November 3, 2025 • 36 mins
Best-selling author Mel Robbins has turned her own mistakes into life lessons for the rest of us, and she's sharing her wisdom and revelations with Oliver and mom Goldie Hawn.
In part 1 of this 2-part deep dive, this trio digs into Mel's "Let Them Theory," opening up about parenting pitfalls, anxiety struggles and how too much empathy can be a blessing and a curse.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I am Kate Hudson and my name is Oliver Hudson.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
We wanted to do something that highlighted our.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Relationship and what it's like to be siblings.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
We are a sibling, Railvalry, No, no, sibling. You don't
do that with your mouth, Vely.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That's good. Oh well, I'll never get in that water again.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oliver Hudson.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
And I'm actually live with an incredible guest, Mel.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Robbins, and my mother. I'm speaking quietly now.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I've read her book let The Theory, and it's incredible.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
But I am speaking quietly because my mom and Mel,
they have really created hit it off.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
They're crally right to.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
My left, feels like they know but before.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We even got the mic set up, they are give
them up and away. They're excluding me right now, which
is what I will work my way in.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
You know what.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Right now, I'm just commentating on their conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
These two beautiful blogs are just going at it breakdown.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Let's join their conversation now, see how already in progress.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
But you know what you have done, which is so
interesting and I've got so many We've got so many questions.
But you're also looking at human behavior. You're also looking
at where we can go to actually heal. How are
we going to be able to understand, like you did,
you know, the five second rule or whatever, which was
amazing and get people off, you know, off because they're
(01:49):
they're thinking of all kinds of reasons why not to
do something? Yes, get them going. But you really have
met sort of the the culture. People aren't need this,
they want this so much. And I have this question
because some of us are driven. Some of us are
driven to help, some of us are driven to make change.
(02:11):
Some of us have a lot of empathy to be
able to take your time and your interest to help
and change and shift other people's mindset and thinking what
made you as a human being going through all the
things you went through? Were you an empathetic child?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Oh that's an interesting I think so highly.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
So.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I think I absorbed everybody's feelings. I absorbed everything that
was going on around me. I feel like sometimes being
deeply empathetic is both a gift and a curse. It
is because you can feel everything, and the problem is
is assuming responsibility for either creating equilibrium if what you're
(02:59):
feeling is chaos or anger or hurt or sadness or
hostility and assuming that it's your job when you feel
something to do something to fix it exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And there's things you talked about also in a book
which I've been reading I'm loving it was was an
idea that you can't fix things, and there are things
you can't fix and and with that is an important
a place in your life to have that mindset to
say I can't fix you. And I did laugh because
(03:34):
there was something in there with the Oliver it. I
know I've told this story before. Was my child right?
And you know your kids never end up there's always
your kids right, no matter how old they are, they're
always your children. So like you're the best you're about?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
This isn't about my circumcision? Is it? No? What can
we have?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Let's talk about that story.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
She told that she told this story on a talk show.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And okay, what is the story? I don't know, see.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Decision story.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yes, tell the circumcision story and then we'll get into
more a little deeper stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, the circumcision story was he was a month old,
and I was really really upset. I wanted to be
in there because I felt I could make him feel good,
and but I was waiting and then the doctor. I
was so upset, and the doctor came out and said,
you'll be happy to know I need a bigger clamp.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Said, oh my god. Now on a talk show.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And then of course, yeah kind of you know, it's
like bigger, a bigger clamp.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I'm like, what.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Her saying.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
We can't find something smaller, right exactly?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
But but but the story about being servile, Okay, someone
who wants to take care of your children, make sure
they don't fall like today. You know, they're putting you know,
all kinds of like rubber matts or things under playgrounds.
They shouldn't hurt themselves. They were always helping them not
have to go through a problem, or more yes, fixing
it for them. And she wrote about this so beautifully
(05:09):
and even I must say I be related to it.
And it brought me up to a point. Well, Oliver
went to college and I was worried about him, you know, eating,
and he was in this you know, apartment or whatever
they had, and I was concerned. So I got a chef. Yeah, well,
so well I can't say she was a chef.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Well it was a chef, but but I she didn't
even tell me what was happening. There was a knock
on my door in college. It's my sophomore year. I'm
living in a house.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
It was your freshman year.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
It was my sophomore year. It was a disgusting house
with six dudes and the there's a knock at the
door and I open it up and there's this woman with.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
A casse role.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I'm like yes, and she's like, your mom has hired
me to bring you food. And I'm like, oh my lord, okay.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
No, I mean yes and no. It was a bit of.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
A shock, but but you know, she was afraid I
wasn't eating.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
You know, well, I was afraid you wouldn't need to
know if it was whatever, and it was. It's very funny.
So you want to make everything nice for your children,
but you can't do everything for them, right You don't
want to You shouldn't. Yes, you know that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
But do you think that's.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Changed though, because well, when we were kids, uh, you know,
it was like take whatever rolls on a wheel and
get the fuck out of here. Go, you know, go
go to your friend's house. There's no phones, there's no connection,
there's no GPS locating, there's no find you know, find
my friends or.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Life three sixty.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yes, and there was just more There was more freedom then,
you know, we could make more mistakes, yes, just by
just by just even not technologically. So have you seen
that shift where you were you brought up, the way
that you brought your kids up?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, I think I was a little bit looser than
you see a lot of parents now. I always had
this point of view that my job was not to
turn them into me, but to try to help them,
try to guide my kids as best as I could
in them becoming who they were supposed to be. I
think a lot of that overparenting comes from this fundamental
(07:27):
need to be in control. And there's a lot of
research is not research that I've done, but there's a
lot of research around how the milk carton missing children
created a false concern in parents' minds that your child
could be snatched from the front yard at any moment.
(07:49):
And there's lots of great researchers that have sort of
connected the dots going backwards to that moment where all
of a sudden parents started to feed like childhood wasn't safe.
And then it starts to compound and compound and compound,
and when you look at parents that are overparenting, and
(08:10):
you know, on one hand, sending a cast rule is
a wonderful thing to do, and it's a way to
kind of be there when you can't be there. And
then there's the stepping in and solving problems. There's the
bulldozing other people so your kids don't have to ever
experience disappointment.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Well, it's the helicopter parent. Then there's the bulldozer parent.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Right, And what's very clear is that's coming from a
parent's own anxiety and a parent's feeling that the world
is out of control. Therefore, I have to control the
experience of my child. And here's the sad part. The
sad part is your kid is probably more resilient and
smarter and more capable than you are treating them. And
(08:51):
I made this huge mistake. So I made this huge mistake,
and that's how I learn almost everything every book you'll see,
I'm the villain, and the let them theory is no different.
The reason why I know that this theory works is
because I used to be a complete control freak that
was doing things the exact opposite in terms of the
(09:12):
way that human beings work and the way that relationships work.
