How do you find freedom and peace in the act of going first? It was something Melissa Urban had to learn. Melissa Urban is the CEO and co-founder of Whole30, a NY Times bestselling author, a mom, a podcast host, a recovering addict, and, according to Laura the author of the VERY BEST book reviews on Instagram. She has set the bar in so many ways as a model of strength, willingness, and resilience. In this episode of TMST, Melissa opens up and shares the ways that she’s softened since founding Whole30, why she’s chosen to share the more vulnerable parts of her life now, and to be the one that goes first. Get the complete, unedited interview with Melissa when you join TMST+ : https://tmst.supercast.com/ Join our free on-line community (it’s NOT a Facebook group!): https://www.tmstpod.com/ Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Essays by Melissa that were referenced in this episode: My Birth Story - “I’m grateful for him every single day, and I’d go through his birth day a thousand times over just to have him in our world. And yet, it’s still hard to think about that day, and when I do, I still feel echoes of grief and pain.” How To Actually Go On Vacation - An amazing essay from Melissa on how to set boundaries - great for vacation, essential for life!
Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen
Melissa Urban on Going First
Laura McKowen: [00:00:00] Hey, Laura here, I'm pretty blown away by the courage and the willingness that our guests are bringing to this space. Take today's guest, Melissa Urban, Melissa is the CEO and co-founder of Whole 30, a New York times bestselling author, a mom, a podcast host, a recovering addict. And for me, this is gold, a voracious reader who writes the very best reviews of books on Instagram.
[00:00:35] She sets the bar in so many ways as a model of strength, willingness, and resilience. And the Melissa that showed up to talk with me, it was willing to get into stuff that's hard for her today. The ways that she's softened since founding Whole 30 and why she's choosing to share the more vulnerable parts of her life now.
[00:00:57] And to be the one that goes, as she says, first.
[00:01:01] Melissa Urban: [00:01:01] If I'm thinking about my birth story or how promiscuous I was after my trauma or some of the ways I showed up in relationships after my divorce, if I'm thinking about it, someone else is. We're literally never alone in these thoughts. And sometimes just hearing someone else talk about the stuff that like you, you can't even bring yourself to mention in your own head is incredibly affirming.
[00:01:26] Laura McKowen: [00:01:26] And in the spirit of going first, this is the first show where our premium members helped to shape the conversation. We let them submit some questions and you'll hear those at the end of the episode. You can get in on that action and you can help power this podcast and keep it gloriously ad free when you become a TMS T plus member, you can find out more about that@tmstpod.com.
[00:01:54] You ready? Let's go.
[00:02:07] Hi, Melissa. I'm so happy to have you!
[00:02:10]Melissa Urban: [00:02:10] Laura. I'm so excited to be sitting like as face-to-face as we can get right now.
[00:02:14] Laura McKowen: [00:02:14] I think it's because you are as close to as a real person on the internet as anyone. At least from my perspective and I, and I try to be that way too. So maybe that's why
[00:02:28] Melissa Urban: [00:02:28] I appreciate that so much. That's what I was going to say is that you share so much of yourself and it feels so authentic that I really do feel like I know you. And then when we did talk on the phone for that first time, I was like, oh yeah, she's exactly the same. Which is a really nice realization. It doesn't always happen like that.
[00:02:43] Laura McKowen: [00:02:43] It does not. It does not. Yeah. And we also have, you know, we're both in recovery, we're both single moms or we were, so there's some kindred stuff, so I'm just going to dive right in.
[00:02:55] Melissa Urban: [00:02:55] Okay. Okay. I expect nothing less.
[00:02:58] Laura McKowen: [00:02:58] I know. I don't remember exactly when I started following you. I think it was actually your post about I'm not drinking right now. And someone tagged me in that. And then that was that a few years ago.
[00:03:08] Melissa Urban: [00:03:08] Yeah. It was more than three. No, three.
[00:03:11] Laura McKowen: [00:03:11] What I've noticed in the time that we've been connected on social media is that I have seen a softening, what I perceive as a softening in you. And I first saw it when you would post about your now husband.
[00:03:27] Yeah. When you first started dating and you said, basically, I can't believe I'm the girl posting about her relationship. I swore I would never do that. And you didn't say this exactly. But in so many words here I am and my smile's so big, my face might explode. Yeah. And that was the first time that I was like, okay, I, I love this because I have similar reservations, especially about relationships. Like, I didn't like wanting to be in one.
[00:03:58]Melissa Urban: [00:03:58] When your last marriage, you know, blows up in a quite public way, and there's a divorce and a business split makes you a little reluctant to share about future relationships. So that, that was where I was coming from.
[00:04:10] Laura McKowen: [00:04:10] And then I've just seen over time, more of, I would just say a softening of the edges as I saw them, like posting about your dog and just this joy, like posting about joy.
[00:04:22] Melissa Urban: [00:04:22] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:23] Laura McKowen: [00:04:23] That's really how I see it. And so does that feel true completely?
[00:04:28] Melissa Urban: [00:04:28] It's a hundred percent true. And it really started right after my divorce and business split were made public. So there was a long period of time in which we were separated, but didn't tell anyone, we were in the middle of a book contract and a book tour didn't want to let our publishers down.
[00:04:47] And I was very careful during that time, not to make it seem as though we were this like happy, perfect couple. I was very authentic in that. Like, I just didn't share much about us personally, but yeah, you know, once we were able to kind of be more authentic and, and we put out a statement that just said the relationship was ending and we wish each other well.
[00:05:06] I then entered a deep period of therapy and self work and realized that over the course of the last few years in my marriage, I had become so strong and so rigid that I was brittle. I had distanced myself so much from how I felt and my friends and my family and relationships and vulnerability, because I couldn't afford to, I couldn't afford during that period of time to like, let any of that out.
[00:05:36] And then once I felt like I was able, the softening that happened with me inside myself was then effortlessly translated to the rest of the world through what I shared. And it was a process. It didn't all happen at once, but I found the more willing I was to look inside and like, look at my own shit, the more willing I was to share some of that with my close friends and family.
[00:05:57] And then that gave me a little more confidence to share a bit more with my community. And that just cascade, that really healthy inertia just kept going until I feel like now the way I show up online is very much the way I show up in real life. There is no delineation between the two, other than the things I choose to hold back, because they're just too intimate for, you know, a community discussion.
[00:06:20]Laura McKowen: [00:06:20] Yeah. Like you've never posted pictures of your son. I think about that now because my daughter's older and I don't post pictures of her, very rarely, and not because I made some conscious choice. It just doesn't feel right for me. Where was that decision made or how was it made?
[00:06:35] Melissa Urban: [00:06:35] Yeah, it was made with his dad when he was like one and it was not a result of the divorce and the business split.
