--:-- Mel Robbins: So it's Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. All right. I'm really excited to see what happens here because I was just sitting here with my good friend, Amy, and we were chatting up a storm. And by the way, we also work together and something happened. And I thought, let's just hit record because I said to Amy, how are you doing? And she looked at me and she said, like, everything's great. And I'm just in a bad mood today. I feel like below the line, not so great.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What does below the line mean? What does that mean?
--:-- Amy: Below the line is like, it just means that you're in a state of mind where you basically like can't really take responsibility for how you feel almost like you're, yeah, like it's like a weird thing. Like it's, I wish I could explain it better and maybe I will, but it's kind of like you're just in kind of like blame mode where you're not taking responsibility for your own stuff. And you're just kind of like, "Oh God, you know, my husband, like it's so annoying," that sort of thing. So you feel like it's like a victim.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So is that, so when you say that you're, cause, cause here's what I want you guys to know. Cause you're going to get to know Amy as you begin listening to more and more podcast episodes. Cause she's really screwed up.
--:-- Amy: No, you are not.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, I only have friends that are screwed up and that are working on it.
--:-- Amy: It's a privilege, Mel. Thank you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, because I don't like perfect people or people who pretend to be. Nobody does. And I also don't like shallow conversations.
--:-- Amy: A hundred percent.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And if you go deep with anybody, what you actually hit are the things that people are working on. Right. And so one of the things that first of all I got to say is that when you said, "I don't feel like myself. I'm in a bad mood today."
--:-- Mel Robbins: I have never experienced you in a bad mood.
--:-- Amy: I know. I know. I know that sounds bad, but like, I know I rarely experienced myself in a bad mood. So I don't like this feeling. I'm kind of like, you know, maybe you can hear it in my voice. I feel like I'm going to cry a little bit.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Like, yeah, you did look like you. Well, you did look at one point.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Like you had these glassy light, light blue, beautiful eyes, but they started getting a little watery.
--:-- Amy: I know. As you said, I'm kind of sad and or bad.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You said mad, though, I thought you said.
--:-- Amy: Didn't I say that? Or bad mood. You said bad.
--:-- Mel Robbins: These are all words that rhyme. Bad, sad, mad. Well, let's turn this into rad. So here's what I wanted to talk to you about.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I had a therapy call this morning and this tool that my therapist and Davin just shared with me. I not only think I know it's going to help you because it really helped me. But before I share that tool with you, I just want to ask you a question. You said something about like you need to take responsibility for how you're feeling or whatever. Why can't you just be in a bad mood?
--:-- Amy: I think there are two parts to it. Number one, I don't like the feeling of being in a bad mood. Let's unpack that. And then number two is I don't know how to be in a bad mood, like, and just let it go, like feel the feelings and just let them go. It's like, I feel kind of like, I don't know, how do I do this? Like, how do I manage myself through this bad mood? Because I'll tell you what, like when you're somebody, when you have this, I don't even know how to say this, but I'll just say it very plainly. Like when you're normally in a good mood and you're in a bad mood, people notice, people ask you like, "Hey, what's up?" And then you kind of feel like, am I the barometer? Like, this is, I'm having a bad day. I just need my time. And then so that external stuff, the people asking you about it makes you feel kind of like, what is going on? What is happening with me? Did something happen or did you just wake up in a bad mood?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I just woke up in a bad mood.
--:-- Amy: I blame menopause.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Good call. No, I wanted to share something with you because then you also said, "I'm just trying to hook into like, how do I feel or what the hell is happening? And I haven't felt like this in a long time." Okay. That's what I wanted to share with you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So I have just spent the last 14 days on the road and normally being on the road is a huge fricking chafe. And the past 14 days has been the exact opposite of that. We went to Montreal and everything was smooth sailing. The speech was great. We had a great dinner when we got there. And then I got a text from my friend Jay Shetty. And he's like, "Hey, Mel, are you in Montreal?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm at the Four Seasons." And he's like, "I'm here too." He's six floors above me. So I go up, we hang out. I then fly to Boston. I see my daughter. I see some friends. I then fly to a family wedding in Montana. I see Chris. We have this incredible time. It was an amazing, like, just imagine a cool Montana wedding.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And as we're driving up here from New York City, it is the most spectacular, spectacular fall.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I have ever seen in my entire life in New England.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I am soaking it in. Not to mention, if we want to make the image perfectly Disney-esque, I have a brand new baby puppy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: In my lap. And I am just soaking it in. And then I get a text. And I learn that we have just surpassed a half a million downloads in one week flat. Like, it is Amy's last two to three months. Pure perfection.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah, just like actual magic. People, like just everything. It is like driving up whatever or Third Avenue in New York City, or Lexington, or whatever, and every light turns green.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And you're just catching it and catching it. And you're on your way to a massage appointment.
--:-- Amy: Oh, that would be amazing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right? Like, it's, like, gonna end great.
--:-- Amy: Yeah, totally.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So, we pull in to the house.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I get out of the car. My husband, Chris, comes out of the house. Beautiful house that we've been building. And the man is wearing a red flannel shirt.
--:-- Mel Robbins: He looks very Vermont handsome. He had clogs on. He had clogs with wool socks on.
