The Liz Moody Podcast - 10 Learnings From My Week At The Life-Changing Hoffman Process Personal Growth Retreat

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

I dive deep into my experience at the Hoffman Process: an experiential, residential, transformational retreat and share 10 life-changing things I learned as well as answer your questions about the experience.  We go over everything–exactly what it was like during my week at Hoffman, the kinds of modalities we used and exercises we practiced, my most exciting breakthroughs AND my biggest frustrations, and so much more. I even get into the nitty gritty, like the accommodations, the food, and the price (which so many of you wanted to know). If you’ve ever been curious about this famous process that so many people, even celebrities like Sienna Miller and Katy Perry, have changed their lives by experiencing, this is the episode for you. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order my new book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  This episode is sponsored by: AG1: visit drinkag1.com/lizmoody and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  Puori: go to puori.com/LIZMOODY and use promo code LIZMOODY for 20% sitewide. Cymbiotika: use code LIZMOODY on cymbiotika.com to get 15% off plus free shipping on subscription orders. Great Lakes Wellness: use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first purchase at greatlakeswellness.com. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a longtime journalist and bestselling author. And this podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life. I'm just going to get right into it. Today, I'm going to be opening up about my experience doing the Hoffman process. I'm going to try to get through this without crying, although I'm okay crying too. I've been crying so much when I've been talking about it throughout the last week. But I'll give you a little bit of background first. and then I'm going to share 10 things that I learned doing the process. And I hope these are helpful to you.

These are more universally applicable learning, things that really reshaped and reformed my thinking. And that I was like, ugh, I really want to share this with my community so much. And I really hope that this helps other people too. So we'll do that. And then I will answer your questions. I put up a question box on Instagram. So I will answer any and all of the questions that you drop in there. there about the process, what it is, anything that you want to know. So we'll start off with a little

bit of background. What is the Hoffman process? It's a good question. I asked the teachers there myself how I should reference it on the last day of the program. And they told me, I mean, I wrote this down because I knew I was going to forget it. They told me that I could call it an experiential residential transformation process or an experiential residential transformational retreat. I don't know if that's helpful or hurtful when you're trying to picture it, but essentially it's a week-long retreat. It's on site.

Everybody is living on a property together. Everybody has their own rooms, but I shared a bathroom with two other people. The accommodations are fine. They're not luxurious, but they're nice enough. The food, however, was absolutely. incredible. So you're on site for about a week. You start on Saturday morning and then you end on the following Friday afternoon. And for that entire time, you're essentially throwing dozens of different modalities into your daily routine. So you have visualizations, you have meditations, you have

meditations, you have things gleaned from neuroscience, you have group therapy work, you have really fun and surprising things that I can't quite describe here, but we're absolutely wonderful. You have expressive work, you have physical things that you're doing with your body, you are crying, you are laughing, you are sharing feelings with people who were strangers a few days ago, but are now the people that you love so, so much and feel so close and intimate with. It's a really interesting experience and it's a very specific and guided process. I think that's one of the things that surprised me the most about it is you're essentially following specific instructions from 7.30 in the morning every day until about 10 at night.

Whether you're walking in nature and contemplating something specific, whether you're doing a journaling prompt, whether you're listening to a lecture about something, all of the time is really programmed and all of the time is designed to work in order. You go in a very specific order to achieve the most healing results that you can achieve in that period of time. It's really systematic feeling but not in a cold way at all, more like they have been testing and refining this process for I think over 50 years now and they're like, okay, this is exactly what works and this is how we are going to do things. In short, my review of it is that it was the most transformative week of my life. It's one of the hardest things that I have ever done.

There are points where I did not think I could physically do more. I did not think that I could emotionally do more. I did not think I could mentally or intellectually do more. But I was able to push through those feelings and come away with a sense of being much stronger than I thought that I was before. But it was much, much, much more difficult than I thought it was going to be. So if you do do it and you think it's going to be a retreat where you lay around and drink drinks with little umbrellas in them, this is not that. But it was also one of the most fun, one of the most rewarding, one of the most connected weeks of my life. It really surprised me how much joy I tapped into while at Hoffman.

I felt levels of joy and wonder that I haven't felt in years. And it unlocked new parts of myself and new access to that joy that I've been able to continue to experience since I left Hoffman. And that's been a really special experience. So I cannot recommend it enough. It really changed my life. I went into it with incredibly high hopes. I've heard so many good things about it.

You might have heard past podcast guests absolutely raving about it, saying that it absolutely changed their lives. So I went into it with incredibly high expectations, and it surpassed every single one of those expectations. So I'm going to start off by sharing 10 things that I learned during the process. Some of these are epiphanies that I had during the work. Some of these are things that teachers shared that really, really resonated with me that I was like, ugh, I have to share with Liz Mudy Pod listeners so that we can all benefit from this

incredible wisdom. Some are things that I learned from my amazing classmates. There were 30 of us there. It's crazy to think that these people were strangers two weeks ago in my life. And now I genuinely have so much love for every single one of them. but they were all so wise and just such wonderful people. So I learned a lot from them as well. So I'll share my 10 learnings that I knew I needed to share with you.

And then I will answer your questions. This is a little bit of a different type of episode. But I'm really excited to share it. These thoughts, these shifts in how I process, how I go about my life in the world have changed my life already so much. so I hope that they resonate with you as well. Okay, we'll start with an easy one. When you are saying how you feel, use I instead of you. This is one of those therapy things that I've known for years. You hear it from couples therapists all the time in arguments instead of saying, you're always doing this,

say, I feel this way. But I've really only heard it in the context of having an argument with your partner. I've never heard it in the context of the way that we use second person to distance ourselves from the things that we are thinking and feeling. And at Hoffman, so many times, so we'd raise their hand, they'd be asking a question and they would say, you know when you feel really sad about this, or you know when this makes you really angry. And the teachers are so specific about always saying I. And they'll be like, uh-uh, uh-uh, not you. And the person will kind of like smile a little bit. I'm like, okay, yes. When I am feeling really angry, when I am feeling really sad, et cetera, et cetera.

And changing that you to an eye experientially helps the emotion feel so much more personal and the experience feel so much more personal. We often distance ourselves from the things that we're really thinking and feeling by using that you. And when we do that, we're also assuming other people's experience. And it was so interesting just in the moments that people were saying things like you, you, you, you, you. And then we're forced to shift it into first person and to say I, you could see it in their eyes. Like, oh, I feel this way.