[00:06:43] It was just a discussion around the fact that our life is public and it already feels challenging sometimes to try to separate what is personal versus intimate to use. Brene Brown's brilliant delineation and that this, you know, person that we had brought into the world, like we wanted him to be able to gage his own level of privacy as he grew older.
[00:07:03] And frankly, I think about it in terms of like, this thing is just so special that like, I don't want to share it with anyone else. He's mine. Yeah. So that was a decision we made together and everyone in my life, my parents, you know, husband now, friends, family, like they all buy into that and everyone knows that we don't share photos of him.
[00:07:21] And we don't even say his name publicly. Right. It's just for me.
[00:07:25] Laura McKowen: [00:07:25] I love that. Yeah. I love that. And I get it. And I think any choice that anyone makes is fine. So as you were talking, it made me think about, you said you were rigid and you became rigid in that period of time where you like that, say as a kid or growing up?
[00:07:46] Melissa Urban: [00:07:46] I was. I was. Not as a kid, not necessarily growing up, but after my sexual trauma at 16. Oh yeah. I learned from that experience and the way my family modeled handling challenges in general, that the way you deal with something that is unpleasant or uncomfortable as you just pretend it doesn't exist. And the only way I could pretend something that big and painful didn't exist was to turn myself into a suit of armor.
[00:08:19] I ate everything, every uncomfortable feeling, guilt, shame, the pain, all of it. I just fucking swallowed it all. And I turned myself into a suit of armor. Nothing got out, nothing got in. And that was how I knew to cope. And through therapy, long after I entered into recovery, I did learn other coping mechanisms and I did learn to speak and use my voice.
[00:08:46] But in times of stress, that was always what I would revert back to. That was how I knew and how my body knew to like keep myself safe. Yeah. So yeah, that, that was it. That was my, that was how I lived.
[00:09:00] Laura McKowen: [00:09:00] When I read the first whole 30 book, I felt that I was like, oh, this is a person who's hard.
[00:09:05] Melissa Urban: [00:09:05] I wrote the Whole 30 book in like 20 13, 2014, when my son was like barely born. And we were in the middle of the divorce. Yeah. I was that person, the voice of Whole 30 has dramatically changed over the years because my voice has changed, but yes, you are right. I was much more. And even going back to 2010, when the Whole 30 was founded, it was very rigid.
[00:09:26] It was very tough love. It was like, do this or go somewhere else. I don't really like if you can't do this for 30 days, I don't really have the patience. Other people will, so I'll help them instead. It was hard. It was hard.
[00:09:38] Laura McKowen: [00:09:38] But I kind of love that, that it's changed and that you can talk about that because it's more of a reflection to me of the insides show up on the outsides.
[00:09:49] And of course they always do right. I mean, and I, I sense that you have nothing but compassion for that version of you.
[00:09:58] Melissa Urban: [00:09:58] I do. I do. You know, I recognize now that the reason I had so little empathy for anyone else, anyone doing the Whole 30 people coming to the program who are struggling with it is because I had no empathy for myself.
[00:10:11] I saw any emotion as weakness. I saw sadness or grief or struggling as weakness. The only way I knew to move forward was like toughen up, toughen up, Melissa, like eat it, swallow it, and move forward. More is better. You know? And so that just was a natural reflection of how I chose to like lead and guide.
[00:10:30] And I happened to find myself in the CrossFit space during that time period who responded very well to that sort of tough love. They got it because they volunteered to put themselves through this exercise protocol that at the time was like so revolutionary and so like, give a hundred percent every damn day until you die.
[00:10:49] So I found myself in a time and place in a community that loved that message. And so I was able to be successful in that period, despite the fact that I didn't recognize my privilege, that I couldn't tap in to my own empathy. Like it was, you know, kind of a miracle that I found myself in that place, in that time with the voice that I had and was able to be successful.
[00:11:10] Laura McKowen: [00:11:10] What were the parts of you of, of that time or that way of being that essence in you at that point that you still carry and appreciate now because you still very much come across as, and are, a strong woman, strong person. How do you see the gifts of that time?
[00:11:33] Melissa Urban: [00:11:33] Yeah, so the things that I still carry with me today, um, for sure, the plain speaking, I've always been a straight shooter.
[00:11:41] I subscribe fully to Brene Brown's clear is kind. So if you ask me to tell you, if you ask me for my advice, I'm going to tell you, and I'm going to use as few words as possible and be as clear and kind as possible. And that still carries through. Yeah, I am still, you know, I joke, but it's not really a joke that all the things that made me a really good addict make me very good at things like habit change or taking on new behaviors, because I'm very much like I'm a Gretchen Rubin upholder.
[00:12:09] I'm an Enneagram eight. And if I decide to do something, I just do it. It's not hard. So what that allows me to do are all of these self experiments in my own life, that then allow me to translate the experience that I have to others, and maybe help them get started from this new place of understanding my privilege and understanding empathy.
[00:12:28] So, you know, there are definitely still carry overs from that time period. And I am still very strong. I'm strong. I'm super tough. I am resilient. I am mentally tough. Like I have all of that, but there's just the softness on the inside as well. That perfectly balances that such that I'm no longer brittle.
[00:12:45] Right. So I haven't lost that. I've just blended it nicely I'd like to think.
[00:12:50] Laura McKowen: [00:12:50] Yeah. Well, I think it's also how you carry it. I think the process of recovery, or however we want to term it, because it's not just for people in recovery, but it's integration. You integrate these parts of you and you hold them differently.
[00:13:05] I'm still so much of the person that was unwell, really unwell and really sick and really scared and, you know, drinking myself to death and a total people pleaser, but I've learned how to use those things, those aspects of myself for good. So I, I appreciate that. What's an upholder?
[00:13:26] Melissa Urban: [00:13:26] Oh, Gretchen Rubin's four tendencies framework is like a complete game changer when it comes to habit and change. So the four tendencies framework is essentially a way to describe archetypes of folks and how they respond to both internal and external expectations. So I am an upholder. That means that I respond really well to both internal and external. So if I say I'm going to do something, I do it. And if you say to me, Hey Melissa, let's do this 30 day thing.
[00:13:54] I'll also do it and it's not hard. And I can uphold those expectations, effortlessly. Someone who is an obliger, which is the most common personality type, they respond to external expectation very well. So if I'm your gym buddy, and you know I expect you to show up every morning, you're there. But if you don't have me for that external accountability, it's really hard for you to uphold your own expectations.
[00:14:17] You are that kind of traditional people, pleaser tendency. So I absolutely love this archetype. I use it all the time for leading people through change, through the Whole 30, but it's also super helpful to know what the positives are, what the negatives are of each type, when it comes to habit and change and how to kind of use your tendency in the best way possible to help you facilitate those changes that you want to see.
