The Livy Method Podcast - Mindfulness Isn't More Work. It's Just Different Work.

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

You've done the weight loss. So why is your brain still negotiating with a bag of chips at 8PM? Gina and Odette get honest about food noise, why chasing a "cure" misses the point and how a simple pause can change how you respond to it. You'll also hear why mindfulness isn't extra work, what to do about food noise on medication, and a real conversation about letting go of the urge to fix everything for everyone, yourself included.This podcast aligns with Day 22 of our Fall Maintenance Program, members can find video in our Livy Method app or Maintenance and Mindfulness Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ginalivymaintenanceandmindfulness Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New season, new name, bigger conversations. Welcome to Live Lighter with Gina, because lightness isn't something you find. It's something you create in your body, your mind, your home, and in your life. Real conversations, no bullshit. So let's lighten things up for you. If you're looking to lose weight and you want to keep it off, you have got to check out the Living Method. Our next live session starts September 14th.

better than ever, easy to follow. We have the most incredible community, and it works. Head over to living method.com to sign out today. I was just like, don't catch the back of my hair. I have no idea what it looks like. All right, don't catch me from the waist down because you still got my pajamas on. So that's where we're both in the same boat. I still have my workout clothes on.

I still have my workout clothes. Does anyone go to work anymore? I feel like so many people work from home. Like it's become normal. But then I forget, people actually are going to work and don't get to wear. What do they do when they can't wear their pajamas all day? My gosh. Right.

Well, my husband works out of the home. He goes into the city every day to work. Not every day. He goes maybe three days a week. And on those days, I'm like, aren't you exhausted? Remember those days? Remember when we used to have in-person work meetings once a month? Yeah.

That was the longest week of my life, those eight hours. Like, it was like, what do you mean? I have to put on hard pants and I have to go into the city and I have to, what, pack a lunch? What? Hard pants. I can't hard pants. I mean, I just had a conversation with my daughter because she was, she had been sick in her last couple of years of public school. She had concussion.

And so didn't get to school. Finally got to school. And then the pandemic happened to grade nine. And then, of course, she'd just been like all home online. So now she's finally in university and half of her courses are like online. And I said to her today, get out of the fucking house. Go somewhere, anywhere. Like get out.

Get out. I'm envious sometimes if people go to work. Like I think there's, it's not easy because you have to be very intentional about your social life. And being social is such an important part of being healthy. and when you're not exposing yourself to social environments, I don't know if any of our listeners can relate to this, but it's so easy to get withdrawn and not want to go out and be resistant to that.

Yeah, you know what? It's also what I found really, the transition. So it's like this, so I've worked from home now for just over five years. And in the beginning, it's a honeymoon phase. You're like, I'm going to get up. I get to, you know, sleep until half an hour before I'm going to. be at my computer and it's like this wonderful feeling. And then all of a sudden, like I was still getting up and getting ready and doing all those things, but it was only taking me 15 minutes

instead of an hour commute, whatever it might be. Yeah, yeah. And then it turned into getting up and maybe not brushing my hair right away, maybe not having a shower. And then you're all of a sudden, you're like, I'm not even taking care of myself. Like where's that pride and getting yourself ready for the day and getting and making yourself ready to be productive? If you're just rolling, out of bed and straight to your desk, which I still do some days. Yeah. You know, I find that that creates a different vibe. So this work from home, finding that balance of like, yeah, I'm really fortunate to work from home, but you have to be much more intentional with how you prepare yourself for the day or your thoughts throughout the day or getting yourself ready for the day

because it's easy to just like, you know, just sit here and not feel like I've gotten myself prepared for the day. So yeah, some days are like that. But it does take intention to have that I'm at work feeling. Well, I've never talked so much about intention as we have in this maintenance group. Really, intention is so important. And how are you showing up in the world? Like, everyone talks about motivation. I don't know what's more important motivation or intention, right? Like, you're not always going to be motivated. So you have to be really mindful about what you are doing and not just like do it on a whim. You have to have purpose. You have to have intention. Not an easy thing. Wait until you retire. I know, Sue. I was just thinking about that and thinking

