The Liz Moody Podcast - Advice Ep! Sober Curiosity, Masturbation Tips, Nomad Life, & More with Olivia Noceda

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Welcome to the fourth episode of our new series, where every single month, you’ll get a super chatty, fun advice episode. I’ll be joined by a new special guest every month and this month I am so excited to welcome Olivia Noceda to the podcast. On this episode, we talk about: the pros + cons of nomad life (plus the biggest unexpected downside)  how to bring vacation vibes into everyday life  the secret to never feeling behind in life  the number one tip for maintaining long distance friendships as adults  exactly what questions to ask yourself if you’re considering eliminating alcohol  how to set yourself up for success in a sober curious lifestyle alcohol-free practices to wind down at the end of the day  how to take the shame out of masturbation (and get amazing at it!) what to do if you feel like you’ve wasted time on a career, relationship, etc.  and so much more!  We would LOVE to hear from you any thoughts, reactions, or takeaways you have as you’re listening, so definitely screenshot and tag me @lizmoody and Olivia @olivianoceda on Instagram.  To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. This episode is sponsored by Ritual. Get 10% off your first three months of Ritual when you visit ritual.com/healthier and add the Essential Protein to your order.  This episode is sponsored by Cymbiotika. Get 15% off using code LIZ at cymbiotika.com.  This episode is sponsored by Pique. Get 5% off plus a free blooming teas pouch complete with premium Pique samples when you purchase 2 or more cartons from piquetea.com/LIZMOODY and use code LIZMOODY.  This episode is sponsored by Seed. You can get 15% off your first month's supply of Seed's DS-01™ Daily Synbiotic by going to https://seed.com/daily-synbiotic and using the code LIZMOODY.  Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're learning healthy cooking secrets for saving time and money, busting myths about aging, or getting quick, actionable tips for dealing with anxiety. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. Today, we are back with the fourth edition of our brand-new advice episodes, which I am so

excited about. Every single month, I'm going to be joined by a very special guest, and we're going to be answering all of your questions. So either send those into Ask at Liz Moody.com, or I'll also be taking questions on Instagram the last week or so of every single month. So you can hit me up there at Liz Moody. If you haven't listened to the past three advice episodes, what are you waiting for? I have one with Zach, where we answered questions about ultimatums, moving abroad, and his thoughts on my getting Botox. I have another one with two of my great friends, Justine, from Justine Snit. Max and Karina from Kalmi-Mabee, where we answered questions about cheating, religion, and age gaps, and relationships.

And then most recently, I had on Amy Chong from Bonnevant to give her thoughts on having kids, making big life decisions, and of course, all of her hair and skincare tips. So definitely check those out as well. They are a ton of fun. Today, I am so excited to welcome Olivia Noseida to the podcast. You may know Olivia from her Instagram or TikTok accounts where she shares the most aesthetically pleasing videos like easy, healthy recipes, wellness tips, mocktails, and overall just beautiful, inspiring content. She's also a great friend of mine. And on the episode

today, we're talking all about nomad life, which we've both been doing for like the past two years or so. We're talking about not living life by all of the fake timelines, maintaining friendships as adults, navigating not drinking or drinking less, how to get good at masturbating, and so much more. As always, we would both love to hear thoughts on our advice and your takes as you're listening. So definitely screenshot and tag us on Instagram. I'm at Liz Moody and Olivia's at Olivia Noseeta. And if you love this episode, please share it with a friend or family member. Sharing is the best way to support the podcast and it's so appreciated. And honestly, there's just a ton of amazing advice in here that everyone can benefit from. And then we can normalize like not living life by other people's

timelines and women taking pleasure in their own bodies. It's just like, it's so important. It's such important stuff. So I really appreciate everybody spreading the word and having these conversations and picturing you discussing these things with the people you love in your life just makes me so happy. Okay, let's get right into it with Olivia Noseida. Olivia, welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here today. I'm so excited to be here. We were just talking for like an hour off mic and I was like, okay, we got to turn the mic on. We're like getting too much stuff here that we're not capturing. So the bike is on.

I want to get right into this. I got so many questions. This is our advice episode for anybody new here. So if you have ever any questions that you want to submit to have answered on this type of episode, just send them to ask at lizmoody.com. I will also ask on Instagram. But these all came from all of you. And I'm so excited to have Olivia answer them because I just feel like you're such a

wise, generous, you're so emotionally in touch. Have you always gotten this sort of old soul comment? I appreciate that. I feel like you're talking me up too much. But now I'm nervous. But yeah, my parents had me older. So I kind of grew up with older parents. I feel like people who have older parents understand. But my mom is very similar. And I feel like people always kind of said that to me. I was the kind of the kid in high school that when parties were going on, I was in the kitchen with the parents chatting about life and love and all of these things. So I have gotten that I'm a bit of an old soul, but what can I say? I also go to bed really early. I don't drink alcohol anymore. So I'm really living up to the name. How old were your parents when they had you? My mom was 37 and my dad was

a little bit younger. My dad was 34. Has that impacted your thoughts on when or if to have children at all? Absolutely. It's actually kind of funny. So I think my mom selfishly, just wants to be a grandmother, but she's very adamant on me having babies immediately. If I had babies three years ago, she would have been stoked. I love that. She's like, I'll give myself till 37, but you need to be like snappy on this. And whenever we talk on the phone, she's like, I'll tell you what. If I could do it again, I would have had you when I was 30. And I'm like, no, you want to. I think she's being a little bit silly. But yeah, you know, unfortunately for her, it's made me realize that I can have children later. I don't want to start thinking about having kids.

until I'm 35. I'm just not ready. Yeah. I'm so not ready. And it's not that I don't want kids. I know I feel selfish saying this and I sound selfish, but I'm not ready to give up my life. And I'm not ready to worry about another life. And I want to put 100% into being a parent. Hopefully I can be a parent, right? I don't even know if I can be a mom. But if and when I get the opportunity to be a mom, I want to be so fully ready for that and I want to have fulfilled everything I need to fulfill. And I don't feel like I am ready to do that. I still feel super selfish. And I think it's not selfish to consider everything that much. You know what I mean? Like you preface it and you're like, maybe this is really selfish. I want to focus on myself. But it's not selfish to have that realization and act accordingly.

I totally agree with you. And I think that it's societal, right? We kind of expect as women like we should be, I'm almost 30 and I should say like I'm ready to have children and I think that society gets stuck in my head and like you're saying, it would be more selfish of me to have a child and not be ready for it. Yeah, absolutely. I definitely feel like it's something that's going to happen for me later if that's what the universe has in store, but I am not thinking about it. Though I would like to go get my follicles tested before I turn 30. That's something I'm really interested in doing. I don't know if you've done that. I haven't done that. I've done the modern fertility test and that was all good. And I thought that that information was really, really helpful and really easy to do. But I

haven't gone beyond that. I was just kind of like, all right, check that off. Like, good to go. Yeah. I feel like that's a great thing to do. Maybe I'll do that. It's like an easy starter one. Okay. So let's get into listener questions. One of the first ones that we got was about nomad life. We actually got a ton about nomad life, but I kind of distilled them into one question because this is a huge thing that you and I have in common is that we've both been living nomatically. When did you start? I essentially started in November or October of 2020. That was essentially, I'm going to New York. I'm going to be a nomad. I have this long-term lease that turned into me being in like five different long-term leases over the year. That wasn't really planned. And then we planned to do nomad life

in September of 2021. That's when we really plan to live this nomad lifestyle. And I actually told Tom, I was like, you got to look at my friend Liz. And she went to Berkeley too. And she's doing this. So you're definitely an inspiration for us. Aw, I love that. Well, we started May of 2020.

