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Harvard Professor Says THIS Is the Secret to Success (It’s Not What You Think) | Mel Robbins Podcast

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory 👉 https://melrob.co/let-them-theory 👈 The #1 Best Selling Book of 2025 🔥 Discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words. Let Them. — According to Harvard professor Dr. Luana Marques, there is one sneaky habit that holds every single person back – and no one knows what it is. When she reveals the #habit that holds you back, your first reaction will be to stop and think. And as you listen to her explain it and give you examples, you’ll be shocked that you’ve never before seen it in yourself or heard anyone else point it out to you… until now. You’re not the only one. I didn’t know about this habit until I was introduced to Dr. Marques’ work. What you learn today will change how you think about #success, influence, #mindset, and even #anxiety and procrastination. This sneaky habit has been holding you back and you didn’t even realize how pervasive it is in your life. It’s not self-doubt. It’s not fear. It’s something even deeper. I want you to listen, because she’s the world’s leading expert on the topic, and this is one of those episodes that will make you never look at life the same again. Xo Mel In this episode, you'll learn: 00:00 Intro 02:04 The sneaky habit that’s holding you back, according to Dr. Luana Marques 05:20 Dr. Marques’ story will inspire you and explain how she discovered these tools. 07:32 Why this specific habit is keeping you from your best life. 09:02 How this habit leads to anxiety and panic at work. 13:21 Dr. Marques’ turning point in finding the success she has, against all odds. 19:47 Unpacking exactly what this habit is and how it holds you back, including your body’s response. 29:17 This is how your brain is working against you. 33:30 Simple tools from CBT Therapy research that make a difference. 38:14 Exactly what to do when your thoughts spin and how to change your mindset immediately. 42:42 This approach works even if you don’t believe it. 44:36 How do you stress less and find more peace? 47:08 The first thing Dr. Marques does when helping her clients change. 54:33 How these strategies apply to parenting and family. 1:01:40 When avoidance is necessary in life — Follow Mel: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@melrobbins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melrobbins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melrobbins Website: http://melrobbins.com​ — Sign up for Mel’s newsletter: https://melrob.co/sign-up-newsletter A note from Mel to you, twice a week, sharing simple, practical ways to build the life you want. — Subscribe to Mel’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins​?sub_confirmation=1 — Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday & Thursday! https://melrob.co/spotify https://melrob.co/applepodcasts https://melrob.co/amazonmusic — Looking for Mel’s books on Amazon? Find them here: The Let Them Theory: https://amzn.to/3IQ21Oe The Let Them Theory Audiobook: https://amzn.to/413SObp The High 5 Habit: https://amzn.to/3fMvfPQ The 5 Second Rule: https://amzn.to/4l54fah

Mel RobbinshostDr. Luana Marquesguest
Jun 15, 20231h 15mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:04

    Intro

    1. MR

      (ticking clock) (upbeat music) I have my jaw on the floor. I don't think anybody has really shown this, like, spotlight on the topic of avoidance and how it's everywhere in our lives, and avoiding is the main thing we do. You're right.

    2. LM

      And if what we do is walk away from the things that are meaningful, if what we do is avoidance, then we are robbing ourselves from our best life.

    3. MR

      Holy cow. (upbeat music) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so excited for today's conversation because I know I'm going to get so much out of this, selfishly. I mean, you're going to get a lot out of it too, but this is such a killer topic. It's something we all do, and we don't talk about it ever. And so I've invited the world's leading expert on the topic of avoidance. That's right, avoidance. Have you even thought about that? I bet you haven't, 'cause I certainly hadn't. But when I read, uh, Dr. Luana Marquez's book, Bold Moves, when I started to dig into the research around this habit that you and I have of avoiding stuff, holy guacamole. I gotta, I- I, like, this was everywhere in my life. It is so sneaky how avoidance creeps in, and next thing you know, you're avoiding responding to an email because it's confronting, or you're avoiding dealing with your bills, or you're avoiding having that hard conversation, or maybe you're avoiding something really big, like that breakup, or the talk, or going to get the diagnosis. And what Dr. Marquez is here to say is she's here to not only reveal how much you and I do this, but to tell you something that I think is really liberating, that the problem that you and I have is not fear, self-doubt, or anxiety. The problem is that when we feel those things, we avoid.

  2. 2:04 – 5:20

    The sneaky habit that’s holding you back, according to Dr. Luana Marques

    1. MR

      And avoiding is robbing you and people that you care about of all of the magic that you are capable of experiencing in your life. Now, Dr. Luana, she has got a remarkable story of how she went from being poverty-stricken in Brazil to becoming a professor of psychiatry at Harvard. She has been working with patients and on the clinical staff at Mass General, the number one ranked health institution in the world, for over a decade, and her work centers around avoidance. And today, she is bringing her world-class training to you. She has changed how I think. She has highlighted an issue that I didn't even realize that I had. And the same thing is gonna happen for you. I promise you, this is gonna be fascinating. So Luana, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.

    2. LM

      Thank you, Mel. I'm so excited to be here with you today. I can't even tell you how excited I am.

    3. MR

      Well, it's an honor to talk to you. Your work centers around one skill that everybody on the planet needs to learn how to spot and master. What is it?

    4. LM

      So my work really is about identifying avoidance and overcoming avoidance.

    5. MR

      And-

    6. LM

      That is it.

    7. MR

      ... why do we need to do that?

    8. LM

      Because avoidance is robbing us from our best life. It's keeping us prisoners of our own thinking and our own behavior, and that keeps us in our own mental jail.

    9. MR

      I know that you are a specialist in CBT therapy. We're gonna get into that. But I want everybody to hear your background.

    10. LM

      Mel, you know, it's- it's interesting. People come to me and they want me to get rid of their fever. They say, "No, Dr. Luana, get rid of my anxiety." But the problem is really not anxiety. It's what we do when we are anxious, and what we do is we avoid. And let me tell you this. I learned this first when I was, like, 15 and I moved in with my grandmother. So I lived in little city, in Brazil, and I moved into and I just became terrified of people. Like, my brain would just scream that people were not gonna like me, they- they think I'm different, they come from a small town, that I'm not enough. And so my grandmother noticed this. She's like, "Why don't you bring friends over?" And I'd be like, "Oh, no, no, I just have to study. I need to really study." And I started to just avoid people, anything related to people. I didn't make friends. I started to feel lonely. I was really anxious and my brain just was failing me. My grandmother, this woman is incredible, right? She has no college training. She doesn't know, at that point, CBT was nothing. Cognitive behavioral therapy wasn't real in Brazil, specifically, it didn't exist. She one day said to me, "Luana, let's go to the mall. I want, I want us to eat Chinese food." Now, before moving in with my grandmother, there were times in our lives that we didn't have food, and so this idea of having Chinese food in a big town with my grandmother was so exciting. I get this little tray. I still remember this. My hands are, like, so excited. This Chinese, I could smell the Chinese food. And she says to me, "Do you see that gentleman there, the elder gentleman? Let's go talk to him." And my stomach, Mel, dropped. I was like, "No, I'm not talking to him. What are you talking about?" Like, m- d- you know that anxiety in your, pit of your stomach-

    11. MR

      Mm-hmm.

