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My guest Dr. Alice Rizzi emphasizes the importance of living according to personal values to achieve authenticity and happiness. She distinguishes values from goals and morals, noting their individualistic nature. Key topics include using value cards to identify core values, aligning goals with these values, and understanding health holistically, recognizing that health goals evolve. Mindfulness is highlighted as a crucial tool for enhancing self-awareness, identifying values, and achieving peace by staying present and accepting the moment.

The discussion also addresses therapy’s role in helping individuals acknowledge past experiences without blame and emphasizes taking responsibility for healing, particularly for women over 50 affected by societal expectations. Tools like self-awareness, questioning beliefs, and mindfulness are recommended for challenging ingrained values and fostering self-growth. The conversation underscores the importance of aligning actions with personal values, building genuine connections through authenticity, and practicing self-compassion and mindfulness. Dr. Rizzi provides insights on mindfulness, emphasizing self-reflection and offering practical advice for daily mindfulness practices.

You can find Dr. Rizzi here

https://www.togethermindful.com/

https://www.instagram.com/dralicerizzi/

https://www.facebook.com/DrAliceRizzi/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicebrizzi/

Main Theme: Living According to Personal Values for Authenticity and Happiness

Key Highlights:

1. Understanding Personal Values:

• Dr. Alice Rizzi distinguishes between values, goals, and morals.
• Values are highly individualistic and crucial for achieving authenticity.

1. Identifying Core Values:

• Introduction of value cards as a tool to identify and understand one’s core values.
• Emphasis on aligning personal goals with these core values.

1. Holistic Health Approach:

• Health is seen as an evolving concept, with goals changing over time.
• Importance of viewing health holistically.

1. Mindfulness and Self-Awareness:

• Mindfulness as a vital practice for enhancing self-awareness and identifying values.
• Achieving peace by staying present and accepting the moment.

1. Therapy and Healing:

• Therapy helps individuals acknowledge past experiences without blame.
• Focus on taking responsibility for one’s healing journey, especially for women over 50 facing societal pressures.

1. Tools for Self-Growth:

• Self-awareness, questioning beliefs, and mindfulness as essential tools.
• Challenging ingrained values to foster self-growth.

1. Authenticity and Genuine Connections:

• Importance of aligning actions with personal values.
• Building genuine connections through authenticity.

1. Self-Compassion and Mindfulness Practices:

• Practicing self-compassion and mindfulness in daily life.
• Dr. Rizzi’s insights on mindfulness and practical advice for incorporating it into everyday routines.

Join us for an insightful conversation with Dr. Alice Rizzi as we explore the journey to authenticity and happiness through the power of personal values, mindfulness, and holistic health.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Empower Her Wellness.

My guest today is Dr. Alice Rizzi.

She's been a psychologist for the last 13 years and man, oh man, did we have such a great conversation.

How being mindful, practicing mindfulness can help you create your values.

And when you live by your values, of course, you live more authentically and you are more happy.

She has such a really great website with a ton of free resources for you.

So please go check out her website.

The link will be down below in the show notes.

I'm not going to say a whole lot in this introduction because I want you to get to the episode

and it's an episode that you can play three or four times because there's just so much goodness in there.

But before we get started, we do have a Facebook group link down below in the show notes.

And also if you'd like to support this podcast, I would greatly appreciate it.

There's also a link down in the show notes below for that.

Okay friends, on to my conversation with Alice.

So I have Alice with me today on empower her wellness, and this is going to be such a great conversation.

And Alice, I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Shelley, for having me.

It's great to be here.

Alice and I had a little chat pre-chat before this interview, and we found out that we totally

geek out on values and mindfulness.

So we're going to have a conversation mirroring those two topics today.

So super excited about this.

Alice, I'm just going to start with a question. Sure.

Why are, why is it important to know your values?

So I'm going to give you a little bit of the researchy answer that ties into personal as well. So I'm a psychologist.

So I went through five years of grad school, getting my doctorate, and my program was very big

on mindfulness, values, acceptance and really practical interventions.

And as it turns out, what the research says is that people are least fulfilled when they're

not making choices in line with their values.

And the inverse is also true.

People are most fulfilled when they are making choices in line with their values.

So anytime, basically you find yourself discontent, it's a good question to ask yourself, well,

what types of choices have I been making in my life?

And is that actually consistent with the type of person that I want to be?

Is it consistent with the things that are most important to me?

And I have found that to be true in my life.

So I love getting reoriented periodically with what my personal values are.

And I find myself content and happy and fulfilled in my life when I am doing the things that

I know are most important to me.

So that's why I think values are so important.

They can literally make or break your level of happiness throughout your entire life. A great answer. Totally agree with that.

I love, I love the research on that behind that as well, because I think that's really important.

It's like data driven, as opposed to, although values I think can be like, woo, feel good.

