The Wellness Scoop - Elizabeth Day: letting go of expectation and going after the life you truly desire

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

This week Ella is joined by Elizabeth Day for an empowering conversation on releasing societal pressures, navigating life’s ups and downs and how Elizabeth kept moving forwards when things don’t go to plan, plus the tools that supported her to embrace failure, imperfections, and chase the life she truly desired.   They discuss: Societal expectations to have the ‘perfect’ life People pleasing to fit in Cultivating deep friendships Finding the courage to go after the life you desire Gut instincts Discovering what you need rather than what you want The inner work crucial for moving forwards Turning physical strength into mental resilience Elizabeth’s non-negotiables for feeling well   Links: Elizabeth’s podcast How To Fail Elizabeth’s latest book Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict For new subscribers, use code podcast20 to get 20% off the Feel Better App  Wellness Toolkit for this episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online, and sign-up only takes a few minutes.

Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com. Quick favor, could you hit the subscribe button? It really helps get the show out there so that more people can be inspired by the personal growth that our guests are talking about and take those lessons into their own lives. Welcome to Wellness with Ella, the Deliciously Ella podcast. This is a podcast that aims to inspire you, to empower you, to leave you feeling uplifted. And each week I want to share what wellness really looks like as we unpack the simple tools that have helped each one of our guests turn a negative into a positive and unlock true happiness and genuine health and by health I don't mean how they look I mean their energy their excitement their fulfillment the question is

how can we all get more from life I think today's guest is someone many of you may know very well and may really really look up to I know I certainly do and lots of my friends and colleagues are the same I think most of us have probably been guilty of thinking that there is one version of success there is one trajectory that our lives should be on and it puts a huge amount of pressure on us and what happens when we release that pressure and I think in that path again we're often guilty of failing to explore our failures or our mistakes I think the question is how can we learn from those instead and be completely honest with ourselves about where we're at you know what happens when life doesn't quite go as we expect it to could that actually be a blessing even when it doesn't feel like it

at the time? And that's exactly the case for my guest today. The moment that her life should have been exactly as she wanted it to be was the moment life seemingly imploded. And it seems to me, and by all accounts, she's infinitely happier and living a much more fulfilled life as a result. So my guest is Elizabeth Day, best known for her podcast and her book, How to Fail. It was a very genuine conversation about some of the biggest challenges in her life, the biggest moments of reflection and what she's learned from those and how you really can find happiness outside of societal expectations and what happens when you're genuine and authentic and how much more fulfilling things can be. So I hope you enjoy the episode. Let's get into it. Well, Elizabeth, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me. I love coming on your shows. I'm your number one fan, obviously, as you know. I've listened to like every podcast episode you've ever done, but mostly I just love the last five years talking so much to different scientists and doctors and neuroscientists about the ins and outs of wellness and well-being and it's been so fascinating but I think what I've really come to believe is that people are also so inspired by people and I think we talk so much about the science and the reason why sleep's so good for us or the reason that meditation is so good for us or yoga or whatever it is but I think understanding the practical applications of it is so important you know we all go through difficult periods in our life and obviously that exists on a continuum sometimes it's one big catalyst sometimes it's small events that build up to a moment where you want to make a change in your life and how do you actually make that change and then how do you

keep looking after your well-being on a day-to-day basis and my passionate belief is that I think we frame wellness in the wrong way we frame it as quite an aesthetic pursue as this kind of perfect picture of becoming this person but actually it's to get more from every day to feel the most comfortable in ourselves to be the best version of ourselves just because we feel healthier we feel happier we feel like we've got more to give and more calm and more clarity so that's what we're digging off that into today and obviously from the outside you know I'm sure pretty much everyone listening has come across how to fail it's the most incredible premise as I said and they'll know you as this wildly successful author and podcast host. But I'd

love it if you could introduce yourself, Elizabeth Day, as you, you know, what would you like people to know about you? Well, first of all, I could not agree more about the wellness, because it really ties in with what I try to do with How To Fail, which is to show people as they really are. And I think both wellness and a kind of mental resilience is for me about becoming more myself. I mean, that's been the aging process for me. So if I were to introduce myself, I think I would say I am passionate about telling stories. I write and I broadcast, but really the meaning of life for me is connection and connecting with other people. And any way that I can do that is what brings me joy. And the other things that you

need to know about me are that I'm an inveterate fan of The Real Housewives. I love cats and have a ginger cat called Huxley. And I suppose I should mention my husband. And I'm married for the second time to a wonderful man. And I'm a big believer in second marriages, partly because of everything I said about failure, that we both learned a lot from the first marriages that we were both in, and we're able to bring that acquired data into our relationship. And so that's why I'm really passionate about what you're doing, because imperfection isn't defining. In fact, we can learn and grow from it. Oh my gosh, so much so. And I think that's something that we don't talk about enough. And I think that's one of the topics I really want to delve into today is this,

the pressures we put on ourselves that society puts on us to be these certain people and these moments where we think I don't want to be this person anymore I'm really struggling how do I make a change but before we get into that how are you how are you kind of really doing today I'm actually really good today you feel like you're doing so well you're radiating that that is so nice of you I have had quite a tough few weeks for various reasons. And if I can talk very vaguely about it, because part of my mental health around fertility, so I'm going through fertility treatment, but part of preserving my mental health is not talking too much about it and keeping it private. But there's just been a lot of having to chase results and communicating

with various clinics. And now I'm finally like in it. And so today's the first day where I feel like there's a plan, there's a strategy, and I'm actively doing something towards this beautiful gift that I've been yearning for for so long. So I feel really good in that respect. And I slept so well last night, which makes all the difference. I'm a huge believer in the power of sleep. And I think yesterday evening, I went to a carol service. We were recording just before Christmas. We went to this very moving charity carol service, sang Christmas carols. And it felt like a really wholesome night. Went home, had some chicken soup, and then just slept the sleep of the righteous.

So today I feel really good. And the weather is beautiful too. It is so beautiful, isn't it? I know. I'm actually a massive proponent of the fact that sleep is the foundation of health. I think when you don't sleep well, everything falls apart. And I know it's not always easy to sleep well, but I think that we, as part of this podcast, is all about all the things that we don't appreciate enough in our wellbeing. I think think sleep is top of that list I think so too and also staying in bed or going to bed when you possibly can and as you say it's not easy for everyone and it's much easier for me because I don't have children yet but that thing of feeling any sort of shame or guilt about staying in bed slightly longer than you should, I think should be banished and destigmatized. Rest is totally key for me. Rest and hydration.