[00:14:40] Yeah. I love it. I love Gretchen Rubin. She's like one of my favorite people in the world.
[00:14:44]Laura McKowen: [00:14:44] I do too. I'm a rebel. Okay. For the four tendencies. Yeah. Which, yeah, which I accept. It's got, it's got its downsides and its upsides. Okay. So that was a little digression, but I thought it was important. I want people to check that out.
[00:15:00] I love your new website, by the way. I love it visually. But I also love it because you put a lot of the things that you talk about here in there and, sort of condense them into longer read format, which is awesome. One of the things you talk about in terms of boundaries are the lists of like the most important things and sort of how you create boundaries based on that.
[00:15:26] Melissa Urban: [00:15:26] I think what you're alluding to, or sort of where, how, you know, you need to set a boundary, is that kind of what you're talking about? Yeah.
[00:15:33] Laura McKowen: [00:15:33] Yeah. And, how do you, how you know you need to set one, let's start there.
[00:15:37] Melissa Urban: [00:15:37] Yeah. So, you know, boundaries are a super hot topic right now, obviously. And I think that they didn't necessarily use to be, but I think, you know, the rise of Instagram and, um, uh, COVID certainly was a huge impetus for people realizing they needed to set boundaries where home and work and school all blended and, and now your health was kind of at the crux of whether or not you saw certain people or went certain places.
[00:16:05] So I think there are a lot of reasons now that boundaries are a hot topic, but I think a lot of people don't know the difference between a boundary and an ultimatum. I know boundaries make people feel really guilty in part because the recipient of boundaries often responds in that manner. It can feel, make you feel like you're being cold to set a boundary.
[00:16:23] So there's a lot of work I'm trying to do in that space to emphasize that you set boundaries first to keep yourself safe and healthy. It's not a selfish act, it's like a self care act, but you also set them to make the relationship better. It's not about trying to control the other person. I'm not saying Laura, you can't do this.
[00:16:43] I'm saying, hey, to engage with me and to have a healthy relationship, this is how you and I need to show up, or this is how I'm asking you to show up. So a couple areas in which, you know, you need to set a boundary are, if you dread certain interactions, you avoid phone calls from your mom. You keep turning down brunch invites from that one, you know, friend or lunch from that one coworker, if you just dread certain people or interactions, it's usually because they're overrunning one of your boundaries that you have not clearly communicated.
[00:17:16] Sometimes it could just be avoiding certain people because of the topics that they continually bring up. If you feel like a relationship is very, one-sided where you're always giving, giving, giving, and you're not getting anything back in return. That can be a sign that you need to set a boundary. If you leave engagements, just feeling drained and completely like energetic, you know, you got energetic vampire-d, that can be a signal. So those are some ways that you know, that you need to set a boundary and that those boundaries need to be expressed again, in, in a clear and kind way. I often say that it's not your job to guess my boundaries. It is my job to let you know where those kind of fence lines are and when it's appropriate for you to come in closer. And when I need you outside of those lines. That's my job.
[00:18:02] Laura McKowen: [00:18:02] Yes. So the thing you said, the thing that changed, that blew my mind about boundaries and made me really get it was years ago, someone said that boundaries are kind and they actually create more intimacy, right. Which is not at all what people think it's like if I have rules about how you can engage with me, you're going to be offended and it's going to hurt and it's going to push you away. And we're not going to have a relationship.
[00:18:29]Melissa Urban: [00:18:29] I'm going to tell you a quick story. A woman came, I get a lot of DMS help me set a boundary here. And a woman came to me and said, I'm about to have dinner with my mom. Every time I have dinner with my mom, she talks about my body weight and it makes me so uncomfortable and it makes me really upset.
[00:18:43] And I always have a hard time leaving those engagements. And it makes me not want to have dinner with my mom. And I was like, great. You're in the perfect space. Now, before you even go to set this boundary, Hey mom, I'm feeling like a little, um, you know, anxious about our meeting because every time we get together, you always talk about my body and I have to say, it makes me really uncomfortable.
[00:19:01] It makes me self-conscious. And frankly, you know, sometimes it makes me not want to get together with you. So when we have dinner, I would very much appreciate if the topic of my body or our diets didn't come up at all. And she set that boundary and sent me a note back after it. And she said that was the best dinner I've had with my mom in a long time.
[00:19:18] So it did, it created that intimacy. You now are able to go in with this understanding that like the topics you do discuss are ones that you previously agreed to and you believe that that person's going to respect what you asked them not to bring up. And now you have this free interaction where you can afford to be a little more open because that chance of you getting hurt has been taken down considerably with that boundary.
[00:19:40] Laura McKowen: [00:19:40] That's an amazing example. And one thing I tell people, or maybe you could comment on or add too, is that when we set one there's often this after-burn of anxiety, guilt, lots of guilt and just discomfort, it doesn't feel good. It feels like, oh, I've done something wrong. Right. So how you talk to people about that.
[00:20:02] Melissa Urban: [00:20:02] So the first thing I say is that people often imagine this boundary setting conversation going so horribly before you even have it. They're like, oh, mom's going to be so mad and she's going to argue and she's going to whatever. And like, honestly, eight times out of 10, the person goes, oh, okay. I didn't know you felt like that. So you've just spent all of this time being super anxious about the, how the conversation is going to go for no good reason. So that's one thing is like, I have learned with my mom when I set boundaries to give her the benefit of the doubt, because every single time she doesn't let me down.
[00:20:33] And I always anticipate that she's going to give me the guilt trip or be mad about it and she's not. So, okay. Give people the benefit of the doubt. The other thing I need you to understand is that how you react to my boundary is not my business. It's not my business and it's something I do not have to pick it up and carry it.
[00:20:51] If I have set this boundary using clear kind words. And it is truly for the good of the relationship or my own health or my own safety, how you respond to it is not my problem. It really isn't. And if people want to lump the guilt on you, they want to make you feel like a terrible person, generally that's a sign that you have now taken away permission for something that they never should have had in the first place, PS.
[00:21:19] And when they have that reaction, when they try to heap that upon you, you literally don't have to pick that up. I'm sorry that you're experiencing this that way. If you'd like to talk about it at a later time, I'm certainly available. Like you don't have to carry it at all. Let them deal with that. That's their journey. That's their work.
[00:21:34] Laura McKowen: [00:21:34] Yeah. That's so good. And it's so foreign to people.
[00:21:39] Melissa Urban: [00:21:39] It's hard. Yeah. It is hard. Especially the closer the person is to you the harder it is. If it's a stranger on the internet, it's easy to walk away. If it's your mom or your sister or your husband or your kid, it's definitely a lot harder, but you can't make them feel better about it. The only way you can make them feel better is to drop your boundary. And that's not in your highest interest, right? Yeah, we do. Right. So, yeah. Yeah.