I'm scared about this. I'm feeling vulnerable. I'm feeling sad. And it made it hit differently for myself. And I think that's the thing that I didn't realize when I heard this in the context of couples therapy because I've heard it as a way of making arguments go more smoothly. I've heard it as a way of de-escalating with your partner and not having them feel like you're blaming them or shaming them or anything like that. But I'd never thought about how the switch from second person to first person

actually made that feeling land with me, with my experience. It's not about the other person's experience. It's about the experience that I have in taking ownership of my emotions, and that's a very powerful experience. This isn't on my list. This is a bonus. But one of my teachers at Hoffman said, and this is a Buddhist saying, but the greatest suffering comes from the denial of what is. The greatest suffering comes from the denial of what is. When we were saying, I shouldn't feel this way. Why am I sad? My life is so great. great, I'm fine, I'm just a little stressed, somebody else could work through this. All of these different ways that we are denying what we are experiencing and what is is increasing

our suffering. And there are so many ways that I do this in my own life. And simply that shift from second person into first person where you're not having that distancing effect. You're saying, I feel this way. I'm experiencing this is a huge and powerful step. towards accepting what is and towards relieving that suffering that so many of us are feeling by not being fully present and not taking ownership and living in the feelings that we're having in our lives. So it's a little tiny shift, but a really powerful one. And I really enjoyed experiencing it at Hoffman.

And I'm excited to bring that into my daily life. So shift from you, second person, into first person. and really try to feel the way that you feel at any given time. Another thing they had us practice there, which I loved was emotional agility. We talked about this in the Susan David episode of the podcast that's about how to have hope when things feel hopeless. It's a really beautiful episode, and I highly recommend it. But she's a Harvard researcher, and she studies something called emotional agility. And that's the idea of simply knowing the true emotion that you're feeling.

feeling at any time, she says is one of the greatest superpowers that we can have. And we so often default to emotions like, I feel stressed or, oh yeah, I'm fine, I'm good. They say at Hoffman, good is not an emotion. So when somebody says, how are you? You're not allowed to say I'm good. You have to actually take a second and think I'm a little bit anxious. I'm hopeful. I'm optimistic. I'm excited. You have to actually pinpoint the thing that you're feeling. But that is a little bit practice is practicing emotional agility. And they literally have a list of, I don't know, probably 100 feelings that you get when you get there. And so every time you're thinking to yourself, how do I actually feel in this moment? That's tuning up that emotional agility dial that Susan David

says is one of the greatest superpowers that we can have. I have a tip in my book about this, which is every time you feel one emotion, you're like, oh, I feel stressed. Ask yourself, what are two or three other words that you could use for the way that you're feeling? Because sometimes you'll find, oh, I'm not actually stressed. Maybe I'm a little bit trepidacious. I'm a little bit anxious and I'm a little bit excited about this work project. You're giving yourself better information about your emotional state, which is going to allow you to take better actions. And such a huge part of Hoffman is increasing that emotional agility, which again is going to get you closer to accepting what is to lessening that suffering. So the you to the eye, the asking yourself,

what are a few other emotions that I could say that I feel right now? All of these things are just bringing us into the present. They're bringing us into how do I actually feel in this moment? And they're helping us accept how we feel in this moment and take ownership of it, which is incredibly powerful. And I highly encourage any of those practices. is to get in touch with that. Number two, if you are struggling to change, start with any action. Action is required for change, and it's one of the most powerful ways to create change. There's a saying from AA, and Hoffman is not a substance abuse recovery place. They really make that clear if you're struggling with substance abuse, you need to work on that and be in a

really great place with that before you come to Hoffman. But they shared this line from A.A. That really resonated with me, which is you can act yourself into a new way of thinking, but you can't think yourself into a new way of action. So a lot of the work that you do at Hoffman is about how do we actually create change in our lives. And one of the things that I realized is I get really stuck in my head about intellectualizing change. I can think about a problem over and over. I can develop these deep levels of awareness. I can connect it to my childhood. I can do all of these things. And then I just know about it.

And I'm like, okay, well, this is how I'm screwed up. And I can tell you the whole story about it, but I'm still going to continue to be this way. And one of the missing pieces I realized in my experience with change is that I wasn't associating change with action. I was trying to think my way into change. I was trying to read all the books and listen to all the podcasts and get all of the information until I finally change. hell, I finally changed. And all of those things are incredibly important, but they are one part of what creates the change and the action for me was such a missing piece. And there's so many things at Hoffman that create that action in a really beautiful and surprising way. But this realization hit

hoping for me on this one specific day. And in the morning, we learned this practice that I was really bad at. And I was really, really struggling with it. And it was a really important practice. It was kind of what a lot of Hoffman had been building up to. And I was getting so frustrated and so in my head. And I was like, why can't I do this thing? What is wrong with me? Everybody else was like doing so well at it. And I was like, oh, they're so good at it. And something is just wrong with me. And then the day shifted in this way where it became one of the most fun days that we had at the process. And for the beginning of all of these fun activities that we were doing, I was so mad. I was like, oh my gosh, we're having the fun day after all of this work. And I'm in such a bad mood because I

couldn't figure out this thing this morning and why do the fun days always have to happen on the days where I'm in a bad mood and I'm going to be in a bad mood and it's going to ruin the whole fun day for me. And I was just so, so angry. And then I started to do the, these different fun activities. And without even realizing it, I suddenly had this really big smile on my face. And my mood completely shifted, not by getting good at or fixing the problem from earlier, but by acting my way into a new state of mind, essentially, by playing my way into a new state of mind by letting the action come first. And it was such a powerful, experiential realization for me that I could have sat around for hours and hours and hours

noodling over how to get really good at this thing that we were learning. And I would have been so frustrated. But I came back to that thing the next day in this completely reinvigorated and refreshed state of mind. And then I was able to solve it. And this has so many parallels with my life where I'll sit at my computer and I'll be like, oh, you have to crack this, think your way through it, Liz. Or I'll be dealing with a fight with Zach or something with one of my friends or my family members. And I'll be like, oh, you have to think your way through this. And I'll get more and more frustrated.

