If You’re Feeling Uncertain & Anxious, You Need to Hear This | Dr. Julie on The Mel Robbins Podcast

1. 0:00 – 2:36

   Welcome

   1. JSDr. Julie Smith0:06

      You're not alone. (instrumental music plays) There's nothing wrong with you just for having a hard time in life, 'cause life is hard. This white rice represents the population of the world, okay? So one in four people will experience a mental health problem at some point this year, right? And the wild rice represents that one in four. But when you mix them up like that, you realize even if you just take one little pinch of people, so let's say that's the people in your life, even if you're lucky enough not to be struggling at this moment, the chances are you're gonna be brushing shoulders with someone who is.

   2. MRMel Robbins0:42

      Mm.

   3. JSDr. Julie Smith0:43

      So you are never alone when you're struggling. Someone else will be dealing with something. There is such power in being able to recognize that what you're experiencing is a normal human experience.

   4. MRMel Robbins0:56

      Mm.

   5. JSDr. Julie Smith0:57

      Even when you feel like you're the only one experiencing it at that moment, you don't have to judge yourself as not being enough or not getting this thing called life correct or right. When you're really struggling, the best thing you could possibly do is... (clock ticks)

   6. MRMel Robbins1:12

      This is wild. We are so close to hitting four million subscribers on The Mel Robbins Podcast. That number isn't just a milestone, it's a sign of how many of you show up every week ready to learn, grow, and take action. So if you've been listening and watching for a while and you haven't hit that subscribe button yet, now's the time. It's free, it helps us reach even more people, and I promise to keep making this show better for you every single week. Hey, it's your friend Mel, welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so thrilled to be here with you today, and it's always an honor, always, to spend time with you, to be together. If you're a new listener, I also wanna take a moment and personally welcome you to The Mel Robbins Podcast family. And because you made the time and you decided to hit play on this particular episode, here's what I know about you. You're the kind of person who values your time and you're also someone who is committed to learning how to become the best version of yourself and getting better at navigating life's ups and downs, and we could all get better at that, myself included. And if you chose to listen to this because someone shared this with you, I think it's an important thing that I want to acknowledge and point out to you. It's really cool that you have people in your life that care enough about you to send this to you, and they sent this to you because they want you to have the experience of learning from the amazing Dr. Julie Smith, and they want you to have the toolkit

2. 2:36 – 7:48

   Science-Backed Strategies for Navigating Hard Times

   1. MRMel Robbins2:36

      that she's gonna share with you, and I personally could not be more excited to have Dr. Julie in person today. She is a world-renowned clinical psychologist, a best-selling author of the mega blockbuster bestseller, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, which has spent 109 weeks on the UK Sunday Times bestseller list. She has impacted millions of lives with the content she shares online, and now she's taken all of that wisdom and poured it into her new bestselling book, Open When. It's a book that you open when things are going wrong. It's a toolkit for life that will help you handle the ups, the downs, and everything in between, because when life feels chaotic, you deserve clarity. When emotions feel overwhelming, you deserve tools that work. And when you feel stuck, you deserve a way forward, and today you're gonna get it. So without further ado, please help me welcome the incredible Dr. Julie Smith to The Mel Robbins Podcast. Julie Smith is in the house, welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast.

   2. JSDr. Julie Smith3:42

      Thank you. I can't tell you how excited I am to be here. I'm- I'm a massive fan, so thanks for having me.

   3. MRMel Robbins3:47

      Well, I'm a huge fan of yours, and I am grateful that you hopped on a plane and you flew overseas to be here with us, and I wanna start by telling you your new book, Open When, is absolutely extraordinary. I am so proud of you, I am so excited for the world to have this book. I just... Before we even dive in, I just wanna read just even the table of contents because it is literally a guide to life. I mean, I want you to open this book when you compare yourself and come up short, when your friends are not your friends, when you wanna be less awkward around people, and these are all bite-sized chapters filled with things to do and ways to change how you think. Open When Your Inner Voice Is Your Own Worst Critic, When You Doubt Yourself And Wanna Feel More Confident, Open When You're Overthinking Everything, When You Have Done Something You Regret. I needed this book-

   4. JSDr. Julie Smith4:52

      (laughs) Mm-hmm.

   5. MRMel Robbins4:53

      ... 30 years ago, Dr. Julie. Open When Your Anger Erupts Too Often. I mean, who hasn't struggled with these things?

   6. JSDr. Julie Smith5:04

      Yeah, and that's really the main idea behind it. All of the chapter titles came to me at about 5:00 AM one morning when I was just churning all of this over, you know, I was awake too early and I though there's just so many scenarios that we all face at some point, right, that everybody goes through, but that n- none of it comes with any kind of manual or sense of what you should do about it, and- and all those situations leave you in turmoil, you know, sort of not knowing which way is up or, you know, often there's emotion to deal with and it's confusing and you're not sure which way is through, and- and really th- the whole idea for this book came from the first one, so Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? was my first book, which was all these kind of insights from therapy and things that you could spend time practicing to kind of build your resilience-

   7. MRMel Robbins5:51

      Mm.

   8. JSDr. Julie Smith5:51

      ... so that when stuff happens, you're better equipped, right? And, uh, I had these lovely comments coming through and some stories that were told to my mum, actually, saying, "Oh, we- we find the book so helpful, we're keeping it with us so that when we're in a crisis or a panic, we can open the book and- and see what it says." And that was such a nice thing to hear but I could not...... get it out of my head that I just didn't write it for those moments. You know, y- if you're, if you're in the thick of it and you're in a crisis, the last thing you need to hear is, "Well, you probably should've started practicing mindfulness six months ago-"

   9. MRMel Robbins6:23

      Right.

   10. JSDr. Julie Smith6:23

       "... because then you'd be equipped now." What you need is someone to kinda grab you by the shoulders, look you in the eye, and say, "I know a way through. Follow me." And, and often that's just a shift of your attention, right? It's focusing on the, on the direction that's gonna see you through and out the other side. And, and, you know, for me, I guess the person that does that in my life for me is probably my husband, Matt. You know, he'll j- he probably doesn't even realize he does it, but he says the so-

   11. MRMel Robbins6:48

       Don't tell him.

   12. JSDr. Julie Smith6:48

       No. (laughs)

   13. MRMel Robbins6:50

       (laughs)

   14. JSDr. Julie Smith6:50

       He said the right things that will just kinda shift me back on track-

   15. MRMel Robbins6:53

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JSDr. Julie Smith6:53

       ... and then I'm, I'm back on. Um, but even for people that... You know, lots of people don't have that person in their life, but even for people that do, that person isn't always there at that time. And, and I was thinking about, "Gosh, when my kids grow up and they leave home and, you know, wha- what could I send them off with that would see them through those difficult moments-"

   17. MRMel Robbins7:12

       Mm.

   18. JSDr. Julie Smith7:12

       "... when I can't be there to give them a hug and say, 'I know the way through this'?" Um, so yeah, that's the kind of... It's the one I want to stick in the suitcases of my kids when they leave home or, you know, send off to family and friends when, when I can't be there for them.

   19. MRMel Robbins7:25

       Well, I completely relate because when I read your book, I thought, "I have to give this to all three of my kids." Because it is a manual for life, and let's face it, life is very difficult. And what I'm excited for us to do today is to unpack all these little nuggets of wisdom that are life skills-

3. 7:48 – 13:58

   Simple Tools to Help You Feel Better

   1. MRMel Robbins7:48

   2. JSDr. Julie Smith7:48

      Yeah.

   3. MRMel Robbins7:49

      ... that are tools that you can assemble in a toolkit for life, because life is stressful right now. Like, if you're not feeling anxious, somebody that you love probably is. If you're not overwhelmed, somebody else is, that you care about. If you haven't lost a job or are stressed out about the headlines, somebody that you care about is.

