If You Struggle With Anxiety, This Mind Trick Will Change Your Life w/ Mel Robbins EP 1379

https://lewishowes.com/achieve - Join my FREE upcoming Webinar, "4 Keys to Overcome Your Fears and Achieve Your Biggest Goals!"Mel Robbins became one of the most trusted experts in the world on confidence and motivation the hard way: by first screwing up her own life. A New York Times Bestselling author and self-publishing phenom, Mel’s work includes The High 5 Habit, The 5 Second Rule, and the #1 ranking The Mel Robbins Podcast. As one of the most widely booked and followed podcast hosts and authors in the world, she’s sought after by the world’s leading brands and medical professionals for her research-backed tools and motivation. In this episode you will learn, The usefulness of anxiety and where it stems from. The starting point to improving your mental health. How loving yourself starts with connecting to your body. The main differences between happy and unhappy people. For more, go to lewishowes.com/1379Check out Mel’s past episodes! Stop Sabotaging Your Relationships & Do This Instead: https://link.chtbl.com/1337-podThe High 5 Habit & The Secret To Motivation: https://link.chtbl.com/1170-podThe “Secret” Mindset Habit to Building Confidence and Overcoming Scarcity: https://link.chtbl.com/970-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Lewis Howes?

  Here's the thing, there is one person in charge of how successful, how fulfilled, and how happy you'll be in 2023 and beyond. And that person is you. That's right. I've got some good news, though. I want to help coach you into living your greatest year yet for free in my upcoming training. And I'm going to break down the keys to create long-lasting change over the next 12 months and beyond. And you can follow through on pursuing your dreams. You can rewrite the story in 2023 and stop living out the same fears and self-doubt that has held you back for years. And you can take a major leap towards multiple areas of your life. But first, you just got to make sure you click the link and show up. Join me for this upcoming free training, The Four Keys to Overcome Your Fears and Achieve

• 0:47Lewis Howes?

  Your Biggest Goals by going to lewishouse.com/reprogram. Make sure to click the link to sign up, and I can't wait to see you there.

• 0:56Mel Robbins?

  The alarm of anxiety is telling you that there is something missing right now for you. And what's missing is a feeling of safety. And so when you reframe it as a way to let love in, you start to...

• 1:10Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 1:35Lewis Howes?

  We talked about a little bit about stress in relationships in the previous episode. But I think a lot of people just are faced with more and more anxiety, even, you know, two years after the pandemic, it's still kind of happening, but not. People don't know how to rebound after this. They don't know how to get into a place of healing their nervous system and healthy heart and mind connection. So there's still a lot of anxiety and stress. Now with the economy looking like it's going to a big recession, and everyone's talking about the housing market crashing in the next year, and stock market keeps crashing, and just all these things in life are crashing.

• 2:10Mel Robbins?

  Dude, you're making me feel anxious right now. Shut up.

• 2:13Lewis Howes?

  This is why I don't watch the news.

• 2:14Mel Robbins?

  I don't watch the news either.

• 2:15Lewis Howes?

  Because I want to be informed, but I don't want to be entertained psychologically that hell is breaking loose every moment of every day.

• 2:22Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 2:23Lewis Howes?

  But I think a lot of people are caught in that loop of stress and anxiety. What is the greatest strategies you've discovered in the last couple of years of, you know, managing stress, overcoming it, facing it, that some people can start to learn how to implement as well?

• 2:38Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so I happen to be, in my opinion, one of the world's leading experts on anxiety, because I struggled with it for a long time. And a couple of our kids have had profound bouts with anxiety. And I learned things the hard way. And so everything I'm about to share is not medical advice. It is life-tested wisdom from having to dig myself out of mental holes and messes, thanks to what used to be very chronic anxiety. So first, let me explain what anxiety is. It is an alarm in your body that is designed to agitate you. That's all that anxiety is.

• 3:22Mel Robbins?

  It's an alarm in your body that is designed to agitate you, to wake you up, because that alarm wants to get your attention so that you can focus on giving yourself what you need in that moment, okay? I also want to preface what I'm about to teach everybody and to share with you by saying that a lot of this I have learned recently. And one of my favorite experts on this subject is somebody you should bring on this show. His name is Dr. Russ Kennedy. He wrote a book called Anxiety RX. And I have, for the past two years, been in talk therapy

• 4:07Mel Robbins?

  and I have been in guided nervous system therapy, like the EMDR. I have also done some of the psychedelic modalities in a therapeutic setting, MDMA and ketamine, in terms of my own nervous system. And I've also started adding cold exposure.

