spent more time presenting

prioritizing that, but I didn't know. I didn't know how huge that was. And how are you feeling today with it all? Like you seem like a completely different person, but maybe you still struggle internally. I don't know. I am a completely different person and I'm so grateful for that. I genuinely cannot overstate that I had panic attacks when I left the house. I tried to go grocery shopping once and I abandoned my basket at the grocery store because I could not handle it.

waiting in the checkout line. And now I fly all over the country. I get to host an incredible podcast. I get to write incredible books. I go on live TV, which I still find incredibly nerve wracking. That's like a different type of anxiety right there. But I still do struggle with anxiety. I just now have a very robust toolkit. And I also know how to take care of myself. So when I feel myself

in a direction, I will be able to pull myself back and I know what helps at this point. And I know how to recognize when things are heading that way. That's good. You've learned what the triggers are. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But I also...

I also think it's important to say, and I think you said this when you were on my podcast as well, that it's not like a, oh my gosh, I'm better thing, you know? And I don't want to promise like, oh, your anxiety just will all go away and you won't ever have to think about it again. It's a-

ongoing front of mind thing for me. I have a tip in my book that's called Find Your Why. And the idea is that in the health and wellness world, we're often stacking our routines and spending all this money and we don't even know the reason why we're doing that. We're just doing it because some influencer told us to do it or we read about it in some book or we saw it on TV or something like

And we always need a reason behind the habits that we're engaging with, the things that we're purchasing so that we don't just have this huge long list of to-dos and we're so overwhelmed and we're not actually engaging in wellness, which is supposed to make our life easier.

Mm-hmm. For example?

What do you prioritize? Yeah. So I work out every single morning and I have that set in my calendar. I don't have meetings that get in the way of it. I preserve that time because I know that my anxiety on a day that I don't move my body in the morning is so much higher than my anxiety on a day where I do move my body in the morning. And I've figured that out for myself. And now I'm deeply protective of that time. That's such a good thing. What about when you're traveling though? Like it's when I'm traveling, I'm

Like this last month, I was home maybe five days out of the whole month. And it was so hard for me to stay on my routine of wellness and taking good care of myself and working out in the mornings and doing all the things.

are you able to manage it when you're traveling so much? I have a travel wellness routine and then I have a home wellness routine. Oh, of course you do. I love this. And so they differ from each other, but it also takes the decision fatigue out of it because I'm not like, oh, I'm traveling. What am I going to do? I'm like, no, I'll just go to my travel wellness routine. Wait, what's your travel? Well, I need to know. So I have online workouts that I love to do. I like Megan Roop, the Sculpt Society. She has these workouts that are like

15 to 30 minutes you can choose and you can do them in a hotel room and you get a pretty good workout in or in an Airbnb. Sometimes I'll go to the hotel gym if it has a nice gym, but I do that first thing in the morning when I wake up. I also always travel with purely Elizabeth oatmeal or what is it called?

seven spoons or something like that. They have a protein oatmeal. I'll travel with some sort of oatmeal and I'll travel with a protein powder that I'll mix into that oatmeal so that I know that every single morning I'm getting a fiber and protein rich breakfast so that my blood sugar is more likely to stay stable throughout the day. That's something else that I've identified as a really big anxiety trigger for me. So if I'm starting the day with a croissant, I will never feel as good mentally for the rest of the day. The croissants for later in the day.

Oh my God. After I've had my protein breakfast. This is such good advice. This is so good. I travel also with my protein items, all my powders and things. I always get stopped at the checkpoint. At the airport. Yeah, for sure. But it's dry and you can bring it on. I've never gotten it taken away from me. They'll always just kind of like take it out and look at it. So I'll do that. I also, so we have a cold plunge in our house. That was our big pandemic purchase that I love so much. I actually went away on a trip and my husband had bought it when I got home and it's like-

And it's like, wow, this is a big purchase. But I love it. I love it so much. And cold plunging is really helpful for balancing dopamine levels. But in my travel routine, I'll just take a cold shower, which is what I did before I had

the cold plunge and I'll end my shower on a minute or two of cold. And that's really helpful for, again, keeping those dopamine levels balanced. I always travel with an eye mask so that I can get good sleep. There's really good research around how any light reaching your eyes impacts your quality of your sleep. Even if you're getting the same quantity of sleep, even if you're like, oh, I've slept for eight hours, you haven't gotten as good of sleep if light is reaching your eyes. So I do that. Those are like

the big, big ones. I travel with a silk pillowcase, which feels over the top, but I like it. And I like feeling like my head isn't touching the hotel sheets kind of. It gives you that sense of home a little bit and a little bit less of the grossness of thinking about how many heads have been on those sheets. Totally. Yeah. Yeah.

