Conversations on Healing

Welcome to the Conversations on Healing podcast, where host Shay Beider speaks with renowned healthcare leaders, practitioners, and thought leaders to explore the world of wellness, the incredible powers of self-care, and what it truly means to heal today. Join us on this journey to become more whole, healed, and connected.

Shay Beider Hi everyone, and welcome to the Conversations on Healing podcast. I’m your host, Shay Beider, and I’m so glad that you’re with us today. In our fun episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Erin Clifford, a wellness expert who helps professionals create healthier and more fulfilling lives. Erin is a corporate wellness consultant and licensed professional counselor who takes a truly holistic approach to well-being, integrating mental health, nutrition, movement, and mindfulness into a harmonious balance. She’s the author of the USA Today national bestseller titled “Wellness Re-Imagined: A Holistic Approach to Health, Happiness, and Harmony,” which offers a very comprehensive guide to thriving in today’s busy world. Erin’s work is all about empowering people to build resilience and find harmony both personally and professionally.

In our conversation, we explore what it really means to care for ourselves sustainably. Erin shares why genuine healing often requires returning to the basics, focusing on sleep, movement, nourishing food, and real human connection. We talk about the practices that many of us struggle with the most- asking for help when we need it, setting healthy boundaries that actually protect our energy, and recognizing and spotting burnout before it takes over.

We also dive into the importance of finding meaning and purpose even in life’s most demanding seasons. This is a conversation about getting honest with ourselves and creating space for genuine well-being. I think you’ll find it both nourishing and perhaps a little challenging. So let’s settle in and begin.

Erin, I’m so excited to talk today about your book “Wellness Reimagined.” I have my copy here, but it’s got a lot of notes stuck in it because I had a really fun time reading through it. The subtitle is “A Holistic Approach to Health, Happiness, and Harmony,” and it’s really got a ton of practical tools that I think are super easy to use, and it almost feels a little bit workbook-y in the best sense that there’s a very active way and hands-on way that you can move through the book. So in order to frame our conversation today, I wanted to start with something that you emphasize, which is the importance of setting your values and priorities and how critical that is designing a wellness plan, because we’re going to be talking about wellness and how we could each design a meaningful and impactful wellness plan. And so for today’s episode, I want to start by having our listeners to take a moment to identify their top five values or priorities in life. And then we’re going to use that to help them as they’re starting to construct their own wellness plan. And so I thought as they’re kind of listening and contemplating, that it might be useful for you to give them some examples to help them with this reflection exercise. So what would be some examples of some important values that our guests might share?

Erin Clifford For sure. Yeah, so when I think of values, I really think of them as your North Star, so they can really give you a sense of the priorities that you want to have as you’re going about your busy life. So for instance, some people- family- is a really big value, or community. Some people who are really in the middle of their careers might value that idea of success or performance. Other people who are very altruistic might value contribution. For me, one of my values, too, is grace, because I tend to be very hard on myself, and struggle a little bit with that perfectionism. So really tapping into that. So thinking of values as what are the things that are important to you? What are the states you want to be in and create in your life, too? Because that can be really important to carry throughout your different life domains.

Shay Yeah, that’s great. And so the idea in your book that you talk about is first establishing those values and priorities so that as you develop your wellness plan, it’s very aligned with those personal values, like you said, your true North Star.

Erin Yes, exactly. Yeah, because even when you’re deciding different aspects of lifestyle that you want to engage in, you want to make sure they align with your values. For instance, I work with a lot of parents, and somebody who’s a parent wants to make sure that some of those lifestyle initiatives- whether it is their nutrition or their exercise or their schedules- really do align with what works for their family too.

Shay That’s great. And I also thought, just as we’re starting this conversation, it’d be useful to explain a little bit to our listeners about what a board-certified health and wellness coach is, because you are board certified and there are a lot of different levels of training within the coaching field as a whole, but the board certifications for being a health and wellness coach are pretty rigorous. Most of those are a minimum of a year-long program. Some of them are much longer; many of them are connected to universities or colleges. So I thought just to frame a little bit for someone who maybe themselves wants to get a health and wellness coach, but they’re like, “Wait, what do I even look for?” If you could explain a little bit about just what some of those differences are.