But if you have like some actual quantitative, you know, data behind that, that's, that's really good.

So let me ask you this.

We're most content when we're living our values.

So that's, that is that makes a lot of sense.

But how do you, how do you find those values first of all?

And let's, let's answer that question first.

So how, how do you go about finding your values?

And I think that's important because of most, a lot of my listeners are women over 50 and we've

just been fired down for decades of cultural, familial, societal, perhaps religious expectations.

And those values have been put on us.

So how do we find our own values?

Why don't we like even define values? Right.

Because I think also a lot of people get confused between like values and goals and morals.

And I think that can all get intertangled as we're growing up as well.

So to me, simply put values are like the things in life that are most important to you.

Like, what are the things that you pursue?

Those are the things that you value. Goals are very tangible. Goals are achievable.

So like going to the grocery store, that's a goal.

You go there and then you check it off. That's done.

You don't constantly pursue it as a value, as a thing that is important to you.

Like health and wellness, right?

That might be a value.

You don't really achieve health and wellness.

You're only ever on the path towards health and wellness.

And so we can set goals along that path that are achievable.

So for example, like eating more vegetables, right.

And then even more specifically, like making sure you eat a cup of vegetables every day, that's an achievable goal.

If you eat a cup of vegetables on Monday, you check that off your list. That's a goal.

And what's more is it's a values driven goal on your way towards health and wellness, but there's

never going to be a day where you check off health and wellness. Like, yep, that's done. Interesting point.

So that's kind of like the major, like big difference.

Morals get into a lot more of like, I think they can have like really religious or spiritual

connotations in terms of like what people on a personal level believe is right or wrong.

As a psychologist, I come at it from the point of view that there is no one truth for everyone.

There is no right and wrong, good or bad, evil.

Everybody makes that determination for themselves.

So whenever I help my clients figure out what their values are, I make that perfectly clear

that your values are not good or bad.

And even if your values are different from my values, that's totally fine.

We're allowed to have different values.

That's the whole point because you're going to live a totally different life from mine.

And what makes you happy is different from what's going to make me happy.

Does that make sense so far? Makes perfect sense.

And so some people come at it where they know their values off the bat, like I value family,

I value health, I value fitness. Okay, cool. Great.

A lot of people need a little bit of help.

And so I actually use what I call the core values assessment.

And that's literally a deck of cards that I made that has the different values on it.

And I have like a hundred of them here.

And so like every little card has like the word for the value.

And then like a little definition or statement associated with it. I didn't invent this.

So like four values cards have been used to my knowledge for a very long time.

I saw somebody else do it.

I was like, that's a cool, cool idea.

I made my own so that I can use it with my clients.

So that's one way to figure out what your values are.

And you can Google like, you know, examples of values and you will get tons and tons of value words.

And so they might be things like openness, self-knowledge, sexuality, solitude, commitment, faithfulness.

And so, again, you start getting a feel like, oh, yeah, like there's not right or wrong.

And there might be a desire to say, well, all of these things are really important to me.

But of course, you can really like we all know we only have so much time in a day.

And if honestly a hundred different values were your top priority every single day, you would feel really overwhelmed.

And in fact, that's that's where a lot of people find themselves.

They're chronically unhappy or unfulfilled because they're not focusing on their top priority values at this time.

It's like having too many balls in the air at the same time.

You're not going to be able to catch any of them. I like that.

And, you know, one of the things I was thinking, first of all, I want a deck of value cards

because, you know, you can get like those sheets that just have their listed, but I really like that tangible.

And then you can look individually.

And one of the things that I like to do is, you know, just take out maybe 20 or 30 or 35 or

whatever and just group them.

And then you get your top priority.

And I love that you said that because I think a lot of people I love the different the how you,

you know, take goals and then you take values and how different they are and how sometimes people muddle them up.

Because I think a lot of people and I've been guilty of this in the past.

A lot of people will set a goal.

It's like, I'm going to be healthy this year. Mm hmm.

And you're thinking, well, oh, first of all, why? Mm hmm.

Is that just something you've always done or you think, well, I didn't get healthy last year,

so I'm going to try again this year?

You know, but I love setting your goals based on your values.

Is it just arbitrarily picking? Yeah.

Like I am so over trying to lose weight.

I mean, I don't want to, you know, gain a hundred pounds, but I'm so over.

It's just not a value of mine anymore.

So I love how you how you put that. That is really.

And they have a reciprocal relationship, right?

So like knowing what goals you might be working towards can help you figure out what you value.

So let's say you are somebody that like every year on New Year's Eve, you're like, that's it.

This is the year that I'm going to lose 20 pounds.

And if you can take a step back and say, OK, well, like you said, why is it important for me to lose 20 pounds?

What value is that actually in line with?