Hi, this is Jenny Garth from the I Choose Me podcast. If you're managing a challenging mental condition, weekly therapy can sometimes feel like it's not enough. You may be looking for a way to spend more focus time on you. That's where Amend Mental Health Treatment Center comes in. I recently took a tour at Amend in beautiful Malibu, California, and the facility is so gorgeous and serene.

The dedicated team of doctors and therapists with deep clinical expertise were amazing. Designed to give you the time and space you need to have that breakthrough. They have two unique locations in Malibu that surround you in natural beauty and pure calm. Find out more at amendtreatment.com slash start.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun.

Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When anxiety or panic attacks are something that you are feeling and your partner hasn't experienced it, how do you suggest people make their partners aware? And like, what should a partner be doing to support someone who is struggling with anxiety?

It's going to be so different person to person. So I like to do an inventory in my own brain and the times that I've had panic attacks and the times that I felt the most anxious, what have people done that's the most helpful? And that can range from left me completely alone and didn't try to make a conversation with me at all, which is still what I need my husband to do on planes. I'm a very anxious flyer and he'll like

be sitting next to me trying to make jokey comments. And I'm like, I'm holding the plane aloft with my mind. I need you to not mess with my concentration in this moment. But sometimes it can be holding you. Sometimes it can be putting ice in your hands or doing one of those little tools or techniques. Sometimes it can be guiding you through a breathing exercise.

I think reflecting on what were the moments that were most helpful that other people did, and then almost writing those down. So you can have that as a list to give to somebody that loves you and that wants to be there for you and experiment with different things. For me personally,

It's either usually be left alone because I don't like being around other people when I feel really anxious. Back to the avoidantly attached thing that I just discovered about myself. Or I guess on the opposite side, it's really holding me.

And and giving me that physical contact or the other thing that my husband can do and i've asked him to do this at this point Is if i'm in sort of a spiral if he can get me to take a walk or offer to take a walk With me getting outside Changing what my vision is taking in literally changing. My perspective is really really helpful Mm-hmm That's good getting some fresh air. I'm sure helps too. What helps you? What do you ask people that love you in your life to do? um, I

Well, I don't ask my girls really of much. They kind of just know when I'm having anxiety or when I'm stressed and they kind of take care of me a little bit more than a little bit of role reversal. But my husband, I like him to hold my hand and hug me, like just...

You know, that what you said, like hug me. It's so regulating. It really is. Like there's something about when my husband touches me, it just calms me down. Yeah.

And I am so thankful for that, that I'm able to get that from him. It releases oxytocin. Yeah. It's same with my husband and I love it so much. But also if you're listening and you don't have a partner, you get a lot of those benefits with a pet. I think pets are very underutilized oxytocin sources. Do you have a pet? Oh, yes, I do. I have a...

A picture of her right here. What's her name? This is a kitty I'm looking at. Yeah, she's a cat. My friends got me this when my book came out. It's my cat reading my book. So you know that she's very smart. Her name is Bella, which is the most basic name. And there was a period, my husband kind of looks like Robert Pattinson. And so there was a period during the twilight heyday where...

People thought I named my cat Bella and I was dating a guy who said, and I haven't seen the movies, but I was, people thought I was really into it for a little bit. So funny that you bring up Twilight. Oh my gosh.

When you're working and you're in your studio, do your lights give you anxiety? Because I'm really affected by LED lights. Yeah, that's interesting. They don't. And I think that's because of what I am doing in my studio. I think...

if I was doing anything else and I was around these lights, I might feel more sensitive because I am in general sensitive to lights and noises. One of my top anxiety tips is to get noise canceling headphones, particularly the Bose noise canceling headphones. It will completely change your experience of flying, walking down busy streets. It just

lowers your cortisol level against all of those inputs. But for me, when I'm in my studio, I feel so in flow and in purpose. My podcast is my favorite thing that I do. Getting to have deep, meaningful conversations with people is my favorite thing that I do. So I think that maybe distracts from that a little bit. Yeah. You're focused on something bigger.