    12. LM

      ... just churning?

  3. 5:20 – 7:32

    Dr. Marques’ story will inspire you and explain how she discovered these tools.

    1. LM

      And I was like, "I can't do this. Like, I just can't do this." And she's like, "We're gonna talk to him." And so we sat and she did all the talking, and at that point, I didn't want the Chinese food anymore, let's be clear, right? Like- (laughs)

    2. MR

      You have no appetite.

    3. LM

      (laughs) I had no appetite. And- and she just kept doing this. And so we did it again and again, and I- I don't remember how many times. What I remember is that eventually I could talk to people, and eventually people weren't scary anymore, and eventually I made friends.

    4. MR

      Mm.

    5. LM

      And I realized in graduate school, like later, 20 years later, I realized that what my grandmother was doing is called exposure therapy. She realized I was avoiding, right? I was avoiding strangers and she forced me, that's how I felt (laughs) , she just, she would tell you that she just helped me approach, but she......taught me to go against that avoidance, to go towards the things that matter. And I'm telling you, if she didn't do that, I probably would have developed social phobia, I probably would be stuck in Brazil still. And so, that's why I think avoidance is so powerful, it robs us from the lifestyle we want. And there's a ton of science behind that, but I learned it from my grandmother.

    6. MR

      I have my jaw on the floor, and the reason why is, I don't think anybody has really shown this, like, spotlight on the topic of avoidance and how it's everywhere in our lives, and we'll dig into the way that we all avoid, but I'm having this moment where I'm going, "Holy cow." I remember when Brené Brown first gave that TED Talk about vulnerability, and the whole world was like, "What? Vulnerability is a superpower?" The way you just explained avoidance as something that anxiety triggers or uncomfortable situations trigger, and that it's not these feelings of being anxious or scared or whatever that's the problem, it's really what we do with it, and avoiding is the main thing we do. You're right.

    7. LM

      Yeah. That's what we do, like, and, and we do that all the time. We rationalize our way into avoidance. You know, "I'm, I'm not gonna ask for this raise because, you know, I just haven't worked hard enough."

  4. 7:32 – 9:02

    Why this specific habit is keeping you from your best life.

    1. LM

      Or, "I am not going on this date because, you know, I just have to work harder at work. So it's not that I, I'm afraid of dating, no, no, no, no. It's just because, you know, if I work more, it's better." And it's everywhere, right? It's robbing us from our lives, and no one is talking about avoidance. I'm so glad that you caught onto that, Mel, because that's right. Like, people are talking about the fevers. That's how I think about it.

    2. MR

      The fevers or fears?

    3. LM

      Fe- Fevers. Like-

    4. MR

      Fevers?

    5. LM

      Fevers. That's how-

    6. MR

      What do you mean by fevers?

    7. LM

      That, I think about anxiety, the stress as a fever, okay? A high fever.

    8. MR

      Okay.

    9. LM

      Nobody likes to be anxious.

    10. MR

      No.

    11. LM

      Me included. Right?

    12. MR

      Yep.

    13. LM

      But that is not the real infection that we are facing. The infection maintaining this fear is avoidance. Right? And so we have been fighting anxiety, anxiety. Anxiety is biologically adaptive up to a point. Right? It's what we do, and if what we do is walk away from the things that are meaningful, if what we do is avoidance, then we are robbing ourselves from our best lives.

    14. MR

      Holy cow. You're absolutely right. I, I'm just going tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, because there's somebody really close to us and our family who has had this massive uptick of anxiety happen, and it has been so debilitating that this person has actually taken an entire week off of work, and I've been thinking, that's actually the opposite of what you should do.

    15. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    16. MR

      Because if you are scared that you're going to have a panic attack at work so you don't go to work, you're making

  5. 9:02 – 13:21

    How this habit leads to anxiety and panic at work.

    1. MR

      the anxiety bigger than you. Avoiding that thing or avoiding the situation that may happen makes the fear bigger.

    2. LM

      That's exactly right. This is a great example of this person, because the instinct, and it's biologically driven, right, is to go away. So you start to worry about having a panic attack, I've worked with lots of people that have panic attack, and so you work, you have this horrible panic attack, and then your brain basically now is saying, "Well, work can lead to panic attacks, so I'm gonna stay home." But what you're doing is you're actually training your brain to be scared of work, because now you're linking work with a panic attack, and let's be honest, there was no link there.

    3. MR

      Correct.

    4. LM

      Right? Panic attacks can come out of the blue. But then if you take a whole week out of work, then what are you doing? You're basically trying to take away anything that is potentially going to trigger anxiety. But the minute you step out of your house, you can't avoid for long.

    5. MR

      Right.

    6. LM

      You're gonna come out with h- a baseline anxiety so high that now you're almost guaranteeing that you're going to have a panic attack at work because you've been so afraid of it. Right? You're inducing that fight, flight, or freeze. The opposite of avoidance is approach. Now, just do it, the way Nike tells us to do-

    7. MR

      Right, right.

    8. LM

      ... doesn't work with anxiety. You can't tell somebody that's having panic attacks, "Just go work." Right? But can you drive towards work? So you're not gonna work for a week. Okay. I'm with you.

    9. MR

      Yep.

    10. LM

      Okay?

    11. MR

      I, I've been in this boat too, where-

    12. LM

      Right?

    13. MR

      ... the anxiety has been so debilitating that I... I've actually had anxiety so bad that it built and built and built and built up inside me when I was a second-year law student that I convinced myself that there was no way that I could get on a plane and go to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I had landed a summer job and be able to live and work on my own. And I... Talk about avoidance. I called that law firm and told them that I had had a family emergency-

    14. LM

      (laughs) Mm-hmm.

    15. MR

      ... and I had to not come. This was two days before I was supposed to get on the plane.

    16. LM

      Oh, Mel.

    17. MR

      And so I have done this over and over and over and over again in my life, and I can't wait until you unpack all the forms of avoidance, but you're right. You do link up this act of, "Oh my gosh, if I just don't do it, then I'm gonna be okay," but you actually make it worse.

