Wellness Rewritten: Amy Cohen Epstein & Elissa Goodman on Healing, Reinvention & Listening to Your Body

In this intimate conversation, Amy Cohen Epstein — Lynne Cohen Foundation founder and preventive health advocate — sits down with Elissa Goodman, nutritionist, author, and wellness advocate, to explore what it truly means to live optimally. Both women know intimately how tragedy can become transformation: Amy lost her mother Lynne to cancer and founded the Lynne Cohen Foundation at just 21 years old, while Elissa's cancer diagnosis at 32 became her wake-up call to reclaim her health and dedicate her life to helping others live optimally.

Amy Cohen Epstein: So this is funny—we've been friends for years and we've been talking about doing something together.

Elissa Goodman: Yes, we are.

Amy: Both very passionate about cancer and both had stories about losing very dear ones to cancer, and also we're passionate about wellness and helping people really get to a place where they feel amazing and vibrant as they age. That's my passion now as well as anti-cancer. But what brought you, other than your mom and your story, to wellness? What is it about wellness that you want to instill for people?

Elissa: I just want to have an impact. It's really cool to talk about longevity—that's really in the forefront of my mind, but I think it's the heart of living your best life. And that means so many different things to so many different people. For a lot of people that's blowing up their life and trying to find a 20-year-old who's going to make them happy, whatever that means. That's not what it means for—

Amy: Me.

Elissa: For me it means living your optimal life. Being healthy from your toes to your roots. My mom always used to say—she didn't say fake it till you make it, but she would say, if you wake up and you're feeling crappy, always take a shower, put on a cute outfit and put on some makeup and see how you feel. When I was younger she wouldn't say put on makeup, but she would say always just take a shower, wash your face, see how you feel from there. This idea of get yourself going, splash cold water on your face and see how your day starts. It's always been in my head and now that I'm older—I'm 49 hitting 50—to me, it's about living optimally. Everything you put in your body and on your body and do to your body and for your body and who we surround ourselves with, all of that.

That to me is wellness and living your best life. I am just hardcore about living optimally, and that's what I want to talk about and think about. That's what lights me up and that's how I want to fill my cup and encourage others to fill their cup. That's where I think we connect—where we connected from the beginning. I started my adult life journey at 21 when my mom died and I started this foundation with my family and then decided to run it. It hasn't been linear, but it hasn't been too curvy. Where it's led me to now is this idea of living optimally. So it is cancer prevention, it is a lot of anti-cancer talk, but it's gotten much bigger and the bubble has continued to sort of grow and bulge in the best way. The idea of continually learning and growing myself and my brain—that's like the best part.

Amy: It is. It sounds like we had similar upbringings because my mom was the same way—splash water on your face, put a little makeup on, maybe a little lipstick and get dressed, actually get dressed and get out of the house. That was a beautiful thing. I mean, a lot of people these days don't do that. My mom was into health in the early days. She had asthma and she went to a health ranch, which was way ahead of its time in terms of just getting off the grid and really eating healthy food and exercising and massaging and just taking care of yourself. I thought that was so fascinating that I got that at an early age and realized, wow, we can really change how we—

Elissa: Feel.

Amy: When we do take care of ourselves. I was lucky in that way, but then my cancer diagnosis at 32 was like, holy shit, this is a wake up call. I've got to figure out how to go back to that life and really live my best life. Ever since then, it has been a passion and I just feel like it's growing and getting bigger and bigger. It's so fun because I feel so good. I think that's also what helps us when we feel good about our lives. We don't probably feel good every day—it's not always a good thing every day—but most of the time when you know what you need to do and get yourself out of a funk or eat better since you didn't eat well for five days or you had too much alcohol and you don't drink for a while...there are ways to get yourself back to a really beautiful place and thriving place.

Elissa: Yeah. My mom did similar things. This idea of self-care I think has gone a little bit off the rails, but when you bring it back to where I think the heart of it is—massage for the right reasons, taking really good care of yourself—the heart and soul of self-care. Some of my girlfriends, we joke about it, there was a whole group of women in West LA who saw this one nutritionist—I've actually talked about her on this podcast because a good friend of ours used her—but she was anti-sugar. It was in the eighties and nineties, before sugar was the devil and the enemy. My mom used to actually eat a lot of sugar and she would get these horrible headaches or crashes. She had this thing about taking a protein afternoon snack and her thing was taking the oil out of peanut butter and putting it on wasa toast. How strange. It was so disgusting. There was this peanut butter where the oil was on top and you would put paper towels in it and stick it upside down. So then you would have this chalky disgusting peanut butter. But I think about it now—I eat such little sugar.

