3 Tips to Better Navigate Relationships with Your Aging Parents || with Jody Moore

Learn why there may be a disconnect, what to do about it, and who is the one that can change.

Relationships are complicated. Biggest, “duh” statement ever right? We all know that, but it never ceases to surprise me, my friends, and women all across this community how relationships hold both the purpose of life, and often its greatest challenge too.

In particular, I've heard from many of you about your relationship with your parents as you both age. In today's episode, podcaster and author Jody Moore joins me to dive into why this happens and what to do about it. In the second half of the episode we switch things up with an eye-opening "Dear Jody," segment, in which she answers listener submissions on this very topic.

Whether you're seeking more connection, unsure of how to set boundaries, or just need reassurance that this is indeed a tough thing to navigate, then this is the conversation for you.

About a few other things...

Reclaim your creative power and rediscover who you actually are! If you’re ready to come back home to yourself, to be able to say that you know who you are and what matters to you, take my foundation course, “Finding Me.” It’s OK that you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way; but as you learn to anchor back into who you are and align your life to what matters to you, you’ll find that you have more strength, more fulfilment, and more creativity to bring to your important roles and responsibilities.

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SHOW NOTES
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Songs Credit: Pleasant Pictures Music Club

TRANSCRIPT

Monica: Welcome back to about progress, Jody. It's so great to have you.

Jody: Thank you for having me, Monica. I'm so happy to be here. 

Monica: It was quite the, the thing for me to really puzzle my way through. What do I wanna talk to Jodi more about? Because the, the answer is everything. But I was able to narrow it down to something that comes up not only within my circle of friends, but also in my larger community of how we as women tend to struggle as adults with our aging parents who are also adults and just that confusing complex, but yet still a really important relationship and how to navigate that in a better way. So. Before we dig into everything I wanted to hear more from your experience and your community, what you've seen there about how common do you think it is that people struggle with their relationship with their aging parents and why it still has such an effect on us, even though we are grownups after all.

Jody: It's so common. In fact, I think not struggling in this area is very uncommon. In my experience anyway, and maybe that's because people are coming to me with problems. They're not coming to me necessarily to share the areas where everything's working. But I, I think it's definitely a very common challenge.

And you know, I've thought a lot about what is the reason why I just think that we have so much subconscious...

Monica: ..Hmm.

Jody: ...baggage, maybe you would call it or just programming emotional experiences from being raised by these people. Right. During our really formative times of our lives, we're interacting with these people and there's so much change that's happening both at our end, as we grow up and mature and evolve and start to become the people that we choose to become, instead of the people that our parents are trying to mold us into, we're changing rapidly and our parents are changing right, as they get older. And they're evolving dynamic people as well, even though they, you know, we start out knowing them as mature adults, they still are changing and evolving.

And I think the degree of change the emotion tied to the experiences and the way our brains are forming when we're young and how that impacts us, makes this. Possibly the most challenging relationship of our lives. I really do think that

Monica: Like as a parent, I kind of feel dread when you say that. But at the same time, just being able to accept that as a fact, both for ourselves as we're navigating relationships with our aging adult parents. And as we become that aging adult parent, and trying to navigate it with our younger adult children, just even knowing that's something that we're going to have to keep working on is kind of a empowering relief.

Jody: Yeah. And I think, I, I don't mean to say like, we're all doomed. Our kids are gonna hate us. cause I've asked myself that too, like, am I doomed to just like, I have good...I feel like I have healthy, good relationships with my kids. And I have a couple teenagers even, and I feel like we have good relationships and I ask myself all the time, is that gonna change at some point?

Are, are we doomed to that? That's not what I'm saying, what I'm saying, is that being aware of it? Like you said, Monica, knowing that, that this is a common challenge, I think means that we can even be preventative in ways. So for example, my daughter, who is almost 15, goes to a therapist every Friday after school and she doesn't have you know, like clinical anxiety or anything like that, she doesn't have anything that in my generation, anyone would've said, maybe you should talk to a therapist. She just wants someone to talk to that's not her mom or dad. I think that's a very healthy thing. And so I said, okay, she she's actually the one who said, mom, I think I wanna start seeing a therapist.

And I was like, all right. So we found a therapist that she talks to. And I, you know, she tells me little bits of what they talk about and I'm in touch with the therapist a little, and it's nothing. It's just the kinds of conversations that she and I have, but she wants someone to talk to. Who's not her mom and I totally get that.

And I'm happy to pay for that because I know how challenging the parent child relationship is. So even little things that we can do like that just preventatively, I think, you know, can be useful.