[00:22:04] Laura McKowen: [00:22:04] I wanted to touch on boundaries because I know so many people need to hear it, but now I more want to talk about you.
[00:22:10] There's this story that I heard, it's a kind of a parable and I posted it on social media and you and I had an exchange about it. So it's called, Why Were You Not? And it goes like this, uh, there's a tale of a Hasidic rabbi named Rabbi Zuysa. And Zuysa was a timid man, a man who lived a humble life. One day Zuysa stood before his congregation. And he said, when I die and have to present myself before the celestial tribune, they will not ask me, Zuysa, why were you not Moses? Because I would say Moses was a prophet and I am not. And they will not say Zuysa, why were you not Jeremiah for, I would say Jeremiah was a writer and I am not. And they will not say, why were you not rabbi Akiba for, I would tell them rabbi Akiba was a great teacher and a scholar and I'm not. But then they will say, Zuysa, why were you not Zuysa? And to this, I will have no answer. So why, how did that hit you?
[00:23:23] Melissa Urban: [00:23:23] I have like, I'm tearing up just listening to it. I had such a strong, visceral reaction to that. I felt it in my heart. I felt it in my throat. Like it, it just hit me like a ton of bricks and I think because it reminded me, and I think again about this with so much compassion, but it reminded me of all the times that I abandoned myself when I was struggling through my addiction, through my trauma, through my recovery, when it was too hard to care for myself to attempt to, you know, re parent myself, to love myself through that time.
[00:24:02] And I would, I would abandon myself and I think that's where it hit me viscerally. And then when I, when I fast-forward and think about it from my perspective now, now it is literally like, am I showing up as me? That's it, it is the only thing I know how to do better than anyone else. It's the only thing I can't get wrong.
[00:24:27] It's the only thing that no one will ever fault me for. And if they do, that's not my problem. Um, but, but I think about it then, and I think about it now in sort of two different constructs, but either way that story immediately became so incredibly important to my like life philosophy.
[00:24:46] Laura McKowen: [00:24:46] Same. Yeah, same. We don't always show up as who we are. Right. It wouldn't have meant, that story wouldn't have mattered to you if you did. And, and so what makes it hard for you to do that sometimes?
[00:25:03] Melissa Urban: [00:25:03] It's harder in my personal life than it is on the internet. It is 10 times easier for me to show up more open and authentically with strangers on the internet than it is like my own husband and my own mom or my own sister.
[00:25:16] I know, I know I have this theory about like circles of vulnerability. I meant I need to ask Brene if she's like ever talked about it, but I notice it when I feel threatened, when I feel like when I'm physically vulnerable. So when I'm really stressed out. When I'm sick when my concussion symptoms are bad or when I feel, because I'm so introverted, when I feel like I haven't had enough alone time to recharge and I will slip back into some old behaviors. I'll gaslight a little bit, I'll manipulate a little bit, I'll get angry as a means of teaching people how to treat me.
[00:25:54] This is like all the old shit that I used to pull in my old life. And I will tell you now that it feels awful to do that. It used to feel comforting. It used to feel safe. It used to feel like coming home and now it feels terrible. There's no part of me that enjoys behaving like that, but that's where I think back to like, oh, why are you not showing up as you right now?
[00:26:16] And so it doesn't last very long. And I always call myself out on it and make my apologies and find a healthier way to deal with it. But it usually comes out when I'm feeling my most vulnerable, right. It's almost like an automatic reversion to what I've known for so long. But because I have tools now and because I have the self-awareness through therapy and self work, I'm able to recognize it for what it is.
[00:26:40] Laura McKowen: [00:26:40] Do you still find that you have a really hard time being? I say my healthy adult self. Yeah.
[00:26:50] Melissa Urban: [00:26:50] Yes, of course. I think I find that with my parents, for sure. Right. We have the, we are taught to grow up as children and have certain relationships with our parents. When you add on top of that challenges or struggles that, you know, your family deals with well or not well, or somewhere in between.
[00:27:08] And, you know, I think all the challenges that I went through as a child make it hard to show up with my parents as the adult that I am, because I find myself always reverting back to those relationships. Like it's hard not to.
[00:27:20] Laura McKowen: [00:27:20] It's in your body.
[00:27:21] Melissa Urban: [00:27:21] Yeah, it is. It does feel like it is. So, um, definitely that's I think the biggest example
[00:27:28] Laura McKowen: [00:27:28] Mine for me is my ex-husband there's so much junk that I carry about the, who I was in, that who he is in that the roles that we played and I can have all the intellectual knowledge in the world. And I do have a lot and I can do all the work and it still, it still will just show up.
[00:27:52]Melissa Urban: [00:27:52] Yeah. I feel that too. I do, but it's because you are, so you still have those tangles, especially when you have kids with them.
[00:27:59] You know, if we didn't have kids, you cut the string. You never think about them again. They move on, you move on and like, that's it. But when you have children and you have to interact, you have to find a new way to interact. Cause obviously the old way didn't work. Um, and yeah, that can be a real challenge because they still know how to push your buttons better than anyone.
[00:28:16] They still know the, and I'm not saying that they try to on purpose, but it does. You get caught up in conversation. Yeah. Sometimes it just happens. So, yeah, that's a good point.
[00:28:25] Laura McKowen: [00:28:25] Yeah. Yeah. And family for sure. But that's where I noticed it the most. And man, I used to beat the shit out of myself and I still do when that shows up.
[00:28:32] Cause I hate it. It feels, I feel small and scared, but it it's totally normal. Right?
[00:28:40] Melissa Urban: [00:28:40] Yeah. Yeah. I, I have so much compassion for myself all the time these days, anytime I mess up, anytime I go back to old behavior, anytime I show up poorly. You know, I just remind myself like, look, this is you, you know, you spent 20 years of your life coping like this. It's natural that echos would continue to show up. You're aware of them. Now you fix them quickly. Like you're doing great. You know, I try really hard to be nice to myself, like all the time now. I do.
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[00:31:03] Laura McKowen: [00:31:03] A recent post was saying something when I feel good in me, it's easier for me to be okay with you. Do you honestly find that you're able to have compassion for most of the time for other people?
[00:31:15] Melissa Urban: [00:31:15] Yes, I was always better. Well, not always, but I find in general, it's easier to have compassion for other people in that I would give you advice and then I'd go back to myself in the same situation and say like, oh, suck it up, Melissa. You can do it. Yeah. Um, so in that sense, it's been easy, but yes, I do find the more, it's like a couple different things. The more aware I am of my own privilege, because I have so many and it shows up in the world in so many different ways and the more empathetic and compassionate I am with myself, the more I'm able to look at behaviors, thought processes, actions, um, stages of development and say like, look, you know what you were, you were, you have always been doing the best that you could.