And it reminds me of, okay, well, I'm sort of doing the same thing. It's just that we have access to so much more that's easier and tastes good as opposed to this. I was like 15, 16. I'm like, this is disgusting. And your mouth would be like, blah. Just these ideas of how to not crash or not get a headache because you've just come home at that three, four o'clock hour after school or after work and you're starving and you just grab something terrible for you. Just little things we've learned to feel and be better.

But what I'm really interested in on top of that is this idea of now and this age... Everyone I know that's met you, whenever I say I'm friends with Amy, they're like, "What the hell is your secret? How does she do it? It's insane." I'm like, "Wait, you have to press rewind with her and you have to understand where she's come from and you have to understand that she's beaten cancer. She's had incredible loss in her life. She has kids. She's turned her life upside down and inside out." To me, that's all of the reasons why you're truly glowing. It's amazing.

Amy: Oh God, thank you. I mean, that's why I love hanging out with you. You make me feel like on top of the world... I guess I never, growing up as a kid, my story—I never felt good. I didn't feel good physically or emotionally and mentally because I was always behind the eight ball. I really ate too much sugar. I ate too much processed food. My parents were so successful and had tons of energy—like 10 times more energy than I did. I couldn't keep up with these older parents. I was a young teenager and sometimes I couldn't keep up with my friends. I was always tired and my blood sugar was always dropping.

So it's really fun to feel this way now where I don't have any of those feelings. Emotionally, I feel good; physically, I feel good. I just feel balanced. I don't always feel great, but I know how to get myself back to feeling good, and I know how to feel the feelings and really not suppress them. I used to not feel the feelings. That was a big thing growing up—"You're okay. You shouldn't be sad. You shouldn't be tired." It was always like, "You shouldn't feel that way." And I hated that when my parents said that to me. So this stage in my life I've been taught and trained to be like, okay, I'm sad today. I don't feel great. My energy's low and it's okay. I want people to feel like they can give themselves permission to not have that pressure to always feel great and be great and do everything perfect.

Elissa: Did you go to sleepovers when you were a kid and were you the kid who wanted to go home?

Amy: I did want to go home, but also I didn't go to a lot because every time I went I got sick. I didn't sleep well. And I think because of my low white blood cell count, no one knew what to do with that when I was a kid. It was always just sleep, sleep, sleep, get your rest. It was a bummer. My friends would all go and I'd be home and missing out.

Elissa: At least it wasn't social media and they weren't posting pictures on Instagram and you weren't there.

Amy: That really would've sucked. I don't know if I would've made it through that period. Actually, I don't even know how our kids are able to do it these days. That would be horrible.

Do you have siblings?

Elissa: I have an older brother. He was always healthy and always strong, and I was always the one getting sick and feeling tired and they were always giving me a hard time. "Oh, there she goes again. She's sick, or she's tired or she's complaining." That was kind of my life. And I realized as time went on, I don't want to live like that. That doesn't feel good.

So did you actively try not to complain? Yes, I sucked it all in. Just sucked it down. I think that's what gave me the cancer. Those feelings were all suppressed in my body. I can't really tell anybody how I really feel, honestly. I just sucked it up and went on my way. A lot of people do and it's so unhealthy. Those things downregulate your immune system, everything just gets downregulated in every way. So it's not a good thing. I think we need to express ourselves in the right way. We need to find people we feel good with to support us. And food is part of that program. Food is supportive and when you eat healthy food, you do feel better and when you're hydrated—all of those things. But a lot of times we weren't trained about how to do that. There's so many more options now.

My mom was a sugaraholic too. She still is today. It's crazy. She's 95 and she's strong as an ox. She hides chocolate chip cookies from herself, but she does. There's cookies and sweets all over the house and she's been fine.

Amy: Some people are just... My grandma lived until she was 98 and she drank wine probably two glasses every single day of her life. And she never ate anything good. She ate totally unhealthily.