    18. LM

      That's exact... I wish I knew then, because see, there's two pieces of, of avoidance that we're talking about there, beautiful. Right? The first one is the perception of threat. Right? You've flown many times before in your life, but now your brain convinced you that that flight was a threat, a perceived threat. It's not a real danger. It's a perception.

    19. MR

      Yes.

    20. LM

      Right? And so then, the long-term cost of avoidance, the prices that you pay... Think about this. You did not go in a summer internship that I bet you worked really hard, Mel, to get.

    21. MR

      Yeah.

    22. LM

      Right? I imagine that was like, a big ticket, and your brain just in that moment said, "Plane equals lion. Not gonna do it," and then we have to find a way out, so you created an emergency, and that's avoiding. You've retreated. Like, you avoided by retreating from something that was so meaningful.

    23. MR

      Yeah. Yeah. It's- I, I, I have done that over and over and over again. I think that's why I f- I feel so-... just sad for this person in our life who is doing this right now, 'cause I- I'm thinking to myself, "This is going to create the opposite impact." So you said that your grandmother forcing you-

    24. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    25. MR

      ... to just, you know, go to the mall and sit with that person, and slowly, she was doing what you now practice, which is exposure therapy. You're an expert in CBT, and you just said that that experience of not being allowed to avoid something that you were scared of, but being shown that you could face it, that it changed the trajectory of your life.

    26. LM

      100%.

    27. MR

      So what happened after that thing that your grandmother did?

    28. LM

      So, after my grandmother forced me, I started to think about life... There's two things she did for me, actually. Let me just-

    29. MR

      Yeah.

    30. LM

      ... add the second one. So one was push me to approach instead of avoid. The second one was at 16 she gave me The Alchemist by Paulo

  6. 13:21 – 19:47

    Dr. Marques’ turning point in finding the success she has, against all odds.

    1. LM

      Coelho to read.

    2. MR

      Oh, yeah. Uh-huh.

    3. LM

      I'm sure you've read The Alchemist, right?

    4. MR

      Yeah.

    5. LM

      And she did it because the narrative in my brain was, you know, growing up poor, single mother. My mom fighting so hard to get us somewhere, and I should tell everybody listening to this, my grandmother was not really my grandmother. She was the mother of my stepfather, who started to date my mom, and they came from a different socioeconomic status. She had a different view of the world. So she gave me The Alchemist because one day I was sitting with her for coffee, and I said, "You know, I really don't know what's going to be of my life. You know, I want to eventually pursue a medical degree or I want to do this, but my mom is never going to be able to pay for college."

    6. MR

      Hmm.

    7. LM

      "So what happens?" And The Alchemist shifted my perspective.

    8. MR

      How?

    9. LM

      It was this idea... Well, there's a sentence in the book that says, "Whenever you want something, the whole universe conspires in having it." And my grandmother basically said to me, "Listen, you are responsible for the narrative in your brain. You can, you can believe what your brain is telling you, or you can change the narrative in your brain." And I was like, "Well, if I..." And she, she forced me to push, like, "What would you want?" I said, "Well, eventually I want to become an exchange student. Eventually, I want to get to the US." And she's like, "You're responsible for creating that." And somehow .............................. those conversations, my grandmother would sit with me every day and have coffee and have those conversations. I started to believe that just maybe I could do it, that maybe I could by approaching and changing the topic.

    10. MR

      Hmm.

    11. LM

      And eventually, I became an exchange student. I came to the US. I spoke no English. (laughs) It was disastrous in the first six months, and then I, I wanted to stay and my stepdad is like, "You know, you have to go back to Brazil." So I went to Brazil for a year and then eventually got my way back to the US and did undergraduate in college. And every step, I have to tell you, avoidance will knock on the door. So when I tell my story, people are like, "Oh, it's so incredible, so bold." No, I was scared shitless a lot of the times.

    12. MR

      (laughs) .

    13. LM

      Bottom line. And I wanted to avoid, when I was at SUNY Buffalo, my mentor was really tough on me actually, and I wanted to apply to the Harvard internship at Mass General Hospital in Boston, and when she says, "State students don't get in." And I remember sitting in my office crying as I write this application letter thinking, "Maybe I should just apply somewhere else. Maybe I'm not good enough."

    14. MR

      There's the narrative in your head again.

    15. LM

      100%. And I remember at that time I was like, "You know what? If I don't apply..." That's... I remember my grandmother. "If you don't try, you don't know," and so I applied. And, and so I, I share this in the spirit of, like, we can't get rid of anxiety. I know everybody wants to, but we can't. What we can get rid of is avoidance.

    16. MR

      Wow.

    17. LM

      That, we can get rid of.

    18. MR

      I lo- And then what happens in your life when you get rid of avoidance?

    19. LM

      I'm sitting here with Mel Robbins. That's what happens. Can you believe this?

    20. MR

      Will you stop at that? (laughs) .

    21. LM

      No, I, I, I, I just don't... I want you to know this. It means so much to me. Like, it's just... The 10-year-old... I have tears in my eyes. The 10-year-old me would not believe that I'd say to Mel Robbins, "I mean, you're such an icon. You inspire so many." You, I've seen you fight avoidance in your life. Maybe not with that vocabulary, but I seen that. As I listen to your books, as I see your podcast now, it's so successful. That's what happens when we don't let the narrative in our brain run our lives. You get to meet Mel Robbins, and, and how cool is that?

    22. MR

      Well, and I get to meet you. How cool is that? And you went on to become an associate professor at Harvard. You didn't just get the internship program, uh, in psych at Mass General. You went on to become an associate professor, a published author, the founder and chair of an incredible, like, association around anxiety, and you're just getting started-

    23. LM

      (laughs) .

    24. MR

      ... in my opinion.

    25. LM

      Thank you. It does feel that way. You know, it's, it's interesting. For the last 10 years, I spent all this time at Mass General taking CBT out of the ivory tower, in the streets.

    26. MR

      Okay.

    27. LM

      Right?

    28. MR

      What does that mean?

    29. LM

      So I, I create a program that I work with community organizations where I train paraprofessionals, so people with no education, on skills in art therapy, on CBT, but digested as skills. For example, I worked with Roca in Boston who works with young men coming out of prison.

    30. MR

      Oh, fantastic.

  7. 19:47 – 29:17

    Unpacking exactly what this habit is and how it holds you back, including your body’s response.

    1. MR

      emotion, behavior-

    2. LM

      Cycle.

    3. MR

      ... cycle. Can we take the example of you waking up and not wanting to get out of bed?

