384: The Relationship Audit: Reassessing Your Connections for Midlife Wellness w/ Laini Gray

Transcripts are auto-generated.

Courtney Townley 0:01
Many midlife women that I’ve worked with over the years have been obsessed with finding the perfect diet or exercise routine to enhance their wellbeing. But what if I told you that your wellbeing is not found in another diet or exercise program, it’s found in deepening your relationships.

Courtney Townley 0:18
So in this episode of the grace and grit podcast, that is exactly what we’re going to explore. We’re going to be talking about how the connections that you either nurture or the ones you neglect could actually be the most significant factor in your health story.

Courtney Townley 0:32
Welcome to the Grace and Grit podcast made for women who want their healthiest years to be ahead of them, not behind them. Join your host, Courtney Townley right now as she breaks down the fairy tale health story you have been chasing all of your life into sensible action steps and lasting change.

Courtney Townley 1:00
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Grace and Grit podcast, as always. Thank you so much for joining me, and I’m really excited today to embark on a conversation around deepening relationships in order to improve your health, because I think this is such an important topic, and it’s one that is so, I think, under addressed, and it is definitely to the detriment of a lot of women, especially in midlife, who are trying to improve their health and happiness.

Courtney Townley 1:25
Joining me today, once again, is Laini Gray, who a lot of you longtime listeners are very familiar with, who Laini is, but in case this is your first time joining us, Laini is an amazing health coach in her own right. She is a Functional Diagnostic practitioner, and she happens to be one of my best friends, and so we love talking about this stuff, and we decided back in 2024 that she should come on the show more often so people can just kind of hear us about, like, having a conversation about the things we discuss in the wellness industry. And I’m hoping it will be of benefit to you.

Courtney Townley 1:57
We’ve had a lot of conversations this year that we’ve gotten a lot of great feedback on and I’m sure this will be, hopefully, another one. I want to start by saying that I think that one of the things that frustrates me as a health coach and Laini, I’d love you to chime in on this, is that a lot of clients get so attached to this idea that it’s all about outcomes and protocols, right? If I can just find the right protocol, if I can just achieve a certain outcome, I will be happy and healthy forever more. And that’s really just not how it works. Like, do you do you see that?

Laini Gray 2:37
Yes, yeah, yeah. I think it’s really interesting, just in the health wellness industry over time, right? First, we were looking for the right exercise plan, then we were looking for the right diet, and now we’re looking for the right functional lab test and the right supplement and the right superfood and the right whatever. And we keep thinking we’re going to find this magic pill or the right thing that is just going to take us over the edge, and we’re going to get to that place where we’re the healthiest and we’re the happiest, and so we’re always in search for the perfect plan or protocol or product.

Courtney Townley 3:08
And we can spend our whole life doing that. I’ve seen women do that, and I also, and we’ve done podcasts on this. I think that with this, the hotness of the midlife topic and sort of menopause and perimenopause becoming hot topics, especially for marketing, it’s become like even more so, where so much is pushed on the midlife woman that they need this, they need that in order to achieve a certain level of health. And in my gut, and this isn’t just my gut instinct, it’s also the evidence I have from working with so many women over the years that I’m such a true believer that it’s really about deepening our relationships with ourselves, with the people in our world, and with the world that we live in. So it’s not just relationship with other people. It’s relationship with food, it’s relationship with exercise, it’s relationship with time, with boundaries, with self narrative, and if we can elevate those relationships, health has to improve. Yeah, I

Laini Gray 4:09
agree. I agree. That’s what I see. Because, you know, and we’ve talked about this before, I love functional lab testing. I love to dig in to find the pieces to the puzzle, and I love helping people put those protocols together, to move them along the journey. But there’s some people that are having the same things occur over and over and over again, despite the perfect protocol, and it’s because they don’t have joy in their life. They don’t have boundaries in their life. They don’t have, you know, they don’t even have a relationship with ourselves. They’re like, Oh, I don’t know about this protocol, but I know I shouldn’t eat this, or I shouldn’t do that, and they just have all of these weird expectations, and they forget the foundations of health, and it’s really interesting to watch. And so they’re really surprised, because now, at this point, I’m usually trying to take more off their plate and give them more freedom to just to figure out their own path. Yeah, which is a really hard thing to do.

Courtney Townley 4:58
Yeah, it’s. It. I mean, I think that’s one of the barriers, and we’ll talk more about that here in a second. Like, I think there’s definitely a barrier to entry with kind of having somewhat of an understanding that is about relationship, but also that is deep work. It’s not quick work, it’s, it’s, it’s a whole nother level of work. And women are already short on time and short on resources and all the things, so I understand why it’s easier to just buy the supplement or sign up for a new program and become what I call a room bouncer, right?

Courtney Townley 5:29
A room bouncer is bouncing from room to room to room, looking for, again, the perfect protocol or the perfect strategy that is going to elevate your health and happiness forever more. I wanted to share a couple stories from my own client base, and it might maybe spark something in you like because I’m sure you see a lot of this kind of stuff too. But I was thinking of one client as I was kind of hashing out the notes for this episode, who I worked with years ago, and when I first started working with her, she was incredibly controlling of her environment and with her food and her exercise like, to the point I almost wondered if she had OCD or some kind of, I don’t know, there was just some kind of mental health challenge with how controlling she was. And I worked with her for a very long time, and of course, got to know her better and understand like, the inner workings of her life, and really got exposed to how dysfunctional her marriage was. And I mean, in so many ways, it was just not healthy. And long story short, it took a long time for that marriage to dissolve, but it did eventually dissolve, and I it was probably about five years ago. I hadn’t worked with her for a while, but I, you know, we kind of reconnected. And she was a totally, like, there was no control, you know what I mean?

