January 29, 2020 • 32 mins
Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal discusses her new book, The Joy of Movement. And she reminds us that we don't have to be good at it, we just have to experience it as a form of expression to reap the benefits.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The movement is a metaphor. So if you're doing something
that's harder than you've ever done before, you get to
experience your own persistence. You get to experience your capacity
to endure and do things that are meaningful even when
it's difficult, and that translates into how you sense yourself
and it doesn't really matter if you were lifting one
pound or a hundred pounds. Thanks for joining us on
(00:32):
the road somewhere where we talk about exploration, adventure, major change,
and transformation. It's about not necessarily knowing where we're going,
but having faith that the journey will be worthwhile. I
am Lisa Oz and I'm Jill Herzig, and today we're
we have a sort of broad topic, which is movement
(00:54):
as medicine, and it's something that I relate to so strongly.
When my kids were little, they used to say, we
should go to the park. We've got a run, mommy.
And I may have told this story on this podcast before,
but it was a joke in my family, but it
was actually kind of real to people talk about how
(01:15):
they have to get their kids out or they're going
to go crazy. I was going crazy so much faster
than my kids were that they had to get me out.
And you know, like in periods of change and transition,
you know, particularly before we started this podcast, and I
was going through a giant career transition and wondering which
end was up working out was one of the few
(01:37):
things that I felt grounded me. And I actually this
is gonna sound crazy, but I used to have these
days where I would go for a run and then
four hours later I would find myself just mindlessly changing
back into my running clothes and have to realize, you
already did that. You can't do that again. And I
think I was. I was struggling so much that and
(01:59):
it was just this medicinal thing for me. Do you
relate to that? Do you feel like that? How well
do you know me? I'm the opposite of that. Would
you say that you absolutely love it when you're in motion?
I do. Like I did my peloton today and I
was so happy. I felt like I'd been clubbing. But anyway,
(02:20):
which is why I was so excited to have our
guests on today. Um We are joined by Kelly McGonagall.
She is a health psychologist who specializes in understanding the
mind body connection, and her latest book, By the Way
I was obsessed with her last book, which we have
to talk about a little bit um before we end
the whole interview. But her latest book is The Joy
(02:41):
of Movement, How Exercise helps us find happiness, hope, connection
and courage. Wow, what a promise. I should exercise more. Kelly,
thank you so much for being with us today. Thank
you for having me. It was so hard to not
jump in when you were describing how you feel after
running or after Elton. I can't wait to talk about this. Well,
(03:02):
let's talk about it. I mean because I people always
tell you that exercise is good for you and makes
you feel better, but you break it down as to
why that is the case, both biochemically and um emotionally
and societally. So let's talk about how good exercises for
you and why. Yeah, so let's just get into some specifics.
(03:24):
So I want to to jump on something that Jill
said when she described how her kids would want to
go out and run a mommy. Why is it that
people would want to be around the version of you
who has gone for a run or it's just exercise
and there are so many ways that exercise changes are
our mood in our mindset. But one that I really
love is that what we call the runners high, the
(03:47):
changes that happen in your brain when you exercise at
a modern intensity for at least twenty minutes. UM. That
sort of the core changes in your brain is actually
to increase a neurotransmitter that makes you a more social
version of yourself. UM. It's actually a class of neuro
transmitters called endocannabinoids, which is what cannabis mimics. And when
(04:09):
these brain chemicals are elevated naturally through movement, they increase
your ability to connect with others. They increase the pleasure
that you derive from being around other people. So hugs
feel better, and other people's stories are more interesting, and
it feels better to cooperate or to help others, or
to play with others. It basically it just makes us
(04:30):
a more social version of ourselves. So I love that.
So they knew they would get a better mother out
of me who had this had the same experience. My
husband is the same way. He'll he'll tell me, Kelly,
it's time to do some cardio. He wants to be
around the version of me that I am. And that's
just one example of how you know the runners high
(04:51):
doesn't just make us feel better when we're doing it, um,
but but that it actually changes our neurochemistry to make
us a better version of ourselves. And and Lisa, you
mentioned what a high you got from peloton. You know,
one of the other things we know about movement and
what makes it so powerful at boosting our mood is
the fact that music has on us and that when
(05:12):
we move to music, it enhances the natural endorphin rush
that we get from listening to music that we love. Um,
there's just so many things that happened in the short term,
and the whole other side of it is how being
active on a regular basis changes the structure and function
of your brain to do things like relieved depression or
make you more resilient distress, and even to enhance your
(05:35):
brain's ability to experience pleasure and joy and happiness in
that dark, weird time. It wasn't because it felt to
me really crazy town that I would forget that I
had already worked out. But maybe it was just me
kind of reaching for the for the and no cannobennoise endorphin.
(06:00):
But so it's really interesting is you know this often
happens UM A lot of people think that they don't
like to exercise until they find themselves in a dark place.
And we know that movement it can have immediate effects
on our mood. But it's also one of the most
effective antidepressants there are. It can help people pull out
of depression and grief and trauma. And often people don't
(06:21):
even realize how powerful the effects of movement are until
their brain really needs it, and then it comes alive
for them in a different way, And you can find
yourself craving it, even if you were someone who thought
that you didn't love to to move or to get
your heart right up. So listening to you speak with
the enthusiasm and passion that you clearly have about exercise
(06:42):
or movement and and rationally knowing that it is a
good it is a good thing for us on every level.
Why is it so darn hard for many of us
to get out of bed and put our sneakers on
and actually move? And you're the first part. I think
it was your first book, But the book that you
wrote that really got me to be a devoted follower
(07:03):
of yours was the willpower instinct, And how can we
get ourselves to do something that we really know is
so wonderful when we have tremendous amounts of resistance to it. Yes,
So there are so many reasons people have resistance, and
some of them are pretty universal. So, for example, we
know that if people have not exercised recently and you
ask them to predict how do you think you'll feel
(07:25):
after you work out, people incorrectly predict that they will
be more tired rather than more energized, and that they
won't enjoy it very much. And if you actually have
people exercise, what they really report is that they have
more energy, they're happier, they're more optimistic, they feel hopeful,
they feel like they can take on the world. But
(07:45):
for whatever reason, when we're in a sedentary state, it
actually changes our mood and our mindset to the degree
that we can't even predict correctly how good will feel.
