00:00:00
what really breaks my heart is how stuck people are there are things you can do
00:00:06
to change your life for the better and so let me give you the secret Mel Robbins one of the most trusted experts
00:00:13
on confidence and motivation her unique brand of raw and relatable advice has made her one of the most sought after
00:00:19
speakers in the world don't rely on motivation motivation garbage because
00:00:24
it's not there when you need it and the fact is if it were easy to develop great habits or change your mindset everybody
00:00:30
would have their dreams come true it is very difficult to change because we are
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hardwired to spot patterns that seem similar and to repeat them there's also this C voice that is talking to you all
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the time going boy you really suck and you blew that and my God you're never going to amount to anything constantly
00:00:47
telling you what you think about yourself and of course what you think about yourself then drives the things that you do but luckily there's two ways
00:00:55
around it one is to that absolutely works let them let them let them let them the
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let them theory is based on a simple truth the fastest way to take control of
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your life is to stop controlling everyone around you that opinion is usually driven by your insecurity
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controlling nature your anxiety and it is ruining your relationships but when you say let them something really
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interesting happens you will notice it it's absolutely
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life-changing you will at this time of year everybody is
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thinking about changes that they want to make in their life but it's incredibly hard to become a new person when your
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circumstances stay the same in this episode me and Mel go on a journey to
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figure out how you listening to this at home can change your life we go through
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the science we go through the proven strategies and we go through some of the mindset alterations we all need to make
00:01:58
going into next year if we want to stand the chance of closing the gap on our potential and when I say potential I'm
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not talking about success alone I'm talking about happiness and I'm talking about health things that I think
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everybody that listens to this podcast cares so deeply about and there's one thing that Mel says this idea of the let
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them Theory which sounds so simple but I honestly think could change
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your life whether it's in your relationships at work with your partner or when someone cuts you off in traffic
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this let them theory for me since Mel told me about it has significantly
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improved my life I can't wait for you to listen to this episode Mel is just the best and before this episode starts I
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want to make a deal with you about 58% of you that watch this podcast frequently haven't yet hit the Subscribe
00:02:50
button if you enjoy what we do here here's the deal that I want to make with you if you hit that subscribe button I
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promise you that we will keep making the show better in every single way and we
00:03:01
have huge plans to turn this into more of a documentary style conversation where we work incredibly hard to bring
00:03:07
in footage of the things we're talking about to give you greater context and greater meaning so if you hit the
00:03:13
Subscribe button I promise you that we will deliver an even greater version of
00:03:19
this show I hope you choose to come along on this journey enjoy this episode
00:03:24
[Music]
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Mel I'm thinking about the 45-year-old Taxi Driver that's her dad I'm thinking
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about Judith who has an idea for a handbag business she wants to start but
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she's 56 years old and maybe Society has convinced her that she can't change now
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she can't pivot away from where she is I'm also thinking about the 27 year-old medical graduate who became a dentist
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because their immigrant mother told them that was success and happiness and they never listen to the voice inside of them
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those people that are in those situations where they feel like they've gone so far down a
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path how does one turn back move forward
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I mean I don't even know what Direction You Don't Turn back okay well because here's the thing first of all I'm 55 and
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I did not even get started in the podcast business until I was 54 years
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old and so I personally feel that my life and the business that I've built
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and the example that I set every single day is evidence that you can decide at
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any age that you are going to Pivot and turn in a New Direction and One metaphor
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that has helped me Stephen A Lot in my life is I think about life as one long road trip and
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that that I know it sounds super cheesy but just bear with me for a minute if you think about every single year of
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your life as a mile marker and the fact that we all start at zero
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we all end at some point when you think about your life as a road trip and you're the driver that
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means it's about navigating where you go next and at any single moment you can
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pull over stop the damn car like if you feel lost if you feel turned around if
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you have hit a dead end do not find your way by continuing to drive in circles stop for a second a that's where you are
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tune back into the navigation system that is inside you and you can turn your
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life in a New Direction you do it over and over and over again in business you
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have this Natural Curiosity this natural drive if your instincts tell you to go
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you point towards it I have that but for everybody that's listening
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or watching us who feels like you don't ever have that moment where your
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intuition tells you it's that way let me give you the secret to how to make your
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next big move and the secret is this pay attention to what sucks in your
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life because there are positive navigational signals and there are
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negative ones and when it comes to my life Stephen you seem to have been able to tap into the positive I have a much
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greater like I don't know I'm I'm more deeply connected to the negative [ __ ] the jealousy
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frustration um feeling anger anytime those emotions come up in my body it's
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just a directional signal from deep inside of you telling you you're about
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you're you're supposed to Pivot like do not head in the same direction do not do not keep going the same speed make a
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change so I hear you say that we can pull over on the side of the road at any moment in
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our life but I guess some people who are listening to that will think well I can't stop because I've got a mortgage to pay I've got bills to pay I've got
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responsibilities I I have no time to even think about that and also there's this other group of people who maybe
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feel the frustration and the jealousy and the the rage that kind of drives you and me to some
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degree but for some reason even though they know every fiber in their body knows that this is not the situation for
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them this is the wrong relationship wrong job wrong C wrong friendship group they still for some reason just can't
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take that step into uncertainty uhhuh which is I think most people probably yes I I I almost believe
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that people don't have a signal problem I they we all feel the same signal but they have a problem
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with acting on the signal because correct so I personally believe that we
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are all born the second you come out and into this world you are hard hardwired
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with this natural intelligence that is your own personal inner compass and that
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it is tuned into what is unique to you it is constantly programmed by the
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experiences of your life but it is always signaling toward what is uniquely
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aligned for you if you just accept the premise that we are energetic human
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beings that we give off energy we receive energy we've all had the
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experience where you walk into a like a retail store and all of a sudden something feels off that is the compass
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I'm talking about signaling to you based on your experience based on your DNA based on the generational wisdom that is
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passed down through your ancestors that there is something there for you to pay attention to the problem is not what
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your inner Compass is telling you and the problem is that you won't listen to
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it and I can prove it because if you have somebody that comes up to you and says oh man I've been in this