Erin For sure. So one of the things that I really like about the board certification- and when I first started coaching, they didn’t have that yet- coaching was a newer field. So when I initially did my first program with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, when I graduated, I had this certification which I had to keep to renew, but I hadn’t gone and done that extra level of training- which now programs like that, as well as things you can get at colleges- offer. There’s even some master’s programs out there that are in coaching. But the thing that I love about the board certification is you do your classes live, so you’re not just on your own trying to go through the materials. It’s a real learning experience. And during your classes, you do a lot of one-on-one coaching with a lot of the different students that actually gets recorded, and gets evaluated by the professors.
So they’re really training you on not just the skills that you need, but really the coaching skills- right? It’s great to have all this information in the different lifestyle arenas, but if you don’t know how to engage one-on-one with a client or with a whole group of people, you’re not going to be able to help that individual get to that next level of whatever their goals are.

And I think it’s really important to make sure people are trained. I’m also a mental health counselor, and so when I was working on my master’s and doing my clinical work, we had to do a lot of that one-on-one coaching with supervisors, and those board certification coaching programs, they really mimic that. And so I think it’s really great that they have that now, and then you have to sit for a board certification test, and then when you pass that, it’s good for three years, and then you keep up your license by doing continuing education, which is great because we are going back and we’re really learning what the newest research is and if there’s a certain area that you want to specialize in. And so I think it’s really important for anybody who does want to go into wellness coaching- I would definitely recommend getting that board certification. And you’re also going to get more business because doctors and other people who recommend that their clients and their patients see coaches- they really want to make sure that person is adequately trained, which really does signify when you have those initials after your name.

Shay Definitely.And that’s another way for people who are listening today to vet someone- is do they have that board certification? It gives a little bit more of an indication of a depth of training and education. I also thought, just foundationally, it would be fun to hear how you define wellness because everyone could approach that from a very different lens. So I’m curious how you would define or describe what wellness means.

Erin So for me, I look at wellness very holistically. And what I mean by that is- we spend a lot of time thinking about wellness as just the physical- you go to the doctor, you get that physical exam in terms of how healthy you are. And to me, that’s just one aspect of wellness because I think it’s physical, I think it’s mental, I think it’s emotional, and I think it’s spiritual.
So we work the best when all those different components are aligned together. And for many people, if you think about it, sometimes if you’re physically unwell, it does impact how you feel mentally, emotionally, or sometimes if you’re emotionally struggling with something, you might see those symptoms creep up into your body- like a stomach ache or maybe your back hurts you. And so really being able to tie all those things together- to me- is what makes us truly well.

Shay That’s great. And in your book “Wellness Reimagined,” you have a really fun tool that I could see so many of our listeners playing with. It’s called the Wheel of Harmony, and people can use it for reflection. It includes these different kind of life domains. So the ones that you have listed in the wheel in the book include: Career, Finance, Family and Friends, Community, Health, Self-Care, Personal Development, Spirituality, Contribution, and Attitude.
So these are all these different domains in one’s life. And you can look at each of those and look at the wheel, and you have even ways that you can draw and connect different dots and things. But you can think about individually- how am I doing in each of those domains? Is there one area where I’m definitely strong? Or another area where I’m definitely not as strong? And you can kind of map it out and then use that as a guide to create more harmony in your own life. So I’d be interested how you’re having your clients and people that you work with play with that Wheel of Harmony.

Erin So what I like to do is I’ll sit down with a client or sit down with a group. This is also a fun thing to do with a group of people, and everybody first goes through and you kind of rate yourself on a scale of one to 10 where you’re at in each domain. And the thing to think about here is we’ve got all these different life domains, but at different times in your life, just like your values might shift or your priorities might shift, certain things are going to be important to you. So you’re not necessarily, you don’t want to be a 10 necessarily everysingle domain. So I always encourage everyone: just go through- no judgment- and rate where you’re at, and then take a look at your wheel and decide, “Okay, how do I feel about this? Is this the right harmonization, as I like to say, of my life domains- or are there may be three or four where I feel like, you know what, I’d like to maybe just edge them out a little bit more?”

And I see this shifting a lot. I work with a lot of professionals, so as people go through their professional life- which coincides for a lot of people with different personal milestones- that they have, those things kind of shift. So for instance, for someone who’s a young adult or kind of in the middle of their careers, they might be really into that Career and Finance domain. But if I’m working with somebody who’s kind of winding those things down, sometimes that Contribution or Spirituality will kind of peak. So what I encourage everyone to do is just nonjudgmentally, look at where you’re at, and look at- is there some area where you feel like, “You know what? My life would be just that much better, I would feel a little bit more fulfilled if I just built this area out,” because sometimes it’s not that that’s not a priorityp it’s just we’re not putting enough of our energy and focus into it.

