3 Steps To Understanding Your Childhood TRIGGERS And How To Repair Them | The Mel Robbins Podcast

okay Dr Becky here we are this conversation is required listening whether you have children or not because this is not a parenting conversation if you're listening to this you have been a child our triggers our stories from our past everybody did you hear that is it normal to not remember what your parents did when you were like emotional your mind doesn't remember your body is acting out that memory every time your kid has a tantrum wait what hey it's Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast today we have one of those episodes that I would label required listening what you're going to learn in today's episode after you meet the expert that I'm going to talk to wow it's going to make you a better person because you're going to get tools that will help you repair the kind of crap that went down in your childhood that you don't even realize is impacting you as an adult who do I have on the show today none other than Dr Becky Kennedy Dr Becky Kennedy is the brand new number one New York Times best-selling author of good inside she says no matter what's going on your life there is good inside of you and today we are going to give you the tools and the simple scripts to help you access it Dr Becky is a clinical psychologist with a PhD from Columbia she is blowing up online she was deemed the millennial parenting whisper by Time Magazine and here's the thing this is not a conversation about parenting this is a conversation for everybody because even if you're not a parent right now you are wants a child and you're about to learn how things that you don't even remember are impacting you as an adult and keeping you stuck and unhappy well today on the Mel Robbins podcast we're gonna fix that with tools and advice that you need to create a better life let's get into it Dr Becky here we are here we are congratulations thank you wow how you feeling I feel really energized I really do I love these ideas I love hearing people's stories and on the book tour I've gotten to talk about ideas and hear people's stories so it's been pretty fantastic amazing so I uh devour your content online and I know that you're a parenting expert but every single post I get something as an adult and there are two things that I get from every post that you have one is that I uh C reasons why I feel the way that I feel as an adult because you're talking about experiences that children have um and then I also go oh my God I'm clearly [ __ ] up my children right now or and it's too late because they're 23 22 and 17. well I'm I want to jump in on that second point so my my biggest hope is that people yes see good inside kind of yeah as a initiation into a mode of parenting that is as much about self-development as it is about child development and my second hope is that they see it as empowering not uh anxiety inducing like I messed up my kids so we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna fix number two and get you get you back to the empowering Place fantastic so I want to go to a particular part of your uh your number one New York Times best-selling book good inside page one you talk about how when you're in your Clinical Psychology PhD program at Columbia you were doing play therapy with kids but you were also counseling adult clients and I read this sentence where you wrote I became fascinated by an undeniable connection with the adults it was so clear where in childhood things went awry where a child's needs weren't met or behaviors were a cry for help that was never answered and what I want to focus on with you today is how we can learn more about ourselves now that we're adults based on what you have come to understand as a clinical psychologist that is giving parenting advice to millions and millions of people around the world well thank you for that and yeah it was this really interesting set of years and it continued after my PhD program in my practice where I'd see kids and then I'd see adults and in the adults the work really you know I think is rewiring work so everyone came to my practice saying different things they struggled with anxiety or they were reactive or they felt bad about themselves they had imposter syndrome they were depressed whatever the problem was was different but I actually think everyone's core struggle was the same what is it which is that I learned to adapt in my early years so I could Thrive as much as possible in my earliest environment and I created wiring that allowed me to do that and that was incredibly crafty and important and yet the things that I wired early that were adaptive back then are now the things that are holding me back but it's really hard to shift patterns that were put in place to protect me so I'm stuck and can you help nope no one said that but I think that's what actually what everyone's story said now when you say Early Childhood years yes what age are you talking about so what and this is where as parents or non-parents listening we can all take a deep breath and just remember a truth that I think is a really important double truth the body the brain wires early and it is never too late to rewire so they're equally true okay so hold on everybody I wanna I wanna stop and say something really important this conversation is required listening whether you have children or not because this is not a parenting conversation if you're listening to this you have been a child and you were raised by somebody else who was once a child and what Dr Becky is going to reveal today and is going to also give you tools that are going to empower you on this repair and this rewiring is first we're going to talk about how your experience as a child maybe even before you have actual memories that relate to this that your experience as a child has shaped who you are as an adult and in areas of your life where you feel out of control or you feel stuck you are likely stuck in some wiring from your childhood is that right a hundred percent so if we jump into the specifics there so what I I'd ask everyone first to consider something that is both so obvious but I always find it very powerful your body today is the exact same body you were born with wait what right like your body my body has lived all of my experiences from the time I was