   4. JSDr. Julie Smith8:07

      Mm.

   5. MRMel Robbins8:07

      And everything that you're about to share, that you've also beautifully written about in this new bestselling book, Open When, are just tools, and I love that you said that it's the kind of thing that you wish everybody knew-

   6. JSDr. Julie Smith8:23

      Yeah.

   7. MRMel Robbins8:23

      ... and that you almost wish people didn't have to pay for.

   8. JSDr. Julie Smith8:26

      Yeah. Yeah.

   9. MRMel Robbins8:27

      You have been in clinical practice for over a decade. You have millions of followers who hang on your videos and are so inspired and empowered by them. I would love for you to just tell the person listening, how do you think about what you're doing in your role as a clinical psychologist? Like, if you just explained it in just plain speak, how would you describe what you do for people?

   10. JSDr. Julie Smith8:53

       Yeah, well, I, I've definitely been swimming against the tide professionally, 'cause you've got the, the, the therapeutic stuff and, and, and the, the sort of clinical work, but then moving that educational aspect of stuff out of the therapy room, because I recognize that it's not therapy skills, it's life skills, and it's stuff that I was finding helpful, my friends were finding helpful, my family were finding helpful. And a lot of these people that were coming along f- for therapy who perhaps, uh, weren't at that more severe end of the scale, they, they didn't have any sort of clinical diagnosis or... They were just struggling to, to deal with whatever life threw at them because they didn't trust in their ability to be able to-

   11. MRMel Robbins9:31

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JSDr. Julie Smith9:31

       ... deal with the emotion that came along with it, and they didn't necessarily have some of the skills that you need to be able to move through that emotion or to deal with the relationships or moods or whatever it was. And, and so once people had that information, they were just raring to go, and, and so I wanted to kinda get that out there and, um, make it more available to people. And so that's really what I'm doing is, is, is sharing the stuff that... It, it's, it's the, the juicy bits that have come out of all this great stuff that is used in clinical practice, but we should all be using it, because whether your problems are big or small, it's still useful. And so, yeah, I'm kind of making sure that everyone is, uh, armed up to the hilt to deal with life, because life is really tough.

   13. MRMel Robbins10:17

       Dr. Julie, what would you tell someone who feels like they're the only person in their friend group or their family who's actually struggling?

   14. JSDr. Julie Smith10:25

       Do you know what? We actually did a video on this quite a while ago, but we used lots... I'm just gonna pull these over here. We used lots of, uh, rice, just as this idea of, um, representing the population of the world. So let's say the rice here, this white rice, represents the population of the world, okay? So you've got all of this, and one in four people will experience a mental health problem at some point this year, right? And the wild rice represents that one in four. But when you mix them up like that and you give it a little, uh, kind of mix, you realize that that one in four is a huge number, and even if you just take one little pinch of people, so let's say that's the people in your life. Even if you're lucky enough not to be struggling at this moment, the chances are you're gonna be brushing shoulders with someone who is.

   15. MRMel Robbins11:19

       Mm.

   16. JSDr. Julie Smith11:20

       So you are never alone when you're struggling, because even though people... You know, you, you won't be able to see it in this visual way that you do with the rice, because people don't often talk about it when they're struggling, but someone else will be dealing with something, and so recognizing that we m- need to be kind to each other all the time.

   17. MRMel Robbins11:40

       Dr. Julie, why is it important for you to recognize that you're not the only one? Like, what benefit does it have on you if you are in a moment where you're struggling?

   18. JSDr. Julie Smith11:50

       There is such power in being able to recognize that what you're experiencing is a normal human experience.

   19. MRMel Robbins11:59

       Mm.

   20. JSDr. Julie Smith11:59

       Even when you feel like you're the only one experiencing it at that moment, knowing that that doesn't make you abnormal, that it's a normal part of the human experience that other people might have experienced at some point, even if they're not going through it now...... means that you don't have to judge yourself as not being enough or not getting this thing called life correct or right. Normalizing something helps you to take the judgment out of it and start looking at it with curiosity.

   21. MRMel Robbins12:27

       The other thing that I love about it, and this visual is so helpful, is that there are gonna be times where I am the wild rice that's going through something-

   22. JSDr. Julie Smith12:36

       Yeah.

   23. MRMel Robbins12:36

       ... and then there'll be times that I'm the white rice and things are okay. And also understanding that we swap those positions in life, I think, gives you perspective that where you're at right now if you're struggling isn't where you're always gonna be.

   24. JSDr. Julie Smith12:50

       Yeah, absolutely. That it changes and it's temporary and those, those thoughts are so simple and yet so powerful because if you know that something is changeable and that sometimes you're okay and sometimes you're not, and that's a normal human experience, then you're able to accept it and allow it to pass over you in that way.

   25. MRMel Robbins13:08

       Mm. And it also gives you the motivation and hope that if you do use the tools that you share with us-

   26. JSDr. Julie Smith13:14

       Mm.

   27. MRMel Robbins13:15

       ... that you'll pass through it a little quicker.

   28. JSDr. Julie Smith13:17

       Yeah, there are absolutely, there are so many things you can do to help bring yourself back to, to baseline and, and to prevent it from happening so much of the time or to prevent those emotions from being so intense. You know, lots of skills you can do, um, that you can learn and get better at, that, that help you do that.

   29. MRMel Robbins13:37

       Well, that's why I'm so glad that you're here because I think that, you know, you hear the word mental health and you sin- think something big and scary, but no.

   30. JSDr. Julie Smith13:42

       Mm.
4. 13:58 – 17:27

   The Key to Managing Your Emotions

   1. MRMel Robbins13:58

      tools.

   2. JSDr. Julie Smith13:58

      Mm.

   3. MRMel Robbins13:59

      Dr. Julia, as a clinical psychologist, you say that everybody deserves to have an emotional toolkit. What does that mean?

   4. JSDr. Julie Smith14:06

      There's loads to that depending on what you're facing at any given point, and I would kinda break it down into there are certain things where, where people struggle, no matter what the details of your problem is and what life's throwing at you, a lot of people struggle with, okay, emotions. So-

   5. MRMel Robbins14:22

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JSDr. Julie Smith14:22

      ... uh, people will often come into therapy, you know, diagnosable or not, people come to therapy and they'll say, "You know, I've got these feelings that I don't want to have. I'm having too much of those and I'm missing a lot of the nice, pleasant ones that I used to have more. I would like some of those back, please."

   7. MRMel Robbins14:36

      Right.

   8. JSDr. Julie Smith14:36

      So, a lot of it is a sort of, there's a, um, some skills around emotion regulation, so there are things you can do to, uh, help you regulate the, the negative emotion. Not make them disappear, so that there's a learning about, okay, emotion is normal human experience and it's information. It's not something that's wrong with you. If you experience sadness or anger or, you know, anxiety, it doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with you. It's a normal part of human experience. So often what we do in therapy is we take the judgment out of it and we look at it with curiosity instead. All emotion is information. It has something to tell you, usually about what you need or what's going on around you. So there's this kinda shift around, you know, um, emotion regulation and learning about emotion, um, but then there's also stuff about thoughts, that people struggle with, with thoughts.

   9. MRMel Robbins15:29

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JSDr. Julie Smith15:29

       So, you know, all this stuff online about, you know, only positive vibes and don't have negative thoughts and, and that really sets people up to feel like they're failing because inevitably they have negative thoughts, they have judgments, they have self-critical thoughts, and when they have them, they then think they're failing at being a positive person, uh, whereas often what you would use in, in therapy that's really he- and I use this all the time, is the idea of kinda thought diffusion, where you get yourself a bird's eye view of what's going on in your head and you kinda look at the pattern of, okay, these thoughts are coming in and those thoughts are coming in, and these are all possible perspectives that I can take on this, but I have the choice. So it's this idea that your attention is like a spotlight and if all your kinda thoughts were actors on the stage, you've got control of the spotlight, so th- what most people try to do is scramble up onto the stage and pull the actors off the... "I don't wanna think that and I don't wanna have that thought 'cause that's horrible and, and I just wanna think this." And, and you can't control it, right?

