The Secret to Stopping Anxiety & Fear (That Actually Works) | The Mel Robbins Podcast

Mel Robbins 0:00 This is one of the biggest things I've been asked. (keyboard clicking) I either have somebody that I love that's struggling with anxiety or I am suddenly very anxious. Where do I even start? Literally, in a matter of a minute, we are sitting down with one of the world's leading anxiety experts from Harvard University.

Dr. David Rosmarin 0:19 You've been taught since birth that something's wrong with you if you're anxious. You've been taught by your parents, you've been taught that by your teachers, you've been taught that by society. We are getting it wrong.

Mel Robbins 0:27 Dr. David Rosmarin is about to flip everything that you and I know on its head about anxiety. (suspenseful music)

Mel Robbins 0:36 Dr. David Rosmarin, I am so excited that you're here.

Dr. David Rosmarin 0:41 I am even more excited.

Mel Robbins 0:42 I would love for you to tell the person listening, who has made the time to learn from you today, what could change about their life or the person's life that they're gonna share this with if they take everything to heart that you're about to share with us, based on all of your experience, and they use it in their life?

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:05 There are two things.

Mel Robbins 1:06 Okay.

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:07 The most fundamental is to stop judging yourself for feeling anxious, to stop feeling anxious about the fact that you have anxiety in your life, because everyone does. It's a normal human emotion. In fact, if you don't have anxiety, something's probably wrong. That's number one. And number two, once you accept that it's part of your life, you can use it as an ally instead of an enemy.

Mel Robbins 1:31 That's a pretty tall promise, the ally versus an enemy, because I think anybody who is struggling with anxiety or watching somebody struggle with it, it does seem like an enemy.

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:43 It sure does.

Mel Robbins 1:44 And that's why I was really curious, because the title (laughs) of your bestselling book is Thriving with Anxiety, 'cause when I hear thriving with anxiety, it almost presumes that I gotta keep it, and I'm like-

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:57 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:57 ... "But Doc, I don't, I wanna thrive without this stuff."

Dr. David Rosmarin 2:00 Of course.

Mel Robbins 2:00 So, what is possible when you say you can make it an ally or you can thrive?

Dr. David Rosmarin 2:04 I would say it's almost as counterintuitive as let them.

Mel Robbins 2:08 What do you mean?

Dr. David Rosmarin 2:08 (laughs) Well, I don't wanna let them. I wanna control them. I wanna stop them, these annoying, irritating situations in my life. Once you accept that you can't, that actually becomes a resource for you to become more resilient, more connected to people who are worth connecting to, worth focusing more on things in your life that you can control, and anxiety is the same way. It's kind of like let them for your internal world.

Mel Robbins 2:35 So, meaning that because we don't understand what anxiety actually is and because we're afraid of it, actually, it reminds me of a passage in your book that I wanna read to you-

Dr. David Rosmarin 2:44 Oh.

Mel Robbins 2:44 ... that I found so interesting. Okay. "Anxiety is nothing to fear in and of itself." This is page 35 I'm reading from. "My office has serviced over 10,000 patients."

Dr. David Rosmarin 2:57 Correct.

Mel Robbins 2:58 "And we have never had a patient die from anxiety. No one has ever been hurt from their anxiety symptoms or 'gone crazy' from the acute experience of anxiety," even though I'll add that you often feel like you're going crazy.

Dr. David Rosmarin 3:11 Sure.

Mel Robbins 3:12 And you write, "Yes, people can develop behavioral problems in the context of anxiety, including alcohol or substance misuse, self-injury, and suicida- allit, suicidalality. The last thing you want is to flood your system with more adrenaline, so reacting with catastrophic or self-judgmental thoughts to the fear response only makes it worse." And so what I take from just that passage-

Dr. David Rosmarin 3:40 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 3:41 ... is that we kinda have anxiety all wrong, and because we do, we're making it worse.

Dr. David Rosmarin 3:47 100%. That's exactly what's happening. Our society is over-medicalizing, over-pathologizing a normal human emotion. Now, don't get me wrong. At a certain point, it does become pathological, but we are conflating clinical, pathological anxiety with normal anxiety that all healthy human beings experience. And in making all of that one big lump of craziness, (laughs) we have become allergic to the normal side of anxiety, and that's creating the anxiety epidemic today.

Mel Robbins 4:19 Wow. So, will you unpack that allergic part? Because you also write that, write about that in your book, that-

Dr. David Rosmarin 4:25 Sure.

Mel Robbins 4:25 ... anxiety's almost like an allergy. So, you just said something that I think needs to be said even louder, which is, there's a massive difference between the kind of chronic, crushing anxiety that becomes a massive, debilitating problem-

Dr. David Rosmarin 4:44 Yes.

Mel Robbins 4:44 ... in somebody's life and the very normal anxiety that absolutely every human being is going to feel, and if you understand it, it doesn't have to get worse. It can be something that can actually be an ally that you're not afraid of. What do you mean when you said allergy, though?

Dr. David Rosmarin 5:01 I did this for years myself. I would show up to work, have clammy hands, have a little bit of an upset stomach, my breathing would be a little bit labored, 'cause it's a stressful day, and I would say, "David, what's wrong with you?" Until, it was drilly, really during the COVID pandemic that it hit me, I'm like, "That's not true." Like, we're going through a hard time. We're gonna feel somewhat anxious. In fact, if I didn't feel anxious, then something would be (laughs) wrong. And then I realized, we need to bifurcate between normal anxiety, which is actually potentially a very great resource to thrive in your life, and then clinical anxiety, which does need professional treatment, whether it's medication or psychotherapy or something more s- sophisticated and targeted. But we're, we're getting it wrong, and it's having disastrous consequences, especially for kids.

Mel Robbins 5:46 How does being nervous or feeling on edge, how is that an example of thriving when you're facing something challenging?

Dr. David Rosmarin 5:56 Well, it does depend what you do with it.

Mel Robbins 5:58 Okay.

Dr. David Rosmarin 5:58 If we take those nerves, those regular, healthy anxiety feelings, sensations, thoughts that are going through, and we actually get to the bottom of it-... we probe, we think about what's making us anxious, we can become more self-aware, right?

Mel Robbins 6:16 Yeah.

Dr. David Rosmarin 6:16 If we share it with someone else, we can broaden and deepen our connections with other people and become more intimately related to them.

Mel Robbins 6:25 Yeah.

Dr. David Rosmarin 6:25 And if we embrace it, well, we can actually build our emotional fortitude to be able to face adversity, and we can also even use it to let go. And I think that's the process that we have to start using with normal, healthy aspects of anxiety, as opposed to get rid of it.

Mel Robbins 6:42 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 6:42 And our immediate knee-jerk reaction is, "Get rid of these feelings. Something is wrong with me. I shouldn't be feeling this way." And immediately, your adrenaline is gonna spike 'cause you're interpreting this, the lower levels of anxiety as a problem. So, that's literally gonna create a physiological (laughs) cascade and it, it dumps more adrenaline into your system.

Mel Robbins 7:03 It makes so much sense, and yet when you're in that spiral or that panic about your job, or the interview, or whether or not you're gonna meet quota, or if the person that you're seeing is falling out of love with you, you don't have access to that ability, or at least not now. That's what you're gonna teach us how to do, to catch, is this sadness or depression? And I guess I would put in there, is this normal nerves-

Dr. David Rosmarin 7:30 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 7:31 ... or is this actually something to be worried about as a state?

Dr. David Rosmarin 7:33 It's exactly the first question to ask.

Mel Robbins 7:35 And it's something I've never done, is stop myself in those moments where I'm starting to go up in my head and ruminate and panic and think about all the worst things that could happen, which only freaks me out more. And I've seen my kids do the same thing-

Dr. David Rosmarin 7:49 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 7:49 ... and then I avoid the thing that I need to do, which only makes me feel more doubtful and affirm that I can't handle it. And so I could see how the first thing would be, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

Mel Robbins 8:00 whoa. Is this a normal set of nerves based on what's going on and a sign that I'm actually mentally well, or is this something way bigger?"

Dr. David Rosmarin 8:09 Correct.

Mel Robbins 8:09 Could you just explain to the person listening how exactly you found yourself in this work and-

Dr. David Rosmarin 8:17 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 8:17 ... starting the Centers for Anxiety? Like, what led you here? (laughs)

Dr. David Rosmarin 8:21 Sure. Um, looking back in the last 20 years, I would probably, if I had to be honest, it's gonna be my own anxiety, and this has very much been a personal journey for me. I was taught in graduate school, I was taught in my training to diagnose, treat, help people to get rid of their clinical anxiety.

Mel Robbins 8:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 8:41 And those tools are still something that I use on a daily basis, um, in, uh, in a variety of different, you know, contexts in my, in my work. But, you know, so it took going through the pandemic to actually click into this concept that not all forms of anxiety are problematic and bad, and we can potentially even use those lower levels of anxiety in a constructive, positive, healthy way to help us to thrive and to grow in our lives.

Mel Robbins 9:10 Well, I mean, I'll just admit right away, you know, having struggled with anxiety for almost 30 years, um, you know, I'll take full responsibility for the fact that I, I was afraid of anxiety. I hated it. I ran from it. I tried to drink it away. I tried to outwork it.

Dr. David Rosmarin 9:25 Yup.

