The Mel Robbins PodcastThe Exact Video You Need Today if You Feel Overwhelmed, Stressed, or Stuck
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 12,359 words- 0:00 – 4:49
Meet the Guest
- MRMel Robbins
Today on The Mel Robbins Podcast, how to feel less overwhelmed and less stressed, and tools for navigating this crazy and exhausting world with extraordinary therapist and best-selling author Kier Gaines. Hey, it's Mel. And before we jump into this extraordinary episode with the one and only Kier Gaines, my team was showing me this, 51% of you who watch The Mel Robbins Podcast here on YouTube are not subscribers. If that subscribe button is lit up, it means you're not subscribed. Would you please do me a favor and hit the subscribe button? My goal is to get that number to 40%. I know you love supporting people who support you, and that's the best way to support me and the team here, and extraordinary experts like Kier Gaines, who, by the way, is gonna blow you away. Thank you in advance for hitting subscribe. I truly appreciate it. And trust me, you're gonna be so happy you're here 'cause this conversation is extraordinary. Kier Gaines, it is an absolute pleasure to welcome you to The Mel Robbins Podcast.
- KGKier Gaines
Absolutely crazy. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me, and your beautiful staff welcome me in, and it feels like a very, um, like a very warm place. It's warm and inviting.
- MRMel Robbins
It is.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah, I like that.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah, it is. Uh, that's how I roll through life. You know, I think that there's a lot of people, or at least I used to be this way-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm.
- MRMel Robbins
I would wake up in a bad mood.
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
And at times in my life, there was a particular reason why, but I think it became a habit to wake up and be in a bad mood for no particular reason.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
And so I decided that I would just become the kind of person that went through life with an optimistic, warm, and positive outlook, and it really started to shift everything.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah. It... I feel like when you project that out into the world, you also invite it into your life.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- KGKier Gaines
Um, I'm not quite where you are yet. I'm, I'm, I'm still a little... I'm getting into my old curmudgeon guy-
- MRMel Robbins
[laughs]
- KGKier Gaines
... where I wake up some mornings, I'm like, "Grr, I don't want to talk to anyone. Don't look at me." But, um, just taking a moment and, and being grateful and understanding that I can hold two complex things at one time. Like I can be grateful for the life that I have and all the amazing things that are going on, and I can also be frustrated by some of the BS that comes along with it. It just gives me a little bit more harmony. I don't know if I believe in balance, but it gives me a little bit more harmony in my life. It's a more authentic way for me to live.
- MRMel Robbins
I think that's the best way for all of us to live.
- KGKier Gaines
Oh, I agree.
- MRMel Robbins
And it's a really hard skill to hold space for those two things.
- KGKier Gaines
It is.
- MRMel Robbins
You, you're already, like, starting to drop life-changing small little things. And-
- KGKier Gaines
I just speak from the heart, Mel Robbins
- MRMel Robbins
... Yes, you do. And here's how I want you to start. I wanna start by having you just prepare the person who's listening. Buckle up. Like, what is it that could change about their life or their relationships if they truly lean in and take to heart everything that you are about to drop in this episode today?
- KGKier Gaines
If you lean in and take to heart everything we're gonna share, what I believe will change for you is the way you manage your stress, the way you manage your relationships, the way you manage the things that are happening in your life. Because it'll go from just you reacting to things, just bouncing off of every single thing that's happening in your life like a pinball, just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. It'll go from that to you moving with more intentionality, clarity, and way more awareness. You know, the world will have you believe that everything is... it falls into the category of this insatiable desire for hurry. You have to hurry up and do it. You're always in a rush. There's always another thing. There's always a to-do list to check off. No, sometimes the best thing you can do is to pause, and that's counterintuitive because we, we don't pause. We don't... I don't have time to pause. I don't have time to break. I don't have time to think about it. I just have to do, do, do. But when you pause, you're able to gain more control over what's going on with you. You're able to sit and just be. You're able to look at things from a thousand-mile view. When you on the dance floor, Mel, it's hard to tell what's going on around you. You just see motion and bodies. But from the balcony, you get a different perspective. But you can't get that view and you can't get that perspective if you're constantly reactive, if you're not responding to things, if you're not accumulating any intel and information, if you don't have any wherewithal, if you're just on go. I get why you think you need to be on go all the time, but give me a chance to prove you wrong, 'cause I don't think that's the case and I do not think that's beneficial for you.
- MRMel Robbins
Why
- 4:49 – 9:38
What To Do When Life Feels Exhausting
- MRMel Robbins
is it so hard to just exist and live in the world today?