• 4:29Lewis Howes?

  You're trying it all.

• 4:30Mel Robbins?

  I'm trying.

• 4:31Lewis Howes?

  Whatever it takes.

• 4:31Mel Robbins?

  Because I am so sick.

• 4:35Mel Robbins?

  Of living inside a body that feels on edge all the time.

• 4:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 4:42Mel Robbins?

  And I'm tired of having a mind that basically is on a constant campaign for what's wrong. So I made a decision that I was gonna jump all into this space two years ago. So weekly therapy, EMDR.

• 4:58Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 4:58Mel Robbins?

  The ice, uh, cold exposure, which is learning how to tolerate, basically, fight or flight, and calm yourself through breathing and through the exposure. I have done the guided psychedelic stuff in terms of smoothing out my nervous system and, uh, learning how to truly, I guess, heal and reprogram my body as it relates to past trauma, and I've done traditional talk therapy. And so from Dr. Russ Kennedy, one of the things that I learned recently that is just amazing is that all anxiety comes from one source.

• 5:38Lewis Howes?

  What's that?

• 5:39Mel Robbins?

  It is when your original alarm went off as a child, and you probably don't even remember, because it happens even in moments where you're nonverbal. It's a moment of separation from parent. So the original alarm that you felt, because that's all that anxiety is. Anxiety is an alarm that's designed to wake your [BLEEP] up.

• 6:00Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 6:00Mel Robbins?

  Okay? Because you need something. So if you and I are driving down the street, Louis, and all of a sudden a car swerves in our lane, you will feel a wave of adrenaline and anxiety. That alarm goes off to get you to wake the [BLEEP] up.

• 6:14Lewis Howes?

  It's needed.

• 6:14Mel Robbins?

  And turn the car.

• 6:16Lewis Howes?

  To be on alert.

• 6:16Mel Robbins?

  Yes. But when the car is no longer in our lane, the alarm disappears. So for people with generalized anxiety, or you feel like you're in a chronic state, that, what's happening is you have an alarm going off in the background all the time.

• 6:31Lewis Howes?

  That seems exhausting.

• 6:32Mel Robbins?

  It is exhausting. And so what's happened for the majority of the population in the past two years, because we are not designed to live with that much sustained uncertainty, is that you, right now, I personally believe, every human being, unless you are in therapy attacking this, or you have a massive meditation practice. I believe every single human being right now has their alarm turned on internally. Because for months on end, it was sustained uncertainty in the news and a brand-new experience with the lockdown. And so, of course, you went into an alarm state.

• 7:14Mel Robbins?

  In fact, for those of you that are working in an office where you're still on Zoom calls from 7:00 in the morning till 7:00 at night, that is a company whose culture is in an alarm state.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:29Mel Robbins?

  Right? Everything's an emergency. Everything is on fire. Everything is constantly changing. And so, what I've learned is this, and so that original source is separation, okay? Separation meaning you have an experience as a child where you feel separate from the adult and the love that you needed. There is a situation that makes you, like, feel nervous, and then you feel like your parent is not reassuring you. That's how it begins. This is what I learned from Dr. Kennedy that has changed my freaking life. This is actually what our episode is about, the fourth episode. It's like two hours on, we unpack the whole thing, like, it's just one mind-blowing thing after another.

• 8:14Mel Robbins?

  So I, for years, Louis, chronic anxiety, I would attack it in my thoughts. I would interrupt thoughts, I would reprogram thoughts, and it works. It works to attack the worries, but it doesn't get to the source.

• 8:29Lewis Howes?

  So it's limited, it's like a surface-level work.

• 8:31Mel Robbins?

  It's part of the toolkit.

• 8:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:33Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, it's part of the toolkit, right? And so, you know, I'd get worried about something, I'd be like, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then I'd think about something else.

• 8:39Lewis Howes?

  But they're a comeback.

• 8:40Mel Robbins?

