You’ll Never Be Truly Happy Until You Start Doing This

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Speaker 2 Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to a life-changing episode of the Mel Robbins Podcast.

Speaker 2 I am so happy that you're here because this morning I had a profound breakthrough in happiness.

Speaker 2 I guess more importantly, I had a breakthrough in the thing that I am doing that is robbing me of happiness. And you're doing this exact same thing too.
You probably don't even realize it.

Speaker 2 Today's conversation is going to be an eye-opener, a game changer. I cannot wait for you to hear it.
It is also unfolding live.

Speaker 2 I literally barreled into work this morning and Amy and Jesse, my colleagues and friends, were sitting here ready to go. And I could not contain myself.
I had to share this breakthrough with them.

Speaker 2 And what you're going to hear is me coming up the stairs. And you're going to listen to that conversation unfold live.
And this is more than a conversation. We are bringing breakthroughs and matches.

Speaker 2 We burn things.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 let's go.

Speaker 2 Something just happened. What? What? It's not.

Speaker 2 Okay. Oh, you guys are in the middle of the meeting? Yeah.
All right. Well, I just had this crazy,

Speaker 2 profound breakthrough

Speaker 2 around happiness.

Speaker 2 And I want to try to unpack it in real time with you. Yeah.
Let's hear it. Okay.

Speaker 2 So I was laying in bed this morning

Speaker 2 and I felt this incredible wave of joy.

Speaker 2 Nice. It was unbelievable.
It was just like this warm, glowy,

Speaker 2 yellowy, orange, peachy, pink kind of feeling.

Speaker 2 It took over my body, and I'm like, this is amazing.

Speaker 2 And I knew exactly why I felt that way because all three of our kids are home for the holidays, and nothing makes me happier than when Chris and I and our three kids are all together. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then all of a sudden,

Speaker 2 that delicious,

Speaker 2 peachy pink wave of happiness

Speaker 2 got washed away by

Speaker 2 this black, gross tar, this emotional wave

Speaker 2 gripped me.

Speaker 2 And I started to feel panic and fear. And I started searching my mind.
Like, why am I feeling like this?

Speaker 2 And my mind was already racing, you guys.

Speaker 2 My mind was going, They're leaving in three days.

Speaker 2 They're only here for so short a time. You don't live near your kids.
You never should have moved from Boston.

Speaker 2 You're not going to see your kids. If you and Chris don't, they're going to leave and then they're not going to come.
And you're not going to. And I just started to

Speaker 2 make myself miserable.

Speaker 2 And it was in that moment that I had this huge realization about happiness.

Speaker 2 And what I realized is this:

Speaker 2 you have to fight for your happiness.

Speaker 2 And I saw very clearly for the first time

Speaker 2 that I don't fight for my happiness. I fight for misery.

Speaker 2 Whoa. That when I'm not paying attention, my mind so quickly defaults to scanning the world around me and spotting reasons to be upset.
It's like I am constantly fighting this battle with myself.

Speaker 2 And I know what I want. I want to be a happier person.
I want to enjoy the time that I have. I want to be content.
I want to be present in my life.

Speaker 2 And I saw very clearly this morning that it's almost like when it comes to happiness,

Speaker 2 there are two languages. There's sort of that la la la la la,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 happy, joy, laugh, laugh, laugh. And then there's

Speaker 2 this deeper

Speaker 2 language of misery: griping, complaining, afraid, anticipating the worst, feeling friction,

Speaker 2 being annoyed with people. Like, just, it's like grizzly bear energy.

Speaker 2 Just,

Speaker 2 just

Speaker 2 really,

Speaker 2 I don't know. And

Speaker 2 I had this clear vision of myself this morning.

Speaker 2 that I'm always speaking silently the language of misery.

Speaker 2 And it's just taking me out of my life.

Speaker 2 Like I'm so worried about not seeing my kids because they live far away that I'm not even with them mentally when they're here because I'm thinking about the moment they leave.

Speaker 2 I'm not present for the holidays because I'm thinking about the wreath that's not hung right.

Speaker 2 I'm not, you know, and I think one of the biggest things that we do not talk about when it comes to happiness, and I've been trying and working so hard on being more content and happier and present in my life, is that it's not just do the things that make you happy, be proactive.

Speaker 2 You have to do that. The research says that.
And I've been doing that. I've been getting out of the house.
I've been making new friends. I've been spending time doing activities that make me happy.

Speaker 2 But the bigger piece to happiness.

Speaker 2 is this campaign of misery that we all engage in, that we literally, even in moments where we should be joyous and happy and content, we reach for the sword, we gut ourselves, and we fight for misery.

Speaker 2 I mean, just think about like your wedding day.

Speaker 2 Everybody's focused on what goes wrong. God, yeah, always.

Speaker 2 And I think every human being does this, that you don't realize that your natural default is misery.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's what keeps you company is this campaign of misery.

Speaker 2 And it's very active, constantly looking for what is wrong instead of allowing yourself to bask in the moment and to say that things are okay.

Speaker 2 And so here I am laying in bed. I've had this huge realization of this wave of joy and then ruining it with this black tar campaign of misery.
I'm wielding the sword. I'm gutting myself.

Speaker 2 I'm feeling awful.

Speaker 2 And I'm not even going to be present for the next three days. Yeah.
Right. If I allow my mind to do this.
Right. You're not present in the bedroom when you're lying in bed.
No.

