Episode: 8
Why Am I So Triggered? 3 Steps to Control Your Emotions & Rewire Your Response to Stress
with Dr. Becky Kennedy, PhD
Wouldn’t you love to get out of the cycle of feeling emotionally triggered?
The good news: you can rewire your response to stressful and annoying situations.
Dr. Becky Kennedy is a child psychologist and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Good Inside.
Dr. Becky teaches you life-changing strategies to break free from emotional cycles and build more happiness, presence, control, and closer relationships into your life.
Listen on:
No matter what's going on in your life, there is good inside of you.
Dr. Becky Kennedy, PhD
Featured Clips
Transcript
Mel Robbins (01:03):
None other than Dr. Becky Kennedy. Dr. Becky Kennedy is the brand new number. One New York Times bestselling author of Good Inside. She says, no matter what's going on in your life, there is good inside of you. And today we are going to give you the tools and the simple scripts to help you access it.
(01:22):
Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist with a PhD from Columbia. She's blowing up online. She was deemed the millennial Parenting Whisper by Time Magazine. And here's the thing, this is not a conversation about parenting. This is a conversation for everybody because even if you're not a parent right now, you are once a child and you're about to learn how things that you don't even remember are impacting you as an adult and keeping you stuck and unhappy. Well, today on the Mel Robbins podcast, we're going to fix that with tools and advice that you need to create a better life. Let's get into it. Okay, Dr. Becky, here we are. Here we are. Congratulations. Thank you.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (02:02):
Wow. How are you feeling? I feel really energized. I really do. I love these ideas. I love hearing people's stories and on the book tour I've gotten to talk about ideas and hear people's stories. So it's been pretty fantastic.
Mel Robbins (02:14):
Amazing. So I devour your content online, and I know that you're a parenting expert, but every single post I get something as an adult. And there are two things that I get from every post that you have. One is that I see reasons why I feel the way that I feel as an adult because you're talking about experiences that children have. And then I also go, oh my God, I'm clearly fucking up my children right now and it's too late because they're 23, 22, and 17.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (02:50):
Well, I want to jump in on that second point. So my biggest hope is that people, yes, see good inside kind of, yeah, as a initiation into a mode of parenting that is as much about self-development as it is about child development. And my second hope is that they see it as empowering, not anxiety inducing like I messed up my kids. So we are going to fix number two and get you back to the empowering place.
Mel Robbins (03:15):
Fantastic. So I want to go to a particular part of your number one New York Times bestselling book. Good. Inside page one, you talk about how when you were in your clinical psychology PhD program at Columbia, you were doing play therapy with kids, but you were also counseling adult clients. And I read this sentence where you wrote, I became fascinated by an undeniable connection with the adults. It was so clear where in childhood things went awry where a child's needs weren't met or behaviors were a cry for help that was never answered. And what I want to focus on with you today is how we can learn more about ourselves now that we're adults based on what you have come to understand as a clinical psychologist that is giving parenting advice to millions and millions of people around the world.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (04:17):
Well, thank you for that. And yeah, it was this really interesting set of years and it continued after my PhD program in my practice where I'd see kids and then I'd see adults and in the adults, the work really I think is rewiring work. So everyone came to my practice saying different things. They struggled with anxiety or they were reactive or they felt bad about themselves. They had imposter syndrome, they were depressed, whatever. The problem was different. But I actually think everyone's core struggle was the same.
Mel Robbins (04:47):
What is it?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (04:48):
Which is that I learned to adapt in my early years so I could thrive as much as possible in my earliest environment. And I created wiring that allowed me to do that. And that was incredibly crafty and important. And yet the things that I wired early that were adaptive back then are now the things that are holding me back. But it's really hard to shift patterns that were put in place to protect me. So I'm stuck and can you help? Now, no one said that, but I think that's actually what everyone's story said.
Mel Robbins (05:20):
Now, when you say early
Dr. Becky Kennedy (05:22):
Childhood
Mel Robbins (05:23):
Years,
Dr. Becky Kennedy (05:24):
Yes,
Mel Robbins (05:25):
What age are you talking about?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (05:27):
And this is where as parents or non-parents listening, we can all take a deep breath and just remember a truth that I think is a really important double truth.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (05:36):
The body brain wires early and it is never too late to rewire. So they're equally true.
