Transcript of THIS Is The What It Means To TAKE Control Of Your Situation | Mel Robbins Clips

Does the word agency mean? So, I think of agency as basically the ability to feel like you can solve problems in your life even when there are external constraints, even when your environment is stacked against you, that you can take action and that that action will cause change. That's what agency is, and and I think that's power.

I have never heard anybody describe it that way. I'm I'm sitting here with my mouth open for just a second because I hear the word agency a lot, and I've never connected the dots between that word and power, but it is true because there are so many times in your life where you do feel like you're overwhelmed by everything and you have no power. And I know we're gonna dig deep into 2 words that you talked about. You feel selfish or guilty. Yep.

And I love that. I love that that's what you're going to experience is access to this power. Boom. Already. Yes.

Already. Doctor Lakshman is dropping dropping the knowledge. So I saw this, article that you wrote where you said that I I wanna get the the quote correct. You said that real self care is not about a bubble bath. Can you unpack that for us and talk about how the act of self care has now become a new form of us shaming ourselves?

So this came to me from my patients, really. You know, the patient that every patient, really, that comes in and says, doctor Lakshman, I'm stressed out. I'm burnt out. I'm not eating well. I'm not sleeping well.

And I feel like it's my fault because I have the meditation app. I have the yoga membership. I know I'm supposed to be doing these things, but I can't do it. And I say to my patients, like, look. This isn't your fault.

This isn't about willpower. This isn't about being lazy. It's actually much bigger than that. You know, we live in a country that still doesn't have federally mandated paid parental leave. Half of American workers can't take a paid sick day.

Half of American people are living in what's called childcare deserts. The most recent statistic on childcare costs found that for Americans with 2 kids, they are paying 10% of their income for childcare. So I mention all of these numbers not to be doom and gloom, but more to say wellness has given us methods and tools, but it has not given us principles or perspective. So a juice cleanse is not going to fix all of those problems.

I love that. So you used 2 words, principles and perspectives. What is the deeper perspective about what self care is versus what the wellness industry is marketing to us? Because it almost feels like, you know, when you mentioned Juice Cleanse, and I know when I go online, you are bombarded with people's skin care routines and the bubble baths and the things that they're doing at night to take care of themselves. And it's almost as if the wellness industry or the skin care industry has hijacked the word self care.

But when you think about it from the lens of a psychiatrist, what does self care mean to you?

So it's actually really interesting. When I was working on the book, I did a little research on the the roots of the word self care. And it's funny because it it there's 2 parallel lineages that came out in, like, the 19 fifties, 19 sixties. 1 is a social justice movement, Audre Lorde. Self care is self preservation.

But the other, actually, is psychiatry. So in the fifties sixties, psychiatrists were using the word self care to, describe the choices that patients who are in locked psychiatric units could make. So, like, what do I wanna wear today? What am I gonna eat for lunch? What exercise am I gonna do?

So it's, again, coming back to agency, even in the context of having so many of your choices made for you, you can still find small ways. So, obviously, now in 2024, like, self care, the term has gone wildly off the rails. But let me give you kind of an example

for

folks listening to kind of get a picture, because I know this sounds a little bit heady. So imagine that you are going to a yoga class. And, you go to this yoga class, and you spend most of your the time on the mat kind of feeling guilty because, oh, you know, maybe you're a mom. You should have maybe spent this hour helping your kid with his homework. You know, you need to make cupcakes for school.

So you're so you're there in the yoga class, but your mind is feeling all this guilt and this mental load. On top of that, you're looking at the person next to you who can hold a headstand and, like, you can't even do crow pose. And so you're comparing yourself. You're beating yourself up. You you also don't really know why you're even at yoga.

Like, you're there because, like, Mel told you to go to yoga, but you haven't really internalized, like, what does yoga do for you? And and so, essentially, you've given away your power. So that's 1 person. But then imagine a completely different scenario where you have a hard conversation with your partner and you say, hey. Look.

You know, I think both of us do a lot better when we each have a little bit of alone time over the weekend. So let's, I'm gonna go to yoga on Saturday, and you can go for your run on Sunday, because we both know we're better parents, we're better partners when we have that time. You set boundaries. You are on the mat, and you're not beating yourself up. You are, actually, you know, connected to yourself in a nice way.

Then, you've actually named for yourself, what is it about yoga? Like, why does yoga help me? Maybe, for you, it's, the physicality. You know, you feel strong. You're in your body.