a baby right we never get a new body and so my experiences because don't you because I like have heard all this stuff like your cells regenerate every seven years and you know I've grown obviously from a blob that laid around when I was an infant to now a five foot eight 54 year old adult so what do you mean when you say your body right now is the same body that you have when you were born I think yes a lot of things have changed our house like it's it's our house we live in it and so the things that happened when we were three months when we were nine months when we were three things that you just said Mel it's true we don't remember when we use a very limited definition of memory and I always find this interesting we have a very limited understanding colloquially of memory that it's the things that I can tell someone happened to me but the only things we can ever tell someone happened to me are the things that other people help me form a coherent story about and so that's actually a pretty limited amount of memory given that the hardest things in our childhood were probably the things we were left alone with and nobody helped us understand and we didn't even understand exactly we didn't understand because we need adults When We're Young to make meaning out of all of our confusing experiences that our body registers can I give you a specific example that you might be able to help us unpack yeah as context for what you're talking about so just last night I was at LAX and we were going to fly to New York City right and so we are sitting in the Delta Club Lounge whatever if you have an American Express card they're not sponsoring the show right now but you know that's why I was in there and I went up to the concierge lady to ask about the flight status and a woman came running up and she worked at the Delta club and she was shaking and she said there is somebody screaming at a baby in the in the bathroom she's screaming at the baby and the baby is so little and I immediately tensed up and the woman at the desk started to dismiss her well is is the baby okay I don't know but you shouldn't talk to a baby like that why do you scream at a baby like just the woman was in such distress over what she had heard from the tone of the mom screaming to the to the like why would you be screaming at a nine month old so loud it's coming through a bathroom door and then she turned and the mom kind of rushed back out to where her partner was and handed her partner to the baby and was handed a baby to the partner and was all flustered and can you in that moment explain what was probably getting absorbed by the baby by the baby's mother by the woman who heard it by me hearing it that one moment was so triggering for me and clearly that other woman but explain all of that as it relates to memory and as it relates to experience and as it relates to kind of how we get re-triggered yes okay so I should first say the body doesn't only kind of wire develop circuitry from one experience but let's just say for the sake of this example that this baby and mother this was one of many times when the baby is distressed the mother struggles to tolerate that distress and ends up adding their own distress and dysregulation um rather than a soothing element so I'm just going to make that assumption just for the sake of this discussion so here's what's happening in a baby's body their emotional world inside is on fire something is very upsetting and with a nine month old you don't know what it is maybe their diaper is dirty maybe they're hungry maybe they have some tag maybe it's they're noticing unfamiliar surroundings they don't know how to express it except for in this total cry and dysregulation so the baby's body registers I am very overwhelmed and upset right now I always think of like a marble run that's like the first part of the marble run and then how a baby's body ends up getting wired what happens next is a baby will encode how their caregivers responded to them in that moment so what first comes distress so their body learns okay I get distressed as we all know guess what we all get distressed that just happens after distress comes more distress and anger and threat to attachment and fear so now a baby wires fear and additional dysregulation next to their dysregulation and again let's say this was part of a larger pattern and babies yes they pick up on kind of the message my parent is as scared of my overwhelm state as I am when I get overwhelmed I push people away when I get overwhelmed I overwhelm other people when I get overwhelmed my closest relationships actually become threatened right so if we fast forward and again this is not one time many times right here's what doesn't happen uh 30 year old doesn't say I'm upset and wow I did get yelled at a couple times when I was a baby in the Delta Lounge but that was then and this is now and I have a feeling my partner will respond differently so I'm just going to go to them and say I'm upset no because again that was never even explained to them there's no coherence it's just a body's memory of when I get upset I actually develop a warning sign oh you better put that away oh you're going to threaten other people's attachment this is going to make it worse it's going to be a tornado it's going to be an abyss and then maybe even have a partner who's like you seem like you're having an upsetting day and they're like no no no no all good all good and then probably as we know I acted out in some other way I pull away or I drink alcohol or I do different things because what I've learned is I can't connect to other people with my distress I don't expect the people who are close to me to help me get soothing so I better figure out what I can do now to shut down this experience to preserve feeling safe in the world wow how that I mean I there's so much to unpack here because you don't even remember experiences probably five and under right and this is I think this is one of the most empowering things to think about we don't remember with our words and our stories but we remember with our body so like here I always think about this couple they saw me Wild on my private practice and it was the dad who actually saw you know kind of this parent coaching work and he said whenever my kid is a tantrum like I know the things I know it's normal I know