- KGKier Gaines
Oh, my goodness, for a million reasons. What a crazy world we live in. Ah. You know, the world isn't really designed to support your peace and happiness.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- KGKier Gaines
That's not how the world is designed. The world is designed for your productivity and for your attention, and that's it. It's meant to absorb your, your attention and churn productivity out of you. And l- works for the world. That's how we get buildings and how we have infrastructure and how we have all these beautiful creature comforts around us. Sucks for the individual, though. It zaps you of almost everything that you hold dear, everything that's warm and fuzzy about you. But if you just take a look at where we spend the majority of our time, social media, watching the news, being subject to marketing. Well, how do these things make you feel? What are they designed to do? Social media is designed to make you feel like you're behind. Marketing is designed to make you feel like you're being left out. The news is designed... I don't know what the news was o-
- MRMel Robbins
Oh, yeah
- KGKier Gaines
... was originally designed for, but now it's designed to scare the hell out of you. This is billions and billions and billions of dollars engineered against your own wellness, and a lot of us don't even have a counter-strategy. We have nothing to combat that whatsoever. So in my work, what I, what I do and what I call an emotional readiness architecture, ERA, which is just a, a really sexy f-
- MRMel Robbins
[laughs]
- KGKier Gaines
... fancy therapist way of saying your emotional fitness, how prepared you are to deal with the slings and arrows of life, how well you can traverse and navigate the things that are happening to you every single day. Um, it's, it's never too late to gain those tools. It's just a matter of how you go about doing it, what's your guidance, and what's your instruction. That's why I'm such a fan of therapy. I don't know where you are, person who's listening to this, with therapy. You may th- think therapy's amazing. You may think therapy is okay, but you haven't found the right therapist. Trust me, I get it. Or you may think that therapy is complete BS, which I, I understand if you've had a bad experience, but that guidance piece is so important because it's hard to protect ourselves from messages that we, we don't have any control over. Again, you- when you open up your social media feed, you are being subjected to tens and millions of bad takes and half-chewed ideas unsolicited and without your consent, and it's like you're drinking from a fire hose. If you drink from a water fountain, it quenches your thirst.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- KGKier Gaines
If you drink from a fire hose, it breaks your teeth.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- KGKier Gaines
[laughs] And every single day, we're getting our teeth broken by opinions and views that we don't necessarily care for or jive with. What do y- how do you protect yourself? What do you have to secure your ability to move through guilt and shame and blame and to build self-awareness and to secure self-honesty? And I realize that there's a gap where people don't have that, and Mel, that's been my life's work.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, I loved what you said about emotional fitness.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
And the reason why is some of the words that have been... Like, first of all, I don't like the word mental health-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm
- MRMel Robbins
... because I feel-
- KGKier Gaines
Ooh, give it to me. Why you don't like it?
- MRMel Robbins
Well, I don't like it because it feels like there's something wrong with you.
- KGKier Gaines
[laughs] That's, that's the way a lot of people feel, actually.
- MRMel Robbins
You know what I mean?
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
Like, if we're talking about mental health, like there's something wrong with my brain and the way I think, and depressed and anxiety, and all this stuff that I'm... And I love the idea of m- emotional fitness-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm
- MRMel Robbins
... because what, what I immediately think is strength. Because I'm constantly saying to my kids, "It's not about mental health. Like, mental health means happiness. Don't you want that? Mental health means you can bounce back. Mental health means you're self-aware enough to know that something on the outside is getting on the inside-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... and it's time to, like, st-" Like, this is about power.
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
This isn't about, like, weakness. And so I love what you said about emotional fitness, 'cause I want that. I want that kind of strength. I want the ability to dodge the arrows that are being shot at me. I want the ability to be strategic and to be stronger, especially in the world today-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm
- 9:38 – 12:41
How to Build Resilience When Life is Hard
- MRMel Robbins
you mentioned tools, and I know we're gonna get into them, but can you preview a little bit about what you actually mean when you say there are tools that you can learn and skills that you can build that strengthen your emotional toughness, especially for a world that we're living in today?
- KGKier Gaines
What you're hinting towards is what a lot of people think about mental health, but I think we're moving towards more resilience.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- KGKier Gaines
And resilience is one of the tools that you use within emotional fitness.
- MRMel Robbins
Now, resilience sounds kind of cushy. So how do you define, what does it mean if you are somebody that has built the skill of resilience?
- KGKier Gaines
It means that you're able to bounce back. It means that bad things happen to you, but bad things happen to you and. The bad thing that happened to you is not the punctuation on the sentence. You still have work to do. Things are hard. Things are hard and. I'm sad. I'm sad and. You're able to still move through. I'm a big football fan. I'm a huge football fan, and I don't, I don't know, person who's listening, I don't know if you're a football fan, but, but allow... Just indulge me for a second, please. In football, there's a position called a running back, and I'm pretty sure this ain't gonna be my last football reference for today, so forgive me if you hate the sport.
- MRMel Robbins
[laughs]
- KGKier Gaines
But when you're a running back, you're the person in the backfield who takes the ball-
- MRMel Robbins
Yep
- KGKier Gaines
... and you're supposed to run up the field and get a touchdown. That's, that's your job. The problem is, there are 300-pound dudes trying to kill you and between you and the touchdown, and sometimes one of these guys stops you, and you don't always immediately get tackled. You don't always immediately get tackled, but any good running back coach is gonna tell you, even when you get stood up, even when you have five people piling on your back, you never stop chopping your feet. You never stop your feet from moving. You're always supposed to keep those feet going. That's resilience. Even when you hit the 300-pound obstacle, even when you can't see what the end zone is like, even when you feel hopeless, even when you feel down, even when you feel unsupported, you keep chopping your feet and progressively moving forward, but that takes self-honesty. You gotta be honest about the circumstances that you're surrounded in. You gotta be honest, not just about your strengths, but about your deficits too, and not allow that to sink you, sink you into a hole of self-deprecation, where you only say negative things about yourself. No. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. What makes you immune to that? I don't... I'm not afraid of my weaknesses. I hold them tight, and then that allows me to say, "Mel, I'm not very good at this thing. You think you can come in and help me with this?" You think you could tell me what you did, as opposed to me trying to just do it solo? That's how I keep my feet chopping. That's how I build resilience. That's one of thousands and thousands of tools that we use in order to make sure that our wellness is intact.
- MRMel Robbins
And we're gonna talk about a bunch of them today, and I had the honor of getting an advance copy of-
- KGKier Gaines
Ay
- MRMel Robbins
... your book, It All Starts When You Do.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
This is going to be a blockbuster. I read a lot of books. This one is fantastic.