[00:31:55] And I know that because that's what you are doing, right. That's the Byron Katie, like, how do I know it is? Because it is. And so with that attitude, I'm then able to look at someone else and think about, what are their challenges? How do they show up in the world differently than I do, because they don't have all those same privileges.
[00:32:12] And how does that impact what they're feeling and what they're experiencing and how might I be able to find empathy or compassion in this situation? And so, yes, I'm very, so much better at that than I used to be. It's it was very much taught. Like I had to teach myself how to do it, but now I think I'm really good at it.
[00:32:29] And I also just get a lot of practice through the community that we have both with my stuff and Whole 30. So I have a lot of opportunity to do that.
[00:32:37] Laura McKowen: [00:32:37] Yeah. Lots of opportunities. Yeah. I find the same, but when I judge, I judge hard, hard, hard, hard. And so that's, that's a, that's an ongoing process for me is like, when I notice I'm really judging someone, it's like, okay, this is interesting. Why do you kind of not want to let this go?
[00:32:55] Melissa Urban: [00:32:55] Hmm. Uh huh. Well, I wrote a whole, I did a whole podcast about it. That's called judgment is a. mirror, not a window.
[00:33:03] Laura McKowen: [00:33:03] Yay! I'm going to listen. So you have this on the home page of your website, and I haven't actually heard you talk about this. It says I'll go first. And then in you say six years ago, something happened that made me decide that I would be the one to go first.
[00:33:24] Melissa Urban: [00:33:24] Yeah, that was my divorce and business split. That was the moment when I realized that I hadn't been showing up as myself. I had been showing up as what I called Whole 30 Melissa, and she was perfect. She was always prettily groomed and she worked out and she ate well and she was happy. And, and when she wasn't, she just didn't show up.
[00:33:45] Right. Like I had this kind of image crafted version of myself and I was exhausted and couldn't meet up, like, couldn't meet my own expectations of myself and hated how it felt. And I just decided that I was going to start showing up as me. And what I realized was that the more I talked about things that felt vulnerable, that felt a little scary, but that I would, I would talk about them in a way that made it easy to translate like what my experience was to sort of a universal experience. The more I was able to do that, A; the better it felt it was like my own form of therapy. I absolutely loved how it made me feel. It empowered me to use my voice even more and more than that, it gave other people permission to use their voice.
[00:34:30] Yeah. So I started talking about things that I didn't hear anyone else talking about, but I was like, oh, I know people want to talk about this. I did a whole Instagram post about that one time I got chlamydia. I was like, hey, here's what happened. Right. I'll go first. I will. And that an outpouring of people came in and said like, oh my gosh, this has been so shameful for me.
[00:34:50] And like, I've wanted to talk about it because it's great. It's great to talk about it. And then it helps you feel more comfortable asking a new partner like, hey, have you been tested? Can we get tested? Or if not, we're gonna use condoms. Cause that's my boundary. Like going first has been really cathartic for me.
[00:35:07] And I find the more I do it, the more I want to do it. And the more response I get from people saying like, thanks, I really appreciate someone saying this first. And because you said it now, I feel like I can talk about it as well.
[00:35:20] Laura McKowen: [00:35:20] Yeah. Yes. And I love it. I saw that. You embody that, the I'll go first thing. You bring up topics, I'm like, damn, I didn't even know. I wanted to talk about that or think about that. Yeah. You know, you're, you're really good at that. And it's anything from hiking stuff, like how to hike alone for sunsets or deeper things. Like you talked about sex and like your boundaries around protection. And that was as someone who literally, this is something I've never talked about before, but I never would ask people to wear a condom.
[00:35:54] I was too like, afraid that they would leave as sad as that is. And it was like, God damn. If I had one person, if I had heard this voice, maybe it would have, you know, and that led to pregnancies and all kinds of things that were in all kinds of trauma that I didn't have to undergo. So I love it. And the thing I think I love about it the most too, is like, not everyone has to talk publicly about stuff, but I'll go first in this relationship. I'll go first in this room with my kid. I'll go first in this room with my parents, right?
[00:36:36] Melissa Urban: [00:36:36] Yes. And I encourage people to use their voice if and where, and when they choose. And that's it, you never have to go publicly with your story. You never have to, you know, talk about it with anyone outside of perhaps a therapist or a trusted, close, say, friend, like a safe environment.
[00:36:55] But I want you to know that you can. Yeah. If you ever decide you want to, because there will be healing in it, there will be empowerment in it. Then I, I want you to feel like you can. And if I'm thinking about it, if I'm thinking about my birth story or how promiscuous I was after my trauma or some of the ways I showed up in relationships after my divorce, if I'm thinking about it, someone else is.
[00:37:18] We're literally never alone in these thoughts. And sometimes just hearing someone else talk about the stuff that like you, you can't even bring yourself to mention in your own head is incredibly powerful.
[00:37:30] Laura McKowen: [00:37:30] That's what absolutely saved my life when it came to, uh, drinking and getting sober. Yeah. Cause there's something that happens when you share. Writing requires a different level of thinking and embodiment.
[00:37:44] If you're trying to really get to the truth, I wrote for myself, frankly, first I wrote for myself because it was saving me and that sounded so trite, but I was like, I don't know. It's, this is saving my life.
[00:37:57] Melissa Urban: [00:37:57] I feel like any time you take something that has been just like buried, right? My stuff is like all in my like hips and pelvis, it is shoved so far down there in a box that's like closed.
[00:38:09] And anytime you take that, which always feels like so scary and huge, impossible, and heavy and lonely and impossible. Yes. Anytime you take that and you bring it out into the world, whether you're writing it or speaking it or singing it or dancing it or painting it, it loses some of its power over you. It does like it's dramatic how, at least in my experience how that works, where if it's, you know, shame lives in the dark and when it's so close to you and inside you, it feels impossible and you get it out there in whatever form feels good for you.
[00:38:44] And all of a sudden it becomes just a little more like possible and that's really important and stuff.
[00:38:51] Laura McKowen: [00:38:51] It's i, yeah. I think whenever someone says, you know, what's my first step. Struggling with the people come to me for alcohol. So would have what's my first step. And it's like, write it down.
[00:39:01] Melissa Urban: [00:39:01] Yeah. I always say tell someone, yes.
[00:39:03] Tell someone, right. I speak for me, speaking is like more intimate, but whatever it works.
[00:39:08] Laura McKowen: [00:39:08] Well, I say, I say, and then you must tell another human eventually. Yeah. Sometimes that's too much, right? Sometimes people can't even just to write it down as is, is a massive step. It seems to me and even talking about God recently, and this hit that you've been receiving about gentle, be gentle with yourself.