And then my thoughts will get less and less clear. And it's this vicious self-perpetuating cycle. But I learned that you can shift your state by action. So take those actions, go for a walk, play a game, do something silly and goofy. Instead of sitting around and trying to think your way into a better mood, if you're grumpy, if you're anxious, if you're sad, ask yourself if there's actions that you could take to begin to shift that mood and then come back. And if you're like me and you're like, well, these are real problems and they're not going to be solved by going on a walk or playing a game or changing my actions to

change my state for sure. That's definitely true. But you'll be able to solve them much better when you're in a better state of mind. So action is the key to change. Don't try to think yourself to change. Try to act yourself into change. Number three, we are all human and we are all going through shit. So as much as you possibly can, stop judging people. And there are so many reasons for this. One huge realization that I had is that by judging other people, you are paving those pathways in your brain that are primed for judgment. So of course, when your brain is going to think thoughts later, it's going to take those pathways and you know who you are likely going to be judging in the future, yourself. You are priming yourself to judge yourself. Same if you're

criticizing other people all the time. You are priming yourself to criticize yourself. You are warming up those pathways. You are paving those well-worn roads. So when your brain is firing off a thought, it's going to be like, oh, that's a well-worn road. That's the one that I'm going to take. So that's a huge, easy reason not to do it. But also, Hoffman is such a reminder that everybody is going through their own shit and you never know what that shit is. You're in this class. You're with 29 other people and everybody's really successful. Everybody has these incredible lives. But through this experience, you get to see the real pain that people are going through. And it gives you such a sense of perspective that that shiny exterior, which is all that most

of us have access to in most of our days, unless you're really, really close and really, really intimate with somebody, that shiny exterior is all we're seeing. We're not seeing the pain and the hurt and the suffering that people are going through. We're not seeing the messages that they've been telling themselves since they were children about how crappy they are, how they're unlovable, how they don't deserve the success that they have. We're not seeing all of that. And the second that your eyes open to the fact that we all have different degrees of pain, you just become so much more compassionate and so much more empathetic for everybody, for the person who cut you off on the freeway, for the person who's acting like an asshole at work, I think it's a really

helpful practice to step back and say, if there were a reason for them to be acting like this, what would it be? Does this mean you should let people walk all over you? Absolutely not. A huge part of the process and a huge part of simply what I believe in life is that we need to have enough respect for ourselves to speak up for our needs, to speak up for what we want in the world, what we need in the world, how we need people to treat us, to demand that respect from other people. And it's a beautiful gift that we can give to ourselves to not say, spend so much time feeling angry about the way that other people act that's simply a manifestation of their own pain. And I think one of the best things that we can do to begin to bridge this

divide of knowledge essentially, this they have this whole story and we have a story that we're telling ourselves about them and those two stories are creating conflict and pain and a dissonance is to begin to ask them more about their story. There's a really powerful part of the Hoffman process. And I really don't mean to be secretive or sound like I'm hiding anything, but I'm also trying not to get into specifics about what we actually did, not because it's like fight club and it's like the first rule of Hoffman is that you don't talk about Hoffman, but because it was such an incredibly special experience.

And I want anybody who's listening to be able to go and have that. that experience and a huge part of the experience is not knowing what's coming next. You are asked not to look ahead in the workbook. I went in basically knowing almost nothing about what we were going to be doing each day. So on the off chance that one of you wants to go, I'm keeping it vague while again sharing my learnings and the things that I think will benefit and resonate with the most of you. but I want to make it really clear that they don't tell you not to share what you're experiencing there. It's not a cult and it's not a secret. It's just in case one of you wants to go, I want you to be able to have that beautiful experience of surprise yourself. But there's this really incredible experience that you have there where you essentially get the opportunity to reflect on the stories that you're telling yourself about the other people there. And it was eye-opening for me because one of the stories that I was telling myself about another person there, I was able to share with her. And then she was able to share with me her story that she was telling herself about me.

And those two stories were just playing off of each other and making both of us act in less friendly and loving and kind ways towards each other as a result of that. And this happens all of the time in my actual life. I will tell myself a story that somebody is too cool for me or they're celebrity or they have all this status and then I'll get nervous and be like, oh, I have to impress them. And then of course, I'm not acting as my most impressive self because I'm putting on a show. I'm not being my most authentic self. And I'm denying them the ability to be their most authentic self because I've already decided who they are. And I'm labeling them as this one thing and trying to impress them instead of asking them questions and trying to get to know them as an actual human being. I think this is something that happens with status stuff all of the time. But I think there's so many other ways in which we label people and we decide that we know who they are. And in doing that, we deny them the opportunity to be their most whole self. And we deny ourselves the opportunity to interact. with them as our most authentic self, and then we deny both of us this opportunity for incredible

connection, which is one of the number one things that we are all craving as human beings on this planet. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have. Like, if it's off gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life, and most conventional mattresses are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants, microplastics, and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning, you're going to be really hot. And sleep, is the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my house, no other things in my house, I would invest in my mattress. And in fact, I have four years well before I had much money to spend on any of these things because it is such a

big needle mover. The birch mattress is incredible. It is made with organic cotton, natural latex, and ethically sourced wool. So it has literally no off-gassing. You can not smell anything right when you boxed it has no microplastics, no synthetic foams or flame retardants. And the wool makes it so breathable, which if you've listened to this podcast for more than five minutes, you know that I run very, very hot. Like I am a furnace. Zach has basically accepted that sleeping next to me is like sleeping next to like a little fire. And the birch mattress has been a game changer for that. It's made me sleep so much better. Like I can see my sleep score going up because I'm not hot all night long. It's also hypoallergenic, which is really worth paying attention to if you find yourself

waking up stuffy or congested. Dust mites in a conventional mattress can actually impact your breathing and your sleep quality without you even realizing it. And again, we need to be able to breathe to get good sleep and getting good sleep is the foundation of our health. And then comfort wise, Zach sleeps on his back and then I sleep on my side and my stomach. So we have two completely different sleep styles and we both wake up feeling really good, no aches and pains. CNN actually named. And, named the Birch mattress, the best mattress for side sleepers, and Wired named it the best organic mattress period. So there you go. Burch has options for every kind of sleeper in your household. They have three firmness layers. I like the Lux Natural, which is the medium one. And then parents,

they even have a Birch Kids natural mattress. Burch ships right to your door. It sets up in minutes, and it comes with 120-night risk-free trial. So if it is not for you, they will pick it up for free. You have nothing to lose here. I want all of you to enjoy a deep, restful night sleep with a new mattress from Birch. Go to birchliving.com Liz Moody for 20% off. That is birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. And you're going to get 20% off birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. I'm genuinely confused how masterclass gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly, like the cooking class from Thomas Keller has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary school for.

