Mel Robbins: How to Break Toxic Patterns & Feel Better Now!

For anybody that feels stuck or tired or you're last on your list I got news for you you're not the problem because when you do things out of guilt you turn other people into the villain when you do it because it makes you feel like a good person or because it matters to you you're now owning the power and that changes everything anytime somebody pisses you off or stresses you out or you feel overwhelmed Or stuck you're going to say let them it stops something stupid from draining your energy you feel instant peace cuz it's

the ultimate boundary and when you say let them you're not allowing somebody to hurt you you're actually taking a step back and you're recognizing what is happening the power is not in trying to change what this person is doing the power is saying let them and detaching from what that person is doing the moment you let adults be Adults you're going to be struck by how much time you actually have [Music] hey I just found out something astounding approximately 63% of those of you listening to or watching mybi Alex breakdown are not subscribed we know

you're listening and we know you're watching because of all of the awesome comments you leave telling us how mayx breakdown is helping you lead a happier and healthier life we love that but the Best way to support our show is to subscribe it's also the only way to get latest updates and to know when new episodes drop so anywhere that you listen to podcasts and on YouTube please subscribe hit the Bell icon so that you know when a new episode drops thank you so much and on to the episode hi my Ami alic I'm Jonathan

Cohen and Welcome to our breakdown this is the place we break things down so you don't have to today is the first episode That we are filming with my new hair I just need to say that it's very curly so I don't want anyone being like what happened I cut my hair new do knew you new do knew me pretty spectacular episode we have for you here today now I know we say this a lot like this is a great episode however this episode went totally differently than M had planned this guest just sat down

and all of a sudden we were in a different Direction the conversation started and like I don't even know how to describe it well the best way to describe it is if you've ever tried to change someone and it hasn't worked guess what we know why also if you feel stuck if you feel purposeless if you feel lost if you're struggling if you're anxious How about if you're an adult who's still having temper tantrums and you don't know how to get out of that cycle if you want to learn how to regulate your emotions in

a Way that most people have never been taught to do do you know how to ride an emotional wave most of us don't if you're wondering if cutting off your parents is the answer to your problem problems if breaking up with that person leaving that relationship ending that friendship is the right solution don't do anything until you listen to this episode also how do you program your brain to notice more synchronicity to program your brain to see things in a Happier light a more optimistic light to find opportunity we are talking to none other than

Mel Robbins if you don't know who she is you have to know who she is the book that we're going to be talking about is the let them Theory a life-changing tool that millions of people can't stop talking about people are having this tattooed on their bodies there's an entire collage in the book of all the different kinds of tattoos People have gotten that say let them we're going to find out how let them can transform literally any decision any stuckness you're feeling but we're also going to get to know a very different side of

Mel Robbins she cries more than once in this episode she shares a very very personal experience where she received guidance from the universe in a way that is really profound we talk about trauma and I actually wasn't even sure if this book would get us there it Gets us all the places trauma narcissism her own personal struggles with ADHD and dyslexia how she felt like a failure how her whole life literally turned around in the last 15 years and she's become one of the leading thinkers in this space and and many other spaces she never

thought she'd be allowed into the conversation kind of starts in the middle of something but please enjoy Mel Robbins as we welcome her to the breakdown break it down okay so I was Hosting a daytime talk show at CBS broadcast center right before Co okay and the backstory is my son had massive dyslexia and our daughter's like there's no [ __ ] way he can go to the public high school and so I had to him because he had bounced from elementary to a school for language based learning to then a tiny private school miserable

you can choose any High School you want I thought he would choose something in Boston right like I think I want to go To the high school where grandma lives like that's in Vermont you know we live in Boston right and so we fought and fought and fought and fought and it ended as a gigantic no and all of us crying in the front of the house so couple weeks past and I'm on my set at CBS broadcast Center and they have brought in this uh medium do you normally talk to mediums I love it

and I'm looking for the play here right how do you know and and since our talk show Is not successful the audience was filled with homeless people that we paid and so I knew who all that you know they were all there but you know we didn't have an audience list so she's not doing a background check right meanwhile I told nobody about what was going on so she comes out and I just got chills already and she looks like like imagine you've walked into J Jill and you have a lovely person that comes and

helps you this is Whats right Long Blade long cardigan Bob sensible and so she explains that I guess she was electrocuted when she was a little kid and she woke up in the hospital we've had we've had people on this show who have extra sensory abilities that develop after from specifically from lightning strikes yeah no kidding okay so keep going so she wakes up and her dead relatives are around her bed in the hospital I want talk to this woman I'll give to you her She I don't blame you she's way more interesting so she

realizes she has this ability to communicate with people that have died and she's had it her whole life and I'm like so there's do people have dead people oh yeah you travel with two or three all the time I'm like what and she said and once I start communicating it's going to get extremely dance in here with people and I'm like well how's this work she goes well I'm just going to walk towards Somebody and start talking to the person that's with them so honest God the first reading out of the gate she steps up

she walks over to the audience over here she ask Four Women to all stand up I didn't even know these people were related and she looks right at the woman on the end and says does your mother know you're pregnant yet stop I can't it gets wait to that Mom is at the end goes like this she goes like this and she then goes now you've lost Two children right and now the audience is on pins and needles and the woman's like and she said well the daughter that you lost no wants you to know

that she's gonna you're everything's going to be okay and she's gonna leave but the son message right the son that you lost is here because he's connected to his brother she contacted us two weeks later to tell us that she was carrying a boy Jesus that's the first reading so then it like gets crazy she's connecting all These people in the audience and then near the end of the show she turns me and said are you open to being read I said of course and she said there's somebody standing next to you who is very

adamant about wanting to talk to you and I said okay and I have a friend who died by Suicide who has come to me in a number of situations and so I assumed it was Fred and she said this person is uh a pilot DEC decorated military veteran do You know who this might be and I said No and then he said are you sure and I said yeah no no no the only person in my family that's died that was in the military was my grandfather but he was in the Navy could it be

your grandfather nope and then he says well he's getting agitated and I said okay means nothing to me and he said does the letter K mean anything to you I'm like not really I can't and then she said what about the name Ken and I said well that's what we Call our daughter Kendall she is named after her grandfather Kenneth could it be Kenneth I'm like oh absolutely not and she said why are you sure I said well because Ken was an ad guy he was like Mad Men era yeah if he had been in

the arm if he had been an Air Force pilot I would have known it and he said he saying verify now meanwhile the control room has called my husband Chris and I hear in my little earpiece um we have Chris on the phone no turns out Your father-in-law no dreamt of being a pilot and he tried out for the Air Force Reserves in college and was denied because he was color bind a story I did not know and that you could not look up and this [ __ ] was the kind of guy that would

pick something like that that was irrefutable so I now know with cameras rolling in a live audience in front of me that my dead father-in-law is there with me whatever You're right and she says now I guess he has a lot of grandkids and I'm like mhm and she goes and your son your son is very important to him and I'm like mhm and she goes I I don't know what this means I hope you know what this means but he's here because he has a message for you he's very very worried about your son

and I'm like okay yeah I'm like listening at this point I can't even feel my body right and she says I don't know what this means it's something About a nickname something's happening there's there's something going on at a school and you don't like it and he's here to tell you you have to trust your son oh and I walked off that set and I called my husband and I said well did you hear that and he saides and he goes I have something else to tell you and I said what is that he said

well two weeks ago my mother called me and my brothers and said she was going to Downsize and sell the house in Vermont and asked us if any of us would want you know to potentially buy it and my brothers passed and I told her that we had decided to say in Boston and I said well why don't you call your mother back and tell her to get an appraisal because I'm not arguing with your dead father we're moving to Vermont and so we did that's unreal yeah wow so was this a moment when you