Mel Robbins (05:41):
Okay, so hold on everybody. I want to stop and say something really important. This conversation is required listening whether you have children or not, because this is not a parenting conversation. If you're listening to this, you have been a child and you were raised by somebody else who was once a child. And what Dr. Becky is going to reveal today and is going to also give you tools that are going to empower you on this repair and this rewiring is first we're going to talk about how your experience as a child, maybe even before you have actual memories that relate to this, that your experience as a child has shaped who you are as an adult and in areas of your life where you feel out of control or you feel stuck, you are likely stuck in some wiring from your childhood. Is that right?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (06:39):
A hundred percent. So if we jump into the specifics there, so I'd ask everyone first to consider something that is both so obvious, but I always find it very powerful. Your body today is the exact same body you were born with.
Mel Robbins (06:51):
Wait, what?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (06:52):
Like your body. My body has lived all of my experiences from the time I was a baby, we never get a new body. And so my experiences in my first, can I ask a question about that though first? Yeah,
Mel Robbins (07:04):
Don't you, I like, I've heard all this stuff like your cells regenerate every seven years, and I've grown obviously from a blob that laid around when I was an infant to now a five foot eight 54-year-old adult. So what do you mean when you say your body right now is the same body that you have when you were born?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (07:26):
I think yes, a lot of things have changed. Our house, our house, we live in it. And so the things that happened when we were three months, when we were nine months when we were three things that you just said, Mel, it's true. We don't remember when. We use a very limited definition of memory. And I always find this interesting, we have a very limited understanding colloquially of memory that it's the things that I can tell someone happened to me, but the only things we can ever tell someone happened to me are the things that other people help me form a coherent story about. And so that's actually a pretty limited amount of memory, given that the hardest things in our childhood were probably the things we were left alone with and nobody helped us understand
Mel Robbins (08:08):
And we didn't even understand
Dr. Becky Kennedy (08:09):
Exactly. We didn't understand because we need adults when we're young to make meaning out of all of our confusing experiences that our body registers.
Mel Robbins (08:19):
Can I give you a specific example that you might be able to help us unpack as context for what you're talking about? So just last night I was at LAX and we were going to fly to New York City. And so we are sitting in the Delta Club lounge, whatever, if you have an American Express card, they're not sponsoring the show right now, but that's why I was in there and I went up to the concierge lady to ask about the flight status and a woman came running up and she worked at the Delta Club and she was shaking and she said, there is somebody screaming at a baby in the bathroom. She's screaming at the baby and the baby is so little. And I immediately tensed up and the woman at the desk started to dismiss her. Well, is the baby okay? I don't know, but you shouldn't talk to a baby like that.
(09:16):
Why do you scream at a baby? The woman was in such distress over what she had heard from the tone of the mom screaming to the Why would you be screaming at a nine month old so loud? It's coming through a bathroom door. And then she turned and the mom kind of rushed back out to where her partner was and handed her partner, handed the baby to the partner, and was all flustered. And can you in that moment explain what was probably getting absorbed by the baby, by the baby's mother, by the woman who heard it? By me hearing it? That one moment was so triggering for me and clearly that other woman. But explain all of that as it relates to memory and as it relates to experience and as it relates to how we get re-triggered.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (10:12):
Yes. Okay. So I should first say the body doesn't only wire develop circuitry from one experience, but let's just say for the sake of this example that this baby and mother, this was one of many times when the baby is distressed, the mother struggles to tolerate that distress and ends up adding their own distress and dysregulation rather than a soothing element. So I'm just going to make that assumption just for the sake of this discussion. So here's what's happening in a baby's body, their emotional world inside is on fire. Something is very upsetting. And with a nine month old, you don't know what, it's maybe their diapers dirty, maybe they're hungry, maybe they have some tag. Maybe they're noticing unfamiliar surroundings. They don't know how to express it except for in this total cry and dysregulation. So the baby's body registers. I am very overwhelmed and upset right now. I always think of a marble run that's like the first part of the marble run, and then...
Dr. Becky Kennedy (11:12):
How a baby's body ends up getting wired. What happens next is a baby will encode how their caregivers responded to them in that moment. So first comes distress. So their body learns, okay, I get distressed. As we all know, guess what? We all get distressed. That just happens after distress comes more distress and anger and a threat to attachment and fear. So now a baby wires fear and additional dysregulation next to their dysregulation. And again, let's say this was part of a larger pattern. And babies, yes, they pick up on kind of the message. My parent is as scared of my overwhelmed state as I am. When I get overwhelmed, I push people away. When I get overwhelmed, I overwhelm other people. When I get overwhelmed, my closest relationships actually become threatened.