I thought that love meant control and change. I thought
that I knew best. I thought judging people and trying
to motivate them was the way that you get them
to change, And the fact is it has the exact
opposite effect. And so I made this huge mistake when
I was a parent. We went to Cambodia when our
(09:35):
kids were really little, and we were there visiting my
husband's mom, who was a recent widow, and she had
gone over to Cambodia to do some volunteer work and
had really found her calling. So we go over to
visit her, and there's this thing that happens where we
go visit a museum that was all about the Khmer Rouge.
(09:55):
And I don't know what I was thinking, taking a
bunch of elementary age kids to an old elementary school
where the Khmer Rouge had held prisoners and they've turned
it into this really important museum. We walk into the
first classroom and our daughter, Kendall, who was maybe I
don't know, fourth or fifth grade, takes one look at
(10:19):
this room where they have a bed and they have
handcuffs to it and there's like a stand. You know
that they had just killed people in this room. She
goes running out. I go running out after her. She
was hysterical, Something's going to happen to you in dead,
Something's going to happen to you in dead. We get
home from the trip and she could not sleep through
(10:40):
the night.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And so she came downstairs every night, and for the
first couple nights, I would walk her back upstairs, and
then she would come back down. And everybody who's ever
been a parent has had that experience where you're just
so exhausted that they wear you down. Next thing you know,
I'm lifting up the blanket she's crawling in. And finally
it just got to the point, you guys, where she
(11:02):
would sleep on our floor. She did this for almost
six months. I made a bed on the floor. I
thought I was doing the right thing. I thought that
I was really just nurturing her and helping her. And
what I realize now is that I royally compounded the
(11:23):
anxiety because I was allowing her anxiety to win. I
was basically by allowing her to avoid being up in
her room. What it confirmed to her is that she's
not capable of being up there, that this feel, that
this fear is real, and then it turned into you
can't do a sleepover, you got to have a sleep
(11:45):
under where you pick the kid up. And then it
turns into you can't travel, and so it got bigger
and bigger and bigger, and I was just trying to help.
And what I can see now is that by not
following the advice of all the pediatricians who were like,
you need to take her upstairs, you need to sit
with her, you need to let her go back to sleep,
(12:06):
You need to model for her that she is capable
of facing this fear. By allowing her to opt out,
I actually made the fear way worse, Like it became
an issue for years and years and years that were
only now kind of fully unwinding and understanding.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
That funny because you're also dealing with a different sect
of parenting as well, which is attachment parenting, where these
kids will sleep in the room from the very beginning
and feeding on demand, and it's like, there, you cater
to your child. It's that attachment parenting thing.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I don't know anything about that. Here's what I know.
If it works for you, do it. But what I
found is that I took the easy route, and it
made things way harder, Yeah, way harder.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Ah, so I take lexapro. Anxiety has been a part
of my life. Mom had anxiety in her twenties. There
has to be some sort of genetic component to that, yeah,
for sure. So it's something I've dealt with, deal with
(13:14):
even in the last like ten days.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
When's the last time you had anxiety?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Oh, I mean six hours ago. But it's different. I
just am so I know how to deal with it.
I know what it is. I've made I have a
relationship with my anxiety, so it doesn't take me over anymore.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I understand it. Whereas before I thought I was.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Dying, you know what I mean, And I was able
to sort of meditate through it, journal through it, and
eventually had to get on medication for it. And now
every once in a while it will pop up. It's
these sort of irrational thoughts, but I understand that I'm
not going to die. I'm okay, is it really what?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
That's the way it manifests itself, Like you literally will
start You'll like have a stomach pain and then escalate.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
It's in my stuff. It manifests in my stomach for
the most part.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Really, Yeah, Well, I'm interested in this because my son
as a stomach triggered anxiety spiral.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah. I mean.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So my twenties, thirties, and forties is when I've had
my big bouts of it. My twenties, it was all stomach.
I mean I couldn't leave the house without throwing up.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
It was also a fear of it.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, see mine, it was a fear of looking stupid.
I don't I didn't want to look stupid in front
of people, and throwing up like that would make me
look like an asshole and people would judge me. And
you know, so the minute I would get out of
the house, I'd feel nauseous, I'd want to throw up.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I was trying to be an actor. My sister was.
He was, you know, famous, My parents were famous. I'm
just starting. There was a lot of sort of unconscious
pressure that I was sort of putting on myself expectations,
and I was going to auditions throwing up outside of
the audition space. Remember when I was in New York. Yeah,
(15:01):
I had to fly to New York because I had
to read with Laura Lenny for this movie. And I
said to my manager, I'm like, I can't get on
a fucking airplane. I mean, I'm like, I can barely
get step out of my home. But I fought through it.
I get on the airplane and now I'm driving down
like fifth Avenue. The cave has to pull over multiple
times because I'm throwing up. I'm throwing up before the audition.
(15:21):
I call mom in the waiting room like I can't
do like holy shit, Like I'm just a complete wreck.
But I fought through it. I was always trying to.
I didn't want it to do it for to debilitate me.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
It sounded pretty debilitating.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Oh it was awful.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I have that too, So that was happened to me,
and it was all stomach It was my panic attacks
and I couldn't go into public without throwing up.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Really, So, can I ask you guys a question about this,
because I find this fascinating because a number of pediatricians
that I've spoken to have said that, other than the
fear of your parents dying, the fear of throwing up
is the number one fear the kids have because it's
this moment of a complete loss of control. So do
you remember the first time you connected like stomach tension
(16:10):
with this fear that you're going to throw up, so
I better, like, I got to make it happen now
so that I'm in control of it. Yeah, when was
the first time that happened?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
The first time, I'm honestly not sure. I mean the.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
First time that I had my it was a panic attack.
My heart felt like it exploded, yep. And I was
going to like a club, was going to into a
club in my mid twenties, and I was like boom.
I thought I was going to die on the sidewalk.
I mean, it was just horrible. And then after that
it started to sort of manifest in my stomach. But yes,
(16:43):
it's interesting that you say you almost want to expel it.
You want to throw up in your space first and
then move to the public area because you just don't
want to look stupid.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Well, there's two things I want to share with you
guys that I that have been life changing for me.
And one of them is something that I researched and
studied that fundamentally changed the way that I experience any
nerves or anxiety and it stopped the escalation. And then
(17:17):
the second thing I want to share with you is
something from I think his name is Steve Magnus who
was who's been an Olympic track coach and is like
a big mindset guy. That's a trick that he used
with athletes that had this particular issue that stops it.
And so the first thing I want to explain that
has been very life changing for me is that I
(17:38):
never realized that when you're about to go do something
that you're nervous about, it could be an audition, it
could be a date, it could be just going out
in public. Because you are about to go do something
that you kind of care about and you have a
little bit of a how is this going to go,
you immediately switch into a preparation mode that's sort of
(18:01):
like fight or flight. And when you go into so
like before an audition, before a speech, before a date,
before an interview, we all get nervous. And when you're
getting nervous, there are physiological and medical symptoms that happen.
