Hey, it's your friend Mel. Welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I was in a yoga class the other day, and as I was heading out of the class looking like a hot and sweaty, roasted tomato, these two amazing women come up to me, Kathy and Teale. Huge shout out to Kathy and Teale. You know who you are. Whenever anybody approaches me, who is a fan of the podcast, I am so thrilled to know that these episodes that we are taping above my garage in Vermont and in our studio in Boston are going around the world and reaching you and helping you create a better life. There is nothing that is more satisfying than knowing that all of this hard work is making a difference. So Kathy and Tea will come up to me. One of the things that I like to do, and you better be prepared for this, if you see me out in the real world and you approach me, I'm going to pull out my phone and I'm going to videotape when you come up because I have a question for you. What topic do you want me to cover? What experts do you want me to have on the show?

I was talking to Kathy and Teale, and I asked them what topics and experts they wanted to have on the show, and they told me. Then they asked me a question. The question that they asked me was something I wasn't prepared for. It's the first time since launching this show that anybody has asked me this question. Kathy said, Mel, of all of the amazing experts that you have had on the Mel Robbins podcast, who has made the biggest difference in your life? Have you ever had one of those moments where somebody asks you a question and you know you should have the answer to it? And you start to think and your mind is like, There is nothing there. I mean, the only thing that was in my brain in that moment was the steam from the Hot Yoga Room. I could not even remember any expert that was on the Mel Robbins pod. I just went blank, blank, blank, blank. I could have used Jim Kwik there, our memory expert, who we released an episode with a couple of days ago at the moment, but holy smokes. I had nothing to say, and I was super embarrassed.

I couldn't think of an expert, and I kept trying to go back into my mind, and everybody was flooding my mind from our confidence expert to anxiety to narcissism to all of the health experts that we've had on. I couldn't summon up a name. I just couldn't do it. The first thing that then all of a sudden popped in my mind as I looked at Kathy and Teale and I said, There were so many amazing experts on the Mel Robbins podcast this year that coming up with just one is really hard to do. But I will tell you that there is one person who had a huge impact on my life. And this is going to sound selfish because it's our 18-year-old son, Oakley. Oakley came on the podcast a lot this year and shared all kinds of deeply personal stuff, things that I never knew. And it really changed my relationship with him. I just absolutely loved having him on the podcast. I loved all the feedback we got about how what he shared really made a difference for your family. And so that was what I said. And if I'm being honest with you, I think the answer is lame.

I get in the car after hugging them goodbye, and I'm driving down the road, and I'm thinking, Who was the experts? What were the experts? I went back, I cracked open my laptop. I went to the Mel Robbins podcast page, and I started scanning through all of the episodes. Here's what I discovered. First of all, there were 39 experts that we had on the Mel Robbins podcast this year, many who made multiple appearances because you love them so much. I poured through all of the episodes, and I looked back through all the most popular moments on YouTube, and I thought long and hard about what were the most impactful and transformative pieces of advice that really changed my life. I have curated a list of eight, eight pieces of advice. The reason why I'm going to share these with you is not only because Teale and Kathy asked, but more importantly, because when I really took the time to look back and reflect on what I learned this year from so many amazing people, I know that when I share these with you, it's going to change your life, too. And as you know, I am on a mission to simplify all this complicated stuff and information that's out in the world and tee it up to you in a way that makes it super entertaining and empowering and easy to apply to your life.

And so that's what we're going to do today. The eight pieces of expert and science-supported, research-backed advice that changed my life this year. And if you try them out, I guarantee you they're going to change your life too. And so first up, let's talk about Dr. Amy Shaw. She is the medical doctor that trained at Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia University. That is a triple Ivy League certification right there. She is also a double board certified immunologist and a leading expert in women's hormonal health and nutrition. And I love her because every time she breaks down information, it is so clear, it is so entertaining, it is so applicable to my life. She appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast four different times. That's how popular and smart and amazing she is. And one of the biggest differences that she made in my life is that because of what I learned from Dr. Amy Shaw, I have gone from waking up in the morning, an army crawling my way to the coffee maker, and basically lip-blocking that sucker and hydrating with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning to waiting an hour before I have caffeine.

I have gone from being a person that has four cups of coffee a day to just one cup of coffee a day. I do not crave it anymore. And it's all because of what she taught you and me about morning sunlight and the importance of getting morning sunlight and a little something called adenosine. So routines are excessively important in terms of our mood and our body, our nutrition. So when you wake up in the morning, you want to get sunlight. I have a rule. When you wake up, go get sunlight first. Sky before screens. Oh, I love that. So sky before screens is how you should start your day. Your body is wired to see sunlight in the morning. Even if it's a cloudy day, it just has to be bright light. You can just walk out outside. For me, it's my back door. Just walk out for a few minutes. It could be two to 10 minutes. For me, I'm usually just in my pajamas, so I'm coming back in and getting ready for the day. You don't want to have food or caffeine in the first 45 minutes of your day. Why? I'll tell you why.

When you wake up, you feel groggy, right? Yeah. That groginess is partially, mostly from adenosine in your brain. Adenosine? Adenosine. Okay. And it clears out within 30, 40 minutes. It clears out. Then you have your coffee, then you eat your food. And the reason why is coffee blocks our adenosine receptor. It just blocks it from actually binding. So if you don't let that adenosine clear out and you just drink your coffee, when the coffee wears off in a couple of hours, that adenosine is still there. It just binds those receptors and you feel excessively tired. That's why you think you need another cup of coffee. Then you're fully dependent. The people that wake up and they need the coffee right then and then they need it again at 10:00, and then they need it again at one o'clock, it's because you're not letting that adenosine go. You need to let that clear out. I'm guilty of this. I'm going to try this tomorrow. I'm going to wake up. I'm going to wait 45 minutes. Then I'm going to have my coffee. I'm going to see if I have a craving for a second cup. Yes.