(12:15):
So if we fast forward, and again, this is not one time many times, here's what doesn't happen. A 30-year-old doesn't say I'm upset. And wow, I did get yelled at a couple times when I was a baby in the Delta lounge, but that was then and this is now. And I have a feeling my partner will respond differently. So I'm just going to go to them and say I'm upset. No, because again, that was never even explained to them. There's no coherence. It's just a body's memory of when I get upset, I actually develop a warning sign. Oh, you better put that away. Oh, you're going to threaten other people's attachment. This is going to make it worse. It's going to be a tornado, it's going to be an abyss. And then maybe even have a partner who's like, you seem like you're having an upsetting day. And they're like, no, no, no, nope, nope. All good, all good. And then probably as we know, I acted out in some other way. I pull away or I drink alcohol or I do different things because what I've learned is I can't connect to other people with my distress. I don't expect the people who are close to me to help me get soothing. So I better figure out what I can do now to shut down this experience to preserve feeling safe in the world.
Mel Robbins (13:23):
Wow. I mean there's so much to unpack here because you don't even remember experiences probably five and under, right?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (13:34):
Well, and I think this is one of the most empowering things to think about. We don't remember with our words and our stories, but we remember with our body. So I always think about this couple, they saw me a while ago in my private practice and it was the dad who actually sought this parent coaching work. And he said, whenever my kid has a tantrum, I know the things. I know what's normal. I know they have the feelings, they don't have the skills. I have to teach them the skills. It's not the feelings that are the problem, it's the lack of skills. I know the whole thing, but when my kid has a tantrum, that knowledge is just out the door and I yell, I say awful things. I say things I promise myself I would never say as a parent. And so one of the things I like to do when I'm working with parents is we can't just say, okay, try this because you can only try a strategy if your body is in a grounded place to be able to access that strategy.
Mel Robbins (14:23):
Is that why it's easy to talk about tools and therapy, but when you get into the situation where your kids are driving you crazy, you start screaming and you forget the strategies.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (14:31):
Yeah, it's why so many parenting approaches I think kind of set parents up to feel bad because they're like, try this, try this. That's great. And I always think if we learn those strategies, they kind of live behind a door. But if we aren't doing the work on ourselves to be able to be in the place to open that door, then they're just locked behind the door because we're triggered. So this dad, I remember saying to him, tell me a little bit how your parents responded to your tantrums and your big emotions as a kid. And he's like, I have no idea. I have no memory of that. And I found this interesting because what I said to him, I go, I know how your parents responded. It's interesting you say you have no memory, your mind doesn't remember, your body is acting out that memory every time your kid has a tantrum, your body the way it reacts to so harshly shut down my kid's tantrum. He's like, what's wrong with you? You're crazy. You're making a big deal out of nothing. You're being ridiculous. Why don't you act like your sister? He'd say all these things and he's like, I don't know how people responded to my big
Mel Robbins (15:31):
Emotions, Dr. Becky. I was just sitting here thinking, I don't know how they responded.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (15:37):
Our triggers are stories from our past.
Mel Robbins (15:40):
Everybody. Did you hear that?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (15:41):
I'm going to say it again. Our triggers, our stories from our past acting themselves out in our present. And this is why when people say, what about all the types of therapy that don't really care about the past? Or why do we have to talk about our past? I'm a pure pragmatist at heart. We have to talk about the past to understand it so it doesn't take over the driver's seat in our present life that stinks when your past lives itself out. Can I ask another question?