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relationship and that relationship and the other thing and I'm just unlucky and love and I can't trust myself and I don't da da da da da da da da I always
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say to somebody stop it's not that you can't trust
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yourself because your instincts have always been right I want you to go back
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through the five or six horrible relationships that you just had and I want you to look backwards and the
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fastest way to do this is look back through your photos and that'll take you back on the timeline and that'll remind
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you of all this stuff and I want you to look at your face and I want you to just be honest with yourself when did you
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know this wasn't working and you will always have somebody admit that they
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knew seven years before the divorce they knew a year before the breakup they knew before they even hooked up with the
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person the first time that this was probably not the right thing because it felt a little off but it was confusing
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because you know you've got all the like Rush of the adrenaline and the attraction and all the hormones and all that stuff but deep down inside if you
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got really quiet you knew that this was not the right decision for you and so
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the issue isn't the accuracy of your inner wisdom the issue is your courage
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and following it because following your inner wisdom and making decisions that
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are aligned with what you are meant to do in your life the kind of people you're supposed to be with right now
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the kind of support that you need the things that are interesting to you it always requires you to do something
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different than what you're doing now the problem is if it requires you to do
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something new what's also going to happen is you're going to have a fear
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response and we mistake those moments of change or those moments where you're
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going to try something new the moments of vulnerability the moments where you're going to risk a little the
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moments that require courage we mistake the very natural response to change which is a little moment of
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feeling alarmed with your intuition being wrong and so one way that you can
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tell the difference is the feeling of the decision if the decision is the
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right decision in terms of a decision that is aligned with who you are and
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your soul and your DNA and just this deep wisdom inside you even if it's
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scary you will feel a sense of expansion you will feel like something
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is growing that there is possibility even though you're nervous
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about it even though you're not quite sure where you're going to go if the
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decision is wrong when you get quiet and you drop in you will feel a sense of
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shrinking you'll feel constrained you'll feel a little depleted in your energy
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and we often mistake that kind of nervousness that you feel before you
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make a decision to quit your job or a decision you know what I'm gonna get Ser about serious about my finances I'm
00:12:09
gonna stop going out to the bar on the weekends and and I'm gonna commit to
00:12:14
listening to this podcast two hours every weekend to start learning and start mastering skills and to literally
00:12:20
put these things that I want first now on Friday night when your buddies calling like Hey we're going down to the pub you want to
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come when you are about to say no you're going to feel that rise up
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because you've never done this before you always go and you know you're going to get blowback but if you get really quiet and you drop in and you ask
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yourself okay if I were to go to the bar tonight does that feel like something
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expansive or does that feel like something that's shrinking me a little
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bit and you'll know the right answer for you and that's a tool that I have used
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over and over and over again in my life to know what to do it doesn't answer
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how it doesn't answer when it answers
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what there's a quote I heard many years ago I think almost a decade ago which stayed with me because I tried to
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understand why sometimes it seems like people need a little bit more pain before they make a change and the quote
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is change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change and I
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sometimes this sounds like a crazy thing to say but I sometimes see people in certain situations where they're debating making a change or getting that
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gym membership or breaking out of a cycle that they've has kept them trapped in a situation which has made made them
00:13:41
unhappy and it appears that they just need a little bit more pain what you're talking about is a fundamental fact and
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that is you cannot change another person people only change when they're ready to
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change and if what it requires is more pain or hitting a rock bottom or the
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stakes becoming so high that somebody sees the cost of
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continuing to self-sabotage or to go on the path that they're going
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down that for some people is the only moment in time where they
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see that they want things to be different and you can't want somebody's
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sobriety or their healing or their Financial Freedom more than they do
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because at the very bottom we learn I guess we learned two things as you said there the cost of continuing but also the reward of change has is never
00:14:43
greater when you're at the very bottom of the mountain it's like the cost of continuing down here plus also the
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reward of me climbing that mountain are at maximum yeah and look you know we're
00:14:54
having an intellectual conversation and you know the fact is it's really hard to change yeah if it were easy to develop
00:15:01
great habits or change your mindset and it could happen like that everybody would have six-pack abs everybody would
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have four companies like you do everybody would have a hit podcast everybody would have their dreams come
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true and it is very difficult to change because we are hardwired to spot
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patterns that seem similar and to repeat them and so I do think it's important to
00:15:25
say that if you're struggling if you're frustrated with yourself if you're at that point where you're so sick of
00:15:34
yourself and your excuses I've been there Steven's been there this is a
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normal part of the human experience and at some point either the pain is going
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to get big enough or you're going to bump into somebody's story somewhere on
00:15:52
this planet who has been in the position that you're in right now facing the stuff that you're facing right now and
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there is something about their story at this exact moment in time that will ignite something in you that is missing
00:16:06
and what is missing in you right now is Hope because when you're stuck and when you are on a Down Road spiral whether
00:16:13
it's just in your own head or it's in self-destructive Behavior the thing that's missing in your life is hope you
00:16:20
don't believe right now that anything is going to make a difference and so until you get to the point where you just hate
00:16:27
what you're doing so much that it's worth trying or you have somebody crack open a
00:16:34
door and just a little light comes in and you have this moment where you go
00:16:39
well what if what if this is the time sobriety sticks what if I go to therapy and I
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actually do change the way that I think what if I could recover from this
00:16:54
narcissistic abuse that I've you know been kind struggling with after that
00:17:00
relationship or that marriage what if I could get out of debt if that person did
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maybe I could do it and without either hope or that kind of rock bottom moment
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I don't think you're going to change can you tell the difference between someone who is likely to change and someone who
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isn't because there must be so many people that message you and they present a facade as if they have had that realization and they're about to change
00:17:26
Mel I'm about to start that business thank you so much for everything you've done and you look in their eyes and you go and you go I don't believe a word he
00:17:32
was saying and then I'll tell you it's it's that's a that's an energy thing I mean you're somebody who invests in a
00:17:38
lot of people and I would imagine that in addition to looking at the business model you're actually looking at the
00:17:44
person and talk is cheap like the kind of people that are
00:17:50
actually going to change will thank you for the hope and thank you for a specific piece of advice and then they
00:17:58
are mov moving so fast out that door because they realize that change doesn't
00:18:03
happen overnight it doesn't happen with one Insight it is tedious it is painful
00:18:10
it is lonely because it is a game of just moving the ball down the field Inch
00:18:18
by Inch by Inch it's not glamorous it's lonely as you start changing everything
00:18:25
around you starts changing people around you like it just it's not even fun in
00:18:31
the beginning and so you'd either have to have an incredible amount of Hope or a ridiculous amount of inspiration and