of so many people who retire. And a big issue with that is, you know, just not stimulating our minds and not moving. And just like what is the intention, especially when you retire, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's true. And, you know, you just touch on that motivation piece. And we're going to talk about this much more as the week goes on, that motivation can't, it's not going to be your driving factor every day. It's not going to be the reason that you do things. Your intention has to be the reason that you do things. Motivation comes and goes and it comes from different places and it shows up and it leaves. But when that motivation's not there, you still have to take action. You still have to do those things. So it's about being intentional and what's the purpose. So it's not, it's not I'm

motivated to do that, but what's the purpose of why I'm doing that? And then you're able to, you know, take action and then motivation comes, the more you do things to, motivation comes. But motivation is something we'll talk about as the week goes on. I really want to get into this mindfulness conversation. Okay. And what it means this week and what does it mean when we're talking about food noise? How does that even fit together? Because I think it's, mindfulness is one of these things where your brain is taken up by so many thoughts already. And, you know, mindfulness is this thing where we think it takes so much more work. or it's going to take so much more effort to be mindful.

And what we want to think about mindfulness is that it's just about taking a moment of pause. It's not about doing more work or doing all of this work. And it's really about noticing and getting to know ourselves a little bit better. That's what this mindfulness piece is. It's not about sitting down with the, and you might need to do this because if it still doesn't feel like it's natural, sitting down with those four mindfulness questions, four steps of mindful eating in front of you and going through them each way. That might be a way that you start. But it's not about just ticking the boxes. It's really about taking that pause and

noticing what comes out of those steps. Noticing what's coming out of that. So I think I just want to stop you right there because mindfulness is not work when you said that is so huge. Like it's when we talk about reasons why you gain weight back, it's basically not being mindful, falling back into old habits and coping mechanisms, not really recognize where you're at, what you need. And it's so not work. I think that's so important because you have to, it's like food noise. We're always thinking about food. Food noise is always happening anyway.

And so this is where when you ask the four sets of mind-ful-leading questions, that interrupts that pattern of food noise, that interrupts those thoughts to be like it interrupts your regularly scheduled programming. and helps you reprogram because you're interrupting those thoughts. And that's what's so great about doing the tweaks again in maintenance, as opposed to just personalizing the plan, is that every time you make those changes in the food plan, even downsizing, it disrupts those old diet thoughts that you have,

the worry of, did I eat enough? Did I eat too much? And all of that, you absolutely can reprogram your brain. you have to be intentional about doing it and it does take work but I don't think it's any more work or it doesn't when you what did you say today the burden of weight loss we need to live lighter this Odette said this in a conversation we had recently and so you have that food noise conscious all the time or whatever you're thinking it's just interrupting that and almost it's just interrupting it and then reprogramming and

a way. So when we talk about the goal is to be calm around food physically, but also mentally, where this is where you can sit in a room full of your favorite foods. This is where you're in the grocery line at the grocery store. This is where you opened up the bag of chips. Should I have them? Should I not have them? I don't eat too much. It's just being really calm around all of it. So it's not any more work. That's my point. Is this switching the work you're actually doing? It's creating different thought patterns. And the way that I would, was thinking about it today this morning is like we say all the time the goal is to not ever have stress you're going to have stress it's how you respond to that stress and the goal like let's be real

if there was a cure for food noise we'd all be billionaires right like there's no like the goal is to never have food noise because that's that's going to come it's going to come with meal planning it's going to come with you know going to an event you're going there is going to be a bit of chatter there. But what we want to do is, like you said, reprogram how we respond to it. We don't want to come at it with judgment. We don't want to come at it trying to negotiate with ourselves. We want to come at that food noise with an open conversation to it. So, okay, like, let me think about what I'm having this weekend. Am I feeling burdened by having to make that choice? Or do I, am I solely starting to get to know myself better that I can make a choice and be okay with it? I can make a