No, it's the whole kind of hustle harder culture. And I guess actually, honestly, inadvertently, that's led us to the perfect starting point, which is what I'm fascinated by is these moments where we start to realize we want to change our life but it sounds to me like you kind of that was almost like a decade-long process for you starting in your 20s and I think what I'm curious about there is from my understanding you had kind of the perfect job the dream job on paper people would say oh everything's fantastic for Elizabeth but in reality you were really struggling and I wonder if we could start there and take it back to understand kind of how were you feeling at that

time and this kind of contrast of the perfect life what you're aiming for and then how you really feel of course yes so I have been a people pleaser for a lot of my life and I think that started as with many people quite early on when I realized that in order to get teacher's approval, I should work hard and do well at exams if I possibly could. And then that became this cycle of being incredibly conscientious and well-behaved and getting appropriately good results and being rewarded in some way for it. So I carried that mindset through school into university. And then after university, you're launched into this adult world where there are no exams that you can sit to show that you're doing a good job being a grown-up. And suddenly, the cycle

of effort and reward that I had found myself in wasn't working in the same way. So I did get what was my dream job as a news reporter on a Sunday newspaper. And I worked incredibly hard in the hopes that I would eventually be rewarded with the promotion that I wanted to become a feature writer because I always wanted to do more writing rather than reporting. And the newspaper that I was working for was going through a time of intense transition and there were editors fired and new ones hired. And the newspaper that I was working for was going through a time of intense transition and there were editors fired and new ones hired. And every single time a new editor started, I felt like I would slip back into the role that I'd started in. And at the same time as this was happening, I was paying rent on a house sharing, Clapham, South London. So I was having to earn

enough money to support myself. I was also in a series of long-term monogamous relationships, one after the other. I described them a bit like mini marriages, where they were very serious relationships. So I wasn't getting any of the joy of being footloose and fancy free, which is what all the TV shows sort of said that I should be doing in my 20s. And so then there was a feeling of not doing my 20s right. And then you go out at the weekend and you kind of pretend to have a great time. And sometimes you do. I don't want to be all doom and gloom about it, but sometimes you feel like lost in a crowd. I think that's how I would describe most of my 20s. And at the same time, I had really good friends. I did have this good job and I was supporting myself, but something wasn't

gelling. And when I was 27, I vividly remember crying every morning before I went into work. And I wouldn't have described myself as sad. I wouldn't have described myself as depressed, but I was crying every morning before going into work. And I was like, this isn't right. And I think I should seek some some help and I'm very grateful to a very good friend of mine Claire who she had just started having therapy and so she passed on the number of her therapist because it can be quite scary to take that first step but she made it easier for me and so I remember picking up the phone and speaking to this therapist and I went and had therapy for the first time in my life. And it really, really helped me.

And that was a crucial turning point. But although it was a turning point in making me aware of how important it was to safeguard mental health and to be able to talk to someone about what you're going through who isn't intimately related to the rest of your life. I carried on making mistakes and I had another big turning point in my 30s which perhaps we'll come on to but definitely that was the feeling of my 20s. And did you feel because I think this is something so many of us can relate to that you had to be a certain person because that's what other people expected you to be I'm really fascinated by the impact on our mental well-being of the sense that I think

we have an image sometimes in our mind of who we should be and then everybody else's perceptions and expectations and societal norms as well start to feed into that and we can end up becoming kind of caged in a way of performing for other people and lose sight a little bit of who we are and to your point there of kind of like going out the weekends and not that's always not fun but you're kind of pretending that you're loving it because that's what people in their 20s do for example and I think there's an example of that for every decade every year in our life where we feel we need to be doing certain activities or reaching certain milestones because that's what people do. As opposed to kind of being able to say, wait, I don't think this is me.

I don't think I enjoy this. In fact, I think I hate this. And I remember that so well in my 20s. And this was when I was coming out of, after when I was unwell. So I couldn't really even drink or do anything like that either. I felt I would still try and stay at these raves until the middle of the night. And I hated every single second of it.

But I thought my boyfriend at the time wouldn't like me if I didn't try and go and I wouldn't have any friends. And I just feel like this sense of doing what other people want you to do. You've nailed it. We just wanted to be in bed, didn't we? We didn't want to be-

With the Real Housewives or the Kardashians. 100%. Blitz. I really relate to that. And I think the two words that are coming up for me in terms of how I felt I had to be were good. I had to be a good person. I had to be a good friend. I had to be a good daughter, a good employee. I had to be responsible. I had to be well-behaved and also attempt to be cool, to be seen as cool, even though I didn't feel cool. So all of that stuff about going out clubbing because that's what my boyfriend wanted to do or claiming to have certain interests that maybe didn't feel grounded in my own authenticity because I was too scared that if I were my real self, that I wouldn't be

liked. And that felt a very scary, fearful place for me to be to the extent that even at that stage, I don't know if I would have known who my real self was. I always had this very real core of I love books and writing. And that was always me and always has been. And I'm so grateful for that because I think that gave me a fundamental sense of backbone and a sense of, I don't want to sound too pretentious about it, but vocation. I've always felt like that's an integral part and that sort of is who I am. But beyond that, I would never have felt confident enough to say that I like watching the Real Housewives, which sounds so absurd now to admit, because I talk about it all the bloody time. But I think part of the joy of everything that I've gone through,

and specifically launching How To Fail, the podcast, which came out of my own failures, is that I felt accepted for the first time exactly as I was and as I am. And I've realized that flaws and failures and mistakes are part of that. And actually, in my quest to try and be good and perfect, I was being fake because there's no such thing. Spoiler alert, you can't be. You actually have to such thing spoiler alert you can't be you actually have to embrace your flaws before you can ever be truthful about yourself one of the things I'm so curious about and again I think it's something that everyone can relate to whether it's right now or periods in their life is this sense of the nervousness that people won't like you or accept you or that you won't fit in if you are your real self but to a point there

