The Liz Moody Podcast - Clare Bowen—Childhood Cancer, Cultivating Gratitude & Self-Worth, And Life After Starring On Nashville

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Clare Bowen is an actress and singer—you might remember her as Scarlett from the hit TV show Nashville, or you may have seen her at one of her many sold-out performances around the world. She’s released a ton of music through her work with Nashville, and this summer, she dropped her own album, called Clare Bowen, that’s absolutely gorgeous singing and storytelling. In this episode, Clare opens up about: Her childhood cancer, and being told she had 2 weeks to live Dealing with her brother’s later cancer diagnosis How she’s cultivated gratitude in the worst possible circumstances The practices that helped her overcome PTSD What filming Nashville was actually like and who she’s still friends with from the show today Her journey from being vegetarian to eating meat, and why she made the change Her daily smoothie recipe How she learned to love herself after years of low self-worth You can find Clare at clarebowenofficial.com, and her album, Clare Bowen, is available wherever albums are sold and is streaming on Spotify. You can also follow her on Instagram @clarembee, and we’d both of course love to hear your thoughts and reactions to this episode, so please tag her and me—I’m @lizmoody— so we can continue the conversation over there. Enjoy! PS: The Actually Delicious 10 Day Detox is still on sale! Snag your copy, which includes 60+ pages of brand new vegetarian recipes, shopping lists, a meal prep guide, work outs, and more for 30% off at lizmoody.com/shop/10-day-detox/. This episode is sponsored by Pukka, one of my favorite tea brands. They make incredible herbal teas with 100% organic ingredients, and they’re also certified Fair for Life. Beyond that, the Pukka bags are fully plastic free, and stitched together with 100% organic, non-GMO cotton. My favorite blends are Relax, After Dinner, and Tulsi Clarity, and Zack loves the Revitalize blend. You can find out more about Pukka at pukkaherbs.us. This episode is also sponsored by Skinny Dipped almonds, which I’m 100% obsessed with. They’re roasted almonds with a super thin layer of chocolate, and they also have a coating of maple syrup and sea salt that gives them a sweet & salty quality that’s utterly addictive. They’re gluten free, made from mostly organic ingredients, and come in amazing flavors—you must try the Peanut Butter (but also Zack loves the Espresso and the Mint ones so you can’t really go wrong—follow your heart). They’re perfect for when you want a sweet healthy treat (after all, you’re mostly eating almonds!!). They’re truly one of my favorite snacks, and I can’t wait for you to try them. Get 20% off your order using the code “healthiertogether” on skinnydipped.com. 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 hope you had a lovely break for the holidays. I ended up taking about a week fully away from my phone to be present with my family and friends, and it was really, really lovely. Zach and I came back to California for the holidays. We always stay with his family in the Bay Area. We were working out here for all of January so that we can have more family time and more sunshine. It's an interesting time, January.

It feels really fresh and exciting, like the year and the decade. time is full of all of these possibilities, but that can also come with a ton of pressure. Marie Forleo, who is a guest in one of my favorite episodes of this podcast, she has this amazing decade in review on her YouTube, which I highly recommend. I have been doing that, and I've been taking time to reflect, taking time to get excited, but I've also been really trying not to put too much pressure on myself to change everything right now or like, this has to be my best year ever. I think that the pressure of January can add to anxiety a lot. So at least for me. So I'm sort of mozying in. I'm trying to go really slowly and I'm trying to be

really gentle with myself and I definitely urge you to do the same. There's a lot of new year, new you crap going around and I think all of us would do well to realize that we don't need to totally revamp ourselves, that we can be the same us. We can still take stock and we can improve. If you are looking for a little bit of a reset, I released a new ebook this week, my actually delicious 10-day detox and it really redefines what a detox is and can be. It's filled with easy to make, super tasty food that fills you up and floods your body with the nutrients that it actually needs. It'll help heal your gut and fight inflammation and calm anxiety and find a happy, healthy weight and it'll do that by using the latest science and recipes that you're

actually excited to eat. You can get all the details on my website, which is lizmoody.com. It's on sale for 30% off through the end of the week, so definitely check it out before that And I was pretty fed up, honestly, with all these deprivation-based detoxes that I was seen. And I wanted to create something that would let people get excited about how good healthy food can make them feel and how good it could taste. And I really hope that it helps you ease into a new year that makes you feel amazing in your body without berating or critiquing or punishing yourself at all. Okay. That said, let's get into today's episode. A lot of podcasts right now are all about healthy eating and fitness, and I definitely have a ton of stuff in that vein

coming up on future episodes. But I think that appreciating our lives and gratitude is such a critical part of the happiness equation. And this is such a good time of year to practice working that muscle. It's one of the reasons I am so excited about today's podcast guest, who is the lovely and brilliant Claire Bowen. Claire is an actress and a singer. You might remember her is Scarlet from the hit TV show Nashville, which I absolutely loved her singing on that. I remember the first episode she sang this song at the Bluebird, if I didn't know better, and it just full body chills. I love that song.

Or you may have seen her at one of her many sold-out performances around the world. She's released a ton of music through her work with Nashville. And then this summer, she dropped her own album, which was called Claire Bowen. And it is absolutely gorgeous singing and storytelling. And you should 100% go and listen to it. But beyond her amazing success in music and TV, though, Claire has a pretty crazy backstory. She spent much of her childhood in the hospital with cancer that still impacts her health to this day.

She's been told she had two weeks to live. And then later, she was told that she wouldn't make it past 27 years old. And through all of this, she's developed the most amazing perspective on life and death and love and purpose and gratitude. Her story honestly brought me to my knees. She's been through so many intense things. and we really get into all of it here. But it also shifted how I view my own life and how I appreciate the moments in it.

I really hope my intention with this episode is that it'll inspire you to start 2020 on a note of not running toward change or berating yourself or, I don't know, being like, I need to be different, but of appreciating the life that you've built and the magical parts in it. It's through that, I think, that we can make room for the most significant and impactful changes in our life. So you can find Claire at Claire Bowen Official. She spells her name C-L-A-R-E. So Claire Bowen Official.com. And her album, which is called Claire Bowen, is available wherever albums are sold.

And it's also streaming on Spotify. You can also follow on Instagram at Claire, C-L-A-R-E-M-B-E. And we would both, of course, love to hear your thoughts and reactions to this episode, as always. So please tag screenshot wherever you're listening and then put some thoughts on it, some reactions, some feelings and then tag her and tag me. I'm at Liz Moody so that we can continue the conversation over there. And happy 2020 to all of you who are listening. I am so grateful that you're here and part of this family and these conversations and I cannot wait to see what 2020 has in store for all of us. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Claire Bowen. All right, Claire, welcome to the

podcast. Thank you. We're all, I love to give people like an image of where we We're cozied up on the floor in your beautiful living room. You have like fairy lights around. You have the best pets that I've ever seen. She has a wolf, great. Irish wolfhound. Irish wolfhound that's literally my size, maybe larger. What is he weigh?

He's 180. Ways about as much as my husband. He's a big wife. He's beautiful. But yeah, it's just, and it smells delicious. What are we smelling? It's probably, and those are acorns hitting the ceiling. I can't, the roof, I can't do anything about that.

I've always been Nagshampa, we've had that at the house since I was little. So there's, yeah, just Nagshampa and then there's some Palo Santo probably that was going earlier. I love it. It's such like peaceful, calming vibes

the second you. I'm really afraid of flying and I flew in this morning. And so it's like nice to go into a space of serenity. Oh, I'm so sorry. I totally can commiserate a fear of flying is a big thing for me too. Yeah.

But your dad is a pilot, right? He's a flight attendant. For Qantas. Yeah. I always like was Mandy Moore's dad as a pilot too. And not a too, but he works for airlines. And I was always like, that must be the coolest way to grow up because you would grow up having the whole thing demystified and being willing to travel anywhere.

And that wasn't true for you? It was. And now I like, even though I, it's gotten a lot better. In fact, it's, it's gotten exponentially better. I was on a plane. And up until this point, I think it was pretty. maybe 2008, maybe. I was on a flight.

We were flying over Siberia. And I was looking out the window of these beautiful, like, snow curls that had, like, all the rivers freeze and stuff. I don't know what they are, but it was, like, this amazing, like, spiral stuff with snow and ice. And it was, I'd never, I'd never flown that route before. And lightning struck right near the wing, and the plane dropped mid-air. And it's middle of the night. everything that wasn't nailed down hit the ceiling because the plane fell.

I don't know how many hundred feet. So people hit the ceiling. And it was just for a moment. And it just, it really got me after that. And everything was fine. All of like, there was no damage to the craft at all.

Planes, like they can withstand some pretty serious stuff. They, like, to test those jets, they bend the wings all the way over the time. I read some more that a plane will get struck by lightning on average once every three years.

Like, so every plane you've, flown in has probably been struck by lightning. Yeah, especially like the oldest ships, like 747s. But that doesn't mean that doesn't, like, put this thing in your brain where like, oh, something scary could happen at any moment. Or I feel like you could go two ways. You could be like, a really scary thing happened and I was totally fine.

Or you could go something scary could happen at any moment. So I should be like on high alert. Yeah. And that was, it was a balance sort of between those two things because I know, like, scary things happen every single day. You can be walking down the street and something. can happen and you don't, there's no way you can prepare for that. So you can't live your life in fear. But at the same time, when you see lightning strike the wing of your plane, it was like just

off the wing, but it all happened so quickly that I didn't really know what it happened. And of course, you're watching the flight attendants to see if that's like a big thing. If you watch the flight attendants and if they appear to be worried, then you should probably be worried. Or were they casual? No, just for a second. They were especially the one that hit the ceiling, poor thing. Everyone was fine. Did the pilot come on and like announce anything? Yeah, immediately. Like, they were so good.