   11. MRMel Robbins16:35

       Mm.

   12. JSDr. Julie Smith16:35

       But what you do have is the spotlight, so all these different thoughts will be coming into your mind and, and you can just choose what you're giving most of your time and attention to, and that will impact how you feel. Um, you don't have to eradicate those other thoughts. There are other possible scripts that you could listen to, but you get to choose which ones you give the limelight to.

   13. MRMel Robbins16:57

       Well, and what's great about the way that you're framing this, 'cause you're now talking about teaching us skills around managing emotions and feeling emotions-

   14. JSDr. Julie Smith17:06

       Mm-hmm.

   15. MRMel Robbins17:06

       ... and not being scared of emotions and processing them and tools around understanding the way that your thoughts are shaping your experience and learning the skill of choosing what you wanna think about or how you wanna think about things, and we're gonna get into those. We're gonna take the rice away right now through the magic of editing, and then I'm gonna jump

5. 17:27 – 25:00

   How to Take Control When Life Feels Impossible

   1. MRMel Robbins17:27

      right into the next question. So Dr. Julia, you've been very open about your recent cancer diagnosis. Can you use that as an example of a situation where life sucks-

   2. JSDr. Julie Smith17:38

      Yeah.

   3. MRMel Robbins17:38

      ... things happen-

   4. JSDr. Julie Smith17:39

      Yeah.

   5. MRMel Robbins17:40

      ... and how you were then using this toolkit that we're gonna unpack for the person that's with us to navigate through that situation that just happened?

   6. JSDr. Julie Smith17:52

      Yeah. Do you know what? I, um, a- and I'm generally not that p- public about my personal life a lot, but I, the reason I kinda shared about that was because I knew there would be other busy mums and dads like me who were tempted to put their own health on the back burner. So-

   7. MRMel Robbins18:09

      Mm.

   8. JSDr. Julie Smith18:09

      ... uh, you know, that's just something I would say to anyone out there who is listening who has any kind of health concern and is tempted to wait and put it off until they're less busy, 'cause I did. I was...... six weeks away from handing in the manuscript type and when, and discovered a lump in my breast and I thought, "Shall I just wait until I've got this book off my desk before I go and s-" I, you know, I'd had lunch some months before. I knew it wasn't a great, nice process, and I thought, "Do I have the mental capacity for this right now?"

   9. MRMel Robbins18:37

      Right.

   10. JSDr. Julie Smith18:37

       You know, lots going on. But in the end, gave myself a bit of a talking to and thought, "That's a stupid idea." Went and got the tests and time was my greatest tool, so, um, my greatest weapon against this thing, and now I'm fine, but, um, so anyone out there who has a kind of health concern and is tempted to put it off, don't. Just, just do it. And, um, so yeah, I, I got diagnosed then, so I, that was about six weeks before I handed the book in. Then I got diagnosed, um, and I was about a week or two away from handing the book in. So I was at that stage where I was kind of reading through, editing, polishing things up, ready for my editor to see it, and I just happened to be reading through the chapter on when fear shows up.

   11. MRMel Robbins19:18

       (laughs)

   12. JSDr. Julie Smith19:18

       (laughs)

   13. MRMel Robbins19:19

       Isn't life funny?

   14. JSDr. Julie Smith19:20

       Oh, my goodness. And I kind of, I read it and I thought, "This just isn't the kinda words I need to hear right now." It was very gentle and it, um, a lot of people like that approach, but I just thought, "I need something much stronger here." So I hit delete and I sat there and then rewrote the whole thing. It was very much a, a shift in language that when, when something like that happens and life throws you a massive curveball like that, you're, so you're faced with the prospects of your own mortality. The fear is just catastrophic, right? You're, I was like a rabbit in headlights. That's what it felt like, that I was just stunned, and because you don't find out everything at once either. You, you don't sort of find out and then find out what the treatment plan is-

   15. MRMel Robbins20:04

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JSDr. Julie Smith20:04

       ... and what the prospects are. You, you, you find out in bits and pieces. So there was so much uncertainty, um, and I did not wanna feel like the prey. I, I didn't wanna feel like I, you know, was trying to work out which way to go and, and, um, so I, I kinda used the power of that language to right myself. You know, each chapter begins with a letter from me, so I wrote this letter to myself, and it's very much a sense of you cannot control the fact that fear is here, right? But it can help you to move through this thing. It's now your responsibility to cultivate that courage to, to move through and out the other side, and, um, and there was lots of language around becoming the predator instead of the prey.

   17. MRMel Robbins20:47

       Mm.

   18. JSDr. Julie Smith20:47

       And there's this fundamental difference between those two, right?

   19. MRMel Robbins20:50

       Yes.

   20. JSDr. Julie Smith20:50

       So that prey is darting around, just avoiding threats and pitfalls and trying to survive it, whereas a predator is h- you know, has a goal, has something in its sights, and it's on the front foot and, and uses, you know, all that drive and that action to make something happen. And so I thought, "Right, yeah, this cancer isn't coming after me. I'm coming after it."

   21. MRMel Robbins21:14

       Mm...

   22. JSDr. Julie Smith21:14

       "It better watch out." You know, and I felt fundamentally, you know, the situation was the same, but I felt fundamentally different in terms of how I was dealing with that. I wanted to be on the front foot, and I wanted to be a- and, and actually the, the quote at the beginning of the book, it was never gonna be in the book, but it, um, I, I had to put it in in the end because it was so fundamental to my experience, was, "Get busy with life's purpose. Toss aside empty hopes. Get active in your own rescue if you care for yourself at all, and do it while you can." And it, it kind of makes me emotional just, um, even saying it there because it takes me back to that moment of I, I had it on a Post-It note that was on my desk, and every time I read it, I felt that drive, that kind of fire in my belly to do something that was active in my own rescue. So a- a- and I feel like it reflects everything, this whole journey and all those people I was with in therapy who felt that they were at the mercy of their emotional experience, even, you know, not, it doesn't have to be those kind of extreme experiences, but normal emotional ups and downs, relationship ups and downs. You know, they can feel so just chaotic, can't they? And often, that chaos is I don't trust myself to be able to cope with whatever comes up, and that's what fundamentally changes. When you change the language and you, you choose to focus that spotlight of your attention where it is gonna be most helpful to you so that you can have this vision of w- "As I move through this, and as I get out the other side, I want to look back and be so proud of how I dealt with it."

   23. MRMel Robbins22:54

       Mm.

   24. JSDr. Julie Smith22:54

       And have that as your vision for how you're gonna be forward rather than the darting of the, you know, the rabbit in the headlights. "Ah, which way is left? Which way is right?" You know, I, I wanted to have that absolute focus, and, um, and it really worked for me.

   25. MRMel Robbins23:06

       Well, Dr. Julie, I think it's a unbelievably relatable story, and, you know, I'm thinking right now of friends of mine who are sitting in a hospital, and they have a loved one who is waiting heart surgery, and, you know, it's just like every day holding onto hope, and even thinking of friends who just lost their job, and that whole flip from feeling like the prey-

   26. JSDr. Julie Smith23:37

       Yeah.

   27. MRMel Robbins23:37

       ... where something's coming after you and you have nothing that you can do versus that flip to, "No, I'm gonna be the predator."

   28. JSDr. Julie Smith23:45

       Yeah.