--:-- Mel Robbins: He was just looking amazing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The colors are exploding. I see two women that I adore, that I love. I see Amy, who you're listening to. I see Jessie.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's just perfection.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And as I walk into this house and I see you guys, I feel a massive wave of anxiety. Maybe you felt my anxiety. I don't know.
--:-- Amy: It wasn't yours. I, it was mine.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You felt some, okay. It wasn't yours. It was mine.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I felt myself literally leaving my body. And gosh, I put my hand on my heart and I use the tools from the episode that we did with Dr. Kennedy about healing anxiety and I started like saying, "Okay, that's the alarm of little Mel."
--:-- Mel Robbins: "Okay, and what is little Mel trying to tell me right now?" Because this is a very familiar feeling, just like I bet kind of feeling either sad or low energy or angry or whatever it might be that you're feeling is somewhere deep down a very familiar feeling. And so I tell myself, "Okay, Mel, you're okay right now. I love you. It's okay. You know, I know you all of a sudden feel sad for some reason." And I did. I felt like what I would describe as I felt this heaviness all of a sudden. I felt this sadness. And the second you feel, or for me, what I learned from Dr. Kennedy in that episode is the second that you feel that sort of negative sensation in your body, I could feel myself doing exactly what Dr. Kennedy taught us in episode four, which is I could feel myself going up into my brain and saying, "What's wrong with me? I don't feel like myself. Why do I feel like this?" And then I start scanning around me and I go, "Oh, it's because I'm here. And our family is texting about this puppy, because he's just arrived. And our girls are going, 'I wish I were there. I wish you were there.' And it makes me sad that they can't be here."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because they can't drive from LA right now. And they got a job in Boston right now. And I felt this deep sadness. And I'm like, "But I don't think that's what it is." So fast forward and lo and behold, it wasn't a massage appointment that was waiting for me when those green lights on Third Avenue kept hitting. I had a therapy call in place for today. And so when I get on with my just profoundly gifted therapist, Anne Davin.
--:-- Amy: Yeah, I'm so glad you go to therapy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh my God, Anne Davin, you are my saving grace. I love this woman.
--:-- Amy: Mine too, Anne, you'd know this. But it's a two for one. When you talk to Mel, I get the goods. I always unpack my therapy sessions with you or with Chris. It's really good.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. And she's unbelievable. So I say to her, I explain this whole delicious Disney scene. Just like your life has been this Disney-esque thing for the last two months, right? Of everything is working.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Even in the ups and downs, it's working, right?
--:-- Amy: It's like, yeah.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I say to her, after describing these past 14 amazing days, she had me close my eyes and she asked me where in my body was I feeling this thing. And I said it was, for me, it was almost like a brass corset that you would expect somebody to wear on House of Dragons around my lower ribs. Where do you feel like the heaviness and the sadness? Like the upper, the upper chest, you know, like maybe even into the neck, like my back, the back of my neck, like the tightness there. So she told me to close my eyes once I had that kind of, what is it made of? What is the shape? And now a mat and what, what is your, what is your thing made of? Like when you feel that sadness?
--:-- Amy: It's kind of like an oil slick.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Whoa. Really?
--:-- Amy: It's viscous like that?
--:-- Mel Robbins: It is. It's, it's, it's, it's thickish.
--:-- Amy: And yeah, and viscous.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. Wow. So she told me to kind of imagine that thing floating away from my body so I could see it in space.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then she told me, "I want you to imagine, for me, it was this copper like corset thing. I want you to imagine that it's now taking the shape of you at a younger age?" Do you have an age in mind?
--:-- Amy: I am always eight.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. It's always my age. So yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I had one too. It was, um, it was, uh, high school.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then all of a sudden, and I had a very specific memory of me in high school and the memory is one of the worst things that ever happened to me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm almost embarrassed to tell you that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And... It's healthy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What was it? Senior year of high school, our English teacher decided to be really awesome if we read Dante's... What is it? Dante's Inferno?
--:-- Amy: Inferno, right.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then as a wonderful exercise of learning how to write in that cantos or whatever the heck it's called, that we would each be...
--:-- Amy: Did you hear this assignment? Sounds dorky right away, but yeah.
--:-- Mel Robbins: We had to write one in that cantos, what format poem thing, sending someone else in the class to hell.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then, and then.
--:-- Amy: What the fuck kind of high school?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah, public high school. And then.
--:-- Amy: That teacher left immediately after that year was done.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It gets worse. After turning it in.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What? You read them out loud.
--:-- Mel Robbins: God damn it. The first like six or seven were about me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And if I'm being honest, I was an asshole in high school. Like I was a complete insecure, anxiety ridden, like pretentious, condescending, insecure. I had not processed a single bit of my trauma. I had not even remembered that I had been molested. Like that's how just miserable I was and how raging the anxiety is. I don't blame everybody. I would have picked Mel Robbins.
--:-- Amy: Well, Mel Schneeberger.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But Mel Schneeberger, insecure in that seat. You must have dealt with that in the most horrific way. Like you couldn't process that. I sat there, Amy, and said, "I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to try."
