The Mel Robbins Podcast - You’ll Never Be Truly Happy Until You Start Doing This

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

I was lying in bed one morning, and all of a sudden it hit me… If I ever want to be truly happy, I have to stop doing THIS. So do you. What is this thing we need to stop doing? I call it the “Campaign of Misery.”   In the background of your mind, there’s a campaign of misery running on a loop. And until you stop it, you will never experience the happiness, joy and contentment you deserve.  I promise you - it is there. In the background - talking to you all the time.  This is the missing piece to true happiness.  When you remove the campaign of misery, you create room for joy. I recorded this episode the same morning I had this profound insight.  What you're about to hear is a conversation with me and two friends and colleagues, Amy and Jessie. Pull up a seat at the kitchen table; I want you to hear me unpacking this breakthrough about happiness in real time. My two friends saw their “campaign of misery” immediately and started describing in detail the ridiculous ways they torture themselves. You’ll laugh, you’ll nod along, and you might even cry a little. We sure did. Because when you realize how much you rob yourself of the happiness you deserve, it is sad.  I always say, this isn’t just a listening podcast, it’s a doing podcast. So by the end, there’s something specific I will be asking you to do with us while you listen.  In three simple steps, you will join us as we put down the sword, grab a book of matches, and pick up the pen to write new default programming into our minds.  Don’t worry, I’ll explain why you need matches near the end of the episode. And you’ll be so happy that I did. You have the power to change the way you think and the way you talk to yourself. You have the power to stop seeing all the reasons your life is hard and teach yourself to see how this could be easier.  Yes, you can be happy. You can be content. But first, you have to stop making yourself miserable. Let’s support one another on this.  If we fight this battle for happiness together, side-by-side, I am certain we will win. Xo Mel  In this episode, you’ll learn:What happens when you get caught up in your storiesMy profound breakthrough around the importance of mindfulnessHow to start celebrating yourself right now, no matter your mindsetThe 3 incredibly powerful mindset hacks I did with my friends and colleagues, Amy & Jessie Go deeper: Do you want to create a better morning routine? Join my free 5-day Wake Up Challenge and I’ll coach day by day on setting your day up for success here. Morning Pages inspired by Julia Cameron: The Artist’s Way For complete show notes, click here.

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to a life-changing episode of the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so happy that you're here because this morning I had a profound breakthrough in happiness. I guess more importantly, I had a breakthrough in the thing that I am doing that is robbing me of happiness. And you're doing this exact same thing too. You probably don't even realize it. Today's conversation is going to be an eye opener, a game changer, a cannot wait for you to hear it. It is also unfolding live.

I literally barrelled into work this morning. And Amy and Jesse, my colleagues and friends were sitting here ready to go. And I could not contain myself. I had to share this breakthrough with them. And what you're going to hear is me coming up the stairs. And you're going to listen to that conversation on full live. And this is more than a conversation. We are bringing breakthroughs and matches. We burn things. So let's go. Something just happened. What? What? Okay. Oh, you guys are in the middle of the meeting. Yeah. All right. Well, I just had this crazy, profound breakthrough around happiness. And I want to try to unpack it in real time with you. Yeah. Let's hear it.

Okay. So I was laying in bed this morning. And I felt this incredible wave of joy. Nice. It was unbelievable. It was just like this warm, glowy, yellowy orange peachy pink kind of feeling. It took over my body and I'm like, this is amazing. And I knew exactly why I felt that way. Because all three of our kids are home for the holidays.

And nothing makes me happier Then when Chris and I and our three kids are all together. Yeah And then all of a sudden That delicious Peachie being the wave of happiness Got washed away by This black gross tar, this emotional wave gripped me. And I started to feel panic and fear.

And I started searching my mind like, why am I feeling like this? And my mind was already racing you guys. My mind was going, they're leaving in three days. They're only here for so short of time. You don't live near your kids. You never should have moved from Boston. You're not going to see your kids. If you and Christoan, they're going to leave and then they're not going to come and you're

not going to, and I just started to make myself miserable. And it was in that moment that I had this huge realization about happiness. And what I realized is this, you have to fight for your happiness. And I saw very clearly for the first time that I don't fight for my happiness. I fight for misery. Whoa, that when I'm not paying attention, my mind so quickly defaults to scanning the world around me and spotting reasons to be upset, it's like I am constantly fighting this battle with myself. And I know what I want,

I want to be a happy person. I want to enjoy the time that I have, I want to be content, I want to be present in my life. And I saw very clearly this morning that it's almost like when it comes to happiness, morning that it's almost like when it comes to happiness, there are two languages. There's sort of that, la la la la la, you know, can I happy joy, laugh, laugh, laugh, and then there's this deeper language of misery, gripping, complaining, afraid, anticipating the worst, afraid, anticipating the worst, feeling friction, being annoyed with people. Like just, it's like grisly bearer energy. Just really, I don't know. And I had this clear vision of myself this morning that I'm always speaking silently, the language of misery. And it's just taking me out of my life. Like, I'm so worried about not seeing my kids because they live far away, that I'm not even with them mentally when they're here, that I'm not even with them mentally when they're here because I'm thinking about the moment they leave.