Speaker 2 And I will miss these three days with my kids. Yeah.
Because I will be living in the future

Speaker 2 when they leave.

Speaker 2 I think everybody has this.

Speaker 2 Whether you grew up with parents that bitched and complained all the time and everything was always wrong, or you had anxiety like I did as a kid, or you were super sensitive, or you grew up and there was a lot of chaos.

Speaker 2 And so you were legitimately not safe and always waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 I feel that. Does any of this resonate? Big time.

Speaker 2 Big time. Yeah.
And if you, and, and, and if you grew up around somebody that was always miserable,

Speaker 2 like so many of us are like, okay, it's my job to make you happy.

Speaker 2 It's almost like you adopt a campaign of misery, either to protect yourself or because it's what somebody else was like in the house that you grew up in.

Speaker 2 Like at this point, I don't give a shit how I got this way.

Speaker 2 I just want it gone

Speaker 2 because for the first time, I saw so clearly

Speaker 2 my own active campaign against happiness.

Speaker 2 And I call it the campaign for misery. I'm labeling it.
I am on a mission to be a happier person. And it was very clear to me, having done so much work on myself, in my marriage, in my business,

Speaker 2 on my nervous system, having been in therapy for so long, that I have been checking all the boxes. And it is working to a point.
As my marriage improves,

Speaker 2 as the business is in better shape in terms of the day-to-day operations, as I remove external friction and bullshit from my life,

Speaker 2 this campaign inside me has gotten louder and louder and more irrational.

Speaker 2 And we all know people like this. We know people that have plenty of money.
They have their house and roof over their head. They have a family that loves them.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 all they do is pitch.

Speaker 2 They just can't get beyond it. I don't want to be that person.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I didn't realize the extent that I did this to myself, that I would pick up the sword and I'd start wielding it against my own happiness. I can see you getting emotional.
What's going on?

Speaker 2 What's going on?

Speaker 2 It was the two languages that you just said. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You just battle all the time with it. I get it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Mine is probably more of a victimhood

Speaker 2 and a guilt.

Speaker 2 Describe it for me. Like, what do you say to yourself?

Speaker 2 There's just always guilt or shame or always with everything. Or, oh, I should have done that.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda is very popular in my head. And I hate those words.

Speaker 2 That no one feels good with those words.

Speaker 2 And then I think comes a lot from my upbringing from one parent in particular who that's her language.

Speaker 2 So she was a shoulda, coulda, woulda, felt shame, felt guilt was always the victim. But, but, yeah, word vomited that on you, you know.

Speaker 2 You should have been around. You should have done that.
You weren't there. You could have done that better.
You

Speaker 2 that's a lot. And so now you talk to yourself that way.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
And then with that, I think I procrastinate with my personal life because I'm, I get stuck in the coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Speaker 2 And this, the thoughts just spin, spin, spin. And so I'm not present.
Just like you said, I'm not, I'm focused on something that is a made-up imaginary thought

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 probably isn't even going to happen.

Speaker 2 But be right here. Be around Thanksgiving.
Be with your partners. Be with your loved ones.
Be with your family. Like

Speaker 2 instead of getting lost in these thoughts that they're not even yours. No, but we're just used to creating them.
It's a habit.

Speaker 2 It's almost like when you leave, when it's almost like when you left your mom, you took that way of speaking with you and it now keeps you company because she's not living with you. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's some deep shit. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think that that's like a lot of when we talk about like reparenting ourselves.

Speaker 2 I realized that once something started going right in my life, I would find something else that was going wrong in my life. And that would be my new

Speaker 2 thing that I would talk about. And that was my whole life for a long time.
And I realized in this in this moment that you had similar to what you had, that my life was a game of whack-a-mole.

Speaker 2 Every time

Speaker 2 something good would pop up, I'd take the hammer and hit it back down. Like you're talking about the sword, I would do the same thing.
It was just a constant looking for what's wrong.

Speaker 2 And there's always something that can pop up.

Speaker 2 If it's not in the physical, like, you know, your, your house or your relationship, then you go, like you're saying, Mel, like you go inward and you're like, well, I shouldn't have done this or I shouldn't have moved or I, you know, and you just turn it on yourself.

Speaker 2 no matter how hard i worked on all those things like those checklist things that you're talking about no matter how hard i worked on that stuff there was always a limit to my joy that's why i'm using the word fight and pick up the sword yeah i'm using this intentionally because i had a freaking wake-up call this morning yeah and i want everybody to have a wake-up call because

Speaker 2 This shit runs on default in my mind. If I'm not paying attention, if I'm not directing my thoughts, if I'm not being mindful about being in the present moment, I

Speaker 2 pick up the sword. I look for absolutely everything that could be going wrong or what's bothering me or who's annoying me or anything that I might be disappointed about.

Speaker 2 I don't bark at anybody else, but this is how I talk to myself.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I am so adamant. Like I had this huge, wow,

Speaker 2 this is the missing piece, Mel. It's that you're actively engaged in your own misery.
Yeah. You seek it out.

Speaker 2 Yep. I don't know if I don't think I deserve to be happy.
I don't know if I just like adopted somebody else's complaining. You know, we learned from Dr.

Speaker 2 Becky Kennedy about how from zero to five, when you're a little kid and you're in a theta state in your brain and that brain is like a giant sponge and it's absorbing everything everything around you that you just absorbed positive about life, negative about life.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I don't know if that's it.
Like, I don't know why I am this way, but I think every human being is like this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Once you see it, because you're aware that you do this. Yes.