00:18:39
delusion or you have to be in so much pain that the alternative to continuing
00:18:45
this pain that you're in is to try something different because it's the only thing that might be slightly less
00:18:51
painful than what you're doing you get to that point where you know I call it the [ __ ] it like this is bad so [ __ ] it
00:18:58
let's try something else like I you know and so I I I really believe that and I I
00:19:06
think people you can't tell who's going to change because it's a it's a long game is there anything that breaks your
00:19:12
heart about what you do for all the upsides of it for oh my God yes
00:19:19
yeah what really breaks my heart is how stuck people are and that there are things you can do
00:19:28
do to change your life for the better and if you don't have
00:19:35
hope and you don't have this breakthrough where you have for just a
00:19:41
millisecond this Insight where you go well what if things did work out if you don't have that moment most
00:19:50
people stay so stuck in resignation and actually that's one of the things that really um I'm so curious
00:19:58
about with you because I like you talk to so many people and have so many
00:20:04
people writing in and um the number of people that are living their life at 40
00:20:12
or 50 or 60 and they are defined by the trauma that happened in their childhood
00:20:19
and that's not to say that the trauma wasn't profound or wasn't impactful and having experienced childhood trauma of
00:20:26
my own that I didn't discover until later in life I I I I find it so
00:20:33
sad that so many people just don't know that they're stuck in patterns of
00:20:41
abuse or patterns of thinking that they can change and if you're not aware that
00:20:48
you're stuck in something there's no way you can change it and so it makes me extremely sad that there are um so many
00:20:57
people that are not not aware of how much better and how much more present
00:21:02
and how much more joy they could experience in their life is much of that identity like the identity the stories
00:21:10
the stories we tell ourselves about oursel sort of circulates around us it becomes this instruction manual for
00:21:15
everything we do believe and think of ourselves and that is ultimately like the story of Steven Bartlett that I have authored based on everything I
00:21:21
interpreted that happened in my life things happen I write a new line into myself story about who Steve B is
00:21:27
because of that and then I use as my instruction manual for forward sort of facing Behavior I think one of the most
00:21:32
interesting experts to talk to about that topic is I think his first name is Paul Dr Paul Ki from Stanford I know his
00:21:39
his last name is Dr Ki um but I just interviewed him for our podcast and his
00:21:45
work is all on the inner voice and the subconscious and that there is
00:21:51
this narrative that you have that you may not even be aware is talking to you
00:21:58
all the time and when you start to turn toward what that self-critic is saying
00:22:05
you know you're never good enough why'd you screw that up and you start to examine what it's telling you it would
00:22:12
be as if I was walking behind you Stephen all day long going boy you
00:22:18
really suck and you blew that and my God you're never going to amount to anything and you're going to be alone and you're going to do this and it's not and and we
00:22:25
do it to ourselves and so yes your selft talk which is probably buried somewhere
00:22:31
very deep this is not my area of expertise in terms of Psychiatry or Neuroscience but we just interviewed
00:22:36
them and it was fascinating is informing what you think about yourself and of
00:22:42
course what you think about yourself then drives the things that you do is it thought driven or behavior driven is it
00:22:48
nervous system driven first is it subconscious driven first here's what I know I know that
00:22:56
until you make a decision that you no longer want to feel how you feel or you no longer want to think the
00:23:03
way that you think or you no longer want to have the kind of results or no
00:23:08
results that you have until you make that decision that you know what I know I don't feel great I know I doubt myself
00:23:15
I know I've had a lot of bad things happen I know there's a lot that I regret but damn it with the time that I
00:23:20
have left in my life I really want to start to enjoy
00:23:26
myself I want to take better care care of myself I want to feel happy you don't
00:23:31
even have to believe you deserve it yet you can just want it you've got to start there you've got to start with wanting
00:23:40
something better for yourself and then I personally think the most important thing is to start
00:23:47
acting like the person who has the things that you want right now even
00:23:52
though you don't feel like it and the reason why I personally prefer to
00:23:59
hack this change of going okay I want to
00:24:04
um like here's here's something that I am working on right now so I'm 55 years old I'm in the middle of menopause it's
00:24:11
a complete Nightmare and uh I feel as out of control with my body as I did
00:24:16
when I was pregnant with one of our three kids like everything's changing it's really confusing to figure out
00:24:22
what's going on the um I could go on and on and on about this as as somebody in
00:24:28
the middle of it trying to figure out what to do around my changing hormones
00:24:34
and how to get better control of my health and so what do I do I feel a little discouraged right now I don't
00:24:40
really know what to do I just know I don't like how my body is feeling and how it's changing and so I make a
00:24:47
decision and a commitment to myself that I want to feel better I want to understand this and so that decision is
00:24:53
super important because without deciding that I want to do something I'm not doing anything and then I start to study
00:25:01
all of the experts and what people have to say about this topic of hormone balance and gut health and Women's
00:25:07
Health and how to uh regulate your hormones naturally and what to like
00:25:14
there's just so much information out there and then I make a decision okay well what are the two or three things that I'm going to do and then I start
00:25:21
doing it and I wake up every day and I do those things even if I don't feel like it even if my self self talk is
00:25:28
pretty poor and here's what happens over time for me personally is if I see
00:25:34
myself taking actions consistent with somebody who exercises or somebody who is taking care of her Hormone Health or
00:25:40
somebody who uh is not drinking or somebody who is writing a book if I see myself taking those actions it changes
00:25:48
the way that I look at myself the action first approach is what I personally
00:25:54
believe in because I think it works faster every everybody that hears you saying that and everybody who sees
00:26:00
people be disciplined in that way the illusion is that they're just profoundly
00:26:05
motivated oh my God no no I I think motivation is garbage I mean I um and I
00:26:12
always thought that was funny given that I was a motivational speaker for a long
00:26:18
time and here I think it's garbage and the reason why I think motivation is garbage is because it's not there when you need
00:26:23
it and I don't rely on
00:26:29
motivation I do not expect to feel motivated I do not expect to feel like
00:26:34
doing things and I make myself do them that does not mean by the way that I
00:26:40
have great willpower that does not mean that I consider myself to be a disciplined person that means that I
00:26:49
understand the biology of how most human beings work
00:26:55
and the biology of how most human beings work is that you feel a sensation in
00:27:01
your body so let's just take an example like getting out of bed okay the you set the alarm the night before I know you
00:27:07
don't but most normal human beings set the alarm the night before and when the
00:27:12
alarm goes off you're going to get out of bed right I mean that's how it's supposed to work
00:27:18
because when you set the alarm the night before you're setting it for a time where you're basically supposed to get
00:27:24
up so you are making a promise to your future self in the morning that you're going to get out of bed well what
00:27:30
happens all kinds of things happen you go to bed the alarm rings and the first
00:27:35
thing that you feel is a sensation and for me the Sensation that I always feel in my body is something that I would
00:27:42
call I don't know if it's the cortisol I I don't know if it's partying I don't know if it's menopause I don't know if
00:27:49
it's the fact that I have a fabulous bed and my husband's next to me and I don't want to get out of it I don't know if
00:27:55
it's the fact that it I live in southern Vermont and it's free like I don't know but the first sensation
00:28:01
is then perception so sensation perception then feeling then thought
00:28:08
then action that is the biological chain of events that happens in a
00:28:13
nanc and I know that this is what's happening so I have the
00:28:19
feeling I then have the perception happen which is I look around it's dark
00:28:25
Chris is next to me I then have an emotion about it overwhelm frustration
00:28:30
like you know usually something negative then I have a thought which is I don't
00:28:35
want to get out of bed and that for years would trigger the action I would take and what most of us
00:28:42
I certainly didn't understand that sensation perception feeling or emotion
00:28:47
thinking and then action is the chain of events that is how you're
00:28:54
hardwired this is how it works body keep like this is how it works it wasn't
00:29:00
until I understood that holy cow if I don't reverse the
00:29:06
chain my sensation my perception my emotions about things and my thinking
00:29:11
all four or five of those things actually precede what action I take and I'm not in control of what I'm doing my
00:29:18
emotions and my Sensations and my trauma and like all of the stuff that has been
00:29:25
running on like autopilot forever that is controlling who Mel Robbins is and at
00:29:30
some point if that's working for you fantastic if there's an area of your life that you're not happy in then you
00:29:38
got to reverse the order or I guess or and you can go to therapy for months and
00:29:44
months and months and do the work and slowly but surely you will change the way that you think which also helps but
00:29:51
I find that understanding that that is the chain of events and for those of us
00:29:56
that have any kind of of childhood trauma where sensation is the first thing that you feel that then triggers
00:30:04
that whole pathway or you have any kind of anxiety again sensation of the alarm
00:30:10
that then triggers a whole pathway of action and reaction this is one of the reasons why
00:30:16
you feel out of control it's because the sensation and the wiring in your body is
00:30:21
actually triggering this chain reaction and you don't even realize it it's why avoiding things or freezing has become
00:30:28
your default response to everything because every sensation triggers the exact same thing which leads to an
00:30:34
action of avoidance and the way around that is to flip that and start with making taking better actions regardless
00:30:39
there's two ways around it one is to work with a licensed therapist who can
00:30:46
help you do the deeper work of understanding yourself and
00:30:53
understanding your default thinking patterns and doing the work to challenge
00:30:58
those assumptions and change the way that you think that absolutely works if you will
00:31:05
commit to the process of doing it the second way and you can do these
00:31:11