That's actually the mindset of being inactive is we we
um I call it the joy gap. We underestimate how
good it will feel. So that's pretty universal, which means
you can't necessarily rely on how you think it's going
(08:07):
to feel. You have to get yourself past that threshold
so that you can have a direct experience. But there
are so many other reasons why we can resist movement.
Many people have been told that it's selfish to prioritize UM,
to take time away from work or families or other responsibilities.
And so there can be a voice in your head
that says, you know, I really I don't have the
(08:27):
time to do this today, And it really isn't selfish,
it's self care. It can be self preservation, and it
can make us the kind of person other people want
to be around and can rely on UM. And there
are all sorts of other reasons too. Many people have
had negative experiences with movement, whether you go back to
gym class and sort of the trauma of pe that
many people experience. Two. Sometimes people have movement experiences that
(08:52):
are separate from the joys that really bring the most
out of movement, whether it's amazing music or moving with
a community that you really like and care about, or
doing movement that feels intrinsically meaningful, like like power lifting
and sensing your own strength. And so one of the
things that I recommend to people who are just starting
(09:12):
out or want to recommit to movement is to actually think,
not what's the most convenient thing you can do, like
maybe the most convenient thing would be to jump on
a treadmill in the office and do it for ten minutes,
and you forgot to make your amazing playlist and you're
just going to get it done. But what would it
what would be like instead to think, Okay, if I
believe that movement can be an empowering, meaningful, even joyful experience,
(09:36):
what would that look like? And to find the most
inspiring form of movement, Like when you see other people move,
what what motivates you? Do you get you know? Do
you feel weepy when you watch people across a finish
line of a race? Do you are you inspired when
you see people lift heavy things or throw heavy things?
When people perform a dance? Like? What is it that
(09:57):
that you admire? Maybe that's how you choose your move
mint forum or you know, where's a place where you
want to belong and feel like you belong? Who do
you want to move with? Um? What would be an
environment that inspires you? Maybe you need to go outdoors
to really find the joy of movement for you and
to double down on the other things that bring us
pleasure and meaning and to link them to movement. Because
(10:19):
what we know is that movement actually enhances all of
those things, whether it's social connection or music, or being
in nature or making progress. Movement basically amplifies all of
these other things that humans tend to find naturally um satisfying.
When we come back, I want to dig deeper into
some of those more satisfying areas of movement. Before the break,
(10:51):
we were chatting with Kelly McGonagall about movement and how
it actually enhances our experience anywhere from being in nature,
being with other people. And I actually want to talk
a little bit about how movement does improve our connection
to because so many, so many of our physical activities
are solitary. Like Joe, you run by yourself, I assume, right, Well, no,
(11:15):
I actually run a lot with other people. And I
I'm a jabber, Yeah, I'm the person who talks on
talks and talks. But but I assume that makes it
your relationship with whoever you're running with better, the fact
that you're moving, You're not just sitting around coffee. Right.
I also listened to podcasts a lot when are running.
I haven't listened to music in a really long time.
So how does how does exercise improve our connection to
(11:37):
other people? Yeah? So we know that when you're physically active,
like I said, it changes your brain chemistry in a
way that makes it easier to connect with others. And
there's actually research showing that when you go for a
walk or run with someone else, the quality of the
conversation is actually different than if you were to have
that same conversation, say over coffee or or over the phone.
That people tend to be more transparent, they're more emotionally revealing,
(12:01):
it's easier to talk about conflict and take a new
perspective um and that can lead to really strengthening bonds
or or even healing relationships. So I think that's a
great example. But we also know that when people moved together,
and particularly move in synchrony, So say you're in that
cycling class and you're all moving at the same cadence,
or you're in a dance class and you're all step
(12:23):
clapping in the same way, that when we move together,
we actually begin to perceive ourselves as more connected to
the people around us, and that we feel more trust
for them, we like them more, we we feel like
truly connected. It's a sense of something bigger than ourselves
that we're a part of. And this is one of
the reasons why people often inform such tight bonds with
(12:45):
their movement communities, even if you start out as strangers,
because there's something about moving together that really helps people
strengthen bonds. And if you talk to anthropologists, UM, they
actually think that this. This is UM sort of why
dancing is so universal in every culture or you know,
across history, because one of the best ways to strengthen
your ties to a community is actually to move together.
(13:07):
So what about competition though, Does that spoil that that
connection or is it part of being a community. Yeah,
So the healthiest form of competition seems to be where
you have UM some sort of team that you are
cooperating with, and the competition is not so so much
about having to win as it is the pleasure of
working together to UM to really do your best. You know.
(13:30):
In the book, one of the stories that I write
about that I love so much was a women's master's
rowing crew UM from Canada who they're all over the
age of fifty and they trained together, you know, in
their in their boat on the water to to be
able to synchronize their movements and and move across that
water with speed and strength. And grace and um. One
(13:52):
of the stories that one of these women told me
about was their ability to finally compete in the head
of the Childs Regatta. You know, it's one of the
most famous races in the world, and even though they
didn't come anywhere close to winning, they had the experience
of working together to do their best, and they all
described it as as basically a peak experience of their
entire lives. So I think competition can be very healthy.
(14:13):
Probably the the least healthy form of competition if you're
looking to experience, you know, real joy and psychological well being,
is the kind of competition against yourself where you're constantly
judging yourself. You know, it's one thing to enjoy getting better,
but I think sometimes you women, particularly have voices in
their head that are about maybe what you used to
be able to do, or what you should look like
(14:35):
while you're doing it, or maybe comparing yourself to other
people who are simply sharing the experience with you and
have a totally different life history and different you know,
physical body. And uh. I would say that to the
degree that you find your mind wandering in that direction,
it's really useful to pull yourself out and UM and
focus more on the joys of the direct experience that
(14:57):
you're having. How does the joy that we experience it's
during a peak exercise translate into the rest of our life.
How does that improve like our creativity or or our
connection not on the sports field or you know, in
the on the dance floor, but the rest of every day. Yeah,
(15:17):
I mean, they can totally transform how you view yourself
and what you think you're capable of. I spoke with
so many people who started out training UM, often in
areas like strength training or cross fit, or training for
a five k, a half marathon, a full marathon UM,
starting out feeling like this is physically impossible. I don't
(15:38):
know why I'm doing this. I don't know if I
will be able to do this and to have that
physical accomplishment, to reach a kind of milestone where you
are crossing the finish line, or you lift something heavier
than you ever thought you could, or one woman I
spoke to who for seven years was afraid to do
an exercise called the partner carry, where you have to
(15:59):
carry a strain her on your back as if you're
rescuing them, and she was just so intimidated by that
she never tried it, and you know, she described the
moment she finally decided that she was capable of it,
and she wanted to experience herself as somebody who could
literally carry another person, as if to save another person.