That is fascinating. You want to let it clear out naturally because it's not going to clear out naturally if you start the caffeine cycle right away. This changed my life, and I am not exaggerating. I literally was addicted to having that first cup of coffee. I had this whole story in my mind. I bet you may relate to this that, I can't even wake up to have a cup of coffee. If I don't have my coffee, I'm going to be groggy. Well, I took her advice to heart, and I was bracing because I thought that first morning that I woke up and I rolled out of bed and I was not going to immediately have a mug in my hand and caffeine on my lips that I was going to be a freaking train wreck, that's not what happened at all. It was a game changer. The first morning I get out of bed, I have a cup of water instead of having a cup of coffee. I set my Timer, and by the time my Timer went off, I walked over to the coffee maker. Honestly, I felt pretty alert. I was not that groggy.

I had a cup of coffee. It tasted freaking delicious because I had delayed it. Now here's what I noticed. The coffee tasted great, but what was transformative is an hour later, I didn't feel like I needed another one. And at two o'clock in the afternoon, I didn't feel like I needed yet another one. My focus, my energy, it was way more consistent throughout the day. And here's the thing. I'm going to challenge you to do this. I've told so many people about this little adenosine thing and morning sunlight, and so many of my friends are now not drinking coffee first thing in the morning. I love this practical tip because you can get it immediately. You can start it tomorrow morning and you will see an immediate result, I promise you. I cannot wait to hear what happens when you do it. And by the way, I'm going to link to all the episodes and the resources. We always have a huge, robust list of resources for every single episode. And the episodes that I'm talking about, they are linked below. All right, so that was number one, advice that changed my life. Make sure you get exposure to natural light first thing in the morning, right in the eyes, and delay a cup of coffee for 90 minutes.

The second expert on the Mel Robbins podcast that changed my life was another health expert. I guess this is the year that Mel Robbins takes her health seriously. So Dr. Gabriele Lion, if you listen to that episode, you'll remember we call her Dr. G. Dr. G was fascinating because she is a medical doctor who is fellowship trained in nutritional sciences and geriatrics, which is the science of aging. She's a renowned researcher and founder of the Institute for muscle centric medicine. How did she change my life? Well, she completely changed the way that I see protein and the importance of getting more protein in my diet. I learned so much talking to Dr. G, and I'm embarrassed to admit to you that I didn't remember learning when I was little that the muscle is the organ of longevity, that your muscles are the largest organ in your body. It determines everything about how you age for your overall quality of life. And the way that she explained the importance of strength training and the importance of a protein-forward diet, especially if you want to live a really long and vibrant life, which I do, I am very interested not in putting a bikini on.

I just want to age gracefully. I want to be able to take my suitcase and pick it up and put it in the overhead compartment. I want to be able to dance until I die. All things that are going to require me to make sure that I take care of the skeletal architecture of my body, which is your muscles. And so she gave us a very specific plan of exactly what to do to build muscle without becoming a bodybuilder. And she was particularly focused on how this relates to us women. Why is this so important for women specifically?

I think women have really gotten a constant narrative about, You've hit menopause. Now you're going to have a menopausal belly, and you're going to gain about 30 pounds, and it's going to be this is how it's going to be. That does not have to happen. There are ways in which you can manage your body composition through diet and training. Again, we are leveraging protein and food as medicine and movement as medicine rather than taking something external.

Here's.

What I would tell and why it's so important for a menopausal, post-menopausal woman. There is a natural decline in these hormones, estrogen, progesterone. There's an imbalance of testosterone.

Which.

Can affect body composition. But one of the ways it affects body composition is we move less. We are less active. The way to combat that is through very simply doing some resistance training, which simply means, again, against an external load. It doesn't have to be complicated, and it's not necessarily as difficult as people think. I've been seeing patients since 2006. I have seen a lot of mid-life women, and I've seen a lot of success.

Okay, what do we do? I just heard, do you hear that? That was women in 194 countries around the world turning up the dial. What do we do?

All these women in a million different countries, you've got your dial turned up. You're going to make it so simple. This is legitimately fail proof. You are going to have between 30 and 50 grams of protein at that first meal. You're not going to have over 30 grams or so of carbohydrates for that first meal because we don't want to skew this insulin and give you this robust response. Again, I'm giving broad generalization.

Got it. Okay.

But we're just going to define it and design it so that people can execute right away. Great. You can have a little bit of berries. You can mix it in water. You can mix it in almond juice or whatever it is that you want. Something not major that is calorically dense. Okay, you've done that. You're doing great. I don't care if it's a weight protein shake. I don't care if it's Mel's Pea protein shake. I don't necessarily want it to be collagen because while great for other things, is not great for muscle health. Okay? Got it. So collagen is a different separate protein. It has a protein score of what is considered zero. It's still great, but we're not going to put in the category of muscle health.

Thank you for saying that, because here I am making my smoothie, and I put in the collagen. I'm thinking that's another 10-20 grams of protein, so I can put that in the 50-protein column. What you're saying is Mel, that is good for your hair and nails. But when it comes to complex amino acids, that protein scores a big fat... So now I'm learning something. This is really good. Like a.

Pro, homie, you are a pro.

Thank you.

Maybe you want some smaller meal in the day. Maybe it has 20 grams of protein and 20 grams of carbohydrates. What does that look like? That could be three eggs. It could be your chicken salad. It could be whatever it is you want. I'm not so crazy.

About that one. I love you for that. Thank you.

You're welcome. The last meal, if you're having two larger meals and a smaller meal in the middle, your last meal is also important because you're getting ready to go into an overnight fast.

Okay, got it. So now I'm doing my 30 to 50. I'm having my protein shake or my hamburger with my salad or whatever else.

The last meal of the day is between 30 and 50 grams of protein. You want your burger, you want your chicken, you want your salmon. You did, great. You have now nailed it.

Okay.