  Or I'd reprogram it, and I'd come back. But of course it comes back, because you will always have moments in your daily life that give you a wave of alarm. And by the way, anxiety is not just, like, feeling on edge. Anxiety is anger. Anxiety can be withdrawal. Anxiety can be any friction in your body.

• 9:00Mel Robbins?

  It manifests differently for different people.

• 9:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Mel Robbins?

  And so it's like when you go from a state of peace and calm to a state of being in hyper alert. That's what anxiety is. And it's this alarm that's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, pay attention. Now, most of us are afraid of it, or we don't like it. And so we try to ignore it by drinking, or ignore it by being busy. Or suppress it by just [BLEEP]ing at people. But it's like this alarm in you that something's up, something's up, something's up, like I don't like that, like something is trying to wake your [BLEEP] up.

• 9:33Lewis Howes?

  And what does chronic anxiety feel like?

• 9:36Mel Robbins?

  It feels like having, it feels like you're a car that's at a intersection. And the light goes green. And your feet are on the gas and the brakes simultaneously.

• 9:50Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 9:51Mel Robbins?

  So like you're revved inside. For anybody that has childhood trauma, it can be an experienced Lewis, and I'm sure you can relate to this, of like, being on edge waiting for the next shoe to drop. Having your thoughts be five or six steps ahead. Never being in the room that you're in because you're thinking about what's next. It's very, very common to have very few memories from childhood, or from your twenties, or your thirties, if you have chronic anxiety, or you have some sort of trauma that you haven't addressed. Because if you're constantly on what's next, anticipating what's coming, you're never in the room where you are to make those memories. And also, when your nervous system is in a state of alert, the cognitive functioning

• 10:36Mel Robbins?

  of your brain is impaired. And so you're busy looking for what could be wrong.

• 10:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:42Mel Robbins?

  And you might be thinking about the meeting with your boss tomorrow, instead of being in the room that you're in.

• 10:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and it's really hard to create from a stress state.

• 10:51Mel Robbins?

  You can't.

• 10:52Lewis Howes?

  It's very challenging to be creative and flow from stress.

• 10:56Mel Robbins?

  Yes, yes. Now, look. It's challenging because it also fuels busyness and drive. And like being worried about something can be very motivating.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:07Mel Robbins?

  And so it was for a very long time hardwired into my success. And it kept getting rewarded and rewarded and rewarded.

• 11:14Lewis Howes?

  Because you're getting results.

• 11:15Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 11:16Lewis Howes?

  In the external world, but in the internal world, you're still feeling anxious and stressed.

• 11:20Mel Robbins?

  Always. That's why it's never enough. Because I'm not even here to enjoy this conversation. I'm already thinking about the thing I need to do at 2 o'clock. I mean, I'm currently not doing that, but that was my lived reality for a long time. Due to childhood trauma, due to these feelings of being separate. And so here's the huge aha moment. So number one, anxiety is an alarm. Number two, your anxiety is from a moment where you feel separate. Okay, you could feel separate from yourself. You could be walking into a huge presentation at a venture capital firm.

• 12:02Mel Robbins?

  And you feel separate from the people that are now going to watch the presentation. So you start to feel that wave and that on edge, that alarm go off, right? And the alarm is designed to get you to wake up because you need something in that moment. Here's the kicker. I always thought that anxiety was about what's wrong. Okay? Anxiety is the little Lewis saying, hey, I need a little reassurance right now. Hey, I need a little love right now. That's all that it is. And when you can teach yourself, in moments where the alarm goes off, Lewis,

• 12:46Mel Robbins?

  to not race up to your head and start negotiating, it's gonna be fine. These venture capital people are gonna love you. That helps on some level to be like, no, I'm excited to do this. I got this to coach yourself through it. But if you really want to transform your experience of life, go from the shoulders down.

• 13:10Mel Robbins?

  Notice that there's an alarm going off. Then I want you to realize it's the little you saying, "I feel a little nervous right now. Could you just tell me I'm gonna be okay?" And I've gotten to the point where I can just put my hand right here, find the spot that feels right for you, and literally give yourself a little love, as stupid as that sounds. And that alarm goes off.

• 13:37Mel Robbins?

  It's freaking nuts.

• 13:38Lewis Howes?

  It's learning how to parent yourself. The wounded child inside of you, you being the adult in the room.

• 13:42Mel Robbins?