- KGKier Gaines
Thank you, Mel Robbins.
- MRMel Robbins
It is
- 12:41 – 23:24
What to Do When You Feel Insecure
- MRMel Robbins
so relatable, it is so entertaining to read, and it has so many takeaways, and I wanna read to you-
- KGKier Gaines
Okay
- MRMel Robbins
... from what will be this blockbuster of a bestseller that's changing lives.
- KGKier Gaines
[laughs]
- MRMel Robbins
This is page 24.
- KGKier Gaines
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
And the chapter is entitled Do You Accept the Uncomfortable Truths in Life? The problem here is obvious. If you keep listening to that deep down voice, you'll never get what you want out of life. You'll keep thinking that happiness, financial freedom, love, peace, and success are for other people, not you. In those moments, what's happening is that you're a person experiencing insecurity, and you have to follow the trail of breadcrumb to figure out what you're insecure about. You need to know the source of your insecurity so that you can treat it. That diagnosis is the first critical step in starting to feel more secure and having more faith in yourself.
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
Can you talk a little bit about that and this sense of, "I just don't believe in myself. I feel insecure"?
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah. I don't believe in myself is one of the uncomfortable truths that I talk about in the very beginning of the book, and what a uncomfortable truth is, it's, it's a part of our lived reality that we are afraid to accept. We either think it's some type of indictment on our strength and capabilities. We think that it's a statement that we lost, that we're waving the white flag. We try to avoid it at all costs, and we're very good at avoiding things. We have a lot of fancy psycho language now for avoidance. But the uncomfortable truth isn't something that you run from, it's something that you walk towards-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm
- KGKier Gaines
... because you can't overcome something that you refuse to acknowledge is true. So with insecurities, in my practice, I find that they come from a, a lotta different places. Two consistent places that I find, either one is some type of striving for perfection that you fall short of... By the way, perfection is not a thing, and even if you hit your idea of perfection now, it won't be your idea of perfection in five years. It's a frivolous journey. Or two, it comes from a recent failure, uh, or some type of loss that you've taken that was significant to you. It wa- it was meaningful. Um, but yeah, insecurities, the way that we walk out of them, one of the tools that I like to use are I'm statements. I'm sure you've heard a lot of times about I statements when you're having a disagreement with your partner. Instead of saying, "You never wash the dishes," you say, "I would like to have a house where the dishes are washed, and I don't feel like I have enough support in that." Because you take the blame off of the person. You make the problem the problem. You don't make the person the problem. But these are I'm statements, and I'm statements, I am, really help you identify where the soil is the most fertile for your insecurities to grow.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
So I'm blank, or I'm always blank. The- whatever's in that blank is gonna be a good indication of where your roof is leaking. So if you say, um, "I'm such a, I, I, I'm always finding a way," or are you saying, "I'm always messing this up?"
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
Are you saying, "I'm such a smart person," or, "I'm such a dummy"? That's a, that's gonna tell you where your internal dialogue is and where some of those leaks are coming from, because you don't always find your insecurities. Sometimes your insecurities find you.
- MRMel Robbins
Give me an example.
- KGKier Gaines
Oh, my goodness. Uh, I have... Okay, I'll use myself as an example. I don't get to do this in my sessions a lot. [laughs] 'Cause it's not about me, it's about the person. All right. So I have insecurities around parenthood.
- MRMel Robbins
You do?
- KGKier Gaines
See, look.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, you wanna know why I react like that?
- KGKier Gaines
Why?
- MRMel Robbins
Because I first bumped into your content-
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah
- MRMel Robbins
... and it was so jaw-droppingly profound, and I can't remember if you were brushing your daughter's hair or you're doing something about a bike, and you were in a garage, and you were calmly talking about something that went down, 'cause you have two young daughters-
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah
- MRMel Robbins
... and two, and kids tend to act up.
- KGKier Gaines
All the time.
- MRMel Robbins
And then you were very calmly explaining, and I can't even quite remember what it was, but as I watched you and you were explaining something about how your daughter reacting was appropriate for her age-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm
- 23:24 – 32:05
Do Men Hide Their Feelings?
- MRMel Robbins
I have so many just specific things to ask you, but before we, uh, go any further, I know that this is going to be a episode that so many people send to the men in their life-
- KGKier Gaines
Okay
- MRMel Robbins
... their partners, their brothers, their sons, their dads. I would love to have you speak directly to the guy-
- KGKier Gaines
Okay
- MRMel Robbins
... who got this in a text, and because it was you, they hit play, or because it was their wife who said, "You really need to listen to this dude."
- KGKier Gaines
[laughs]
- MRMel Robbins
"I think this is gonna really help you at work." Right?
- KGKier Gaines
Her... If you're listening to audio, her head is shaking while she's doing it.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah, yeah, I am. It's like a bobblehead right now. And so I, I... Because that's kinda how I feel when... L- that's the intention.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah, yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
You know? When I'm sending that link to my brother or to my, my husband or my son. "You, you need to listen to this," and it's typically an episode with a guy.
- KGKier Gaines
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
I would love to have you speak to the, the guy- Who actually have planned this
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
Because somebody loves them and thinks you can make a difference. What is available to a guy that is so powerful if you build mental fitness-
- KGKier Gaines
Oh my goodness
- MRMel Robbins
... and you have more peace in your life?