choice and be able to have it just be that, just a choice, not something that you have to negotiate with, not something you have to pass judgment on, not something that you have to act on without intention. So I think the more we practice mindfulness and the more we get to know each other and the more not each other ourselves, more we get to know ourselves, the better we're going to have that conversation with our own food noise that's different than always trying to negotiate with ourselves. Yeah. And just so you know, I'm paying attention. I'm just furiously making notes. And everything that you're saying, you know, there is a billion dollars. Someone's already made a billion dollars off of quieting food noise. And so is weight loss medications. And this is where we hear

people didn't even recognize they had that food noise until they took medications and all of a sudden they were feeling more calm. But yes, it's terrifying because the minute you go off that medication or you lower the dose or your body adjust to it, that food noise comes back. Or we hear that, you know, people take their once a week dose and they're great for the first couple of days and then it starts creeping back, creeping back, creeping back, creeping back. And then they're obsessing about getting their next dose to calm that mindset. So how do you change that? That's where you have to do the work. So if you did have food noise and now you're taking a weight loss medication and you don't have food noise, if you don't do the reprogramming of your brain, it will all come back. So what,

when is there a better time to work on reprogramming your brain than when that is quiet. And that is where you do the work. Not after, after when it comes back, you do the work now. So what are your thoughts around? This is where you want to make those more positive associations around food. And this is where, again, the tweaks, and I know people get tired of these tweaks, but you can have, you can diminish the food noise, but you can also be triggered. So if you do downsizing and all of a sudden you have like, oh, fear of not eating enough, fear of food waste issues, whether you're taking a GLP1 or not, those thoughts, those are hardwired issues and associations tied to food. Those are going to pop up. You may miss the, this, this kind of,

the whisper chatters, but the big ones will be there. And so this is the part, like, you have to be intentional about wanting to change your brain, which is changing your thoughts and your patterns and your behaviors. Yeah. And this is where, yeah, and when you're practicing this, you're practicing, like I said before, you're practicing a different response to that food noise. Right? And so like you're sitting, we're hearing a lot of members are saying, I don't have food noise until it's 8 o'clock at night. And then all of a sudden, it seems to flood. It comes in. I'm sitting on the couch. Are those cookies in the cupboard? Should I have a few more bites of that delicious dinner? Should I go do this? Can I do this? Can I do that? And so knowing that pattern is coming for you, that food noise might still come. It might still come. But how you respond to it is different. So you might say, okay, I know those cookies are in the kids. kitchen. Should I, shouldn't I? Should I shouldn't I? Well, why do I want to? Why am I thinking about them? What's going on with me here? What can I do differently? So it's not to, you know, I know I said this already. It's not to get totally get rid of the food noise because it might always be hanging around. And another member, actually,

I'm going to go off tangent here. Another member had said today, I feel like my food noise is controlled because I call it meal planning. I call it food prepping. I call it. But I'm still thinking about my food. I'm self-thinking about that. And maybe the response to that is that's just food conversation, maybe. That's not food noise. That is planning. It's how you respond to what you're actually doing those actions. And I think when we think about food noise, it's just this, it's, is it intrusive? You know, is that conversation intrusive or is it just a genuine conversation that you're able to have with yourself? Is it helping you or hurting you? Meal planning is helping you be prepared and think about what's for dinner so that by the time dinner rolls around, you know what you have

to eat as opposed to your true food noise that we're discussing or the meaning of food noise is intrusive. And lots of times comes with a lot of guilt or like some big feelings along with it. Food noise is not pleasant. Listen, I don't like planning dinner either. Oh, God, what's for dinner? what do we got to do? But at least like, hey, we, okay, okay, let's talk about our association of that food for dinner. There's so many people who don't have dinner are wondering how they're going to, like where the money is going to come to buy dinner. So if you have the luxury of being able to think about what's for dinner, go to the store to buy that dinner, you know, like that, you could totally change your association to dinner. Like, how lucky am I that, you know, I'm,