--:-- Amy: And then what happened?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I could feel the tears coming and I got up and left the classroom and left the school and did not go back to school for a couple of days.
--:-- Amy: That is unbelievable.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. And on one hand, I go, "Well, you fucking deserved it because you were a complete bitch."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And on the other hand, I knew how much I was struggling. I knew how much I hated myself. I knew how insecure I was. And so that was the memory that came to mind because I was, I immediately felt that pain of sitting there in that moment and my rib cage tightening, like, like the, like the armor going up. And so I then said, "But wait a minute, here's what I'm realizing. When my anxiety started to truly spiral, and I would say things really started spinning out of control for me junior year of high school, every fall despite the fact that it was my favorite season was the most acute moment for me in my anxiety and every fall junior and senior year of high school, every fall of Dartmouth, the fall I spent overseas horrible, the three falls I spent in law school horrible, and then I met Chris the first year I lived in New York at the end of the fall season."
--:-- Amy: And I said to her, "I think there is a connection with this feeling and the season of fall."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And what's, why? Like, what do you, what do you think that's all about? Well, she said, "Well, it makes sense because here you are at a moment in your development where you're basically, I think the word is individuating in the, is that the right word?"
--:-- Amy: I mean, I don't know if it's individuating, but yeah, like you're, you're, you're becoming your own self and you're like realizing your shit and like, yeah, taking responsibility for it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. And you're not diagnosed with anxiety yet.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And you are coping with alcohol and by attaching yourself in a very like suffocating, meaning Mel, you're suffocating him relationship.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And, you know, I even said to her, "I didn't really engage in classes either."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Like I literally was checked out for most of my college years.
--:-- Amy: I relate to that so much. Like, and everybody says like college is this amazing time. Like when you have trauma in your past, like you can barely remember it.
--:-- Amy: You're like, "I hope I did okay."
--:-- Amy: I have report cards that are in my dresser in my parents' house that have never been opened. Like, I was just like, "I hope I did okay." I couldn't even look at them. So yeah, it's like, it's, it's, it's, yes, you're in college and you're having a hard time.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so I then kept going and she said, "And you know, there's two things going on. You process seasons and seasonal changes both through the limbic brain and through like circadian rhythm."
--:-- Mel Robbins: "And so you're processing things from a psychological and a emotional and chemical and physiological level."
--:-- Mel Robbins: "And as the days get shorter and as night starts to go and as this huge season of change happens. And the smell too, like the smell of fall and all the triggers of fall, they're huge."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And she said that, you know, "This is triggering all your stored memories of all the very difficult transitions that you went through as a young adult in fall, marked by your self-hatred, marked by your disassociation."
--:-- Mel Robbins: So it gets even cooler and better. So I'm now like, "Oh, my God, I have to move from Vermont. I can't live in the mountains. I can't live surrounded by the fall. This place is all pumpkin lattes and corn stalks and farms and the leaves turning and leaf peepers. Get me the fuck out of here."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then she said, "And your primary, primary symptom when you felt injured or scared or alone or sad is to disassociate and disconnect." And then she says, "And I want you to consider that you have done two years of intense therapy. You've done two years of intense, two years of intentional changes in your business, in where you live, in your marriage, in your own psychology, your own nervous system." And she said, "You are strengthening this muscle inside of you to be in a state of flow, to be present, to be your full expression, to allow happiness and connection in, to let the love in. And you just, in the past 14 days, Mel, you just were the purest expression of your highest self. And you have figured out through what you do, whether it's talking to people that you bump into, that are fans, that are impacted by your work, as you're eating dinner or you're walking down the street, that is a pure expression of the light inside you. If you're standing on a stage, if you're seeing friends who are magically, like Jay was, six stories above, if you're allowing people to celebrate you, if you're creating, because I said to her, 'I have never felt more creatively energized.' She said, 'Of course not, because you're letting love in and because you are letting people in and because you are working so hard on your own healing, you're able to receive.'"
--:-- Mel Robbins: But let me tell you, and this is where she flipped it on me and where I think that there is a connection for you. This is where Ann flipped the pancake and I wasn't ready yet.
--:-- Amy: You know, there's those pieces that get left on the pan.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. She goes, "You have not done that work yet completely in your private life. So when you're with friends, when you're creating something, when you're out and about and in the world, and you are channeling all of who you are into service and making a difference through the work that you do and how you show up for other people." She said, "We have been working in therapy on you being able to do that same thing for yourself as an individual when you're in private moments."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so she said, "It's not surprising that since you were plugged into this part of you that can channel magic and the divine and flow states and quantum and you are your highest level of service that when, and you're driving up to Vermont and you're highly connected to all these beautiful colors and you're in a state of awe and it's just incredible. And then you walk into this beautiful house and all there is to do is for you, to just be. That injured part of you, that kid that was sitting in that seat in high school being sent to hell, that kid that felt lonely or sad or unseen, that part of you looks for a place to plug in. And it was, and she said, 'And what you always did is you disassociated. And that's all that's happened.'"