And it was just a moment for me that at the same time now, said it to somebody the other day. Like, I was on a flight and it was awful and really scary. And I thought something really bad was going to happen. And it didn't. Like, all this stuff, like the worst thing you can possibly imagine happened. And we were completely fine. We finished the route.

Like, there was no. Was it just really? turbulent? Yeah, it was because I think we hit a pocket of like warm or cold air. I'm trying to think that's often what creates turbulence, like temperatures. And you can have stuff called like dead air where I don't know if you can even see it on a radar. And that's why you'll get that bump and you won't get like a warning before. Do you ever like call your dad up after and be like decompress this? Was this actually dangerous or was this actually like, does he say stuff that's helpful to you? He does, and I talked to him about that afterwards because it really, really scared me.

And for a long time, it was very difficult to get back on a plane. I had to get straight back on a flight anyway. It didn't make it easy, but I did. And I fly all the time. And I know that, I mean, people say, you're from Australia? Like, you're all the sharks are and all the, like, all the poisonous things and stuff that might kill you even by accident just by looking at you. And I'm like, yeah, and I survived that. So.

Well, and you've survived a lot else, which we. We will definitely talk about. I know it's really hard to kill apparently. Yes. I mean, it's an admirable quality. So speaking of acorns, sorry, it's full and suddenly everything is falling. That's so interesting. Does it wake you up at night?

No, it doesn't. I only really hear it during the day. I grew up, like lots of people have a corrugated iron roof in Australia. So the rain on the roof, like it's actually quite. I love the rain on our iron roof. I think it's the most beautiful sound. It's so lovely. Acorns.

I don't think we have acorns. We have gum nuts. We don't have acorns in Australia. So this is new. It doesn't bother me, though. So speaking of fear flying and anxiety and those types of things, we were talking a little bit before we started recording and you said that your shows get really intense and you guys go deep and talk about a lot of stuff and people reach

out to you and talk about their anxiety and stuff like that. Can you give us sort of a preview of what those types of conversations that your shows are like? Oh, gosh. It's really lovely to. get to do the shows that we do. It's usually my brother and my husband and our band. And we've all lived pretty short albeit interesting lives thus far. So I figure, you know, growing up, anxiety was not something that people really talked about. And sometimes if, you know, if you've experienced anxiety before or like, you know, that's sort of especially social stuff,

you can come across as if you are disinterested or shy or you're like a bit aloof but really you're terrified on the inside and that's the way I grew up like I didn't really have the most conventional upbringing I grew up in a children's hospital and then way out in the bush in Australia so I was sort of removed from people my own age unless they were very sick And when I finally could go to school, I went to this beautiful school in Dulwich Hill in Sydney. And it was quite confronting because everybody had all of their arms and legs. And like they didn't look, no one looked sick except for me. And everyone was so kind and so welcoming and just like it was an amazing experience.

Beautiful, beautiful place to finally get to go to real school. So I guess having grown up that. way and for lots of other reasons, I figure you need to be able to talk about the things that bother you that are really difficult to sort of express, I suppose. It's not easy to say, like me, five years ago, I wouldn't have even known, I wouldn't have even have known to say, I have PTSD. I have it and I'm okay with it because I can identify it and I can see it. So if I'm able to talk about it and music being the universal language is such a big, you know, beautiful way to bring people in and make them feel safe and make them feel heard and make them feel

like they belong somewhere. They're a part of something. And then be able to say, you know what, I have, I'm like, I'm not nowhere near perfect goodness. Like I'm, I'm, I've been covered in scars and I'm quite nervous around people a lot of the time. I've gotten a lot better. My husband has been a really amazing champion for just introducing me to wonderful people. And I have an amazing team, an amazing family. But just to be able to talk to people and say, hey, this is, like I had a friend of mine who was so sad that she decided one day that she didn't want to be here anymore. And we wrote a song about it called Aves Song.

And she's one of my best friends in the whole world. And to be able to say she found happiness that she didn't even know could possibly have existed past this terrible place where she tried to take her own life is. something that I think I'm not any smarter than the next person I'm probably less intelligent than most people I know which you know you've got to surround

yourself with people better than you to grow and I'm not a doctor and I'm not a psychologist but I'm just a person who's tried to do their best and get through things without knowing the cat purring she's making herself known

hi Lily she looks very happy it means she likes you If she doesn't like you, she'll be somewhere else in the house. Just to be able to talk about those things and say, I know that people make things look perfect on Instagram and on social media. We're all expected to be this glorious creature all the time. And I'm not. I'm imperfect.

I'm a mess, actually. And I've lived through all of these things and I've walked through things that my friends and family have lived through. Some of them haven't lived. and it happens to everybody and it's really hard to talk about so if you don't feel like if the things that you've gone through in your life make you feel like you don't belong anywhere

I want you to know that you belong right here with us because there is not a single person standing on this stage or in the audience who at some point has felt not good enough or like they don't fit or like no one likes them you know what I mean? So to be able to open that door and do it with music and tell stories that are true with obviously with the permission of the people who they've happened to and like a lot of them

they're my stories it just creates this gorgeous forum and a way for people to communicate and I've found that like fans from across the world have made friends with one another it's really nice and like people say really lovely things to me which is super sweet but my favorite thing is when I see that the fans are starting to make friends and they'll all meet. They'll, like, I had people from Germany and Holland and Glasgow and, gosh, Wales all meet up actually at the New York show and they all sat together and some of them had never met before, but they were all sitting there and they've all got, I don't know, this one thing in common and it's music that they really love and all the songs mean something different to them,

but that's where they find community. That's where they're together and they've made these new friends that maybe they wouldn't have, if not for these stories. And if you're going to talk about really serious things, especially at a show, you're going to take people down that whole. And, you know, you have to be aware of people's triggers and what might make people feel not good. You've got to be able to bring them back up. And that's what we do. Like, like all of these things have happened. But we're here and we're all together. Let me, don't do that. Like tapping at the microphone with a tail, you are cheeky. Yeah, we've been through it

And we're all still here. How lucky are we to be still here? So do you find it, do you find that it assuages your sort of loneliness and your feelings of lack of self-worth or anything like that to build this community? Or is it, or maybe it's both, but is it hard to hold space for all of these people's feelings that are that intense? It can be, but that's why you keep it very positive. and it doesn't mean that you can't address the very dark things. Like I tell people, I found my best friend the morning after she had tried to leave the world. And I didn't recognize her.

It's really even still hard to talk about because I love her so much. But to be able to talk about it is it puts it in the air and it gives it a place to live that's not a secret, horrible, like cupboard inside yourself that you have to hide. That's something that makes you feel like it's tattooed on your forehead and you have to keep your head down, you know, and to say this, this happens to people and they get better. Things get better. It's amazing, like human beings, like just living creatures, will to live, ability to survive, ability to adapt. It's incredible. I was given two weeks to live when I was four. Yeah, let's talk about that for a second. That is a crazy. It's just interesting because I come from the

wellness world and we do, I think a lot of people do all of these things to try to avoid the exact circumstance that you're in. We're like, oh, if we drink enough green smoothies, if we meditate enough, then we won't have our body sort of rebel against us in that way, honestly. So, and you confronted that at a very young age. So do you clearly remember sort of being diagnosed and stuff like that you were four, right? Yeah. I remember, I have a long memory. And then I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning. So we were house-sitting. for a friend in a place called Kings Cross in Australia. It was a beautiful, beautiful place called Waffle Gardens.

And there was a stray cat that used to come to the door. His name was Butch. He was an old Russian blue that everybody fed, so he was very fat. He would come and say, I haven't been fed. He's been fed by like nine neighbors. So, like, so cheeky. I love cats. And I didn't have a cat of my own.

We moved around a lot. So, um, mom would tell me when Butch would come to the door. to tell us that he had not been fed despite having three breakfasts already. And she would put down a bowl of something for him. She'd call me and I'd come running. And being, I guess, I was a bit of an eccentric. My dad would say eccentric child. She would put a bowl of food down for the cat.

And I would insist upon eating like the cat. So I would get down on my hands and knees and drink a bowl of milk off the floor next to the cat. She didn't give the cat milk. Cats are lactose intolerant. She gave me milk. And so I would love seeing Butch. Like he'd come by every two or three days to be fed. And I remember one day sitting on the couch and I was watching a cartoon and television

was a strange thing because we didn't have one at our place down the coast. And mum said, oh, Claire Butch is here. And I remember feeling so guilty because I just didn't care. I just, there was nothing. I hadn't been feeling very well. And I remember being very tired walking. and I thought to myself this is like four year old me

I just had my fourth birthday oh and I had a lemington cake and I didn't want to eat it it's my favorite thing I love Lamingtons they're an Australian sponge cake with chocolate and coconut on it and I sat there and thought

oh God I feel so bad I should go and see Butch and I tried to get up and I couldn't move my legs and mum had been taking me to the doctor like she'd taken me a dozen times and they had said you're you know you're paranoid

you first baby she's fine, she's got a cold, she's had the flu, all of these things. And she had taken me like multiple times. And it happened a lot to especially first time parents and their child is not diagnosed until it's either too late or almost too late. Because they're just essentially told they're like hysterical. Pretty much. Yeah.

It's great. That doctor came and apologized when I was diagnosed and mom said that I sat in the bed and I didn't I didn't want to be rude to him, but I knew the way he'd spoken to my mum. I was sitting in this, she told me, she's like, you're in the bed looking like really sick. You couldn't move. And he came in, like hat in his hands, just so apologetic. And I had remembered how patronising he had been to my mother. And I just said, you can leave now.

