--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Oh boy, you're gonna be so excited you tuned in today. I am doubly excited for today's conversation with you. Doubly, is that even a word? Double excited? Doubly? I don't even know. Who cares? We're gonna use it today.
--:-- I'm doubly excited because I know I'm gonna get so much out of this selfishly. Look, I'm always looking out for you. But when I also get doubly the impact because I need the punch in the face of this topic, whoa, do we have a doozy?
--:-- What is the topic we're going to talk about? Well, it's something that you and I do. In fact, every human being does this. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about it in this manner before. That's why I'm doubly excited for the expert that we've got on today.
--:-- We have the world's leading expert on the topic of avoidance. Avoidance? The hell is avoidance, Mel? I know. Have you ever even thought about it? I bet you haven't. Because until I read Dr. Luana Marquez's new book, *Bold Moves*, I hadn't thought about how much I avoid things in life. I mean, holy guacamole. I not only have a habit of avoiding things that feel hard. Avoidance is everywhere in my life. And I bet it's everywhere in your life.
--:-- It is so sneaky how this creeps in. And next thing you know, you're avoiding responding to an email because the email is confronting, or you're avoiding dealing with your bills, or you're avoiding having that hard conversation. Or maybe you're avoiding something really big like that breakup or the talk or going to get that diagnosis that you're scared about.
--:-- Well, what Dr. Marquez is here to tell you is that avoidance is robbing you and the people that you care about of all the magic that you're capable of experiencing in your life. And we got to stop doing it today.
--:-- And you want to know what else you need to do today? You got to listen all the way to the end because in the last episode, we rolled out bloopers for the first time, something I'd been thinking about, but avoiding doing. You went crazy for our first ever bloopers at the end of the show. So we're going to do it again today. So listen all the way to the end.
--:-- And you're going to love Dr. Luana. She went from being poverty stricken in Brazil to becoming a professor of psychiatry at Harvard. She is also on the clinical staff at Mass General, which is one of the number one ranked health institutions in the entire world. And today she is bringing that world class training to you free of charge. How cool is that?
--:-- And she is not going to avoid the hard stuff. She's changed how I think. She's highlighted an issue that I didn't even realize was so prevalent in my life. And the same thing is going to happen for you.
--:-- Dr. Luana, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Thank you, Mel. I'm so excited to be here with you today. I can't even tell you how excited I am.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, it's an honor to talk to you. Your work centers around one skill that everybody on the planet needs to learn how to spot and master. What is it?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: So my work really is about identifying avoidance and overcoming avoidance. That is it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Why do we need to do that?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Because avoidance is robbing us of our best life. It's keeping us prisoners of our own thinking and our own behavior. And that keeps us in our own mental jail.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I know that you are a specialist in CBT therapy. We're going to get into that, but I want everybody to hear your background. Now, you know, it's interesting. People come to me and they say, "Get rid of my anxiety." But the problem is really not anxiety, it's what we do when we are anxious. And what we do is we avoid.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: And let me tell you this. I learned this first when I was like 15 and I moved in with my grandmother. So I lived in a little city, Governador Valadares in Brazil. And I moved into Belo Horizonte. And I just became terrified of people. Like my brain just screamed that people were not going to like me, that they think I'm different, that I come from a small town, that I'm not enough.
--:-- And so my grandmother noticed this. She's like, "Why don't you bring friends over?" And I'd be like, "Oh, no, no, I just have to study. I need to really study." And I started to just avoid people, anything related to people. I didn't make friends. I started to feel lonely. I was really anxious. My brain just was failing me.
--:-- My grandmother, this woman is incredible, right? She has no college training. She doesn't know at that point CBT was nothing. Cognitive behavior therapy wasn't really in Brazil specifically, didn't exist. She one day said to me, "Luana, let's go to the mall. I want us to eat Chinese food."
--:-- Now, before I moved in with my grandmother, there were times in our lives that we didn't have food. And so this idea of having Chinese food in a big town, my grandmother was so exciting. I got this little tree. I still remember this. My hands are like so excited. This Chinese, I could smell the Chinese food.
--:-- And she says to me, "Do you see that gentleman there, the elder gentleman? Let's go talk to him." And my stomach just dropped. I was like, "No, I'm not talking to him. What are you talking about?" You know that anxiety in your pit of your stomach just turning. And I was like, "I can't do this. I just can't do this."
--:-- And she's like, "We're going to talk to him." And so we sat and she did all the talking. And at that point, I didn't want the Chinese food anymore. Let's be clear.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You had no appetite.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I had no appetite. And she just kept doing this. We did it again and again. And I don't remember how many times. What I remember is that eventually I could talk to people. And eventually people weren't scary anymore. And eventually I made friends.
--:-- And I realized in graduate school, like later, 20 years later, I realized that my grandmother was doing what's called exposure therapy. She realized I was avoiding, right? I was avoiding strangers and she forced me. That's how I felt. She would tell you that she just helped me approach. But she taught me to go against that avoidance, to go towards the things that matter.
--:-- And I'm telling you, if she didn't do that, I probably would have developed social phobia. I probably would be stuck in Brazil still. And so that's why I think avoidance is so powerful. It robs us from the lives that we want. And there's a ton of science behind it, but I learned it from my grandmother.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I have my jaw on the floor. And the reason why is I don't think anybody has really shown this spotlight on the topic of avoidance and how it's everywhere in our lives. And we'll dig into the way that we all avoid, but I'm having this moment where I'm going, "Holy cow."