And we started pretty accidentally, I think, as well. We were just kind of trying to leave New York. And at that time period in New York, I don't know if you remember this, but everybody was like New Yorkers, we were like plague carriers. at that time. And so we were trying to come back to California. And we don't want to go to Sto Sachs parents. If we're going back there, we must be ridden with plague. So we rented a house in Colorado to just kind of cool off for the month and not interact with any people. And then we were just like, this is amazing. We should keep doing this forever. It's interesting how you kind of fall

into it like that. Totally. I mean, it's actually kind of funny. I think you and I both have similar commitment issues, if I could be so frank. But it's funny because I love routine. And I'm constantly like, we have to get an apartment. We need to settle down. We need to settle down. And then I'm like, oh my God, wouldn't it be amazing to go live in New Mexico for three months? Let's do it. We were supposed to settle down earlier this summer, but I keep pushing it back and pushing it back because like you said, we have the energy, we have the time, we have the financial privilege. And I feel really lucky for all of those things. And I kind of want to take advantage of it while I have them. It's interesting the commitment issue thing, though, too. We were talking before

we started recording about my fear of buying a house, which I've talked myself into. If you haven't listened to the Rameit Satie episode, I highly recommend that you do that, not you, Olivia, but anybody. I will, I will. Anybody listening because it really made me feel comfortable with the idea that there are so many paths to financial success and happiness and that buying a house isn't the only way to do it, although certainly it's not always a bad decision either. It just really depends on your needs and your wants.

We're told everybody needs to do that. That's the path. And that helped me a lot with that. But it's been interesting even realizing my commitment issues around buying a house being like, I like this place, but do I want to live here for like five years or 10 years? And is this one little thing that bothers me today just going to drive me crazy six months, 12 months later? Am I going to like this neighborhood?

I do have some really interesting attachment commitment issues. I always say that Zach and Bella, I can commit to, fully, but nothing else really. It's interesting. I totally agree with you. I mean, it's similar, right? It's this archaic kind of stigma of you need to have babies when you're young. You need to buy house. You need to stay in the same job. All of these things that we were taught by our parents because in the boomer age, that's what was the thing. And then we kind of wrote our own blueprint as millennials for taking a ton of different types of jobs, for quitting your job for your passion for, you know, not buying a house in your 30s and traveling. I mean, my parents think that I am so

clinically insane for doing what I'm doing and are just constantly worried and constantly stressed and are constantly trying to get me to buy a house. And I kind of have to rewire my brain. I do this a lot in therapy, but I have to rewind my brain and say, okay, my parents aren't always right and what they want for me is an always right. And they come from a place of anxiety because I'm their child and they want me to be okay. And they come from this formula A plus B equals C and that's how they lived their lives. And so they want me to follow that formula because it feels safe to them. And I think when we kind of break from that formula, whether it's nomad life or quitting your 9 to 5 job for your passion or whatever it may be, it's a really cool thing to say that

you're writing your own blueprint while it can be a little bit anxiety producing. Do you have any advice for somebody who is more stressed out about timelines and milestones and achieving things in that way? My advice is exactly kind of what I just said, is to recognize that there's a specific blueprint that society puts upon us and a formula that is really stigmatized in society and to block that noise out and to say, okay, what can I do? You have to understand what you're capable of and what your limits are and what's feasible for you. And there's going to be certain things, for example, let's flip it around, right? Somebody who wants to quit their nine to five and pursue their passion, there are certain people that I would not recommend to do that. To me, that does

not seem like the right thing to do if you don't have the financial backing or cushion. So I think what you need to do is you need to block up the noise and you need to say, focus on me. What can I do? what is my ability here and what can I make work to live my best life? And then also to accept that things are going to go wrong, that you're not going to like certain things. That's very important too and to recognize that not everything is going to be perfect. That's at least what I've followed. I think it's just so interesting to reflect on how many of the rules that we live by. And I mean from the little tiny rules like you should do this at this time of day to these are the types of things. this is what a friendship should look like to this is what a relationship should look like.

There's so many things you find yourself saying like, that's not right. That's not good. To the larger things like this is when you need to have a kid, you need to even have a partner in your life. I do think it's so interesting how much we are like a good life means a life with a romantic partner. When who says that? Who made that rule? And there's so many of these rules that we live by consciously and unconsciously that are just fake. Like they're not real rules. And I think there's actually a statistic, who knows what the sample size is and what the data really says. But I think there's a statistic that single women are the happiest population of people in the United States of America, which is just so funny to me. Because I feel like there's this constant stigma of, well, if you don't have a partner, then you're unhappy.

And your life isn't filled. And you don't have this thing. I feel we're playing this game. And you constantly have to move on to the next thing and ladder up and ladder up. now it's the partner and now it's the house and now it's graduating from here. And that is what you were born to believe and you have to break out of that. It's unwinnable. Like if you were single and you're like, my life will start when I find a partner, then when you find a partner, you're like, oh, my life will start when he proposes or she proposes. And then if they propose,

you're like, oh, my life will start when I get enough money to buy a house. And then my life will start when I have a baby. And then you're always waiting for your life to start and you're never living your life. It is an unwinnable game. There is no moment where any single person I know is like, okay, I did it all like I'm satisfied. For sure. The human experience is trying to live in the present and then constantly thinking about the future or the past and trying to rip yourself away from those two things. And that's normal. That's a part of being human. How do you do that? Where do you find this piece in saying, I can live here, I can live now? Because you're exactly. right. It is unwinnable. And also, what a disservice to the relationships in your life. And what a

disservice to yourself to get into a relationship and then say, okay, I've crossed that off my list. Now I want to go down. Next thing. You're not even enjoying. And you have to enjoy. I understand if you've been with somebody for a long time, you want to get married. Great. Okay. Do what you need to do. But there is just this constant pressure, I think, for a lot of us to feel like we need to check off the boxes at certain ages or certain times in our lives. And it just does not equal happiness. It really doesn't. Is there anything that helps you stay present and stay grounded in the moment that you're in?

A lot of reading I've done has really helped me. I guess you could call them mantras. I have a few books that have really helped me as I've read them multiple times to say, okay, remember this, remember this, remember that. And then at the end of the day, I think it's just repeating to myself these things that I'm telling you. I'm living by a societal standard that I don't need to live by. I can be happy right here right now. And there's obvious things. Meditation and journaling and gratitude is huge. So always writing down what I'm grateful for every single day. And even if I don't have time to write it down, just thinking about it and

saying, look at all the things I have right in front of my face, I think is such an important practice. If you don't have a gratitude practice, you should have a gratitude practice today. It is huge. book that we should all read. Every single person should read when things fall apart by Pima Chodran. It is kind of like my Bible. I'm not religious and I carry it in my purse with me. What about it is so resonant? She's an incredibly gifted, wise and spiritual Buddhist-American monk. She has really realistic and important insight, I think, for anyone at any age. It's very Buddhist, but it's just real. It's a very real account as to what being a human is like and how difficult it is to walk through life every day and how difficult it is to meditate. But equally, it's just as difficult to wake up and make your breakfast in the morning sometimes.

And she just has these really incredible thought practices behind how you should let go of certain things or how you need to have compassion for certain things. for me it was a rewiring of my brain. It was a very important book for me to read. I've read it multiple times now, but I really think everyone should read it. And I send it to all of my friends that are going through heartbreak, by the way. All right. So if you're going through heartbreak, definitely read it. But if you're just a human on this planet, also definitely read it. Okay, nomad life. No-Mad life. We're here. So the question that I pulled from all of them was just, I want to know about nomad life. What are the best parts? What are the worst parts? How does it all work out logistically. Where do you get mail? How do you work? How do you make friends in new places?

