How Building Capacity Beats Willpower For Lasting Habits with Hadlee Garrison

What if lasting change isn’t about willpower, but capacity? We sit down with holistic health counselor and behavior change expert Hadlee Garrison, MPH, to unpack how small, elastic habits and nervous system regulation outperform detoxes, rigid plans, and the all-or-nothing mindset. Hadley blends evidence-based behavior science with Ayurveda, food psychology, and circadian rhythm tools to help people rebuild energy, settle their bodies, and shift identity from perfectionist hustle to sustainable self-trust.

We trace Hadlee’s personal journey from knowing the research to living the extremes—crash dieting, overtraining, and spiraling into shame—before discovering why those strategies backfire. You’ll learn how “everything counts” reframes progress, how to use pinnacle/middle/baseline goals so you never start over, and how removing moral labels from food, movement, and rest creates space for honest feedback. We also dive into somatic practices—like self-touch and daily self-massage—that calm the nervous system and make room for better choices, even on tough days.

The conversation turns deeply human as we explore shame, self-forgiveness, and intuition. When shame is met with neutrality, your inner voice gets louder and kinder, making the gray zone not just tolerable but productive. From there, identity-based habits become automatic, freeing your mind for what matters: relationships, purpose, and joy. If you’ve tried hacks and stalled, this is a practical, compassionate roadmap for rebuilding capacity and letting small wins add up to a life that fits. Listen, try one tiny action today, and tell us what you’ll count as a win. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the show.

To book a FREE DISCOVERY CALL with Dr. Sam, click the link below:

https://calendly.com/drharte/free-discovery-call-w-dr-harte

Chapters

• 0:00 Science Meets Lived Experience
• 2:50 Redefining Addiction Beyond Substances
• 5:10 Why Capacity Matters More Than Hustle
• 9:42 The Trap Of All-Or-Nothing
• 14:30 When Wellness Backfires
• 18:12 Identity Shifts And Elastic Habits
• 23:00 Dropping Morality From Health Choices
• 27:10 From Black-And-White To Gray
• 31:40 Meeting Resistance With The Body
• 36:05 Touch As A Bridge To Regulation
• 41:10 Shame, Self-Forgiveness, And Voice
• 46:20 Radical Acceptance And Neutrality
• 51:00 Daily Practices That Actually Stick

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome back, everybody, to the truth about addiction. I am really excited about this interview, and here's why. This woman's work, much like my own, is backed by science, and it is infused with her lived experience. And there's nothing quite like the combination of where science meets the soul. This conversation was intellectually intriguing, and it left me with tools. And this is somebody who has quite a few tools in her tool belt that I have been thinking about and utilizing, not just in my own life, but with my clients too. So I really think the valuable takeaways for behavioral change that you can get from this episode are priceless. I cannot wait for you to hear this. Let me read her bio for you. Hadley Garrison, MPH, is a holistic health counselor, behavior change expert, podcaster, and speaker. She's the creator of the Happily Healthy Habits Coaching Program, where she helps women optimize their energy levels, regulate their nervous systems, and heal their relationships with food, their bodies, and themselves. With degrees in biopsychology, cognition, and neuroscience, and a health behavior and health education from the University of Michigan, Hadley blends evidence-based behavior science with holistic modalities like Ayurveda, food psychology, and circadian rhythm habits to help her clients feel vibrant, grounded, and fully in tune with their body's innate wisdom. She's also the co-host of the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast and the creator of the popular Energy Archetype Quiz, a free tool that helps women understand the root of why they're tired so they can feel vibrant again. Let's jump in. And I'm so glad that the woman across from me virtually reached out. I was on her podcast that she co-hosts, and she then took a chance on me and started to dive a little deeper into my work listening to this podcast. And I think what's really cool about what's happening to these episodes is that although it started and it sounds like when you just say, Oh, the truth about addiction, that it has to do with substance abuse, it's actually so much bigger than that. And it's also the driving force behind why I wrote my book. So in Hadley, in your email to me, you know, you went out of your way to say, While I haven't suffered from substance abuse, I've had my own fair share, right, of addictive tendencies and struggles. And the work I'm doing in the world, I think will speak to people that are stuck in all kinds of emotional cycles of dysfunction and addiction. And that is really what this thing is about. So, Hadley, thank you so much for being here. I cannot wait to have this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_00: 3:45

