More About the Podcast
The Verywell Mind Podcast is available across all streaming platforms.
If you like the show, pleaseleave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
Links and Resources
Episode Transcript
For press inquiries, just contact press@verywellmind.com.
Verywell / Julie Bang
Welcome to the Verywell Mind podcast.
And the fun part is, we record the show from a sailboat in the FL Keys.
Now lets dive into todays episode.
Today, Im talking to actress and author Ali Landry about how to reshape your life.
Ali first came into the spotlight as Miss Louisiana Teen USA in 1990.
She won the Miss USA title in 1996 and then starred in an iconic Super Bowl commercial advertising Doritos.
Shes gone on to star in several movies and shes written a book called Shape Your Life.
But Alis life hasnt always been easy.
She went through a very public marriage that was annulled after only two weeks.
The breakup was featured in tabloids across the globe.
She remarried years later and her father-in-law and brother-in-law were kidnapped and murdered.
Ali is speaking out about what the highs and lows of her life have taught her so far.
Instead, she decided to take back her life.
check that to stick around until the end of the episode for the therapists take.
So heres Ali Landry on how to reshape your life.
Amy Morin: Ali Landry, welcome to The Verywell Mind podcast.
Ali Landry:Thank you so much.
It’s such a pleasure to be joining you.
So excited to have this conversation.
Amy Morin: Me too.
So your new book is called Reshape Your Life: Don’t Settle Because You’re Worth It.
I love the title-
Ali Landry: Thank you.
But I’ve never heard anybody frame it quite this way about reshaping your life.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Ali Landry: For me, it was really just about giving.
I always think of my girlfriends in Louisiana.
And the idea of saying…
I thought about it so much, what that title would be, what that title would be.
It’s like I want to give them permission.
Reshape your life, it’s never too late.
That’s the whole idea.
It’s never too late to create a life you love.
So that’s what that was.
And again, that permission, you are worth it.
And if nobody else is going to tell you that, I want to tell you that.
Amy Morin: Yeah, that’s a really important message.
And do I have the confidence to get out there and venture to make it happen?"
Ali Landry: Absolutely.
Life, [inaudible 00:02:25] life happen.
Is this what I expected for myself?
Did I want more for myself?
Did I do the things I loved?
Did I do the things that set my soul on fire?"
And I think sharing our stories…
I always say when you speak from the heart, you connect to the heart of another human being.
I really strive very hard not to walk around with a mask or pretending everything is okay.
Do you have to say all those things?"
But I really just make a run at walk around cracked open because I really desire that true connection.
If I can open up to another human being, they are more likely to open up to me.
And that’s when I’m inspired.
I did it recently with a girlfriend of mine who again is turning 50.
I’m going to check off a list."
And it was simple things.
I don’t know, what do you connect a modem to?
That’s the internet, right?
Amy Morin: Right.
Ali Landry: And I can’t call anybody.
I can’t ask a friend to come over.
I have to read the instructions and do it myself.
Simple things like that.
But it’s by sharing that you really have that true human connection.
We’re on social media, we’re on the internet.
We’re not connect.
And then we had COVID.
So people I feel like are little disconnected.
Like, oh no, things are good.
And it’s right, struggle to say, actually, I have problems too, and I struggle.
Ali Landry: Yeah.
And I felt like I had a great childhood.
I have a great family, grew up in a beautiful community.
I didn’t have a lot of horrible things that happened to me.
Not until my, let’s see, 20s.
And up until that I was like, “Gosh, I’m a pretty boring person.”
And it’s when I was hit hard by life, which we all will.
It’s how we choose to move forward or move through it.
But I did do the work.
I definitely went in and did the work, and I share all of that in the book.
And I call it your heart shape, your soul shape, your mind shape, your health shape.
Amy Morin: And you do.
You dive into that.
Ali Landry: I just to say, it was so public that Oprah shot the wedding.
Amy Morin: Wow.
And before that happened, it all came crashing down.
It was really hard for me because it was really public and I had a choice.
My mother kept saying, “Why aren’t you angry?”
And again, it is just not the place that my heart wanted to go.
I wanted to grow because I did not want it to happen again.
I’m looking for the book here.
I had a purpose-driven life journal and I was reading it was a passage from the Bible.
And then I could journal from that reflecting onto those specific times.