I'm not present for the holidays because I'm thinking about the wreath that's not hung right. I'm not, you know, and I think one of the biggest things that we do not talk about when it comes to happiness. And I've been trying and working so hard on being more content and happier present in my life is that it's not just do the things that make you happy, be proactive, you have to do that. The research says that. And I've been doing that. I've been getting out of the house. I've been making new friends. I've been spending time doing activities that make me happy.

But the bigger piece to happiness is this campaign of misery that we all engage in, that we literally even in moments where we should be joyous and happy and content, we reach for the sword, we got ourselves and we fight for misery. I mean, just think about like your wedding day. Everybody's focused on what goes wrong. Come on. Yeah. Always.

Yeah. And I think every human being does this, that you don't realize that your natural default Go through it. Go ahead. Yeah. Always. Yeah. And I think every human being does this that you don't realize that your natural default is misery. Yeah. That's what keeps you company is this campaign of misery. And it's very active, constantly looking for what is wrong instead of allowing yourself to bask in the moment and to say that things are okay.

And so, here I am laying in bed. I've had this huge realization of this wave of joy and then ruining it with this black tar campaign of misery. I'm wielding the sword. I'm gutting myself. I'm feeling awful. And I'm not even going to be present for the next three days. Yeah.

Right. If I allow my mind to do this, right? You're not present in the bedroom when you're lying in bed. No. And I will miss these three days with my kids. Yeah. Because I will be living in the future of when they leave. I think everybody has this.

Whether you grew up with parents that bitched and complained all the time and everything was always wrong or you had anxiety like I did a kid or you were super sensitive or you grew up. And there's a lot of chaos. And so you were legitimately not safe and always waiting for the next shoot to drop. Oh yeah.

I feel that. Does any of this resonate? Big time. Big time. Yeah. And if you grew up around somebody that was always miserable, like so many of us are like, okay, it's my job to make you happy. It's almost like you adopt a campaign of misery

either to protect yourself or because it's what somebody else was like in the house that you grew up in. Like at this point, I don't give a shit how I got this way. Mm-hmm. I just want it gone. Mm-hmm. Because for the first time I saw so clearly, my own active campaign against happiness,

and I call it the campaign for misery. I'm labeling it. I am on a mission to be a happier person. And it was very clear to me having done so much work on myself, in my marriage, in my business, on my nervous system, having been in therapy for so long, that I have been checking all the boxes, and it is working to a point, as my marriage improves, as the business is in better shape in terms of the day-to-day operations as I remove external friction and bullshit

from my life. This campaign inside me has gotten louder and louder and more irrational. And we all know people like this. We know people that have plenty of money. They have their house and roof over their head. They have a family that loves them. Yeah. And all they do is bitch.

They just can't get beyond. I don't want to be that person. Yeah. I didn't realize the extent that I did this to myself, that I would pick up the sword and I'd start wielding it against my own happiness. I can see you getting. Yeah. I'm going on. It was the two languages that you just said. Yeah. You just battle all the time with it. I get it. Yeah. Mine is probably more of a victimhood in a guilt described before me.

describe it for me. Like what do you say to yourself? There's just always guilt or shame or always with everything. Or I should have done that. I should have what it could have is very popular in my head. And I hate those words that no one feels good with those words. And then I think comes a lot from my upbringing, from one parent in particular, who that's her language. So she was a shudder, coulda woulda felt shame, felt guilt was always the victim. But yeah, word vomited that on you, you know. You should have been around, you should have done that, you weren't there, you could have done that better, you...

That's a lot. And so now you talked to yourself that way. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And then with that, I think I procrastinate with my personal life because I get stuck in the kudawada shitta. And the thoughts just spin, spin, spin. And so I'm not present. Just like you said, I'm not focused on something that is a made up imaginary thought that probably isn't even going to happen. But be right here, be around Thanksgiving, be with your partners, be with your loved ones, be with your family, instead of getting lost in these thoughts that they're not even yours. No, but we're just used to creating them. It's a habit. It's almost like when you left your mom,

you took that way of speaking with you and it now keeps you company because she's not living with you. Yeah, that's some deep shit. Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, and I think that that's like a lot of, when we talk about like, reparenting ourselves, I realized that once something started going right

in my life, I would find something else that was going wrong in my life. And that would be my new thing that I would talk about. And that was my whole life for a long time. And I realized in this moment that you had, similar to what you had, that my life was a game of whack-a-mole. Every time something good would pop up, I'd take the hammer and hit it back down.