Courtney Townley 6:49
Like there, like, the way that her house was there was, like, there was kind of mess, you know, in certain places, like there would be in a normal home. We went out to eat, and it was, like, the easiest thing in the world, it was just wild how much she was able to let go. And you know, there was such a vibrancy to her, like there was so much life in her, because she had let go of a relationship, obviously, that was really harming her health, and started forging relationships that actually nourished her life. And like that, will forever cling to that, because it was such a stark example of this exact conversation of how relationships can nourish or deplete our lives.

Laini Gray 7:30
Yeah, yes, totally. I see that a lot. Yeah, one anytime there’s that, especially with the control issue, and people can’t control things in their personal life, be at work or relationship or something they do cling to things they can control, strict exercise routines, strict nutrition routines, strict bedtime I think of the clients I’ve had that have been in the bodybuilding industry previously, and a lot of them did have relationship issues or other things, and that was one area where they could control they could measure their food, they could follow a plan. They could do it with exactness, but then when they went home, they because they didn’t have control in some of their home lives. Yeah,

Courtney Townley 8:09
or how many women have we worked with that, like their obsession with exercise, but you could see there was never joy in it, right? Like they were very strategic, they were very consistent, but they weren’t necessarily getting the results that they truly wanted. They were never really satisfied, because it was almost, I would almost say, like a form of punishment or a form of proving themselves versus a way of connecting with themselves. Yeah,

Laini Gray 8:33
almost a coping mechanism also, yeah, right. Instead of thinking what they really need to face, they divert it somewhere else.

Courtney Townley 8:41
And so then you challenge them on approaching exercise differently and and hopefully, you know, getting them to a place where they are using exercise to actually embrace their worth and using exercise to connect with themselves and strengthen their resilience and all the things and and again, even though they’re still sometimes doing the same kind of exercise, the results that they get are different because the why behind it is so much healthier. Yes,

Laini Gray 9:15
yeah. So I would agree. I just wanted

Courtney Townley 9:17
to share those two, because those two really stuck out to me. Those are things I see all the time. And I mean, we could have, we could talk just this entire length of this podcast about examples of client stories where the true transformation that I have seen has not been about following the protocol, but more about deepening a relationship, whether that is with, you know, again, themselves, with food, with exercise, with sleep, it usually comes from deepening some kind of relationship. So why do you think we’re so drawn to chasing perfect protocols rather than examining our relationships like, yes, it’s more work. We talked about that. What else do you think is in the way? I think there’s

Laini Gray 9:56
messaging around us being broken or that we have to be. Fixed sometimes in society, right? We, especially as women, this is what we’ve grown up with. We’ve grown up with, you know, marketing around how we’re supposed to look, how we’re supposed to act, and if we look at our mother’s generation, how to be the perfect mother, or how to do all of the things. And so I think we we come at it already feeling like, how are we ever going to measure up? And then when we don’t, the messaging is, you’re broken. Here’s how you’re going to lose weight, here’s how you’re going to do this. So from the get go, I think it’s really we have to intentionally learn how to be in touch with ourselves, learn about ourselves, and pave our own path. But I don’t think that’s innately happening in our society.

Courtney Townley 10:38
Yeah. And I think it’s such a good point, because I don’t know if you’ve started my book yet, but in my book, I talk about how we’re sold this message, and we’re conditioned, and it’s just like constantly dumped on us that our body is the problem, and if we fix the body, everything else will just get better. But the reality is, the body has never been the problem, right? What’s happening around us and the way that we’re interpreting things and our relationships or the lack thereof, that’s the problem. Yeah, right. I always say it’s not the weight of the body. It’s the weight of our lives, yeah, and the weight of our lives is hugely determined by the quality of our relationships

Laini Gray 11:14
completely. And I just don’t think that’s the messaging. It’s still not the messaging. If you think about what’s around for teens, you’re going to be popular. If you do this, you’re gonna have more fun. If you take this vacation, everything is always about you’re going to be happier, healthier, feel better, be skinny or whatever if you do this, it’s never Hey, having a strong body is awesome. Exercise helps you be stronger, you know, yeah, like, we’re always fed some some sort of message around fixing something.

Courtney Townley 11:42
Yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so the actual solution we’re proposing here, and something that we really want listeners to consider, is just that relationship is the foundation of health, and you’re in relationship with everything, like life is relationship. It’s again, it’s not just the people in your life. It is everything, your relationship with space, your relationship with movement, your relationship with stress management, all of it is impacting your health story. And I just wanted to share, I always look up, you know, some studies to sort of validate what we’re talking about, but there’s two that stuck out to me that I’ll just mention here, the Harvard study of adult development, which spanned 80 years. So that’s pretty significant.

Courtney Townley 12:28
Found that close relationships are better predictors of health and happiness than wealth IQ or social status or social class. Those with strong relationships are happier and healthier. And then there was a meta analysis of 148 different studies that found that strong social relationships increase survival by 50% which is comparable to quitting smoking and exceeding the benefits of physical activity or maintaining a healthy weight. Like, we can’t underestimate, like, how impactful healthy relationships are

Laini Gray 13:07
completely and, I mean, I think we, we had, we saw a lot of this during the pandemic, right, the loneliness epidemic, and how important it was to have social connection for our health. Yes. And then even, I can’t quote the study for sure, but it talks about men that live longer or married, I can definitely see, because they’re taking care of them or whatever, but Right, there’s definitely correlation between being in those healthy relationships and better quality of life and longevity. So it is, it’s a really important thing to talk about. Well, it’s

Courtney Townley 13:35
interesting you bring that up, because I see that in my own parents, right? Like my have my mom and my stepdad, who are obviously, they’re best friends, and they do everything together, and, you know, they’re kind of pushing each other along, and they’re each other’s cheerleaders. And then I have my dad, who, even though his wife, you know, she’s she’s in hospice right now, but she’s been debilitated for 30 years because she got early onset Alzheimer’s. So he’s been going it alone for 30 years. And it shows, I mean, he just, he doesn’t have that cheerleader in his corner. He doesn’t have that partner in crime to kind of, you know, help him where he’s struggling.