  It is. And the big game changer, though, is that it's about needing love from yourself. Because if you're experiencing anxiety, you are not, you're also blocking yourself from love and from assurance and from the [BLEEP] that you need and you might not have gotten as a kid.

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  What happens if you put your need to be loved on someone or something else?

• 14:06Mel Robbins?

  Then you lose control of it.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  Because it's always depending on, do they accept me? Do they like me? Do they invest in me?

• 14:12Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, do they invest in me? Do they hire me? How do I do? Like, is my podcast rating high?

• 14:18Mel Robbins?

  Like, every day, you are going to experience moments where that alarm goes off. Because every single day in life, there is something that will trigger insecurity or feeling separate. You know, one example I can give you that's really simple is I was invited to a little, like, party in my new community. And it may be odd to people to hear this, but even though I'm extroverted, I still get nervous when I walk into any kind of networking meeting or any kind of room with a lot of people in it where I'm gonna have to introduce myself. There is an experience of feeling separate from everybody.

• 15:01Mel Robbins?

  And so even walking into a small gathering at somebody's house where I know everybody, the point of which is for me to get to know people better, walking in, I could feel the alarm going off. And having just learned what I learned, I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." I'm feeling this noticeable separation and all I need to do is be like, you got this. Like it's okay that you feel a little nervous. You can take a breath. You can walk in there when you're ready. It's gonna be good. Like giving myself exactly what I needed, which was a little love and reassurance, it completely went away.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's powerful.

• 15:39Mel Robbins?

  It's really powerful because I think most of us that experience waves of anxiety hate it. I hate it. I'm like, I hate this. Like get rid of this. Why do I have to be out? I'm gonna have anxiety forever.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 15:50Mel Robbins?

  And the truth is that when I, yes, you need talk therapy. Yes, you need to use the five second rule and interrupt the habit of worrying. And yes, you need to reprogram a different way of talking to yourself. And yes, you need to go and high five the mirror, which by the way is also neck up because you're taking a physical action that then triggers new programming up here. But it all begins with an alarm in the body. So if you want to heal this, you have to start to go neck down. You need to start to learn how to, in those moments, not be annoyed or scared of the alarm,

• 16:30Mel Robbins?

  but to actually turn toward it. So that's number one. Go toward the alarm. Know that it's a call from the little you needing a moment of reassurance or love. And you'll start to spot it all the time now.

• 16:45Lewis Howes?

  And not needing the reassurance from others, but yourself.

• 16:48Mel Robbins?

  No, from yourself.

• 16:49Lewis Howes?

  Because if you only rely on others and they don't give it to you when you need it, you're gonna feel anxious.

• 16:54Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. Well, think about this. If I were to start to cry right now and tell you that I'm super anxious and something's happened and na, na, na, na, na, what would you do?

• 17:04Lewis Howes?

  I would support you and comfort you and give you a hug.

• 17:06Mel Robbins?

  Yes. And how would that make me feel amazing?

• 17:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Mel Robbins?

  But we don't do it to ourselves.

• 17:12Lewis Howes?

  Well, if you're alone and you don't have that person with you.

• 17:15Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:15Lewis Howes?

  How do you handle it on your own?

• 17:16Mel Robbins?

  You hug yourself. Literally take a towel and go like this. It feels like a friggin' hug. Put your hands on your heart and take a couple of deep breaths and tell yourself what you would tell somebody else. And the alarm disappears because it's not trying to tell you that something's wrong. The alarm of anxiety is telling you that there is something missing right now for you. And what's missing is a feeling of safety and a feeling of like deep connection with self. That's all that's missing. And so when you reframe it as a way to let love in and that it is a way to let love in from yourself,

• 17:58Mel Robbins?

  you start to change the way that your body experiences moments that trigger you from childhood. And so like I think so much of what I am trying to put out into the world is this notion that everything needs to start with addressing these feelings that we have. Like for me, you want to change your life, there is a very simple formula that's not easy to do. You need to take action before you feel like it. You need to take the actions that the person that has what you really want and deserve in your life, you need to take the same type of actions before you feel like that person.

• 18:40Mel Robbins?