Like you're talking about the sword, I would do the same thing. I was just a constant looking for what's wrong. And there's always something that can pop up. If it's not in the physical, like, you know, your house or your relationship, then you go like you're saying, Mel, like you go inward. And you're like, well, I shouldn't have done this or I shouldn't have moved or, you know, and you just turn it on yourself.

No matter how hard I worked on all those things, like those checklist things that you're talking about, no matter how hard I worked on that stuff things, like those checklist things that you're talking about, no matter how hard I worked on that stuff, there was always a limit to my joy. That's why I'm using the word fight and pick up the sword. Yeah, I'm using this intentionally because I had a freaking wake up call this morning.

And I want everybody to have a wake up call because this shit runs on default in my mind. If I'm not paying attention, if I'm not directing my thoughts, if I'm not being mindful about being in the present moment, I pick up the sword. I look for absolutely everything that could be going wrong or what's bothering me or who's annoying me or anything that I might be disappointed about. I don't bark at anybody else, but this is how I talk

to myself. And I am so adamant, like I had this huge, wow, this is the missing piece, Mel. It's that you're actively engaged in your own misery. Yeah, you seek it out. Yeah. I don't know if I don't think I deserve to be happy. I don't know if I just like adopted somebody else's complaining, you know, we learned from Dr. Becky Kennedy about how from zero to five, when you're a little kid and you're in a theta state in your brain

and that brain is like a giant sponge and it's absorbing everything around you that you just absorbed positive about life, negative about life. I don't know if that's it. I don't know why I am this way, but I think every human being is like this. Yeah.

Once you see it, because you're aware that you do this. Yes. What the, like, now you're aware that you do this. Yes. What the like, now I want to get rid of it. I want to put down the sword. How do I just be? And I don't have time to meditate. And I don't think that's going to be the solution either. Like I feel like this is major reprogramming. I think that's true. I think that we all do that about at least one thing, if not all day long, and in every way that we can so that it just continues to, I don't know, somehow it feels like home, you know. Well, it's a little safe, natural. Yeah. What I loved about what you just said, Amy, is that even if you just do it about one thing,

and whether it's gripping about your relationship, or gripping about your family, or gripping about your job, or all of the reasons why you couldn't possibly improve your health, that campaign of misery where you pick up the sword and you fight for things that aren't the, right, it's got that edge to it. And you can feel it. Inside, even if you're doing it in one area, as I've gone to work to improve the external aspects of my life, the missing thing that I have not truly conquered or had the breakthrough that I realized this morning is it's the internal language, the dialogue that I have with myself, how I keep myself company by creating unnecessary friction. Searching for what's wrong, inventing things that don't even exist yet.

And I'm tired of it. You seem to have had a breakthrough in the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed this in myself for a while ago. And I wanted to make sure that I eradicated it, which I haven't yet, but I wanted to work on it and make sure that I eradicated it, which I haven't yet, but I wanted to work on it and make sure that I could increase my level of happiness every day, you know, not day by day, but just have a larger capacity for happiness, because a lot of people seem to have that. And I thought like, why can't I have that? So what did you do? Well, I want to say one quick thing that I did,

and then I'll tell you the main thing that I did, but the one quick thing that I did was, like you talked a little bit about complaining and about griping and about bitching and moaning, which my mom would always complain about other people bitching and moaning, which by the way, it's bitching and moaning. You know, whatever.

Be our near my childhood. So anyway, what I realize is that one thing that most people complain about, that it's AOK to complain about, everyone accepts this is the weather. Oh, it's true. People bitch and moan about the weather. Oh, God, it's raining out. Oh, Jesus, it's sunny today. bitch and moan about the weather. Oh, God, it's raining out. Oh, Jesus, it's sunny today. You wouldn't believe the clouds today.

Oh, my God. You know, it's snowing. It's all of that stuff. I realized that that is a common societal communication, right? That's what we do as a society to connect with each other. Yeah, it's a bonding mechanism. It's a bonding thing, right? It allows us to have some kind of commonality there.

I don't want to have commonality on complaining. I want to be like, I have this poem stuck up in my bathroom that says, be so focused on bettering yourself that you have no time to complain about other people or other circumstances. I'm like, yeah. That's good. Let's start with the weather. So, and I will also say that I had a grandmother

who never gossiped one day in her life. I never, she never said a bad thing about anybody. And she had some pretty nasty characters going around. You know, go ahead on. She never complained. She never gossiped, I would say. Maybe she did complain a little bit, but it was great to have that role model.

So I kind of had that vision of her in my head and I started with the weather and I realized like it is true. It is the default. People will complain. You just wait. Now that like that's in your head, once that's in your head,

you will see how people use the weather as an excuse not to do things. You know, they should do. To do things, they shouldn't. You know, like, all this stuff probably reveals externally how people's default is to gripe and complain internally. Like it's a very safe way to notice this

and everybody around you. And, you know, I'm curious to hear though, what else did you do? Because now that I see this, I don't want to keep doing this to myself. Oh, right. And I feel like I have a split personality at this point. I literally feel like I could be talking to myself.