Shay Yeah, that’s great. And like I said at the start of our conversation, your book “Wellness Reimagined,” it is very interactive, and I think you’ve even called it a “Choose Your Own Wellness Adventure-style book,” which I can absolutely see that. What inspired you to take that approach in the writing of this book?

Erin You know what, I was really inspired by the idea that what each person needs is unique. When I started coaching- well over a decade ago now- I had a certain expectation of different ideas of lifestyle plans or what I wanted to do with different clients. And the more I did it, the more I realized that each of us is so unique and we need different things.
And so there’s some awesome books out there that I love, but they’re very focused on a certain type of lifestyle plan or a certain program. And so what I decided to do when I was doing my book was say, “Okay, I know from being a coach and being a counselor that everything, what works for someone doesn’t necessarily work for someone else.” So I really wanted to write a book that is a “Choose Your Own Wellness Adventure” so you could take it, go through some of these workbook activities when you’re reading and really feel like at the end of it you have a good lifestyle program- a lifestyle plan that’s just for you.

And the thing about it is the book’s evergreen, so as things shift in your life, you can always go back and make some tweaks. And I really wanted to teach people how to do that. I always tell my clients when they hire me to work with them, the idea is eventually you’re not going to need me- and that you can kind of figure out how to work through some of those things by yourself, because to me, that’s where somebody can really feel fulfilled- when they feel like they’re empowered and have ownership over their wellness.

Shay And there’s so much skill-building in this field. And once you have those skills, then yes, you don’t need as much outside support, which is great. I know that you’re not a huge fan of the term “work-life balance,” but prefer “work-life harmony.” So I’m curious how you see the difference between those two.

Erin Yeah, so when I think of work-life balance, it reminds me of when I was a kid and I used to go to the circus and see acrobats walk on the tightrope and sort of that idea if I shift to one side I might fall off. And I really think when I hear that term work-life balance, I just think it implies that we can balance everything- like our families, our lifestyle programs, our careers- and if we just have that perfect formula, we can keep everything steady.

And just in my experience for myself and that of my clients, is that life doesn’t work like that. A busy professional, a busy parent- you might have weeks or months that are totally different, and sometimes one life domain might take center stage, another one might fall back. And so that idea of having harmony like a song- I grew up singing in the choir, and so I always liked the idea of harmonizing notes- so figuring out ways to harmonize our lifestyle domains, I think is just a more gentle and accurate way to go about it than thinking, “Okay, everything has to be perfectly balanced,” which for most people, it’s not attainable.

Shay Right, exactly. Another section in your book that I really appreciated is you have this invitation for people to create a personal boundaries policy- like how they set healthy boundaries- and you guide your readers to reflect on boundaries that involve things like their time, their self-care, their use of technology, their social interactions, their emotional health and relationships, their material resources, and also their professional interactions. So to really allow oneself to set some boundaries in each of those areas. What have you found to be the most helpful and effective in supporting people in establishing healthy boundaries across all of those domains?

Erin I think one thing is just shifting the mindset. So boundaries are hard for a lot of people. It’s definitely something I’ve struggled with. I talk in my book about how some of my friends gave me a “no” button at one point because they’re like, “You’re way too overcommitted to things.” And so I always try to say, limits liberate you. So if I have boundaries in place, then I can give myself the freedom to really live the life I want to live. And one of the things that comes up a lot when I’m coaching somebody is that idea of: it’s hard to say no sometimes. And so I always tell people, “Okay, there’s a couple of different ways you can look at this now. First off, what’s your initial gut reaction? Sometimes we don’t listen to our guts. If my initial gut reaction is I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’m feeling anxious, I feel sick in my stomach- is that really going to be a yes just because I think I have to do it right?”

Or if I’m super excited about the opportunity, then that’s something I definitely want to keep exploring. And regardless if it’s something you want to do or something you feel like you have to do, looking at: does this really fit with my life? Does this fit with my values? Does it fit with my priorities and my schedule? Because if even if it is something that you want, it might not be the right time. And I think that’s the thing- we think we can’t say no sometimes because then the opportunity has been lost. And the truth is you can tell someone, I get asked a lot sometimes, Hey, can you join this committee or join this organization? And sometimes there’s things I would love to do, but I look at my schedule and it’s not realistic. So I’ll just say, “You know what? I would absolutely totally be interested in doing that, but unfortunately this isn’t the right time. But I’d love to continue this conversation with you.”