Mel Robbins 9:26 And none of it worked. And some of the medications worked to mute it, and they were life-saving ladders to help me climb-

Dr. David Rosmarin 9:33 Good.

Mel Robbins 9:33 ... out of a hole, but not understanding what you're talking about already, and so I want to take a giant highlighter and say, "There's a huge difference between low-level anxiety that is normal-

Dr. David Rosmarin 9:44 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 9:45 ... and the higher level debilitating anxiety that is the focus of your clinical practice."

Dr. David Rosmarin 9:51 Correct.

Mel Robbins 9:52 We're gonna get to, into the tools that you can use for yourself and you can also use with people in your life that are feeling anxious, but I should probably just back up and start with some of the basics.

Dr. David Rosmarin 10:01 Sure.

Mel Robbins 10:02 What is your definition of anxiety, Dr. Ross Maron?

Dr. David Rosmarin 10:05 Okay. Um, there are cognitive aspects, things that are going on in your mind. There are physiological or emotional aspects, and then there are behavioral aspects, usually avoidance, but maybe some checking. So let's go through them. The cognitive aspects, worry, apprehension, you're nervous something is gonna happen, focusing on the negative thoughts spinning in your head. "If I go to this event, somebody will judge me. People won't, you know... My- I will have a panic attack. I'm not gonna feel good. I'm not gonna be able to manage it."

Mel Robbins 10:33 "If I don't do well in this sales meeting, I'm gonna get fired."

Dr. David Rosmarin 10:36 Sure.

Mel Robbins 10:37 Yeah. "If, if I-"

Dr. David Rosmarin 10:38 "And then I'll be done."

Mel Robbins 10:38 "... if I don't wear the right thing on this date, they're not gonna like me."

Dr. David Rosmarin 10:41 At best. (laughs) Maybe even worse. Um, "Never have another date again," right? "This is my only opportunity. I'll be alone- I'll be alone forever."

Mel Robbins 10:48 Oh, I see what you mean by at best. The thoughts are way worse.

Dr. David Rosmarin 10:50 Could be.

Mel Robbins 10:50 "I'm never gonna find anyone. I'm gonna always be the single for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Dr. David Rosmarin 10:54 Sure.

Mel Robbins 10:54 Okay, gotcha.

Dr. David Rosmarin 10:54 Sure, sure, sure. Um, and then there's the physiological.

Mel Robbins 10:57 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 10:58 So that's something, you know, the sweaty palms, the upset stomach, the, uh, uh, labored breathing, and that's really, uh, adrenaline, which is going through one's system and it creates those, the cotton mouth. Um, it creates these, these symptoms that people have and the feeling associated with that, foreboding, you know, those kinds of emotions that, that go along with it. That's the constellation.

Mel Robbins 11:19 That's the constellation.

Dr. David Rosmarin 11:20 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 11:20 Why does this happen? So why does this happen before a test? Why does this happen before a date? Why does this happen if you have a stressful day at work? Why does this happen if you have to see your in-laws and you don't particularly enjoy them?

Dr. David Rosmarin 11:31 Sure. I'll, I'll ask you. Um, why do babies, right when they're born, let out this massive scream?

Mel Robbins 11:38 Um, is it because they're getting air in their lungs for the first time?

Dr. David Rosmarin 11:42 Yeah, and it's kinda new and scary and, like, they've been in this comfortable little bubble for however many months.

Mel Robbins 11:48 Uh-huh.

Dr. David Rosmarin 11:48 And they're in this, all of a sudden this different environment and there's lights and there's people and there's breathing, like you mentioned.

Mel Robbins 11:54 Right.

Dr. David Rosmarin 11:54 And then there's a digestion change, and heart changes, and all sorts of stuff all at once. And a healthy child will go, "Ah," and freak out. And if they don't freak out, what do we say?

Mel Robbins 12:05 Uh-oh.

Dr. David Rosmarin 12:05 Exactly. You call in a neurologist. Those kids usually don't survive.

Mel Robbins 12:09 So what's happening in my body if I'm going into work on a stressful day and I feel anxious? Like, how is that the same as a baby crying?

Dr. David Rosmarin 12:18 You're a healthy person. On a stressful day at work, if you're not having a little bit of, you know, uh, your hands aren't a little bit clammy and you're not feeling a little bit jazzed up, like you don't recognize that there's a task for you to do, there's something important, you- you're maybe disconnected from the meaning of your work, you might be disconnected from the- the relationship you have with your peers, that doesn't sound like a good work colleague. Uh, having a little bit of apprehension and anxiety and nervousness walking into those situations shows that you care.

Mel Robbins 12:48 That's a beautiful reframe.

Dr. David Rosmarin 12:50 It's true.

Mel Robbins 12:50 And I think for those of us that are feeling it, or we see this present in our children or our partner or a colleague, what is the thing you could say in that moment? Because I think it's those micro moments that we really screw up.

Dr. David Rosmarin 13:06 Totally.

Mel Robbins 13:08 And so what do you do in that moment?

Dr. David Rosmarin 13:10 I love your specific example of parents and children. Little Jimmy or Jenny comes home, they feel a little bit anxious, and the parent themselves is a little anxious themselves, and they are f- freaked out about the fact that their kid is feeling anxious. So what do they do? They try to put out the fire. They try to calm them down. They try to say everything's going to be okay. They give them reassurance, say, "You don't have to go to school. Don't worry. You don't have to go to that event." We accommodate them. As opposed to, "Oh, you're feeling anxious. That sounds interesting. Tell me more." With no judgment, and just explore it, and actually create a gr- more deep connection between parent and child. Ask questions. What is little Jimmy- Jimmy or Jenny afraid of and why? Is it embarrassment? Are they afraid of messing up and being over- overly responsible? Are they afraid of the physical sensations? Do they feel like a failure? Are they afraid of losing friends? Ask them lots of questions. And without trying to change it, don't try to change how they're thinking, how they're feeling, their behavior in any way. Just be there with them w- while they feel anxious. They just want you to connect with them. T- turn it into a point of connection as opposed to a moment of education. We are missing this fundamental perspective on anxiety, and it's having disastrous consequences for those micro moments. We judge others, we judge ourselves for feeling anxious, and we go down the tubes in a hot second because of it.

Mel Robbins 14:34 So even just stopping yourself, uh, from joining in and, "That's terrible, and you gotta calm down, and I'm gonna call the school, and you don't need to do this."

Dr. David Rosmarin 14:43 (laughs) Definitely don't do that.

Mel Robbins 14:44 You're just actually making it worse because why?

Dr. David Rosmarin 14:47 Because you're conveying a message. I wouldn't even say it's subliminal or subconscious. It's direct. You are directly showing your child something is wrong here, and they become afraid of their anxiety as a result.

Mel Robbins 15:02 And then when you become afraid of your anxiety, what happens?

Dr. David Rosmarin 15:04 Then you're done.

Mel Robbins 15:05 What do you mean then you're done?

Dr. David Rosmarin 15:06 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 15:06 Like now you just, now you just, you just described 30 years of my life because I lived for 30 years of my life that being afraid of my anxiety. I started to fear that I would be anxious.

Dr. David Rosmarin 15:17 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 15:17 So I was anxious all the time.

Dr. David Rosmarin 15:19 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 15:20 So what's the mistake that the person who is listening right now might be making when they're dealing with their own anxiety in life?

Dr. David Rosmarin 15:31 Misinterpreting it as a problem that, or a weakness or a disease or that something is wrong with you, as opposed to this is a normal

Dr. David Rosmarin 15:40 human emotion, and then once we accept that, what do I do with it?

Mel Robbins 15:44 So we're gonna go into your four-step process that you use in your clinical practice. Can you just tell it to us at a top level?

Dr. David Rosmarin 15:51 The four steps are as follows, identify, share, embrace, and let go. And I'll explain each one. Identify means getting to the root. What are you truly afraid of? Instead of putting it out of your mind, instead of squelching the symptoms, go there, think about it, get to what's actually bothering you. Two, share. Talk about it with someone else. Open up about it. Make it a point of connection as oppo- as opposed to sitting in- in a state of loneliness. Three, embrace, your favorite. Do that which makes you feel anxious when you're ready and at a s- at a rate that you're comfortable with, but that is the path for emotional resilience. And finally, let go. There are certain things we can't control. Anxiety is always surrounded around control, and at a certain point, we need to let go. To the extent that you can do that, you've completed the four steps.

Mel Robbins 16:42 It seems so simple, which is probably why it works so well. Let's take a kid who has trouble doing a sleepover, which is a very normal thing.

Dr. David Rosmarin 16:51 Very common.

Mel Robbins 16:51 Oh, even bigger one-

Dr. David Rosmarin 16:52 Sure.

Mel Robbins 16:52 ... a kid who is anxious about throwing up.

Dr. David Rosmarin 16:55 Uh, happens every day. (laughs)

Mel Robbins 16:57 Well, and my son, even to this day, at the age of 19-

Dr. David Rosmarin 17:01 Okay.

Mel Robbins 17:01 ... hopefully will allow me to share this, is afraid of throwing up. Even though he has thrown up and knows that he can throw up, he still will get anxious about throwing up, and it was a huge thing when he was a kid.