Yeah, it's the human connection. For me, the human connection comes above all else. And I think it's something that the wellness world gets wrong is we wanna prioritize the cold plunging and the supplements and all the things we should be eating and red light therapy and sauna and all these different things. And we forget that the thing

that has been studied the most to help our health is our relationships with other people. And that's the thing that we should be making sure that there's time for instead of having it fall to the side so that we can get all of the other things in our routine done. There are so many other things. I feel like every time I turn around, there's somebody else telling me how to live better, you know? Well, and that's why I love the find your why. Figure out your why so then you can always be running that script in your head.

Is that something that is relevant to me? Is that a why that I'm looking for? And it's going to change all the time. In this moment, maybe you're looking for why is around your mental health. In another moment, maybe you're looking for why is around your gut health, because that's the thing that's dominating your experience of this world at that time. That's good. In your book, you have a chapter titled, Think About Your Deaths. Yeah.

And we all know that death is part of life, but break this down for us because when you think about death, what do you envision? Yeah, this is one of the very first chapters in my book, which...

shows how important I think it is. I think it's one of the things you should be doing. The rest of the book is really written in a poo-poo platter style where you can take what you need when you have a certain why. You can work on your relationships. You can work on your longevity, all these different things. But think about your death as something I think all of us should be doing to...

get a sense of what we want our life to be at any given moment. And this is just a zoom out, picturing yourself at 80, 90, 100 years old. You're looking back on your life. And this can be so helpful in terms of the decisions that we're making.

Do I want to move to this city? Do I want to go on a date with this person? What is 95 year old me who's sitting there think about the choices that I'm making in this moment? But it can also really right size our perspective. If you are on the beach and you're thinking about the way that your thighs look in your swimsuit, is 95 year old you going to be like, yes, that was a great use of your time. Or are they going to be like, I would give anything to be back forever.

running on that beach, feeling the sand in my toes, feeling the sun on my skin. And that can be really sense-making. Will 95-year-old you be glad that you stressed over that work email for two hours and that you beat yourself up for missing a word? I don't think so. So I find it really, really helpful. And there's another little trick that I learned from Dr. Cassie Holmes. We did a episode of the podcast around unlocking how to use our time in ways that will make us happier.

And she has this exercise where it's kind of sad, but you think about the amount of times that you have left to do a thing that you love. So if you have a dog that you love walking, actually, how many times do you have left to do walks with that dog? How many Christmases do you have left? How many summers do you have left? Oh, yeah, this is sad. It's sad, but it's really beautiful.

It's beautiful almost to realize it's so many less than you think. And then you treat them with the reverence that they deserve. This Christmas should matter because you don't have infinite Christmases. This dog walk, you should be present for it. You should be appreciating it. She told this story on this podcast last.

of a guy who realized how important his dog walks were to him. And he started taking his dog to this beach that she really loved and doing their walks there. And then a few months later, the dog got cancer and ultimately passed away. And he was so glad that he'd done this exercise and that he'd realized the preciousness of those moments before those moments were gone.

Yeah, we get so caught up in doing and thinking and tasking and that you stop thinking about the preciousness of the moment. And we think it's all going to last forever. And it's really, really not. It's really not. And I don't say that morbidly. I say that because...

How beautiful does that make this moment? How beautiful does that make this conversation? How beautiful does that make it that you can hold your pet, that you can write in your journal, that you can feel the sun on your skin, that you can drink that delicious glass of water? All of it is so, so beautiful. And unless we have that sense of perspective, we can just let it pass us by. I think it feels like what you're saying, it's just tapping into gratitude for what you have left, what you have right now.

Gratitude and presence, I would say. I think I suffer from, and I know a lot of people that I talk to suffer from a real struggle of presence. And there's a lot of factors working against us being present in our lives at this moment. And I think we're all looking for ways to tap into that presence. Yeah. So when you say, think about your death, you're not saying like, think about how you're going to die. Yeah.

If you want to, but no, no. Use it as a perspective maker. Use it as a way to help you make decisions. Use it as a way to help you gauge what's important. Use it as a way to help you gauge what matters in life.