Elissa: I agree.

Amy: It is interesting how people can get away with that. They used to, I don't know if they can as much today. But I think the older days didn't have as much stress. They had stress, but today is a whole different level. And also way more toxins are in our world today. The air, the water, the things we put on our body, the food—it's toxic. And when we get the overload, that's when we get into trouble. I think they didn't have as many of those things years ago. It's the toxicity that's really killing us and causing cancer and causing all kinds of health issues along with the stress and unhappiness and social media, all of it.

Elissa: So where do you find balance with it all?

Amy: That's the question. That's the hardest question to answer. It's the question of how do women do it all? I think it's different every day. I think it's different every single day. I think one, it's sort of giving it up a little bit, the idea that you can. I think it's knowing that there's ways to figure it out every single day that might look different, that your balance looks really different than mine and other women's. I think women's balance is different than men's balance mostly. And I think that there's priorities.

So I can think of mine. For me, my mom died when I was 21 years old, so I knew that I wanted if I could to have kids when I was younger. And I knew that being a mom was the most important thing to me. I was so maternal from a really young age. My brother's seven years younger than I am, and when he came home from the hospital, I was like, "It's my baby, it's my doll." And I helped take care of him. I had two older sisters, but for me it was like I was going to help with this thing.

And he was like this weird looking baby. But I loved him so much and I was going to help take care of him. When my parents would go out for dinner and there were two older sisters and a nanny, my mom would look at me and say, "Make sure Robbie gets to bed on time." And I'd be like, "I will." I was just so maternal. So I knew that I wanted to be a mom. That was just so important to me. And people will say to me, "Oh, your kids are great." They're not great. They're just not jerks. But that's a huge priority of mine, actually.

They all have GI issues. They all spend time with that. I wonder about the GI issues. A lot of it's hereditary. It's not my fault. Maybe it is, but I take my job really seriously as a mom. So I knew that was a huge priority. I think things came together. I was going to run this foundation. I was going to have it fill my entrepreneurial spirit by being able to run this foundation. I'm really lucky in a place where this was obviously not going to be what supports our family financially. My husband does that and that's privilege that I get to enjoy. I don't feel sorry. I don't say sorry for that. That's just my life. But no matter what our life was going to be, I was going to give up whatever we needed to give up so that I could be basically a full-time mom in my younger years because that was just my priority.

Amy: And did you love it? A hundred percent?

Elissa: Loved it. Loved it. It did prove to be what I wanted in every way. Totally. In every way. I didn't love—I didn't produce a lot of milk, so there were definitely issues. I produced a ton of milk, but it didn't come out properly. So I had to pump—that stuff I didn't love. But I absolutely loved taking care of the nitty gritty mechanics of it. A lot of it wasn't awesome, but I loved being a mom, all of it. I loved the kids, all of the stages of life. But as they've gotten older and they went to school all day and then they're older now and in jobs, in college, out of college, I love that I have all this more time and I now know how to take care of myself in a different way, that I have tons of energy and excitement and know more and have also learned along the way how to keep growing the foundation and myself and learning that I can do more.

Amy: And so to me, that's the long-term balance.

Elissa: Yes. Does that make sense?

Amy: That's beautiful. And so I've still been a mom. You're reignited in a lot of ways.

Elissa: Totally. And I feel like I know so much more now in my late forties than I did in my twenties to be able to grow a career than I could have back then without the burdens of drop off, pickup, drop up, drop off, pickup. I feel like that's my balance.

Amy: So the foundation was what you did as a job, right?

Elissa: Correct. And always has been. I mean, I had a few jobs in my early twenties that were more like jobs—nine to five, I went to an office—but then when I really started to run this full time, it was right around the time I got pregnant with my oldest son. So 25, 26.

Amy: Yeah. That's pretty amazing. That was 25 years.

Elissa: That's great. And it's also like you were lucky to find something you're passionate about early on. A lot of people don't have that.

Amy: No. They find it later in life mostly.

Elissa: Totally. However, I do think my passion has continued to grow exponentially over the years. And also more has been available over the years—doing podcasts didn't exist 25 years ago. The whole educational component didn't really exist 25 years ago and the means to do it. So all of those things have just been a lot of luck that it is now available, the connections, all those things.