went from like I'm a skeptic to like now I believe oh I a th% Believe so what how do you you're you're one of the most logical rational wellth thought out brains oh my God thank you for saying that but how so how do you reconcile this with you know dead people walk among us um I believe I have no problem with it personally I'm just asking how you well think about even if you do I'm gonna let you have a problem with it it's true right you are allowed to have your own opinions no

but I here's how I rationalize it I personally Believe death is another birth and that when you're inside uh human body in your mother's body you are about to be born into a world that you have no consciousness about and I believe the same is true about death that there is a world you're about to be born in that you have no consciousness of and I also happen to be married to a death Doula and we are extremely sort of energetically minded people and I feel That there is a a if the word is quantum

or if the word is energy or if the word is spirituality that there is something so much deeper going on that we are all connected to where does that come from like for you personally are you a person like oh I had a psychedelic Journey it was profound or I meditate or like where because not everybody has that or they need a lot of assistance to get there I think that you know trying to make sense Of a world that doesn't make sense and I I don't know why I'm going to get so goddamn choked

up I am I'm thinking a lot right now about how overwhelming life feels for so many people and um for better or worse I have always been a person that has felt the Joy or suffering of people at a very deep level and I remember early in my career I was a public defender for legal aid and I would meet the people that I Was assigned to represent at their bail hearing and they didn't pick me and you know you're in a situation with another human being that is very stressful in high stakes and when

you're at an arraignment where somebody is being formally read their rights and the charges against them and then you have a bail hearing they consider both the charges and they consider somebody's record but They also consider your ties to a community and as a young lawyer for legal aid it was absolutely devastating to walk out into that courtroom over and over again and see how many times no one was there no one was there and it left this huge mark on me and I think it made me be the kind of person that really wants

to live my life in a way where I show up for people and where I make sure in every interaction whether I am thanking Somebody who's cleaning a public bathroom as I'm walking out of it or last night you know we had an Uber driver and I'm cleaning up the back of the car because I don't want to leave my mess for this person and there's just a there's no doubt in my mind that we are all connected and and in times where life is overwhelming I think the opportunity that you have is to be

a light in the dark mhm and I think that's that's a lot of what I try to [Music] do maybi Alex breakdown is supported by IQ bar our exclusive snack sponsor Jonathan's been starting his mornings with IQ Joe a jitter-free coffee that has natural caffeine and boost focus and mood with its magnesium and Lion's man blend I like an IQ bar as my on the-go snack because it satisfies hunger with no sugar crash and they're super easy and convenient to just like toss in your bag after some time on the pickle ball Court we both

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listeners 20% off all IQ bar products plus get free shipping to get your 20% off just text breakdown to 64,000 that's breakdown text that to 64,000 b r a k d o w n to 64,000 message and data rates may apply See terms for details my BS breakdown is supported by better he I want 2025 to be filled with growth in every area of My Life podcast wise relationship wise and of course personal growth would be nice every January brings you 365 blank pages just waiting to be filled in 20125 maybe you're ready for a

plot twist maybe there's part of your story you've been wanting to revise life isn't about resolution that fade by February it's About picking up the pen and becoming the author of your own life think of therapy as your editorial partner helping you write new chapters and create the meaningful story you deserve to live my experience is that I don't want to live without therapy at first I was like I don't really want to go but it's become an integral part of my life and can't and don't want to live without it better help is fully

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all of the apps Premium features cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with rocket money go to Rocket money.com breakdown today that's rocket money.com breakdown rocket money.com breakdown especially in launching this podcast I think I've always had a very busy brain between the ADHD in the dyslexia and I've only recently started to understand just how intelligent I am mainly because people that I respect Reflect it back to me in ways that I can take in and I'm just trying to make sense of a world where there's a tremendous amount of suffering and

the way that I often Escape it for myself is by tapping into something deeper than the day-to-day stuff that we are all caught up in that ultimately doesn't matter and every time I simplify things and I step out in nature and I drop into a present moment or I take a minute and I really just experience the photos of The two of you and what your life might be like I'm reminded of the true things that matter in life and so I think think that my opinion about spirituality and what happens when we die and

the ability to connect with things that we cannot explain is how I'm making sense of a world that often feels cruel and unfair do you have a god concept I don't have a god concept as a thing or a entity like I'm not a Dogma person and I Believe that your connection to Faith is deeply personal and it's not in a building or in an organized religion and so I believe in something bigger but I don't know what that is oh I'm sure it's not you're like I didn't know we were gonna it's not even

on my itinerary of things to speak to you about what do you believe well no myam likes an itinerary too so this is a great little uh dog leg what do you believe in Um I I I was raised you know I'm I'm part of an ethnic people that has a very um you know a large umbrella but also a kind of specific Dogma you know associated with it and um my um my grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe and on my mom's side they were very very religious and so you know there wasn't really

a separation for my mom's generation between sort of your identity and your Rel you just were right it's what was stamped on your Passport and didn't allow you out of the country you know like that's sort of what um I was raised with my parents were born during World War II also a very interesting you know time post Holocaust and all these things so um I was raised with a lot of tradition a lot of ritual um but I will say my parents were not Believers and I had a very specific sense of identification with

the god of my understanding which the way that I was taught it it's everywhere Whatever it is I was not taught you know what a lot of people think about if you're raised as a Jewish person like I wasn't taught a man in the sky like of course that existed and you know Michelangelo's painting didn't help you know like it's there's a real um you know anthropomorphization of God which I wasn't raised with I really was taught that like there's there's something and it's it it both is inside of you and it also makes you

up and also it's the air Around you it's this Indescribable thing I took on a more religious life and also a life of more study like traditional text study which leads you to mystical places yeah and from that research and you know study which I did for years and years through college and and graduate school I found that what felt to what I felt to be true was true in terms of teachings and it wasn't just Jewish teachings it's the same teachings that Mystics of every tradition have all Resonated around which like to me you

know one of the main credos of the Jewish faith is that we're one God is one everything's one and so it's kind of been like this like you know clicking into place of like all these things like I always felt that every religion has their expression their prophit you know the beigh faith always appealed to me because it was like oh every Prophet is true yeah then they had a prophet That they say is true now I stop at Moses you know that's my thing but um but that notion of we're all trying to make

sense right of a world that does not make sense and in ancient times it was like what's an earthquake why does the Sun come up and for us it's like why am I here do I belong and what's the purpose you know of my existence and should I buy the $18 smoothie from Aran um but those are all kind of paths to the same Source it's the same Source That's um you know kind of guiding us and I I've always felt like I'm a religious person not just a spiritual person there's nothing wrong with being

a spiritual person but I happen to love the intellectual aspects of my you know tradition and for me you know the intellect is divine like it's a Divine practice to study it's a Divine practice to do work on yourself like that's all sort of built in I I talk about this for hours because I I do think that that That if you think about the purpose of it if it's not blind obedience right it's actually to stir up something deeper inside you and a connection to something bigger than you well and also to use human

relationships to try and model A Divine relationship which is one of love compassion open-heartedness yes and not know you know so to me like that's that's the lesson that every religious tradition ultimately is trying to teach but when You think about what really is and when you think about this Source like we're all just using whatever language whatever culture whatever biases whatever patriarchy was in place to try and communicate that and yeah religion is used to control and that's a thing um but I'm less bothered by that the more I have a spiritually sound kind

of identity it doesn't bother me as much like there are things that bother me for sure about every religious practice and In particular mine um but yeah it bothers me less because there's a there's a peace you know both of the podcasts yours and and this podcast are trying to help people understand themselves yes live better lives overcome a lot of the suffering that you know you were feeling at the beginning uh and science has come up with more science-based tools more proof more ways in which our brain is wired for ecstasy and if we

do particular practices we're Going to have less anxiety more optimism feeling more joy and also we seem to you know need a lot of people need the science-based tool yet on the other side there are the mystics who have been trying to help people feel better live better find the path that they're on find the synchronicity in life like what version of your life would have happened had you said no Vermont right right what struggle might have you you have been in with your son and so you had this Divine Moment of Direction change and