It's awful. I feel terrible. But I can't tolerate people being awful to my parents. I'm so protective over them. So, yeah, anyway, I was rushed to the emergency. room and dad had come home from a trip like we talked about he's a flight attendant and he still is I'm trying to get him to retire even though Qantas is wonderful and I was diagnosed in the emergency room as having a thing called nephroblastoma which had grown to about the size of a

football but not the shape so it had taken over most of my abdominal cavity and was crushing everything and it was attached to my kidney and they said we need to we need to like start a plan right away but the problem is there isn't one like there's no there's no treatment for this it's end stage like she's got two weeks and they suggested just like pain management until i was gone did you understand what that meant at that age uh i remember i remember being carried in i remember that i have a memory of the hospital lobby and I remember my parents' faces. And I overheard a conversation that happened a couple of days later.

So I knew, I asked my mother, because the hospital was so cold, we didn't have air conditioning. Only rich people, I suppose. I don't know. Now, I'm not sure now, but we were not, we didn't have air conditioning. And so I never felt that before. And it was so cold, and I said to Mama, of their heat is in heaven, because it's freezing here, and I knew I was dying. I remember there was a door that was, I don't know if they thought I wasn't listening,

or if I was sitting outside with dad. I just remember overhearing a man's voice saying that it was two weeks and I was done. So my parents said, you need to do something. Please do something as you would. And they said, well, there is, they talked to. another team of doctors, I think. I don't know that part really very well, but they said, there is something we can try. It hasn't been tested. Basically, it's cowboy chemo. Like, we don't know what it's going to do. The parents signed a waiver form to say that if it

killed me straight away, like first administration, that, first administering, sorry, that they wouldn't, you know, sue. Did they talk to you about this? Were they like, Claire, do you want, Or was it, were you too young to sort of understand any of these types of things? They explained, once I asked mum, and it was very, like, it was in the first day or so that I asked mom if they were heaters in heaven, they knew. And they had always sort of treated me like, obviously, you know, they're incredible parents and they treated me like the child that I was. But the kind of child that I was was really curious. And I wanted to know how things worked. I wanted to know what was going on, and they knew that as inquisitive as I was, I was going to figure it out, and I did.

So I think they must have thought that it was better if I knew that I had to fight very hard, which is what they told me. Mom was like, yes, there are. In fact, you know, you don't even need them in heaven. It's fine. But I remember her explaining to me what it looked like up there, like in my four-year-old head. You can see people, like, riding around on clouds and having a great time. But she said, you can't go yet. You've got to hold on, and you've got to fight.

we've got a fight. So we did. And the first round nearly killed me. And then I had to shrink the tumor to the size of a grapefruit, which is ridiculous in a four-year-old. I think I weighed about 11 kilos when I was like at the height of the treatment, maybe 10 kilos. Or not a lot at all. But they managed it and they, the surgery that they ended up doing was pretty incredible. They cut me from my navel to my spine.

took everything out after they'd shrunk this tumor, found that miraculously the thing was encased, because normally it mastercises a strip mastocyle. I can't talk today. Metastasin? That thing. Yes, it spreads right to your lungs normally, and it didn't with me.

So they took most of my organs out, put them in a basin, took away everything that was affected, which is I'm pretty empty on this side. I actually have like cool scar tissue and like these extra muscles that are grown from being a single holding that lung up because I don't have a diaphragm on that side. So it's like scars and muscle that have like knitted together and it's really weird. So if I don't eat like on time, I have like to make sure I eat at certain intervals during the day. This side kind of caves in and it looks really weird.

People like, you have such a tiny waist. I'm like, yeah, I don't have a lot. Did they take like kidneys? and yeah they took my right the whole right kidney um some of the like renal bed uh part of my intestine um the bottom of my lung was affected somehow but i can't remember i don't think they removed it i think it was just kind of like they had to quarterize a lot of stuff and when they took it all out there's more i um had a cat scan a while ago and i had gone into the hospital and this lovely his student doctor was like, he's looking at my middle.

And he's like, he had any surgery before? And there's a great big scar. I'm like, no, it was like that when I got here. And then he said, do you have an appendix? Is that what that could be? And I'm like, you know what? I have no idea. So they have to do a cat scan to figure it out.

Do you have an appendix? I do. He was like, actually, it's complete. Congratulations. I know. I felt so special. He was like, it's about the only part of you that's healthy right now. I was like, oh, that's fantastic.

Anyway, they took a whole bunch of stuff out, filled me full of chemo wash. sealed things up, swished me around, and then put everything back in, thankfully, in the right spot, mostly. And sewed me up, drained the chemo wash out. And then took me into recovery where I proceeded to have a seizure and pop my stitches, which was fantastic. So it's why it's probably a little bit, it's not quite the work they did the first time. They had to close it up again. And from there, it was like just take each. day at a time, which is so much of what anyone's chemotherapy is, regardless of how harsh or,

you know, vicious it is. And I lived in the hospital for a long time and I'm still here. Okay. I'm sorry. I don't know any different though, so it's okay. Like, I don't know. There are things about growing up in a hospital where I was an award where somebody passed away every single day and seeing those things. Like, I do have PTSD. I didn't know for a long time. I suffered from survivors guilt because I'm one of the only kids that came out of my award. I don't. Weren't you the only one who, with your type of cancer getting the experimental treatment, weren't you the only one who is that I know of.

And it was, it was, you know, it's not, not everyone's experience to wake up to the, there's, you know, an alarm would go off or you'd hear running in the hallway, even if an alarm didn't go off because, you know, it's not like in the movies where it's not like the ER where there's codes and things like that, but it's a quieter thing and you just hear the squeaking of people running really fast or like trying to get somebody into surgery really quickly or resuscitate someone. And you'd hear it daily. And there was one really vivid memory of the little one in the bed next to me passing away.

I woke up and I actually don't. It was the thing about living there. I don't, you didn't really know who was a boy and who was a girl unless someone put you in like pink or blue pajamas. Because nobody had hair. Yeah. And it was, you know, we all looked the same and no one really, no one thought about not having hair, no one, like even the older kids, they, it was just, there was never any, um, nothing

of what you run into in the world, like in the outside world where people get worried about the way they look or how long their hair is or, you know, all that kind of stuff. Just worrying about physical appearance. But we all walked around on our toes because I think it was a Vin-Christine that destroyed the muscles in the backs of our legs, so it hurt to put your heels on the floor. So everyone walked around like little fairies. But yeah, I don't know if it was a little girl or a little boy, but they were my friend. And I woke up and their mother was holding onto them. And they had gone limp and it was awful.

and my mother was holding on to their mother, and their mom was just screaming like something had been torn right out of her. So there are those things that are hard, and it took me a long time to be okay, not okay. It took me a long time to realize that it's all right that I am the only person I know who has those things in their head, or at least I was the only person I knew.

There are people out there walking around with all sorts of things in their head, and it's not about me. It's about, like, I'm fine. I got to, I'm here. Not everybody's story ends in a fairy tale, you know. But it's a, I don't know any different. I do remember life before that. But I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been present.

because people pass away every day and a lot of, you know, just cultural things, no one wants to talk about it. And it's, for me, it's just as important, you know, people get excited when a baby's coming and everyone wants to catch it. Everyone wants to be like, oh, there's a baby, it's wonderful, someone's being born. And when you think about it, passing away, dying is, you know, it's another part of life that's very much like being born. And you want to be there to hold a hand while they're on this side.

so that they don't ever feel like they're alone while they're getting to the other side, whatever you believe, you know, I've seen enough of it to know that somebody takes your hand. Whoever it is, someone, something takes your hand once you're out of this world and headed into the next. And I think it's really important to be there if you can when someone is on the end of things. And it's drawn me to wanting to become one day and like an end of life. Do you. Yeah. That's really cool.

That's so cool you know about that. But yeah, it's just I feel honored to have been, it sounds strange, but to have been present in those moments of, you know, very personal time with a whole lot of other families, even just as someone who was kind of stuck there. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. You all know that I am fully obsessed with tea. I probably drink honestly like 12 cups of herbal tea a day. Because of my anxiety, I don't actually consume any caffeine. I've actually found that that caffeine type stimulation and jitters can lead me to have panic. attacks, which is one of the many, many reasons why I love Pucka so much. Pucka is a tea company

that I became addicted to years ago when Zach and I were living in England, and they have so many herbal teas, including tons of medicinal herbs that you really can't find anywhere else. They have so many kinds, so I definitely encourage you to go to pukkaherbs.us to check them all out. But a few of my favorites are the Relax, which has a marshmallow root, fennel, and camamile blend, and it helps with digestion or just general stress relief. I love to drink it to just unwind and sink into my couch. And then the after-dinner tea, which I drink whenever I feel too full, which is often because I like my snacks.

And then the Tulsi Clarity, which has holy basil, which is really cool. It's actually an adaptogen that adjust to give your body whatever it needs, whether it's more energy or more focus or more zen. I love sipping on the herbal tea all day as a way to stay hydrated without drinking a ton of caffeine or getting bored by water. And I also really love reaping the benefits of all of the functional herbs. It's such an easy, impactful thing to do to totally improve your health. health. I know a lot of you are worried about plastic and tea bags after all of those news

stories a while back, and I'm happy to report that the Pucca bags are fully plastic-free and are stitched together with 100% organic non-GMO cotton, no weird glues or anything. A hundred percent of their ingredients are organic and Pucka actually sources really consciously as well. They're certified Fair for Life, which is the highest standard of fair trade, which means the farmers they source from are being treated well and paid super fairly. You can go to Pucka herbs dot us, check out all of Pucka's amazing tea blends. They have caffeinated ones too, including a green tea and cardamomom revitalized blend that Zach is totally obsessed with.