- KGKier Gaines
One thing that I need you to understand is that in a boy's maturation, and I said this before in, in an interview-
- MRMel Robbins
What is matur- that's a big word. What does ma-
- KGKier Gaines
Maturation, so maturation's just the state of your maturity-
- MRMel Robbins
Okay
- KGKier Gaines
... as you were growing up, as, uh, in your upbringing, in your development, as you were becoming a full person. Every single stop along the way is designed to separate you from your emotions. And I already said it, you're really, really good at the things that you practice. So when you are a little teeny boy and you cry and you just want your mom to pick you up and hug you, somebody's probably gonna say, "Hey, stop holding that boy like that. You're gonna make him soft," separating you from m- your emotions. When you become a little kid and you fall off of your bike and you cry because your knee hurts, it's bleeding, somebody's gonna tell you, "Hey, get up. Get back on that bike. Stop crying." When you become a, a young man, when you're a teenager and the person you love broke up with you, they say, "Hey, hey, it's other fish in the sea. What you crying over another person for? Why you crying?" And then you get married or you have a, a long-term partner, and you begin to express your displeasure, or you begin to express your frustration, or they say something that's hurtful or inflammatory or just m- makes you not feel very good, and they say, "What are you, what are you..." This is a new word that you sassy. "Oh, now you being a sassy man. Huh, what are you, in your feelings?" And all of these are designed to separate you from your emotions.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
And what happens is your internal, like, your internal sense of being gets thrown off and off-whack, where now you can't access those emotions when you need to. And then the, you don't have the, the ability to know the complexity of what you feel. So, like, there will be an emotion that happens and you'll be angry. There'll be something that happens to evoke an angry emotion. And most people say anger is a secondary emotion. I think it's a primary emotion, but some-
- MRMel Robbins
What does that even mean, secondary or primary?
- KGKier Gaines
Secondary emotion is just, w- is, is... Secondary, when they say anger is a secondary emotion, what they're saying is there's something under the anger that's causing the anger, which is true, but I have a different interpretation.
- MRMel Robbins
Tell me.
- KGKier Gaines
I think it's primary, which means it comes first. The anger is the first feeling that you feel. But when you sit with that anger for a little bit and you realize what else may be attached to it, you realize that you're angry because you're disappointed. Oh, so you're not just angry, bro, you're also disappointed, and that disappointment is what we call a secondary emotion, which is the second emotion. Why are you disappointed? And then when you sit with that disappointment and you process it enough, you feel disappointed because you feel hopeless. Oh, so you feel hopeless, and you're trying to solve for anger, but what you really feel is also hopelessness.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
If you have a migraine, I don't think allergy medicine is gonna fix that. So now you're trying to... You have a prescription for a feeling that's not working.
- 32:05 – 37:00
Tools Every Man Needs
- MRMel Robbins
the person listening an assignment for exactly what they should do when they're done listening to this episode with a male friend of theirs?
- KGKier Gaines
Let's do it.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- KGKier Gaines
How about this? Let's do a heavy lift and a light lift.
- MRMel Robbins
Great.
- KGKier Gaines
Because everybody ain't in the same place with this.
- MRMel Robbins
No kidding.
- KGKier Gaines
Different readiness. All right. So let's do light lift first. I want you to pick up the phone. I want you to call a friend that you have not talked to in more than two weeks. You don't have to have something to talk about. There might be some weirdness because you feel like you have to have a meeting agenda. I want you to call them. I don't want you to talk about business. I don't want you to talk about work. I want you to just talk about yourselves. It could be a three-minute phone call, but I want you to pick up the phone and just tap in, and if you need a, a template-
- MRMel Robbins
Yes
- KGKier Gaines
... for something to say-
- MRMel Robbins
Yes, I do.
- KGKier Gaines
[laughs]
- MRMel Robbins
Tell me what to say, Kier.
- KGKier Gaines
I got you. I got you.
- MRMel Robbins
'Cause I've not called somebody in two years. I keep texting people.
- KGKier Gaines
Hey, no problem. And, and that's one of the points. That's why I feel so empty, because we need those real-life touchpoints. "Hey, bro, I haven't heard you, I haven't heard your voice in a while," or, "I haven't, I haven't heard from you in a minute, man. I was just thinking about you, bro. Just calling to check up. How you been?" And they may hit you with something. Oh, man, men love to hit you with the, "I can't, I can't complain." Push it a little bit.
- MRMel Robbins
What do I say?
- KGKier Gaines
Instead of saying... When they say you can't complain, "What's been going on good in your life? What's good in your life right now? What are you excited about? What's coming up next for you?" And then that's how you start the conversation. You share a little bit about yourself. Bro, you can get the hell off the phone-
- MRMel Robbins
[laughs]
- KGKier Gaines
... if you're not comfortable. That's the light lift. Call somebody and check in on them. Heavier lift, schedule breakfast with one of your bros. Go out to breakfast or go out to lunch.
- MRMel Robbins
Breakfast. Why breakfast?
- KGKier Gaines
Because one of the problems with therapy is it's not really oriented the way that men externalize and talk about their problems. Men don't even have face-to-face conversations. We prefer shoulder-to-shoulder. In a lot of my therapy sessions, we toss a football back and forth because it's easy to do something. It's easier to talk about something that's hard when you're doing something that's easy and physical. We toss the football back and forth, or we toss the ball back and forth. We may play Connect 4. W- with my female clients, oh, we can just go. Sit down, and boom, we're off to the races. We're having a great session. With men, it's a lot harder to kinda get that, get that, uh, pump primed. So, um, breakfast is, talking over food takes away a lot of the angst and awkwardness of having a face-to-face conversation. It also allows you to share space without words.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
Some people feel awkward when there are pauses in the conversation, but when you're stuffing your face full of cheese fries, it takes away the awkwardness. It's giving yourself a lower barrier to entry. It's, it's bringing that branch down to pick the fruit off. It's making it easy. Low-hanging fruit. Go out to breakfast.