Maybe, for somebody else, it's, actually, community. You like being in that room with other people who have same passion as you. So it's different. You have to name your own value. And through that, you have actually reclaimed your agency from the society, which is telling us, no.

No. No. Don't rest. Don't do anything for yourself. Instead, just keep producing.

Just do more. Be more. So the the whole, kind of, thesis here is that real self care is actually it's not about the thing. It's about all of the work you do inside before you do the thing. So your yoga class is only as powerful as the boundaries that you've set beforehand.

There is so much to unpack. I wanna take a gigantic highlighter, and I wanna make sure, as you're listening, that you heard what doctor Puja just said. She said it's not about the thing. It's about the reason why you are doing the thing in the first place. And if I get back to 2 of the words that you said earlier, principles and perspective, that's how you access it.

And I'm also in that example, which I found crazy relatable. I was thinking, how are you in my head while I'm doing yoga? Because you're right. I race there. I get on that mat.

I maybe settle in for 5 seconds after looking around and checking out, like, okay. Like, how am I gonna size up here? Then it starts, if there's no music, I'm complaining about that in my mind. And then I'm almost immediately thinking about what I'm gonna do after the class. And the other thing that I think about in that example is I have probably poured more time and energy into the mat and the towel and the bottle of water and the outfit that I'm wearing than I am about the reason why I do it.

And when you go deeper and you tap into the deeper principle of what this is for and why you do it, that's how you access the power of it. And then you also gave that example with your partner, where you say the reason I do this is not because I'm supposed to, because I see all these other people doing it, and because I'm this or that or the other thing, but because I know the deeper principle. I'm a better person. I'm better for you when I do this. Wow.

Yeah. I'm gonna give you something else too, that encompasses this. So real self care is not a thing to do. It's a way to be. It's a verb.

It's not a noun. It's something that you thread through all the decisions that you make in life, whether it's how you show up to yoga or what job you choose or, you know, your who you decide to partner with. Like, it it really is something that is in the fabric if you're doing it right. How do you figure

out how to be? You know? And and and I'm sitting here also thinking to myself, okay. I spent a lot of time talking to people, trying to distill their research and advice down to the takeaway and the thing to do. Okay, everybody.

We're gonna go for a walk, and we're gonna do this thing, and we're gonna blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I know you're not saying don't do the thing. You're saying go deeper first and actually understand the way you want to be in life. Is that what you're saying?

Yes. Exactly. I'm not saying that the things are bad. You know, yoga actually can be really helpful. Exercise is helpful.

There's tons of studies. Sleep is important. Right? All these things. But it's it's about how you show up to those things.

If you're not taking the time to reflect and understand how, the yoga or the meditation is important in your life and and and really getting a sense for what it does for you, then you're just you're you're you're just checking it off the list. You're not actually taking in the medicine or the nourishment of those activities. And and I wanna say, like, I for folks that are listening, I I don't want you to feel ashamed because we all do this. Like, we live in a society where you open Instagram or, you know, TikTok, and it's just right. Like, it's all the the makeup and the the yoga and all the things, and it's it's not we all do this.

We're all in this together, and it's not about shaming yourself. You can't, like, beat yourself into real self care. And, again, it's just that you have to understand that the internal work, has to go along with it beforehand. Otherwise, it's just gonna be empty calories. And, I mean, if you're like me, yeah, you'll get you'll be really great.

You'll do it every day for, like, 2 weeks, and then life will get busy, and then you'll fall off.

I think I just had, like, a whole, like, light bulb moment. Mhmm. So let's go to the example where you said you're online. It happens to all of us. You see a fitness influencer that looks fantastic, and they're doing yoga on a mat beach, and you think to yourself, I really need to be doing that.

I need to be taking better care of that. That right there, that I should, I need to, the adding of the thing to the do to do list, that's when it becomes almost like a form of shame. Like, you're making yourself wrong in that moment because you're not doing the thing that you think you should be doing. I think that is such a common experience to see a cleanse, to see somebody doing yoga, to see somebody hiking or doing whatever, and to then go, I should be doing that. And the fact that I haven't made time for that means that I am doing something wrong.

Self care, the term has gone wildly off the rails.

When I go online, you're bombarded with people's skin care routines and the bubble baths and the things that they're doing at night to take care of themselves.

Wellness has given us methods and tools, but it has not given us principles or perspective. A juice cleanse is not going to fix all of those problems.