guidance and a lot of people are looking for guidance too right like there is no science-based tool for looking for guidance well you know what's interesting about science and interesting about research which I believe deeply in and I am not a scientist and I do not do academic research I mean when you have 21 million followers in the size podcasts that both you and I have you have a massive focus Group they like a lot of funny things we sometimes can't really put our finger on it but here's the here's the thing that I think

a lot about that I think that there's this interest in science because we're looking for a reason to believe that actual simple things that we used to do will work now you know I I've been thinking lately a lot about the fact that let's just say that we we're still living in a world where cigarett threats could be marketed To children and everybody could smoke everywhere and instead of going after the companies for predatory practices and creating a product that is addictive and then marketing it more addictive than nicotine on its own yes yes exactly

and instead of creating regulations for public health we just let you know we just we like that's it everybody smoke and we know this is happening but screw it and now we're going to uh over index And we're going to have a head of this and ahe of that we're going to try to get people to care about this and I see that happening with social media I see it happening with the way that we're living Our Lives now and we're allowing ourselves to be sucked into our phones and we are allowing ourselves to be

very reclusive because of The Hangover that's happened that's very very real that most people haven't come out of from lockdown M and that I find that one of the Important things about the research and science is it elevates the importance of simple things like taking a walk it elevates the importance of things that we all know we know the importance of sleep but when you truly understand why it matters it then explains everything else that is unraveling about your life if you're only getting four hours of sleep because you sleep next to your phone and

you're constantly waking up and so I it's weird To me because the advice is very simple the advice is the same stuff that our grandparents were doing for the most part not necessarily in Psychology and not necessarily with parenting and emotional regulation but when it comes to health it's like we have so over indexed in the wrong direction and the way that we're living our lives that I feel that science is a reminder that these things that you'd rather not do actually work uh 100% we spoke to Huberman it was like There's A playbook a

manual for the human body and there are like some basic principles that a lot of people are missing and therefore have negative repercussions the kind of not flip side but slightly the edge of that is to be so reliant on science yes that we miss some of the mystical Adventure yes like well or that if science can't prove it it's not well that then that brings us back to Faith right which is the act of believing in something without proof and I would argue you know your experience of having that interaction kind of blows a

lid off of skepticism and may say well kind of restructures or might restructure your understanding of the nature of reality but if you think about this from a neuroscientific perspective right and you really look at the brain and we just had Dr Dodie and you you know this better than me so I would be Citing other people's research but if you look at the mechanism in terms of filtering in the brain and the job of filtering information you can increase mystical experiences in your life because your brain is designed to show you more of what

you're looking for and when you open up your mind and your arms to a possibility that there is a different way to live that all around you there are little clues that are there for you to see if you are telling Yourself you want to see them and one of my favorite ways to do this is to just take on a game where you look for hearts every day like whether it's a stain on the floor or it's the shape of a leaf or it's a pattern in a brick and you will start to notice

that the world shifts and your brain starts to show you things and some of which you can explain through neuroscience and some of which you just open yourself up to believing because I'm going to give you another One so we moved to Vermont and my husband is getting his Masters in spiritual psychology and one of his assignments is to do a paper on a Mystic and so the professor gives him a list of Mystics and one of the people listed is Bill W from AA so Chris digs in to the research on Bill W I

was just literally talking about this two hours ago and yes Bill W grew up in the town we grew we moved to and as Chris is researching this and reads about his Grandfather who was a huge drunk and very abusive he had this in like unbelievable story happened where he drives the horse and buggy up a mountain goes and hikes up to the top and has this crazy life-altering experience drunk and then comes running down the mountain into the center of this little town east Dorset and runs into a church and basically explains that he's

seen God blah blah blah blah blah the whole thing changed Bill W's life wow I live on that mountain we had no idea wow so I believe that when you truly understand the magic and the power that you have and you start to understand the power power of your mind to show you what you're looking for and too many of us don't realize that you're always programming your mind either for something negative or something positive and when you understand simple things that you can do to either take Better care of yourself or be better in

your relationships or utilize some of the basics in your body and your mind it opens up a completely different experience of life and so the more you lean into the mysticle and the more you lean into into seeing signs and really calling out the coincidences and celebrating them which only magnifies your brain's intensity around seeing it again like the fact that you were like I was just talking I'm not surprised at all right I actually feel like I'm meeting you now even though I've admired you from afar because this is the moment that we're supposed

to like have our audiences meet and you and I are supposed to meet and the synergies are supposed to happen and you go through life believing that unbelievable things [Music] happen my the Alex breakdown is supported by Thrive Cosmetics I tend to Keep my everyday makeup pretty simple I'm usually out the door with nothing but my secret weapon like a lip tint maybe some mascara if I have extra time whether you like fresh faed full Glam or somewhere in between you've probably seen Thrive Cosmetics viral tubing mascara it's the one in the turquoise tubes it's

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for so long ag1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift when you sign up you'll get a welcome kit a bottle of D3 K2 and five free Travel packs in your first box make sure to check out drink a1.com breakdown to get this offer that's drink a1.com breakdown to start your new year on a healthier [Music] note I wonder if you can talk a little bit about um kind of perspective and and framing you know you talk um you talk a bit about sort of framing in terms of what you expect um what you

I mean for lack of a Better word what you can manifest can you talk a bit about in terms of when you think of what ails people how much of it is about literally perspective shifting because a lot of people feel like oh if I had the money right I'd have this or I would do that or if I had more time or if I had a nanny or if I didn't have kids right but how much of it is actually a shift that you can do all on your own just between your own two

ears so the first thing I'm gonna Answer your question but I want to say something first that everything that I'm about to say will shift your perspective it doesn't change the very real circumstances that you're dealing with but shifting your perspective is is essential because until you actually believe that through your attitude or your actions you can have a positive influence on any problem or any Situation or any circumstance or any discrimination or any political environment that you're in until you actually get to the point where you believe that your thoughts and actions could truly

matter you won't do anything see I think the biggest thing standing in people's way is Hope it's not the ability to change that's stopping people it's the opinion that it doesn't matter anyway and so a lot of what I think About and what I really am trying to give people is a borrowed sense of belief because I do believe that absolutely anybody can make small changes to the way that they think and to the actions that they take and those small changes truly do have the power to shift everything but if I can't get you

to First have a little bit of hope that it could work for you you're never going to do it because they stack yeah cumulative well because Because it's so easy to go well that that never works for a person like me that's easy for you guys because you're the host of Jeopardy and you're a neuroscientist or that's that's for people like that but not someone like me and so until you have that little door open that maybe just maybe this could work and there's there are ways that that you can get somebody to do that

you can basically show them someone that was in very similar circumstances and how Small shifts work for somebody that was just like you or who was in an even worse situation you can use science to say well you may feel a certain way but this is what the research actually says but that's the first step is suspending doubt resignation and the evidence that you have that nothing's worked and having a small moment of personal faith that I have no evidence based on my history that this change Could stick or it could make a difference but

for some reason I'm going to have faith in myself and in the actions that I take and I'm going to trust in that it really struck me when you mentioned that you didn't think of yourself as intelligent until more recently because obviously I assume with everything you've accomplished and everything that that that was a prerequisite which clearly it's not Right there are ways that you can um still achieve even having uh reservations right about your your potential but I wonder if what you're talking about is it a version of a sort of impostor syndrome where

people believe like that's not for me or I'm not good enough like is it a version of that I don't know I I um I think it's more Primal than that I I just I think that you know we are we get into our Patterns and even if what you know is making you miserable it's still what you know and if you look and you know this better than I do I'm just citing research from people that have come on the show and that I've dug into for the book but if you really accept as

fact that human beings are hardwired to move towards what feels easy in the moment and to also move instinctually away from what feels hard what you know even if it's Making you miserable is easy why it's hard to get out of a relationship even when you know it's bad it's why it's hard to get out of bed in the morning when you dread the day you're waking up into I also think it's a little bit of a failure of imagination not to not to make it someone's fault but when we aren't shown another possibility like

that's all that exists so my example is that at 17 years old I burnt three of my fingers on a Toaster oven and my sister who was on her own magical journey to recover from Decades of fibromyalgia and being unable to walk and who changed her life drastically she cued my fingers and the burns that I started to see immediately from singing the blisters were healed and I knew that she had done something that like opened up an area of magic and I turned to her and I'm like I want superpowers like that's pretty freaking

cool wait like you're talking like Superhero type and it's and I joked with her at the time I'm like do I need to hum chant like she was you know this was 25 years ago is and she was meditating and doing yoga and doing all the stuff that's much more normal now and back then in Toronto in a fairly much more conservative world like she was way out there and we would tease her a lot and she wouldn't I didn't really have the language to explain what she was doing and in that moment like and