- MRMel Robbins
I wanted to ask you about something you, you said just a couple minutes ago. Men are not women's problem to solve.
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
Let's unpack that.
- KGKier Gaines
All right.
- MRMel Robbins
Because when you talk about holding you close, holding you accountable-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm
- 37:00 – 43:47
How to Build Self-Trust and Confidence
- MRMel Robbins
it makes me think about the fact that a lot of people don't feel good about themselves unless somebody else is approving of everything that they're doing, right?
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
How do you get out of that trap?
- KGKier Gaines
Oh, my goodness. You have to really value what you think about yourself. You have to really value what you think about yourself more than what other people think about you, which is tough because society isn't really built that way. Society, we, we... There's nothing wrong with caring what other people think. There's nothing wrong with that. That in and of itself is not a problem, but when you care what other people think to the elimination of being cognizant, aware of, and deeply caring of what you think and how you present-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm
- KGKier Gaines
... and what you want, then it becomes an issue because other people's opinions begin to override yours. And one of the ways that you do that is, ooh, a lot of people aren't gonna like this. You have to spend time with yourself by yourself.
- MRMel Robbins
You're right. I don't like that.
- KGKier Gaines
[laughs] I told you you weren't gonna like it. I told you. You have to spend time with yourself by yourself.
- MRMel Robbins
So give us an assignment. Like, if somebody recognizes they're always looking outside themselves for approval-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... they're always looking to other people's opinions, they're always thinking about what other people might be thinking, kind of you're checking outside instead of checking inside-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... and you recognize, "I don't really approve of myself. I'm not proud of myself," how do you begin this? What are you doing when you're spending time alone?
- KGKier Gaines
You have to, you have to practice being the person that you say you are. You have to-
- MRMel Robbins
Break that down for me.
- KGKier Gaines
You have, you have to practice being the person you say you are. If you believe yourself to be a kind and caring person, what are you doing on the weekends? Go do, go to a soup kitchen and donate your time. Go to a clothing drive and donate your time. Give yourself to community more to reaffirm and reinforce that you are the person that you say you are. If you say you're a helpful person, go be helpful to someone. Who in your family needs assistance? I just helped my cousin, who's 70-something years old, clean out her garage because I realized I wasn't spending enough time engaging with family.
- MRMel Robbins
Right.
- KGKier Gaines
And it reinforced the idea that I am a person who's centered on family. If you are a person who says, "I wanna read more books," sit your ass down and read a book.
- MRMel Robbins
[laughs]
- KGKier Gaines
Like, you, you have to do the things. We think that proving it is only for other people. No, you gotta prove it to yourself, too. How can you prove to yourself that you are the person that you, A, want to be, and B, the person that you say you are? But you gotta take those small steps. Be undistracted. That's another one. When's the last time that you weren't on your cell phone? When's the last time that you took a flight and you didn't use your cell phone or headphones or distracted yourself with some type of media and you just allowed your thoughts to exist? What do you do in the morning? Do you wake up and just sit in silence? When's the last time you didn't feel the need to fill space with words? How are you giving yourself an opportunity to even hear yourself think undistracted? That's how we get to know ourselves better. That's how we make sure that we are in tune with a version of ourselves that's updated software-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm
- KGKier Gaines
... not the shadow of who we were 10 or 15 years ago.
- MRMel Robbins
I love that simple sentence that you said. You think you're proving who you are to everyone else, and we forget that you gotta prove it to yourself.
- KGKier Gaines
All the time.
- MRMel Robbins
It's like when nobody's there-
- KGKier Gaines
You're there
- MRMel Robbins
... the things that you... Yeah, you're there.
- KGKier Gaines
You're there.
- MRMel Robbins
And the things that you're doing first thing in the morning when no one's watching, that's actually who you are.
- KGKier Gaines
Absolutely, and you gotta believe yourself. If, if you don't give yourself enough evidence to believe the things that are going on in your mind, it's just, it's, it's well-dressed wishful thinking.
- 43:47 – 46:45
Self-Care For Depression
- MRMel Robbins
about, uh, your diagnosis of depression.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
What does progress look like when you're depressed or when you're feeling anxious?
- KGKier Gaines
Mm. It doesn't look the way you expect it to, I'll tell you that. You have to shrink your expectations in the moment. Anxiety is a beast because anxious feelings-- And with anxiety and depression, usually where there's smoke, there's fire. Where there's one, there's usually the other. That's just how it goes. Or there's typically the other. So with anxiety, you have to understand that it attaches a narrative to your thoughts. It's your brain trying to predict what's happening next without enough information, so it makes you feel terrible. And it's a constant... It, it compromises the way that you feel. And depression is a mood disorder. It, it's going to distort the way that you're oriented to your own feelings or oriented to the world around you. So you're a little compromised in the moment. You're not bad, you're not broken. You're just a little compromised. And when you're not working at 100% efficiency-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm
- KGKier Gaines
... it's hard to have the goal to complete a 100% efficient task. So you gotta shrink your expectations to meet the moment.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- KGKier Gaines
We live in a society where thriving is typically the goal. The goal is to thrive. You're supposed to get out here and be the best that you can be. But, uh, but with anxiety and depression, sometimes the goal isn't to thrive, it's to survive the moment. A lot of times in session, people think of, of doing well as getting, on a scale of one to 10, from a two to a five, from a five to a eight, from a eight to a 10. That's amazing. With depression and anxiety, sometimes we're trying to get back to zero. And a win when you have depression sometimes is getting from a negative five to a negative four. That's a win, 'cause we're trying to get back to zero. We're trying to get back to baseline.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
Sometimes with depression and anxiety, a win is when you go from negative five and you slide to negative six, a win is being able to not slide down to negative eight. You understand what I'm saying?