Mel Robbins (16:07):
Because I have heard a bazillion times and I talk about it. I've studied it about how the body keeps the score. The body remembers you feel things before your thoughts can explain them, but the way that you just talked about memory, something clicked and the fact that my lived experience is also that I don't remember, and I also have this hyper drive Dr. Becky to go, oh, it was great. I don't remember anybody yelling at me. I don't remember anything like that at all. And yet the thing that I hate about myself as a parent is that when I get frustrated, I vomit on my kids. I just snap and their moments of high stress cause me to be like right at them. And then I quickly apologize. I quickly am like, I'm sorry, it's not an excuse that I'm stressed out right now, but is it normal to not remember what your parents did when you were emotional?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (17:19):
A hundred percent. So it's normal to not remember in this one version of memory that we all kind of accept as the whole truth. So going back to our body, so a kid gets yelled at, they're three, they get yelled at. We all know, by the way, I yell at my kids too and I'm going to yell at my kids later today. We all do it right. I'm stressed. It's not them. We don't respond to our kids. We respond to the circuit in our own body that gets activated when we witness in our kids,
Mel Robbins (17:50):
Everybody. I want you to hear that you're not responding to your kids or your dog or your colleagues or your spouse. You're responding to something in your body that gets activated in that situation.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (18:05):
Exactly. So my kids, let's say with this dad, he's like, this kid is having a tantrum. And an example was like a classic 4-year-old tantrum. I cut the grilled cheese in half instead of leaving it home or I cut it in half his triangles instead of How dare you, how dare you, you horrible parent. And by the way, for the kid, that's also what trigger moment for them. They obviously were filled up with frustration and that was just the spillover point. But I see this thing in my kid, then my body does this inside. What do I know about overwhelming kind of extreme displays of emotion and my body kind of scams its circuits. And if I've learned in my own past, oh no, no, no, no, no, that is so dangerous. That would get you sent to your room, which is fear of abandonment.
(18:52):
That would get you called a spoiled brat that would get you those. And I know this from doing it as a parent, that would get you those dart eyes that just say everything we need to say as a parent. Mine's a tone shift. They're like, you are a horrible person. Which kids are like, oh no, this is literally dangerous. Kids need us to survive. They need us to get food, shelter, and water. So they pick up on what feelings and parts of them are allowed and what feelings and parts of them are threatening and they adjust accordingly. So if I had to learn in my childhood, oh yeah, those big displays of emotion, even if I don't remember with my language, that would never have been allowed. Then my body scans itself when I have a tantrum that I'm witnessing for my kid. And then here's actually the most, I really think the most compassionate and game changing part. It's not okay that I yell at my kid. Definitely not. And yet my body is essentially saying, oh, I'm trying to help my kid. I'm like, no, shut that down. That is so dangerous. Now I'm still living in 1975 when it was dangerous for me, but my body is actually trying to help the Situation. So let me see if I can understand that.
Mel Robbins (20:01):
If you are an adult now and your child is upset that you did not cut it, the sandwich into fours in triangles, which I completely understand, we were sort of the sticks with no crust at our house, how dare you do anything else and your child starts to get overwhelmed and stress, it then triggers this stored experience for you. So you are still in your 1976 body. Are you now just repeating what you saw the adults do
Dr. Becky Kennedy (20:37):
In a way? So I'm extremely inspired by internal family systems and Dick Schwartz way of understanding the mind and our body. And what he really explained, so is when we have an experience as a kid and many, not one where we essentially learn this part of me, the part that gets overwhelmed and doesn't yet have the skills to manage those overwhelmed feelings. So they just explode out
(21:00):
As a volcano. If that part is really what I would say is non conducive with attachment, I don't get, it's not like I need my parent to say tantrum away, but I don't get presence. I don't get compassion. I just get yelled at, I need to develop. Okay and stay with me here a different part of myself that shuts down that part. So I literally develop a different part. It's like, Becky, you ungrateful kid, you are too much. Stop doing this. And that's actually called an IFS language, A protector part. It sounds mean, but I think we all understand it's function early on is to protect me because at least if I do that to myself and almost shame myself, at least then I don't get the wrath of my parent or I don't get sent to my room, I don't get hit or I don't get this awful punishment.
Mel Robbins (21:46):
And
Dr. Becky Kennedy (21:46):
So it's helping me adapt. And so it's helping me shut down
Mel Robbins (21:50):
A part of you,
Dr. Becky Kennedy (21:51):
A part me. Now fast forward to 2022, what a trigger really is, and by the way, not only with our kids, with a partner, with anyone at work is I think we see a part of someone that we had to learn to shut down harshly
Mel Robbins (22:07):
In
Dr. Becky Kennedy (22:08):
Ourself and then that protector part in us, it really does. It comes to the CEOC of the board table. It's like I got this guys, I got this. And then our kid or our coworker, they kind of become like a pawn in our game. We act out on them what we had to learn to act on ourselves. And the most empowering shift is we often when things trigger us, we look to shut down someone else and kind of make them more like us. I would never have this explosive emotion or I would never with a wine. Why is whining so triggering? To me it just represents helplessness. And I grew up in a pull up your bootstraps family and I would never be a puddle
Mel Robbins (22:49):
Of big girl panties is my family. Yeah,
Dr. Becky Kennedy (22:51):
Exactly. Then if you really want to work on your triggers, the question we have to ask ourselves, not how can I make this person like me, but what am I seeing in someone else that I need to be inspired by that I need to actually grow that part in myself.