And if you have any questions or just want to chat about tea, I love chatting about tea. Get me up on Instagram at Liz Moody. I could honestly talk about tea until the end of time. Now, let's get back to the episode. Are you afraid of death now? No, it's, I'm very acutely aware that this is. temporary. I think it's very important to honour this life and it's you have to take hold of your life. I realized this a few years ago when I got, I was really not well and somebody hurt me

very badly and I realized that if I physically or mentally both, and it's not something that I talk about often, but it happened. and this is all I will say about it. I remember sitting in my bed and looking at the state that my body was in because I was so sick for reasons that were not in my control. You have all that stuff removed and you're allergic to everything and you don't know. It's like I've been on a pretty big health journey since I was a kid. Now I'm really good.

But I was probably 96 pounds maybe and I'm 5 foot two. so even then it's not, it wasn't good. And I looked at myself and looked at the state of what had happened to me and the bruises I was covered in and realized that if I didn't take a hold of my life right then and there, it was going to be taken from me. And I realized that there were reasons that I allowed myself to be treated like that and allowed myself to get to that state and a lot of it had to do with survivor's guilt because I thought as long as I was breathing, I didn't deserve anymore because there were

so many people who didn't get to keep breathing. So I have a very acute awareness of we have to think of each day as precious. I love waking up next to my husband. He is the most incredible man I have ever met in my whole life. And I would not be able to, and this is me personally. Some people think differently on this matter. I've seen it a little bit. Just people talking about this particular sort of statement.

I know that if I hadn't have learnt to love myself and realize that I do deserve to be here and that I'm not some monster who lived while other people had to go, I wouldn't be able to, if I hadn't have gotten past all of that and taken hold of my life and my health, I wouldn't be able to love him the way I love him.

I just, and he deserves, like, he deserves the best I got. So, yeah. How did you learn to love yourself? Oh, I started going to, I started going to counseling and was able to identify through talking to, and this is something that I'm a real advocate for. People joke about therapy and shrinks and stuff like that.

But talking to a counselor, talking to a healer, whatever you want to call them, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, whatever it is a friend, talk to a friend, talk to somebody, let it out so that people know the way you're feeling because if they don't, they can't help you. And that's how people are like, well, they were always fine. And now they, and then they took their own life and I don't know what I could have done. And I realize it's difficult. It was, it was difficult for me to talk about, really not having much self-esteem at all

and being so nervous around people all the time. But it was definitely through counseling and therapy. and EMDR, which is going back into a memory and deconstructing it for what it is. I mean, there is a much more intelligent explanation for it, but that trauma therapy really helped me. And again, it's not something I talk about very often, but just to be able to say to somebody, I have always felt like this. There is nobody else I know who is quite like me, not that I'm some special being, just that I have these things in my head that I see that I saw and I can't stop seeing them and I can't stop feeling bad about them. So I let people treat me badly because I don't have any concept of what I'm worth, I guess.

And I couldn't put it into those words back then, but it really helped just to talk to someone. Do you feel like you have a strong sense of self-worth now? I do. I still have moments of like as we all do of like oh gosh I'm crap today. Everybody has those moments but I often will write little things to myself if I know if I know that I'm going into a situation that might make me nervous or you know make me feel small or because everyone feels like that sometimes and that's okay. I have to remind myself like remember remember where you came from or always because humility is and just your like where you've come from what you've come through.

Remember who you are and remember who's counting on you and treat yourself the way you would if you were looking at yourself as a child. How would you treat that little person who needs you so badly right now? I have to remind myself of that. And I think it's something that that is one thing that really, really helped me talking to my therapist. She's more a healer. She's amazing.

And, you know, multiple people I went and talked to. And they were all like, you're, you know, you're not alone. And really glad you came to me and told me this. Thank you for telling me this. And that's something we talk about in our shows as well. Like people will tell me things sometimes that are really quite heavy. And I always start with thank you so much for sharing some of your story with me. Because it's not their whole story.

It's part of it. And it's such an honor to get to hear those things. even though sometimes it can really make you like, ooh, it's a lot. But yeah, I don't know. It's a day at a time, just like everybody else. So we're going to come back to your health journey in a second, but I do think a lot of people have the perception

that one can get a lot of self-worth from being on a stage and having people sing their songs back to them or being on a hit TV show or getting to walk a red carpet or something like that. So can I ask how your sense of self-worth changed when you came to the U.S. and you started, you know, having a certain level of fame. Like your wedding was in people and Johnny Cash's kid, am I right?

Yeah. Married. Married you. And that's, I think a lot of people see that and they're like, if I had that, I would feel so good about myself. And that's sort of why they would, I think why we put famous people up on a pedestal to a certain extent because they look like they would feel really good about themselves. And I think that's appealing to people. So did that change at all for you? When I first got to the States, I guess I've always had this thing in the back of my

heads. Like, I just have to do it. I have to, like, this is a thing that doesn't happen for so many people. Acting is, like, it's a really tough industry and so is music. There are, you know, there are tougher industries out there. And I just thought, well, I've got to give it a go and really give it a go. Not any kind of, I can't hold anything back. So I didn't.

And I got the job. and a lot of people say the same things to themselves and they don't get that lucky. I was very fortunate and I'm very, very blessed to get to even, like, to be sitting here with you is an absolute honor. So thank you. I had, like, even when I got Spring Awakening, before Nashville, I thought,

they're going to figure out that I'm not, I'm not everything they think I am. It's like imposter syndrome or something like that. I just, I didn't, I don't know, I didn't believe it, that they'd pick up. me. I didn't understand why they picked me. But at the same time, like part of me did. My four-year-old self knew exactly why they'd picked me. But my, you know, 20-something-year-old self really didn't have a clue why I was on this journey to Nashville. It was incredible. And I, you know, it was

nerve-wracking. I didn't know how to use a microphone. Buddy Miller taught me how to use one and he's a saint because I'm a terrible student. And now, like, this thing that I was afraid of, you know, I didn't want to make a big noise. I was afraid to make a noise. And having, you know, come from, you know, people telling me that I couldn't sing and things like that, no one in my family, just people at drama school, because people at, I don't know, kids are mean, whatever, it's fine. But it really, it stuck with me for a very long time.

And suddenly these people wanted me to sing in front of everyone for CMA Fest. I'm standing on the, was it, that was the Nissan Stadium? Is it? Wait, which one? The LP field. It used to be. I'm standing on that stage and there are all of these people looking at us and the pilot of Nashville was playing behind us and my face is like 80 feet wide or something ridiculous like that on that screen and I'm thinking these people don't know that I have like

$18 in my bank account, do they? And like that attention is so it is not not why I got into this. It was really confronting and having people like grab you in the street or like grab your hair really weird, like, just to see if it was real. I'm like, it's real, that hurts. Just strange behavior that I hadn't experienced before from really good people, like lovely people who just like, I don't know, got excited or something. And it was the hysteria of the show was crazy. So living in a town called Nashville whilst being on a show called Nashville was absolutely nuts.

It was insane. But it was incredible. and I had to, it kind of forced me to be okay in crowds. I wasn't for a long time and I think probably getting really sick and, you know, being, being hurt and then watching the same person sort of direct some of that towards my mother when she came to help me here. That was, I saw the way, I saw the way this person treated my mother and I saw the way he treated my dog.

And that was one of the clicking points for me with self-esteem. It was like if I can't protect them, I felt so helpless not being able to protect them and then ferociously trying to and then realize that I hadn't been protecting myself. And it kind of everything changed. Yeah, it's, it never, I don't think it's something that heals completely and we're human. to keep reminding yourself that like you're worth it. You're awesome. You can do it. Look how far you've come. Look what you've done already. Like remember when the stuff that you're sitting here doing worrying about was with things that you had dreamed. Like your wildest dreams was to do that.

You just have to keep reminding yourself. I have to, I get to keep reminding myself of that. And it's a real privilege. Do you garner a sense of self-esteem from being successful in that way? Or does it be the different part of you? I really, really wanted to take care of my family. That was my goal and that's what kept me on the path to doing exactly what I set out to do. And they always, like, they're the greatest reminder of where I came from in the whole world. They love them so much and I'm so proud to have come from a town of 800 people and be here and be like, there's a lot of people here. But success is not just that.

I mean, it's really nice to be able to pay your own phone bill. I've enjoyed that. That's been really lovely because I remember a time when I couldn't. and it was quite debasing, even though I was working three jobs and, ugh. But my thing is getting to meet people and tell stories and knowing, like, the way I grew up at a constant sort of recurring thoughts. It's like there is nobody I know like me. There's no one I know who understands why I get so quiet in class.

Like, at least I don't think that there is. And, you know, the other children in the class are warned that they're, as a kid who has been really sick and so she might be a bit different or I don't know, I don't know what they said about me, but so people were aware and so we were made aware and there was nobody else that I was directed towards like, hey, he had this too or she had this or something different, but maybe you can meet on like some common ground. There wasn't anyone and a lot of the kids who I did know from different hospitals that I met up with later on.

They didn't remember. So I guess they, I don't know. They blocked it out? Maybe. And like there's a lot of like drugs that go through your system and you'll remember things that you, it's weird. Like I still have memories coming back to me that are like, they pop up and it's like, oh, it's really visceral.