You know what I mean, Jessie? And I'm like, okay, shut up. Sad Mel. Sad Mel is now gonna talk. Great, shut up. Like, you know, you got misery, Mel. Well, I need shoulder. Now we're gonna do the magical Mel's gonna talk.

And we're gonna like, like everyone's got a sword and fighting each other. And I'm like, can we just put down the fricking sword of misery? Can I please catch this wiring that is not my own? I do not want to gripe. I don't gripe outwardly. Yeah.

I don't really bitch about the weather, typically. No, right. Right. I love that saying that small minds talk about people and big minds talk about ideas. And I'd like to think I have a big mind. I'd like to think that I don't gossip. And yet internally, I keep myself company by talking to myself about what's bothering me or what's wrong,

or making up reasons to be upset about it. Oh, yes. Yes, and then you break out the facts and it's like, wait a minute. None of that actually happened. Yeah. What am I upset about? Yeah. And we're going to get to the end of our lives,

and have missed a huge part of it, because we can't get over it. Can't get out of our head. Can't get out of our heads, can't get over ourselves, can't get through our bullshit, and I'm just so done with myself. I'm sick of this part of me. Yeah.

But let me tell you what I started doing. Once I saw all the complaining that I was doing. Okay, cool. But we do have to pause for sponsors. When we come back, Amy, I started doing. Once I saw all the complaining that I was doing. OK, cool. But we do have to pause for sponsors. When we come back, Amy, you better walk me through this woman. Happy too. Okay, welcome back. So I'm sitting here with Amy and Jesse and you, and we've been talking about happiness.

And so you were about to tell us something you've been doing, game, that you say is making a big difference because this is a gut job. This is like you got to rewire big difference because this is a gut job. This is like, you got to rewire your mind because the default, I'm just sick of my mind going here. I feel that. And I felt that I call it like my tribe language of how my parents talk about, you know, the big things like money and relationships and big life events, like how they view them.

I noticed years ago that if I'm gonna live the life that I want, I need to leave this tribe, not speak this language anymore. And I did a lot of research around that. And like, how do I do this? Because it's painful to extract yourself from this family. Family, from your family, basically.

Do you think that's what you experience, even though you may love your family deeply, that there is still this sort of mismatch when you all get together because you're at different states of evolving, right? And different states of, we all speak this language with words, but we are all engaged in learning a new language at a subconscious emotional level.

Yes, we've all moved on in some way, and but we have our family roles, we have our common language, we have our tribal, you know, and I say tribal in the sense that any group of three people that get together create a culture. Oh yeah, that's a set of stories, right? Exactly. So yeah, I decided I don't wanna do this anymore.

I am grateful for it. Thank you for the lessons I've learned, and I'm moving on here. I'm making a conscious decision to move on. So what are some of the practices? Because you're a little bit further ahead on the road. You represent what I refer to often on this podcast as you're a light on the path for.

So what are some of the practices that you have? Yeah, I think number one, just recognizing that there is a sword. And it's not, and it can be put down, just like what you're saying right now. Pat yourself on the back and I'm not kidding. Like do it right now. Pat yourself on the back for knowing that This is a good this is a good development for you and even if you walk away from it for like three months three years at least you know this knowing Is is the start of something really awesome in your lifenaling was a very big part of my practice. I would journal every day about this,

and I would, for a very long time, then I would burn it. I would literally put it outside in a Pyrex bowl and burn it, and then I would watch it burn. It didn't take that long. So, will you walk us through And then I would watch it burn. It didn't take that long. So like, will you walk us through that? I would burn it. So I would do my morning pages, three pages of, you know, morning pages just supposed to be three pages

of your stream of consciousness, but I would purposely think about this tribal thinking and just write everything that I hated about it, everything I loved about it, everything, everything that was was happening in my life for three pages, I would write about it, I would crumple it up or rip it or whatever, I would put it in this direct spool so I didn't like explode it and I would put it outside so would you like the walk out to your front porch or your back deck. Back deck. Okay. And just put it out there. And I like it emotional at this. I would burn it. And I would close the sliding glass door and I would

watch it burn. Sometimes the wind would take it and I would be like, let's see. Yeah. Bye. Every molecule of that paper that burned was one breath of that old language leaving me. And so what I would do next was the most powerful thing for me. I would go to the sink and I would wash my hands up to my elbows every day. And that act of like cleansing myself from whatever I didn't want that just came out of me. I just, you know the image I just got? So my dad's an orthopedic surgeon. Yes. And I think about the way in which a doctor washes their hands before and after surgery.