[00:39:30] It seems like it's all part of the same trajectory or expansion. As I see it. One of the things that you posted recently was your birth story. I see this as another part of the softening aspect. Why was it time to do that?
[00:39:49] Melissa Urban: [00:39:49] I've been thinking about it for a really long time. My son's eight. This happened eight years ago.
[00:39:55] And because when he was born, I was in the middle of a divorce. I had like, all of my therapy time was dealing with the marriage and the disillusion of the marriage and becoming a single mom and what it meant. I didn't have any capacity in that moment to process my son's birth and the traumatic nature of it.
[00:40:12] And it wasn't until a few years later that I realized that every time I thought back to it, I still felt like it hurt so much. And so I finally did unpack it and decide kind of what it meant for me and what it meant about me and what it meant for us. And, and the most important thing I think was just the recognition and the allowance of like multiple emotions to claim space at the same time, the grief and the gratitude and the fear and anxiety with the joy.
[00:40:42] And I've been wanting to write about it for a while. And I actually did. I wrote that up probably a year ago and it just, couldn't quite, couldn't quite come out. You know, you get it down on paper and every time you think about pushing the button, um, and it, and it was, it felt like too intimate, a story to share via email.
[00:40:58] Like that's a lot to drop into someone's email box. And so I just waited. I waited until sort of the right vehicle, and I knew I didn't want to share it anywhere else that I had to share it myself, um, not through another outlet. And so when we decided to launch the website, you know, people have asked me quite a bit.
[00:41:14] Oh, can you talk about your birth? Because I think they assumed that it was this natural magical, you know, and that was what I planned and that's certainly not what happened. Um, so when I launched the new website, that was the article I led with was just like, hey, I haven't heard a lot of people talk about this.
[00:41:29] I know now that there are communities devoted to sharing stories. And I think it's wonderful. And I wish I had looked to try to seek one out at the time, but I didn't have capacity. Um, so again, just in that vein of like, I want to get this out there in case that helps other people. And some of the stories that have come back as a result are just completely like emotionally, just gutting, but also beautiful at the same time. It's been really an emotional journey for me, for sure.
[00:41:55] Laura McKowen: [00:41:55] I'm not surprised you've received stories like that. I think it's also such a good commentary on time as this sort of irrelevant factor in processing. I didn't even begin to process my divorce because I was drinking and then I had to get sober and that was survival.
[00:42:15] And then I was a single mom. I thought I literally didn't have anything around it.
[00:42:20] I thought I'm fine until six years into it. Yeah. And it was like, a wall or something heavy. Just smashing on me. It was shocking. Yeah. Right. I know people probably need to hear that, you know, that the time is irrelevant.
[00:42:39] Melissa Urban: [00:42:39] Yeah. I feel, and I think actually the time can be very beneficial. So again, I go back to what I think Glennon Doyle said, which is I try not to write about something until I can take something that's about me and make it universal. And I think that's really important. I find if I share too early before I've had the time to actually process it in my own therapy and my own self work, it's way too raw.
[00:43:05] And it's hard to connect with anyone else because you can feel that rawness come through the screen. And for a lot of people it's very off putting, it's like too much. Um, it's too much of like a dump of emotion and just really that like raw feeling. But now that I've had the capacity to process it I'm able to look back with compassion. I'm able to look back and find the grace in it. I'm able, not that you have to get to that place, but I'm now organically able to find both the benefits and the grief in it, the silver lining, if you will. So I do think that time is irrelevant. I think we all come to these things in our own time, but I think that time can actually be very beneficial for translating the story in a way that really connects.
[00:43:48] Laura McKowen: [00:43:48] Yeah, absolutely. And, and it takes so much to make sense of something it's it takes so much to make sense of something. And what you understand today will be different probably than what you understand in five years about it or in 10 years. Yeah. I, I totally agree with that. I call it trauma porn when people share too early.
[00:44:10] Cause it's, there's almost an encouragement to do that on, you know, we have this whole truth teller thing and it's, it's this warped, you know, it's a mistaken way of interpreting that. I don't think it's that helpful. I don't think it's helpful for the person sharing. I don't think it's that helpful for people receiving it.
[00:44:27] So how do you process things? You've talked a good amount about what you do therapy and other things. Tell me how you process stuff. Who's on your team?
[00:44:38] Melissa Urban: [00:44:38] Well, yeah, I have, I've had a therapist, um, various therapists. I worked with one, this, the random therapist that I was assigned in rehab. I went on to work with for like 20 years.
[00:44:47] He was sent by God. He was the first therapist in my whole life that called me on my shit. Wouldn't let me get away with like the stuff that I used to get away with in therapy. And he was the one that I made, like the most progress with in terms of unpacking my trauma. And I even saw him all the way through like my marriage and divorce.
[00:45:03] So he was amazing, but I have a great therapist now I've worked with others along the way, and we've done, you know, mostly talk therapy, but there's also sematic work. Um, I do, you know, my own work through yoga, through my meditation practice, through acupuncture, through massage therapy, Byron Katie has been instrumental.
[00:45:23] She has a practice called the work, which is her four questions that helps you separate sort of your story about what's happening from what is happening. And I look at therapy like I look at physical therapy, right? I go for a while because I need this therapist to help me make sense of things and sort things out.
[00:45:38] And then I leave like healed enough and with enough tools that I can then go employ them out in the world, real world. So I'm not in therapy 24/ 7. I can't do that. I find that exhausting and I want to like take my, you know, training wheels off and like apply it, apply what I've learned. So that's kind of the space I'm in right now.
[00:45:56] I haven't been in therapy for about two months, but I still keep in touch with my therapist. And she knows that like, if you know, a situation comes up and I need her she's there. And I'm just really using the tools that I worked on with her right now to process things. And, and by process, I really mean a commitment to recognizing that I'm in a moment of discomfort and forcing, not forcing myself, but inviting myself, cause that's gentler, to just sit in it. Just sit in it with curiosity until I've identified what it is. And then I have a lot of tools at my disposal to figure out how to like work through it.
[00:46:32] Laura McKowen: [00:46:32] So good. I'm going to make a sharp turn and it's not unrelated at all. It's kind of related to everything, but your relationship, your new marriage. How do you experience yourself in this relationship? How do you see it as in terms of where you found each other in your process and your path? I feel and learned that the measure of our, our overall wellbeing is always reflected in our relationships. And for me, it's romantic relationships where the final frontier is the final frontier.
[00:47:10] Melissa Urban: [00:47:10] I love this. I don't know if I've ever talked about this. I think I might've mentioned it casually, but Brandon and I dated in 2017 for maybe four months or so. And then he dumped me. He was the first guy I had dated since my divorce that I really liked, but he had a lot of insecurities and he dumped me saying, I don't know if I'm like good enough for you.