I and I even Think to myself how real was that did I really see the blisters but you're gaslighting yourself a little bit because it like it's really starts to push against the nature of reality the scientist in me is very uncomfortable with this conversation but yes well the exactly right it's like well what is real did you really see the blisters did you make up the fact that you had a miraculous healing moment but there's a version of me That went to take out a pizza slice from the toaster oven singed these three fingers

on my right hand looked and was about to go run them under cold water and immediately saw the circles forming had my sister at the table sat down she said let me hold and cup your hands and in 10 minutes I pulled my hands away and those were gone and that sent me down a path of what else is possible in the world and I spent the next however many years exploring every Modality and studying with the person she studied with and I spent 15,000 Plus hours doing Hands-On work to start to say like I

want to know the formula for this I believe you and here's what I also believe that the human body has such an extraordinarily intelligent design and there is I don't think it's a a a a a function of a lack of imagination I personally believe that most of us are literally eight-year-old kids stuck in big bodies and we have not evolved from the coping mechanisms and a lot of our views about love and personal responsibility and boundaries from that age and that people only know what they know and it's very hard to get someone to

see a bigger possibility for Themselves and so you were shown that through that experience with your sister and a lot of people live a life that is lived inside a very small circumference if you look at the research around how few friends people have if you look at the fact that people are working from home now if you look at what you know people are exposed to in their childhood that shapes who you become and for a long time I think one of the reasons why I never really Thought about myself as being all that

intelligent is because I was really a walking red flag I mean I I was a very toxic person and I don't like to label other people I typically would say toxic Behavior but I the result of having uh an incident of childhood trauma in the fourth grade where I woke up with another kid on top of me and burying that experience and then not knowing that I had dyslexia and ADHD and I'm part of this Lost Generation of women who are for like a couple decades they missed they did had no idea that there was

dyslexia in ADHD because they had only studied boys in the 1970s around ADHD which goes for most of our health issues as well like how does our body work correct and women are still not included in the clinical trials because of our hormone issues and so it's sort of like they do medication like a golf tea we'll put the ladies on a lower dose we'll put the dudes up here So there is so many things that can be explained and I didn't know when you have dyslexia or ADHD and it is not actually addressed what

develops anxiet and that's what I got treated for and the underlying issue was always dyslexia and ADHD and when I look at the research on ADHD I have the particular type of ADHD that has a high correlation to extremely risky and impulsive behavior and to Alcohol so that explains why I was basically an alcoholic during college and law school it explains why I cheated on every boyfriend I just thought I was a horrible human being and so I was in this and no language in the vernacular to correct that oh my God no and so

I and this is the thing about people that are stuck because I have been stuck so many times in my life that when you're someone who's stuck you're not actually stuck you're in deep conflict with Yourself do you want to know the hardest working person in a classroom it's the person who's struggling it's not the person who's getting great grades it's the person who doesn't get it yeah the teacher and we look at people who are stuck and we think that oh you must be complacent or you must be still no they're people know when

their health is out of whack people know when they're giving up on themselves people know when they're not thriving at work people know When they've given up on their dreams people know when you're in a relationship that is a relationship or you're retreating in a way where you don't deserve it but you're in conflict because you don't know how to get out of this pattern of behavior or this situation that you're in and so then what starts to happen is you start to develop a narrative to explain it and there is this phenomenon in Psychology

which I'm sure you're aware of this is From Dr Paul kti at Stanford who as you know you know wrote the big book about trauma and was Lady Gaga's psychiatrist and super brilliant and he's the first person that came on the podcast that talked about something called attribution which basically means with all the intelligent amazing design of the human being I didn't know this that there's one massive flaw and the massive flaw is that children do not have the attribution ability yet which means if Adults are psycho around you or in a bad mood you

have no cognitive ability to attribute it to them and not to you 100% we talk about this a lot because the the only skill of a child is to try and make it right yes and the last thing a child will think is I can actually change anything right you get a false sense of power especially if you grow up in alcoholism of like if I do this she'll behave this way if I do that he'll do that well that's Survival it's like well But ultimately this is it's an extension of a survival mechanism where

if I complain about them I'll get hit in the face if I complain about this it's not going to change it's going to get worse I'm going to be punished right so the this is what I always say the only person that there is no recourse for abusing is yourself yes as a child no one can tell you don't do that no one can tell you you're not to blame it's a perfect cycle of what to do with those Angry feelings and those scared feelings and all of that absolutely which is why there are so

many of us that reach adulthood and at multiple and various moments throughout your life you find yourself unhappy or stuck or frustrated or lost or in a broken situation and you somehow think it's all your fault or Behaving Badly with with yourself which just reinforces it and then the inability no it's true but it's Like no but it's absolutely true and then because you can't stop yourself because you don't actually understand what to do you literally stay trapped in it and you think there's something wrong with you and so for me back to the intelligence

thing I say to myself how could I possibly be that smart and that intelligent if I'm constantly doing things that hurt me or other people and that's also confirmation bias it's just Like with the hearts if you're looking for hearts and you find Hearts great if you're looking for ways to show I'm a [ __ ] up you're going to find it correct at every opportunity even if that's not what's happening right so we were having a discussion the other day and he was like oh I was just G to [ __ ] it up

and I was like that's I wasn't saying you're going to [ __ ] it up but if his narrative is I [ __ ] things up you're going to see it even in places that it doesn't exist Correct and then you get into like why are you being so defensive why are you attacking me well I'm actually not right it's like sorry you did a very good job de-escalating that conversation by the way I was really proud of you you were on another planet I tried to Byron Katy him I'm like but is that true

but is it true he's like I feel it's true I'm like Byron Katie didn't tell me what to do when he says that I feel it's true I don't know I want to ask about dyslexia Yeah um I grew up with a generalized learning disability in the second grade I was learning Hebrew and English Hebrew was going great English not so well at all French they're supposed to teach also was learning French none of that was working for me um my mother who was a psychoeducational consultant was always like you're so bright and always very

verbal and yes fix mindset here we go so smart and I'm like I can't speak in any language this kid Adam Spitz is Reading books like this and I cannot and and I can't get through school and I don't know what they're asking me and I'm frustrated and angry and starting to lash out yeah how does someone well first what did your dyslexia look like and second how does someone with dyslexia go to law school and that's an enormous level of reading I have no idea I basically almost failed like I lit there's this crazy

story where you after first year I I don't even want to tell You this story it's so embarrassing I apply to law school let's just be real I apply to law school because my boyfriend at the time time had gotten into graduate school and I was working as a temp at a law firm and I freaking hated it but I didn't know what else to do and I didn't want to get left behind so I apply to all these law schools I get into Boston College Law School I get there and I'm like this is

not for me but what else am I going to do and so I Sit and like a lot of people I literally faked my way through it I would sit in the library for hours and talk to people that's what I did I just would talk to as talk talk talk and then I would panic and stay up all night and I would try to write the paper and then I would go to class and my strategy because the thing about people who are dyslexic is if you don't opt out and go I'm losing hope