Speaker 2 What the like now I want to get rid of it. I want to put down the sword.
How do I just be?

Speaker 2 And I don't have time to meditate. And I don't think that's going to be the solution either.

Speaker 2 Like, I feel like this is major reprogramming. I think that's true.
I think that we all do that

Speaker 2 about at least one thing, if not all day long and in every way that we can, so that it just

Speaker 2 continues to,

Speaker 2 I don't know, somehow it feels like home. You know, it's familiar.
It's natural. Yeah.
What I loved about what you just said, Amy, is that even if you just do it about one thing,

Speaker 2 and whether it's griping about your relationship or griping about your family or griping about your job,

Speaker 2 or all of the reasons why you couldn't possibly improve your health,

Speaker 2 that campaign of misery where you pick up the sword and you fight for things that aren't the

Speaker 2 kind of energy to it, that edge to it. And you can feel it

Speaker 2 inside, even if you're doing it in one area. As I've gone to work to improve the external aspects of my life,

Speaker 2 the missing thing that I have not truly conquered or had the breakthrough that I realized this morning is it's the internal language, the dialogue that I have with myself, how I keep myself company.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 By creating unnecessary friction.

Speaker 2 Searching for what's wrong. inventing things that don't even exist yet.

Speaker 2 And I'm tired of it. You seem to have had a breakthrough in this, Amy.
Yeah. Yeah.
I

Speaker 2 noticed this in myself for

Speaker 2 a while ago, and I wanted to make sure that I eradicated it, which I haven't yet, but I wanted to work on it and make sure that I could increase my level of happiness every day.

Speaker 2 You know, not day by day, but just have a larger capacity for happiness. Cause a lot of people seem to have that.
And I thought, why can't I have that?

Speaker 2 So, what did you do? Well,

Speaker 2 I want to say one quick thing that I did, and then I'll tell you the main thing that I did.

Speaker 2 But the one quick thing that I did was like, you talked a little bit about complaining and about griping and about bitching and moaning, which my mom would always complain about other people bitching and moaning, which, by the way, is bitching and moaning.

Speaker 2 Yes. You know, whatever.

Speaker 2 The irony of my childhood. So, anyway,

Speaker 2 what I realized is that one thing that most people complain about, that it's a-okay to complain about,

Speaker 2 everyone accepts this, is the weather.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's true. People bitch and moan about the weather.
Oh, God, it's raining out. Oh, Jesus, it's sunny today.
You wouldn't believe the clouds today. Oh, my God.
You know, it's snowing.

Speaker 2 It's all of that stuff. I realize that that is a common societal communication, right? That that's what we do as a society to connect with each other.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a bonding meditation. It's a bonding thing, right? It allows us to have some kind of commonality there.

Speaker 2 I don't want to have commonality on complaining. I want to, I want to be like, I have this, this

Speaker 2 poem stuck up in my bathroom that says, like, be so focused on bettering yourself that you have no time to complain about other people or other circumstances. And I'm like, yeah,

Speaker 2 let's start with the weather, you know?

Speaker 2 So, and I, and I will also say that I had a grandmother who never gossiped one day in her life. I know, she never said a bad thing about anybody.

Speaker 2 And she had some pretty nasty characters going around, you know, going on. She never complained.
She never gossiped, I would say.

Speaker 2 Maybe she did complain a little bit, but, um, and it was great to have that role model. So I kind of had that vision of her in my head.
And I started with the weather. And I realized like, it is true.

Speaker 2 It is the default. People will complain.
You just wait.

Speaker 2 Now that like that's in your head, once that's in your head, you will see how people use the weather as an excuse not to do things, you know, they should do, to do things they shouldn't do.

Speaker 2 You know, like I think that that probably reveals

Speaker 2 externally

Speaker 2 how people's default is to gripe and complain internally. Like it's a very safe way to notice this in everybody around you.
And,

Speaker 2 you know, I, I'm curious to hear, though, what else did you do? Because now that I see this,

Speaker 2 I don't want to keep doing this to myself. And I feel like I have a split personality at this point.
I literally feel like I could be talking to myself. You know what I mean, Jesse?

Speaker 2 Where I'm like, okay, shut up, sad mel. Pat Mel is now going to talk.
Great. Shut up.
Like, you know,

Speaker 2 misery melon on each shoulder. Now we're going to do the magical mel is going to talk.
And we're going to like, like, everyone's got a sword and fighting each other.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, can we just put down the freaking sword of misery? Can I please catch this wiring that is not my own? I do not, I do not want to gripe. I don't gripe outwardly.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't really bitch about the weather typically. No, right.
Right.

Speaker 2 I love that saying that small minds talk about people

Speaker 2 and big minds talk about ideas.

Speaker 2 And I'd like to think I have a big mind. I'd like to think that I don't gossip.

Speaker 2 And yet, internally, I keep myself company by talking to myself about what's bothering me or what's wrong. Yeah.
Or making up reasons to be upset about it. Oh, yes.
Yes.

Speaker 2 And then you break out the facts and it's like, wait a minute. None of that actually happened.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 What am I upset about? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And we're going to get to the end of our lives

Speaker 2 and have missed a huge part of it because we can't get over it. Can't get out of our head.
Can't get out of our heads. Can't get over ourselves.
Can't get through our bullshit.