[00:47:35] I don't know if I'm good enough. And I thought, and I said to him, if you don't know, then like, you're right. I can't, I can't do that for you. You know? And so he dumped me and I was really sad and we didn't talk for, you know, maybe eight months or nine months. And I bumped into him later in the gym, about nine months later in the gym.
[00:47:52] And it was like, oh, Hey, how are you? You know, good. And we remembered that we really enjoyed. And so we started hanging out again, just as friends. He had, we had kind of a shared group of friends and we started hanging out and the more we hung out, the more, I was like, oh, now I remember how much I like really liked this person.
[00:48:06] And I was driving out to Vail for an event. And he called while I was on this drive. And when I tell you that he showed up for me in like the like dreamiest way, he was like, look, I've been doing a lot of therapy and a lot of work. I know exactly why I wasn't right for you and I felt like I wasn't good enough for you back then.
[00:48:26]Now I know all of the ways in which I am good for you and I can take care of you. And like, I may not ever make as much money as you. And I may not ever be as successful as you like publicly, but like, here are all the ways that like, I could be good for you. I mean, when I tell you it was like a fricking notebook movie or something, it was just, but that was, that was it.
[00:48:45] He had done, he went away, he did the work, he came back. I had done a lot of work as well to deal with additional baggage from my relationship. And we got back together and that was like, you know, three over three years ago.
[00:48:56] Laura McKowen: [00:48:56] Were you shocked at that phone call?
[00:48:59] Melissa Urban: [00:48:59] I was pleasantly. Yeah. I mean, guess yes, I would. I've never had a man speak to me like that before. I've never had a man like, own his shit.
[00:49:06] Laura McKowen: [00:49:06] And you didn't know it was coming?
[00:49:08] Melissa Urban: [00:49:08] No, I really didn't. No, of course not. So yeah, I was really surprised. Honestly, I will say that's how our relationship has been ever since this is the healthiest relationship I've ever been in.
[00:49:19] We call each other on our shit. We invite each other into like further discussion, work, therapy. We had the conversation about whether or not we were going to have kids together, like maybe two months into our new relationship. Cause I was like, look, here's the deal. I'm eight years older than you are. I don't want to have any more kids, but you might want to, you're younger.
[00:49:39] You've never had kids. And like we got into it and spent two months really talking about it and deciding like, nope, we're actually this, this is like a shared decision that we don't want to have any kids together. Like it's been an incredibly healthy, communicative, supportive journey. And he's the first relationship I've ever been in where I feel like I legitimately have someone on my team, which feels really nice.
[00:50:01] Laura McKowen: [00:50:01] You haven't exactly said this, but it seems like, or maybe it's just that you and I have talked about this that you can be as big as you are the full Melissa and that's not just okay, it's like, please. Yeah, please.
[00:50:20] Melissa Urban: [00:50:20] Yes, he is so proud of me. He is so supportive. He is like my biggest fan. He helps me, you know, when I want to talk about business stuff, he's always there to listen and he's so smart.
[00:50:31] He is like the person I turn to the most when I have questions. Cause he's so insightful about like my business and my trajectory, but like he is the proudest person and I feel like I can be as big as I want to be. And he's just like, yeah, honey, do it. Which is so awesome.
[00:50:47] Laura McKowen: [00:50:47] So what's it like to get married again?
[00:50:50] Melissa Urban: [00:50:50] Weird. There was, that's why I went back to therapy, Laura. That's why I went back to therapy was because I wanted him to move. We knew we wanted him to move in. We knew we wanted to get married. Right. We had always, for like a couple of years, I was like, I don't care whether we get married or not. We're going to be together forever.
[00:51:04] It doesn't matter. We can do it any way we want and it doesn't matter. And then it became clear to me that I wanted to be married and he was like, totally down for it. But there was, and I've talked about this, which is maybe why you feel like we're not performing because I've talked about some of the bad, hard stuff too.
[00:51:17] But like I struggled with inviting him into, like, we bought this house together about a year ago, understanding that we wanted him to move in and we wanted like a fresh space for us. Right. And then I lived here with my son for six months or so just to get us kind of settled. And then I was like, I don't know how he's going to move in.
[00:51:36] I don't know how I'm going to have someone here all the time. Where are his clothes going to go? What is he going to eat? My food? What is like, I was so used to living by myself and it was so convenient. Cause he'd come stay for a couple of days. And then I would be like, okay, I need some breathing room and he'd go home for a few days.
[00:51:52] And I didn't know how I was going to adjust to having him living with us permanently to the point where we even had the convo where I was like, could we be married, but live in different houses? And he was like, no, that does not work for me. And I was like, dammit. So I went back to therapy to like figure that shit out.
[00:52:07] Um, and did, you know, it took a couple months and learn new tools and we had great communications and stuff like that. But, but yeah, um, getting married again was challenging, you know, his, his first marriage and it was my third. And I don't talk about the first husband often because he's a very private person, but he was the person I married, like right out of rehab.
[00:52:28] Right, the good, like stable, steady person. Good man. But anyway, it was my third marriage. So I was like, I don't care. I was just, let's just get married by the side of the road, just the two of us. And he was like, oh, really? I'd really like my family there. So we compromised, we had a really small wedding. We ended up doing it on a construction site, but it was so pretty.
[00:52:45] The photos were gorgeous and we only had like 12 or 13 people there. We kept it like pretty chill and had great photography and great food. And like, those were the things we really cared about.
[00:52:55] Laura McKowen: [00:52:55] What did you learn in therapy about what was going on that allowed it to shift in you?
[00:53:00] Melissa Urban: [00:53:00] Okay. A couple of things. So the first is that I learned about the concept of energetic leakage. Oh yeah. I always felt like. If I didn't have capacity, like, so, so much of my energetic capacity goes to my son when he's here, he gets like the he's like top of the pyramid or bottom of the pyramid, whoever gets the most. And then if I didn't have enough capacity for like real people in my real life, I always had enough for social media.
[00:53:25] I can always answer a few DMS, connect with my community. And my therapist helped me understand how much of my energy was like leaking out in ways that I never associated. So no wonder I couldn't have Brandon in my house for more than two nights. At a time I was giving so much energy away to other sources.
[00:53:44] My child was taking more than needed, which is something that both Brandon and my therapist helped me point out like, hey Melissa, he's playing by himself super happily. You don't have to go in there every 10 minutes and see if he needs something. Like, just let him be. So that was kind of the first thing is I realized that I had to be a lot more mindful of my energy and where it was going and that if I really wanted to prioritize having someone in my space, that I needed to do that. The other thing was just clear communication.
