Pod Insights The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos The Two Words That Saved Mel Robbins (From A Slight Change of Plans) About this episode We’re bringing you an episode of A Slight Change of Plans hosted by Dr. Maya Shankar - the behavioral scientist who also happens to be a former student of Dr Laurie.
Maya sits down with bestselling author and popular podcast host Mel Robbins https://www.melrobbins.com/ to talk about letting go of perfectionism and people pleasing, and how to cope when you lose control of a situation. If you enjoy this episode, listen to A Slight Change of Plans https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/a-slight-change-of-planswherever you get your podcasts.
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript 7,004 words · 10 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:32 Laurie Santos? Did you know that stress actually shows up on your skin? Tatcha formulates their skincare around this insight, starting with Hadas A3, their proprietary complex. Hadas A3 helps to synchronize skin's renewal cycles and boosts your skin's resilience to daily stressors for visibly firmer, smoother, breathtaking skin. It's science-backed skincare that works with your skin, not against it. Visit tacha.com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off your first purchase. That's T-A-T-C-H-A dot com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off.
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1:43 Laurie Santos? Pushkin.
1:53 Laurie Santos? Hey, Happiness Lab listeners. Today, we're bringing you an episode of A Slight Change of Plans, hosted by my friend, Dr. Maya Shankar. Maya is a behavioral scientist and a former student of mine. In this episode, Maya sits down with bestselling author and popular podcaster Mel Robbins to talk about letting go of perfectionism and people pleasing and how to cope when you lose control of a situation. If you enjoy this, you should listen to more episodes of A Slight Change of Plans wherever you get your podcasts.
2:36 Speaker 05 Hey, slight changers. Just a heads up. There's a brief mention of sexual assault in this episode at the five-minute mark. It's not explicit, but if you want to skip over that minute, please do and take care.
2:50 Speaker 06 I actually thought that I would feel safe if everybody around me was okay. That if everybody around me was happy, if everybody around me was not disappointed, if everybody around me liked me or thought I was cool, then I would be okay.
3:13 Speaker 05 Mel Robbins is a bestselling author and podcast host.
3:17 Speaker 06 And the problem with that is that the one thing you can't control in life is other people. And so to hand your safety and sense of self over to other people's moods and thoughts and expectations of you means you will forever, in your entire life, always feel as though you're not in control of what's happening.
3:41 Speaker 05 On today's show, to all my people pleasers, control freaks, perfectionists, and micromanagers, we're learning to let it all go.
3:52 Speaker 05 I'm Maya Shankar, a scientist who studies human behavior. And this is A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change.
4:11 Speaker 05 If you've ever found yourself bending over backwards to meet other people's expectations or trying to control their emotions and behaviors, I promise that you are not alone. Mel Robbins, host of the wildly popular The Mel Robbins Podcast, has a new book out called The Let Them Theory. It's all about how to stop giving other people so much power and to let go of our need to control them. To better understand her interest in this philosophy, I wanted to know more about Mel's relationship with control. What kind of messages did you feel that you were absorbing as a child about what it meant to live a good life, to live a happy life?
4:55 Speaker 06 You know, this is a difficult question for me to answer. I don't have a lot of memories from my childhood. And I know why. And the reason why is because I basically kind of lived in a constant state of being on edge or being in fight or flight, which is very common if you have any past trauma or if you have had any adverse childhood experiences or if you just live in a household where the moods of the adults are chaotic or there are things going on that you shouldn't have to deal with as a child. But what I would say is that when I think about my childhood and very happy times,
5:40 Speaker 06 my mom and I would always go to the farmer's market and all the farmers would be at their various stalls. My mom knew every single person there. She knew whether they had kids or grandkids. She knew the name of the dogs as she would be picking up the radishes or squeezing the peaches. They'd be chatting up a storm about the weather or the crops or how their kid is doing. And it really made an impression on me. And so I would say a good life in my mind is one where you are living your life in relation to other people and you are showing up in a way where you're interested in them and their well-being and what they're doing.
6:24 Speaker 05 It's so interesting because you said living a good life is about living in relation to others. And I can see that that can be a double-edged sword. You might become beholden to the views of others and their impression of you. And I am curious to know, you mentioned that you were kind of in a constant state of being on edge, probably hyper vigilant. Tell me more about what your relationship with control was like as it pertained to trying to control your environment and the people in it.
