Living YSE(ly) - The Hamptons Event

Last weekend, we took YSE Beauty out east.

Molly gathered our close-knit community at her Hamptons home for an afternoon of food, fashion, connecting and conversing – aka all the essentials to Living YSE(ly).  Alongside YSE Beauty, sponsors like Kenra Professional, Shark Beauty, and CAKE co-hosted the event with additional partnerships from Adina Reyter, and Poolside. The Living YSE(ly) event brought women together to celebrate life in balance – that is, the ability to take care of you, from the inside out.

As the event commenced, small bites were ushered and long catch-ups ensued. Branded elements adorned the soirée, from craft cocktails to an ice block etched with the YSE Beauty logo. Fronting the event were panelists and guest speakers Gabby Berstein, Sarah Wragge, Melanie Goldey, as well as our very own Molly Sims. And though these women hold expertise in cornering areas of health and wellness, the four of them are tied by an invisible string of underlying purpose: infusing discipline with authenticity.  Because life happens, and how you handle it is the true beauty of it all.

Gabby Bernstein, best-selling author and self-help mentor, is — in our books — the pioneer of modernized manifestation.  Identified by Oprah as "a new thought leader", she leads the world of self-love with her mindful take on trauma recovery. Her (many) bestselling books break down the process of rewriting her personal narrative by molding values she learned during her spiritual upbringing in ashrams to her life today. Her practice has left a lasting impact on the world of healing, her story to serve as a reference to many. 

Sarah Wragge, renowned nutritionist and founder of Sarah Wragge Wellness®, leads her community through the idea of structured freedom at the foundation of the SWW Method®.  Sarah’s approach focuses on burning fat, balancing blood sugar, and prioritizing protein as fuel for the body in retaliation to her own chronic health complications. Her method has changed the life of thousands, including our founder — who turns to Sarah as her personal nutritionist amongst the mayhem of everyday life. 

And Melanie Goldey – the CEO of Tally Health, a biotech company focusing on optimizing the biological age of the human body. She and her team focus research on developing tools to increase the body’s healthspan in contrast to actual age. As an investor to woman-led startups, Melanie dedicates her career to wellness from the perspective of female fertility and healthy aging as a result of lifestyle. And amongst all, she’s human, bringing tangibility and personalization to a traditionally monotonous industry. 

Amongst said spiritual leader, nutritionist, and  healthspan expert, was Molly Sims: supermodel turned skincare entrepreneur, dedicated to developing solution-based products that bring the modern-day woman back to the best version of herself: feeling beautiful in her own skin.

If you missed it on social, read more of the conversation shared between Gabby, Sarah, Melanie and Molly last Saturday on all things Living YSE(ly).

The Panel

MS: You're going to learn from these women up here today.  Because YSE is not just about how you feel on the outside. It's about how you live your life. And the women that I've brought together today are all about that. For YSE, it's about having another chapter, whether you're 20, 40, or 60 years old – and living it in the best way possible. My mom used to say, if you look good, you feel good, and when you feel good, you look good. And that is YSE (wise).  That is why these people here today are so special to me.

Gabby, I'm going to start with you first. An amazing spiritual teacher, the queen of manifestation. You aren’t who you were 20 years ago. Has manifestation made a real difference in your life, and where you are now?

GB: I've been in this field of spirituality and personal development for almost 19 years, and my greatest gifts have been my greatest struggles in my life. In those moments of the dark, extreme addiction, trauma recovery or fertility challenges, was when I felt most aligned with my spiritual connection. There's this beautiful Rumi quote – “the wound is the place where the light enters you”. When we have the courage to witness our difficult circumstances as an opportunity, we can really, truly know what it means to live a spiritual life. And it's a privilege to have this career. And it all started with my own difficult moments that I chose to see differently – I'll be sober 19 years on October 2nd. 

MS: Sarah, you've struggled with chronic health issues most of your childhood and adult life. What led you to a more holistic approach? 

SW: I like to say that I turned a health crisis into a career. I grew up in a family of five in Washington, D.C., eating the standard American diet. I had Honey Bunches of Oats at breakfast, a sandwich for lunch on some Martin's potato bread, a granola bar on the way to field hockey practice, some spaghetti for dinner, and truth be told, I never felt well. I was always bloated, had acid reflux, and chronic constipation. By the time I was 18, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and received a prescription for methotrexate. I had multiple upper endoscopies and colonoscopies. I was 18 years old at the time, and I knew in my naïve mind that there was something missing. It wasn't until I met a holistic nutritionist that I went down the eastern medicine path of acupuncture. I was doing infrared saunas before they were sexy, drinking green juice before it was sexy. I was doing colonics, and I experienced this total transformation that made me think, oh my God, I've never felt like this, and I want everyone in the world to feel like this. 

And that was my impetus for starting Sarah Wragge Wellness. I learned that everything I was consuming from cereal to a sandwich to the granola bar to the pasta, was a form of sugar. That was my watershed moment of understanding the science behind it.  Along the way of meeting practitioners and nutritionists, I was always told to give something up: “You're never drinking coffee again.” “You're not going to have alcohol.” I was young and I wanted to have fun. And so I created a methodology based on blood sugar and behavioral changes, so that you can have your wine, you can eat pizza with your kids, you can have your ice cream.. and not feel bad about it. What we do is create structure, which we all secretly love, even though we might not want to admit it.