  You must act first, period. That's how you change. When it comes to healing your body and when it comes to anxiety, you have to, instead of running away from it or numbing it, because the anxiety feeling is triggering you to grab the alcohol. It's triggering you to get very busy and start running errands or to, it's triggering you to turn on the TV or hit the vape pen or hit the joint or whatever. And that feeling could be boredom. It could be a sense of overwhelm. It could be insecurity. Like, because think about what happens. Let's take the example of you're dating and somebody hasn't texted you in a day. They left you unread, you know? Like you start to get that wave.

• 19:25Mel Robbins?

  The alarm goes off. Because what do you need? You need some love and reassurance. But what we do instead is, you know, you see that you're still unread and you grab the vape pen. That is you dealing with your anxiety in a destructive way. What do you do? You like start scrolling through social media, which makes you insecure. That is you trying to distract yourself or numb or whatever, this uncomfortable feeling that you don't know how to deal with. When really, that feeling requires one action. Love. Love from self.

• 20:04Lewis Howes?

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• 20:47Lewis Howes?

  And I can genuinely say that HelloFresh has helped so much with craving takeout. When I know that I can quickly whip up a gourmet, healthy meal at home, it makes the decision so easy. I'm always impressed with the meals I can create using HelloFresh. It feels like the ultimate self-love and care to make a good meal for yourself. Go to hellofresh.com/greatness21 and use code greatness21 for 21 free meals plus free shipping. That's hellofresh.com/greatness21 with code greatness21 for 21 free meals plus free shipping. HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. This year, create positive habits that make you feel good and feel productive, like learning with Wondrium.

• 21:32Lewis Howes?

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• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  point across and Julian shares a range of tips and tricks to strengthen your ability to practice, prepare and deliver engaging public talks, whether to 10 people or 10,000. Think of how much you'll learn this year with a subscription to Wondrium. To ring in 2023, Wondrium is offering my listeners a 23 day free trial, but it's only available if you sign up through my special URL. Go to wondrium.com/greatness. That's W-O-N-D-R-I-U-M.com/greatness. wondrium.com/greatness. But why is it so hard for so many people to love and accept themselves?

• 22:54Mel Robbins?

  Because when you were a child, love was transactional. You were taught that if you're doing what I want, I love you. We all do it. I did it to my kids, too. I didn't mean to. Like, we all parent, we try to parent through connection, but we tend to correct our kids a lot. And so you learn that is that if if I'm not doing what you want me to do, then you don't like me right now. You don't love me. And we learn that if we are getting into the right school, or we're getting good grades, or our team is doing well in sports, or we are interested in medicine,

• 23:35Mel Robbins?

  because dad's interested in medicine, that that's how you earn love. And, you know, it's it's very hard to, with day to day life, not do something that your kids up.

• 23:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:50Mel Robbins?

  Because

• 23:50Lewis Howes?

  Even if you're being cautious and healthy and all these right things.

• 23:53Mel Robbins?

  Of course, because you can't read your mind. You can't.

• 23:56Lewis Howes?

  You don't know what they're perceiving and how they take your conversation and what you said, what you didn't say.

• 24:01Mel Robbins?

  Yep, yep. And they are learning by observing and absorbing. And so that means that there are going to be moments where they deeply need a hug, and they need a quieter tone of voice, and you've just slammed your laptop shut, and you've just yelled out something because of somebody being like a jerk to you at work. And your kid was standing behind you and needed something. And so I think that that's why we don't actually know how to love ourselves. And the other reason why is kind of biologically speaking, from zero to 18, You're not in charge.

• 24:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, your body, the hormones.

• 24:42Mel Robbins?

  Your freaking survival, dude, is based on your parents. If you want to eat, if you want to, like, you are hardwired to bond with them. And so this is who you're learning from, for better or for worse. And most of us learned that, you know, if mom's not happy, I'm not supposed to be happy. If dad's mad, then I've done something wrong. We do not have within us as children the ability to look at the adults around us and be like, "Well, they're up and, boy, you know, dad must have had a bad day at work." We go, "Something's wrong with me that they're not home when I get home. Something's wrong with me that she's giving me the silent treatment. What have I done?" And so we are trained as kids, for better or for worse, that love is conditional,

• 25:27Mel Robbins?

  that if we please other people, we get more of it. If we perform and make other people happy, we get more of it. And so we don't learn that it's unconditional. And we don't learn, because that's not how people act.

• 25:44Mel Robbins?