Dr. David Rosmarin 17:13 Yup. So if he were here, I would want to know what's the focus of his apprehension. That's a very fancy way of saying, what's at the root of his anxiety? Can we identify, what is he really afraid of? When you vomit, it's unpleasant. Is it the taste? Is it embarrassing yourself? Is it-

Mel Robbins 17:32 Hm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 17:32 ... uh, some sort of, uh, just the gag reflex and you just don't like how it feels? But if so, I'd want to know what about it. Did he watch a video once and there's an association with that video? I- I would- I would have a whole bunch of questions here to ask with no judgment, simply to explore what about that situation is so upsetting for him?

Mel Robbins 17:54 You know what I love about this?

Dr. David Rosmarin 17:56 What?

Mel Robbins 17:57 Is that-

Dr. David Rosmarin 17:57 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 17:57 ... I so screwed this up 'cause I'd be like, "You're not gonna get sick. You're gonna be fine. It'll happen. There's a nurse at school."

Dr. David Rosmarin 18:03 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 18:03 "Get on the bus." And what you're doing is you're actually slowing down that micro moment and you're going deeper and saying, "Well, what would happen and what is it really?" And- and when you get to that answer, let's just say it's that...I just hate the taste and I hate the pressure on my face-

Dr. David Rosmarin 18:22 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 18:22 ... and I hate it that it's gonna happen and you're not there, or that somebody's gonna see it.

Dr. David Rosmarin 18:26 Ooh, hold on. That this is gonna happen and you're not there is important. What about vomiting without mom is upsetting? I'd wanna know that. If that's what he w- if that's, I would probe... Based on what they say, I'm gonna probe a little bit further and get, like, w- what about that specifically is gonna be upsetting to you?

Mel Robbins 18:42 You know, I heard our pediatrician share with me that the fear of throwing up is one of the biggest fears that kids have behind their parents dying. And when you hear kids talk about this in your, in your practice, like, what typically is underneath some of these very common things that cause kids anxiety, whether it's sleepovers or it's separation anxiety or it's throwing up?

Dr. David Rosmarin 19:08 Yeah. I'll, I'll tell you what I, I often think it is about the throwing up. There's an association 'cause, like, the kid threw up at some point-

Mel Robbins 19:15 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 19:15 ... and one of the parents cleaned it up and it was not pleasant.

Mel Robbins 19:18 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 19:19 When.

Mel Robbins 19:19 Oh, so he shamed them.

Dr. David Rosmarin 19:20 Well, there's, there is a bit of a fear of that. I'm not saying that you did. By the way, the therapist in me really wants to probe for your, like, sort of over-responsibility for your kid's anxiety. I'm tot- I'm sort of dying to do that, but I don't wanna turn this into a therapy session, so we'll stay on topic. Um, uh, with regards to whatever it is, though, you wanna probe and really get down to the, sort of the root of it. And I think this is something we can do ourselves.

Mel Robbins 19:42 Yes.

Dr. David Rosmarin 19:43 Right?

Mel Robbins 19:43 Yes.

Dr. David Rosmarin 19:43 Do I feel... I'm gonna feel ashamed if I throw up. It's embarrassing. Someone else is gonna have to clean it up and, and if it's someone else's house and I'm doing a sleepover, it's, like, someone else's mom and dad. Like, ugh. That's a valid fear.

Mel Robbins 19:57 Yeah, and I also f- feel like, you know, I've heard this definition recently around anxiety, um, that made so much sense to me and I'd love to hear your reaction, and then I wanna get into more examples about the things that you're seeing in your practice with your patients to just normalize the types of not only fears and anxious feelings that people have, but the way they rationalize this stuff in their head.

Dr. David Rosmarin 20:22 Sure.

Mel Robbins 20:23 And then hold themselves back because of it. And it's this, that anxiety is really a moment of uncertainty in life.

Dr. David Rosmarin 20:32 Yes.

Mel Robbins 20:33 And you doubt your capacity to handle it.

Dr. David Rosmarin 20:35 That's exactly correct.

Mel Robbins 20:37 And because we then start worrying about how things are going to be, "I'm gonna throw up," or, "Work's gonna be terrible," or, "I'm gonna get fired," or, "This person's never gonna love me," or, "I'm never gonna meet anybody again," or, "If I park in a parking garage on the top floor, then the car is gonna roll off and fall to its face and I'm gonna..." like, that-

Dr. David Rosmarin 20:52 Could happen. (laughs)

Mel Robbins 20:53 Right? It could. It k- like-

Dr. David Rosmarin 20:54 Could happen.

Mel Robbins 20:54 Probably not, but it could happen, right? That, yeah, those things could happen. It's the fact that you doubt your ability to handle it that gets you trapped in your mind going over all of the what-ifs.

Dr. David Rosmarin 21:11 Well, that's where the next two steps are, the embracing-

Mel Robbins 21:13 So let's go to the second step.

Dr. David Rosmarin 21:15 ... the em- well, the second step is sharing.

Mel Robbins 21:17 Okay.

Dr. David Rosmarin 21:18 Sharing your emotions, the core of it, with someone else can create connection with someone. Now, I, I, I wouldn't... You have to share with purpose, right? And there's not everyone in all circumstances can you share with them. If you're sharing with a stressed out loved one who's coming back after a really, you know, nasty business trip or really they're going through a hard time themselves, they might not be able to hear it right now. But sharing it in a certain context and being clear, "I need you to validate me. I just need you to hear me out. I'm feeling anxious. I want you to be here and present with me."

Mel Robbins 21:49 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 21:49 And then sharing it can create more intimacy and connection between parents and children, between, certainly between loved ones, between friends. I've even seen it happen with strangers where people open up to each other, like, "Hey, I feel that way too." Like, instant connection.

Mel Robbins 22:02 Or on a plane. I, I have a friend of ours who flew in here-

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:05 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 22:05 ... a colleague, and had horrendous-

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:08 Mm.

Mel Robbins 22:08 ... turbulence, which, by the way, if I'm taking what you're teaching us, Dr. Ross Maron, if you're anxious on a plane that is like riding a bucking bronco-

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:18 Yep.

Mel Robbins 22:19 ... it's a sign that you're mentally well and that your body's working as it should.

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:23 Yeah. What's wrong with you if you're not feeling (laughs) anxious?

Mel Robbins 22:25 Correct. And he said the woman next to him started hyperventilating.

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:30 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 22:30 So he held her hand.

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:31 There you go.

Mel Robbins 22:31 He told her, "I'm nervous too, but we're gonna be okay. And look at the attendants, they're chatting away. We're gonna be okay." And so her sharing with him that she felt that way created a complete connection with a stranger.

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:44 She will never forget him.

Mel Robbins 22:46 It's true.

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:47 Ever.

Mel Robbins 22:48 That's true. What's the third step after you tell somebody?

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:50 Once we share and we're connected to people, embrace the anxiety. This is where we-

Mel Robbins 22:56 Now how the hell do I do that?

Dr. David Rosmarin 22:57 ... face it. Do something that makes you anxious.

Mel Robbins 23:00 I don't want to.

Dr. David Rosmarin 23:00 I know, but you also don't wanna go to the gym to build your physical muscles, but you do that.

Mel Robbins 23:04 That's true. So-

Dr. David Rosmarin 23:06 Why don't we t- why doesn't every school in the United States of America have mental em- like, a mental emotional agility resilience building by doing something that makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable? As long as it's safe and it's something that you want to do, do it.

Mel Robbins 23:21 Well, so if you're gonna embrace your anxiety, and that's the answer, which I don't like to hear. I'm just gonna say right out, like-

Dr. David Rosmarin 23:27 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 23:27 ... 'cause if I, if I am a person... We all have this person in our life whose identity has become anxiety.

Dr. David Rosmarin 23:34 Okay.

Mel Robbins 23:34 And it is also the thing that they say to opt out. And I have been that person.

Dr. David Rosmarin 23:42 Sure.

Mel Robbins 23:42 And, and so if embracing anxiety, after you've identified what am I really scared of, you share it. Now we gotta embrace the thing you're actually scared of, that root thing, right?

Dr. David Rosmarin 23:54 Correct.

Mel Robbins 23:56 How do you do that? Can you share examples?

Dr. David Rosmarin 23:59 Sure. There's this brilliant approach called the five-second rule.

Mel Robbins 24:02 Oh, no.

Dr. David Rosmarin 24:03 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 24:04 Do not turn my work back on me.

Dr. David Rosmarin 24:05 Am I wrong?

Mel Robbins 24:06 No.

Dr. David Rosmarin 24:06 That's what it is. I'm getting out of bed even though I feel like hell right now. I'm gonna do this. I don't want to... You know, I've had people with a fear of snakes, okay?

Mel Robbins 24:15 Okay.

Dr. David Rosmarin 24:15 I literally have a guy on speed dial who I can-... should I bring him in?

Mel Robbins 24:20 No.

Dr. David Rosmarin 24:20 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 24:21 Not right now.

Dr. David Rosmarin 24:23 That's fine. You're not ready for it.

Mel Robbins 24:23 So you have to... So you, so how do you coach somebody through this? Because you do have a section in your book where you, um... Let's see here. I marked it actually, it's page 96, Facing up to Anxiety.

Dr. David Rosmarin 24:36 Exposure therapy, yeah, chapter three.

Mel Robbins 24:38 Is exposure share therapy the only answer?

Dr. David Rosmarin 24:40 It's not the only answer. It's a very, very good tool. And when you have clinical anxiety, it has to be part of the picture. If you're not going to face your anxiety eventually, it's very, it's gonna be hard to get over it. But I think it's one step. I think we do have to identify it, we do have to share it.

