Turn Anxiety Into Power: A 3-Step Process to Master Your Emotions From a Harvard Psychologist

Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I'm so glad you're here today because there's a huge, big life transition going on in our family. Our daughter's just graduated from college. She does not have a job after college. And I just feel tense. I feel this wave coming at me. Maybe you felt that if you have a spouse or a partner that gets fired from a job. Or maybe you felt that with a kid or I have a friend who just lost their dad. And of course, they're going through a period of discomfort. And I just want to run towards it and try to fix it and make it go away.

Mel Robbins: And so as I was sitting here this morning starting to get a stomach ache about how can I help her cope with this massive life transition, I thought, you know, Mel, why not be proactive? Why not use an incredible therapist as a way to think through something that is coming at you? That's a good idea, right? And one of the benefits I'm realizing to this podcast is you and I have on speed dial some of the most amazing experts on the planet. And your friend Mel is not going to put it past herself to reach out and ask for free advice for both of us. We're going to get a twofer, you know, two for one, meaning here's what's going to happen. I'm going to get a therapy session from Dr. Luana Marquez. Remember her? She's the bestselling author of Bold Moves and a clinical psychologist, an associate professor at Harvard. She did a wildly popular episode with us all about avoidance. Avoiding things that are hard, avoiding all kinds of stuff in our life. You loved that episode. So I've got Dr. Luana back and I am grateful that she is here for us because I need this, this help and support. And in particular, I want Dr. Luana to walk you and I through clinical and scientific research that helps you move through transition and helps you help other people move through transition.

Mel Robbins: All right, Dr. Luana, welcome back to the Mel Robbins podcast.

Dr. Luana Marques: Thank you, Mel. I'm so excited to be back.

Mel Robbins: Well, I'm really excited because there's so much that I want to talk to you about. We are in a moment of time when this episode is going to come out where there's tons of people graduating. And that's a major transition. And I am personally bracing, Dr. Marquez. I'm bracing. Our daughter is graduating from college. I can feel the panic attack happening.

Dr. Luana Marques: Wow.

Mel Robbins: She is then going to leave California and come home for the summer.

Dr. Luana Marques: Wow.

Mel Robbins: And she is an artist, a singer songwriter. So there's no defined career path. And I know that the bottom is going to drop out. Why are transitions so damn hard?

Dr. Luana Marques: I can feel the pain already for you, Mel. I can just feel like your whole voice changed. And there's so many people in the same boat. In fact, the world is in transition since COVID. It's a major transition. This is how I think of a transition before we even talk about why it happens or why it's so hard. The way I say transition is somebody wants to go on a journey. OK, and there's this idea of this dream life, this thing that you want to do. And some are voluntary, some are not. Like your daughter is finishing. It's a voluntary transition after college. And she has this whole life ahead of her. And so that's exciting. But then there is the old, right? And the old I see as the shore. And so in transitions, we're like holding on to the shore of what we know, the certainty of the things that we know sort of worked. It's no longer working, by the way, because you want this dream life. And then the boat starts to leave and you're holding on to shore and you're holding on to the boat and you start to get stretched thin. And that's what we start to feel. It's that panic that you're talking about. It's that anxiety. It's that uncertainty that happens. But we're so afraid of discomfort. We avoid discomfort so much that we just continue to hold on. And this is the first thing I want to say to everybody. Let go and start swimming. Let go and start swimming because there is no ticket to a perfect life, right? That holding on is avoidance. And how many people have we heard that stay in a job they dislike, right? It's like holding on to certainty. I mean, I'm in the major of a transition in my life, in a career, and I'm as scared as you are. But like, if I just hold on to Harvard, because that's what makes me good enough, then I'm never going to get to explore the world.

Mel Robbins: Wait a minute. What's the transition you're in the middle of?

Dr. Luana Marques: Well, so, you know, for the past year and a half, I really hit a wall at Harvard Mass General. And I love what I did in terms of research. But I felt like there's so much more that I could do to help so many more people. I wanted to have an impact in the global world in terms of mental health. And let's be honest, an academic paper is not going to do it, right? It's just not. But I've been terrified to let go of this position and this academic self to jump into public speaking, writing books. I don't have a path for that. It is scary in transition. It really is.

Mel Robbins: The first thing we all have to talk about is there's fear there. For sure.