   29. MRMel Robbins23:45

       "I'm going after it," that that is an example of the kind of tools that you are so brilliant at giving to people in your private practice, to giving to all of us online, and I can see how that's already going to help somebody, whether they're dealing with a breakup or they're dealing with, like, just that sense of helplessness or, you know-

   30. JSDr. Julie Smith24:03

       Yeah.
6. 25:00 – 33:46

   Process Overwhelm and Grief in a Healthy Way

   1. MRMel Robbins25:00

   2. JSDr. Julie Smith25:00

      Yeah.

   3. MRMel Robbins25:00

      Which I, I just absolutely love. For somebody who's feeling extremely overwhelmed right now with a situation in life, or maybe they're grieving something, a relationship that's over, they've lost somebody, do you have any other tools that you would recommend for what processing those emotion mean in that context?

   4. JSDr. Julie Smith25:18

      Yeah. Yeah, 'cause I think it's key here that I, I've never wanted to give the impression that I then didn't have some really dark moments in that, right?

   5. MRMel Robbins25:26

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JSDr. Julie Smith25:26

      That I'm human just like everybody else, and so dealing with something, um, in that way, uh, doesn't mean that you, you don't feel overwhelmed at times. So, you know, I had those moments, and the way that I deal with those sort of big emotions and the overwhelm was to allow it to be there and to recogni- You know, I've sat in so many rooms with people and just helped contain those feelings and helped people through them, not to eradicate them, but to sort of hold their hand as they experience it. So I, you know, I talk about that in the book actually, this idea that your inner world is a bit like a sauna. There are benefits to being there, but only if you don't stay too long. So, you know, when you're really struggling, the best thing you could possibly do is reach out to a human being that you trust and connect in that moment because they will help you to kind of regulate that emotion. Um, but if you don't have someone there in that moment, being, uh, being sort of in a position where you're not trying to numb it, you're not trying to push it away, you're just allowing it to wash over you, then that's exactly what it will do. And I, I did a video ages ago about the idea that, um, if, if you stand in the ocean up to your waist, right, and the waves are coming, and when, when the wave comes, they kind of, it lifts you off your feet a bit. So imagine if you try to hold back one of those waves.

   7. MRMel Robbins26:52

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JSDr. Julie Smith26:53

      You're gonna end up taking a tumble and mouthful of water, and it's not gonna be pretty. But if you accept that those waves are coming, um, then you do something different, right? So maybe you turn to the side or you brace yourself and bend your knees so that when you do come off your feet, you're gonna land again. And in the acceptance of that sort of emotional wave coming, you're better prepared to then deal with what it does to you, and it will naturally pass without causing you too many problems, and that's really what emotion does. If you can kind of soothe your way through it, knowing that it's temporary, knowing that it will... Even if it goes away and it comes back again, you can do that again and again and on repeat, and, uh, and, and listen to what it says, you know? At that point when I felt that overwhelm, it was telling me I was shit scared about what was gonna happen to my children, um-

   9. MRMel Robbins27:44

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JSDr. Julie Smith27:45

       ... and what was gonna happen to me and what the future held-

   11. MRMel Robbins27:47

       Of course.

   12. JSDr. Julie Smith27:47

       ... and, and how sick I might become and all those kind of things, and, uh, I didn't have the answers to those things at that, in that moment, and so the fear was there, and that was okay. And, um, and then we focused on, okay, what's the next step that I need to take in order to move, keep moving through it?

   13. MRMel Robbins28:03

       So that's almost an example of another tool, is-

   14. JSDr. Julie Smith28:05

       Yeah.

   15. MRMel Robbins28:05

       ... visualizing yourself in an ocean-

   16. JSDr. Julie Smith28:07

       Yeah.

   17. MRMel Robbins28:08

       ... and understanding that when the emotion rises of overwhelm or grief or anger or sadness or fear of whatever-

   18. JSDr. Julie Smith28:15

       Yeah.

   19. MRMel Robbins28:15

       ... just let it rise-

   20. JSDr. Julie Smith28:17

       Yeah.

   21. MRMel Robbins28:18

       ... and visualize yourself kind of letting it fall.

   22. JSDr. Julie Smith28:21

       Yeah.

   23. MRMel Robbins28:21

       You know, another thing that you write about in Open When is just kind of chronic comparison-

   24. JSDr. Julie Smith28:27

       Mm-hmm.

   25. MRMel Robbins28:27

       ... and how we look around at the world around us, and then we tell ourselves, "I'm less than, I'm never gonna make that money, I'm never gonna be this, I'm never gonna be that, nothing I ever do is right," and you're using comparison-

   26. JSDr. Julie Smith28:39

       Mm-hmm.

   27. MRMel Robbins28:39

       ... as a way to beat yourself down. And you have this quote in the book that I fricking love, "Resentment is not a reflection of what the world owes you. It is a sign of what you need to work on."

   28. JSDr. Julie Smith28:51

       Mm-hmm.

   29. MRMel Robbins28:52

       What does that mean?

   30. JSDr. Julie Smith28:53

       So, uh, for a lot of people, when, when they feel resentment, the, the tendency is to look at the person who you feel is making you feel that way, right? That, that they're doing something wrong or they're overstepping the mark, or they're breaching your boundaries. And, and again, for me, that's very prey rather than predator, right? That's the sense of l- you know, it's being done to me and-
7. 33:46 – 41:33

   A Psychologist’s Best Tips for Building Confidence

   1. JSDr. Julie Smith33:46

      positive way.

   2. MRMel Robbins33:47

      So, Dr. Julie, when you have somebody come into your practice or write in to you online and they're having trouble just being with other people-

   3. JSDr. Julie Smith33:56

      Mm.

   4. MRMel Robbins33:57

      ... very shy, very introverted, like, feel very awkward around other people, what are some tools and strategies that you recommend?

   5. JSDr. Julie Smith34:04

      Th- this is kind of, um, quite a personal one for me really, because I remember I was such a shy child, right?

   6. MRMel Robbins34:10

      Really?

   7. JSDr. Julie Smith34:10

      You know, I always thought about it. I read a lot. It was mostly because I was the shy, quiet one in the corner. Nobody would ever have dreamt that I would do stuff like this, including me. And I even remember when I got to clinical training and I'm sat in, uh, a room with someone and I'm being assessed, doing an assessment of that person, and I remember-

   8. MRMel Robbins34:27

      Sounds horrible.

   9. JSDr. Julie Smith34:28

      Oh, and I remember thinking in that moment, "Why? Why have I chosen this career? I, I hate talking to people." (laughs) "I hate being looked at by other people, and here I am doing both at the same time." And then the idea of putting stuff out there publicly only started because it felt like a nice thing to do. Never imagined it would turn into something where I was doing live TV or radio, and I was terrified of doing that stuff. And in all honesty, I had to keep doing it because I felt that I had to practice what I preach about how if you, if you struggle with, with being around people or talking to people or public speaking or whatever it is, you have to spend time doing it. You know, if you want your confidence to grow, you have to be able to go where you have none and to be able to sit there for a while and be willing to be the beginner and stick with it and look after yourself when it doesn't go well. That was key, I think, with the, uh, going on live TV and things like that. The only way I was really willing to do that was if I fully committed to myself that I would have my own back. If it all went wrong, you know, if I tripped over and flashed my underwear to the nation, whatever, I was not gonna kick myself when I was down.

   10. MRMel Robbins35:40

       Mm.

   11. JSDr. Julie Smith35:40

       You know, I, I was quite a sort of... Academically and things like that, I guess I was always quite hard on myself and, you know, that highly self-critical stuff was probably quite there when I was younger. But I had to say, "There is no way I can do this and be this vulnerable if I'm gonna speak to myself like that."

   12. MRMel Robbins35:55

       Mm.

   13. JSDr. Julie Smith35:55

       Just not a chance. Uh, so I had to be fully committed to being, in my own head, being like a coach, so someone who would, uh, have the absolute... My best interests at heart the whole time, not speak to me like I was, you know, a piece of shit, and, and, and treat myself in a way that, uh, you know, a coach would treat an elite athlete to say, "You know, when you're down, this is how we get back up and we move forward."