Mel Robbins 24:57 Right.

Dr. David Rosmarin 24:57 We do have to embrace it, and I think there's something beyond it, but let's focus on exposure therapy for now.

Mel Robbins 25:02 Okay. So you're afraid of flying?

Dr. David Rosmarin 25:04 You're gonna fly, uh, at some point. When you're ready. We're gonna take... By the way, are you more nervous about short hauls or long hauls?

Mel Robbins 25:11 Me?

Dr. David Rosmarin 25:12 No, just let's make it up.

Mel Robbins 25:13 Oh, got it. Probably smaller planes.

Dr. David Rosmarin 25:15 Smaller planes, great. Perfect. So there's an airline that goes out of Boston Logan called Cape Air.

Mel Robbins 25:22 (laughs)

Dr. David Rosmarin 25:23 Okay?

Mel Robbins 25:23 It's got, like, seven seats.

Dr. David Rosmarin 25:25 Uh, I think it's eight. And one of them is actually in the cockpit, and I've been in it. It's a Cessna plane. It's basically a minivan with wings.

Mel Robbins 25:35 Dr. Rosmarin, I would, I would quit as your patient. Like, do you actually get people to do this?

Dr. David Rosmarin 25:41 Sure. It's a lot of... I should say, I was gonna say it's a lot of fun, um, but not only is it fun for me, it's fun for them at a certain point, 'cause they are embracing their anxiety and saying, "I can do this. I'm not gonna let it get in my way."

Mel Robbins 25:55 What about shyness?

Dr. David Rosmarin 25:57 Great. Harder to target. Tends to be longer term, tends to be focused also comorbid with depression. People get a lot more depressed.

Mel Robbins 26:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:05 'Cause if you're shy, you're disconnect, more disconnected from others, more isolated, more alone, more sad. So often building that person up first is important clinically through, um, more identification and a lot more sharing, not just with a therapist, but also with other people in their world, sometimes posting on social media, whatever it is. But at a certain point, they're gonna have to go to the party and not have a martini.

Mel Robbins 26:31 Why no martini?

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:32 Because the martini is an anxiolytic.

Mel Robbins 26:34 What, what... That's a big word.

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:35 It's a big word.

Mel Robbins 26:35 What does that mean?

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:35 A big word for saying it reduces your anxiety.

Mel Robbins 26:39 Temporarily.

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:40 Temporally.

Mel Robbins 26:40 But then you wake up in the morning with a massive hangover-

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:42 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 26:42 ... and anxiety is the big symptom that you feel.

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:44 And then you're ruminating about all the stuff that you said that you shouldn't have said because you were a little bit tipsy.

Mel Robbins 26:49 What about for OCD? Like, somebody-

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:52 OCD?

Mel Robbins 26:52 ... who's, like, worried about, like-

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:53 Germs?

Mel Robbins 26:53 ... cleanliness and germs?

Dr. David Rosmarin 26:54 Great. Um, so let's just say these hands have been in many places that I will not tell you about.

Mel Robbins 27:01 Today? (laughs)

Dr. David Rosmarin 27:03 Not today.

Mel Robbins 27:04 No, I'm just kidding. (laughs)

Dr. David Rosmarin 27:04 Not today. Don't worry. And I do wash my hands before I eat. But before washing my hands and before eating, mm, you'd be surprised where these go, 'cause, uh, part of being an anxiety therapist means you have to do everything that your patients do also.

Mel Robbins 27:17 So what do you do with those, like, really dirty, grimy hands?

Dr. David Rosmarin 27:20 Okay, so I'm thinking of a specific patient who came in who was terrified of germs and for many years had been avoiding all sorts of situations. Um, really wouldn't open car doors, certainly wouldn't ride the subway, um, and, uh, was at one point putting gloves on their hands, uh, lots of Purell, lots of excessive washing, had actually had very significant chafing, even needed some medical treatments in order to be able to deal with, you know, abrasions on their hands from all the washing. And really, we started with touching things that would make them feel uncomfortable. Started with things in the office, it could have been as simple as this desk surface. It could have been things that, you know, um, in the bathroom would be next. Um, and eventually moving towards the inside of a toilet bowl or things that are way over the top that you wouldn't normally do in order for them to develop the resilience to stand up to their anxiety head on.

Mel Robbins 28:18 The toilet? Oh. So how does somebody get through the uncomfortable feelings that they have while they're doing this exposure therapy with you?

Dr. David Rosmarin 28:27 The first step is always the same, which is, "Do you want to do this?" Once somebody wants to face their anxiety and build their resilience by deliberately putting themselves in an anxiety-provoking situation, like once you catch the bug, like once you want to do it, there's nothing that'll stop you.

Mel Robbins 28:45 What if when they first start doing it, they feel so uncomfortable or the anxiety just spikes and they're like, "I can't do this, I can't do this. I can't, I can't get on that plane. I can't put my hands in the toilet. I can't put my hands on the table"? What do you do?

Dr. David Rosmarin 29:00 So we prep people beforehand. They will think, you will think, "I can't do this. I'm not going to be able to handle this. My anxiety is going to spike. I'm going to get sick." All of those thoughts are going to be rocketing through your head because that's what facing anxiety entails. That's part of the process. And that is exactly why it's an opportunity to build emotional resilience.

Mel Robbins 29:19 How many times, Dr. Rosmarin, does it take for somebody to start feeling less anxious when they start forcing themselves to do this thing, you know, expose themselves to the thing that they're terrified to do?

Dr. David Rosmarin 29:35 Often we see a significant drop in anxiety even after once or twice from doing it, but sometimes it does require many, many more repetitions. In m- in some ways, it depends on how long they've been avoiding situations. If people have been avoiding, um, germs and, uh, microbes and all sorts of things for, for, for decades, it, it might take a while for them to get through it. Um, but it's kind of like a mortgage, like eventually you pay it off.

Mel Robbins 30:02 What about a parent who has a child who is starting to develop a pattern-

Dr. David Rosmarin 30:07 Yes.

Mel Robbins 30:07 ... of not wanting to either go to school or participate in sports or who won't do sleepovers?

Dr. David Rosmarin 30:14 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 30:14 And it's with a family that's safe, it's not some creepy family you don't know and they don't want to do it-

Dr. David Rosmarin 30:18 Right.

Mel Robbins 30:18 ... because they don't want to be there.

Dr. David Rosmarin 30:20 Fair enough.

Mel Robbins 30:21 What about then?

Dr. David Rosmarin 30:23 We can't... When we push kids to do things that they don't want to do, it... There's a balance, and helping scaffold kids that they want to do it, selling them on it, so to speak. Onboarding, we talk about onboarding kids, onboarding teens. Once somebody recognizes "This will help build my resilience."

Mel Robbins 30:42 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 30:42 "This will help make me a stronger emotional person," then they're like, "Okay, I'm in." And at a certain point with planes, you might be there too, like, "You know what? I wanna do this. I don't want this to get in my way in any way. I wanna be more fearless-

Mel Robbins 30:56 Yeah.

Dr. David Rosmarin 30:56 ... in my life. I want to..." Just like you wanna learn how to, you know, pump iron or be able to run a marathon or run at a certain time period or time, time pace or whatever it is. We all have our fitness goals, and I think we should also have our emotional goals, but we don't have that.

Mel Robbins 31:10 Well, one of the things that I love that you said at the very beginning of our conversation when you made this life-altering distinction-

Dr. David Rosmarin 31:17 Thank you.

Mel Robbins 31:18 No, for real. Sadness is a normal emotion that you're gonna feel, and you know it comes and it goes.

Dr. David Rosmarin 31:24 Yep.

Mel Robbins 31:24 Depression is a clinical condition that interferes with your life that demands and deserves treatment.

Dr. David Rosmarin 31:31 Correct.

Mel Robbins 31:32 Anxiety in terms of kind of chronic anxiety or this fear that you have of things that keeps you from living your full life is very different than being nervous or on edge because the stakes are high-

Dr. David Rosmarin 31:46 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 31:47 ... or something's uncertain or you really care about doing well. Like, you know, I would imagine there's a tremendous amount of anxiety that you would feel before you take the LSAT or before-

Dr. David Rosmarin 31:58 Sure.

Mel Robbins 31:58 ... you are turning in a college application or-

Dr. David Rosmarin 32:01 Going on a first date.

Mel Robbins 32:02 ... going on a first date. And that's again, in this range of nervousness and just uncertainty, which is a part of life. And what you taught us is in those moments, we literally do the wrong thing.

Dr. David Rosmarin 32:16 Correct.

Mel Robbins 32:17 We either go, "Uh-oh, this is a sign something's about to go wrong," and it's not. It's just a sign that you're about to do something where you doubt your ability for a bit. And then as the bystander, the friend, the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the husband, the wife, the parent, the grandparent, we literally are either like, "Oh, you're gonna be fine," so we don't acknowledge it.

Dr. David Rosmarin 32:38 Right.

Mel Robbins 32:39 Or we join in with the anxiety.

Dr. David Rosmarin 32:42 "Oh my God, something's wrong."

Mel Robbins 32:43 Yes.

Dr. David Rosmarin 32:44 Yes.

Mel Robbins 32:44 "Oh, you don't have to go to the sleepover. Oh, you don't have to try out for that team."

Dr. David Rosmarin 32:47 Right.

