The Liz Moody Podcast - Stuck? The Science-Backed Tool To Finally Get What You Want

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Have you ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure of what you actually want from your life? I sit down with Tara Schuster, top journaling researcher, who is changing the way people use journaling to heal, gain clarity, and build real, lasting self-worth. Tara shares how she went from the world’s biggest journaling skeptic to a massive advocate after it helped her out of a deep depression. We unpack the surprising science behind why journaling works—and give a step by step guide of how and when to use it for the greatest benefits. This conversation is vulnerable, hilarious, practical, and packed with tips you can use today. 🎧 What you’ll learn: The 5 research-backed journaling methods that actually work Why journaling reduces anxiety, trauma symptoms & emotional reactivity How to find clarity when you genuinely don’t know what you want How to use her “Values Filter” to attract the right people The science of “affect labeling” and how it calms your nervous system The nighttime journaling practice that instantly reduces overthinking The journaling technique proven to help you heal old wounds Tara’s tool for turning jealousy into possibility The neuroscience-backed version of manifestation For more from Tara Schuster: Her New Book: ⁠This Journal F*cking Works⁠ Her 14-Day Journaling Challenge & Resources at www.TaraSchuster.com/Liz⁠ Her Instagram: ⁠@taraschuster⁠ Subscribe to Liz’s Substack to download a FREE Connection Card Game: https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome Ready to transform every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  Connect with Liz on Instagram  @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Shop our conversation cards, cute merch & more at https://shop.lizmoody.com/. Use our discount codes from vetted partners at https://www.lizmoody.com/codes. Join The Liz Moody Podcast Club: www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to our sponsors: Seed: visit Seed.com/LizMoody and use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first month. LMNT: head to DrinkLMNT.com/LizMoody to get a free sample pack with any order. Birch: go to BirchLiving.com/LizMoody for 20% off sitewide. Clearstem: visit Clearstem.com and enter code MOODYHH at checkout to get the Hydration Heroes Mini Kit free with a $75 purchase. Fatty15: go to Fatty15.com/LizMoody to get 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit or use code LIZMOODY at checkout.  The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. Music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast. This podcast and website represent the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests. The content is not intended as medical advice. Please consult your healthcare provider for personal health questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 389 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a time of year, I think, that we're all kind of thinking about, like, what do we want our future to look like? What do we want our goals to look like? Here is an easy hack for living a more intentional life. That is such good advice. You have since met somebody that you're really in love with. Do you think journaling played a role in that journey for you? Journaling has saved my life. I had never heard of these techniques, and they were so fascinating to me. There's also been a lot of research that when we write our goals down, we tend to achieve them more easily, help us make 2026, the best year of our lives. We all have the same hangups, and I have one answer to all of those. Hi, I'm Tara Schuster. I am the author of two bestselling books on self-help, self-care. The first is

buy yourself the effing lilies, and the second is glow in the effing dark. Why is journaling the secret of most successful people? Well, I don't know that it is the secret of most successful people. But I think the reason it's the secret of so many is putting what is in your head on the page automatically gives you perspective, right? Automatically gives you clarity. It separates you from your thought. And once you have any amount of distance, you can make different choices, right? You can see your life as something bigger than just what's going on in your brain. There's also been a lot of research that when we write our goals down, we tend to achieve. You tend to achieve them more easily, specifically because it causes us to get very detailed.

And so if you start writing about a future that you really, really want, you're going to be more likely to attain that future that you really, really want. All the goats, journaled. First off, St. Simone Biles, journals. Right? Okay. Frida Kahlo, journaler.

Leonardo da Vinci, obviously, journaler. Susan Sontag, journaler. Oprah, journaler, it is a wild assortment of people over history who have journaled. Well, and it's so interesting because I think I've always had this idea that journaling is just one thing in my head. And when you say all these people, I'm like, oh, wait, what are they doing? But they're all probably journaling in really different ways. And I didn't understand that until I read your book that there's so many different tools within the greater concept of journaling. Absolutely.

I actually bought a version of Frida Kahlo's journal, the original. No, I definitely can't afford Frida Calla's original journal, but I bought like a reproduction of it and hers is full of images and words. Leonardo da Vinci is full of text and experiments. They're all very different. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to journaling. And I think that is one of the reasons that people fail at journaling. Like they try it. Like, I hear it's a good idea.

Let me try one day. And then because they're trying somebody else's prescriptive, here's how to journal. If it doesn't click, they kind of walk away when in reality there are just so many different types of journaling. And we're going to get into some of those types because they were, I had never heard of these techniques and they were so fascinating to me. But I want to zoom out a little bit and just kind of talk people into it a little bit more because I'm a journaling skeptic.

You actually started as a journaling skeptic, right? Oh, yeah. Can you tell us about that? Oh, yeah. Major. Liz, as my friend, as you know, I had a really rough. unfun beginning to my life. I grew up in a neglectful psychologically abusive households. That basically, like, the main message I took from my childhood was nobody cares about you

and you're not worth anything. And I couldn't get that out of my head. And so it forced me into external achievement to look for anybody to give me any validation, which was in some ways awesome because I took every AP you could possibly take in high school. I got into a fancy pants college. I started climbing the corporate ladder at breakneck speed. I ended up becoming vice president of talent and development at Comedy Central where I ran shows like Key and Peel. You know, this need, this idea that I wasn't worthy, it fueled all of that. But it was painful. And I eventually hit rock bottom when I drunk dialed my therapist threatening to hurt myself. And that next morning, I was so ashamed and so just worried. You know, I kind of realized if I don't

save my own life, there will not be much more of a life to live. And a friend had actually suggested journaling to me. We had been out at a bar. I was crying into a glass of wine, like you do when you're in this kind of mental state. And she was like, you know, why don't you try journaling? I hear it's so good for your emotions. And I'm like, why don't you get lost? Like, please leave. Journaling? Like abusive childhood. You think journaling's going to help me? I have big T trauma. So it was totally skeptical. I thought it was cheesy. I thought it was for self-indulgent narcissists or like overly emotional emo girls, which I actually was as a younger girl, so I don't know why I was so down on that population. But I just thought, this is so not me. And the only reason I started

journaling was despite my friend and to show her that she didn't know anything. Unfortunately, from my pride and my ego, she was right. Journaling was the first salvation, the first relief I felt on my journey to reparent myself. How long did it take you to feel that relief? Sounds fake, but almost instantly. And now I kind of understand why. One is a technique that I actually talk about in the book called affect labeling, which is research has shown that when you simply label your emotions, you put vocabulary to it,

it is calming. It brings down the amygdala. Right. We are less fearful, less panic. We actually have less of a physical stress response. So now I understand when I started journaling like, I feel so bad about my life. Why is my boyfriend being so terrible? Blah, blah, blah.

I was Affect labeling. And so I was giving myself immediate relief in that way. But I thought that I had lost touch with my gut. I thought if I ever had a gut or an instinct to begin with, it had been so damaged that I could never trust it again. But once I started writing, and I feel some emotion. actually coming up, I realized, oh, I have a voice. And yeah, sure, she's been hurt and locked up. But I did the bare minimum to access her. And here she is right on the page. Why this tool? We're all busy. We're all tired. We're like, should I be meditating? Should I be doing breath

work? Should I be doing a gratitude practice? We're trying to figure out how all these things fit into our lives. Why are you voting for journaling? Amazing question. I am voting with my Full heart, my full body for journaling because it is cost effective, meaning it is cheap, a piece of paper, a pen, and your mind, and very effective. A 2022 meta-analysis found that journaling was a cost-effective way to deal with anxiety and PTSD in particular. And there needs to be more research. I also want to caveat this, that that same study said that the data was sort of like

so all over the place that you had to take it with a grain of salt. But even still, it was a very effective, quick, cheap way to relieve mental health issues. So the research is there. For me, I love writing. Also, for people who don't like meditating, like I was a very anti-meditator. And if I'm honest with you, I have severely fallen off my practice. Please send help. But it is a form of meditation, right?