That it felt like a huge weight had been lifted
(16:20):
off her shoulders, and she was absolutely amazed with herself
and realized there was like no limit to what she
was capable of. And you can have that type of
peak experience in any movement form. My most memorable one
was a yoga pose. I finally did a backbend that
requires leaning backward, almost like a trust fall, where except
(16:41):
the person you have to trust is yourself because it's
your own it's literally your own backbone, your own strength
that will support you. And that was a revelation when
I finally did that, and I faced my fear and
I felt my own courage and strength at the same time. Um,
and I feel like, let me just ask you, is
sounding very advanced this movement? Do you have to be
(17:04):
running a long distance? Do you have to be doing
an advanced yoga class? No? No, no, no, absolutely not. Um,
I'm a little scared of the backbend move as well,
and you know, I don't do that. I don't need
to do that move anymore. But so here's the really
important thing UH. And I try to make this very
clear in the book by focusing on communities and individuals
(17:26):
who often have barriers to what we would think of
as being like traditional young peak fitness. So UM, for example,
I visit a class for people with Parkinson's disease, which
is a neurological disorder that makes all movement extremely difficult.
UM went to a gym in Fairfax, Virginia where pretty
much everyone training UH is partially paralyzed or recovering from
(17:50):
a traumatic brain injury or recovering from amputations. UM and
people who are suffering also from severe mental illness and
other challenges, and even people in hospice care right who
are not training for a marathon but are simply experiencing
what it feels like to be alive moment to moment
by being able to move their bodies in some way.
(18:13):
So all the joys that I'm talking about are accessible
no matter what body you are currently in and what
challenges you face. And it always comes down to starting
where you are and what feels meaningful to you and
what brings joy to you. And you know, one of
the women that I met at the dance for Parkinson's
disease class, she was facing the reality that she would
(18:33):
be transitioning into a wheelchair, and she loved the dance
class and she loved moving to music. And I asked her, like,
do you think there's a point at which you will
no longer enjoy this? Is there a certain amount of
mobility that it feels like to you is required to
experience this kind of tremendous joy you're describing to me.
(18:53):
And she said no. It was her belief and her
hope that in a wheelchair, as long as, she said,
as long as she could still tap a toe or
tap a finger, she believed that she would be able
to connect to that joy she felt when she moves
her body expressively to music that reminds her of of
Broadway and things that she loves. And so please don't
think that you have to run an ultra marathon. Um.
(19:13):
You know, one person I spoke to he trained to
walk the length of his hallway and eventually trained to
walk to the coffee shop down the street and that
was a major milestone for him. Um, this is the
you know thing is movement as a metaphor. So if
you're doing something that's harder than you've ever done before,
you get to experience your own persistent You get to
(19:33):
experience your capacity to endure and do things that are
meaningful even when it's difficult, and that translates into how
you sense yourself and it doesn't really matter if you
were lifting one pound or a hundred pounds. When we
come back, I want to talk more about how we
can translate that personal growth we experience through movement into
(19:54):
our everyday lives. Yeah, before the break, we were chatting
with Kelly McGonagall about her new book, The Joy of Movement,
and just about the fact that it doesn't have to
(20:15):
be a crazy, tough mutter or marathon to have a
real impact on our ability to to I guess, to
grow and embrace change. And I just want to delve
a little bit into that because Jill and I are
always talking about transformation and transition and change, and that's
(20:36):
what this podcast is about, and I do want to
explore a little bit about how conquering one area of
our lives, whether it's mastering a dance step or learning
how to serve a tennis ball can actually open up
our ability to face life in a whole new way. Yeah,
I mean so, as I said, we really experience movement
(20:58):
as meaningful. Our brain naturally interpret movement as evidence of
of who we are and what we're capable of. So
often I encourage people to think about how they want
to feel about themselves or personal quality they want to cultivate.
So in my own life, courage is a value that, um,
I am always trying to cultivate because fear is one
(21:20):
of my natural tendencies, and um, when I think about,
you know, is there a way to move that to
me feels like it's an expression of courage and that
I feel the sensations in my body of courage when
I do that movement, Because we know that when you
feel the qualities in your body, your mind understands that
(21:42):
that is a part of who you are. And so
I often will use kickboxing when I am feeling anxious
and I want to feel more empowered. And it literally
comes down to the fact that I can feel my
own heart beating, my heart racing, and I can feel
my hands clenched into fists and I'm growing punches with power,
and I'm often doing it to music that is empowering
(22:04):
and talking about being a fighter and being strong. And
the next time I feel my heart beat or race
out of fear, I can literally remind myself, you know
what this is also what courage feels like, and I
can remember that that's part of me, and it can
transform the way that we experienced challenges in our lives.
And so often it's about figuring out what part of
(22:25):
you do you want to develop, who do you want
to know better. One woman I talked about, she Um.
She turned to kettle bell training a kettle bell class
I was offered at a local school, UM in the
cafeteria of her local school, and she never picked up
something heavy before and and sensed herself as so powerful
is being able to lift something heavy and literally like
(22:46):
launch it and that feeling, and she she described to
me how Um later on, when she was driving to
the airport, there was a huge storm and a massive
tree had fallen across the highway and everyone was turning
around and going home, and she wanted to go to
the airport, so she had her driver stop the car
and they got out and they moved a tree that
(23:07):
was blocking the roadway and because she she was somebody
who had told me she literally, when she holds at kettlebell,
she senses herself as somebody who can take on a giant.
Those were her exact words. And then she met an
obstacle in life and she remembered, I'm somebody who can
take on a giant, and she got rid of that obstacle.
And I feel like, you know, there's just so many
(23:28):
examples like that, and that you don't even have to
think too hard about it through the movement that makes
you feel the way you want to feel. So but
that's kind of counterprogramming some ways. Like for years and
years I found I'm just not a yoga person. I'm
not a yoga person. I'm way too tightly wound for that.
But all during those years, I also thought I wish
I could just take it down or not. You know,
(23:50):
so all those years of running mommy, maybe we should
have been taking Mommy to yoga, because that's what what
I kind of needed to. I mean, I guess what
you're saying is, don't necessarily imagine and this is the
kind of exercise that goes with my personality type think
of this is where I want exercise to take me
in my life, allow it, to cultivate it in you,
(24:10):
and to trust that there's some part of you that's curious.