Mel Robbins 32:47 "Oh, ba-ba-ba-ba. You know, you can take the test again if you screw it up." And I can see how powerful it is to catch these moments and reaffirm, "Oh, really? Th- that makes sense that you'd be nervous. Tell me what, why exactly are you nervous about this test that's coming up," or, "I can see why you'd be nervous. Like, tell me more about this date you're going on." What does that do for a person in the moment?

Dr. David Rosmarin 33:10 It takes so much of the edge off. As opposed to giving me more of a reason to be anxious about my anxiety-

Mel Robbins 33:18 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 33:18 ... it normalizes and makes it so much more manageable. It's just a different, that different framework. It's kind of like having glasses that are, like, a different color. It just changes the whole view of everything around you. And by the way, it's not just the parents and the teachers. It actually comes from the medical profession. Something crazy happened last summer, uh, something very unfortunate.

Mel Robbins 33:42 What happened?

Dr. David Rosmarin 33:43 Well, there was a federally funded panel of p- physicians in the United States who came up with, I think it was, in, in some ways, I think it was well intended, and I think it was a good idea, to screen all patients at their annual PCP visits, primary care physician visits, for anxiety. Now, I have no problems with screening people for anxiety, but the way it's done... Well, the recommendation was to use the GAD-2, which is a two-item measure. It asks, "How much anxiety have you had in the last two weeks, and how much worry have you had in the last two weeks?"

Mel Robbins 34:16 Well, who isn't gonna answer a lot?

Dr. David Rosmarin 34:18 Well, uh, the, the, the cutoff... Who's gon- Who's not gonna say a- Who's gonna say zero to any of those questions?

Mel Robbins 34:24 Right. Right.

Dr. David Rosmarin 34:25 The cutoff was set at a zero, which means any modicum of anxiety or stress over the last two weeks is actually f- enough to flag a person today in their PCP office for clinical anxiety and treatment.

Mel Robbins 34:39 What?

Dr. David Rosmarin 34:40 Well, I mean-

Mel Robbins 34:41 And is that why we've seen all these reports that anxiety from a clinical standpoint is on the rise? Or are you saying that this is more that doctors are now over-indexing normal, healthy human emotion into a clinical anxiety setting?

Dr. David Rosmarin 34:58 It's the latter, but it's actually both. We are definitely over-diagnosing lower levels of human stress and anxiety as a pathology as opposed to something normal.

Mel Robbins 35:09 I agree with you.

Dr. David Rosmarin 35:10 Who have you met in the last two weeks who has had no anxiety and no worry?

Mel Robbins 35:15 Honestly, no one, and I think it's written about so much, and that's not to downplay the very real rise in-

Dr. David Rosmarin 35:24 Of course.

Mel Robbins 35:25 ... like, sadness and worry and stress that kids feel and teenagers feel and people in their 20s feel. Um, but I do think we don't have the language, which was why I was so excited about your work, because for somebody who had anxiety that did not get addressed this way... I was afraid of it, so I drank myself into the ground. I tried to work myself through it. The second I got chronic anxiety where I would wake up panicking, I then get medicated.

Dr. David Rosmarin 35:58 Yep.

Mel Robbins 35:58 And I never addressed the underlying issues. And the medication was life-saving, but it also, I think, kept me trapped in this place where I was afraid to go off it.

Dr. David Rosmarin 36:13 Yeah, and it could have been at, at a certain point you shouldn't have gone off of it. You should have stayed on it, and you needed it-

Mel Robbins 36:17 Yes.

Dr. David Rosmarin 36:17 ... in

Dr. David Rosmarin 36:18 order to function.

Mel Robbins 36:18 And there are plenty of times like, you know, I- I'm-

Dr. David Rosmarin 36:20 Correct.

Mel Robbins 36:20 ... I'm assuming, is all anxiety the same?

Dr. David Rosmarin 36:22 No. Here, I'll tell you the way I think about it.... a-anxiety occurs on a scale of zero to 10.

Mel Robbins 36:27 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 36:28 But really, there's no zeros, 'cause no one has zero anxiety, and there's no 10 because that would be literally catastrophic. So we're left with one to nine.

Mel Robbins 36:35 Okay.

Dr. David Rosmarin 36:35 One, two, three is low. Four, five, six is medium. Seven, eight, nine is high. If you're at a seven or eight and a nine, you probably need something professional to take it down to a mid-range.

Mel Robbins 36:46 And how would you, as a, as a doctor and an anxiety physician, therapist, how, how would you actually categorize a seven, eight, or a nine?

Dr. David Rosmarin 36:55 If it's r- getting in the way of your l- at that level, it's gonna be getting in the way of your life. If you're feeling-

Mel Robbins 36:59 Meaning it's disrupting your sleep, you're avoiding doing what you need to do.

Dr. David Rosmarin 37:03 Yeah, if you can't sleep because of your anxiety, that's a dysfunctional issue. That's something that has to be addressed.

Mel Robbins 37:07 And now let's go with the kind of four, five, six.

Dr. David Rosmarin 37:10 Four, five, six, so that, now it depends. Some people can function actually reasonably well at a four, five, and a six. Six maybe less likely, but a four and a five, for sure.

Mel Robbins 37:18 What would you be hearing typically from someone in your practice if they were saying, "I'd say my worry and anxiety is about a four, five, or a six"?

Dr. David Rosmarin 37:25 It depends on what's going on. Are they, um, you know, a- an emergency room doctor? Are they, you know, going through med school or are they going through a- a breakup? Are they starting a new... Do they have a new baby? (laughs) You know, then, okay, like people have periods of time where they might ramp up, and that actually might enhance their performance. It might enhance their connection. You can use it.

Mel Robbins 37:42 The important thing there that I wanna make sure that the person listening understands-

Dr. David Rosmarin 37:45 Yes.

Mel Robbins 37:46 ... is that what you just identified, first of all, it's that step one that you taught us of identify what's the root cause.

Dr. David Rosmarin 37:52 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 37:52 And there's a huge difference in those moments in your life where something is causing you to be on edge, and you to be nervous, and you to be worried and doubting yourself, or scared about what's gonna happen, because that, to me, sounds like there's a situation. You know, I mentioned at the beginning of, um, this episode that literally two hours before you walked in the studio-

Dr. David Rosmarin 38:14 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 38:14 ... I got a text from a very close friend of mine who said, "My daughter is unable to sleep, has crushing anxiety," and then added that there is this massive medical test that she needs to take for med school, which to me said, oh, well, there's this thing happening that is high stakes that explains it, but because my friend has never dealt with this with any of her kids-

Dr. David Rosmarin 38:44 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 38:45 ... and because it's really scary when you-

Dr. David Rosmarin 38:48 It is scary.

Mel Robbins 38:48 ... see somebody who's normally seems like they have it pulled together truly start to spiral, you don't know what to do. And what I said to her is, "Well, I'm gonna tell you something. First of all, it seems appropriate that she's nervous because-"

Dr. David Rosmarin 39:02 Great.

Mel Robbins 39:02 "... she has high stakes, but I've got the world's leading expert walking in here."

Dr. David Rosmarin 39:07 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 39:07 "And this is the name of his book, and you should go buy it right now," because I know I screw it up every time I see somebody, even when I know it's situational, 'cause I get anxious for them. And so, I think it's important to understand that even in your practice, and this is something you can do for yourself and you can do for somebody you care about, you identified, okay, one to nine, how much is this interfering?

Dr. David Rosmarin 39:32 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 39:33 And no matter what they say in terms of the ranking, you can also say what's going on in your life.

Dr. David Rosmarin 39:40 100%.

Mel Robbins 39:41 And what's the difference between something that is situational versus something that becomes way more chronic?

Dr. David Rosmarin 39:50 Well, uh, you know, that is important. The situational aspect is very important. But how you are sort of engaging in your anxiety, like I said, the four, five, and six, are you using... Are you able to use that level of anxiety in a constructive, positive way? Is it-

Mel Robbins 40:05 Well, if I'm sitting there with you, probably not.

Dr. David Rosmarin 40:08 Probably not. (laughs)

Mel Robbins 40:08 Like if I'm co- you know what I mean? If I'm going to a doctor and I'm like, "Doc, I, I, I, like I'm feeling very anxious, four, five, six, like I'm not sleeping very well," I don't feel like anybody that even would say a four, five, or six feels like they're, they're thriving or able to kind of use it.

Dr. David Rosmarin 40:27 I don't know. I think a lot of people might be like, "Hey, I'm building... I'm, I'm, uh, an entrepreneur."

Mel Robbins 40:32 Yeah.

Dr. David Rosmarin 40:32 They're starting a new business.

Mel Robbins 40:33 Yeah.

Dr. David Rosmarin 40:33 They're having a battle of a time. They're feeling-

Mel Robbins 40:35 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 40:35 ... stressed out, might have gained a couple pounds, and they know that they're at a four, five, and a six, but they're like, "But I'm gonna get through this."

Mel Robbins 40:42 I c- I can think of periods in my life like that.

Dr. David Rosmarin 40:44 Sure.

Mel Robbins 40:45 So, what is a one, two, or a three when a, when somebody that you're treating says that?

Dr. David Rosmarin 40:49 So that, often, we see that as the goal. Uh, I'm not sure I do. I, I think that if, firstly, with medication, clinicians often overpromise, and they say, "I'm gonna get your anxiety down to a one, and it's gonna stay there." I'm not sure that's even helpful.