Courtney Townley 14:11
And, yeah, it is such a stark contrast in those two sets of parents. Yeah, their health, their health and wellbeing, and I would even say their their happiness level, for sure, completely different. So I would love to challenge you a little bit on like, when we think about the quality of relationships and those, those relationships maybe not being of high quality, because you’re so good at speaking to the chemical side of things, like, how does that affect our stress levels, our immune function and our overall well being from a chemical perspective.

Laini Gray 14:47
So anytime, I mean, because we talk about this from a stress state, and that’s kind of where we’re looking at this too. So if we’re always giving our energy away, right, we’re in this constant state of stress. So we have to have a state of recovery to refill our tank. Like we talk about that, you’re like, oh, stress, oh rest, these kind of things are important. The same is true in our relationships, relationships with other people. So let’s just talk about friends. If you are constantly giving toward the friendship, but that friend never calls you back, doesn’t show up, maybe doesn’t invite you somewhere, it leaves you feeling bad, so you’re in a straight A state of stress without having the recovery, the rejuvenate, rejuvenation, the recreation, all of the things that fill your tank. So it’s the same kind of stressor as it would be, you know, eating foods that you’re allergic to or not pooping for three days. It’s the same kind of chemical reaction.

Laini Gray 15:38
All of those emotions still have a chemical reaction within the body. So feeling, excuse me, sad, lonely, angry, with a partner or a spouse or a child, any of those things do create chemical reactions in the body, and you have to detox and digest those. And often, we don’t talk about detoxing and digesting our emotions. We just try to hold them in, and then we end up getting sick and overwhelmed, and then we’re looking for outside help to help us clear what’s stuck and stagnant in our bodies. But all of our outside relationships and interaction with others, specifically our friends, our family, our spouses, our kids, even interactions with people on the road in the store have an impact on our physiology and the chemical components in our body, and that’s a big deal. It’s such

Courtney Townley 16:27
a big deal, which is why it’s so important that you very carefully select the spaces and places and people that you spend time with, because it does have a direct effect on your cellular integrity. And if that cellular integrity is not up to snuff, you are going to experience a lot of negative consequences that you don’t want to be rumbling with in mid life or at any point in your

Laini Gray 16:49
life, right? The and there’s interesting research around the microbiome, is that we share each other’s microbiome. I remember you telling me that years ago, and yeah, literally, we have microbiome on our skin and things like that. So we’re when we’re in close contact with somebody, we are literally sharing their microbiome. So if you’ve got somebody who’s angry and ornery and negative and you’re in that proximity, we all know what that feels like. You literally feel that negative energy, but you actually take on their microbiome. So that gives you a whole different vision, right?

Laini Gray 17:19
Totally. That’s a whole different world. But that’s why it’s important, on a physiological level, to surround ourselves with Healthy People, yeah, right, people that give us something good. By the same token, when you’re playing with your dog, and I know you have a dog, how do you feel when you’re playing with your dog? Great. You’re sharing microbiome with your dog, yeah, right. You’re sharing all of these

Courtney Townley 17:41
clarifying, considering now, Daniel, you’ve seen

Laini Gray 17:46
the dog deal. I know same when I’ve seen him eat, but yeah, that’s what it is. It’s really important. Our relationships with the people around us are so important

Courtney Townley 17:55
to our health. Yeah, absolutely. And there’s two things that you said that really stood out. I want to highlight number one, the give and take of relationships, because I think that’s partly what qualifies a healthy relationship, is when there is give and take, when it’s constant give, then, yeah, eventually you’re going to get depleted and you’re not getting that energy restored. And it also makes me think of because I talk so much about the mindset work with my clients, and when it comes to complicated relationships, especially with other people, they’ll often say, Well, I know I could manage my mind apparent myself around this person in order to be with them. And I’m like, Okay, you could. That is an option.

Courtney Townley 18:38
But how many resources are you going to have to spend to keep spending time with this person? Because if I constantly spend time with someone who is requiring a lot of my resources, I don’t want to live my life that way, because I know I have limited resources, and there’s a lot of other things I want to be spending my time and energy on, yeah. So to me, that’s like a filter that if the dose of resources that somebody needs from me is super, super high, it’s probably a red flag that this is going to be more of a giving relationship me giving and not getting much in return. And Hey, as long as you know that, and you make that decision consciously, more power to you. But I just find at midlife, I don’t have the bandwidth, the resources, the patience to be managing myself in that way.

Laini Gray 19:32
Yeah, and let’s take that just a step further, because that’s super important. With your friends are going to change. Let’s just be okay with that. It’s okay to not have the same friends you had when you were 24 It’s okay. People’s lives change. The difference comes when it is maybe it’s your family or your in laws or somebody that you do have to be in contact with. Then that mindset piece becomes, you know, but then we work on strategies there. But I think what you’re alluding to is that, yeah, we can’t stay in the same relationships with the hairdresser that continue. Really messes up our hair, or the you know, or the friend that wants us to stay out late or do the things that you know don’t make you feel good. It’s okay to like them, love them, and also let them go at the

Courtney Townley 20:11
same time, or love them from a distance, right? Love them from a distance, yes, yeah, which I know is hard, because we do feel like we should always be I think a lot of people do believe they should always be friends with the people they were friends with when they were 24 or that something is wrong with them, that they’re not investing as much of themselves into a relationship that they once did. But I always, I wish I remember who I heard. I know who it was, but I can’t remember her name, and she was the inventor of poopourri, right? Is that how you say it good? Yeah, in the toilet. Yeah, so.