Yeah. And I just got this image of my dad washing his hands all the way up to the elbows. Yeah. And the ceremonial and scientific nature of cleansing like that. Yes. And then it had this direct reference for me since he's a surgeon of the sword. Yes. And surgery. Yeah. And actually deliberately doing surgery to extract at a subconscious level. Yes. That was my intention to extract that and not have that be a part of me. I'm going to do this. Love it. I feel like enough. Enough. Can I just ask one more question for those of us that don't have a practice of writing through pages? Yeah. Can we come up with a prompt? So as I go to do this tomorrow

more, I got a great prompt for you. Give me the prompt. What is the prompt? I write on the top of every page every morning. Okay. Is we'll change your life. How can this be easy? How can this be easy? I write that on the top. What is this? Is that everything? Everything is everything. Wow.

Because with the sword, everything is hard. It's so hard. We make our lives so hard. You wake up, you have joy. Let's not do that. Let's not do that emotion. Let's make it hard. We make our lives so hard. You wake up, you have joy, let's not do that, let's not do that emotion. Let's make it hard. What is coming up for you? Because Jesse is with her gorgeous blue eyes. What is coming up? You're right. Everything is so hard. Give us an example of how you made your life hard already today. Where were the disgusting thoughts? The campaign of misery. How did you pick

up the sword against yourself or jam? Oh, as, you didn't get the mirror. Like, what do you do? That's it. You look like shit. Good luck today. Like, not even good luck. Just, right. Really? Oh, yeah. What else did you say to yourself? I get obviously super stress and emotional with holidays. Because of my feelings never really cared about them. And I'm trying to change that. So that's also like, how can I create my own language for my holiday? In my new house, with my new house, all these things that I can start fresh, how do I do that with nothing, like from scratch?

What does that even mean? What does it look like? Jim asked me that too. Like, what does it look like to have a tradition? What tradition? We can do it. Name it. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't have. I don't have any. Is it like a certain dish? Is it a certain wreath that we hang? How could it be easy? I just got what these things. Yeah. And it goes back to like, it's the campaign of misery, but mine comes from like a victim hood, if that's even a word.

I know that's hard. That's a big campaign. Of course. My second language that I've been nurtured in, bathed in, you know, of like, oh, you're a victim, you're a victim victim victim. Yeah. Not me, but that's what I will be like,

oh yeah, mommy wore. You want a victim? Yeah, of course, you're the only one. Oh. So that is kind of under the umbrella of the campaign of misery. But you're right, everything can be easy. I've never thought of it that way, because it's always like, oh God, I have to do this,

this, this, this. Make sure that it gets done. No, it doesn't. Right? It doesn't, right? It's so funny that we're talking about this. What did you get? What did you get, Mal?

What do you got? Well, Jesus, I was yesterday running around like a fricking lunatic. And it's lunatic season, yeah. Because we're in a new house. Yeah, yeah. And I feel the same way, like what are my traditions? Oh, I'm the same.

And I, and you know, when you have plenty of growing up, I just like, well, what are mine? Yeah. And so then I'm like, I just like, well, water mine. Yeah. And so then I'm like buying fake faux, whatever the held, but like things that go across your fireplace. And then I'm buying the little white trees that light up. Yeah, I even like these. Yeah.

Come up on the thing and I'm like, I don't know what to do. It's just garbage. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm sitting there today and I'm like, we need a wreath. We need a big wreath. Yes. Big wreath thing.

It's got a big wreath. So the tradition is dress, and worry, and getting it right enough, and never be satisfied. Yes. That's an awesome tradition, but I invite you to just bake cookies instead. Yeah. I want to keep coming back to these two languages because the language that might have been spoken was joyous and happy and all this other stuff,

whereas emotionally, the language was, this is hard, the emotional language as well as talking about. This has to be perfect. Yes, this is stressful. Families are a pain in the ass. You deal with yours all the way up. Just holidays are winning the day. That's a holiday.. You deal with yours all day with just holidays or winning the

colors. Like how? Send you off for success all day long with that statement and all the other ones too. How can this be easy? How can this be easy? But I don't have an answer. But what if your answer is a can't? Listen, it's not about answering that question.

It's about training your subconscious mind to look for a different answer to a different question. When you are working on the subconscious level, you have to have a different thought. You have to introduce a different thought into your being. That's why you like Oracle cards. That's why people like guided meditation, people like prayer, people like devotionals because it introduces a different thought. A different thought.

And so when you are working on this level and you're realizing, this isn't greened in me. This is not just a quick fix. I can't go to a seminar. Or I've been to a bunch of workshops. Is the 33rd workshop gonna be the answer? I don't know. No, because you sit and listen, and you have an epiphany, but you don't do the work

to encode. Right. You don't do the surgery to cut out the shit. You don't. Exactly. The thing is, when you write this, I have written this on the top of my journal for five years, maybe, is that what you started? You know, you want to know, the campaign of misery inside me is already coming up, going, I don't like the question. And I look at that and I'm like, that's hard to fill up three pages. I don't know if I can do it.