You will lose body fat by just addressing the dietary component of protein, which is mind-blowing. You will improve your body composition by changing your dietary protein for breakfast by simply doing that, we have seen huge changes in body composition simply by doing that. And also, by the way, some of this data was iso-caloric, meaning people both had the same amount of calories. And the post-menopausal women, what one group did was change the first meal of the day to have an optimal protein, it was around 40 grams of protein. And then the second group had around, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was probably closer to 50 grams of carbohydrates and 13 grams of protein, which is what most women are doing now. And the body composition effects were negative for the carbohydrate group versus the protein group, they lost weight. And again, calories were the same. So it was simply changing around the macronutrients.

I don't know about you, but I not only listened to that episode twice, and I'm the one that had the conversation with her, but I have watched the YouTube version of that conversation several times as well. And here's a really cool data point. So YouTube can tell you some of the most watched parts of any video that you upload on YouTube. Our YouTube channel is just YouTube. Com/melrovinz, and all the podcast episodes are out there, and they're searchable, and they're amazing. But when Dr. G was talking about the specifics related to protein and the fact that if you just were to change your diet, we're not talking restrict yourself of calories, don't want to be doing that. Just change the composition of the food that you're eating and your entire body composition changes. That was one of the most watch moments and replayed moments on our YouTube channel because you were fascinated with it, too. And so here's how I have felt empowered by this, because I've shared a lot about the fact that being 55 and going through menopause, my body is changing. My hormones are changing. There have been times that I've been extremely frustrated about what to do because everything that I've done my entire life, eat, clean, exercise, cardio, all that stuff, be a positive person, it was not helping with my body composition if you're picking up what I'm putting down.

And so I have taken Dr. G's advice, and I'm seeing a huge difference. All right, that's Dr. G, the science of strength training. And again, that entire episode is both on our YouTube channel. Just google, Dr. Gabriele Lion and Mel Robbins, and you'll find it, or you'll find it in the resources below if you want to listen to it. Okay, next up, expert number three, KC Davis. Before we get to KC Davis, you know what we have to get to? We have to get to a word from our sponsors. Our sponsors are amazing. I love them, and they allow us to bring you all these incredible experts at zero cost. So tell you what. How about you take a listen to our amazing sponsors. Then when we return, I'm going to tell you how a woman named Kacey Davis changed my life when it comes to laundry. And a little later, you're going to learn the pieces of advice about anxiety and dealing with narcissistic personalities that also are life-changing. So don't you dare go anywhere. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. I'm so glad you're here because I'm going through the eight different pieces of expert advice, all supported by research and science, that truly changed my life this year.

I'm sharing them with you in case you missed one of them, because I know they're going to improve your life too. Next up, the third expert that changed my life is Casey Davis. Casey Davis is a bestselling author and therapist, and she's just one of those people that has a way of explaining something that instantly makes you feel better. She came on the show and had so much wisdom to share about how to deal with life when things feel overwhelming. Sometimes that's all it takes. It just takes somebody to teach you how to look at something differently, and all of a sudden, your entire world changes. Holy Smokes, Casey Davis. She stepped in with relatable, hilarious, and most of all, life-changing advice. This was one of your favorites as well. This blew up all over YouTube. What is the concept I'm talking about? I'm talking about the fact that laundry exists in a cycle. Check this out.

It's important to remember that care tasks are not binary states of done or not done.

They are cycles. What does that mean?

What that means is that we're used to going, Are the dishes done or are they not done? Is the laundry done or is it not done? That's true. The truth is your laundry exists in a cycle. It does. You have clothes that are clean in the closet. You have clothes that are on your body. You have clothes that are dirty on the floor, you have clothes that are dirty in the hamper. You have clothes that are dirty waiting to go in the wash. You have some in the wash, you have some there. That's a cycle, and every state of that cycle, Mel, is morally neutral. You're not a good person when they're all parked in the closet and a bad person when they're in the hamper. It's okay for any of it to be in that cycle, and you are not morally obligated to line up every care cycle in your home at the the done state at the same time.

If you could see me right now as you're listening to this podcast, you on YouTube, my mouth is on the floor. Let me just give it back to you because I want you listening to really grab a hold of this. First of all, if you think about laundry, the machine has cycles that you can pick from. Laundry, if you think about it like a never ending cycle, just a never ending cycle of things that go in the washer, things that go in the dryer, things that go back to the spots where they're going to go, then they go back in the washer, then they go back in the dryer. It's never a thing that gets done. It's always a cycle. The same thing is true with grocery shopping. You don't get grocery shopping done. You do it in a cycle.

The same thing is true as tidying. I mean, my play room, my living room, it's not clean or dirty. It's clean, perfect, just cleaned it. It's a few toys on the floor. It's a few toys and a few more on the floor. And here's the key. In that cycle, there's a place where it reaches where it's not functional anymore, and that's where I want to reset the cycle. But the key isn't how do I get everything done and keep it done and keep on top of it? The key is how do I learn to turn all of these cycles at a pace where it's functional, where I have clean clothes when I need them, clean dishes when I need them? I always say, like when I decided to take on the laundry of my home, I signed up to make sure that my family always has clean clothes. I did not sign up to make sure they never have dirty ones.

Oh, say that again. Same with the dishes. Louder for the people in the back, Casey. Say that again.

I signed up to make sure that my family always has clean dishes to eat off of. I did not sign up to make sure they never have dirty ones.

Oh, my God.

And you get to customize that cycle because if you're moving that cycle too fast, Mel, you're exhausted, you're perfectionistic, you're anxious, you can't sit down, you can't rest. Or if you're struggling in such a way where you're not moving those cycles fast enough, you don't have clean clothes, you can't function in your space. So you just want to get a pace that works for you, and you can customize those cycles. I don't fold my clothes because that was the part that was sticking the cycle.

How so? What did you figure out about yourself? Because it's interesting that you say that, Casey, because I could load a dishwasher full of dirty dishes all day long. I could load a washing machine, and I love stain sticking that stuff and shoving it in there and all the things. I can even move it to the dryer. When the dryer beeps or the dishwasher is done, I have some a trauma response to that because I hate putting things away. I hate it.