Then you might come to the conclusion like, oh, it's health and health is important to me because

I want to live a long, rich life.

I want to be around for my family.

I want to do things in my career.

And I have to be able to be well and healthy in order for those things to be pleasurable in

order to get that fulfillment out of them.

And when I do this with my clients as first, we figure out what their values are.

And then we're able to establish goals specific to those values.

So if you say health is your value, we will look at like, well, what does health even mean to you?

Because health doesn't have to be losing 20 pounds, right?

Health can be going to the gym.

Health can be going to your doctor's appointments.

Health can be making sure that you're getting enough exercise.

Health can be making sure that you're eating your vegetables or you're cutting out sugar or

gluten or dairy or whatever your nutritional needs are.

So what exactly do you mean by health?

And we look at also like what emotions does that bring up for you?

Like if it's really stressful for you, we might look at like, well, what are the stressors behind it? What makes it challenging?

Not only like why haven't you lost 20 pounds yet, but what are the actual barriers getting in

the way of you becoming as healthy as you want to be?

And what would that actually look like?

And so we're able to set short and long term goals based off that.

But if for 20 years you've been saying, I want to lose 20 pounds and you don't really know why.

Yeah, well, there you go. That's your answer.

That's why you haven't lost it yet.

You're not actually connected to this goal in any way.

It's an arbitrary goal that you set, maybe because when you were younger, like you saw a supermodel

and you wanted to look like her.

But now, you know, if you're 40, 50, 60, whatever, you're totally disconnected and you couldn't

give a crap about that model anymore. Right.

But you're still setting this goal for yourself.

She's like living back there, living rent free in your head for 20 years. You know, exactly.

You know, when you look at values, too, I know you're talking about health, which has become

super important to me, not not weight loss, because I feel like I'm at a good weight.

But, you know, and values are values like health can be a value for you, like you were just talking about.

But it's not based on that thinness, that supermodel back in the day.

One of the things I really noticed, Alice, is that my health goal has changed since I became a caregiver for Steve.

It was just like, no, I don't need to lose weight.

I need to be able to get up and down.

My back's not doesn't hurt anymore. My knees don't hurt.

You know, I don't wake up feeling I got hit by a Mack truck, you know, so we can have that same

value like you were talking about.

But it's on a continuum that when you hit my age, it's like it's not about being thin anymore.

It's about being able to get up off the couch, perhaps.

And that's why it's so important to even reflect on, like, what does this value actually mean to me?

Because you and I can both value health, but health will have totally different implications

for us in our day to day lives.

And I tell people all the time that your values will shift and evolve throughout your lifespan.

And there might be certain commonalities throughout. Right.

So health might have always been important to you and it always will be.

But how you enact health and like moving towards health and what goals you set for yourself

might look different when you're 15 years old, when you're 35 years old, when you're 85 years old.

And we get stuck in that, like, you know, we just talked about earlier, we get stuck in that

pattern of this is the reason I'm doing it.

You know, one of the things that I like to do is just keep asking why.

And you'll get to that point of why.

Why is health important to me?

You know, now it's changed for me, obviously, like I just said, you know, it's because, you

know, I need to to make sure that that Steve's taken care of.

But that leads to another question.

Another another thought, because you and I in our little pre-chat talked about mindfulness.

And I guess one of the questions I have, one things we talked about was how mindfulness can

help us either find or find or redefine our goal.

So why what is mindfulness? Yes. Number one.

Number two, how can that help us find the values that we value today? Yeah. Great questions.

And I was going to say we should start by defining mindfulness because there's actually not

one solid, like accepted definition.

People have different variations of their own definition of mindfulness.

So my definition of mindfulness is that it's the quality of being present in the moment with

awareness, acceptance, kindness, compassion, curiosity and nonjudgment.

So those are kind of the six overarching factors that I typically use.

Don't worry if you can't remember them. That's totally fine.

It's just through my research on mindfulness, my grad school learning, my personal experiences, my experiences with clients.

Those are the six factors that kept coming up when we're talking about mindfulness and when we're practicing mindfulness.

So if you are somebody who chooses, for example, to do a mindfulness meditation over time, you

will find you are more aware, you are more accepting, you are more compassionate, you are more curious.

And likewise, the more you apply those factors in your life, like you're looking outside and

you look at it with like this curious sense, that's you becoming more mindful.

So, again, these factors have a reciprocal relationship.

The more compassionate you are, chances are, the more mindful you are, the more aware you are,

the more mindful you are.

So keeping all of those things in mind, being more aware of yourself, of your surroundings,

of the relationships that you have with yourself, other people, nature will help you come to

the conclusion of what it is that you actually value, what it is that is important to me. Why?

How does it make me feel and what do I want to do about it? Right.

So I think awareness is probably always going to be like the largest factor, right?

Being aware of like, how does this make me feel? Right.