You, you know what we're gonna do? You're gonna do? I think we should ask Jesse, yeah. To just silently write it. And then when she's done, we're gonna burn it. And we're gonna see how it feels. Are you down? I'm so happy for you.

If you take out the chest. Yes, and I've got a pilot here. Good, it doesn't have any of the holiday shit in it yet because you know what, I made it hard. I was starting it. All right, so here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna get Jesse in notebook. Okay, I'm really gonna question about this prompt too.

Yes, she don't like it either. No. Well, it's stressing me out. Because I'm like, oh, do I just need to make like a to-do list? I'm like, if I have to do this, how can I make it? I still have to do this, a to-do list. Mm-hmm. But do you just shorten the to-do list?

Instead of like 10 things, combine it into three or is it, okay. In my focusing this around Thanksgiving, what is, I still don't know what this is. Do we make it? Is it like work? Is it personal? Is it, yeah. Today being Wednesday, is it just, don't know what this is. Do we make it, is it like work? Is it personal? Is it, yeah.

Today being Wednesday, is it just, right? Focus on the weather, I don't know. I get that. It seems very overwhelming when you look at this because this is very confronting because it's not how we were raised. It is not our natural language. How can this be easy?

That is a very difficult question. And if it is, it's time to dig in. Here's what I will tell you. How can this be easy? Notice how your mind searches for, this is wrong, I can't do this, I won't do this well enough, I don't have the right resources, the instructions,

all of that. Yes. Notice how your mind is searching for it. Yes. That's it. Just notice that. You can write three pages of Amy's a complete jacket. She has no idea what she's talking about. I don't know what, like, right, all of that. that is what I invite you to write. That stream of consciousness is really helpful. It still gets your mind thinking about how this can be easy. Get out all the crap, right? You've got like a golden Buddha underneath, like, you know, a foot of hardened shit on the outside. So we're getting through that hardened shit and getting to the golden Buddha. The hardened shit is what you're writing on the outside. So we're getting through that hardened shit and getting to the Golden Buddha. The hardened shit is what you're writing on the page.

Or the Golden Buddha, right? Or the Golden Buddha. It could be, I find more Golden Buddha nowadays after doing this practice, but it's okay to get the shit on the page. It's okay to not get it right. It's okay to not understand it. It's okay to just be in that in between. But your courage and your

bravery to be in the in between gets you closer to creating a new language for yourself. A love language, a language of acceptance, a language of possibility, a language of inspiration, that is all what I was searching for when I was doing this. And I will tell you, it has brought me there. And there is even more. There is no finish line here. It's like just this glorious marathon where everybody's high-fiving you all day long. Yeah, I mean, like it's just fantastic.

It will bring you there, but you have to be willing to stay in that space of, this isn't going to work. I don't know if this is going to work because that will keep you grounded at least in the possibility that it might work. Yeah, and I think it's overwhelming the more I'm like, I just it the more I'm like actually you're gonna fill that shit up real fast You build that it's scary though of like what could come out, you know, totally scary and that's why you burn it Yeah, that's why you're like, you know what I'm glad I don't keep that down there Yeah, that's what my sword is laying on top of we don't touch it. Yep, and yep. No one looks at that You know, but I don't look at that and that's okay nobody will. And that's fine. You're doing this for you.

Right. Love this. And, Mel, you got to do this for you. Dude, what? Like right now? You know you do? Yes. Let's go, Mel. You, all right. And Jesse. All right. I'll take the challenge, everybody. Let's do this. So you're going to write on top of the paper. How can this be easy? Question mark. And because you're asking yourself a question, how can this be easy? I just write, I don't know.

Good, that's a great start. That's a awesome start. If you wanna write like, you know what? Screw you, Amy. This is a dumbass question. Write that. Screw you, Amy. Yeah.

I don't want it to be easy. Beautiful. I'm so used to it being hard. Love it. What if life's more easy? Oh, shit. Yes. Keep going.

My God, okay. This is the conversation. You need to have a shut up now. Okay, I just get it. I'm gonna keep going. Jesse's gonna keep going. You get your pen out, get your paper out, and you answer the question for yourself.

How can this be easy? And when we come back, we will meet you out on the back deck with our Pygurks bowl. I'll get the matches. We're going to burn this thing. Oh my god. Suddenly feels hard. Yes. And now a word from our sponsors. Okay. So before we go downstairs, I'd just love to hear what it would feel like to write three pages. How can I make this easy? I feel like I just flushed a toilet. It's not a very profound way to put it, but it just like spiritual flush. A spiritual flush.