   14. MRMel Robbins36:23

       You have this quote, "It's not so much that the socially confident have worked out how to prevent awkward moments, it's simply that they barely focus on trying to avoid them at all."

   15. JSDr. Julie Smith36:32

       Mm.

   16. MRMel Robbins36:33

       "Sometimes focusing only on what you're trying to avoid leads you straight to it."

   17. JSDr. Julie Smith36:38

       Yeah.

   18. MRMel Robbins36:38

       And so if you have somebody that is listening right now...And this is really, like, an issue, like, "I feel awkward around other people. I'm not good in big groups. I don't like to, like, put myself out there." What assignment or what would you tell them if they were sitting across from you? Because that person might be listening right now. What do they actually need to do?

   19. JSDr. Julie Smith37:01

       Yeah. Well, I guess, it's the two things here. The one is that you take your time. You don't start with the scariest thing. Your any type of fear that you're tackling-

   20. MRMel Robbins37:10

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JSDr. Julie Smith37:10

       ... what we would do in therapy is we create, um, a scale. So we would list all the things, all the different situations that are scary, with the least scary at the bottom. So maybe if it's a social anxiety thing, maybe the idea of saying hello to that person at the local store when I pick up my paper or whatever fills me with anxiety, but I know I could do it if I really try, uh, that would go at the bottom. And then, maybe a sort of 100% worst case scenario is I've gotta speak at a friend's wedding or something like that. And there's loads of scenarios in between. They're all slightly tweaked and slightly different that you might think are more or less scary. And you don't start at the top, you start at the bottom. So you start with the thing that feels kind of manageable, but a challenge-

   22. MRMel Robbins37:53

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JSDr. Julie Smith37:54

       ... and, and you repeat it as much as you possibly can because what you do is, is everything that's new and novel, you will get this hike in your stress response. So your brain is saying, "We're not sure about this. Anything could happen, so we're gonna increase your level of alertness so that you're ready for anything." And that's really what it is. That's what's happening. You're getting that level of alertness so that you can cope with it. But you experience that as stress, so it's uncomfortable. And so if you're tackling those scenarios, what we often get people to do in, uh, when they're in it, is focus on the idea that your attention is a spotlight.

   24. MRMel Robbins38:31

       Okay.

   25. JSDr. Julie Smith38:31

       And you have control of that, so-

   26. MRMel Robbins38:33

       Okay. So I've now pushed myself to go to this networking meeting.

   27. JSDr. Julie Smith38:36

       Mm-hmm.

   28. MRMel Robbins38:36

       I did not wanna go. I hate small talk. I'm feeling awkward. I'm now standing in that semicircle-

   29. JSDr. Julie Smith38:42

       Yeah.

   30. MRMel Robbins38:42

       ... with, like, four people. I keep staring at people's shoes. And I'm thinking, "This is horrible. I don't know what to s-" Like, so the- how do I use the spotlight tool right now?
8. 41:33 – 45:13

   Stop Being So Hard on Yourself

   1. JSDr. Julie Smith41:33

   2. MRMel Robbins41:33

      Um, you know, one section of your book Open When is when you're really hard on yourself and you've done things that you regret, and we've all been there, but you cannot... Like, you're really struggling to forgive yourself. What are some tools and strategies that you recommend when you have a real... when you're just really hard on yourself?

   3. JSDr. Julie Smith41:56

      Yeah. I think looking at your relationship with failure is huge a- and, and a m- a real game changer actually. You know, when I talked about this idea of, you know, going on live TV and it being terrifying and, and that I needed to commit to looking after myself, it was really... That was a shift in my relationship with failure that I committed to looking after myself in the face of setbacks and humiliation and failure that might happen. Uh, that if your... if the inside of your head is not a safe place to be, how are you ever gonna take risks? How are you ever gonna move forward? If, you know... I, I talked with some... One of the things I used to talk about in therapy when people were highly self-critical is, is this idea that imagine if I was gonna lock you in a room for a whole year, so 24/7 for a whole year, you couldn't come out-And in there, I was gonna put your high school bully. Me- the worst person you can think of from, from your early days and you're gonna live with them 24/7 for a year. How might you feel when you came out?

   4. MRMel Robbins43:04

      Horrid.

   5. JSDr. Julie Smith43:05

      What do you mean?

   6. MRMel Robbins43:06

      Beaten down. Scared. Like I- like my first thing that I thought was, "My god. I guess I better figure out how to be friends with this person or else they're gonna destroy me."

   7. JSDr. Julie Smith43:14

      Yeah. Yeah. So someone who just hammers you all the time.

   8. MRMel Robbins43:16

      Oh my god. Yes.

   9. JSDr. Julie Smith43:17

      All the time. You're never gonna come out of that feeling at your best.

   10. MRMel Robbins43:21

       Right.

   11. JSDr. Julie Smith43:22

       But imagine now if I said, "Okay, I'm gonna lock you in that room for the year, but you get to take your best friend," how would you feel different when you came out?

   12. MRMel Robbins43:30

       I'd feel fantastic, like I'm actually going away to camp.

   13. JSDr. Julie Smith43:33

       (laughs) Yeah, yeah. Like a holiday, right?

   14. MRMel Robbins43:35

       Yes.

   15. JSDr. Julie Smith43:35

       You would- you would have a great time and, and you would feel, uh, encouraged about whatever you were gonna do next and, and happy. And, and really that idea of being in that room with a person is you inside your own head. The way that you speak to yourself can either be a really good friend or a bully. And because you're with yourself 24/7, it will have the same impact, you know, with, as that scenario of, you know, am I, am I spending time with someone who's having a positive impact on me or someone who's having a negative impact on me? But the, the great news is that you have control of that and, and you can begin to shift how you speak to yourself.

   16. MRMel Robbins44:19

       How do you begin to talk to yourself as a friend if you actually believe that you're a bad person or that you look in the past and you see lots of evidence of the mistakes that you've made?

   17. JSDr. Julie Smith44:30

       Yeah. Well, I think if you're looking back and you're seeing how hard you are on yourself, the fact that you can recognize it-

   18. MRMel Robbins44:38

       Mm.

   19. JSDr. Julie Smith44:38

       ... is a sign of progress, right? When I, when I look back on my, my early videos that I (laughs) put out onto the internet and I think, "Oh my goodness, I can barely watch it. I just can barely look." And my response then is always, "That's a sign of progress." If we weren't doing better videos now, I wouldn't be so, uh, cringey when I, when I watch the old ones, right? So it's a sign that you're learning and you're progressing. And so when you look back and there's something you regret or you think, "How could I be so stupid? How could I get that so wrong?"

   20. MRMel Robbins45:11

       Right.

   21. JSDr. Julie Smith45:12

       That's a sign that you're

9. 45:13 – 49:27

   Train Your Mind to Support You

   1. JSDr. Julie Smith45:13

      not there now. And, uh, you know, and you- I love this idea of elite athletes employ coaches with so much thought and precision, right? They don't employ that high school bully to, to get them through, you know, really difficult competitions or help them improve their game or anything like that. They employ someone who has their back, has their best interest at heart, believes that they have huge potential and need to do some hard work to get there, and someone who's always gonna be honest with them but is gonna bring that honesty with kindness and compassion and forward-thinking. And so when we think of that kind of idea of, you know, people employ coaches like that because it works and because it helps them to bring their best, but you apply that to normal life and we all want to bring our best, right? We all want to keep progressing and learning and, and bringing out the best in ourselves. And so what you need is to be the coach for yourself. No one else is there 24/7. Not even our family. But if we can have that idea, you know, it's not so much exactly what you say every ti- you know, what are the words I need to say to myself? It's an idea of what would a coach say to me right now, you know? How would, how would a coach help me to get back up, uh, when I've fallen down or I've really messed up? What would they be saying? They wouldn't be calling me names because that wouldn't help. They would, you know... And so it's just giving yourself this idea of, this concept of what is the voice that I need to hear right now that's gonna help me through? And, and that's where the idea of, with the book came where each, uh, chapter begins with a letter from me. It's this idea that often in those moments, you just need someone to bring the right words that helps to shift your attention in the right direction and give you that sort of drive in your belly that's just gonna get you back up and pushing through this difficult moment. Um, so, you know, it's really hard to do that for ourselves in the moment. It takes time and training and practice. And I think often we learn that from hearing it. And so if we don't have anyone in our li- in our lives that seems to bring the right words that we need to hear, then we can get it from a book, right?