Amy: I know. The people that you get to meet and learn from.

Elissa: Totally. Yeah, I know. That's what it is. Beautiful.

I mean, personally, what do you do to keep yourself balanced other than the work fulfillment portion? What do you do physically?

Amy: I work out a lot.

Elissa: You do? How many days a week?

Amy: Like five. And then usually walk a lot of those other days. I do a lot of—I don't even know what you call it. It's like I like a heated room. I like to sweat a lot.

Elissa: Okay, so hot yoga.

Amy: Is it? I don't know. It is. You personally have taught me how to keep myself hydrated, which is a game changer. I like to be in a heated room and sweat. And I like these micro movements using small muscles and I like a lot of arms and tush and legs and core work that's like ankle weights and it's basically back to Jane Fonda just modernized—those different kinds of workouts.

Elissa: I remember Jane Fonda. I know that's like what my mom would do.

Amy: Totally. Same. I don't like a lot of bounce. Are you doing this on your own?

Elissa: No, I go to classes.

Amy: You go to classes, okay.

Elissa: Yeah. It's like strength kind of classes. It's all based on—it's all sort of grown out of Pilates and yoga, but it's modern lifting your leg. I don't know. Just a lot of push. Do you do any sports?

Amy: I grew up playing really competitive soccer, but I don't do sports anymore. So no pickleball or tennis or any of those things. My back and knees feel really crappy after pickleball, but I know you're like a pickle...

Elissa: I know. I love it. I grew up playing tennis and I grew up playing golf and I grew up horseback riding. Do you still play golf?

Amy: I play golf, yep. I play pickleball. I love it. You love the community part of the pickleball.

Elissa: I love the community. Yeah. I love the people. I love the camaraderie. The competitiveness. It's just so much. It lights me up. People light me up.

Amy: Everyone loves pickleball. I mean, I like to play it because of all the people, but my back really doesn't like pickleball. That's too bad. It is really a bummer. I know. I feel lucky because a lot of my girlfriends who are younger than me—everyone's pickleball and they all play pickle and they all have aches and pains and I walk off the court and I'm like, I'll knock on wood. Yeah, it's probably going to happen at some point. But I don't have any aches and pains. It's so wild.

Elissa: You really don't feel—you're so lucky. I know. I'm so lucky. The only thing is it does wear me out. I do get tired.

Amy: Well, you should. You're working hard. And when it's hot out...

Elissa: The explosion of pickleball is pretty amazing and it's a cool way to go anywhere and play pickleball now. And to meet new people, especially someone who's in my age in the sixties and who's single. So the golf and the pickle are like a home run.

Amy: I play golf for a little, so I have clubs and I played. I just never really loved it. Does your husband play?

Elissa: My husband and all my kids play and they're all very—I mean, Matt's pretty good, but he's good. He's a good golfer. My kids are good and they love to play and they're really into it. I guess post COVID, everyone loved golf. I just never loved it. I don't know. And to me, I really love my alone time when they're all playing. So I really sort of—that to me that's a huge part of my self-care is my two to four hours alone when they're golfing when no one's in the house. I really like it.

Amy: Yes, I bet. I know this last month when my kids were like, "We miss you. It's such a nice time. You can be with us." I'm like, "Yeah, but I really like it when you're not home for a few hours."

Elissa: There has to be that balance. I know. I feel this way when my kids are around and I loved having them around. And then I had two stepsons as well, but now everybody's gone and everybody's moved on and two are married and they all live on their own. I miss it. I know. It's got to be really hard. It's hard. It's really hard. I miss them. I love them. I love what they bring to the table and I'm just crazy about my kids, so I do love being with them. I'm not sure they love being with me as much as I love being with them, but...

And I hope I have a grandchild coming. What? I have a boy grandchild coming in a week or two.

Amy: A week or two? Yes, yes. My older daughter who's 30 is having a baby. It's like all I want in life—grandchildren. Oh my God. And I just—I'm so used to girls. There were three of us girls when my husband passed away, it was the three of us and now we have this boy coming, which is pretty special. That's amazing. And I know my life's going to change in every way. I'm sure they live close by though.