6:55 Speaker 06 For me, as a young kid, it was a lot around wondering what mood certain people were going to be in in the household. And this sense that I have to behave a certain way in order to make sure that things are peaceful or people are happy or nobody's mad at me. Like, it was just this constant state of something's wrong. I'm about to get in trouble. And the...
7:24 Speaker 06 You know, I like, the thing that I should say is that I had this incident when I was in the 4th grade where I woke up in the middle of the night at a big like family ski trip and there was an older kid on top of me. And, you know, they were doing something very inappropriate and I possumed, I just froze and rolled over and I don't even remember how it ended because I left my body. And I think from that point forward, I had this intense sense in my body that something was terribly wrong. And I didn't tell anybody. And I didn't tell anybody because as an 8-year-old, I thought somehow I had done something wrong, which meant I was gonna get in trouble. And that core experience, I did something wrong.
8:07 Speaker 06 And waking up every morning feeling like something bad has happened is what haunted me all the way into my 30s because I suppressed the experience. And so, to your question, the way that control played out for me is I outsourced it. I actually thought that I would feel safe if everybody around me was okay. That if everybody around me was happy, if everybody around me was not disappointed, if everybody around me liked me or thought I was cool, then I would be okay.
8:50 Speaker 06 And the problem with that, when we unpack it, is that that is the one thing and the one strategy that actually will never put you in control of anything. Because the one thing you can't control in life is other people. You can't control what they think, what they do, how they feel, what they expect of you, the lies they might tell, the disappointment they might... You can't control any of that. And so to hand your safety and sense of self... Over to other people's moods and thoughts and expectations of you means you will forever, in your entire life, always feel as though you're not in control of what's happening.
9:33 Speaker 05 Yeah. What is so interesting to me, though, is that you place an even greater burden on yourself because you were both giving power to others while seeding that their behaviors were a direct function of you and your behaviors.
9:49 Speaker 06 Yes.
9:49 Speaker 05 What an enormous weight to carry as a young child. And I feel like what's coming to mind for me is the illusion of control, where we overestimate the degree to which we determine outcomes in our lives. But what's really interesting is that they study people and they found that there's a continuum here where you can move from either an internal locus of control to an external locus of control.
10:14 Speaker 06 Right.
10:15 Speaker 05 And people with an external locus of control are much more comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity and things not quite going to plan because they understand that exogenous factors, the external world, actually plays a really big role in dictating our lives. Then people who are in the internal locus of control, we ascribe events to our own doing. So our successes are ours and our failures are ours and the behaviors of others are ours, right? And a strong internal locus of control is associated with greater happiness and greater well-being and greater purpose overall, except that when things don't go according to plan, we're much more likely to self-blame. We're much more likely to self-burate
10:59 Speaker 05 because we are the only explanation for why things didn't go well. And so what I'm hearing is that young Mel developed a really powerful internal locus of control where everything fell back on you. That's a lot.
11:16 Speaker 06 It is a lot.
11:17 Speaker 05 So you have this relationship with control when you're a child and then as an adult, you run up against the limits of your ability to maintain that equanimity in your environment when You and your family hit rock bottom, right? Your husband's business crashes as a result of the Great Recession.
11:35 Speaker 06 Oh, and stupidity. I mean, like, there's a lot of stu... Like, myself included. Like, I'm not gonna blame it out there. Like, there were some things that we did that were just dumb.
11:44 Speaker 05 Yeah, I should've known. You're an internal locus of control gal. Of course, you're gonna make sure that you take accountability. I love this. You're $800,000 in debt. At this point, you were in your early 40s.
11:55 Speaker 06 Forty-one.
11:56 Speaker 05 Forty-one.
11:56 Speaker 06 Yep.
11:57 Speaker 05 Trying to raise three kids. Bring me back to that moment and what that might've taught you or not taught you about, kind of, the limits of your control or how you might wanna rethink that relationship.