And that was not an option for me, for sure.
I was with him, I chose to.
So I needed to take a little bit of responsibility of why I stayed.
That we always have a choice.
I just knew that I needed to work through it.
And I think it’s partly because I was always into self-help books.
I was Tony Robbins and Robin Sharma and Joel Olsteen and Dale Carnegie.
Amy Morin:And there are different kinds of hardships that we face.
Sometimes there’s things that maybe we were part of that we make one poor choice and it snowballs.
I take some responsibility."
There are other things that happened to us that we had no part in.
And you went through other tragedies in your life that were absolutely not your fault.
Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Ali Landry: Sure.
I call them in the book, the whole idea is reshapes.
And that one was even harder because we lost two family members in the most horrific situation.
And to wrap your head around that sort of loss for one person is difficult.
But for two, I couldn’t.
I think we were in a fog for just a really, really long time.
But again, we were presented with a choice.
How are we going to move forward in our lives?
How are we going to move forward?
What do we want?
And the realization was, life is short.
Tomorrow is not promised, and we only have this moment.
We have no control.
All can do is show up as our best selves every single day.
And every single day we fail.
Every single day we fail, but allowing ourselves, give ourselves grace a little bit around that.
And it was just a really, really tough time.
We 100% live our lives differently, that’s for sure.
We don’t take things for granted.
Well, in southern California, we could never in a million years afford a property on the beach.
I was like, you’re free to’t do that.
And an opportunity presented itself in Mexico, not very far from Los Angeles.
And it was crazy.
It just made no sense.
This is something you desire.
This is something you want, we’re going to do it.
We’re going to do it.
It may not make sense, but it makes sense for us."
And we did it and it’s been such a huge blessing.
So we just live life a little bit differently cause of these things, I think.
Amy Morin: And that’s exactly why I live on a boat.
And so that’s why I ended up living on a boat as well.
And how do I change my life?"
But how did you get through that without…
I guess, do you have a lot of anxiety concerns about your safety?
Worries about other people in your family?
Because I know sometimes when something bad happens to someone, it makes us worry about them.
But in your case, bad people did bad things to your family.
How do you get through that?
Ali Landry: I took the lead from my husband.
So that’s a little worrisome.
I didn’t go there for a really long time.
Definitely was not taking my kids there.
But my husband refuses to live in fear.
I think that’s what it is.
He just refuses to live in fear.
He’s not going to let it stop him.
He talks me off the ledge.
And my husband also did a movie about human trafficking.
You layer that on top of, with our kids.
So we are definitely maybe a little more careful.
I feel like so many people…
I had it around this book.
Fear presents itself in our lives.
When we want to do something, then fear just overwhelms us.
You’re on your boat just living your best life.
Now we have our little beach house.
I didn’t want to do this book.
I had a lot of fear around it.
I was like, “Who would listen to me?
What do I have to say?
I’m still in my journey.”
That was not on my bucket list to do, but maybe I need to.
It also was that surrender moment.
It came in for a reason.
I need to have faith and I need to surrender because this wouldn’t be showing up otherwise.
I had the fear.
And I feel like because of that, I will always have a connection with these women.
Amy Morin: And it’s always the fear of the worst case scenario that we have.
And then when you start to do those things, usually those fears are unfounded.
But you could waste so much time thinking all of the what ifs.
What if you had bought this place in Mexico?
What if you didn’t write the book and all of the bad things that might happen.
Ali Landry: And that’s something that you say the what ifs.
These women, I gathered the wellness community there, they didn’t even know existed.
I pulled them all out of the woodwork.
They were doing incredible work.
And I also brought in experts to speak to them, just a different perspective.
We’re just going to start the process.
Or What if I just didn’t do that?
Why don’t I just do it?
What’s holding me back?
So I was like, “Well, then that’s a win.”
Amy Morin: I do too.
Because what if you didn’t write a book?
How do you reshape your life?
Ali Landry: Yeah, for sure.
Amy Morin: Another part of your book.
So we talked about the heart, you talk about the spirit and the soul.
You also talk about your mindset in thinking.
Can you talk a little bit about reshaping the way that you think?
Ali Landry: Mindset, I think really honestly fits into every single category.
I’m constantly like, “Nope, nope.”
That gets my mind set in the place where I want it to be.