--:-- Mel Robbins: And she also then said, "The fact that you recognized it, the fact that you recognized that your mind started racing for answers. So of course you would go, 'Well, my daughters aren't here.' That's why I said, that's why I said, that's not why I feel this. I feel this because my body, and I learned this from Dr. Becky, you are an adult living in the body that you were born in, fashioned by the experiences that your mind doesn't have a story to tell about. And so I still have that body of feeling sad and feeling lonely. And the only thing that my body does in those moments is it disassociates. And so the opportunity for me in those moments is to notice it, to not try to change it."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because I've decided that tonight I said to Chris, "All I want to do is lay on the couch with you and watch a movie."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Like I used to do when I was a kid. Just want to watch a movie.
--:-- Amy: Sounds awesome.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, I'm going to stop talking because I really want to hear what Amy's thinking, and I'm sure you do too. We're going to do that next. So Amy, what are you getting from this?
--:-- Amy: Immediately when you know when I when you did that exercise with like where do you feel where do you feel your shit I don't know what's that exercise called you close your eyes yeah you and you like where do you feel the pressure or the tension or the sadness and tell everybody what you said again right and I'll walk you through it like my upper chest and my and my neck area is where I felt it and what do you feel it now you know it's still there but it's it's Significantly less.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And can you visualize that oily, viscous thing floating out in front of you?
--:-- Amy: Yeah. I actually find it easier to take a step back from it, but yeah.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And when you turn it into yourself at any age, what is it?
--:-- Amy: Oh, I immediately feel so bad for that kid. Just, I just feel so bad for that kid. And what comes up for me is just being left out, you know, not being like the favorite, not ever being able to be the favorite.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Did this happen because you listened to the episode on narcissism by any chance?
--:-- Amy: I happened to do that. I happened to do that.
--:-- Amy: Were you like the scapegoat of your family?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Um, I definitely was not the golden child. My, my brother was the golden child. And then of course my brother died. My brother had cancer for two years. He died at the age of 12 and I was 10. And like when the golden child is six feet under, they are even more golden than, you know, like you can't compete with somebody who isn't even here. Like he was just so fantastic. And I mean that funny and not funny like he really was fantastic and also he was too fantastic for me so uh yeah I just and I am so I listened to the narcissist episode and I got so much from it even though I have studied that for a really long time you know it's still it comes up in layers right like you're ready to hear one part and then you hear it a few months or a few years later and you and you're like, "Oh my God, I'm hearing this part" and you can get stronger and stronger in it. And that means you have to understand more and more of it too. So, um, yeah, that was really helpful. And also I'm doing work on that part.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What triggered you today? What do you think is it like? Cause, cause for me, I, it made a lot of sense for me when she said, you know, "You have been really dialed in, in a very healed way and feeling very empowered. And at some point, you're going to feel injured again." And it was the fall and it was the, oh, she used this analogy. She said, "It's like you've been riding a roller coaster that was awesome. And then you get off that roller coaster and you feel shaky."
--:-- Amy: Yeah, that's really good. You should just like record your therapy sessions then we don't have to talk about them afterwards.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I have asked Anne, she said she is thinking about it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I have asked her if she would be willing to come on once a month.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. And I would do therapy with her. It's just so smart. Or anybody.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Like that idea of the roller coaster, roller coaster. And you know what, what other thought I had too, which was like, "I hope I don't have this thought, but I think I have this thought," which is, um, "The other shoe always has to drop," you know, like it's so great. What are you going to make? That's, you know, going to be shitty now because it just has to be shitty. You know, I just I don't think I'm that person. But I was like, "Oh, am I that person that's like now making things bad because I can't cope with things that are really fucking awesome? I won't be able to deal with it. So I have to kind of like make things bad." And when there's nothing bad, this is what I'm learning about myself, is that this is such a coping mechanism.
--:-- Amy: To lower your expectations or to disassociate or to feel lonely or alone. The story that you told yourself as a kid, even though yours was true, by the way.
--:-- Amy: That did happen. It's true. And I don't need to believe it for myself now as an adult. I can let that go. But I think there's a lot of emotion and letting that go and just allowing that to come up is important and painful sometimes. It's painful, you know?
--:-- Mel Robbins: It is. And I, you know, the more that I'm aware of sort of these moments where I disassociate or the injured part of me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Uh, appears from childhood. My natural instinct is to be like, "Ah, let's just have a drink."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Or "Let's just laugh this away" or "Let's just ignore this sensation and get busy."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I'm trying so hard to get curious instead.
--:-- Mel Robbins: To go, "Oh, there it is. Don't, don't start making up a story. Say it out loud to yourself. Oh, I'm actually feeling really sad." Out loud. You have to say it.
--:-- Amy: Well, I am. I'm like, because otherwise I think about it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And we know the thinking is not what we need to be doing right now in those moments.
--:-- Amy: Definitely not.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then I turned to Chris. I was going to say, I hope you have like a, like, I hope you do.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So what do you say to Chris?
--:-- Amy: Well, first I put my hand on my heart because I know now from Dr. Kennedy, Russell Kennedy on the heal your anxiety stuff that you have to first reassure yourself. You have to give yourself love in that moment.
--:-- Amy: You have to affirm your okayness. You got to let your own love in.
--:-- Amy: And so I did that and it, it definitely quieted the alarm, but I really wanted more because I don't like to feel this way.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I know.