Monica: I love that example because especially because you didn't make that something about you,

Jody: Yeah.

Like you talk to a therapist, I'll pay the bill. It's a win

Monica: yeah, love it. You definitely practice what you preach.

Jody: I do have one theory that I find to be really helpful, again, about why this relationship is so challenging for us and for our aging parents. Right. It's challenging on both ends. And so I like to think about when we're babies we're in the very low, what we might call one down position, right?

Like we can't do anything on our own. We're completely dependent on our parents who are the capable ones. And then as we get older, even by the time we're toddlers, we can do some things on our own. And we suddenly want to do some of those things on our own. And then as we continue to grow and become teenagers, again, we can do even more.

And we make decisions on our own and we become more mature. And the natural way of things is that the, our, our sort of one down in relation to ship to our parents should slowly be moving up closer to where the parents are. And then there's this weird crossing point, maybe like late teenage years, early adult years for the, the kids at, which were sort of equal technically.

And 

Monica: Mm-hmm 

Jody: the parent starts to move into more the one down position in many cases as their health declines, physically, maybe even their mental health declines, right. As we get older and, and now the child becomes the more capable, maybe more responsible one. And that is really uncomfortable for people, especially if we don't allow the change to happen.

If we don't allow, if, if the parents don't allow the child to take on more responsibility or. Children don't recognize that they're more capable and that their parents aren't perfect. And maybe don't even know more than them in, in a healthy way. Then it, it just causes friction. I feel like we fight against what should be a natural change.

Monica: Okay.

Jody: So anyway,

Monica: that all makes sense. I feel like we can, all, we all know what that shift is like, and, and the, the tug of war that comes with that internally and oftentimes externally, too in navigating it. So you brought up a, a shift in roles can often be that one of the big factors. What are some other common issues that you see, or you know, similar to the role shifts, what factors are coming up for people that are challenging this relationship.

Jody: I would say the kinds of issues I see most commonly are, first of all, unmet expectations. Okay. So if we're, if we're talking about this from the perspective of the adult child, right then it's I coach just as often on, I don't understand why. My mom doesn't watch my kids sometimes she's not more helpful or she doesn't come and wanna come and visit us.

She doesn't wanna be involved in our lives. I coach on that just as often as the opposite. I don't understand why my mom won't give us space. Why does she think she has to be at every soccer game or come to everything? Right. So it's, it's like. Two sides of the same coin, which is I have a picture of how my mom should be in my life at this point, what kind of grandma?

She should be, et cetera. And she's not doing it right.

Monica: Hmm. Yeah. And vice versa.

Jody: And vice versa. Yes. Yeah, of course it goes both. I see that a lot. And then I, it, it also another version of that is just sort of judgment in general of, I can't believe they're not taking COVID more seriously or I can't believe they're so nervous about COVID and they don't just relax or I can't believe my dad lets my mom do these things or my mom lets my dad talk to her that way.

It's, you know, as we become more mature and now we, we have a little bit wider perspective on our parents, on their marriage, on their life, on their money, et cetera. Then we start to have judgment of it. And I think that can be dangerous.

Monica: Okay.

Jody: Yeah.

Monica: So we have shifting roles, unmet expectations, judgment. I'm sure there's more, but I feel like those probably are the three most common and all encompassing of what's coming up. So I would like to shift to talking about what to begin to do about this. So if you want you're in this place or at least one of those, and you want to improve your relationship with your aging parents, what are some big picture pieces of advice that you could give to.

Jody: Three things I thought would be helpful to share today. So the first one. I recommend that you redefine your relationship with your mom or dad, or sometimes it's, in-laws even right. And, and when I say redefine, I mean, for yourself, Whether or not, you have a conversation with them about it is another, another story.

Like in some situations maybe that's appropriate. In some cases it's not the main job you have to do is decide for yourself. Who do I want to be in relation to these people? So who do I wanna, what kind of daughter do I want to be? That's a different question than what kind of daughter do I think I should be?

What kind of daughter am I? What is a good daughter supposed to. Right. And that's how most of us are thinking until we pause and slow it down. Sometimes it comes from what we think they think we should be or who we should be in relation to them. And all of that's worth considering I'm not saying what your parents would like of you is irrelevant, but it can't be the final deciding factor or there will always be resentment.

Right. So it's kind of like the idea of periodically. Depending on what's going on. If your parents are aging rapidly, you might have to redefine it every year. Right? If you, if you have parents who are getting older and are now sick and they need your full-time care, your role in their life is totally different.