you're almost your fake self to an extent obviously again it's going to exist in a continuum and I think if I think about it in my own life certainly when I was being my let's just call it my fake self you know trying to be everything that everyone else wanted me to be or expected me to be I feel like I had worse friendships I feel like I had much obviously much worse mental health but it's so interesting because I think the things that I was trying to mold myself into to achieve like really fitting in and being part of the crowd etc I wasn't even succeeding at because I think it's everyone can kind of inadvertently smell a rat can't they and I think that's one of the things I've really curious about in your life whether or not you feel that you were trying to fit in to be like to succeed

but you weren't being yourself and actually ironically in becoming yourself and being really open and really vulnerable and really kind of true to your values and who you actually are you feel like suddenly everything you were working hard for but not getting you've kind of ended up achieving absolutely that and also not not necessarily ended up achieving the goals that I had for myself because they would have been slightly inauthentic goals yes but I've ended up being so fulfilled in a way that I could never possibly imagined and that's why I am a firm believer that for me particularly, I need to be flexible and instinctive when life offers me opportunities and things that might not seem like opportunities at the beginning. I now have faith that something will come of it that

is unexpected, but also meant for me. And I think that's so interesting what we've identified because my friendships have definitely grown deeper alongside my own evolution into authenticity. And my best friend always saw me for who I was before I even knew myself as I was. And I always remember when I did something that I thought she would judge me for, and I was ashamed of myself and I told her, I basically, it was my first marriage and it wasn't working out. It felt like a confession when I told Emma, my best friend for the first time. And she said, I'm so glad you said that. I could tell. And I love you more now because you can't love a statue on a pedestal. And I loved you before, but I love you more now because you're

being completely yourself. And that's what I love about you. And it was such a liberating and generous thing to say. And it reminds me a bit of that kind of rush towards friendship in your twenties. Reminds me a bit of Freshers' Week. If anyone listening has been to university and has experienced the Freshers' Week conundrum, I remember being given this very wise advice, which was be cautious when you're making friends in Freshers' Week because you're starting at this new place and you're nervous and you're insecure and there's safety in numbers and you want to forge connections. And so probably your normal defences are down and maybe your judgment's a bit off because you've had 12 vodka jellies one night and you end up potentially forging alliances that might not

be the longest lasting ones or the ones that are best for either party involved. And I think of my 20s a bit like a decade of Freshers Week. I was doing exactly the right thing in a way. I think it's good to kind of forge lots of connections, but not all of those friendships will journey with you. And that's okay. And we were talking earlier, one of my obsessions is friendship. And I've written this book, Friendaholic, about friendship. And one of the things that I really believe now is that a friendship is not a failure simply because it ends. That a friendship will forever have a place in your life and you can always have an active relationship with what that friendship has given you without having to

have your friend be an active part of your everyday life. It's a bit like a volcano, a dormant volcano will forever change the landscape, but it doesn't constantly have to be erupting. And that's really helped me feel great fondness and love towards friendships that haven't lasted the course. I absolutely love that. And I feel that's actually representative of friendships, of course, but of so many elements in our lives and facets of who we are and what we do of seeing things as chapters and being okay of letting go of chapters and I wondered if we could pick up in that conversation you were having with your friend Emma because I think as far as I'm right and understanding that was your kind of

catalyst moment it being kind of bubbling in your 20s of am I being kind of true to who I am I've got everything on paper looking good but I'm not quite happy and then I guess you had your marriage and everything on paper probably looked perfect and you've done everything that everyone expected you to do and I can imagine it was really difficult to say this this actually isn't right it was so difficult and I done everything. It wasn't only what I believed, what I projected, what other people expected of me and what society expected of me, it's what I expected of myself. So I had a very boring, conventional, heteronormative idea of where I would end up in my 30s, which was married and with children and being a journalist and

living in a house a lot like other people's houses who were also having children at the same time. And I never thought to question that until it went wrong for me, which is a mind-blowing thing to admit, really, because I should have asked more questions of what I was ingesting culturally. So I met my first husband when I was 29. We got married four years later and we were married for three years and it was a complicated relationship. And I won't go into the ins and outs because that's obviously two people's story to tell. We had fertility issues and that definitely focused my mind on what I really knew that I wanted in terms of becoming a parent myself. And I think when you go through something like that, it really shows up the fault lines in a relationship that might already have been there that you might have been papering over and

convincing yourself weren't actually there. And it all came to a head after my first miscarriage, which happened in October 2014. I was three months pregnant and it was a very dark experience. And I was in hospital for it. And I think it took me years to understand that I felt grief around that. But at the time, I just felt numb. And I now realize looking back that numbness for me is a symptom of depression, like mild depression, but that's where I go with it. And I think that's important to say because I think depression can be quite stereotyped as weepy and sad, but actually you can also just feel nothing. And it felt like a slow motion process, but it just got to a stage a few months after that where I suddenly knew that it couldn't go on and that if I were to stay in this marriage,

I would end up conserving the partnership, losing myself entirely and I thought I just can't do that and that's when I picked up the phone to Emma and it felt incredibly hard because I felt that I was letting everyone down not just my then husband but the people who knew and loved me who had been there at our wedding who had given us gifts, who had had so much hope for us. And it took me a really long time to realize that wasn't a good enough excuse to stay in a dysfunctional relationship. people's opinions were, I had to do something to protect the truth of who we were as two individuals. And actually, when I told people, when I told my parents, they were incredibly understanding and generous. And that was a really good, really good lesson to me that ultimately, the right people will end up loving you, whatever. And obviously there were people

that I lost during that time who didn't agree with what I'd done. And actually that was a very good lesson for a people pleaser like me, because I realised that there were going to be some people who would never understand and who for whatever reason felt angry towards me and it wasn't my job to explain or persuade them. It was my job to live the truth and I knew what that was. And that was a very salutary experience. So it was a huge turning point for me. It was incredibly frightening and I left my marital home with two bags of clothes and I spent a year living in Airbnbs and other people's flats. And I'm very grateful to the friends who helped me out during that time. And I didn't know what I was going to do. And that occasionally panicked the bejesus out of me.