So, for example, I know that when I stand up and I look out my window, that actually ends up

evoking a lot of gratitude for me because I am becoming aware of my senses.

I'm noticing the sun warming up my skin.

I'm listening to the birds flying.

I'm looking at the big trees in my backyard.

And so noticing that relationship between me and my environment evokes the sense of gratitude

and kindness and curiosity and non judgment.

And so then I become aware that, OK, getting myself grounded in nature is important to me.

When I look at nature, I feel grateful. I feel at peace. I feel curious.

And those are things that are important to me.

And actually, I would like to bring more of those things into my life.

So now I'm like, OK, well, maybe that is part of my value system is making sure that I am in

nature, that I am observing my senses.

So mindfulness to me is then very important.

Being in nature to me is then very important.

And now I can set goals for myself that every day, at least once a day, I'm going to get up

and look outside my window. I love that framework. Love that framework.

And a couple of things I used to walk.

Well, I like to walk, you know, around our I can't go very far now because of Steve, but I live

in apartment complex has lots of trees and birds and stuff, but I used to walk with listening

to a podcast and I had my map, my run or whatever.

So I wasn't really I wasn't I was connected to other things other than walking.

So I now I just call it intuitive walking.

I just walk, you know, track it.

I became very obsessed about tracking my miles for some odd reason.

And I don't listen to podcast or music or anything.

I think that's probably hard for a lot of people, you know.

So if you could just give us some insight or some tips into, you know, being able to let go

of the phone or let go of some thoughts or, you know, like, oh, I can't be out in nature staring

out the window because I've got dishes to do back there. Yeah.

Get into that habit of being mindful, because I know we're so connected to, you know, electronics

and things we've got to get done.

How do we how do we let those go and just be mindful?

Well, I think part of that is even just recognizing the value in being mindful. Right.

And the truth is that when we are present, we do find ourselves to be more at peace, more calm,

more happy, because one of the sort of I don't know if it's an analogy per se.

But one of the things that I like to tell people is that in this moment, there is no problem.

And sometimes that like blows people's minds because they're like, what do you mean?

Like you said, like there's dishes and there's my partner and then there's like war and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah.

But in this moment, like right now, you and me, Shelley, we're talking us and your guests who

are watching this in this precise moment. There is no problem.

There's just me and you and we're listening to each other and we're connecting and we're using our senses. I can see you. You can hear me. That's not a problem.

That is this moment that is present moment awareness.

Most of our problems occur either in the past or in the future.

So when we start getting into the mental head space of why did I do that?

Why did I say that? I'm such an idiot.

I shouldn't have done that.

Or like we get into the future of like, well, what if this happens?

That will be a catastrophe and that will blow up in my face.

And what if I get fired and my coworkers don't like me and blah, blah, blah?

Again, all of those things are happening, not in this moment.

And this moment I can see and this moment I can hear and this moment I can smell and taste and touch. And that is beautiful.

And that brings me so much joy.

So the more time that we can actually spend in this present moment, the more at peace, the more

grateful, the more compassionate, understanding, loving we're going to be.

So I explain all of that just so that people can start seeing like that is the value of being more mindful.

You get to spend more time in this present moment.

And more often than not, this present moment is actually where you want to be.

When you talk about feeling happy and calm and content that is found in this moment.

And the way that you do that is by bringing your attention to this moment over and over and over again.

So like you said, when you are on your walk, your mind might drift to your to do list and I

still have to do the dishes and the laundry and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then say,

OK, and I will do those things.

But right now I want to be right here.

So what can I see right here?

What can I hear right now?

What am I feeling in my body in this moment?

What emotions are present for me?

Because all of those things are happening right now.

And then your mind is going to drift again.

And tomorrow I have that appointment and then I have to drive here and I have to pick up that.

And then you say, yep, and I will do those things.

And I'm coming back to this present moment.

And this moment, I see the grass growing.

I'm waving to my neighbor. I'm taking a breath.

And I'm feeling what it feels like in my body.

And that was that's that's mindfulness. Yeah, that's lovely. I love that.

And I love how you said finding the value in that, because if you're just doing something because

you think, oh, well, Alice said I needed to be mindful, you know, that's really not going to work for you.

And as you were talking, I was thinking about back back when, you know, back when I was younger

in my 50s, you know, mid 40s, 50s.

I really had a hard time being alone with my thoughts because I was just stuck in this while

I was married to a gaslighting narcissist and I was trying to disengage from him.

So I was just I just could not be alone with my thoughts.

And it just took me a lot of practice.

But it's very important what you said about being aware.

It was when you become aware of why you react to the things you react to, you know, why you

feel the way you feel about things and really doing some deep dives.

I just think that awareness is just key.