Okay. I'll think about my death if you insist, Liz Moody. Did you know that my, this is just completely off topic, but my husband always, when I get like in a mood, you know, he'll say, you're being so Rudy Giuliani, Rudy, like he'll say I'm being Rudy. Now it's, if I'm in a mood, he'll say, you're being so Liz Moody. Yeah.

I say your name all the time in our house. I'm feeling Liz Mooney right now. Oh my gosh. I don't know why. I just had to tell you that. Have you ever had to die on screen? Die? Completely die? I feel like they put you through so much in all of the stuff that you've been in. I don't think I've ever really fully died. Yeah, like I've almost died.

a million times. That's interesting. I always wonder that for actors, like how dying would on screen and tapping into all those emotions would impact how you lived your life. I've always wondered. Yeah. Can let me know if you ever have a death scene. Okay, I will report back.

Hi, this is Jenny Garth from the I Choose Me podcast. If you're managing a challenging mental condition, weekly therapy can sometimes feel like it's not enough. You may be looking for a way to spend more focus time on you. That's where Amend Mental Health Treatment Center comes in. I recently took a tour at Amend in beautiful Malibu, California, and the facility is so gorgeous and serene.

The dedicated team of doctors and therapists with deep clinical expertise were amazing. Designed to give you the time and space you need to have that breakthrough. They have two unique locations in Malibu that surround you in natural beauty and pure calm. Find out more at amendtreatment.com slash start.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun.

Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So you say that finding happiness is such a key part of our mental health. So how do you find your happiness? Like what makes you happy? And how did you find that? How do you find that on the daily? I don't think that happiness is a state. I think that what I aspire for is peace, contentment,

And I aspire to pepper my days with these little moments. So I've identified the things that make me feel the way that I want to feel, that make me perform the way that I want to perform. And then I sprinkle them throughout my days that I'm not spending, you know, my weekdays waiting for my weekends. I'm not cycling in and out of my happiness. I'm not waiting.

waiting for a time where if I achieve this, if I do this, if I get this friend, if I win this project, whatever, I'll be happy. That's a really interesting neurochemical process where our dopamine is released by us wanting things. Dopamine is the chemical of motivation. It makes us want to do things. And when we get those things, your dopamine is like, well, that, that doesn't

feed me. I want you to want more things. So we end up on this perpetual cycle of desire without ever feeling satisfaction. And I take a lot of pains to build that satisfaction into my life. So these micro moments of joy look like I do my Cirque walks every single morning. I love that so much. That's just going for a walk outside. As soon as I wake up, that's going to help set my circadian rhythm, but also on those walks.

I look for little moments of awe. This is a trick that a professor named Dacher Keltner, who studies the psychology of emotions, taught me. He's researched awe. And he says his awe prescription is six minutes a week. Not very much, but we need to infuse our lives with six minutes a week of awe. It's going to help our inflammation levels. It's going to help our happiness. It's going to help our contentment. It's going to help our

sense of being part of the universe. So on these Cirque walks, I'll look for these tiny little things like, oh, that flower is blooming over there. And I didn't notice that yesterday. I've been noticing around my neighborhood, we're starting to get some fall colors, which is really exciting and cool. And it's just having that real sense of

presence of looking around, looking at the clouds, looking at the neighbor walking their dog. So you're taking this thing that's already physiologically and psychologically good for you, a walk in the sun. And then you're adding to that these little moments of awe that are going to begin to rewire my brain and make me feel happier throughout the rest of my day. I also like to pepper in micro movement throughout the day, which really helps keep my mental health

feeling good. And I also like to do micro connections throughout the day. I have literally time put into my calendar where it's like, call a friend for 10 minutes, go hang out with Zach for 10 minutes so that I just have these little breaks. It's my husband. He works from home. You're so smart, Liz. How'd you get so smart? You have so much knowledge. I study this stuff. I study it. It's been over the course. I mean, we have 200

56 podcast episodes with the world's leading experts. So I feel like I've gotten so lucky to be able to interview these people and assimilate all of their, their knowledge and also help people make it actionable. I think that's a big thing for me. It's like one thing to have the research. It's another thing to, to put that into your life. Other little tricks. Do you know, reading reduces stress by 68% in six minutes.