You don't have to be good at it, um, you
simply have to have the experience of it. Okay, Well,
I suck at yoga, and I will I will not
let that stop me. Well, that's the thing you don't.
You can suck. That's what Kelly saying is, it's just
(24:30):
the the experience. I've gone to enough classes to hear
them saying that's soothing dulcet tone that they use. That
you're just going to meet yourself whatever on the yoga
mat and you're going to accept it, and there isn't
any being bad or good at yoga. Yeah. But also,
I mean, I don't know like the idea that you
could suck at yoga. That I mean, part of me
as a psychologist is like I'm trying to hold myself
(24:52):
back a little bit from like going into deep therapy here.
But you have it. You can't really suck at yoga
unless there's somebody who has convinced you that your experience
of yoga is determined by how far you can reach
and oppose or if you can hold a balance perfectly. Um.
I mean, yoga, like so many of the mindful movement traditions,
are about meeting yourself exactly where you are, and it
(25:16):
often I mean yoga is basically getting into uncomfortable places
and learning how how you want to deal with uncomfortable situations.
Yoga is and so it's not about what you look like,
um or how far you can go and oppose. And
so I think like a lot of people probably think
they suck at yoga because they've been sold the idea
(25:36):
that yoga, like meditation, has been sold is supposed to
make you feel relaxed, when actually yoga is a way
to practice being stressed and to bring different aspects of
your mental strength and your personal strengths, and to stay
relatively grounded and centered even though you're doing something that
is uncomfortable. I mean, even yoga stretches. It's fascinating, right
(25:57):
They activate pain receptors in your body, and yet with
the right mindset, in the right environment, we can come
to experience something that is actually good for us, but
also can can trigger alarm bells in our nervous system
through those pain receptors. We learned to experience it as
healing and wonderful, and people will tell you how much
they love a deep stretch and it's the same stretch
(26:18):
that was experienced previously as as something I need to
escape from. And I think this really teaches us a
lot about how we go beyond our comfort zone and
everyday life. So please don't think you suck at yoga.
It's okay to say you don't like it. Right. We're
allowed to say I'm not a runner, and so I
don't run, and I don't say I suck at running.
I say I choose not to run because it's not
(26:39):
for me. And it's fine. Re leave something aside because
it doesn't bring you joy. Maybe you want to do it,
you maybe actually want to do it. There's a quote
in your book that kind of relates to this in
the when you were touching on the the being comfortable
with being uncomfortable, the discomfort of the yoga is is
is part of the part of the plan um. It
(27:02):
was a quote from Jennifer far which was, you don't
have to get rid of the pain to move forward.
And I love that so much because it just it
really it makes so much sense because pain is so
paralyzing and we do think that we either have to
before we change, we have to cultivate the motivation to change,
(27:22):
or that we have with the pain. We have to
like deal with the pain before we can be something else.
And I just think it's such a smart insight, can
you It was a little so that comes from the
chapter called Indoor, which is I focus on athletes who
are doing ultra endurance training, which is as far from
my reality as you can get. I mean, these are
people who are running or cycling or swimming hundreds of miles,
(27:44):
doing like ten triathlons in ten days, things that seem superhuman.
And I spent a lot of time talking to these athletes,
reading memoirs, observing events to try to figure out why
is this so meaningful and important to the athlete to
do it. And one of the things that that came
up again and again is the kind of um revelation
(28:06):
that you described, which is that you get to experience
yourself in the moment of having a body that says
I can't I literally cannot take one more step, I
cannot do this, and somehow, through your own deep inner strength,
often through the support and encouragement of other people, and
sometimes through a sense of connection to something bigger than yourself,
(28:27):
maybe faith that you experience yourself as someone who takes
another step forward even though it feels like you can't possibly.
And so many people I spoke to says said that
once you experience that, your ability to to endure other
life challenges you have. You have a deep knowing that
you are capable of that. And I spoke with people
(28:49):
for whom endurance training helped them deal with serious trauma
and a serious depression and literally convince them that it
was possible to continue living, that life was worth living. Wow,
I don't know how you'd feel that way on the
on the endurance, on the on the trail climbing over
(29:10):
those obstacles. There was another thing that was in that
chapter about how when people helped each other, they like
what didn't matter whether you were the person helping or
the person being helped, they both had a profound sense
of I matter. And I thought that was really interesting.
I know this was something that came up in almost
(29:30):
every movement, actually, every movement form or community that I
went to, whether it was a dance class or cross
fit or running group, or these ultra endurance athletes. I
didn't start out asking people, tell me about a time
you were able to help someone in your exercise class
or on a race trail. I just asked people like,
(29:51):
tell me why you love it, tell me about a
meaningful memory you have, And across the board, people told
me stories about receiving help from others and being able
to help others. And what I realized after spending years
talking to people is that for many people, the most
profound joy of movement is that movements somehow brings out
(30:14):
the best in us, and it allows us to celebrate
our interdependence, whether you're playing on a sports team, or
whether you are you know that person cheering on the
runner who's struggling and giving them encouragement to keep going,
or whether you're celebrating someone's birthday in a dance class
or somebody's personal record in a strength training community. That
(30:35):
that people get to experience themselves as not just their
own strength and bravery and whatever their own like physical
accomplishments are, but they get to experience themselves as someone
who takes joy and other people's success that encourages others,
and that there actually is joy in receiving help, which
for so many of us in other contexts, we feel
(30:55):
like a burden. We feel like it's so difficult to
accept other people's kindness. And for many people it's actually
in a movement community that it's the first place they
feel like it's safe and okay to receive the kindness
of others. I think movement is so transformative in this way,
and that it allows us to celebrate how connected we
are as human beings. Well, I love that, and Jill,
(31:18):
I think we need to go take a yoga class together.
All right, I'll go. Thank you so much for joining
us today, Thank you for having me. Kelly's book is
The Joy of Movement, How exercise helps us find happiness, hope,
connection and courage. Learn more about this at Kelly McGonagall
(31:38):
dot com and connect with her on Twitter at Kelly McGonagall.
The Road to Somewhere is recorded in New York City.