Courtney Townley 20:45
But she was talking on a podcast about how you know in a healthy relationship, when you come together, initially, you’re resonating on a lot of levels, and inevitably, because we’re human and we all grow at different paces, one person starts to accelerate their growth and the other person so now they’re they’re kind of in dissonance because the other person’s not keeping up. And your hope is that eventually you come back into resonance with each other. But that’s not always the case. Oh, and so when you find that you’re consistently in dissonance with somebody, and it’s requiring a lot of your resources to constantly be in their presence, it might just be complete. And I think that’s such a grace filled thought that there are relationships that are just complete, yeah, and that’s okay,

Laini Gray 21:30
yes, nothing lasts forever, right?

Courtney Townley 21:33
Nothing lasts forever. Yes. Okay, so I want to do this little section of kind of rapid fire in terms of, like, just us both answering what makes a healthy relationship in these different areas. So let’s start with other people. Like, what do you think qualifies a healthy relationship with other people? What are words you would use?

Laini Gray 21:56
Comfortable, okay, easy. Yes. You know, like, that doesn’t take a lot of energy to make it work. You can connect after two years and that’s easy, and you just pick up where you left off. Or by the same token, you can sit in silence and not feel awkward, yeah? Right? You don’t have to explain yourself, or they know what you’re thinking. It’s just an easy

Courtney Townley 22:15
thing, yeah? Just, I love that easy. Who doesn’t want easy? It’s really simple. So especially at this stage of life, I want eases everywhere.

Laini Gray 22:25
Yes, please, please,

Courtney Townley 22:27
Everywhere. I have this grocery bag, I taped it. My brother got it for me for Christmas a few years ago. It’s this big Patagonia bag, but it’s just like a duffel. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s robust. And it’s one of those bags where it’s like, the more stuff you put in it, the bigger it seems to get. Like you could It’s an endless bag. But anyway, I constantly tell them when I go the grocery store, I want my whole life to feel this way, because it just feels easy. I have this one bag that seems to hold everything, and it’s just so fabulous.

Courtney Townley 22:54
So yes, if my relationships could all be easy, that would be wonderful. I think of healthy relationships. I think of respectful right that I don’t need to understand all the decisions that you make, but I respect you enough to trust that you’re doing right by yourself, and I can support that safe. I feel safe with the people that I spend time with in a healthy relationship, which I think goes very closely with respect. And I also think of consistency, right? Of course, like we’re consistent, like I consistently show up for the things that I care about in my life. And so if there’s somebody that you know isn’t consistently showing up for you, I think that might be a red flag that maybe that’s not a healthy relationship. But anyway, for the listener, I would challenge you to be answering these questions yourself as well, like, what for you qualifies a healthy relationship? And take a few of the relationships that you’re really in every day and run them through that filter,

Laini Gray 23:52
and then, what about also, the good relationships inspire you to be your best. Yeah, they’re not afraid of your growth. No, they’re not jealous of you, and they encourage you. They celebrate you. Yes, that’s one that you know, when you have something exciting to share, you have to think about which friends you can share it with, because it might hurt somebody’s feelings or so that’s that’s an indicator, right there.

Courtney Townley 24:13
Absolutely, I love that. That’s a great one. Okay, so what do you think qualifies a healthy relationship with food

Laini Gray 24:24
goodness. This is a good one, because I love food, but I think a healthy relationship with food is understanding what food is, and that it’s so many things, that it’s a celebration, that it’s fuel, that it’s nutrients, and that it’s not something you have to fight with, and that you should enjoy it. So food should be something that’s celebrated, that’s exciting, that it’s just like your relationships, they’re diverse, they support you, and it should feel comfortable and easy. It shouldn’t be a stressful relationship to think, what am I going to eat? What can I eat? It should be, in my opinion, you should look forward to eating, but that’s what I.

Courtney Townley 25:00
Do, yeah, and you should like your reasons for eating, yeah, right, yeah. I think years ago, you know, I’ve always given you credit for this that the nourish and deplete conversation, because I think that’s just such a clear way to sort of think about your choices. Are they nourishing me or are they depleting me? But when it comes to food, I of course, think of nourishment and sometimes a piece of chocolate cake with your best friend that you see once in five years is a really nourishing choice, but only you know Right? Like this isn’t something like your nutritionist can tell you, or your trainer can tell you, like, there are certain nourishing decisions around food that have nothing to do with the quality of the food itself,

Laini Gray 25:41
exactly. That’s probably the hardest thing to teach people, right, because it’s different. If you are eating a gallon of ice cream by yourself in the dark being sad about something because you don’t want to feel something right, because you don’t want to feel that’s a different kind, right? What are you feeding? But nourishment is so different, and that’s when we both had that study where we were learning, you know, food is celebration, food is family, food is ritual, food is, you know, all of these things.