It's well, for me personally, it's been key to everything in my life, you know, since I since

I turned 50, because if you're not aware of what's going on, you can't find a way to move past that.

Yeah, I love I loved how you you said that the acceptance component of the definition of mindfulness. Right.

So the awareness is I am becoming aware that this is what's going on in my life right now, that

this is who I am right now.

These are my thoughts, my feelings right now.

The next step is accepting.

This is how it is right now, and it can't be any other way.

So that's another concept that I talk about a lot is this moment can't be any other way because

everything that happened to you beforehand led up to exactly this moment.

And if this moment could be any other way, it would have been.

But in a way, like there's no alternative to accepting it.

Like there is no coulda woulda shoulda.

This is how it is right now.

And you can't move forward until you actually firmly accept that this is how it is right now.

So a lot of times people find themselves stuck and they make themselves miserable with all of

these thoughts of coulda woulda shoulda, and that is not.

And it ends up leading to more suffering, more pain, more discontent, because they're in a different reality.

They're not actually in this reality.

In this reality, this is how it is right now.

And again, you can only come to and accept how it is right now, if you're actually present in this moment.

And there is value in that as well, because as soon as you accept it, then you can choose what

you want to do next.

Then you can respond in a way that's aligned with your choices.

As long as you are stuck in then and there, you're not able to move forward. Yeah. Now, it's so true.

And I tell this story a lot, and my listeners are probably like, oh, here she goes again.

But I, you know, Steve and I talk about that a lot, because our lives were so different than they are today.

But we can't sit here and be like, oh, you know, I wish it was, you know, 2022, and we were

doing these things, because then that will just keep Steve literally on the couch, because you

cannot go back and do those things at all.

So this may be getting off topic a little bit.

And if it is, you can let me know.

But how itself is being aware and taking responsibility for your life?

Are those the same thing? What do you think? Or do they?

Being aware and taking responsibility.

It was really painful, Alice, because I became aware of my life.

And then I was like, oh, shit, I got to take responsibility for what's going on now.

And it was very painful. Yeah, so for sure.

That's why I think so many people struggle with acceptance, like accepting that level of responsibility.

And so many people do find themselves trapped in, well, my life is like this, because of so

and so because such and such happened to me.

And this is actually a lot of the work in therapy, it's acknowledging that what happened to

you might not have been your fault, you might not have asked for it, you might not be blamed for it.

But healing is your responsibility.

Because if you don't take on that responsibility of healing, you will always be stuck in what

happened to you, who did what to you, who's to blame for that.

As soon as you're able to take the responsibility of healing, you actually have the power to

change your life, you can transform into a totally different person if you want to, by starting

this moment making more values aligned choices. I like that.

And that's thank you for for saying that.

And thank you for saying, you know, things that happen.

Things that happened to you aren't always your fault.

I mean, there are like true victims in the world. Absolutely.

So I want people to be mindful of that.

But still, you know, like, there's a lot of traumatic events that happened to us.

And there's like big, big traumatic events.

And like little tiny traumatic events. Exactly, exactly.

And like some things maybe have been caused by our actions, and we can take responsibility for those.

And some things are totally out of our control that nobody should ever have to go through.

And yet, it is our responsibility to move forward.

If we want to live any kind of fulfilled life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally agree. Love that.

So let's say that, you know, you and I talked about this on our little pre chat to a lot of

my audiences, a lot of my audience are women over 50.

And we have just been mired in decades of other people's expectations, especially those of us

like myself, who grew up in the 60s and 70s.

You know, I don't want to go off on a tangent, but my daughter is like one of the older millennials.

I just think her generation and you know, generations after her are perhaps a little bit, but

I'm not seeing them as like, they're their own people.

I'm just like, Oh, gosh, I just admire you guys so much, because you're like your own people nowadays.

Do you mean like more independent?

Yeah, like they don't, you know, they're not buying into a lot of the things that we bought into in the 60s.

Like the norms back from back then. Exactly, exactly.

So all that to say is that women my age are really just, we've just had decades piled on us decades and decades.

And it's so hard to just like, you know, I imagine just, you know, trying to climb out of this

avalanche of rocks of this is what mom said, this is what, you know, the pastor said, this is

what my boss said, this is what culture said, you know, this is how women behave.

This is what women do.

In fact, you know, I, my first husband, my mom said to me, you should marry that boy, he'll calm you down. And I'm like, okay. And I married him.

You know, just just, you know, things like that that went on.

So all that to say is, how can women like myself and my listeners, who have just been mired

down in decades of living the values of others, you know, start to climb out from, from that,

you know, what's the process?

Yeah, expectation, patience, you know, for sure. A lot of patience.

And this is where, again, I think mindfulness is really handy.

I mean, I personally believe that mindfulness can improve every single area of your life.

There's a mindful lens of looking at it. Yeah.