But also, I'm being honest, this is like a use case I don't hear a lot of people talking about. I'll just watch it for entertainment when I want to do something that's far more interesting than scrolling. Christina Aguilera taught me to sing. Shan Boudrum's Art of Mastering Confidence and Sex Appeal class is 10 out of 10. There's menopause classes with leading doctors. There's script writing with Mindy Kaling. literally, you name it, they're on Masterclass, and it is such a good way to get off your phone, but have something that's like not quite as long or hard to get into as a TV show or a movie,

and that it just keeps you entertained and interested, and you are learning. There are over 200 classes from the world's best, all for just $10 a month when billed annually, and you get unlimited access to every class on the platform so you can learn at your own pace whenever you want on your phone, your computer, or even in audio mode, like a podcast. If you're looking to stop scrolling and start consuming entertaining content that makes you feel excited and helps you learn, Masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-free.

Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. So one of the best ways to overcome this is the second you notice you're telling yourself a story about somebody else in your head to find out more about them. What was your childhood like? What are you struggling with right now? What are you excited about right now?

Authentic connection with other people is the antidote to those stories, whether the story is that person's such a bitch or that person hates me or that person's too cool for me. or any negative story that you're telling yourself about somebody or a positive story that you're telling yourself about somebody. If it's a story, the antidote to it is asking authentic questions and giving space to get to know who they actually are and to be yourself and let them get to know who you actually are. Number four, clarity is kind. I have heard this in a work context before, which is instead of beating around the book, Bush and being like, oh, you know, like whenever you finish this presentation, it's fine with me

when actually you really need the presentation at 4 p.m. on Tuesday. And then when you're not getting the presentation at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, you're frustrated. And the person that's supposed to give you the presentation is frustrated that you're frustrated because they didn't know there was a deadline. I've heard it in that context. Clarity is kind. Our clarity is an incredible gift that we can give our colleagues, our partners, our friends, our family members, even if it feels meaner in the moment, if it feels scarier in the moment. Think about a time where a friend or a family member invited you to do something and you didn't really want to do it, but you didn't want to tell them that you didn't want to do it. And so you're like, oh yeah, like, let me think about it. And then they're

following up. And you're like, oh, yeah, let me just look at my schedule a little bit more. I'll get back to you. get back to you and you're beating around the bush and then maybe you eventually decide not to go and it's last minute and you've canceled the plan and they're even more hurt than if at the beginning you just said, you know, I'm really not available that day or you know I really was looking forward to taking some time for myself that day. At work in personal relationships, clarity is kind and there's such a tendency that I have. to try to protect myself and to try to protect the other person, and it ends up making everybody else hurt so much more. And there's so many opportunities at Hoffman to practice that clarity.

And I think there's even an element of clarity with your self is kind, which goes back to the emotional agility thing we were talking about. If I don't know how I'm actually feeling, moment to moment, if I'm couching it in these words that I use so often that they essentially become meaningless. I'm stressed. I'm tired. I just want to zone out. I just want to check out. Things like that. I don't actually know how I'm feeling moment to moment. And so I can't really practice that level of kindness or compassion with myself. And I can't really give myself what I need in that moment. If I don't know how I'm really feeling, I can't give myself the thing that that feeling tell me that I need. So I would encourage you the next time that you find yourself beating around

the bush, whether it's with yourself, whether it's with a family member, a friend, a partner, somebody at work, if you can find a way to be as clear as possible and know, even if it's scary, even if it's hard, that that's actually the kindest thing that you can do at that moment, it will bear very powerful results. Number five, in order to heal, we need to turn out instead of in. A huge part of Hoffman is how much you are doing in community, how much you're doing with other people, how much you're witnessing other people's pain and letting them witness yours. And there are so many benefits to this, but simply the witnessing is so, so powerful.

I don't know if you've had the experience where you've had so much shame about something and it's built up in your head and you're like, oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. And then you tell one friend about it. And it immediately just sucks the air out of that balloon. It sucks the power out of that thing that had such a tight vice grip on your brain. It is such a powerful experience. And it's because our pain needs to be witnessed. our pain needs to be witnessed and yet the reaction that so many of us, including myself,

have to pain, is to retreat into ourselves to say other people can't handle this. I will just curl up on the couch and scroll on social media and feel sorry for myself and think about how everybody else's life is better than mine and I'm never going to amount to anything and I'm worthless and all these things. And the thing I need in that moment is other people. But that initial hurdle of involving other people always feels hard and scary and vulnerable in a way that can stop you from taking that step. And Hoffman is just experience after experience after experience about the power of community for our healing. So I would encourage you to think about any way that you can bring more community into your

life and in a vulnerable way. Can you share something that's been causing you shame with a partner, with a friend, with a family member? Can you share something that you're struggling with with somebody that you love in your life? And in those moments when you feel like shit and you want to just retreat into yourself, can you pick up the phone and send a voice note to somebody, send a text to somebody? We think, and I've said this so many times, but it is so true and I'm never going to stop saying it, we think that these moments of vulnerability, these moments of perceived weakness are going to make people like us less.

but there is so much science that shows that these are the things that forge real connections and that make people like us more. And I have to tell myself that in the moment. You are not a burden. This is not going to make people think you're lame. This is not going to make people hate you. And I can force myself because I know the science to reach out and to let people be there for me. But it is connecting for them and it is the thing that heals us. We are meant to heal in community. Relationship bonds, heal relationship wounds. And a huge part of the suffering that we are experiencing en masse these days is from how disconnected we've become as a society, how disconnected we've become from our communities and the people who are meant to support

us. It's one of the reasons, honestly, that therapy works is because you have another person who's witnessing your suffering, your pain, who's witnessing the things that you have shame about. There's so many benefits to therapy, and obviously my dad's a therapist, my mom's a therapist, Zach's parents are both therapists, my sister's a therapist. So I know all of the hard work that they're doing

in the sessions that they're doing with their clients. And even if the only thing that they were doing was allowing that disclosure, or allowing somebody to talk and share the things that are just going around in circles in their brain, even if the only thing they were doing was that, it would have so much benefit. So when you're opening up to the people in your life, they don't need to say anything back. They don't need to solve your problems. They just need to listen and to witness, and that's going to have a powerful healing effect.