So let's break some of that down. For you, what are the best parts of nomad life? Best parts of nomad life are exploring a new place. It's just so incredible. And being able to do different things in a new environment. The other great part about nomad life is just having this constant newness in your home and with your partner and getting to like, it is kind of fun to set up my house and put my little things around and just explore something new. To me, that's the best part. There's some really interesting research about how when we change environments, we think differently. It can stoke what Katie Milkman calls the fresh start effect. So that's something that you get on like Mondays or when you move or on New Year's, which actually makes it easier for you to

make big shifts and changes in your life. And I've found that to be so true for myself from nomad life is just by being in a different house in a different neighborhood, I have a different grocery store. My brain thinks in different ways. And it's also easier for me to start a new routine. Like if I want to start a meditation routine or a workout routine or I want to start reading in the morning while I drink my tea outside, having this fresh start of a new place, a new location, a new house helps me do that. And there's really interesting research behind how and why that works. Well, okay, then that's the best part. You said it. Which I think is really cool because I do think that there's something harnessable about that,

even without nomad life, that anything you can do to sort of shift your environment in large ways or small can help you kickstart new things that you want to try out or experiment with. And so I think that that's a thing. Both of us are kind of stopping nomad life, which is why there's an interesting layer to this conversation. And that's something that I really want to bring into my life in L.A. is this lesson from Nomad Life about how important environmental shifts are for shifting the way our brains think and process. And even allowing yourself to get out and go to a new part of town

or go to a new coffee shop instead of staying in kind of your old same rut, I think like you said, is so important and it can be done even if you're not living in long-term Airbnbs. And I think that's one of my favorite parts of Nomad Life too, is it's because we're in an area for a very specific and relatively short amount of time, it's such inspiration to seize the day every single day. To take advantage of everything that the area has to offer will drive further distances than I think we normally would have used to just because there's like a great hike and we're like, when will we be this close to this hike again? We'll be trying out all of the best restaurants, going to the best cafes, going to all the parks, going for all the walks, just kind of trying to

milk the place for all of the magic in as short amount of time as we possibly can because our time is limited. And that's another thing that I'm really hoping to bring to life in LA. Like I was looking up and down the coast and I was like, oh my gosh, Santa Barbara is two hours away. I want to do a road trip there for the day. I want to go down to San Diego. We went hiking into Panga the other day. And I just don't think last time I lived in one place, which was Brooklyn, I didn't bring that same energy of exploration and adventure that I feel like Nomad Life has really teased out in me. Which I think is so great.

I've done all of these same things, but I've definitely been a little bit more stressed about not being in a place and we can get into the negative aspect of it. But we just went on a trip to Greece and had that exact experience where it was like up at dawn, sunrise. It was like, you know the Lady Gaga thing where she's like club, nether club, plane. That was literally our life. We're like beach, another beach, restaurant. not. And we were saying on our last day there, we need to do this at home. This is how we have to live

our lives. We need to live our lives with this type of vacation adventure mindset. And it was like, we had just moved to where we are now. We were here for 24 hours. And we both got off work at 5 o'clock and we're like, let's go hiking and just put on our shoes and sent it. And it was the most amazing hike ever. And we were like, this is incredible. And I at some point stopped in the middle of the hike. And I'm like, do you know that people come here and do this on vacation? Like that's so. wild to me, that we're just doing it in the afternoon after work. And so I completely agree with you. It's that type of zest for life and variety that you get during nomad life. I feel very privileged to have had that experience. What are the worst parts of nomad life for you? Well, how long do you have?

I do think this is so important, though, because I do think there's a glamorization of that lifestyle. And again, like you, I think it's an amazing privilege to even have had the opportunity to do it. But I also think it's so important to highlight that it's not sunshine and roses at every single moment. Just like all of the things that we talk about and put up on a pedestal and glamorize are never quite what they appear to be. And so I'd love to just lift that curtain a little bit. For sure. I mean, I might be the wrong person to be talking about this because I'm at the tail end of my experience. So I'm exhausted.

But, you know, it is very hard not having a place to have footing underneath you, to have ground underneath your feet. I'm sure there's research about this, but there is something to be said about having a home base and knowing it and putting your personal touch on it. It can be very stressful and very jarring to logistically try and figure out how you're going to move all of your shit to a, new place, wake up the next day. And for both you and I and any other person that isn't waking up and opening their computer as their job, we have this added effort of having to make sure our place

has natural lighting to make sure there's a kitchen that's available for us to use. We have to have our shooting stuff with us for shooting recipes. I mean, Tom is a saint. I'm sure Zach is a saint or having to deal with me being like, well, this is a north facing house. So I don't think we can stay in this one because I'm not going to be able to shoot recipes and it's really unstable. I think that's the best way to put it. It's a really unstable lifestyle. We don't know where we're going to be six weeks from now. On our way home from Greece, we got off the plane, we missed our connection, we had to stay an extra night. And it was just such a nightmare because we had had these plans to come get the keys to our new place and move all of our stuff in. And I was telling Tom, I'm like,

I'm not crying because, you know, he's like, why can't. we just enjoy the night in Montreal. And I'm like, you know, I am so stressed about having to start my life over in this new place tomorrow. It's not like I get to go home to a place I know and love. And it depends on the type of person you are. I'm a home body. I love being home. I love decorating my home. I love cooking in my home. And it can be very difficult and weird to move into a place that is not yours. So I think for me, that's the biggest issue is the instability of all of it. I'll touch on the friend aspect because I think that this is also fits in this category. Again, I'm a bit of a homebody. So I just kind of know that I'm not going to be in one place for a

long time and I don't really put the effort into making friends. I'm really busy with work. I mean, I'm pretty much working from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed and we both work full-time job. So having friends is really difficult and making new friends as an adult is extremely difficult. And the amount of energy you have to put into making a new friendship is, it's like a full-time job. And I'm not going to do it if I'm not going to be there for a long period of time. So it's been a lot of time with my man. We spend a lot of time together, which is a positive and a negative because I think it just gets really exhausting to be with the same person all the time, even though we love each other and have the best time together. So making friends is difficult,

and I would say that's a con. And the instability of all of it is jarring, you know, kind of always have to be on top of your shit. And then when you move into a place, you're already thinking about where you're going to move next because you don't have it for that long. And in that case, it really takes you out of the present moment. And I think that can be really difficult just generally because I think we should be living in the present. We should be kind of exploring and experiencing and adventuring. And I know that I am so caught up in where I used to live and how great that was and where we're going to live next and how great that's going to be. And so it can be very difficult to just enjoy where you are. Yeah, I completely agree. It's like

one big push into the present and one big push away from the present. So it's not all it's cracked out to be. But then again, I'm so lucky and I feel like we love it. I'm genuinely confused how master class 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. It's 10 out of 10. There's menopause classes with leading doctors.

