The 7 Ms That Run Your Life & How to Take Them Back

In this solo episode, Jojo breaks down the 7 Ms framework as a personal audit for every area of your life. From how you start your morning to how you talk about money, this episode is a mirror, not a checklist. Jojo walks through each M with honesty, humor, and real life examples to help you get conscious of where you are thriving and where you are quietly leaking energy. This one is for anyone who has been on autopilot and is ready to take their life back with intention rather than perfection.

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Transcript

Jojo (00:00.172)
Welcome to the Inside Out podcast. I'm your host JoJo and this is where we will navigate the mess together. That is mental, emotional, and spiritual. Let's get messy. Hi everyone. Welcome back. For those of you who don't know me, I'm JoJo and today we're going to be doing something a little bit different. I want to start by sharing with you a screenshot that I found on my phone from a while back called Controlling Your 7Ms.

And those seven M's are your mind, your mouth, your moves, your morning, your meals, your money, and your mood. When I saw this, I thought about, wow, this really correlates and taps into every aspect and area of our life that we can really audit. And if we are constantly on autopilot, which

I know I have been moving through your day without really asking yourself if you're in the driver's seat and conscious of these seven Ms, there's a lot that can go unnoticed and sort of fly under the radar. So today I wanted to break down each of these and have you guys break these down too, not as a checklist, but really as a mirror for where you can shift and adapt and change in your life.

So think of this episode as an audit, a real audit. And you guys, as you know, I will be taking this audit right along with you. So the first is your mind. Your mind is arguably your most valuable asset, but I think it's one that gets the least intentional care. So do me a favor. Think about what you have consumed today.

before we got into this episode. What were you scrolling through on social media? What were you looking at on the internet? What did you turn over and read first thing when you woke up? What news outlet were you looking at? What did you do? What did you consume? Emails immediately? What conversation are you replaying in your mind over and over? What fears are you entertaining? And what did you let in?

Jojo (02:24.752)
to your mental space without really realizing it. Because our mind is not just our thoughts. It's a filter with which we experience life with, that we experience everything with. It's your relationships, your ambitions, your self-worth, and it really does run the show. So the question is not really whether your mind is just busy and just constantly going.

It's more so asking yourself, are you curating what it's busy with? What are you feeding it? What are you allowing to take up space in your mind? And is that space being used in a way that actually serves your life that you're trying to build? I also found this quote by Plato, which says, your reality is created by the mind and we can change our reality by changing our mind.

And that is a standalone speaks for itself, very powerful quote that if we really take a minute or five to audit our mind, we can really change our circumstances, our reality. The second is our mouth. So think about the last conversation you had that can be with someone else or that can be with yourself. That can be the self criticism that you

or playing in your head or when you looked in the mirror and thought a certain negative way about yourself or, whatever it is. But conversations with someone else and with yourself both count. And the mouth is not just about if you're talking to someone about gossip, it's not about talking too much or saying things you regret. Although yes, of course it can also be that, but it's about what you're speaking into existence about your own life. Almost as if

You are manifesting. you narrating your day with words that feel like evidence of how hard things are in your life? Or are you choosing a different kind of language that reflects who you're becoming, who you're growing into? Maybe it's a challenging thing, but the direction that you are going, this is one of the sneakiest Ms because it's almost automatic. We talk all day and we, and we rarely

Jojo (04:52.931)
Think about or audit ourselves with what we say. What do you do when someone asks you how you're doing? Are you immediately like, yep, I'm fine, I'm good, how are you? Is it so automatic they don't even realize what's coming out of your mouth? Think about what you say to yourself in the mirror. Think about what you say about people that you love who aren't even in the room. Your mouth is a very powerful tool. But the question here is, are you using it with intention? The third is moves. And moves,

can be two things. It is how you move your body and as an exercise and how you move through the world. So let's address the physical aspect first. Are you moving your body in a way that makes you feel alive in ways that aren't punishing it, not overperforming for anyone else, but genuinely caring for it in the ways that it needs to be cared for? You only get one body in this lifetime. So are you really taking the right care of it?