Number six, fun is a key part of healing. This might have all sounded kind of serious up until now and it might have sounded like Hoffman is just a bunch of people crying together and talking about their feelings and there's definitely a lot of that. But it is such a fun experience. I had more fun at Hoffman than I have had in so long in my life and it made me realize how much I miss fun and how crucial fun is to our healing process and to the process of us living our best lives. I think we can forget sometimes we're listening to all these podcasts. We're trying to learn all the science. We're reading all these books. And we're approaching personal growth and transformation like it's this big homework assignment. Like it's this big project that we have to power our way through.

And then before you know it, you're powering your way through your entire life, which is not the point. The point is to be able to access connection and joy and ease and love and all of these wonderful things that make life worth living, that make being a human being so magical. And I think we can forget about that or certainly I can forget about that sometimes when I'm acting like healing needs to be hard for it to work. And this is a real thing I do in so many parts of my life, I have this narrative that if something isn't difficult, then it's not effective and that's something that I'm working on. But there's such beauty in realizing that healing can also be accessing joy and play and ease and lightness, that healing can be laughing until

your stomach hurts, that healing can be watching a silly movie with friends, that healing can be playing a game that you haven't played since you were seven years old, that healing can be dancing, that healing can be all of these really beautiful, fun things, and that you can enjoy the process of becoming the person that you want to be, that it doesn't all have to be hard work. And in fact, you will get better results if it is enjoyable too. and if you are able to access that joy as well. So I am certainly trying to prioritize a lot more joy in my life in little moments and big. The other night after dinner, Zach and I were going to watch suits.

We've been on a real suits kick recently. I love suits. It's so good. It reminds me of a simpler time and it makes me really happy. But that night, I was like, what if instead of watching suits, we play a game? And normally this would not be my instinct because often I'm tired at the end of a long day. Sometimes a game just feels like a lot of work. But we pulled out a game.

We played it. And we laughed so hard. And we had conversations that we wouldn't have otherwise had. And I felt so much more energized by doing this thing that I thought was going to sap my energy than if I had just laid on the couch and watched suits, it was just really refreshing. So I'm going to be prioritizing joy and play and laughter and fun and childlike antics. There's a thing in the Bay Area called recess or something like that where essentially it's a recreational sports league but you play recess games. I'm going to be doing that. I think it sounds super fun.

But any way that you can tap into the joy, tap into the play. tap into the play, tap into the silliness, know that that's not only going to help you feel better in your life right now, which is incredibly important. And sometimes we lose sight of how important that is, but also that is key on any healing journey, on any journey of evolution, on any journey of growth. Number seven, everything we see in others is typically also in us. There's a saying at Hoffman, you spot it, you got it. And this can be on the side of things that are maybe less positive qualities or things that we don't like about ourselves as much.

Often we really notice in other people the things that we're most sensitive about that we don't like about ourselves as much. And we'll be sitting there and bitching about like, oh my God, did you see her? She was doing this, this and this. And that's often a reflection of either qualities that we don't feel like we're allowed to us for some reason, that we're. are limiting ourselves about or the reflection of qualities that sometimes we have in us. And that's why we are so attuned to them in other people is because there are things that

are in us and that we are noticing and aware of even on a subconscious level in ourselves. So that's a really helpful thing to be aware of. And that's something that I very much realized about myself is that the traits that I find most triggering in other people are usually things that I'm very much dealing with internally and things that I'm reacting to negatively in myself, which was a huge awakening and unlock for me. But also, you spot it, you got it, works in a positive way. So when we're noticing these positive attributes of other people, often it's because those are positive attributes that we ourselves have, which I found to be really lovely to think

about. If you're noticing somebody's warmth and they're carrying and their generosity, that's usually because you value warmth and caring and generosity. And that's a really beautiful thing to recognize in yourself. So I've just been thinking a lot as I go through my day, like you spot it, you got it, you spot it, you got it, you spot it, you got it. And I've been noticing what are the things that I'm spotting and how can I use that to reflect on things about myself, whether they're positive qualities or qualities that I want to do more work on. Number eight, this is something that a teacher said at Hoffman and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Don't forgive and forget because that sets you up for future hurt. But forgive and remember because holding on to it only hurts you. This hit me so hard. It made me think about all of the times that I've been. angry at somebody and they had no idea that I was angry at them and it was completely ruining my day and impacting their life not at all whatsoever. Again, this is not about letting people walk all over you. You are not forgetting. You're remembering. You're taking on information from the people and the situations that have hurt you to inform you to make better decisions in the rest of your life,

whether it's avoiding specific people, whether it's drawing boundaries, whether it's changing the way that you interact in situations, you're getting all of that information, but you are recognizing that holding on to the anger, the sadness, the resentment, all of those things are not in fact hurting the other people. It's hurting us. All of those feelings, the only person they're having a negative impact on is ourselves. And that is such a powerful and painful realization to have. It's basically like that Nelson Mandela quote, resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it'll kill your enemies. Or he has another quote that was like, if he stayed bitter after leaving prison, he essentially would still be in a prison of sorts, even though he was

free. And that's so, so true. The only person made prisoner by our resentment is ourselves. So do not forgive and forget. Forgive. Let go of that resentment. Stop drinking the poison and hoping that it'll have some impact on the other person when the only person that it's impacting is you. And remember, that's valuable information and now you have it and you can make more informed choices in the future. Okay. Number nine, I'm a little bit anxious to share because it is vulnerable, it is personal, it

is about me and my life. but it was also one of the larger epiphanes that I had at Hoffman. And if it helps anybody else, I would be very happy to hear that. And I also just want to share it with you guys because I love you. And I want you to know what I'm thinking about and know what I'm struggling with. So number nine, when I impress people into liking me, it makes me feel inherently unlovable. And I will unpack this a little bit more. I have wondered why, as I've found more success in life, that I have felt less of an inherent

sense of my own lovability, my own worth. And I realize that because every time I get rewarded for these things that I've accomplished for, oh my gosh, your books are successful, your podcast is so successful, look at how many followers you have, things like that. It gives me the feeling that without those things, I wouldn't be impressive or of interest or lovable or likable or any of those things to people. And so as I have become more successful, I felt worse about myself, which is something that's really surprised me about the experience of success that I've had. I love my job and I love talking to people about my job. And this episode is going to go live after the Simone Stolesoff episode,