they have the feelings they don't have the skills I have to teach them the skills it's not the feelings that are the problem it's the lack of skills I know the whole thing but when my kid has a tantrum that knowledge is just out the door and I I yell I say awful things I say things I promise myself I would never say as a parent and so one of the things I like to do when I'm working with parents is we can't just say okay try this because you can only try a strategy if your body is in a grounded place to be able to access that strategy is that why it's easy to talk about tools and therapy but when you get into the situation where your kids are driving you crazy you start screaming and you forget the stress strategies yeah it's why so many parenting approaches I think kind of set parents up to feel bad because they're like try this try this that's great and I always think if we learn those strategies they kind of live behind a door but if we aren't doing the work on ourselves to be able to be in the place to open that door then they're just locked behind the door because we're triggered right so this Dad I remember saying to him tell me a little bit how your parents responded to your tantrums and your big emotions as a kid and he's like I have no idea I I I have no memory of that and I found this interesting because what I said to him I go I know how your parents responded it's interesting you say you have no memory your mind doesn't remember your body is acting out that memory every time your kid has a tantrum your body the way it reacts to so harshly shut down my kid's tantrum he's like what's wrong with you you're crazy you're making a big deal out of nothing you're being ridiculous why don't you act like your sister like he'd say all these things and he's like I don't know how people responded to my big emotions Dr Becky I was just sitting here thinking I don't know how they responded our triggers our stories from our past everybody did you hear that I'm going to say it again are triggers our stories from our past acting themselves out in our present and this is why when people say what about all the types of therapy that like don't really care about the past or why do we have to talk about our past I'm a pure pragmatist at heart we have to talk about the past to understand it so it doesn't take over the driver's seat in our present life that stinks when your past lives itself out can I ask another question because because I have heard a bazillion times and I talk about it I've studied it about how the body keeps the score the body remembers you feel things before your thoughts can explain them but the way that you just talked about memory something clicked and the fact that my lived experience is also that I don't remember and I also have this hyper Drive Dr Becky to go oh it was great yeah I don't remember anybody yelling at me I don't remember like anything like that at all and yet the thing that I hate about myself as a parent is that when I get frustrated I vomit on my kids I just snap and their moments of high stress cause me to be like right at them and then I quickly apologize I quickly I'm like I'm sorry it's a bad it's not an excuse that I'm stressed out right now yeah but is it normal to not remember what your parents did when you were like emotional a hundred percent so it's normal to not remember in this one version of memory that we all kind of accept as the whole truth right so going back to our bodies so a kid gets yelled at they're three they get yelled at like we all know like by the way I owe my kids too and I'm gonna yell my kids later today like we all do it right I'm stressed it's not them we don't respond to our kids we respond to the circuit and our own body that gets activated when we witness things in our kids okay everybody I want you to hear that you're not responding to your kids or your dog or your colleagues or your spouse you're responding to something in your body that gets activated in that situation exactly so my kids let's say with this dad he's like this kid is having a tantrum right an example was like a classic four-year-old tantrum um you know I cut the grilled cheese in half instead of leaving it whole or I cut it in half as triangles instead of dare you know how dare you you horrible parent right and and by the way for the kid that's also a trigger moment for them they obviously were filled up with frustration and that was just the spillover point but I see this thing in my kit then my body does this inside what do I know about overwhelming kind of extreme displays of emotion and my body kind of scans at circuits and if I've learned in my own past oh no no no no that is so dangerous that would get you sent to your room which is fear of Abandonment that would get you called a spoiled brat that would get you those and I know this from doing it as a parent that would get you those dark eyes that just say everything we need to say as a mind's a tone shift right they're like you are a horrible person right which kids are like oh no this is literally dangerous kids need us to survive they need us to get food shelter and water so they pick up on What feelings and parts of them are allowed and What feelings and parts of them are threatening and they adjust accordingly so if I had to learn in my childhood oh yeah those big displays of emotion even if I don't remember with my you know language yeah that would never have been allowed then my body scans itself when I have a tantrum that I'm witnessing for my kid and then here's actually the most I really think the most compassionate and game-changing part it's not okay that I yell at my kid definitely not and yet my body is essentially saying oh I'm trying to help my kid I'm like no shut that down that is so dangerous now I'm still living in 1975 when it was dangerous for me right but my body is actually trying to help the situation so let me see if I can understand that so if you are an adult now and your child is upset that you did not cut it uh the sandwich into fours in triangles which I completely understand we were sort of the like sticks with no crust at our house how dare you do anything else and your child starts to get overwhelmed and stressed it then triggers the stored experience for you so you are still in your 1976 body yeah are you now just repeating what you