Right. But if that's not the case, it might be enough to do it every three years or so, and just redefine. Okay. So based on now where I am in my life, where my kids are in their lives, what, what we're doing and what's going on with my parents, Who do I want to be in relation to them? It's a actually tough question to answer, but really important.

Monica: Well, I think it's tough, but like you said, vital, so there's gonna there. You're gonna have to dig deep on that, but also it's so clarifying, it removes all those, the shoulds that's supposed to. So I find that really helpful.

Jody: yeah, definitely.

Monica: Okay. So what's the next one you have

Jody: okay, so the second one I have. And this kind of speaks to what we talked about earlier with the sh the shifting levels of accountability and things. I think it's helpful to remember that you may be more capable. At least in some areas of being a human, then your parents are now.

And again, that's a hard thing for us because we, we grew up being the less capable ones. They were always taking care of us. So I think this is obvious to see physically, right? At some point, my kids are gonna be physically more capable than I am. My Health's gonna decline as they, as they grow and mature and get stronger.

And so at some point that will likely happen physically for many people that happens financially, many, many. Times kids go on to become more successful financial than their parents were. Okay. So those are like, kind of the easy ones to see. And I feel like with those two, we tend to not be resentful.

Right? In most cases, most kids are not resentful. If they have an aging parent and they choose to take care of them, they're not like, geez, mom, why can't you get up the stairs anymore? Right. But the one that we're not as consciously aware of where we do build resentment is emotionally. I think that younger generations, like I look at my kids, they are emotionally healthier than I was at their age because they're being taught things in schools that we just weren't taught.

We, our awareness and our understanding of mental health and emotional health, it just continues to get better. So they're emotionally healthier. And they, by the time they're my age, they'll probably be emotionally healthier than I am right now at my age. Right. So if we look at our parents, then they may, and this isn't always the case, but you may have parents that are emotionally less capable or less aware or less mature than you are.

And that's okay. That's not a reason to judge them and get mad or think, you know, look back on your childhood. It's tempting to look back and go, oh, I can't believe they taught me this thing or they didn't do it this way. And they did the best they could. Right. And so, you know, better maybe, or are more capable or more mature or what have you.

Okay. So let. Take on that role then of being the emotionally mature one. It's okay. I promise you can still have a healthy relationship, but it sort of comes from that acknowledgement of like, I might be the one who's a little bit more mature emotionally.

Monica: I never would've thought of that one.

Jody: Yeah.

Monica: Makes a lot of sense, even for now, but thinking of my, my children too, never would've thought of that.

Jody: And what's hard is a lot of people. Tend to, especially if you don't live in the same town as your parents, maybe you only see 'em once a year or something. Right. We tend to, when we go home or go to where mom and dad are, for some reason, a part of us wants to revert back to our less mature selves. Right.

We go back to like, wait, I know there's like, it's not my turn to do the dishes. It's your turn to do the dishes. Then you're like, wait a second. Like, I'm happy to help with the dishes. So it's easy for us. For some reason when we get in that environment or around our parents revert back to our less emotionally mature selves,

Monica: Yeah.

Jody: you don't have to do that.

All you have to do is be consciously aware of it in order to override that function. But anyway,

Monica: I'm curious how that relates to one other thing I see going with that is reverting back to the role you were prescribed within your family structure. Like you're the funny one or you're, you're the one who is so Spacey, you never follow through or you're the one who can never be wrong. You're the know at all.

Jody: Mm-hmm yes, I think we definitely, I mean, we just tend to fall back into our old roles. Right. Whether they were given to us or we took them on or what have you we move away. We are often able to work through things and then we go home and fall right back into it, at least in moments.

Monica: Mm-hmm

Jody: Again, it, it's not, it's not impossible to not do. It's just, again, rather than let yourself just be on default. I like to do what I call pre-coaching. If I'm gonna be in a situation that I think might be challenging for me to keep being my best self. I do some pre-coaching, which is okay, what do I wanna think? Who do I wanna be while I'm there?

And I try to picture myself in the certain settings. Like if my brother does point at me and go, oh yeah, you are always the one who's so high maintenance or whatever. How do I wanna think about it? And, and what do I wanna believe about myself and my brother or my family, or what have you. And so it's like a little bit of just being aware of it in advance will go a really, really long way.

Monica: Okay. No, that makes total sense. And what's, what's your next.