Mel Robbins (23:09):
So let's walk through some triggers. So let's take you were talking about whining, which is a cry for help. So what is the exercise we go through for ourselves as adults...
Mel Robbins (23:26):
To let these moments that are triggering us become a moment to repair things or rewire things or what word would you use?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (23:35):
Great. Both of those, right? So because the truth is with our trigger moments, we often think, yeah, I have to repair with my kid. I don't like that I yelled at them. But what you're on too, me, which is so true, is first we have to repair ourselves. We have to do both. So probably my most popular workshop I do shockingly is called My Triggers workshop. So it's 75 minutes with a whole step-by-step process, but I can get into some of it here. So the first step is in a calm moment kind of asking ourselves a version of what is my most generous interpretation of this trigger event in someone else? We always come up with the least generous interpretation with the trigger. My kid's pathetic. My kid's so helpless, my kid's so annoying with whining, right? It's easy to come up
Mel Robbins (24:16):
With it. What about anxiety? Because that's a big trigger for me. My daughter's, my son, not so much anymore, but one of our daughters in particular is little Mel and there is intense coming at me. I am like 15 texts in a row when she's nervous about something and then the second I answer the question, wow, well you're not right and then hang up. And that is deeply triggering
Dr. Becky Kennedy (24:44):
To you.
Mel Robbins (24:44):
Yes.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (24:45):
So is it the tech that are triggering? Is it the you're not helping me, that's triggering, which is the worst part or the whole arc? The whole
Mel Robbins (24:53):
Arc of that is so it's just like this. I feel like a punching bag
Dr. Becky Kennedy (24:59):
Almost. Yeah. So I guess the question I would ask myself there is like, okay, so what's my most generous interpretation of what my daughter's doing? Just so I can start to see my kid as a teammate so we can be against this pattern together that doesn't work for either of us. Instead of me looking at my child, they are the enemy and they are the problem. So I think for example, you might say to soften it, you know what just got me there
Mel Robbins (25:24):
Is the word enemy. I feel like there was an experience as a kid that if I did something that upset my mom, I was the enemy.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (25:41):
Yes, yes. And I think that's for so many of our trigger moments actually, when you ask yourself what's the most generous interpretation of someone's behavior, I think this is the big framework shift that I think is the most important in any relationship where there's conflict is we go from sitting across from someone and looking at them. They're the problem to sitting on the same side as the table as someone and looking together at the problem.
(26:08):
So I always think about that or I try to, am I looking at my kid, they're the problem or can I reframe what's happening? So I feel like it's me and my kid against a problem. So can we be together against helpless whining versus am I looking at my kid like a helpless annoying kid who's just bothering me? Can I look at my kid? Wow, something important is happening with anxiety and it's tricky to figure out. It's tricky for us to figure out something that's going to be helpful versus does my kid come and vomit her anxiety and then reject me? And that's just annoying. I promise. As long as we're in that second mindset, nothing's be useful just because we don't like our kid when we think about them that way.
Mel Robbins (26:46):
So true. Well, I love the reframe of bring them to your side of the table. What do you do if you're a kid that grew up with somebody who is wildly controlling what you wore, how you dress, go hug your uncle, know you're doing sports. What would I say to that kid if you're now the adult?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (27:06):
Who was that kid?
Mel Robbins (27:07):
Yes. Because what I want to focus on are kind of the top experiences that you experience as a child. So one would be overly sensitive, like I was overly worried, overly needy, I was just a super sensitive kid. And when you're a super sensitive kid that feels separate and unsafe emotionally and you don't get those needs met, it develops into a certain type of adult. When you are a kid that is controlled by a parent, you develop into certain types of patterns as adult when you have a parent that is emotionally abusive, either weeks of the silent treatment or struggling with their own mental illness or they're not there for long periods of time that develop certain coping mechanisms as a kid. And what I love about what you're saying is so many of us have experiences inside our emotional life of being separate.