--:-- Amy: And so I just asked Chris if he would give me a hug and I said to him, I said, "I feel anxious. I, I don't know why."
--:-- Amy: "I don't know. I don't want to feel this way." And so I just, you know, hugged him in that great, soft, red flannel shirt.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right. Faraday, if you ever want to sponsor this podcast, let me know because my son, husband and son live in the legend plaid shirts. Great hugging shirts, by the way.
--:-- Amy: Um, I and it was a nice long hug.
--:-- Amy: And it didn't, you know, it left the, it let the alarm go away but I still felt that sort of out-of-body experience.
--:-- Amy: And it was talking to my therapist Ann Davin and her going, "Well, there are two parts of you and there's two parts of all of us. There's two parts of Amy. There's two parts of you. There's the part of you that is, I'm just going to use the word divine, that you have the ability to tap into this flow state. You have magic to offer the world. It's those moments where you're lost in laughter or wonder or awe or creativity where things feel effortless, where you feel like connected to something bigger." And I am working my ass off to figure out how to stay in that space more.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And not spend so much time in the other part of us, which is the injured part. The part of us from childhood that had to cope with whatever was happening to you as a young kid. Most of which I learning more and more as we interview experts on this podcast and talk to people about their lived experiences that happened to you before you were even five, which means the only story you have about it is the story adults have told you about it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: If you even have a story about it, but your body has a memory of it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so these deep emotions, like the sadness that you're feeling or feeling off or not feeling like yourself, I think the more work you do on yourself, the more anytime you don't feel like yourself is ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The injured you, you're drifting into the injured you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Like, just sit with it.
--:-- Amy: Yeah, because they want you there and they need you there. And that's where you need to be. And you and I are both like, "I don't want to be here."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, I hate it.
--:-- Amy: It's not fun. I'm like, "Can this bitch just go back to elementary school? Because I am so over this feeling. Can you get an au pair for your injured self and just have somebody else take care of it?" Because like, I don't want to do it. Like, it is painful. You know?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, the other thing that Anne said to me that was so interesting, and I'm sure people have said this to me a million times before, but today I got it.
--:-- Amy: Oh, I love that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You ready?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Cause I'll probably get it too now. I hope she said that that injured part of you is so familiar with whatever it was that you did as a kid to protect yourself from getting hurt. And an example of that would be, um, you know, if your parents were not that affectionate to begin with, you would start to learn why on earth would I put myself out there?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'll just pull back.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because not expecting it, not asking for it is a way to protect myself. It's better than being rejected.
--:-- Mel Robbins: From the rejection that I feel.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Or staying quiet.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So that you don't get in the middle of the fight or keeping the peace or all the things that you did to gain the approval and love and the okayness that we all needed as kids, right? That the injured part of you is so used to, for me, it is leaving my body and then getting stuck in my head, thinking all kinds of terrible things.
--:-- Mel Robbins: For you, what is it? Shame and sadness. What she said to me was this: she said that injured part of you, whenever you feel the normal emotion of shame and sadness, right?
--:-- Mel Robbins: It is so used to reaching for the thing you did as a kid.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Which was for me, leave my body and go up my head and start to worry, right? And given the fact that I am in the season of the Mac Daddy unbelievable transition that involves not only the color, but the weather. And very soon we're going to have my least favorite day of the year, which is the day we turn the clocks back.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And it becomes dark at three o'clock in the afternoon. And I start to feel like winter is coming and it's Game of Thrones final episode.
--:-- Amy: Oh, my God. Pill. Cue the seasonal depression light ads.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I, and I, and I just, no wonder.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm reaching for the, uh-oh, but I now have tools to not be scared of it and to be able to go, "Oh, that's that part of me that I call, you know, the injured self."
--:-- Amy: So what does Anne say? Like, is she like, "We have to break this habit?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, she's literally like, nobody can ever live. Unfortunately, there's a lot of us that live in the injured self all day long.
--:-- Amy: Yeah, I did for decades.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right. When you start to become aware and you start to work on your own healing.
--:-- Amy: Yeah, the pain body. That's what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain body. You're just constantly in your own pain all day long, like you're creating your own misery.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. Campaign of misery.
--:-- Amy: Campaign of misery.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. Yeah. Go ahead.
--:-- Amy: And I'm working on living more and more in the other place, which is getting out of my head. And not reacting with such intensity to the feelings of my body. And forcing myself when those moments happen to notice the feeling, to say something about it, to reach for a hug, to give myself a hug in the reassurance, to remind myself that the feeling will pass. And according to research, if you don't resist it or grip it, it passes typically in about 90 seconds.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. Thank God.
--:-- Amy: But knowing that there's two parts of me: the old little me that did the best that she could, that is the injured part, and the adult me that is seeking a different experience from life. I want to own what I experience. I want to be in charge of it. And I want to feel more of those moments of being in the flow and being connected to the divine and being present in the moment and being out of my freaking head and in my work or in my family or in the beauty that is Southern Vermont. Like I was in that state as we pulled in and I saw you two up here and I'm waving from the car sunroof, like, "Oh my God, they're my friends. I'm so excited to see my friends." And then we get out and I'm like, "Oh my God." It fell apart.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. Because I'm in the middle of a big transition. I'm moving from this 14-day amazing high on a roller coaster that was incredible, to refinding my balance as I step into a new home and a totally different energy. Or maybe just a different 14 days that's going to be great too. But you got to get off that roller coaster. You can't stay on it.