    4. LM

      Yes, absolutely. So, any kind of situation. I woke up, my brain starts to spin and basically said, "What if Mel Robbins doesn't like me?" It was the first thought I had this morning, I have to just be honest with everybody listening. (laughs)

    5. MR

      Oh, sorry. (laughs)

    6. LM

      No, I mean, the anxious brain never quiets down, right? And so that thought, "What if she doesn't like me?" led to an emotion, which for me was a little anxiety and heart pounding. My heart pounds pretty f- pretty strongly, and then my behavior, is the third component, was wanting to just stay in bed.

    7. MR

      Mm-hmm.

    8. LM

      I was like, "Maybe I just want to stay in bed." And you asked, what is the sequence? Well, it depends the entry way. For me, it was a thought, right?

    9. MR

      Yep.

    10. LM

      "She's not going to like me-"

    11. MR

      Yep.

    12. LM

      "... made me anxious," and then I wanted to behave a certain way. But the ping-pong, l- right? If I had laid in bed a little longer, I bet it would have gone this way. "Yeah, maybe I didn't bring the right outfit. The outfit makes a difference. She's so powerful, she's really not gonna like me. What if I say the wrong thing?" And those thoughts would go really fast, the anxiety would shoot up, and then the covers would come over. (laughs)

    13. MR

      (laughs)

    14. LM

      And then by the time I got out of bed, my baseline anxiety would be so high that I'd be having trouble thinking. That trouble thinking would be interpreted as, "Oh, see, you do have a problem with anxiety," and now the avalanche. And so it's a ping-pong, and it's so fast, and that's why that pause is so important. Right?

    15. MR

      Wow, okay.

    16. LM

      We, we need... Whenever the anxiety happens, this is a trick that I can share with everybody that you can use and you can do it right now. How do you pause is the question, right? Take a piece of paper and literally write down your thoughts, linking them to your emotions, link them to specific behavior. What do you want to do? And this is why. What we know scientifically is that writing activate the prefrontal cortex.

    17. MR

      Hmm.

    18. LM

      The prefrontal cortex, the part that helps us organize, execute, right? It's the center of the brain that's the critical part of the brain. It is always competing for energy with our amygdala, the fight, flight, or freeze part of the brain. So one w- when one is on, the other one tends to quiet down. So if you're in your anxious brain, get out of there by writing your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors cycle. Just that little trick alone, I've seen hundreds of patients stop their anxiety cycle and that avalanche by creating that pause.

    19. MR

      Let's take the example of being afraid to go into work.

    20. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    21. MR

      That you are worried that something's gonna happen, your boss is gonna be a jerk, or you're gonna have a panic attack, or you're gonna screw up that huge, uh, sales meeting that you have, and so you have that feeling of just, "Uh, I, I need to, like, not go."

    22. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    23. MR

      That avoidance that we're gonna talk a lot about today. So what do you do in that instance?

    24. LM

      So a couple of things here. The first one, I would write down the specific thoughts, right?

    25. MR

      Okay.

    26. LM

      Um, a lot of our anxiety is fed through what we're saying to ourselves.

    27. MR

      Hmm.

    28. LM

      Right? We start to have heart pounding, and we've been talking about heart pounding. If I came home from the jog and my heart was pounding, I'd be like, "Okay," but if I'm sitting here getting ready to work and my heart pounds, your brain wants to make sense of it. So then, it starts to create a narrative about the heart pound, but it's just a heart pound. That's all it is.

    29. MR

      True.

    30. LM

      So we pause. "Okay, I'm gonna mess up the sales meeting." Right? Right? "I'm gonna, I'm gonna F it up. That's what I'm gonna do." Okay, once we pause, then we want to be able to ask questions of our thoughts, right?

  8. 29:17 – 33:30

    This is how your brain is working against you.

    1. LM

    2. MR

      Yes.

    3. LM

      ... is moving away from discomfort. That's that flavor of avoidance. People retreat when they get an email that they don't like. They don't read that email. My husband does it all the time. He puts an email on the- the sc- other screen. He's like, "I'm just not gonna look at that." We retreat by not having conversations with people. We're in our head. We are thinking. We are ruminating, right? We're moving away from discomfort.

    4. MR

      Mm.

    5. LM

      For some of us, avoidance is reacting. That's how I avoid. Whenever something threatens me, perception of threat, an email about somebody that I don't like or conflict-

    6. MR

      Right, right.

    7. LM

      ... I go, I go towards that. I move towards that discomfort because I feel so anxious. So, I write an email really fast. "I can't believe you said this," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I press send, and then I'm, like, stuck on email jail because now, I just reacted without thinking, and that's avoidance, right? I'm avoiding discomfort.

    8. MR

      I don't know if I understand that. So, so, so I understand the retracting-

    9. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    10. MR

      ... right? But I don't understand the reacting. Can you give me another example?

    11. LM

      I can give you several examples. So, reacting is a form of avoidance. Something happens, and you have discomfort. Okay, give you an example. Dan Harris, I was just recording with him last week, and he, he gave a great example, personal example. He said, "You know, whenever I feel threat, the way he reacts with anger."

    12. MR

      Oh.Yes.

    13. LM

      Right? So-

    14. MR

      I yell at my dog when the, he's barking too much.

    15. LM

      That's-

    16. MR

      I'm like, "Ah."

    17. LM

      That's it. Because y- your dog barking is creating some discomfort in your body. That discomfort in your body, basically you have to attack the discomfort so you feel better, right? Responding to email, anger, um, grabbing a drink too fast, have a bad day and you just go into...

    18. MR

      Oh, so R is having a smoke, a vape, hitting a joint, pouring a drink. That is reacting?

    19. LM

      Yes. You're-

    20. MR

      Oh.

    21. LM

      You know, and it's funny, we can slice and dice the Rs of avoidance, but like you are basically trying to move aw- moving towards discomfort and, and reacting, right? Versus retreating, you're moving away.

    22. MR

      Gotcha.

    23. LM

      Let me do the third one and then we can unpack a couple-

    24. MR

      Okay.

    25. LM

      ... examples. But the third one is remain. This is the deer in the headlight. It is staying in a situation when you know it no longer works. You're in a job you dislike, but the fear of another job just makes you so paralyzed that you stay.

    26. MR

      Mm-hmm.

    27. LM

      Stay in a relationship that you don't like, right? It's frozen. So the, the remain of avoidance is you're frozen in place. You know it's not working, right? But you're not going towards discomfort or moving away. You're just literally frozen.

    28. MR

      Wow. So what I love about this is that this... For anybody that feels like, "Well, I don't have anxiety," what you do have are moments every single day where your emotions get triggered and you're uncomfortable.