(28:17):
And what I would love to hear you help us with is as you're starting to realize, as we listen to you and dig into your work, Dr. Becky, that this is very, very normal and it's also a huge opportunity for you to take control of your adult life and your adult experience, which then completely changes how you parent and how you love another adult and how you show up at work. I'm sitting here thinking one of the biggest things that a lot of women write into me about in the work landscape is just feeling terrified about speaking up and that's directly tied to you being shut down as a kid.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (28:56):
I mean a hundred percent. Now this is my favorite topic to talk about is especially for women, our relationship with desire, all tantrums are,
Dr. Becky Kennedy (29:03):
And meltdowns are explosions of desire. That's what they are. You want something badly and your parents and something gets in the way of having it. I wanted my grilled cheese cut in a way. And what we so often do as a parent is we shut it down. We're like, you're being ridiculous, but what a kid learns is my desire is unsafe, my desire, and I actually think about this a lot with I have two boys and one daughter. I think about all of them, but I think about it a lot with my daughter. How can I help her learn regulation skills while preserving access to desire? And I think that yeah, desire in terms of asking for a raise desire in terms of sex desire, in terms of am I allowed to want things for myself? That's what I think all of us adults are trying to reclaim, right? Am I allowed to want things even when it makes someone else upset is another. And most of us, me too early on, learned to quote be a good girl, which just means I have learned that I had to, for my survival to be adaptive, pay more attention to what others wanted of me than what I might want for myself. So what's the process of reclaiming that?
Mel Robbins (30:10):
Can I ask one more question before we go into reclaiming? This is a huge area, huge.
Mel Robbins (30:15):
We're now also stepping into people pleasing and stepping into perfectionism, all of it and stepping into overthinking and questioning yourself and the inability to take risks. And this is particularly true for women and this fear of being seen. And I see exactly what you're saying, that it is tied to a deep seated belief that you don't deserve to be seen or that the stuff that you want doesn't matter.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (30:47):
Well, because you learned early on that whenever you were most in contact with your want, with your desires, it endangered your relationships.
Mel Robbins (30:59):
Can you give us just a couple examples that really bring it home for people that are like, wait, what are you doing?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (31:05):
So here's a great example. I also think we do this black and white thing. We're like, oh, so I just let my kid have the tantrum. We give ourselves buckets. So let's say you're in the toy store, it's your kid. I think it's a perfect example. And you're like, we're just going to in the store to get a birthday present for your cousin, something like that. And you're like, okay, this is going to go well. And then of course it doesn't go well, your kid is a meltdown because they want the Lego set and you don't want to get it for them. It wasn't your plan. So when we say to our kid, what is wrong with you? I told you we're here for your cousin. Can you ever focus on someone else? My kid doesn't learn anything except wanting things for myself is bad and wrong, period. Now the opposite isn't good either. Oh, okay. I mean I guess we'll get you that Lego set and that's okay. I mean if you want to get the Lego set for your kid, obviously get the Lego set, but if your plan wasn't to get it and you didn't want to get it, actually that's another tricky message for your kid. A kid learns my wants and needs are so overpowering to me, but wow, they just made my sturdy leader become not so sturdy and changed their mind. That's actually also dangerous. Here's where the in-between is.
(32:11):
It's so hard to be in a toy store and see all these fun things and not get anything. Of course you want that Lego, it's normal to want things. It's actually awesome that you know what you want. You know, want this Lego, here's the thing, I could take a picture of it. There will be a time, whether it's Christmas or Hanukkah, your birthday that something's coming up. We're not going to get it today, sweetie. It's just not one of those days where we're going to buy you an extra thing. I know that's so hard. And so what my kid there is my parent sees the want under the meltdown. I didn't become a bad kid. I became a kid who's a good kid who wants something for myself. And that's just a hard thing to want something and not have it. I'm preserving access to my desire while I still have a very boundaried sturdy leader.
Mel Robbins (33:01):
How do you as an adult reclaim that access to desire and repair this?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (33:11):
I think starting, I think for anything we're trying to shift's actually hugely helpful to our circuits, to our body, to just start with the things that I struggle with today. They were all adaptations. It's actually why I don't like diagnosis as a psychologist. It's why I don't love the word symptoms. I think it's kind of this cruel thing we do to people that we're like, yeah, wow, you were really crafty as a kid and learn to adapt and now we're going to so back a label that is pretty mean on you. What's wrong with you? And I do feel like there's something in our body that's like, Hey, can you recognize everything I did for you? Okay, maybe I don't work for you anymore, but I need some credit, right? It's like anything else in life you have to say to an employee at your table, that's a great idea. We're going to hold that for next quarter. And if you only say to them, no, no, no, they just get louder and louder. They want to be seen too. They don't necessarily,
Mel Robbins (34:04):
Or they shut down
Dr. Becky Kennedy (34:05):
Or they shut down and it comes out in another way.