together certainly how I did it is to look at your behaviors and understand
00:31:16
that there is this chain of this there is this order that happens in your body
00:31:21
and reverse it take a behavior first approach what if if you want to get in
00:31:26
better shape what is somebody do who is in the kind of shape that you want to be
00:31:32
in ask yourself what the behavior is because I'll tell you the reason why you're not taking those behaviors is
00:31:38
because this chain of events in your body from Sensation to perception to
00:31:43
feeling and emotion to thinking is constantly telling you I don't feel like it I don't want to it's not going to
00:31:49
work anyway I'm gonna eat that thing yeah I'm gonna eat that thing I'll do it tomorrow and you can reverse it it's
00:31:56
funny because everyone knows how I well I believe I believe 99% of people know how they should behave to
00:32:04
become the person they want to become they know they probably shouldn't have that I don't know bowl of ice cream at 2
00:32:09
a.m. in the morning right they know that they probably should get up in the morning and run for 5 kilometers they know they probably should check in with
00:32:15
their friends and family they probably etc etc etc um but here's the thing
00:32:20
you're not making your behavior decisions with your brain you're making them with the sensation in your body if
00:32:26
you don't feel like doing it you don't do it see before it even gets up here you feel it in here and this was the
00:32:32
thing that was revelatory for me it's like oh my God like my emotions drive my
00:32:38
entire life and that's why I feel out of control and that's why I'm frustrated with myself and that's why I can talk
00:32:43
till I'm bleue in the face about what I need to do and what I should do and what this and what that but when push comes
00:32:48
to shove if I don't feel like doing it or I'm scared or I'm this or I'm that I don't do it that means my emotions and
00:32:56
the sensations in my body and and the patterns that have been hardwired for a long time and the coping mechanisms that
00:33:02
just run on autopilot that's what's driving you it's not up here so we've
00:33:08
broken our cycle who has well I don't know I I I dude I wake up every I still
00:33:14
I know all this and this is the other like I think is a really important thing for you to hear not you Stephen but
00:33:21
everybody watching and listening to us and that is that I I personally feel
00:33:27
like it's important understand that you may never like the things you need to do and you can still do
00:33:33
them like I I I will never like getting out of
00:33:38
bed and I still get out of bed when the alarm rings I don't like emptying the dishwasher and I still do it I don't
00:33:45
like exercising I still do it I don't like eating healthy a lot of the times I still do it I don't
00:33:52
like taking a breath and centering myself
00:33:58
when I really when I just scream at my husband and I still do it because I let
00:34:07
my emotions and my anxiety and my trauma responses and my fears run my life for
00:34:15
far too long and I would rather be in the
00:34:21
daily I don't know if you call it a battle or you just call it I'm just in a daily dance with myself to to constantly
00:34:28
come back to alignment and peace and showing up as
00:34:34
the kind of person that I want to be rather than how I may feel in the
00:34:41
moment one of the things I did want to speak to you about is about how we know what we want and how we set set goals
00:34:47
again we're we're in that part of the year now where everybody's thinking you know we've talked a little bit about how one changes themselves but then even
00:34:54
knowing what direction to aim at is a whole challenge in and of itself how do one know at 30 years old in my
00:35:00
life what real goals I should be aiming at because part of the concern I've had is I wonder
00:35:06
if I'm driven or being dragged and what do you think don't know I don't really know the difference [ __ ] you know no
00:35:13
I don't you are the most driven person I know why why I don't know I'm gonna ask
00:35:20
you just give me this part for my interview well this is something why why
00:35:26
are you the most driven person I know why are you me yeah um well I think I
00:35:31
was out running something for a very long time sounds like being dragged is it I I genuinely have sat here with
00:35:38
hundreds of people and every single time they explain their motivation to me I go sounds like you're being dragged by shame your father's opinion of you
00:35:45
insecurity whatever like the AR that's a negative way to say it I mean I feel like that's why people don't like it
00:35:53
they sound powerless they sound like they're attached to the back of the Lor and it's flying down the motorway well
00:35:58
if you recognize that's what it is you suddenly become powerful yeah and you can drive yes yeah so for me if I put it
00:36:08
through the lens of like the bad things that happened it would probably be
00:36:14
um uh just like outrunning like a psychiatrist once said to me it's very
00:36:19
interesting to me that when this you know incident happened in the fourth grade and this kid climbed on top of you
00:36:25
while you were sleeping you are in a state when you're sleeping where you are
00:36:31
completely supposedly safe and so I'm not sure Mel your nervous system ever
00:36:38
reset back to a place of feeling safe and then the hypervigilance of having you know care caregiver who was always
00:36:45
kind of very erratic with their personality also made me feel always on
00:36:51
the Move always on the Move always on the move you know if you're on the move nobody can catch you and so slow down if
00:36:58
you put it in that context becomes unsafe right however if you look at a lot of
00:37:05
our experiences growing up most of us get a lot of positive attention when we achieve and so we become whether you
00:37:12
want to say driven or dragged it's probably just a matter of whether or not you're in control of it a lot of us are
00:37:20
driven by the desire to want to feel seen the desire to feel loved the desire
00:37:26
to get get the accolades which is why so many of us feel driven to achieve
00:37:33
because it's tied into a sense of selfworth it's tied into a sense of uh
00:37:38
being loved being seen for me um I think I was probably to
00:37:45
use your words dragged since I wasn't in control of it um but more and more I
00:37:52
feel profoundly driven I often think people need to be dragged to a place where they realized that it's failed
00:37:58
them that something has failed them for them to then take stock and decide to become a little bit more intentional and
00:38:04
to take hold of the steering wheel cuz in my situation I was 100% dragged to thinking that I needed a million pounds
00:38:09
a six-pack a girlfriend and a range over Sport and then upon getting those things it was like almost a bit of an existential crisis like what the [ __ ] am
00:38:15
I doing here right what failed me and why did I come to this part and then in that moment I could really take stock of what my own intrinsic drivers were and
00:38:23
then do things a little bit more intentionally um and aligned with disassociated from the thought that any
00:38:30
of these things would validate me at some deeper level I think a lot of this that we're talking about isn't
00:38:37
conscious decisions that anybody's making that there is so much
00:38:43
conditioning and programming that happens that we are unaware of as we're growing up and as we're moving through
00:38:50
young adulthood that you don't even realize how much you avoid stuff or how much you're coping by being busy or
00:38:57
you're coping by drinking too much or you're chasing stuff because you feel a
00:39:02
deep sense of self-loathing and that most of the decisions at least this is
00:39:07
for me were all reactions just again like just trying to do the best that I
00:39:13
can but not really in control of anything and until I really believe this until you
00:39:20
can drop into your body and just calm down your nervous system
00:39:28
and not be revving that internal engine so much but to be able to just I I this
00:39:34
is not a technical term I feel like I've smoothed out my nervous
00:39:39
system by doing traditional talk therapy guided MDMA therapy with my husband um
00:39:48
EMDR uh all of the behavioral activation therapy which is kind of leading with a
00:39:55
behavior first approach and start acting like the person you want to be let them
00:40:01
let them okay well I was so fascinated by this Theory this let them Theory
00:40:07
which is kind of a behavioral technique I guess would you describe it as a behavioral Technique No what is it so
00:40:14
the let them theory is based on a simple
00:40:19
truth the fastest way to take control of your life is to
00:40:27
stop stop controlling everyone around you you have no idea how much time and
00:40:35
energy and attention you are wasting trying to control other people
00:40:43
you have no idea how much energy you are burning through thinking about worrying
00:40:49
about obsessing about what other people are doing what they're not doing what
00:40:56
they're feel feeling all of which you have zero control
00:41:01
over and so the let them theory is this simple theory that I credit my daughter
00:41:08
with teaching me uh that has created so much peace in
00:41:14
my life because like every other human being on the planet I had no idea how
00:41:22
many opinions how much frustration and expectation
00:41:27
I had about what other people were doing or what they should be doing like it's just
00:41:33
unreal how obsessed we all are with everybody else and what they should be doing and what they're not doing and
00:41:40
when you start to use the let them Theory you will
00:41:46
notice it's just unbelievable how much you need to use it
00:41:52
there are exceptions I mean I can explain a lot about this I'll I'll give you the quick story about how I learned
00:41:57
it because I think it's very helpful so it was our son's um Junior Prom so he's a 11th grader in the states
00:42:06
and like most moms you know completely obsessed about everything it's also my
00:42:12
son and this is his first prom and I had had daughters so it was a totally different circus with our daughters and
00:42:19
I thought that his would be drama free because he's a guy but it actually became more dramatic because he doesn't
00:42:25
say anything and so everything think Steven was a last minute scramble right like from getting the tux to he needed
00:42:31
to have these certain Stan Smith Adidas sneakers and we had to overnight those to the fact that he was just going to go
00:42:37
with his friends and then all of a sudden he asked a date and then she wants a butiner she doesn't want a bout iner and then we're going to the pre and
00:42:43
every step of the way I had internal opinion why does
00:42:49
he so we get to the pre-prom photo party that's a lot of peas and our daughter
00:42:55
happened to be uh home from college and so she was there for the
00:43:00
weekend and all of a sudden it starts to rain out of nowhere and by rain I mean a
00:43:07
hail storm it is raining sideways and I realize none of these kids have umbrellas none of these kids are
00:43:14
prepared for this and so I turned to our son and I'm like Oak where are you guys going for dinner and he's like well I
00:43:20
don't know and I turned towards my husband I'm like they don't have plans for dinner what do you mean they didn't
00:43:25
make a reservation for the prom and so I start to get all worked up and now all the other parents are like wait you
00:43:30
didn't make do you want me to call the in would you guys want us to order pizzas and the ramp up is happening and
00:43:37