That's a big number. 68% in six minutes. So I love reading. And sometimes if I'm feeling really overwhelmed, I'll just take a 15 minute break and read some fiction and it feels so completely decadent and it's just 15 minutes. And then I can get back to the rest of my work day. That's one of my favorite, favorite things. I need you to design my daily calendar. Send it to me. Every 15 minutes, what to do. Yeah. By the end of the day, I'm going to be like floating on a cloud. Yeah.

It's just, I do think, I think calendars are also important and we don't talk about that enough because we put our meetings, our tasks, our to-dos on our calendars, but we don't put the things that are going to make us feel our best. And so then we're cramming in the things that are going to make us feel our best in the leftover time. And we're sending the signal to our brains that the thing that is a priority is all of the to-dos and meetings and tasks and feeling the way we want to feel and, and

being present and connecting to other people in our one life on this planet is something we should be squeezing into these little leftover moments if they are still there. Yeah, yeah. You're so stressed out by all the to-do's.

There's not a lot of room left for those moments. Yeah. So I'm a huge fan of put on your calendar, put your meditation on your calendar, put your workout on your calendar, put a phone call to your mom on your calendar. And if you can fit in more than that, great. I'm not saying you have to be so rigid about it, but if you don't carve out the time in the first place, it will likely take last priority and not happen. Yeah.

I think that's a great thing for people to try. And I know my daughter, Luca, has talked to me about this too and helped me with this before actually is writing down how I want my day to go, like moment to moment and what I want to do. And just following that for a day or following that for a week and seeing how it like changes things and then thinking, well, I love feeling this good. I'm going to keep doing that, you know, like I'm going to keep that in my schedule. What did you learn from that time?

I learned that it's better for me to have like a scope of what I want to achieve in a day and not just the to-dos because I have plenty of those, but yeah, like take a little walk, stretch, go to the kitchen and have a glass of water. Like I'm going to add in 15 minutes of reading because I want that 68%. Isn't that wild? I love that stat so much because reading is also incredible, but

But it's essentially a meditative exercise. Your attention will drift away. You'll bring it back to the words on the page. Your attention will drift away. You'll bring it back to the words on the page, which is a mindfulness meditation. But you're getting to do it with like a juicy rom-com. I love this. It's so good. It's amazing. I mean, along that line, sticking to habits is really hard.

You also cover that in your book. You say that sometimes if you can't get a habit to stick, you might have to focus on the how. You might be focusing on the how more than the why, what you talked about before. So explain that because I'm sure that we've all experienced giving up on a new habit and then feeling like such a loser when you want something and you try. Yeah.

reading 15 minutes a day. Like if I don't do that now, I feel mad at myself. A hundred percent. I mean, I can use the example that I talked about, which was I exercise now for my mental health to illustrate this point. I tried to stick to a workout routine for years and years and years. Everybody told me I should do it. But the reason that I was doing it was because I wanted my body to look a certain way. So I would go to the gym. I would do my workout. I'd lift up my shirt, look at my abs. My

And I was like, what? This is bullshit. Like, why am I spending my time doing this? And it wasn't until I was able to connect my workout with a why that actually resonated with me, which is not conform my body to society's arbitrary beauty standards, but feel the way that I want to feel in my brain every single day, have the energy to do the things that are important to me every single day that I was actually able to wake up and make that workout stick. So

This is from the tip in the book is from Daniel Pink, and he says that often we are over indexing on fitting it into our schedule and which gym should I go to and what are the exact logistics instead of stepping back and saying, what is the reason that I'm trying to incorporate that? Because when we can tap into that intrinsic motivation, the rest will fall into place.

and asking yourself, what are the roadblocks? So for me, the roadblock around working out to have my body look a certain way tapped into my anger that my body was expected to look a certain way and that this was part of my value in society. So of course I was subconsciously pushing back on that versus I deserve to feel good. I deserve to feel calm. I deserve to feel energized.

you can see how those two messages are going to be perceived differently on a subconscious level and result in different actions. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I can relate to that because I used to work out for how I looked also, and I would always get frustrated that I wouldn't look the way in my mind I thought I should look when what is in my mind, as you said, is unattainable and it's societally put on us. So now when I work out, I too do it for my mental health.