Dr. Luana Marques: In fact, this book came out of my need to create space to have an impact in the global world. In terms of mental health, I wanted to write this book for 10 years, okay? And I was recording with Dan Harris for his app. And I told him about it. And he says, go do it. Like, the world needs it. And I was like, wow. And he's like, go do it. Make a bold move. You can't just talk about a bold move. You have to make a bold move. And my schedule is still full at Harvard, right? I wrote this book between four in the morning and seven in the morning because it mattered to me. And I was going to create space for this book. And HarperCollins said it takes a year and a half to two years for a book to come out. And I said to them, what if I deliver in June? And they said, nobody writes a book in four months. It's impossible. I said, try me. And so I did. I woke up at four to seven. My son, if you read this book, you see the stories of my son every morning. He gets up, he runs downstairs, give me this big hug. I would be exhausted. Seven in the morning, I'm already tired. And those hugs created such connection for me and reminded me why I'm writing this book. And then he would sit and he's like, I want to write too. Today I want to write about how I love my mom. And we'd sit at my computer for a little bit. He's five, he's not writing, but he's thinking he's writing. And that's what a value-driven life looks like. You create space for it, you go for it. And I have no idea what the world will do with this book. But for me, it's the integration of all parts of my life coming true.

Mel Robbins: Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Juana Marquez in the house. That's how you do a bold move. And that's why you need to read this book. And that's why I'm here with you. Because now, you know, your team called on Friday afternoon and today's Monday morning. I have this stuff I do at Harvard. I got it done over the weekend so that I could be here with you. And every action I take is aligned with the impact right now. You need to create space for integration to happen. And so I choose those actions very carefully. And that's what integration looks like. I just feel so excited to be here. I feel so alive talking to you because it's 100% value aligned. That's amazing.

Mel Robbins: Wow. You talk about values, whether you're going to move or you're breaking up or you're changing jobs or you're thinking about your dreams or college is ending. What is the intersection of values and transitions?

Dr. Luana Marques: So values are so important. So let's define values first, right? Values are intrinsic motivators. There are the things that matter the most to us, the things that should be our compass in life, family, religion, wealth, integrity, right? And so what is the intersection between values and transitions? Well, in transitions, our values are questioned. What matters the most to us should be our compass. Let me give you a personal example to make this come to life for everybody. Early on in my career, ambition was the value that mattered the most to me. And once you have a value, then we set goals with those values. For me, it was getting to graduate school. Then I had a goal getting to Harvard. Then I wanted to be an assistant professor. Ambition was the value. And then I set clear goals to those values. Eventually, I got to associate professor. The day I became associate professor, a colleague of mine said to me, so what are you going to do next to become full professor? And that question bothered me. I was like, do I want to be a full professor? Ambition got me out of poverty. Ambition got me out of Brazil. Ambition is how I define how I would never go back to be poor again. But no longer ambition is working from email. I'd lay in bed at night and I had all the success in Harvard. And yet my brain was just not happy. I couldn't sleep. I put on 40 pounds, 40 pounds. Right. And I kept saying to myself, what if I just write another grant? What if I just write another paper? You know, I don't have the right to feel the way I do with all the privilege I have. And, and so ambition no longer was serving me, but I kept going at it, kept going at it. And one day I was sitting in my office writing a grant and half of my face went numb, just numb. And the first thought I had is, Lona, this is anxiety. You're unhappy at work. You're writing a grant. This is just anxiety. Next thing you know, half of my body starts to tingling. And I'm terrified. And then the next thing I thought is, oh, my God, I'm having a stroke. I'm having a stroke. So I called the nurse. And meanwhile, I'm like, I'm an anxiety researcher. I treat anxiety. This is just anxiety. I don't want to say it myself. But like half of my body is numb. And the doctor, my husband, like drives me. I'm crying. And at that point, I remember going to my primary care med. Now I'm saying to myself, oh my God, I hit rock bottom. Like this is no longer working. I know what I'm doing is no longer working, but now I'm about to lose everything, right? Now I'm having a stroke. And what if I can't speak again? What if I, like everything in my life that I had worked so hard was right in front of me. And I just had this moment of like, holy shit, like, holy shit. I've avoided for so long by following this value that no longer served me. And just to avoid my transition. That's all I was doing. I was avoiding this transition. And so it turned out that I wasn't having a stroke, thank God. And they think it was a severe migraine. I've never had a migraine in my life. I don't know. The neurologist, it was 48 hours of hell. And that's when I faced reality. That moment was when I paused and was like, I cannot avoid this transition anymore. I'm no longer actually living a value-driven life. I'm living an emotion-driven life. I'm just trying to not feel uncomfortable. So I keep doing the things. And you asked me an important question in the beginning, why this transition is so hard, right? Why is it hurt so much? It's because it creates so much discomfort. And in that moment, I was just avoiding it. I was just avoiding it. And I couldn't avoid it anymore. And the reason I share this with people is I hope people wake up before they get that well because we hold on to the old so much to not go towards our dreams. And I nearly killed myself in the process. And think about how much skills I have and I still avoided it.