which is about identifying less with our work. And as I'm reflecting on that conversation and on Hoffman, I think one of the big benefits with identifying less with our jobs, is because when we identify with our jobs, we ask ourselves, do we have worth, do we have value? Are we lovable without our jobs? And we do this on the flip side, too, when we give people status because they happen to be in a job that's financially or otherwise celebrated at this particular moment in history. Because by the way, what we celebrate on a societal level has shifted so many times over the

course of history and it will continue to shift again and again. but when we give people this arbitrary sense of status, we're actually depriving them of their ability to be human and to feel lovable for who they authentically are. We do this to celebrities. We do this to people in our actual lives. When the truth is we're all human, we're all trying the best that we can. We all have pain. We all have hope. We all want to love and be loved and do the best that we can in this experience of being a human being in this short time that we have on this planet. And when we're trying to impress people with all of these outside layers, with the purse that we're carrying, the car that we're driving, the job that we have, what our house looks like, how much

money we make, all of these layers, all they're doing is putting layers between people seeing who we actually are and affirming to us that we are lovable for being exactly that person without any of those layers, without any of that shit. A really interesting part of Hoffman is that you don't share what you do for work for most of the process. And as a result of that, all of the ways in which you develop relationships with people are built on who you really are on the inside. You're also separated from your house, your car, you're wearing really comfy, like yoga clothing all day long, things like you're often not wearing makeup or you've cried off all of your makeup. So you don't have these trappings that we use to impress people into reacting to us

in the way that we want to be seen and you're forced to just present this really raw version of yourself. And then I had this incredible powerful experience of presenting that raw version of myself and having people love that person. And it was so satisfying. It was a thousand times more satisfying than anybody being impressed with my book or my podcast or my followers or a cute outfit or anything. And interestingly, having had that experience, I now have an even richer and more nourishing relationship with the work that I get to do. I'm so excited about the ability to help so many people, to connect with so many people, to give people the information that they need to truly change their lives, and I inherently

have worth outside of my job and the work that I do. And knowing that gives me a freedom and an ease and a piece with which I can approach that work that is really different than I've had before, especially in the world of social media, which just gets in your head and you start thinking about the numbers and the algorithm and all of this bullshit and comparing yourself to other people because you can essentially see how well on a numerical level all of your coworkers are performing at any given moment in time. And there's a real scarcity mindset that's built into it of like you got to post all the time and you got to get these numbers or it's all going to go away at any second. And once I stepped away from that and said, look, my self-worth has nothing to do

with how many people see one of my reels or how many people interact with one of my stories or how many podcast downloads I get, then I'm able to recognize the incredible gift that is this platform that I have, that is the ability to connect with everybody, to connect with you, to help you, to share incredible information with you to interview. I cannot believe the people that I get to sit down with and interview and learn from them and benefit from their wisdom and share their wisdom with all of you. It gave me a new sense of gratitude for the work that I get to do. And one thing I've really come to realize is there's a difference between appreciation and impressing. And you can appreciate the work that people do. You can appreciate what they're putting out in the world. I

certainly appreciate all of the wisdom of every single guest that I have on this podcast, the ways in which they're changing the world. And it means the world to me, when you guys tell me the ways in which my work has changed your life, I am awed by it, honestly, and it feels so special that this is the work that I get to do. But that's different than impressing. and that's different than thinking that we need all of these trappings to be lovable. So that's been a really big takeaway for me. And it has changed how I approach people. It's changed how I approach myself.

And I'm really excited to have that seed continue to grow and see how it continues to shift how I approach myself and how I approach the world. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. Yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the steps to make eating healthier easier. That's where Marley Spoon comes in. What I love about this company and what's different than all of the other companies out there that are doing like stuff in the same arena is that you can customize your choices based on the effort that you want to put in. So if you want them to send you ingredients, so you can make your own 20-minute meal and like

get into your chef energy, they'll send it to you to all be in perfect portions so you'll eliminate waste. Great. That's sorted. But they also have meals that you can just heat up. They have ready-made breakfast, which is always such a tough time of day to get a healthy meal in. They have grab and go snacks. Everything is made from farm fresh produce with high-quality proteins and you can select by dietary preferences, including Mediterranean diet, which is the top diet that doctors on this podcast recommend. Also things like gluten-free, dairy-free, low sodium, anything that you need. The food is so good and it's so gourmet feeling like you feel like you're at a nice restaurant. We're talking like chicken Milanese with a crunchy cucumber arugula salad or everything bagel salmon with truffle chive potatoes.

My favorite recent meal was the creamy lemon chicken tray bake. I had one of those moments where I looked at my plate and I was like, wait, I made this. And so quickly, like so easily. It's just so little effort for so much reward. Marley Spoon just makes eating well feel easy instead of stressful. And honestly, that is everything. This new year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley Spoon. Head to Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals.

That is right, up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. That is Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody. So remember to get the offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well to stay strong as you get older. What do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters.

But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes, every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria.

Here is the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more.

We're like noticing these things, and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements. We're trying to do harder workouts. And those things do, help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement, Mitopure, does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells

can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking Mitopure increased muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change in exercise routine. It's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithineg keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, Eurolitha which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age.

Support yourselves and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitopure gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. Number 10. The difference between do have B versus B do have. So many of us go through the world thinking that if we do certain things, if we work really hard at our job. We can have the nice house. We can have the cool car. We can have the nice vacation. And then we can finally be happy. And one of the many shifts that Hoffman asked us to

consider was swapping the order of those things, to be, do, have. So how do I want to feel? How do I want to live in my body in the world every day. That is the be. I want to be in community. I want to be in presence. I want to be in warmth. I want to be in kindness and myself. And then let that influence what you do in the world and the choices that you make. And those choices that you make as the result of the being and the doing will create the things that you have and you'll have a different relationship with those things because you won't need those things to be happy. You're essentially, instead of saying, once I do all these things and I get all of these things, then I can finally feel the way that I want to feel. And I do this. So many my friends do this. We put the reward