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And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is branch basics.com and use code Liz Moody. Did you not host at all? That was how we kind of got around the friends thing. It was interesting because it's a mixed bag for friends for us. It's really hard to like make friends in a, new place. But we would be like, hey, friends from New York, from L.A., from San Francisco,

from all over the world, we have this house in Squamish for the month of August, come visit. And because you're there for a limited amount of time, it's a really beautiful place. Everybody gets really excited to come and stay with you. So I actually feel like I was able to cultivate my friendships from all of these different parts and places of my life in a way that I haven't when I'm just in one place, but then I wasn't able to make new friendships in that place. So it felt kind of like a friendship mixed bag for me. Which I actually love, and I will say, when we were living in Bend, Oregon, we had friends every single weekend for three and a half months. Everyone wanted to come out and ski. We had this big house. We were like, oh, my God,

come stay. I was exhausted. But it was so nice. And I will say this. I've never lived in the same city as any of my best friends. I feel like I always ended up moving right when our friendship got really good. I maintain long distance friendships so well. And I love my friends and I love talking on the phone with them. And I love getting out and going for my little walk and calling my girlfriend and just gossiping the day away. I think my energy levels deplete very quickly. So I find that when I'm hanging out with people in person, I get really tired, really fast. And I feel like I'm not as energetic and fun. But when I call my girls on the phone, I am like, let's go, let's go to town.

And I have maintained the most deep, beautiful friendships during this time over the phone. That's been a total positive for me. Any tips for maintaining long-distance friendships? Yeah, a lot of tips. Don't be high maintenance. Don't expect from others. Even as we're getting older, we just need to live our own lives. And we need to understand that our friends are living their own lives.

I think it's really important to be a low-maintenance friend to know that as long as you feel this reciprocity that they're there for you and you're there for them, but it doesn't mean you need to talk every single day. It doesn't mean you need to be on each other's grill all the time. So that's huge, number one. Number two is to make an effort to be the one putting in the phone calls and understanding that they may not be able to call you and there's going to be ebbs and flows. someone's going to call more than the other person one month and vice versa the other month.

I think understanding that friendships have ebbs and flows is probably the biggest thing for me. It's not always going to be on all the time. It's just not. You're never on with your partner all the time. And it's never going to be like that with a friendship. So I think understanding that there's going to be maybe weeks or months where you're not going to talk as much or maybe you won't have as much to chat about or not as much in common, maybe you're going through something that you don't feel like you can. confide in them or maybe you're confiding in them and they're not giving you what you need and so you're turning to other people. That's okay too. So I think that all kind of lives under the

umbrella of being a low maintenance friend and understanding that just like your partner shouldn't be everything for you, your best friend shouldn't be everything for you. And it's important to have a few different types of people who can help you in a few different types of ways and can be different types of friends for you. I have one friend that I talk to really, really, really serious shit about all the time. And I have another friend that I talk to work about. And I have another friend that I talk to like really fun and we chat about our lives and another childhood friend who just kind of understands me on all different levels. But I don't really know if there's one person I'm kind of delving everything too. I think it's a lot of responsibility for a friend to hold. It can be burdensome. And we need to

remember that our friends have their own lives too and they have their own problems. For me, I think the biggest thing, and this is kind of weird, but I've always identified as not a phone person and letting go of that identity for me. I feel like this has been my year being like, wait, is that thing that I've always identified as? Like that thing I've always hold myself about myself. Is that actually true? And for me, the idea that I'm not a phone person, where did that come from? And is that still true? And so one day, instead of putting it on a podcast when I was driving to the grocery store, I just called a friend that I hadn't talked to in a while. And she was surprised because I never called her. But she was so happy to talk. We had

the loveliest conversation. And I was like, who says I'm not a phone person? Like, maybe I am a phone person and why am I insisting on holding on to this limiting belief? For me, it's been really an identity shift of being like, I can be whoever I want to be. I can call people if I want to call them. And it can feel really fulfilling and satisfying. I think it's important to remember that over time our interests and ideas change, which is why friendships end, which is also a totally normal thing to happen. And it's important to remember that we're not always going to be the same person that maybe we were two years ago in that capacity and to allow ourselves to try new things and communicate in new ways. Do you have any kind of quick logistical tips like game-changing,

helpful nomad life learnings? Save your boxes. Pick a very small amount of things that you need that you want that are little trinkets for the home that make it feel more like yours. So have one box. I have our nightstand lights in there, our little things, just the most random like a candle, catch all, or whatever, just to put around the house that makes it feel like, oh, this is my house. So that to me is logistical because when you're packing a ton of shit, you don't want to pack all this stuff. So kind of throwing it in one little thing. If you want good natural lighting, you should get a house that's either southwest or southeast facing. South is the best all day light,

but I really like direct sunlight, and I really love it in the evening. So west facing is personally my favorite, but east is also great as well. I think a lot of people don't know that. So you can always just ask someone, if you're renting on Airbnb, you can just ask them,

what direction does your house face? And then for those people who are doing Airbnb, remember that before signing a contract, you can always ask the owner to text you and to do a FaceTime walk through the house with them before you sign. I think that's really what has made us feel really comfortable just to know, okay, this is what we think it is. We've all been in the situation where we get somewhere and we're like, this is not at all

what I thought it was. And if you're going to be living in a place and working from a place for six weeks, three months, you want to make sure it is what you think it is. I would add to that too. You can always negotiate Airbnb prices. I think that if you're staying particularly for a long time, I think we've negotiated almost every single Airbnb price that we have stayed in. And then also you get a discount if you go over a month because it gets rid of a lot of the Airbnb taxes and fees. And that's actually

quite substantial. So always look at that. I would also say when you're talking to the Airbnb host, ask for the internet speed in the actual speed numbers. Just say like, hey, can you run a speed test? I'd love to know the numbers because a lot of people will say, oh, we have fast internet. And then you'll get there and you'd be like, wow, we really define fast internet. Very different. It isn't that high speed. So that's really helpful, especially if you're working from home. And then other quick and dirty tips, one, we travel with our Roku. It feels like such a little thing, but not having to re-sign into like Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, and a new home. And having your shows all be where you left them makes a place feel so much more like home so quickly. So that's a really big one that we like.

And then I like to do this whether or not I am nomadding somewhere, even if I'm just traveling. I like to go to a cute cafe, a cute bookstore or a grocery store and look for that pinboard that they put community events on because they always have it in these towns. And there will be interesting concerts. I found a murder mystery party once that I went to in Idol Wild in California. It was so much fun. And I found so many just like interesting local events. I found classes. I've found rakey sessions. I've found karaoke parties. I found so many like little live music things,

beer and wine festivals. There's so much good stuff there. So I feel like the first thing I try to zoom in on is that community board. And then I'm like, okay, what's going on this month? So I think that's one of my favorite tips. And then I would also say to pack everything in bins, not suitcases. I assume everybody's packing in like boxes and bids. We just went to the container store and got like a bunch of big plastic bins, but that made our lives so much easier. With packing the car. And I will also say Airbnb has crazy fees. And people who are hosting on Airbnb don't even really want to be on Airbnb because they take the fees from them too. So always double check things like Furnished Finder, which is a great website,

where a lot of the same places from Airbnb are on Furnished Finder and there are no fees. That is a tip I did not even know about it. And also check Craigslist. We found our squamish place on Craigslist. And we did a video walkthrough. It was so much more affordable than anywhere else that we've stayed. And it was a much nicer place. There was just a family that wanted to take a vacation that month. And so they put their place up on Craigslist for just that month instead of having it be like a regular rental. It was really nice. Okay. Let's get to the next one. I am struggling with quitting alcohol. I am not an alcoholic. So this isn't an addiction problem, but I want to drink less or not at all. I'm surrounded by alcohol with my friend group all the time, and I live in a city where there is nothing to do but drink Las Vegas, Nevada. Relocation and new friends are not options that I want. I need tips, please. I know that you are on your own sober curious journey, so I'm really interested in your advice here. Thank you. I was laughing when they were like, I don't live in a place that is conducive for anything but drinking. I'm like, where do you live, Las Vegas? And then, yeah, I'm in Las Vegas.

to Mattas. So, okay. It's so funny, though, because Zach and I went last summer just for like two nights and I wasn't drinking at that point. And I was like, this is a place for dancing by the pool. It's a place for shows, Meow Wolf and really cool art exhibits. I think of so many things in Vegas outside of just drinking. And I'm not a local, but I want to go there right now. I think it's such a fun city and I'm not drinking currently. Well, I will say this also. There's a huge climbing community in Las Vegas. And that means that there is a very big active community in Las Vegas of people who are active. So not that I'm saying climbers don't drink, but I'm just saying that that's not what their activities are surrounded by. So for anybody who does not have an addiction to alcohol,

who is interested in drinking less or not drinking at all, I would say the first thing to do is to really kind of sit down with yourself and ponder your relationship with alcohol. What is alcohol to you? Is it something you need to feel more comfortable in social settings? Is it something that you actually enjoy the taste of? Is it something that makes you feel good or feel not so good? How do you feel the day after? How do you feel the day before?