Mel Robbins: How do you figure out what your values are?

Dr. Luana Marques: So one of the exercises I use with my patients that I use that day is to actually do the opposite what anybody does which is to lean towards the pain. And the days after that nearly stroke I sat with myself crying early in the morning for many mornings saying why does this hurt so much? What about this hurt so much? What is it that is missing? And what is in my life missing? And what I realized is behind that pain, there was a value that's been violated. It's not that I didn't care about ambition anymore. Is that what I really cared about is I wanted to make a bigger impact in the world. And I knew that the things I was doing were not aligned with impact. They may impact on the patients that I work for sure, but I saw the world hurting. I saw the rise in anxiety from the CDC of 40% of Americans with clinical level of anxiety and depression. And here I was sitting in my little house with all the skills that my grandmother gave me, that science gave me, and I wasn't doing anything with it. I wanted to create a podcast. I didn't have a podcast. I wanted to write a book. I hadn't written a book. I wanted to go out there and meet people like you. And I wasn't doing it. And when I leaned into that pain, I saw impact. And I was like, wait a minute. I need to change my entire life. I need to change what I do. And so that's my recommendation. Lean towards the pain and ask yourself, why does this hurt?

Mel Robbins: The transition that you're describing is one that I recently went through over the last two years. And I knew that there was something that I valued more than chasing more success. And it was about connection and impact and peace and family and simplicity.

Mel Robbins: And you can have more than one value, right?

Dr. Luana Marques: A hundred percent. You can have more of value, but it's Lloyd down for us, Mel. Can you just tell me a little bit about the beginning of this transition and like chasing success and no longer feeling like success did it?

Mel Robbins: Well, yeah, like I, I, um, I think like a lot of people somewhere along the line, I got the message that achievement equals love.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yes.

Mel Robbins: That if you're performing, if you're busy, if you are making a lot of money, if you're winning awards, if you're doing things that people talk about, that that means you're worthy of somebody's love and attention.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yes.

Mel Robbins: That was a value that I was trying to create in myself. What started to happen for me is that once I got to a level of success where I had paid off our debt and I was actively saving money and I could afford to do whatever I wanted to do. I'm like, I'm not talking Lamborghinis and that kind of crap, but like just had a really great lifestyle and was proud of myself. I wasn't happy.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: And like you, I felt like an asshole. You didn't use that word, but I'll use that word with myself. I'm like, what kind of an asshole are you? You're sitting here making an impact on millions of people's lives. You are being flown first class all over the place. You could afford to eat anywhere you want. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: And what was wrong with me is one of my core values was severely violated. I was profoundly disconnected from my husband, from my kids. I had exactly two friends that I saw. And so I was profoundly lonely and I was never not working. And so something's got to give. And what actually gave is March 8th of 2020. The world turned upside down and I found myself like the entire planet found themselves, questioning absolutely everything. The greatest gift is it made me really assess what my values truly were. And when my husband and our three kids were then under one roof together, it made me realize how much that's all I wanted to do was be with them. I'm like, you know what, Mel, it's time to stop talking about and thinking about doing a podcast. It's time to get serious about it. That was the moment for me. It was values driven. And I asked you the question about how you figure out your values because it's a surprisingly hard thing to do.

Dr. Luana Marques: It is so hard. It is so hard. And you actually unpacked so much because, you know, I think the world has gone through a value shift in this pandemic.

Mel Robbins: How so?

Dr. Luana Marques: Because the things, the values that worked before the pandemic no longer fit for most people, right? People now, we hear people talking about they want more flexibility in their job. They want to work from home. Why? Because they realize the family mattered and it was being compromised by the way they worked and did their family time. Right. But most people now haven't had the privilege of what you have of being able to pause and reflect. Right. A lot of people are still in the treadmill of life. That's what I see in my office. People call me and they're still trying to fit their old values to this post pandemic life. It needs a realignment. And how do you find your values is your question. So I talked about pain. The other way to find values, which I think is what happened to you as this. Lean into the moments that you feel your best. Okay. What about their moments? What's so important, right? You talked about being with your family, the way you said, you know, my three kids and my husband, you lighten up. I could just see you in your living room with them. And if I went behind your brain, I could see just Mel being content, connected and present. Right. Versus Mel on that plane and you're craving that connection, that real connection with family. And so in those moments of like flow, in those moments of quietness. Ask yourself, what matters in this moment? Why is this moment important to me? Why do I feel good? And that's our values are right there.

Mel Robbins: Dr. Luana, I just love you. You are so awesome. I feel better already. And we've only just begun. Let's take a quick pause. Let's hear a word from our sponsors. They can bring us your extraordinary wisdom and advice for zero cost. We'll be right back.