--:-- I remember when Brené Brown first gave that TED Talk about vulnerability. And the whole world was like, "What? Vulnerability is a superpower?" The way you just explained avoidance as something that uncomfortable situations trigger and that it's not being anxious or scared or whatever that's the problem, it's really what we do with it. And avoiding is the main thing we do. You're right.
--:-- You know, thank God for your grandmother. Let's give her grandmother some props, everybody, because dragging you to the mall, Dr. Luana, and not allowing you to avoid other people, because she did that, it changed the trajectory of your life. You probably wouldn't be where you are today if not for your grandmother.
--:-- And in reading your new book, I was blown away by how prevalent avoidance is in everybody's life. I mean, it's just so easy to opt out, to not go, to not try. It's almost like it's your default.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah, that's what we do. And we do it all the time. We rationalize our way into avoidance. You know, "I'm not going to ask for this raise because I just haven't worked hard enough." Or "I'm not going on this date because I'm afraid of dating." No, no, no, no. And it's everywhere, right? It's robbing us from our lives and no one's talking about avoidance. I'm so glad that you caught onto that, Mel, because that's right. It's what we do. And if what we do is walk away from the things that are meaningful, if what we do is avoidance, then we are robbing ourselves from our best lives.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Holy cow. You're absolutely right.
--:-- There's somebody really close to us in our family who has had this massive uptick of anxiety happen. It has been so debilitating that this person has actually taken an entire week off of work. And I've been thinking that's actually the opposite of what you should do. Because if you are scared that you're going to have a panic attack at work, so you don't go to work, you're making the anxiety bigger than you. Avoiding that thing makes the fear bigger.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: That's exactly right. This is a great example of this person because the instinct is biologically driven, right? Is to go away. So can you walk us through this work example? So you start to worry about having a panic attack. I've worked with lots of people that have panic attacks. And so your work, you have this horrible panic attack. And then your brain basically now is saying, "Well, work can lead to panic attack. So I'm going to stay home." That makes sense, though. If I had a panic attack at work, I would want to stay home from work, too. But what you're doing is you're actually training your brain to be scared of work, because now you're linking work with a panic attack. And let's be honest, there was no link there.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, that's a good point. I see what you're saying. When I have a panic attack at work, I make this mistake where I link the panic attack with the physical location of where I had it, rather than telling myself that the panic attack is the result of some internal emotional issue that I need to address. It has nothing to do with work. It's a deeper thing, right?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Panic attacks can come out of the blue. But then if you take a whole week out of work, then what are you doing? You can't avoid for long, right? You're going to come out with a baseline anxiety so high that now you're almost guaranteeing that you're going to have a panic attack at work because you've been so afraid of it. Right. You're inducing that fight, flight or freeze.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So what do you do? Do you just tell the person to get over it and get back to work?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: The opposite of avoidance is approach. Now, just do it the way Nike tells us to do.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right, right. Doesn't work with anxiety.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: You can't tell somebody that's having panic attacks, "Just go work," right? But can you drive towards work for a week?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, I'm with you. Yep. Okay. I've been in this boat too. I've actually had anxiety so bad that it built and built and built and built up inside me when I was a second year law student that I convinced myself that there was no way that I could get on a plane and go to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I had landed a summer job. And be able to live and work on my own.
--:-- And I talk about avoidance. I called that law firm and told them that I had had a family emergency and I had to not come. This was two days before I was supposed to get on the plane. And so I have done this over and over and over and over again in my life. You're right. You do link up. If I just don't do it, then I'm going to be okay. But you actually make it worse.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I wish I knew you then. Because see, there's two pieces of avoidance that we're talking about. The first one is the perception of threat, right? You've flown many times before in your life, but now your brain convinced you that that flight was a threat, a perceived threat. It's not a real danger, it's a perception.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: So that's the first piece. It's the perception of the threat.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And when I think about it, I viewed the plane flight as a threat because if I was getting on that plane, it meant I was going somewhere that I was afraid to go for the summer. So the avoidance did kick in the closer I got to having to get on that flight.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: And so then the long-term cost of avoidance, the prices that you pay, think about this. You did not go on a summer internship that I bet you worked really hard, Mel, to get.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I imagine there was like a big ticket and your brain just in that moment said, "Not going to do it." And then we have to find a way out. So you created an emergency and that's avoiding. You've retreated. Like you avoided by retreating from something that was so meaningful.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. Yeah. It's, I've done that over and over and over again. And I think that's why I feel so sad for this person in our life who is doing this right now, because I'm thinking to myself, this is going to create the opposite impact.
--:-- So you said that your grandmother forcing you to go to the mall and sit with that person changed the trajectory of your life.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: A hundred percent. So there's two things she did for me, actually. Let me just add the second one. So one was push me to approach instead of avoid. The second one was at 16, she gave me *The Alchemist* by Paulo Coelho.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, yeah.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I'm sure you've read *The Alchemist*, right? And she did it because the narrative in my brain was, you know, grandpa, single mother, my mom fighting so hard to get us somewhere. And I should tell everybody to listen to us, my grandmother was not really my grandmother. She was the mother of my stepfather who started to date my mom. And they came from a different socioeconomic status. She had a different view of the world.