How do you feel the day of? Like really delve into what your relationship with alcohol is. Not your friends. Not I live here. My friends do this. If you were to live anywhere, what would your relationship with alcohol be? When I did that, I realized I don't even like the taste of it. I actually don't enjoy wine.

I don't enjoy beer. And I very rarely enjoy hard liquor unless it's in a cocktail. And so I was like, why would I be drinking something I don't enjoy? This is so weird. This makes no sense. So I think that's the first thing to do. The second thing to do is to say, first of all, what kind of people am I hanging out with if they're going to make me feel weird about not wanting to drink as much.

Then you're really saying, okay, who are my friends? So I will preface that I think for a lot of us, the journey to sober curiosity becomes a journey into a lot more than just becoming sober. And I think that can be really stressful for a lot of people because it starts to open your eyes to the people you're surrounding yourself with, your environment, your hobbies, like you said, kind of these archaic mindsets or these limiting beliefs that you've allowed yourself to live by for a really

long time, they're going to start breaking down. And it's going to be really stressful. It is. No pun intended, but it's really sobering. Like, you just start to really realize that there's a lot of stuff you haven't really thought about or processed. So first of all, your relationship with alcohol. Second of all, who you're hanging out with and whether or not those people are the right types of people to surround yourself with, if they're really going to make you feel weird about not wanting to drink. And then I think third is to start putting into practice little habitual things. For example, removing alcohol from your house. Don't drink when you're home. Okay, easy, right? If you're having trouble with that, that's something I cannot speak to because I think

that becomes more of an addictive type of mindset. So you remove the alcohol from your home when you're making dinner, maybe you drink a liquid death. If friends come over for dinner, I'll say, hey, why don't you bring yourself a bottle of wine and I have food covered? You cover your own drinks, B.YOB. I also think literally having something to sip on is such a game changer. Huge. Something that's interesting to sip on. Like you're pointing to your liquid death, which is just water, but it's like in a fun can.

It's a fun experience. And then you and I both make a ton of mocktail recipes. I think those serve the same function. I've been doing the Whole Foods blood orange Italian soda and I'll just put like a splash of it into a spin drift grapefruit or a spin drift lemon. Just interesting enough to make it a fun experience in that way. I do think so much of alcohols about the ritual of sitting and sipping. And if you can give yourself something to sit and sip on, whether you're in a social situation or you're just relaxing cooking dinner after work, I think that is so critical. A thousand percent.

And that was kind of my next point is like having something that feels like it allows you to kind of live that social lifestyle. So bringing this to a party, oh, people are going to ask about it. People might think it's beer, but it's just water. But you still have the can't and you're still holding on to something. Mocktails, you know, whenever Tom and I drink dinner and we have something to cheers to, we're doing mocktails or he has his wine and I have my moktail in a wine glass. And so we're kind of drinking the same thing. and we're cheersing to the same thing, which I think is so important to be able to still feel that you have that social, you know, when you go out, I always order a sparkling water with a

squeeze of lime. So it looks like I'm drinking a tequila soda. Most places right now, like so many places, even when we were in Greece, had mocked up things on their menus. And some of them are so interesting and so delicious. Like people are having a lot of fun with it right now, I think. Totally. And if you want something that's lower sugar because you don't want to drink super high sugar, then maybe you should figure out why you're putting alcohol in the first place. Because I think that sometimes it can blur the line between wellness trend and diet culture, which that's a whole other topic. But I will say if you want something that's a little bit lower sugar because maybe it'll make you feel kind of that sugar hangover the next day, you can just ask, please make me a mocktail with like less

syrups. And they can totally do that. If it's a full bar, bartenders have so much fun with that type of thing. I think another really great tip is if you're wanting to drink less, if instead of pre-gaming with alcohol, you pre-game with a moktail, fun drink, and then you go out and you have your alcohol when you're out and you're not kind of doing this doubling down on drinking. So you're actually showing up to the bar sober. Now, that's something that in the first step of, you know, figuring out what your relationship with alcohol is, is that something you can do to use alcohol as a crutch socially? And that's something you have to figure out.

But this is something that I'm really passionate about, which is that alcohol cannot actually make you a different person. It can just bring out parts of you that are already there. So if you're saying, I need alcohol to be social, to be bubbly, I have friends who say, I only like my body in a bikini when I'm drinking. So if I'm by the pool, I need a pinocalada and then I feel really good and comfortable in my body. And I'm like, that you is inside of you already. it's just coming out when you're uninhibited in this way. And I think it's so permission-giving just to realize that, just to realize that all alcohol is doing is teasing out parts of you that are already there.

You can walk into the bar and be the life of the party. You don't need alcohol's permission. You just need your own permission. That is such a beautiful point, Liz, and something that I think every single person who is interested in sober curiosity should hear and understand because I think we don't really give ourselves enough credit. You grow up drinking from the time maybe you're 18 or 21 and you just kind of think, well, this is how I've succeeded socially my whole life and you're not even giving yourself the chance.

It's another limiting belief. You're not even giving yourself the chance to say, maybe I can do this without alcohol. And then also, maybe you're doing the wrong things. Maybe you're engaging in the wrong activities for you. Maybe you've grown out of going to the bars. Maybe what you want to do is wake up and go on hikes. Or maybe your idea of a really fun evening is playing board games or going camping. And maybe that's not completely reliant on alcohol.

And so maybe what you have to do is decide I need to like maybe make new friends and get myself into new hobbies. And I think setting yourself up for success. If you're like, I am having a really hard time not drinking and then I'm like, well, what are you doing for fun all the time? And you're like, well, I go to the bars. I go out to eat. Those are my two social acts.

And it's like you're not setting yourself up for success in not drinking if your main social event revolves around drinking. So to your point, what other social activities can you do? And to all of the things we talked about with Nomad Life, filling your life with these experiences, it's more of a challenge at first because it is easy. It is so easy to call up a friend and say, hey, do you want to go out for a drink? It is a little bit harder to say, okay, I'm going to find us a hike or like there's this cool art show that I've not been to or I found this online. do you want to try it out. But it's so much more rewarding if you can get over that initial barrier. For sure. And you can still go out for a drink and get a non-alcoholic beverage and sit there

and sip on your drink and talk shit and do whatever you need to do during that little hour. But I am always telling people, hey, you want to go out for a drink and they know I don't drink. And I think the other thing is, I don't know if this is in a movie or whatever. It's like it's only weird if you make it weird. But it's really only weird if you make it weird. Don't make it weird. Every single person I know whether or not they have something to judge about me if I don't drink, I show up and I'm like, yeah, I'm not drinking. Do you have any questions? And if they judge you, how weird are they? So weird.