   2. MRMel Robbins47:27

      Yes, you can. And you can get it from podcasts and from-

   3. JSDr. Julie Smith47:30

      Yeah. Yes.

   4. MRMel Robbins47:31

      ... social media clips.

   5. JSDr. Julie Smith47:32

      Yeah.

   6. MRMel Robbins47:32

      And what I loved about what you just said though, 'cause I really wanna highlight this, is that A, recognizing that you kind of have engaged in regrettable or despicable or hurtful or painful behavior.

   7. JSDr. Julie Smith47:46

      Yeah.

   8. MRMel Robbins47:47

      Even just recognizing it, I love this reframe that that's a really great sign of progress that you-

   9. JSDr. Julie Smith47:53

      Mm-hmm.

   10. MRMel Robbins47:54

       ... have the ick factor with yourself and that's different than holding it over your head.

   11. JSDr. Julie Smith47:59

       Mm-hmm.

   12. MRMel Robbins48:00

       And so if you can recognize it, is there any trick to reframing then, like, how you actually talk to yourself moving forward? Like, when you can't think of anything else, is there something that you give to the, the clients that you work with that is kinda universal that helps them shake off the hold that being hard on yourself can have?

   13. JSDr. Julie Smith48:23

       A line that's often used in therapeutic work when we're helping someone build and, and train in kinda self-compassion is, "I did the best that I knew how with what I had at the time and I have new insight now and new skills now that I didn't have before."

   14. MRMel Robbins48:39

       Mm.

   15. JSDr. Julie Smith48:39

       When we were talking earlier about the kind of idea of, uh, where you focus your attention and what causes anxiety, if your attention is focused on the past-... too much, you will get depressed and you'll get miserable. If your attention is always focused on the future and things that might happen, but haven't happened yet, you're gonna get anxious. And if you're focused on the present moment, there's much less to be depressed or anxious about. It's just the present moment, it's just me and you and here. And, and that's mindfulness really, that's the idea of choosing where you focus your attention. And so being able to, like you say, say something like, "I did the best I knew how with what I had at the time, even if I had very little at the time in terms of skill. And now I'm gonna bring myself back to here."

   16. MRMel Robbins49:25

       Mm. And

10. 49:27 – 58:32

    How to Navigate Uncertainty, Stress, and Relationships

    1. MRMel Robbins49:27

       I can figure out how to do better. You know, you mentioned the future, and Dr. Julie, I would love to know wh- how you help a client who feels a lot of uncertainty-

    2. JSDr. Julie Smith49:37

       Mm-hmm.

    3. MRMel Robbins49:37

       ... about the future, and right now I think it's at an all-time high when you look at the headlines and when you look at the reports around the spike in anxiety and stress that people are feeling around the world. So, what are tools that you can use to manage the uncertainty when you look out to the future?

    4. JSDr. Julie Smith49:55

       Yeah. I think when, when everything's uncertain, a lot of the distress that that causes is when we're trying to control it. You know? It's, it's a bit like your book, isn't it? With the let them, right? It's the allow life to be uncertain. Every move in life is, is uncertain. Nothing is given, nothing is fully controllable. And so it's probably one of life's most important skills to be able to tolerate that uncertainty and to know that when everything becomes really stressful and really uncertain, narrowing your focus is probably the most helpful sort of real-time tool to just focus on the next couple of steps ahead. What am I doing that's keeping me moving forward even in times of, you know, great uncertainty or stress or, uh, you know, all sorts of problems that might be up ahead? And, uh, and certainly that's for m- for me when I talk about the whole, you know, cancer experience, is something that does to you, that takes awa... I mean, you always... I think everyone probably worries about, you know, will I get this or that when I'm older and when will that stuff like that happen? But when it does happen, you realize you had a certain degree of safety. This idea that happens to other people mostly.

    5. MRMel Robbins51:15

       Yes.

    6. JSDr. Julie Smith51:15

       Even if you're a bit worried about it, there's a kind of distance that you have. And I remember thinking, "I don't wanna be in this club. I don't wanna be in this club. I did not want, I did not sign up for this." And, and I think that was this sense of anything can happen. Like right now, it feels more possible than it ever did. And so you're... Even once you're okay and out the other side of treatment, and so many people survive it, and, you know, it's just fantastic that, you know, people are, you know, having successful treatments. But it leaves with you this sense of anything can happen. And probably the most fundamental way that I deal with that is saying, "Yes, that's why I have to live as if I have a future-

    7. MRMel Robbins51:59

       Mm.

    8. JSDr. Julie Smith52:00

       ... because otherwise I'm back to rabbit in headlights. Anything could happen, so I can't live. I can't carry on."

    9. MRMel Robbins52:05

       I'm glad that you said that because I think when people hear, "You have to allow the uncertainty. You have to allow, like, the fact that these are... there are things out of your control," whether it's the headlines or the fact that you're now single again-

    10. JSDr. Julie Smith52:15

        Yeah.

    11. MRMel Robbins52:15

        ... and you didn't wanna be, or that you just had a miscarriage and you didn't want it, or you just got the cancer diagnosis, or somebody that you love is going in for surgery and it's all uncertain, or AI feels like it's taking over the world and will it take over your job? And so that sense of like, "Oh my gosh, I just have to let them. I have to allow this-

    12. JSDr. Julie Smith52:36

        Mm-hmm.

    13. MRMel Robbins52:36

        ... 'cause I can't control it," I'm so happy you reminded us that that's not where it ends because you brought it right back to the prey versus the predator-

    14. JSDr. Julie Smith52:47

        Yeah.

    15. MRMel Robbins52:47

        ... which is there are small things that I can do to put the foot forward and get ahead of this thing or just focus on what is important to me, and there was a tool in there which is believing that you have a future, believing that things are better. Why does that... Why is that important?

    16. JSDr. Julie Smith53:05

        Because if you don't, you have nothing, right? You, you, you have to live as if you have a future because otherwise you start dropping into this sense of doom that everything is pointless if you, if you feel that you don't have a future. And so you have to live with that meaning and purpose and... Because if you don't act as if you have a future and then you do, then you, you mess up your future (laughs) . Uh, so it... A lot of it is about sort of bearing that kind of suffering side of it and moving forward anyway and, uh, a-a-and then things, you know, you get these little pockets of time where things feel a bit better or things, you know, you open up the possibility of experiencing kind of pleasure or meaning or purpose throughout, you know, despite the fact that the world is often scary and uncertain, and, and in some ways it's always been that way.

    17. MRMel Robbins54:00

        It's true.

    18. JSDr. Julie Smith54:01

        Yeah.

    19. MRMel Robbins54:01

        It's true. So in your private practice and with your online audience, what are you seeing that people are struggling the most with right now?

    20. JSDr. Julie Smith54:09

        Um, I think there's this kind of mix between the emotional stuff, so understanding that there is a way to deal with emotion and that when you experience a bunch of negative or painful emotions, that that doesn't mean something is wrong with you, um, linked with relationships.

    21. MRMel Robbins54:31

        What are the big struggles in relationships?