  And we don't learn how to truly love ourselves through these ups and downs of lives because our parents were taught how to do this for themselves. I mean, if you want to, like, instead of blaming your parents, look at your grandparents.

• 25:58Lewis Howes?

  Right, and great-grandparents.

• 25:59Mel Robbins?

  And great-grandparents.

• 26:00Lewis Howes?

  It's just been passed down.

• 26:01Mel Robbins?

  Because they're just passing down what they had to put up with. Like, I always find it really interesting that every generation, for example, let's take a non-anxiety, non-relationship, non-family example. Every single generation disrupts the way we work and disrupts what we think about work. Like, if you go back to the 1900s, when you would die working in a factory, most people that worked in factories under those conditions were like, "Well, I survived it. Why do we need safety protocols?"

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 26:33Mel Robbins?

  Right?

• 26:34Lewis Howes?

  Working in the coal mines.

• 26:35Mel Robbins?

  Yes, and like, and it like, literally is an upgrade. Now people are like, "Why do I need to be in an office?" Well, we were in an office, it's better for, is it better? I don't know. And so I feel too that we are the first generation to talk openly about mental health. I mean, when I was in high school.

• 26:53Lewis Howes?

  Couldn't talk about it.

• 26:53Mel Robbins?

  You were a freak if you had anxiety, which I was, by the way.

• 26:58Lewis Howes?

  Right, but you can't talk about it.

• 26:59Mel Robbins?

  No, there was no self-help section in the bookstore. Do you know what kind of a loser went in there? The amount of tools that are available, the self-awareness, the research, the awakening, the fact that people are starting to connect the dots that mental health is everything. Because if you're not a happy person, you will take that into work.

• 27:20Lewis Howes?

  And your relationships.

• 27:21Mel Robbins?

  And your relationships, and on your kids, and this, and that, and the other thing. And you're gonna make your own life miserable. And so, I feel like, a lot of the things that we're talking about, it's actually very exciting, because we didn't have these tools.

• 27:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:39Mel Robbins?

  People didn't talk openly about this. You know, my mom said something pretty profound the other day. She was kind of like, we were talking about something, I remember, and she goes, "You know, I often wonder if I don't have, if I've never experienced anxiety, because I won't allow myself to."

• 27:55Lewis Howes?

  Well, so used to it now, right?

• 27:56Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, or, she's like, "There's so much stuff that went down in my past, that I don't, why would I want to unpack that?"

• 28:03Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's scary to look at.

• 28:05Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  It's hard.

• 28:07Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 28:08Lewis Howes?

  Painful.

• 28:09Mel Robbins?

  Yes, but I admire, like, this generation, that, you know, is like the 20-somethings now. My kid, my 17-year-old son, you know what one of the best parts of his life is? His friggin' therapist.

• 28:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 28:22Mel Robbins?

  Why? Because he loves, I said, "Why do you like Keith so much?" He's like, "Because I like talking to adults, and I like having somebody other than you or Dad to unpack this stuff."

• 28:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it makes you feel a little bit better, it makes you process it. Well, I think it's, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like, more than ever, now this generation has tools and the freedom, without shame, to talk about these things.

• 28:47Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 28:48Lewis Howes?

  And also, on the other side, extreme, you know, it seems like more kids than ever are vaping, doing drugs, alcohol, having sex younger and younger, connected their phones non-stop, not, you know, allowing themselves to really process, they're still using other things to mask the anxiety.

• 29:05Mel Robbins?

  Well, because, as pressure to get into a rich school, to make money, to be an influencer, to figure out your life by the time you're 21, is all that pressure, or perceived pressure increases.

• 29:19Mel Robbins?

  So does your stress and anxiety. And as stress and anxiety increases, if you don't have the resources, tools, the support, so will your coping negative habits. Scrolling through social media, by the way, is something people do when they feel anxious. Why? Because they're using what's on their phone to distract themselves from the uncomfortable feelings in their body. But the irony is, it usually just makes you more anxious to see other people's seemingly perfect life. What else do people do? They do all the things you're talking about. They vape, they procrastinate, they drink, they buy that they don't need, they play sports bets, they watch porn.

• 30:01Mel Robbins?