Make sure to share, subscribe, rate, and review us. We
would love to hear from you. Where are you on
your journey? Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
at pod to Somewhere and email us at Road to
(32:01):
Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com. Special thanks to Alicia Haywood,
are incredible producer. Thanks everyone for joining us on the
road to Somewhere. We're available on the I Heart Radio app,
on Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The movement is a metaphor. So if you're doing something
that's harder than you've ever done before, you get to
experience your own persistence. You get to experience your capacity
to endure and do things that are meaningful even when
it's difficult, and that translates into how you sense yourself
and it doesn't really matter if you were lifting one
pound or a hundred pounds. Thanks for joining us on
(00:32):
the road somewhere where we talk about exploration, adventure, major change,
and transformation. It's about not necessarily knowing where we're going,
but having faith that the journey will be worthwhile. I
am Lisa Oz and I'm Jill Herzig, and today we're
we have a sort of broad topic, which is movement
(00:54):
as medicine, and it's something that I relate to so strongly.
When my kids were little, they used to say, we
should go to the park. We've got a run, mommy.
And I may have told this story on this podcast before,
but it was a joke in my family, but it
was actually kind of real to people talk about how
(01:15):
they have to get their kids out or they're going
to go crazy. I was going crazy so much faster
than my kids were that they had to get me out.
And you know, like in periods of change and transition,
you know, particularly before we started this podcast, and I
was going through a giant career transition and wondering which
end was up working out was one of the few
(01:37):
things that I felt grounded me. And I actually this
is gonna sound crazy, but I used to have these
days where I would go for a run and then
four hours later I would find myself just mindlessly changing
back into my running clothes and have to realize, you
already did that. You can't do that again. And I
think I was. I was struggling so much that and
(01:59):
it was just this medicinal thing for me. Do you
relate to that? Do you feel like that? How well
do you know me? I'm the opposite of that. Would
you say that you absolutely love it when you're in motion?
I do. Like I did my peloton today and I
was so happy. I felt like I'd been clubbing. But anyway,
(02:20):
which is why I was so excited to have our
guests on today. Um We are joined by Kelly McGonagall.
She is a health psychologist who specializes in understanding the
mind body connection, and her latest book, By the Way
I was obsessed with her last book, which we have
to talk about a little bit um before we end
the whole interview. But her latest book is The Joy
(02:41):
of Movement, How Exercise helps us find happiness, hope, connection
and courage. Wow, what a promise. I should exercise more. Kelly,
thank you so much for being with us today. Thank
you for having me. It was so hard to not
jump in when you were describing how you feel after
running or after Elton. I can't wait to talk about this. Well,
(03:02):
let's talk about it. I mean because I people always
tell you that exercise is good for you and makes
you feel better, but you break it down as to
why that is the case, both biochemically and um emotionally
and societally. So let's talk about how good exercises for
you and why. Yeah, so let's just get into some specifics.
(03:24):
So I want to to jump on something that Jill
said when she described how her kids would want to
go out and run a mommy. Why is it that
people would want to be around the version of you
who has gone for a run or it's just exercise
and there are so many ways that exercise changes are
our mood in our mindset. But one that I really
love is that what we call the runners high, the
(03:47):
changes that happen in your brain when you exercise at
a modern intensity for at least twenty minutes. UM. That
sort of the core changes in your brain is actually
to increase a neurotransmitter that makes you a more social
version of yourself. UM. It's actually a class of neuro
transmitters called endocannabinoids, which is what cannabis mimics. And when
(04:09):
these brain chemicals are elevated naturally through movement, they increase
your ability to connect with others. They increase the pleasure
that you derive from being around other people. So hugs
feel better, and other people's stories are more interesting, and
it feels better to cooperate or to help others, or
to play with others. It basically it just makes us
(04:30):
a more social version of ourselves. So I love that.
So they knew they would get a better mother out
of me who had this had the same experience. My
husband is the same way. He'll he'll tell me, Kelly,
it's time to do some cardio. He wants to be
around the version of me that I am. And that's
just one example of how you know the runners high
(04:51):
doesn't just make us feel better when we're doing it, um,
but but that it actually changes our neurochemistry to make
us a better version of ourselves. And and Lisa, you
mentioned what a high you got from peloton. You know,
one of the other things we know about movement and
what makes it so powerful at boosting our mood is
the fact that music has on us and that when
(05:12):
we move to music, it enhances the natural endorphin rush
that we get from listening to music that we love. Um,
there's just so many things that happened in the short term,
and the whole other side of it is how being
active on a regular basis changes the structure and function
of your brain to do things like relieved depression or
make you more resilient distress, and even to enhance your
(05:35):
brain's ability to experience pleasure and joy and happiness in
that dark, weird time. It wasn't because it felt to
me really crazy town that I would forget that I
had already worked out. But maybe it was just me
kind of reaching for the for the and no cannobennoise endorphin.
(06:00):
But so it's really interesting is you know this often
happens UM A lot of people think that they don't
like to exercise until they find themselves in a dark place.
And we know that movement it can have immediate effects
on our mood. But it's also one of the most
effective antidepressants there are. It can help people pull out
of depression and grief and trauma. And often people don't
(06:21):
even realize how powerful the effects of movement are until
their brain really needs it, and then it comes alive
for them in a different way, And you can find
yourself craving it, even if you were someone who thought
that you didn't love to to move or to get
your heart right up. So listening to you speak with
the enthusiasm and passion that you clearly have about exercise
(06:42):
or movement and and rationally knowing that it is a
good it is a good thing for us on every level.
Why is it so darn hard for many of us
to get out of bed and put our sneakers on
and actually move? And you're the first part. I think
it was your first book, But the book that you
wrote that really got me to be a devoted follower
(07:03):
of yours was the willpower instinct, And how can we
get ourselves to do something that we really know is
so wonderful when we have tremendous amounts of resistance to it. Yes,
So there are so many reasons people have resistance, and
some of them are pretty universal. So, for example, we
know that if people have not exercised recently and you
ask them to predict how do you think you'll feel
(07:25):
after you work out, people incorrectly predict that they will
be more tired rather than more energized, and that they
won't enjoy it very much. And if you actually have
people exercise, what they really report is that they have
more energy, they're happier, they're more optimistic, they feel hopeful,
they feel like they can take on the world. But
(07:45):
for whatever reason, when we're in a sedentary state, it
actually changes our mood and our mindset to the degree
that we can't even predict correctly how good will feel.
That's actually the mindset of being inactive is we we
um I call it the joy gap. We underestimate how
good it will feel. So that's pretty universal, which means
you can't necessarily rely on how you think it's going
(08:07):
to feel. You have to get yourself past that threshold
so that you can have a direct experience. But there
are so many other reasons why we can resist movement.