saw the adults do in a way so I'm extremely inspired by internal family systems and Dick Schwartz way of understanding the mind and our body and what he really explains so well is when we have an experience as a kid and many not one where we essentially learn this part of me the part that gets overwhelmed and doesn't yet have the skills to manage those overwhelmed feelings so they just explode out as a volcano if that part is really what I would say is non-conducive with attachment I don't get it's not like I need my parent to say tantrum away but I don't get presents I don't get compassion I just get yelled at I need to develop okay and stay with me here a different part of myself that shuts down that part so I literally develop a different part it's like Becky you ungrateful kid you are too much stop doing this and that's actually called an ifs language a protector part it sounds mean but I think we all understand like it's function early on is to protect me yeah because at least if I do that to myself and I will shame myself at least then I don't get the wrath of my parent or I don't get sent to my room I don't get hit or I don't get this awful punishment right so it's helping me adapt and so it's helping me shut down a part of you a part of me now fast forward to 2022. what a trigger really is and by the way not only with our kids with a partner with anyone at work is I think we see a part of someone that we had to learn to shut down harshly Yeah in our self and then that protector part in US it really does it comes to like the CEO C of the board table it's like I got this guys like I got this right and then our kid or our co-worker they kind of become like a pawn in our game we we act out on them what we had to learn to act on ourselves right and and the most empowering shift okay is we often when things trigger us we look to shut down someone else and kind of make them more like us I would never have this explosive emotion or I would never you know with like a wine why is whining so triggering to me it just represents like helplessness and I grew up in a pull up your bootstraps family and I would never be a puddle of girl panties is my family yeah exactly then if you really want to work on your triggers the question we have to ask ourselves is not how can I make this person like me but what am I seeing in someone else that I need to be inspired by that I need to actually grow that part in myself so let's take let's walk through some triggers so let's take you were talking about whining yep which is a cry for help so what is the part so when you go so what is the exercise we go through for ourselves as adults to let these moments that are triggering us yep become a moment to repair things or rewire things or what word would you use great both of those right so because the truth is with our trigger moments we often think yeah I have to repair with my kid I don't like that I yelled at them but what you're on too much is so true is first we have to repair with ourselves yes we have to do both right so probably my most popular Workshop I do shockingly is called my triggers Workshop so it's it's 75 minutes with like a whole step-by-step process but I can get into some of it here so the first step is in a calm moment kind of asking ourselves a version of what is my most generous interpretation of this trigger event in someone else we always come up with the least generous interpretation with the trigger my kid's pathetic my kid's so helpless my kid's so annoying with whining right it's easy to come up what about anxiety because that's a big trigger for me like my daughter's my son not so much anymore but our one of our daughters in particular is little Mel and there is intense coming at me I am Tech like 15 texts in a row when she's nervous about something and then the second I answer the question it's well you're not right and then hang up yep and that is deeply triggering to you yes so is it the text that are triggering is it the you're not helping me that's triggering which is the worst part or the whole Arc the whole article that is so like on it's just like this I feel like a punching bag almost so I guess the question I would ask myself there is like okay so what's my most generous interpretation of what my daughter is doing just so I can start to see my kid as a teammate so we can be against this pattern together that doesn't work for either of us instead of me looking at my child like they are the enemy and they are the problem so I think for example you might say what just got me yeah is the word enemy like I feel like there was an experience as a kid that if I did something that upset my mom I was the enemy yes yes and I think that's for so many of our trigger moments actually we can be when you ask yourself what's the most generous interpretation of someone's Behavior I think this is the big framework shift that I think is the most important in any relationship or there's conflict is we go from sitting across from someone and looking at them like they're the problem just sitting on the same side as the table as someone and looking together at the problem so I always think about that or I try to like am I looking at my kid like they're the problem or can I reframe what's happening so I feel like it's me and my kid against a problem so can we be together against helpless whining versus am I looking at my kid like a helpless annoying kid who's just bothering me can I look at my kid like wow something important is happening with anxiety and It's tricky to figure out It's Tricky for us to figure out something that's going to be helpful versus does my kid come and vomit her anxiety and then reject me and that's just annoying I promise as long as we're in that second mindset nothing's going to be useful just because like we don't like our kid when we think about them that way so right well I love the reframe of bring them to your side of the table what do you do if you're a kid that grew up with somebody who was wildly controlling what she wore how you dress go hug your uncle know you're doing sports how do you hand like if you're now the adult who was that kid yes because what I want to focus on are kind of the the the top experiences that you experience as a child right so one would be overly sensitive like I was overly worried overly needy over like like