  Like, all these things are ways to escape uncomfortable feelings in your body. They overeat, they, you know, like, all of it. And so, when you understand that at its core, anxiety is an alarm that is hardwired in your body to make you wake up, and what it's asking you to do is to give yourself a little bit of love and reassurance right now. I know you're sitting in a dorm room. I know you think you have no friends, and everybody here already has their friend group, and you're the loser. But you know what? You're not. It's gotta be okay. You don't need to hit the pen. You can, you can literally tolerate

• 30:45Mel Robbins?

  that feeling of feeling alone. If you know that what that discomfort's about is really a need for love and connections, give that to yourself in that moment. That's it.

• 30:56Lewis Howes?

  Learning to love yourself is the next thing.

• 30:58Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:00Lewis Howes?

  How, how can someone start to learn how to love themselves if they never felt like they got it from their parents, the way they needed it? How can they learn when they've always been on high alert, stressed, anxious, separate from the love they've always wanted?

• 31:17Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so there's two different things you need to do. First of all, you gotta get serious about the body. You have two nervous systems, sympathetic and parasympathetic. I think about it like the wiring in your wall. So Louis has these light bulbs behind us, right? What's fueling that? Electricity. There's wiring in there. If we were to flip the switch off, the wiring would still be there. What's happening when you feel stressed out or you have unresolved trauma or you've just lived through a pandemic and you have not turned the light off is that the light's on.

• 31:49Mel Robbins?

  What we need to do as a society is find the switch and flip it off. And so the way you do that is going into your body. There's a bazillion different things that you can do. You can do cold exposure, you can meditate, you can do breathing exercises. You can do the high, start doing the high five in the mirror as part of your morning routine. You can give your heart a high five where you just place your hands right here in the center of your body and you tone what's called the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve is the on off switch.

• 32:20Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:21Mel Robbins?

  Yep. And so when you Google vagus nerve and do those exercises as part of your day to day life, going outside for a walk for 10 minutes is another way to like literally get back into your body and to find the switch and turn the light off. Because you've got to understand that when the lights are on, the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight, you're stressed out.

• 32:44Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:45Mel Robbins?

  When the light is off, you've now accessed peace, you're in the moment, you don't feel that stressed out. So body, body, body, body, body. That's number one. Number two, even if it was never modeled for you, you know what you want. So get out a piece of paper and make a list of all the things that you wish somebody who loved you would do. Like there's this fascinating study, Lewis, about happy people. You know the difference between happy people and people who aren't happy?

• 33:26Lewis Howes?

  Tell me.

• 33:28Mel Robbins?

  Happy people tend to spend more time doing things that make them happy.

• 33:34Lewis Howes?

  Right. Activities that they enjoy.

• 33:36Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. And we so underestimate the little things you can do. Cause just a small uptick in your mood actually makes you feel a little better. I'm not suggesting that if your best friend just got killed in a car crash, going for a walk is gonna fix it.

• 33:58Mel Robbins?

  But it might for a minute help you clear your mind. Like for me, if I'm having a bad day, I do one of two things. I either buy myself flowers, and I'm not talking like a hundred dollar arrangement. I go to Trader Joe's. Two dollars for ten to F and L's. I love Trader Joe's, right? Flowers make me smile. And then I have a bud vase right by the kitchen sink, and I always put one of the flowers right there. Because it makes me happy. I don't know why, but it just does. For just a minute, I see something beautiful, and it allows me to escape whatever's making me sad, okay? Or I go to Netflix and I turn on one of the stand-up comedy specials. Because

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  Just laugh.

• 34:41Mel Robbins?

  I just, just to try to get somebody to make me laugh, and it always makes you feel slightly better. And if you can feel slightly better today, you can feel slightly better tomorrow. And these things start to build. And over time, that little uptick starts to become a new default. And so I think the same is true with love. Love is a verb, it's an action. So what are the actions that you believe a loving person would take? If somebody really loved you and it wasn't modeled for you? And so when you start to make that list, there's your map. Pick one thing a day. And it might be, you know, I high-five the mirror as part of my morning routine as an act of love.

• 35:26Mel Robbins?

  I make my bed every morning as an act of love. I don't lay in bed and think about my problems as an act of love. I always have an amazing cup of coffee as an act of love. And you know, oddly enough, if I'm up first, I make coffee for the person I love, Chris. And Chris does the same for me. And so just because it wasn't modeled, doesn't mean you can't create a map for yourself. And so think about it. What would you want somebody to do? And then look around and who seems to have that in their life? And what are the behaviors that you're seeing?