But the amazing thing that happened is that it also gave me an opportunity the likes of which I'd never had before, which was having dismantled all of the things that I thought were expected of me and that I expected of myself. Suddenly, I had this blank canvas and I was confronted with the question, what do you want to do with your one wild beautiful life as Mary Oliver would say and I'd never really properly asked myself that question before. Gosh it's I feel really emotional listening to it I think also you should give yourself I don't mean this in like a content anywhere in any shape form but so much credit because I think it's so easy to sit here and say this is what you did you know a few years on but I think

the strength and the courage and the vulnerability and the bravery it takes to say this isn't right and I'm not going to live this way anymore I don't think you can underestimate the power of that and I think you should just yeah I think there's such huge respect for me but also it's such an inspiring story as well because I think so often what we see in the quite superficial world that we live in of you know Instagram and TikTok where you see 20 seconds maximum of things or headlines and clickbait it's like people will look at you and they'll see the success that you've got and I know the whole premise of how to fail starts from your own failures but I think it's so easy to look at you today and say god it all sucks she's so successful what an

amazing person you know I'm sure so many people look up to you you know you'd be on there like top five people I'd love to have dinner with but you know actually knowing that that came from such a difficult place such a brave place I think it's so inspiring because we've we've all had those moments in our life and I think having the courage to say I need to do things differently is so difficult and what I'm really curious about I hope you don't mind me asking is when you're talking about people pleasing you're saying that that often comes you know and for you came from a place of quite low self-worth yes and how how did that feel at this point in terms of because I'm sure mentally and I'm curious about your kind of total health at this point it must have been quite a experience

yeah it really was I actually think that it was the start of my discovery of a tiny filament of self-worth because I realized that I could be pushed so far and then no further and then my self-preservation my instinct would kick in and I don't know if you feel this too because I get the sense that you do that you're a very gut-driven person in many ways completely like to my detriment at points the jokes my husband completely mad because we own the business together and he'd be like look at all these spreadsheets look at all these numbers these why we should make these decisions I'm like what you make decisions like that with data with yeah yeah it

just it got to the point where I was like oh hang on a second I have this bit that is actually really strong and that made me feel so much more empowered knowing that I had that and I'd never been pushed to discover it before so in a way it was the start of discovery of self-worth but being a people pleaser and it's a term that is used so much now and how do you define it I think I define it as someone who lives their life according to what they believe other people are thinking of them or want from them rather than taking the time to work out what they want from life. That was my experience of it. And the irony is that I never actually knew what other people expected of me. I was just projecting from my own lack of self-worth. So

then it becomes a vicious circle. If you are that kind of person, the danger is that you can end up in romantic relationships and actually work and platonic relationships that have an imbalance in the power dynamic. I mean, you are manner for narcissists and emotional abusers. And I've had experience of that. And that was not good for my self-worth at all, but it disguised itself as something that was good for my self-worth. That whole, you'll never find anyone who loves me as much as I love you because I love you this much, is actually extremely controlling. And what I want to say to anyone listening to this, if you ever find yourself in a relationship where you are scared, and I don't just mean scared that you're going to be physically controlled. I mean scared to say what

you think, scared to check your phone when your partner's in the room. That's a very bad place for you to be. And I've been there and I know it. And I now understand because I'm with someone who is so wonderful. I now understand that the foundation of true love is feeling safe. And that's been extraordinary for me because part of the safety that I now have is being accepted wholly for who I am. So with Justin, my husband now, because of everything that I've learned from the past and because of all the paths that I've walked, I remember him once saying to me, I felt in the past I had to be apologetic for being emotional. I cry very easily and I feel things deeply and I'm a sensitive being. God, I sound like a laugh. And I'm really fun to be with. No, but Justin, I remember very early on saying, I really like the fact that you're emotional. He felt the need

for more of that in his life. And that made me feel so safe. I was like, oh, I can just be myself. I don't have to hide any parts of me. That was a huge realization. To go back to your original question, it took me a long time. It felt like a long time to get there. So I ended up divorced at 36, separated at 35, divorced at 36. Dating in your late 30s as a straight cis woman is not easy. And that put my self-worth through the ringer, but it also taught me a lot about my self-worth and about what I wanted. So I look back on my days online dating and doing setups and all of that and meeting people who rejected me or I didn't feel the chemistry and it all just felt very disappointing a lot of the time. But I realised every time I was rejected after a while that

it wasn't entirely to do with me. It was to do with their emotional baggage and all of the things that they had been through and all of the warped imprints that their past relationships had left on them. And that really helped me work out what it was that I truly needed rather than what it was that I thought I wanted. And going back to that idea of us in our 20s, the kind of man I would have thought I wanted in my 20s is absolutely the wrong kind of person for me to be with, I now realise. Like a flashy media type with cool trainers, no.

Not right for you. Not right for me. They were catnip to me for a really long time. Not right for me now. And it's such a relief. It's such a thing, isn't it? not right for me they were catnip to me for a really long time not right for me now yeah and it's such a relief it's that's the thing isn't it it's such a relief when you sometimes let go of expectations one of the best things I ever heard would have been about six or seven years ago I went to this wellness conference and this motivational speaker gave this quote that's just

stuck with me forever this idea that we need to replace all expectation with appreciation and it was you know every now and again you hear something and it just stays with you and it like sits in your body it was so powerful anyway this expectation of appreciation was one of the best things I've ever heard and I try and kind of still remind myself of it on a kind of day-to-day basis because I think it's so powerful but also to your point just to rewind there that control to be around I think it's it's very easy to normalize it and think that that's how you live and had a long experience with that and yeah and trying to move out of that and redevelop your self-worth it's definitely the hardest thing that that I've certainly ever done I feel you and I

also think that you can run the risk of turning the blame into yourself. Stop sitting on your Aeroplan points and get big savings so you can be somewhere you actually want to be, like on a beach. Right now, you can save up to 25% in Aeroplan points when you book a trip to one of 180-plus Air Canada destinations worldwide. So stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one. Don't miss out. Your chance to save in points ends February 23rd. Book at AirCanada.com. Conditions apply. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads.

Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn Ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. You can run the risk of turning the blame into yourself. So if you're in a dysfunctional relationship, you start thinking that you're the one. It was your stupid choice that got you into this place.