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I think it's gonna be super juicy. I'm really, really happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 3:51

And yes, and right before we kicked off the recording, we were talking about where the year has gone. And and I think this is a collective conversation every single year that grown-ups have with each other. You know, where is the time going, especially as we get into the fall season and in September, you're seeing things about Thanksgiving and Christmas. And so it's extremely hard to be where your feet are. And so much of your work is about the science of real change and not just getting into these fits and starts of extreme bouts of stress and chaos, only to then go, I've got to do something differently, but to actually create real behavior change so that we can live once we have the new tools in an integrated way, in a way that really fits into every 24 hours. So we're not playing catch-up constantly with our health and well-being. So, you know, I I always feel like people who get into this type of work have a pretty strong why. So can I just start by asking, what's your why?

SPEAKER_00: 5:07

Yeah. I would say that my why, I'm, you know, I'm a health coach, but really I'm a health coach in service to helping women and men, I've had men as well that I work with, but to really cultivate the kind of capacity and bandwidth and energy that they need to do the work in the world that makes them feel the most fulfilled. Like that is my greatest joy, is when we do all of these, like, you know, the health habits, the behavior change, all of that kind of thing, energy management, energy optimization. But it unlocks this capacity for doing the things that you feel the most passionate about in life. So whether that's like causes that you care about, or whether it's like your career or your family or whatever it is, I find that most people don't have the kind of capacity that they want to have. They have they have these big dreams and goals, and they're so beautiful. Like these big dreams and goals are so beautiful, especially for those of us who have like more perfectionist tendencies or like high achiever tendencies. We have these big goals and dreams, but we don't necessarily have the capacity. And so that's where I get so jazzed about doing my work and is helping people get to that place that they feel so excited about life.

SPEAKER_01: 6:39

What you're saying is so important because as a clinician, before I did more mindset and spiritual coaching along with the body, the thing that I was trying to give people was the physical capacity in their vessel to handle the demands that they were placing on it in their life, right? So, for example, a lot of people would come to me, let's say they love to run, but now running was causing them knee pain. And the general sense in the healthcare model under insurance was well, you know, running's really hard on the body, you should probably stop. But if it's something they loved that really brought them joy, I knowing how important movement is to me was a huge proponent of what would it take to get your body fit to meet the demands of running? Because right now running to get fit, what if you got fit to run? And that same framework is how I treat spirituality and you know, emotional, psychosocial elements that are playing into the person's stuckness, right? How do we create a spiritual vessel that has the capacity to receive all the abundance it is that you long for? And so I think what what I'm hearing you say is you're getting to the root of it all because we could sit here and hack our way into it and have it work for a short time. We could have all kinds of instant gratification and shortcuts to success. But what is the sustainable way when we look at the true landscape of your life and what you're really coming up against so that we can build a vessel that can handle everything it is that you're trying to call in, right? So I just want to acknowledge that. And you know, anybody whose work in the world is trying to get to the very heart of the matter, I think is already like check, check, check that you're in better hands than a lot of people. And and I guess the next sort of intuitive question is I'm assuming, but I'm not sure, that you've tried to hack your way into a version of having the capacity only to find out that that's not actually the way, and then you've studied and perhaps come up with your own systems and frameworks to fine-tune what it actually means to build the capacity you're talking about so that you can offer that to clients. So can you just take me back into what your version of trying to have enough capacity used to be, and then how you realized that actually wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 9:41