Elissa: They do. Yeah, they do. So that for me is the whole next phase of my life that feels very—I'm not sure I'm ready, but I am excited, but I'm not sure I'm ready to be a grandmother. That feels old.

Amy: You're so young. But it feels very old. I don't feel young. The number of my age doesn't feel young. I feel young energetically. But you have no choice whether you're ready or not. He's coming.

Elissa: Right. He's coming. You can't shove him back in there.

Amy: I think the love—I just know the amount of love that I have to give personally because when I meet people and I really do love them and enjoy their company and I am lucky, I do have a lot of really great friends, but the amount of love I have to give is going to be so fun to be able to give to this human. So cute. Oh my God. I know. It's pretty amazing. I think that's going to energize and make me feel younger potentially.

Elissa: I think it will. Circling back to you though, how do you find balance and how have you found balance? You've had to balance a lot.

Amy: It has been a lot. I think to myself over the years, growing up wasn't so easy. I didn't have any balance then in those years. I had a mom that was pretty tough on me. So that was challenging. And then now we're great. But those years were... Do you talk about it with her?

Elissa: No. I mean she's 95. What's it going to do?

Amy: I always hoped I could, but I don't think we're ever going to get there, which is sad, but I had to do a shit ton of work to get there.

Elissa: The fact that you're talking about it, I think is 95% of the work, right?

Amy: Yeah. A lot of therapy. Tons of therapy to figure out it wasn't really me that was the problem. Our relationship—just how she saw the world was so different than how I saw the world. And then getting married and having a husband that died and having two young girls at home and... he was the breadwinner and I wasn't working. We did go to a private school and belonged to a country club and had a very expensive life. And going, "Oh my God, what am I going to do now?" And then getting into another relationship with someone who was really great and took care of us for 15 years and then splitting from him a year ago. It's been like, holy shit.

Elissa: Does it feel like waves in your life—once it felt like, "Okay, I got this, I got this," and then it's gone. And it's like, is that what my life is supposed to be? Is it just testing me to be resilient? To be okay? And what I've really learned in this last year without him and my girls doing their thing is really just figuring out how to really be okay on my own and be alone and be happy alone or just be okay alone. Maybe it's not happy all the time—I'm not—but I never was alone in my entire life until now. So it's really hard at 64 to be alone.

This last year, what nights, what's the time of day, night that's hardest?

Amy: It fluctuates. Monday or Tuesday. No, Sunday, Sunday. Sunday afternoon, Sunday night. Sometimes it's the morning—I used to wake up and I'm not with someone and then it was going to bed. But I've really learned that I know that in life there's the ebbs and flows and to be able to balance those and know they're not going to last forever is such a beautiful thing. I know I will be with someone else and it will be amazing and this time I will really pick. But I just feel like I am really lucky to be able to have the time to spend with myself and get to know me and get to know what really lights me up and get to know you now.

Elissa: Yeah, now exactly. And the balance is I do still work in the nutrition world and I'm writing my book, my second book. It's either going to be called "Aging Hacks" or "Aging Gracefully," and really my story on how I have been able to turn back the clock and feel great as I age and then do a TEDx talk and hopefully travel the world and talk—that's kind of my goal. I love to travel, but how I find balance is really, I do eat healthy. I prioritize my sleep. And then I do spend a lot of time with friends and I do a lot of sports. That for me and exercise and being out in nature, it lights me up and being with my friends, going out and enjoying concerts, music is really something that I love.

Amy: Concerts—what kind of music?

Elissa: Just all kinds like jazz and blues and rock. And I've just always loved concerts. Oh, that's so good. I know. And it's been fun this last year I've just reconnected with a lot of friends. Going out and playing golf with them and playing pickleball with them and going to concerts with them and traveling with them. It just is nothing better really at this moment.

Amy: I like that. I love to hike. It's like my favorite activity. Really? Yeah. We have a home in Idaho and now we moved to Denver, so we go to the mountains and hiking to me is my favorite. It's actually my favorite exercise, my favorite form of exercise. I'm like a mountain lion. And do you go for—how long do you hike for?

Elissa: Doesn't matter. Yeah, it could be short or long. I mean, I love a good hard hike and my favorite hikes are when you hike up a ski mountain and then you can take—in summertime they run the chairlifts and you can take the chairlift down. I don't love going down because one, it's hard on your knees. And two, I just think it's boring. So I love literally going straight up for two hours maybe, and then you get there and you're dying and then you take the chairlift down and it's just awesome. Heaven. I love it.