this isn't for me and you opt out you find a Strategy mine was to talk first so if you raise your hand first and have something to say you don't get called on and so that's how I faked my way through it but I remember everyone was applying for those law review things what a joke and I am writing the article to try to be on law review even though I hate to do law or do I hate to write I don't know I have dyslexia yet I'm smoking cigarettes I'm drinking like every night the

bottle of wine the cigarettes I'm Drinking coffee to hydrate like it was just terrible it's a diuretic you know did it oh is it okay well so so I pulling all night to finish this 30 page paper so that I can apply to be on law review and I realize I have no printer paper and this thing is due in approximately a half an hour so I take out no joke a spiral bound notebook no and I rip out the pages feed it and I feed it through and the last page printed on a Diagonal

and then I took paperclip and I drove to the school and I slid it underneath the door like can you imagine what they thought when they saw that thing and so I stumbled my way through law school hating every minute of it and I get to third year and I discover mock trial and lo and behold I was fantastic at it because I had been unknowingly making my way through school by being Hyperverbal and so which other people would call overcompensating but in your case it was compensating appropriately yes and I would guess that you

can listen to the lecture and regurgitate and keep all of that information huge auditory processing capability well I think one of the reasons why one of my superpowers now is taking highly intellectual and complex topics and Distilling it down to this is because it's what I had to train Myself to do because I was going to need to recall something so I came up with all kinds of ways to visualize things and sticky little metaphors and things that would help me remember because otherwise it couldn't do it what did your dyslexia look like I don't

even know like I like like as a kid could you not spell I don't remember okay like I don't remember a lot of my childhood I'm one of those people that have almost no memories and that's because I think from The fourth grade on after that incident of being sound asleep and waking up to have an older kid you know on you I disassociated and I lived in a constant state of being on edge so I wasn't present for a lot of my childhood and I've come to learn it's a very common experience so it's

funny because I mean I like I said I had a an agenda of what our conversation was going to look like you've covered a couple things unwittingly without even knowing what Was on my list the 8-year-old was something I really want us to talk about I'm glad what if we're all just eight years old but one of the things I read a lot of books I'm the Jonathan calls me the robot like you you can literally wave a book in front of her and she's read it no but like I I I was I do

I read quickly and I um but anyway I read a lot of books I read a lot of books for this podcast and that's kind of that's my job here um I read the books And almost every book that I've read in the three years that we've been doing this talks about trauma talks about trauma talks about childhood this it's like it's somewhere in there I was like I don't know the last time I read a book that didn't kind of go there and so it was really interesting that you mentioned it because it exists

for everyone on some level you know either capital T or lowercase T and we've had Gabor mate on Obviously and we've talked about it a lot um that was one of the things though that I I as I went through the book that I was like but what about but what about if you had trauma but what right and I wonder if you can sort of contextualize because you don't have to talk about it it's still in there right yeah and I think what's so you know the reason that people say things like this radically

changed my life I refuse to live any Differently the reason people are tattooing this let them all over the world right the people are having this tattooed on them the reason is because it works kind of no matter what yes so I wonder if you can speak to though you know the people who aren't like the high Achievers who are like I'm ready to take it to the next level but people who really are finding themselves stuck or you know dealing with like I'm the child of narcissistic parents which every Other thing on Instagram is

now about how you didn't know that you're the child of narcissistic parents right and all the things that we love to label people right exactly so I wonder if you can talk about where those labels fit and how they don't need to fit right if you're going to utilize this well so the let them theory is ultimately a mindset tool and what it does is it helps you in a nanc to identify what's in your control and What's not in your control and so if we back up just a little bit this is ultimately a

book about learning how to work with the fundamental laws of human behavior and human wiring and what I have come to learn is that I had been working against it my entire life and when you start implementing this tool and that's an important thing this is not a concept it's a tool and the Reason why it works is because it is a tool that exists in a legacy of deep wisdom ancient re research philosophical principles and therapeutic modalities and it applies all of that in an instant in any situation that you are in where you

are focusing on something or someone that you can't control and it then prompts you and reminds you what is in your control and so the way that you use it is it's also the foundation of what Bill W discovered yes with Dr Bob yes Yes in a hospital yes which is you can only control what you can yes and you pray for the wisdom to be able to know the difference using this kind of tool right turn it over yes and so for me whether it's because of Dyslexia or because I've always been a red

flag for most of my life in terms of my own coping mechanisms and behavior and controlling nature or whatever it may be that this is so incredible because For me Concepts don't work like I like people have told me forever to just let it go just drop it just let I hate letting it go because it means I'm losing like I don't like to let it go because there's something in that that's implied that they won and I have to let it go and move on and I don't want to do that and there's something

different about saying let them because what you're doing when you say let them and you're going to start saying it anytime Somebody pisses you off or stress you out or you see or hurts you or you see something in the news that really upsets you or you feel overwhelmed or stuck or your like boss is in a bad mood you're going to say let them and when you say let them you're not allowing somebody to hurt you you're actually taking a step back and you're recognizing what is happening and you're acknowledging the power is not

in trying to change what this person is doing the Power is saying let them and detaching from what that person is doing and then you do the Second Step which is let me let me remind myself that in any situation I always always have power because there are three things I can control I can control what I'm going to think next I can control what I do or I don't do and often times what I find is not reacting is what gives me more power and I can control how I process my Emotion and that's

always in your power and I choose to believe that any human being that starts to get very intentional and take responsibility and let's look at the word responsibility it's the ability to respond so when you take responsibility for your life you're owning your ability to respond to the things that are happening in life and you can always respond with how you're going to think about it and that's the Framing what you're going to do and you know it reminds you you can leave any conversation you can leave any date you can leave any job you

can leave any relationship you can leave any dinner table with your family people have to be reminded of that though yes but that's the let me part see right now we are giving too much power to outside forces and to other people and when you start saying let them a couple things happen number one you feel instant peace you Feel so much more calm because it's the ultimate boundary like if you're standing in line at the grocery store and you're five people deep and they've only got one cashier and now you're like starting to feel

the stress and now you start to think that you could manage a grocery store better than anyone else and you're frustrated just say let them and what's interesting is that it doesn't make the line move faster it Stops something stupid from draining your energy and as you both know your time and energy and how you spend it is what determines your experience of life and for anybody feels stuck or exhausted or tired or you're last on your list I got news for you you're not the problem the problem is that you're allowing other people to

drain you and you're giving power to other people's opinions and to their emotions and you're making it your job to manage everybody the Moment you let adults be adults you're going to be struck by how much time you actually have well one of the fears is I'll be alone well that happens well so talk talk about that because the notion is also like you know and I the section on relationships is fantastic it's like what if you don't care what other people think what if you're are not taking care of their feelings in place of

yours which when you say it out loud like why would you do that is crazy right but the Notion of what if I keep letting them and what it leads to is I realize that like it's a bad relationship and all these friendships are shitty I don't even like my life what do you do when let them leads to that well thank you for saying that because you know we did a ton of research and what we found and by we I mean my daughter who worked for this huge cyber security firm I brought her

on to do some research and she's like a Massive analytical systems thinking brain and she's the one that discovered the loneliness piece and she said Mom you can't write a book about this because people are using let them and everybody loves saying let them why you feel better than people let's just call it for what it is you have you have a little chart it's like you feel instead of inferior you feel Superior yeah like if your friends don't invite you it's mentally healthy to feel a little Disappointed that's a sign that you're well actually

right but then you punish yourself but when you say let them let them go away for the weekend without me you rise above them and you feel Superior this is why everybody gets a tattooed on them let them let them let them you feel more you feel superior to the grocery store you feel superior to the bad driver you super feel superior to the idiot that's spewing stupid political things like let them like I It's a waste of my time and energy to worry about this which means I feel above you but the more you

say it and you distance yourself and you let people reveal who they are you will notice that there are relationships that are not reciprocal you will notice that in your family you're the sibling that reaches out all the time but here's what I'm going to remind you if you're feeling lonely it tells me that you're not actually doing step two because step two Is let me let me decide what I want to do about this because in the case of let's say you're the one that reaches out in your family you're the one that holds

everybody together if you value family then the let me part might be this is my role and I own it and I'm not that means you don't get to be resentful about it you don't get to punish everybody you don't get to remind them how hard you're working to make everything come together yes and what I've also found in adult friendship is that I'm friends with a lot of people that are very introverted I'm friends with people that aren't that social and they're not going to be the one that plan it and I don't want

to be in tit fortat relationships right like I invited her but when is she G to reciprocate right ex we're not we're not in Middle School we're not eight correct and everybody has a lot going on and not everybody owes you a response just Because you texted them and so literally providing people with a little bit of Grace like well let them let them not show up because maybe they can't you know I don't know if you've had Dr Stewart abon on the show but you need him he is a psychologist who's at Mass General