--:-- Amy: So you want to know... Here's what I'm going to leave you with. The injured self is that shaky feeling. Anne calls it the rattle.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh God.
--:-- Amy: That's still there from childhood. We'll probably always be there from childhood going, "Hey, remember me? There's still a part of me that's sad. There's still a part of me that's scared." And it's that period of time after you get off the roller coaster that's divine, where you feel shaky until you find your footing again. And that's all that it is. So the good news for both of us is that you've been flying for two months. And when you say, "I don't feel like myself," what's awesome is you now have an experience of yourself as being a golden child. Because you are on this team. That's how we all see you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. No, everybody's favorite.
--:-- Amy: No, I appreciate that. Now, literally from front to back on this conversation, I feel like, "Oh, I can just appreciate how I feel. I was just in a bad mood." I feel it. I don't know exactly how to say it. I feel better. And I feel like I can handle the bad mood a little bit more. Maybe it's the oil slick that's left. Or maybe it's just talking it out or hearing how you're dealing with it. I do feel better. And I can appreciate the low part of the roller coaster. But sometimes when you're at that low, you're looking around like, "Did this thing stop? Am I ever going to go back up again? This is hard. I don't want to be here."
--:-- Mel Robbins: The visual that helps me is this: I don't visualize the low of the roller coaster. If that helps you, do it. I visualize getting out of it. I'm on that platform, and I'm like, "Whoa, whoa," and I'm shaky because I'm going from this really high, amazing state into my day-to-day life. And that's always where the injured person shows up.
--:-- Amy: Wow. So what did you get when you felt that brass corset and you did that exercise with Anne and you let it go? What happened?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Great question. Anne did a second exercise with me. I'll walk you through it. So the second exercise that Anne did with me was this. She said, "In the past 14 days, I want you to come up with a very specific memory that is magical. You were present in the moment. You felt connected. You were happy. Describe a moment like that." So I described this moment where on Friday night of Parents Weekend, Kendall's music friends, they're all in the pop music program. They threw this impromptu thing where kids were doing an open mic night on someone's porch. So here we are in a random neighborhood in downtown L.A. So awesome. There is this awesome kid just banging it out on the keyboard, singing these great songs. There are like 17 kids sitting there and a couple of parents standing around. All of a sudden, Kendall rolls up with her music friends as this awesome kid's playing. She's got her guitar, another guy's got a drum, another one's got a keyboard, somebody else has another guitar. They were like the big kids coming in. This is just my vibe.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And as a parent, you got to understand: she's been in this music program for four years. Because of COVID, I've been able to see her perform live once. That's it. She has been in this program for four years, working with these Grammy award-winning artists, getting all of this training. It's been unbelievable. I've not seen what's going on. So you're about to see it go down. And this is just a casual thing on somebody's front porch.
--:-- Amy: Peeling paint on the front porch.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, yeah. And bricks falling off, a window up top with duct tape holding it together. She gets on that porch. First things first, she pulls out a guitar. And I'm like, "Oh my God, she's playing guitar in public. Who is this child?" She starts playing a cover of Ariana Grande. It is like a freaking angel singing. As she was taking the porch, they're setting up stuff, about 25 other people start rolling in. They're like, "Hey, I hear Kendall singing." All of a sudden, all these people start showing up. As she starts to sing, all these phones go up. There is this full moon rising above the teeny little rundown college student house next door. Her voice was so insane. She was so in her element. To witness somebody in a state like that, given their gift, completely connected to the divine that I think is inside all of us. I just stood there in awe of who she's become. That experience of watching her share this gift and watching the result of years and years of work, not only on singing and music, but also on her confidence and figuring out who she is.
--:-- Amy: So Anne said, "Great. Close your eyes. Where's that in your body?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: I told her it was kind of between my belly button and my pelvis. She said, "Great. I want you to feel the full moon on you. I want you to hear your daughter's incredible voice. Never let it go. If you just let me invade your space, I'm gonna take the pleasure, take it with the pain." And as she told me to do that, I realized the song I'm visualizing is "If you want to keep me, you've got to love me harder," which is now a message that if you want to keep yourself in that divine state, you got to love yourself a little harder.
--:-- Amy: So for you in the last two months... As you were saying that about Kendall, I lately have wanted to have what they call peak experiences with my kids. I think we've talked about this before, where I just really want to experience awe, pure awe and joy and just being in the moment with my kids. I'm saying once a month, that's it. Let's just start there. So I had this really incredible time with my youngest daughter, Jane, this weekend. We were so in the moment.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What were you doing?
--:-- Amy: We were running errands.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love that.