Yeah, it sucks. Yes. Can I make a guess.

On why? Bring it on.

Okay, well, I'll tell you what it is for me, and we'll see what it is for you. The act of loading things, my brain naturally will do it in a pattern. Like if I'm loading up the dishwasher, it's like cups, cups.

Cups.

Cups, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates. And I'm putting it all in this beautiful Tetris, whatever, right? Same with laundry. It's going in, it's going in, it's going in, it's going in. And I'm dump, dump, dump, dump, dump, shut. It's this pattern. But when you have to put dishes away, it's pick up. Look at it. Cup. And cup goes over here. This is a... Okay, this is a... There's the bending. Nobody likes to bend over and over. And there's no pattern. Your brain likes patterns. It gets a little dopamine juice.

From it. Oh, my God. When I have to unload it, I avoid it like the plague. But on the occasions that I unload the dishwasher, I always organize them into groups on the counter. Because you're right, it's the patterning of it.

That's one of the hacks, is turning things into patterns, turning things into rituals. All of a sudden, that was it. That was the hitch and the cycle that was grinding the gear every time it got to that place. Now the laundry is done every week.

Wow. I still stop and just pick up my jaw off the floor when I think about how obvious it is. I mean, why have we all been talking about getting laundry done when Casey is so right? It just exists in a cycle. In fact, when we sat down to record this conversation for you and to roll out all this expert advice for you, Jesse, one of the producers on the show was like, Oh, I'm so glad this made this. This changed my life. It changed my life, too. I know it changed so many of your lives. You don't want to know why because it was truly one of the favorite episodes of the year. There were so many moments on the YouTube video of this that you guys rewatched and rewatched and rewatched. You can find a link to her incredible episodes, 11 crazy facts about laundry, showering, getting the little stuff done because it turns out, and this is what we learned from Casey Davis, the little stuff ain't so little. But when you flip how you look at it, it can change your life completely, and it certainly changed mine. All right, let's move from laundry to something that's related, and that is anxiety.

Because before I met Casey Davis, the amount of laundry that was constantly piled up constantly gave me anxiety. That brings me to one of the most popular experts of all time on the Mel Robbins podcast, and that is Dr. Russell Kennedy. So Dr. Russell Kennedy is a medical doctor and a neuroscientist who truly changed my life with his tools on healing from anxiety. Not just coping with it, not just learning how to make yourself calm, but truly healing from anxiety. Now, he appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast three times since we have launched. His episodes are some of our most-loved, most loved, most popular, both on podcast networks and on the YouTube channel. So what is the concept that he shared that was so much of a game changer for me? Because you've listened to the Mel Robbins podcast for a while, so you know that I have struggled with anxiety for a very long time. I thought I knew everything about this topic. The concept is calling anxiety an alarm in your body. Now, that's the first beat. I always knew that anxiety was like part of your fight or flight. That's basic information when you start studying anxiety.

Here's where it became a game-changer. Anxiety is an alarm in your body, but it is an alarm that's signaling what? It's signaling that the little you feels separate. I got to tell you something, that insight that it's an alarm for moments when you feel separate, that has been huge for me, and it has changed how I deal with moments where I feel anxious. Let's listen to Dr. Russell Kennedy talk about it. Dr. Kennedy, first question, how do you define anxiety?

Anxiety for me is anxious thoughts, anxious thoughts of the mind. Anxiety is not painful itself. What's painful is the sense of alarm that's in our body, that's in our system. It's the alarm that drives the thoughts. It's a very atypical way, especially as a doctor and a neuroscientist, to look at anxiety as more as a body issue, like old, unresolved, wounding, that just making sense to the mind, because the mind because the mind is this compulsive, meaning making, makes sense machine. When it feels the alarm in your body from the old wounds that haven't been resolved, it makes sense of it by worrying, warnings, what ifs, worst-case scenarios, and that's what happens.

Where does anxiety come from?

It comes from that alarm in your body. Anxiety is normal. Anxiety over taxes, anxiety over your kids, that's normal. But if it's everyday, if it's relentless. That anxiety is abnormal. That typically comes from unresolved stuff from your childhood, and it's stuck in your body and in your mind to some extent. It's a tough call because when you say anxiety is in your body, of course, it's in your nervous system, which is your body and your mind. It's really finding that place of unresolved wounding, that trauma that still sits in you because that's the engine of what's driving your thought. Rather than thinking of anxiety as a thought-based process, it's actually a feeling-based process that's only reflected by the mind. But we assume that it's the mind because we're so fixated on the mind in our society. It's really a body-based issue, but we focus on the mind and we try and fix it through the mind. That's why people are in therapy for 30 years. They're not getting a lot better.

I've spent the better part of my lifetime living with all of this unrest and unease and onedgeness in my body. I have tried for decades to make sense of it, to calm it, to soothe it, to heal it through my mind. It is a revelation to realize, whoa, it really starts with thinking about the body. How do you know if what you're experiencing in your life right now is anxiety versus just day-to-day stress versus overwhelm?

I think if it's chronic, if you're looking at your life, if you wake up in the morning and you're going, Oh, my God, I've got this, this, this, and this, which you've talked about before on the podcast, like waking up with this sense of dread, that's a sign that things aren't quite right. I think that we live in our minds, we live in our bodies, this just becomes normal. Unless it rises above this critical mass where we're uncomfortable almost all the time, then we think, Well, there's something going on. Now with Instagram, with all this stuff, everything's trauma and everything's trauma. I watched your episode about healing childhood trauma and I really want to dive into that as well because it's so important. Because the quick version is you probably had trauma as a child that was unresolvable for you as a child. Now what happens is when we get trauma as children, we blame ourselves. There's a great saying that says if you abuse, neglect or abandon a child, the child doesn't stop loving the parent, they stop loving themselves. Then that starts the split, and then we start judging, abandoning, blaming, and shaming ourselves from that point forward.