12:09 Speaker 06 Oh, my God. There's so much that it taught me. You know, when you're in a rock bottom moment, the worst thing somebody can say to you is, "You're gonna look back on this as a blessing." Like, you literally wanna punch people in the face. No, I was 41, and, you know, look, I'm a very ambitious person, and never in my life had I made a vision board where I had cut out images that said bankruptcy, alcoholism, million dollars in debt, foreclosure, divorce. That was not part of the plan.
12:40 Speaker 05 Of course.
12:40 Speaker 06 And what's interesting is, we can talk reinvention and pivots and everything all we want, right? But when it's happening to you, it's a different experience. Because what happens is your emotions take over. And you start to tell yourself a story that you're never gonna get out of this. And for me, what that meant is, I lost my job. We were $800,000 in debt because we were complete fricking idiots by cashing out our life savings and shoving it into his business after one location of a pizza restaurant went okay. And then, all of a sudden, you know, 2007 hits, 2008, the recession hits. Our house is upside down.
13:25 Speaker 06 We have liens on it. We've cashed out everything we own. I've got three kids under the age of 10. Friends and family have invested in this business. And the bills are starting to pile up on the counter. And I'm pulling a kid out of town soccer because we can't afford the $125. And I'm having trouble some weeks because Chris is not getting paid and I don't have a job putting gas in the car tank. Financial stress is crushing. And you can't escape it.
13:56 Speaker 05 Yeah.
13:57 Speaker 06 And there's a lot of shame around it. And so, I drank myself into the ground. I became very angry and avoidant. I started blaming everything on my husband. And I became paralyzed. I was in like a frozen trauma response, which is the exact same thing that happened to me when I was eight years old. And because I felt like I couldn't control everything that was happening, I just ran away from it. I got drunk, I yelled at my husband, I became a person I didn't recognize, the kids were missing the bus. I couldn't, or I didn't think I could control the demise that was looming.
14:35 Speaker 06 But I could control avoiding it. I could hit the snooze button, six times. I could numb myself at night. I could avoid the bills because avoidance is a major form of control.
14:51 Speaker 05 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
14:51 Speaker 06 Anger is a major form of control. And so, my control was still there, it was just being aimed at the wrong things.
15:01 Speaker 05 Yeah. So that leads us to the need for let them. Bring me back to the moment when you were first exposed to it. Obviously, it's rooted in ancient wisdom, but you know, I hear wise things all the time and they kind of can just go in one ear and out the other. Like, I want to know what made it stick for you in that moment, in your life?
15:20 Speaker 06 I've been trying to be less controlling my whole life. I've tried to be stoic. I have tried to be more Buddhist. I have tried to manage my response. And it's one thing when you're sharing ideas. It's a whole nother thing when the teacher shows up. And the student is ready. It's the difference between concept and the moment when that concept hits you like a freaking sledgehammer. Exactly. And so, I was at the high school prom with my son. I was being a super micromanaging mom, really annoying. If you've ever been in a situation where you're all stressed and the words are coming out of your mouth
16:05 Speaker 06 and you wish you could shove them back in, that was me. So I was just micromanaging him. You know, you got a tux and let me tie the thing and shoving the flowers at him even though his date doesn't want a corsage and now it's starting to rain and I'm like, you can't get your shoes wet and her hair is gonna get ruined. And you can't go to the taco stand before dinner because then your tuxedo is gonna be wet. And my daughter was home and she reaches out and grabs my bicep and she's like, "You're being annoying. If she doesn't want flowers, let her. If it's gonna ruin his shoes, let him. If he wants to get soaking wet, let him. If she's gonna ruin her hair, let her." And it was just like this, "Let them, let them, let them." It's their prom, not yours. For crying out loud, let them do what they want to do.
16:47 Speaker 06 And there was just something about the nails on my biceps and the cringe in her voice and the cascade of the "let, let, let", that my shoulders just dropped. And I just kinda had this obvious epiphany where I'm just like, "Why am I worried about this? Seriously, why am I concerned about this?" And the second that I just stopped trying to control it, I felt peace. And then I could see that everybody around me felt peaceful. And so, I just started to say, "Let them." And any moment in my life where things just felt stressful, traffic, let them. The person's rude in front of me.