Amy: I want to learn how to hike. I am a good walker and I can go for miles, but hiking uphill has always exhausted me. It's exhausting. And then I kind of have a trip that I'm thinking of going to the Dolomites in the fall, so I have to start figuring out how to really be a good hiker.

Elissa: I would love that. You would love it. I would. It's so relaxing and beautiful and serene. And do you go with friends or your husband?

Amy: My husband loves to hike, so he does it. That's pretty awesome. And we're really into it and not competitive, but we get in the zone. My dog hikes with us and I love all the gear. I love... That's so fascinating. It's really fun. I have my hiking glasses. I have my hiking fanny pack. I really love to hike. It's really fun. I love my hiking shoes. It's such a great exercise.

Elissa: Yeah, it really is one of the best. It's such fresh air and being in nature is—it's so grounding.

Amy: Again, we need to find things that ground us. We're not grounded. I can admit I don't... I am an Aries and—

Elissa: Same. Oh, that's right. That's right. I forgot about that. That's probably why we are so connected.

Amy: Yes. I know. You have to peel me off the ceiling. Sometimes I'm up there floating and sky high and it's like, okay, how do I come down and ground myself? It's a challenge for me. It is a challenge. Is it a challenge for you?

Elissa: Yeah, I'm bouncing off the walls and I am not a great walker. I can walk a lot, but I'm not like a fast walker, but as a hiker I can—I'm gone.

Amy: You're a good fast hiker. I really do love it, right? I do.

Elissa: So what are the things that ground you? I don't know. People—do friends ground you?

Amy: People ground me. I have—interestingly, I am really social and I'm really easygoing and we've lived all over. We've moved a lot and I've lived in different parts of the world and I like a lot of people and a lot of different kinds of people and I'm very open-minded, but I have very actually few really good friends. I give so much to my kids and my husband. I give so much love and so much attention and so much of myself that I don't have that much leftover to give to other people. And so to my good friends, I give so much. So I have a lot of people in my life, but really good friends—there's just not many and most of my really good friends have been my good friends for decades.

Elissa: Oh wow. Since 12 years old, high school or grade school.

Amy: That's beautiful. And those people really ground me. They're people who know not just me forever, but pre-puberty and knew my family. And so I just was on the phone with one of my girlfriends on my way here, who's been my friend since we were 12, and she just knows me. She knows everything about me and all through the years. And so the way that we can talk to each other is just different. There's just a code and it is so grounding.

Elissa: That's beautiful. I love that. I don't have that growing up. I don't even have friends from grade school or high school—a couple from college is weird. My life changed so much after college that I met everybody and felt like I got into my body or into who I am later in life and I wasn't so comfortable in those years.

Amy: I wasn't comfortable. I miss that.

Elissa: It's interesting. It's different. I think I came off as really comfortable and confident younger, but I certainly wasn't at all. And I have a lot of really good friends from—I have a handful, not a lot. I have a handful of very good friends from college who I love, but still, that's 20 plus years ago and I have a handful of adult friends. I mean adult in the last 10, 15, 20 years. And they're very different relationships, which is nice. And a handful of, I would call new friends. Do you find it hard to make new friends at this stage in your life?

Amy: Yeah, I'm not so... yeah, I do. I do. You're a new friend and I love it. I don't know. It's hard for people. It's hard. It is hard. I think it's hard because you're busy. I actually think Los Angeles is a hard place to make good friends. I do. As an adult woman, I do.

Elissa: It is. I think there's a culture that makes it hard. I think there's a competitiveness. I think there's a lack of working that makes it hard. I think there's just—it's a hard situation.

Amy: You have to work harder at it. Yeah, exactly. And I think you have to peel back people. You have to sort of peel back their layers in order to see if they are going to be grounding and if they're going to fill your cup and if they're going to be people you really want to give yourself to and actually get to know.

Also, my friends will laugh at this. I've never been a big mom friend person. I don't have a lot of—your kids', their parents—don't know. You're not friends with them as much.