It forces you to focus to be present. It's a ritual that brings like a moment of delight into your day. I mean, how many times do you stop in the day and say, hey, wait, what a miracle I'm alive. I mean, we don't do that, right? And yet, what a miracle, we're alive. And so my journaling have turned into a ritual so that every single day I have at least 10 minutes where I tune. into myself, I hear my own voice, I reflect with gratitude while I get to be here today, and you can take it anywhere. You can take it on the road. You can take it on a plane. In the beginning of my journaling

when I was like dating up a storm, sometimes I wouldn't want a journal because I'd be like sleeping over at somebody else's house. What I quickly realized, I can bring my journal, right? And I could go make some coffee and while that person's still asleep, I can just journal in the kitchen and come out a hero with coffee. Wait, I was not going to ask this, but this makes me curious. Yeah. So when I met you, you were single, you were dating up a storm, and you have since met somebody that you're really in love with, somebody that you're really happy with. And you've met them at an age where I think a lot of people are scared. They won't necessarily meet the love of their life. Do you think journaling played a role in that journey for you? The answer, as I think, is an emphatic yes. I didn't realize

I was doing expressive writing, which is a journaling technique created by James Pennebaker. He is a professor and researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. And he found that when people wrote out their like worst, scariest, you know, things you never would want to talk about, that it helped people move through the worst things that ever happened to them. So I wrote two memoirs, fully two, about this messed up childhood. reparenting myself, becoming a Hollywood executive, getting laid off, you know, all these things that had really haunted me. I wrote them out over and over and over again until they lost their

charge. And now what's so wild, and I just want to kind of like shout from the root tops, I had this messed up childhood. I don't think about it anymore. Every once in a while, I'll feel sad and compassionate for the little girl version of me. But I don't have like 55 complexes about what happened. As a child, I really believed nobody cares about me. There's something wrong with me. I literally now kind of can laugh at that. Like, I can't believe I ever thought that about myself. And I think that writing the books accidentally doing expressive writing really helped me to the point where when I met my boyfriend, I was in the best mental health of my life. I also journaled a lot about what I was looking for, really clarifying and clarifying. And I'm not talking about what job, what height, any of that kind of stuff. Really, like, what values was I looking for in someone? What was non-negotiable? I think there's a horrible narrative being said today to women about it's too late.

There are too many single women just settle, which is very disturbing to me. And I did the exact opposite and could not be happier. This is a time of year, I think that we're all kind of thinking about, like, what do we want our future to look like? What do we want our goals to look like? So I have two things I want you to speak to. I want you to speak directly to the person who is worried that they might not ever meet their partner. I just want to hug that person because I was that person. I was hopeless. I just thought I'm never going to meet my person. Everybody else around me has already met their person. You know, all my friends were married, had kids.

I felt like I've done something wrong. I'm left behind. And the media is telling me that all the good guys are gone. And actually, real people were telling me. was at a dinner party and someone said all the guys, they're all swiped up. You know, I have all these amazing, talented girlfriends and there's nobody for them. So I was very depressed about dating. So to that person, I would hold them. And I would say, if you are working on yourself, if you are dating, looking for someone with similar values, right? Someone who on a deeper level you connect to, it is inevitable that you will find love. Inevitable. Now, I don't know on what time frame, and I know we all want it to be now. I desperately wanted it to be now. Actually, a few years ago, I was with our

mutual friend, Jennifer Freed, who's a wonderful astrologist and psychologist. It was teaching journaling, actually, in Bali with her. And she said, I'm so sorry, but, you know, and I don't really understand astrology, but something about like Saturn, and then there was this reason. She was like, will not find love until March or April of 2025. Wait, did she really say that? Yes, she really said it. To a roomful of people ask Jennifer, God is my witness. She said it.

Wait, I'm so shook. Yes. I think you and I, we both are obsessed with Jennifer and we probably tend towards more skeptical about all that type of stuff. To be clear, you met your partner in March of 2025. Literally, let me paint you a picture. We are in Bali. She tells me this information.

She says, I'm so sorry, but everybody you date until March or April of 2025 is going to be somehow wrong. It's going to feel challenging. And then when this time passes, you will find him. He will be somebody who travels for work. He'll wear a white t-shirt and it will feel easy and he'll be your person. And so me, skeptic and I'm skeptical of everything, I was just piss off. I was so mad. You're like, I don't want that narrative.

Like, I've already waited all this time. Are you kidding me? But I kept dating people. Everything was wrong. Everything was wrong. And then March of 2025, you were there, Liz Moody. I met my boyfriend. And he loves to, he doesn't love travel.

He has to. He must travel a lot for work. And he wears a black t-shirt. Not a white one, as Jennifer predicted. But that's literally, he has a uniform. He only wears a black t-shirt. And so now, knowing what I know... Most enough.

Right. She did good. Jennifer did a great job. I mean, isn't that creepy? That's like the most insane story. The date. Yeah. She nailed it.

But now that I have him, I look back and I think, oh my gosh, I wish I hadn't worried so much. It was inevitable. And I don't mean him in particular, right? Like maybe it wasn't inevitable that I met this singular person. But it was inevitable that I'd meet a version of him. Someone who, like me, had spent a lot of their time building a career, doing big things. They hadn't really had exactly the time to be in a relationship.

We're both on parallel but separate tracks. It was inevitable I'd find somebody like that. I don't even know if people can hear me, if they're really hopeless. Like, I don't know that I could have heard someone like me, but it's inevitable. that you will find love. If somebody wanted to use journaling to bring in the love of their life, what specifically would you recommend to them? I have a coaching community and I actually use this tool with the single women in that community. And I have them do a values filter in their journal. So that's,

they have to choose four non-negotiable values that their partner will have. I think people get so hung up in height and money. And I only wanted to date someone who went to an Ivy League school, which is terrible because so many of the guys who went to Ivy League schools suck, right? Or like arrogant, rude. And then I kept being like, why do I keep getting these arrogant guys? All my friends made fun of me. Jennifer made fun of me that I only wanted to date someone in Ivy League. My current boyfriend dropped out of college. Like, if I had been screening for college, like I always had been, I would have missed him. But because I looked at what was deeper, I had it really clear.

My values filter was one curiosity. Because these were the things that, like, I couldn't live without. And we really need to think about that. Like, if this partner is going to be with you for the rest of your life, what can't you live without? I could not live without somebody who wanted to learn was curious. And I could have a conversation with forever. on a piece of paper, and so then you make four quadrants. So in the top quadrant, I had like curiosity slash great conversations.