I was just a super sensitive kid okay and when you're a super sensitive kid that feels separate and unsafe emotionally yeah and you uh don't get those needs met it develops into a certain type of adult when you are a kid that is controlled by a parent you develop into certain types of patterns as adult when you have a parent that is uh emotionally abusive either weeks of the silent treatment or struggling with their own mental illness or they're not there for long periods of time that develop certain coping mechanisms as a kid and what I love about what you're saying is so many of us have experiences inside our emotional uh life of being separate yes and what I would love to hear you help us with is as you're starting to realize is you know we listen to you and dig into your work Dr Becky that this is very very normal and it's also a huge opportunity for you to take control of your adult life and your adult experience which then completely changes how you parent and how you love another adult and how you show up at work like I'm sitting here thinking one of the biggest things that a lot of women write into me about in the work landscape is just feeling terrified about speaking up yep and that's directly tied to you being shut down as a kid I mean a hundred percent now this is my favorite topic to talk about is especially for women our relationship with desire all Tantrums are and meltdowns are explosions of desire that's what they are you want something badly and your parents you know and something gets in the way of having it I wanted my grilled cheese cut in a way and what we so often do as a parent is we shut it down we're like you're being ridiculous but what a kid learns is my desire is unsafe my desire and I actually think about this a lot with I have two boys and one daughter I think about all of them but I think about it a lot with my daughter how can I help her learn regulation skills while preserving access to desire and I think that yeah desire in terms of asking for a raise desire in terms of sex desire in terms of am I allowed to want things for myself right that's what I think all of us adults are trying to like reclaim right right am I allowed to want things even when it makes someone else upset is another right and most of us me too early on learned to quote be a good girl which just means I have learned that I had to for my survival to be adaptive pay more attention to what others wanted of me than what I might want for myself so what's the process of reclaiming that can I ask one more question before we go into reclaiming because this is a huge yes area because we're now also stepping into people pleasing and stepping into perfectionism all of it and stepping into overthinking and questioning yourself and the inability to take risks and this is particularly true for women and this fear of being seen and I see exactly what you're saying that it is tied to a deep seated belief that you don't deserve to be seen or that you're the stuff that you want doesn't matter well because you're you learned early on that whenever you were most in contact with your want with your desires it endangered your relationships can you give us just a couple examples that really bring it home for people that are like wait what do you do so here's a great example because I also think we do this like black and white thing we're like oh so I just thought my kid have the Tantrum like we give ourselves buckets so let's say you're in the toy store it's your kid I think it's a perfect example and you're like we're just going to the store to get a birthday present for your cousin okay yeah something like that and you're like okay this is going to go well and then of course it doesn't go well your kid doesn't meltdown because they want the Lego set and you don't you don't want to get it for them it wasn't your plan so when we say to our kid what is wrong with you like I told you we're here for your cousin can you ever focus on someone else my kid doesn't learn anything except wanting things for myself is bad and wrong period now the opposite isn't good either oh okay I mean I guess we'll get you that Lego set and that's okay I mean if you want to get the Lego set for your kid obviously get the Lego set but if your plan wasn't to get it and you didn't want to get it actually that's another tricky message for your kid a kid learns my wants and needs are so overpowering to me but wow they just made my sturdy leader become not so sturdy and change their mind that's actually also dangerous here's where that in between is oh it's so hard to be in a toy store and see all these fun things and not get anything of course you want that Lego it's normal to want things it's actually awesome that you know what you want you know you want this Lego here's the thing I can take a picture of it there will be a time whether it's Christmas or Hanukkah your birthday that something's coming up we're not going to get it today sweetie it's just not one of those days where we're gonna buy you an extra thing I know that's so hard and so what my kid learns there is my parents sees the want under the Meltdown I didn't become a bad kid I became a kid who's a good kid who wants something for myself and that's just a hard thing to want something and not have it I'm preserving access to my desire while I still have a very boundaried sturdy leader how do you as an adult reclaim that access to desire and repair this I think starting I think for anything we're trying to shift it's actually hugely helpful to our circuits to our body to just start with like the things that I struggle with today they were all adaptations that's why that's actually why I don't like diagnosis as a psychologist is why I don't love the word symptoms I think it's like kind of this cruel thing we do to people that were like yeah wow you were really crafty as a kid and learn to adapt and now we're gonna smack a label that like is pretty mean on you like what's wrong with you right you know and I do feel like there's something in our body that's like hey can you recognize like everything I did for you you know like okay maybe I don't work for you anymore but like I need some credit right it's like anything else in life right you have to say to an employee at your table like that's a great idea we're going to hold that for next quarter