- MRMel Robbins
I understand what you're saying.
- KGKier Gaines
It's stopping the slide. It's, it's, it's a very difficult way to live your life when you have an idealistic i- you have a very i- idealistic viewpoint of what it is that you're supposed to do and what it is that you're supposed to accomplish. You just have to survive the moment. Let's survive the moment. Once we get past this, is this the best we can do? What's possible for us today? Can we get some sunlight today? Can we get some food in our system? Do we feel like being a part of community, calling a friend and having somebody sit with us? Do we need a little bit of solitude right now? 'Cause solitude is not isolation, and sometimes solitude is medicine.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
Are we ashamed of the way that we appear? We don't want people to see us? Do we need to feel love? Do we need to feel understood? That's step one. Step two is how do we go about getting that? Do we have the energy to get it? Not tomorrow. Let's not worry about tomorrow. Right now, can we survive the moment right now? Can we get that for ourselves? That's a win. Shrink the expectations in order to meet the moment.
- MRMel Robbins
For somebody
- 46:45 – 51:15
Tools to Stop a Depression Spiral
- MRMel Robbins
that is either in the slide-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm
- MRMel Robbins
... or they have somebody that they love who is sliding, do you have specific recommendations for what you could do first or s- just small things? 'Cause you mentioned getting outside, taking a shower. Like, what are a couple things that someone can hang on to specifically that, as a therapist, these tend to just, even in the moment, stop somebody from sliding further?
- KGKier Gaines
A number one, get yourself connected with a licensed mental health professional. A number one. A number one, just so you can have another person in the room who sees what you're going through. They have a history of dealing with these things.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
They can see your symptoms, and they can give you a realistic treatment plan on what to do to start to climb out of this thing. They can also give you a realistic idea of where you are in the process and, more importantly, where you can go, um, and, and also tell you what you need. For some people, I, I know a lot of people don't approve or they feel a certain way about medicine or getting medicated. Meds exist for a reason, and for some people, y- you gotta take your meds, big dog. Like, that's why you feel that way.
- MRMel Robbins
[chuckles]
- KGKier Gaines
You gotta take your meds, big dog. For some people, it's different. For some folks, it's a, a, a mix of doing... I can tell you what I do-
- MRMel Robbins
Yes
- KGKier Gaines
... in addition to seeing my therapist.
- MRMel Robbins
I wanna hear what you do. Yeah.
- KGKier Gaines
Oh, yeah. Man, I've been deploying so many strategies, yo. I go fishing with my friends. I spend time with my wife, who is somebody that I just so happen to like tremendously. I spend one-on-one time with her. Um, I try to clear my calendar. I try to do nothing. I think that we're always so busy doing stuff, we're not human beings anymore. We're not being anything. We're human doings. We're doing everything. Um, I try to clear my calendar. I try to read books that I actually enjoy. Um, I like to eat by myself. I love to eat by myself and just let my thoughts wander. I get some sunlight first thing in the morning. I've been going to bed on purpose, Mel Robbins-
- MRMel Robbins
[laughs]
- KGKier Gaines
... instead of falling asleep-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah
- KGKier Gaines
... on the couch.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay, hold on. That's a big distinction.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah, they're not the same thing.
- MRMel Robbins
I'm going to bed on-
- KGKier Gaines
On purpose
- MRMel Robbins
... purpose.
- KGKier Gaines
I'm preparing for bed, winding my body down, and I'm trying to keep the same window of a bedtime every night. I try to go to bed, like, 9:30, 10:00 sometimes. Have you done that before?
- MRMel Robbins
All I'm gonna say is the happier and more successful I have become, the... it's directly tied to how early I go to bed.
- KGKier Gaines
I'll te- going to bed early is, like, the, it's, it's the key to successful adulthood. Go to bed early and try to just improve your sleep hygiene by trying to make it, um, the same time every night.
- MRMel Robbins
When you get into those periods, 'cause my husband struggles with depression, too-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... and you're in that moment where the depression and the mood disorder just, it's like the heaviness and the grayness and the doom and gloom, is there something that you say to yourself, Kier, to help you either lift your head up a little and know that this too shall pass, to know that this is a, it's just a stop, it's not the destination? Like, is there something that you say to yourself to give yourself hope?
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah. Yeah, I localize it.
- MRMel Robbins
What do you say?
- KGKier Gaines
I say, I have to call it by name.
- 51:15 – 53:51
How to Know If You’re Depressed
- MRMel Robbins
listening right now who has never even considered that maybe what they're experiencing in life is depression, as a therapist, Kier, are there just kind of a list of symptoms or experiences that you want the person listening to know, well, these could be signs that this is more than the challenges of life? This is more than just you're in a bad mood or going through a bad period. This is more than, and that you deserve to get some support.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah. Yeah, there, there are. There are about, ooh, don't make me lie, I think there are 10 to 12 symptoms that we look for, and I think you gotta hit about five or six of them, and it can't be attributed to anything else. So I know off the top of my head, one of them is when you lose interest in things that typically brought you joy-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm
- KGKier Gaines
... or brought you some sense of satisfaction, um, when you just genuinely lose interest in them, just for n- for n- a reason that you can't quite put your finger on. Uh, one of it is when it affects your, your mood affects your re- e- either your relationships, your ability to take care of yourself, whether you're going to work every day, how you feel about the work that you do, whether you just, whether you're starting to withdraw from other people. Which is tricky, because sometimes you withdraw, and sometimes you-
- MRMel Robbins
Right
- KGKier Gaines
... feel, feel bad about your job, but it's not necessarily depression.