    29. LM

      That's it.

    30. MR

      And what I'm gathering from this conversation is that your work is really about creating a baseline of people of emotional peace.

  9. 33:30 – 38:14

    Simple tools from CBT Therapy research that make a difference.

    1. LM

      a life that matters or you can choose avoidance, and it's a choice.

    2. MR

      You're right, it is, because we do avoidance on autopilot, and there is a big lie that we're telling ourselves because you said that we do it because we're uncomfortable and that in order to live the life that we want, we've got to be willing to be uncomfortable. But I believe if you're really honest with yourself, you'll see that avoiding the hard stuff, avoiding the things that you fear, avoiding taking a risk, that's actually more uncomfortable because you know that you're selling yourself short. You know that you are feeling stuck. Like, I would think that kind of sitting alone in your apartment with no friends as a teenager was way more uncomfortable than sitting with that dude the first time with your grandmother.

    3. LM

      100%. It, it, it's like we're... It's, it's... I love how you said it's a lie. It is a lie because the discomfort that we feel facing things is so much less than this monster that we create in our head of what they would be like. I bet when we go skydiving, you come off of that plane, you're going to be like... (laughs) You know, I landed and I was like, "This is the best orgasm ever."

    4. MR

      (laughs)

    5. LM

      Like, "This is better than anything else."

    6. MR

      Really?

    7. LM

      I was like... I... Like, I have this video and I was like, "Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed at this video." But like, it is true because it's so liberating to overcome a fear.

    8. MR

      That's true.

    9. LM

      It's like... And, and you're right, like once you're out of that plane, the discomfort... And, and you'll feel some fear jumping out but then all of a sudden your whole system quiets down and you're like, "Oh my God, I'm living my best life." And that's what I wish for everyone, that they find their little corners of avoidance, overcome it so they can show up. Like, are you being your best self? And if you're not, it's because you're avoiding.

    10. MR

      Why do we do this?

    11. LM

      We are biologically wired to avoid. So the brain is amazing, right? It, it does... It cannot differentiate real threat from perceived threat, right? Our brain is wired to do what? To predict and protect. That's what our brain is doing. It's protecting us from danger and it's predicting, and it's predicting based on past information.

    12. MR

      Hmm.

    13. LM

      So your family member who is having some trouble with avoidance and work, the brain is using the perception of work as danger as something really bad, like it's a lion.

    14. MR

      Oh, so it's predicting.

    15. LM

      It's predicting-

    16. MR

      And then it's making y- it's making a call on how to protect you based on its prediction.

    17. LM

      That's it. And that call is avoidance, right? So instead of going on fight, flight or freeze because there is actually a lion, that's why I coined the three Rs of avoidance, because it's the same biology of fight, flight or freeze, but it's a perceived threat.

    18. MR

      Hmm. That makes so much sense. So your grandmother gave you this incredible gift where she forced you to face something, to approach it, right?

    19. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    20. MR

      This fear of people. How did that experience help you get to become a professor at Harvard?

    21. LM

      So my grandmother, in helping me to approach instead of avoid and shift my perspective, the first thing she did is help me change my narrative. But the interesting thing about avoidance is it continues to show up in your life. And so, when I applied for college in the US, I remember writing the essays, and, you know, my English still wasn't very good. And my brain kept saying, "You know what? A little girl from Brazil can't apply." Like, "It's not ... You're not good enough." I held onto the applications so much, Mel, because of those beliefs that my stepdad had to at one point be like, "We need to mail it. You're not going to get in if you don't submit your applications." (laughs) And I was like, "Oh, yeah, there's that thing called submitting." And so I submitted them, and then I got accepted at SUNY Buffalo, and so I end up at SUNY Buffalo. And when I was applying to the doctoral program ... So I got to under- ... Uh, actually, before even, (laughs) as an undergraduate, this was ... You know, I really, I never thought I was going to be a psychologist. I thought I was going to be a medical doctor. In Brazil, either medical doctor or lawyer. That's how you pay the bills. Came to the US and I started to take biochemistry and pre-med courses, and then a psychology course for the fun of it. And I loved the psychology courses, loved them. My brain kept saying, "You need to be a medical doctor, you need to be a medical doctor." So I went home to Brazil. My grandmother knows all my stories. I'm sorry, but that's the reality. And I said to my grandmother, I said, "You know, I was thinking about being a psychologist, but I don't know." And she's like, "It's simple. You take psychology classes, you take biology classes. Which one is easier on your brain? That's what you do for a living. Why do you have to have a hard life and do things against your brain?" And I looked at her and I says, "Well, I get a C in biochemistry, I get a A+ in psychology." She says, "Go be a psychologist."

  10. 38:14 – 42:42

    Exactly what to do when your thoughts spin and how to change your mindset immediately.

    1. LM

      And I was like, "That simple?" She's like, "Yeah, like, why do you fight ... Why do people fight so much to be what they can be that comes easy to their brain? Why do we?" Because I think we avoid. We avoid our reality. Like, facing reality does not mean we like it. And I had to face the reality that day, and I remember going for a walk with my dad and my stepdad and saying to him, like, "I know you're helping with college and all of that, and ... but I don't want to be a medical doctor anymore." I was shaking, Mel, like shaking of anxiety. You know? And he looked at me and he said, "You know what? You're going to be poor if you're a psychologist. You can't be a psychologist. You really ..." Like ... And I was terrified that he's going to pull the plug and not help with college anymore. And I looked at him, I said, "You know what? I'm good at this. Like, I want to do this." And, like, I almost avoided. Like, I still took biochemistry, or I think it was organic chemistry, for another semester until I finally claimed clean again with him. I was like, "I can't. Like, this is not me." So then I got to graduate school and wanted to apply to Harvard, as I told you before. And, and people said to me, "State students don't get in." And I was so terrified. Cried, cried a lot. Um, and then I applied. And I remember the day I walk in for the interview at Mass General. I was listening to Daniela Mercury, it's a Brazilian singer, to pump me up. And like, my entire body wanted to run the opposite way. (laughs) It's like, you know, I wanted to avoid, but I showed up, and, and I applied and got in. And I'll share one more example of sort of, you know, landing at Harvard. In about 2017, I wanted to be the president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. I was in the board. I'm the youngest person in the board. An organization that tends to be majority white, I was the only Latina person in the board, the only person of qual- color on the board. And the opportunity to run for president came up, and I just had my son. He was like three months old. I was home, and I went for dinner with a colleague, a senior colleague, the night before the election. And she heard that I was running, and this woman literally said to me at dinner, she says, "You're too young. You shouldn't do this. You shouldn't run for this." It's amazing to me how women do this to other women, by the way. They're like ... And I got home crying to my husband and said to him, "David, you know what? I'm not going to apply. Like, maybe I'm too young and maybe I'm not going to be a good mother, and maybe I'm not going to have enough energy to be the president." And so I wrote an entire email to the board to pull my application, explaining not what this woman told me, not the truth, by the way. I was going to do your example of the law school. I literally was going to do your example. I was going to avoid. And I sat there, and then my husband like held my hand and he looked at me, he says, "Since I've met you, you've wanted this." He's like, "Do you really want to stop what you want based on what this woman's telling? Do you ... " Like, he called me out on my avoidance. And I deleted the email. And I was so anxious for that interview the next day for the election, but I won. (laughs)

    2. MR

      (laughs)

    3. LM

      I won. Can you believe it? I became the first Latina president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and it could have been taken from me if I listened to what this woman said to me.