Your heart starts to race, your throat starts skill a
(18:21):
little tight, your hands can get your armpits can be.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Like between the brain, the image lan in particular, Yes
that really has a complete connection to the body.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yes, and your stomach. People start to say you have butterflies.
Here's why. Here's why from an evolutionary standpoint, if you
are about to prepare to do something, whether it's hunt
or it's run from something or fight, your body goes
into a let's get ready mode. The chemistry in your
(18:53):
body changes. All the blood goes to your heart and
your brain so you can think and so you can
move faster, which means it leaves your die jestive trek,
which means the chemistry in your stomach is changing. Those
butterflies are not actually a sign that you're about to
screw up. They're not a sign that you're about to
throw up. They're not a sign that anything's about to
(19:15):
go wrong. It's a sign that your chemistry and your
body is changing to help you be able to focus
or run or do the thing you need to do.
And for years I mistook, like everybody does, those butterflies
as a sign of impending doom versus just your body
getting ready for you to get out the door and
(19:36):
go do the audition. If you then go up in
your head and are like fuck, you now escalate the
alarm state in your body and you make it worse.
They've actually studied this.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
And however it happens, your executive function.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Out the window. Because the second that and you know
this with all your work, the second that you switch
gears from the prefrontal cortex being engaged to now the
amigdalas trigger executive functioning out the window, your critical voice
gets louder. Your ability to recall the preparation that you
had and to be able to talk yourself down out
(20:10):
the window. And so they studied this at Harvard Business School.
There's this really interesting study where they taught people in
high performance situations, whether you're going to go into a
track meet or a debate competition or something that we
can measure. They taught them in states where you're about
to do something and you're nervous and your stomach is
like twirling around with butterflies, to say, I'm so excited
(20:33):
to do this thing. I'm so excited. I'm excited to
run this thing, I'm excited to do the debate, I'm
excited to go on the interview, I'm excited to get
on the plane, even though you may not feel that.
Simply queuing your brain to say I'm excited calms the
stress response, right.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I mean, how different though, is excitement from nerves.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
It's the exact same thing, right.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Because because there's certain people where the nerves become debilitating,
and then there are others where it can be empowering.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
You know, where you use that that's fuel to just what.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
You're saying too. In terms of that is the brain
is basically a muscle. So once you start feeding it
all of this thing. For instance, if you if you
smile and you don't feel like it, your brain thinks
you're happier. It goes right into your brain, your activity,
your connections, all of it. It's just an act, a
physical act, a choice that I choose to smile. Interesting
(21:25):
how it helps the brain to be able to actually
feel happier. It's a signal. So the same thing is
when you repeat over and over again, I'm really excited
to do this. And I have something to share with
that on that because being self aware as we are,
you try to be. I noticed that there's, you know,
going through some things, stuff that we deal all every day.
(21:46):
It's always stuff. It's a leak here, you know, there's
all thing here, there's a bill there, there's a I
don't know there. And then with my foundation, it's always something.
And I ended up looking at this because you know,
you talk to yourself, you go, I don't know. I
made myself aware of that, said, what do you mean
you don't know? You do know? And every time I
(22:07):
would say, I would say it to myself, I don't know,
even out loud, I would laugh and I would say, no,
I do know. I do know. Why am I doing this?
And I've stopped saying it because I do know. So
you're already signaling your negative thought, which is, I don't
know what's going to happen. I'm feeling anxious about it.
I mean, what am I going to do? Am I
(22:28):
going to solve this problem? I don't know? I don't know.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Well, even if you look at your face as you're
talking like that, like if you think about the experience
of waking up in the morning, if your first thought
is how am I going to get through the day,
your face changes, your energy changes. If your first thought is,
I'm going to make today a good day, even though
there's a lot, I gotta make today a good day.
(22:51):
Like that's just a simple example.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And it's also an intention, isn't correct?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yes, So the second piece of advice though on this,
because I have a hunch that what started to happen
for you is similar to what I think happened with
our son, where the link between the physical sensation of
this so the brain thought, I'm in big trouble now,
and the only way to solve it is to get
(23:18):
rid of this by throwing up. I think that got
so well worn that it became automatic and one of
the things. And that brings me to this advice from
coach Steve Magnus, which is he had a high performing
athlete that he was coaching who would always get sick
before a race and it was really really bothering her,
(23:39):
very distracting. She could not hit the mark in terms
of her ability to get better and to make nationals.
And so we came up with a strategy where he'd
be like, all right, we got an hour before the race,
what time are you going to throw up? And she'd
be like, what do you maan? No, name the time
you're going to throw up, And it removed the urge
(24:00):
to throw up. Interesting because by naming the time, she
all of a sudden felt in control of when it
would happen and then suddenly didn't need to do it.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I could get the act remind though you know when
the kids had hiccups and stuff, we used to we
used to say, Okay, now hit up again, let's go right, okay,
go ahead, hiccup, hickup on it, come on, hiccup. And
you know what, they couldn't hit up because the brain
made them hic up.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I'm gonna try that. I've only ever used a scoop
of peanut butter like.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
That, But I think I could get the actor wrong.
But I think it was Peter Fonda who threw up
before every play performance.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
For every performance. There are actors who will throw up.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
And there's actors, by the way, who use beta blockers, right,
which is going to block all of that. You don't
have to feel it anymore because it's a drug that
has literally stopped from the mouth, getting dry, from the stomach,
going from all of it.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
But if you simply understand the chemistry of it, you
now have the ability to find the switches and the
drivers your body to start to understand and not be
afraid of it.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Even with what you write, the let me stuff and
even what we're talking about right now, there's so much
deeper psychology that has been imprinted in ingrained in us
through traumas and all that. So it's so much easier
said than done there because I've been through that, been
through therapy for twenty five years, wich of the Hoffmann process,
(25:33):
Like i am.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Like always yeah, no, but I am, but I'm not.
I mean, I'm all all. I love it, you know.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
And now through my through reading even just fiction, you know,
I learned so much about myself through different characters.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I'm always trying to be better.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
You know, you're curious, right, I'm curious.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
And sometimes it's like there's those moments where you can
just let it, let it all go, and you feel
at peace. But there's also so a lot of muck
and tar to have to wade through to be able
to sort of put a lot of these practices into
true practice and have and rebnefit from it, because there's
a lot to wade.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Through that is true. And here's a simple truth. If
I were to ask you, can you list five ways
you could make your life worse?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, and my list would be pretty dark, Like I
can go like, really, let's just destroy everything.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
If that's true, then you can also list five things
that would make your life better.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
And while it is true that trauma does get ingrained
as patterns and things that your body remembers and repeats.