Speaker 2 And I'm just so done with myself. I'm sick of this part of me.
Yeah. Well, let me tell you what I started doing once I saw all the complaining that I was doing.
Okay, cool.

Speaker 2 But we do have to pause for sponsors. When we come back, Amy, you better walk me through this woman.
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Speaker 2 Okay, welcome back. So I'm sitting here with Amy and Jesse and you, and we've been talking about happiness.
And so you were about to

Speaker 2 tell us something you've been doing, AIM. that you say is making a big difference because this is a gut job.

Speaker 2 This is like you got to rewire your mind because the default, I'm just sick of my mind going here. I feel that.
And I've, I've felt that, I call it like my tribe language of how my parents talk about,

Speaker 2 you know, the big things like money and relationships and

Speaker 2 big life events, like how they view them.

Speaker 2 I noticed years ago that if I'm going to live the life that I want, I need to leave this tribe, not speak this language anymore. And I did a lot of research around that.
And, like, how do I do this?

Speaker 2 Because it's painful to extract yourself from

Speaker 2 this family. Family, from your family.
Do you think that's what that's what you experience, even though you may love your family deeply, that there is still this sort of mismatch

Speaker 2 when you all get together because you're at different states of

Speaker 2 evolving and different states of we all speak this language with words, but we are all engaged in learning a new language at a subconscious emotional level. Yes, we've all moved on in some way,

Speaker 2 but we have our family roles, we have our common language, we have our tribal, you know, and I say tribal in the sense that like any group of three people that get together create a culture.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, that's the Seth Coda research, right? Right, exactly. So

Speaker 2 yeah, I decided I don't want to do this anymore. I am grateful for it.
You know, like, thank you for the lessons I've learned. And I'm moving on here.
I'm making a conscious decision to move on.

Speaker 2 So what are some of the practices? Because you're a little bit further ahead on the road. You represent what I refer to often on this podcast as you're a light on the path for me.
Okay.

Speaker 2 So what are some of the practices that you have? Yeah. I think number one, just recognizing that there is a sword and that it's not.
and it can be put down, just like what you're saying right now.

Speaker 2 Pat yourself on the back. And I'm not kidding.
like, do it right now. Pat yourself on the back for knowing that

Speaker 2 this is a good development for you. And even if you walk away from it for like three months, three years, at least, you know, this knowing

Speaker 2 is the start of something really awesome in your life. Journaling was a very big part of my practice.
I would journal every day about this, then I would for a very long time. Then I would burn it.

Speaker 2 I would literally put it outside in a, in a Pyrex bowl and burn it. And then I would watch it burn.
It didn't take that long. So like, will you walk us through this? I would burn it.

Speaker 2 So I would, I would do my morning pages three pages of, you know, morning pages is just supposed to be three pages of your stream of consciousness, but I would purposely.

Speaker 2 Think about this tribal thinking and just write everything that I hated about it, everything I loved about it, everything, everything that was was happening in my life for three pages.

Speaker 2 I would write about it. I would crumple it up or rip it or whatever.
I would put it in this Pyrex bowl so I didn't like explode it. And I would put it outside.

Speaker 2 So, would you like to walk out to your front porch or were you on the back deck? Back deck. Okay.
And just put it out there. And I am getting emotional at this.
Keep going. Burn it.

Speaker 2 And I would close the sliding glass door and I would watch it burn. Sometimes the wind would take it and I would be like, see you.
goodbye

Speaker 2 every molecule of that paper that burned was one

Speaker 2 breath of that old language leaving me and so what i would do next was the most powerful thing for me i would go to the sink and i would wash my hands up to my elbows every day and that act of like cleansing myself from whatever I didn't want that just came out of me.

Speaker 2 I just,

Speaker 2 you you know, the image I just got? What? So my dad's an orthopedic surgeon. Yes.
And I think about the way in which a doctor washes their hands

Speaker 2 before and after surgery. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I just got this image

Speaker 2 of my dad washing his hands all the way up to the elbows. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And the ceremonial

Speaker 2 and scientific nature of cleansing like that. Yes.
And then

Speaker 2 it had this direct reference for me since he's a surgeon of the sword. Yes.
And surgery. Yeah.
And actually deliberately

Speaker 2 doing surgery to extract at a subconscious level. Yes.
That was my intention. So extract that and not have that be a part of me.
I'm going to do this. Love it.
I feel like enough.

Speaker 2 Enough.

Speaker 2 Can I just ask one more question? For those of us that don't have a practice of writing three pages,

Speaker 2 can we come up with a prompt? So, as I go to do this tomorrow morning, I got a great prompt for you. Give me the prompt.
What is the prompt?

Speaker 2 What is what I write on the top of every page every morning? Okay.

Speaker 2 This will change your life.

Speaker 2 How can this be easy?

Speaker 2 How can this

Speaker 2 be

Speaker 2 easy? I write that on the top. What is this? Is that my day? Is that

Speaker 2 everything? Wow. Because with the sword, everything is hard.

Speaker 2 It's so hard. We make our lives so hard.
You wake up, you have joy. Let's not do that.
Let's not do that emotion.

Speaker 2 Let's make it hard. What is coming up for you? Because Jesse is with her gorgeous blue eyes.
Yeah. What is coming up? You're right.
Everything is so hard.

Speaker 2 Give us an example of how you made your life hard already today.