Jody: and then the third one I have is and again, we touched a little bit on this, but I think with that with our, our parents and the way they're living their lives, we have to be aware of judgment, disguised as love. I think it's really easy to. Develop, you know, we all, as adults have our own opinions, our own views of the world.

And sometimes our parents aren't living that way. And sometimes we can see how our parents just like they used to do with us. Ironically, we can see how they are limiting their lives or they're causing themselves misery or unhappiness, or they're putting themselves in danger in our opinions. And so it's easy to have judgment of their life, but to call it well, it's just because I love them. Like, I tend to do this with my dad because he watches the news like all day and then he gets, and then he gets worried about things going on in the world. And I'm constantly like dad stop watching the news so much. Like it's, it's just warping your perception.

Think, and it's not, I just don't think it's useful to watch as much news as you watch. Right. And to me, that feels like it's cuz I love my dad. I don't wanna see him worried, but the truth is it's judgemental, right? It is because a part of me thinks, Ugh, he's so foolish. If he would just listen to what I'm saying.

Right. And, and that's just one tiny example. We do this in all kinds of ways, but our parents have agency. Just like us and they're supposed to, and we can't possibly know how they should live their lives. And sometimes we take on the burdens that are theirs and that's, I, I heard Rob bell say this recently that I keep repeating.

He said, if it feels heavy, it's because you've taken on a burden that isn't yours to carry.

Monica: Wow.

Jody: Excess weight that we carry around decisions that our, our aging parents are making is because we've crossed the line into their business. It'd be one thing if, if my dad's asking me for help, but he is not, he's just telling me what he saw on the news.

Monica: Wow. Each of those were so impactful to me. And, and like, there's kind of a thread here just being aware of these is often the first step, but the most easy to overlook or forget about just even being aware and then what comes next is how to actually move through it better. Which all of your work teache.

How to do, how to do it better. So I actually am wondering if you'd be willing to do something a little different with me, you know, that dear Abby column growing up I've had some scenario sent in and I thought we could do like a dear Jody. Now let's do a quick disclaimer though and say and not like the whole, like, Official don't get sued, disclaimer, but more of a, more of a, this is not, if you were able to do a coaching session with each of these people, you'd be able to go to a lot more depth, get a lot more answers, a lot more circumstance around what you're gonna share with them. So this is more of like one piece of advice. Just even one piece of advice you could give to this person who is facing this scenario.

Jody: I love it.

Monica: Okay. So we'll just do a couple and see and see how many we get through. Okay. Here's the first one. Dear Jody. I used to be really close to my dad. but the last few years have really fractured our relationship. He does not meet eye to eye with me politically, socially, or even religiously because of that, I feel like I can't speak near as openly as I used to with things that really matter to me. And it's very painful. What advice do you have on this situation?

Jody: Such a good one. What I would offer to this person is to remember that closeness, right. Connection, we might say in a relationship is something that happens internally. It happens in your mind and in your heart. We tend to think of it as something that happens externally. Like if I can share my thoughts and my dad hears me out and we can have conversations, right.

Then we're close and connected, but connection comes from the way you're thinking and feeling about your dad.

Monica: Hmm. Okay.

Jody: I mean, that's why, like, you know, Monica people who listen to your podcast and people who listen to me on my podcast tell me that they feel like we're best friends. I've never even spoken to them.

Right. You've never even met people who feel so close to you. They feel so connected to you because of the way they think about you. And so it might be that the type of connection's gonna shift a little bit, it might be that you don't get to have dialogue around topics like you used to. I mean, you always can, but if it's too challenging to maintain how you wanna feel, then it's okay not to do that. The way you're thinking about your dad right now is disconnecting you. You're wanting him to be different. You're wanting him to still have more similar views than you do, but what if you dropped all of that and you decided it's a beautiful thing that he views the world, he, the way he does. And I view it the way I do, and I just love him.

And I want him to go towards what he feels good about. Just like I'm gonna go towards what I feel good about and whether you have again, conversations around that or not. I don't know, but you've gotta clean up the way you're thinking and feeling about your dad. That's what connects you.

Monica: Thank you for that. The next one is kind of related. Dear Jody, growing up, I never went through a big rebellious phase with my parents. I always had a lot of respect and love for them, but I've been surprised as an adult by how disillusioned I feel about them. I find myself feeling resentful, angry, or even a little rebellious, and it's made it hard for me to have strong relationships with them.

What should I do?

Jody: Yeah, this is such a great example of what we were talking about, where the dynamic shifts from the one down, one up position. I think you go through this point, a lot of people go through this stage at which you realize like as young kids, we kind of think. Especially. If we have, like, what we would say are decent parents, then we tend to think that they know everything and they're so wise and they're so they're never afraid and they just take care of me.