Good riddance. I feel lighter. How do you feel, Jessie? I feel like I just went through my own little therapy session. I mean, I started off really crying, writing it. Like, really afraid, not knowing what to write. And then you ended it with like, I don't know. It's night and day with my first sentence. My first two sentences versus my last two, which is really cool. I hit every emotion in that. Which I did not expect. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just the it's night and day with my first sentence my first two sentences versus my last two which is really cool I hit every emotion in that

Which I don't really my first sentence Yeah, I said breathe Be still be present hug your husband hug my cat relax trust your gut Why is that make you emotional? Because I need to say it more often. That's what I need to do. And just breathe, be still, be present. Hug my husband, hug my cat. Those little joys. I probably don't do them enough. Do them as often as I want to say, as I should, if somebody stops saying I should,

but just being still and being present. It's so profound, isn't it? Yeah. That was... It's just the little things that we're not even present to because we're busy, should have done this, should have done that, that we're not hugging the people we love, we're not greeting the cat, we're not running out the door, we're, you know, onto the next, I feel that too.

Like just even as you said that, like I didn't really hug my husband as I left this morning. Yeah, I didn't either. Yeah, I didn't either. Yeah. And that's an easy change. Yeah. But it was, you know, I started with that with like literal hand shaking just,

cause I didn't know how to start this, where to start, what is easy? It's easy to breathe, it's easy to be still, and right now to be present with this pen and paper. How to gender it? I ended it very confident. Wow. I wanna to hear this. Yeah, if I can read.

Just like, yeah, the last one, I don't know anything. Which I'm comfortable with, I want to hear it. You know, we're around the holidays. Even though I know you said, don't read your papers. Yeah, I don't, but that's a... Before apron. But since it's holidays, there's a lot of stress around holidays just being with family. We don't live near our family and they've never been a tradition.

So I just said, it's okay to not be a family for Thanksgiving. It's okay to spend my first Thanksgiving in our new home together with FaceTime. It's all okay how it is, exclamation point. Stop putting pressure to make others happy. Are you happy? Yes. Be thankful for you and your language.

Your new tribe starts now. Oh my God. Jesse! Wow. Wow. That is, I don't think I'm gonna... I don't think I'm gonna be going.

There's just, there's anger in here. There was frustration in here. There was doubt. And it just comes out of like, no, you're fucking happy. It's okay to be happy and not be pulling in the dark side because everyone else does it

or it's easy to relate on the dark. Or that's all you know, that's all you've been trained to do and communicate that way. That's the most you've been trained to do. Yeah, I can relate to my mom. So easy off of guilt and off of bad news. What if I don't have any? I find it, and that's what I will talk to her about.

You know, so now it's just, it's changed that language. Only present the good that I have a lot of that I don't give love to. Where there is my husband and my cat. Or it is just being thankful for myself. It's beautiful. Yeah, that's really moving that you start off in one place and that you end in another and you end with the Jesse that you want to talk to. Yeah. you say? Well, you know what's really funny is I had a very similar theme to Jesse. Relax. Just relax.

Just be in the moment and relax yourself. A little bit about breathing too. I mean, it's a really similar idea. What about the end? What about the end? You know, the end is, as I often find the end to be when I do this practice, is like, all right, I can do this now that I took my emotional, my what did you call it? Spiritual dump. Yep. I have got this and I can do this. And that is that is I ended in the same spot about a totally different topic

But I ended in the same spot. I I can do this. Wow. Yeah Well, I started obviously with I don't know screw you Amy The cat is pissing me off. He feels hard. He's peeing in the bathroom He's peeing in the bathroom. He's peeing off the floor. The water. He's scratching the new runner on the stairs. He's needy and loud in the middle of the fucking night. He draws, homey, our puppy over. Leans into sniff him as if he loves him

then fucking swats at him. Like, what a dick. Easy. Like, so I go on and on, bitching about the cat. Yeah. And then by the end of it, like similar stuff about the cat. Yeah. And then by the end of it, like similar stuff about the holidays, because I always deeply miss my family around the holidays. And yet I asked my folks to come and they said, no, they wanted to be in Florida. And I asked them to come for Christmas and they said, no. And I just, it just makes me so sad.

And so I, you know, how can this be easy? Open the door, let love in, let them be exactly who they are and who they aren't. Just figure out what makes me happy and do those things, take a breath, tell myself, you're in a five year experiment right now of healing, of happiness, and of creating a spiritual home base for yourself, Mel. How can this be easy? Let go. Stop gripping and just love. Oh, we shit, Mel. Yes. That's incredible. That's beautiful.

Same thing was true about the cat, because I realize I'm so pissed off at him and I need to come from love, because he's clearly in distress. Something's up, like he can't fix this himself. So I got to like rise above all of this resentment and anger that I feel. Yeah.

And just shower him with love and help him figure it out. Because I was Chris who's gonna kill him. I mean, I'm speeding in the house. I'm in this beautiful place. Yeah, I was really cool. And again, I didn't think I could fill up three pages, but it just kept going. Once you really get into it.