--:-- So she gave me *The Alchemist* because one day I was sitting with her for coffee and I said, "You know, I really don't know what's going to be in my life. I want to eventually pursue a medical degree or I want to do this, but my mom is never going to be able to pay for college."
--:-- And *The Alchemist* shifted my perspective.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Well, there's a sentence in the book that says, "Whenever you want something, the whole universe conspires in having it." And my grandmother basically said to me, "Listen, you are responsible for the narrative in your brain. You can believe what your brain is telling you, or you can change the narrative in your brain."
--:-- And she forced me to push, like, "What would you want?" I said, "Well, eventually I want to become an exchange student, and eventually I want to get to the US." And she's like, "You're responsible for creating that." And somehow those conversations, my grandmother would sit with me every day and have coffee and have those conversations. I started to believe that just maybe I could do it. That maybe I could by approaching and changing the topic.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That makes so much sense. So your grandmother gave you this incredible gift where she forced you to face something, to approach it, right? This fear of people. I'd love for you to share how that experience helped you continue to confront avoidance all the way to a professorship at Harvard. How about we do that when we come back from a short break? Stay with us.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm so glad you're here because you and I are getting an eye-opening look at the habit of avoiding things in our life with Dr. Luana Marquez. And she was just about to tell us how confronting the habit of avoidance changed the trajectory of her life and led her to a professorship at Harvard and the clinical staff at Mass General Hospital.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: So my grandmother, in helping me to approach instead of avoid, shifted my perspective. The first thing she did is help me change my narrative. But the interesting thing about avoidance is it continues to show up in your life.
--:-- And so when I applied for college in the U.S., I remember writing the essays and, you know, my English still wasn't very good. And my brain kept saying, "You know what? A little girl from Brazil can't apply. You're not good enough." I held on to the applications so much now because of those beliefs that my stepdad had to at one point be like, "We need to mail it. You're not going to get in if you don't submit your applications." And I was like, "Oh, yeah, there's that thing called submitting." And so I submitted them. And then I got accepted at SUNY Buffalo.
--:-- And so I ended up at SUNY Buffalo. And when I was applying to the doctoral program, so I got to, actually, before as an undergraduate, this was, you know, I really, I never thought I was going to be a psychologist. I thought I was going to be a medical doctor. In Brazil, either medical doctor or lawyer. That's how you pay the bills. Came to the U.S. I started to take biochemistry and pre-med courses and then a psychology course for the fun of it. And I loved the psychology courses, loved them. But my brain kept saying, "You need to be a medical doctor. You need to be a medical doctor."
--:-- So I went home to Brazil. My grandmother's in all my stories. I'm sorry, but that's the reality. And I said to my grandmother, I said, "You know, I was thinking about being a psychologist, but I don't know." And she's like, "It's simple. You take psychology classes, you take biology classes. Which one is easier in your brain? That's what you do for a living. Why do you have to have a hard life and do things against your brain?"
--:-- And I looked at her and I said, "Well, I get a C in biochemistry. I get an A plus in psychology." She says, "Go be a psychologist." And I was like, "That simple?" She's like, "Yeah, like, why do people fight so much to be what they can be that comes easy to their brain?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: Why do we?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Because I think we avoid. We avoid our reality. Facing reality does not mean we like it. And I had to face reality that day. And I remember going for a walk with my dad and my stepdad and saying to him, like, "I know you're helping with college and all of that. But I don't want to be a medical doctor anymore." I was shaking, like shaking with anxiety, you know.
--:-- And he looked at me and he said, "You know what? You're going to be poor if you're a psychologist. You can't be a psychologist." And I was terrified that he was going to pull the plug and not help with college anymore. And I looked at him, I said, "You know what? I'm good at this. I want to do this." And I almost avoided. I still took biochemistry or I think it was organic chemistry for another semester until I finally came clean again with him. I was like, "I can't. This is not me."
--:-- So then I got to graduate school and wanted to apply to Harvard, as I told you before. And people said to me, "State students don't get in." And I was so terrified, cried, cried a lot. And then I applied. And I remember the day I walked in for the interview at Mass General. I was listening to Daniela Mercury, who's a Brazilian singer, to pump me up. And my entire body wanted to run the opposite way. It's like, you know, I wanted to avoid, but I showed up and I applied and got in.
--:-- And I'll share one more example of sort of, you know, landing. However, in about 2017, I wanted to be the president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. I was on the board. I'm the youngest person on the board, an organization that tends to be majority white. I was the only Latino person on the board, the only person of color on the board. And the opportunity to run for president came up. And I just had my son. He was like three months old. I was home and I went for dinner with a colleague, a senior colleague the night before the election. And she heard that I was running. And this woman literally said to me at dinner, she says, "You're too young. You shouldn't do this. You shouldn't run for this."