    4. MR

      By yourself?

    5. LM

      By myself. And that's the ... We are the worst problem. We are, we are the ones avoiding. I can't blame her. She can ... I mean, people say all sorts of things for us, but do we have to believe it?

    6. MR

      Yeah. Like if somebody said to you, "Why don't you just leave your son on the side of the road?" You'd be like, "Are you fucking crazy? Shut up."

    7. LM

      Yes.

    8. MR

      But we listen and indulge other people's opinions about things that really matter to us, and then we avoid it.

    9. LM

      And then we avoid it.

    10. MR

      And what I keep getting, and I hope that you're getting as you're listening, is that your whole life is one giant gift waiting for you to unwrap it. And there are ways in which you sit there and stare at it, and you actively avoid reaching out to shred the paper or pull on that ribbon. And it begins with the stories that you're telling yourself. And CBT, and the tools. I keep hearing approach, approach, approach. We've learned pause, we've learned, uh, to change the narrative-

    11. LM

      Which is SHIFT.

    12. MR

      Which is SHIFT. And now we're learning approach. Is approach always the answer when it comes to things that you're avoiding?

    13. LM

      I think for

  11. 42:42 – 44:36

    This approach works even if you don’t believe it.

    1. LM

      me has been. (laughs) It's not always the answer. Think about approach. I define approach as opposite action. Anxiety, discomfort, sadness tells you to do something to make you feel more comfortable, right?

    2. MR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. LM

      So your s- your family member doesn't want to go to work, somebody else doesn't want to ask for a raise. Eh, there's a mandate that comes with anxiety. Opposite action is just taking one step towards it, right?

    4. MR

      Okay.

    5. LM

      So approach, to me, has been always the answer, because I, if I stop and think, my brain can be really an asshole sometimes.

    6. MR

      Yes.

    7. LM

      And so, you know, shifting our perspective is very helpful, and sometimes we have to shift to even be able to approach, right? Sometimes what we're saying to ourselves is so locked up that we have to shift. But the reality is, approach is where the juice is.

    8. MR

      Absolutely. Speaking of juice, let's roll some questions, 'cause, uh, we had a lot of people submit questions for you. First one is from Charmaine.

    9. NA

      I want more peace, more love, more compassion, more passion, more connection, more joy, less struggle, less stuff, less complications, less stress, less anxiety. And I don't just want it for myself, but for every woman. This shit is real. I see it in my girlfriends too, in this human experience. My question is, why? Why does this feel like a struggle? Thank you, Mel, for being brave enough to do this work. I love you.

    10. MR

      Well, luckily we got Dr. Lou- I know you said that I wasn't allowed to call you doctor-

    11. LM

      (laughs)

    12. MR

      ... but you are a doctor, so what would you say? Like, what, are we addicted to the struggle? Why do we all feel it?

    13. LM

      I love Charmaine's question. Charmaine, this is the deal. This question is what I call the magical want. Everyone magically wants more

  12. 44:36 – 47:08

    How do you stress less and find more peace?

    1. LM

      happiness, a better life, less stress. We all want it, and I love that Charmaine wants it for the entire world, 'cause I think that's what we're talking about in this conversation. So why, why do we stuck? It's because we avoiding, Charmaine. What are the things in your life right now that you actually have control over that you're not taking control? Because the struggle is there, and we're gonna have some level of struggle, but it's there because we are not taking action.

    2. MR

      Oh.

    3. LM

      Right? We know scientifically, Mel, that if we actually act in line with our values, the things that matter the most to us, right, we actually have less stress, less anxiety. We have better quality of life. And so Charmaine, I'm asking you, what are the actions you can take towards those things that matter the most that would stop this avoidance? Because I bet what's happening is there's a lot of avoidance.

    4. MR

      You know, even if she just started to approach, to use your terms, the less stuff-

    5. LM

      Yeah.

    6. MR

      ... she just started to declutter, would that shift the feeling?

    7. LM

      100%. Think about this, if you walk in your office, and you go into work, and you sh- you show up, and there's a bunch of files, and it's a mess. What does that do to your brain? Immediately, you're like, you feel scattered, right? Even if she started to approach by just organizing her life a little bit, one little step at a time. And that's the thing I want everybody to hear very loudly and clear, it's not an all or nothing, right? But little approaches towards the things that matter the most can start to really change our lives, and that's how we get more happiness. That's how we feel better.

    8. MR

      Well, what I wonder is, if we're really wired for emotional peace, and if we're yearning for these things like happiness, and more joy, and less struggle, we're yearning for it because it is meant for us. And I think... Well, I'm curious, if somebody's struggling, is that a sign that avoidance is everywhere?

    9. LM

      Yes. Simple yes, and this is why I've never met anyone in my life, professionally and personally, okay, who have not been avoiding, that avoidance is not behind their struggle, right? I've never, Mel. Like, in my moments that I myself am having the most hardest time, it's because I'm avoiding.

    10. MR

      How do you figure out what you're avoiding?

    11. LM

      So you pause and you ask yourself, "If I were to go towards this, what would happen?" So in the case of your family friend, it's easy, right?

  13. 47:08 – 54:33

    The first thing Dr. Marques does when helping her clients change.

    1. LM

      It's, you're clearly avoiding. But it's like, "If I go towards whatever X, Y, and Z is, do I feel more or less uncomfortable?" If you feel more uncomfortable, you've been avoiding, 'cause the avoidance is designed to bring our emotional temperature down, but keeps us stuck.

    2. MR

      Mmm.

    3. LM

      So by definition, going against avoidance will create some level of discomfort, right? So, "If I do this, does it keep me stuck? If I do this, does it keep me feeling comfortable," so to speak. If the answer is yes, you're avoiding.