But beautiful. Yeah. It's nuts. It does very strange things to your brain. It causes a lot of inflammation. It does, it wreaks havoc on your body. So. frightening for a lot of children, a lot of people. I wish that adults were treated a little bit more

like children when they're sick because everyone gets frightened when they're sick. But yeah, there's just no one. So the fact that I get to create a space during our shows and with music where there might be people out there and now I know that there are all these people out there walking around feeling like what they've been through is all over their faces and they have to hide it and that nobody else could possibly understand why they get so sad when a certain thing happens or like for no reason they think there's always a reason that's the thing to remember there's always a reason and it's okay to go looking for it just to just to be able to live like a happy and full life and to reach out to one another like the fact that I get to stand on stage and tell stories and sing and introduce

people to one another and say hey I'm like I'm all busted up but I'm okay and that's not like a sympathy thing it's just it's true like we're all we all have things that aren't the picture perfect, like what is projected to the world often. Is that your reason then? For what? Well, you said we all have a reason and it's okay to like go looking for your reason for why you went through this type of thing. Is your reason to hold the space and share those stories or is it something else?

The reason is for me, I want to create a space and I have done and I intend to continue doing it where people who feel like they don't belong anywhere that there is nobody else out there like them, they can come to a place and we talk about fun stuff too. But when we do talk about the scary stuff, we all go down and we all come up together and we're all together. And people, like, it's not a therapy session. For some people, some people call it that. It's just storytelling and it's all about life. And every song means something different to each person. and when you tell stories and sing things that elicit such a reaction as people like they have tears running down their face or they're laughing uncontrollably or usually not at the same song but it's like this this visceral reaction that happens in public where we're told to keep our feelings in line

that's people inadvertently sharing. I had one instance where I was singing a song and I saw this, it was like this, it was in a really big club in Germany. It was wonderful. It was in the Grunschbahn, I think, actually. It was a lady in the crowd, and we were singing, I can't remember what song, and she started to tear up and sort of like immediately,

tried to hide it. And I saw, I watched her look around because I love, I love watching the audience. Like, they're the reason I'm there. It's not about me. It's about them. It has to be about them. So she, like, looked around to sort of, like, self-consciously trying to see if anybody had seen her cry. And she probably didn't even know she was doing it. And five seats down, there was another person who was also crying. And they locked eyes. And they didn't turn up together. They didn't know one another. But I witnessed this moment of beautiful together. these people who may have been weeping for totally different reasons. But in that moment, strangers were no longer strangers. And that's the most beautiful thing ever. That's what I want to do.

So you've said a few times that like people, your experience was sort of separated you and isolated you from a lot of people and like they couldn't sort of understand what you had gone through. And then recently within the last few years, your brother had cancer. Yeah, that was a zinger. Like, what? Yeah, so first of all, I'm sure were your parents like, what? Yeah, it was true. Come on, universe.

I knew something was wrong that I was here and he was there. And I knew that he'd been going to the doctor, but they kind of, they sheltered me from it a bit because I guess they knew, well, they knew exactly how I would feel because. Is he a baby brother or big brother? He's six years younger than me. he's a lot bigger than me now. He was sort of born when you were going through a lot of your stuff.

That's interesting. Yeah. And like, you know, my parents having a new baby and a little one who's really not well. You know, there's all sorts of things that I actually only just recently thought about that come with that, including judgment from other people. Like I was, I looked like I looked like I had AIDS. and I remember people pulling their children away from me in playground. Oh, yeah. It's the face you just made is exactly the way it feels.

Yeah. And looking at my parents, like, how could you bring her out? Like, how dare you, like, bring her near our children, thinking that I had some, thinking, thinking, honestly, that I had AIDS. And actually, the only place that we could walk down the street and not get, like, mad side eye and have people kind of, like, staring at us, was in Kings Cross, which is there's lots of like, lots of gay clubs down there, or there were at least back then, haven't been back in a while.

And I remember the show girls would come out and see me, these beautiful, beautiful transgender people in like, blonde Carmen Miranda feathers. Like they'd be dancing down at the clubs and they all knew us. So mum or dad would be walking with me down the street because they wanted me to see the world. Like I wasn't well. If I could be out of the hospital, they would, they would like let me have some outside time because I always was outside before I was sick and it helped me thrive. They even snuck animals into my room in the hospital to, yeah, they did everything.

They broke all the rules and it worked. And we would be walking down the street in the cross, which is also kind of a, it was viewed as a bit of a dangerous area. It was like the, do you say red light or blue light district? Red light? Okay, so yeah, kind of the Red Light District a little bit. But also a beautiful community of really, like, eclectic characters who felt safe there. And, like, the girls had come out and they'd, like, they'd give me little teddy bears,

and they'd always, like, pat my ridiculous bald head and talk to me like I was a person and hugged dad. And it just was the most beautiful community. And it's the only place that no one stared at us like. we were like terrible people. And I'm just like, come on people. I know. And it mostly comes from a place of protection, I suppose. And fear.

I know. But also by the time, I'm the same age as you. By the time I was like, my mom did a lot of volunteer work with people who had AIDS. And I grew up around people who were HIV positive, like sharing dishes. And like, it.

Awesome. It just, I never under, I was like, by the time we were kids, we knew that stuff wasn't. contagious in that way. And it wasn't something to be feared in that way. And the fact that so many people didn't get like the love and support that they would need because people were afraid of

them. I just think. And also when you're talking about your own sense of self-worth, I'm sure that like having people shy away from you like your demon is probably not helping with that. It definitely didn't really aid the monster complex that I had. So your brother was in Australia and you were out here in Nashville and you kind of hurt, did he tell you eventually? And I was actually in Florida visiting with Brandon's beautiful sister. Brandon is your husband. Yes. Yeah. I have a wonderful sister-in-law. She's incredible. Jill, we were at her kids church and they were going to sing for everybody. And I got a series of strange messages from Tim and my parents. And my parents like sort of not really knowing how to tell me and not wanting to tell me that he had this

terrible, terrible diagnosis. It was awful. He was, he wouldn't have lasted much longer than two weeks either, I think. It was, was it the same type of cancer? No, it was lymphoma. And it was, we are genetically, I think, very good at hiding illness. And he just, I don't know, they, to look him there was nothing wrong. He had just started losing weight and had sort of lost his appetite a bit. And it wasn't until the very, like, inth sort of like the 11th hour that he sort of started noticing things were really not good. And I think probably his beautiful fiance, and his fiance, Christina, is a doctor now and she was in training then and she was noticing things being the closest person to him that really weren't right. And I think

I'm adamant. Like she saved his life. So had all of these tests done and that was really confusing for him. This is a person who's never been sick in his life. And I was standing out the front of the church saying, I said to Jill, be in in a minute, something's really wrong. And I called them and was like, what is happening? Somebody please tell me what's exactly what's going on because I need to understand this.

I know something's bad. Something bad is happening. and Tim told me and I remember I don't remember how I got into the church bathroom I talked to him and was like well we'll deal with it I'm coming home and we got on a flight two days later I think we were able to get on one

I don't remember getting into the church bathroom but I had a like a fuzzy sweater on or something and I remember sitting on top of the toilet like on the cistern bit so that I don't know it was like such a stupid protective thing to do. I just, I didn't want people to see my feet. Didn't want anyone to see me.

And I screamed and screamed and screamed into my jacket. So no one would hear me. Um, because he's my little brother. And I, I couldn't. It just was not fair. I wished I could take it away from him. I wish I could, if I could, same as my grandmother said about me. It's like, if I could, like, just give it to me. Please just give it to me. Don't give it to him. And so we flew home. And we started. treatment. I got tested for the first thing I did was like he needed potentially bone marrow and all sorts of stuff so we went through all of that to try and see if I could give it to him. And then we just, we barreled on through and we had New Year's Eve and New Year's Eve in

the hospital and we decorated it with fairy light. They just tend to make you feel better. and had the tiniest, tiniest New Year's Eve toast and sat around in paper party hats and tried to make it okay. I had to come back over here because we were starting filming Nashville again, which was like I did not, I loved my job, I loved my job, it was incredible, I love what I do,

but I did not want to leave Australia. What season? You remember? Five, maybe, or? Yeah, it had to have been five, I think. I just, I find it crazy to be able to do work. Like, I mean, there's also, there's so many people who, you know, have to. My mom was in the hospital for a really extended period of time and my dad had to go to work because there were hospital bills to be paid and you have to just do that every single day.

But I don't, I still don't understand how you do it. I especially work that's so emotionally demanding. That was really like it would, sometimes it would be difficult to. stop crying. Actually, this is so silly. I had to work myself into a mad frenzy for Scarlett for something. I think it was, it might have been her. I can't remember.

I passed out on set because I cried so hard. Oh my God. And I woke up and Callie was holding my hand. I was like, who wears white nail polish that I know? It was like, it was the most comforting thing because Cali always wears white nail polish and she had my hand and I couldn't it was like my vision was coming back like a oh you get that tunnel vision thing yeah I was fine I just I overworked myself and the DOP Michael Lohman had picked me up and carried me off set and I just did everybody on set

know what was going on with your brother yeah yeah we we um Tim wasn't sure how to tell people and I was like well we figured it out together and um it was beautiful out outpouring of support from people. It was really, really, really lovely. And, you know, I knew that he had mum and dad and Christina there and our family. My cousin, Sally, was incredible. She was there all the time. She's amazing. She's kind of like Lenin's character. Maddie is Scarlett's little cousin. I have a, mine's Sally, even though I feel like Lenin is my real cousin now, because we work together for so long. Sally's like she's just such a cool person.

like young but she was only 19 when Tim got sick and she was always there with lunch and just like doing things that other people couldn't do. It was really cool. And Tim, Tim was telling me a story the other day about he couldn't. Sometimes those, the drugs like, and I had, we were commiserating on this how if like you can only lay down, you can't stand up, you can't sit up, it's, your equilibrium is just so shot that because of all the drugs going through your system, you just have to lay there. And there is a thing called Alice in Wonderland syndrome where you feel like you're huge or you're very small.