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's amazing to me how women do this to other women, by the way.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: They're like, and I got home crying to my husband and said to him, "David, you know what? I'm not going to apply. Maybe I'm too young and maybe I'm not going to be a good mother. And maybe I'm not going to have enough energy to be the president." And so I wrote an entire email to the board to pull my application, explaining not what this woman told me, not the truth, by the way.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I was going to do a Eureka example of the law school. I literally was going to do a Eureka example. I was going to a law school.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: And I sat there and then my husband held my hand and he looked at me and he says, "Since I've met you, you've wanted this. Do you really want to stop what you want based on what this woman is telling you?" Like he called me out on my avoidance and I deleted the email. And I was so anxious for that interview the next day for the election. But I won. I won. Can you believe it? I became the first Latina president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. And it could have been taken from me if I listened to what this woman said to me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: By yourself.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: By myself. And that's it. We are the worst problem. We are the ones avoiding. I can't blame her. I mean, people say all sorts of things to us, but do we have to believe it?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. Like if somebody said to you, "Why don't you just leave your son on the side of the road?" You'd be like, "Are you fucking crazy?" Yes. But we listen and indulge other people's opinions about things that really matter to us. And then we avoid it.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: And then we avoid it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And what I keep getting, and I hope that you're getting as you're listening, is that your whole life is one giant gift waiting for you to unwrap it. And there are ways in which you sit there and stare at it and you actively avoid reaching out to shred the paper or pull on that ribbon. And it begins with the stories that you're telling yourself.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: So when I tell my story, people are like, "Oh, it's so incredible, so bold." No, I was scared shitless a lot of the times. Bottom line. And I wanted to avoid when I was at SUNY Buffalo. My mentor was really tough on me, actually. And I wanted to apply to Harvard internship at Mass General Hospital in Boston. And what she said is "State students don't get in." And I remember sitting in my office crying as I write this application letter thinking, "Maybe I should just apply somewhere else. Maybe I'm not good enough."
--:-- Mel Robbins: There's the narrative in your head again.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: A hundred percent. And I remember that time. I was like, "You know what? If I don't apply," I remember my grandmother, "If you don't try, you don't know." And so I applied. I shared this in the spirit of like, we can't get rid of anxiety. I know everybody wants to, but we can't. What we can get rid of is avoidance. That we can get rid of.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Can we unpack avoidance? Because it's not just an anxiety response. Like I'm thinking about the number of conversations that people avoid, the number of situations that people avoid, the number of experiences that people want to do.
--:-- I can think about one for myself where my daughter, Sawyer and Chris have both gone skydiving. And our son turned 18 and he wants to go skydiving. And I feel this pull of wanting to do it, but I am scared shitless of doing it. And I can feel the avoidance in my body. It's not anxiety. It is like a wall.
--:-- But I feel like this avoidance topic, can we blow it open so that anybody listening who's like, "Well, I don't have anxiety," but you're avoiding something. Oh, yeah. So talk to us about what avoidance looks like, what are surprising symptoms or ways that people avoid things.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I'm definitely going to talk about avoidance in a second. But before, I wanted to commit to go skydiving with me. Come on, Mel.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Me? Yeah, we can do it.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: All right.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're invited to Oakley's 18th birthday skydiving party. I'm going.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Okay. I'm going to go because I don't want to miss out on life. So the only reason I went there is this. So I learned I had a fear of heights hiking Yosemite National Park. I had no idea. My whole life I just said I didn't like roller coasters. You know, I wasn't avoiding roller coasters. I just didn't like roller coasters. Who needs to go on roller coasters anyhow?
--:-- But I was hiking. I get to the end of Yosemite National Park and you have to hold these cables, right? And I just started to cry. The whole acrophobia just came in. And my professional career is getting people to approach, not avoid. And I was like, "OK, I can't do this." And so I started my own hierarchy and I started by doing chairs and then stairs and then going to the roof of my house. And then I got to the top of it, which was skydiving. I was so terrified. And I avoided for a while. Eventually, my friend is like, "You know what to do." So she took me skydiving and I went three times in a row in the same day. That's the only way to overcome that fear of heights is that you have to train your brain to just do it over and over again. And now I love skydiving. It's like so fun.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Really?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I am not joking.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So could you go back to Yosemite now and be with those cables?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: A hundred percent. Because what I always used to say is I'm not afraid of heights. I have this feeling that I'm falling.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah, but that's just biology now.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: That's just biology. And it's the same biology behind avoidance. So you asked me about avoidance. So avoidance is anything that we do or don't do, okay, in response to a perceived threat that is designed. So there's a perceived threat that's designed to bring our anxiety, discomfort, you name it, down fast, okay? But it keeps us stuck long term.
--:-- So let me unpack this for us.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Please.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I call it the three R's of avoidance. We either retreat, react, or remain.
--:-- OK, so if we retreat, what do I mean by that? It's what you're doing about skydiving. You have this thought and you're like, "I'm just going to move away." Retreating is moving away from discomfort. That's that flavor of avoidance. People retreat when they get an email that they don't like. They don't read that email. My husband does this all the time. He puts an email on the other screen. He's like, "I'm just not going to look at that." We retreat by not having conversations with people. But we're in our head. We're thinking. We're ruminating. Right? We're moving away from discomfort.
--:-- For some of us, avoidance is reacting. That's how I avoid. Whenever something threatens me, perception of threat, an email about somebody that I don't like or conflict. Right. I feel so anxious. So I write an email really fast. "I can't believe you said that." And I send. And then I'm stuck in email jail because now I just reacted without thinking. And that's avoidance. Whenever I feel threat, the way I react is with anger.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, yes.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I yell at my dog when he's barking too much. I'm like, "Ah!" That's it. Because your dog barking is creating some discomfort in your body. That discomfort in your body, basically, you have to attack the discomfort so you feel better. Right? Responding to email, anger, grabbing a drink too fast, have a bad day and just going to...