17:31 Speaker 06 You know, some days I've got the energy to step in and be like, "Hey, you know, they're doing the best they can." Some days I'm just like, "Let them. I'm not gonna be the manners police today. I just don't have the energy for this." My mom's in a bad mood, let her be in a bad mood. My dad's disappointed, let him be disappointed. Let me show up with a little bit more compassion." And so I just started saying, "Let them, let them, let them." And it was so profound. And the first insight that I had... Was I could not believe how much time I wasted on stupid things. I couldn't believe how stressed out I was due to dumb things.
18:16 Speaker 06 If you allow Zoom calls and traffic and, you know, somebody's mood or a curt email to constantly keep your amygdala humming and your body in a stressed out state, you're going to go home and take it out on your family. And that's why you don't have time and energy.
18:34 Speaker 05 Because it's being sapped.
18:36 Speaker 06 Because it's getting drained all day long.
18:37 Speaker 05 Yeah.
18:38 Speaker 06 Yes. And so it became this like boundary with the world where I started to recognize, wait a minute, my time and energy has value and I need to protect that time and energy because I want to use that time and energy to either better my life or to better the world around me. And if I'm constantly allowing all this stuff to drain me, I'm never going to have the energy to do anything about what's wrong in the world or what is bothering me in my relationships or with my health.
19:15 Speaker 05 We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans.
19:22 Speaker 01 This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.
20:06 Laurie Santos? There's nothing quite like having pieces in your closet you love and know you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that same feeling. And I have to tell you, when it comes to my go-to gift this season, I think this might be the year of the hoodie, specifically Quince's Mongolian Cashmere Full Zip Hoodie, which I bought for myself and absolutely love. You know when you get something that's so comfortable, so soft, and so easy to throw on that you suddenly want to wear it every day? That's where I am with this hoodie. And I started to think that instead of agonizing over what to get everyone on my holiday list, I might just buy them all one of these. I mean, who on my list wouldn't love a gift of perfect coziness? But it's not just hoodies. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere
20:51 Laurie Santos? and organic cotton. And if a cashmere hoodie isn't quite right for someone on your list, Quince has so much more, from leather bags and jewelry to cozy scarves, down outerwear, and even hotel-quality bedding. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. What if I told you your skin and your brain are often in conversation? It's true. And that's why what you feel shows up on your skin. Think goosebumps, blushing, and even signs of stress.
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22:17 Speaker 05 Hey, slight changers. I have some exciting news. I've written a book. It's called The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans. It's available for preorder today at changewithmaya.com/book. I would appreciate your early support of this project so much. It's truly the thing I'm most proud to have created. You can find the link to preorder in our episode description. Thanks so much, and now on to the show. On the night of her son's prom, Mel Robbins was trying to micromanage everything, like where her son and his friend should go for dinner, or whether his date should wear a corsage.
22:59 Speaker 05 Then Mel's daughter said two simple words: "Let them." And for whatever reason, it was exactly what Mel needed to hear. She's held on to those words ever since and has written an entire book about it. I asked her to break it down in more detail for me.
23:17 Speaker 06 The "let them" theory is simple. The more you let other people live their lives, the better your life gets. And the more you learn how to let people be who they are and who they're not, the better your relationships get. And the theory itself is about power and control. And the way that it works is simple. There are two steps. And the first step gets all of the fame, but it's the second step that's actually where your power is. The first part is "let them." So when you're stressed out, when you're annoyed, when you're hurt, when you're frustrated, when you're confused, when you're just like feeling like somebody's disrespecting you or hurting you,
24:02 Speaker 06 as weird as it sounds, you're going to quietly say to yourself, "Let them." And I want to be very clear about something. This is not a theory that says you should let people hurt you. This is a theory about where your control is and where your power is. And the mistake that we make when we're in a situation where there is disrespect or there is some kind of hurtful behavior is we believe that that other person is going to change.
24:34 Speaker 06 We get gaslit into thinking that the power is in changing the other person. Let them is simply a tool that reminds you that hoping that they're gonna change, or pouring time and energy into trying to make someone else change, isn't where your power is. Let them is kind of you saying, "Okay, this is who this person is, their behavior is the truth. Let me," is the second part. "Let me" is where you say to yourself, "I can't control this other person. Let me decide what I'm gonna think about this. Let me decide what I'm gonna do or don't do about this.