Brigham one of my most favorite guests of all time he was in our Boston Studios last week he said something that changed my life he said Mel people do well when they can and if they're not Doing well or they're challenging or they can't change it's because there are like five fundamental skills that are missing but you actually you do touch on this people exactly when they want to and what I was taught and like my whole life it was some version in my family or my social life of why aren't they and then fill

in the blank why aren't they doing what I want why aren't they acting the way I want why won't they do this like I do whatever and it it was a Sponsor of mine who literally said people give you exactly what they can and no more so you can keep trying to squeeze it out of them and chances are they're going to show up in a shitty mood and you don't want to be with them that way anyway actually worse it's worse can we call that this episod title actually worse no seriously it's worse so

I'm sure you've had Dr K healthy gamer on yes so his research is Fascinating and if you combine it with Dr uh shered from King's College and you're a neuroscientist so you know this when you wish someone would change it translates its pressure and what does pressure create it doesn't create motivation it creates resistance to change so your pressure your desire your opinion your judgment even your well-intentioned gifts to people here's a tutor here's running shoes here's this here's that it actually creates the Standoff that you're trying to end people only change when they feel

ready to change and you know one of my favorite examples to explain this which is why you need to let them you need to let people change when they're ready you need to let people learn from life you need to let people be who they are you need to let people make their own mistakes well of course because the greatest teacher in life is life and the greatest teacher in terms of motivating Someone's intrinsic motivation to change is actual pain because what is the saying in addiction and sobriety people get sober when being drunk is

harder than facing the things that you're running from and it's true about anything and I want to remind you as you're listening because you're probably thinking about somebody in your life that is struggling that you wish would take better care of themselves now by The way wishing somebody would take better care of themselves is a beautiful thing wishing your adult child would be more motivated or see the potential that you see is a beautiful thing but the problem isn't wanting more for somebody the problem is how we're going about it and so one of the

examples that made a huge impression on me so this is why you've got to let people be and You' got to learn to love them as they are and you have to learn to love them as They're not or stop trying to love them if that's not the person you're supposed to love correct unless it's family I mean family teaches you how to love somebody you hate at times you know well you know yeah there there there are times when it's appropriate to not have a relationship with family I worry that estrangements on the rise

I worry totally that you know emotional immaturity also means when you cut somebody off with that explanation mhm Emotional immaturity is not actually sitting with somebody and explaining why the number of Instagram reals that that go around of like here's the solution cut everybody off and then you get this like self-righteous indignation of like I end in a toxic relationship which in some cases I'm not GNA like that may be your like it's fine abuse I don't know but this General notion that this is a solution right own ills is actually not a complete one

I would say well um let Me remind everybody because one of the theories in the book is that we're all eight-year-olds inside a big bodies when it comes to emotional immaturity and that a child pouts when they get overwhelmed and why do you pout because you want to draw somebody over to you adults do the silent treatment and a silent treatment is punishing somebody you are punishing somebody because Sor I the chart while you talk about Want because they're not doing what you want them to do and so you remove your love and access you

want it and and when you cut someone off without explanation you are not a mature person you are actually engaging in extraordinarily emotionally abusive Behavior because you are punishing somebody else without explanation and I worry about the rise in this and one of the things that I'm hopeful about with the let them Theory At least it's how it's helped me with people that have narcissistic personality Styles is again people do well when they can and if you have somebody in your life that has very challenging personality Behavior first of all you get to choose how

much time you spend with them you get to choose how much energy you pour into it and when you say let them you are following all of the guidance from the world's leading psychologists about challenging People which is you're actually recognizing this person is who they are right and nothing you do is going to change who they are right and when you say let them you're now entering a relationship with your eyes wide open without the expectation of change which means you now are in control because you get to choose how much time you're going

to pour into it you get to choose whether or not their drama impacts you and here's the other cool thing I used To be terrified of the people in my life who are narcissistic I now feel a lot of I feel sorry for them because I see an eight-year-old inside that body as they're throwing a tantrum and I also know that somebody that has a narcissistic personality style was not born that way they were made that way typically through neglect by parents emotionally and so it creates a space for two things to be true and

that's what I love about this it creates This flexibility in you to be able to let people be who they are and I'll take an example that a lot of our my audience writes in about about guilt like I don't know how to deal with guilt I don't my parents are disappointed my parents don't like my partner my parents have expectations okay great let them let them have their opinions let them have negative thoughts let them have their beliefs because we know based on the science that telling them what to Think actually turns off the

part of the brain that somebody needs to listen and when you just let somebody have their beliefs they tend to not stick them in your face and with disappointment let's use the example of you're not going to go home next month and now your parents are really disappointed isn't that a good thing like like really stop and think about that isn't that a good thing if you have a business partner and you Can't make it across country to give some speech or isn't it a good thing if they're disappointed right let them be disappointed because

it means they want you there but that doesn't mean you have to be there and I love this change because if somebody was disappointed in me I was so uncomfortable with that I thought I had to bend over backwards to make the disappointment go away what if you could see disappointment as somebody just Loving you and wishing you were there and so you let them do that but then you've got to say the second part let me let me double down on my values and let me say okay they're disappointed but what do I value

and what do I want to think to or say in response to this and so instead of changing your plans to make them happy or to make them think you're a good son or daughter let them be disappointed and then say to yourself let me decide how I'm going to respond to this if you want to change your plans do it because it makes you feel good because when you do things out of guilt you turn other people into the villain and it creates resentment and you actually are no longer taking responsibility for your actions

when you do it because it makes you feel like a good person or because it matters to you you're now owning the power and that changes everything I wonder if you can talk a bit about the Kind of overidentification both with our own negative thoughts and also the overidentification that we have with other people's thoughts so this notion of um you know you had something in the book about you have a section in the book about fearing our own negative thoughts that sometimes we can think horrible things about people that we deeply love Oh you

mean and I was like even my children sometimes I think like oh what am I doing like right exactly And this notion that we don't have to over identify with that we don't have to over identify with other people's expectations of us or even their feelings about it right like I don't I'm you may be hurt it was not my intention to hurt you but I can't necessarily fix that for you you talk about writing an emotional wave and I think this is something that a lot of us don't understand I didn't can you explain

what the writing the emotional Wave is yeah so um I didn't understand what emotions were which is why I was afraid of them and learning that an emotion is just an automatic six-second chemical explosion in your body and also learning that if you don't suppress it react to it numb it or overthink about it most emotions if you just let it rise up and fall it dissipates in 90 seconds people don't know that feel like they have to send that text Shout Scream make that call Break up with someone in the moment right this is

like a novel thing that we need to know yes like if you really Embrace this truth that emotional maturity which means understanding your emotion and being able to the word is regulate I don't like that word it's sort of like being able to be in control of your response versus letting your emotions control you that will change your life so it is being the Subject not the object of your emotions or your life experience yes most of us act based on how we feel what if you could feel how you feel and act in a

way that makes you proud [Music] I was the kind of person that was an adult tantrum thrower when I got overwhelmed at life or work or something's going on with a kid it was like a tidal wave of frustration and what would you do oh I'd Rage test text I would scream I'd send those you know the emails that people send that are like a page long you spend an hour writing and then you hit send and you know and it doesn't do anything right I would come home after a stressful day at work and

vomit all over my family it's not okay and even in the last year when things get really overwhelming at work I would send texts to my business partner that are not Okay because if you can't tolerate emotional waves people have two strategies they either barf it out at other people which is a tantrum or they shove it down and that builds over time into rage they put food on top of it and Drug on top drinks everything right and it comes out eventually it comes out eventually and so understanding that we're all just eight years

old I'm sorry what's my option if I'm not having a tantrum I'm Not allowed to push it out what am I supposed to do you push it out you can push it down you what you're what you're going to do is you're going to let your emotions rise and then you're going to say let me decide how I'm going to respond I'm going to just let these emotions just rise and fall and for me using this let them and let me to just hit the Paw and not respond and not go down a death spiral