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, so is having a smoke, a vape, hitting a joint, pouring a drink that is reacting?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Yes. Let me do the third one and then we can unpack a couple of examples. But the third one is remain. This is the deer in the headlights. It is staying in a situation when it no longer works. You're in a job you dislike, but the fear of another job just makes you so paralyzed that you stay. Stay in a relationship that you don't like, right? It's frozen. So the remaining of avoidance is you're frozen in place. You know it's not working, right? But you're not going towards this comfort or moving away. You're just literally frozen.
--:-- Mel Robbins: For anybody that feels like, "Well, I don't have anxiety." What you do have are moments every single day where your emotions get triggered and you're uncomfortable. That's it. And what I'm gathering from this conversation is that your work is really about creating a baseline of emotional peace.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: That's 100% it. So what I want to create is a comfortably uncomfortable world, a world that you're just enough out of your comfort zone towards the things that matter the most and that you're fighting the real enemy here, which is avoidance. We just turn on the TV and I'm out. We go on social media. And those little moments, it's like that's what I love, your five second rule, because that's sort of the same idea. It's like in five seconds, you can choose to go towards a life that matters or you can choose avoidance. And it's a choice.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're right, it is. There is a big lie that we're telling ourselves. I believe if you're really honest with yourself, you see that avoiding the hard stuff, avoiding the things that you fear, avoiding taking a risk, that's actually more uncomfortable because you know that you're selling yourself short.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I would think that sitting alone in your apartment with no friends as a teenager was way more uncomfortable than sitting with that dude the first time with your grandmother.
--:-- Mel Robbins: A hundred percent.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: I love that you said it's a lie. It is a lie because the discomfort that we feel facing things is so much less than this monster that we create in our head of what they would be like. I bet when we go skydiving, you come off of that plane, you're gonna be like, "You know, I landed." I was like, "This is the best orgasm ever. This is better than anything else."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Really?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: It is true because it's so liberating to overcome a fear. It's true. Once you're out of that plane, you'll feel some fear jumping out, but then out of the line, your whole system calms down and you're like, "Oh my God, I'm living my best life." And that's what I wish for everyone, that they find their little corners of avoidance, overcome it so they can show up. Like, are you being your best self? And if you're not, it's because you're avoiding.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Dr. Luana, it begs the question. Why the hell do we do this?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. Let's have you answer that question. And I also have a great question submitted by a listener for you. And we'll answer both after a short break. And everyone stick around till the very end, because we've launched bloopers at the end of every episode. And trust me when I tell you, you do not want to avoid the chance to laugh with me and all the mistakes that I make as I record these podcast episodes for you. Stay with us.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm so glad you're here because we're getting a master class on the habit of avoidance from Harvard professor and best-selling author Dr. Luana Marques. So Doctor, we know we avoid things that we're nervous to do, but why? Why do we avoid even the simple stuff like replying to an email from somebody we actually know?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: We're biologically wired to avoid. The brain cannot differentiate real threat from perceived threat. Our brain is wired to do what? To predict and protect. That's what our brain is doing. It's protecting us from danger and it's predicting based on past information. So your family member who is having some trouble with avoidance and work, the brain is using the perception of work as something really bad, like it's a lion. So it's predicting. And then it's making a call on how to protect you based on its prediction. That's it. And that call is avoidance. Instead of going into fight, flight, or freeze because there is actually a lion, that's why I coined it the three R's of avoidance. Because it's the same biology of fight, flight, or freeze, but it's a perceived threat.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. This is really sinking in. And now that I understand how prevalent this habit of avoidance is, I see it everywhere. For example, when Chris and I were in a financial freefall, I would avoid opening bills because I didn't have the money to pay them. I can also think about situations right now in my life. For example, I know I have to go through the clothes in my closet because half the stuff in there doesn't fit because of the way my body's changed with menopause. I don't do it. I haven't done it. I just close the door to the closet and I don't deal with it. I used to explode at my kids with frustration, and the reason why I would do that about stupid things is because I was avoiding the bigger conversation that was really upsetting me with the family because I just didn't want to sit down and deal with the conversation. I can also, my God, I avoided a mammogram after I got my explant surgery because I was afraid they'd find something, which seems so stupid because if you're afraid they're going to find something, then you should go get the test, right? Or what about this one? I didn't get on the Peloton bike for over six months because I was so out of shape. I avoided how painful that first workout was going to be and the realization of how out of shape I've gotten. This is everywhere. I was also frustrated with Chris and depression, but I avoided the conversation because I just didn't want to have to deal with it. I know that sounds lame, but I think that's relatable. This reminds me a lot of this episode that we did on procrastination and how procrastinating when it becomes chronic is a freeze response and it can be tied to trauma because you're uncertain about how things are going to turn out. I mean, this is absolutely everywhere, Dr. Luana. So now that we all see it, can you talk to us about cognitive behavioral therapy? Because that's what you use in your clinical practice. What is it? And how can it help us break this habit and pattern of avoidance?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is a widely studied kind of therapy that's action oriented. It's really designed to change what we say to ourselves, how we behave, and how we feel.