It's really strange. And he was like, have you ever had this happen? I was like, yeah, it's horrible. Like you have to really talk yourself down and look at your hands and know that they're not, like they're not going to come crashing out the window. It's really strange. It does very weird stuff to your head. So he was sleeping out on the living room floor because our bedrooms were little

and we still live in our old family home. We love it there. And our mum was going back and forth to the river. The river was on the end of the lawn. We live on the minima. And all he could do was kind of turn his head and be on his back and turn his head to the side. And he was telling me, he was like,

mum kept going back and forth and back and forth. And he turned his head to the other side. And she had been filling up a little bowl with, she'd put sand in it and like shells and things that she'd gotten out of the river. And she came up and she had like a toad fish and a little mud skipper. And like she'd caught, she had like a bait trap in the river. So the little fish will swim in like the hermit crabs and stuff. So she went and got some tiny wildlife and put it in a bowl next to Tim's head.

So he could be near the river. I know. And he told me and we both just wailed because it was all mum could do. So, yeah. It was really cool. So his health is good now. He's getting married, right? He's amazing.

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20% off with the code healthier together on skinny dipped.com. I cannot wait for you to try these. I truly have a problem and I am so looking forward to you having a problem with me. All right. Let's get back to the show. Let's start with physical. What's the state of your physical health now? I am better than I've ever been in my whole life.

I went to a wonderful, I have a couple of doctors here who are just incredible. incredible. A nurse practitioner named Judith who has taken care of me since I got here and a doctor named Dr. Hasi from the Maxwell Clinic and they threw totally different schools of thought and different kinds of like both Western and holistic medicine. It's the little bug back. Attracted to you. He's like you. I'll let him out later. He'll be right.

He was over there before. Sorry about that. They have helped me understand what happened to my body. That was the thing. With the experimental stuff, the doctors were like, we don't know what it's going to do to her. So it might, I've outlived about four life expectancies now. The last one was like 27. And they said, we don't know what's going to happen, but something's going to happen.

And it did. It was bad. So they, it was like you, your cancer was gone and you were cured, but they were like, there's going to be these long-term effects on your body. Yeah, and just things age faster, things, you know, this, I was technically, I suppose, born with four kidneys because one was a horseshoe that never really, the one that was taken out, the horseshoe kidney is a kidney that never, it grows and it doesn't split into. Interesting.

But it was a double chamber and the other one is a duplex system. So that one was taken out along with a whole bunch of. of other stuff and then this one it's mutated so normally people who have what I have pass away in utero which I nearly did as well so it's normally they don't have to deal with this kind of stuff after the fact after the cancer happens which they don't know why it happens or any of that stuff so dealing with an incomplete and then also mutated system, it makes you unable to process nutrients, food.

Like you can't turn food into nutrients like everybody else, which led to various sort of theories about maybe it being all in my head. I was like, well, my heart feels like it's going to jump out of my chest. And I'm identifying what feeling sick and anxiety was, separating the two. that was never something that doctors didn't really want to talk about it. And I've met so many doctors in my life that have raised their eyebrows at me and shrugged. Like what was a real, like what was a physical symptom of like your heart racing or something like that versus what was a symptom of anxiety and how those two sort of intermingled? Yeah.

Feeling bad all the time. Yeah. So I found out in the last. couple of years that I'm allergic to a lot of stuff, just or intolerant of it because my system is just compromised. So say somebody might be able to handle MSG. I can't. It makes my whole body swell up, which was a really good way to get my brother to laugh when he was on chemo because we were eating Chinese food. I think I was like, wow, this is, I was so hungry in jet lagged. And I'm sitting beside him and I was like, what do you, what do you want to eat? And he

said Chinese or I think, yeah, and unfortunately in Australia, like, it's really difficult to find it's just a fact of the matter, like you have to call and say you use MSG and your food. It's a thing. And I forgot to call and we're sitting there. I was like, oh, wow, this is the best wanton soup I've ever had. Oh, no, because it's a flavor enhancer and Tim looked at me. It's like, ha. And we were just like starting to expand. And you can see it on the television show, actually. there are seasons like in the first, in the pilot, I look like this. And then in the third, second, third, fourth episode, I blow up really big. And it was really quite yucky to deal with, like, knowing that all these people are looking

at me and my body is doing something like, I eat really well, I exercise, I don't, I don't eat meat. How is this happening to me? Yeah. I'm just not knowing and gaining like 15 pounds of fluid that I didn't know was fluid. I'm thinking, I must, like, do I have? what's happening, not knowing what's going on. And, you know, with the heart racing thing that you ask, sorry, if I eat MSG,

swell up really bad, my heart starts to race, it starts to palpitate, and I have panic attacks. It's been really amazing being in the US and exploring different schools of medical thought. And my wonderful Dr. Judith saying, hey, anxiety is a thing. It's okay. She studied psychology for a long time, and she's actually the one who put me in touch with my counsellor and helped me hugely in identifying what I had been dealing with my entire life

that I didn't have a name for that a lot of the time, you know, people will say things like, oh, you know, as a sick child, they're used to getting a lot of attention, so they might just do things to do anything they can. to get it. And for me, it was like, no, I can't breathe. I can't, like, I, you know, and it turned out one of my lungs had, I had a really bad kidney infection because of the mutation. And this lung had collapsed a little at the bottom. And I was telling people, I can't breathe properly. I can't, I can't sing. I've, you know, and what stress does to you as well. And not

knowing is like really stressful, not knowing what's wrong. And yeah, to find out, actually, your lung was a little bit like yeah it was there was so much pressure on it you couldn't expand um so what are some of the like wellness health you don't eat gluten MSG like what are the practices you do now to have your state of health be the best it's ever been i drink very little alcohol um i actually don't i haven't had bourbon in forever i love bourbon but i can't um this um swells up there's some lymphatic damage you can probably see this guy there where they're not very big and I actually I love all my scars and when I talk about them they're you know they're a part of me and I really don't have an issue with them would

actually be very strange to look down if they were gone and so I if I drink like dark liquor or really any kind of liquor this arm swells up really badly and it makes me feel panicky because it it hurts it feels or I can't feel these fingers at all and it's um Like my face changes shape because I have such a bad histamine reaction to gluten, to process things like sugar. I really can't have a lot of sugar. It's only in the last six months that I've been able to have a little bit of wine. And a lot of the time, I don't want things that make me feel sick. And the more I identify them, people are like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm going to eat this in front of you.

I'm like, no, no, no, please eat it, please enjoy it. think it's awesome that you can digest that, I don't want it because I know what it does to me. So just like stuff. And you've recently started eating meat again, which was a really uncomfortable. My doctor sat me down and he was like, okay, please, please don't try to be vegan because I'd been talking about it and I was already a vegetarian. He was like, I need, I need you to listen to me really good right now. I was like, mm-hmm, all right.

he said i know that you know we've come a really long way and you're like we've we've done we've done so much to chase down your best health i you are not absorbing any you just you don't have enough pieces left to absorb like a normal person and need you to eat red meat at least like twice a week and i was like that's that's like to me that was horrifying because i and i and Oh my God, I can't. It's like you eat chicken wings and then you pick one up and one of them is broken and you know how she probably was like thrown or something on the I just can't. It makes me so upset. So I have to, he said to me, I need you to try and eat meat just just a couple of times a week.

Please, can you please try? And I resisted for a really long time and I know that people will have opinions on this and frankly like they don't they don't know what it's like to live in. this thing I call my body and it's been it's I've done everything I possibly can I was a vegetarian for almost 10 years and so to eat meat or any kind of animal product

for me is it doesn't just breeze by it's actually quite disturbing for me and I resisted and resisted and then around our wedding I started I passed out right there and smashed my face on the floor

and it didn't matter how many supplements I took or how much vegetable protein I had and I can't digest most proteins that, like, I think I can have pea protein and everything else blows my stomach up like a balloon and I'm full of things called adhesions, which is scar tissue because of the way they opened me up and how everything happened after that, being opened up multiple times and then seizures and things like that. So everything is connected by these spider webs of almost like endometriosis, actually, but from my lungs to my pelvic area. So everything is locked.

And if it starts to, if I get bloated or it starts to spasm, it's so excruciatingly painful I have to be taken to hospital because I start to be sick and I can't stop being sick and then my, I dehydrate and then I lose consciousness. And it's just like this horrible thing for everyone to deal with. So that's how serious it is. If I get any kind of like intestinal thing happening and it's really annoying and there are lots of people who deal with it. But I, yeah, I, um, after I had started passing out just randomly and I actually thought

I was at that door there. And I was standing in the kitchen and I thought I can get, I can get to brand. and I can tell him that I'm going to pass out because I felt that thing coming on that horrible prickly face, like vision closing in and the sound goes away. Sounds usually the last thing to go. And I got from, I went from the kitchen, so it's, I don't know, I don't know how many feet that would be, like from around the corner to that door. And in my head, I, I, I slapped the door to keys he was sitting out there on the balcony. In my head, I hit the door as hard as I could to let him know that I was going to pass out, because if you pass out and you

throw up or something like that. You can die. It's, ugh. And the last thing I wanted was for him to find me. So in my head, I'm banging on the door. What he saw was my hand sort of like sliding down the door. And then I fell through it and I smashed my face on the floor. So my sweet little brother who thankfully was in remission at that time, it was right around the wedding. I was so sick. My wedding dress didn't fit. It was too, it was like hanging off me. And that Tim, and Brandon carried me to that couch and the next day Brandon was like, I need you to try.