I feel bad for somebody who needs me to drink so much. Like, why does that impact them that they would need to drink so much? And also, I have only really 99% of the people I've come into contact with when I tell them I'm not drinking have been so interested, so kindly inquisitive. And I will tell you that I've inspired a lot of my friends, too. They're like all taking these sober months now. And they're like, hey, do you have any mocktail recipes? This, that. What do you do? A lot of people, I think, don't really want to use alcohol as a crutch anymore, especially as we get older. I mean, we really feel like shit when we wake up the next day. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative

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15% off at oneskin.co with code Liz. 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.

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your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithin A keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin A, 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 mitochondere gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. That was such a huge thing for me. I've already so existentially ambitious and trying to pack so

much experience into this very short amount of time I have on this planet and the idea of losing nights to not being able to remember everything, not being able to be present, and then losing the next day to feeling like crap when I could be feeling like able to take on the day and do the things I want to do. That was such a deal breaker for me. It slows you down. It really slows you down. And there's, again, you can always have a healthy relationship with alcohol by drinking a beer every now and then. When you're out, you know, you go for a bike ride and halfway through the bike ride, you go and get a beer. there's always the option of that too. I think we have to remember that it's not an all-and-nothing thing if you don't have an addiction. I like to call what I do intentional drinking because I am not saying

drinking is off the table for me. I'm just saying anytime I'm going to do it, it's going to have a lot of intention behind it instead of just being the default go-to action. For sure. And I think it's important too to remember that exactly like you're saying, there's no rules here. You're creating your map. What are your rules? You don't want it to be like with food, right? Restriction. If you don't have an addiction, I think it can be a really weird place to be in if you restrict yourself. Because there may be a moment where you're having a beautiful day. Let's just say you go out, you're having lunch, you're with the person you love, a friend, your partner. And you're like, God damn, a beer sounds so good right now. You should be able to

enjoy and imbibe. You should be able to really take that moment in for everything it is, if the beer is going to make it just seal the deal on that moment. I just don't like the taste of alcohol. So for me, I would be like, oh my God, a kombucha right now would be so good. But you have to remember that there are no rules. So you don't need to restrict yourself. And this is for people who do not have an addiction. This is for people who are interested in drinking less. Have you felt a difference in your body, in your mind, in your relationship, since you've stopped drinking? There are no words for how different my entire life is. Okay, so tell me.

Find words. So I will say my acne has gotten a lot better. My period also got regular. So I don't know if that's because of not drinking. I don't know if that's because it was just finally time or because we left the chaos of New York City and my body needed a few months to recalibrate. But about six weeks after I stopped drinking, my skin started clearing up and I finally got my period regular after 10 years of work control and about two years.

of not having regular period. That's so interesting. I mean, it makes sense to me from a liver hormone perspective. Like, I definitely think I could see it being more causative than correlative, although obviously I don't want to speculate too much about that. Right. So definitely not sure if that's the case. But generally with my relationship, I'm just so much more present and so much more available in my own emotions to be to be available for him. I think when I drank, I would get very emotional and I would become just like this version of myself that I didn't really love. And I feel like that was reverberated off onto my partner because I was with him. And I'm not like an angry drunk. But I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I usually end up crying over something stupid like something that's

like really beautiful or it's something that I just haven't processed. And so it's really nice to be able to process things with a clear head, either in therapy or when I'm not drinking. And to be able to just have those moments to be just like a little bit freer. So yeah, my relationship has definitely changed. My body, it's not really that I've lost weight or anything. I think honestly, I probably eat a little bit more now that I don't drink. I think I kind of like get to a restaurant well, like, you know, I'm not full off of a beer. So I have more room in my stomach to eat, which I personally love. But I've noticed this useful energy come back to my body, which has been really beautiful. I'm not as tired. I'm not as physically exhausted. I feel excited about doing things

every single day. It's really nice. And then obviously, hangovers don't exist for me. So I just get to wake up every day feeling fresh as fuck. And that is, honestly, if there's one reason to stop drinking, it's that for me. I just feel really, really fresh. So for me, I actually like the taste of alcohol. I just don't tend to like how it makes me feel. By last struggle is those days where I have like a really stressful day and I want something to kind of turn the day off to wind down to signal to my body that I should have this wave of relaxation. I found a few little ways to get there, but I'm curious what you do in that type of scenario. Yeah, well, I think that's also a really important thing to do is to make sure that you kind

of finish the end of your day with something, some like little ritual. So for me, it's usually getting up and going on a walk or just like being in the sunshine if the sun is out. For example, today, our thing is we're going to go test drive bikes for me, because I'm going to get a bike, which I'm really excited about. And that's kind of like our end of the day thing. And so it's just kind of having something small. My therapist told me a really great idea. She was like, you know, you have your morning journal. Why don't you do an after work journal to kind of signal end of the day. So whether it's gratitude or you're writing down one thing you're excited about in life or whatever it is at the end of your work day to kind of signal that chill, relaxation, maybe you pop a liquid death or you pop a spin drift and you journal a little bit. And then

that's kind of your come down moment because we can have the same type of physical come down without alcohol. You know, we don't need the substance to come down. But it's about being extremely intentional with the practice. So coming up with something that makes sense for you, if you have a dog, going and taking your dog out, there's just like a ton of things you can do. My favorite thing recently is to Google foot massage near you. And there's so many places that for like $30, you can get a 30, 45 minute foot massage. You don't have to take your clothes off and then just hop in and hop out. If you go with a friend or a partner, you can chat with them while you're getting the foot massage. And it's basically like the price of two cocktails. And it's so relaxing.

And I love it. It's not an everyday thing. But as a little treat, I've been really enjoying that. I want to do that. I schedule all of my stuff like my nail appointments will be at the end of my work day. That's so smart. Taking like the stuff you're already doing and then you're using it as a little bit of a turn off signal at the end of the day. Something that I enjoy at the end of the day, I'm not going to do work from the chair. So I'm just going to relax. All right. I want to try to fit into more. We'll see if that happens. I would love some advice on how to get good at masturbating. No one teaches us women. Do you want to start? Yeah. I mean, of course no one teaches us women. There's so much shame around masturbation. And I think the first thing to do is,

to shift your mindset around the practice. It's a self-love practice. It's something that you're doing for yourself, you're taking care of yourself. Masturbation is wellness. It's about treating yourself in a way where you can love all parts of yourself. So I think that it's really important, firstly,

for everyone, every person with a vulva to have a vibrator and to use it and have fun with it. I think there is no one way to do anything. My biggest tip in terms of masturbation is to kind of treat yourself to this lovely evening as you would with anyone else. So you make yourself dinner, you take yourself out, you take a bath. For me, it would be like getting in bed at eight o'clock at night, you know, and having freshly washed sheets. And just go for it. Have a good time. There's also no one way to kind of have a catalyst to masturbation. So for example, I don't think

that everyone needs to watch porn. There's so many other modalities and mediums where you can kind of become turned on. There's an app called Dipsy, which is audio and it's like auditory and literary porn essentially. So you're like listening and reading. Yeah, I love Dipsy. I think Dipsy is absolutely amazing. It's so great. I have a year membership. It's just chiller. You can picture whatever you want in your head. And I think that's so, so nice. I'm also a really big reader. So I kind of like working that muscle of picturing the story in my head. And I feel like Dibb's. because you're not seeing images and you can make those images whatever you want. I find that really, really satisfied. Absolutely. So I think there's just a lot of shame around people with vulvas