That split causes this sense of alarm that gets lodged in our body. Then because we don't want to feel that alarm in our body, we go up into our heads, which is the only place that a child can go because they're pretty powerless in their environment, and they overthink. That's a temporary escape. Then we train ourselves as children to overthink because that's the only safe places in our minds. Then when we get older, you go through a couple of divorces, you get in a car accident, whatever, that stuff tends to come right back up again. That's really the basis of where this global anxiety comes from in people, is it's this unresolved trauma. If your parents love you and you've got a supportive family and you're attuned and connected and, quote-unquote, securely attached, you can go through traumas like we all do in childhood, and they won't impact your nervous system to create this permanent change. I don't like using the word permanent because it makes it feel like it's hopeless, but it creates a permanent change in your nerves. Trauma is anything that changes your nervous system, that stucks your nervous system in a pattern that doesn't allow you to get rid of that trauma.

Then we just get into this where there's alarm in our body. We make sense of it by making horrible thoughts in our mind, warnings, what ifs, worst-case scenarios, which of course makes the alarm of the body worse, which of course makes the thoughts worse. We get caught in this alarm anxiety cycle, and unless we see it, we can't get out of it.

He's so right. Learning this has changed the entire way I approach my lifelong relationship with anxiety. Calling an alarm, this is a big change. It doesn't sound so scary when you say it's an alarm. When you say it's anxiety, it makes it feel really big. When you say, Oh, this is an alarm. I feel separate from myself. I feel separate from other people. I feel separate from my power. Now you know what to do. But let me tell you something. That was just part one of why this was such a game changer. What really drove the transformation in my own life home is realizing that this alarm is also present in moments where you're blocking love. That's why you feel separate from yourself. You're actually blocking other people from loving you. You are blocking, letting love in from yourself. This was so something that you loved hearing from him, too. Check this out.

The reason why you're anxious in the first place is because you block love. When you say, I.

Love you- The reason why you're anxious is because you block love?

For yourself, yes.

What?

You're separated from yourself. That's exactly what it comes down to. That's what anxiety or alarm really is. It's a separation. This is what I do. We didn't get into my little intuitive.

Thing here. We're going to in a minute. Hold on. I think I got it. That literally your alarm is asking for love and reinsurance. Absolutely. When you go into your head, you block yourself from receiving it. When you go into your body and you breathe into the alarm and soothe yourself, you are actually giving yourself love. Yes. Holy shit.

And a lot of people with anxiety, they're uncomfortable with love in the first place. I'll give you a very quick example from my own life. So my dad, before I was 10 years old, was this wonderful guy. He was so connected to me and nurturing, taught me how to hit a ball, play chess, all this stuff, very, very connected to him, and I loved him greatly. And then as I got to be a young teen and his schizophrenia got worse and worse and worse and it became suicidal and a bunch of other things, I withdrew from him because to see him in horrible depression was just too painful for me. I blocked my love for him because it was just too painful to feel it. In that, you can't block love from a parent without blocking love on some level to everyone. This is one of the things. When you find the blocks that you have to loving yourself, this is how you heal. This is basically my little intuitive gift is I can tell people where their blocks are to loving themselves. Then when you remove those blocks, the anxiety, the alarm just fades away.

This is really going at the root cause protocol as opposed to just trying to make you think better.

It makes so much sense. I don't know if it's his voice or his wisdom or just how clear the takeaway is, but I feel so empowered listening to him. I love sharing this with you. Again, you can find these YouTube episodes. Just Google Dr. Kennedy and Mel Robbins. You'll find them on our YouTube channel. We've linked to all three episodes that he has appeared in the resources below. Coming up, we have a whole casserole of big topics, and let's talk about diversity of things that we talked about this year together. We're going to go to narcissism, and then we're going to talk about clutter, and then we're going to talk about dreams. Stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. I'm so thrilled that you are here with me because I'm walking through the expert advice, in fact, eight pieces of expert advice from some of the most amazing people that appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast this year. I'm sharing them with you because these are not only the things that I put to use in my own life and I see a huge difference, but I know based on your comments and based on the popularity of these episodes that these are the pieces of advice that change your life too.

The fifth expert that changed my life this year is Dr. Romney. Now, I've known Dr. Romney for a long time, and she never ceases to amaze me. She appeared on the show several times, and she's one of the world's leading experts on narcissism. I have shared very openly that there is somebody in my life that I am not naming who absolutely struggles with narcissistic tendencies. We, of course, learned from our experts on the show that narcissists don't get diagnosed because they don't think that there's a problem with them. One huge insight that has profoundly changed my life is the medical fact that narcissists do not change. They cannot change, so do not expect them to. If you are in a clinical setting and you are working with a narcissist who is self-motivated to try to change, how much can they change?

I've worked with many clients like this. The best we can hope for is a little bit more accountability. They'll still have rage, but they might catch it and apologize a little bit more. They are still going to roll their eyes when they don't want to listen to someone, but they'll maybe do it less. They'll huff and puff when they're made to wait in the line at the airport, but they won't scream at the gate agent. You can get them to sprint through some stuff, but they're never going to be marathoners. They're still going to drop the ball a lot. I've worked with people who, once they learned what it meant to stop being this way, which meant empathy, listening to people, being present, holding space for them, being accountable for their bad behavior, not getting angry at people or sharing their feelings. I had one person say to me, This is what this is about. I said, Yeah. I He said, I want to break in therapy for a little while. In that period of time, he divorced his wife and broke up with his mistress. I said, Oh. He said, I don't want to hurt these people.

I really don't want to hurt people, but I can see they're getting hurt. You've clearly pointed that out and here that I am hurting them. We did a lot of what's called mentalization work, forcing the person to think about how do you think that other person feels. He said, I don't want to hurt them, but I don't want to listen to them. I'm not interested in their BS. I'm not interested in their feelings. I could do it for 10 minutes, but this hours thing? No. I want to live in my own place, and I don't miss sex. I found someone and I pay her every two weeks and she comes by, and I don't want her to come next to me.