Laini Gray 26:08
So we really have to have a good relationship with and understand that it’s not out there to get us, yeah, it’s really just, how are we using it and being very clear and enjoying that, I’m always like, did you enjoy it when a client says, Oh, well, I had chocolate cake, and I’m like, Tell me about it. It was, I hope you enjoyed the hell out of it, right? If you didn’t enjoy it, that’s a problem. If you enjoyed it, tell me about it. Let’s, let’s celebrate that enjoyment, because there is something good mentally, If you’re happy and having a good moment with that food, that’s different,

Courtney Townley 26:41
yes. And also, I think there’s a caveat there, that when you’re always turning to food to feel pleasure or joy, that is also probably something that you want to address in that relationship, right? If I’m emotionally dependent on food, it’s probably not a healthy relationship. And so again, I always say, mind the dose, like, that’s a phrase I use a lot because I think it’s just it really addresses so many things in the health equation, right? It’s not that anything is necessarily good or bad or horrible or wonderful, it’s that, what’s the dose and what’s the reason? Yeah, and let’s go from there, because I think that tells you an awful lot about the quality of the relationship, definitely okay. What would you quantify a healthy relationship with exercise to be

Laini Gray 27:28
wanting to move your body because you can right, wanting to see the things it could do, thinking, taking it kind of a list of, what are the things I want to be able to do? Do I want to be able to climb trees. My client yesterday said, I want to be able to jump over logs while we’re elk hunting. You know, what are the things that you appreciate your body can do? And so you want to train it and make sure it can do all the things you want to do. Because when you have a good relationship with your body and you love that, it moves. I think of my dear friend, well, her name’s Courtney, who loves to dance right? Part of her reason of exercising is to stay strong and flexible and graceful so that she can go dance her butt off. Yes, that’s new, but

Courtney Townley 28:11
that’s true. Yes, I figured, but yeah, it’s 100% true. Yeah, I love that. So I heard want to, versus have to, like, that’s so powerful. And then also just using movement to expand possibility. And that is so like, it is like, when you look at movement that way, what does it allow me to do, and what does it allow me to pursue and create and inspire in life? It’s such a different exercise than I have to. I must following a bunch of rules and regulations a structured program. It’s a completely different and here’s the thing, I have followed a lot of programs that were very detailed to help me expand my possibility. But I wasn’t doing it as a means to an end, like, I wasn’t doing it just for the sake of following something to like, you know, lose a little bit of weight, or, like, whatever the thing, I shouldn’t say that I have done that, but it’s not how I approach it now,

Laini Gray 29:07
no, and even in the last couple of weeks, I have not done my specific exercise routine, if you will, because I was out in the yard hunched over pulling weeds right, and I spent hours and hours and hours, and I actually loved it. It was very nourishing for me. I’m outside in the sun. My hands are in the dirt. It felt gratifying to move these little weeds or whatever. And my husband comes out. He’s like, how on earth are you able to squat down and be in that position? He’s like, I can’t do that. And I’m like, Well, look at me. Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah. And I did. I felt like I worked really hard with my body in those positions. I love so good. It felt so good, and I did not feel bad about not doing squats that

Courtney Townley 29:52
day. Yeah, and I love, I think that right there is, like, a very healthy example, because I can’t tell you that. Of conversations I have in the summer with clients who are, you know, they’re they’re out water skiing and mountain biking and climbing and hiking and like moving, and then they’re beating themselves up that they’re not consistent with this indoor exercise routine. And I always have to remind them, do you remember why exercise was ever invented? It was to counter a sedentary lifestyle? Yeah, and so the summer is a completely different season, where we can be out and about, and we’re so happy to be out there.

Courtney Townley 30:27
And like you said, there’s so many other benefits to being outside right the sunlight and the fresh air and the just the things we get to do, and also that, like you said, the different movement it demands of you to squat that low and also twist the polar weed, or whatever it is. And so, yeah, I think that’s such a strong point about movement. A healthy relationship with movement is it’s not about, again, the protocol. It’s more about like, Are you moving right? And are you moving doing things that you actually enjoy doing, and expanding possibility for your life. I said this was rapid fire. This is so not rapid fire, because we’re elaborating so much. But Okay, the next one, what do you think a healthy relationship with work is?

Laini Gray 31:10
Oh, that’s a good one, right? Because you have to decide, what is your work doing, does it? Is it just providing a paycheck? Is it bringing you joy? Is it taking you somewhere? And you have to figure out those things. And then you have to really decide, what are the boundaries around work? Is work going to take over your life, or can you shut it off at a certain point of time? And so I’ve had to do that a lot like at a certain time. Nobody is expecting me to reply to an email at 930 at night. Yeah, get off the phone. Get off the computer, right? So understanding what is the work? Why are you doing the work? Is it for a paycheck? Is it for something understanding those and then, what are the other parts of my life that I need to balance this with? I

Courtney Townley 31:45
love it, and I hear boundaries in that really loud and clear. I have to have boundaries with my work to avoid burnout. So I would say, like a sense of purpose and contribution, right? That’s like a big I know that brings me a lot of joy, and it definitely supports my health to do work that I really care about. And, yes, absolutely, the boundary piece I can totally relate to. Yeah, I would say a healthy relationship with work is enjoying Oh, and I would say the other thing is making sure that work is supporting my life rather than work being my life.

Courtney Townley 32:17
And I cannot say that I’ve always been awesome at that. I’m still not awesome at that at all times. It’s really easy for me to work all the time, but that is something that when I am unbalanced in that way, and I’m really making work my life, I’m not healthy, I don’t feel good, I don’t feel happy, I it’s just I feel it in my bones,

Laini Gray 32:37
yeah, and I feel like that’s something that women struggle with a lot, especially if you’re in a job where you don’t really have a sense of purpose. You’re just doing it because you need the pace, you know. So you really do need to figure out, what is work doing for me? Why am I here? And find the joy or the purpose in it, and then make sure that that doesn’t take over the rest of your life, and find some joy and reason to go to work if it’s not your dream job, and then seek out another option. I think so. So often we get stuck. We’re like, well, I have to pay the bills, so I’m going to stay here. Yeah,

Courtney Townley 33:06
and two, like, it’s going back to what we said earlier. It’s that whole give and take. Like, is work giving you more of a life? Is it helping to provide for the things that help you to take better care of yourself and spend time with the people that you love? Or has it again become your life to the point at which you’re just giving and there’s no return? Yeah, that’s, I think that’s really important. Okay, I love this next one because I think this is really important. What would you qualify a healthy relationship with technology to be.