Many people have been told that it's selfish to prioritize UM,
to take time away from work or families or other responsibilities.
And so there can be a voice in your head
that says, you know, I really I don't have the
(08:27):
time to do this today, And it really isn't selfish,
it's self care. It can be self preservation, and it
can make us the kind of person other people want
to be around and can rely on UM. And there
are all sorts of other reasons too. Many people have
had negative experiences with movement, whether you go back to
gym class and sort of the trauma of pe that
many people experience. Two. Sometimes people have movement experiences that
(08:52):
are separate from the joys that really bring the most
out of movement, whether it's amazing music or moving with
a community that you really like and care about, or
doing movement that feels intrinsically meaningful, like like power lifting
and sensing your own strength. And so one of the
things that I recommend to people who are just starting
(09:12):
out or want to recommit to movement is to actually think,
not what's the most convenient thing you can do, like
maybe the most convenient thing would be to jump on
a treadmill in the office and do it for ten minutes,
and you forgot to make your amazing playlist and you're
just going to get it done. But what would it
what would be like instead to think, Okay, if I
believe that movement can be an empowering, meaningful, even joyful experience,
(09:36):
what would that look like? And to find the most
inspiring form of movement, Like when you see other people move,
what what motivates you? Do you get you know? Do
you feel weepy when you watch people across a finish
line of a race? Do you are you inspired when
you see people lift heavy things or throw heavy things?
When people perform a dance? Like? What is it that
(09:57):
that you admire? Maybe that's how you choose your move
mint forum or you know, where's a place where you
want to belong and feel like you belong? Who do
you want to move with? Um? What would be an
environment that inspires you? Maybe you need to go outdoors
to really find the joy of movement for you and
to double down on the other things that bring us
pleasure and meaning and to link them to movement. Because
(10:19):
what we know is that movement actually enhances all of
those things, whether it's social connection or music, or being
in nature or making progress. Movement basically amplifies all of
these other things that humans tend to find naturally um satisfying.
When we come back, I want to dig deeper into
some of those more satisfying areas of movement. Before the break,
(10:51):
we were chatting with Kelly McGonagall about movement and how
it actually enhances our experience anywhere from being in nature,
being with other people. And I actually want to talk
a little bit about how movement does improve our connection
to because so many, so many of our physical activities
are solitary. Like Joe, you run by yourself, I assume, right, Well, no,
(11:15):
I actually run a lot with other people. And I
I'm a jabber, Yeah, I'm the person who talks on
talks and talks. But but I assume that makes it
your relationship with whoever you're running with better, the fact
that you're moving, You're not just sitting around coffee. Right.
I also listened to podcasts a lot when are running.
I haven't listened to music in a really long time.
So how does how does exercise improve our connection to
(11:37):
other people? Yeah? So we know that when you're physically active,
like I said, it changes your brain chemistry in a
way that makes it easier to connect with others. And
there's actually research showing that when you go for a
walk or run with someone else, the quality of the
conversation is actually different than if you were to have
that same conversation, say over coffee or or over the phone.
That people tend to be more transparent, they're more emotionally revealing,
(12:01):
it's easier to talk about conflict and take a new
perspective um and that can lead to really strengthening bonds
or or even healing relationships. So I think that's a
great example. But we also know that when people moved together,
and particularly move in synchrony, So say you're in that
cycling class and you're all moving at the same cadence,
or you're in a dance class and you're all step
(12:23):
clapping in the same way, that when we move together,
we actually begin to perceive ourselves as more connected to
the people around us, and that we feel more trust
for them, we like them more, we we feel like
truly connected. It's a sense of something bigger than ourselves
that we're a part of. And this is one of
the reasons why people often inform such tight bonds with
(12:45):
their movement communities, even if you start out as strangers,
because there's something about moving together that really helps people
strengthen bonds. And if you talk to anthropologists, UM, they
actually think that this. This is UM sort of why
dancing is so universal in every culture or you know,
across history, because one of the best ways to strengthen
your ties to a community is actually to move together.
(13:07):
So what about competition though, Does that spoil that that
connection or is it part of being a community. Yeah,
So the healthiest form of competition seems to be where
you have UM some sort of team that you are
cooperating with, and the competition is not so so much
about having to win as it is the pleasure of
working together to UM to really do your best. You know.
(13:30):
In the book, one of the stories that I write
about that I love so much was a women's master's
rowing crew UM from Canada who they're all over the
age of fifty and they trained together, you know, in
their in their boat on the water to to be
able to synchronize their movements and and move across that
water with speed and strength. And grace and um. One
(13:52):
of the stories that one of these women told me
about was their ability to finally compete in the head
of the Childs Regatta. You know, it's one of the
most famous races in the world, and even though they
didn't come anywhere close to winning, they had the experience
of working together to do their best, and they all
described it as as basically a peak experience of their
entire lives. So I think competition can be very healthy.
(14:13):
Probably the the least healthy form of competition if you're
looking to experience, you know, real joy and psychological well being,
is the kind of competition against yourself where you're constantly
judging yourself. You know, it's one thing to enjoy getting better,
but I think sometimes you women, particularly have voices in
their head that are about maybe what you used to
be able to do, or what you should look like
(14:35):
while you're doing it, or maybe comparing yourself to other
people who are simply sharing the experience with you and
have a totally different life history and different you know,
physical body. And uh. I would say that to the
degree that you find your mind wandering in that direction,
it's really useful to pull yourself out and UM and
focus more on the joys of the direct experience that
(14:57):
you're having. How does the joy that we experience it's
during a peak exercise translate into the rest of our life.
How does that improve like our creativity or or our
connection not on the sports field or you know, in
the on the dance floor, but the rest of every day. Yeah,
(15:17):
I mean, they can totally transform how you view yourself
and what you think you're capable of. I spoke with
so many people who started out training UM, often in
areas like strength training or cross fit, or training for
a five k, a half marathon, a full marathon UM,
starting out feeling like this is physically impossible. I don't
(15:38):
know why I'm doing this. I don't know if I
will be able to do this and to have that
physical accomplishment, to reach a kind of milestone where you
are crossing the finish line, or you lift something heavier
than you ever thought you could, or one woman I
spoke to who for seven years was afraid to do
an exercise called the partner carry, where you have to
(15:59):
carry a strain her on your back as if you're
rescuing them, and she was just so intimidated by that
she never tried it, and you know, she described the
moment she finally decided that she was capable of it,
and she wanted to experience herself as somebody who could
literally carry another person, as if to save another person.