right and if you only say to them no no no they they just get louder and louder they want to be seen too they don't necessarily or they shut down or they shut down and it comes out in another way right so I think actually there's something to saying there's not something there's so much to saying I have a phrase I always use for myself thank you for your years of service I I think you know when I'm struggling with something so if someone's now like yeah I have this time and I'm trying to like do stuff for myself and figure out what I want and all that happens is I have a panic attack it's so hard to know what I want just to put your hand on your heart and and even say to that feeling like this must have been adaptive early on to actually not know what I want and it's frustrating for me now and still like I appreciate the way that you help keep me safe for probably 18 years like that was really meaningful and then I could continue I'm going to try little experiments here and there you're going to resist you're going to tell me I'm being selfish you're going to tell me this is stupid you're going to tell me I'm not good at things that's okay that's your role but now that I know that like I'm gonna show you over time that that we're safer now to try different things like and if someone's listening being like do you actually mean I should say that to myself like I literally mean you should actually put your hand on your heart and say those words inside your head or actually just say them out loud and if you start tearing that would be completely normal or if you're tearing now completely normal and I I often think these tiers we have there are like tears of relief from yeah like an inner child enough that that's been waiting to hear a certain message right we have to honor the things that hold us back in the way that they used to help us before those things are willing to a little bit release themselves how do you how do you start to figure this out do you start with the triggers like wherever you feel that alarm or that sort of discomfort in your body yeah I think that's a great place to start especially if you have a visceral reaction right because often what we do after we have a trigger is we blame ourselves I'm a horrible person or if it's I messed up my kids forever I'm an awful person I'm a monster so what we do is we actually repeat the pattern that got us there we add aloneness and self-alienation and self-blame and that's actually the experience of Shame Shame used to be an Adaptive emotion when we were kids shame stops us in our tracks from being in a part of ourselves that would have been met with distance yeah so it's trying to help us out but shame really does it it's a freeze state so every time now we add on shame and blame we add a frozen-ness and most people I know want to change or like yeah change isn't conducive with freeze it's conducive with movement you have to so it's interesting people say especially after you yell at your kids or something like oh but I feel like if I treat myself with Compassion or something I'm like letting myself off the hook if you want to let yourself off the hook for change shame and blame yourself because that will make it impossible to change impossible well it's interesting what you're saying about the fact that when you pile on after you've been triggered and you make yourself wrong for having this stored memorized adaptive reaction whether it's to withdraw or to yell or to blame or whatever that when you said the piece about you're alone yes yes I think this also contributes to why so many of us feel lonely and feel separate the older we get that we have spent so long um and it sounds like almost from childhood adapting to situations that we didn't quite understand and then we continue to do it and continue to do it and continue to do it and so you feel like just isolated you know with yourself but all we really want is love like I know that your whole premise is we are all good inside I believe the same is true I always say first of all anybody is capable of changing and second just assume good intent before you freaking pile on something just assume good intent easier said than done and about yourself assume good intent right that's probably the piece I missed that's hard like I didn't want to yell at my kid I didn't want to yell at my daughter like nobody I don't know any parent who's like you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna eviscerate my child like no one wants to do that and and then it doesn't make it quote okay that you did it but I always think we just asked the wrong questions you're like so it's okay it's like no it's not okay or not okay it happened now we just have a choice of if we want to be effective and change period it's not about evaluating it it's okay or not okay the thing already happened like is it okay that a car crashed no one would say that you're like well the car crashed okay now what right and yeah I think assuming positive intent about ourselves actually leaves us on the hook for change because we can see we're a good person who did not a good thing and then we actually have the energy to be curious right and I think that's where we change when we're curious okay so I yelled at my kid okay something happened my kid complained about the dinner I made but I think a question we often have to ask ourselves about a trigger is not where did the pathway end in a trigger but where did that pathway start right like do I have any time to myselves where do I practice meeting my own needs do I need more help at dinner time right that I can't wait till I get to the point well let's just take this because we're getting close to you needing to blaze to go teach everybody about Mom rage um so let's just take this specific example and break down the tools great because I want everyone listening to be able to walk out of this not only empowered around what these emotional triggers are trying to teach you but to also have a couple concrete steps to take today yep so that they can start to do the repair because I agree with you that if you start to repair yourself if you start to become whole that is going to be the best way to improve your marriage to improve the way that you impact the team at work to improve your relationship with your kids to improve everything everything