And I do it for my physical health. And those are the reasons I drag my ass out of bed at 6 a.m. three days a week because I'm

it's really important to making me feel better. And I don't necessarily notice a difference in my body, but it makes me feel better. It makes me feel so much better. I also have two other little actionable tips for sticking to habits that I use a lot. One is a commitment device. So if you have a hard time sticking to something, we are better at keeping commitments when they happen outside of ourselves. So you can make a wager with a friend where you have to

buy them dinner one night. If you don't turn in the manuscript to the book that you've always wanted to work on, you can make a workout date with a friend. You're going to be so much less likely to disappoint that friend than you are to disappoint yourself. For me, this was another part of my workout journey. I started booking non-refundable classes in the morning. And because I didn't want to lose that money, I would get my

ass out of bed and I would go to the class. And that was really the thing that kicked off me being able to do it on a consistent basis. So commitment devices are really, really lovely. And then also you can tie habits that you really don't like to things that you really, really love. So watching your favorite reality show, but only while you're doing a workout or folding laundry, you're

Not eating a little snack that you really, really like, but only when you're doing your taxes or answering your emails or whatever the habit is that you don't like. Save the thing that you really, really love to only do during that time. And you'll find yourself much more likely to do that habit. To stick with it.

That's good. Yeah. Okay. Well, I feel like I've learned even more than when I was reading your book. Did you also give me a box, a game? Yeah. Conversation cards. The conversation cards. I'm loving your conversation. We've been playing them for the last week solid.

And it's so, they're so great. Thank you. I am so into conversation. I actually just did an episode of my podcast that's about small talk and how we can all be incredible at small talk and we don't have to be so anxious around it anymore. And I do feel like there's a lot of anxiety around that conversation piece, but we all want to connect. So I like to empower and enable people to do that. Okay, wait, small talk. How do you do that? Yeah.

Okay. Well, there's a lot of interesting research. First of all, it's a whole episode. So definitely go listen to the episode. But I mean, some of the most interesting research in that episode I found was that women,

We don't we think that we don't like small talk because we're afraid of getting rejected. So we're afraid that we're going to try to talk to somebody and they're not going to want to talk to us. And then it's all going to be a flop or we're going to start to talk to somebody and they're not going to have an enjoyable experience. But studies show that's not true at all. It's literally true zero percent of the time. So if you get rid of in your head the idea that you are going to be rejected either for the quality of your conversation or.

or for even trying to have a conversation in the first place.

studies show that we actually do really like small talk. We think we don't like small talk because we're afraid of being rejected. But if you remove that element and actually are able to survey people after they set up this whole thing on the subway where they like assign certain people to talk to people, it's a really interesting study. But people actually really enjoy small talk, but we're just so afraid of getting rejected that we don't think that we do. Wait, so you're telling me that I like small talk. I don't know if I can believe you.

Really? According to the research you do. And it's interesting because it's these little moments of human bonding. There's a concept of micro connections and that's just like the little talk in line at the grocery store, smiling at your neighbor. And these are the things that they they're shown to boost our optimism. They're shown to support our immune system, but they also just remind us that we're human beings having this experience on the planet with other human beings, which is such a nice

to the online world that so many of us live in where you're so able to disconnect from that. That's so true. And then I have a little small talk tip that I love. Tell me, tell me, tell me. That I share in the episode, which is, okay, so in the...

the Victorian era, if you were like a fancy lady, one of your jobs was to show up at social events armed with conversation. So one of your jobs was to kind of keep abreast of what was happening in the cultural world, in the social world, in the arts world, so that you could have sparkling conversation on hand at any point. And I have no interest in being a Victorian lady. Like I love oral hygiene and I love being able to vote. I think these are wonderful things. But I

I actually think this is a really stealable tip. So what I'll do before I go to a party or the hair salon where you have to make conversation for like hours.

hours. Yeah, two hours. So long. Anytime I'm going somewhere that's going to be a small talk rich environment, I'll literally listen to a podcast that would be interesting to talk about. I'll read an article. I'll arm myself with conversation topics intentionally so that when I get to the hair salon, I can be like, oh my gosh, I was listening to this really interesting podcast. What do you think about this?