I get to decide what's for dinner. Like, we get to decide what's for dinner. Like, you can totally change your association to dinner in that sense. Or yeah, you can be like, oh, fuck, I fucking hate making dinner, but I need to have a plan for today. So what's my plan for dinner? I'm not saying you have to turn everything into sunshine and rainbows and look how grateful we are for everything. But I think, you know, food insecurity would be like, yeah, I don't know if we haven't, like, I got to feed my kids this week. I don't know if I have enough groceries in my house. I don't know if I have money to pay my bills to buy my groceries. Like food insecurity is a real thing. food scarcity, not having access to food, also a very real thing, right? So I think it's like how,

what's reality? My finances are, I need to budget and still feed my family, right? I need to prepare and make dinner. Otherwise, we'll have nothing to eat and I want to eat healthy and make a good choice versus, oh my God, I'm going to, should I eat dinner because I'm fat and I can't lose this weight and I don't want to overeat dinner and I should I should not eat all day leading up to dinner and then when you do overeat dinner, oh my goodness, what's wrong with me? I've ruined everything and I might as well eat a whole bag of chips and wash it down with some cookies because I fucked everything up. Like that is, you know, those are the different kind of levels of food which I would imagine is different for everybody. It's which is really fucking complicated.

Yeah. And it is so complicated. And like, what about those people that don't have food noise? They're like, I don't understand what you're talking about. Like there's those people as well, right, that don't even have that. And I like what you say. And I like what you say. said there about, you know, should I eat this, shouldn't I eat this? I think when we, when we continue to practice mindfulness, when we really start to ask ourselves the questions through the four steps, I think it's going to help remove some of the second guessing we do with ourselves. Should I or shouldn't I? Well, I know I should because or I know I shouldn't because. So it's going to remove that second guessing. It's going to put you in this place where you can actually trust. There's that word again.

trust that you're able to make that decision. So like that food noise might still be there, but you're able to, like I said, remove that second guessing. You're able to make that decision. You're able to just make more sense of it all versus having it be something that's like this cloud hanging over you and then you know what's coming. That's it. I like Sue here. Heather, I see you. Hello. Hi. I'm going to get to your question in a sec. Sue says, I had a thought this morning that it might be better to think about what I'm doing on the days that I don't have food noise or as much anyway. So it's usually the days when I'm drinking my water, when I'm having healthy snacks and some with some fat, like giving your brain that that fuel. Yeah. If you're in a constant state of starvation,

you're going to think restrictive thoughts. You know, it's like workout. So if I get up, move my body for 20 minutes today, like this morning, I did not feel like doing it. When I was done, 20 minutes later, felt like a rock star. I'm not even thinking about exercise today because if I get it done great, it's a bonus. And yeah, maybe I didn't do resistance training. And I should do that. that's, I'm like, I don't need to worry about that anymore because I already got it in, you know. So I think there is sort of like on the days where you are doing the things like drinking your water, moving your body, it's probably less guilt, burden, whatever it is that, oh, I have this checklist of things to do that I'm not doing, right? I want to get to Heather. This is my first live in two years due to

working on the West Coast. Hi, Heather, but had major hip surgery two weeks ago, so I'm in recovery. question. I've lost 13 pounds in two weeks, literally lying on my back. Well, sure, it feels good. How realistic is this? I'm close to my lowest target weight because it did creep up over the summer pre-surgery. My food noise now is, is this sustainable or should I expect a big jump at some point, mid-set recovery? This is a first for me. Okay. So it depends on how healthy you were leading up. If you have a nice high metabolism, you've been easily able to maintain your weight. Sure, you enjoyed the summer. I wonder how much of that weight gain over the summer might have had to do with like pain medications that you took or, you know, you had a hip surgery for a reason. Maybe that limited your

movements or whatever, right? Like not sure. You might have had some donuts or some chips or something, but I wonder how much of that increase in your weight was sort of due to the state of your body and how you were feeling. Now, you are now recovery. You've lost 13 pounds. Your body's been a state of stress. Weight loss is weight loss. Fat loss is fat loss. you probably have lost some muscle along with that. If it was from not eating, it's still a loss on the scale, but you probably are at risk of losing some muscle. So what you want to do is continue to eat really healthy, right? Like avoid that, well, was me, I deserve chips or I deserve whatever. Stay on top of your water, help your body heal. Be mindful of your food choices, especially now, right?