--:-- Amy: I told her all the things we had to do and she wrote them all down. I was like, "You're in charge. You're in charge of the time. We have to get home at noon. We're leaving at 10. You're in charge. Just tell me what we need to do. I know what to do when we get to the store, but you tell me what to do." She loves playing games. We used to do this when she was little, but it just kind of came up. We went to the paint store. We went to TJ Maxx, of course. We went to Price Chopper. We went to the bookstore and the jewelry store. And she's like, "Mom, you have two minutes and dad's going to be waiting for us. Do you want me to call dad? We're going to be a little late if you keep talking to this lady."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Does she want a job?
--:-- Amy: I know. She was so good. I looked at her after the last stop and I said, "I'm having a lot of fun right now." And she was like, "I am too. This is so much fun. Like we used to do this when she was in nursery school and her two older sisters were out." She said, "Mom, this is just like so much fun. But we're just doing errands." I was like, "You know what? It's allowed. Just humor me. Would you call this a peak experience with me?" And she was like, "You know what, Mom? I would. This is really, really great." So it was really great that I didn't have to plan it. It just was spontaneous. We found each other. My divine, as you say, found hers. And we just together made this really awesome thing. So when you're going through that thing with Kendall and your memory of her and putting yourself back in that moment, I went to that moment with my Jane.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's beautiful. Because what I also realize in those moments is that we are allowing ourselves to receive. There is that reciprocal nature of you're giving love and you're giving positive energy and you are open and receiving it back. And it is pure flow. It is literally a peak state, a state of flow because it wasn't hard for Jane to be Jane and it wasn't hard for me to be me. And it is definitely not hard for Kendall to be Kendall and you to be you. And we're all just feeding each other and feeling awesome. And getting errands done at the same time for me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So it is this incredible thing. And so what Anne told me to do is to now close your eyes and locate where is that experience in your body. Now really allow yourself to feel it. Like you leaning over and looking at her and going, "Was that a big experience for you?" Now go back up to your neck where that viscous crap was. On a scale of zero to ten, has it gone down?
--:-- Amy: Yeah, great. Now go back to wherever. Where in your body is that?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right in my solar plexus, like right above my belly button, in between my belly button and my ribs.
--:-- Amy: Amazing. And allow yourself. Is this a peak experience?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah, right. Great.
--:-- Amy: Now, what Anne told me is happening. Wait till you hear this. Is that you can just do this little exercise of finding moments where you're freely receiving and giving love, where you're in deep connection. Either with nature, a new puppy, something you're working on. Where you're just in that flow state and the resistance isn't there. Or some moment for yourself, maybe you're in Shavasana after a class. Maybe you have just had an incredible moment with your lover. Something where you have allowed this sort of divine peak connection to self or something bigger or another human being to come in. Find it in your body and allow yourself to feel it and fire it up. Because what she said to me is that the injured self and all those stored experiences that feel like armor for me or viscous oil for you, those are encoded in your amygdala.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, okay.
--:-- Amy: And a different part of the brain needs its circuitry fired up that stores these experiences of being in deep connection and in a state of flow. So when you go back and forth between the two and you access that memory for the rest of my life, I can access that memory of Kendall. You can access that moment of Jane. You can then close your eyes, feel it in your body and fire up a different part of your brain, which allows you to start to create the circuitry and the muscle mentally tied to the positive emotion.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So there's a couple of things that I just want to make sure that everybody's tracking with us. Because this started as what we're probably going to start to call an on-the-fly episode. I knew that this was going to be an incredible conversation because Amy is often not in a down mood, not at all. And I have just come from a therapy call where I had this life-changing revelation. I've probably heard these things over and over. Anne's probably said them to me on every therapy call for two years. But for some reason today, it really clicked. This idea that there's the divine you and the injured self from childhood. And that most of us live in that injured self and that's why we say we're stuck and we're on autopilot and we're sad and full of excuses and we're creating the same pattern.
--:-- Amy: Groundhog Day.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. And that there's something else available that you can change. You can rewire your brain. And when you start to notice yourself checking out or feeling sad, not feeling like yourself, that can be a good sign. Because it means you've actually experienced something else than the sadness or the anxiety or those other things. And I feel that now. And I feel the appreciation for that sadness coming up because it's in me. It's a part of me. And it's like, that's okay to come up. And I feel an appreciation for how I normally am. I've grown to really love that person and want to be there more often than not. But it doesn't mean that I can't be sad every once in a while.
--:-- Amy: Of course. That's cool too.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. I got a lot out of this conversation.
--:-- Amy: Oh, I do too. I feel a lot better now.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Do you?
--:-- Amy: I do. I do feel a lot better. I have a headache, which means it's a good sign for me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I kind of do too. I feel almost like I feel after taking a standardized test. That brain...
--:-- Mel Robbins: I feel like I need a Diet Coke.
--:-- Amy: I'm with you. I'll have an athletic brew and we'll call it a sponsored episode.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. Speaking.
--:-- Mel Robbins: If that's not divine.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh my God. Kendall, I'm sitting here with Amy and I was just telling the story about you being on the porch singing that song and how it felt like I was experiencing the divine.
--:-- Kendall: Oh, it sounds awesome, Kendall. It just sounds like such a wonderful time. And your mom played us the video and we got the chills.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, thank you so much for saying something. Oh my gosh. Thank you.