And so even becoming more self aware, and noticing, like, what do I think about x, y, z, and

this idea that I have about blah, blah, blah, should blah, blah, blah, right?

Like, where did that idea come from? Is that my idea?

Is that something that I truly believe and value?

Or did I hear it somewhere else?

And that's the only reason that I'm following it?

Like, did I hear my mom say it?

Did I hear it on TV?

Did I read it in a magazine?

Did a friend make a flippant comment to me once and I really take it to heart? Right?

So like, I can give you a personal example, if that's okay. Oh, yeah.

I'm a highly sensitive individual. I've always been sensitive.

When I was younger, my family was all about that.

Oh, you're just too sensitive. Yeah, you're too sensitive. Get over it.

Like, why are you crying? Why are you upset? Why are you angry?

You can't take a joke. You're just too sensitive.

And for a long time, I carried that with me. Like it was truth.

Like it was truth with a capital T. And everybody knew this.

Alice is just too sensitive.

She was born too sensitive, right?

And to a certain degree, I was.

I'm a highly sensitive individual. 20% of the population of the world is highly sensitive.

So A, I'm not that special or that unique. Right?

If 20% of the entire human population are like this in terms of their sensitivity.

But B, it doesn't have to mean anything else about me.

So when I was younger, I used to believe that being sensitive was something bad. Right?

So my brain made this connotation sensitive equals bad. Sensitive equals bad. I'm sensitive. Maybe I'm bad.

Maybe there's something wrong with me.

And this is how these like tiny beliefs start forming and chipping away at who we are.

Well, I'm just a bad person.

There's something wrong with me because I'm sensitive. Everybody said so.

Of course, everybody in this context is mom and dad, maybe like cousins or like that is not

everybody when you look at the whole world. Right.

But when you're young, that is everybody. It is everybody. Exactly. Yeah. And that's the norm. Right?

Like, well, maybe I'm just not a funny person because clearly I don't get their jokes.

So then I'm also not funny.

And then I grow up and I carry that with me.

I'm just not that funny of a person.

I better be pretty if I'm not funny. Right.

And so that's like people start layering these levels of pressure on themselves from like these

flippant remarks that people make that we don't even realize we've been carrying with us since

four years old, five years old, six years old.

So coming back to your question, you're 50, 60, 70 years old.

You can start doing this work at any age, but ask yourself, what are some of these major beliefs

that I've carried with me in my life?

What are some of these thoughts that I have on a day to day basis?

How do I feel about myself?

What types of stories do I say about myself?

So here's like the really quick and dirty mindful approach that you can start with in any given day, any moment. What am I thinking?

What am I feeling emotionally?

How does my body feel?

And that will already give you so much information.

If every day, once a day, you start asking yourself this question, what am I thinking? What am I feeling?

How does my body feel?

Through asking yourself these questions, eventually you'll come to learn of some of these other

beliefs that have formed in your life.

If I'm thinking I'm such an idiot, how could I mess this up?

Okay, so I think that I'm an idiot.

Where did this belief come from?

Did somebody call me an idiot?

Are there any memories that are coming to mind from when somebody called me an idiot?

How does that make me feel? I feel stupid. I feel ashamed. I feel embarrassed.

How do I feel in my body?

Oh, there's a pit in my stomach.

My chest feels really heavy. That is mindfulness.

That is how you start becoming mindful of yourself and of your history. I love that.

That's such a great exercise.

I was just mesmerized by you talking about just like, I need to start doing that more.

But I don't think people realize that they can't stop, you know, take a beat and what am I feeling

in the moment and not just dismiss it as something.

Oh, I always feel this way or I'm just mad or I'm just, you know, whatever.

And I do recommend like separating like, what am I thinking?

From what am I feeling?

And even in feelings, separating feelings that are emotions versus feelings that are physical sensations.

Because this is sometimes like the limitation of our language, like semantics get in the way.

It's like people use I think and I feel interchangeably.

And that's not accurate, which is why a lot of times when somebody asks you, how are you feeling?

You're like, eh, meh, fine, bleh.

And I'm like, what is bleh?

Bleh does not give me any information.

Bleh is not a feeling people. Yes. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for pointing that out.

I actually have a shirt that says don't believe everything you think. 100% I have that on my website. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, one of the books I read as a resource for my readers out here is was the untethered soul by Michael Sinker. It's a good book.

Yeah, it took me a couple of times because I'm very strategic.

Like my strengths are input, ideation and intellect.

I have no woo in me at all.

You know, so it took me a couple of times of reading it.

But that book really helped me know that I am not my thoughts. Yeah.

You know, so so let's say, you know, you're you're working on yourself, you're becoming aware.

But, you know, we all we all live in systems.

And, you know, we have these dances we perform with the people that we're close to.

And you start to change because you've got these values now that you're like, I am going to start living my values.