It's also true that it can be healed, sure. And
what I have found personally is that the thing that
stands in our way oftentimes is that it's not that
(26:53):
we don't know what we could be doing, it's that
we wait until we feel like doing it. And the
fact is, when you want your life to get better,
it begins with you deciding that how your life feels,
how it's going right now just no longer works for you.
Maybe it did work for you a decade ago to
(27:14):
throw up before everything. You can make a decision to
say to yourself, this just no longer works for my
life to work to feel like this, and that decision
is what begins.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
The change, right, It begins the journey correct.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
But once you can identify that I just don't want
my life to feel like this, there's thousands of things
you can do and it's going to be And so
I don't believe that you have to stay stuck and
wading through the muck for the rest of your life.
I do not believe that. I don't believe that if
something took ten years in terms of how long you
(27:50):
were experiencing something that you need ten years to actually
heal yourself.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
You do have to put the work in.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yes, that's where grit and how much grit people do
have to be able to face, like you say, our
failures are where we learn well you and to know
and adopt a philosophy that this is this is real,
this is not We know this. We know because we
understand how sorry to go back into my world, but
(28:20):
feed the part. So when we go into understanding that
we are in control of our own brain, our brain
does not control thos. We have to have the intention
and the grit and the awareness that it's okay to fail.
But ultimately it's the only way we learn yes and this,
this is what you have done is opened up a
lot of windows in people's brains, a lot of areas
(28:43):
where they don't talk about a lot of things where
they have no roadmap to be able to say, I'm
going to do it, follow this stepping stone, you know,
you know the five four three two one, I'm going
to do it this way. There's tools, So you're really
giving tools to people who don't have them or that
would like to get better, and you're inspiring them to
(29:06):
know that there is a possibility of cure. They're not sick.
You're just thinking in the wrong way. Let's think differently.
Let's put ourselves in a position of positive negatives. Like
you said, we can think of a million negatives. But
when you look at optimism and pessimism, right, and you
sort of look at these two things, so you can
(29:27):
look something simple like a rainy day, what's bad about it?
What's negative? What's pessimistic? Exactly? So you know we have
the capacity. If we can look at a rainy day
and think of what's good and what's not good about it,
we could do the same thing.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
With us, both of you a question, Yes, and I don't.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I don't know this is true. But do you think primarily.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Our default is fear because this is how we survive.
You know, when we default to a feeling, is it
optimistic or is it more fear based? Brain is negative
bio it it feels like it's negative bias, right, it
feels like and it's.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
There, and it's there, it's it's primal, it's a reptilian,
but it's definitely there to protect us. So there's all
these amazing feelings that we think you're helping so many,
so many, so many people how to enjoy the possibilities
of a happier life, a calmer life, and some some
(30:31):
ways to make people actually deal better. Like you said,
let them, you know, and let me and let me.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
In your book, I read the story of the prom story,
which is just intensely relatable as well myself, my wife
and I I feel like I live let me like,
I feel like that's kind of who I am, because
on my headstone will be we'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I'm just like, eh, I'll figure it out.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
And we have teenagers now, and you know, with the
corsage and the thing, what you can do in the rain.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And I mean this.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
I was literally reading my wife and then I forget the.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I forget exactly, I forget the exact villain. But when your.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Husband were like, what you know, there's only four tables
in this restaurant, I forget the exact line of your
husband's like, okay, and that's Buddhists.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
That's why nothing bothers you. Really, my husband is Buddhists,
and so you know. I And in case you don't
know what the let them theory is, it's very very simple.
It is the fastest way to feel less stressed, to
be more in control, to have more peace in your
life is to stop trying to control what other people think, say, do, believe,
(31:45):
and let them be and then take your power back
and focus on yourself. I mean, this is Victor Frankel's
man search for meaning. But this is a tool that
I've leveraged all this ancient wisdom and these therapeutic practices
and spiritual philosophies into a tool that's just four words.
(32:08):
To your point though about the healing. I do believe
that if you didn't talk yourself into the trauma, you
can't talk yourself out of it. And I'll give you
an example. So when I was younger like you, I
was in a car accident where the car that I
was enrolled and my mom was driving, and we were
(32:29):
up in northern Michigan and we were near Kalkaska, and
the radio announcer came on and said something about the
effect of black ice and be careful out there, and
all of a sudden, a guy went to pass us,
and then a semi truck was coming and he cut
in front of us, and my mom went off the
side of the road. The car rolled and we ended
(32:50):
up with her up and me down, and thankfully we
had our seat belts on, but the dog went from
the front to the back. We were okay. And the
thing that's interesting about that experience is that my mom
and I were both in the car. It certainly was
a traumatic experience in terms of the trauma response of
(33:10):
all five senses coming online and capturing everything that happens,
because in a traumatic experience it can go into slow motion.
But what's interesting is that to this day, if my
mom hears the words black ice, she feels like she's
back in the car. If I hear the words black ice,
(33:31):
I feel nothing. But if I walk to my mailbox
on a snowy day and it's that kind of mail
box kind of snow, it's like I am back in
that car. I feel like I'm sitting in the dryer
as things are flying around me, And there is no
(33:51):
amount of talking that will get rid of the connection
between that sound and the association with that memory. However,
there are lots of things you can do, whether it's
EMDR or it's some of the new psychedelic guided modalities
that get into your body with the amygdala suspended, and
(34:15):
allow you to revisit those things in a calm state,
which allows your brain to file those memories in long
term storage. And so I believe what's very exciting is
that just because you endured something for a very long
period of time doesn't mean it has to take you
that long to heal it. And to your point, Goldie,
it is so true that your brain is extraordinary in
(34:40):
that it's not a storage unit. It's a processor that
you can encode and anytime that you decide, you know what.