- MRMel Robbins
Right.
- KGKier Gaines
This is why you have to get diagnosed by a licensed clinical professional, because they'll be able to ask the questions, and we give people a inventory sometimes before you walk in, that measures your likelihood of having depression. We look at sleep, how you're getting sleep, whether you have insomnia or hypersomnia, which is you can't stay awake or you can't stay asleep. Uh, sometimes we look at weight gain, weight gain that can't be attributed to anything else. And it hits everybody a different way. I can say you lose interest in the things that you once found really exciting, or I can say you have w- you experience some type of weight gain or sleeplessness. You can have depression and none of that stuff happens to you. You can have high-functioning depression where the way you present out in the world, you can come in every day, you can do your stuff, you can be everything you need to be, you can laugh. "Ha ha, yeah, see you tomorrow, Tina." You can, you can just be your normal, you can perform your daily routines and in your private moments, you start to deconstruct slowly. So, um, you can listen to the symptoms that I'm giving you-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah
- KGKier Gaines
... but if, if there's something in your life that feels like it needs to change, and your mood has been compromised, and it's been going on for a period of time. Let's say it's been two weeks consistently, let's say it's been two months
- 53:51 – 58:32
Stop Feeling Overwhelmed in 60 Seconds
- KGKier Gaines
consistently, or it's reoccurring. When these things keep happening, and despite what you try to do, you can't get out of that rut, I want you to understand, if you could, you would have already. And that's not an indictment on your capabilities. That's a snapshot of where you may be in the moment, and that is a signal that you may need some more help.
- MRMel Robbins
I love that. I love that. If someone's listening right now, and they're just overwhelmed by life, what is the first-
- KGKier Gaines
You mean all of us?
- MRMel Robbins
All of us.
- KGKier Gaines
[laughs]
- MRMel Robbins
Yes. Well, what is, like, if you're in that moment, though, what is one thing you could do in 60 seconds-
- KGKier Gaines
Mm
- MRMel Robbins
... to support yourself?
- KGKier Gaines
I think the first thing that you need to do is you need to pause. Just pause. I know. Overwhelm Creates this profound sense of urgency. But when everything is urgent, nothing is urgent. So let's pause just for a moment. Let's just pause. First, pause. Second, I want you to call it out by name, because that's an uncomfortable truth that I talk about. I'm overwhelmed. We're afraid to admit it because we think it speaks to our incapability. Not necessarily true, just speaks to your circumstances. So you pause, you name it, call it out. Call it what it is. Let it exist outside of just your mind. I'm overwhelmed right now. Localize it. I'm overwhelmed in this moment. Then I need you to understand, the third thing, I need you to understand that you don't have to fix it right now. You don't have to fix it all. Overwhelm is really profound because oftentimes when we're overwhelmed, it's not because just because we did something wrong or because we missed a step. Sometimes overwhelm is a failure of systems that are supposed to be designed to hold you up, and you can't fix systems in a moment's notice. So you don't, you don't have to fix it all. You don't have to have all the answers. You just need to slow it down. Um, I told y'all I was gonna say another football reference, but it makes-
- MRMel Robbins
Let's do it
- KGKier Gaines
... it makes me think about this running back. His name was Brandon Jacobs. He used to run for the New York Giants back in the day. Man, this dude was like... He was six foot four. He had a neck the size of a torso, and he was two hundred and sixty-four pounds. Most running backs are like two hundred ten. This man was two hundred and sixty-four pounds. That's not a person. That's a wrecking ball with arms and legs and a consciousness. And his job is to run through your face and astral project your soul into oblivion. That man was terrifying, and he was a running back. And I remember a coach was asked one time, "How do you stop Brandon Jacobs? How do you, how do you stop him?" And the coach laughed, said, "You don't stop Brandon Jacobs. You slow him down enough for the defense to catch its breath." You don't always stop overwhelm when you're already in it. You slow it down enough for you to catch your breath.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
And once you catch your breath, you can gain that consciousness and awareness that we talked about at the very top of this episode, and then you can try to figure out what it is that you can do about it, how you can offload some of the things you're dealing with, what systems you can probably set in place in the future to make sure this doesn't happen. Who do you need help from? What skills do you need to build? What part of this thing is overwhelming you? Because they could clump it all into one ball. Parenthood is crazy overwhelming for me, but it's not always parenthood. Sometimes it's just the constant emails from the school.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm-hmm.
- KGKier Gaines
So it's ab- it's being able to dissect it and figure out what part of this is affecting me most, but just slow it down. You don't have to fix it.
- MRMel Robbins
You know what I love? And I wanna highlight this because I wanna make sure you take it away-
- KGKier Gaines
Hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... as you're listening, 'cause overwhelm is one of those words like stressed that we throw around a lot. And when you just said, "Hold on, overwhelm," in those moments, hit the pause, and now let's separate the circumstances that you're in that are flooding you-
- KGKier Gaines
Oh, yeah
- MRMel Robbins
... from your capacity and your capability of handling it. And I also appreciated you saying, "And you typically don't need to handle it right now."