That was going on in my head as well. And to unpick that, especially if that person might still be in your life because they're trying to persuade you to come back, because no one will ever love you like they do, quote unquote, that can be a huge challenge and I actually I'm very grateful to a few key friends for getting me through that particular period of my life because they were the ones who remained rock solid that I was doing the right thing by not being with that person anymore one of the things I'm fascinated in your life story is this sense of when you realize you've got to internalize the solutions in a way because I know you talked about after the breakdown of your marriage and and after the IVF hadn't worked at this point moving country to sort of see if that was the

answer and then the kind of move into how to fail and the vulnerability and embracing your failures and potentially it sounds a little bit more like doing more kind of internal work as opposed to potentially looking more externally for the solution which again I think is something we can all relate to so deeply when something's not right it's like well if I move jobs if I change relationships if I get these new friends if I lose weight if I get plastic surgery who knows just dye my hair just if I do something on the outside to become a different person, then everything inside will change. And I wish it worked like that. Yes, definitely. I should also say that I was doing therapy throughout this. So you mentioned

IVF there. So I did two cycles of unsuccessful IVF at the beginning of 2014. And I remember saying to myself at that time, I need to have a system in place. If this IVF doesn't work, I need to go to therapy again. So that was the second time I went to therapy in my life, different therapists, amazing woman called Sue Williams. I always give her a shout out and send lots of people her way now. And she was integral to my life. So I saw her every week for two years. And it ended up that she saw me not only through the failure of the IVF, but the failure of my marriage. And you're right that after my marriage ended, I moved to LA and lived there for three months in an Airbnb. And it was absolutely great. I have to say, although external solutions are never going to be long

lasting, it did feel that LA healed me in a way because it was such a different place and it was sunny and it's such a culture of wellness there anyway. But I wasn't known as anyone's wife, anyone's plus one, and I wasn't known full stop. So actually, it was really liberating and people accepted me just as I showed up. And that felt so refreshing. And I know this sounds superficial, but it wasn't. Because I went there with a suitcase, I didn't have that many clothes. And also because it was going through a heatwave LA at the time I got there, August 2015. And so I wasn't wearing that many clothes. I basically just lived in denim cutoffs and a white linen shirt for almost the entire

time I was there. And so people also didn't have a perception of me, how I dressed. So it just felt very freeing in lots of ways that I could turn up and someone would get to know me without my usual armor. And so that was a very interesting thing for me. But yes, primarily the work had to be internal. And I was extremely lucky then, and I'd worked hard to make it happen, but I was writing my fourth novel. And my fourth novel is a book called The Party. And it feels like I hit a different kind of stride with that novel. It was the most successful novel when it was published that I'd written to that date. And I think it's because not only does writing afford me a sort of catharsis, it's not why I write books to do personal catharsis, because that would be grotesquely self-indulgent, but it's because putting words on the page helps me make sense of life. And writing characters, every single character I've ever written will have some aspect of me in it or some aspect of how I wish I could be. And so it helps me understand my own human nature as well as other people's hopefully and that novel I was writing at that

time when I was in LA and I was still having weekly therapy over zoom with Sue and all of those things as well as having really deep conversations with my friends about what actually had gone on was a revelation to me it it was really helpful and I started listening to podcasts then as well and And that changed my life. And you said that having open conversations about what had really gone on. Yes. That is what I'm just completely fascinated by, because I'm completely convinced of the fact that we so rarely have these conversations. Honestly, just like even with people we're close to,

we did a great interview with Jake Humphrey the other day from... Love Jake. Oh, he was so fantastic. And he really resonated with me because he was talking about his own mental health challenges and about the fact that so often we'll say yeah i've been struggling or i've been struggling with mental health and obviously that's so widely accepted and people are very empathetic towards that but we so rarely actually talk about what's happened and obviously your whole premise then of how to fail and turning these really dark and difficult moments into your life, into this vulnerability and this complete open book. It felt, I think it was quite revolutionary in lots of ways.

And I think we're kind of going towards vulnerability being so celebrated. And obviously, you know, people like Brené Brown are so celebrated for the vulnerability. And this is why I want to do the show because I'm so absolutely passionate about the fact that we're so kind of dogmatic that wellness is eating broccoli and kale and going on the treadmill and all those things are so important for our wellbeing, but really being honest about our life and the conversations around it to build up our mental resilience. And it's just kind of foundational, isn't it? And I'm so interested about the kind of the creation of how to fail yeah and taking these really difficult periods you've been through and being

so honest you know it's one thing to kind of open up so deeply to your closest friends and family and people around you and it's another thing to just put that out there in the world and I think that takes a huge amount of strength thank you so much for everything you just said there. Thank you for saying that. And also thank you for saying that you felt that it was quite revolutionary at the time. Because I love that we now live in a culture that is far more celebratory of vulnerability and far more aware that social media can be a space of curated perfection. But it did feel at the time when I launched How to Fail, which was July 2018, that that wasn't as much the case. Brene Brown was already that, and she is my queen. And Brene Brown famously said,

and it's one of my favorite quotes, and it pertains to what we were talking about earlier, that the difference between belonging and fitting in. So fitting in is when you change yourself to be accepted by a crowd. Belonging is when they accept you as you already are. And I feel like podcasting has accepted me as I actually am. So she was there talking about vulnerability, but actually I had got sick of doing newspaper interviews with celebrities who had stuff to promote. And the generic way that a newspaper interview was written at that time was unexpected little introduction. You wouldn't expect so-and-so to be talking about doing the washing up, but yeah, here she is. And then you'd link into like a little potted biography where they'd come from the latest thing that they're promoting. And then the celebrity would say, oh, it was so

wonderful to work with, insert name of famous director here. And it just felt so one note and superficial. And anytime I tried to get deeper than that, very often the celebrity in question was so willing to go there because they were so happy to be asked a different question. But when it ended up in the paper, that would have been cut out. And for me, the most interesting points of every single interview I ever did were the moments of vulnerability where they were talking about the stuff that went wrong. Being a human. Being a human, like what their childhood was like.

I found it riveting. And so I was getting increasingly disenchanted with that and having these great conversations with my friends for what felt like one of the first times where, yes, I just suddenly was like, I'm just going to say it how it is. And what I realised was when I talked about my vulnerability, other people opened up. And miscarriage is a prime example of that, actually. When I started talking openly about having had a miscarriage, so many other people said to me, I've had that too. I've been through it. I never felt able to talk about it. Thank you. Or I know someone who went through it.