Totally. Yeah. I so part of my part of my journey was this, well, a big part of my journey was this, was this all or nothing pattern, which of course we see in addictive behaviors, like it's a perfectionism thing, but it's also, even if you don't think of yourself as a perfectionist, the all or nothing pattern is quite insidious. It it goes into like it trickles into all areas of life, I find when when my clients have that pattern. Um, and it's one of the first things that we that we break as far as the behavior change science goes, because that's what I ended up studying because I struggled with it so much. I I like as a college student, even in high school, high school, college, uh, I people would come to me and like ask me about health stuff. You know, like I was very knowledgeable. I knew about uh nutrition. I knew about meditation, even meditation did not fix me. I knew about exercise and like all the things. I was studying um uh biopsychology, cognition, and neuroscience in undergrad. Like I was very knowledgeable about like all of these kinds of things. But I wasn't doing them, or at least I wasn't doing it consistently. I was doing it like hardcore and then falling completely off. And then doing it hardcore and then falling completely off, and you know, numbing and doing all of the things like especially with food. Food was kind of my they call it the the good girl's drug, right? Like, and that was that was the case from when by the time I was 10 years old, I was using food as a way to cope with my emotions or not or not even cope with them, but really truly numb them completely. Uh, because it was and it was really effective. Like I didn't think that I had an emotional eating problem. I just thought that I just needed more willpower around food because it was so effective. I was like, I don't have emotions that make me eat more, like I just need more willpower. So all of these things kind of melded together to create a perfect storm for me to get to a place where I was very sick. Um, like there wasn't an actual diagnosis, but I had, well, I guess there were some. Like I had psoriasis all over my body.

SPEAKER_01: 12:18

I wow, we have that in common.

SPEAKER_00: 12:21

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:22

Yeah, did you know that about me?

SPEAKER_00: 12:24

No, I didn't. My God.

SPEAKER_01: 12:26

Okay, so I'll have to share a story when you're done. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 12:29

Yes. I had it literally all over my whole body, my face, like it was gnarly. It looked like I had like burns on my skin. I was, you know, I had gained a lot of weight. Um the more and the more I tried to lose weight, the more I tried to get rid of this uh skin stuff, um, the the worse it it became. I was getting sick all the time. Like I had two ear infections in one year as an adult. Like, I didn't even know adults could get ear infections. Like what? I had an ear infection since I was a kid, and I was like, oh my god, what is happening? How old were you at this time? So I can imagine. I was 21, I want to say. So this was like the culmination of it, and I was quite irritable. Um, I was quite, I would say, now looking back, depressed, though I I didn't know at the time. You know, I was the kind of girl, I was taking my friends to the counseling services at school because they needed like they were needing mental health support, but I couldn't even see it for myself. Like I was like an advocate for mental health support, but couldn't see it at all for myself. I thought I was totally fine. I was not. I was not fine. And so I was like, okay, what do I how what do I need to do here? So I decided to go to grad school for behavior change. Specifically, um, you know, I went to School of Public Health to get my master's in public health, but specifically in health behavior and health education, I was like, I'm gonna figure out how to actually make this a thing in my life that's consistent, that I don't have to try so hard all the time, that I'm like just on and off and on and off. And so I did. So I went to grad school. I also got a coaching certification while I was in grad school that helped me to kind of put things into place. It was very, I went to the University of Michigan, which is very like, you know, Western modern science approach. And then my certification was in Ayurveda, which is like Eastern, holistic, ancient approach, and kind of melded the two things together. And and studying the behavior change science, I was like, oh my gosh. The wellness industry, a lot of the wellness industry is teaching us things that are completely antithetical to how human behavior works, how the psychology of behavior actually works. Yeah, I mean, well, so the like diet culture, right? If the more we go on diets, the more we will fall off of the diet, right? The more we decide, okay, I need to, and and now diets are not really in vogue anymore, but it's like detoxes, cleanses, all of these things, right? Like it's just different words that are extremes. It's like, and the wellness industry rewards extremes and and markets extremes because it makes money. And like I'm not here to be all conspiratorial about it. Like it's just people want to make money. They kind of they see what actually does make money. They do see that they're helping people in some sense, and so it's all fine. And if we're looking at the actual effectiveness of like long-term sustainable behavior change, it's not very effective. So I was I found that I was doing literally all of the things that actually are ineffective for behavior change. It was the the diets, the detoxes, the cleanses, but it was also like the extremes with working out. It was also like I just need a workout plan. And if I find the right workout plan, then I'll finally have figured it out. I'll finally be fixed. And I think that that was kind of my my lens of looking at wellness and and health and fitness and all of that kind of thing in general, was like, this thing will fix me. So that was the case with food, that was the case with uh with exercise, that was the case with meditation. I was I tried meditating uh for a while, and it actually, the the type of meditation that I was doing actually made me feel more dysregulated. Very interesting. Um so and I and all of these things I was looking to to fix me. And so the the way that I come to coaching now is everything that I do is in service to you being more yourself. In Ayurveda, there's a there's a word in Sanskrit called svastha. It means health, but it also means there's multiple definitions. It's it's the word for health, but it's also it also means to be seated in the self. That's what I want. That's what I want for myself, and that's what I want for all of my clients and everyone in the world.