--:-- Mel Robbins: How does cognitive behavioral therapy work? Because you can't just change what you say and boom, suddenly your life changes. Can you break this down for us? For any one of you listening who sees that you're avoiding something in your life right now, what is the first step of CBT?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Such a great question, Mel. The first thing we need is to create a pause. In that pause, we need to do a couple of things. First, we need to understand what was the situation that triggered any kind of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. I actually call this the thoughts, emotions, and behavior cycle.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Can we take the example of waking up and not wanting to get out of bed?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Yes, absolutely.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I woke up, my brain started to spin and basically said, "What if Mel Robbins doesn't like me?" It was the first thought I had this morning. I have to just be honest with everybody listening. The anxious brain never quiets down. That thought, "What if she doesn't like me," led to an emotion, which for me was a little anxiety and heart pounding. My heart pounds pretty strongly. Then my behavior was the third component: wanting to just stay in bed. I was like, "Maybe I just want to stay in bed."
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Well, that's what I call Tuesday morning. It's totally relatable. You wake up, you're worried about something, and that triggers you to feel overwhelmed, and that triggers the behavior of avoidance.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Which for me was hitting the snooze button, which I did every single morning for years. But does this thought, emotion, behavior cycle that you're describing always have to begin with a thought?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: It depends on the entryway. For me, it was a thought. "She's not going to like me" made me anxious, and then I wanted to behave a certain way. But they ping pong. If I laid in bed a little longer, I would have gone this way.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Thank you for using the term ping pong, because for me, it usually begins with an emotion or a feeling of heaviness in my body when I wake up. And then that ping pongs the thoughts, and those thoughts spiral, and the thoughts then make it worse, hence hitting the snooze button and not wanting to get out of bed. For you listening, I want you to stop and think right now. What is it like for you? If you think about those mornings where you want to just pull the covers over your head or you want to hit the snooze button, are you more like Dr. Luana where you recognize that it's thoughts that start this ping-ponging, or are you more like me where it's this feeling or emotion in your body that then triggers the spiral? Dr. Luana, let's go back to this story of you being in bed and invite us into bed with you this morning. Can you walk us through your thought spiral in detail?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah. "Maybe I didn't bring the right outfit. The outfit makes a difference. She's so powerful. She's really not going to like me. What if I say the wrong thing?" Those thoughts would go really fast. The anxiety would shoot up, and then the covers would come over. By the time I got out of bed, my baseline anxiety would be so high that I'd be having trouble thinking. That trouble thinking would be interpreted as, "See, you do have a problem with anxiety." And now the avalanche. It's a ping pong, and it's so fast. That's why that pause is so important.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So what do you tell your patients to do when they catch themselves in this ping pong death match with their anxious thoughts?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Whenever the anxiety happens, this is a trick that I can share with everybody that you can use right now. How do you pause? Take a piece of paper and literally write down your thoughts, link them to your emotions, link them to specific behavior. What do you want to do?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Did you get that, everyone? When the thoughts start to spiral in you or someone that you love and you feel that anxiety avalanche that Dr. Luana just described coming on, number one, you need to create a pause. Here's one way you can do it. Take out a piece of paper and write the thought, write the emotion that you feel, and write the behavior that it is triggering. In Dr. Luana's example, the thought is "Mel's not going to like me." That made her feel nervous, and then that feeling makes her want to pull the covers over her head. Why does this technique work, Dr. Luana?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: This is why. What we know scientifically is that writing activates the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the part that helps us organize, execute. It's the center of the brain that's the critical part of the brain. It is always competing for energy with our amygdala, the fight, flight, or freeze part of the brain. So when one is on, the other one tends to quiet down. If you're in your anxious brain, get out of there by writing your thoughts, emotions, and behavior cycle. Just that little trick alone, I've seen hundreds of patients stop their anxiety cycle in that avalanche by creating that pause.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh my gosh. That makes so much sense. This also explains why my five-second rule is so effective with anxiety spirals, Dr. Luana. When you count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, what you do is you interrupt that death match in your mind. The 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 creates a pause. And it's in that pause that you can then choose what you think or do next. I want to make sure that every one of you listening really gets what Dr. Luana is talking about. Dr. Luana, I'd like to do a second example. Let's walk through the example that we talked about earlier of being afraid to go into work.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Okay.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The situation is that maybe you're afraid you're going to have another anxiety attack, or maybe you have a big sales meeting and you're afraid that you're going to screw it up. You start to have this feeling where you're worried and nervous, and then you start to tell yourself, "I don't think I can do this. I don't want to go in." You're now in this avalanche of avoidance that we've been talking about. So what do you do? In fact, why don't we role play this scenario? I'll be the person who's nervous about going into work, and you can be my therapist.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Okay. A lot of our anxiety is fed through what we're saying to ourselves. We started to have heart pounding. We've been talking about heart pounding. If I came home from a jog and my heart was pounding, I'd be like, "Okay." But if I'm sitting here getting ready to work and my heart pounds, your brain wants to make sense of it. So it starts to create a narrative about that heart pound, but it's just a heart pound. That's all it is.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: So we pause. The first thing I would do is write down the specific thoughts.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. I'm going to mess up the sales meeting. I'm going to F it up. That's what I'm going to do.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Once we pause, we want to be able to ask questions of our thoughts. Let's interrogate. Let's become lawyers together. What is the evidence that you have right now that you're going to mess it up?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I've messed it up before.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: How many times have you messed it up now?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Twice.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Twice. How many presentations have you given to this team?
--:-- Mel Robbins: A hundred.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: A hundred. So based on that, what's the probability that you're going to mess it up?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Two percent.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Two percent. So maybe you are going to mess it up. There's a two percent chance. If you mess it up, what is the worst that will happen?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'll be embarrassed.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Have you been embarrassed before?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Have you been able to tolerate being embarrassed?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. It sort of sucks.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah, it sucks. So the worst case scenario is you're going to be embarrassed. There's a two percent chance.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What if they fire me?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: When was the last time they fired you?