Process foods cause inflammation. It's not beneficial with healing. And then once you gain that that strength back, I would get right to work on building that muscle. You can maintain your loss of fat and then build that muscle up again. Like that's going to be really important. When you eat foods, and this is the problem with rapid weight loss rather than fat loss, is when you eat foods, your body breaks them down into glycogen that stores it in your liver, in your muscle, primarily, and in your fat. When you don't have the muscle, to store it, it gets stored in your fat or in your liver, hence non-alcoholic fatty liver, right? And so I made this, I lost 30 pounds being in the hospital a few years back. And I was like,

oh my God, when I get out, I'm going to build that muscle up. I didn't. I didn't. And it was a massive huge mistake for me. And it really did me in as I was going through menopause. If I could go back, and do anything different in my life, it would be lift the fucking. and weights. And so that was a huge mistake for me. So you absolutely can maintain this loss. Loss is a loss and take it. But if you've lost that muscle mass and you go back to regular eating or add in bites of bits or, you know, you'll notice it's going to creep on a little bit because you just don't have that same energy storage that you had before with the muscle. Yeah. Yeah. And like going through this healing process too, like you said,

if she was feeling inflamed with all those medications, that can also have your weight up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, maybe she's not drinking as much right now. So like you said, you can absolutely maintain this weight. But that, yeah, that recomposition might need to happen, you know, as she starts feeling more up to it. Yeah, it's the same thing when you're sick. Like if you have a flu and you lose like five pounds, detox is detox. Like depending if you're pretty healthy leading up, your body's going to, your body, carrying excess fat causes inflammation. So your body doesn't want that fat unless you give it a reason for it. And so this is sort of where when you're, sick, you can also have the bonus of losing weight along with that, right? Like, I don't want to,

I don't want to glorify that either. Yeah, you're sick. You lost weight, but take it where you can get it. But yeah, that's just the risk in this case scenarios that you've lost muscle along with it. So that's what's going to be easy to maintain that loss and your weight loss moving forward is to build that muscle back up again. Yeah. And knowing where you're at and what you need. Yeah. And building that muscle back will also help her maintain that loss, you know, because that muscle makes energy to stay alive and grow and work and function. So that'll also help her maintain that loss for sure. Yeah. And I mean, that's the problem when people get sick, right? It is like a double detox. It's an opportunity for your body to focus on fat loss. But we are,

we usually don't drink enough water. So then we're dehydrated. We crave carbs and sugar, which don't help. We don't feel great mentally. So we're looking for, you know, food pick me ups, you know, or, you know, so that sort of like we kind of, we kind of negate that detox effects with other things rather than helping when you're sick is a great opportunity to lose weight. Now, I would never say that out of context, right? Like anyone would be like, oh my God, did you hear what she said? It's good when people get sick because you lose weight. But within the context.

We're not having flu parties around here, like the old chicken pock parties. Oh, yeah. We're not having. Right. Super helpful. Wow. I'm a runner and a water drinker. So this is quite a ship, but hopeful, want to be optimal, that healthy return.

Yeah, right. You do. And also, I'm just going to add that one of the things that you're probably noticing is if you're a runner, you're getting those endorphins that are being kicked in by running. And that can almost make you feel really depressed. I remember when I used to teach aerobics quite often, it was very fit. And then I moved to Barry where I was working in television. And my exercise was cut like in half. And I was like feeling super depressed. And I'm like, why? It's because you're not getting those endorphins. So that doesn't mean you can't necessarily get those endorphins. orphans from the high, but that's where you might want to dig in a little deeper into some meditation into something a little bit more that's for your mind to keep you on that more positive mindset and tip. Just factoring that in as well because then that's where you're feeling kind of like depressed and then makes it hard to get back into exercise, you know, once you do start feeling better. So there is something to be said about being mindful of that. Yeah, for sure.