And that's an amazing thing to have that experience as a child, but then you get older and you realize, oh wait a second. They don't know everything. And in fact, they are afraid and, and they make mistakes. And actually I can look back on my past and see mistakes that now I think they made. And so that feels unsettling to us. But again to remember that they've always been imperfect. They've always been human beings. We just weren't able to see that at some point. And it's a very good thing for you to understand that. And it doesn't mean that they're any less lovable or amazing or valuable today than they were when you were three years old and thought that they held the world in their hands. So you weren't wrong then. And you're wor you're not wrong now. And it's also just your perception. That's changing. It's not your parents changing. And so you have to sit with the discomfort of it a little bit, but it is available to you to shift through it. If you remember that kind of like we talked about, you may be more capable than them in some ways, and that's okay.

And that's a very good thing.

Monica: Fantastic. Okay. The next one, dear Jody, I am a new young mother and find myself making decisions that are different than the way my mom raised me. When I talked to her about them, just sharing my points of views, she gets very defensive, even though I'm not on the attack and I'm not judging her, how can I have more confidence in my own decisions?

And how much should I actually share with my mom about my parenting choices?

Jody: Mm, good questions. So one of the things that I like to point out and have to remind myself of all the time is that. I am not responsible for other people's emotions. So in this situation, I would say you're not responsible for your mom's emotions. It doesn't mean that you don't care how she feels.

Doesn't mean you're not considerate of, like, if I tell her this thing, it might hurt her feelings. Right. I, of course we're considerate, but we're, we're never responsible. We're never in charge of how people feel. That's step one, step two. I am a hundred percent responsible for my emotions. Okay. We tend to get them confused.

We think like my mom hurt my feelings and I feel bad that I hurt her feelings. We cross them. Right. So we wanna begin by separating that out. So if I feel insecure or this, this young mom is saying, I like, how can I feel confident about my decisions? Well, you just have to decide. To get your own back and believe that you're doing what feels right.

And that half of what you're doing, you're gonna look back at one day maybe and go, maybe that wasn't right. And that's, doesn't, it's still the way of it. That's called being a mom, being a human, right. So you have to choose to be competent in your decisions. If you wanna be confident, don't wait for your mom to validate it.

It's not her job. It's your job. And then second of all, again, be considerate of your. mom Think when you ask, you know, when she asks, how much should I share with her? Well, that's a personal decision. Like what's my reason for sharing it. If I'm gonna tell her this, because I'm trying to get her validation that it's a good decision or a little part of me wants to stick it to her and point out how she didn't do it.

Right. Then that's probably not my best reasoning, but if I'm just feeling like connecting and sharing this with my mom, then I'm gonna dis I'm gonna let go of being in charge of how she feels. I might say if she suddenly feels attacked, right? I might say, mom, I'm so sorry. You feel attacked. That's not what I meant at it by that at all, but it's still not my responsibility to own it.

I just use it as information going forward.

Monica: Okay, so many layers to each

Jody: I know.

Monica: but you are somehow hitting them all. It's amazing to watch. Do you have time for one last

Jody: Yeah, totally.

Monica: Okay. Dear, Jody, my husband and I are now approaching middle age, which means our children are getting older and we are really intent on creating strong relationships with them and spend more time with them.

The problem is, is that my parents and by nature, all of my siblings want to spend massive amountsof time together, including any vacations we go on. I am feeling like the tide is shifting and I'm ready to spend more time with my own family, but I'm having a hard time separating myself without offending all of them.

Jody: Mm. Okay. This is a good one for point number one that we talked about, where I would suggest that this person redefine your relationship with your family. Because again, you're at a point. Or, you know, like she said, my kids are getting older. I wanna spend time with them time without all of the extended family, cuz that minimizes the interaction that we get to have.

Right. So it's time for you to redefine. The way you want to live your life with regards to your immediate family and your extended family. And again, it doesn't have to be a big conversation necessarily. It might just be like, I've decided that I want to go on a vacation with my extended family once a year.

But the rest of the time is just my immediate family. Or maybe I don't want to travel with all of them at all for the next few years. Right. Whatever you decide to define it as I know we develop these traditions, right. And then it feels hard to break out of if you're used to getting together with all your family every Sunday night, you get together for dinner and suddenly you decide that you kind of want something different, then it feels so dramatic.