masturbating. When I was like 16 years old, we were sitting around with my girlfriends. We were having like de jrano and ice cream, which is a very, de jrano ice cream is a very like early 2000s type of situation. And I remember one of them being like, yeah, I read the statistic that one out of six people masturbate. And I was definitely masturbating at this time. And it was one of those things where you felt so much shame to be with your friends and you don't want to be the person that masturbates because it's so weird and so taboo. And I just remember sitting there like, am I the one out of these six people? I'm the one that masturbates. Like I'm so- Those statistics are so funny when you're in the group size that is that size and you're looking around

the group and you're like, wait a second. Yeah, you're like, there's no way that I'm the one. There's no way. And it's really funny because we're all still friends and we talked about it a couple years ago and every single one of us was masturbating at that point. But we were all too afraid to say something. And I bet like that statistic is just like people being afraid to say something. Like I'm sure so many more were either doing it or wanting to do it, but they were nervous to say like, oh yeah, that's me. The statistic should have been like one in six people will admit to math. masturbating. For sure. And I think it's really important for people to remember that masturbating is

healthy. In my opinion, it's like having lemon chia water in the morning. You know, you're doing something for your body, for your immune system, for your digestion by having an orgasm. It's literally, there's like research that shows that masturbation helps your hormone health. It helps your blood sugar balance. It helps your cortisol and stress levels. It has so many literal, physical, positive health effects. And I think that it's kind of fun. I give myself a little pat on the back whenever I masturbate because it's like when you take your like vitamins or you meditate or you do a workout and you're just like, good job. Like look at me being so healthy. One of my favorite uses for masturbation is when I'm feeling really anxious, I'll masturbate and it helps my anxiety so much.

And sometimes when you're feeling really anxious and just kind of like jittery in your head, it can be hard to sit down and do a proper meditation or do the things that you're supposed to do that you know help with anxiety, but I can always just masturbate really quickly. I'll do like a two or three minute, no frills session. And it helps my anxiety so much, especially if I'm having a hard time sleeping or something like that, I'll be able to kind of get that antsyness out and go to sleep. I think that's great. And I think it's also important to note, as both of us are in relationships, it is totally normal to masturbate if you're in a healthy relationship or, I mean, not healthy, whatever, but it doesn't matter. You can have a partner and still need that time for yourself.

I think there's a lot of people that find that their partners maybe get a little bit offended when they choose to masturbate. And I think it should be an open conversation you have with your partner about how it is a self-love practice. And it's part of you really just taking care of yourself and getting to know yourself. I would extend that to you don't want to lose any parts of your individuality in a relationship. So why would your sex life be any different? Like you should be keeping hobbies, you should be keeping friends, you should be keeping interests. And I think you should be keeping that sexual relationship with yourself.

I think that's critical. And I also think that becoming, knowing your body in that way will only help you when you're having sexual experiences with a partner. And I do think, too, that it has an effect on body image. I think that there is this love that you show yourself and care that you show yourself, maybe, or that you can show yourself when you're masturbating, that kind of gives you this love maybe that you would expect from somebody else, but you're really giving it to yourself. And it's like where you're touching and what you're loving and oh my gosh, I'm feeling this person,

this is me. And I really think that it can enhance the self-love body image journey. I know that for me it has, even being out in a bathing suit and maybe feeling a little bit weird, but then thinking about how two nights ago, I was just very turned on in my body with myself. And that's, I think, an incredible practice. And even now, you know what's so funny, Liz, even now saying that, I'm like, oh my gosh, I wonder who's going to listen to this because I sound so weird. And it's just not. It's so taboo. I think that the taboo, if I had to guess, comes from this idea that women don't deserve pleasure. I think that there is just this longstanding

patriarchal narrative. I think it even extends to like the types of vibrators that you kind of first heard talked about. Like I remember when I was watching sex in the city, there was the whole thing with like the rabbit. And people were like, you need penetrative sex. You need this big, ballic thing to get pleasure. And I think that there's something really powerful about reclaiming this patriarchal narrative around who deserves pleasure and who should find shame and pleasure and all of these types of things. Because every single guy I knew, grew up like joking about jacking off or whatever. You know, it was like a fun thing that guys were allowed to embrace, but then we're supposed to feel shame about it. For sure. And I think

just like you said in terms of vibrators, there are so many different types on the market and it's really important to try a variety of vibrators to figure out what works for you because you don't need these big phallic things. Like you said, is popularized in sex in the city. The rabbit, it was the first vibrator I owned because it was what I saw in Sex and the City. And then I've found that for me, the smallest bullet vibrator that looks like a little jar of lipstick is perfect. It is so great. It's just exactly what I like to use. It's small. It's compact. It's easy. It gets the job done. A lot of people say, well, is it discreet? You know, you can you can buy discrete vibrators. Not every vibrator is like showing up to your mother-in-law's house with like this big

cock. I think there's society and there's media and like the movies that kind of really amplifies the entire experience when in reality it's very, very simple and it can be very simple. And I would also say to the point of the question, they're like, I would love some advice on how to get good at masturbating. And being good at masturbating is doing what feels good for you. And what feels good for you is going to be so different person to person. Like I'll use vibrators in partner play more, like the brand dame has a vibrator called the air. And it's a little sucky, it's like puffs of air kind of. It's really different as a vibrator. And I really like it. But I like that for partner play. And when I'm on my own, I tend to just use my hand. Like when I first discovered

masturbation, quote unquote, I feel like I like ran into a couch the wrong way. And I was like, oh, this feels really good. And so couch arms were my first tool. And it was before I knew what I was doing, I remember once my mom was like, oh, you shouldn't do that in public. Like, that's not how you're not supposed to do that when we're having like a dinner party, Liz. And I was like, okay, cool, got it, got it, got it. Which is probably actually the beginning of some of those shame messages, although I'm also not saying, you know, go hump a couch arm at a dinner party. I think there's what you like to do on the weekends.

But I do think if you want to experiment with tools, I think that's so great. But I would say you can also use your hand. you can also use a pillow, you can also use a shower head. I think exploring and experimenting and figuring out what feels good to your individual body. And also, maybe that centers around your genitalia, but maybe that extends to different parts of your body. I would encourage people to experiment with touching their neck and their breasts and their stomach and their inner thighs and running their hands through their hair. And there's so many different ways that we all experience pleasure and the goal of

masturbation, literally the sole and primary goal, which is what makes it so special and so different than partnered sexual activity, is finding out exactly what works for you, what feels good for you with no consideration for anybody else. It is just about you. Right. I think you said it. I think that really hits the nail on the head. So there is no one way to do it.

Just find out what works. And trial and error. Some days may feel weird. They may feel awkward. You don't really need to talk to anybody about it. If you don't feel like you want to, you can. But to just understand that not every time is going to be this great, amazing time. You're just going to have to move through it and figure out what works for you and what you like.

I would also encourage people to sort of meditate on the thing you said earlier, which is the idea that it is a form of self-love. Like if you think about the idea of pleasuring yourself, we spend so much time trying to please others, trying to bring pleasure to other people, especially if we kind of fit into that caretaker role, that people pleaseer role. And I think reframing masturbation as a critical act of self-love and self-care is really important, especially for people who are struggling to find that love for themselves. It's like if you are framing having this physical relationship with yourself in this shame-ridden way, it almost isn't surprising that you would have difficulties in other ways with finding

that ability to love and care for yourself. I think in some ways being able to de-shamify it, being able to empower yourself, to give yourself pleasure in that way, can open up a lot of doors to find self-love and self-care and self-trust and self-respect in other facets of your life. Absolutely. And once you know what you like, you're going to be much better off with a partner and letting them know, hey, this is where I'm at. This is how to pleasure me.

Oh, my God. And that's huge. That's huge. Because both parties feel very satisfied at the end. And that's a really, really nice thing to have. Okay. So experiment. Try lots of things.