I'm tired of beating myself up. I'm tired of feeling
like the victim. I'm tired of telling myself that success
happens for other people, but it never happens for somebody
like me. I want to change the settings in my
mind and I want to learn how to encode my
(35:03):
mind with the kind of thoughts that help me take
the steps that help me believe, because I actually think
the biggest thing that people struggle with it's not a
lack of information. Because if you're stuck and you don't
like your life, go to AI, go to Microsoft Copilot
and type in what's wrong and ask it for ten suggestions.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
It'll work.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
The problem's going to be that if you're at a
point in your life, and I have certainly been there
where you are so discouraged and you don't have hope,
you will tell yourself it doesn't matter, and you won't
take the steps to either change the way you think,
or change the way you start your day, or change
(35:47):
the things you eat, or change the people that you
hang out with that actually do change everything at times.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Is that they say, well, that's the way I am.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yes, no it's not.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It's the way you think you are, but it's not
the way you are. And there is definitely fluidity of
understanding that you don't have to stay with who you
perceive yourself to be.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
So it's really it's a it's a beautiful message.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Well, once again, we have to make a part two
because this is just too good. This is just it's
too fascinating. There's too much to talk about. So we
are we're doing a part two of mel It's it's
an impossibility not to
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I am Kate Hudson and my name is Oliver Hudson.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
We wanted to do something that highlighted our.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Relationship and what it's like to be siblings.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
We are a sibling, Railvalry, No, no, sibling. You don't
do that with your mouth, Vely.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That's good. Oh well, I'll never get in that water again.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oliver Hudson.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
And I'm actually live with an incredible guest, Mel.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Robbins, and my mother. I'm speaking quietly now.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I've read her book let The Theory, and it's incredible.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
But I am speaking quietly because my mom and Mel,
they have really created hit it off.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
They're crally right to.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
My left, feels like they know but before.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We even got the mic set up, they are give
them up and away. They're excluding me right now, which
is what I will work my way in.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
You know what.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Right now, I'm just commentating on their conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
These two beautiful blogs are just going at it breakdown.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Let's join their conversation now, see how already in progress.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
But you know what you have done, which is so
interesting and I've got so many We've got so many questions.
But you're also looking at human behavior. You're also looking
at where we can go to actually heal. How are
we going to be able to understand, like you did,
you know, the five second rule or whatever, which was
amazing and get people off, you know, off because they're
(01:49):
they're thinking of all kinds of reasons why not to
do something? Yes, get them going. But you really have
met sort of the the culture. People aren't need this,
they want this so much. And I have this question
because some of us are driven. Some of us are
driven to help, some of us are driven to make change.
(02:11):
Some of us have a lot of empathy to be
able to take your time and your interest to help
and change and shift other people's mindset and thinking what
made you as a human being going through all the
things you went through? Were you an empathetic child?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Oh that's an interesting I think so highly.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
So.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I think I absorbed everybody's feelings. I absorbed everything that
was going on around me. I feel like sometimes being
deeply empathetic is both a gift and a curse. It
is because you can feel everything, and the problem is
is assuming responsibility for either creating equilibrium if what you're
(02:59):
feeling is chaos or anger or hurt or sadness or
hostility and assuming that it's your job when you feel
something to do something to fix it exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And there's things you talked about also in a book
which I've been reading I'm loving it was was an
idea that you can't fix things, and there are things
you can't fix and and with that is an important
a place in your life to have that mindset to
say I can't fix you. And I did laugh because
(03:34):
there was something in there with the Oliver it. I
know I've told this story before. Was my child right?
And you know your kids never end up there's always
your kids right, no matter how old they are, they're
always your children. So like you're the best you're about?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
This isn't about my circumcision? Is it? No? What can
we have?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Let's talk about that story.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
She told that she told this story on a talk show.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And okay, what is the story? I don't know, see.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Decision story.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yes, tell the circumcision story and then we'll get into
more a little deeper stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, the circumcision story was he was a month old,
and I was really really upset. I wanted to be
in there because I felt I could make him feel good,
and but I was waiting and then the doctor. I
was so upset, and the doctor came out and said,
you'll be happy to know I need a bigger clamp.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Said, oh my god. Now on a talk show.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And then of course, yeah kind of you know, it's
like bigger, a bigger clamp.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I'm like, what.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Her saying.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
We can't find something smaller, right exactly?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
But but but the story about being servile, Okay, someone
who wants to take care of your children, make sure
they don't fall like today. You know, they're putting you know,
all kinds of like rubber matts or things under playgrounds.
They shouldn't hurt themselves. They were always helping them not
have to go through a problem, or more yes, fixing
it for them. And she wrote about this so beautifully
(05:09):
and even I must say I be related to it.
And it brought me up to a point. Well, Oliver
went to college and I was worried about him, you know, eating,
and he was in this you know, apartment or whatever
they had, and I was concerned. So I got a chef. Yeah, well,
so well I can't say she was a chef.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Well it was a chef, but but I she didn't
even tell me what was happening. There was a knock
on my door in college. It's my sophomore year. I'm
living in a house.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
It was your freshman year.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
It was my sophomore year. It was a disgusting house
with six dudes and the there's a knock at the
door and I open it up and there's this woman with.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
A casse role.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I'm like yes, and she's like, your mom has hired
me to bring you food. And I'm like, oh my lord, okay.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
No, I mean yes and no. It was a bit of.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
A shock, but but you know, she was afraid I
wasn't eating.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
You know, well, I was afraid you wouldn't need to
know if it was whatever, and it was. It's very funny.
So you want to make everything nice for your children,
but you can't do everything for them, right You don't
want to You shouldn't. Yes, you know that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
But do you think that's.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Changed though, because well, when we were kids, uh, you know,
it was like take whatever rolls on a wheel and
get the fuck out of here. Go, you know, go
go to your friend's house. There's no phones, there's no connection,
there's no GPS locating, there's no find you know, find
my friends or.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Life three sixty.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yes, and there was just more There was more freedom then,
you know, we could make more mistakes, yes, just by
just by just even not technologically. So have you seen
that shift where you were you brought up, the way
that you brought your kids up?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, I think I was a little bit looser than
you see a lot of parents now. I always had
this point of view that my job was not to
turn them into me, but to try to help them,
try to guide my kids as best as I could
in them becoming who they were supposed to be. I
think a lot of that overparenting comes from this fundamental
(07:27):
need to be in control. And there's a lot of
research is not research that I've done, but there's a
lot of research around how the milk carton missing children
created a false concern in parents' minds that your child
could be snatched from the front yard at any moment.
(07:49):
And there's lots of great researchers that have sort of
connected the dots going backwards to that moment where all
of a sudden parents started to feed like childhood wasn't safe.
And then it starts to compound and compound and compound,
and when you look at parents that are overparenting, and
(08:10):
you know, on one hand, sending a cast rule is
a wonderful thing to do, and it's a way to
kind of be there when you can't be there. And
then there's the stepping in and solving problems. There's the
bulldozing other people so your kids don't have to ever
experience disappointment.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Well, it's the helicopter parent. Then there's the bulldozer parent.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Right, And what's very clear is that's coming from a
parent's own anxiety and a parent's feeling that the world
is out of control. Therefore, I have to control the
experience of my child. And here's the sad part. The
sad part is your kid is probably more resilient and
smarter and more capable than you are treating them. And
(08:51):
I made this huge mistake. So I made this huge mistake,
and that's how I learn almost everything every book you'll see,
I'm the villain, and the let them theory is no different.
The reason why I know that this theory works is
because I used to be a complete control freak that
was doing things the exact opposite in terms of the
(09:12):
way that human beings work and the way that relationships work.