I myself tend to doom spiral. I can be a real no to life. So I know that I needed somebody optimistic. Like optimistic, funny, like a humorous good disposition. So optimism slash humor was in the second quadrant. The third quadrant was kindness. Couldn't be with somebody who had anything other than kindness in their heart. And you've met my boyfriend. I think you know he's like a very sweet man. And then the fourth, and this is not exactly a value, but was that I had to be attracted to him in some way. But it didn't have to be, oh, he's so hot. But there had to be something where I was curious about him. And if the person didn't have those four attributes, it was very, very easy to move on because I had to have those four things. I don't want to get two in the weeds, but how did you come to those four things? Because I think a lot of people are like, yeah, I want somebody who's funny. I want somebody who's nice. It's hard to be like, no, these are my non-negotiables. Journal about it over and over and over again. One of the number one questions I get asked is, wait, I already did this prompt. Like, I need a new prompt. No, you don't. You're so different every

single day. And then you're so different every single season. These questions are meant to meet you where you are. So for a couple of years, I had been journaling about what did I want in a partner. And what I watched the list over time evolve from was Ivy League Education makes $250,000, six feet. Like, right? That's where I began. And where I ended was with clarity. I think one of the best things that journaling gives us real clarity and precision about what we want. But it took me getting all that gunk out of my mind onto the page and then kind of mulling on it, like a writing meditation over time. And that's how I came to those four. And I think four is a good number because it really forces you to get to the essentials. Have you heard of best case scenario journaling or Lucky Girl journaling?

No. What is that? It's where you essentially like write out. what you want the best version of something to happen. And like you write it out over and over like, I'm living in this house. I have this job. I have this family life, et cetera, et cetera. And that kind of brings it into being. Do you believe in that? Or is there research behind that? Yeah. So I have a form of journaling called Future You. And there is research, particularly out of Berkeley, your alma mater. A public school. Yeah. That. Berkeley is like one of the fanciest schools that ever existed. I'm honestly really honored that you daint to be my friend as a little public school kid over here. I feel like so embarrassed that you know this about me now that I was such a small.

I think it will speak to a lot of people because it's not only that we're looking for the wrong things, which is limiting ourselves. It's blocking us from getting clear on the real things that actually matter to build a life, which is almost worse than just filtering out guys under six feet. Totally. And to connect it to future you by getting really clear on what it is that you want, you actually make. it more probable that it will happen, right? Because you are writing about it. It is on your radar. I had been writing for years and years and years. This is creepy. Our also mutual friend, Ellen Vora, great. She's a wonderful author, a psychiatrist. She reminded me that for years and years and years I had been talking about and writing about how much I loved trees. And when I first came to my boyfriend, he lived in Mountain View and spent a lot of time in Palo Alto and he immediately

took me to see the Redwoods. And Ellen reminded me, this is what you've been talking about, the trees. Right. I had enormous specificity about this future you version of me would live amongst the redwoods in a house with lots of glass and windows. My job would be to help people to like get to study different modalities and books so that I could help people. I mean, I am living my dream. Well, it's interesting. I had a neuroscientist from Stanford on the podcast and James Doty, and he studies the neuroscience of manifestation. And he talks about how when we get really clear on what we want, we value tag it in our brain. So our brain is more likely to notice when the possibilities and the paths towards these things appear in our lives. Oh, I could totally see that.

My whole worldview was so limited by the terrible marriage of my parents. They had no friends. They hated each other. Family was a curse word. You know, and that was my, that's what love was to me. And until I heard about this idea of an expander list and like go find examples of other ways of living, you know, particularly around dating. Because on the cusp of 40, I had this in me that if I don't find a partner by the time I'm 40, then I'm not valid. I've messed up. There's not going to be anyone for me. I mean, it's totally patriarchy in me, right? Like, it's not factual, but it felt very, very real. So I went out and made an expander list. Salma Hayek didn't meet the love of her life until I think she was like 39 and now they're deeply in love. Eva Mendez didn't meet Ryan Gosling until much later. There's like this long list. Anne Lamont, my favorite writer. If you Google her New York Times vows,

section, it's like the most beautiful, beautiful story about finding love in her, I think it was like her 60s. I found all these examples of people who found love when they were a little more mature, when they knew themselves a little bit better. So when we expand our mind to include what could be possible, it makes it more likely that we'll achieve it because now we even know that's an option. So as you're citing that neuroscientist, that totally makes sense to me. I've kind of heard of expanders. I've used them in my life, but I love the idea of narrowing in on a specific belief you have that's not serving you and then specifically finding expanders to break through that belief. I think that's genius. Yeah, because, you know, here's something that doesn't resonate for me. Have an abundant life and the universe will give you what you need. If only you're open to it. Like, I'm a cynical person. That doesn't work for me at all. But if you give me facts, like on a piece of paper, like nobody. Salma Hyac. St. Salma Hayek, who has this beautiful marriage, didn't, like, for her, it didn't happen

until later in her life. Like, hallelujah, amen, then there's hope for me. So I really think that getting super specific, giving yourself real life examples of whatever limiting belief you have, because it's not BS, right? You said we should journal on the same prompts numerous times. How long do we need to journal every time we journal for maximum results and how often do we need to do it? My answer would be, journal enough. There is no consensus. If I were to cite James Pennebaker's research, that's expressive writing.

What he says is 15 to 20 minutes a day. Now that your eyes just like fucked out. Okay. So I can't write physically for 15. My hand would cramp up at that long. And I know I'm like a writer and that's lame to say but I can I type journal? No.

Sorry. I feel like my hand muscles are not strong enough for this. Then build them up, Liz. build up some hand muscles. It doesn't that feel like an exceptionally long time to you? Do you journal for 15 to 20 minutes every day? Yes. For 15 years.

This cannot be the minimum viable dose. No, no, no, no. The minimum viable dose is something you will do consistently. Because what I'm trying to get people to do is to turn journing from a habit or a chore into a ritual they will look forward to. So if you only have one minute, but you can do it. it one minute with a candle calm in maybe your closet, like if you have a chaotic households, I know of moms who literally have like hid to just like write their one line. It's really more about turning it into something beautiful and delightful. I say design your delight. That's really

more important. So if I were going to prescribe you journaling, I would say what would be just something delightful that you would look forward to every day? You could habit stack it or temptation bundle it to maybe when you have a macha, right? Like a moment with your macha and your journal. And however long that took just to have that moment, that would be the minimum viable journaling. So here's the messed up part about all the research on journaling. It is so all over the place because there is no one technique. And there is no one prescribed amount of time. So it's very hard to compare all these studies. So there is not a consensus. So I just say, what will you actually do, like do what you'll actually do. And then to make it easier in yourself, I think

instead of being vague, like, I'm going to journal this week. I'm going to journal Monday, Wednesday, Friday. For me, the easiest thing to do is journal every day because then I don't have to think about it. It's just like automatic. I promise we're going to get into the different types of journaling because I do think they can be, it's really interesting. There are a bunch of types that I hadn't personally heard of before. And I think that's really clarifying and will help people get into it. But I want to get into first. You mentioned the difference between rituals and habits. And it seems like you think rituals might be the secret to actually achieving our goals, to making our life feel the way that we want it to feel versus a habit perhaps. Can you tell me why? Yeah, absolutely. I am looking

at the research of Michael Norton, who wrote a wonderful book called The Ritual Effect. And basically, we are starving for rituals. We used to have so many rituals in our lives, right? Some were good, like celebrate the harvest. Some were bad, like witch burning. Like, let's not do that ritual. Let's leave that one in the past, right? But even I can remember like 10 years ago, whenever it was a season premiere or a season finale, my friends would come over, we'd make a meal and we'd watch it together. Now, none of us are watching the same TV show. Right? None of us can talk about anything communal. Ritual, who has like any rituals in their lives? You know, we have some that we don't really even think about. For example, if you wear like lucky socks to a game

or the ritual of getting married. But we used to have so many more everyday rituals that really they ask us to pause, reflect, bring some emotion into our lives, some ceremony. So there's a big difference. A habit is something on autopilot. It's basically an if-then statement. If I get in a car, then I'll put on my seatbelt. If I go to the bathroom, then I'll wash my hands. Please, everybody wash your hands, right? That's a habit. A ritual is the furthest thing from being on autopilot, right? It's done with intention. How many people have said to you they wish they were living more intentionally? So many. Everyone, right? Here is an easy hack for living a more intentional life. Have a more intentional moment. Don't make it some much bigger life goal. Start small. For the next five minutes,

my intention is to journal to write down what I am grateful for, to be present. A ritual, you can't also online shop during, right? It requires focus. And so I think if we were to have more rituals in our lives, more moment of pause, more moments that were sacred, Michael Norton uses a great word, enchanted. He says habits automate our lives. Rituals animate our lives. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been