Speaker 2 Where were the disgusting thoughts, the campaign of misery? How did you pick up the sword against yourself? Or

Speaker 2 as soon as I get in the the mirror like what do you do days that's you look like shit good luck today like not even good luck just right really oh yeah what else did you say to yourself um i get obviously super stressed and emotional with holidays

Speaker 2 because of

Speaker 2 my family's never really cared about them

Speaker 2 and i'm trying to change that so that's also like

Speaker 2 how can i create my own language for my holiday in my new house with my new husband like all these things that I can start fresh.

Speaker 2 How do I do that with nothing? Like from scratch? What does that even mean? What does it look like? Jim asked me that too. Like, what does it look like to have a tradition? What tradition?

Speaker 2 We can do it. Name it.
And I'm like,

Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't have.
I've been there. I don't have any.
Is it like a certain dish? Is it a certain wreath that we hang?

Speaker 2 How could it be easy? I just got what this.

Speaker 2 And it goes back to like, it's the campaign of misery, but mine comes from like a victim hood, if that's even a word. I know that's a big campaign.
Of course,

Speaker 2 that's my second language that I've been nurtured in, bathed in, you know, of like, oh, you're a victim. You're a victim, victim, victim.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Not me, but that's what I will be like, oh, yeah, mom, you are. You are a victim.
Yeah, of course. You're the only one.

Speaker 2 So that is kind of under the umbrella of the campaign of misery, but

Speaker 2 you're right. Everything can be easy.
I've never thought of it that way because it's always like, oh, God, I have to do this, this, this, this. Make sure that it gets done.
No, it doesn't. Right.

Speaker 2 It doesn't. Right.
It's so funny that we're talking about it. What did you get? What did you get, Mel? What are you getting? Well, Jesus.
I was yesterday running around like a freaking lunatic.

Speaker 2 And it's lunatic season. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because we're in a new house. Yeah.
Yeah. And I feel the same way.
Like, what are my traditions? Well, yes. I'm the same.
And I, and, you know, we had plenty growing up. I just

Speaker 2 like, well, what are mine? Yeah. Right.
And so then I'm like buying,

Speaker 2 you know, fake faux, whatever the hell, but like things that go across your fireplace. And then I'm buying the little white trees that light up.
I'm like, do I even like these?

Speaker 2 I put them up on the thing and I'm like, I don't know what that is.

Speaker 2 It's just garbage. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So I'm like, why? And then I'm sitting there today and I'm like, we need a wreath.
We need a big wreath. Everything.
It's got to be right. So the tradition is stress

Speaker 2 and worry and getting it right. Not enough.
Yeah. And never be satisfied.
Yes. That's an awesome tradition, but I invite you to just bake cookies instead.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I want to keep coming back to these two languages because the language that might have been spoken was joyous and happy and all this other stuff. Whereas emotionally, the language was, this is hard.

Speaker 2 The emotional language is hard. This has to be perfect.
Everything is always hard. This is stressful.

Speaker 2 Families are a pain in the ass. You deal with yours.
I'll deal with my just holidays are wedding.

Speaker 2 That's like

Speaker 2 setting you up up for success all day long with that statement and all the other ones too.

Speaker 2 How can this be easy?

Speaker 2 How can this be easy? But I don't have an answer. Yeah, but what if your answer is it can't? Listen,

Speaker 2 it's not about answering that question. It's about training your subconscious mind to look for a different answer.
to a different question.

Speaker 2 When you are working on the subconscious level, you have to have a different thought.

Speaker 2 You have to introduce a different thought into your being. That's why you like oracle cards.
That's why

Speaker 2 people like guided meditation, people like prayer, people like devotionals, because it introduces a different thought. A different thought.
Interesting.

Speaker 2 So when you are working on this level and you're realizing this is ingrained in me, this is not just a quick fix. I can't go to a seminar or I've been to a bunch of workshops.

Speaker 2 Is the 33rd workshop going to be the answer? I don't know. No, because you sit and listen and you have an epiphany, but you don't do the work to encode.
Right.

Speaker 2 You don't do the surgery to cut out shit. Exactly.
The thing is, when you write this, I have written this on the top of my journal for five years, maybe.

Speaker 2 Is that when you started doing it? You know, you want to know, Fonnie? The campaign of misery inside me is already coming up, going, I don't like the question.

Speaker 2 And I look at that and I'm like, that's hard to fill up three pages. I don't know if I can do it.
You is

Speaker 2 super easy. I think we should ask Jesse

Speaker 2 to just silently write it. And then when she's done, we're going to burn it and we're going to see how it feels.

Speaker 2 Are you down? I'm so down. I have to go down if you're okay.

Speaker 2 Yes. And I've got a pirate tear.

Speaker 2 Good. It doesn't have any of the holiday shit in it yet because you know what? I've made it hard.

Speaker 2 I didn't start again.

Speaker 2 All right. So here's what we're going to do.
I'm going to give Jesse a notebook. Okay.
And here's a question about this prompt, too. Yeah.
Yes. Oh, she doesn't like it either.
No.

Speaker 2 Well, it's stressing me out because I'm like, oh, do I just need to make like a to-do list of like, if I have to do this, how can I make it, I still have to do this, a to-do list.

Speaker 2 But do you just shorten the to-do list instead of like 10 things, combine it into three? Or is it okay? Am I focusing this around Thanksgiving? What is, I still don't know what this is.