SPEAKER_01: 17:53

Okay. I have so much to say about what you're talking about, but what I want to know next is what is the first tool that you learned with behavior change that actually started to change the trajectory of how you were living your life.

SPEAKER_00: 18:23

I would say the first tool, there are so many, so many that are coming to my mind right now, but really allowing so with just like specifically like habits in general, really allowing everything to count. So, what I mean by that is a lot of times we look at say exercise is a really easy example, where we're like, okay, I need to get to the gym five days this week or whatever. And if I can't get to the gym, then it doesn't count. Like if I, you know, 10 jumping jacks doesn't count toward my fitness goals. So why would I do them? And so allowing everything to count and shifting, like the goal being to shift our identity as someone who moves their body every day, instead of the goal being the one-time workout, or like I have to hit these workouts specifically. And if I can't hit these workouts, then I'm just not gonna do anything at all. There's a term called elastic habits where it's like, okay, yeah, this is like my pinnacle. Like, I would love for this to be the thing that happens this week or today or whatever. But if I can't do that, then here's my like mid-goal, and then here's my just like baseline. I'm uh it's like my non-negotiable. If if nothing else, I'm gonna do this. And allowing all three of those things to count toward, like as a vote for the identity of the person that we're becoming. I think that was the biggest thing because uh that broke me out of the all or nothing, where it was like, I, you know, I'm either going to do, I'm gonna go, you know, balls to the wall, or nothing, like it doesn't it, it doesn't count, right? Like it does, it's just like, why do it if it's not gonna be the the right way? That's um, that's the other thing, actually, is uh assigning morality. I think that that is another piece here that is like that kind of like underlies everything that I do, and that was so helpful for me, is so much of what we are taught and conditioned with in our society is that there's a right way and there's a wrong way, and there's good and there's bad, and and all of these things. And yeah, there are there is good and bad, like that exists, but like we assign good and bad to things that are just neutral, that aren't actually good or bad. Like our like health stuff, like you're not a better person if you're trying to get healthy. You're probably you're gonna feel better, like your life will probably be a little bit easier. Things are are gonna feel better on your in your day-to-day life, but it doesn't make you better. You're not better, you're not worse. That was huge as well. And and that kind that kind of comes it comes to like a like just how we view the world. I find that when we assign morality to things, a lot of like the worst things that have happened in the world are because someone assigned morality to something and then fought against the thing that they said was bad. And then, you know, they commit atrocities because of that. So, so the more we are assigning morality to things, actually, the worse things get typically. So when we can peel that back and just come from a place of neutrality, I mean, and the research and behavior change shows that when we can come to a place of neutrality and acceptance for what is, we're actually going to be able to change things.