Mel Robbins 41:05 I love what you just said. What you just said is the goal is not to get to zero.

Dr. David Rosmarin 41:09 Correct. Well-

Mel Robbins 41:10 That if we take as truth, which it is, that feeling on edge and nervous and doubting yourself, normal human emotions, the anxiety becomes a real problem from a clinical standpoint when it's interfering with your life and it is robbing you of the possibilities and the full potential that you have-

Dr. David Rosmarin 41:30 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 41:30 ... because you're now held hostage by the anxiety and you're scared of it.

Dr. David Rosmarin 41:35 Well put.

Mel Robbins 41:37 If the goal is that we can do simple things to identify what's making you anxious, to remind you that you have the capacity to face this, to have you share and connect with other people, and to take small steps and go, the goal isn't to go to zero. The goal's just, let's just get this to a three, and there's some simple things I can do. You know, before we go into how do you actually go from the higher end down to the one to threes here,

Mel Robbins 42:05 I do wanna stay on this topic even though it's very self-serving, because I feel like I screwed this up, and it's the sleepover topic. You're a parent. You have a child.

Dr. David Rosmarin 42:14 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 42:15 They are opting out, and you're very worried. It's getting into the four, fives, and six. You're not with them eight hours a day, so you're not a part of what's happening at school.What do I do in those moments when I have a child that's really anxious? Do I force them to go to the sleepover? Do I... What do I do?

Dr. David Rosmarin 42:42 Validate, validate, validate. There's a reason why they don't want to go to the sleepover, and even if it doesn't make sense to you, it makes sense to their anxiety. You have to delve into that anxiety with them and allow them to explore it. The more you say, "Oh, there's no reason to be upset," the more they're just gonna think that their anxiety is a problem and not even... They might not even be conscious of what they're afraid of.

Mel Robbins 43:06 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 43:07 But if you just ask them, like, "Well, why wouldn't you want to go to the sleepover?" Not judging, just asking, "What about that..."

Mel Robbins 43:13 "What if I wake up and I'm scared?"

Dr. David Rosmarin 43:15 Yeah, that would be upsetting. What would happen if you were to wake up and...

Mel Robbins 43:18 Then I'd have to wake up Mrs. So-and-So and they'd have to come get you and it'd be really embarrassing.

Dr. David Rosmarin 43:22 Well, I understand then why you wouldn't want to have a sleepover.

Mel Robbins 43:26 I just like my bed. I'd rather be in my bed.

Dr. David Rosmarin 43:28 Yeah. Well, that's the comfort thing. You j- By the way, that, the kid just changed the topic. Now we're talking about comfort as opposed to anxiety. So I would probably double back and say, like, "Well, w- what about that Mrs. So-and-So would have to, you know, drop, call you up and you'd have to pick me up and it'd be a whole thing? What about it, would people be talking about it the next day?"

Mel Robbins 43:48 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 43:48 "Would it be a social thing? Would it be... Are you more embarrassed about the parents thinking about you, about your friend?"

Mel Robbins 43:53 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 43:53 "Would you feel worse about yourself?" And just explore it.

Mel Robbins 43:56 There's so much there, because now I'm starting to think like, "Gosh, they probably also feel self-conscious, like they can't do something that their friends can do, and that makes them seem like more," and then you might find out that their friends actually aren't that nice. Like, I can see how there's a lot there.

Dr. David Rosmarin 44:11 And it's so individual to that person.

Mel Robbins 44:13 Wow.

Dr. David Rosmarin 44:14 But when we unpack it, we actually learn who the kid is. If you snuff out the anxiety, you'll never know what's really going on.

Mel Robbins 44:24 Is there a difference between the way that

Mel Robbins 44:26 women and men or boys and girls tend to exhibit symptoms of anxiety?

Dr. David Rosmarin 44:32 So, great question. Women have about twice as much clinical anxiety as men.

Mel Robbins 44:39 Why?

Dr. David Rosmarin 44:40 They are, tend to be a lot harder on themselves and judge themselves for being anxious and don't really allow themselves to experience those feelings. If a guy's feeling anxious, like, "Well, I'm, something's wrong and, like, there must be a reason."

Mel Robbins 44:53 Yeah.

Dr. David Rosmarin 44:54 You know, you know, women are more like, "Something's wrong with me."

Mel Robbins 44:58 It's so true.

Dr. David Rosmarin 44:59 And that's feed-

Mel Robbins 44:59 Well, you know, there's interesting research-

Dr. David Rosmarin 45:01 That's just feedback.

Mel Robbins 45:01 It does. There's interesting research about, like, if a, if a guy loses a job, when he gets his nest- next job, there's no difference in the salary he makes. When a woman loses her job, she turns it back on her, becomes anxious and starts doubting herself and her capability of handling this and tends to take literally a 25%-

Dr. David Rosmarin 45:21 Lower-paying job.

Mel Robbins 45:21 -salary cut.

Dr. David Rosmarin 45:22 Yeah. .

Mel Robbins 45:22 And so this has very, very real implications. Are there topics that you find that boys and men are more anxious about than women?

Dr. David Rosmarin 45:32 Um, no. I think men will often snuff out the anxiety a little bit more and be a little more disconnected from it. Like, we see higher incidences of, uh, substance and alcohol abuse.

Mel Robbins 45:44 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 45:45 Um, and that's usually, you know, often happens when people are feeling anxious and don't want to talk about it, don't want to think about it.

Mel Robbins 45:53 How do you turn a- anxiety, though, into an ally instead of an enemy?

Dr. David Rosmarin 45:58 Great. So-

Mel Robbins 45:58 When you're afraid of it?

Dr. David Rosmarin 45:59 Oh, it is terrifying, but therein lies the opportunity. That's what creates the opportunity for self-discovery. The reason you're freaking out about it is because it matters. So identify what's at the root of it, share it with someone else, embrace it when you're ready, and then the next step is letting go, (laughs) which is the hardest one, but that's, that's where, that's where it's all, what it's really all about.

Mel Robbins 46:23 You know, I was a little skeptical when we first started talking, but I really love your approach to this.

Dr. David Rosmarin 46:29 Well, let me say it this way. I think all human beings would benefit from acknowledging the limits of what we can control-

Mel Robbins 46:37 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 46:37 ... and leaning into that and letting go. There's a difference between losing control, where it's taken away from us involuntarily-

Mel Robbins 46:45 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 46:45 ... versus giving up control, like you do on a roller coaster.

Mel Robbins 46:49 True.

Dr. David Rosmarin 46:50 That latter experience, when we don't have control over a situation, so if we're like, "Okay, it ain't my wheel."

Mel Robbins 46:58 Right.

Dr. David Rosmarin 46:59 Then the anxiety can actually be an uplifting, exhilarating experience where we lean into the fact that we aren't in control and that's okay.

Mel Robbins 47:07 And so you are letting go-

Dr. David Rosmarin 47:09 You need to let go.

Mel Robbins 47:09 ... of the need for proof and just choosing to believe.

Dr. David Rosmarin 47:12 Correct. Correct.

Mel Robbins 47:13 And what I think you're believing, especially in those moments of anxiety, is that you're gonna be okay and that you have the capability and the capacity to handle this and to face whatever comes.

Dr. David Rosmarin 47:24 Even though it's overwhelming and beyond you.

Mel Robbins 47:26 Yes.

Dr. David Rosmarin 47:27 That somehow, something in your humanity will be able to rise to the challenge. Who knows how, who knows when, who knows where. Methods are unclear, the path is opaque, but I'm gonna continue to trout along it, uh, trot along it with some sort of level of surrender.

Mel Robbins 47:42 I mean, at, at its deepest level, it's trusting in life.

Dr. David Rosmarin 47:45 Correct.

Mel Robbins 47:45 And, you know, actually, it reminds me of something that you wrote-

Dr. David Rosmarin 47:47 Okay.

Mel Robbins 47:48 ... in your book that I absolutely loved, which is, "When anxiety strikes, we tend to get annoyed. Why doesn't the anxiety beast get out of our way? We look for distractions or a way out of the quandary. Is there a drink I can have or a recreational drug I can take to make it all go away, at least for the moment? Can I busy myself with work or by obsessively reading and posting on social media? These strategies tend to just make anxiety worse. However, if we can harness the power of anxiety, we can thrive in ways we never thought were possible. We should not sidestep anxiety or back up and deny that it is there, but rather stop and evaluate the situation. What is our anxiety trying to tell us?"The answer is that we need to dig deep down into ourselves, although doing so makes us uncomfortable.

Dr. David Rosmarin 48:39 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 48:40 We need to experience anxiety in order to transcend it, and although it may not seem to be the case at first glance, what lies inside, what our anxiety is pointing us toward, is a set of precious gifts. In this case, the gold isn't material wealth, but a deepened sense of connection with ourselves, with others, and with our spirituality. Ironically, and paradoxically, we can thrive with anxiety.

Dr. David Rosmarin 49:11 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 49:11 You're right.

Dr. David Rosmarin 49:12 Thanks.

Mel Robbins 49:14 You know, if I think about what most 20-somethings have faced, whether it's a pandemic that rocked their college or high school years-

Dr. David Rosmarin 49:20 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 49:20 ... a hybrid workforce, a world full of headlines that feels outrageous, social media and being on phones all day long.

Dr. David Rosmarin 49:28 Yes.