I start to jump in and my daughter grabs my arm and she says let them just let
00:43:44
them do what they want and Oak yells over and says hey Mom I think we're going to go to this uh Taco thing now
00:43:50
the taco place that they were going to Stephen is like the size of this table
00:43:56
there are 20 kids it is hailing outside they are dressed to the nines and I
00:44:01
could feel that volcano of control coming up like you can't go to the taco place you're in a tux and you got the
00:44:07
new sneakers and she her dress is going to get ruined and you don't even have an umbrella what are you thinking and Kendall has my arm she's like let them
00:44:14
if they want to go to a taco stand in the pouring rain and ruin their dress let them it's their problem not
00:44:22
yours and as she said it I started just repeating those words even let them let
00:44:28
them go to the Taco Stand let them let him ruin his shoes who cares let let him do what he wants to do
00:44:35
why am I worried about what he's doing why am I not worried about where I'm going to have dinner and so it was just
00:44:41
this moment and it immediately kind of unhooked me and then from that point
00:44:49
forward I just noticed a million situations sitting at the restaurant that night and the waiter is busy with
00:44:55
other stuff and they're not coming to the table how does everybody feel when that happens let them let them be
00:45:02
busy let them take care of the other table standing in line and people I
00:45:07
don't know what it is about the world today but people cannot stand in lines fidgeting and this and that and the
00:45:13
other thing and the person is letting in people from that line and they're not letting in people from this line let them let
00:45:20
them and some of the like really important topics too like if your kid
00:45:27
wants to drop out of school you can say what you need to say ultimately it's
00:45:32
their life let them what's going on there at the heart of that is that just a lowering of one's expectations so that
00:45:39
going back to the point we said about expectations and happiness we alleviate the chance of
00:45:44
disappointment and because we're just let we're saying fine Let It Go like
00:45:50
what is that the very Crux of that on a psychological level that's allowing us to feel liberated from that stress and need for control
00:45:57
what do you think it is I think when we take on other
00:46:03
people's problems um we create
00:46:09
expectation for them like in the case of your son you had an expectation of what his night would look like and where his
00:46:15
trainers and Tuck were going to go and that unmet expectation is causing you unnecessary suffering control stress
00:46:22
angst Vig V vigilance and just by saying do you know what like I wish well you're
00:46:28
just cutting the cord of a whole another stream of expectation that you absolutely do not need you didn't need
00:46:34
to volunteer to make your yours and look how much stress it created yeah and look
00:46:40
how much agit it created yeah so there's so many things going on Stephen and first of all I should also say there are
00:46:46
exceptions first of all you're not just going to let your kids do whatever they're going to do if you're a parent because you're supposed to put the guard
00:46:53
rails up right but there is so much controlling that we do in our lives of
00:47:00
other people and it is ruining your relationships and a great example of a way to use this is let's say that you
00:47:06
see that your friends are going out for brunch this weekend they didn't invite you happens all the time with my team
00:47:11
let them yeah let them yeah because here's the thing that's really important is it's really not about other people
00:47:18
see energetically you're hooking yourself into other people because you have an opinion about what they should or shouldn't be doing and that opinion
00:47:25
is usually driven by your in security or it's driven by your controlling nature or it's driven by your anxiety or it's
00:47:31
driven by whatever it is that you may have but once you get your energetic hook into somebody else you've now just
00:47:37
lost control because you are now trying to gain control of anything in your life what your friends are doing for brunch
00:47:44
this weekend by focusing on them when you say let them this is what's very
00:47:49
interesting it's very different than saying I'm just going to let go I don't give a hoot I don't care I baloney if
00:47:55
you're feeling a wave of energy about it or emotion about it you do care because the emotion is evidence that it is
00:48:03
impacting you and so most people understand that you should just let it go or you shouldn't care but they don't
00:48:08
know how when you say let them a couple really interesting things happen number one you acknowledge what's happening
00:48:15
which both acknowledges that your friends are out to lunch without you and it also acknowledges that it bothers you
00:48:21
and when you say let them you're acknowledging the situation and you're almost saying I'm above it and I'm
00:48:28
permitting this because I see it happening and then something really interesting happens because you're no
00:48:36
longer all worked up about what they're doing you are forced to look back at yourself let them if if my friends are
00:48:44
going out to brunch and they didn't invite me and it bothers me that much
00:48:49
and I'm just going to let them do it instead of sitting here stewing about
00:48:55
it what do I need to take responsibility for you're toxic yes probably or I
00:49:01
didn't I don't ever invite anybody out or if I want more experiences with my friends I should be the one
00:49:08
organizing everybody to go out to brunch or maybe my friends can just go out and I
00:49:15
don't have to always be included and it doesn't have to mean anything and maybe I've got work to do with therapy and so
00:49:22
what happens is as you start to use let them to lower your expectations to stop
00:49:29
focusing on other people and what they're doing it forces you to take responsibility for what you want in your
00:49:35
life linked to that was this thing that I found which people just loved when you
00:49:41
said it which was you should stay in your peace and stay in your power yes and it sounds somewhat correlated to
00:49:46
that very much so so when you start using it you will notice how often you
00:49:53
get agitated or frustrated by what other people are
00:49:59
doing and it's strangers in a coffee shop it's your
00:50:05
relatives it's like I we were just in a situation this uh here here in the states for Thanksgiving where we were
00:50:11
down visiting my parents and they're in a place that's small so we had a place that we had to rent so that we could all
00:50:18
kind of be together but it wasn't that close and every time it was a moment
00:50:23
where it was are we going to their house we going to our house and somebody had an expectation about where
00:50:30
we should be normally the old Mel would get hooked right into that person i'
00:50:36
just be like let him that per the people in your life are allowed to have their emotional
00:50:41
reactions and it's not your responsibility to manage their emotional reactions part of the reason why we get
00:50:48
hooked into these toxic Dynamics with people because you're part of the dynamic somebody does something that
00:50:53
triggers you you go right in you start to change how you show up you start to compensate you start to people please or
00:51:00
you get all mad and angry and next thing you know it erupts and it's the same thing over and over and over again and
00:51:06
you wonder why it never changes well part of the reason why is that person's never going to change you cannot control
00:51:12
that but you can change the energy you're putting into the dynamic when you
00:51:17
were asked what was the worst advice you ever given do you remember what you said I do not what is it you said the worst
00:51:22
advice I was I've ever received is that someone else can make you happy oh it's so true it's so true money can't make
00:51:30
you happy someone else can't make you happy and it's correlated to what you were just saying there in a way it's
00:51:36
very correlated because a lot of us are putting our energy into trying to push
00:51:44
other people to show up a certain way when if you were to pull all that
00:51:49
energy back and conserve it for yourself you suddenly start taking
00:51:56
respons responsibility and you have more energy to take the steps and to change the way that you think so that you can
00:52:02
have what you want in your life and there are exceptions look you're not just going to let somebody get behind the wheel of a car if they've been
00:52:08
drinking so if it's dangerous if it's self-destructive it's if it's discriminatory you have to step in in my
00:52:15
opinion and do something but here's the rub hold the intervention with your
00:52:20
friend who is an addict offer to pay for the treatment center if you can afford
00:52:26
to to do so but then you have to let them do what they're going to
00:52:31
do it makes the responsibility of how you show up entirely on you which means
00:52:37
you are now operating based on your values and based on what you want in your life and based on the kind of
00:52:44
person that you want to be not because you're doing it out of obligation or
00:52:49
manipulation or that sort of transactional nature that we get into with people it seems to be both self and
00:52:57
selfless at the same time in a way I don't think it's selfish at all really I actually think it's one of the most
00:53:03
generous things you could do how is not controlling other people a
00:53:09
selfish thing to do I'm not saying I don't care I'm saying I'm aware that you are a
00:53:17
independent human being with his own feelings and his own life path and his
00:53:22
own values and expectations and when I step in and try to fix everything for you or change how
00:53:29
you feel I actually rob you of both the breakdowns that you need I rob you of
00:53:34
the responsibility that you need to take and I don't own the part of the equation
00:53:41
in every relationship every relationship has an energetic exchange I do something and now you are going to react
00:53:50
and are you going to react based on what's align for you are you going to react as a way to try to
00:53:56
change how I am taking that hook out though feels like it serves you in a profound way as well which is the self
00:54:03
selfish part of the equation doesn't feel selfish but over the long term it's going to serve you so it's it is a an AC
00:54:09
of self-preservation or taking care of oneself yeah and I also feel like there's a healthy dose of curiosity in
00:54:15
this because it's going to reveal all the things in your life that really bother you because right now you're
00:54:20
distracting Yourself by being upset about other people instead of pulling that energy
00:54:27
back in and going oh well if it really bothers me that my sister-in-law never comes to visit me then I clearly care
00:54:34
about this relationship and so do I care about the the them be me being right and them
00:54:41
always coming to me do I care about Tit for Tat or do I actually just care about
00:54:47
building a good relationship with somebody this is also extraordinarily effective if you're dealing with
00:54:52
somebody that has any toxic Tendencies any narcissistic trait like when you look at the research around especially
00:54:59
narcissism and the fact that people are not born that way they're made that way and it's highly unlikely that they're
00:55:05
changing based on the supply that they constantly need when you go let them I'm
00:55:12
going to see what's coming I'm going to anticipate what's coming I'm going to
00:55:18