this. And I go in with those conversations prepared. And you can also use conversation cards to do this. It can feel a little weird sometimes to like break out conversation cards, but you can say like, Oh, Hey, I was doing this conversation card with my husband earlier and we got this long talk about it. What do you think about this? And then you just say a question from a conversation card and then you're off and rolling. It's just about giving you that little initial push and

which we all want. We're all rooting for that. So people are going to be really receptive. Okay. I'm going to try. Just have something in your pocket. Be a Victorian lady. Okay. Well, yeah, because I kind of can understand what you're saying. Like when I'm in the grocery store line and someone will talk to me and I will connect with them and talk back, like it does feel good. I think it feels so good. And I think we need it now more than ever because otherwise we begin to associate our fellow humans with

all of the comments and the things that we're seeing online. And that is not an accurate portrayal of human humanity. Oh my God. Yeah. It's so, so important to connect. And I, I have a tendency to not do that. Like I, I,

I don't like to make eye contact when I'm kind of out in the world because I feel like if I don't make eye contact, there won't be that awkward moment. And then maybe it might be a little different because I was recognizing me or they think they went to high school with me. You were so young has impacted your ability to have those micro connections in a way. And that makes me honestly really sad. That's an interesting side effect of fame that I feel like we don't talk about. It's true. And I,

But sometimes I break out of it and I do it and it feels good. So I think I should try doing that more. You're so inspiring, Liz Moody. Thank you. Thank you. You are too. Okay. Before I let you go, Liz Moody, what was your last I choose me moment?

A big I choose me moment in my life is that I'm an intentional drinker. So I gave up alcohol almost completely about two years ago. And I choose on a pretty regular basis to maintain that choice. I call myself an intentional drinker because I've never...

struggled with addiction. And so I still have alcohol on the table for myself, which I find really helpful as somebody who used to struggle with eating disorders and restriction and that type of thing. I like the idea that I can have something if I want to have something, which usually results in me drinking like once a year, like a great champagne or a really delicious cocktail or something like that. But

But I used to drink four or five times a week. It was a real transition for me to change my relationship with alcohol. And it's made my life so much better. And I'm really excited about that choice. It feels like a choice for myself. It was inspired by a study that showed that alcohol was the second leading cause of cancer. It was right after cigarette smoking, which is

blew my mind. Cause I think in my head, I was very much like, of course, if I was going to choose to smoke a cigarette, of course that would be causing cancer. But when I was throwing back drinks most nights, every week, I wasn't making any cancer connection there. So once I read that research, um, I, I really reflected on my life and it's been,

It's incredible. Honestly, I get messages from people all of the time who are so worried about everything that they are might be giving up if they give up alcohol or if they refine their relationship with alcohol a little bit. And I felt the same way too. And that, that time when I was giving it up, I was like, how will I have a social life? What will I do after work? How will I de-stress? And I quite literally could not fathom how it would work in my mind. And it's been

I haven't felt like I'm giving up anything. I felt like I have gained so much and I wish we could switch the conversation around it to be more about what are we gaining versus what are we losing? I'm gaining back a sense of vibrancy on all of the days that I was hung over. I'm gaining back a sense of energy, both the nights that I was going out drinking and the hungover days. I'm getting so much connection because

I remember the conversations that I'm having with my friends and my family. I'm gaining so much more fun and adventure because I do fun stuff with the people that I love instead of just going to a bar and drinking and having that be the go-to. I've gained so, so, so much. And I wish we could have that conversation more. I love that. That's a really good I Choose Me moment. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. You're just, you're so lovely and I love talking to you.

Ditto. Right back at you, Liz Moody. I'm going to always call you your full name, by the way. It's a good name. I like it. Yeah. Bye. Oh, that was such a great conversation with Liz Moody. I hope you all check out her book and her podcast. Be sure to listen to the episode that I was on. We had so many giggles.

As we continue to choose ourselves each week, I want you this week to take some advice from Liz Moody. I love this. Do a resilience practice. I was really into this when she said in our conversation that a lot of us practice gratitude, but so often we forget to remind ourselves about all the hard things we have faced and overcome. So this week, I want you to write down and reflect on

on some of those difficult times you've had over the course of your life. Or even if you just spend some time, maybe you're driving, turn the radio off and ask yourself, you know, look at all of those moments and reflect and congratulate yourself for how you got through that dark time. Thanks for listening to I Choose Me. You can check out all our social links in our show notes.

And are you following us on social? Because that would be so cool. We post great content. So open up the show notes now and go click follow. Leave us a review on whatever platform and make sure you use that hashtag. I choose me. I will be right here next week. I hope you choose to be here too.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together.

Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.