And it's, you're not, like you said, you're not getting those endorphins. So you're not feeling, like you are feeling a little bit lower. And then those thoughts can start to multiply again, like, oh, am I ever going to feel better? Am I ever going to be able to get off this? Am I ever going to run again? Am I ever going to do these things? You want to make sure that that cycle is not allowed to come in. So finding how you can get those, that little endorphin run of those dopamine hits, whatever it might be. Yeah, on top of everything else you have going on in life. Yeah, right? Oh, day, you seem to be in a really great mindset lately. What are you doing? You're meditating. What are you doing? Like, we all know you got a shit ton of shit going on. You've had a heavy year. I just look lighter. Yeah, I have had a heavy year. We've been hit with some with another with my mom now. I think I spoke about her last week or two weeks ago. She was, she has had, um, we're, okay, so let's get into it. So she has had dementia for a few years. But it was very manageable.

She was still highly functioning. She was able to drive. And just in the last, since October, so almost a year, her decline has been rapid because my dad has passed away. And then my sister has passed away. And we put her into a home a few weeks ago. And even since being in that home, she's declined even more rapidly. So she's in hospital now. She's been in hospital for 10 days.

Oh, my gosh. And it's just, it's, it's, it's, this could have been the thing that broke me. But earlier this year, coming into the fall, I said, I have to make a change because I was trying to do all the things. I was trying to cope. I was trying to cope. I thought I was doing all the things correctly. And it was really about getting intentional with what was really working for me.

And I think what was really working for me is being really honest about how I was feeling, honest with myself, honest with the people around me, being really open with thoughts that I was having, meaning, you know, some of the things I would say or the way I would have. my relationships with my family, I was still trying to please. I was still trying to come across as having it all figured out and being fine with it all. And I think there comes a point where you're not fine. You have to acknowledge not being fine and being okay with saying that out loud. And then giving yourself time, but being respectful enough to yourself to allow people around you to know that you are taking care of yourself right now. And it has been, I mean, it has been the darkest, I would say 24 months if we want to look back that far. And finally, just at the end of the summer coming into the fall, I just made some real change therapy, of course, going to therapy

and just respecting and honoring what I need and trying not to just please and say the right thing, but doing what, saying and doing the right thing for everybody else, but really being honest and being mindful of doing and saying the right thing that I have what I needed. We're honoring yourself. Yeah, really honoring that. And, you know, my daughter also went away to university. She, like, I have no problem saying, like, we are codependent. She is my right.

She is like my, you know, somebody that I always had right beside me. And we had a really tight connection. I thought that could have broken me, too, just her being away and thinking about her struggles. And I think it just came to a place where I just needed to be really honest and really intentional. And it's working for me right now. It took some time. But I think just honoring that. Well, yeah, I'm glad I asked. That's a great. I think that's a, I think we're all listening. And that's such a great share because I think maybe your story's a little different, but we're, you know, we can all kind of see that in ourselves when we're struggling, but trying to keep

our shit together or think we should know better or know what we need to do. And I asked because I shared how I was feeling something in a team meeting that we were at today. And Odette just seemed like this breath of fresh air and was like so good with everything. And I was like, what the fuck are you doing that you just are in this? You can tell the mindset that you're in. So thank you for sharing that. You know, I have always tried to have honest conversations both ways. Like I've always wanted to be honest and I accept feedback and I try and give feedback.

but it maybe wasn't in the most authentic way. Like I think sometimes I was just saying what I thought needed to be said or, I mean, professionally, personally, everything and the other way as well, where when you just stop and take a minute and pause and think about, you know, what do I really need to say here or what do I really need to hear back? And when you can say like, oh, I'm really open to hearing what you think, like, was I, though, or was I just saying that? So I think being really more, being more intentional and more authentic about what I needed.