SPEAKER_01: 22:22

So there's so much good stuff that you're saying, right? And obviously, as a recovering addict, if if I had to in one sentence define the essence of what recovery is all about, because we're talking about recovery of any type of dysfunctional or addictive pattern, not just substance abuse, it would be this idea of moving from black or white thinking to gray. From being unable to tolerate uncertainty to being deeply comfortable in the not knowing. Totally. That's what I'm hearing you say. What's cool about what you're talking about, I've read Atomic Habits a gazillion times and I'm obsessed with that book, and I think there's a real reason, right? It's baked in behavioral change, why that book sold millions of copies. Is on the tactical side of what you're saying, the casting of the vote, right? It's this idea of if we're being it's a hundred percent all or nothing, we either a hundred percent ran the three miles or we didn't do shit, and then we're gonna berate ourselves. You're sort of talking about one percent. Like, can we move the needle one percent? And can we give ourselves the credit where credit is due that whatever we just did, even if it was five minutes of air squats and not a three mile run, can we understand that and start to create a new belief that we are casting that vote towards the person we're trying to become? Like, can that be enough? And so there's there's all this practical stuff that you're saying about how people can do that, right? And then there's this deep thing below the service that at least in my own personal experience, I I had to confront and reconcile and really heal in order to sustainably make those practical changes, right? Because the more trauma you've had and the more you've used all or nothing thinking and perfectionistic tendencies to survive, to at a time create a deep sense of safety, the more work is going to be required to untether yourself from that feeling of safe. And so I guess I want to know sort of two different things, right? People ask me this all the time, but I'm curious. How much do you think people need to be in a certain amount of pain with the all or nothing approach in order for them to be willing to start to make these changes and float around in this gray space? And what do you do when you work with a client and you realize they feel so blended with the part of themselves that has to be all or nothing? That it's it's so much who they believe they are that when I push up against and make these gentle suggestions, it's actually feelings threatening to them. Where do you meet them when the level of resistance is greater because maybe the trauma they've experienced is higher?

SPEAKER_00: 26:07

Absolutely. I'm a big believer in meeting someone where they are, and sometimes sometimes it's literally the smallest thing. And typically when my clients who have that all or nothing just so strong in their in their bodies, because it's in because it's in their bodies, really. Like it's that's where our subconscious lives, it's where trauma is uh is held. I first of all use somatic work. I really because because they're not going to be able to mindset their way out. They're when when something is stored in our body, there's no way to actually do it through just the level of the conscious mind. And I think that that's what we're seeing more and more of in the in the in the psychology world and stuff, which you know, I'm I would say like that's what I most resonate with, like being a part of is the psychological world. And so we're finding this more and more. So I bring them in, bring them into the body. I do a lot of body-based, um, like literally like just like tangible touching the body, uh, allowing like our hands to support ourselves, um, which is another thing, especially with addictive behaviors, is we tend to really be fully in the mind. And we're also taught in our society not really to touch ourselves, um, that it's kind of like this morally wrong thing. And I'm not even, I'm not talking sexually, like just literally like putting a hand on your heart, putting a hand on your arms, like squeezing yourself, you know, in public. I my clients do this now, like they'll just like put hands on their body, like whatever, just kind of like give themselves a little rub uh on their arms or their belly or whatever. And um bringing yourself in and down is what I often find is the way through. So instead of going up into the mind trying to fix, fix, fix, fix, fix, we go down into the body and through. And that's usually the thing that makes it click for them, where they're like, oh, okay, I can do this.

SPEAKER_01: 28:45

I love that. It's so important. And it speaks to how we started our conversation, which is that you you spent a long time in your life trying to think your way out of these problems, you know? Take taking all the wellness hacks and trying them, doing the meditation, doing the diet, doing the workout plan. And so it was all mental.

unknown: 29:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 29:12

And there was this ongoing disassociation, right? That that you now understand.

SPEAKER_00: 29:18

Oh, yeah. And I was so disconnected from from my body. I did not know. I remember being so frustrated when people would say listen to your body, because I was like, How the heck do you listen to your body? Like, I have no idea what my body's telling me. I have I, you know, I couldn't even tell if I was hungry or full. I was fully relying on external cues, portion sizes, how much uh diet plan said I should eat, or just you know, how much food was in front of me, or how much other people were eating, whatever. I had absolutely no idea how my body even. And I remember very a very vivid memory of mine is like when I tried to tune into like my stomach and and started feeling it, and it made me so nauseous and so feel so sick that I was like, I I can't think about my stomach like ever again. Um and so I understand when people are in that in that place. And I find that the hands on the body is the most um the most effective way to to get to a certain place. And you know, sometimes people have to start with just like hands on hands, like just giving, you know, showing them themselves that their hands are here, because sometimes we have trauma where we don't even want to touch any part of our body other than like our hands. And so we were, I work with that. Um, but I find that even more than breath work, even more than meditation, even more than um than you know, doing like a body scan mentally, actually the physical tangible touch is the thing that just like snaps us out of the mind and just right into the body. And I find that that's so, so, so incredibly effective for people. Um, and it was for myself. It was like I had to go into the body in order to even find like my spirituality and stuff too. It was like I could not transcend the body as some of the spiritual teachings kind of kind of teach us. Like I had to, it had to be like a through the body and into my spirituality, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 31:49