So just making your desire to want to do something known, but saying it’s not the right time can ultimately be something that maybe you can do down the road. And also I think we need to remember, we only have a limited amount of time- It’s really our biggest commodity. And so if something comes up for you and maybe it’s not the right time, or maybe it’s just not- you would like to do it, but you’re worried about how it’s going to interact with everything else you have going on in your life domains- when you say no to something, you’re saying yes to something else. You’re saying yes to yourself, yes to your self-care, yes to your family, to the priorities that you already have for yourself scheduled.

And sometimes when we pass up something, something even bigger comes along. And so I just think it’s important to really think about our decisions when we’re trying to figure out- when we want to set boundaries. And even with relationships, we set our whole relationships with our friends, with our loved ones, with our colleagues- they all run on boundaries. And so the more we can practice those things and plan for having some of those tougher conversations, I think the more we can end up living that life we want to be living.

Shay And another topic that you discussed- which could relate in some cases to not having healthy boundaries in place is burnout, right? Where people just feel like they don’t have anything left in the tank. And I’ve heard you share that two-thirds of Americans report experiencing burnout. So this is a very common topic. How do you address burnout when you’re working with your clients?

Erin I really like my clients to get to realize when they feel it, because I think sometimes we don’t realize until we’re so far gone that we’re burned out. And one of the ways I think it shows up a lot for people is when you stop wanting to do things you enjoy- you’ve got something fun on your calendar- whether it’s something with a group of friends or maybe you’re going to a concert or you have a trip coming up- and it just kind of seems like a burden. Or you get up in the morning and you’re just not that excited about your day and you can’t quite pinpoint what’s going on. I think when I like my clients to realize when they’re starting to feel that burnout, and then when they are, what can you do about it? Sometimes just clearing things off your calendar can help planning something a break.

Sometimes with work or with family, we can’t necessarily make everything magically happen the way we want it to immediately, but: how can we, as we’re going forward, schedule things a little bit better for ourselves? Maybe plan a fun vacation down the road that you feel comfortable with and you’re not anxious about taking, but really addressing when you’re starting to feel a little bit of that burnout, and then what can you do to manage it? And of course, just practicing your self-care- really just realizing that you are worth it. And, because if we keep just putting everything before ourselves, we are eventually going to burn out, and whatever it is we’re trying to protect or whoever we’re trying to protect, eventually we’re going to have an issue in those relationships or at the office with our work, because we’re not going to be at our best to be able to sustain everything.

Shay And on that note, what have you found helps people to really ingrain regular self-care practices and make them routine?

Erin I think setting routines. When I work with individuals, I’m a big fan of having morning routines, workday routines, and evening routines, and initially just starting with one of those routines, and then maybe one healthy habit you want to add in. I think sometimes we try to do too much at once, and then we get burned out from trying to do too much of even the self-care stuff. So I always tell people, how can you find small ways to integrate some healthy habits- even if it’s just what I like to call pockets of self-care?

I’ve gotten every high-working professional to agree with me that they can do at least 10 minutes a day. And so if I can just add 10 minutes a day of something healthy, something that’s going to make me feel well into my routine, then that’s a great place to start. Then I’m giving myself 70 minutes a week, and I can slowly add things in from there. But it’s really about building those consistent habits into your life because when you have a consistent base, when things get crazy or you have to make some pivots, you’ve got something to return back to or to work with as opposed to just trying to throw things in here or there and they never quite stick because we’re not doing them consistently.

Shay And for people who are listening who may not have access or the means to hire a wellness coach and work with someone like yourself, I will say that a positive use of AI can be to use it as kind of a thought partner where you can construct like, “Okay, I have a really busy life. Here’s all the variables I’m juggling.” You can enter all of that and then discuss what your highest priorities are in terms of the way that you would like your self-care practices and wellness routine to look and then work with that as a tool that’s fairly readily accessible to most of us these days to help design a structure that actually does work for you. And that is realistic because, like you said, it can vary a lot from person to person, but I have found that even the busiest people, when they make self-care a priority, can fit it in, and actually it increases productivity, not decreases it.