Laini Gray 33:38
oh well, if it makes your life easier, right? So for some of us, it can be a way to communicate with our clients or our friends or family, and that’s nice. It can be an easy way to shop if you don’t want to go to target, because you have to drive 40 miles

Courtney Townley 33:50
for sure, in some ways

Laini Gray 33:52
each time, but if you find yourself once again, taking you away from the other things that you need for nourishment, if you’ve skipped dinner and you haven’t talked to anyone in your family for two hours and you haven’t gotten the laundry done and you haven’t done any exercise or movement, then maybe we need to reevaluate that technology. And here’s a nice little thing too. It’s really nice to see what you did all day long, but sometimes it’s nice to not take a picture of everything you did. It’s so true. I was just at a concert, right? And, yes, I took some some video shots, and I’m like, I actually am gonna stop. I want to just enjoy this, like I paid to come see this live. Why am I videoing it to watch it later?

Courtney Townley 34:35
I also see a lot of like, the sacred moments of life trying to be exploited on social media. And just kills me, like people are crying about, like, his intimate moment with their husband. And I’m like, Okay, this is just weird. Like, why do you need to film this?

Laini Gray 34:48
Yeah, totally. So, yeah. So just figuring that out what that is for you.

Courtney Townley 34:53
Yeah, I love that. So I think, yes, there is I, because I hear like my dad is so, like, anti technology. Mainly because he can’t figure it out. But I always tell him, like, Dad, it’s like anything. It’s like, you know, a fork could be unhealthy if you use it to over consume, right? Like, we could argue that a pencil can write terrible words, but it doesn’t make the tool the

Laini Gray 35:15
problem is it weird that I thought stabbing with both those examples? Oh, it’s a little, yeah, that’s a little dark from coming from both of them too. Sorry about that. Listeners,

Courtney Townley 35:25
yes, they can both be used as weapons, for sure, but technology too, right? It can be used as a weapon. It can definitely consume all of our time. It can force us to isolate. We can become addicted. I mean, there’s a lot of downfall that can come from technology, but a healthy relationship with it is we use it to enhance our life, we keep stay connected, we expand our networks, we use it for creative work. I mean, gosh, can you would you have said 20 years ago that this is how we’d be doing our work? No, right? It’s amazing.

Laini Gray 35:54
No. And to your point, there’s some really great relationships that can be built because of these technologies. But I think you would agree with this too. There still is a longing for in person, communication and connection, definitely so. So if your entire life, your work, your communities, your friends, everything is through a screen, you might be missing out on some other elements of relationships in real life.

Courtney Townley 36:18
So true. Okay, the last one I want to ask is, how would you define a healthy relationship with self,

Laini Gray 36:27
kind of the same as with everything else. Can you sit by yourself and be calm? Do you have to be engaged in something all the time? Do you like yourself, whether you’ve got makeup on or not? You know, what are the Can You Say nice things to yourself? Can you have a nice time alone? Those are some of those things that I would think, do you care about yourself enough to do all the things and have the other relationships be on point? Yeah,

Courtney Townley 36:51
have you love? I love what you said there about this. Like, can you be with yourself and like, like, enjoy spending time with yourself. Like, that is very telling. It

Laini Gray 36:59
is. It’s a very huge one. People that always have to be going and doing and they’re like, Oh, I can’t stay home alone, or I would never go to the movie alone, or I would never eat alone. Yeah, it’s an interesting concept. Okay,

Courtney Townley 37:11
so let’s talk a little bit about because I always like to give, like, tangible steps in terms of helping people to maybe audit their relationships. You know, obviously you don’t have to do all your relationships at one time, but I think people do have, like, the sixth sense of the relationships that are not doing well, whether that’s their relationship with food or it’s their relationship with time or it’s their relationship with themselves, like they know on some level that that isn’t where they Want it to be. So I don’t know for people listening what that is for you, but I do want to give you some gateways for maybe assessing the problematic areas.

Courtney Townley 37:50
So the first thing, and I’d love your input on this Laini that I would challenge people to consider is like just doing like an energy assessment. So does this relationship energize me or deplete me.

Courtney Townley 38:02
So if I sit down and eat a bag of Cheetos, which I’ve been known to do, I don’t know what it is with Cheetos, like they cannot be in my house, but once in a blue moon, I’d say probably once a year, I would eat a bag of Cheetos, and I feel like hell. I don’t, I don’t feel good. I mean, they tasted amazing going down, right? But what’s the energy on the other side of that. Yeah? You know,

Courtney Townley 38:23
I can also think of, like, there I’ve a family member that I don’t spend a lot of time with because every time I’m with her, it’s like, like, we’re always playing the what if, you know, it’s like one upping, like, she’s always trying to one up me on things, and I feel very judged, and it’s just like, I don’t have the resources at my life right now to be contending with this, yeah.

Courtney Townley 38:41
So those types of things are very clear to me that they’re not energizing. They require a tremendous amount of work, and so I either need to refrain from them, or, you know, make a healthier snack and spend time with different people. Yeah,

Laini Gray 38:56
yeah. No, I think, I think that’s great, because it still goes back to, is our bucket full or empty or overflowing, or what do we have space for? What do we have the energy for? And when we can kind of feel that, like I don’t, I don’t have the energy for this, then don’t do it anymore or take a break from it.