Yeah. So I think we m talked about this when I was on your podcast, but I I want to bring something up anecdotally and then toss a question at you as a result of that. So when I was in my marital crisis, you know, five years into recovery and just miserable and obsessed with controlling the world around me, particularly my husband. I remember moving into this unfurnished apartment, and I had only a mattress for for several days that I I sort of slung on the floor and I laid back on it. And the ceilings were really high in this loft apartment, and I just looked up and started sobbing. And there was absolutely no sense of self-advocacy, self-worth, self-soothing. There was nothing, nothing. I had no tools at that point. And I remember just thinking, what am I gonna do now? What I don't even know how to put myself to sleep. I really don't, without something external soothing me to sleep. And it was a tiny little voice that of course now I know it was my highest self that showed up and said, You're gonna have to wrap your arms around yourself. And I remember thinking that was so strange and so awkward, but I was out of options. I I had no better choice to make than that. So I remember turning onto my side and putting my arms around myself and just sobbing and eventually falling asleep. That is a pivotal moment in my healing, but there was so much shame that I was carrying that fueled the perfectionist voice inside of me, the all-or-nothing thinking. That in the days and weeks to follow, it was just so unrelenting and loud, though I was getting little doses, little intuitive hits of what to maybe do differently. And it really for me wasn't until that ninth step in recovery was turned around onto myself and this woman I worked with said, Have you ever made an amends to yourself? That a light bulb went on because this protective part of me that was saying not good enough, not thin enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, try harder, do better next time. Was so reinforced and culturally so unbelievably rewarded that I needed somebody else to give me permission to stop identifying with that part of myself as the part that made me who I was and that made me great and that kept me safe. And I had to start going, wait a minute, this woman is suggesting that I have an option here that that's a part of me, but it's not all of me. And that if there's another version of who I am that could love myself despite what I've done to my husband, even though he's angry, that could forgive myself for all the cheating I did, even though we're married now, and he seems to still be full with resentment, then I'm gonna have to speak to myself differently. And so there was while there there were embodied practices that I was trying to integrate into my life to soothe myself, there was also this rigorous spiritual work around the way I was speaking to myself. And and what happened as a result is that then I could clear away the shame and hear this unbelievable intuitive channel that was going on inside of me, but was silenced through the shame and had been silenced since I was four from as early as I can remember when my mom was like, Don't you ask me why I'm taking these prescription pills ever again. And so then I could I could hear a softer version. I my intuition was always a voice that was operating in the gray space because it was always curious and compassionate. So it was rarely ever speaking to me from the all or nothing. You have to, or else. It was like, hey, why don't you try this? Yeah, like just try and see what happens. You could always go back to the all or nothing thing, but you've got a stack of evidence that it doesn't really feel good at all, and it doesn't really work out in the long run. So I guess I'm bringing up like what there's the embodiment and somatic practices, but there's also this deep level of sort of compassionate inquiry that I have found is required with this type of perfectionist disposition, that if we can't shift a client into this new space and give them a sense of safety around this part of a new identity, we're really doing them a disservice. So, like what what does that part of the work look like with people who are carrying the weight of things like guilt, regret, and shame?