Mel Robbins 49:28 A sense of horizonlessness where I don't really know what I'm gonna do with my life. I mean, our 20s were confusing when you and I were 20.

Dr. David Rosmarin 49:35 That's true.

Mel Robbins 49:35 And that was not in the middle of this soup. So there's a part of me that's like, "Well, of course you feel that way." But what do you do for the kind of anxiety that people feel about things like climate change, or-

Dr. David Rosmarin 49:49 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 49:49 ... "Am I ever gonna figure out what I'm here to do on Earth? Will I ever meet my partner in life?"

Dr. David Rosmarin 49:55 Adversity is potentially a very good thing, and the feelings you are having, that nervousness doesn't mean you won't be successful. That means that you are actually facing a life circumstance. Don't judge yourself for feeling anxious about the fact that you might not be able to pay for something. That's okay. And now, what are we gonna do with those feelings and with the circumstances that we have?

Mel Robbins 50:21 Got it. So let me see if I can unpack this. So if you are feeling anxious that you're never gonna make enough money-

Dr. David Rosmarin 50:28 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 50:28 ... to be able to provide yourself or your family with the things that you want, first of all, you gotta identify what's the core there. And, you know, if we kind of bring in some of the things we've talked about, it's not true that you won't. You're just doubting your ability and capacity to do it in a challenging economic environment where you live.

Dr. David Rosmarin 50:51 Correct.

Mel Robbins 50:52 And so being nervous and on edge is actually an appropriate response because this is gonna be some work.

Dr. David Rosmarin 50:58 It, it is gonna be work. It's not gonna be easy.

Mel Robbins 50:59 But that doesn't mean, right, that you can't do it?

Dr. David Rosmarin 51:01 And it doesn't mean something's wrong with you for feeling stressed or feeling anxious or feeling uncomfortable. It means that you are actually starting to grow up and face reality.

Mel Robbins 51:11 What if you read the headlines about the melting polar ice cap and you look at the fact that there's this once in 200 year storm that happened in Florida, you know, a while ago, and you're worried about climate change-

Dr. David Rosmarin 51:24 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 51:24 ... and that there won't be a planet here for future generations-

Dr. David Rosmarin 51:27 Right.

Mel Robbins 51:27 ... and that starts to cause you a lot of anxiety?

Dr. David Rosmarin 51:30 Right, or California wildfires, right?

Mel Robbins 51:31 Yeah, California wildfires. Like, how, what do you do? How do you use this method with that?

Dr. David Rosmarin 51:36 This is where the let go comes in. There is only so much that human beings can control in this world.

Mel Robbins 51:43 I don't want that answer. (laughs)

Dr. David Rosmarin 51:44 Uh, you know, you're the one who says it with le vent.

Mel Robbins 51:46 I know, but I don't-

Dr. David Rosmarin 51:47 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 51:47 But I'm, I'm playing the role of somebody who is in an anxious state and who... You know, 'cause when you're, you're kind of cynical when you're anxious 'cause you've felt this way and you're like, "Doc, you don't have any idea. I know you've treated tens of thousand people and you've got a degree and you're an expert in this and you studied it, but you don't know what it's like. Like, I, I just can't get out of my head. I can't-"

Dr. David Rosmarin 52:08 I've faced my own anxiety like you wouldn't believe, and letting go... Uh, the truth is, coming from a spiritual and religious tradition-

Mel Robbins 52:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 52:14 ... like I think, I have an advantage here because-

Mel Robbins 52:17 Hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 52:17 ... this is the kind of message that I've been, you know, brought up with and that I, you know, attend sermons about, and human beings are not the architects of all of world events. That's just not the way it goes. We're not in charge of the weather. We're not in charge of certain things, but we're in charge of a lot. And by refocusing on that which is within our purview and is within our control, that's using anxiety in a constructive-

Mel Robbins 52:44 Mm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 52:44 ... positive way 'cause that will motivate me to get up in the morning, do what I gotta do, push ahead, face that adversity, have a dream, and move towards it, as opposed to trying to grasp control over stuff that I don't.

Mel Robbins 52:58 I mean, it makes a lot of sense, and, you know, you're, you're the expert, and I'm sure you'll tell us anytime you focus on or grip or worry about things that you can't control, you just create more anxiety for yourself.

Dr. David Rosmarin 53:09 I mean, I don't think you need to be an expert to, to know that one.

Mel Robbins 53:13 So you have so many tools in your book, Thriving With Anxiety. What are some tools that the person who's listening can put to work, like, right now so that anxiety enriches their relationship with themself? 'Cause that's a, that's a really beautiful thing that is possible to you, that this could actually create a deeper connection that you have with yourself.

Dr. David Rosmarin 53:36 For sure. Uh, I mean, off the cuff, you know, when you feel anxious, don't squelch it. Don't get rid of the symptoms. Don't try to avoid it in your mind. Actually take the time to do a mental inventory.

Mel Robbins 53:48 Okay.

Dr. David Rosmarin 53:49 That could start with a brain dump, as my wife likes to call it. Just dump all the thoughts out, you know, unravel the yarn, you know, un- you know, take, take whatever's in your pockets and put it on the table, and then just let it sit there. That could take 10, 15 minutes.

Mel Robbins 54:04 Okay, so you just-

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:04 A writing exercise.

Mel Robbins 54:05 ... dump everything in your brain on a piece of paper.

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:07 Yes.

Mel Robbins 54:07 Just everything that's in there?

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:09 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 54:10 And then what?

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:10 And then pick out the anxiety saplings.

Mel Robbins 54:14 Okay. What does that mean?

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:15 There's gonna be one or two trees, so to speak, that are, you know, that have roots and they really go down, uh, to a certain level, sometimes really deep. Identify them from the, from the other stuff. Often people come in and they, I ask them, "What are you anxious about?" And (rattle) right? 30 minutes later, it's like, okay.I think there are th- two or three main themes here.

Mel Robbins 54:38 Okay.

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:39 You know, you could even put it into ChatGPT and say, like, "What are my two main themes?"

Mel Robbins 54:43 You mean, like, do your brain dump-

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:45 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 54:45 ... in ChatGPT and then go, "Tell me what the two biggest things that I'm anxious about"?

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:50 Yeah, what are the two m- It's a language processor, right? So you can-

Mel Robbins 54:52 Wow.

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:52 ... theoretically just do that.

Mel Robbins 54:54 Okay. You're gonna put yourself out of a job. Okay, keep going. No, never-

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:57 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 54:57 ... 'cause we all need you.

Dr. David Rosmarin 54:58 I don't think so. I'm not worried about that.

Mel Robbins 54:59 So once you've done that, you've picked out kind of the two big themes-

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:02 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 55:03 ... what do you do?

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:05 Dig.

Mel Robbins 55:06 Identify.

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:07 Dig, dig deep.

Mel Robbins 55:08 Share.

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:08 Well, no, hold on. We're not-

Mel Robbins 55:10 Embrace?

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:10 We're not even at the sharing-

Mel Robbins 55:10 No, we're not even there? Oh my God.

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:11 We're just identifying.

Mel Robbins 55:12 Okay. We're just identifying.

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:13 We're just identifying. Just go dig. What, what's at the root of it? What are you really afraid will happen? If your car was parked on the seventh thing and it starts to roll, whatever it is, you know, your example of the front porch.

Mel Robbins 55:23 What is the, like, top five things that when you do that exercise with your patients come up over and over and over and over?

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:27 It's usually one thing.

Mel Robbins 55:28 What is it?

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:29 Being alone. People are afraid of being alone, being abandoned.

Mel Robbins 55:35 Wow.

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:38 I know when I've hit that. Uh, uh, when I'm asking a- a patient live, firstly, when they start to tear up and I can feel the emotion in the moment, then I know I'm getting something.

Mel Robbins 55:45 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 55:46 And often when they hit the alone elevator, like, when we hit that floor on the elevator, then, then we're getting somewhere.

Mel Robbins 55:54 Well, it makes sense. You know, there's a, a doctor who's had a big impact on me, Dr. Russell Kennedy, who talks about how-

Dr. David Rosmarin 56:02 Sure.

Mel Robbins 56:02 ... he believes it all-

Dr. David Rosmarin 56:02 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 56:03 ... anxiety is separation anxiety.

Dr. David Rosmarin 56:05 Very similar.

Mel Robbins 56:06 And it's separation from self mostly and your faith in yourself and your belief in yourself, and from a spiritual standpoint, if you're a very spiritual person, you also separate from the source of your belief and power-

Dr. David Rosmarin 56:22 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 56:22 ... because you go up in your head. And so what's interesting about that is, is I think you're right. If I tick through everything that I've ever been anxious about or my kids have ever struggled with, it does come down to I'm gonna be alone.

Dr. David Rosmarin 56:36 That's it. That's at the core, usually.

Mel Robbins 56:38 It's, it's true. So how do you let that fear go?

Dr. David Rosmarin 56:40 You don't. You embrace it and use it to connect to other people, find ways to build your resilience with it. And then with regards to letting go, I think that's letting go of control that you can actually control it.

Mel Robbins 56:55 Okay.

Dr. David Rosmarin 56:58 But you don't, you don't let go of that fear. It's gonna be there, and that's okay.

Mel Robbins 57:02 So let's say the person listening, you know, is, uh, just, he's, m- or she is at a 7, 8, or 9 on the to- scale.