Are you exercising in ways that are beneficial for your body? Not someone else's body, not your partner's body, not your friend's body. If running feels good to you, are you running? If Pilates is your thing, are you doing Pilates? If you need to wake up and stretch in the morning, are you doing that? Or are you just neglecting that and going about the other mundane tasks that need to be dealt with? If I don't wake up in the morning and move my body in a little way,

Whether that's a workout or if I can't get to work out until later, if I don't just foam roll or stretch or do a little bit of like resistance bands work, I really feel it. I don't feel like I'm online. I don't feel like I'm available and ready to hold whatever I need to that day. I don't feel like I have the fortitude or the wherewithal to even function. And there are so many days that I don't give myself that space.

that I don't move my body in the way that I know I need to. If I want to take a walk, sometimes I talk myself out of said walk, but I know that my body needs that. I know that my body needs certain things for it to function, for it to be working the correct way. And sometimes we put our to-do list over really what our body needs to do. There's a book called Your Body Keeps the Score. I know we've heard of it.

Jojo (07:21.341)
But it really does. It holds your stress. It holds your joy. It holds your grief, your momentum. So when you stop moving your body, things get stuck. That energy gets stuck. Emotions get stuck. Ideas get stuck. Nothing is free flowing. But movement helps with all of that flow. The other side of move is how you move through the world, how you carry yourself.

The choices you make, the direction that you're heading versus the direction maybe you say you want to head. Your daily moves are adding up to something. It's just, are you moving toward something on purpose or are you just aimlessly going about your life? Not sure which direction to go in because motion and direction are not the same thing. You can be busy, but you might be standing still. Whereas.

You can have a destination and be making conscious choices to continue to move in that direction. Let's go back to a physical movement for a second. If you have a goal and a way that you want your body to feel, you have a destination. Therefore you can make certain adjustments and daily rituals or routines in your life to get there. Maybe you're in chronic pain. What are you going to do daily that reduces that pain? Are you going to allow yourself the

that stretching time, that workout time, that time to literally move your body. The fourth is morning. How do you start your morning? The way you start your morning is the way you start your day and how you start enough days in a row is really how your life unfolds. I know that sounds a little bit dramatic, but it's true. Your morning is the one window

and time in the day where you have the most control before anything and everything else has a chance to demand something from you. Before the notifications start, before the emails start coming in, before everyone else's priorities start competing with your own priorities, before your kids have anything that needs to get done, before your spouse needs something, before the list goes on. So what are you doing in that window? Are you rolling over and opening social media?

Jojo (09:46.663)
Are you looking at texts? Are you checking the news? What are you doing first thing in the morning that sets the tone for your entire day? What does your alarm clock sound like? Is it a big jarring or is it something gentle and soft that's not going to completely disrupt your entire nervous system? The minute you wake up, are you someone who can get right out of bed or do you need a little bit of time? If you need a little bit of time, are you giving yourself that space?

Or are you jumping right out of bed and hitting the pavement and being stressed all day? Or do you know you need an extra 30 minutes, but you're not setting your alarm clock 30 minutes earlier. Oh, but you're tired. Well, then why didn't you go to sleep 30 minutes earlier than night before? We have control, but do we take it is the question. Now I'm not saying that your morning necessarily needs to be this perfect two hour ritual with a cold plunge and a gratitude journal and a green smoothie. No, no, no, no. That's not the point.

The point is that you're intentional about something, about anything, even if it's just five minutes of silence or breathing or meditating before you pick up your phone. Even if it's you walking into your kitchen and making a cup of coffee and actually smelling the coffee and then sitting down with it for five minutes and drinking it and tasting it, not having it be an abstract, absent-minded,

the coffee is there. Drink it, go about that. No, slow down. Your morning set the tone. So now you need to ask yourself what tone you are setting. The fifth is meal. So I want to say something because I don't want this to get completely lost and mistranslated into this whole like diet culture noise, but food is information. Every single thing that you put in your body is sending a signal.

It's sending a signal to your energy levels, your mood, your clarity, how you feel when you look in the mirror, how you feel in your own skin, how your energy levels are by like three o'clock in the afternoon. I'm not talking about restriction here. I'm not talking about labels. I'm asking you to ask yourself honestly, if you are fueling your body with things that actually support the life that you were trying to build and live.

Jojo (12:15.027)
Or are you using food as a reward or a punishment or distraction or an afterthought? Because how many of us go and do a hard workout and then you're like, you know what? I deserve this pizza. It's cause I had a hard workout. Why is that the reward? If you want the pizza, have the pizza, just be conscious of your choices. You don't need to just label everything as a punishment or a reward or this or that, but does that pizza make you feel good?