That's so helpful to know what to say. And that's just one example of how powerful that sort of connection and solidarity can be. And all of those things came together. And I think also the fact that I was living in California, which comes in for a lot of stick for being so hyper motivational and therapized and focused on the wellness industry. But there's also something amazing about that too, because there's a lack of cynicism, which we so often have in this country. And there's an open-heartedness to different ways of being. When I was living in LA, I started going to spin classes for the first time. And that was all part of my being back in my own body again. And as someone who had never really exercised that much, I suddenly found my thing. And it was going to this darkened room where they played amazing music. And these extraordinary instructors would share their

life stories and share their stories of overcoming obstacles and make you exercise harder through doing that. There's one particular instructor called Lacey Stone, who I essentially developed a full-blown crush on. And I ended up befriending her by getting her to be interviewed for The Times. So I was basically just abused my power just to get closer to her life because she was so amazing. And all of those things came together. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could open up these uncynical conversations about vulnerability and what it is to be human to a wider audience. And that's how How to Fail came about. Now, that makes it sound like it was very

quick and it wasn't. So I got divorced. I went to LA. I then got into a new relationship with a very nice man, but he was at a different life stage from me. And that ended two weeks before my 39th birthday. And that for me was the lowest point, joint equal lowest point I've ever been at. Because there again, I was confronted with, oh, this is not how I expected my life to be. Now I'm 39. It's a very difficult age for a woman who still wants to have her own children. And took myself off to LA again and that was the genesis of how to fail it was that moment where I was like no I'm actually going to do this and that's how it came about I have so many different questions from that I really want to talk about this physical strength into mental strength but just kind of going back to how to fail for a

second there you've to your point about having these kind of really genuine open conversations and about the fact you know nobody is perfect and everybody has challenges in their life and how do you overcome them you know to your point that kind of second cast of this moment sitting there being like no I am going to do this like this is my life and I'm going to take charge of it and turn it into what I want it to be of all these people you've spoken to and I feel like I've listened to pretty much every episode, are there any kind of bits of advice or wisdom that have really sunk into your soul and stayed with you? Yes, I think you know who I'm going to quote here because you and I have a similar passion for this man, Mo Gowdat. So Mo Gowdat came on How to Fail in season four in 2019.

And he was the former chief business officer of Google X. And he had just written a book called Soul for Happy, in which he claimed that he could make any person happy, which is an extraordinary claim. All the more so when you get to know Mo and you realize that he's withstood terrible tragedy in his life. His beloved son, Ali, died at the age of 21 during a routine operation. And Mo had to find a way to keep on living. And he has said over the years, because he's come back on my podcast twice since then, so many things have stuck with me. One of them is in those early weeks after Ali's death, Mo would wake up and the first thought he had on waking was Ali died. And tears would be rolling down his cheeks and he just felt so beholden to

grief that he wasn't sure how he could carry on. And after a few more weeks of that, he challenged himself to change the thought. And this lies at the basis of a lot of his work. So he would wake up and his first thought would still be Ali died, but he added yes, and he also lived to that thought. And within that addition was 21 years of joy, of a parent-child relationship that was more like a relationship between two best friends, of experience, of memory. And he realised he wouldn't have taken any of that back. And he was so grateful that he had that. And it was the same thought, but it was differently expressed. And that's what helped him to carry on living. And that is such a simple but profound example found example of how you can ask your brain to come up with a more joyful, more hopeful, more happy thought than the one that your anxious brain might be providing you with.

And he talks about his Becky brain, another way of talking about a monkey brain. It's that brain that is very anxious on this loop, which is seeking to protect you from all sorts of dangers. And quite often, it will tell you stuff that isn't true. Quite often, it will tell you things that are the worst things, things that you would never say to your best friend. And Mo calls this brain his Becky brain, because Becky was a girl at his school who was constantly pointing out the things that would go wrong rather than focusing on what might go right. And he gave this example to me of walking down the street after an argument with his daughter and his Becky brain was saying, you're a rubbish parent. She doesn't love you anymore.

You're a total failure. And he stopped himself in the street and he said, Becky, I would like you to provide objective evidence for that assertion. Because if you don't have objective evidence for that assertion, I'd really appreciate it if you could replace that thought with a more positive one. And although he looked unhinged doing that in the middle of the street, it does actually work. And that's really helped me and changed how I live my life. It genuinely has. And then there are other things like Emily Sandé came on my podcast a few years ago and said this one phrase, perfection is now. And I loved it so much that we've got it as a neon sign in our house now, above our dining table, to remind us when

we're sitting around that table, when we are communing and eating with family and friends, or Justin's children, that perfection is this very moment and to be grateful for that. So many things, I can't even just condense them all, but they're just, it's an incredible gift for me doing the podcast because I learn so much from people that I speak to every single day. I love the perfection is now. It's so powerful, isn't it? And it's, you just never know what's coming, do you? And you can't kind of live in the past, even though it's tempting at points. And I think this, this power of reframing your thinking is so challenging at the start, but so underrated as a kind of technique for your wellbeing.

And I'm really interested because obviously have gone through kind of lots of amazing moments lots of challenging moments and how you kind of keep your well-being now you know I was really interested in you talking about the fact that going to spin was this sense of creating physical strength to give mental strength and I'm such a believer in that I think there's such a huge intersection between our physical and our mental health and one that I don't think that we appreciate enough I think we look at our mental health often as so so separate to our physical health and I think everything I understand is that the two are kind of totally interchangeable to an extent and I'm very curious about how you look after yourself how How do you keep going forwards, even when there's difficult moments? Well, I totally agree with you. So I am physically active because I know that it's

incredibly important for me as someone who spends a lot of time in her head in terms of what I create or what I write, but also in terms of how I am as a person. I'm quite introverted. I like my bed. And I worry a lot. I'm getting better at that, but I don't think worry is the right word. I think I think a lot. And occasionally, yes, I overthink. And so for someone who is in her head a lot, it's very important for me to have a time every day where I'm in my physical body. And so I still do spin. I'm one of those nauseating people who has a Peloton bike and won't shut up about it. That really helped me and my husband actually through the lockdown. I also do yoga at least once a week, but as often as I can. That is just, I'm not someone who has ever, I don't have a practice of daily meditation. I've started many

times and just never kept it up. Yoga for me is a way of ensuring that I do that and I have that kind of calming space and I love it because it's such a different way of moving. So that's about my physical body, but I also have weekly therapy. And my therapist now is this amazing woman in her 70s who has encouraged me to talk to my body. So all of this time where I was doing exercise and feeling that it was important to my physical self, which it was, but as you said, I was still treating it as sort of separate from, I knew it was good for my mental health, but I was treating it as separate from my mind. And my therapist has made me realize that there's no such thing as that separation. And I now start every day, this is my form of meditation talking with my body I literally

lie there in bed and I have a conversation and ask my body what it needs how it is and send it love and gratitude and that has genuinely been a revelation for me because I think, again, if we are ambitious, driven, hardworking people who have many responsibilities, whether that be young children or friendships or a very demanding job, very often we don't take time to check in with ourselves. We're just constantly on the go. And actually checking in with how you're genuinely physically feeling. How tired are your muscles? How are your shoulders doing? What does your tummy feel like? I feel as though my body is so grateful that I'm finally paying attention to it, to me in that way.