I thought that love meant control and change. I thought
that I knew best. I thought judging people and trying
to motivate them was the way that you get them
to change, And the fact is it has the exact
opposite effect. And so I made this huge mistake when
I was a parent. We went to Cambodia when our
(09:35):
kids were really little, and we were there visiting my
husband's mom, who was a recent widow, and she had
gone over to Cambodia to do some volunteer work and
had really found her calling. So we go over to
visit her, and there's this thing that happens where we
go visit a museum that was all about the Khmer Rouge.
(09:55):
And I don't know what I was thinking, taking a
bunch of elementary age kids to an old elementary school
where the Khmer Rouge had held prisoners and they've turned
it into this really important museum. We walk into the
first classroom and our daughter, Kendall, who was maybe I
don't know, fourth or fifth grade, takes one look at
(10:19):
this room where they have a bed and they have
handcuffs to it and there's like a stand. You know
that they had just killed people in this room. She
goes running out. I go running out after her. She
was hysterical, Something's going to happen to you in dead,
Something's going to happen to you in dead. We get
home from the trip and she could not sleep through
(10:40):
the night.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And so she came downstairs every night, and for the
first couple nights, I would walk her back upstairs, and
then she would come back down. And everybody who's ever
been a parent has had that experience where you're just
so exhausted that they wear you down. Next thing you know,
I'm lifting up the blanket she's crawling in. And finally
it just got to the point, you guys, where she
(11:02):
would sleep on our floor. She did this for almost
six months. I made a bed on the floor. I
thought I was doing the right thing. I thought that
I was really just nurturing her and helping her. And
what I realize now is that I royally compounded the
(11:23):
anxiety because I was allowing her anxiety to win. I
was basically by allowing her to avoid being up in
her room. What it confirmed to her is that she's
not capable of being up there, that this feel, that
this fear is real, and then it turned into you
can't do a sleepover, you got to have a sleep
(11:45):
under where you pick the kid up. And then it
turns into you can't travel, and so it got bigger
and bigger and bigger, and I was just trying to help.
And what I can see now is that by not
following the advice of all the pediatricians who were like,
you need to take her upstairs, you need to sit
with her, you need to let her go back to sleep,
(12:06):
You need to model for her that she is capable
of facing this fear. By allowing her to opt out,
I actually made the fear way worse, Like it became
an issue for years and years and years that were
only now kind of fully unwinding and understanding.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
That funny because you're also dealing with a different sect
of parenting as well, which is attachment parenting, where these
kids will sleep in the room from the very beginning
and feeding on demand, and it's like, there, you cater
to your child. It's that attachment parenting thing.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I don't know anything about that. Here's what I know.
If it works for you, do it. But what I
found is that I took the easy route, and it
made things way harder, Yeah, way harder.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Ah, so I take lexapro. Anxiety has been a part
of my life. Mom had anxiety in her twenties. There
has to be some sort of genetic component to that, yeah,
for sure. So it's something I've dealt with, deal with
(13:14):
even in the last like ten days.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
When's the last time you had anxiety?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Oh, I mean six hours ago. But it's different. I
just am so I know how to deal with it.
I know what it is. I've made I have a
relationship with my anxiety, so it doesn't take me over anymore.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I understand it. Whereas before I thought I was.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Dying, you know what I mean, And I was able
to sort of meditate through it, journal through it, and
eventually had to get on medication for it. And now
every once in a while it will pop up. It's
these sort of irrational thoughts, but I understand that I'm
not going to die. I'm okay, is it really what?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
That's the way it manifests itself, Like you literally will
start You'll like have a stomach pain and then escalate.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
It's in my stuff. It manifests in my stomach for
the most part.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Really, Yeah, Well, I'm interested in this because my son
as a stomach triggered anxiety spiral.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah. I mean.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So my twenties, thirties, and forties is when I've had
my big bouts of it. My twenties, it was all stomach.
I mean I couldn't leave the house without throwing up.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
It was also a fear of it.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, see mine, it was a fear of looking stupid.
I don't I didn't want to look stupid in front
of people, and throwing up like that would make me
look like an asshole and people would judge me. And
you know, so the minute I would get out of
the house, I'd feel nauseous, I'd want to throw up.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I was trying to be an actor. My sister was.
He was, you know, famous, My parents were famous. I'm
just starting. There was a lot of sort of unconscious
pressure that I was sort of putting on myself expectations,
and I was going to auditions throwing up outside of
the audition space. Remember when I was in New York. Yeah,
(15:01):
I had to fly to New York because I had
to read with Laura Lenny for this movie. And I
said to my manager, I'm like, I can't get on
a fucking airplane. I mean, I'm like, I can barely
get step out of my home. But I fought through it.
I get on the airplane and now I'm driving down
like fifth Avenue. The cave has to pull over multiple
times because I'm throwing up. I'm throwing up before the audition.
(15:21):
I call mom in the waiting room like I can't
do like holy shit, Like I'm just a complete wreck.
But I fought through it. I was always trying to.
I didn't want it to do it for to debilitate me.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
It sounded pretty debilitating.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Oh it was awful.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I have that too, So that was happened to me,
and it was all stomach It was my panic attacks
and I couldn't go into public without throwing up.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Really, So, can I ask you guys a question about this,
because I find this fascinating because a number of pediatricians
that I've spoken to have said that, other than the
fear of your parents dying, the fear of throwing up
is the number one fear the kids have because it's
this moment of a complete loss of control. So do
you remember the first time you connected like stomach tension
(16:10):
with this fear that you're going to throw up, so
I better, like, I got to make it happen now
so that I'm in control of it. Yeah, when was
the first time that happened?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
The first time, I'm honestly not sure. I mean the.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
First time that I had my it was a panic attack.
My heart felt like it exploded, yep. And I was
going to like a club, was going to into a
club in my mid twenties, and I was like boom.
I thought I was going to die on the sidewalk.
I mean, it was just horrible. And then after that
it started to sort of manifest in my stomach. But yes,
(16:43):
it's interesting that you say you almost want to expel it.
You want to throw up in your space first and
then move to the public area because you just don't
want to look stupid.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Well, there's two things I want to share with you
guys that I that have been life changing for me.
And one of them is something that I researched and
studied that fundamentally changed the way that I experience any
nerves or anxiety and it stopped the escalation. And then
(17:17):
the second thing I want to share with you is
something from I think his name is Steve Magnus who
was who's been an Olympic track coach and is like
a big mindset guy. That's a trick that he used
with athletes that had this particular issue that stops it.
And so the first thing I want to explain that
has been very life changing for me is that I
(17:38):
never realized that when you're about to go do something
that you're nervous about, it could be an audition, it
could be a date, it could be just going out
in public. Because you are about to go do something
that you kind of care about and you have a
little bit of a how is this going to go,
you immediately switch into a preparation mode that's sort of
(18:01):
like fight or flight. And when you go into so
like before an audition, before a speech, before a date,
before an interview, we all get nervous. And when you're
getting nervous, there are physiological and medical symptoms that happen.