25:17 Speaker 06 And let me decide how I'm gonna process my own feelings about this." And so, in normal day-to-day circumstances, the way that this works is, if somebody's disappointed, let them be disappointed. You can't make it to the 32nd birthday party where you're gonna meet at a Mexican restaurant and split a check with 14 people and not even talk to your friend that's holding the birthday, and you've had a long day at work and you just would rather go to a yoga-
25:43 Speaker 05 Get out of my brain, Mel. How do you know my life?
25:46 Speaker 06 Like, literally, let them be disappointed, because here's what I want you to-
25:50 Speaker 05 And I'm a vegetarian, and I don't drink alcohol, so I always get ripped off when you do the 14-person check split.
25:55 Speaker 06 Yes, because they're splitting the check, and you didn't have anything to drink, and it's loud as hell, and you don't wanna be there, and it takes too long. And so, here's the thing. Let your friend be disappointed. Tell them that you're not gonna come tonight, it's been a busy week at work. Let them be disappointed, acknowledgement, and then let me remind myself that I need to take care of myself, and let me ask my friend if they'd be willing to go to a yoga class this weekend and go get some tea, because I'd actually like to catch up with you one-on-one. And that's how you handle that situation and kind of a day-to-day thing. In a more serious situation, if you're dealing with somebody emotionally immature, or that has a very, very challenging personality style, which I have in my life, a person like this.
26:42 Speaker 06 The thing that I can see now, that I've been practicing let them and let me, which is really about boundaries, what's mine to own and what's yours to own, is I for years just expected this person to change. I wish they would. I wish the dynamic would have been different. And so I would go into every experience bracing. And one of the things that let them did is let them forced me to practice radical acceptance. Let them forced me to see the situation and the person that I'm dealing with as they are, instead of constantly explaining away behavior that I'd been explaining away for a very long
27:23 Speaker 06 time, and somehow turning it back as it's my fault. And then the let me part helped me start to understand that if I'm gonna let this person be who they are, then let me decide how much time and energy I'm gonna put with this person. Let me protect myself when I'm around this person. Let me remind myself I can leave a conversation, or a dinner table, or a text chain, or a date, or an interview, or like a family thing, anytime I want. And it starts to slowly remind you in these dynamics that we get stuck with, with other people, that there are little things you can do when you first learn to separate yourself
28:08 Speaker 06 from managing the other person and focus more on protecting yourself in the situation.
28:14 Speaker 05 Hmm. When it comes to accountability, which is something that you raised. When I reflect on my personal life, granted, this is also growing up in an Indian immigrant family where my parents had no filters around giving me feedback. Some of my greatest moments of growth stemmed from the people in my life not just letting me be a certain way. They didn't use let them. Instead, they were very forthcoming with me about my weaknesses, or their needs, or maybe how I'd even let them down. And so... In their articulating those feelings to me, I in turn was challenged in some way. I was able to think differently, I was able to do things differently.
28:55 Speaker 05 And so, how can we apply the let them theory in the right places so that it doesn't stop other people from engaging us in difficult conversations that could help us become better people, or us engaging with other people to try to help them?
29:09 Speaker 06 Yeah, let me is where you engage in the conversation. Let me is where you tell the truth. Let me is where you approach the people in your life that you worried about, and instead of judging them, you approach it with compassion and concern and support. Hey, I'm worried about you. I notice you're not acting like yourself now that you're dating this person. How are you feeling about the relationship? I'm here to support you. You know, is there anything I can do to support you? Is there anything you want to do about this? Instead, what we do is we avoid the conversation, we judge, we just kind of don't have the
29:49 Speaker 06 hard conversation, we don't push the people in our lives because we're afraid of having any kind of tension with somebody. And so, instead, I think we have an epidemic of people walking around very emotionally immature, stressed out, avoiding the conversations, and avoiding taking accountability for your needs, and actually asking for it in a way that is respectful and not emotional, instead of constantly avoiding the conversation, then resenting people, and then being pissed off. And so, let's go back to what we've been talking about. We've been talking about control. Every single one of us needs to feel in control of our lives.