In my mind and let the emotions come up take a breath let it fall sleep sleep go outside put the phone down this I've been working on this for a year and it's changing the game and one of the things that I think you can and and here's the thing to understand this is a skill that you have to be taught when you're a child you don't know how to process your emotions which Is why it is the responsibility of an adult to help a child process emotions in a healthy way but if they're not

modeling it they don't know how to even talk about it corre you don't have that skill yes nobody's parents knew how to do this they weren't taught it so they didn't teach it to you and I didn't learn this until I was 54 years old and I've done every therapeutic modality in the book from EMDR to the maps protocol with psychedelics to talk therapy and The interesting thing about therapy is it's very helpful for understanding things but when you're talking about your issues you're using your prefrontal cortex and your present when you're in an emotionally

reactive mode a different part of your brain is online which is why you can't access the tools very often that you unpacked in therapy and you find yourself barfing all over the people you care about that's why therapy isn't enough for a lot of people yes Well I actually prefer a neck down approach see I personally think we're obsessed with neck up and talking and thinking about the problems and the true heal and change happens in the body from the neck down and I love the let them Theory because it stops you from going neck

up when you say let them you stop the Cascade of bitching and judgment when you say let me you drop back into your body and remind yourself that you do have agency and power here and it's Something that's so simple that you can access it even in a meltdown and so to me this is the single biggest benefit of this because if you're somebody that can start to learn how to stay steady inside your body and in yourself no matter what idiot or narcissist or political person is out there or bigot because we can't control

them so don't waste a single freaking second of your life trying to the power is in here and when you shift your energy like I Think a lot about families and friend groups and work environments and you know I I think about relationships like a spiderweb right and if you're out in the woods in the morning and you see the de on the spiderweb why is it that the challenging person is the one that tap tap Taps the web and shakes all the de off I have a different opinion I believe the opposite is true

see I think that you bring the weather and if you're a steady powerful Graceful peaceful confident person because you're in control of your emotions and you know what's in your control and what's not you know what drama you're not involved in you know like what is worth your time and not I believe you have more power than the most challenging person in the room because control breeds more control peace Breds more peace people are attracted to light we're afraid of things that are dark and so when you Start to get a handle on this it's

unbelievable how it shifts Dynamics and you know I I I say you can't change another person but I didn't say you couldn't influence him and so an example that I love that made a lot of sense to me because look I've I've wanted my uh kids to be more motivated I want my husband to stop asking stupid questions I want you know like they want me to change but when I understood the power of influence and this is where the let Them Theory comes in you just let people be so like I want you to

think of somebody in your life that you really wish would change whether you want a kid's sitting right there okay you what do you want what do you want to have him change about him but I think you know this already so yeah where do you even start list is very long um you know I I wish that um I had a Trello board no I I I wish that Jonathan um would consider other people More when he's making plans H okay you just make plans I don't know if I just make plans but I

uh I spent a lot of years catering to absolutely everyone else and feeling like if I just do this or just do that and I had try to put my finger in all the holes in the dam right and before I would think about myself I be like I don't know what I want because what I want will be best if I just make sure everyone else has tended to believe it Or not it was a revelation to me that this is most men I was just like I don't want them to react I don't

want her to cry I don't want that tantrum to happen I don't want my parents to be upset with me and if if I just and so constantly scanning constantly and so it's been last couple few years more than that that I'm like I got to get clear on what I want and see how I can fit everything else around it so it's like oh my son has a tennis tournament I'm going to go With him these are the times this is where I'm going but he's a little bit Ein Rand now it's a little

bit objectivism over here well this is a slightly I'll give you what has worked in my marriage so being ADHD I'm a mess and I run late and if you look at my husband's bathroom counter it's like a Zen hotel if you look at mine it's like a CVS aisle tipped over and he wishes I were cleaner he wishes I wouldn't like walk to the Waste Paper basket as I'm Blowing my nose and then get a text and then put the Kleenex on the counter and it wasn't until he sat down and explained the impact

of that on me see there's a difference between what you intend and the impact it has on somebody else and so you do have to let them be who they are so you are a person who is learning to put yourself first you're a person that is prior prioritizing your needs we're going to let you but then it's on you to sit down and say when This happens this is the impact on me and when Chris said to me every time I see a Kleenex or I see your crap migrate to my sink it makes

me feel like you think I'm the maid and it's like a giant middle finger from you that's not what I intended so when I know the impact to somebody that I care about is not what I intended I am now motivated to do something now here's get interesting Chris still has to let Mel be a Mel and if I don't respond and I don't course Correct after somebody tells me something that important I am revealing to Chris that I don't care about him and then Chris has to then I have to like then Chris now

it's on Chris is this something I can live with because people reveal who they are and what they care about through their behavior and you always get to choose whether or not this is just something you're Bitching about so it's the 69% of the things that the Gman research says are never going to be resolved but it's not a deal with breaker or is this in the category of behavior where I'm either giving up on some dream for my life or it's a misalignment of values which is a different story and sometimes it needs more

than one conversation of course because people are in their site yes people are in their flow and you don't Think that the tissue is g to upset Chris that much and you have to sort get and here's the thing I'm gonna tell you something the only way you know if it's no longer an issue is if you can end your bitching about it at some point Chris has had to say all the other stuff that Mel brings to my life outweighs the kleenexes on the counter what you focus on grows yes yes acceptance is the

answer to all my problems today what you focus on grows the other thing that I Wanted to point out is that the reason why it's so important to learn how to let people be who they are and love them where they are and where they're not is because if you look at the research on the power of your influence I want to give an example because this one made a big difference for me if you're sitting at work and you're tap tap tap tap tap and you're working through lunch and you're shoving a sandwich in

your mouth and you see a colleague get up and they Go for a walk every day and then they come back and they're refreshed and happy and you keep working and weeks go by and then all of a sudden one day you're going to look up and look out the window and go I think I'm G to go for a walk but here's the interesting thing you think it's your idea you don't credit your colleague but it was actually your colleague's influence that gave you that idea and so particularly with people that you care About

when it comes to them changing first of all understand that people change when they're ready to change when they feel like changing people do well when they can and if they're not doing well it's because there's some skill or there's something going on in their life that makes them not able to do well right now but you also have to create enough space so that it's their idea you know your adult kid that's struggling in School knows they're struggling of course they want to do better of course they feel pressure not only from the people

at school and pressure of knowing that they're not doing well but now they feel your judgment too even though you're well intentioned which just makes somebody feel more paralyzed and most of us like stomp up the stairs and why aren't you motivated and it's not about will it's usually About some skill and we don't have the conversation from the standpoint of let them be who they are and then let me have a different conversation let me apologize for the pressure and let me actually lean in and ask how do you feel about this and what

do you want to do about this because when somebody is asked what they want to do about something what's happening is you're allowing that friction that somebody feels to be internal instead of it being Friction from you and that then creates the space for somebody to move toward change because it has to be their idea because we've all been in the situation where somebody wants us to change it's annoying as [ __ ] you're literally like I got this I'll go for a walk when I want to don't [ __ ] tell me what to