back and what I needed to give. And I think that that's also strengthened my relationship with my two sisters. Yeah. You know, so it's, because it's been a time. But that's what's going on with me. So I, I don't think it's anything magical that I'm doing. I think it's just this being really honest. And, like, saying I'm fine, but not just saying it. Like, I'm not going to say it if I don't mean it. Yeah. So. No, I think that's, I think it goes along with what we're, talking about this week. I think it's a lot of, yeah, it's being intentional, really being intentional, really being mindful. And I'm trying to, I think maybe I'm at this place where I finally understand myself, really. I'm trusting that I do know what I need. I'm trusting that I can make those

decisions and have a thought pattern, a thought process of that really works for me. Yeah. I don't have it all figured out yet. But I. Well, and just when you do. feel like you have it figured out? Like, the rules change. Yeah. You know, I was, I was feeling really great. Like, like I said, I moved my daughter in. I was feeling really great about her experiences. I was able to shift my mindset around her being away to her having experiences. And then we were, everything was amazing. And then this thing with my mom came up, you know, and now this week we're having to make more decisions about her long-term care. What does that look like? How do you make that decision when there is no right decision?

So I think, yeah, it's going to keep happening. It's going to keep coming. And I said at the beginning of this year, too, 2026 is going to be the best year yet. Well, like, fuck, 202026. Yeah. So I'm not going to say that about 27. It's just going to be the year that it is. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to try and cope in a better way. Yeah. Well, that's it. We're all, yeah, that's exactly it. Well, thank you for sharing. And I think this is, I think, I think what you make us feel is like, okay, we're, all right, let's normalize this. And this is what I think, like, we're dealing with this on top of food noise, on top of, like, trying to reach your goal, on top of, like, a lot of thoughts and feels. And it's just really layered on top. And I think, I think with all of our discussions, they're never about

do this. So, you know, if something pops up, you see yourself in Odette's share or, you know, and another, what another member is saying, that's to say, okay. So then it's understanding what is there, what, how did you, and I know we're at time, but yeah, yeah, how do you. And I know, you know what you needed to focus on? Like, where did you start doing that? Like, do you know what I mean? Like, you recognize it, but like actually being like, I'm going to take action, do something about it. Because I can hear some of our members are sitting here like, oh, I see myself in this. Okay, but then what? Yeah. So, so I got, I had to get really honest with not being able to, um, make things go away. I wasn't, I can't make my son's sickness go away. I can't make the grief of losing my sister go away.

I can't lose or I can't get rid of the feeling I have with my daughter being away. I can't, like, I can't wish my mom's dementia away. So I think what really came when that was a big realization, I can't make it go away. So how can I make the situation still work for me? So it was really getting honest about what I was doing because I was, like I said, I was trying to do all the things. Like, I need to go for a walk. I need to eat well.

I need to drink my water. I need to do this. I need to do that. I need to solve my daughter's problems. And I think it was just taking a minute to think, okay, what can I do today? So today, I need to have a conversation with my husband. Okay. I need to have a conversation with myself. I need, really, that's what it was. And I didn't come to this on my own. I also talked to, you know, my therapist about it. And it was really, what can I, what can I do versus just trying to make it all go away?

Because I was trying to fix everything. You can't fix everything. You just, you can't fix it. it's going to be there. So how do you accept it? And some things are not easy. Losing my sister is not something I wanted to accept. I wanted to go away. I wanted to go away. I wanted it to go away.

And it wasn't going to go away. So, okay, let me accept it and let me just, you know, I mean, yeah, I talk through it. And what makes me feel good? Walking makes me feel really good. You know, getting to bed a little bit early makes me feel really good. I know these are really practical small things. but what makes me feel really good? Honest conversations make me feel really good.

Yeah. No, I think it is the small things. And that's why I love that Heather joined us today after two years. And she says, you make the best decision you can with what you know and give yourself and others heaps of grace, you know, having to deal with, you know, hip surgery or, you know, that you can't make that go away. You're just there. It's how it is.