I love that. You know what we do every morning, we do it together, which actually really helps the kind of motivation to keep doing it. But we do a 10 minute breathing exercise and then we do the seven minute affirmation practice. And it's that moment if you lie there and you're like, you can feel that, but that and the breathing helps you check in. But then you're like, no, like I'm elevated. You know, I love myself myself and it's such strange things to say to yourself initially but the foundation it creates for your outlook for how you navigate your day i've never had an experience like it's really lovely and it really kind of picks up day after day is that it's it's strange the first time you do those sorts of practices talk to your body or talk to your mind or kind of tell yourself, you know, say I

love you to yourself. It's not something many of us ever say to ourselves, but it's so, it's so, so powerful. Yes. And I think it works for me. We were chatting earlier about the difference between external and internal. And I think manifesting is a really interesting concept. And I know lots of people who it has worked for, including Bernadine Evaristo, Booker Prize winner. She literally manifested winning the Booker Prize 20 years before she actually did. But I sometimes struggle with that myself as well, because it feels I don't want to make a mood board, because it feels like I'm externalizing things. I would rather have an internal conversation with myself about what's going to happen and what hopes are. And I suppose another way of saying it is prayer, right? I mean, that's what people are doing. You're sort of talking to yourself and also universal energy. And that's

really important for me because I like to feel connected. It all goes back to connection, both internal and with the world and the people around me. So if you're thinking about those kind of daily-ish, and I love daily-ish because no one does this, manages to do daily-ish. I love daily-ish. It's so good, isn't it? It gives you compassion. Yes, you should write a book called Daily-ish.

Yeah, all the things you can do daily-ish to improve your well-being. Are there any things you come back to in that kind of very, very regular basis? Obviously exercise. Yes. Baths. Oh, I'm so with you on baths. Oh my gosh, they're the best thing ever. Literally the best thing ever. Yes, we're so similar. And my husband's like,

he just will always know. It feels like anytime he FaceTimes me, I'm in the bath. But I just find it so relaxing and encompassing. And I read a book in the bath and it's just, it's so nice. So I definitely like regular baths, regular sleep. I drink water like a maniac and I start the day, I don't drink coffee anymore. That was on the advice of my acupuncturist who's actually become one of my best friends and it was for fertility reasons. But actually I found that it didn't really agree with me anyway. So now I'm a very happy drinker of green and jasmine tea or turmeric today. You gave me a think probably every day not even daily-ish because again it's important for me to have that space where I'm being entertained without having to overthink oh yeah that's why I started watching the Kardashians it was actually started watching

them when my mother-in-law she had a brain tumor and she passed away with within the year of being diagnosed and it was it was such a hard year And every weekend we were staying with them and we were watching her go downhill. You know, you wouldn't see her for a couple of days and so tangible the difference. And it was just so hard to watch it and to watch my husband go through it and his family go through it and the pain of it. He came upstairs one day and I had just kind of collapsed. It just was devastated for all of them, for everything that was happening. And I turned on the Kardashians and he was like, what are you doing? Like, what are you watching?

How can you do this to your brain? He was like, you're literally rotting your brain. And I was like, no, honestly, trust me, it's escapism at its finest. And he just sort of rolled his eyes and sat next to me. And like three minutes later, I could tell he was just glued absolutely entranced and we just got so obsessed with these things because it's when there's a lot going on in your life and obviously that's the extreme end of a lot going on these moments of kind of pure escapism are so great and I think we're so quick to judge you know that not wellness, but it can be whatever you want it to be. Whatever kind of nourishes your soul is so powerful.

I'm so happy you said that. First of all, I'm so sorry for what you and Matthew went through. And I know we've spoken about it before and I was lucky enough to have met your late mother-in-law. And she was such a lovely, warm, smart, brilliant person and such a loss to the world. And I'm so glad the Kardashians helped you a little bit. And I'm so glad you said that because during lockdown, rightly, there was a lot of emphasis on kind of getting out every day and going for a walk. And I started to feel the crushing weight of having to get out and go for a walk. So then I started to feel guilty about not going for a walk.

It's making risk productive. And I think that's the challenge, isn't it? Yes. It's like this, again, coming back to expectations. It's the expectations that everything's pressure and your hobbies don't become hobbies anymore. They become other ways of trying to succeed. And at this point, it's like every single thing you do is a kind of way of bettering yourself as opposed to optimizing yourself as a human exactly 100 which isn't good for your well-being thank you for putting that into words that was exactly it i i don't

like walking for no purpose like i will definitely factor walking into my day and the way that i got around it in lockdown was when cafes opened up don't judge me I go to Starbucks because they do amazing loose leaf tea but that was my thing I was like I'm going to walk to Starbucks to get my jasmine tea and then I would come back and there was a purpose there I don't like just like meaningless ambling and I know so many people who do and I doff my walker's cap to you I'm so impressed that you do that and I wish I was more like that. But that's exactly it. Like I will fit in walking

when I'm rushing around my day. I don't want to have to do it in order to make myself more productive. That's, you've nailed it. Thank you. No, we have that I think so much in this space, which is that you feel you've got to meditate and you've got to walk 10,000 steps and you've got to do this and you've got to do that and they all just become

other things on your to-do list and that mental strain does not necessarily make them good for your health and I think seeing it as a broader picture and what actually suits you I think is so important and not turning your hobbies into other ways of succeeding like you can do yoga and not become a yoga teacher that's more than okay um but I'm so interested like in those kind of difficult moments those dark moments like would you ever have thought you'd kind of come out to where you are today because I what I'm also so keen is that to understand it's like a it's continuous not like you go through a hard time and then it's linear and you you know something happens and something clicks and life's so easy and you don't have to work at it ever again.

