What if your inability to change isn't a failure of willpower, but your heart's way of protecting you from something you're not ready to face?

Today I’m sharing a conversation I had with Meghan Telpner for the Courageous Pivot podcast about how my journey from overworking addiction to radical life redesign began with a simple question: "Why does this make sense?"

I reveals how addressing my relationship with food became the gateway to confronting deeper questions about worth, identity, and what success actually means—and why healing often requires becoming a beginner all over again. From my journey through cancer, infertility, and postpartum menopause to finally redefining wealth as "freedom over my time," we get into how having the courage to slow down and listen to your body's wisdom can unlock transformations you never imagined possible.

Essential listening for anyone measuring busyness instead of impact, struggling to make changes they know they need, or ready to understand why their body might be wiser than their ambition.

We discuss:

• Why only 1 in 7 heart attack survivors actually change their diet and lifestyle—even when they know it could save their lives
• The hidden cost of measuring busyness instead of impact and how it perpetuates chronic exhaustion
• The developmental reason we spend the first half of life proving we can exert our will on the world—and what the second half requires
• Why food (and overwork) are “almost addictive”—soothing just enough to quiet the alarm but never enough to meet the actual need
• What “immunity to change” reveals about the knowing-doing gap and why willpower will never be the answer
• How cultural conditioning around productivity and “earning your worth” gets embedded in our nervous systems
• The question that transforms self-judgment into constructive self-compassion

Connect with Meghan:

• Visit Meghan’s website
• Listen to the Courageous Pivot Podcast

Mentioned in this episode:

• Culinary Nutrition: How to Cook for Health and Taste with Meghan Telpner – Insatiable Season 12, Episode 2
• Enneagram: personality types
• Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey — published by Harvard Business Review Press
• Rest, Play, Grow by Dr. Deborah MacNamara
• Nourished by Dr. Deborah MacNamara — available through her foundation website
• Laura McKowen — writer on sobriety whose rule "it's not your fault, bu

Send me (Ali) a text message.

⏰ TIME IS TICKING. Save $100 on my Truce with Food: Consistency Group Program (savings expire on February 13th)

We start on February 25th.
This 12-week live group program will help you quiet your food noise, build lasting habits, and end emotional eating—without white knuckling your way through another plan. Dive into program details and grab your spot before the $100 off offer disappears. Visit: trucewithfood.com/programs/consistency