let them have their tantrum which is what typically happens and I'm going to go into this wide open I'm
00:55:26
not going to allow myself to get triggered by it because I am saying I know who this person is I know what's
00:55:33
going to happen I've been in this Dynamic for years and I'm going to let them do what they do and when that
00:55:39
happens you also kind of pres it's almost like a a emotional force field
00:55:45
that goes up does this apply to Chris too oh hell yes I mean I um I'm trying
00:55:50
to think of um how is Chris we talked about him a bit last time um Chris is fantastic he's getting a master in
00:55:56
transpersonal Psychology oh wow and uh he I'm really really really proud of him
00:56:04
he has started the he he's been doing men's Retreats uh for six years and um
00:56:11
why why was there a catalyst yes um he came out of his uh restaurant business a
00:56:20
broken human uh because the venture did not succeed and he felt like an abject
00:56:28
failure and based on you know all the messaging that men in particular get
00:56:34
about providing he felt like he had completely failed his wife and his three
00:56:40
children and all the friends and families that had invested and as I
00:56:46
scrambled and did whatever I could to start try to keep us afloat when things
00:56:52
started to take off for me the shadow that I cast just made him feel even
00:56:58
worse and so he was looking for something that would allow him to really
00:57:04
reconnect with himself to connect with other men and so he created something called Soul degree and um it's been a
00:57:12
real passion project of his he just does two or three Retreats a year he just opened up next year's registration and
00:57:19
sold it out in 24 hours which tells you a little bit about the demand and the
00:57:25
desire for people to have deeper experiences and deeper connection and
00:57:32
you know to kind of circle back on that topic about goals if you want to go
00:57:37
there um I think it's very important you know
00:57:42
every this time of year when January 1 rolls around January
00:57:48
1 is what's called a temporal landmark and a temporal Landmark I I'm not going
00:57:54
to get the definition right but it is this term used for moments of significance moments that create a
00:58:00
before and an after and we've all had experiences on birthdays ten 30y was one
00:58:05
of them yes of course right a before and an after the reason why there are more
00:58:11
people that go to a gym on the first of a month is not only because of the uh incentive with pricing but it's because
00:58:17
it's a temporal Landmark quarters in a business temporal Landmark but January 1
00:58:22
is a really huge temporal landmark I think it's very important to do an
00:58:31
assessment or an audit of where you are before you jump into what's next and I
00:58:36
think this is the piece that everybody misses when they sit down and they write
00:58:42
out a list of goals the most important part of setting goals for yourself I
00:58:49
believe is first understanding where you are and there's a simple exercise that
00:58:54
you can do it's sort of like um if you think about directions it's mathematically
00:59:00
impossible to give somebody a set of directions unless we know you're starting point and where you want to go
00:59:05
and most people pick their head up and go I want to go there without going well where am I right now and so just take
00:59:12
out a blank piece of paper and write out all the categories of your life it
00:59:17
there's no formula for this literally you could do 10 different categories you could do five you could do relationships
00:59:24
money my health my happiness and just rank them where are you 1 to 10
00:59:31
1 to 5 whatever you want and explain why and I think a really good goal is to
00:59:38
Simply say to yourself how do I make this number two or three points
00:59:44
higher that right there changes your direction you know where you're starting
00:59:50
from and you ask yourself well if my health is a two what would a five look
00:59:56
look like and can I work towards that and to me that's what goals are goals
01:00:02
are that sort of point on a map that are your next couple steps dreams are
01:00:08
something else and dreams are just as important because dreams are that moment where you pick your head
01:00:16
up and you get really quiet and you tune in to what your mind
01:00:25
body and spirit is telling you kind of aim that inner Compass out into the distance and you
01:00:33
ask yourself where do I want to go like if you think about five or 10
01:00:39
years from now and and the easiest way for me to figure out that is who am I
01:00:45
jealous of that usually shows up a lot faster than who am I inspired by because
01:00:51
jealousy is just blocked desire you can't feel jealous
01:00:56
of somebody unless you authentically want something for real
01:01:03
that you think that they have and the jealousy happens because
01:01:09
you have somewhere in your psyche told yourself you can't have
01:01:14
it and that's why it comes up as negative but I want you to consider if you were to allow
01:01:20
yourself at this time of year or right now after this podcast to just
01:01:27
span the world and ask yourself who am I either inspired by or who am I jealous
01:01:34
of give yourself permission to do that and then get curious well what is it
01:01:40
exactly because it might not be the fancy cars or the things that you see it
01:01:46
might be a sense of Peace it might be that they seem to have a great uh family
01:01:53
life it might be that they uh have a very vibrant energy to them
01:01:59
that there's something behind the stuff on the surface that really is aligned
01:02:04
with what is hardwired in you and pay attention to that because those dreams
01:02:10
are there for a reason see I think that they are the beacons out in the future
01:02:15
that are directional signals just because you have this dream
01:02:21
doesn't mean you're going to get it the dream's purpose in your life is is to get your head out of the sand and to
01:02:29
look out ahead and to point you in a different
01:02:34
direction dreams dreams and goals it's funny because as you were
01:02:40
saying that I was wondering what your dreams and goals must be and it made me think of this comment that I saw on our
01:02:47
last conversation last time you came on the podcast it said dear Mel you've
01:02:52
touched me I've had a similar molest experience I came out after the
01:02:59
experience and I told my parents about
01:03:04
it but I didn't tell them for many many many years because I thought I would be
01:03:11
blamed for it because that is how my mother always treated me I can finally
01:03:18
totally relate to somebody in you I've been living in fear all of my 71 years
01:03:25
of life fear Capital words controls me to this
01:03:30
day now thanks to you I have the answers I can now live the rest of my days
01:03:36
better I've spent my life trying to fix me with you I have directions to follow
01:03:42
now so thank you Mel thank you for sharing that
01:03:49
um I um you know one of the things that is profound about the let them Theory
01:03:56
is that if you're in a situation where you're terrified of somebody's reaction just tell yourself let
01:04:04
them let them have the reaction that they're going to have because if you allow the space for
01:04:13
your parents in that situation to have a really horrible reaction you've
01:04:19
anticipated that it's coming and you've also allowed them to be human and you to empower yourself to
01:04:28
then do what you need to do for yourself which is to say it out
01:04:35
loud and to tell the truth about what happened to you because it's not about
01:04:43
your parents reaction it's about you finding the courage and making the decision and taking the action to say
01:04:52
this happened and that's the beginning of of your life moving in a completely
01:04:58
different direction because you know
01:05:03
fear is something that runs people's lives it makes you avoid it makes you
01:05:09
shrink it makes you live in silence it makes you deny what you're feeling and too often the fear that we
01:05:17
feel the most is we're afraid of what other people are going to say we're afraid of other people's reactions let
01:05:22
them have it let them be human let them do and I'm not saying let people treat
01:05:29
you poorly what I'm here to tell you is that
01:05:34
when you take responsibility for your truth and you take responsibility for
01:05:40
expressing it and then you take responsibility for your
01:05:45
boundaries and you take responsibility for your healing you do have the possibility of
01:05:55
living the rest of your life in a completely different
01:06:00
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waiting list at theconversation cards.com but I'll also include it in the description below wherever you're
01:07:26
listening to this episode when did you receive your diagnosis of ADHD uh I was
01:07:32
I think like 47 how did it change things well it was
01:07:39
amazing I I absolutely amazing you were recently diagnosed right yeah um so it
01:07:47
changed everything because um I finally had an explanation
01:07:55
for something about the way that my mind worked and the way that I felt that made
01:08:02
me for 47 years feel like there was
01:08:08
something defective about me and I couldn't figure out what it
01:08:14
was and I was diagnosed the way that most women that are adults are diagnosed
01:08:20
and it goes a little something like this you have a kid so my husband and I have three children and um our youngest
01:08:29
Oakley was this just amazing kind of casseroll of things and one of the
01:08:36
things that he was is that he had a lot of trouble in school he just we didn't
01:08:42
even know that he couldn't read I mean talk about being a parent that asleep at the wheel we didn't find out that he
01:08:48
couldn't read Stephen until he was in the fourth grade and the reason why we didn't know and the school didn't know
01:08:55
is is because he had so overcompensated in the classroom by
01:09:00
being so verbal first kid with the hand up blah blah blah blah blah like talking talking talking that
01:09:06
nobody knew that he was having trouble and all of a sudden the math problems
01:09:13
get harder because they become word problems all of a sudden reading comprehension and you know not not to
01:09:19
mention the fact that he also had dis graphia which basically means that it looked like he was writing with his feet
01:09:24
I mean his handwriting was so bad and I was befuddled by this because he could
01:09:30
literally sit in front of the TV and play video games for hours and have
01:09:35
hyperfocus and all this dexterity and so I just thought oh he's acting out he can't stand school so we have this great
01:09:42
teacher in the public school system who says you really need to get him tested and I wouldn't test him in the school
01:09:48
and luckily we were at a point where we could afford to go get I think it's called a uh psychographic
01:09:55
something something it's like a long word and sure enough the testing comes back and the uh PhD neuros pych guy is
01:10:04
like yeah well he has profound dyslexia he has profound disg graphia he has executive functioning issues which is
01:10:11
basically the conductor or the secretary in the brain sort of helping you stay organized and a couple steps ahead he
01:10:18
has ADHD and as I'm reading through this report I'm sitting in the pediatrician's
01:10:23
office Stephen and I'm looking at this report and I'm reading it and I look up
01:10:28
at his pediatrician who I had become good friends with because we had three kids in the practice at this point I'm
01:10:34
like Mark do you think maybe have I I have
01:10:42