I need you to try and eat a little bit of meat. And I did that night and honestly overnight I felt it was like really, really cooked down bison. I'm very diligent about where we get any kind of animal product from. And it comes from a local farm.

And a lot of the time, our friend John Carter, who are you talking about earlier, he'll, like he hunts and he'll give us things that, you know, have come off his property out, like way out. He's got another little cabin out there. And I, yeah, I felt it was like a little bison bolognese or chili or something, and I felt better overnight. And so I started very carefully reintroducing it. I had to puree it most of the time, which is really gross. Meat shake. What about other like weird, wellnessy stuff do you do? Do you meditate? Do you, do you, do you, do you,

Yoga. Yeah. Every morning I get up and I write in a little gratitude diary and I'll like go through. I grew up writing a lot. That was something that I did to sort of escape people because if you write and write and write and write, people tend to leave you alone. It's not a particularly social child a lot of the time. So that's something that really makes me feel good.

And so I started, I'll write in a little book that's like, okay, how is my mind this morning and where can I improve it? How's my body feeling? And it's a good way to keep track of your health as well, to keep a journal and what you've eaten and all that kind of stuff. And how's my spirit? And so I'll do a little, every single morning I get up and I'm usually up before Brandon.

And so I'll have a cup of tea and write down my thoughts and write down what I'm grateful for and what would make today fantastic. And I'm like, I always like I'm so happy and grateful that I got to wake up next to my beautiful husband this morning. Like, it's the best. Every day is just, like, a gift. And that sounds so twee and so cliche, but it's true. Like, I'm really, really lucky that I get to wake up next to Brandon.

And I get to know that my family is safe and happy and healthy. So, like, bringing positivity into my life in any way I can. I do do yoga. I love yoga. It's, like, it makes things just hurt a whole lot less. And it really, I feel like opening up parts of your body that might be static a lot of the time, you know, you're moving everything in yoga. I think that we hold, a lot of people hold stress and emotion, sadness, feelings, like all kinds of things.

And people will, like, get into a weird pelvic pose and laugh their heads off because they've done this weird hip opener thing. It just brings it all out. You'll cry. I've seen so many people cry when they're in double pigeon. They'll just start bawling. Absolutely. And that's such a wonderful release. It's incredible because otherwise you're just so full of adrenaline.

You can't stand it. Yeah. Yeah, I try to, I take CBD at night so that I sleep. I have a smoothie every morning that's my little, like I've hung on to my anti-inflammatory sort of medicated vegan smoothie that I make. What's in it? I do a green smoothie every morning too. I like a section of my book that's like an ode to the green smoothie.

I think it's the singular thing you can do to change your health the most. It is fantastic. And for a long time, I couldn't have greens because I couldn't, my digestive system just wouldn't handle. Like, kale is still out. I can't, can't too kale. I don't think anybody should be eating raw kale. It's an unpopular opinion, but I think it's really hard on your gut.

It's a bit like eating a brilopad. That's, I always say it's like eating a pine cone. Really? Yeah. I feel like digesting a pine cone. But a brilopad, same thing. I feel like you can feel it at every phase of your intestine. That's one thing I have to be very, very careful of because there's,

so much scar tissue on the inside of me. Anything that like would be a normal sort of or the average stomach upset for someone who hasn't had surgery like I have. It's much more intense for you. It's really bad. And it affects everyone around me. It sucks. So what's in your go-to? It's actually not, it's not vegan anymore because I put Greek yogurt in it. Okay. I thought you're going to say like ground bison. Gross. I've tried that once and it's really, really yucky. We're not going to. Just don't do it. Greek yogurt. Okay, Greek yogurt?

I get almond milk. My little medicated protein thing that's vegan, it's a pea protein base, I think. And it's got a whole lot of like herb-e, anti-inflammatory things in it. Honey, raw cacao. Sometimes I'll put like an electrolyte powder in it because it's really hard for me to stay hydrated. It doesn't matter how much water I drink, my kidney is like, no, bye-bye. And what else? I'm trying to think.

Oh, sometimes I'll make one for brand and then I'll put like almond butter in it. Oh, and a banana and ice. Yeah, it's about it. Sorry, that's like the most roundabout way of explaining a recipe ever. It took me a really long time to figure out how to make that protein powder things taste good. Because damn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, God.

It's like the stuff. And they're like, tastes like nothing and which just tastes like vomit. No matter what you mix it with. They're like, just mix this with water and it's great. Just shake it up. It's fine. I'm like, um, what was. stand aside because I'm going to project all of all on you.

Okay, I have two more semi-serious questions, and then we're going to do a speed round because you have a premiere. We're going to try to get you two today. Thank you. Semi-seriously, what is your relationship with your body now? It is like a little plant that I have to take really, really good care of. And I joke that it's like an old car, you know, there are bits in it that don't really work properly or like, you know, like something modern.

I have a 1963 F-100, so I liken it to that. It was my first truck when I came to Nashville, first car I've ever bought, and I love it. I still have it. And that's kind of what I'm like. Occasionally something breaks down, so I have to go in for maintenance, and that's normal. And I've, you know, learned to not be afraid of the hospital.

It's a place where people help me. It hasn't always been that for me. I haven't been to hospital in, like, a year and a half now, which I'm, like, stoked about. Did you go through any of the stuff, especially being on a television show and you talked about like when you were bloated on a season? Did you ever go through any of the hating your body or were you always just sort of grateful that it was powering you and keeping it out of you a lot? Oh, I was, I mean, I felt terrible for it because like if you talk about your body as a separate entity to yourself, which in some ways it sort of is if you separate mind, body and soul. I felt bad for it because I didn't like it.

I was like, why are you doing this? What is wrong? I'm doing everything right. I'm doing what everyone tells me that I should do. It's like, I should eat more fiber. It's like, that might kill me. Because I don't have a normal system like everybody else. And that's fine, but I didn't know.

So when you're trying so hard to do as much as you possibly can to make yourself healthy and reading all the books and trying all the diets, I don't like the word diet because for me it has to be a lifestyle. And I feel like a diet. is something that, I don't know, it can be very closely related to like a fad and it makes people sick and if you lose a lot of weight straight or like really quick, you're going to gain it back really quick and it's just not, it's kind of a cyclical, ugh thing. So I never, I never hated it. I just didn't understand it and I didn't know I was at my wits end,

not knowing what to do to the point where everything I ate came up. So I just stopped eating. And then my beautiful hair and makeup people from Nashville hadn't heard from me for a couple of days. And I'd been, I'd just been drinking water because everything hurt so much to eat. And they said, let us, like, let us take you to the doctor. And that's how I found Judith. She's amazing. And they probably saved my life just because I couldn't keep anything down.

So it wasn't easy to be in front of so many people. And at the time, it was much more frustrating. And there was a period where I looked back and was like, oh, wow, I don't even look like myself. And there's nothing wrong with having like puffy cheeks. So, like, it's cute. I looked. I liked the way I looked.

I looked cute, even when I was really churobic and kind of, you know, you could see my makeup artist is very talented. So when cystic acne happened because of stress and diet that I couldn't seem to get right through, like, I tried so hard, but I just couldn't. they made me look good. And I think that all shapes and sizes are beautiful, but I know what I'm, this is what I'm supposed to look like.

This is my healthiest self that I've ever been. So when you're looking at yourself and it's not, it's not seeing fat. That's not like when I was looking at myself when I was really puffy. I wasn't fat. It wasn't fat. It was inflammation.

And so knowing that, it made me feel really, like it was terrifying because I knew that something was causing it and I couldn't figure out what. So it's kind of that when you're sort of medically minded because of my past and you're searching for an answer and you know that it's, you know, it's not that you've been eating badly. You're doing everything right and your body is seriously inflamed and hurting everywhere.

And seemingly there's nothing you can do about it. It's just like, is this what it's going to be? Now I look back and I know that now that that's what that was and it was. you know, there were times where I was a bit, I was self-conscious because a dress would fit one week and then the next week it wouldn't and like it would be too small and then the next week it would be hanging off me to the point where they'd have to repin it to shoot like continuity stuff. So there are scenes where my face is like all puffed up and then I'm skeletal. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. So it wasn't easy but now I look at it and I'm like, that was my journey. and I have to, when you can't be kind to yourself,

I hold that you must look at yourself like the child that you were. And it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be nice of me to say about somebody else. Wow, gosh, you put on a bit of wait. That's not a nice comment. It's not a comment that needs to come out. No one really needs to hear that. And I really don't like it when people,

especially coming from my hospital days where people were missing legs and eyes. And, you know, it's like you're going to comment on that. So I have to look at myself as someone else and be really kind to her and be like, wow, she felt really sick that day. Still cute, you know. That's a good lead into my last semi-serious question, which is you give off this aura of just sort of like dripping in gratitude. And I think a lot of people who have had a lot less objective struggle than you have

a hard, myself included, have a really hard time finding things to be grateful for and have a really easy time focusing in on the more negative elements of life. Is there anything that you could tell those people to help sort of tap into that part of yourself? It can be very hard because people who are mean and like people who bully and, you know, the things, bad things happen because of fear. It's like those people who pulled their children away from me when I was a kid. They were frightened. You said it. It's fear.

It's a natural thing that we all, like, we are all capable. We are all bound to feel at some point. And unfortunately, the way things are marketed in, like, I don't know, there are things happening all over the world and in the news. And I think that the free press is the most, like, that the media has to be able to tell the truth and things have to be, like, I'm not, I would never ever slag the media ever. Like that's not what this is, but I do know that there are terrible people out there doing terrible things.

And if you have a steady diet of, like I didn't grow up with television. So coming here, now we have one in that room. And there's a projector screen there that we really don't use very often. I have to step away from the terrible things in the world that I cannot control and get really small. And the news is it's so important. And I am connected and I know what's going on. but every now and then I have to take a step back and you're like, okay, what can I do for the benefit of the people directly around me?