[Commercial break]

Mel Robbins: Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins and I am getting a personal coaching and therapy session about moving through transition from none other than Dr. Luana. All right, Dr. Luana, let's talk about the transition that my daughter's going through. How can I help her cope with this massive life transition?

Dr. Luana Marques: So I think there's two things that you can do, Mel. The first one is I think we need to help you cope with the transition. I'm sorry to say, but it's a transition for you too, right? It's a big transition for you, right? It's ending at times she's coming home. And I heard you say things like, what's next for her, right? We all have expectations of other people in transition too. So I think first thing is just you pausing and asking yourself about your expectations of her transition.

Mel Robbins: You are so good. Wow. Um, here's how I feel about it. I am very triggered by her anxiety. And so knowing that one of my kids is really uncomfortable makes me want to run and save her from it.

Dr. Luana Marques: What about her anxiety makes you feel uncomfortable? What are you saying to yourself that her anxiety makes you feel anxious?

Mel Robbins: Um, that somebody that I'm, that I love is in pain and I want to make it go away.

Dr. Luana Marques: Away?

Mel Robbins: Uh, I don't know. Um, cause it hurts my heart to see her crying and sad and.

Dr. Luana Marques: Cause you love her.

Mel Robbins: Yeah. And also there'll probably be a level of moping and annoying behavior that gets aimed at my husband and I when she's home and she's not able to tolerate like the feelings and the fact that it's over and that college went like that and her fear about what comes next. And so knowing that there will be a level of discomfort makes me uncomfortable.

Dr. Luana Marques: Well, but for you now, what I hear is this. You love your daughter.

Mel Robbins: Yes.

Dr. Luana Marques: And her being uncomfortable, it's being translated in your brain, something is bad.

Mel Robbins: True.

Dr. Luana Marques: And let's be clear. There's no transition without discomfort for anybody. She's going to have some level of discomfort that she has to tolerate and do you have to tolerate. If she didn't, something would be wrong.

Mel Robbins: It's true.

Dr. Luana Marques: Right? So the first thing is her being uncomfortable and her anxiety don't necessarily mean something bad. Now, it can lead to something bad. But at first, I want us to really think about this as an opportunity for a new beginning. Right. She's closing in and there's a natural grief that happens for everybody. You're letting go of the old. And so she's going to come home with some level of discomfort. A lot of the kids coming home from college are going to have some level of discomfort. And I think the first thing the parents can do is allow discomfort to exist a little bit. Maybe not going into fixed right away. Right. And if it gets thrown at you like the way you're talking about, just pausing and calling it out, saying, hey, listen, it looks like you're upset and you're throwing it at me. And this is not my transition.

Mel Robbins: Yeah.

Dr. Luana Marques: Holding space from discomfort is the first thing a parent can do.

Mel Robbins: Well, I think this is even bigger. I just want to run towards it and try to fix it and make it go away. And I think you're right. It's that I, in my brain, associate these transitions in life and these moments of emotional processing and upheaval as bad.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: And so you are trying to fix it.

Dr. Luana Marques: You know, I had a friend of mine just got fired from a job after 10 years, financial industry. She just woke up one day and got fired. So she texted me. I canceled everything. I said, let's go for lunch. We're sitting at lunch. And the first thing she said to me is like, you know, Luana, a week ago I was walking into work and I just wanted my ID to not go through. I wanted them to have fired me already. I was so miserable. But I just didn't want to quit. It pays the bills. And I looked at her and I said, we're best friends. And you never told me that level of discomfort. People are so ashamed of how they interpret discomfort they don't even share. And then I looked at her and I said, how are you feeling? She's like, no, I'm okay. I'm okay. And I paused and I looked at her let me call her Mary and I said Mary it's okay not to be okay and for a week now when I called her she's like it's okay I said it is not okay you just got fired and you're the one that pays most of the bills in your house if you're not feeling uncomfortable right now something is wrong and I want you to know it's okay not to be okay it's okay to have this comfort right now and if you run from it you're just gonna avoid the rest of your life. So the first step here in transition is to feel our feelings, right?

Mel Robbins: I don't want to feel my feelings. I know. Like I wanted to not feel that way.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah, but see, that's the only way to feel more uncomfortable is not feeling our feelings. So feelings are normal, biologically wired, and we have them. Our brain tells us when we're feeling uncomfortable. And then what we do, we run we avoid and then we feel more uncomfortable. And the only way of actually getting through your emotions is by feeling feelings. We seen this on kids. Look at a five-year-old in a temper tantrum.

Mel Robbins: Yeah.