    4. MR

      What are the top things that your patients come in and are struggling with, and how does that connect with avoidance?

    5. LM

      So Mary came in because she was in a job that she hated.

    6. MR

      Yep.

    7. LM

      She put on 100 pounds in that job, 100 pounds, but kept doing it because her brain said, "Well, at least I have an income."

    8. MR

      Yes.

    9. LM

      And she was facing that, and she was just wouldn't face th- the reality that she hated that job. You know, um, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company I worked with avoided dating. He has super power in his job, and if you met him in the street, and you're like, "This guy can get anybody that he wants," he was terrified of dating and women. Now he's 45, super successful, no relationships, no meaningful relationships. Um, Joanna avoided asking for a raise. She's single mother, three kids, that raise, she's in the same job for 10 years. People getting passed for promotions, she's not getting those promotions, and she just was so terrified that she wasn't good enough, she hadn't done enough....she couldn't ask for a raise. She, she told me, "You know, if I was really good, they would have given me a raise." I was, like, "Well..."

    10. MR

      (laughs) That's not how it works.

    11. LM

      "I don't think it works that way."

    12. MR

      Sometimes it does.

    13. LM

      Sometimes. But, but it's... In the corporate world, sometimes it doesn't.

    14. MR

      Um, those are great examples. And so as their therapist and, uh, practicing CBT therapy, are you then coaching them through the APPROACH method?

    15. LM

      Yes. So for everybody I work with, they, they start to think of me as the avoidance police-

    16. MR

      (laughs)

    17. LM

      ... (laughs) because I was like, "Oop, that's avoidance." So the first thing we really do is we identify their avoidance. Um, I just had a patient, um, make a list of everything she's avoiding, and she's like, "I don't need to make a list." I'm like, "I'd like to see that list." Because, see, we lie to ourselves. So the first thing I do with every patient is, "Let's identify all the domains in your life where you're avoiding." And then, like this patient that I mentioned, she was even avoiding eating healthy-

    18. MR

      Uh-huh.

    19. LM

      ... because she was like, "Well, if I eat healthy, then perhaps I'll feel better, but I'm not sure. I do want to feel better, but I really don't know how to eat healthy." So she created this whole story that eating healthy somehow was a problem, and she'd eat junk, feel bad, and, and, like, then continue the cycle. And then I work with patients on SHIFT, APPROACH, and ALIGN, which is the third skill that we didn't talk a lot about, but it's really the idea of living a values-driven life.

    20. MR

      Wow. We are going to have you back to talk about SHIFT, APPROACH, ALIGN. Is that what it was, SHIFT, APPROACH, ALIGN?

    21. LM

      Yeah.

    22. MR

      Um, I want to have you continue to ask, answer some more questions. So let's play the one from, is it Mon-san?

    23. NA

      Hey, Mel. I've been following your YouTube for some time and wanted to reach out long ago. So the way I deal with my mental issues and anxieties through writing music, creating art, and other activities, and they, they do seem to help for the moment, but in circumstances where doing so is not an option, I just struggle to enjoy whatever w- whatever I'm doing or just have the feeling I want to leave whatever room I'm in. So I just want to know if this is a healthy way to deal with it, or are there better ways to cope?

    24. MR

      The doctor's in the house.

    25. LM

      (laughs)

    26. MR

      I see a big smile.

    27. LM

      I love this question because it illustrate how we, um, can avoid even ways that are helpful but then contaminates our life. Because basically what I hear you doing is this. To overcome your own fear, you write music, and you can show up, and that's fantastic, right? But it sounds to me like you're white-knuckling through it-

    28. MR

      Hmm.

    29. LM

      ... because then you're not able to generalize this to meeting a stranger sitting at a table, because I bet the same narrative that you're telling to yourself is the s- is the same. There's something about not being good enough or being important enough that is getting you stuck. And so for this person, I actually think shifting the way you see yourself, what is that narrative, so that you can learn to approach music and your friends with the same kind of mentality, because your thinking is getting you stuck here.

    30. MR

      Well, I also noticed that, uh, the question opened with the fact that, "I've been following you on YouTube for some time and wanted to reach out long ago." So even in the opening sentence of the question, he admitted to avoiding something he had wanted to do, and then he goes on further and talks about how he's having a hard time enjoying whatever he's doing, and then that leads him to want to leave the room. And so if he starts to recognize that, "Whenever I start to feel uncomfortable, I just want to leave the room," is the advice that he stays in the room? Like, what would you have him do if he was your patient?

  14. 54:33 – 1:01:40

    How these strategies apply to parenting and family.

    1. LM

      own podcast." I said, "Really?" He's like, "Yeah, I'm gonna create a podcast." And I said, "What is it going to be like?" He's like, "I'm gonna tell people they need to actually stay with their emotions and not run from them." And I was like, "That is it, Diego."That's what we need to do. We need to not run from them. And parents listening to us, it's okay for your kid to have some level of discomfort. It's, it's ex- it... They're growing, their brain's developing. There is some level of anxiety that comes in many of the ages in life, and you just need to let them tolerate it.

    2. MR

      Let's go to Natalie's question.

    3. NA

      Hi, Mel. I've been dealing with a mirage of debilitating physical symptoms for quite some time. I've been to many doctors, and all was clear. However, symptoms persist, causing this symptom-fear-anxiety loop. How do I break free from this loop and finally believe this is mind-body, and be able to heal once and for all? Thank you kindly.

    4. MR

      This is a great question, and I want to widen it out, because I think a lot about the fact that one of the number one things that kids fear is throwing up-

    5. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    6. MR

      ... because it's a moment of losing control.

    7. LM

      Yeah.

    8. MR

      And then they get so worried that the anxiety increases when their stomach gurgles.

    9. LM

      Yeah.

    10. MR

      We did the... This, this was an issue with our son, Oakley.

    11. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    12. MR

      That he got so focused on throwing up-

    13. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    14. MR

      ... that he didn't want to eat. When his stomach gurgled, he would panic about throwing up.

    15. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    16. MR

      And so, how do you break this loop of fear around physical sensation?

    17. LM

      It's a great question, and happens a lot in, in particular, within the Latino communities. Um, growing up, I got rushed to the hospital a lot, and... With asthma attacks. And I... My mom would just come to school, grab me, take me to the hospital. It was this horrendous thing, public hospital, long lines, me feeling like I couldn't breathe. And as an adult, my patients would say, "Have you ever had a panic attack?" And I said, "No, I've never had a panic attack." And then I was writing this book, and I realized, Mel, that I was having panic attacks as a kid. And the reason I got to this is, they always happened after a domestic incident, fight between my mom and my dad, and there was lots of blood and things were ugly. And then the next day at school, I couldn't breathe. My father left, and I've never had asthma since. Now, that is definitely a panic attack. And so I share this because I want our listeners to understand that we're not... That, that I'm not immune for it. It happened to me, right? So as a psychologist now, what we need to do is a couple of things. Physical symptoms, okay? When they happen, we start to interpret them. I bet that Oakley thought that any kind of sensation was gonna lead to vomiting-

    18. MR

      Yes.