Is it in line with some health goals that you're trying to make? Is it aligned with those or is it going against the things and competing with almost as if you were having a competing desire gridlock and going against everything that you're actually trying to do. You can have the most dialed in morning routine, the clearest mindset, but if the food you put in your body undercuts that these seven Ms aren't going to be

Co-creating and co-existing in a way that's creating the life that you really want our bodies Do a lot for us every single day and the food that you nourish with it the vitamins you take what you put in Your system is what you are giving it in return to do all of the work that it needs to do So are you feeding it adequately the sixth is money? Okay money listen your relationship with money

is almost a direct reflection of your relationship with yourself. And hear me out. How you spend your money, how you save your money, how you talk about money, how much anxiety you feel around money, how much shame, how much freedom, whatever it is, is the way that you really feel about your place in the world, your security, your yourself, your yourself. And I'm not saying that the people who feel

the most in control of their money are the ones that are making the most of it. But they are the ones that have gotten honest about their patterns and they've made peace with where they are. And that's the way that they can actually move toward where they want to be. So to keep this very simple, this question around money is not how much you have of it. It's how you're treating what you do have.

Jojo (14:45.851)
Are you paying attention to your choices around money or are you letting money run the show? Peace around money isn't a number. It's not, when I have this much, then I'll be okay. It's a practice. And if you're not aware of your habits with money, the way you think about it, the way you spend it, the way you deal with it, you can't have any peace with it because there's no awareness. The seventh is mood. Now I think that this one might

quietly control everything else, all the other M's because you can have every single perfectly polished on paper. And yet you can still sabotage yourself if your mood is just running on default. And mood is not to be confused with being happy all the time. Listen, this is life and that's not the goal. mean, of course we want to be happy, but the goal here is regulation.

and awareness and understanding what triggers you and what drains you and what fills you back up and what you need on a harder day so that you don't burn down something good just because you're tired or overwhelmed or scared. Now listen, I've been there, but if we don't know how to regulate, we can destroy everything. So are you managing your mood or is your mood

managing you. And that's not a rhetorical question. I genuinely want you to ask yourself that and sit with it because the version of you that is emotionally regulated is going to be more productive. It's going to be more present, more patient, more creative, more magnetic. And the version of you that's not regulated is just going to be running on fumes and reactivity. Your mood is not a feeling.

It's almost like a framework that you get to build. So what I want you to do, if you're not driving, is pull out your phone or a piece of paper. I prefer a piece of paper. And I want you to write down each of these M's. Mind, mouth, moves, morning, meal, money, mood. Just write them down. Don't judge it. Don't overthink it. Just you writing it down. And now,

Jojo (17:08.177)
I want yourself and now I want you to give yourself a number one out of 10 where you are with each of these 10 being I'm pretty good at this. One being I need to definitely, definitely break this open a little bit more and look at this. Look at where you are genuinely thriving and where you are leaking energy without maybe realizing it until this episode. Now you don't have to get overwhelmed and fix all seven today.

but just see them clearly because awareness is always the first step. So let's get messy with this mentally, emotionally, and spiritually mentally. I want to leave you with something. Controlling the seven M's is not about perfection. It's only about intention. You don't have to master all seven, but you do have to stop pretending that you haven't noticed where things are slipping and the awareness

without action, that's just observation and that's fine. But awareness with intentional choice is where transformation begins. So whatever has the lowest number, just start there emotionally. If this episode bubbled something up in you, just sit with it because there is information in that feeling. The that stung the most that made you go, Jojo, that made you have a

a fight in your head with me about what I'm saying and be like, I don't know about that. Ask yourself honestly, was that a defense mechanism or was that something that struck a chord that you were like, yeah, okay. I do need to look at this. And maybe you look at your and you see maybe a higher number around that. Get honest with yourself. No one's looking at this. I'm not looking at this, but which one stung the most? It just needs

your gentle attention, not your harshest talk down to yourself, be mean to yourself, most disciplined way of fixing it. No, be gentle, pay attention. You're not behind. You're just becoming more honest and realizing something and opening this stuff up isn't a setback, it's transformation. And that's the whole point. And spiritually, the reason any framework like this works is not because

Jojo (19:35.757)
of a list, right? It's because of what that list shows you about yourself and what it points you back to. Every single one of these M's is literally just asking you the same question in a different way. It's asking you, how are you showing up for yourself in your own life? Are you present for it? Are you in it with intention? Think about the seven M's as seven doors that you already have the key to.

And that's all I have for you guys today. Thank you for spending time with me. And if this episode landed for you, please think about someone and share it with them. They might need to hear it, whether you know it or not. Feel free to leave me a review and rate this podcast. You know where to find me at underscore inside out dot podcast on Instagram and the sub stack. If you feel so inclined,

Please feel free to share whatever that you decided to work on this week or give the most attention to. And I will see you all next week on Inside Out. Again, I'm JoJo and thanks for hanging out with me. Have a great week. Bye.