Dr. Luana Marques: Right? If you tell them, stop feeling this way, stop feeling this way, they escalate. They get so loud and obnoxious.

Mel Robbins: It's true.

Dr. Luana Marques: If you sit next to a five-year-old and say, okay, so you're feeling frustrated. What else are you feeling? And my son will be like, I don't want to tell my emotions right now. I said, okay, so you're feeling like you don't want to feel. And I just sit there and I wait. And guess what? His emotional brain cools off. His thinking brain comes back online. And it lasts three minutes instead of 20 minutes of a fight.

Mel Robbins: Hmm. So what do I do?

Dr. Luana Marques: Well, yeah, so I think two things we're going to do.

Mel Robbins: Oh, that's right. We were talking about me. See how I wanted to shift this?

Dr. Luana Marques: Do you know why?

Mel Robbins: I'm avoiding.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yes. You. You are. Making me talk about something that makes me uncomfortable.

Mel Robbins: You're absolutely. I just, I just, you just wanted to run away from your emotions right now.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yes.

Mel Robbins: Do you see how fast it happens now?

Dr. Luana Marques: Yes. So, and we do this. That's one of the tactics of avoidance. We just shift the conversation. It's much safer in your podcast to talk about your daughter and her transition, her anxiety, than to sit here with, I'm having trouble feeling my feelings right now.

Mel Robbins: Yeah. I'm absorbing her transition as my own.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: Wow. So I just need to feel my feelings.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: I need to avoid the urge to rush in and fix it. And I need to just hold space.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: And let her and myself feel whatever we're going to feel.

Dr. Luana Marques: And what do you feel right now? Can we just stay with that? What does it feel like right now?

Mel Robbins: I feel really sad for her.

Dr. Luana Marques: Tell me more.

Mel Robbins: Oh my God. Really? Yes. I feel like the tractor beam lock on. I feel really sad for her. I had a really crappy end to my college experience where I got extremely sick and they thought I had meningitis and I experienced graduation by laying underneath the tree on the side. And I didn't get, I don't even remember walking across that stage. I'm not sure I was well enough.

Dr. Luana Marques: Wow. So you're really sad about yourself, Mel. That's what you're really sad about. You didn't have a graduation.

Mel Robbins: Yeah. But see, your brain is back at your graduation. That's why you feel sad.

Dr. Luana Marques: Oh, wow. You're not feeling sad for your daughter. You're feeling sad that you got robbed your own graduation. That would make me sad too. I mean, seeing you under that tree right now just made my heart crunch. Like I had a little heart moments.

Mel Robbins: Yeah, it's true. It's true. And, you know, I think I'm also just very present to the fear that she feels now that school's over and it's time to do the work. You want to be a singer-songwriter? Prove it. And I just feel worried for her.

Dr. Luana Marques: Of course you do. Your mother, you love her. We established the love matter. So worried for her makes a lot of sense. You know, concern that this transition is going to be hard for a lot of kids is the first time they have to really prove themselves. The first time that they have to really show up because college has a map. You do this and you do this and you do this. The real life transitions don't have a map. They come with uncertainty. Uncertainty activates our brain and makes us go on fight, flight or freeze. And that's why we want to avoid in transitions because that fear is overriding it. But you have the techniques to help her. It's going to be her choosing to approach every day. And it sounds like she has a clear value. She cares. And I'm going to put the words in her mouth, but she cares about creativity. She cares.

Mel Robbins: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Luana Marques: Right. And so now she needs to create clear goals. And, you know, we're here in the studio. You have amazing systems already that you develop for yourself. You help her develop her own systems around what are the actions she's going to take every day towards that value. And life happens one little day at a time. You don't become on stage and become the best singer overnight, right? So she's going to have to lean towards that value every day. And what I'd say to her is this, every week on Sunday, look at your calendar for the next week.

Mel Robbins: Yep.

Dr. Luana Marques: Make sure that your actions are aligned with your values. Every day I do this every Sunday. I look, then for a day, I'm not acting towards impact or family or health, which is another one for me. I'm not putting 40 pounds back on. So I need to get to the gym. And if it's not there, I rearrange my day. Because what science teaches us is that a value-driven life decreases stress, decreases depression, decreasing anxiety, increases well-being. And so I bet your daughter can create this beautiful life one little action at a time.

Mel Robbins: Well, here's the irony. The lack of structure is probably exactly what she needs. There's probably a kind of a, the container has been amazing for the stage that she's in. And now it's time for her to go and create what she needs to create.

Dr. Luana Marques: That's it. That's it.