What's the toilet? What's the toilet? Well, I'll tell you what I know from doing this, and this is just my experiences, a lot of times you don't want to do it, there's resistance, you don't think you can do it, you can't fill a page, you don't want to talk about it, you know, whatever it is, and then once you get going, it's like just the floodgates open. I think about this like reprogram your mind, I think that it gives you a new thought to anchor onto when your old one sucks. And this prompt, how can this be easy forces you

to have a new thought to anchor on instead of the old one, which for all of us, I'm gonna say is what's wrong, what's not working, what's hard, what's the problem, what do I have to complain about? You know how people say happiness is a choice? I'm going to say is what's wrong, what's not working, what's hard, what's the problem, what do I have to complain about? You know how people say happiness is a choice? Yeah.

I always just be like, go fuck yourself. Go literally exactly. Exactly. Exactly. There's a happiness, please. Totally. But totally, I woke up this morning and I saw the two males, the happy, feel the joy, be content in your life, let love in.

And then I saw myself pick up the sword and gut myself, the misery. That made me realize at a deep level, yeah, on some level it is a choice. You may not realize that you're speaking this misery language because it's buried in your subconscious and it's not really yours. It's probably from your family or whatever. But you can choose to change it. Yeah. That's what I think the huge opportunity is here.

Yeah. Is that we've talked a lot on this podcast about doing things that make you happy prioritizing fun and joy. This is so much deeper because we're talking about choosing to reprogram your mind for happiness, choosing to rewrite the neuropath ways and by writing every day and then burning this shit. Yeah, give your mind a different job. Your mind right now has a job of looking for what's horrible,

cutting it down to make it the worst ever, like not accepting joy, not accepting happiness. That's the job that most of us give our mind. That's the job that I realized I gave my mind all the time. How can this be even worse? What's that getting me? Well, and here's the thing, I don't think this is the wake-up call everybody. You didn't realize that your mind was doing this job. It's been doing it for so long. It just runs on repeat. So now it's time for us to take control. Put down the damn sword, stop the campaign of misery, pick up the fucking pen and write a new chapter for

real. Like train your brain to spot how things this can be easy. Train your brain. How can this be easy? How can this make me happy? How can I let love in? Start writing a whole new way to think. That's what I'm gonna do. Let's go burn this shit. Let's go burn it. Okay. So here we are in the front porch. Tell us what we do, Amy.

Okay, so you already crumpled yours up, which is great. I'm gonna actually rip mine up because of I just feel like that kind of gets kind of a little extra emotion. Yeah, Jesse's feeling it. See ya, see ya. Yeah, I feel like a rip. Rip it up, rip it up.

So then I just light it, take a match. And then I just have a habit of standing back from it and watching it burn. Oh, and then I just have a habit of standing back from it and watching it burn. And just saying to myself, let it all go. Just let all that complaining, shit you don't need and the stuff you don't want. Let it be gone out.

You know, it's funny that kind of crumpled ashy remain is what that black tar wave of misery actually felt like. You're right. That I felt this morning. Wow. That physical burnt paper that's left in that pyrox dish looks like misery. Yes. That's what I feel when I think, for example, about the kids all leaving instead of being present in the moment. It's sad. What do you feel, Injussi?

Very satisfied. I don't know why that happened so fast and there's so much hesitation to write it. How do I start it? How do I do this, this, this, this, and it was easy. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Isn't that incredible? Yeah. Right? It's easy. It's easy. It's easy. And I feel so much better. If I do the Sigan tomorrow, will I write most of the same stuff? Of course. I think a lot of

it will be the same right now. But again, you keep burning it, keep getting rid of it. It was easy. What do you think, Mel? Yeah, what were your thoughts? Seeing the physically burnt paper is very helpful for me because now I have like this image to attach to the thoughts and the feelings. So I can separate from it because I just want to be happier in my life. It's a lot of work to carry this shit around and it's a lot of work even though it's subconscious

to be gripping and complaining and present to what's wrong and everything's hard and That energy, it's a lot. And it was pretty easy to let it go once I made a decision to. It's the heavy thoughts, like you said, Mom, but it's really not. It's just that. They're just thoughts. Yeah. Awesome. That was really cool.

Well, Amy, thank you. I want you to do this exercise and If you want to see the burning ceremony, we put up a full on a bridged episodes On YouTube just go to youtube.com slash melrabans and you can watch what we just did On the front porch up here in southern Vermont where my kids will never visit. I'm just going to go. That was a joke. That was a joke. Everybody see? Put down the phone. Put down the pen. That was right. Right. And Joe. Yeah. And you know, look, I hope today was a wake up call for you. I hope that you saw where you pick up the sword

and you fight for misery instead of the happiness that you deserve. And I hope that you not only got a wake up call, but that you got handed a pen and that you're gonna write not only new neural pathways but a whole new experience of your life being happier. And in case nobody else tells you, we will tell you, we love you. We do love you.

We love you so much. I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to put down the sword, pick up the pen, and truly, truly experience the happiness that you deserve. Stitcher.