way out in the future. Once I find a boyfriend, I'll be able to be happy. Once I get my dream job, I'll be able to be happy. Once I do all of these things and I get these things, that's when I can be happy. And it means that we're not giving ourselves permission to enjoy the journey and to enjoy what we have right now. It's such a bullshit saying, but it's said so often for a reason. Life is the journey. Every single time I have pinned my happiness to something that I would do. something that I would have, it has been so fleeting, and I have been right back where I started

afterward, whether it was my wedding or publishing a book, a lifelong dream. I told myself I would feel content and happy and successful and satisfied for over 20 years for publishing a book. And I did for about 24 hours. And then nothing else changed in my life. And I realized, and I realized, is that all of those feelings of not being enough were still there. The book didn't change it. The wedding didn't change it. And I was just left with myself. I was left in a more negative state of mind, if I'm being honest,

because the thing that I'd pinned my hopes on making me feel better had it made me feel better. So I had to go figure out what my next thing I would pin my hopes on would be. So now I'm trying to think every day, how do I want to be in the world? What is my end goal? What is the feeling I thought all of those things was going to give me? And how can I give myself as much of that feeling as possible right now? And then how can I let that feeling permeate how I show up in the world, how I show up in my job, how I show up in my relationships, leading with the being. and then letting the doing follow that, and then letting the having follow that.

B, do, have, instead of do have B. One of the most asked questions was how much did it cost? It is $5,000. That is for the entire week. Everything is included. So your accommodation, all of the food. The food is incredible. I cannot stop talking about how good the food was, but the food was just some of the most

nourishing, delicious, incredible food. Also, they had a cookie every single day and it was a different kind of cookie and the cookies were all so, so, so good. But it includes all the food. And it also includes these practices, these teachers, these visualizations, like every single thing that you're doing from 7.30 in the morning until 10 at night every single night, which I did the math on this because $5,000 is a lot of money. I was trying to talk myself into it because it was something that I wanted to do for a really

long time. So if you take $5,000 and you divide it by $250, which is the average cost of an hour of therapy in the Bay Area, you get 20. So it's equivalent to about 20 therapy sessions in the Bay Area at least. And I found it to be more powerful than 10 years of therapy. That said, it very much works in conjunction with therapy. They have things you can talk about with your therapist and you can keep working on it with your therapist. But I thought of it as like, I want to do this intensive week and get all the benefits of that of getting to go really, really, really deep over the course of a week versus doing more spaced out therapy where you're not able to go as deep simply because of the amount of time you have allotted. And also the benefit of

working on all of this stuff in community lets you get so much deeper than you can in therapy. It's one of the reasons I'm such a huge fan of group therapy. My dad, who is a psychologist, says it's the single most effective thing you can do in therapy is group therapy. So if you can find group therapy near you, I highly recommend that as well. Okay, somebody asked, any parts you'd skip if you'd known about them before the process started, is it worth the money? I 100% think that it was worth the money, for me at least.

I would highly recommend it to anybody who is interested in going. Also, I didn't mention this. They have scholarships and number of the people every single session are on scholarship. And if you write to them and express a need, they will try their best to make it work. Hoffman is a nonprofit. And everything about it feels like a nonprofit. Like you don't feel like they're trying to nickel and dime you. You don't feel like they're trying to get rich.

you genuinely feel like, oh my gosh. Genuinely, I had the experience so many times while I was there being like I am getting so much bang for my buck here because, again, it's 7.30 in the morning until 10 at night and the teachers are so present and so involved. And the program is so thoughtfully constructed. And I just felt like I was getting so much for what I paid for it. And they will try to not let finances be the barrier for anybody not going. And the other part of the question, any parts you'd skip if you'd known about them before the process started, I think my biggest thing is I did not know how hard it would be. I really thought it was going to be like hard but emotionally, maybe mentally hard. I did not know it was going to be as physically hard as it was, but those ended up being some of the parts that I enjoyed the most. And embarrassing hard. It's hard to be vulnerable and to do things that might feel and

embarrassing in front of other people, but that's part of the work that I found to be the most effective and the most helpful. But would I skip them? No, I think the process works 100% the best if you go all in. If you're going to go, if you're going to spend the money, and if you're going to spend the time, if you're going to leave your family and your friends and your work and go completely offline for an entire week, I would encourage you to go all in at every single moment during the process. I was like, am I as all in as I could be at this moment? Because I already was there. I'd already spent the money. I'd already made this commitment to myself. So if you're going to do it, I highly recommend not skipping anything, even the things that feel a little

weirder because that's what you're there for. We're there to try new things to see what might work. And if we're not open to the new things, then we might as well just do the same shit we've always been doing and not open ourselves up to the benefits that the newness might bring, the change that the newness might bring. Okay, somebody asked, did you make any friends? Yes, the relationships that I formed with people at Hoffman were the most rewarding part of the experience. It is wild how much intimacy you develop with this group of complete strangers from all walks of life, of all different ages, from all over the country, all over the world. And I love all of them. I shared parts of myself that I haven't shared with close friends that I've had for a really long time. I was vulnerable.

I had fun with them. I opened up about things. And now they just feel like this incredible safe space that I can show up as my most whole version of myself at any moment. I have all these people in my phone that I can text. We've all been in touch. We have a group chat. We send long voice notes.

I've seen many of them in real life since the process ended. and their friendships that are really dear to me and that I will treasure a lot. One of the many reasons I would recommend Hoffman is because of that powerful sense of community that it lets you feel. And once you feel how good having that strong sense of community feels, you don't want to go back to anything else. And so you're inspired to go out into your life and to build that and to prioritize that and to put it into your calendar. And to say this matters to me. This makes me feel incredible. And I know I'm going to be doing way more of that with the people that I met at Hoffman and with my friends and my family members

that I had before Hoffman. It really showed me the value. We can talk all day about the value of community, but having it demonstrated was so persuasive and so powerful. Okay. A lot of of you asked what was the hardest part. The physical parts were hard, although I will say they will make accommodations for people who have different physical capacities, so don't let that deter you from going. But I push myself physically to do things that I haven't done before. And that was very hard but very satisfying. And I'd say the other hard part is getting over the fear of being judged or judging yourself when you're doing these things that feel a little bit out of the box, out of the norm.