- KGKier Gaines
Mm-mm. It feels urgent. It feels like you do.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- KGKier Gaines
And you can try, but overwhelm comes from more profound circumstances than just a misstep or you overlooking something. It's you juggling more than your bandwidth will allow, so you have to develop a, a methodology, some type of system, some type of game plan, that you can't, you can't do that in this very moment. You gotta handle business. You don't have the time. You don't have the time in the moment. And though your brain may want you to do that, doesn't mean that's within the realm of your capabilities.
- MRMel Robbins
I would love to have
- 58:32 – 1:04:49
Start Before You Feel Ready
- MRMel Robbins
you speak directly to the person who's listening-
- KGKier Gaines
Hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... and really think about all of the wisdom and tools and stories and perspective that you have poured into us today. If there's one action, let's simplify this, that the person takes after this episode is over, what do you think the most important thing to do right after this is?
- KGKier Gaines
Hmm. I think the most important thing that you can do after listening to this conversation... First off, thank you for listening. Thanks for your awareness. That means a lot. A lot of us don't have time. We're still in time, so I appreciate you. I think the most important thing that you can do is ask yourself the uncomfortable question. I think it's easy to soft, like, soft lob a, a question that you can knock out of the park or put yourself in a place where you don't have to feel discomfort, which I completely understand, but I don't think that serves you very well, and I think you know that that doesn't serve you very well. I used to conduct interviews, and we used to ask people all the time, "What's, what's your biggest weakness?" And they would lollipop it, and they'd say, "Oh, my, my biggest weakness is that I care too much or that I work too hard." That's bull. Stop that. Stop that. That's the comfortable thing to say. But exploration isn't comfortable, and transformation isn't comfortable, and while comfort feels good, it comes at a price. And my question to you is, with the comfort, with the, with the price that comes with the comfort that you get from not asking yourself the hard question, from not facing the hard, uncomfortable truth, are you willing to pay that price? Not just today, but are you willing to pay that price for the rest of your life? You are not some type of passenger to your life. You are not in the back seat. You in the driver's seat, and you can take your hands and put 'em at ten and two, and you can control this vehicle and drive it to where you wanna go. But you have to have the awareness, you have to have the emotional fitness, and you have to have the tools. You can do it, but under those circumstances.
- MRMel Robbins
Kier Gaines, what are your parting words?
- KGKier Gaines
What do we have here? I have learned over time, Mel Robbins, that the internet is full of... We get a, a lot of our advice from the internet, and the internet is full of people who wanna tell you the thing that makes you feel good. And oftentimes they'll tell you things like, "Oh, goodness is just gonna happen to you. Success is going to happen to you if you believe enough." Um, you know, "All your goals, you can accomplish them. It's gonna just happen. It's gonna fall in your lap." I wish that was true. It's not. It's not gonna happen for you if you don't consciously walk toward it. And the life that you wanna live, the person that you wanna be, um, that journey doesn't start when it's convenient. That journey don't even start when you're ready. That journey starts when you do, and you have to get it started. There'll never be a perfect moment. There's only the moment that we have in front of us right now, so take advantage of that moment and just start.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, I've learned, Kier Gaines.
- KGKier Gaines
What you learn?
- MRMel Robbins
I learned what it looks like when somebody's walking in their purpose.
- KGKier Gaines
Is that me?
- MRMel Robbins
That is you.
- KGKier Gaines
You talking about me?
- MRMel Robbins
That is you.
- KGKier Gaines
Yeah, you know, it was hard for me to accept that about two or three years ago. Um, I'm starting to feel it now. I feel it now. I accept that.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, you know what? My favorite definition of purpose is it's not what you do. Purpose is what happens in others when you do what you do.
- KGKier Gaines
Hmm. I definitely feel that. I definitely feel that every day. That's really meaningful, so thank you for that. That's a offering that isn't light. I take that very seriously, and I really appreciate it, sincerely.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, thank you. Thank you. I want to see you, uh, soar. I do. Like, I can feel the positive ripple just coming from the vibration of this conversation out into the world, and it's, you know, the, the thing is, is that this will be around forever as a resource to people.
- KGKier Gaines
For sure.
- MRMel Robbins
And it'll just keep circling around and around and around, and I'm so excited for that, so thank you for hopping on a plane. Thank you for being here. Thank you-
- KGKier Gaines
For you, anytime.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes.
- KGKier Gaines
No problem whatsoever.
- MRMel Robbins
All right. Well, this is just the beginning. I have a feeling. Um, thank you.
- KGKier Gaines
Thank you.
- MRMel Robbins
And I also wanna thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to something that will truly change your life. Like, I, I feel like there are those conversations that you have, you never know when it's gonna hit, but when it does, it's like the page of a book where you flip one page and the chapter ended and now you're staring at a brand-new one. And one of the things that Kier said to you is that you don't know how much time you have and that there is no perfect time, that now is the perfect moment to get started. And what I'm really excited about is absolutely everything he shared with you. He poured into you. He made you laugh today. He made you think. I hope what he actually did was make you realize that you are the driver of your life, that you can create a completely different future. You can feel different, that you are capable of building emotional fitness and of becoming the kind of person that you're proud of, and I know you also got the tools that you need to start doing that. And in case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And I can say that because you now have this episode to listen to on repeat.
- KGKier Gaines
[laughs]
- MRMel Robbins
And that is a resource that will help you get started. So go do it. And I wanna thank you for watching all the way to the end, and the next video you're gonna wanna watch is this. You're gonna love it, and I will welcome you in the moment you hit play.
Episode duration: 1:04:55
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode h9a553vDvU8