And the person you're with or, you know, society or whoever is like, I don't like that so much.

I'm going to like reel you back into this system.

How can we fight against that urge to be like, okay, I'm not going to because I might lose this

or this might happen if I then decide to become my. Yeah.

Because maybe that used to be important to me then, but it's actually not important to me now.

So as long as I realize that in this moment, I am aware that that is not how I want to act and live my life.

This is I can keep making choices consistent with who I want to be now.

And you can notice like I'm having the thoughts that, you know, if I don't do what such and

such said I might lose that relationship.

And so this is where you really need to like take stock of your values.

Okay, well, what's more important to me, maintaining that relationship or acting in such and

such way like maybe that's being an honest person being a kind person and being a compassionate person.

Just for example sake, let's say like you have a partner who's like a jerk. It's just an asshole.

He doesn't treat people very well. He's nasty.

He's mean, maybe even narcissistic.

And you can say like, well, to some extent, I value that relationship because when it's good, it's really good.

And he can be such a nice man and he can treat me in such a lovely way, you know, except for when he punches me. Yeah. Right.

It's like, okay, well, what are your values right now?

Are you willing, are you wanting to continue to tolerate that kind of behavior, even that's

no longer consistent with who you are?

And let's take the violence out of it, right?

Like, do you want to surround yourself with a person who's just always nasty, always negative,

always like deprecating, like makes you not feel so good about yourself?

Or is nasty to other people makes other people feel bad about themselves.

Maybe you don't like their kind of humor.

Maybe they're racist or biased and that's just not acceptable to you anymore.

Maybe like you're able with mindfulness to recognize, like, even when you've been ignorant in

the past, because we all have about very many different things.

If you grow up in a certain family, like you might've thought certain things were okay.

And then you have more experiences, you get older and wiser and you educate yourself and you

surround yourself with other people.

And you're like, oh, actually, I don't like the fact that I used to be that kind of person.

So now that I realize that I realize I don't have to keep acting in the line that's consistent with that.

I would like to be kinder and more compassionate and less judgmental.

And let's say I have some friends who never like grew out of that and have no interest in doing so.

I have to think to myself, like, do I want to keep surrounding myself with them?

Or do I want to find more people who live life in line with my current values?

So like for a lot of people, it could really be like a come to Jesus moment where you have to

really evaluate what's more important to you.

I just became much happier. Number one.

And number two, obviously, I became much happier.

But number two is I then attracted people in my life that actually aligned with who I truly

was and appreciated that and supported that. Mm hmm. So 100%.

And that's what we find when we act in alignment with our values. We're being authentic.

And when you're being authentic, you're more likely to attract other authentic people to you.

When you're trying to fit in with other people, you're being you're actually being inauthentic,

you're acting out of alignment from your values.

So you're more discontent, you're more harsh and critical.

And you're going to keep attracting those kind of people who are attracted to your fake personality. That's not really you. Yeah, yeah.

I like that fake personality.

Because even today, it's like my real personality.

Some days, I think, you know, I just want to set my hair on fire and run down the street like

this is my true personality.

But yeah, you know, that makes me think of something.

I think it was Brené Brown said about fitting in versus belonging.

We fit in when we're not, we become who we're not, or we become fake, so that we can fit in,

as opposed to being who we are, so that we belong.

And I would rather have a core group of like three or four people I actually belong to, as opposed

to a whole group of people where I just like, you know, not all.

So, you know, that's another, like component of mindfulness that I often talk about is like

healthy non attachment, versus like unhealthy attachment.

Sometimes we're so attached to things in our lives that we are familiar with.

So we feel comfortable around them.

And there is a fear associated with letting them go.

But actually, if we are able to gather up the courage to be vulnerable, to be brave, right,

as Brené Brown says, and we can actually let them go, we actually give ourselves the opportunity

to be truly genuinely happy.

But there is that initial fear, because that's unfamiliar.

If your entire life you spent trying to fit in, then giving that up feels really risky, really dangerous in a way.

You have to be courageous to let that go, so that you can then attract more of those people

with whom you can actually belong and be your authentic self.

I think you touched on so many important points.

Because, you know, if you listen to certain gurus, experts, read certain self help books, they

make it sound like, okay, in a day, you know, follow this, you know, do this worksheet and voila.

But I love how you address that it is hard.

And, you know, it will take time and but you will get better once you keep doing it.

And the mindfulness is what allows you to notice the progress and to be kind and compassionate,

curious and non-judgmental with yourself as you're going through that process.

So you're not just able to be kind and compassionate towards others.

With mindfulness, you're applying it towards yourself.

And it could be really like simple things like saying, well, oh, I noticed that yesterday I

fell into that old pattern.

Okay, what can I do differently today?

So you're not saying I'm such a horrible person.

I'm just bad at this.