Sounds like a real peach.

I wasn't mad at him.

His.

Ex-wife can now go and find is no longer chase. She may still wonder, Why.

Is I not enough? What did you do if you're the ex-wife? Because I think one of the other things that I've learned from you is that the damage that a narcissist does.

Understanding you are not to blame. It's almost like a person is going to be less frustrated about their car breaking down if they know how their car works. Now you're like, Oh, this mechanic is taking advantage of me. I'm like, No, you know how to change your own carbureator. I'm teaching you how to fix this thing. Got it. The fix is not in them, it's in you.

Dr. Ramani, you have really helped me because there were some major takeaways that I've learned from you. That narcissists are made during childhood. They're not necessarily born that way.

They're not. They're definitely not born.

That way. If it's truly somebody with a narcissistic personality, they don't even know they're doing it. It's not like it is a conscious behavior. It is so ingrained in how they behave that it's like a reaction to situations.

Correct. But this is an important flip I need to make on that because people say, Well, if they don't know, then I can't be mad at them, to which I say, Yes, you can. Multiple things can be true. Nobody. Nowhere is that more true than in a narcissistic relationship. This person had a tough childhood. Yep. This person invalidates me every day. Yep. We have kids together. Yep. They're not going to stop doing this. Yep. All those things can be true at the same time.

What is the most important truth for somebody that is listening right now who realizes, Oh, my God, I'm in a relationship with a narcissist. What is the most important truth that you want that person to start to think about and embrace?

This is not your fault. You're not responsible for somebody else's behavior. You're not. Well, they're reacting to me. No, they're reacting. There's other ways to react. They could calmly say to you, I don't like how you're talking to me, and I need a minute. I can teach them those things. I can go to therapy and learn that, but they feel entitled to their reactions. They feel entitled to their rage. This is how I react. This is who I am. That's the other thing you'll hear. Authentically, this is who I am.

I found that conversation to be so empowering. You know how sometimes somebody may have said something to you over and over again, but you're just ready to hear it. There's something about the way that Dr. Romney explains this that it just went, Click, this is not my fault. While we're on the topic, the sixth expert that really changed my life again, it was another expert that we had on narcissism. Her name was Rebecca Zung. You guys loved her. One of the reasons why she was so interesting is, unlike Dr. Romney, who is a clinical psychologist who is one of the world's leading specialists on the psychology of narcissism. Rebecca Zung is a lawyer, and she has studied narcissism from a completely different perspective, which is if I'm going into court as one of the top litigation attorneys in the United States and I'm up against a narcissist or, heaven forbid, my client's a narcissist, or heaven forbid my clients are narcissists. How is a lawyer? Do I negotiate and win? How is a lawyer? Do I go in with my eyes wide open, knowing who I'm dealing with, and I have a strategy? I loved this conversation because once Dr.

Romney taught me, Okay, a narcissist isn't made, they're born that way. Well, then Rebecca Zun walks in and she passes us the baton and is like, Here's your strategy, ladies and gentlemen. This is what you're going to do. What you love, because this is what I love the most about the Mel Robbins podcast and what we're trying to do here is how do we take this expert advice and turn it into tactics? Give me the scripts. Give me the tools. Yes, explain the science. Explain the research. Let me know that I can trust what you're telling me. Rebecca Zong, she showed up with phrases. These are the phrases that you are going to use whenever you are dealing with somebody who's narcissistic. You have these essential phrases that you coach people to use to disarm a narcissist and observe the tantrum, acknowledge it, but not let it hit you. Can you share a bunch of those phrases that you coach people to use?

You can say things like, I agree with you that we're not going to agree. I agree with you that that's your opinion. I agree with you is always a good one because they hear, I agree with you, but just make sure that you follow it up with, I agree that that's your opinion. If they're saying things like you're a terrible mother or whatever, you just make sure that I agree that that's your opinion. Your triggers are not my responsibility. You can always make sure to remove yourself from a situation where you're not being respected.

I love these phrases. Do you have any coaching for the fact that I think most people are afraid to say that because they're then going to invite narcissistic rage? What would you advise somebody to that is just starting to practice these boundaries and create boundaries and not run away from the situation?

If they feel like they are going to be in harm's way in some way, then they really may need to remove themselves from the same physical space. There's a saying that says, if you don't want to be a doormat anymore, get up off the floor. Train people. You condition people on how to treat you. I mean, it may sound harsh, but it is the absolute truth. And narcissists are the best ones for that. That's just the truth of the matter.

So if they don't change and somebody's either unwilling or too scared to leave right now, how can you truly negotiate with somebody like that?

Well, you can, because what I teach works.

Rebecca, I just have to say I love the swagger. You're referring to your slay method. Sla is a four-part framework that you follow in the courtroom and in life for dealing with, negotiating with, and winning against a narcissist. Can you explain what slay stands for?

Yeah, slay stands for strategy, leverage, anticipate, and you.

Awesome. Let's start with the first one, S. What does it stand for?

S stands for developing a super-strong strategy. The first part of that is creating a vision. If you're just trying to figure out what to do with them, if you're in a family situation, if you're just trying to figure out how to deal with them in life, if it's your neighbor, if it's your tenant, what is it that you want? So many times people are like, I just want them to stop or I just want peace. That's not a goal. You want to be specific about what you want.

Beautiful. L stands for leverage. What does that mean?

Leverage is where you're actually creating that motivation for the person to want to come to a resolution with you. There are times where you could potentially fluff for favor, vomit later. So where you're...

Fluff for favor, vomit later?

Yes. Where you fluff up their ego, give them something they want in order to get something you want.

I do this all the time with someone in my life, actually. I have really developed this strategy. I'm realizing, as you're talking to feed a particular person's ego that they are getting their way, that they are the most important person in the room. I do that as a manipulation strategy so that I can get what I want.