Mel Robbins: I just got so much out of that conversation. Why don't we just hit the pause button real quick so we can process what you just said. And when we come back from a short break, we're going to keep moving through this transition and making some bold moves. Stay with us.

[Commercial break]

Mel Robbins: Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. We are so glad you're here. Dr. Luana is here. She's got her arm around you and me and she's teaching us how to make some bold moves. So Dr. Luana, I love values as a way to anchor yourself through a transition. If you go through transitions and you don't have an anchor, right?

Dr. Luana Marques: I love the word you use. That is what I think about. You know, it's like the visual I share with patients is you're in a boat. It's a choppy waters. Okay. And you just go in whatever the wind is blowing. In choppy waters, you've got to drop an anchor. And that anchor is your values. And now you decide, okay, now that I'm anchored, I know the values. Then you decide which way you're going to sail in your life. But you have to have an anchor first so that you're not just blown everywhere. And your daughter is in an awesome position because it's clear to me she has the anchor. Values are the real anchors in life.

Mel Robbins: It's true. Using values and anchoring yourself on it and helping it be a North Star for you is okay. This is what I care about moving forward. What are the actions that show this? I want to show you something. Okay. I can just stay right there. I'm going to go get it. So when I had this huge transition and we moved up here to Southern Vermont. And I came here kicking and screaming.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: There is no Target, no Walmart here. How am I going to live here? There are 3000 people here. The nearest airport is an hour and a half. What the fuck are we doing? Like I was just a toddler throwing a temper tantrum for months.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: I was spiraling so badly through this transition that I wrote all of the reasons why we were here that I needed to remind myself of. I think it's still in my office. And I'm kind of scared to read it because I was in a pretty bad state. But I used this to rescue myself. Let me get it.

Dr. Luana Marques: Okay. Oh my God. Let's do this.

Mel Robbins: Oh my God. I'm so excited.

Dr. Luana Marques: Oh my God.

Mel Robbins: This was at my office, you guys. I would wake up in the morning and I would look out the window and I would say to myself something empowering, like, why the fuck did I do this? And I'd walk up to my office and I'd be wiping away the tears. And so here is what I would remind myself of my values. Number one, you're here for peace and feeling deeply connected to my life, love and mission. Look at that. Just pause in there. What do you feel when you say that to yourself?

Dr. Luana Marques: Um, it's true. Like I, when I wrote this, I wanted to believe that. But first, we don't believe it, by the way, right?

Dr. Luana Marques: When we first identify our values, you're so scared that I bet in the beginning, you still had those fears. Like the brain wants to fight transitions so hard, with that narrative: "There's no Walmart, there's no Target, there's no this, but I want peace. But how about the Walmart?" Right?

Mel Robbins: It is so true, because it happens to all of us.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yes. Right. In that moment, identifying our values is shedding that light into what matters most. But then it takes action to live that life. But can you share one more, at least? I want to hear more.

Mel Robbins: I can read them all. "More time having fun with family and friends, and spend more time with Oakley and Chris." Look at that. Connection. It's incredible.

Dr. Luana Marques: "Build a simple, beautiful, and elegant business model." Do you know what I love about that one? If I may reflect a little bit. The skill that I talk a lot about in my books is called "Align." Align is the idea of aligning values and action. But I believe in an aligned life where your job and your family and connection all come together. It's like an orchestra playing, so that your job is not robbing you from your family, and your family is not taking time away from your job because it's well orchestrated. I love this because you're basically saying the multiple parts of my values have to all fit. Connection and your business, your values, they're all fitting together. This is why you're so happy. I can see it.

Mel Robbins: Oh, I'm a different human being. And I need to just say, when I wrote this, I was sobbing hysterically, convincing myself that moving here was the biggest mistake I'd ever made. I wrote this as an act of desperation. I got to remind myself why in the storm of my mind, I have to be able to see it on a fucking wall. I mean, this is a huge, like one of these big sticky post-it things, if you're not watching this on YouTube with us and you're listening to us. I took a Sharpie out and I wrote this. And then I wrote, "Global impact through higher leveraged use of my time, entertaining, impacting, and changing lives." And then I wrote, "Have fucking fun, see friends every day, and travel for fun with family and friends, not just for work." Look at that. Look at that. I fucking did it. I literally wrote this shit down in the middle of a breakdown, and I've spent the last two years slowly, day by day, transforming this business and transforming my habits and my mindset to align with this thing that did not exist when I wrote it.

Dr. Luana Marques: That's it. See, you leaned into the pain. You were in the middle of tears, and what people want to do in the tears is avoid. You basically said, "Why?" I wanted a gin and tonic. That's what I wanted.

Mel Robbins: For sure.

Dr. Luana Marques: Why not? Let's numb it out.