SPEAKER_00: 37:46

Yeah, and I think I think we all are, you know, to some degree or another, it's all it all comes down to self-love and shame, like on the on the opposite ends of the spectrum. It's like it's it's just digging deeper and deeper into all of the parts where we do feel shame. I find a lot of times when I'm working with people who've done, you know, a lot who've maybe done a lot of work already, like they've done the spiritual, spiritual work, they've been in the personal development world for a while. I find that the their shame is just hidden a little bit deeper. It's just a little bit, we've just gotta uncover it a little bit more. And when we can be really honest with ourselves, like, oh, I actually feel shame here. I didn't realize that that was the emotion that I was feeling. That is huge when we can do that. A lot of times when we name it actually like out loud, it can neutralize it. Sometimes we have to do some deeper work around it, but a lot of times it's like, I feel shame about this. Oh. How's that feeling in my body? Where, like, where are the physical sensations that arise when I feel that? And you know, sometimes we can't quite feel it. And so I I do work with people to get to a place where they can feel that. But then we're in a place where we can just meet ourselves in that, in that shame. And I do believe that it, that there's a, there's a level of of radical, radical acceptance that is required. And it kind of goes back to the assigning morality, where the ethos of the work that I do with my clients is like there's a there's an underlying level of non-duality and non-judgment, where it's like you a lot of times it's really hard for people to get to a place where they're like, I love myself so much. So what I do is I I help them get to a place where they feel neutral. Same with like body, like body positivity and stuff is is amazing. And a lot of times when we don't like, when we've like hated our bodies, it's really hard to get to a place where we're like, I love my body all the time. So so I I help my clients get to a place of neutrality first, where they're like, okay, I don't, I don't have to pretend that I like love myself more than I do, because that can become like self-aggrandizement, that can become like cockiness that that isn't actually rooted in like true self-love, right?

SPEAKER_04: 40:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 40:40

So we come down to to to neutrality first, and I find that that is and bring and taking away all of the assigning morality and all of that. And I find that that is the most effective thing. And I'm just gonna plug in my computer one second, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01: 41:11

What I'd love to know a little more about, you know, thinking about the listener and things they can do right away. Of course we'll we'll find out how they can reach you. But if you were to give a client sort of the the beginning assignment, if you will, the beginning practices to start to reroute how they're identifying and assigning morality to the way that they're living and the choices that they're making. Right? Like you you talked about sort of just a gentle touch. Is are they doing that multiple times a day as things are coming up to get them if they start to notice, for example, rumination or obsession or the black and white thinking, whatever their markers are that their go-to thoughts are? Do it are is it in those moments that they're placing their hands on their body? Is there a set amount of time they're doing it? Do they need to feel energetically a shift? Are they looking for something physiologic to change, to know, to stop? And are there other like one or two other tips that you send people off with in the beginning? Of course, this is very curated to the person and and their experience, right? But in a general sense, because we're talking about this slow and steady integration into a new way of feeling and existing, right? So I would love to just kind of see under the hood of what that would be.