Courtney Townley 39:12
Yeah? Sometimes just for now, for now, I can’t be with this person. Yeah? And

Laini Gray 39:15
that can be, I may not need to lift today. If I’m dizzy and tired and exhausted. Maybe I don’t exercise today, maybe I rest right. Being able to do that is pretty important. Being able to stay away from the oh, I should do this, versus I don’t the energy around it doesn’t feel good today. It’s

Courtney Townley 39:33
such a good point. And I think it goes back to earlier. Like, is it nourishing me? Like, is strength training today actually nourishing me, or is it going to actually knock me further down? Yeah, and I don’t most of my clients are terrible at discerning the difference, like it’s just something they should always do, and it’s like, well, no, because you don’t always have the same amount of resources on board, and you don’t always have the same amount of stress in your life, so we have to be figuring out how to assess that those situations to determine you. Is this thing, which we could argue is largely good, yeah. Is it good today? Because under the right conditions, it can be horribly distressful to the to the human body,

Laini Gray 40:10
yeah, yeah. I had an example just the other day, and it had to do with going to church. I was exhausted. I’m like, I don’t really want to go to church today, but I was supposed to play the piano, and so this is what was my deciding factor. I’m like, I mean, I could go, I’m not really that tired. And then what came to my mind was, if I text, I don’t actually have to admit that. I’m like, Yep, I’m not sick enough to call and say I’m not coming.

Laini Gray 40:35
Do you know even, like, that was a really interesting thing, because we use the text message to get out of things that we don’t want to do. But they heard but if you had to call someone and say, I don’t feel well, I can’t come and, you know, you that’s 100% true, but that was one of my deciding factors just this past weekend, because I was like, I don’t know, do I have the energy or not? No, I don’t really feel bad, you know, but it was inter and then I went and I felt great, but that was an interesting assessing of my energy. And then How bad did I really want to not go?

Courtney Townley 41:04
I love that, because I think that that’s such a skill set, right is really having a honest enough relationship with yourself that you know when it’s time to pull back and apply more grace, and you also know when you’re kind of like trying to cop out and where you might need to dig deeper and apply some grit. Yeah? And that takes a minute to figure that out. It definitely does, and it’s a practice and but it’s also something that, again, when you’re doing a one size fits all program, or you’re working with, you know, a trainer or a coach who may not, nobody knows you on that level. No, they just don’t. Yeah, no, a lot of women don’t know themselves on that level, let alone the people outside of them. S

Courtney Townley 41:42
o it’s definitely a practice, but it’s one that I think can have such epic results, you know, when we start really learning to question ourselves on that level. The other thing I wrote down was just body signals, like, and again, this kind of chimes in with, like, the physical sensations of how you feel either during or on the other side of engaging with something. So I had a conversation yesterday with a client who was like we were talking about when she felt the most vibrant in her life, and it was when she was going to a gym and she had a trainer, and we were kind of talking about that aspect of it, and she goes, but Courtney, I’m gonna tell you right now I hated the gym, like I had to go through so much mental work to walk in the door every day, and I was thinking,

Courtney Townley 42:29
Okay, well, that’s probably not a great place for us to go right now. Then, yeah, right. Like, if you hate something, right, your relationship with the gym is clearly not healthy. And so let’s look at our other options. Yeah, right. And let’s like, make it joyful. And maybe if you work out home for a while, or you work out in the park, there may come a point where you’re actually fired up to go back. Maybe not, but it’s definitely probably not where we should start. No, no,

Laini Gray 42:57
if you’re having that general response like, oh, that’s probably not the place you need to be. Yeah.

Courtney Townley 43:02
And I think alcohol is a big one for this, like the body sensations, because I think a lot of people are drinking for reasons that have nothing to do with the taste or the experience of the alcohol. They’re drinking because of the peer pressure. They’re drinking because they think they’re more fun when they drink alcohol. They like who they are more when they’re drinking than they do when they’re not drinking, like, there’s a lot behind it, yeah, but when you really tune in to how do I feel when I’m drinking alcohol, oh my gosh, I do not feel good at this stage of my life. Like I could take a couple sips of alcohol and my fingers immediately feel swollen. Wow, you know?

Courtney Townley 43:36
And then the next day, it’s like, I wake up and I’m like, I’m definitely not a level 10 today. Yeah, yeah. So to me, those are indicators, like the touching base with those bodily sensations can be a huge indicator about the quality of your relationships, and if something’s serving you or not you just

Laini Gray 43:51
made me think of another way to assess your relationship with yourself. Yeah. Can you dance just because you want to dance

Courtney Townley 43:58
right, not to prove it, or

Laini Gray 44:01
to not need alcohol before you can dance, or not need the lights off before you can dance, right? We all like to move to music in some level, and the more comfortable you are with yourself, the easier it is to dance in the kitchen, the easier it is to be the first one at the at the wedding reception, to go out on the dance floor. And who cares if I look funny, right? To just actually experience joy. Can you experience joy without a precursory somebody else has to lead me out there, or I need a drink to do it, or I need the lights off to do it well.

Courtney Townley 44:32
And that goes so far, like beyond dance. Like, can you have hard conversations without drinking before or after? Can you know, go do risky things in terms of, like, things that will enhance your life without using alcohol as the buffer, so you don’t have to feel the anxiety or the fear. And, yeah, I love that you’re bringing this up, because, to me, the end game of health, if there was an end game, is always self expression. You are more fully expressed when. You feel good and you have integrity from cell to soul like that is just I will die on that hill. But to me, it’s like when we are using alcohol or sugar or whatever the thing is to numb our emotions. The cost isn’t just how we feel the next day, right? The cost is we aren’t actually authentic and expressed humans. And that sucks. Yeah,

Laini Gray 45:27
yes, it really does.

Courtney Townley 45:29
And the last thing I wrote down, and you might add to this, is just value alignment. Like, does this relationship align with your core values? Now? So I used to drink like. I used to drink more like now, I’ll have a drink on occasion, but mostly I don’t drink very much. But there was a time where I could drink because I didn’t feel the same effects. But does alcohol align with my core values right now? It really doesn’t, because I want to feel good and I want to have as many resources on board as possible, and that’s just not aligned with that.

