How Do I Learn to Love Myself, Really? | The Mel Robbins Podcast

This is really like your debut on the podcast.

Feels great.

(laughs)

Glad to be here.

I want to talk to you about the topic of self-love, because the majority of people struggle with accepting, liking, and loving themselves.

Right.

And you are 17 years old and you seem to have had a profound breakthrough, truly, authentically liking and loving yourself.

Hmm.

Was there a moment that you had an epiphany or like what freaking happened?

Yeah. I'd love to tell you.

Okay. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to an absolutely freaking amazing episode of the Mel Robbins podcast. Woo. I gotta take a deep breath because I have some serious goosebumps about what's gonna go down today with you and me. You're about to hear a conversation that I just had with our 17-year-old son, Oakley. Here's what we're talking about. We're talking about self-hatred and self-acceptance and learning how to be kinder to yourself and self-love. And you're gonna hear that our son used to struggle deeply with hating himself, and this was happening during elementary school, during middle school, and it was absolutely terrifying for Chris and I to watch one of our kids struggle so profoundly. He was always picked on. He didn't have a lot of friends. He spent a lot of time alone. He always felt like the odd guy out. And we tried absolutely everything to reach this kid, to help him. So Oak and I had this long conversation about it because now he's 17, and he is so happy. In fact, he's one of the most self-accepting and self-assured and self-loving people I know. And you're gonna hear that 17-year-old happier version of him. And the reason why I wanted to share this really personal conversation with you is because Oakley and what he's gonna share with you about self-hatred and how he started to learn to accept himself and be kind to himself and love himself, this is proof that you can learn how to accept yourself and be kinder to yourself and even how to love yourself and who you're becoming at any age. I mean, I think it's incredible that he figured this out so young. For me, I've been working on this, uh, literally daily and I'm 54. And so if you struggle with self-acceptance, if you struggle with being kind to yourself, it is never too early or too late to have an enormous breakthrough in your relationship to yourself. And this is really important. It's really important because based on the research, there was this massive study done in the UK where they took a look at absolutely every single behavior or attitude change you could make or you could practice in terms of improving your life. And they looked at everything. They looked at changing your diet, practicing gratitude, having a meditation practice, exercising regularly, seeing your friends more, all the things that we know we should be doing, right? But do you know that the single behavior change that has the biggest and most profound impact on your quality of your day-to-day life is simply being kinder to yourself? Yeah. That's right. According to the research, being kinder to yourself, learning how to accept and love yourself, it is the biggest mover in terms of your happiness, meaning confidence, all of it. And the sad thing about this study is that habit of being kinder to yourself, of accepting yourself, of loving yourself, it's the one we practice the least. And so today's episode of the Mel Robbins podcast is a deeply personal, encouraging, optimistic, at times funny because it's so relatable and sad, conversation that could change your life. And I'm gonna invite you to listen because I'm sure there are aspects of yourself that you hate or that you trash. I'm sure, like me, you're still working on being kinder to yourself and loving yourself, and so there's something here for you. And there's definitely something here for you to share with the high schoolers and college kids and middle schoolers in your life. And the reason why is, you know, it's one thing when adults tell you what to do, but when you hear a kid like Oakley describe in detail the things he hated about himself when he was in sixth grade and seventh grade and eighth grade, these were things I didn't even know that he hated about himself. This is so relatable to other kids and to other young adults that you're gonna wanna share this with everybody. And by the way, the way that this is gonna go is I'm gonna bring you into this really personal conversation that Oakley and I had, and then there are gonna be times where I stop and I unpack something because there's something profound and deeper going on. Or there'll be times where I stop and I give you more tools that you can use so that you can learn how to love yourself and practice this habit of being kinder to yourself. Because this is exactly what my last book, The High Five Habit, was all about, the science and the research and the habits of learning how to be kind to and cheer for and love yourself. And one final thing that I want to say before we jump into this is I know that many of you are gonna write to me about my relationship with Oakley because that's what happened when you heard the episode, uh, where my daughter Kendall and I were talking. The fact is, I do have a really unique relationship with Oak, and it's probably a byproduct of a number of things. First of all, he is our third kid, and you know that you're kinda different with all your kids. So he's the third,He's also got two older sisters who are major oversharers, okay? And so, they have not only micromanaged their little brother, they have also dumped all of their own feelings and struggles and everything with him and they have yanked his stories out of him. On top of that, uh, my husband Christopher, Oak's dad, is a yoga instructor. He leads a men's retreat called Soul Degree. He's studying to be a death doula. He's a very deep, introspective guy, and that has definitely impacted Oakley. And one final thing. You know, there have been several pretty bad bullying incidents that Oakley has survived, and in each one, I was the one that went barreling in to protect the kid. You know, when he was bullied at this camp, Mama Bear Mel Robbins, I put the pedal to the metal and I floored it 120 miles an hour to that camp and squealed in there and marched into that camp director's office and gave that camp director a new one, and then I ripped my kid out of there. And I think having seen me just go explosive on his behalf, I think it makes him way more open with me about what's going on. So, with all of that as a background, and one final disclaimer. He is 17. He is in that stage in high school. Every kid goes through it, whether they do it in front of you or not. It's the Fs stage where they drop the F-bomb all the time and they're all the cool kid. And I made a decision that as he was talking and he drops the F-bomb here and there, as he was talking, I didn't want to stop the flow. I didn't want to become the corrective mom. I wanted to just let the conversation flow, and so you will hear this 17-year-old drop the F-bomb occasionally, so please do not have the littles around. Protect their little ears. And just know that we edited some of them out, but we left a bunch in because I just wanted you to hear a very honest conversation about self-hatred and self-love between a 17-year-old boy and his mom. All right. Let's jump into it. This is really like your debut on the podcast.