30:33 Speaker 06 When we don't feel in control of our decisions, or our future, or what we're doing this afternoon, or what's going to happen at work tomorrow, we start to feel unsafe and a little on edge. And the mistake that we make is when someone else's behavior, because they're dating somebody we hate, or they're letting themselves go, or they're not quote trying at school, or they can't get a job, and now you're starting to worry that they're unmotivated. When their behavior worries us, we now feel out of control, so we step in and try to fix it. And what happens when you do that is that you bump up against that person's need for autonomy and control. And so they're not going to do what you asked them to do. They might do it once to appease you and get you off their back.
31:13 Speaker 05 Right, right. Yes.
31:14 Speaker 06 But they're not actually going to create lasting change because the change for a person has to come from within. And so, one of the reasons why the let them theory is going to help you in situations where somebody is in your life and you want to change them. And we all, we want to change everybody in our lives. Got opinions about everybody. So, the way that you do is you let them be who they are. And let me try a different approach.
31:42 Speaker 05 You know, what I'm hearing, what I'm reflecting on as you're sharing these sorts of stories is that there's a dynamic interplay between let them and let me throughout the entire duration of the experience. These are like flexible categories. You can start with let me. Maybe you sit down, you have a conversation. But what I see let them serving as is a psychological safeguard such that if you engage in the let me in good faith and you explore all the options, you have a safe landing with let them, which is if I'm not able to change them, I'm not going to allow it to erode my well-being and mental health.
32:22 Speaker 06 Yes. Or this relationship.
32:24 Speaker 05 Or this relationship.
32:25 Speaker 06 Because part of what actually creates friction and tension and distance in a relationship is the opinion that somebody else should change.
32:33 Speaker 05 Yeah.
32:34 Speaker 06 And what I've found is if you create this space where you let people be, you let people have their feelings, you let people have their opinions, you let people have their expectations, you let people have their timeline for their own healing, and you hold a boundary that creates acceptance of that person as they are, or at least witnessing them clearly as they are, now you have a separate boundary in relation to them, which is let me. Let me remind myself that the only power that I have in this relationship is myself. And if I want the relationship to change, the only thing that will change it is me. And
33:18 Speaker 06 if I focus on what's in my control... Which is what I think about this, what I do or don't do, and how I process my emotions. I change how I relate to this person, how much time I give, how much energy. I change how reactive I am, and that shifts the dynamic entirely.
33:36 Speaker 05 Yeah.
33:37 Speaker 06 You know, the truth is, this thing brings you closer to people in your life. Because when you create space for people to have different opinions or disappointments or expectations, and you don't make it your job to change them or manage them, you're now actually in relation with the person as they are. And you're not in relationship with the possibility or what they hope they'd be or trying to change them or the tension of the di- No. I just see you exactly as you are. And even though I don't understand your opinion, if I'm the kind of person that wants to understand it, let me try to understand why you think the way that you do instead of judging you and not talking to you about it.
34:17 Speaker 05 I love what you just said because I just interviewed Amanda Knox for the show, and she was saying true freedom for her is seeing the world as it actually is, not as you believe it should be. And you know, this is a woman who's faced wrongful conviction after wrongful conviction. She knows what she's talking about. And she felt like that was the one definition of freedom that no one could ever take away from her. And when you're saying that to me, it's like, actually, what a beautiful thing to engage with the world and that people in it as they are.
34:47 Speaker 06 Yes.
34:48 Speaker 05 What a wonderful way to live. Just even hearing you say that sends tingles down my spine.
34:54 Speaker 06 Yes.
34:54 Speaker 05 To free ourselves of every expectation and every preconceived notion and every hope of what we want them to be or could be, or how we want to be with them, whatever it is. Like, we come to every social interaction with so much, like, we carry so much mental and emotional baggage that just surrounds that interaction. And imagine you just, like, strip away that artifice, what a raw and beautiful interaction you could have. There's no agenda anymore.
35:20 Speaker 06 No, there's no agenda because you just see people as they are. And, you know, to your point, I think so much of this comes from the conditioning that we have about human relationships as children.
35:32 Speaker 05 Yeah.