Elissa: Yeah. That wasn't my jam. It wasn't like immediate friends with my kids' friends' moms. I wasn't into that. They're your friends and I think that's great. And if I happen to connect with their moms, I think that's great too. But that's not an immediate thing—you didn't make it wasn't like a given, I would say. I thought that was always weird.

Amy: You thought it was weird for yourself? Yeah, because I definitely became friends with all the girls. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it wasn't. Are you still friends with them though?

Elissa: Yes, I'm very good friends with several. That means it was meant to be.

Amy: It was meant to be. Yeah. It was beautiful. Some of those people are different. I actually think girl moms are probably different than boy moms.

Elissa: I think so too. I think that definitely does matter.

Amy: Yeah. So speaking of just grounding yourself, other than hiking and friendships that we're talking about, what other things ground you like really, really ground you? Are you a meditator?

Elissa: I was just about to say, are you going to ask if I meditate? I'm going to say no. I'm going to feel guilty.

Amy: Yoga or anything. Matt and I try and do yoga. We are bad about it, but we usually, for a long time we did yoga once a week together, which was really nice. We haven't done that in a while. What do I do? I have my nightly ritual. It sounds so lame, but I take a shower every single night before I go to bed, and it's a very soothing ritual of just—I feel like I'm just cleansing the day off me. I don't know. I'm not dirty. You're washing the day off.

Elissa: Yeah. I've never done anything. Even if I shower, go out for dinner, I always come home and shower again. Shower again. Yeah. Interesting. I'm going to wash my face no matter what, because I've literally washed my face—I've never gone to bed without washing my face. Even in college drunk. I've always washed my face. My college roommate will attest to it, but I always shower before bed. To me, I just want a cleansing thing. Yeah. You get into bed clean too.

Amy: Yeah. I read before bed every single night on my Kindle. I find that really fiction. I read fiction. I find it just a calming thing. Even if it's late and I'm tired, I'll always just read for at least 10 minutes or something. And I do like that. I always find time during the day to just sort of sit and relax.

Elissa: You don't just go, go, go. No, I really do take a few minutes because Aries are known to keep going and not stop until they burn out. My brother will—he thinks it's funny. And you've met my brother and he was in the military for a while and he's like, "You really should have been a general." I'll be like, "I have three minutes for coffee before I..." You're very scheduled. I'm very scheduled. My life is an outline. I see things in a 1, 2, 3, B, 1, 2, 3 form. And he would come visit and I'll be like, "Well, hang out with me for the day." And I'll say, "Okay, I'm going to drop the dry cleaning. And then I have six minutes before I then pick up Otis and then we have seven minutes to get a quick bite..." and he'll be like, "You're insane. You're actually insane."

Amy: That's pretty funny. Seven minutes. Six minutes. Literally I'm down to the wire. That is so neat. Not me. I'm like that. I'm not scattered, but I always like that and it really annoys me when someone's... So programming is important—very much just programming your day.

Elissa: So if I allow myself to just chill, it's a big deal, which is why I don't join my family to play golf. I make myself just relax. Even if I'm doing loads of laundry, at least when it's relaxing, I'm relaxing. I'm pretty compulsive, so that actually is relaxing to me, but I should probably find more ways to ground myself. This question's difficult for me, which is probably interesting.

Amy: It's hard for us. I mean, what do you do? We're both very driven, very motivated, very excited about taking on the world and really both of us helping people heal, getting information out there that will help people heal with whatever they have going on in their lives. We're like, this has got to happen. I know it's hard to find that. I know I do go, go, go and then I crash, but I do...

Do you drink tea?

Elissa: I do. I love my tulsi tea. Tulsi tea is like—I don't know, I can't live without it. I drink it kind of on and off all day. It's very grounding. It's very much—it's an adaptogen, so I do love that. I do take baths or I'm not a shower girl. My mom was a bath. My mom had a bath every night before bed. It's like heaven. It's not always with Epsom salt because they say to put the Epsom salt in, but just a warm bath is crazy soothing and kind of brings me down and relaxes me. And I wish I was—I want to become more of a fiction reader or a reader, but I am a podcast girl, so I will turn on a podcast when I jump into bed and I'll fall asleep to it. That's amazing. There's so much happening.