Dr. David Rosmarin 57:08 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 57:09 What is the good news that you tell that person when they walk in and begin their practice with you?

Dr. David Rosmarin 57:19 Yeah. Well, first, again, if they're at a 7, 8, or 9, it's probably interfering with their lives in a clinical way-

Mel Robbins 57:24 Yep. Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 57:24 ... in which case, you're probably looking at a professional process.

Mel Robbins 57:27 Mm-hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 57:28 Now this, whether it's the book or whether it's, you know, a, a workshop or whatever it is, people could probably benefit from that as well.

Mel Robbins 57:36 Right.

Dr. David Rosmarin 57:36 But I wouldn't want someone who's coming in with a 7, 8, or 9 where it's actually clinical, it's interfering with their lives, to just use a self-help approach.

Mel Robbins 57:43 Got it.

Dr. David Rosmarin 57:43 I'd probably want them to get some sort of therapy and/or meds.

Mel Robbins 57:46 What would you say to the person who's listening that they've been hanging on every word, they've been either thinking about their own anxiety or somebody that they care about who's really, you know, struggling with it, but there's l- that little bit of skepticism, you know, you know? You know, the, the urge to just kind of react like, "Well, I'm never..." Like, uh, "This isn't... I don't know that this is gonna work for me," which is also more of your anxiety, right?

Dr. David Rosmarin 58:13 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 58:14 'Cause now you're up in your head debating and having a negative thought about the thing, the very thing that could save you.

Dr. David Rosmarin 58:21 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 58:21 So what would you say to that person that just feels sort of discouraged or skeptical?

Dr. David Rosmarin 58:26 I don't blame you. You've been taught since birth that something's wrong with you if you're anxious. You've been taught by your parents, you've been taught that by your teachers, you've been taught that by society. You've seen, you know, medic- You've seen medication adverti- advertisements on television. Ev- you know, for, for years and years and years, you were, that message was pounded into you that something is clinically, uh, uh, em- uh, emotionally, maybe even morally wrong with you (laughs) if you ha- This is a failing of your life if you feel anxious. So yeah, I don't blame you for, uh, you know, having heard this for the first time for, you know, barely an hour that it's not penetrating. Yeah, I don't blame you one bit.

Mel Robbins 59:00 Wow. I mean, you just did exactly what you told us to do.

Dr. David Rosmarin 59:05 Uh-huh.

Mel Robbins 59:06 You validated.

Dr. David Rosmarin 59:07 Oh, I guess so. (laughs)

Mel Robbins 59:09 You did.

Dr. David Rosmarin 59:09 It just popped outta

Dr. David Rosmarin 59:10 me.

Mel Robbins 59:10 Um, how has everything that you just shared with us helped you with your anxiety?

Dr. David Rosmarin 59:14 Oh my God, so many ways. You know, I didn't always talk about it. When I got my job at, uh, Harvard Medical School, it's not the kind of thing that you speak about, right? Like, you're a professor and you stand up and you have your slides and you have your, you know, uh, you have your, uh, figures and your facts and your data, and you don't have your personal experience. Like, no, that would be, like, beneath (laughs) you know, the dignity of someone within the academy. And then like I said, over, over COVID, it really changed for me because aside from the fact that I was just dealing with my own anxiety, I actually saw in my data that the patients who were coming to our programs who had clinical anxiety and got treatment before March 2020 did better-

Mel Robbins 1:00:03 Hmm.

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:00:04 ... throughout the rest of the pandemic. They did not have an increase, a substantial increase in, in anxiety. And then I was like, "Hold on. I'm going about this wrong. I'm treating all anxiety like it's clinical. That's not true. David, you have anxiety too. Embrace it." I started to talk to my wife about it, have some real conversations about my fear of failure, what I really wanted.

Mel Robbins 1:00:23 And she's like, "I've known this about you forever. You've just-"

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:00:25 She did.

Mel Robbins 1:00:25 "... been hiding it together, and you're annoying, and you take it out on the rest of us."

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:00:28 She did something like... Well, she actually didn't say that. She didn't even say, "I told you so." She didn't have to.

Mel Robbins 1:00:33 What did she say?

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:00:35 (laughs) Yeah.She did say, "I know." But she held me through it. And it made us closer. It created more emotional depth in our connection.

Mel Robbins 1:00:43 You know what's interesting about your approach? Is that so many people that talk about anxiety, and I know I'm certainly in this camp, because I've always focused on, "All right, let's get rid of this. All right, let's organize our entire lives so we don't feel this thing. So let's, you know, make sure we wake up and we do this." And all those things are very important because I certainly have identified the conditions or triggers or situations that can make me feel nervous, on edge, or anxious in an unnecessary way, like too much drinking-

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:01:19 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:01:19 ... which then makes you wake up with anxiety, and why would you do that to yourself? Or looking at your phone first thing, which of course spikes your feelings of inferiority and puts you up in your head. So why would you do that thing? And so, you know, I- I- I think, though, in listening to you, there's a huge shift in the way that you've made me think about this, because you basically are saying to all of this, and you're probably gonna be like, "Yeah, you're right, dummy. That's exactly what I said-"

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:01:46 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:01:46 "... at the very beginning." But-

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:01:48 Dummy.

Mel Robbins 1:01:48 ... I think you need to hear it over and over to really get what you're saying, and I finally do, which is, look, zero to nine, just like you're always gonna have sadness in your life, but it doesn't always turn into depression-

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:02:01 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 1:02:02 ... you're always gonna have on-edge-ness and nervousness-

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:02:05 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:02:05 ... and uncertainty and doubt, which is the low-grade anxiety, or on the point scale, it's one to three, and opening your arms to it, rather than bracing for battle, knowing that it's coming and knowing that in those moments when it rises up in you or somebody else, instead of invalidating it, just go, "Oh, interesting. I'm nervous."

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:02:25 I love what you said about bracing for battle. That's exactly what we do.

Mel Robbins 1:02:29 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:02:30 We think of it as the enemy right away, and it's not.

Mel Robbins 1:02:33 In fact, it's going to be there.

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:02:35 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:02:35 And so learning to... And I'm... One of the big takeaways that I have from our conversation is I'm not gonna call it anxiety.

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:02:43 What are you gonna call it? What's the language we're using?

Mel Robbins 1:02:44 Whatever it is. I'm gonna, I'm gonna call it nerves or excitement, or I'm gonna call it, uh, I'm feeling, uh, a little unsettled or feeling a little- a little uncertain, or I'm a little worried that, you know, I'm not gonna do well on this test, or, um, I'm a little upset about something.

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:02:58 I like it.

Mel Robbins 1:02:59 Or-

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:02:59 Save your anxiety.

Mel Robbins 1:03:00 Yeah, like, "I'm getting-"

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:03:01 Save the word anxiety (whistles)

Mel Robbins 1:03:01 ... like, "I notice I'm- I'm, like, getting ready to do something." Or-

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:03:04 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:03:04 ... "I notice I really care about this." Like, there's different ways. "I notice I'm a little worried about going to this sleep..." That sounds very different than, "I'm very anxious about..." Which, to your original point, not having... Calling something that's vastly different the exact same thing, that's one thing that I know I'm gonna do in my life and with people that I care about.

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:03:27 Okay.

Mel Robbins 1:03:27 And I'm also going to point out, "Well, the thing that you're actually worried about, it would make sense that you feel that way. Let's talk more about it."

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:03:35 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:03:36 Life-changing.

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:03:37 Thanks. (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:03:38 Life-changing. Uh, Dr. Ross Maron, what are your parting words?

Dr. David Rosmarin 1:03:42 Don't judge yourself for feeling anxious. Use it. It's a human emotion. Like any other human emotion, it can be used constructively in your life.

Mel Robbins 1:03:52 Wow. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I also wanna thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to something that there's no doubt in my mind it's gonna change your life. Because when you can flip the way that you think about anxiety on its head, it no longer controls you. And for far too long, I allowed anxiety to control me. I made it worse in my kids because I didn't have this four-part framework that you just learned today. And don't you deserve to have a life where you're not held hostage by your anxiety? Of course you do, and so do the people that you love. And so I just wanna thank you for taking the time. And I also wanna be sure to tell you, in case nobody else does today, that I love you, and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And there's no doubt that listening to this and then taking the time to share it with somebody that you care about, it's not only gonna make your life better, it's gonna make their life better too. All righty, I'll be waiting for you in the very next episode. I'll be there to welcome you in the moment you play. I'll see you there. And for you on YouTube, thanks for hanging with me the entire time. I loved this conversation, and it really changed the way that I think about anxiety. I hope you had the same epiphanies. I hope you're feeling encouraged. I hope you're feeling less anxious, like you're down on the kind of one, two, or three. And- and I hope you're also generous with this, because there's no doubt that giving someone the gift of spending time learning from Dr. Ross Maron, that has the potential to change the rest of someone's life. I mean, how amazing would it be if, simply by sharing this, you help somebody free themselves from the trap and the prison that anxiety can be? That's the power that you have. And one more thing, before I recommend what you should watch next, hit subscribe for me. My goal is that 50% of the people that watch this channel are subscribers. It's free, it's how you can support us, and it's also how you can tell me, "Mel, I love access to these world-class experts. Keep going, woman. Keep bringing them." Hit subscribe, and we will. All righty, the next video that you're gonna love is this one. Hit play, and you're gonna find that I'm gonna be there welcoming you in the second the video starts. I'll see you there.