Because they're probably feeling like this too. How can I make a tiny difference, even in the smallest way? And that's where the song Little by Little came from. It really does feel helpless and hopeless, and it can make us forget to be grateful. Because there are some really bad stuff going on in the world. There always has been, but right now it's very like people are very divided. It's very us and them and I can't stand it.

So do you find by reaching out and trying to do little things for other people, does that build your own? Does it like work your gratitude muscle almost? It does. Yeah. And asking people to like every now and then I'll do like a little by little thing actually. And I'll ask people, hey, tell me about something that you experienced this week that was like a random act of kindness whether you saw it, whether you did it, whether you received it. And just so there is this thread. that people know that they can come to my socials and particularly on Instagram and they can read

all of these beautiful things and some of them might be quite um they might be sad as well that's like there is room for sadness too but mostly it's really positive stuff and even the sad things viewed in a positive light and it just it takes you out of yourself or people have said this anyway they said it takes me out of myself a little bit and helps me remember that even like you might change somebody's day with a kind word and they might have had a really rough time and been so so absorbed in like the washing machine of, oh, the world is bad, everything's terrible, I'm not good enough. And even taking a break from social media sometimes is really, really important. I've just done this recently. But do you not get like angry ever? Like,

what the fuck? Why did I have to have this cancer? And why did then my brother have to have it? Like to be able to find gratitude amidst that type of thing, I think is this incredible thing. I was furious that my brother was sick. I was furious that all, of my grandparents got sick and the way they, I'm not, like, dying is a normal part of what happens to us. It's, it's dreadfully sad. It's horrendous, like, missing someone. But it is, it is part of, it's what we do. We all exit this world, like, the same way at some point. And so I don't know, not about me. It's about the way people suffer and, you know, people, it's, actually I get kind of funny about it.

People say like, fuck cancer. I don't normally, I don't swear on stage because kids come to see my show, but I swear a lot in real life. But people say fuck cancer. And I'm like, no, it's not, cancer is a thing that is a result of how polluted our world is. And how, like, how much sugar there is in everything.

And there's a lot. Like, it's the chemicals that we are surrounded by. Our environment is harsh. We have made it really harsh. And there are people who have signed off on making it harsh. Those people, I get very angry at people who make decisions that affect millions of people, whether it's thousands, hundreds, millions of people. And they've made a decision usually to make money.

That makes me raging mad because they didn't have to sit and watch my friend pass away and watch her mother scream like her lungs had been torn out of her. Like, that's, it's, yeah, the people who are careless and, you know, the, like, people talking about the opioid crisis and how that actually happened. And it is a real, it's horrible. It's horrible. And people are just, I remember going to the dentist. This made me really, really mad. And maybe I'm getting off track.

But, well, not really. I went to a dentist. Not the one I go to now. He's fantastic. But it was a long time ago. And I had a bit of a toothache. and he was sitting behind his desk. He was an older gentleman.

And he'd finished the consultation. Brose his eyebrows at me and looked over his glass. He was like, you want some narcotics? I was like, no, I don't. But don't, don't. You shouldn't say that with the door cracked open. And so casually, like, if it wasn't your first, you need to have these because you're in so much pain.

Yeah. It's just like an afterthought or else. I'm like, I'm good, thanks, mate, and I never went back. That kind of thing. That makes me furious. Yeah, I do. I get very angry at inequality at the way people treat one another because of the color of their skin.

When they treat one another badly, when they, when people are divided by those who should be far more responsible in power, it makes me start raving mad. But I can't. I can't allow myself to become hardened by other people's meanness. And I don't want to be hardened by thinking the things that happened to me were unfair. They made me who I am. Everything happens for a reason, I think, even if the reason is something that we don't find out in this life. I would never ever try to minimize anybody's pain by saying, like, oh, it was meant to be.

It's like, no, there are some things that should never have happened and they have and it's not fair. It doesn't make it any easier. Like, it's not an okay thing to say it was meant to be. That's what was meant to happen. It's just, you know, there might be a reason for it and it might not be a very good one. And we may not find out on this plane of existence. I don't know. I just know that this is really temporary, this life.

And I, but to the point where I even forced myself to forget. get how old I was in my mid-20s because I was told that I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here after 27, which is okay, I guess. I don't, I don't know any different, so I'm good. A lot of people wanted to know who on the Nashville cast your closest with in real life. Jonathan. He is Avery. Avery. Actually, Brandon just finished having lunch with him earlier. So you guys are like, actually buddies would hang out on a normal, anybody else you would hang out with on like a Saturday night normally. Not really because Saturdays are for sleeping or the Opry. So it's like I don't, yeah. I'm kind of a workaholic. I toured a lot with Chip. I have a, my wonderful makeup artist,

Sandy, she and I were like sisters. She's so wonderful. And Callie, I saw the other night. Everyone's sort of all over the place. And Lenin, we run into one another. We have the same hair dresser. So we get to run into one another when like usually we're both on the road. She's awesome, making some really fun music. She's wonderful. Yeah. She's such a play. I just love her to death.

All right. And last one. What is one big mistake you made and what's one thing you really feel like you got right? Mistake I made was, I don't know how I could have avoided it. I suppose I've trusted people. I shouldn't have trusted. And I've doubted my own gut feelings to the point of it nearly getting me, honestly, nearly getting me killed.

and thought that believed, believed someone when they said I deserved it, which of course was the person who did it. And I don't really have any regrets. It was a mistake. I should have treated myself better, but it made me stronger, and it made me realize that I'm supposed to still be here, and I'm still here for a reason. And frankly, by treating myself badly,

I was being very ungracious towards all the people who didn't get to still be here from my childhood. So it was a mistake to allow myself to be treated badly, particularly by men. But the experience made me whatever it is that I am. And I'm really grateful that I still get to be it. And would that be the thing you really go, right? Or is there something else that you would say? You really got right. Nailed that one.

When I was very nervous about falling in love with Brandon. And it was involuntary. Like he's an angel, absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous creature. And I previously, flashback, I was like, previously, oh, Nashville. Sorry. Every time I say that word, I have to not use that word anymore. All right, we're out. Before Brandon, I had decided, and I found out that he had done the same thing,

I had decided that it was better for me not to be with anyone. It was, I just was meant to be on my own. And it was safer that way because my experience with relationships had been so dreadful that, like, we joke about it, like, it will make a really funny book one day. But it was not funny at the time. It's nice when it gets to the point of being funny. But back then it wasn't good. And so I had decided that it was just better not to not to let anybody in but to you know to be have friends have wonderful friends and wonderful like relationships that were not romantic because I had never been loved properly.

Even though I had tried my best to love others properly. I will say that. And so when I fell in love with Brandon, I was terrified that. A, the things that had hurt me would like overflow out of me and hurt him. And so I kept away from him for a really long time purposely just because he has his own story that one day I'm sure he'll share with everybody. That, you know, reasons that he had decided that he was better off by himself as well. But I trusted him and I couldn't help it and I had to make a conscious decision

to say to him that I just really enjoyed being around him and I didn't want to be afraid anymore and that I was falling in love with him and I remember having this wonderful conversation with him at a little bar we used to go to. It's like a little private bar that's shut down now. We stole a couple of the jewels. They gave us the chairs that we used to sit in.

It was really sweet. I know. It was like our whole relationships that started there. and we had this beautiful talk one night and I couldn't take my eyes off him. There was all this stuff happening around in this bar and it was funny that kings of Leon were making a lot of noise at one end of it and it was like one of those places where you're not allowed to take photos and it was so there was all of this stuff happening and Brandon and I were just it was like being in a bubble. It was almost like all the sound went away and he said I

he was very brave too. And at the same time, we both said to one another, I don't want to ever be without you. I love you so much more than I've ever even known love could be. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I can't be without you. We got that one right.

He's amazing. He's incredible. And he's opened up the world for me in ways that I didn't. He said to me when we first met, he's like, I'll introduce you the best people in Nashville, because he understood what it was like to be shy. And he did. And they're some of my greatest friends. And I have, like, I'm so lucky to have them.

And it was interesting when we did the tour, when we released my record here in Nashville. The City Winery, I realized on the stage that partially because of my incredible team, that activist, and because of Brandon, I was standing on this stage in a, place that had sold out to hear our music. And I realized I was playing my hometown show. And I've never really had that feeling before because I never felt like I belonged anywhere. And I'm looking out into the crowd and there's my doctor and our neighbors and the wonderful people that take care of me in my career at activist and the people at CAA and the like the label. And then all those incredible people that Brandon said that he would introduce me to who truly are the best people

in Nashville, our best friends. And it was like, oh, man, I feel like I just fell into my life. And here it is. And this is my home. I'm home. Yeah, I got that right. Full body chills. Well, thank you so much, Claire. This was so lovely. Thank you. I hope that you love that conversation and you loved Claire as much as I did. It was so magical getting to just sit with her in her little Nashville home with her all of her pets, everywhere and get to talk to us. I hope you loved it. And I cannot wait to hear your reaction. So definitely screenshot wherever you're listening. Post on Instagram, tag her at Claire Mb, and then tag me at Liz Moody so we can continue the conversation over there. Remember the 10-day

Actually Delicious Detox is available on Liz Moody.com. If you would like to check that out and see how good you can feel in your body for the new year. I hope that you love it. And I can't wait to see you on the next episode. So make sure you're subscribed and I will see you then. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our health that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep. And one of the best ways to optimize your sleep is to optimize your mattress, which is why I love avocado green mattress so much. First of all, this mattress is so comfortable.

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