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I get so excited to get into it every single night. It's time to upgrade your sleep with Boland Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at bolandbranch.com slash Liz Moody with code Liz Moody. That's Bolandbranch, B-O-L-L-B-L-B-Ranch.com slash Liz Moody. Use code Liz Moody to unlock 15% off. Exclusions apply. It got me thinking about how all these other things we can. could turn them from I have to do this to I get to enjoy doing this. Many of us are guilty, myself very much included of creating this like laundry list of like, oh, I have to do this every day to be healthy, to be the person that I want to be. And I love the idea of ritualizing. A few of them at least. I don't think all of them. I don't think we need to go that far,

but I think a few of them. I think certainly like working out could have potential. I think meditation was when I was thinking about a lot when I was reading your book because sometimes I'll sit down. I'll be like, okay, it's time to meditate. But blah, but like, Could I, like, spray some room spray? Could I have a cute little corner that I do it? And I think there's these little ways to add a little dose of magic. As my favorite New York housewife, Dorinda would say, make it nice. I'll say for myself, I rush through my day and I'm always behind because I can never get my to-do list done because it's really a wish list of how I'm going to like finish every single thing in the entire world.

And it's never going to happen. So I always feel behind. Every single day I feel behind. at least when I journal, I remember this is not something I have to do. This is something I'm so damn lucky I get to do. And it's a moment for me. Now, I do it in the morning before the day has begun. And it guarantees that no matter what, no matter if I get in a fight with my boyfriend,

if my sister says something weird, if Best Buy delivers the wrong refrigerator, like, no matter what, I'm going to have one delightful moment. What do you do? What's your journaling ritual? I recently moved and there's a fireplace where I move. So I curl up next to the fireplace. I always make myself a witchy brew. So like a fancy coffee. You know, like I'll mix in some cinnamon. I just bought this pistachio milk, which felt very indulgent. So I'll have my coffee. I will turn on the fire because it just is just a switch. I don't have to make a fire. I'll listen to music. I used to. play Parisian, like, jazz because I wanted to pretend I was a 1920s writer. You know, like, you can actually use journaling to live whatever life it is that you imagine. So right now I've been listening to a lot of Spanish guitar music because I was just in Spain and I was so taken. So now every morning is like this like Spanish luxury warmth moment. So is the way to add in ritual, would you say to think about our senses?

Because you named a few there, you were like, what I'm tasting. what I'm feeling the warmth on my skin, what I'm listening to, is if somebody's like, I want to make my workout more of ritual, I don't make my journaling more of ritual. Should we start with our senses? Absolutely. So I give you a ritual worksheet that you could really use for anything you want. I use it in the book for journaling, but yeah, you could totally use it for your workout. It's stuff like, how does it feel? If it was something like workout, what clothes make you feel confident and strong. What environment would you like to run in? You know, you can tweak everything around you to make it more delightful. There are five research-back types of journaling that you share in

your book. Can you kind of briefly walk us through each one and in which case you would utilize it? Yeah. So the very first one is the Morning Pages, which comes from Julia Cameron, my favorite book of all time most influential for my life, the artist's way, highly recommend. And she came up with this technique of the morning pages. And it's basically you write three long hand, no editing, no censoring pages. And it could just be like, I hate journaling. Why am I doing this? My to do list, whatever.

But you're just getting the gunk out of your head first thing in the morning. How I've slightly tweaked this is sometimes it can be very, intimidating to just sit down to like three pages. And so people don't try it. So I really want people to try it because it can be it can be so transformational. So the prompt you could begin with is Dear Journal, today, here is what's in my heart. And I've used that prompt with my journaling club, thousands of people. It is, it's a great prompt to begin that with. At the very top of the page, I write tracking and noticing. You, I know, are always looking for. You, I know, are always looking for. new ways to feel good. You're like very experimental with your life, right? But do you have a way to

track how these things are helping you over time? I didn't. So I would try some new supplement or some new meditation and just guess if it made me feel better or not. Now I just know. So at the top of the page, I write, I'm tracking, let's say meditation and then under it noticing feeling a little calm today. Maybe this is working. So you can really use it as a way to witness. yourself. So I say it's like you're DMing with your soul. Like you're really getting inside who you are. You're being so honest on the page. It's a really beautiful practice. So that's the morning pages. And it's the first one. And I would just say that's for I just want to journal. I just like want to get what's in my head out in the page. Also if it's very chaotic in your mind.

Yeah. That's what I was thinking if you're like ruminating on thoughts. If you're kind of stressed out and you don't know where to put that stress. And maybe there isn't things in your life you can change, but you need to change your relationship with those things. It feels like that would be good for that. Yeah. Out of your head and onto the page where it can be safely contained. I'm actually a nicer person when I DM with my soul, when I do that.

Because then I don't need to vent as much. I've just vented to the page. So that's the very first technique. The second is affect labeling, which research shows brings down our stress response. And I'm not talking your mental stress response, though it does that, but like your physical body, like your blood pressure, your amygdala, like brings down the whole system so that you are a little more emotionally regulated. To do that in the journal, I give you an emotion wheel that I kind of like tweaked. You could Google emotion wheel. Any emotion wheel is going to be pretty good.

And it just gives you vocabulary to write down, what am I feeling? A few years ago, I thought I was just such an anxious person. Oh, I'm just such an anxious person. And I was telling my new psychiatrist, you know, my life is great. Everything's going so well. I have great friends. I'm making amends with my family. I have this great boyfriend. Well, maybe he's like kind of okay. Actually, he like lies to me all the time. And it's not the current boyfriend just to be clear. We love him. Certainly not. And, you know, she looks at me as sort of like psychiatrist's way and she's like, tell me more. Like, well, you know, he says he, is, you know, an heir of a magnate family from the Midwest, but he just borrowed $3,000 from me.

And he said he bought his house, but I know he's renting it. And he said he bought a copy of my book from every single of my first book, Lilies, from every single independent bookstore in America. And when I asked him for a list, because I'm like, that's good information. What's the list of every single bookstore? He was like, oh, it's on my laptop. In a different. different city, you know, like no answer. And so as I'm talking about this, I'm getting worked up, and I'm like, he's just always lying, which makes me feel off-centered, which then I don't know, like my reality is all messed up. And she stopped me and she said, I don't think you're anxious. I think you're furious. I was like, damn. You're right. I am furious. I am furious at being

lied to. And once I could label the emotion, I felt so much better. That's affect labeling in practice. but more than that, I could do differently. Because if I'm just a wash of anxiety, not much to do, right? I can use different anxiety coping mechanisms. But if I know I'm furious, I can do the right thing, which is break up with this dude. We're looking at the feelings wheel in our journal. Are we saying, like, I think I feel this way, but maybe I feel this way? How is it actually working on the page?

Yeah. So you look at the page and can either go outwards. So the primary emotions are kind of in the middle, like joy, sadness. And from that, like from joy, you could chart like feeling optimistic, feeling confident. Or sometimes it feels really hard to name like a big emotion like joy. But if you look on the outside of the wheel, it might say grateful, optimistic, you know, or melancholy, whatever it is. people get really hung up on writing down the perfect emotion and I just want to be like, I love you very much, but you don't have to be perfect. You're getting used to your emotions.