To step out of it, but it's only dramatic if you make it dramatic in your might you just decide at this point, the way I want to be in relation to my family is this. I want to have Sunday dinner once every three months and the rest we do on our own or what have you. And then you communicate that with love, right?

When it comes down to it. Hey, listen, extended family. I love you guys so much. This is one of the principles I teach is telling the truth, but you have to tell the whole truth. Okay. The truth. Isn't just, I love you guys. And I don't, I'm not coming for Sunday dinners anymore, or we're not traveling with you anymore.

The truth is also, and I feel really bad because I'm afraid you're gonna get your feelings hurt. And I'm afraid. You're gonna think that this is because we don't love you. And it has nothing to do with that. It, I just really want some individual time with my older kids before they leave the house. And if you do choose to get mad, you totally can.

You have good reason to, and I love you anyway, and I'll be right here. If you wanna talk, like that's the whole truth, right? The, and, and maybe the whole truth for some people is I haven't been being honest actually for the last couple years, I sort of this sort of. For me these Sunday dinners or these trips together.

But I do it because I love you. And I know some of you love it and some of my family loves it, but we're gonna make a change now. And this is the reason why, and we love you and we hope that you're not offended. We hope you understand, but you get to feel however you want to. And I just love you. So it's, it's redefining what you want.

Not thinking that because you've been doing it one way, you have to keep doing it that way and then tell the whole truth. The whole truth is messy and it doesn't really make sense and it requires vulnerability, but the whole truth is so lovable. Usually it's hard for us to resist somebody who's being genuine and vulnerable and open in the end.

Monica: That's another common thread. Be behind everything you've taught us today. To lead with love and how even setting boundaries that can be complicated or messy or uncomfortable and having hard conversations or doing things differently, it can still be done with love and with you being the person you want to be and showing up has that person, which gives me a lot of hope.

Jody: That's right. It it's so much more honest though, than what we do, what the alternative is, which is pretending and people pleasing and then resenting and blaming them for how we feel. That's actually, the vulnerability is kind of scary, but it's a useful kind of. Of discomfort. It's discomfort. That is gonna move you closer to who you wanna be, and usually is healthy for relationships.

The other kind of discomfort keeps you stuck in spinning in a place that you can never get out of until you choose the vulnerability. So, yeah.

Monica: And that's a vulnerability. I hope, you know, I can choose better as well as all the women who are listening to have the courage to lean into the one that's going to make things ultimately feel better, even if it's not everyone happy, like not everyone is happy with what you are doing. So let's actually talk about your book better than happy.

I'm gonna hold it up, even though nobody's gonna see this video. It is so well done. I love how it's so principle based. I love how it's structured. And also it's like a book of dear Jody's. It's, it's, it's both the big picture that people need to have as well as how to apply it practically in their lives.

I wanted to just hear, like, what have you loved about having this book out and what do you hope people take away from.

Jody: Yeah. Thank you. It's been so much fun having this book available. I tried to create a book that was both a spiritual book, so there is a, a large spiritual component for anyone that's spiritual and then a practical tools. Like how do I, for me, that's what happened when I found coaching was I've, I've been a member of the LDS faith, my whole life.

And and pretty much always believed it. But then when I found coaching, I realized, oh, this is how I do all these things that I've been trying to do, for example forgiveness. Right? How do you, I, I wanna forgive, we all agree. It's useful. We should Christ, forgave, everyone. And we, we all understand that it's to our benefit to forgive, but how do you forgive someone if they really did do something that we all would agree is really terrible.

And then they're not even apologetic. You just forgive 'em it's just that easy. No, it's not that easy. And so I tried to connect the dots on what, for me has been really powerful in my life, which is what I, what I believe from a, a spiritual aspect and then the tools of human behavior and the way the brain works and the way emotions work and how you put the two together.

So that's been really fun.

Monica: Well for the record, my favorite chapters were grace, agency, love one another and I'm like, okay, can see how that all has to relate to relationships and my own, my own struggles with, with that as an adult, which is ironically why you're here today and how it comes all full circle. So we'll, where should they get the book?

Is it about anywhere they can

Jody: Yeah. I mean, Amazon is probably the easiest place to get it in all the versions. If you like an audio book, you can get that or Kindle or whatever Amazon or at Des book or faith matters.

Monica: Okay, great. If they wanna learn more from you, where should they go.

Jody: Yeah. You can just have a podcast also called better than happy. Or you can find me online, Jody moore.com. So.

Monica: Fantastic, Jody, this has been a privilege for me. Thank you so much for being here.

Jody: Thank you for having me. It's been so fun.