so you're at dinner yep you're cooking dinner and describe a situation and then tell us what we should do great so you're cooking dinner you put it on the table you've probably had a really stressful day managing a million different things and then you put dinner on the table and your kid says you know oh chicken again I hate chicken oh you know and you just go off you know like you're someone grateful and why don't you cook dinner why don't you cook dinner exactly you just go off okay so what can we do okay so number one I want everyone to actually form a sentence that starts like this I am a good parent who and here's why that sentence is so important what we all do to ourselves and our kids is we collapse Behavior into identity I did a bad thing because I'm a bad person right my kid did a bad thing means I have a bad kid and then we can't tolerate the thought that we have a bad kid because it makes us feel like a bad parent and we act everything out right when you say to yourself I am a good parent who and then you answer your person I'm a good person since there's those of you that I'm a good I'm a good person who yelled at my kid I'm a good person who hasn't worked out for a week even though I told myself I'd work out daily as an example okay when you say I am a good person who you reclaim your good identity and can separate that from a behavior that frankly is probably just not in line with your own values like if you want to work out it's just not in line with your values that you didn't work out if you don't want to yell in your kids it's not in line with your own values that you did and we miss that when we go into I'm a horrible human being if anyone saw me they would you know they would think I'm a monster so that is a really powerful sentence to practice every day and you could practice it at night looking back on a moment you weren't proud of I'm a good person who got mad at my partner when I was really stressed about my day it actually allows you to repair with your partner because you can only repair from a place of feeling like a good person because if you're instead in bad person mode as we know all of our energy collapses into ourselves to be defensive because it's just too intolerable so I am a good person who and if you do have kids it is game changing to say that I have a good kid who's saying I hate you to me a lot okay but they're still a good kid why oh why'd they say that why would I say that that's interesting because I have a shitty kid no no way I have a good kid I have a good kid who's saying I hate you we we activate curiosity with that sentence it's so powerful so that's step one step two is what I call Double repair repair is the single most important strategy to get good at as a human I really really would you know put my put my signature on that and if you think about what that means is if you are supposed to practice getting good at repair you have permission to keep doing the thing you need to prepare for because the only way you can practice repair is if you do that thing so sure take I said it you know Dr Becky said I had to yell at you honey because I have to practice repair it's going to happen so repair really allows us to add in all the elements to our own body and our kids body that we're missing in the first place because when you go back first to yourself right and let's say it's after that dinner incident and you say whoa I'm a good person who yelled at my kid okay wait I'm a good person we yell at my kid I didn't mess up my kid forever I can do this right you kind of reclaim that goodness and then you can go to your kid and essentially say or maybe it's your partner hey name the incident right I yelled at you earlier number two explicitly say and this is important it's never your fault when I yell at you kids especially have to hear that because if we don't tell them something's not their fault they wire self-blame just to gain control and safety in the situation and we don't want one more generation of people who's wired with self-blame when they struggle yeah it's never your fault when I yell and I know there's a part of everyone who's like but it kind of was their fault and then they said you know it's not again we respond to our own body now if you want to say to them tomorrow 24 hours at least later hey I wonder you know what we could do about dinner if you could you know tell me the foods you like or I wonder what you could say to me if you don't like what I serve because of course you're allowed to not like something there's just a lot of ways of saying it that's a separate conversation right totally separate so name what happened say it's not their fault and then say something like this I'm sure that felt scary you were right to feel that way and just like you have feelings we're trying to help you manage I do too and I promise to work on them more it's not only important in my parenting it's just important for myself repair repair changes the direction of your own and your kids or your partner circuitry it is so powerful and then I think number three I think if we think about I call it like the road to reactivity like if the if the last part of the road is yelling at my kids about dinner right that's the end of the road as long as I'm on the road I'm gonna go there and actually the key is to wonder what signs do I have that I'm starting that road because we often say like people say to me they're like okay so what am I supposed to do when you know no one helped me with this and then I did this and then my three kids did this and then this happened how do I not yell I'm like I have no idea okay I just think we're we have to upgrade your question I think we have to upgrade the upgraded question I think the upgraded question is when did I start down a pathway that ended in me feeling depleted and unworthy once I get to depleted unworthy then of course about my food triggers every feeling I have and maybe it starts oh you know what I did tell myself I wasn't gonna commit to like any more PTA meetings and I did sign up and I spent my whole day in this meeting I didn't want to be in or I did tell myself I'm gonna sleep in one of the days this weekend and I didn't do it and I didn't do it so let me ask you this is a final question because I know so many of my listeners and your listeners struggle with this