So there’s some really interesting data- that around 40 hours a week, we tend to sustain fairly well in terms of effectiveness. But when we start getting into 60, 80-hour work weeks, there’s a significant decline in productivity. I found in my own life, I can increase a bit- that 40 hours a week- when I choose to or want to, by instilling very consistent and wellness practices throughout my day because my energy is stronger, I just feel better, and it gives me more breadth and range. So there is a lot of malleability once you get really strong and skilled in how you implement, on a regular basis, some of these kinds of self-care practices that we’re talking about today.

Erin For sure. And that’s such a good point. I mean with AI and with all just the different apps and stuff out there, there are just so many tools for people to not only help organize their lives, but then use different applications to support whatever it is that they’re trying to create in their wellness routine or in their schedules. And I love how you mentioned the productivity because often when I’m doing group programs, we’ll talk about how there is a lot of that research on- if you can even just take 10 minutes and step away from something, you come back 30% more productive. And that is just so huge. And sometimes I think- whether it’s us working on the computer or just cleaning our houses or something- we don’t always think, you got to take a break sometimes.

Shay Yeah, absolutely. And one of the questions I had, because I know you have a lot of corporate clients and you work on a wide range of topics with them, but things like resilience and nutrition and self-care- what have you found to be really valuable for implementing and bringing in these wellness skills into the workplace? And I don’t mean at the systems level, because obviously that has tremendous impact, but at the individual level.

Erin I think it’s just making yourself that priority during the workday. And whenever I go in with a group and I do something, I find that everybody has kind of a different lifestyle area that they want to work on. And so whenever I go in and do a program, I always encourage everyone, I’ll say, “Look, we’re going to talk about resilience and building self-care, and we’re going to get into the different lifestyles- whether it’s nutrition, exercise, sleep, mindfulness,” and I always tell people, “Think about what’s the one area that you feel like you want to work on?”

And another way to look at it too is I always ask people, what’s your wellness jam? And what I mean by that is- the one thing that you need to have in your routine, no matter how busy you get, is it making sure you get movement? And for me, when I go and I travel and I do speaking engagements, I bring my exercise bands with me because I’ve got to get at least 10 minutes in, because it just mentally helps me- not just physically. Some people- I’ve got to have my water with me. You know what? I need to take a little mindfulness break or I’ve got to have my food. So I always want everyone to think about what’s that one thing you need to have in, and then going from there and building in some things slowly over time. But I really try to make it individualized- just like my book- because I find that people do better when they feel like they’ve got a way in- that’s something that they personally feel like will benefit them.

Shay Yeah, I think that is so true. We are not carbon copies of one another by any means. And I know you also look at, like you said, wellness- it’s not just the physical, it’s not just the annual well-check, but it’s the emotional, the psychological, the spiritual. And you also teach on empathy and emotional intelligence. And so can you share why you think these topics are so valuable, particularly in today’s world?

Erin Yeah, because I think that they help us function on a day-to-day basis. We want to have emotional intelligence- whether it’s, a lot of times, if we walk into the office and our colleague or our boss during a meeting is in a bad mood- a lot of times we assume it’s us, even though something totally could have happened in their personal life- that could have been sitting in traffic on the way in. And so we don’t always find that we’re good at relating to others.

One of the things I find helpful is really that idea of self-compassion and fostering a positive mindset, which is why I made in my Wheel of Harmony, that Attitude domain. I just think that goes such a long way. Every time you turn on the news or people are looking on social media, there’s so much stuff out there- whether it’s things going on in the world or you’re looking at other people- what they’re doing on your different social feeds. That I think it’s really important to build for yourself a lot of that self-compassion, a lot of that empathy, and it’s really going to help you relate to other people, because when we don’t do that, we kind of lose sight of what we started talking about- what our values are.

I was chatting with somebody when my book came out, and who was in her twenties, and she said to me, she goes, “Erin, how do I know? What are my values and what are the values I see of people online that I admire?” And I thought that was such a powerful question. So I think when we can tap into things that support our mental and emotional wellness, it really does help us create a fulfilling life that’s actually going to work for us. And it helps us navigate and show up in a way- in a positive way- in the world.

Shay And I know a lot of people that are listening are caregivers, because caregivers are just a huge population now in our world, and always have been, right? Those who are caring for children, those who are caring for elderly parents, et cetera. And many of those actually are women. So the majority of caregivers are women, although a lot of men are caregiving too. And when you think about, as a caregiver who’s particularly burdened by time because often they’re working full time and taking care of a loved one, what strategies have you found to be helpful for someone who is in that caregiving role to manage their own?