I just am very specific about what I am grateful for.
I’m so happy I get to take the kids to school today.
I’m so happy I get to do this interview with you today.
I’m so happy that I’m back here and my sleeping in my bed.
Even simple things like that.
Just go straight into gratitude.
And what it looks like is this.
So through my day, well, I’ll give an example.
And I’m just like, that’s so… Let me send it to my girlfriend.
And I was like, “Wait, what?”
She’s like, “Yeah, God sends you a gift every day.
It’s just up to you to recognize it.”
It makes me take in my surroundings.
I’m there like, “Wow.
Look at nature in all its glory.
I’m looking at the mountains.”
I again go into gratitude.
I used to say a lot like, “Ugh, I have to do this.
I have to pick up Marcella.
I got to add in the thing.
I have to see to it I answer the emails.
Now I switch it to, I get to.
And just “have” to “get.”
Another huge shift, huge shift.
I never want my mind to get in my mindset to get in the way of my life.
I also think of it as, it is one of my superpowers.
I talk in the book about superpowers, recognizing our own superpowers and then recognizing the superpowers in others.
Sometimes I confess or if something bad happens, I lose a job or whatever.
Yeah, I might sit in that depression like, oh, I would’ve really liked that job.
That would’ve been great.
May do it for about a day.And then it’s enough as enough.
There’s something better for me.
That would’ve maybe taken too much time away from my kids.
I wouldn’t have devoted it here.
That’s not going to serve my life.
There’s a greater plan.
So I’m able to flip the switch on things pretty easily.
You don’t deserve love.”
You got to change that record player.
You got to flip it to the other side.
For me, it’s just that breathing in the morning.
Again, it’s super simple.
I just, again, get out out of my head.I take a few deep breaths.
I empty out me.
I empty out myself out of my clutter in my brain of the to-do list.
I empty out myself.
And then after it, I journal.
Whatever came in through that meditation.
I get it down on paper.
I will put something good, pour back in the good, and then I go about my day.
And again, it’s a shift.
It’s a shift that happens.
So those simple, simple little practices really changes your mindset and how you move throughout your day.
And I say it as a practice because it really is something, and we fall off the wagon.
So those are things that have really helped me.
And they’re not dependent on your environment being amazing.
Ali Landry: Yeah.
I get myself so worked up, I cannot breathe.
That’s such a powerful practice.
But so often, I think we get caught in thinking, well, I’ll celebrate that later.
We sweep them under the rug.
But can you talk about the importance of celebrating those moments?
Oh, I don’t have time.
It gives me so much.
Honestly, my heart is leaping inside when I tap into that.
So why don’t I do it more?
So I need to remind myself, but how do we do that?
So part of that’s like we got to journal.
We got to have those affirmations.
So I just encourage everybody to do more of that.
Amy Morin: I love that part of your book.
It’s just a reminder of Yeah, why don’t we do that.
Last question for you.
Ali Landry: I would say life is short and you have one life.
You have one life.
Just let that sit for one second.
It’s very short and you have one.
So why wouldn’t you make it great?
It’s up to you.
You have the choice.
And it doesn’t have to be big things.
I don’t want any of this to overwhelm you.
It’s very simple concepts.
It’s the difference of that boat headed to Hawaii or Japan.
So when you think about it like that, why wouldn’t I?
Why wouldn’t I?
So that’s it.
You’ve got to get with it, ladies.
We’ve got to start reshaping.
Amy Morin: I love it.
Ali Landry: … Five degrees would look like.
Amy Morin: Right?
That’s very true.
Ali Landry, thank you so much for being on The Verywell Mind podcast.
Ali Landry: Thank you so much for having me.
I wish I was on that boat with you, honestly.
Amy Morin: Awesome.
The Therapist’s Take
Welcome to the therapists take.
Here are three of my favorite strategies that Ali shared.
To hear more of Alis strategies pick up a copy of her new book Reshape Your Life.
Simply sharing a link to this episode could help someone feel better and grow stronger.
Do you want free access to my online course?
Its called 10 mental strength exercises that will help you reach your greatest potential.
Then, send us a screenshot of your review.
Our email address ispodcast@verywell.comWell reply with your all access pass to the course.
Thank you for hanging out with me today and listening to the VW Mind podcast.