    22. JSDr. Julie Smith54:32

        I think it's a mix of dealing with my emotion in the relationship and dealing with someone else's emotion in the relationship, and I think we are lied to, especially on social media now, about this idea that, you know, you hear all this stuff about you've got to be healed before you get into a relationship.

    23. MRMel Robbins54:50

        Oh my God.

    24. JSDr. Julie Smith54:51

        Like...... when are you healed? I mean, the- if I had followed that rule, I would never have married Matt, and we've been together 20 years. You know, and, and it's this idea that you've got to become this sort of perfect idea of human being, and the other person's gotta have done the same work, so that when you get together, you have this perfect, fairytale relationship, and it's never hard. And it's just o- utter rubbish. You know, it's just not true whatsoever. And so when people then struggle in relationships because you're both dealing with emotion and stress and all the ups and downs of life, people then think that it's not the right relationship, or you're getting it wrong. And, and actually that is the process of a relationship is building that together and going through those things and learning about each other in the process, and forgiving each other for when you bring your worst to each other. And, and you just bring, build so much strength through that. So I think there's this combination of, what on earth is emotion all about and how do I deal with it? But also then, what do I do with that in, in a relationship? W- when the relationship shows me up to, to not be my perfect self- (laughs)

    25. MRMel Robbins55:54

        Mm-hmm.

    26. JSDr. Julie Smith55:54

        ... and I'm not being my best self, what does that mean? You know, it's the- so yeah, some sort of combination between those two, I think.

    27. MRMel Robbins56:02

        And what is your, like what's the most important thing that you think we need to know to make our relationships better?

    28. JSDr. Julie Smith56:10

        No relationship is perfect, but that doesn't mean you have to give up on it. That I think the strongest relationships have often been through the most together, right, because you feel safety when you've been through stuff together, and it's pulled you together and not apart.

    29. MRMel Robbins56:31

        Mm.

    30. JSDr. Julie Smith56:31

        I think, um, I, I think this whole misconception that, that everything's gotta be perfect, otherwise it's not the right person or it's not the right relationship.
11. 58:32 – 1:05:49

    Simple Strategies to Overcome Anxiety

    1. JSDr. Julie Smith58:32

       could be an ideal relationship.

    2. MRMel Robbins58:34

       You know, since so many people are either struggling with anxiety or they have someone in their life who is-

    3. JSDr. Julie Smith58:39

       Mm-hmm.

    4. MRMel Robbins58:39

       ... what is the advice that you give your clients when you're working with them through a period where they feel anxious?

    5. JSDr. Julie Smith58:46

       Yeah. I think probably one of the first bits is the idea that anxiety isn't something that's wrong in your brain. It's not a problem that is, uh, a fault of yours. It's not something that's wrong with you. It's an experience. And, and often what happens in therapy is this process of someone kinda says, "You know, I'm feeling this," or, "This is coming up for me." And, and, and then what follows is a judgment.

    6. MRMel Robbins59:15

       Mm.

    7. JSDr. Julie Smith59:15

       You know, that, uh, that means I'm weak or I'm not, I'm not coping, and everyone else can do this and... And what we do is we kinda go, "Okay, notice that judgment. Notice how you just judged yourself, how you're feeling right now." Uh, or, you know, you're comparing apparently everyone else has it together and then no one else feels this way. And let's just drop the judgment and turn back to that feeling with curiosity. Isn't that interesting that you feel that way? Wh- what's going on that makes you vulnerable to that feeling at this point? Let's say, I don't know, uh, a new mom for example who finds themselves totally isolated, has no idea what to do and how best to look after this baby, and you know, husband's gone back to work. All that, you know, and, and the anxiety is just huge. And I remember thinking when I first had a baby, "I don't know if I can handle this, uh, this degree of fear about how am I gonna get it right for this little human being for forevermore? I don't know if I can deal with..." And, and so a lot of it is this kind of, this idea that if you turn towards that feeling with curiosity, you can hear what it has to say.

    8. MRMel Robbins1:00:18

       Mm.

    9. JSDr. Julie Smith1:00:18

       And often it has something to tell you about what you need at the time. And so for example in that kind of new mom scenario, usually that's around, I need human connection. I need some reassurance. I need adult conversation. Or I need, you know, I need to feel safe in this situation, and, and, and so the answers start to appear when you're just willing to look at the emotion and ask, "What are you telling me? What is this?" And, and sometimes it has a lot to say, and other times it might not have a lot to say, and that's okay too, 'cause um, what we teach in kind of emotion regulation work is...... to, uh, to feel an emotion, look at it, and say, "Is this warranted? And is it proportionate to the situation?" 'Cause you know, sometimes if I haven't had enough sleep or, uh, I'm dehydrated or I've had too much coffee or something, I might have a really extreme reaction to something that I would normally have a small reaction to. So that would be disproportionate to the situation because of those other factors that made me vulnerable to that. So if you're willing to kind of look at, "Okay, what's going on here?" then the answers start to appear. But because so many of us are not willing to look at it with curiosity, we just judge ourselves for the fact we've had the feeling, and then we try to numb it and push it away, and then we're in a battle.

    10. MRMel Robbins1:01:38

        You know, that's something that I actually worry about because I feel like it's a super positive thing-

    11. JSDr. Julie Smith1:01:43

        Mm.

    12. MRMel Robbins1:01:43

        ... that there's so much conversation about mental health and about the things that people struggle with and normalizing it so you don't feel alone and so that you seek out support.

    13. JSDr. Julie Smith1:01:53

        Yeah.

    14. MRMel Robbins1:01:53

        But I do worry about how it's easy to opt out of the things that you need to do because it's, quote, "bad for your mental health."

    15. JSDr. Julie Smith1:02:03

        Yeah.

    16. MRMel Robbins1:02:04

        How do you know the difference between whether or not it's actually really something you should opt out of or whether or not you just don't wanna do the thing-

    17. JSDr. Julie Smith1:02:14

        Yeah.

    18. MRMel Robbins1:02:15

        ... that you probably need to be doing-

    19. JSDr. Julie Smith1:02:18

        Yeah.

    20. MRMel Robbins1:02:19

        ... but it just feels hard?

    21. JSDr. Julie Smith1:02:20

        And I think that probably brings us to the, the one tool that I probably use the most, in the most formal way from therapy because it's just so helpful, is, is the values stuff. So it's just working out what matters most to me at this point in my life because that changes and fluctuates, right?

    22. MRMel Robbins1:02:40

        Okay.

    23. JSDr. Julie Smith1:02:41

        And so every few months or sometimes when I just feel a bit out of sorts and I feel like life's so r- you know, everything's upside down, I will just get a piece of paper and I'll split it into different boxes and I'll have, you know, all the different aspects of my life. So that'll be parenting, uh, marriage, friendships, health, education, career, whatever, you name it. I'll, uh, put them all out and then in each box, I'll just ask myself what matters most to me in this area of my life. So not what I want to happen to me, but how I want to show up in good times and bad. So what I want to kind of represent in that part of my life. So I might have a few words or a few sentences, and then I'll rate that just a crudely kind of out of 10, how important are those values to me-

    24. MRMel Robbins1:03:24

        Hmm.

    25. JSDr. Julie Smith1:03:25

        ... in this area of my life? So zero, not at all, 10 out of 10 is max. And then you rate it again, and this time how much I feel I'm living in line with these values in the last couple of weeks. So then what you get i- you know, zero, not at all, 10 out of 10 is definitely, and then you get all of these kind of different boxes and these different scores. And where y- it's, it's not a tool for self-criticism, it's a tool for, uh, finding where you need to focus your attention next. 'Cause you'll get this idea of, "Okay, well if something over here is 10 out of 10 important to me, but I've just rated it as two out of 10 in terms of how I'm living in line with that at the moment, then that deserves my attention." And it's, and it's not because you're failing, it's because life pulls us in different directions, right?