Amy: There's so many. There's so many and so many interesting ones. And these days I've been listening to a lot about love, so that is soothing. Yoga to me is very, very soothing. And walking is soothing too. Just really getting out and not hiking, but walking. And also really before bed—it's weird. It's just like I love making sure that I have—this is such a nutrition thing—complex carbs because they calm your central nervous system down.

Elissa: Complex potatoes. Potatoes, yes. Basmati rice, complex carbs are full of minerals so they calm your central nervous system. Even legumes and beans and all of those things. Quinoa and wild rice and carrots and beets are complex carbs and they do calm your system down. So at night I'm always making sure I have some of those things in my meal or a lot of those things.

Amy: That's my next big topic is sleep. Especially during perimenopause and menopause. I'm dying. Okay. So we're going to get—sleep complex.

Elissa: Sleep wise, I had insomnia for four years. Probably one of the worst things I've ever dealt with in my life. It's horrible. Horrible. This whole week. Horrible. It is. It's not fun. Sleep is so crucial in terms of me calming down and getting into bed at the same time and waking up at the same time. And also getting that morning sunshine, that light if I can—and I can because I have this balcony outside of my bedroom and sun comes in in the morning and it's so beautiful to reset my circadian rhythms. But yeah...

Do you sleep with blackout shades?

Amy: No. I wish we had that. We sleep with the full light in our room. It's not so much—it's medium. But yeah, I do wish we had that, but it does make me a little off balance when I do wake up in a hotel room with blackout shades. But I mean now that I know how to calm my system down, I know when it's all revved up. I have these talks that I do for myself to get myself back in my body. I just kind of try to ground back into my heart because I'm in my head so much and my head is going a million miles an hour of what I'm going to do next.

Elissa: What do you talk to yourself?

Amy: I do all the time. All the time.

Elissa: Me too. All the time. You have in the car, the car, the shower, my bathroom, everywhere. I was talking to myself walking down the street yesterday and this woman walked by and I was like, "Maybe she thinks I have headphones and you don't." And talking on the phone. But I didn't and I was just talking to myself. I was like, "Oh, I'm a total psycho."

Amy: Yeah, I do have conversations all the time. What is that? I don't know. Well, my therapist said to me a lot of times to get yourself into a place where you really want to be, pretend you are having a conversation with somebody. What makes you feel great or what calms you down or whatever the question is, and then talk to yourself about it. Hey, this is what calms me down, or this is what makes me feel great or makes me feel like me. It is a little bizarre, but...

Elissa: I don't like confrontation. I was just having this conversation with my girlfriend. I really don't like it. I really am anti-confrontation, which if you know me really well, it might be shocking. I'll get everything on the table. So if I feel like there's going to be some tough conversation, let's say I will have that conversation or where I think that conversation will go out loud with yourself before you do it kind of over and over again.

Amy: So I was having one of those on a walk with the dog yesterday. It's like going back and forth. Am I schizophrenic? Am I a total crazy person doing it?

Elissa: I think it's good to play out those things. I think so. They don't always go the way you expect, but at least it does take away a little bit of the fear of having the confrontation. I don't either. I hate those. I hate them.

Amy: I know. And somehow to me that's kind of grounding, like getting the anxiety out of my brain and once it's out and my voice puts it out in the world, I feel like it's better. Does that make sense?

Elissa: It does. Makes sense. Totally. It does. You don't want it recirculating in your head continually and being worried whether it's on paper or talking out loud. You do need to do that.

Amy: Very. And sometimes a supportive or a conversation you really feel like you have to have with someone—sometimes if you just have it out loud, then you don't even need to have it anymore. Interesting. Does it happen when you are really angry with someone or you feel really upset with someone or you're sad or hurt? Sometimes it just has to get out of your body.

Elissa: Yeah. No, it's not weird. At one point I had an energy healer who I loved. I had many energy healers. That's a whole other podcast. I mean millions of energy healers. Oh my God. And one of them, this guy who was fantastic, had me write down what made me anxious and for a month straight every day for 30 days. And I sometimes was writing the same thing down. This person makes me anxious. My mom makes me anxious and I'd write it down every day for 30 days. And then it got out of my system and I didn't feel anxious around them or about it, about the situation. You're right. It does work. I always thought it was

This interview has been edited for length and clarity