Exactly. Just as long as you know that you're only doing it in order to get what you want. But what you have to do is use your documentation. They are very irrational. As we talked about how many times their memory is faulty or whatever. But if you keep track, that's how you create your leverage in a negotiation. And you say, hey, you said this, you said this, you said this. I am going to present this in court. I call it ethically manipulating the manipulator. You can call it whatever you want. Many times, empaths are uncomfortable with that thing. You have to be on the offensive when you are dealing with a narcissist. It's not doing anything other than what works. If you want to come to a resolution and you want them to stop jerking you around and you want them to leave you alone, this is what you have to do because they're never going to leave you alone. They're never going to stop. So many people come to me and they say, Oh, we're still in court. It's five years later. They won't leave me alone. And I say, Well, then you haven't figured out what your leverage is yet.

So now.

That we understand the strategy and the leverage, A comes next. And you say, Rebecca, you and I got to be able to be two steps ahead always. You got to anticipate. Can you teach us what you mean by that?

A is where you can actually figure out the type of narcissists that you're dealing with because they will all act a little differently in negotiations. A covert narcissist is much more likely to pretend like they're the nice one, and I'm the victim, and.

Oh.

Poor me, and all of that. Covert narcissists are going to be the first one if somebody has cancer to show up with the basket and be right at their side in the hospital and that thing, but smearing everybody on the side. You just have to be careful of who you're dealing with. And then the anticipation is that knowing that they're going to try to bait you, I always say they go fishing, they go, and then they reel you in like this. And then once they have you, you're in the mud and you're down there.

That makes a lot of sense. So what's the final part of the four-part slay framework?

The why, which is you standing in your authentic power, you on the offensive, and then also your mindset because 100 % of winning is your mindset. And if you don't believe you can win, nobody can help you. Once you get on the other side of it and you stand up to them and you grab that power, the freedom that you feel, the feeling that you feel is actually beyond better than anything else. That's the beautiful thing. Don't give away your agency. Don't give away your power. You and you alone define your value. You can win.

I will tell you something. Over the holidays, I used Rebecca's advice. I went in with my eyes wide open. I anticipated what was going to happen. I knew exactly what I needed to do, and I didn't take the debate. So I'm proud of myself, and I'm going to be very proud of you when you take Rebecca Zung's advice and you start using these tools and strategies with the difficult people and personalities in your life. It's so helpful. The seventh piece of advice and expert that changed my life this year was Dana K. White. One of the things that I loved about Dana K. White is that she just made you realize you're not alone in your struggles. If that's one big takeaway from this year over and over and over again, you're not alone. One thing that I have struggled with profoundly, and I still do from time to time, is clutter. I put this almost in the same epiphany bucket as laundry. I used to struggle with laundry because I was looking at it the wrong way. Laundry, I thought, was something that had to be done, had to be perfect. But as we now know, no, it's a cycle.

Well, thanks to best-selling author and organization expert, Dana K. White. I have changed the way I see clutter. Dana K. White is going to set the record straight, everybody, because there's a big difference apparently between organizing, which is what I was doing, and decluttering, which is what you all need to do. What is the difference between decluttering and organizing?

In my mind, organizing was bins and boxes and systems and all these things that I would look at those images on Instagram of.

The.

Color-coded things and all that. You look at that and you think that's it. I need the colors. So you bring the colors in, and then you're trying to fit all the stuff in there.

I'm laughing because I thought the solution to my bathroom sink problem was to go to Walmart or Target and buy a bunch of bins to put all the stuff that's on my counter in. Why doesn't it work for me to go buy a bunch of containers for this stuff? Everyone has a clutter threshold.

It's.

The amount of.

Stuff that you personally can keep under control.

It's the.

Reason why you and your friend can go shopping together by.

The exact same things. She puts it in.

Her house.

It looks like a magazine.

You put it in your house. It looks like a thrift store.

That difference between.

She can handle this stuff.

I brought all this stuff into my house because I wanted it.

I.

Saw potential in it. Out, except that I was bringing it into my house and I couldn't handle it.

It was not possible for me to keep my house under control with the amount of stuff that I had in my house. Wow. It's not esthetics. Now I'm talking about what can you handle? What's easy for you to keep under control? If the space is continually getting out of control, get rid.

Of more stuff.

Oh, it's still.

Getting out of control? Get rid of more stuff. Until you realize at some point, this is what happened to me as I was like, Wait a minute, I can do this.

I can keep this under control.

That's where I realized there's this point, this level of stuff that I can handle.

You are a genius. How do you know what your clutter threshold is? I hate to tell you this, but.

There is literally no way to know other than to de-clutter. You can just know if my house feels overwhelming, I'm over my clutter threshold.

If my house is consistently getting out of.

Control and I feel bewildered by that.

Then I'm over my clutter threshold. The only way to find your clutter.

Threshold is to de-clutter.

Let me just say the.

Less stuff you have, the less stuff that can pile, right? Yep. She's right. Don't you love those moments where somebody just cuts through the baloney and you're like, you know what? You're right. I am also going to admit something to you. This has changed my life so much because it's something that you can do every day. You can look around your closet like I did this morning. I'm literally standing in my closet this morning, and you know what I thought? I have too much stuff. This closet is a container. It's supposed to contain everything. Ironically, here I am with my little laundry basket. I bring it down this morning, and I put it down on the floor of my closet, and I look around, I'm like, You have too much stuff, Mel. You got to declutter again. Don't make a pile. We're going to start the process. I am putting this stuff to use, no joke, in my life every single day. Here's what I also think is important to say. It's not going to make you perfect. It makes you feel empowered. Because when you start to realize, Oh, there I am. I've got more stuff again.