    26. MRMel Robbins1:04:13

        Mm.

    27. JSDr. Julie Smith1:04:13

        You can't fill all of those at the same time. So, um, you know, I might be busy with a project trying to finish a book or something and so I haven't been taking the kids to their clubs recently, someone else has done it for me, and, and I just notice that pull that I'm not being the present parent I want to be. And so then I'll, you know, say no to a few things at work so that I can do that. And so there's this constant kind of shifting and, um, moving between things. But going back to your question, when, when you understand and you have that clarity in terms of what matters most to you at that point in your life, then it's much easier to make the decisions about what you should and shouldn't be doing-

    28. MRMel Robbins1:04:52

        Mm.

    29. JSDr. Julie Smith1:04:53

        ... because our tendency is to go, "Okay, I'm only gonna do the things that feel good and I'm not gonna do the stuff that makes me feel bad," uh, or, you know, um, that I'm, or uncomfortable. But w- if you, if you make decisions based on comfort and discomfort, it's not gonna lead you anywhere meaningful, your life's just gonna shrink. Whereas if you, if you make the choices based on your values and what matters to you, that will inevitably involve you doing things that make you feel terrible sometimes, right? So I know having children was really, really important to me, but my goodness (laughs) , you know, those night shifts where every cell in my body wanted to stay in bed and be comfortable and warm and not get up to the crying baby who was desperate for me at that point, but I did the uncomfortable thing because it mattered most to me at that point.

    30. MRMel Robbins1:05:41

        Well, I asked you this because I, one of our producers just said, "Well, you know, I used to have a lot of anxiety about flying, but I don't have, I'm not anxious anymore 'cause I don't fly."

12. 1:05:49 – 1:17:17

    Push Past Fear and Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

    1. MRMel Robbins1:05:50

    2. JSDr. Julie Smith1:05:50

       (laughs) yeah.

    3. MRMel Robbins1:05:50

       And it's kind of funny-

    4. JSDr. Julie Smith1:05:51

       Yeah.

    5. MRMel Robbins1:05:51

       ... but it made me wonder, Dr. Julie, what happens if you keep avoiding the things that make you anxious?

    6. JSDr. Julie Smith1:05:59

       So avoidance of the thing that you fear, it, it lies to us, or it tells us that we are, uh, making everything better, but it makes fear worse over time, right? So let's s- I mean, I, I talked about this in one of my videos with this kind of rainbow thing, and-

    7. MRMel Robbins1:06:16

       And let me explain for the person who's not watching this on YouTube-

    8. JSDr. Julie Smith1:06:18

       (laughs)

    9. MRMel Robbins1:06:19

       ... she has this like child's play toy which is like this big wooden rainbow in front of her and it's got all the colors of the red, the orange, the yellow, the green, the blue, the purple, and it's about six inches high. Dr. Julie has a rainbow made of wood in front of her.

    10. JSDr. Julie Smith1:06:35

        (laughs) Well, I used to draw this out in therapy actually with rings. So I would kind of have, you know, you in the center of the page and then lots of rings that represent the different layers of your lifes but w- uh, of your life. But this is the, you know, the rainbow represents the, the different layers of your life. So let's say suddenly something, um, well let's go with, rather than flying, let's go with something that kind of has that different layer, so maybe the so- the social anxiety stuff again.

    11. MRMel Robbins1:06:59

        Okay.

    12. JSDr. Julie Smith1:06:59

        Right? So let's say suddenly going to really crowded places with lots of people you don't know...... starts to fill you with anxiety and you're not sure why, but it just does, right?

    13. MRMel Robbins1:07:08

        Mm-hmm.

    14. JSDr. Julie Smith1:07:08

        It just doesn't feel comfortable anymore. So you decide, "Well, I'm not gonna do that anymore then. I'm gonna take that out of my life." So you now no longer go to any situations where there's big crowds, which means when your, you know, friend is getting married next week and they're having 200 people at the wedding, you're not gonna go to that either so you take that bit out of your life. And then being on a crowded train or bus or boat suddenly becomes anxiety-provoking so you take that out of your life, so you can't travel. And then being in a crowded restaurant, even with friends, suddenly becomes fearful so you, you stop doing that too. And what happens is every time that something falls outside of your comfort zone and fills you-

    15. MRMel Robbins1:07:49

        Hmm.

    16. JSDr. Julie Smith1:07:49

        ... with fear, you, the natural instinct is to avoid it, right? And, and when you, and the, even the moment you decide to avoid it, you get this relief, this, "Oh, phew, I don't have to deal with that today." So it's quite addictive. But what happens is over time when you keep doing that, when you live by that rule, your life shrinks.

    17. MRMel Robbins1:08:09

        Hmm.

    18. JSDr. Julie Smith1:08:09

        And suddenly there's so much stuff that you can't do because your life is, is, uh, sort of focused on and i- all of your decisions are based on that rule that I cannot do things that cause me anxiety or fear.

    19. MRMel Robbins1:08:23

        And with each piece of the rainbow, Dr. Julie, that you remove, the actual arch is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And when anxiety or grief or nerves or depression or sadness or heartbreak starts to creep in, we do have the tendency to just withdraw.

    20. JSDr. Julie Smith1:08:45

        And, and so often when people, by the time people come to therapy, they've got rid of a lot of these layers and, and they feel that, you know, life is depressing because it's so much smaller than they ever imagined it would be. And a lot of those layers include things that mattered to them, right? So, you know, your best friend's wedding or, uh, traveling across the world to visit family or whatever, you know, so it puts all of these different things out of bounds. So it becomes so difficult to live in line with your own values.

    21. MRMel Robbins1:09:10

        It's so sad when you see how small it's gotten. And it actually reminds me of times in my life where either my anxiety was so bad or my postpartum depression was so bad or one of my kids was struggling with anxiety and they just stopped doing things that they used to enjoy because they just felt like it was too hard. And as they stopped doing sleepovers or they stopped wanting to do fun things on the weekend or they stopped wanting to try out for sports or they stopped wanting to go to the party, it's just like that rainbow. Every single thing that they stopped doing or were scared to do was an example of the way that their life just got smaller and smaller and smaller. And it is so sad and it's easy for it to kinda creep up on you. And I think the visual is so powerful because you actually see what's happening when in reality when you're going through it, it just sort of slowly feels like it's happening until all of a sudden you're just in a really small life. Thank you for showing us this visual because as much as it's sad, there's also this flip side to it where it's really compelling because you actually see the solution. If your life feels very small, there are things that you can start adding back in even if it feels overwhelming or scary to try to do it that will actually immediately start to make your life feel bigger and fuller again. What is the first step other than recognizing this-

    22. JSDr. Julie Smith1:10:50

        Yeah.

    23. MRMel Robbins1:10:50

        ... to start to put the pieces back in place-

    24. JSDr. Julie Smith1:10:54

        Yeah.

    25. MRMel Robbins1:10:55

        ... that you didn't even realize that you took away?

    26. JSDr. Julie Smith1:10:59

        I think the key is you don't have to do it all at once.

    27. MRMel Robbins1:11:01

        Okay.

    28. JSDr. Julie Smith1:11:02

        I would get clarity, you know, do that values exercise. I think it's in both of my books actually because it's so helpful with, with so many different scenarios. But really simple, you know, do that pen and paper bit and look at, "What mo- what matters most to me at this point in my life?" Because that makes all the decisions about the direction you wanna go in much easier. Because why face your fears if it doesn't matter to you? And that's key. You don't have to, you know, if you have no inclination to ever travel, then don't worry about going on planes, right?

    29. MRMel Robbins1:11:31

        But I think most of the time you know you're silently giving up on a part of your life.

    30. JSDr. Julie Smith1:11:39

        Yeah. Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:21:53