Speaker 2 Do we make it, is it like work? Is it personal? Is it

Speaker 2 today being Wednesday? Is it just

Speaker 2 focus on the weather? I don't know. I get that.

Speaker 2 It seems very overwhelming when you look at this because this is very confronting because it's not how we were raised. It is not our natural language.
How can this be easy?

Speaker 2 That is a very difficult question. And if it is, it's time to dig in.
Here's what I will tell you. How can this be easy?

Speaker 2 Notice how your mind searches for

Speaker 2 this is wrong. I can't do this.
I won't do this well enough. I don't have the right resources, the instructions, all of that.
Yes. Notice how your mind is searching for it.
Yes. That's it.

Speaker 2 Just notice that. You can write three pages of Amy's a complete jacket.
She has no idea what she's talking about. I don't know what, like write all of that.
That is what I invite you to write.

Speaker 2 That stream of consciousness is really helpful. It still gets your mind thinking about how this can be easy.
Get out all the crap, right? You've got like a golden Buddha underneath, like, you know,

Speaker 2 a foot of hardened shit on the outside. So we're getting through that hardened shit and getting to the golden Buddha.
The hardened shit is what you're writing on the page. Or the golden Buddha, right?

Speaker 2 Or the golden Buddha. It could be.
I find more golden Buddha nowadays after doing this practice, but

Speaker 2 it's okay to get the shit on the page. It's okay to not get it right.
It's okay to not understand it. It's okay to

Speaker 2 just be in that in-between.

Speaker 2 But your courage and your bravery to be in the in-between gets you closer to

Speaker 2 creating a new language for yourself. A love language, a language of acceptance,

Speaker 2 a language of possibility, a language of inspiration.

Speaker 2 That is all what I was searching for when I was doing this. And I will tell you,

Speaker 2 it has brought me there. Yeah.
And there is even more. There is no finish line here.
It's like just this glorious marathon where everybody's high-fiving you all day long. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like, it's just fantastic. It will bring you there, but you have to be willing to stay in that space of, this isn't going to work.
I don't know if this is going to work because that will keep you

Speaker 2 grounded, at least, in the possibility that it might work.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think it's overwhelming the more like I just listen to it, the more I'm like, actually, you're going to fill that shit up real fast.
You're going to fill that shit up.

Speaker 2 It's scary, though, of like what could come out. It's totally scary.
And that's why you burn it.

Speaker 2 That's why you're like, you know what? I'm glad I did it. Because we keep that down there.
Yeah. That's what my sword is laying on top of.
We don't touch it. Yep.
And

Speaker 2 no one looks at that. Nobody don't go that direction.
And that's okay. And nobody will.
And that's fine. I'm doing this for you.
Right. I love this.
And Mel, you got to do this for you too.

Speaker 2 Wait, what?

Speaker 2 Like right now? You know, you do. Yes.
Let's go, Mo.

Speaker 2 All right. And Jesse.
All right. I'll take the challenge, everybody.
Let's do this. So you're going to write on top of the paper, how can this be easy?

Speaker 2 Question mark. And because you're asking yourself a question, how can this be easy? I just wrote, I don't know.
Good. That's a great start.
That's your start. That's an awesome start.

Speaker 2 If you want to write like, you know what? Screw you, Amy. This is a dumbass question.
Write that. Screw you, Amy.
Yeah. I don't want it to be easy.
Beautiful. I'm so used to it being hard.
Love it.

Speaker 2 What if life were easy? Oh, shit. Yes.
Keep going. Oh, my God.
Okay, I'm going to keep sharing. It's a hypothesis.
Shut up now. Okay, I just get it.
I'm going to keep going.

Speaker 2 Jesse's going to keep going.

Speaker 2 You get your pen out, get your paper out, and you answer the question for yourself. How can this be easy? And when we come back, we will meet you out on the back deck with our Pyrox bowl.

Speaker 2 I'll get the matches. We're going to burn this thing.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 It suddenly feels hard. Yes.
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Speaker 2 So, before we go downstairs,

Speaker 2 I'd just love to hear what did it feel like to write three pages. How How can I make this easy?

Speaker 2 I feel like I just flushed a toilet.

Speaker 2 That was not a very profound way to put it, but it just like

Speaker 2 spiritual flush.

Speaker 2 Spiritual flush. Good riddance.
I feel lighter. How do you feel, Jesse?

Speaker 2 I feel like I just went through my own little therapy session. I mean, I started off really

Speaker 2 crying, writing it,

Speaker 2 like really afraid, not knowing what to write. And then you ended it with like,

Speaker 2 I don't know, just it's night and day with my first sentence, my first two sentences versus my last two, which is really cool. I hit every emotion in that, which I definitely read the first sentence.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I said, breathe,

Speaker 2 be still, be present, hug your husband, hug Myrtle, my cat, relax, trust your gut.

Speaker 2 Why does that make you emotional?

Speaker 2 Because I need to say it more often. That's what I need to do.
And just breathe, be still, be present. Hug my husband, hug my cat.

Speaker 2 Those little joys,

Speaker 2 I probably don't do them enough. Do them as often, I don't want to say as I should, because I need to stop saying I should.
But just being still and being present.

Speaker 2 You know, it's so profound, isn't it?

Speaker 2 Yeah. And that was.
It's just the little things that we're not even present to because we're busy, should have done this, should have done that, that we're not hugging the people we love.