Erin Yeah. One of the things that I have found helpful is beyond just getting in those little pockets of self-care and having that idea of the oxygen mask rule. When you go on the airplane, every time you fly, the flight attendant tells you to put your oxygen mask on before you assist others. So just to have that mindset, but also in that space, really being good about setting boundaries, asking for help. I think sometimes caregivers- I work with a lot of people that have children, but then are also taking care of their parents- and so kind of that sandwich generation. And so it can be really stressful and you kind of feel like you’re doing everything for somebody else. So finding ways to make sure you have boundaries in place, but also outsourcing things- right? And even if you can’t necessarily financially afford to have somebody come in and help you with certain things, just asking others for help that you need.

Sometimes we don’t ask- the other spouse, our spouse, that other parents sometimes- for help with things. Or the holidays are coming up- if anyone listening to this celebrates and you’ve got a lot going on, can you make it fun to have everybody decorate the home or to bring a meal to the celebration? I think that can be one thing that’s helpful for caregivers too- is to not lose sight of your own self-care, but also to ask for help when you need it. Sometimes the people who are doing the most for others are kind of the ones that are suffering sometimes inside.

Shay And another important piece of feeling wellness and feeling aligned in our lives is having a strong sense of meaning and purpose. And I think about even in your own story, you started on a legal trajectory, became an attorney, and then you went on to get a- you were interested in mental health, and so you did that- became a board-certified wellness coach. You’ve taken a lot of different paths to figure out what brings you the deepest satisfaction and feels the most aligned in your own life and gives you a sense of meaning and purpose. And so I wanted to just broach that- for all of us- aligning our meaning and purpose with what we do is so important. And so how do you navigate that when you work with your clients?

Erin Yeah, I think I always look at it this way- we have one life, and so we want to make sure that we’re always being tied to our why. Whenever I am helping somebody set goals or work towards something that they want for themselves- whether it’s personally, professionally, or both- I’m always looking at why is this important to you? And really pulling those layers back to figuring out- what’s your purpose? Why are you here? Why are you doing what you’re doing? What do you really deep down want your life to look like? And sometimes when I do that with people, they’ll be like, “Wow, I’m really not living the life I want that works with my passion. My purpose aligns with my values, and that’s okay.” And that’s the other thing- that’s where you got to give yourself that grace, that self-compassion, but then say, “Okay, what are some small shifts over time I can make?”

And for some people it’s a big shift. I’ve worked with people where they’re like, “I’m not that happy in my career,” which I can relate to. I’ve taken different career paths, but one thing that I know is- you want to slowly figure out how you’re going to make that shift so you feel comfortable with it and realize that I really believe the experience that we get doing one thing or this thing- whether it’s personal, professional- really makes us who we are as a whole person. And so sometimes it takes a couple different avenues before we get to that one that really truly is our passion, and that’s okay. So really kind of leaning into that. But I think if we really know why and what’s important to us, we can kind of figure that out.

Shay And when you think about the idea of healing, right? Because in this Conversations on Healing podcast, we’re looking at all the things that bring greater health and wellness and happiness into our lives, but also the things that help us to heal. When you’ve worked with clients who maybe are in a place of greater struggle or they’re in a bigger transition- maybe they are making a career shift, and there are things maybe that they’re juggling- maybe they’re caregiving for someone who’s very ill- what have you found is essentially connected to healing and how you would maybe define or describe what healing is?

Erin I think that healing is- it happens on, just like wellness- it happens on different levels. It happens for us on the physical level. It happens for us on that emotional level. And I think sometimes when we’re going through a healing process, we need to get back to the basics. Sometimes when I’m working with somebody who is taking care of somebody else or is struggling with some stuff that’s going on at work and isn’t quite sure how to make that shift yet, I’m always like, “Okay, what are the basic things? Are we eating? Are we drinking our water? Are we getting our sleep? Are we getting some movement in? Do we have a supportive community and people around us?” Because if we can get back to those basics, I think they really start us off for healing. And it gives us a good baseline to move forward because I think when we try to just do too much but don’t realize we’ve just got to take care of our needs first. Sometimes we can kind of get in the way of our own healing.