That it felt like a huge weight had been lifted
(16:20):
off her shoulders, and she was absolutely amazed with herself
and realized there was like no limit to what she
was capable of. And you can have that type of
peak experience in any movement form. My most memorable one
was a yoga pose. I finally did a backbend that
requires leaning backward, almost like a trust fall, where except
(16:41):
the person you have to trust is yourself because it's
your own it's literally your own backbone, your own strength
that will support you. And that was a revelation when
I finally did that, and I faced my fear and
I felt my own courage and strength at the same time. Um,
and I feel like, let me just ask you, is
sounding very advanced this movement? Do you have to be
(17:04):
running a long distance? Do you have to be doing
an advanced yoga class? No? No, no, no, absolutely not. Um,
I'm a little scared of the backbend move as well,
and you know, I don't do that. I don't need
to do that move anymore. But so here's the really
important thing UH. And I try to make this very
clear in the book by focusing on communities and individuals
(17:26):
who often have barriers to what we would think of
as being like traditional young peak fitness. So UM, for example,
I visit a class for people with Parkinson's disease, which
is a neurological disorder that makes all movement extremely difficult.
UM went to a gym in Fairfax, Virginia where pretty
much everyone training UH is partially paralyzed or recovering from
(17:50):
a traumatic brain injury or recovering from amputations. UM and
people who are suffering also from severe mental illness and
other challenges, and even people in hospice care right who
are not training for a marathon but are simply experiencing
what it feels like to be alive moment to moment
by being able to move their bodies in some way.
(18:13):
So all the joys that I'm talking about are accessible
no matter what body you are currently in and what
challenges you face. And it always comes down to starting
where you are and what feels meaningful to you and
what brings joy to you. And you know, one of
the women that I met at the dance for Parkinson's
disease class, she was facing the reality that she would
(18:33):
be transitioning into a wheelchair, and she loved the dance
class and she loved moving to music. And I asked her, like,
do you think there's a point at which you will
no longer enjoy this? Is there a certain amount of
mobility that it feels like to you is required to
experience this kind of tremendous joy you're describing to me.
(18:53):
And she said no. It was her belief and her
hope that in a wheelchair, as long as, she said,
as long as she could still tap a toe or
tap a finger, she believed that she would be able
to connect to that joy she felt when she moves
her body expressively to music that reminds her of of
Broadway and things that she loves. And so please don't
think that you have to run an ultra marathon. Um.
(19:13):
You know, one person I spoke to he trained to
walk the length of his hallway and eventually trained to
walk to the coffee shop down the street and that
was a major milestone for him. Um, this is the
you know thing is movement as a metaphor. So if
you're doing something that's harder than you've ever done before,
you get to experience your own persistent You get to
(19:33):
experience your capacity to endure and do things that are
meaningful even when it's difficult, and that translates into how
you sense yourself and it doesn't really matter if you
were lifting one pound or a hundred pounds. When we
come back, I want to talk more about how we
can translate that personal growth we experience through movement into
(19:54):
our everyday lives. Yeah, before the break, we were chatting
with Kelly McGonagall about her new book, The Joy of Movement,
and just about the fact that it doesn't have to
(20:15):
be a crazy, tough mutter or marathon to have a
real impact on our ability to to I guess, to
grow and embrace change. And I just want to delve
a little bit into that because Jill and I are
always talking about transformation and transition and change, and that's
(20:36):
what this podcast is about, and I do want to
explore a little bit about how conquering one area of
our lives, whether it's mastering a dance step or learning
how to serve a tennis ball can actually open up
our ability to face life in a whole new way. Yeah,
I mean so, as I said, we really experience movement
(20:58):
as meaningful. Our brain naturally interpret movement as evidence of
of who we are and what we're capable of. So
often I encourage people to think about how they want
to feel about themselves or personal quality they want to cultivate.
So in my own life, courage is a value that, um,
I am always trying to cultivate because fear is one
(21:20):
of my natural tendencies, and um, when I think about,
you know, is there a way to move that to
me feels like it's an expression of courage and that
I feel the sensations in my body of courage when
I do that movement, Because we know that when you
feel the qualities in your body, your mind understands that
(21:42):
that is a part of who you are. And so
I often will use kickboxing when I am feeling anxious
and I want to feel more empowered. And it literally
comes down to the fact that I can feel my
own heart beating, my heart racing, and I can feel
my hands clenched into fists and I'm growing punches with power,
and I'm often doing it to music that is empowering
(22:04):
and talking about being a fighter and being strong. And
the next time I feel my heart beat or race
out of fear, I can literally remind myself, you know
what this is also what courage feels like, and I
can remember that that's part of me, and it can
transform the way that we experienced challenges in our lives.
And so often it's about figuring out what part of
(22:25):
you do you want to develop, who do you want
to know better. One woman I talked about, she Um.
She turned to kettle bell training a kettle bell class
I was offered at a local school, UM in the
cafeteria of her local school, and she never picked up
something heavy before and and sensed herself as so powerful
is being able to lift something heavy and literally like
(22:46):
launch it and that feeling, and she she described to
me how Um later on, when she was driving to
the airport, there was a huge storm and a massive
tree had fallen across the highway and everyone was turning
around and going home, and she wanted to go to
the airport, so she had her driver stop the car
and they got out and they moved a tree that
(23:07):
was blocking the roadway and because she she was somebody
who had told me she literally, when she holds at kettlebell,
she senses herself as somebody who can take on a giant.
Those were her exact words. And then she met an
obstacle in life and she remembered, I'm somebody who can
take on a giant, and she got rid of that obstacle.
And I feel like, you know, there's just so many
(23:28):
examples like that, and that you don't even have to
think too hard about it through the movement that makes
you feel the way you want to feel. So but
that's kind of counterprogramming some ways. Like for years and
years I found I'm just not a yoga person. I'm
not a yoga person. I'm way too tightly wound for that.
But all during those years, I also thought I wish
I could just take it down or not. You know,
(23:50):
so all those years of running mommy, maybe we should
have been taking Mommy to yoga, because that's what what
I kind of needed to. I mean, I guess what
you're saying is, don't necessarily imagine and this is the
kind of exercise that goes with my personality type think
of this is where I want exercise to take me
in my life, allow it, to cultivate it in you,
(24:10):
and to trust that there's some part of you that's curious.