Speaker 2 We're not greeting the cat. We're not

Speaker 2 running out the door. We're, you know, on to the next.
I feel that too. Like, just even as you said that, like, I didn't really hug my husband as I left this morning.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I didn't either.

Speaker 2 I didn't either.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And that's

Speaker 2 an easy change. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But it was, you know, know, I started with that with like literal handshaking just because I didn't know how to start this, where to start. What is easy? It's easy to breathe.
It's easy to be still.

Speaker 2 And right now to be present with this pen and paper. How did you end it?

Speaker 2 I ended it

Speaker 2 very confident.

Speaker 2 Wow. I want to hear this.
Yeah, if I can read, just like

Speaker 2 the last

Speaker 2 thing I'm comfortable with. I want to hear it.
You know, we're around the holidays, even though I know you said don't read your papers. Yeah, I don't, but that's okay before you burn them.

Speaker 2 But since it's holidays, there's a lot of stress around holidays, just being with family. We don't live near our family, and they've never been a tradition.

Speaker 2 So I just said, it's okay to not be with family for Thanksgiving. It's okay to spend my first Thanksgiving in our new home together with FaceTime.
It's all okay how it is. Exclamation point.

Speaker 2 Stop putting pressure to make others happy. Are you happy? Yes.
Be thankful for you and your language. Your new tribe starts now.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Jesse.

Speaker 2 Wow. And wow.
That is.

Speaker 2 I don't like there's just

Speaker 2 anger in here. There was frustration in here.
There was

Speaker 2 doubt. And it just comes out of like, no, you're fucking happy.
It's okay to be happy and not be pulling in the dark side because everyone else does it or it's easy to relate on the dark

Speaker 2 or that's all you know. That's all you've been trained to do and communicate that.
That's what I've been trained to do. Yeah, I can relate to my mom so easy off of guilt and off of bad news.

Speaker 2 What if I don't have any?

Speaker 2 I find it, and that's what I will talk to her about. You know, so now it's just change that language, only present the good that I have a lot of that I don't give love to,

Speaker 2 whether it is my husband and my cat, or it is

Speaker 2 just being thankful for myself.

Speaker 2 It's beautiful. Yeah.
That was really moving that you start off in one place and that you end in another and you end with the Jesse that you want to talk to. What did you say?

Speaker 2 Well, you know, what's really funny is I had a very similar

Speaker 2 theme

Speaker 2 to Jesse.

Speaker 2 Relax.

Speaker 2 Just Just relax.

Speaker 2 Just be in the moment and relax yourself. A little bit about breathing, too.
I mean, it's a really similar idea. Are you laughing? What about the end?

Speaker 2 You know, the end is, as I often find the end to be when I do this practice, is like, all right, I can do this. Now that I took my emotional, my, what did you call it? Spiritual dump.
Yep.

Speaker 2 I've got this and I can do this. And

Speaker 2 that is, that is, I ended in the same spot about a totally different topic, but I ended in the same spot. I, I can do this.
Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I started obviously with, I don't know, screw you, Amy.

Speaker 2 But I wrote, the cat is pissing me off. He feels hard.
He's peeing in the bathroom. He's peeing on the floor of the laundry room.
He's scratching the new runner on the stairs.

Speaker 2 He's needy and loud in the middle of the fucking night. He draws homie, our puppy, over, leans in to sniff him as if he loves him, then fucking swats at him like, what a dick.
Easy.

Speaker 2 Like, so I go on and on, bitching about the cat. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then by the end of it,

Speaker 2 like similar stuff about the holidays, because I always deeply miss my family around the holidays. And yet I asked my folks to come and they said no, they wanted to be in Florida.

Speaker 2 And I asked them to come for Christmas and they said no.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I just, it just makes me so sad.

Speaker 2 And so I,

Speaker 2 you know, how can this be easy? Open the door, let love in, let them be exactly who they are and who they aren't. Just figure out what makes me happy and do those things.
Take a breath.

Speaker 2 Tell myself, you're in a five-year experiment right now of healing, of happiness, and of creating a spiritual home base for yourself, Mel.

Speaker 2 How can this be easy? Let go. Stop gripping and just love.
Oh, holy shit, Mel.

Speaker 2 Yes. That's incredible.
That's beautiful. Same thing was true about the cat because I realize I'm so pissed off at him and I need to come from love because he's clearly in distress.

Speaker 2 Something's up. Like he can't fix this himself.

Speaker 2 So I got to like rise above all of this resentment and anger that I feel. Yeah.
And just shower him with love and help him figure it out.

Speaker 2 Because I want to ask Chris who's going to kill him. I mean,

Speaker 2 keeps peeing in the house.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 yeah, it was really cool. And again, I didn't think I could fill up three pages, but it just kept going.

Speaker 2 Once you really get into it,

Speaker 2 flush the toilet. Flush the toilet.
Well, I'll tell you what I know from doing this, and this is just my experience, is a lot of times you don't want to do it. There's resistance.

Speaker 2 You don't think you can do it. You can't fill a page.
You don't want to talk about it. You know, whatever it is.
And then once you get going, it's like just the floodgates open.

Speaker 2 I think about this like reprogram your mind. I think that it gives you a new thought

Speaker 2 to anchor onto when your old one sucks. And this prompt, how can this be easy,

Speaker 2 forces you to have a new thought to anchor on instead of the old one.