Mel Robbins: Yes, that's right. I was avoiding it.

Dr. Luana Marques: Right. If you create a life aligned with values, then you're in flow state all the time. You know you're going to have discomfort anyhow, so I say to people: if you're going to have those tears anyhow, you might as well use them. Why feel bad and not use that pain in a way that actually gets you unbound? And you are proof of it. Two years later, on the other side of this list.

Mel Robbins: I have this little cheat sheet to break down the fear, because it was just all fear. This was all brand new. I was reinventing everything. I was going through a major transition, like the rest of the world was too. And even though I had all these values written down on one side of this post-it note, the fear was just overwhelming. So I gave myself this little cheat sheet, and then I made myself this promise: "Don't run."

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah. It's incredible, because what I see is what we've been talking about: this idea that you don't want to feel your feelings, but we have to feel our feelings. You cried to write this, and then you said "Approach, don't run" as a promise. Stay with it. But stay with it in a value-driven way. You have a three-step approach to all transitions. Can you walk us through it?

Mel Robbins: So in transitions, you need to shift, approach, and align. First, you're going to shift your perspective. Learn to talk to yourself as your best friend. And you're talking about that here: "Notice the bitch and the fear." Right? I love it. That's shifting the way you're talking to yourself. Second, you want to approach. Don't run. In transitions, go towards discomfort. Really lean into living a comfortable, uncomfortable life. And three, align. Align values in action. So in the middle of transition, lean into the pain, list your values, and then create action items. And that's what you did, actually. Because I see items in this list—they're values. And then you're talking about building your business based on those values. And then go do it.

Dr. Luana Marques: And go do it. The transition is going to be uncomfortable. There's no transition that doesn't have discomfort, but holding on to the old just keeps you stuck.

Mel Robbins: I am getting so much out of this conversation. The fact that you need to approach—which is leaning into the pain—that's where you're going to find your values. And then you align your actions with these new values. And what I'm realizing is that the number of times that I have rushed in to try to save one of my kids from a hard period by fixing it all—"Oh, I'll give you the script. I'll do this. I'll call that person for you."—I'm actually robbing them of what happens when you turn toward the thing that you're avoiding and the discomfort, and you approach it.

Dr. Luana Marques: Absolutely. That's beautifully put.

Mel Robbins: I mean, I just realized that if I try to make it okay for—let's just use the example of my daughter—stepping out of something she loved dearly for four years and stepping into the big unknown, if I don't give her the space to feel all of the discomfort, she actually needs that discomfort right now. She needs it to discover something within herself.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yes.

Mel Robbins: And if I remove it, I am also removing something she needs from her life.

Dr. Luana Marques: That's it. Wow. Yeah, you're robbing her of the chance of living her best life. Because in fact, what we do is we prolong people's pain. Eventually it's going to hit. Eventually, she has to go through the discomfort to find her values to live her most meaningful life. And if you're going to feel uncomfortable anyhow, you might as well do it right away.

Mel Robbins: Holy cow. I'm just sitting here going, "Boy, did I fuck up at times as a parent." I really robbed my kids of some of the lessons they needed. And that's why the lessons keep repeating, don't they? That's why the lessons keep repeating.

Dr. Luana Marques: And you did, Mel, because you love them so much. And I want everybody to hear this, because it's important. Parenthood is hard. None of us are perfect. We're going to mess it up. I have a friend who's a psychologist who has a joke: she says that every time she messes up, she puts money in the therapy jar. She's like, "I know they're going to need therapy. I might as well just put some money there." Because I'm the one messing up sometimes. But that's just parenthood. That's how it goes. But we can actually prevent that by just letting them live their lives and sitting with this discomfort, and actually modeling it. Show your daughter this and say, "Create your own."

Mel Robbins: Right. Create your own. I love that idea. I have her take responsibility for it. Everybody should create one of these. "What is worth going through this pain for?" We're going to take a photo of it and link it to the show notes so that you can see what I wrote, sobbing two years ago, about what my North Star was going to be. And it was all because of the pain. That's all because it made me bring out, "What do I value? What is worth going through this pain for?" And everything on the left-hand side of this post-it note—and everything that'll be on your post-it note that you value—will be worth going through the pain for.