You can use the process over and over and over again. So getting rid of things, tidying up is a lifestyle, it is not only changing my life, it has become a way of life. All right. And finally, number eight, the expert that changed our lives this year, Jamie Kerne Lima. My friend Jamie Kerne Lima, who you heard her incredible story of going from a Denny's waitress who struggled with Rosacea to creating her own foundation, skin, makeup line, and turning it into a billion-dollar company calledcalled IT Cosmetics that she sold to L'Oréal. It was such an extraordinary story. At the heart of the story is learning that you need to believe it. Believe in your dreams. Believe in yourself. I'll tell you, based on the popularity of this episode and the sections that you guys watched over and over and over on our YouTube channel, this particular moment really stood out for you. Let's go to that moment, Jamie. You're three years in. Yeah. You've burned through the money. Yes. You have been told no by everybody. And even though you have leveraged all of the steps that were ordered along the way and an amazing, Danny's Waytrust.

You can talk to anybody. You can hustle. You can figure it out. You have nothing but closed doors in front of you and a ton of product and no money. Yes. Why did you not give up?

So two big things happened. The first was in the form of a crazy painful rejection. So we got a call from a big potential investor and very famous for launching all these unknown brands and making them big products we all buy in grocery stores. And they gotten a hold of our product. And I thought, Oh, if they invest in A, I'm not going to go bankrupt, B, we can leverage their clout to get in these stores that keep telling me no. I had this whole scenario planned out that was like this pretty woman moment, right? Where I was like, Oh, he's going to save the day. And so we started taking meeting after meeting, and it got down to the final meeting with this huge investment firm. And it was in person. And the head guy was about three feet from me, and his whole team was there who was awesome. I just presented our whole future product pipeline. And he says, You should be so proud of this product you've created. It's really good, but it's a no we're going to pass on investing in it, cosmetics. And I was like, okay, can you tell me why?

Because I'm so used to hearing no, even though really I was devastated.

Well, yeah, because they just led you on and you just went through it. And this was supposed to be the meeting where they're like.

Let's do this. And I was so hopeful and I was so desperate. He got very quiet and he says to me, Do you want me to be really honest with you? I said, Yes, please. He got really quiet and he's like three feet from me in person and he says, I just don't think women will buy makeup from someone who looks like you with your body and your weight. This is why it was such a big moment for me. When he said that to me, first of all, a lifetime of body doubt and self-doubt. I remember flooding my body all at once. When I looked at him, I actually felt no anger toward him. I felt like I was almost staring my own fear straight in the eye. But when he said those words to me, Mel, and this is when we talk about purpose and intuition, I felt this feeling in my gut, I can remember it like it was yesterday, this strong feelingthat said he's wrong. I didn't know how I was going to prove it, but I felt that feeling. And what I realized later, when I look back at that moment, this guy, this dude gave me a no, but God gave me a knowing in that moment.

In that moment, in that moment, and I believe every one of us has had someone tell us we're not the right fit or no, or you don't have what it takes.

That right there is the billion dollar piece of advice. In life, you can either listen to the no or you can listen to the knowing. The knowing is something deep within your heart. It's a moment of courage. And I also know that that moment where she was... I was told no in a really insulting way by that investor, that fired you up? You were mad. You were like, He did not have to say that like that. I read your comments. Well, that's why you loved how the story ended, because that wasn't the last time that she met with that investor. In fact, I always believe that if you just put your head down, you trust in the knowing, you keep chipping away at it, eventually everything turns out exactly how it's supposed to. Check this out. So have you ever seen that investor since?

I have not seen him. The day that.

We- Of course, I asked the petty question. I'm like, Have you ever seen him to twist the little.

Knife in there? I heard from him one time, ever again, and it was six years later, the day that L'Oréal announced the deal. So because they're a public company, they announced that they had acquired a cosmetic, made me the first woman to hold the CEO title of a brand in their 107 year history.

You were the trailblazer there, too.

So all of a sudden, it was a homepage of Wall Street Journal, the press everywhere. And that was the first time and only time since that I heard from that potential investor.

And what did.

He say? He said, Congratulations on the L'Oréal deal. I was wrong, is what he said, and wished me the best.

Of luck. That's a big deal to admit you're wrong.

It is. I wanted to say to him, I could give you 1.2 billion reasons why it was a huge mistake, but I didn't. I wouldn't have wanted to be him in that situation. We probably would have been one of the most successful investments in his firm's history. Listen, it wasn't... I always say, Rejection is God's protection.

I love that. Rejection is protection because it redirects you away from what's not meant for you. I just love that story. I love Jamie Curn, Lima. And you know what else? I love you. Thank you for tuning in, for sharing, for the hours you spent listening, for the number of times you talked about this podcast, or you told other people about it, or you shared something that you learned. You have made our little weekly conversations the number five most followed podcast of the year. I am so humbled to be your friend, and I am so honored to be able to talk to you twice a week every week and do this thing called life together. You want to know what? You and I are just getting started. Tell me what your favorite thing was. Tell me what topics you want us to cover in the year ahead, tell me how these eight pieces of expert advice are changing your life. And in case no one else tells you, let me be the one to tell you I love you. I really, really love you. That's why I show up. That's why I work so hard on this.

That's why we are here every Monday and every Thursday. I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. All righty, I'll talk to you in a few days. Is this on? Oh, good. Because instead of bloopers, I want to give you a gift. What's the gift? It's a free workbook that will help make this year one of the best years of your life. This workbook is something I designed using the latest research to help you get clear about what you want and to empower you to take the next step forward in your life. And the cool part? You can get your hands on this, Poppy, in less than a minute. Just go to melrobin. Com/bestyear. That's mellovin. Com/bestyear. Let your friend Mel guide you step by step through creating your best year yet. Why wouldn't you take this opportunity? It's free, it's quick to download, and it's ready for you right now. And as your friend, I got to tell you, you deserve to have the best year of your life, especially after everything you've been through. Here it is. I'm offering to help you.

Why wouldn't you take it? Sign up at mellovin. Com/bestyear and do not miss out on the life you could be living this year. Oh, and one more thing. This is the legal language, you know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Stitcher.