You're getting used to labeling them. So just guess, like, what feels the most right? And then the questions I always ask myself and that are in the journal are, so what am I feeling? One, just do the affect labeling, which is research back. Then two, what are my emotions trying to teach me? Because usually there's like a nice little lesson in there. And then three, how can I best take care of my emotions? It's a very soothing practice. So that's affect labeling. And we know if we need that, how? I think if you're feeling like heightened anxiety. So we're talking about morning pages, you're kind of like in chaos. I think if you're like feeling a sadness or feeling a nervousness or like really feeling something specific, but you might not have the words for it, affect labeling would be great. But it's also just a great practice to do every day.

Just to even chart what is going on in your life. Yeah. Great. So the third is gratitude, which I was the most skeptical of all because it sounds horrible and gross and disgusting. Like, who wants to feel grateful? I didn't. Why is that?

Can I just stop you there? It is interesting because gratitude has like such a cheesy reputation, but it doesn't take very long. It instantly feels good. It feels good for the people we're appreciating if we're appreciating other people. I know a lot of us have this weird aversion to it. What's that about? I think it's the negativity bias. We are just so biased to look at all of the problems in our life. That's your brain working. It's to look for problem, problem, problem, not, wow, how good do I have it. And so that's why gratitude is something you have to practice like a muscle. So you have to get over yourself that this is cheesy. I had to get over myself and then practice it. And so there's a book I love.

by Robert Eamens. He's a gratitude researcher. And I'm going to quote him. I might get this a little wrong. But he says, and this is after like decades of research and all of the studies, he says, gratitude is literally one of the only things you can do to meaningfully make your life better. And it's true because of things like hedonic adaptation. And I'm sure your listeners know all about this. But like, let's say something good happens in your life. You get the promotion. Yay. I finally got it. And then like one month later, you're like, what's next? Where's my next promotion? We adapt to whatever circumstance we're in.

So the major finding that Robert Eamens had was that the hack here is to be grateful for what you already have. You have to reorient yourself to your reality of how good your life is. And most of us have something to be grateful for if only, oh my God, I woke up today. Like, I don't want to get too cheesy, but that's huge. To wake up is like a big effing deal. I would even add to that, you and I have both been in circumstances where that didn't feel like a good thing. And so I would say that to want to wake up is something to be grateful for too.

Oh, I love that. That is really beautiful. What is your gratitude practice? So right now I am practicing comparison detox because, as you know, we have a lot of friends who are influencers, thought leaders, and they have way more followers than me and bigger advances on their books and they seem so much more fancy. And I can really get caught up looking at what they have and then feeling bad about myself about what I don't have. A comparison detox is a gratitude practice that just like neutralizes that. And this is like crazy effective I've found. Look at the other person, right?

And then remember how good I have it. So let me use, I'll use a real example from my brain from the past. There was this, oh my God, I have to hide her a little bit. Okay. Yeah, I was like, are you going to name a name? This is exciting. Name and names. But there was somebody who was a little younger than me who had the career that I wanted.

And it just seemed to come so easily. to her and everyone thought she was so smart and so prestigious and immediately got a movie deal off her book and it was just driving me insane. And so I had to look at her and flip the narrative completely, which was she has all these things that is not against me. That is evidence that I can have them to. It is proof that those things exist. She is a human. I am a human. I don't know how she got there, but oh my God, yay, proof that I can have what I want. So that's like the U-turn I make. I also then find gratitude for what I already have, which is at that point, I had just sold my first book.

I didn't ever think I could sell a book, right? I used, it's called contrast thinking when you think about the past and then you think about where you are now. So a comparison detox, we take that U-turn. We feel grateful for what we already have, which we know is one of the only ways we can make ourselves happier. And my kind of twist on this is then when I'm not in such a scarcity, petty, oh my God, I hate that girl mindset, I might reach out to her and ask her for some advice, right? And realize she's not my enemy. This isn't a zero-sum game. There's enough for all of us.

There is plenty. And so I actually now have found myself more collaborating with the people I'm a little bit jealous of. What if you're jealous of things that don't feel accessible to you? Like I'm jealous of Alex Earl. And even if I become much bigger on social media, I'm never going to probably go on Dancing with the Stars and have millions of followers. I'm jealous of somebody with inherited wealth. And that ship has sailed for me.

Or I'm jealous of somebody who has much more pretty privilege than me. What do we do then? We remember that we're not mind readers, that we have no idea at all what is going on inside of that person's head. We want those things, right? Because we think they're going to bring us happiness. We literally don't know if those things. brought that person happiness. In fact, I've been introduced to some very, very wealthy people.

By and large, they're the most miserable people I know. I can really only think of one extremely wealthy person who I would say is like very, very happy. And nobody wants to hear that because it would be so nice if money did by happiness. But in my lived experience, I have not seen that to be the case. So we need to remember we don't know what it's like to walk one step. in that person's shoes. We shouldn't be making assumptions. Our path might be different. That doesn't make it bad. It's the same thing I was talking about with love. It's inevitable that you Liz Moody, because, and shout out to Liz Moody here, who's my actual friend from actual real life, who I actually see walk the walk every single day. You are so kind. You're always experimenting with a

better way to live. You love your audience. Like, I know this from being with you so often. it is inevitable that if you follow that path, something beautiful, something is going to bloom out of that because why wouldn't it? Right? So I remind myself, that's inevitable. It is wild to me that you don't think you're an optimist. No, I think of myself as a pessimist and a note of life. It's insane. If somebody wanted to start integrating a gratitude practice and they just kind of had had the ick with it before or they felt like they were saying the same things all the time. Can you just give them like an easy entry point? Yeah. The pumpkin spice latte of gratitude practice. Basic A.F. But delicious. Just write five things you're grateful for, but not ironically. Like don't come up with some like, yeah, I'm grateful that my ex-boyfriend did this because that showed me X, Y, Z.

No, like, grateful that my sister called me on the phone, you know, and things outside of yourself. So not grateful for. like my looks or something like internal. But I would also focus on relationships. Relational gratitude is one of the most effective kinds of gratitude. So maybe write down five people in your life you're grateful for. And this doesn't need to be like a wild, intimate. This is the most important person. I am grateful that this weekend I called a TV mounting company.

And within a half an hour, they had someone and this come to my house. And this guy couldn't have been nicer. He was so professional. He was so kind. He was in and out. He saved me 50 bucks. I am so grateful for him. So this doesn't need to be some like huge, like deeply emotional thing.

Just five things are people you're grateful for. Okay. Number four. Number four. Expressive writing, which was created by James Pennebaker. Now, this is the most studied form of journaling. and it is like it is wild the effects. So like I used to be an executive in Hollywood, right?

And if someone would put in this script something that was real but seemed like too crazy to believe, I'd be like, don't put that in the script. I know it's real, but don't put in the script. I didn't put in certain studies in the journal because they were just like too wild to imagine they could be true. Like I'm not going to cite many of the studies because I'm like, No one will believe this. But like, go Google it. Expressive writing, super effective for getting over trauma, for getting over the worst things that happened to us. So I don't think he ever called it the Penne Baker Protocol, but I wanted to have that fancy word protocol somewhere in the journal.

So I called it Penne Baker Protocol. The alliteration is nice. Right? Yeah. What he says you do is you write down the most upsetting, terrible things. that have ever happened to you, like focus on one terrible event. I'm trying to think of like getting laid off for me. Like for me, my seizure.