ADHD and he puts his paper down Stephen and he goes do I think you have ADHD of
01:10:49
course you have ADHD you are the most ADHD person parent in my entire practice
01:10:55
I'm like what do you mean he's like Mel you're brilliant and yet you never do
01:11:00
what you say you're going to do you will leave here and tell me you're going to call you never call back your kids go years without coming in because you miss
01:11:07
all their Wellness appointments you scramble every single year for the uh physicals that your kids need and you
01:11:13
beg us to it is Clockwork of course you have ADHD and I look at him Stephen and I'm like why didn't you tell me he said
01:11:20
because I'm not your doctor and so I went and I got the testing Stephen and and turns out yes ADHD dyslexia same
01:11:29
profile as my son and what was interesting about getting
01:11:35
the diagnosis because I didn't understand what ADHD was I always
01:11:40
thought that ADHD is that you can't pay attention same that's not what it is at
01:11:46
all and so learning about what it is and learning
01:11:52
that boys and girls present completely differently so there's an entire generation of women I don't know if you
01:11:58
know this but there's an entire generation of women called The Lost Generation and what happened is when
01:12:04
they were studying ADHD I guess in the late 60s and early 70s they only looked
01:12:09
at boys and so boys tend to show the
01:12:15
symptoms of ADHD around the age of seven and it typically is around um the
01:12:22
hyperactivity or the inability to kind of like focus and and control their body
01:12:28
movements girls on the other hand don't sh start displaying symptoms until about
01:12:33
the age of 12 and the symptoms are very different girls become um inattentive
01:12:38
but in a kind of daydreaming fashion they become a little bit more disorganized and they aim all of this
01:12:47
back at themselves and so as you become kind of more Inward and you are
01:12:53
inattentive and you're disorg Oran and you start to wonder what's wrong with you and now plus the average age of
01:12:59
girls for puberty is right around then too so all this other stuff is starting to happen and hormones are starting to
01:13:04
change if you don't get properly diagnosed and treated
01:13:10
and by treated I mean the whole array of things that you can do whether you're
01:13:15
talking about medication or just the different habits that you can have or systems that you can develop to support
01:13:20
yourself if you don't get properly tested and you don't address it do you
01:13:28
know what the number one thing that happens you develop anxiety oh really
01:13:33
well of course because you're sitting in a classroom and you can't get yourself to focus and you're disorganized and you
01:13:41
start to feel this sense of alarm that you're going to walk into a test and you're not going to be able to do it
01:13:47
that you're going to yet again open your locker and the stuff's going to fly everywhere that yet again you're going
01:13:54
to forget your friend's birthday or you're going to forget to do this thing and so all of this anxiety Rises to the
01:14:00
surface so get this so they call us The Lost Generation of women because what do
01:14:07
you suppose if we were not diagnosed so I'm 55 if I'm in elementary school in
01:14:13
the late 70s and the you know and and they've only studied boys and so none of
01:14:19
this is on anybody's radar screen you now have a generation of women who are developing anxiety at Big levels in high
01:14:27
school and college I was textbook and so we get treated for the anxiety and medicated for it without
01:14:35
addressing the underlying issue all along which was undiagnosed ADHD so for
01:14:42
me it was absolutely lifechanging and it was life-changing to understand that ADHD is
01:14:51
not about your inability to focus it is about the fact and I'm sure you probably
01:14:57
have dug into this and you know this but for you know anybody anytime I talk about this the number of women that are
01:15:03
going to write in the number of dads that will write in about their daughters the number of people that say oh my God
01:15:09
I had anxiety in high school too and now now I've been uh diagnosed with ADHD and it was because of my kid going through
01:15:15
this and this is exactly my story it is happening over and over and over again
01:15:20
and so here's what really also helped me Stephen and it's this
01:15:26
understanding that focus and the ability to focus in appropriate ways requires
01:15:34
two different neural networks in your brain and you can think about it this
01:15:41
way if you think about you know the prefrontal cortex this kind of part of your brain really has the job of almost
01:15:48
being like a conductor of an orchestra this is the best um example that I've
01:15:54
heard in terms of what's happening if you have ADHD and what's happening is if you
01:16:00
think about an orchestra and and the orchestra's warming up right it's
01:16:06
like and the drums are Ting ding ding ding ding and people are shuffling in their seats we know that sound right and
01:16:13
then all of a sudden the conductor's like TI and everybody silent
01:16:20
right in order to conduct an orchestra you got to be able to do two things at once you got to be able
01:16:28
to lower the volume on the strings over here and then you got to be able
01:16:34
to amplify the focus on the percussion over
01:16:40
here and what happens when this part of your brain is not switching properly is
01:16:46
you are like Mel Robbins in college and I would be with my books and I would be
01:16:54
in the Stacks at Baker Library at Dartmouth College and I'd be there because I'm going to study
01:17:01
right and my Orchestra conductor cannot shush anything so the second I sit down
01:17:09
if I'm G to study I have to do two things I have to be able to quiet all the ambient noise I have to be able to
01:17:16
quiet all the signaling in my body so that what I can amplify my attention on
01:17:23
what I'm reading when this part of your brain doesn't work what ends up happening or at least this is the way
01:17:29
that it's been explained to me is that I can't focus on my books because I'm
01:17:35
paying attention to the fact that my stomach is grumbling and I hear people walking and then I'm looking around and
01:17:40
then I'm paying attention to the fact that I have to go to the bathroom so then I'm up then I'm walking around and
01:17:46
that is how I lived for a very very long time do you think that's a survival response what do you mean becoming very
01:17:53
aware of your surroundings you know what I mean has
01:17:59
anyone ever researched whether or not there is a link between trauma and ADHD yes and Gabel mate I believe is the is
01:18:06
the one that's made a pretty pretty compelling case to me that ADHD appears to be linked to Childhood trauma which
01:18:13
is you I'm going to butcher this so please forgive me everybody the case he
01:18:18
made to me was that when you have a chaotic or traumatic or stressful childhood as a survival mechanism you
01:18:26
learn to tune out and that's that's that's protective so if your parents are always screaming in the house for
01:18:32
example it makes a lot of sense for you to learn to tune out in that moment but also to know when to tune in obsessively
01:18:38
and maybe that's the hyperfocus bit the bit that he really stressed to me was that kids that go through some kind of
01:18:45
interpretation of a stressful environment at a young age or a traumatic environment are more likely to have ADHD because they've learned to
01:18:51
tune out in order to sort of conserve and survive it's like my rough understanding of it well it makes a lot
01:18:57
of sense right because um if you also have a really chaotic environment it
01:19:04
might not be safe for you to tune out yeah and so you've got to stay in that hypervigilant mode which I think would
01:19:10
fry the conductor in your brain it does yeah because you're both paying attention to the the survival signals in
01:19:15
your body at the same time as the chaos in your house and even if you're tuning out the parents who are screaming at
01:19:21
each other you are still tuned into it because heaven forbid B it escalates yeah you got to know yeah and so I think
01:19:28
it makes perfect sense honestly but it was just a GameChanger and it was a GameChanger to know kind of the
01:19:35
distinction between boys and girls and the link with anxiety uh in terms of it
01:19:41
developing uh in a pronounced way for those of us that have had this
01:19:46
experience of having this as a diagnosis learning it late in life and then
01:19:52
tracing it back and going oh my god I've been treated for anxiety for all these years when the real issue was this
01:19:59
attention issue and if you take gabber mate's Theory which I think is probably
01:20:04
accurate dial it back even further and it's probably some form of childhood trauma that put a kink in the
01:20:11
wires menopause you talked about menopause earlier yes do we have to I mean Jesus okay why what do you want to
01:20:19
know wh why did you respond like that you know because it's um um it's really
01:20:28
confounding and it's confounding because there's I don't even know if that's the right word it's overwhelming everybody
01:20:35
my age is talking about it because what happens is you start to lose control of
01:20:41
your body and um you're going through all of these changes that you feel like
01:20:49
you are not in control of and so you know I realize I look like a very lean
01:20:55
person and so the truth is that I am a very lean person I have not changed my
01:21:01
habits in I don't know eight years I have very very healthy habits because I force myself to do things I don't feel
01:21:07
like doing um and yet they're not working and my
01:21:15
body is expanding and brain fog is increasing and I am like a furnace to
01:21:23
sleep next to at night and um all of which is a function of the
01:21:31
changing levels of estrogen in my body and what's very challenging about um
01:21:39
dealing with kind of hormone changes is that there's so much conflicting advice out there and to truly know what's going
01:21:46
on in your body you have to be drawing blood you have to be looking at what's
01:21:51
going on in the inside that is extremely expensive for most people it also is a
01:21:57
big maintenance issue it's a gigantic pain in the ass and it doesn't feel like
01:22:02
anybody really has a good handle on this and I think as a woman it's very
01:22:08
frustrating to know that women were not even involved in uh medical research
01:22:13
until the late 80s and it's even more frustrating to know and look I could be
01:22:19
wrong on this but we had an expert on our show explain that they only use postmenopausal women because they don't
01:22:24
want women women's hormones to throw off the results of the testing that they're
01:22:30
going through with medication and so it just feels like a massive gray area for
01:22:36
more than half the population our entire network from the brain through the entire body is running on estrogen
01:22:43
there's new research around like just stopping menopause altogether because
01:22:50
women's uh Health out women's um I'm I'm you know I'm not a medical expert so I'm
01:22:56
trying to learn all this stuff to educate myself do I take a pill do I put a cream on do I have this little patch
01:23:03
do I sleep on a pad that makes me cold so my husband won't like complain that I'm sweating like through the sheets do
01:23:08
I do on bamboo like it is so overwhelming and then and you know
01:23:14
and I even feel my cheeks getting hot so it could be a hot flash coming on I don't know all I know is I'm drinking my
01:23:21
water and I'm taking my progesterone and I'm doing my estrogen patch and now I've tried the blood draws and everybody has