Shay And it’s interesting when you look at the centenarians, the people that live to be a hundred or more, and are essentially- now we study those Blue Zones, the areas where those humans tend to be the most densely populated. What we see is, it is a lot of basics. It’s not that they’re doing some elaborate regimen, but there are very common elements- so many of them you just noted, right? Nutrition- it’s primarily plant-forward diet, some meat, but not a lot of meat. In the centenarian diet, we see that they found ways to integrate movement throughout their daily life. So they are exercising, but typically they’re not going to the gym. There are some exceptions to that, but for the most part, they’ve just found ways to really get a lot of movement into their lives, particularly actually in gardening and being in nature and with plants.

So that’s a way that a lot of centenarians are exercising even when they pass that a hundred-year-old mark. And that social element- so we can now see from the research- the Harvard Study of Adult Development is my favorite tool around this- but the significance of high-quality relationships is so important to longevity. And so you can see that. So you start to see, oh, there’s movement, there’s healthy eating, there’s high quality relationships, and the list goes on. There are other things too that are of great benefit, but when you start to see those core elements, you also mentioned sleep, and we’re really coming to understand more and more about the importance of sleep. I feel like we’ve kind of had a revolution in the last five years in understanding like, Ooh, sleep is even more important than perhaps we had been understanding even at the level of the immune system, that there’s a lot of cleansing that happens when we sleep that is of benefit to the immune system. So there’s a number of ways that it supports us, but those fundamentals are a great place to start, especially when you’re feeling really stressed or challenged. So I think that’s great that that’s an approach that you take with people when they’re feeling like it’s an intense moment in their lives. Are there any other tips or tricks that you feel just kind of seminally are very valuable to people when they’re approaching wellness but are feeling maybe overwhelmed and they don’t know where to begin?

Erin I think just to make time for yourself and don’t overcomplicate it. I love research on Blue Zones too. That’s an area I’ve always been really interested in. And even with nutrition, for instance, we love to overcomplicate it by finding some big diet plan out there that we’re going to follow or that one of our friends did, and it is healthy and feels good, but just the basic stuff- eating real fruits and vegetables and whole foods, cooking with movement- walking is great exercise. So really just picking one area of lifestyle and then a simple way to start adding it back in, because I do, I think we get so overwhelmed. I see this when I work with people and then they just give up. It seems like it’s too much for them. And so just really getting back to those basics, picking one thing- even sleep, as you said- we know so much more about sleep and how important that is for our bodies, our minds, our hormone system- just making time for it.

The biggest thing that I notice comes up for people is, they don’t even make time for the amount of sleep that they want to get. Then we can talk about how you get good quality, but it starts with making time. And so I just think those basics are a great place for somebody who feels overwhelmed to start and just start in one area. And then when you get that going, maybe look at a different area and add that into, because if we can do stuff consistently and then we can slowly add to it, I sort of think about it as building a house. If I want to have a home, I’ve got to have a good foundation. And I think that’s a good place to start.

Shay At this stage in your career, when you’ve had an opportunity to work with many, many people on their wellness plans, what have you noticed, just across many of the different people that you’ve worked with, are primary obstacles to success? And then what have you noticed are the key indicators of success? Like, “Oh, if somebody does that, I can really see that that’s an indication that they are going to succeed on their wellness journey.” What do you notice both in terms of the obstacles and then the key indicators of success?

Erin The biggest obstacles are- we get in our own way. When I start working with somebody, I always make them commit to at least three months upfront. And the reason I do that is, we will start to build some momentum, but also I know in those three months, at some point, they’re going to have a setback, and I want to be there to help them work through it. Because a lot of times when somebody has a setback or they just get overwhelmed with even making some changes that are going well, a hurdle will come up, and then they just can’t move past it. And so then they kind of give up altogether. I see that over and over again across genders, across ages, across different people who in different professions, and it’s really kind of them getting in their way. So one of the things that when I go and I help somebody figure out- okay, here’s some initiatives we want to start adding into our lives- one of the things I ask them is, okay, what do you think might come up that might get in your way?

What’s a hurdle for you? If it’s exercise, for instance, what happens when you kind of slowly start getting out of that routine? Are you not being prepared? Do you put work ahead of it? Are you not going? Are you staying up late? You’re not getting your sleep? So we go through what could possibly happen. So when it does happen, I can help them work through that so they can move forward in their journeys. And the biggest indicator when I see somebody who’s really on a good path is when their mindset around things has changed. I was working with a woman recently, and she has a tendency to be really overcritical of herself. And so one of the things we’ve been working on, whether it’s with her lifestyle or it’s with something at work- and so we’ve been working on how she can navigate those difficult feelings she has. And before it would be like she would get into a bad way and it would just last for a week.