But also that you can go through the most difficult moments of your life and good things can still come of it. Definitely. I think the best things only come of that. I think the act of shattering means that you can rebuild in a beautiful pattern. And I would never have anticipated that I would be here in my life, partly because I decided to give up on planning other than saving for a pension, which I've just started doing at the grand old age of 44. But I used to be someone with such a kind of complicated and detailed five-year plan about where I would be, what I would be doing, the professional success I would have, the brand of coffee I'd be drinking. And actually, I would get to that

five-year point and none of those things would have happened and I would have given up drinking coffee. And then I feel like a failure according to my own metric. And when my life, well, some of it imploded, I decided to live differently and I don't have a five-year plan. So now I really enjoy being open to what might come my way and being aligned daily-ish with the things that bring me fulfillment. That's what I think is the most important thing for me to live a fulfilled life is to be in alignment with the things that give me joy, whether that be writing books or recording podcasts or watching The Real Housewives of New York or not going for a walk, you know, all of those things. I'm a big believer that if you generate that, then that's what will come back to you. And so no, I could never have

predicted it because I decided not to plan anymore. But even in ways like I look at my relationship now and my friendships, and I feel so grateful and so lucky because I know how easily it could have slipped into being something very different. And I think that's the other thing that my life experiences have given me is overwhelming gratitude. And that's a really foundational part of wellness for me. And that thing that you said about replacing expectation with appreciation, I think is so good. And I've also been working on replacing anxiety with excitement, replacing fear with opportunity. The idea that when we feel what we might historically have thought of as negative emotions, if we're feeling anxious, are we maybe feeling excited about

something? If we're feeling fearful fearful is that because there's a massive opportunity there and we're worried we're not good enough and it's always better to take the opportunity so all of those things I love this well I was going to ask you as the closing question what your kind of next chapter is but it sounds like it's one of openness and trying to continuously use those sorts of directions to keep reframing your mindset to see whatever comes around the corner. A hundred percent. It's basically to keep creating in whatever way that comes to me, creating and connecting. But there is a very prosaic answer, which is that my book, Friendaholic, Confessions of a Friendship Addict, is out on the 30th of

March. So whenever this comes out, please buy a copy. What's the number one learning from the book? I think it's what I said earlier. It's that friendships will, you can choose to have an active relationship with every single friendship you've ever experienced in your life. It will have formed you in some way. And there's a lot to be grateful to that person for, even if it might not have ended up the way that you thought it was going to. I think that, and I think the other thing actually, and I don't know whether you'll relate to this as well, there's been a lot of scientific study done into how many really good

friends you can actually have. Professor Robin Dunbar does a lot of amazing work in this area. And he's identified that he thinks you can have five in your innermost, what he calls layer. So they're the people that you see a lot, that you can nourish and give a lot of time to, and you feel really accepted by. But they require a lot of time to have that kind of intimacy. And if you have a long-term romantic relationship, get married or have kids, that will cost you two of those from the innermost layer. And actually, that sort of helped me because I think I was trying to be a really quote-unquote good friend to way too many people, which meant that I was not being a good enough friend to the people I was closest to

yeah no I think that makes huge amount of sense and I definitely definitely relate to that and I feel like we could it's like the other fascinating topic that maybe this is part two on this this having it all premise which is that certainly that I've been lucky enough to have two little girls and and my husband and in that I feel like your world shrinks and shrinks because the space that you have for really nourishing friendships once that which kind of, I guess, all that I'm really interested in, in my life as a more introverted person. You know, your time is very limited, giving them time and giving work time. And so, yeah, the pressure to have 20 really meaningful relationships, you know, at some point you've just got to say, it's not possible without kind of completely burning out.

Exactly. But here's the good thing. It will be possible in the future. And it takes us back to openness. I'm open all of the time to making new friends. From all walks of life, all age groups, they have been actually also hugely important for my wellness and the most consistent love affair of my life

you know relationships number one predictor of happiness yeah and also of your total well-being outcome even your physical health yeah one of the most amazing studies ever is a harvard study and attract people over their entire life and the number one predictor of well-being was relationships so important yeah again we just loneliness is bad for your smoking yes yeah i knew that but having too many friends is also as bad for you in terms of depression people with too many friends are as depressed as those with none which again was like a huge revelation to me we're going off topic i'm so sorry we're not it's so interesting we're gonna have to have a part two no honestly thank you so much Elizabeth and thank you for being so kind of

open and vulnerable obviously in this episode but also as I said in the kind of very I think revolutionary start of House of Hell because I think it glamorized and celebrated this different way of looking at successful people and gosh at the risk of saying I'm a successful person when I was lucky enough to come on your show I said to you earlier is the most feedback I've ever had about probably anything I've ever done and I talked to one of the most thing I had feedback on was I talked about my failure to breastfeed and what a failure as a mother it made me feel and I'd never talked about before. I'd never felt I had the space to talk about it. It was very cathartic personally,

but it was just so interesting, the opening up of these topics. And I think what you've done is just unbelievable. So thank you for coming here today. Oh, Ella, thank you and right back at you. Thank you for everything that you do in terms of opening up this space to people who might not otherwise feel included.

I always love our chats and I'm so honoured that you've had me on your podcast and thank you so much for all the very generous questions. I mean Elizabeth is just amazing isn't she? She has this strength, humour, candid, honest, vulnerable way of looking at the world that I think is so refreshing and so honest but so empowering and so inspiring it's kind of everything we want this show to be so I hope you enjoyed it I hope it normalized a lot of the conversations that we often don't have which again I hope is something you're feeling each of our episodes are doing at the moment and if you did enjoy it please do share it you know it means so

much if you rate it review it pop it on social on social we're just at deliciously ella and you can always get in touch via email podcast at deliciouslyella.com otherwise just huge thank you for listening as always we will collate all the tools that we've talked about to help you make similar changes in your life on feel better the deliciously ella app and you collate all the tools that we've talked about to help you make similar changes in your life on feel better the deliciously Ella app and you can find all the details on that in the show notes if you too want to make changes in your life otherwise I will see you back here next week thank you for listening thank you for being part of this show and as always just a big thank you to Curly Media who are our partners in producing the show each week. great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like

this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn Ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's b-o-b at l-i-b-s-y-n dot com.