35:33 Speaker 06 If you think about the experience of being a child- Your entire conditioning around relationships is from a power dynamic where somebody expects things of you and tells you what to do and parents you. And that's their job. But then we become 18 years old and we think that that's what relationships are, that we're supposed to parent other people. And that's not what adult relationships should be. Learning how to see somebody exactly as they are and exactly as they're not, and then choosing how you're going to show up with them as they are.
36:13 Speaker 06 That is a just groundbreaking, freeing, beautiful idea. It's certainly brought me closer to people in my life and it's made me confront how much expectation and judgment and opinions that I have about my kids, about my husband, about anything. Yeah. And learn how to have boundaries between your desire and conditioning to manage people's happiness and moods and hold space for people's experience instead. And one of the other beautiful things that's happened for me as a parent is that something was happening with one of my kids that was upsetting, a breakup, problems with friends, issues with money, anxiety, all this stuff.
36:58 Speaker 06 That's just normal stuff of life, right? I would just rush in and try to take it away. I would come in with the advice, I would tell them what to do. Absolutely. And I was stepping over the actual thing that needed to be done, which is literally, listen, validate somebody's feeling, let them have the experience, and then here's the most important thing. If you believe in the person's capacity and capability to move through this challenge and learn from it, then your role in their life is very different because you move from
37:37 Speaker 06 a fixer to a person who stands on the sidelines reminding and coaching that you have the ability to deal with this, to learn from it, to survive this, to come stronger from it. You put people back into the driver's seat of their life as you're sitting there next to them saying, "I can see you're heartbroken."
38:06 Speaker 06 You know, I'm sorry this is happening to you. And I believe in your ability to move through this. I believe that you're going to be okay. But is there anything that you want to do about this right now?
38:17 Speaker 05 Yeah.
38:19 Speaker 05 When you look back now on young Mel and what she felt she needed in order to have a stable existence, which is to like manage and control her environment, right? The people in it and for all of them to be, make them all happy, do all the right things, check all the boxes. And then you reflect on yourself today. I mean, the evolution's extraordinary. How would you summarize what your current relationship with control is in relation to other people?
38:48 Speaker 06 Well, it is a daily practice. Because everybody has a hardwired need to feel in control, and that's never going away. But boy, has it been transformational to really have tools to be able to help me decipher what's in my control and what's not? What do I have power over and what do I not? Where do I want to give my time and attention? Because time and intention and your energy, those are the single most valuable things you have in life. Because where you put your time and what you pour your energy into determines the experience you have in life.
39:33 Speaker 06 I mean, it's just been life-changing because I actually do feel more in control. And I, more importantly, feel very peaceful most of the time.
40:04 Speaker 05 Hey, thanks so much for listening. Just as a reminder, you can preorder my new book, The Other Side of Change, at the link in our episode description or at changewithmaya.com/book. And join me next time when we hear from bestselling author and podcast host Glennon Doyle about her lifelong search for belonging.
40:27 Speaker 07 Many times in my life, I've had moments where I'm like, oh, I'm out of here. I won't spend another moment in this cafeteria, in this high school, in this marriage, in this life.
40:38 Speaker 05 That's next week on A Slight Change of Plans. See you then. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive produced by me, Maya Shankar. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner, Tyler Green, our senior editor, Kate Parkinson Morgan, our producers, Brittany Cronin and Megan Lubin, and our sound engineer, Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there. And of course, a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at DrMayaShankar. See you next week.
41:39 Speaker 06 Can I just tell you something? The worse I look, the better our content does. And I'm looking pretty decent today, so we're fucked. We're totally screwed.
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42:51 Speaker 09 For I don't know how long, maybe 12, 13 years, I've worn a Whoop band on my wrist. I started doing it because I met the founder of Whoop at a conference. He heard that I was a runner and he said, oh, you'll love this. It's perfect for athletes. And he was right. I've worn one ever since. Every time I work out, I see how hard I worked, how long I need to recover. I wake up in the morning and I get a complete picture of how my sleep went, which helps me understand the kinds of things that lead to a bad night and the kinds of things that lead to a good night. It's sleek, long-lasting battery. And now with AI looking at all my numbers and coaching me. Whoop is a winner. New members can try Whoop with a 30-day free trial before committing to a membership.
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