Yes. So you'd write about that experience. You would write about how you felt about it. You'd narrate it, you know, beginning, middle, and end. You would do it four times for 15 to 20 minutes each time. It could be like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or it could be like one day every week this month. So it really, it could be either of those things. You will feel bad immediately after writing.

Like the studies, the research is clear, most people feel bad like you would after you see a sad movie. Your emotions will be down. So you really need to have some buffer time afterwards. But over the long haul, people feel much better. Like you're able to bring down the negative emotions you feel about that event. And honest to God, I think this is why I have so much peace. with my childhood is because I basically did expressive writing for everything for years. And now things that like anyone would consider pretty traumatic, they don't really like bother me.

I would say though a few caveats. One, some of the research is not definitive, but some of the research says you shouldn't do it about something recent. Right? So this isn't, oh my God, I just got in a fight with my boyfriend. I'm going to write about it. How far back are we talking? Like a few months. It is not conclusive.

But it does make sense to me because what you don't want to do is start ruminating. And that's the danger. Another thing is you shouldn't express a right about something that makes you really mad from today. Like if someone cut me off on the freeway, this isn't a big deal. I'm not going to remember it in, you know, a year. This is like those really ingrained traumatic experiences that we've had. Exactly. So that's one caveat. The second caveat would be if it is too overwhelming and outside of what is referred to as your window of tolerance, like if you're just crying and it's upsetting and there's no reason, like journaling should never be a horrible experience. And so you really have to kind of fine tune. Am I helping myself? Is this the good kind of getting my emotions out where I'm moving through something? Or am I just putting myself through pain. And so if you even think, oh, maybe I'm erring on the side of putting

myself through pain, don't do it. You know, skip to another, skip to another horrible memory, because we all have so many of them. But expressive writing really just wildly helpful. I use expressive writing in my own coaching community. And I had one woman who she came to me, she had a horrible experience as a young woman that she really couldn't talk about. It felt like a secret. And there's really interesting research out of Columbia University, Michael Slepian, about secrets. So people used to think that the real problem with secrets is that they're a stress around the body, like suppressing something feels bad. But in his research, what he found is that one of the main problems with keeping secrets is it isolates us, makes us feel ashamed,

and makes it more secretive, right? Because if we feel ashamed of this thing, we're just going inwards and inwards and inwards. Expressive writing gets it out on the page where nobody's judging you. Right. So what she was able to do is she started narrating her own story. She didn't have to tell it to me. She just had to write it down. As she wrote it down, it became clearer and clearer and clearer, the timeline, the perspective. And when our brains know the beginning, middle and end. We do feel better. She had ownership over the story. And over the past year, I've watched her go from unable to talk about it to openly talking about it and asking for help and advice. So I've really seen the power of expressive writing. Which really alleviates the power

that that story has over you. I experienced that, honestly, with my seizure. For years, I would not tell anybody about it. I couldn't even say the word seizure. And then I remember still the first person that I told about it who wasn't Zach was my roommate in London. She was like, oh, something like that happened to my boyfriend. And I was like, I thought you were going to think something that was like, wrong with me. This story had so much power over me. And her first thing she said was like, you're not alone in this. And it's so brave. Like what you did by saying it out loud takes actual courage, right? We're afraid of the consequences. And particularly in talking to somebody else, we're afraid of being outcasts, right?

Being told we're more isolated. So when I hear a story like that or I think of this woman who just did this work, first off, I'm like, hell yeah, way to like get brave and say something out loud. And it really makes sense to me, Michael Slepian's research on this, that it just makes us feel so much more ashamed than we need to. So she actually told her story to the rest of the coaching community. What do you think the other women said? basically everyone was like, I can relate. I had something similar. Someone of my family had something

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headaches. It does not give me rashes or itchiness from clothes because you are. Remember, we're using this for laundry. We're using this for literally everything. And it works so well. Everything gets so clean. And I know that I'm protecting myself from all of those long-term issues too. And I'm protecting my kittens who are much tinier than me. So anything they're exposed to has a much greater impact on their little tiny systems. And they're running around on their little paws and then they're licking them. So I'm protecting them too. Brandt Basics is now available at Target. Amazon and branchbasics.com. So it's easier than ever to make the switch. And if you want to grab their premium starter kit, you can use code Liz Moody for 15% off at branchbasics.com. That's code Liz Moody for

15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is branch basics.com and use code Liz Moody. Number five. Number five, nighttime journaling. I call this the evening down. And I have a few techniques in the journal for how you can do this. Two, I want to talk about. One is a peace treaty with anxiety. So sometimes I'll have like a pretty good day. And then the moment I get into bed and I just really want to go to sleep.

I was like, please bring sweet sleep. I get in bed and all of a sudden I'm like, oh my God, you need to pay your car bill. Oh my God. You need to pay your car registration. Oh my God. USPS won't process my change of address. This is all like deep life examples. Yeah, right? This is like last night. And so what I'll do is I will write down something like Dear Anxiety, thank you for reminding me that due to a clerical error, I cannot change my

address. And now all of my mail is going to the wrong place. Totally get it, totally hear you. I will deal with you tomorrow. Voice inside my head that says that I am a loser and because I said that in front of so-and-so, they think I'm dumb, totally hear you, totally respect it. Probably not that big of a deal, but let's get to you tomorrow. Just list them. Again, it has that effective affective affect labeling where you're just naming stuff, makes it feel better. But here's the like further hack.

There's research that if you were to take all your anxieties and your worries and crumple it up into a ball and throw the ball in the trash, like create a little ritual, of getting rid of it, it's even more effective. So if you're, everyone should try this. If you're having trouble sleeping, do a peace treaty with anxiety. So this last nighttime journaling technique is my secret sauce. This is like my special little gem that has made my life a lot better. Before I go to bed at night, I ask myself four questions. One, what even happened today? Like, what were the main events because I can live a life where I am completely on autopilot and I'm just barreling from one urgent email to the next. This makes me back up and remember, oh, I saw my

physical therapist, Amy, who is really kind. Oh, I drove over to Liz and Zach's house and did Liz's podcast. What is special, right? It makes you pause and remember, oh, like, what were the special things that happened today? Two, I ask myself, am I living my life the way I want to, and if not, what can I change? Now, I use that question lightly. Like, this is not a time for self-criticism. This is just kind of like an honest accounting. And it's really helpful because over time, if you find you're answering, no, no, I'm not living the way I want to. It gives you a good reason to do something about it. The third question I ask is, did I help any other people? Was I a good member of the society? And then the fourth question is,

did other people help me? And just to remember right before you go to bed, that no matter your circumstances, probably there are people in your life helping you, that you are connected to other people, that they do care, even if it's just the guy who came to mount my TV. That's a win!

And that's just such a beautiful way to go to sleep. If you're nighttime journaling, are you doing the whole ritual around it? Like, are you still getting a cozy drink and like lighting a fire and all of that. You are if you want the most divine experience of your life. Okay. Are you?