Dr. Luana Marques: It is. And that's how we get to integration. For me, I had this moment where I just wanted to run from Harvard and Mass General. I was like, "It's this small box, and it's not aligned with impact." And so I wanted to divorce it. I wanted to avoid it. And yet, there's this huge part of me. I'm an academic at heart, I think, as an academic. And so I actually wanted to avoid so bad that I called my boss up. I have this incredible chair in psychiatry. He's amazing. And I said to him, "Mauricio, I'm done. This is causing me too much pain. It's too restricted." And I'm sobbing on a Zoom call. And he paused and he says, "What is the problem?" I said, "It's just too small. Everything has bureaucracy. I can't just go do things." And he's like, "So what I hear you saying is there's a part of it that you still like." And I said, "Yeah. I mean, I created all this training material for paraprofessionals, and I really care about it. It's not like I don't care about training paraprofessionals. In fact, we need more workforce and that's the future. But I wanted to create a podcast. I want to write a book. And so I want to quit." And he's like, "What if we just work to eventually decrease your percent effort? You're here a day or two a week. We can discuss what that looks like. And you don't have to give up being an associate professor. We are proud of you. We wanted you to be an associate professor. But you also don't want to limit yourself, Luana." And his ability to hold space—he could have said, "No way, you have to stay 100%." He held space. He did for me what I hope you do for your daughter. He let me sit in the discomfort and cry with him. And I said to him, "I don't know." I came out of the conversation not knowing. And he said, "You sit with it and figure it out." And so as I launched this new piece of my life, I'll have the Harvard appointment. I'm going to stay, and I'm negotiating with him how small that becomes and what it looks like. But I don't want to give that up.

Mel Robbins: Wow. You said that the world went through this major transition, and you have had a clinical practice through it. What have you seen in the people that you're treating?

Dr. Luana Marques: So I've seen people feel more and more anxious, more and more uncomfortable, and people are having trouble accepting that discomfort is not the problem. I think the degree of anxiety is so high right now that even in therapy, I see their brains locking. And it's like I'm saying the same thing again and again in a different way, because the brain can't hear. When we are in fight, flight, and freeze, we can't—it's like our brains are out to lunch with friends and we can't get in. And I've seen this in more and more people locked. That's how I see it. I see the world locked. And we're talking about transition today, so it's really important. And I see everybody wanting to hold on to their selves pre-pandemic. "But this used to work before the pandemic. Why doesn't it work anymore?" It doesn't. You're a different person. The world has changed, and you need to pause, look at your values, before you can create the life you want.

Mel Robbins: It's so true. It is a conflict of values. It is a conflict of values. You have had something shift in your values in the last three years, and you have not hit the pause and done the work to align your life with this shift in values.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: So you keep doing the same thing you did before. The outcome is not the same because you've shifted and the world's shifted, and you keep getting frustrated and you blame the anxiety. Anxiety is not the problem here, people. The problem is that we are avoiding our emotions and our transitions.

Dr. Luana Marques: Wow.

Mel Robbins: The only reason that question comes up is because you are not comfortable in your own life, but we want to avoid transition. That's the problem.

Dr. Luana Marques: So damn good. I understand now what's actually going on underneath the surface, and I'm not concerned at all about our daughter coming home.

Mel Robbins: Look at that. And that's what we hope for everybody listening to us. I authentically see the discomfort as a really, really important thing for her to experience. And my job is to simply hold space and support her as she experiences it. That's it.

Dr. Luana Marques: Yeah. I mean, I look at my own transformation, white-knuckling these past two years and how much I hated it, how much at one point I tried to get the house back that we sold. Just holding on to the old. And thank God I went through this.

Mel Robbins: Yes.

Dr. Luana Marques: Thank God. Yeah, I feel the same way now. The mornings crying, trying to figure out what to do next. They were so important. I feel like my life is integrated. Now I have this little girl growing up in Brazil, a Harvard professor, accomplished author, who now can go and take it out in the world. And if I hadn't gone through that pain, I wouldn't be here.

Mel Robbins: Well, thank God you did. Because we're all benefiting from it. Look at how far we've come, everyone. You and me, look what we're doing. Let's lock arms and keep doing this life thing together. Okay? I love Dr. Luana. And I love you. I really do. I want to make sure to tell you that I love you. I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to make these bold moves. I've been crying. Dr. Luana has been crying, trying to figure it out. We're all crying and we're trying. And as long as you keep trying and making those bold moves, you now have the three-part framework in order to move through absolutely anything. I'll talk to you in a few days.

[Sound of clapping]

Mel Robbins: Okay, let me clap. Sorry, that's not to startle you awake. You have a three-step approach to all transitions. Oh, I should ask, what is it? All right, do you remember where we were? I don't remember. You were in the middle of saying something about—

[Sound of a truck or machinery in the background]

Mel Robbins: Oh my god, hold on a second. I think this is the trash truck. Is that Chris in the barn? Is he sanding? Can you hear Chris sawing? Here's our recycling. I don't know why they don't pick it up at the same time. This is why we're getting a soundproof studio in Boston.

[Music fades in]

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.