MS: Okay Melanie – Tally Health is a revolutionary company. You are such a badass. The CEO of a company that’s helped save so many people's lives. Tell us how it all came to be. 

MG: Tally Health is a consumer longevity company, and my co-founder, Whitney Casey, came up with the idea. My background has always been in technology, consumer and healthcare, while she had the idea to create a consumer-based company – not just for the biohacker, the scientist or the top 1%, but for the health-conscious mom, the urban professional, or even Gen Z who is now thinking more holistically about what they ingest or don't. I had myth after myth debunked in my head, and I hope you know that less than 10% of your longevity is tied to your genetics. That means 90% is related to your lifestyle choices and your environment. A lot of people think that since their grandmother or great grandmother lived to this age, that's just going to be them. The truth is, you can actually do things – eating, meditating, practicing self care – that actually can change the trajectory of how you age.   And so became our mission at Tally: providing science-backed products that can tell your body's cellular age, which might be scary. But at the same time, I just told you that you can change it.

MS: Gabby – what are some practical tips for those who don't manifest?

GB: Well, we manifest what we believe. And if we’re walking around with belief systems that don't make us feel good, all we’re doing is creating more of that. When we have thoughts, and those thoughts repeat, that repetition creates a belief. When we create those beliefs, we start to feel that energy and create more of it. Recognizing the things in our life that we don't want is the first step. 

If you're looking at your life thinking, why am I not attracting this money? Why am I not attracting this partner? Why am I so stuck in my physical well-being? That's the first step. Once you know what you don't want, you can see clearer what it is that you want. The next step is to forgive yourself for having the thought. And then the third step, the fun part – reach for the next best feeling. You can't go from I'm broke, to I'm a millionaire. It's just not going to work. But the next best will. I've got a great resume. There's tools online now that are effective, and they lead me to great connections. And when I have a good attitude, my attitude can make me more connected to people. And maybe I'll meet somebody on the street because I've got a good attitude.You align yourself with a better feeling, you think your way out, and rinse and repeat. Do that all day, multiple times a day. It’s not wishful thinking, it's reorganizing your thinking. And when you start to believe in something new, you start to feel new, and the things that you desire become much more effortless. 

MS: Sarah, you're big on creating lifelong behavioral changes with big impact and low lift. She said to me the other day, “we're going to work smarter, not harder”. Will you explain what that means?

SW: Echoing what Gabby said – do the little things and the big things happen. Consistency wins. I think most of the people that I talk to don't know what to do. They ask if they should fast, if they should drink black coffee on an empty stomach, if they should skip out on breakfast. But fasting is so specific and it’s a drastic decision. It puts your body in a stressed state. 

One of the pieces of my method is to save your carbohydrates for the end of the day, which is what most people tell you not to do. If you go to lunch with your friends and have french fries with your salad and a glass of wine, there's nothing wrong with that choice. You’re just going to pivot from the carbs at lunch with salmon, some vegetables and a glass of water at dinner. I think these low lift changes save you from the spiral that so many of us have felt before. 

MS: Melanie, you and I talked about a few studies showing a relationship between age and gratitude, that gratitude tends to be the greatest in older adults. How have you observed this practice?

MG: It's interesting, there’s a number of studies in aging science that relate to gratitude. The study I often reference proves that out of a group of healthcare workers, older nurses showed to be significantly happier than younger nurses, though they have the same stressors in their environment. Their gratitude comes from lived experiences, and they can look back and reflect to make time for joy and gratitude. And that translates to lower epigenetic age, which is essentially the biological age. It has to do with overall happiness and reducing the levels of stress. 

When you think about healthy aging, most people think about diet and exercise, which are absolutely important. But some of our clients don't realize that when their results show an older biological age than expected, we peel back the onion to see they've been under chronic stress. They're not happy with their job, they've just had a big life transition, or maybe they're having relationship issues. These are the non-obvious factors that have an even more significant impact on aging than diet and exercise alone. Some fun statistics about the science of happiness are that dog owners are 31% less likely to succumb to heart attack than non-dog owners. Frequent travelers are 7% happier than people who don't travel. And for those of you thinking I can't get that trip to Europe in, the same study said that it only takes about 75 miles away from your home to feel the effects of travel. And when you're unburdening yourself, you are able to find joy and lean into that more.

MS: I lastly want to ask you three – is there a non-negotiable for your everyday? If you could finish the sentence “I would never…”, what would it be for you?

GB: I would never pick up a drink. 

MG: I would never not laugh. Before I left Brooklyn this morning, I spent two minutes giggling with my two year old. It was pure joy.

SW: I would never not challenge myself to do something scary every day. Because I do that, and it's scary.

MS: And me, I would never not go big or go home. It was my mother’s statement for living life, and because of that, it’s mine. 

Read more on Molly’s story here. 

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