--:-- Mel Robbins: They haven't fired me. I'm still employed.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Oh, really? That's amazing. So maybe they'll fire you, but it sounds like the probability is small as well.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Now, has anybody in this company ever been fired on the spot? Like, "You messed up, you're embarrassed, fired."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, they've laid people off, but I don't think... Not that I know of.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: It sounds to me like your brain is basically saying, "I'm going to be embarrassed, and then they're going to fire me on the spot, and I'm going to be humiliated, and I'm going to be in the corner all alone."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes, which makes me want to avoid it.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Of course it does. I would too. It feels awful to do that. But what is the probability really, Mel, that all those events are going to happen in that sequence?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Very, very small.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: So what can you say to yourself based on your performance in the past that might change that narrative in your brain right now?
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is harder to do than it sounds. Even though this is just you and me role playing, I can see that you're trying to get me to look at the situation objectively and to use my intellect. But when you're super emotional or nervous, it's really hard to reason with someone when they're like that. Objectively speaking, I've been nervous before and I've shown up and I've done a presentation.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: And when you say that to yourself, how does it feel?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Like I don't believe it.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Absolutely. Because that anxiety has that grip on you. When we just start to change our perspective, shift our thinking, we don't believe it right away because there's so much history of the anxiety-driven thoughts. So I don't need you to believe it. What I need you to do is be able to say that to yourself over and over again. And I need you to show up now. I need you to approach.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love that you said I don't have to believe it. Because it's impossible to. Your brain is anxious, and everybody thinks with CBT we're trying to just force people to have positive thoughts. That does not work. Let me say that again. Positive thoughts alone does not work. We have to reframe. We have to rewire our brain, and it takes time to rewire our brain. It can't be overnight, but it's the first step towards a better life. If we talked to our best friends the way we talk to ourselves, we'd have no friends.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: That is so true.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Is approach always the answer when it comes to things that you're avoiding?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Approach to me has always been the answer. Because if I stop and think, my brain can be really an asshole sometimes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Your brain isn't the only brain that can be a real asshole, Dr. Luana. Right, everybody? Is your brain an asshole sometimes? I know, same. Dr. Luana, when we prepared for this episode with you, I gathered a bunch of questions from listeners. A lot of our listeners asked very similar questions. This one from Charmaine really covers a lot of the topics that people asked about. So let's roll this question from Charmaine.
--:-- Charmaine: I want more peace, more love, more compassion, more passion, more connection, more joy, less struggle, less stuff, less complications, less stress, less anxiety. And I don't just want it for myself, but for every woman. This shit is real. I see it in my girlfriends too. In this human experience, my question is why? Why does this feel like a struggle? Thank you, Mel, for being brave enough to do this work. I love you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love Charmaine's question. Charmaine, this is the deal. This question is what I call the magical ones. Everyone magically wants more happiness, a better life, less stress. We all want it. So why are we stuck? Dr. Luana?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: It's because we avoid. What are the things in your life right now that you're not taking control of? This struggle is there because you're not taking action. We know scientifically now that if we act in line with our values, we actually have less stress, less anxiety. We have better quality of life. Charmaine, I'm asking you, what are the actions you can take towards those things that matter the most that would stop this avoidance? Little approaches towards the things that matter the most can start to really change our lives. That's how we get more happiness. That's how we feel better.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm curious. If somebody's struggling, is that a sign that avoidance is everywhere?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Yes. This is why I've never met anyone in my life, professionally and personally, where avoidance is not behind their struggle. I've never met. In my moments that I myself am having the most hardest time, it's because I'm avoiding.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What are the top things that your patients come in and are struggling with, and how does that connect with avoidance?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Mary came in because she was in a job that she hated. She put on a hundred pounds in that job. A hundred pounds. But she kept doing it because her brain said, "At least I have an income." She was just avoiding the reality that she hated that job. A CEO of a Fortune 500 company I worked with avoided dating. His superpower was his job. If you met him on the street, you'd think, "This guy can get anybody he wants." He was terrified of dating and women. He's 45, super successful, no meaningful relationships. Joanna avoided asking for a raise. She's a single mother with three kids. She's in the same job for 10 years. People are getting promotions. She's not getting those promotions. She was so terrified that she wasn't good enough, that she hadn't done enough, that she couldn't ask for a raise. She told me, "If I was really good, they would have given me a raise." I said, "I don't think it works that way." Sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn't.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Those are great examples. As their therapist practicing CBT therapy, are you then coaching them through the approach method?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: The first thing we really do is identify their avoidance. I just had a patient make a list of everything she's avoiding. She said, "I don't need to make a list." I said, "I'd like to see that list because we lie to ourselves." So the first thing I do with every patient is let's identify all the domains in your life where you're avoiding. We need to figure out what you can tolerate that is comfortably uncomfortable. For example, if what you want to do is leave the room immediately, can you stay for an extra one minute? Can you stay in the room and just observe the room for 30 seconds if a minute's too much? If you walk out of the room, can you commit to walking back to the room and staying for a minute, walking out of the room again, walking back in the room? Small doses. In approach, we're rewiring the brain and teaching the brain that there is no lion in that room. I would start increasing them: a minute, three minutes, five minutes. Put a timer on your watch. One thing I do want to add is there are moments in life that you need to avoid. In the case of domestic violence, like my mom dealt with, poking the bear and trying to approach sometimes doesn't work. You have to be safe and get to a place where you then can figure out how to approach your life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: How do you know the difference? You said this thing about "I just don't like heights." How do you know the difference if you're actually avoiding something that you need to approach and face in your life versus you just don't like it or it's an issue of safety?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: The first one is robbing you from your best life. There's a price tag. That's how I think about this. There is a price tag with avoidance, and it's keeping you stuck. A different patient of mine was in a job that she really disliked. She called me and said, "Hey Luana, I just want to check if I'm avoiding or not." We had a conversation about this job. It wasn't going well. It was clear she was going to have to change jobs. I said, "But why are you staying?" She said, "I'm staying because if I stay six more months, I have this big bonus. I'll just tolerate it for six months. Once I get the bonus, I'll find another job." I said, "That's strategy. That's not avoidance. That's strategy. That's fantastic."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. But she was so trained to think about avoidance. She's like, "Am I avoiding by staying?"