You don't have to be good at it, um, you
simply have to have the experience of it. Okay, Well,
I suck at yoga, and I will I will not
let that stop me. Well, that's the thing you don't.
You can suck. That's what Kelly saying is, it's just
(24:30):
the the experience. I've gone to enough classes to hear
them saying that's soothing dulcet tone that they use. That
you're just going to meet yourself whatever on the yoga
mat and you're going to accept it, and there isn't
any being bad or good at yoga. Yeah. But also,
I mean, I don't know like the idea that you
could suck at yoga. That I mean, part of me
as a psychologist is like I'm trying to hold myself
(24:52):
back a little bit from like going into deep therapy here.
But you have it. You can't really suck at yoga
unless there's somebody who has convinced you that your experience
of yoga is determined by how far you can reach
and oppose or if you can hold a balance perfectly. Um.
I mean, yoga, like so many of the mindful movement traditions,
are about meeting yourself exactly where you are, and it
(25:16):
often I mean yoga is basically getting into uncomfortable places
and learning how how you want to deal with uncomfortable situations.
Yoga is and so it's not about what you look like,
um or how far you can go and oppose. And
so I think like a lot of people probably think
they suck at yoga because they've been sold the idea
(25:36):
that yoga, like meditation, has been sold is supposed to
make you feel relaxed, when actually yoga is a way
to practice being stressed and to bring different aspects of
your mental strength and your personal strengths, and to stay
relatively grounded and centered even though you're doing something that
is uncomfortable. I mean, even yoga stretches. It's fascinating, right
(25:57):
They activate pain receptors in your body, and yet with
the right mindset, in the right environment, we can come
to experience something that is actually good for us, but
also can can trigger alarm bells in our nervous system
through those pain receptors. We learned to experience it as
healing and wonderful, and people will tell you how much
they love a deep stretch and it's the same stretch
(26:18):
that was experienced previously as as something I need to
escape from. And I think this really teaches us a
lot about how we go beyond our comfort zone and
everyday life. So please don't think you suck at yoga.
It's okay to say you don't like it. Right. We're
allowed to say I'm not a runner, and so I
don't run, and I don't say I suck at running.
I say I choose not to run because it's not
(26:39):
for me. And it's fine. Re leave something aside because
it doesn't bring you joy. Maybe you want to do it,
you maybe actually want to do it. There's a quote
in your book that kind of relates to this in
the when you were touching on the the being comfortable
with being uncomfortable, the discomfort of the yoga is is
is part of the part of the plan um. It
(27:02):
was a quote from Jennifer far which was, you don't
have to get rid of the pain to move forward.
And I love that so much because it just it
really it makes so much sense because pain is so
paralyzing and we do think that we either have to
before we change, we have to cultivate the motivation to change,
(27:22):
or that we have with the pain. We have to
like deal with the pain before we can be something else.
And I just think it's such a smart insight, can
you It was a little so that comes from the
chapter called Indoor, which is I focus on athletes who
are doing ultra endurance training, which is as far from
my reality as you can get. I mean, these are
people who are running or cycling or swimming hundreds of miles,
(27:44):
doing like ten triathlons in ten days, things that seem superhuman.
And I spent a lot of time talking to these athletes,
reading memoirs, observing events to try to figure out why
is this so meaningful and important to the athlete to
do it. And one of the things that that came
up again and again is the kind of um revelation
(28:06):
that you described, which is that you get to experience
yourself in the moment of having a body that says
I can't I literally cannot take one more step, I
cannot do this, and somehow, through your own deep inner strength,
often through the support and encouragement of other people, and
sometimes through a sense of connection to something bigger than yourself,
(28:27):
maybe faith that you experience yourself as someone who takes
another step forward even though it feels like you can't possibly.
And so many people I spoke to says said that
once you experience that, your ability to to endure other
life challenges you have. You have a deep knowing that
you are capable of that. And I spoke with people
(28:49):
for whom endurance training helped them deal with serious trauma
and a serious depression and literally convince them that it
was possible to continue living, that life was worth living. Wow,
I don't know how you'd feel that way on the
on the endurance, on the on the trail climbing over
(29:10):
those obstacles. There was another thing that was in that
chapter about how when people helped each other, they like
what didn't matter whether you were the person helping or
the person being helped, they both had a profound sense
of I matter. And I thought that was really interesting.
I know this was something that came up in almost
(29:30):
every movement, actually, every movement form or community that I
went to, whether it was a dance class or cross
fit or running group, or these ultra endurance athletes. I
didn't start out asking people, tell me about a time
you were able to help someone in your exercise class
or on a race trail. I just asked people like,
(29:51):
tell me why you love it, tell me about a
meaningful memory you have, And across the board, people told
me stories about receiving help from others and being able
to help others. And what I realized after spending years
talking to people is that for many people, the most
profound joy of movement is that movements somehow brings out
(30:14):
the best in us, and it allows us to celebrate
our interdependence, whether you're playing on a sports team, or
whether you are you know that person cheering on the
runner who's struggling and giving them encouragement to keep going,
or whether you're celebrating someone's birthday in a dance class
or somebody's personal record in a strength training community. That
(30:35):
that people get to experience themselves as not just their
own strength and bravery and whatever their own like physical
accomplishments are, but they get to experience themselves as someone
who takes joy and other people's success that encourages others,
and that there actually is joy in receiving help, which
for so many of us in other contexts, we feel
(30:55):
like a burden. We feel like it's so difficult to
accept other people's kindness. And for many people it's actually
in a movement community that it's the first place they
feel like it's safe and okay to receive the kindness
of others. I think movement is so transformative in this way,
and that it allows us to celebrate how connected we
are as human beings. Well, I love that, and Jill,
(31:18):
I think we need to go take a yoga class together.
All right, I'll go. Thank you so much for joining
us today, Thank you for having me. Kelly's book is
The Joy of Movement, How exercise helps us find happiness, hope,
connection and courage. Learn more about this at Kelly McGonagall
(31:38):
dot com and connect with her on Twitter at Kelly McGonagall.
The Road to Somewhere is recorded in New York City.
Make sure to share, subscribe, rate, and review us. We
would love to hear from you. Where are you on
your journey? Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
at pod to Somewhere and email us at Road to
(32:01):
Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com. Special thanks to Alicia Haywood,
are incredible producer. Thanks everyone for joining us on the
road to Somewhere. We're available on the I Heart Radio app,
on Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Road to Somewhere News
Hosts And Creators
Lisa Oz
Jill Herzig
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