yeah so that is beautiful doable actionable three-step advice when you do it to someone else let's say the issue that somebody starts to uncover is the fact that you're giving up on yourself yeah and so let's say yeah that you are going to make a commitment that you're just going to promise to get up in the morning and you're going to meditate or you're going to promise to get up in the morning and you're going to go for a walk and you continually don't keep the promise to yourself what are the steps to not only repair that abandonment of self but to also Empower you to start keeping a promise to yourself so I think what I'd say there is we want to get curious about a part of ourselves that clearly is kind of taking over the driver's seat so right now if you're saying I really do want to get up and take a walk in the morning and and I think this is an important step to say is that really put from a place of Shame and guilt or from a place of living in alignment with my values if it's from shame and Gill oh I'm a horrible lazy person yeah no one ever motivates from that place so I think we have to ask ourselves that question if it's like no look I just know it makes me feel better like it really does and yet I don't do it okay that's a good start then I think the next step is there's some part of me that activates in the morning and sends me some message that stops me from getting out of bed and it's okay if I don't know what that voice is but I'm just gonna start listening for it and being curious and right now if everyone even imagines this part a key to behavior change is realizing that we have feelings or thoughts that are a part of us and not all of us and they only become a problem when they take over all of us so maybe it's even as simple as like yeah I wake up and there's a part of me that's like oh I'm so tired I can't do this were you in bed with me this morning I I was um right I said there's this part yeah and then what's really key is we often think we have to shut down that part or shoot away going back to aloneness is always the problem that part's just looking for a magnet once a part of us or a feeling has a magnet and a partner it actually is no longer as powerful it gets cushioned so it's the difference between saying I know I'm tired but other people do this and you're so lazy no versus high tired part literally saying hi to it hi tired part you always activate first in the morning here's the thing I know you're real and you're tired and you're a part of me not all of me and I know there's also another part somewhere in there she's just quieter right now saying I can I can do hard things I can do hard things and even if I don't kind of activate her now maybe tomorrow morning she'll get a little bit louder Just because she hears me saying even though I like and there's something about telling ourselves when we're struggling that that part is real right that's why we say hi to it so we're validating its existence but then reminding it it's a part of us and not all of us this is something this is going to sound so cheesy my five-year-old does this at night when he's worried we've taught him I don't think it sounds cheesy it talks to his he calls it his worry boy about the things he's right hi worry boy you always get loud at night and you tell me the things I'm worried about and you're a part of me I'm gonna cry and he goes not all of me and I also have I'm safe boy and I have happy memories boy and I'm just gonna listen to him a little bit right now and I always think for my son like I feel like that's gonna make him like quote succeed in the real ways in life more than anything he learns of course like it's incredible I'm like wow he's wired that at age five like I'm working on that now so that language and we can walk through it a little bit start by greeting it say hi to it and and there's like a humor I like to have you know like I could have predicted you would pop up there you are again it's always the first thing okay like you're kind of a broken because those voices they are kind of broken records like they're boring right and then they're heavy and yeah yeah there's the heaviness okay you know what you're gonna do now now you're gonna convince me I can just start oh yep that's what happened yup yup yup I got it I got it okay hi I hear you and this is ifs language part of this too there's something to saying to those parts I hear you and I'm just going to ask you to step back I ask you to step back and just to make a little space for a part of me that can activate even when I'm tired and it's so respectful and it's so empowering and it puts you back in the driver's seat with these different parts instead of having a part that takes over it's so loving it's so loving Dr Becky you are so good so good inside and out well this is a good disclaimer like whenever my husband hears my podcast or anything he's like please let people know that you love talking about these things because you're working on them not because you're that good at them so this has been helpful for me too for all my parts and this is why I love these conversations so thank you thank you out okay I learned so much from that I hope you got as much as I got out of that I know you're gonna have a bazillion questions so make sure you go to melrobbins.com we also have all kinds of resources there for you including Dr Becky's book we also have links to her website I've got a bunch of other resources linked there studies that you may want to check out and finally in case nobody else tells you this today I want to tell you but I love you I believe in you and I believe in your ability to repair the crap that went down in your childhood find the good inside of you and go create a better life I'll see you soon [Music] [Music] hey it's Mel thank you so much for being here if you enjoyed that video bye God please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing thank you so much for being here we've got so much amazing stuff coming thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family I love you we create these videos for you so make sure you subscribe

Channel: Mel Robbins

Views: 119,862

Keywords: Mel Robbins, Mel Robbins Motivation, Mel Robbins Advice, inspiration

Id: qZ5BoJoUPGg

Length: 53min 24sec (3204 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2022