[00:54:09] So what would happen is he would come stay with me for two or three nights, and I would want him to stay for one more night, but I would start feeling really claustrophobic. Like I couldn't breathe because I didn't have enough alone time. And so he would stay for that one more night and I would just be an asshole and he wouldn't understand why., He would think it was him and that's such a toxic pattern to get into.
[00:54:28] So we started having the conversation of like, hey, if, when I feel like I need alone time, I know you don't understand this, but it gets really like, it's very physical for me. So I might, um, have you go home .One night and it's not you it's just me. Or I might go for a hike by myself and not invite you.
[00:54:46] Cause that's where I can get my alone time. And if you notice me puttering after dinner that's cause I just needed like a little bit of space and a little movement. So don't ask if you can help. I really want to do it by myself. And having these communications. He's now really good about understanding my patterns and like what my little behaviors mean.
[00:55:01] And he's, he'll even say like, oh, I can sense you need some alone time. So I'm gonna go take Henry for a walk. And I'm like, sweet, thank you. So that communication was really, really clutch too. And just being on afraid to ask for what I want, because now I have a partner who is actually willing to give it to me.
[00:55:19] That was like a big lesson is like trusting him enough to be able to say, can you do this for me. That was huge.
[00:55:26] Laura McKowen: [00:55:26] Oh, it's hard. Okay. So we'll end, I, your show was the first that I solicited questions from my community and there's just a couple of them, but I wanted to give them the opportunity to ask you something.
[00:55:44] Melissa Urban: [00:55:44] That's fun!
[00:55:44] Laura McKowen: [00:55:44] So yeah, it is fun. And they were psyched too. They were psyched to be able to do this with you. Okay. So the first one, this is Laura Lee. She says I've been a Melissa fan for years. She's the real deal pickle. You can use that now. Real deal pickle. My first ever real mantra was her, "it's not hard." Something like fighting cancer is hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Drinking black coffee is not hard. If you want to ask it about that, I'd love to hear what she has to say now. I think she has changed it since her OG book, but I would love to hear.
[00:56:23] That's
[00:56:23] Melissa Urban: [00:56:23] so funny that, yeah, that's the most often quoted line of the Whole 30. And that's what I wrote in 2010. This is not hard. Fighting you know, fighting cancer is hard. Quitting heroin is hard from my own experience. Birthing a baby is hard drinking your coffee black for 30 days is not hard. And a lot of people related to that again at that specific time. And when I revised the language last year for the new Whole 30 cookbook, we, I kept that line in, but it's different now. The context around it is essentially, I want to remind you of your own power. There are so many factors in this world, especially as women that tell us that we have no power, you know, especially if you come from a recovery community, if you come from trauma, you are constantly reminded that you have no power.
[00:57:13] You can't trust yourself. You've got to make yourself small. You have to defer to others. And we forget how powerful we truly are and what I want to do with this phrase and through the Whole 30, which is about food, but it's not really about food, is to remind you that, like you have done hard things in this lifetime, and this is a commitment to yourself, a promise to yourself because you are worthy and you deserve it.
[00:57:39] And I want to remind you that you hold all the power in this equation and that if this is something that you want, you absolutely can have it. And that's where that language is these days. Yeah.
[00:57:49] Laura McKowen: [00:57:49] I love it. I love the evolution of it.
[00:57:52] Melissa Urban: [00:57:52] Thank you, me too.
[00:57:54] Laura McKowen: [00:57:54] Yeah, I do. Uh, and this, this is the last one. This is from Hannah. And again, this is I, I'm not even gonna add any of my own context. How do you make something like Whole 30 a lifestyle after the 30 day elimination phase? I don't do well with too many rules. So how can this be a life style and not rules based?
[00:58:18] Melissa Urban: [00:58:18] Yes. So I think we emphasize how to do the 30 days of Whole 30 so much, because it's so challenging for people.
[00:58:26] And we created so many resources for it and what to do during your elimination. But there's also a whole book called Food Freedom Forever. That is all about how to take what you've learned on the Whole 30 and turn it into a sustainable lifestyle that works for you. I don't want you to do Whole 30 forever.
[00:58:42] It's not meant to be done forever. You're not meant to live by my food rules. I want you to take what you've learned on the program, which foods do work for you, which don't, what contexts you might enjoy them, um, the quantity or frequency that works best for you. And I want you to apply that in your own life, according to your own principles, if you don't want to use rules, because for rebels, rules can feel really constricting, then the framework that we have outlined is essentially to ask yourself before you choose a food that you know, may or may not work for you.
[00:59:18] Like, is it worth it. Ask yourself, honestly, is it worth it? How is this food going to impact me physically, emotionally, mentally? Is it going to lead, you know, is it a gateway where it's going to lead to other poor food choices? Like alcohol tends to be? Is it worth it? And then the second question is, do I even want it?
[00:59:35] We have such complex relationships with food and alcohol that we often find ourselves eating or drinking things that we don't even want, but because they're in front of us and because they're exciting or because they're societal pressure or because we're told that if we eat or drink this we're fitting in or we're cool or whatever, we do things that we don't even want.
[00:59:53] So checking in with yourself again, reminding yourself that you have the power in this moment. Is it worth it and do I even want it? That's how you turn it into a sustainable lifestyle. There's no deprivation there, there are no rules. You're literally checking in with yourself and trusting yourself that you're going to give yourself the right answer.
[01:00:11] And if you discover down the line that what you ate or drank wasn't worth it, or you didn't really want it. Okay. That's how you learn. That's just part of the learning experience. You know, food freedom is a lifelong practice.
[01:00:24] Laura McKowen: [01:00:24] Okay. I love those questions. And that's why, when you said it's, it's not about food, but it is, you know, it's not really about food. Those questions are for everything, anything that is your thing. You know, I talk in my book about, we've all got a thing, and many things over time and they change and they show up. The questions are again, is it worth it? And do I want to do, I won't really want, do I want it? Yeah. Those are life changing questions.
[01:00:53] Melissa Urban: [01:00:53] I think so they, think they could be. Yeah, again, it's, we're talking about food, but the Whole 30 and the concepts spill over into every area of your life. And I think there's so much applicability, like food is so foundational to so many of our other relationships and behaviors, but take those questions with you anywhere. Absolutely.
[01:01:09] Laura McKowen: [01:01:09] Yeah. It's like, I think that way about alcohol, it's an entry point to money relationships. I mean, you name it. It goes on and on and on. So I love that. Okay. Great. All right. My love, this was amazing. I knew it would be.
[01:01:25] Melissa Urban: [01:01:25] Thank you. It was wonderful to talk to you. You're a great interviewer. This was fantastic. No, I love getting to spend the time with you.
[01:01:31] Laura McKowen: [01:01:31] Yeah, me too.
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