Yes. Because I have a nighttime ritual. And so I incorporate the journaling into it. And that is I have a cup of tea basically every night before I go to bed. So I'll make myself some camomimele, some mint. I'll sit down in a very cozy throw blanket and I'll write these out. So yes, I have an evening ritual, but for completely other reasons, which was getting over insomnia. It was very helpful.

and then I'm just adding the journaling to it. And so are you morning journaling and nighttime journaling most days or just as needed? No, just as needed. I have a self-compassion rule, which is if I don't journal, like if I skip a day, tomorrow, at least I'll journal one line. Right. Just make it easy to get back on your ritual. Don't make it too painful. But it's really important to have self-compassion that journaling is something really nice you get to do.

thus you never have to beat yourself up. If you miss a day or you miss a week, you can just return to it. So your practice is most mornings and occasional evenings? Most mornings. And then it's funny, if I'm in a really good place, then every evening. Like if I'm just in like, life is great, you know, then I like want to like think about all the people who help me. And then when life is horrible and I'm really stressed out, I also find myself nighttime

journaling. But when I'm in the middle, it's mostly just. the mornings. I'm going to give you a little quick fire. I'm going to share some common hurdles that people run into when they're trying to figure out their goals and when they're trying to create their dream lives. And I would love to know just one piece of advice for overcoming that thing, whether it's a specific journaling practice or just any other taro wisdom. I don't even know what I want, so I don't know how to go after it. I bet you know way more than you think you know, just start writing, just go. We think we don't know anything. We don't know what we want. We don't

or thinking, and then we spend like two minutes putting what's in our heads on the paper, and we learn something about ourselves. How do I narrow down my life path when I want a million different things? You have to prioritize. So I use a values filter not only for finding a boyfriend, but for projects. Like, what am I going to do? It has to be within my four values or it's just a no. Wait, are those different values than the boyfriend values?

Yeah. Okay. What are your values you filter your life through? So they can shift because again like different seasons, different things are important to us. So my first value is relationships, which means I put seeing you Liz above a lot of other things, right? Being good to my friends going out. That's number one. Number two is health because if I don't have health, I don't have anything. So today I did not have time, but I went to physical therapy anyway because I need to fix my knee. Three is curiosity. I love to learn. It is my favorite thing to do in the entire world.

Currently, I am learning about Aristotle. He wrote the world's first self-help book, and I am doing a line by line reading of it. I just love learning. And then the fourth is creativity. I love translating all these different things that I'm learning into something else. So now when I pick projects, it has to have some element that's relationships. So that could be like community or it brings me closer to somebody that I want to be close to, health, it cannot stress me out to the point that. It's damaging your health. Yeah, it's damaging my health. That's the hardest one. That's like my albatross around my neck. Like I would say that's, that's, I would say as your friend, you have room to grow there. You're like, needs improvement. No, I think there's,

there's beautiful room for evolution. Yeah. Yeah. And I would agree with that. And then it has to somehow I have to be able to learn from it. And somehow I have to be able to like make something of it. So it's a really good way to get over decision fatigue because I don't have to think. If it doesn't have those four things, I'm not interested. Wait, so you recommend we have a values filter for our partner and essentially for like our lives. Are there any other values filters we should be having? No, those are really the two big ones. And I used to teach in my coaching community the values filter purely for decisions for what am I doing. Should I say yes? Should I say no? It wasn't until later when I realized, wait a minute, this value filter is making my whole life clearer and easier. Why don't I

look for the values in the other person? And you had some overlap. I think curiosity was on both, which is interesting. Okay. I feel behind in life and like I can't catch up no matter what I do. Nobody can catch up. Everybody is upset. I just have just have like gotten over it. I have decided I am going to be a failure in a lot of things. So right now, I'm a failure in my house being clean. It is not. I am a failure in opening the mail. It is not going to be open. But I'm a winner in relationships, friendships, writing. I really just don't think you can be like the A plus student and everything. So I just pick. Right now, I am a failure on eating really healthy food. Right. I just, I moved like four times. It's okay. That's fine. I, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

What if I'm not good enough to do the thing that I actually want? Well, that question kind of tells me you haven't tried. Like, what if? What if? Okay, fine. Who cares? Try. Like, go find out.

Go see. What you learn is your fears are usually much worse than the actual reality. A lot of what I do in coaching is just bring people back to reality. Like, they're so afraid if they quit their job, they're going to lose all their money, and then they're going to be homeless, and then they're going to die. Right, they spiral. When in reality, if we just brought it back to reality, probably not. that bad. Probably they would figure it out. So our fears of failure often, they really poison us. So I would

say, don't think about like the very, very big goal. Like if I had thought about writing a book, like as the big goal, that's really hard. But if I can think about writing a chapter, just making it much, much smaller. Or just writing. Yeah. Anything. Literally writing a certain amount every day. Right. So I would just say, go as incremental as you possibly can and don't worry about the big goal at the end. I don't have the time, money or energy to go after my big dreams. Do you have the time, money or energy to be on Instagram? I'm not kidding. Two things, harsh reality. Let me start with the harsh reality. All we have is this amount of time. So if you're not going to use it and you're not going to go after your dreams, you're never going to achieve your dreams. That's true.

And so it is urgent that you live your life in a way where your life was worthwhile. You can't let, like, there are lots of problems and there's systematic injustice. We can't change the entire world. We usually can change very small things in our day, like not doom scrolling, right? Getting back some of our time from people who drain our energy. There is usually something you can do within your day to help yourself, but a lot of us don't because of learned helplessness. over time we've just seen, oh, I can't make my situation better so I won't try, which just makes your situation worse and convinces you further that you can't do anything.

The number one thing I wish we all did was claim our agency a little more, that yes, the world has enormous pressure and enormous forces on us. And if this is the only time we ever get, we better try to use it pretty wisely. I feel really stuck with a big decision I have to make. I would lower the stakes. There just aren't that many decisions that are irreversible. So bring down the stakes and remember like, okay, even if I choose the wrong thing, I'm probably going to learn.

Like, this is my whole take on mistakes. Mistakes basically don't exist. Because if you choose quote unquote wrong, you learn something and you usually have another shot where you're going to be able to use that information. And if you make a mistake, okay, you're a human. Get in line. The rest of us make mistakes all the time. So really lowering the stakes and then those big ones like, am I going to have kids or am I not?

I like to journal about those things. And I also like to remember that everybody has trouble with those really, really big things. But as we get to know ourselves more, like using a values filter, journaling, spending time with our ritual with ourselves. In my experience, I have way less of those moments of like, oh, oh, I really don't know what to do because I just know myself a lot better. Do you have preferred journaling techniques for decision making? I assume you're doing something cooler than like just making pros and cons list. Values filter.

Does this line up with my values? Let's take a really big one. Kids. Right now does not line up with my values. Like I'm scared for health reasons. I just met somebody and I want to spend a lot of time with him. That's the relationship quadrant. I'm really in my creativity.

So right now, the answer is no. It doesn't line up with my current values. In like three months, that might change, right? Like, your values are flexible to whatever season you're in. But I really, like, cannot stress how much easier a values filter has made my life. Let's do the people in my life don't support my dreams. Two things. One, is that true?

We make up a lot of stories about what the people in our life. think, believe, do, right? And then we don't ask them. We don't express anything. So let's say I think a friend doesn't support that I'm going to write a book. I'd say, and this would never be you, Liz, but just for the example, hey Liz, when you don't ask me any follow-up questions about the book I want to write, the story I make up in my head is that you don't support me in writing a book or you don't think it's a good idea. How does that land with you? And then you shut up you sit back and you let the other person talk. And a lot of the time what you're going to,

you're going to find out some really interesting information. And a lot of the time, it's not that they don't support you. It's that they're afraid for you. Or they have their own hangups or something else. So one is don't assume, ask. And if you ask and they really don't support you, that is not your friend. That person should for sure not be the person. you're going to for advice or validation.

Like that is clear. I don't know whether or not you need them in your life. Like that's a much bigger question. But I do think that's important that you can segment it too. Like maybe it's somebody you have to have interaction with for whatever reason. They're family. They're in your life in some way. You don't have to bring that part of yourself to them.