    19. LM

      ... and vomiting was the worst case scenario.

    20. MR

      Yes.

    21. LM

      Right? So the first thing we need to do in case of physical sensations is actually a type of therapy called interoceptive therapy. Big name. All it means is actually exposure to physical sensations. Now most people never heard of this, which is so surprising to me. So if I'm treating somebody that has a panic attack, for example, what I do is, I make them hyperventilate. I spin them on a chair. If I was drinking- treating Oakley, what I've done is, I have a vomit recipe, and I would actually get him to have that sensation, but it would start smaller. It started by watching videos of YouTube of people vomiting.

    22. MR

      What?

    23. LM

      Yep. I had a patient one time that we... What we did is, we went out on a Monday morning, uh, at Faneuil Hall, because those pubs, people vomit a lot.

    24. MR

      Oh, they stink, yes.

    25. LM

      Yeah, yeah. So our exposure was walking around Faneuil Hall and just seeing puke, and so that he could feel the sensation. And what happens is the brain habituates, the brain actually gets used to it, so that that little sensation, the smell of it, actually doesn't lead to the physical sensations, which is the opposite of what everybody does. Most people, when they have physical sensations, I bet our listener, just runs away from that. Her heart pounds and she goes, "Oh, my God, something is wrong. I need to avoid that sensation." So we try to do something to avoid it.

    26. MR

      Or you run to the doctor-

    27. LM

      Yeah.

    28. MR

      ... which is the reacting, right?

    29. LM

      Yeah.

    30. MR

      If something's wrong...

  15. 1:01:40 – 1:15:14

    When avoidance is necessary in life

    1. LM

      with, right, poking the bear and trying to approach, sometimes it doesn't work. You have to be safe and get to a place where you then can figure out how to approach your life.

    2. MR

      How do you know the difference? Like you said this thing about, "I just don't like heights."

    3. LM

      Mm-hmm.

    4. MR

      How do you know the difference if you're actually avoiding something that you need to approach and face in your life versus you just don't like it, or it's an issue of safety?

    5. LM

      (smacks lips) So the first one is robbing you from your best life. So one of ... Uh, there's a price tag. That's how I think about this.

    6. MR

      Hmm.

    7. LM

      There is a price tag with avoidance, and it's keeping you stuck, right? And sometimes, the patient of mine was a different patient, was in a job that she really disliked. So she called me and she says, "Hey, Luana, I just want to check if I'm avoiding or not." And we had a conversation about this job. It wasn't going well. It was clear she was going to have to change jobs. I said, "But why are you staying?" And she says to me, "I'm staying because if I stay six more months, I have this big bonus, and that bonus-"

    8. MR

      Oh.

    9. LM

      ... "is really going to help pay some of the bills that we have. And then what I thought is I would just tolerate for six months, and then once I get the bonus, I will just find another job." I said, "That's strategy. (laughs) That's not avoidance."

    10. MR

      Yes.

    11. LM

      "That's strategy. That's fantastic."

    12. MR

      Yes. Yes.

    13. LM

      Right? But she was so trained to think about avoidance. She's like, "Am I avoiding by staying?" No. That's strategy. Sometimes we have to have strategy in life.

    14. MR

      Well, it seems like avoidance is very reflexive-

    15. LM

      Mm-hmm. 100%.

    16. MR

      ... and that it is something that you're doing because you're reacting, and I would imagine that if you got pushed to, toward the thing, you'd push back 'cause you don't want to, versus a strategy which you can calmly, with emotional peace, rationally explain to somebody.

    17. LM

      That is exactly it. That, and, and everybody, if you, if you're true to yourself-

    18. MR

      Yep.

    19. LM

      ... and you pause, and you really look at what's in front of you, you're going to be able to smell avoidance pretty quickly.

    20. MR

      Wow. So I want to ask, for anybody that is just experiencing anxiety or you just feel really stuck, how do you begin this process?

    21. LM

      So most of the time, people come to me and they don't know they're avoiding. They have no clue they're avoiding. So the first step is really pausing. Give yourself five minutes, sit down, and think about the things that you want to do. So let's think about the dream life. What are the things you want to do? And then ask yourself why you're not doing that. What are the things that are getting in the way? And you're going to pretty quickly identify your avoidance. "I'm not doing this because I'm afraid of heights. I'm not doing this because if I ask for a raise, they're going to find out that I'm not good enough. I'm not going on this date because I don't think I'm pretty enough." Right?

    22. MR

      Hmm.

    23. LM

      And so if you pause, think of your dream life, and then ask yourself, "What are the obstacles here?" You're going to identify your avoidance. That's the first step to changing.

    24. MR

      Wow. And what if somebody goes, "I don't really know?"

    25. LM

      So one way to do this is look at the mirrors in your life, your good friends. You might not want to call your avoidance, but your friends usually know when you're avoiding. My husband calls me out on it all the time. The other day I was on a plane. I got an email that I hated. I took a picture, sent it to him, and the text goes, "Do not respond. That's reacting. That's avoidance. You cannot do this, Luana." And I, like, I had composed the email back by the way. (laughs) I was about to send the email. Your family and friends, your loved one, your close friends, they are good mirrors for us. They make us better, especially those friends that can call you on your shit.

    26. MR

      Hmm.

    27. LM

      Look at them and have a conversation about avoidance. I bet they can help you.

    28. MR

      Amazing. What about people that have, uh, what about parents or loved ones that have somebody that struggles with anxiety and a lot of avoidance? How do you support somebody?

    29. LM

      So supporting somebody, especially in heightened anxiety, can be very challenging. Um, I just had a client of mine say that he's at the end of his wife, like she won't get on a plane, she will not do anything that is physically active because increase ... So they, they want to go on this beautiful vacation, but she's like, "Well, okay, it has to be an electrical bike, and it has to be snorkeling, not scuba diving." Had, like she's basically containing anything that's related. So he said to me, "I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm done with this," right? The first piece is really trying to, number one, get the person some help if they are in that level of distress, but the second one is asking how you can be helpful, okay? Because often, we want to help people, but we want to help them in the way that we know to help.

    30. MR

      Hmm.

Episode duration: 1:15:14

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