01:23:26
a different opinion is it your gut health is it your estrogen health I don't know I just know my body is
01:23:32
changing and some days I feel like a uh a a a p a a mayor that's being put out
01:23:38
to pasture and part of the issue is the lifespan we have if you think about it
01:23:46
like our our life expectancy has way eclipsed the fertility cycle of women
01:23:55
and so we now for most of us will have another 30 or 40 years if we take care
01:24:02
of ourselves and that's a long time to live a very vibrant and amazing life
01:24:10
which I believe that we can and to have a body where your entire system needs
01:24:18
estrogen and yet your body is starting to lose it and so that's part of the reason why there's so much interesting
01:24:25
research going on around whether or not the answer is to just keep us
01:24:31
menstrating so that we're naturally producing this in our bodies so
01:24:37
interesting it's funny because I'm I'm not going to go through menopause myself well that would be interesting but
01:24:43
obviously you'll do manopause though because you'll probably have a drop in testosterone uhuh but but on the subject
01:24:49
of menopause I'm going to be surrounded by women that are going to go through it
01:24:55
and blo and all the bees so get ready and I want I want to make sure I understand that's why I'm so curious
01:25:00
about it but it's I crazy thing is I only learned about it like a year ago on this book wait you didn't know no about
01:25:06
menopause no well that that's true you're a 30-year-old man why or 31 why
01:25:11
would you know about menopause I learned from interviewing people on this podcast and i' I became so fascinated by it because people aren't talking about it
01:25:18
enough or at least they haven't historically the conversation has has in my view has risen in cultural
01:25:25
um popularity over the last couple of years but Well here here's my take on it
01:25:30
stepen thank God it has yeah because if you look at the fact that women were not included in you know the medical
01:25:37
research until the late 80s and you realize that more than half the
01:25:43
population are women and that menopause and women's hormone Health was a chapter
01:25:52
in the OBG uh schooling and it is an enormous part of
01:26:02
how a woman woman's body function like if we pull away all the skin and what
01:26:07
you see is all the wiring the fuel that is really circulating through a woman's
01:26:14
body is estrogen and other hormones this is again I am not a medical expert I am
01:26:20
just a woman who is trying desperately to figure out how to make sense of an
01:26:27
extraordinarily important topic that until recent years has not been looked
01:26:33
at with the scientific rigor that it deserves and demands and that women
01:26:39
around the planet need and it has just been kind of like an afterthought that
01:26:44
okay you're going to take some hormones and then that'll be that you'll be through it I mean most of the advice that I got when I started to get the
01:26:50
thickening and the hot flashes started to come and it's too much information for me to talk about all the other uh
01:26:57
symptoms that you may feel when you go through menopause is basically like well you know it'll take about 10 years and
01:27:04
then you'll bounce back that is not acceptable when it comes to how we can
01:27:11
care for and Empower more than half of the people on
01:27:17
this planet and there it is exciting though because I do believe that
01:27:22
somebody will figure this out out soon that there will be more research there already are companies popping up all
01:27:29
over the place that are doing really exciting stuff it's just kind of one of these issues that's really confusing
01:27:36
because if you Google it or you listen to an expert on the topic it really does
01:27:43
depend on your personal history because if you've had any form of breast cancer
01:27:48
or or history of that in your family it can be very dangerous or life-threatening for you to hormones and
01:27:55
so again I'm I I have a lot to say about this because I'm in the middle of it but I don't know a lot and I think that's
01:28:01
the thing that's scary my last question before I go to the book the hardest question that
01:28:07
people ask me and I've struggled with it for couple of years and I still struggle with it now to be honest is they ask me
01:28:12
what's driving me and I always I I pause because I don't want to give a [ __ ] answer like what I do I really know at
01:28:19
the core of me what's driving me you talked about a lot of it being subconscious I don't really know and the other thing that people people ask me is
01:28:24
what's your goal and because I think I've got this sort of predisposition now or this
01:28:31
perspective that I don't know I don't know if there is a goal I I know that you know there's this state of being
01:28:37
that I want to arrive in every day this feeling I want but is there a goal because I've completed loads of my goals and it wasn't
01:28:44
that so so I'm cautious about setting any goals so I'm going to throw the question at you what is your thanks a
01:28:50
lot what is your goal is there a goal is that a [ __ ]
01:28:56
question um because I've read that quote to you that's I mean someone can't have more profound impact on another person's
01:29:01
life than that so I'm like you know you did it you have the gazillion followers
01:29:07
you've climbed the mountain you've got the car the money savings the kids are good relationships in a great
01:29:15
place uh my goal is to enjoy it as much as I can it's a good goal another goal
01:29:24
is to um to have a great relationship with my kids and my
01:29:35
husband yeah I think um having it's very fulfilling to have
01:29:44
um our adult kids uh be such good friends I really
01:29:51
love that why does that make you emotional um
01:29:57
because they're cool I mean I just you know why it makes me emotional is because
01:30:04
um I know they're choosing to spend time with us and um I saw this thing on um I
01:30:13
it's it's floating around I'm sure you saw it too about how um the amount of time you spent with your parents just
01:30:18
declines over time it like literally goes off a cliff and so I um just love
01:30:25
the time that I have with them because I think they're all really interesting and unique and
01:30:30
um I love that they choose to spend a lot of time with this we have a closing tradition on this
01:30:37
podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're GNA leave it for this is it about menopause can you imagine well it
01:30:45
might be it depend on your answer the question left for you I love how these are always the most difficult questions my questions are a walk in the
01:30:51
park um what is the most difficult challenge that you have
01:30:57
overcome i' I'd say um there's some I I have a bazillion
01:31:03
answers to this like I wanted to say getting out of bed every morning when I don't feel like it because that ability
01:31:12
to feel resistance in your body and get out of bed and face the day is
01:31:20
the skill that you need for any change and I over and I I face it every day and
01:31:28
every way I think the most difficult if you were to measure it in
01:31:33
time challenge would be rewiring my nervous system if that's
01:31:39
even possible technically that's probably not a thing that you do but to
01:31:46
deprogram all of the crap that was there and you can't get
01:31:52
rid of it entirely but to make the Pathways in my body that used to be
01:31:58
driven by either trauma or fear or anxiety that were so hardwired to make
01:32:05
those not be the default and to gain a level of
01:32:12
self-awareness and have the tools to be able to catch myself and and be like Oh
01:32:17
not going to be the grizzly bear right now and focusing on being action orientated as you said yeah and just
01:32:24
prioritizing peace well thank you thank you so much for your um for your Brilliance oh I
01:32:33
could I could talk about so many specific things that I think are so exceptional about you but that we'
01:32:38
probably be here for another two hours or so so um thank you so much because you you know you
01:32:43
um you have a wonderfully unique talent wisdom ability to dissect understand
01:32:52
reflect Express be authentic vulnerable in a way that
01:32:57
the world so desperately needs it needs someone with that talent for
01:33:03
understanding introspection processing communication and that's what you have and I don't I it's hard to think of many
01:33:10
examples where I've seen that like you are very much oneof a kind and it's a and it's a responsibility unfortunately
01:33:16
it's a great responsibility I don't feel that way I feel like it's so much easier than faking it dude I look at you and I
01:33:22
go you've got so much talent that it's a responsibility because you can impact 71y old you know lady here to Pivot her
01:33:30
life I give that's a responsibility and do you know what I think is a great thing in life meaningful responsibilities I think we're all
01:33:37
trying to find it and I think that's what you have the gift of so um you know I'm always going to be your number one
01:33:43
fan and gosh I actually just think you're at the beginning of your journey so I'm excited to see all of it play out
01:33:49
thank you Mom thank you can I say one more thing no I'm joking of course
01:33:56
that comment by what was her name I don't think she left her name she didn't okay so that comment name that that
01:34:03
comment makes me one of the reasons
01:34:11
why I think I'm so driven is
01:34:17
because I know how many people go through life day-to-day
01:34:22
feeling in visible and stuck and not
01:34:29
seen and so if I can
01:34:34
share any small thing that I've done that has made a difference or any
01:34:41
detail about a challenge that I'm facing even if it's
01:34:46
complaining about menopause and hot flashes and bloating if that means one human being
01:34:55
out there somewhere across the world goes I'm not the only
01:35:01
one that's why I do what I do because I lived inside a body and a brain for
01:35:10
too many decades going I think I'm the only one who feels this way I think there's something wrong with me I don't
01:35:17
think I'm ever going to be able to fix this and it's simply not true you're not
01:35:23
the only one there's somebody on this planet going through it and has changed your life the better and if they've done
01:35:29
it so can you thank you you're
01:35:35
[Music] welcome as you'll know this podcast is sponsored by
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H and I have to say it's moments like this in my life where I'm extremely busy and I'm flying all over the place and
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I'm recording TV shows and I'm recording shows in America and here in the UK that hu is a
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necessity in my life I'm someone that regardless of external circumstances or professional demands wants to stay
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healthy and nutritionally complete and that's exactly where heel fits in my life so if you're looking to try heel for the first time and to get into it
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and to join the huigan family I'd highly recommend you try this out do you need a podcast to listen to
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next we've discovered that people who liked this episode also tend to absolutely love another recent episode
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we've done so I've linked that episode in the description below I know you'll enjoy it
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[Music]