And, you know, no matter what circumstance we're dealing. I love what you said about like my kid the other day. He couldn't decide something. And I was trying to like fix it and figure it up. him and I was on a walk. I said to my husband, he's on his own, man. Yeah. 19 years old. He's on his own. I can't, I can't carry his, his burdens and his things and his, I can't do it. And then I came home and it's so funny. And Tony's like, we have to let him make his own decisions. We can't. And it's so funny because he went away. And then he came back and we were Tony in bed watching a show

and he came in and he's like, I'm going to this. And it was like, that's your decision. He's like, yep, I made my decision. And then we were all like, okay. Yeah. He was stressing about his decision and he needed to figure it out for us on his own anyway. Yeah. It's my daughter. I'll say, oh, it's the worst day of my life today. And now I wanted to fix it.

Okay, well, how do I fix it for you? I'm like, I can't fix it. I can just, I can listen. I can help you talk it through or I can leave you alone and help you have you figure it out yourself. Oh, that was huge. Sometimes we can't fix our things. Like Heather can't fix her leg herself.

You can't fix that. And so, yeah, we can't even fix that for ourselves sometimes. We just, oh, it's so interesting. Rather than trying to fix someone's problem or your own problem, just like she said, give yourself grace. Yeah. Give yourself what do you need? What's the best choice for yourself?

And that place of needing to fix it, like maybe we react to that a little bit differently. Like maybe instead of saying, I have to fix this. Like, no, maybe I just need to look at this for a minute. And what can I do to make it better without having to feel? fixed it because I can't fix it. Yes. Here's Angela. It's the hardest part of being a parent deciding not to fix everything for everybody else. Yeah, good for you. Odette. Bobby's like, heads up, ladies. They want to fix the things for our kids never end. Yeah. I know. My son, I know, 21 and almost 19 and I'm still trying to fix things. Right. And it doesn't help them.

It doesn't help them. But I love that. We're talking about ourselves. And this is like, even this weekend, my daughter called me, this is so first of all problems, she called me, said, I'm at Eritzia. They don't have the sweater that I want in my size. Like, why are you, why is this my burden now? I don't need to know that this is, this is not my burden. And like, but in the past, I'd be like, let me go online. Let me see what I can find. Let me find it for you. Let me get a ship to you. Let me figure it out. Yes, I'll find it for you. Yeah. I can't fix that for you. Well, my son just got a job at Eritzia, so he gets like 40% off. Oh, well, I'm just like, he's going to, he's going to, he's going to fix it then he's going to fix it further i'm like you're going to need that 40% off to afford to

the clothes you're going to wear there dude you can't even afford to shop it at ritsia but he's working there um yeah i hear you right trying to fix it ourselves tony's really good like that he's like they can let them figure it out mm-hmm and i don't yeah it's it's funny i wasn't like that so much with my son but with my daughter i am not anymore she can't fix it herself i have to can't control i can't control the things I can't fix. I have to just, yeah. And we're not broken. You know what's so interesting. You use the word fix because I was working on some stuff. I'm like, we're not broken. Let's stop. I see it a lot out there in social media. We don't need to fix anything. We're not broken. There's no fix for this. We're not plumbing. Right? And I think we've been like, yeah, it's not a fix.

Okay, we got to go. Thanks, everyone joining us live with all your comments and being here with us. Thanks, Dad. I appreciate your share. I made a ton of notes from all my conversations. with you today. I think we should to fix my life. Yeah, we have no more today. We're good. All right. Thanks, everyone.

Have a great rest of your day. So this week, anything you want to say before we go? Yeah. So I think, you know, we talk a lot about, like, that food noise coming at night, those cravings coming at night. See if you can use these four steps of mindful eating and mindfulness, not as a goal to make it go away, but to help understand it. to help change the way you react. So let's not try and fix the food noise away. Let's try and see if we can

react a little different, stop second guessing ourselves and really ask ourselves the question, you know, why are these thoughts here? What's going on? They're never going to go away. So let me react to them a little bit differently. Let me understand them a little bit differently. And as the week goes on, we're going to talk about motivation and, you know, when you don't want to do the things that you need to do. And we're going to talk about that. But that's just right now. First few days, just think about that. great and i'm going to be back tomorrow night uh for our live Q&A and i'll be home so hopefully i won't have any technical issues like last week and then i will will i'll see you again on wednesday okay amazing have a great rest your day everyone okay bye bye