--:-- Kendall: Mom, I'm calling you because I'm at the boot store. I sent you a photo of a pair of boots that I really like. I wanted you to look at them.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. Give me five minutes and I'll call you back.
--:-- Kendall: Okay, great. I sent you a photo of them and the price too, but I just wanted to see what you thought first.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. You can have the boots. You gave me a religious experience on the porch the other day.
--:-- Kendall: You didn't tell me it was religious the day after.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Are you now just realizing it was?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. Basically you have become that image of you. You know how in therapy, whenever my therapist is like, "Okay, what's an image of protection for you?" What do I say? Buckbeak.
--:-- Kendall: Say it again. Tell everybody what it is.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Buckbeak. It's the magical creature from Harry Potter that Hagrid tames and then they pretend to kill, but they don't actually kill. And now whenever she tells me to channel the divine and a flow state, Kendall and the infinite. So I'm now the new Buckbeak.
--:-- Kendall: No, Buckbeak is for protection. You can't protect me. That's not gonna happen.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Say that's a little... Yeah, I mean, you're good at guitar and singing. You can sing, but let's be honest, I'm not Buckbeak.
--:-- Kendall: But I am gonna experience that. I'm going to come back to that moment all the time. That moment of standing there in that front yard under a full moon, watching people stop their cars and your friends gather and phones go up and you channeling something divine in you, you sharing your gift with the world.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I appreciate that. All right. I'm going to hang up because I want to finish this podcast that we're taping. I love you guys. Thanks for calling and saying that. I love you.
--:-- Kendall: I love you too. Goodbye.
--:-- Amy: Okay. And now we go from the divine to cowboy boots. Can you buy me cowboy boots?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right. Right back into real life. See, that's getting off the roller coaster. Feeling a little shaky. I got a headache. I need a Diet Coke and a cotton candy.
--:-- Amy: Oh, they're really cute. The boots.
--:-- Amy: Oh, they look like they have like a Phoenix.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, come on. Look at this. I have a close up of the design of the boots. It is Buckbeak.
--:-- Amy: Oh my God. What in the hell is happening?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm going to tell you what's happening, everybody.
--:-- Amy: What's happening?
--:-- Mel Robbins: If you look at him flying from above, that is the shape of him flying. It looks like a dragon. Honest to God. This is freaking crazy. The timing of that. So here's why this is important, everybody. You deserve to access that space of the divine. You deserve to tap into a flow state. You deserve to shift the energy toward getting in the flow. And it starts with noticing where you're gripping and holding on. Try the exercises that we just walked you through in real time. Because what happens is when you start paying attention to this state of being in flow, in connection, in love, it sends ripple effects that I believe call in crazy coincidences. Like Kendall, of course, calling randomly right after we played her song. Me referencing Buckbeak as a joke. Her then looking at the boots she's calling me to buy. And there is a silhouette of what looks like a dragon, which basically is what Buckbeak looks like. A flying hawk dragon thing in the sky. It is.
--:-- Amy: You know what I call these, everybody? Signs.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Amen. Paying attention to the signs and coincidences and magical things that happen in life and calling them out, that is how you also strengthen the circuitry in your brain that is wired for flow and connection and all this incredible magic in your life. Period. For those of you that have read The High Five Habit, you know the exercise about looking for hearts that occur naturally in the world. Like a heart-shaped cloud. Our new puppy has a heart-shaped freckle on his nose. Or a heart-shaped stone or heart-shaped stain on the ground or heart-shaped in your coffee. Or heart-shaped pea stain from the little puppy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: If you just play a game with yourself, this is one way you can start to tap into this state, start to train your brain for something other than complaining and feeling miserable. Look for a heart shape today. And when you see it, I want you to do something that's going to sound cheese ball, but this is brain stuff. Are you ready? I want you to look at it and be like, "By God, Mel Robbins put that there for me to find." I want you to allow yourself to let a little magic in. If you can pick it up, pick it up and put it in your pocket. Take it home. Put it on your shelf in front of you. Take a picture. Start calling out the signs of things going right. Start noticing when you're gripping, when you're holding on, when you don't feel like yourself. Both Amy and I did not feel like ourselves today. And just very casually, we just sat here talking about something else and I'm like, "How are you doing?" And she said, "Honestly, that's a great..."
--:-- Amy: And we're at Lattice is somewhere amazing. Yeah, it's true. God, I love you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love you too, Mel. I'm glad you're home. It feels more like home when you're here.
--:-- Amy: Thank you. That's great. Thank you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, everybody. So you want to see those boots? Go look in the show notes. I'll put some photos of some hearts there too that people find. And Amy and I just want to say, look, we love you. We believe in you. You deserve to feel in the flow.
--:-- Amy: Peak state. Anybody that wants to come do errands with me on a Saturday, I will show you how to be in a peak state because that's when I'm in my zone.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love it when people are in their zone. We're all better off when you're in the flow and you're doing your thing. So I'm glad that we're doing this and helping people get there and feel it.
--:-- Amy: We're going to send you out with the best reminder, which is: you got to love yourself a little harder.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Kendall Robbins covering Ariana Grande.
--:-- [Music: "The ones that love me, I tend to leave behind. If you know about me and choose to stay, then take the pleasure, take it with the pain."]