Do what Olivia does and take yourself out on a little date. I love that idea. I love the idea of making it feel a little bit special. don't buy into patriarchal narratives about what masturbation needs to look like. Try dipsy. And have fun. And have fun. And have fun.

Okay, I love that. Okay, let's do this one as the last one. I recently secured a full-time salary job with the federal government, but it doesn't feel as fulfilling as I thought it would. I've been groomed to have a career for all of my 21 years, but I'm scared to tell friends and family that it's not a good fit. Any tips or wise word should I follow my heart to be? or my head. Well, you should follow both your heart and your head. First of all, you're 21, I think,

is when I'm gathering. So you're very young. You got a lot of time. You have a lot of time. You can take that job. You can market that job. You can put that job and you'll still be in your early 20s. So I think that's important to remember is that you have a lot of time. And stop living for other people. Stop living for the timeline your parents set up for you. Stop living for the timeline that you set up for yourself when you were 16. It does not exist anymore. more. You need to take inventory of what matters to you now and what's important to you now, and you need to stop worrying about how you're going to come off to somebody else. It's your life. So live it. It's your life. If working a 9 to 5 federal government job or whatever it may be is

not fulfilling you, what are the avenues that you can take to get out of it? Speaking from personal experience. I went to graduate school. I did not want to be in graduate school while I was there. I actually called my parents at two in the morning, who are divorced, by the way, and don't talk unless it's about us and try not to. And I called them on a group call and in the middle of the night and was sobbing and was like, I want to be a blogger. I don't want to be in graduate school. And my dad being an immigrant was like, absolutely not. You're staying in graduate school. So I stayed. And I think as much for them, I really did do it for myself. I think I wanted to prove something to myself. So it really did feel like it was for me. But when I got into my full-time job and when I was

finally there and finally working this career that I had spent all this fucking time and money to do and realized I wasn't happy, I was just like, okay, how am I going to get out? What am I going to do? You shouldn't worry about what your parents have to say. Those are your parents. They have a formula. They want you to be okay. They're your parents. Of course. They want you to do what feels systematically correct. But you need to decide if that's what you want. And then I think that's obviously following your heart and then follow your head too. And think logistically about what is feasible for you. And I kind of said this at the beginning of our chat, but how much of a financial cushion do you have? Can you quit your job and try something different? Is it possible for

you to maybe go part time for a while and maybe do a side thing at a coffee shop or a ceramic studio, if that's your passion. Where can you make these little moves that are going to allow you to kind of realize your passions and your other things to help you on the journey of leaving? But I did not have the privilege of just quitting my job outright. I didn't. And I think all of these people who were like, I quit my job and pursued my passion. First of all, a lot of them didn't just quit their job and pursue their passion. Their passions were already making them money by the time they quit their job. and secondly, they maybe had a financial question to fall back on that a lot of us don't. If you're fully supporting yourself and or your family does not have the money to financially support you,

you're not going to be able to quit what you want to do and pursue what you want. And maybe that takes more work for you. Maybe instead of going out to the bars or finding a partner, maybe you're going to take night classes and you're going to go back to school and you're going to do something else that feels interesting to you. And maybe you don't like it until maybe you quit. There is no wrong way to go back. it, the amount of times that you fail is never going to determine whether or not you're going to succeed. It's just not. The more times you fail, it's probably better because you're trying

a ton of stuff. So by the time you get into whatever you think you want to do, you can be pretty sure that's what you want to be. So I would say, fuck what your parents think, live your life and come at it with a level head. I wholeheartedly endorse every single thing that you said. I think that's all amazing advice and really resonant. I would just add two things. One, I think that you can fuck around and make decisions and go back on them at any point in your life.

I believe that wholeheartedly. I also believe that your 20s are far in a way the easiest time to do it because you just accumulate more things that make making huge life shifts more difficult the older that you get. Like you tend to have more ties to a place. If you have children, if you own a house, again, you can always make these big life shifts. I think it is so critical to acknowledge that. But it will never be easier than when you're in your 20s.

With that in mind, I'm always a fan of doing the more experientially minded, the more risky choices in your 20s because I think if you can't make those choices, then it's just going to get progressively harder as you get older. So I would tend to err on the side of following your heart more. I think all of the guardrails that you said about the head and to make decisions rationally and to try. to kind of put in safety nets and think logically through decisions, but I would still tend to err, especially at age 21. Take the risk, what is the worst thing that's going to happen? You have so much life ahead of you. Like, we can make so many shifts and changes. You can move to a country. You can move back. You can start a program. You can quit the program. You can fall in love. you can break up like all of these things.

Again, so possible at any phase of your life. But I'm a fan of stacking them into your 20s as much as possible. And then two, and I think this is really important to internalize no matter how old you are, but there is no such thing as wasted time. I think we have this huge tendency to be like, oh, I studied this long for something. I can't quit it. I wasted this much time. I've wasted my life.

I've spent all of these years in a relationship. and if that didn't end up being my final relationship, I've wasted time. I spent this long in a city that didn't feel like me and a job that didn't feel like me. That's wasted time. And I just don't believe in the concept of wasted time. I think from a career perspective, there are always skills that are going to transfer. And I think you're such an interesting case study of that. I am too. We're both not in the nine to five jobs that we had, but every single day we're using skills that we learned and that we built in those nine to five jobs. And it's something I say to comfort myself too. I'm like, all of this went away. I would take the skills that I've built in this part of my life. And I would

transfer that to the next career that I had. And I think that's true in relationships. I think that's true in every single component of your life. So I think if we can just eliminate the idea of, you know, you worked towards this federal government job, you were building your life towards this moment. that was not wasted time. That was filling you with so many amazing things that you can apply to so many amazing paths in your life. And no one can take your education away from you. And not just school education. It's your education in life and in love and whatever it is, no one can take that away from you. You will always leave a situation better than you found it because you will have learned something. Absolutely. I love that. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're up to

online and where we can find you and what we can find when we find you? Yes, you can find me online on all platforms, TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram website at Olivia Noseeta, just my first and last name. You're bound to find a lot of really good recipes, healthy, not healthy, fun, lifestyle, aesthetic, videos, just inspiration, kind of everything that you would want to see. I hope that I can kind of give to you. course, mocktail recipes. So if you're trying not to drink as much or you don't drink, come to me or Liz, because Liz has them too, I got some great mocktail recipes on there as well. So food and nourishing recipes and just everyday lifestyle and wellness. I think it's like the most aesthetic wisdom you can receive is on Olivia's pages. I would say it's just like very beautiful,

but not beautiful with no purpose. It's beautiful with this deep, soulful wisdom behind it. And that's what I love so much about what you do. I love to have some takeaways. So I appreciate you for having me on to. This was so fun. I appreciate you coming on. This was wonderful. I hope you loved this raw, honest conversation with Olivia. She gave such great advice about self-care and relationships and big life decisions. And I hope that you're walking away from this episode feeling empowered and confident and ready to prioritize your needs and live the life that's best for you. If you would like to have your questions answered on future advice episodes of the Healthyer Together podcast, send them over to Ask at Liz Moody.com. They are always totally anonymous. We will be back

next month, so tune in for that, but we'll have our normal episodes every single Wednesday, and we have amazing ones coming up, including an episode about managing and avoiding chronic pain, and one about tuning into your emotions to guide important life decisions. So subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, so you do not miss out on anything. And come and join the Healthier Together podcast club Facebook group so we can all share and learn together. I will link that in these show notes. Okay, I love you and I will see you on the next episode of the healthier together podcast. 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

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