Speaker 2 Which for all of us, I'm going to say, is what's wrong? What's not working? What's hard? What's the problem? What do I have to complain about? You know how people say happiness is a choice? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I always used to be like, go fuck yourself.

Speaker 2 Because I'm like, come on, there's a happiness preset.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 when I woke up this morning and I saw the two mels, the happy,

Speaker 2 feel the joy, be content in your life, let love in.

Speaker 2 And then I saw myself pick up the sword and gut myself, the misery.

Speaker 2 That made me realize at a deep level, yeah, on some level it is a choice. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You may not realize that you're speaking this misery language because it's buried in your subconscious and it's not really yours. It's, you know, probably from your family or whatever.

Speaker 2 But you can choose to change it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's what I think the huge opportunity is here, is that we've talked a lot on this podcast about

Speaker 2 doing things that make you happy, prioritizing fun and joy. This is so much deeper because we're talking about choosing to reprogram

Speaker 2 your mind for happiness, choosing to rewrite the neuropathways

Speaker 2 and by writing every day and then burning this shit.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Give your mind a different job.
Your mind right now has a job of looking for what's horrible, cutting it down to make it the worst ever, like not accepting joy, not accepting happiness.

Speaker 2 That's the job that most of us give our mind. That's the job that I realize I gave my mind all the time.
How can this be even worse?

Speaker 2 What's that getting me? Yeah. Well, and here's the thing.
I don't think this is the wake-up call, everybody. You didn't realize.

Speaker 2 That your mind was doing this job. It's been doing it for so long.
It just runs on repeat.

Speaker 2 So now it's time for us to take control, put down the damn sword, stop the campaign of misery, pick up the fucking pen and write a new chapter for real.

Speaker 2 Like train your brain to spot how things this can be easy. Train your brain.
How can this be easy? How can this make me happy? How can I let love in?

Speaker 2 Start writing a whole new way to think. That's what I'm going to do.
Let's go burn this shit. Let's go burn it.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So So here we are in the front porch. Tell us what we do, Amy.
Okay, so you can, you already crumpled yours up, which is great.

Speaker 2 I'm going to actually rip mine up because I just feel like that kind of gets out a little extra emotion.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Jesse's feeling it.

Speaker 2 See ya. See ya.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I feel like a rip.
Rip it up. Rip it up.

Speaker 2 So then I just

Speaker 2 light it, take a match.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 I just have a habit of standing back from it and watching it burn

Speaker 2 and just saying to myself, let it all go.

Speaker 2 Just let all that

Speaker 2 complaining, shit you don't need, and the stuff you don't want,

Speaker 2 let it be gone.

Speaker 2 You know, it's funny that kind of crumpled, ashy

Speaker 2 remain is what that

Speaker 2 black tar

Speaker 2 wave of misery actually felt like. You're right.
That I felt this morning. Wow.
That physical burnt paper

Speaker 2 that's left in that Pyrox dish

Speaker 2 looks like misery. Yes.
That's what I feel when I think, for example, about the kids all leaving instead of being present in the moment. It's sad.
What are you feeling, Jesse?

Speaker 2 Very satisfied. I don't know why that happened so fast and there's so much hesitation to write it and how do I start it? How do I do this, this, this, this? And it was easy.

Speaker 2 Isn't that incredible?

Speaker 2 Right? It's easy. It's easy.
And I feel

Speaker 2 so much better. If I do this again tomorrow, will I write most of the same stuff? Of course.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of it will be the same right now. But again, you keep burning it, keep

Speaker 2 getting rid of it. It was easy.

Speaker 2 What did you think, Mel? Yeah, what were your thoughts?

Speaker 2 Seeing the physically burnt paper is very

Speaker 2 helpful for me because now I have like this image to attach to the thoughts and the feelings

Speaker 2 so I can separate from it. Because I just want to be happier in my life.

Speaker 2 It's a lot of work to carry this shit around, and it's a lot of work, even though it's subconscious to be

Speaker 2 griping and complaining and present at what's wrong, and everything's hard. And

Speaker 2 that energy, it just,

Speaker 2 it's a lot.

Speaker 2 And it was pretty easy to let it go once I made a decision to.

Speaker 2 It's

Speaker 2 the heavy heavy thoughts, like you said, Mel, but it's really not.

Speaker 2 It's just that. They're just thoughts.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Awesome. That was really cool.
Well, Amy, thank you. Yeah.
I want you to do this exercise. And

Speaker 2 if you want to see the burning ceremony, we put up full unabridged episodes.

Speaker 2 on YouTube. Just go to youtube.com slash Mel Robbins and you can watch what we just did on the front porch up here in southern Vermont, where my kids will never visit.
No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 That was a joke. That was a joke.
That was a joke, everybody. See? Put down the folder, picked up the pen.
Mel Robbins is writing. Jokes! Laughter! I picked happiness.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And, you know, look, I hope today was a wake-up call for you. I hope that you

Speaker 2 saw where you pick up the sword and you fight for misery instead of the happiness that you deserve.

Speaker 2 And I hope that you not only got a wake-up call, but that you got handed a pen and that you're going to write not only new neural pathways, but a whole new experience of your life being happier.

Speaker 2 And in case nobody else tells you, we will tell you. We love you.
We do love you. We love you so much.

Speaker 2 I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to put down the sword, pick up the pen, and truly,

Speaker 1 truly experience the happiness that you deserve.

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