You don't owe all of yourself to every single person you're going to interact with. No. And like we are so many different selves. There are so many different parts of us. I don't, how I show up with you. is very different than how I show up with my boyfriend. That doesn't mean I'm inauthentic. That means I'm just different in different situations.

So stuff I'd go to you with, I might not go to him with and vice versa. So yeah, really knowing, is this person somebody who it would be appropriate? In the past, I wouldn't have brought my dreams to my dad because he would just kill them. He'd say, that's a bad idea. Now I know why he was doing that. He was just afraid for me. He was afraid that if I was a writer, that I would fail, et cetera. It was his own fears, not that he really genuinely didn't support me.

So it was very important for me at that time never to bring a fledgling idea to him. Now, after how many years of therapy have I been in, how much journaling have I done, and how much joint therapy do I do with my dad? I actually don't feel that way. Our relationship is very different, and I can bring it to him. But it's very important that you are really cautious. of is this like in my best interest to bring this idea to somebody else? Because I've also seen over and over again people bring their dreams to to the person who will say that's a bad

idea, that's terrible, because they're trying to win them over. Or I'm like, are they subconsciously looking for a way out? Totally. Like so many reasons why don't go to that person. You can't win them over and that's a really bad way to get out. Get out because you don't want to do it, not because you're looking for a way to self-sabotage. So those are the two things. One, don't assume, you know, what's going on in the other person's head. And two, choose wisely and understand for yourself

why you're bringing your dream, your goal to this person. That is such good advice. That lands with me for sure. You work with thousands of different people. Are there any other limiting beliefs or hurdles other than the ones that I just went through that you see people running into when they're trying to create the life of their dreams. Yeah, absolutely. I hear I'm not enough. I don't do enough. Nobody loves me. Nobody cares about me. There's something inherently wrong with me. And while it is sad to hear those things,

it's also very like, I don't know, life giving because you realize we all have the same hangups. And most people feel exactly the way you feel. And I have one answer to all of those, which is, I call it affirmation. scaffolding when I was laid off and it was very laid off and I was very depressed and I thought, I'm never going to get a job again. Something's wrong with me. Nobody's going to hire me. Right. That was the internal monologue. Okay. An affirmation like, you're going to get the job of your dreams and make a million dollars. Just was like, go away. So I started at the bottom of the barrel, at the bottom of the scaffold with it is most likely that before the end of time, I will find a job again. and I brought myself to reality a little bit more.

Then it was, okay, before the end of time, it is most likely I'm going to find a job again, and I might even like it. Oh, okay, yeah, I might even like it. I might even be good at my job. Yeah, some of the time I'm really good at my job. We need to reorient ourselves to reality because those thoughts like those blanket absolute statements,

like, I am not enough, nobody cares about me. Those should be like red lights going off in your head of, I'm catastrophizing, this is not real, It might feel real, not real. And the best way I have found to sort of get myself out of that is just to meet myself where I am, which is usually at the bottom of the barrel, and like work my way up little by little back to reality. I love that. If somebody wanted to feel better tomorrow as quickly as possible, what are three things that you would recommend that they do today? Affect label.

Just boom. Affick label, a lot of science behind it. Move your body. As much as you are able, moving my body every day is the number one way that I feel better. Third thing, be with a friend, reach out to a friend, be in relation to somebody. Those three things together, potent. What is one homework assignment, something that we can do as soon as we turn off this podcast that can help us make 2026 the best year of our lives? I want to give a hard homework assignment, but then I don't know if anyone would do it.

You could do like level one, level two if you want. Okay, I'm going to give a level one, level two. No one is better or worse. Like, they're both great. No, no, no. Just one is like, I'm a very intense person, as you know, and I'm like, oh, I want to like dive into things. And if you're that kind of person. If you're a dive into things kind of person, write your values filter.

How? Go Google values. Just go get a list of values. Take a look at it and spend some time just thinking, what are the four most important things to me this season in my life? No, you can't have five. No, you can't have five. know you can't have six. I know it's hard to narrow it down, narrow it down to four. And no, you can reevaluate in like four months. It's just this season. So it would be just to get

aware of your values. Like I'm not even saying go use the values filter. I'm just saying get aware of your values. Level one would be just answer the prompt. Dear universe, dear journal, dear world, here is what I feel in my heart today. And even if you only wrote one sentence, you've just taken a pretty big step in getting to know yourself. Tara, I am so proud of you for creating this incredible book. This book is so much more than it needed to be, as we've talked about. Can you tell everybody in your own words about this journal Effing Works? Yes, Liz knows very well that this journal drove me into madness, essentially.

Penguin Random House came to me, and they were like, hey, will you write us a journal? And I was like, yeah, yeah, sure. I'll write you an extensively researched book about journaling that is also a journal. And they were like, cool, cool, cool. Can you write us a journal? And I'm like, yes, I will write you the best book that has ever been written by any human being about journaling that will also be a journal. And I couldn't. And like, I give them all these pages and they'd be like, dude, we just wanted.

We're like some smiley faces and hearts on a page. And you were like, here's all the research that has ever been conducted about journaling. Exactly. And like my friends could not understand why this. journal was such a like huge undertaking for me because I have a journaling club. I literally already had thousands of prompts. The reason I did what I did was I wanted to write the tool that would have helped me from day one. Journaling has, I'm not going to say change my life. I'm going to say saved my life. First off, I'm an intense person. No one has ever called me chill, not even one time.

So, I mean, maybe one time, but not really. So I really went on a mission to bring together the best research I could possibly find, translate it into the easiest possible way to understand it, try to make it funny and entertaining. That was really, really hard. And it was a really hard year to write this journal. I am not going to lie. But now I look at it and I'm like, it's so beautiful. It's so, like, I think it's really hard.

really helpful and yeah it is just gorgeous whatever you think this book is it's like 20 times more than this book is um if people want more from you where can they find you so if they go to tarasheuster com that's s c h us tern.com slash liz i've created a 14-day totally manageable journaling challenge where you can journal with me and like i'll send you prompts literally write to me reply like i'm a person and I really want people to journal and I will get to as much as I possibly can, people who come to my newsletter. I read and reply every single comment on the newsletter. So yes, go to tar-shooster dot com slash Liz and just try journaling. You said earlier that we needed to be handwriting, but there we're typing our response. Can we type our journals if we want to? No. Not at all.

Here's my take on this. So many people want typing to be the thing that a lot of people are like skew the research and just say, typing is the same as handwriting. But there's also a lot of research that says no. One study in particular I'm thinking of when students were at a lecture and some were typing what they were hearing versus some were writing. And it's the difference between transcribing and processing. So the people who were typing were just transcribing. what the professor said. The people who were writing have to slow down. They have to prioritize.

What's the most important thing here? And they thus process and had better comprehension. I know. Roll your eyes. But some journaling, like if it's the only way you're going to do it is typing, that's got to be better than. Okay. One, if the only way you're going to do this journaling, which I really hope you do, is typing. Go for it. Hallelujah, amen. Bless you. So into it. Two. If you want a little extra spice, a little kick to your journaling, handwriting. And the added benefit is you'll have stronger hands. Thank you, Tara. This is amazing. Thank you, Liz. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, go ahead and follow on Apple or Spotify or subscribe on YouTube and hit that notification bell so you never miss a new episode. And if there's somebody in your life you think would benefit from this episode, send them a quick link.

it is the best way to support the podcast, and it is so, so appreciated. And if you're watching this, drop me a comment. I would love to hear your thoughts and what resonated most with you. Thanks again for being here. I feel so lucky that I get to grow and learn and share with you, and I will see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.