But that's also one of the most powerful parts because we spend so much of our lives worrying about other people judging us and judging ourselves. And it's just an absolute waste of the precious time that we have on this planet. So realizing that nobody was in fact judging me and that just as I saw the way, everybody was showing up and I loved them so much for it and I felt so much compassion and empathy and love for these people, they had the same back to me, was incredibly powerful and allowed me to judge myself less, which is a feeling I've really carried over into my life post Hoffman. Okay, and then let's end with this one. Why did you do it? What was your goal? I did it out of an

interest in growth in evolution in feeling more ease and joy and peace. I was honestly in a pretty good place when I went to Hoffman, but I had ways in which I approached my days that I didn't love. I procrastinated a lot more than I wanted to. I had a lot of feelings of inadequacy and comparison and jealousy and negative feelings wrapped up in my job despite loving the actual work that I get to do every single day. I had periods where I would feel really tired and lethargic and depressed and just lay on the couch all day sometimes while shaming myself for laying on the couch all day and yelling at myself in my head. So there were things like that, not this sense of Oh, my life is terrible in many ways before I went to Hoffman. I just felt really lucky and happy with my life. I have a job I love. I have friends I love. I have a husband that I adore. I have the cutest cat on the planet. So I felt like my life in general was pretty good, but I wanted to work on these things. And I wanted to find more of a sense of peace and ease and joy in my day-to-day life. It's interesting, though, because Hoffman peeled back all these

layers that I did not know were even there and exposed parts of me that I didn't know were hurting so that I could heal them. So I would say I went in hoping to get to the bottom of some of these less helpful habits that I had perhaps and to push the limits of my own growth, my own evolution because I love doing that. And I got so much more than that out of it. I got a really deep sense of healing. I got a really deep sense of compassion for my childhood, for my parents, for a lot of the trauma that happened to me when I was younger. I got a really deep sense of self-love. I got a really deep sense of community and connection and the possibilities within that. I got a really deep sense of the joy. I got a really deep sense of the joy.

that I'm capable of feeling, the lightness, the warmth that I'm capable of feeling. And I got a really deep sense of possibility for what my future and what the future in general could be. And I'm so, so grateful for that. In general, grateful is the word that I keep coming back to. I feel really grateful that I got to have this experience. I feel really grateful that I get to share this experience with all of you. And I feel really excited about what's next. So I hope you took some value from anything that I shared here. Let me know if you have any reactions, any feedback, anything that you are thinking about applying to your life, anything you try out and experience some results from. I would love to hear about it. And thank you for listening. And thank you for

choosing to spend your time with me. I love you, and I'm grateful for you. If you like this episode, shoot a link to someone you think would benefit. And if someone shared a link with you and you are new to the podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. Make sure that you're following on whatever platform you like to listen on. All you have to do is go to the main podcast page. That's the one that lists all of the Liz Moody podcast episodes and you'll see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page on Apple Podcasts. There was also a recent Apple update that has changed things up a little bit. So if you follow the podcast there, even if you've been following it for a

really long time, like since our healthier together days, go to that little button in the top right and click turn on automatic download so the pod keeps showing up in your feed. This way you'll not miss out on any new episodes. They'll appear right in your feed every single Wednesday and every other Monday. And we have some great episodes coming up that you do not want to miss, like episode all about maintaining and strengthening friendships, and another diving into neuroscience tips and tricks that you can use to completely change the wiring of your brain and the path of your life. Okay, I love you so much and I will see you next week for the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most

innovative products that I have come across in years and I am so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older. It's being actively broken down by something called senescent cells. These are cells that have stopped functioning but refused to die. They sit there, releasing inflammatory signals, breaking down your collagen, degrading your skin barrier, and accelerating every visible sign of aging. Scientists call them zombie cells and as they accumulate, they are one of the primary drivers of how old your skin looks and feels. The team at one skin, a group of female longevity researchers and PhDs spent five years testing over 900 peptides

to figure out how to help reduce the accumulation of senescent cells. And they finally landed on it. OSO1, the first peptide scientifically studied to reduce skin's biological age at the molecular level. OSO1 goes in and it clears out the senescent cells so it helps skin function like healthier, younger-looking skin. It is not masking the signs of aging. it's not targeting one thing. It is actually rolling the clock back at a cellular level.

I've been using the face moisturizer for almost six months now and I love it so much. It feels amazing. It goes on really smoothly. It's not tacky at all. And I actually see a difference, which I just feel like is never the case with skincare. You want to always like see a real difference and you're kind of like, do I? Do I? And this I genuinely do. Because it's clearing the senescent cells, it doesn't just target one thing. So my skin looks firmer. It looks like, it looks glowier. The texture feels dramatically smoother. And I feel like you can see that too. I also love the body moisturizer. It dries down really quickly, which is always a pet peeve of mine with moisturizers. I hate that like sticky feeling when you go to put your clothes on.

This does not do that. But it does moisturize really, really well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age. I am not making it just look younger. I am making it actually younger. OneSkin has four peer-reviewed clinical studies in over 10,000 five-star reviews. The data backs everything up. For a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at oneskin.c.com slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.com with code Liz. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad.

Every single thing that I just listed has been linked to chemicals and household cleaners. One study found that regular use of cleaning sprays was associated with a lung function decline comparable to smoking 10 to 20 cigarettes per day. Synthetic fragrances are a well-documented migraine trigger and a number of studies have linked ingredients in common household cleaners to fertility issues, thyroid dysfunction, mood changes, and more because of their impact on our endocrine systems. Luckily, you can just make one simple swap and you can eliminate all of those risk factors that you get from common household cleaners. Branch Basics makes cleaning products that are plant and mineral based, completely fragrance-free, and made safe certified, meaning they are screened against thousands of known and suspected harmful chemicals.

And best of all, you literally use one product, but you mix it with different amounts of water to make your kitchen spray, your bathroom cleaner, your laundry detergent, your produce wash, your glass cleaner, literally everything. It does not smell. It does not give me headaches. It does not give me rashes or itchiness from clothes because you are. Remember, we're using this for laundry. We're using this for literally everything. And it works so well. Everything gets so clean. And I know that I'm protecting myself from all of those long-term issues too. And I'm protecting my kittens who are much tinier than me. So anything they're exposed to has a much greater impact on their little tiny systems. And they're running around on their little paws

and then they're licking them, so I'm protecting them too. Branch Basics is now available at Target, Target.com, Amazon, and branchbasics.com, so it's easier than ever to make the switch. And if you want to grab their premium starter kit, you can use code Liz Moody for 15% off at branchbasics.com. That's code Liz Moody for 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is branchbasics.com and use code Liz Moody.