• 36:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:07Mel Robbins?

  And then the million dollar thing you gotta do.

• 36:11Mel Robbins?

  Do not wait. To feel like doing it, you have to take that action first. Because the action is what proves that you love yourself.

• 36:22Mel Robbins?

  If you sit around and think about it, you're going to talk yourself out of it, and the fact that you're not doing anything, that you're not taking action. And if you make a list, and you're like, "Oh, they would buy me flowers, they would compliment me, they would give me a high five, they would buy me dinner."

• 36:36Lewis Howes?

  And you don't do it for yourself.

• 36:37Mel Robbins?

  You know what that shows you? I hate myself. Because a person that loves me would do these things, and I'm not doing that. So, your own action demonstrates that you don't love yourself.

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  This is powerful stuff, Mel. I'm so grateful for you for coming back on and sharing this wisdom. If people want more, they can go to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 36:59Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, you know why I ended that?

• 37:00Lewis Howes?

  Tell me.

• 37:01Mel Robbins?

  Because when you Google Mel Robbins, it's the third thing that people say.

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  There you go. There you go. It's great. Mel Robbins Podcast. They can get it over on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, everywhere they want to listen to it. You have an amazing format where you're really diving in, you're answering questions, you're you're telling like a whole story throughout your show.

• 37:19Mel Robbins?

  Oh, it's personal, dude. It is so personal.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  It's really powerful. So make sure you guys go subscribe there, follow, leave a review.

• 37:25Mel Robbins?

  Actually, episode number two, which is called Motive, episode number three, which is all motivation, about hacking motivation, I talk extensively about my past with anxiety. And episode number four, which we have yet to title, is a two-hour interview with Dr. Russ Kennedy, who you need to have on the show. And that is, that literally will make you realize everything that you think about anxiety is probably wrong, and that there are incredibly accessible, simple, game-changing tools. And you know why I like him? Dr. Kennedy is not only a medical doctor that treats anxiety, he's also got a degree in neuroscience.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 38:05Mel Robbins?

  And he started experiencing anxiety when he was in medical school.

• 38:11Mel Robbins?

  And so he has personal experience, having grown up with a bipolar father.

• 38:14Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 38:15Mel Robbins?

  And he treats people. He has written this incredible book about it. His tools are all about, what's it called, somatic therapy?

• 38:22Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, somatic healing.

• 38:23Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. And he's, gets the brain, he gets the body, he wraps it all in one package.

• 38:29Lewis Howes?

  Incredible.

• 38:29Mel Robbins?

  You gotta get him on.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  Mel, appreciate you, acknowledge you for how you keep showing up for yourself, for your relationship, for your life, for your community. It's beautiful to witness that, you know, even though you've been extremely successful in different seasons of your life, and you continue to succeed, you make a priority right now on your emotional, mental health as a focus, so that you can keep going to the next level. So I really acknowledge you for how you show up. And I know you've been wanting to do the podcast for a while, so you acting on it is an act of self-love.

• 39:01Mel Robbins?

  It is, it is. You know what else, Louis? If people were to go back, and they were to look at our first interview five years ago, what they would witness are two totally different human beings energetically.

• 39:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:16Mel Robbins?

  Because you and I have, for the past two years, been working at profound levels on our healing from the inside out, especially in the body, especially in the nervous system, especially related to past drama, and I would bet, I don't know this to be true, but I would bet that if you did a side-by-side, you would see, I'd probably have a flushed face, I'd probably be more jittery and around and animated and this and that. I mean, I'm pretty animated. But there is, and the same with you.

• 39:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:51Mel Robbins?

  There is a groundedness that we have both accessed from the tools that you're sharing on your podcast, that I'm now sharing on mine, and that you and I have been deeply, profoundly invested in, exploring these past two years.

• 40:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's beautiful. And now you're more in peace.

• 40:08Mel Robbins?

  Oh, I'm totally.

• 40:10Lewis Howes?

  It's beautiful. Mel, appreciate you.

• 40:11Mel Robbins?

  I love you.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  Love you too. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 40:57Lewis Howes?

  And now it's time to go out there and do something great.