SPEAKER_00: 42:52

Yeah, yeah. So with like the the touch practices, uh definitely in the moment, if you can remember, I find sometimes we don't remember to do those kinds of things. Um, so what I would say when it's when you have a hard time remembering, because we're human and that's fine, is I actually teach a practice called just self-massage, um, which you can use oil, you can use um uh just like just your hands, whatever it is, where you are, you know, maybe after your shower or before your shower, you're literally giving yourself a massage. Now there's so much research on how effective massage in general is for our nervous systems and for all sorts of systems in our bodies, lymphatic system. But I find that you know getting a massage is awesome, but when we are doing that for ourselves every single day, that is self-love. The word in Ayurveda, it's a it's an Ayurveda practice called Abhyanga to get to give yourself an oil massage every day. The word for oil in Sanskrit in the language of Ayurveda is Sneha. So that means so sneha means oil, but it also means love. I love it's just like you're adorning yourself in love, and so more than anything I can like say to help people, you know, love themselves more, that's the practice, like that's the thing that we can do every day. That is literally we're like massaging love into our body, and you know, I'm I'm a big fan of not being all or nothing about it. Like if you can only massage your feet today, awesome, just do that. If you can only massage your hands, awesome, just do that. But you know, make it intentional, make it like a practice where you're like, okay, this is me loving me. I find that that makes it so much more tangible than just like, you know, in the mind. So that's one of the practices. Um other things, I mean, there it again, yes, it totally depends on the person. Um and the and the specific habits, like I have specific habits that I work on with my clients that I tailor to their individual um body type and body-mind type. But um the identity evolution piece is really important. So I I like having my clients reflect on that. Like, what are the things that I'm doing in my day that are bringing me toward the identity that I actually want? So we first like get clear. So everyone that's listening, you can do this. Get clear on what is the identity that you want to have. Who do you want to be? Are you do you want to be the kind of person who moves their body every day? Do you want to be the kind of person who treats their body with love and respect? Do you want to be the kind of person who, I mean, you can bring it up far outside of wellness. Like, do you want to be the kind of person who makes, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? Like, what is the consciousness of the person that you are one who wanting to become? Are you the kind are you wanting to shift your identity into someone who is more generous? That's been kind of that's been like the what's been on my heart for the past year or so is like, how how do I just be the most generous version of myself? And then we can reverse engineer that and be like, what does that person do on a day-to-day basis? But we're not being all or nothing about it. So, what does that person do on a day-to-day basis? On the smallest level possible, and you can do elastic habits with this where it's like, yeah, maybe they, you know, go volunteer at a certain place or whatever. But, you know, on any given day, maybe the small habit that still counts to becoming that identity is I'm gonna do this nice thing for my husband, or I'm gonna do this nice thing for my kid, or for someone that I see on the street, or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01: 47:43

Or myself.

SPEAKER_00: 47:45

Or myself, yes, yes, so good, so good. And and so the more we do that, that identity evolution piece, the more we are automating these habits, this way of being. So a lot of times people talk about how automation, like when you're when we're living on autopilot, that's a bad thing. Like we need to be more intentional. But I would say that it's not necessarily a bad thing unless it's not serving you. The things that are on autopilot aren't serving you. So if we can get like our health habits or some of these different habits that we want to have consistent on a day-to-day basis, if we can get those on autopilot, I would say that is helpful. And that frees up our capacity for the other things that we want to think about and do and be. So doing that identity evolution piece and like where can I make this as easy and easeful as possible, where it counts and an everyday basis, that will start to automate that. And then you can and then you can grow it. So, like, you know, uh, maybe you do if you've never really worked out consistently in your life, maybe you just start with like 10 jumping jacks, 10 squats, 10 lunges a day. And then you build, you can build on that. So once you have that automated, you are the kind of person who work who moves their body every day. Then you can build more and more and more and more and more. So that's the that's the reflection piece that I would want to give, give to the listeners.

SPEAKER_01: 49:27

I love this, it's so cool and valuable because our work is so similar and just our approach because of the backgrounds we come from is different, and it's what makes it special and unique. And I I just think the people listening, I'm sitting here, having done all this work on myself, getting so much out of what you're saying and the way you're able to articulate it. So bravo.

SPEAKER_00: 49:47

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 49:47

You're working so glad and very, very important. And can you just please tell people how they can find you and get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00: 49:55

Yeah, so I'm happy healthy Hadley on all of the things. Um, so my website is spelled. Yes, Hadley is spelled H A D L E E. So that's that's different from most ways of spelling it. Um, but I'm Happy Healthy Hadley on Instagram. My website is happyhealthyhadley.com. I think I'm I'm on TikTok and stuff too, but like I mostly hang out on on Instagram, um, also YouTube. Uh, and then I have my podcast that I co-host with my friend uh Dr. Nicole Kane, and it's called Holistic Inner Balance. So if you want to check that out, you can too.

SPEAKER_01: 50:35

Thank you so much. It was so amazing to spend this time with you. I absolutely love this conversation.

SPEAKER_00: 50:41

Oh, yes, thank you so much. I I adore you and I adore this conversation. I am super excited to get to connect with anyone who wants to um just shoot me a DM or if you want to connect um anywhere else, I'm I'm here.

SPEAKER_01: 50:57

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00: 50:59

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 51:02

Okay, I'll stop the recording.

SPEAKER_03: 51:04

That was so good.

SPEAKER_02: 51:17

Waking up I hear the desperation call.