I should give this up.

You're acknowledging like, yeah, this is difficult. This is challenging.

I've had 20 years of being conditioned to think and feel like this.

It's going to take a little bit of work on my part to come out of this pattern and form a new

pattern that feels good and genuine and authentic to me.

And it's a work in progress.

I might always be like editing and evolving and expanding in like, finding myself and who I

want to be in this moment. So that's self-compassion. That's self-kindness. That's non-judgment. That's curiosity.

What can I do differently today from yesterday?

Oh, that's interesting that I did that.

I don't think I want to do that anymore.

What can I do instead?

Those are all those principles of being mindful. Yeah.

And those are great questions to ask yourself.

I know nowadays, if I am doing something that doesn't really align with me, I just get all like,

I get angry and I get tense.

And I can just really feel it now.

I think I felt it back then.

But now that I feel like I'm living a much more authentic life, it's just like, it's like being an ex-smoker. You smell cigarette smoke.

But when you were talking, it reminded me of this process we have to go through and it's going to be hard.

I used to drink Coke every morning.

I drank Coke every morning for 20 years for breakfast.

And then I decided, you know what, I'm not going to drink Coke anymore.

I had actual physical withdrawals. I bet. The caffeine, the sugar.

The headache, the body ache. Yeah.

So I see moving through this process, it's going to be like you're going to have withdrawals

and you're going to backslide and you're going to have to deal with people who don't like that you change.

But I think, you know, for my listeners, listen to this again, Alice, you had so many great

points and exercises, just brilliant ways for my listeners to start moving that are easy to do and quite doable. There's a lot here.

So I totally agree with you.

Like, it's okay if you need to listen to this a couple of times.

It's okay if you need to slow down the speed or speed up the speed, depending on how you like to listen.

But like, take notes, write down some of those questions that stood out to you.

Because that's the thing with mindfulness.

It's simple, as in it's simple to follow the instructions when you know what they are.

But it's not easy because there is so much that it can entail.

So take a one step at a time, like take one of the exercises that we talked about, right?

Ask yourself every day, what am I thinking? What am I feeling?

How does my body feel? Start there.

And then maybe a month from now, review the recording, and then pick up a different part of it.

Okay, like, let me look at some of my patterns. What am I thinking?

Where did that come from?

What memories does that bring up for me?

Who said that to me?

Do that for a month.

Shelly, I even loved how you said, like, now you're much more aware of how something makes you

feel in your body, right?

So you can notice for yourself, like, where am I carrying tension? Every day? Am I like this?

That's something you can become mindful of, and do this. That requires self-awareness.

Like, do I have a pit in my stomach every time I lie?

Okay, well, then maybe I don't want to lie so much anymore. Don't be liars, people. Good point.

Yeah, I find myself like, I'll walk through the house yesterday, and I'm like, why am I clenching my jaw?

You know, so I, I'm like, have I been doing this for a long time?

Or what's going on with that?

But anyway, so hey, Alice, before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to say to my listeners? Any words of wisdom? Or parting thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, just take it slow. Right?

Start with where you are.

I actually just made a reel about this on Instagram a couple of days ago, where I said, it's

very similar to the cliche about planting trees, right?

Like the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.

The second best time is now.

And I find the same to be true about mindfulness.

Like, yeah, it would have been great if we all were born this insightful and reflective.

And aware and accepting and compassionate.

But we're not, we have to accept that.

But you have the opportunity to start that now. So do that, right?

Like every day, you have a new opportunity to ask yourself those questions. What am I doing?

Thinking, what am I feeling?

How does my body feel? What are my values? Right?

So is it okay to just let people know how they can find me? Absolutely. Yeah.

So on Instagram, I'm at Dr. Alice Rizzi.

My primary mindfulness website is togethermindful.com.

If anybody wants to go through the core values assessment, I actually have a course on my website

that you can go through where I share my core values cards with you.

And I walk you through the entire exercise so that you can figure out what your core values

are, what they mean to you, what goals you want to set with them.

It's a four step, really simple process.

You just have to do it.

So I think that's more or less it.

Well, though, first of all, actual beautiful words in this conversation on and I will put all

of Alice's information down below, but I have been on your website.

And I hi, oh my gosh, the videos you have on there.

Your voice is so soothing.

I highly recommend going on Alice's website. Oh, yeah.

And I have tons of free resources there.

I have an entire start here module where you can listen more about what mindfulness is.

I have a couple of freebies that you can literally download and start practicing mindfulness

today in three minutes for free.

If any of this sounded complicated, I promise it's not.

And I explain everything to you in like really easy, simple to follow steps.

Yes, I I can vouch for that. Great. Thank you, Shelly.

Well, thank you so much.

This has just been a wonderful conversation.

And I really appreciate you being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really enjoyed it, too.