Now, right away, she’s able to be like, “Okay, wait. I’m going to change how I’m talking to myself.” So when I see somebody’s mindset shift around things, and they do start acting kinder to themselves when things don’t go awesome- and no matter what area it is that we’re working in- that’s when I notice they’re shifting because they’re starting to realize that they are worth it and that this is a long journey. It’s not a short, brief period of time. It’s about the big picture. So when I can see them realizing that big picture, I know they’re on a good path.

Shay That’s great. And I feel like inherent in what you were just saying is this notion of self-compassion- that when you can have compassion for yourself, to be like, “Okay, maybe I didn’t get that hour walk in today that I wanted, but I did sneak in 20 minutes,” and how cool that I did that- I stayed committed enough to- even though I saw, “Oh, I can’t get the hour, but I still made room for 20 minutes,” that you’re celebrating those wins. I think that it’s really important too because it’s not about perfection, it’s about sustainability. And sustainability is a much more long-term view and vision of how you take care of yourself than “I have to get it right and perfect every single day.” No one’s going to achieve that. It’s not humanly possible.

Erin Exactly.

Shay Are there any other tips, tricks, or ideas that you haven’t had a chance to share that you feel would be valuable for listeners as we begin to wind down our conversation today?

Erin I think the only other thing I would add in is- when you’re thinking about making any kind of changes for yourself- to put it out into your community and to tell people, because I really believe- just like in the Blue Zones, when we have these social relationships, when we have these communities, we can really support each other. So even just telling the people you live with what you’re doing, or your friends that you are making some shifts and voicing it, I think can be really helpful because then you get people to support you and kind of catch you when you need it. Whenever I see somebody put out on social media something that they’re working on in the lifestyle arena, I always think to myself- they’re telling everyone: it gives you some accountability, right? If I tell people in my life, I’ve got accountability. So I think I would encourage people to add that in and to have fun with it. To me, wellness should be positive. It should give you good vibes. It shouldn’t be something that you don’t want to do. It should be something that enhances your life. So starting by finding things you actually like to do- exercise, there’s tons of different ways to exercise- so just finding a way that works for you.

Shay And that sense of positivity- finding what feels good, finding what feels positive- is a great framework for this because I do think so much of it is rooted in- to be well, you need to feel well. To feel well, you need to be doing things that give you positive feedback. And so if wellness also becomes a chore and a burden and something that’s hard and heavy, it’s not wellness- it’s something unwell. So figuring out how to find wellness practices that both sustain you but also feel really good in the doing of them is such an art. Is there anything you feel like in your own life that you identify as your core wellness practice or something that for you is just so essential?

Erin One of my core things is cooking. I grew up cooking. My Grandma was from Poland, and I grew up cooking with her. She pretty much lived with us, and that just nourishes me so much- to make healthy homemade meals. And I noticed too, in busy weeks where I don’t have as much time to do it, it does really impact me. So I really try to make time just for healthy cooking, but also to do it with people I love- going to cooking classes or having my family over and my husband and I will do that stuff together. That’s just something that- it warms my soul to do things like that.

Shay Yeah, that’s so great. And for everyone who’s listening- to identify- is there something that- for me- it’s probably meditation- is like, I can’t imagine living a life without that, just because for me, it’s just an anchor. It’s very fundamental. But for someone else, it’s going to be something completely different because for each of us, it is rooted in our own story, and there’s all sorts of rationale as to why that has emerged as something that’s so central, but that’s sustaining. And so for everyone listening, just think about- if there was only one core wellness practice for you, what feels so deep and meaningful? I think that’s a great contemplation for everyone that’s joining us today.

Erin It is.

Shay Good. Well, I hope our listeners do get a chance to pick up your book, Wellness Reimagined. It is super interactive and fun, and I feel like it’s a great tool- a very nice thing to use around New Year’s time- just to kind of reset, refresh. But like you said, it’s evergreen. It’s something you could revisit again and again as your values and priorities and kind of lifestyle changes over. So thank you so much, Erin, for having this conversation and sharing your work with us today.

Erin Oh, thank you so much for having me.

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