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: No, that's strategy. Sometimes you have to have strategy in life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It seems like avoidance is very reflexive versus a strategy, which you can calmly, with emotional peace, rationally explain to somebody.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: That is exactly it. If you're true to yourself and you pause and you really look at what's in front of you, you're going to be able to smell avoidance pretty quickly.
--:-- Mel Robbins: How do you begin this process?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: The first step is really pausing. Give yourself five minutes. Sit down and think about the things that you want to do. Think about the dream life. What are the things you want to do? Then ask yourself why you're not doing that. What are the things that are getting in the way? You're going to pretty quickly identify avoidance. "I'm not doing this because I'm afraid of heights. I'm not doing this because if I ask for a raise, they're going to find out that I'm not good enough. I'm not going on this date because I don't think I'm pretty enough." That's the first step to changing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What about parents or loved ones that have somebody that struggles with anxiety and a lot of avoidance? I made this mistake. When our kids, Kendall and Oak in particular, had pretty significant episodes of anxiety, there was a six-month period where each one of them slept on the floor of our bedroom. They'd wander down in the middle of the night. I wouldn't want to have to get out of bed and walk them back up and deal with the pushback and deal with the emotions. It morphed into me just making a little bed on the ground on my side of the bed. The funny thing is, they were smart enough to know, even when they were sleepwalking, that they don't go to Chris's side of the bed because he would get up. They just come to mine. I could almost in the middle of my sleep sense that they were there, and I would just lift up the blanket in the middle of the night. It lasted for six months. I made it worse.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: You're not alone. I've heard this from so many mothers before. You're exhausted already. It makes it worse for you and the kid because we're teaching the opposite. We want to teach the kid.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What would you counsel a patient to do if they were in that cycle where a child's coming down, wanting to climb into bed?
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: You have that conversation that this is your bed and that's where you sleep. You cannot have any slip-ups. The first day that you let them sleep there, even for 10 seconds, you're basically telling them that they can push the boundaries. In situations like this, it has to be zero tolerance. "No, you don't come here. No, you don't come here."
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're right.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Pretty quickly, if you do that, you extinguish the behavior. It's true because they're uncomfortable being alone in their bed. You're teaching them to tolerate that discomfort. That's a skill they need to learn for the rest of their life. It's called emotion regulation psychology. You're teaching them basic emotion regulation by teaching them that it's okay to have that discomfort and that they're safe in their bed. Over time, it goes away. That's what we need to teach ourselves.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's exactly what we need to do. All this avoidance is simply us not being able to tolerate as adults our own uncomfortable emotions. That is all there is. We get uncomfortable, we run, like a kid we go run into a parent's room, and now we're stuck in a cycle. But instead of running to mom and dad's room, we're running to the vodka bottle or we're avoiding the email or we're holding onto the application. We're just building more pain, more fear, and more discomfort. This is so fascinating. What I love is that you're on a mission to teach this to people so that they can truly unlock all the incredible things that are available to all of us in life.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Within each one of us, there is a hidden amazing jewel. If we take avoidance away, we can all be shining within our own domains of life. We all have a gift. Every single person has that gift inside of them right now. I want a world where people are bold in their own way, where they are approaching the things that matter the most. Can you imagine that world? It would just be so much better.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm so glad you didn't become a medical doctor, but you went into psychology and that you do what you do. You are a gift. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. You are going to come back again and again and again. Based on the number of mess ups I've had while I've talked to you, Dr. Luana, I think the bloopers from this episode are going to be amazing. So thank you.
--:-- Dr. Luana Marques: Thank you, Mel. This has been so delightful. You are amazing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: For everybody listening, she's just the kindest person. Just the kindest person. Thank you, Dr. Luana Marques. We love you. I'm so happy you were here with us today. In case no one else tells you today, I wanted to say, I love you and I believe in you. So stop avoiding all the shit you need to do and 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go do it. All right. I'll see you in a few days.
--:-- [Post-show / Bloopers]
--:-- Mel Robbins: Is this thing on, Jesse? It's on. Okay. Author, Dr. Luana Martin. Oh my God. Okay. Let's try that again. You probably wouldn't be where you are today. Are you shitting me? I got that dry mouth thing going. So Dr. Luana, are you kidding me? Hold on a second. Hold on a second. One more time. Let me take a sip of water. Oh, okay. Excuse me. Here we go.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.