do and so you enter the standoff and then when you start to feel like maybe you want to go gluten-free maybe you want to stop drinking you don't do it because you Also don't want people you to do and so there has to be enough space where you feel accepted for you to start to Galvanize the desire to do it for you I wonder if you can clarify two things on the one hand let them is not let them abuse me oh hell no it's opposite so can you yeah can you clarify that because I

think a lot of people would be like I'm in a relationship and he keep cheating on me and I don't know what to do right just Let him cheat on me that's not what this right so can you yes here the other side of that I think the one of the biggest things that keeps people in toxic Dynamics in relationships whether it's dating or it's a situation where somebody's disrespecting you through cheating or gaslighting or whatever it may be is excusing away behavior and so it's challenging because I do want to take responsibility for the

fact that One of the reason reasons why people get stuck in cycles of abuse is because it's the same programming of intermittent rewards that is present in addiction online and with gambling like that cycle of you're a monster and now you're apologizing and now things are quiet and now all of a sudden you're a Monster again that sort of intermittent nature of but they're nice but now they're terrifying but they're kind and now they're abusing me it's also what Happens when you grow up in an abusive home you'll get a little enough love to like

keep you fawning and keep you there but then also it you can't get out and I think it's important to say that because it's not your fault right and there's no character deficiency this is actually [ __ ] with your brain circuitry and so the let them Theory and saying let them is a very important tool because I want you to break free of that circuitry and do the thing that's really hard which is To recognize that this person they are who they are this isn't changing no amount of a IES are going to change

what's happening their behavior has told you exactly who they are period they're not going to change for you they're not going to change for the children it's not happening and it is important for you to wake up and recognize that no amount of hoping is going to change the situation no apology is going to erase what happened and the only apology that Counts is a change in Behavior which this person has not done and so looking at the other person as the source of the power and the change is moronic and it's actually self abuse

looking at yourself and saying let me see this clearly let me accept the behavior as who this person is and now let me with very clear eyes say to myself is this what I deserve some people say yes because of traumatic history and so Deserve is probably the wrong word is this what I want and maybe not even want is this a turnoff hell yes it is and so when you come back and say this is who this person is is this what I want for my life and if you're really stuck with kids I

would I would remind you that your kids are watching and if you wouldn't want this for your children do not stay in it because you are modeling something and this is why it's Not about allowing anything it's about recognizing what's happening and prompting yourself to understand that no matter how scary it is no matter how lost you feel no matter how alone you are how much abuse you've taken that you have a responsibility to yourself the ability to respond and you have the ability to choose something better and a lot of times that means leaving

and accepting who this person is and also acknowledging and letting them be who They are but not in your home correct right yeah and that's that's not an easy thing to do the other thing I wanted you to sort of help clarify in terms of um kids yes and I think there's kind of an age at which it it's a little bit you know hard like you wouldn't you wouldn't behave with your 20-year-old the way you would with a three-year-old yeah this is not a book for kids this is a book for adults but I

really resonated you gave an Example about your son's prom yes and it's funny because I had the same conversation about a corsage with my was like no I don't want and I was like how could you not want it like it's 1943 what do you mean you buy the girl a cors like whatever I was crazy about it and I ended up like I backed off and it was a thing but it reminded me of like the let them when you're a parent or even if it's someone that you love let's say that is not

your child but not your Partner right you get to let other people have the dignity to make mistakes to have their own path to see what's working and to let them decide how they want to and that's so hard when it's your kid yes like I want you to can you explain a little bit like flesh it out why is that so hard because like obviously I think it reflects it reflects on me also right meaning like he needs to do this so that I know that I did okay right it comes back to Control

yep so you feel safe we all do if we're in control of ourselves our decisions the environment and that extends to to people and especially children and as a parent you are responsible for their safety you are responsible for giving them structure and food and shelter you are responsible for helping them understand and regulate their emotions in many ways you control them yes and I believe you're responsible for helping them figure out Who they are and helping them understand the importance of decision- making and the only way you understand the importance of decision- making is

to feel the consequences of your decisions and one of the things that has been a huge eyeopener for me is every time I step in and try to solve one of my kids' problems or I allow them to not face something whether it's I remember my daughter got really drunk and she um this is one of The best parenting moves I think I've ever made she got really wasted in high school and I'm talking puke in the whole ride home the whole nine yards just an a absolute dead weight on the window bench and so

what did I do I didn't ground her I made her go to Lacrosse routs amazing because the greatest teacher is life and the fastest way people learn is to feel the full weight of their decisions and the consequences that come with them and it's a very hard Thing to do but what I have learned is this when you step in and solve your kids problems or you insulate them from hardship in life you are actually saying to them I don't believe in your ability to do this and that's a huge mistake I have learned through

the let them Theory to take what I call an arm around the shoulder approach I don't block and tackle I will walk by your side and put my arm around you but you have to face the things and one of the Things that has helped me a lot is because I'm a problem solver because I feel anxious when something feels uncertain and it makes me feel safer when you know things are all handled and so I have spent too much of my life as a parent as a spouse solving everything just jumping in not even

allowing people the grace and the space to make decisions for themselves and learning how to just go let them let them not be motivated Let them like figure out what it's like to sit home all summer because they didn't motivate and get a job and then they don't have money and then the hardest part for a parent is let them actually struggle financially and don't pay for it and when somebody feels pain and hardship it it galvanizes intrinsic motivation to do better and I personally believe I choose to believe in the less Amazing potential that

people have I choose to believe that my kids are stronger than they think that they are and I choose to believe that if I stand by their side instead of clearing the way that they will discover their strength faster and learning to say let them and then I always have to say let me shut up let me not step in you know my daughter when we were writing this book went through the biggest heartbreak of Her life and we were working on the last section of the book that is all about using let them for

love and we had already started the Heartbreak she was like this is hor [ __ ] I hate this advice and it was absolutely unbelievable to go to this go through this experience because here you have somebody in a deeply depressive state it was a two-year-long relationship where we're in love with him his parents are in love with her the breakup happens you know We're removing the photos from the digital camera like everybody's it's grief because you're having to unlearn your life with this person and watching your child go through a depressive State you would

literally step in front of a train to take away that pain don't do it don't do it let them grieve let them stay in bed for days and have the arm around you approach because when you do that you're actually giving them the Space to process and to feel and to move through something while saying I'm here with you and there are so many times where I would catch myself wanting to solve it and instead I would start to say do you need me to listen or do you want some advice and 99% of the

time she would just say just shut up I just need you to sit here with me and when you do that what's so cool is that we don't allow people to Truly discover their potential because we think we know better or because we think we can help them and if you really flip this and start to realize the people around you have so much greater capacity and maybe what's missing is a little space for them to discover it for themselves Mel we can't thank you enough for being here um I mean we've gotten so much

just from following you and I just feel like your arm is around us I feel like that's Really what it feels like um the book is the let them Theory and it really is it's it's unbelievable the tools are really the tools are incredibly simple and really profound and um I really I got a lot out of it and I can't wait to tell him all the things that I think are appropriate that he should know about it thank you for that that me a lot to me it was really I I really loved it

so um thank you and thank you for being here and um tell the people where they can Find you for more of you anywhere literally anywhere great I really hope the next time you're on the East Coast that you'll let me know so we can have you oh go on the podcast we would love to Mel I'm just really struck um for me personally you're the person throwing the party I just watch I watch what you're doing and just how you share such optimism and how you connect with your audience and how present you are

and you know I don't know you before Today but I've watched so much of your stuff and I'm just really moved by both the way you synthesize information and just how much hope you bring to people and I'm just it's it's just beautiful thank you it's my and be breakdown she's going to break it down for you she's got a neuroscience PhD or two fiction and now she's going to break down a break down she's going to break it down now