Laini Gray 45:59
Yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, we’ve had this conversation before, but that whole value system, We need to redo that every year. Yeah, sit down and take an assessment. What are the what are my values? What are the things that bring me joy? Have they changed from last year, and how does that affect my relationships moving forward this year, right? Is something changing like usually, as we get to midlife, all of a sudden, we value our health a little bit differently. We value our muscle a little bit differently our movement. And so guess what, we probably will have to change some relationships or work on some to be able to be in line with those values. So yeah, thank you for bringing that up. That was amazing.

Courtney Townley 46:35
And I really think that, like this whole conversation just leading to this place of I think the quality of all of your relationships are a reflection of the quality of the relationship that you have with yourself. Yeah, because if you cannot be with yourself without being numbed or without right like downplaying or playing small, whatever you want to call it like, that’s work that you have to do in your relationship with yourself. And if you don’t think you’re worthy, you’re going to look for other people to validate your worth, and that’s going to mess up those relationships, right? So I think if someone’s listening to this conversation today and like really looking for a starting point, I would always point you to like doing the inner work on yourself, making sure you like who you are, what you do, and why you do the things that you do. Because

Laini Gray 47:25
I’m just thinking, when you said that, how many times does somebody say something mean to us or offensive? We’re like, Oh, don’t worry about that. Something that’s on her right? Because she’s probably ruling with something. It’s the same thing, because she probably doesn’t like herself, and so she’s taking that out. Well, we have to look at ourselves and think the same thing. If we want to be kind to people and have good relationships in all these places, we need to start at home with ourselves, right in ourselves, in our volumes, know ourselves, know our values, know how what makes us happy and what makes us sad, and then move and navigate the world a little differently. Yeah,

Courtney Townley 48:00
I had a client with a conversation, a conversation with a client a few days ago, and she was talking about how she was noticing that when she’s in certain rooms, specifically rooms where she’s seen as a leader, she makes a lot of self deprecating comments. Yeah, she’s like, and I hate it. And I was like, well, first of all, it’s great that you’re seeing it and that you hate it, because that’s 101, right? You gotta, like, shine a light on it to change it. But I said, you know, if you said some of those things to another person, you would probably immediately retract it and be like, Whoa, I’m so sorry that came out wrong. I did not mean to say it that way. We would make amends in that moment, mostly like most of us who are considerate of other people. And I just invited her, I said, why don’t you start doing that with yourself?

Courtney Townley 48:45
Like when you are in the presence of other people and you hear a self deprecating comment leave your mouth, I want you to verbally say, You know what? I’m taking that back because I am learning how to be someone who isn’t tearing herself down. Yeah, I like, just, I’m gonna pull it back, because I think that that it not only helps her, but I think we need more people in the world who are actually doing that work openly, like I’m working really hard right now on not having alcohol because I don’t feel great. I always have integrity pain the next day. So as much as I would love the champagne you’re offering me right now, I’m just gonna politely decline, but like you’re almost coaching yourself verbally, out in the open, yeah, you’re not the only one who needs to hear it.

Laini Gray 49:31
I love that I just was at a dinner with some friends, and we the topic of grief came up, yeah, right. And this woman started crying, and that I started sharing my story when we cry, and I said, we have to be able to be open with each other and be honest, and that builds our relationships and gives people permission to be open and honest about what they’re feeling or if they’re working on something, or if they’re sad. That’s because we’ve been conditioned to hold everything in and what can we do to fix it that’s outside of us, but the more often that we actually share her. We’re feeling or share what we’re working on, that not only it’s just what you said, it not only helps us, but the people around us now have permission to say that’s something I’m dealing with too. Oh my gosh, that’s great. I didn’t want to drink tonight either, or whatever the case may be. It’s really powerful. So the more we love ourselves that are able to express that, it actually helps the people around us as

Courtney Townley 50:21
well. It totally does. And I think even just the example of crying, right, like when I see a woman crying who doesn’t apologize, that gives me permission that, oh, I can cry and not apologize, yeah, I don’t. I don’t need to apologize for your discomfort with my emotion, right? If I punched you in the face, that would be something else, or stabbed you with the pencil, or stabbed you with the pencil

Laini Gray 50:45
or the fork. Yep, I’m just saying sorry.

Courtney Townley 50:49
So true. Oh, my friend, this was great, like, I wasn’t sure where this would go, but this, I think this has been a great conversation. I will wrap up by just saying that if anyone listening is feeling inspired by this and kind of wanting to dive deeper into this work, specifically around building healthier relationships. This is the theme of the work that we’re doing inside of Rumble and Rise in the month of July.

Courtney Townley 51:12
So I drop a masterclass on the first Monday of the month that’s called relationship alchemy. And then there’s a companion guide that goes along with it and a lot of other things. And you can participate in two ways. You can either join the membership, which gives you access to group coaching calls and a lot of other benefits, or you can just purchase the one off masterclass, which gives you access to the class, the replay of it, and also all the support materials.

Courtney Townley 51:39
So food for thought if someone’s listening and just kind of wants to know a next step. Next step, you can go to graceandgrit.com/masterclass, and you will find all the details there on how to how to join so yeah, thank you so much for everyone being here today. Laini, always. Thank you to you. I love having these conversations with you and many more to come.

Laini Gray 51:59
Thanks. Courtney,

Courtney Townley 52:07
Thank you for listening to the Grace and Grit podcast. It is time to mend the fabric of the female health story, and it starts with you taking radical responsibility for your own self care. You are worth the effort, and with a little grace and grit, anything is possible.