Your heart starts to race, your throat starts skill a
(18:21):
little tight, your hands can get your armpits can be.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Like between the brain, the image lan in particular, Yes
that really has a complete connection to the body.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yes, and your stomach. People start to say you have butterflies.
Here's why. Here's why from an evolutionary standpoint, if you
are about to prepare to do something, whether it's hunt
or it's run from something or fight, your body goes
into a let's get ready mode. The chemistry in your
(18:53):
body changes. All the blood goes to your heart and
your brain so you can think and so you can
move faster, which means it leaves your die jestive trek,
which means the chemistry in your stomach is changing. Those
butterflies are not actually a sign that you're about to
screw up. They're not a sign that you're about to
throw up. They're not a sign that anything's about to
(19:15):
go wrong. It's a sign that your chemistry and your
body is changing to help you be able to focus
or run or do the thing you need to do.
And for years I mistook, like everybody does, those butterflies
as a sign of impending doom versus just your body
getting ready for you to get out the door and
(19:36):
go do the audition. If you then go up in
your head and are like fuck, you now escalate the
alarm state in your body and you make it worse.
They've actually studied this.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
And however it happens, your executive function.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Out the window. Because the second that and you know
this with all your work, the second that you switch
gears from the prefrontal cortex being engaged to now the
amigdalas trigger executive functioning out the window, your critical voice
gets louder. Your ability to recall the preparation that you
had and to be able to talk yourself down out
(20:10):
the window. And so they studied this at Harvard Business School.
There's this really interesting study where they taught people in
high performance situations, whether you're going to go into a
track meet or a debate competition or something that we
can measure. They taught them in states where you're about
to do something and you're nervous and your stomach is
like twirling around with butterflies, to say, I'm so excited
(20:33):
to do this thing. I'm so excited. I'm excited to
run this thing, I'm excited to do the debate, I'm
excited to go on the interview, I'm excited to get
on the plane, even though you may not feel that.
Simply queuing your brain to say I'm excited calms the
stress response, right.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I mean, how different though, is excitement from nerves.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
It's the exact same thing, right.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Because because there's certain people where the nerves become debilitating,
and then there are others where it can be empowering.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
You know, where you use that that's fuel to just what.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
You're saying too. In terms of that is the brain
is basically a muscle. So once you start feeding it
all of this thing. For instance, if you if you
smile and you don't feel like it, your brain thinks
you're happier. It goes right into your brain, your activity,
your connections, all of it. It's just an act, a
physical act, a choice that I choose to smile. Interesting
(21:25):
how it helps the brain to be able to actually
feel happier. It's a signal. So the same thing is
when you repeat over and over again, I'm really excited
to do this. And I have something to share with
that on that because being self aware as we are,
you try to be. I noticed that there's, you know,
going through some things, stuff that we deal all every day.
(21:46):
It's always stuff. It's a leak here, you know, there's
all thing here, there's a bill there, there's a I
don't know there. And then with my foundation, it's always something.
And I ended up looking at this because you know,
you talk to yourself, you go, I don't know. I
made myself aware of that, said, what do you mean
you don't know? You do know? And every time I
(22:07):
would say, I would say it to myself, I don't know,
even out loud, I would laugh and I would say, no,
I do know. I do know. Why am I doing this?
And I've stopped saying it because I do know. So
you're already signaling your negative thought, which is, I don't
know what's going to happen. I'm feeling anxious about it.
I mean, what am I going to do? Am I
(22:28):
going to solve this problem? I don't know? I don't know.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Well, even if you look at your face as you're
talking like that, like if you think about the experience
of waking up in the morning, if your first thought
is how am I going to get through the day,
your face changes, your energy changes. If your first thought is,
I'm going to make today a good day, even though
there's a lot, I gotta make today a good day.
(22:51):
Like that's just a simple example.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And it's also an intention, isn't correct?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yes, So the second piece of advice though on this,
because I have a hunch that what started to happen
for you is similar to what I think happened with
our son, where the link between the physical sensation of
this so the brain thought, I'm in big trouble now,
and the only way to solve it is to get
(23:18):
rid of this by throwing up. I think that got
so well worn that it became automatic and one of
the things. And that brings me to this advice from
coach Steve Magnus, which is he had a high performing
athlete that he was coaching who would always get sick
before a race and it was really really bothering her,
(23:39):
very distracting. She could not hit the mark in terms
of her ability to get better and to make nationals.
And so we came up with a strategy where he'd
be like, all right, we got an hour before the race,
what time are you going to throw up? And she'd
be like, what do you maan? No, name the time
you're going to throw up, And it removed the urge
(24:00):
to throw up. Interesting because by naming the time, she
all of a sudden felt in control of when it
would happen and then suddenly didn't need to do it.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I could get the act remind though you know when
the kids had hiccups and stuff, we used to we
used to say, Okay, now hit up again, let's go right, okay,
go ahead, hiccup, hickup on it, come on, hiccup. And
you know what, they couldn't hit up because the brain
made them hic up.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I'm gonna try that. I've only ever used a scoop
of peanut butter like.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
That, But I think I could get the actor wrong.
But I think it was Peter Fonda who threw up
before every play performance.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
For every performance. There are actors who will throw up.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
And there's actors, by the way, who use beta blockers, right,
which is going to block all of that. You don't
have to feel it anymore because it's a drug that
has literally stopped from the mouth, getting dry, from the stomach,
going from all of it.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
But if you simply understand the chemistry of it, you
now have the ability to find the switches and the
drivers your body to start to understand and not be
afraid of it.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Even with what you write, the let me stuff and
even what we're talking about right now, there's so much
deeper psychology that has been imprinted in ingrained in us
through traumas and all that. So it's so much easier
said than done there because I've been through that, been
through therapy for twenty five years, wich of the Hoffmann process,
(25:33):
Like i am.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Like always yeah, no, but I am, but I'm not.
I mean, I'm all all. I love it, you know.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
And now through my through reading even just fiction, you know,
I learned so much about myself through different characters.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I'm always trying to be better.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
You know, you're curious, right, I'm curious.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
And sometimes it's like there's those moments where you can
just let it, let it all go, and you feel
at peace. But there's also so a lot of muck
and tar to have to wade through to be able
to sort of put a lot of these practices into
true practice and have and rebnefit from it, because there's
a lot to wade.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Through that is true. And here's a simple truth. If
I were to ask you, can you list five ways
you could make your life worse?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, and my list would be pretty dark, Like I
can go like, really, let's just destroy everything.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
If that's true, then you can also list five things
that would make your life better.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
And while it is true that trauma does get ingrained
as patterns and things that your body remembers and repeats.
It's also true that it can be healed, sure. And
what I have found personally is that the thing that
stands in our way oftentimes is that it's not that
(26:53):
we don't know what we could be doing, it's that
we wait until we feel like doing it. And the
fact is, when you want your life to get better,
it begins with you deciding that how your life feels,
how it's going right now just no longer works for you.
Maybe it did work for you a decade ago to
(27:14):
throw up before everything. You can make a decision to
say to yourself, this just no longer works for my
life to work to feel like this, and that decision
is what begins.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
The change, right, It begins the journey correct.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
But once you can identify that I just don't want
my life to feel like this, there's thousands of things
you can do and it's going to be And so
I don't believe that you have to stay stuck and
wading through the muck for the rest of your life.
I do not believe that. I don't believe that if
something took ten years in terms of how long you
(27:50):
were experiencing something that you need ten years to actually
heal yourself.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
You do have to put the work in.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yes, that's where grit and how much grit people do
have to be able to face, like you say, our
failures are where we learn well you and to know
and adopt a philosophy that this is this is real,
this is not We know this. We know because we
understand how sorry to go back into my world, but
(28:20):
feed the part. So when we go into understanding that
we are in control of our own brain, our brain
does not control thos. We have to have the intention
and the grit and the awareness that it's okay to fail.
But ultimately it's the only way we learn yes and this,
this is what you have done is opened up a
lot of windows in people's brains, a lot of areas
(28:43):
where they don't talk about a lot of things where
they have no roadmap to be able to say, I'm
going to do it, follow this stepping stone, you know,
you know the five four three two one, I'm going
to do it this way. There's tools, So you're really
giving tools to people who don't have them or that
would like to get better, and you're inspiring them to
(29:06):
know that there is a possibility of cure. They're not sick.
You're just thinking in the wrong way. Let's think differently.
Let's put ourselves in a position of positive negatives. Like
you said, we can think of a million negatives. But
when you look at optimism and pessimism, right, and you
sort of look at these two things, so you can
(29:27):
look something simple like a rainy day, what's bad about it?
What's negative? What's pessimistic? Exactly? So you know we have
the capacity. If we can look at a rainy day
and think of what's good and what's not good about it,
we could do the same thing.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
With us, both of you a question, Yes, and I don't.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I don't know this is true. But do you think primarily.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Our default is fear because this is how we survive.
You know, when we default to a feeling, is it
optimistic or is it more fear based? Brain is negative
bio it it feels like it's negative bias, right, it
feels like and it's.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
There, and it's there, it's it's primal, it's a reptilian,
but it's definitely there to protect us. So there's all
these amazing feelings that we think you're helping so many,
so many, so many people how to enjoy the possibilities
of a happier life, a calmer life, and some some
(30:31):
ways to make people actually deal better. Like you said,
let them, you know, and let me and let me.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
In your book, I read the story of the prom story,
which is just intensely relatable as well myself, my wife
and I I feel like I live let me like,
I feel like that's kind of who I am, because
on my headstone will be we'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I'm just like, eh, I'll figure it out.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
And we have teenagers now, and you know, with the
corsage and the thing, what you can do in the rain.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And I mean this.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
I was literally reading my wife and then I forget the.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I forget exactly, I forget the exact villain. But when your.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Husband were like, what you know, there's only four tables
in this restaurant, I forget the exact line of your
husband's like, okay, and that's Buddhists.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
That's why nothing bothers you. Really, my husband is Buddhists,
and so you know. I And in case you don't
know what the let them theory is, it's very very simple.
It is the fastest way to feel less stressed, to
be more in control, to have more peace in your
life is to stop trying to control what other people think, say, do, believe,
(31:45):
and let them be and then take your power back
and focus on yourself. I mean, this is Victor Frankel's
man search for meaning. But this is a tool that
I've leveraged all this ancient wisdom and these therapeutic practices
and spiritual philosophies into a tool that's just four words.
(32:08):
To your point though about the healing. I do believe
that if you didn't talk yourself into the trauma, you
can't talk yourself out of it. And I'll give you
an example. So when I was younger like you, I
was in a car accident where the car that I
was enrolled and my mom was driving, and we were
(32:29):
up in northern Michigan and we were near Kalkaska, and
the radio announcer came on and said something about the
effect of black ice and be careful out there, and
all of a sudden, a guy went to pass us,
and then a semi truck was coming and he cut
in front of us, and my mom went off the
side of the road. The car rolled and we ended
(32:50):
up with her up and me down, and thankfully we
had our seat belts on, but the dog went from
the front to the back. We were okay. And the
thing that's interesting about that experience is that my mom
and I were both in the car. It certainly was
a traumatic experience in terms of the trauma response of
(33:10):
all five senses coming online and capturing everything that happens,
because in a traumatic experience it can go into slow motion.
But what's interesting is that to this day, if my
mom hears the words black ice, she feels like she's
back in the car. If I hear the words black ice,
(33:31):
I feel nothing. But if I walk to my mailbox
on a snowy day and it's that kind of mail
box kind of snow, it's like I am back in
that car. I feel like I'm sitting in the dryer
as things are flying around me, And there is no
(33:51):
amount of talking that will get rid of the connection
between that sound and the association with that memory. However,
there are lots of things you can do, whether it's
EMDR or it's some of the new psychedelic guided modalities
that get into your body with the amygdala suspended, and
(34:15):
allow you to revisit those things in a calm state,
which allows your brain to file those memories in long
term storage. And so I believe what's very exciting is
that just because you endured something for a very long
period of time doesn't mean it has to take you
that long to heal it. And to your point, Goldie,
it is so true that your brain is extraordinary in
(34:40):
that it's not a storage unit. It's a processor that
you can encode and anytime that you decide, you know what.
I'm tired of beating myself up. I'm tired of feeling
like the victim. I'm tired of telling myself that success
happens for other people, but it never happens for somebody
like me. I want to change the settings in my
mind and I want to learn how to encode my
(35:03):
mind with the kind of thoughts that help me take
the steps that help me believe, because I actually think
the biggest thing that people struggle with it's not a
lack of information. Because if you're stuck and you don't
like your life, go to AI, go to Microsoft Copilot
and type in what's wrong and ask it for ten suggestions.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
It'll work.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
The problem's going to be that if you're at a
point in your life, and I have certainly been there
where you are so discouraged and you don't have hope,
you will tell yourself it doesn't matter, and you won't
take the steps to either change the way you think,
or change the way you start your day, or change
(35:47):
the things you eat, or change the people that you
hang out with that actually do change everything at times.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Is that they say, well, that's the way I am.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yes, no it's not.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It's the way you think you are, but it's not
the way you are. And there is definitely fluidity of
understanding that you don't have to stay with who you
perceive yourself to be.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
So it's really it's a it's a beautiful message.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Well, once again, we have to make a part two
because this is just too good. This is just it's
too fascinating. There's too much to talk about. So we
are we're doing a part two of mel It's it's
an impossibility not to
Hosts And Creators
Oliver Hudson
Kate Hudson
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