(34:08):
So I think actually there's something to saying, there's not something, there's so much to saying. I have a phrase I always use for myself. Thank you for your years of service. I think when I'm struggling with something. So if someone's now like, yeah, I have this time and I'm trying to do stuff for myself and figure out what I want, and all that happens is I have a panic attack. It's so hard to know what I want just to put your hand on your heart and even say to that feeling, this must have been adaptive early on to actually not know what I want. And it's frustrating for me now and still I appreciate the way that you helped keep me safe for probably 18 years. That was really meaningful. And then I could continue. I say, I'm going to try little experiments here and there.
(34:57):
You're going to resist. You're going to tell me I'm being selfish. You're going to tell me this is stupid. You're going to tell me I'm not good at things. That's okay. That's your role. But now that I know that I'm going to show you over time that we're safer now to try different things. And if someone's listening being like, do you actually mean I should say that to myself? I literally mean you should actually put your hand on your heart and say those words inside your head or actually just say them out loud and if you start tearing, that would be completely normal. Or if you're tearing now completely normal. And I often think these tears we have, they're like tears of relief from an inner child in us that's been waiting to hear a certain message. We have to honor the things that hold us back in the way that they used to help us before Those things are willing to a little bit release themselves.
Mel Robbins (35:52):
How do you start to figure this out? Do you start with the triggers, wherever you feel that alarm or that sort of discomfort in your body?
Dr. Becky Kennedy (35:59):
Yeah, I think that's a great place to start, especially if you have a visceral reaction.
Mel Robbins (36:03):
Because
Dr. Becky Kennedy (36:03):
Often what we do after we have a trigger is we blame ourselves. I'm a horrible person. I messed up my kids forever. I'm an awful person. I'm a monster. So what we do is we actually repeat the pattern that got us there. We add aloneness and self alienation and self blame, and that's actually the experience of shame. Shame used to be an adaptive emotion when we were kids. Shame stops us in our tracks from being in a part of ourselves that would've been met with distance.
(36:33):
So it's trying to help us out, but shame really does. It's a freeze state. So every time now we add on shame and blame, we add a frozenness, and most people I know who want to change, they're like, yeah, change isn't conducive with freeze. It's conducive with movement. You have to. So it's interesting people say, especially after you yell at your kids or something like, oh, but I feel like if I treat myself with compassion or something, I'm letting myself off the hook. If you want to let yourself off the hook for change, shame and blame yourself because that will make it impossible to change. Impossible.
Mel Robbins (37:06):
Well, it's interesting what you're saying about the fact that when you pile on
Dr. Becky Kennedy (37:09):
After
Mel Robbins (37:10):
You've been triggered and you make yourself wrong for having this stored, memorized adaptive reaction, whether it's to withdraw or to yell or to blame or whatever, that when you said the piece about you're alone, I think this also contributes to why so many of us feel lonely and feel separate The older we get that we have spent so long and it sounds like almost from childhood adapting to situations that we didn't quite understand and then we continue to do it and continue to do it and continue to do it. And so you feel just isolated with yourself, but all we really want is love. I know that your whole premise is we are all good inside. I believe the same is true. I always say, first of all, anybody is capable of changing. And second, just assume good intent before you fricking pile on something, just assume good intent, easier said than
Dr. Becky Kennedy (38:19):
Done and about yourself. Assume good intent, right?
Mel Robbins (38:22):
That's probably the piece I
Dr. Becky Kennedy (38:23):
Missed. That's hard. I didn't want to yell at my kid. I didn't want to yell at my daughter. Nobody. I dunno, any parent who's like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to eviscerate my child. No one wants to do that. And then it doesn't make it okay that you did it, but I always think we just ask the wrong questions people, so it's okay. It's like, no, it's not okay or not okay, it happened. Now we just have a choice of if we want to be effective and change period. It's not about evaluating. It is okay or not okay, the thing already happened. Is it okay that a car crashed? No one would say that. You're like, well, the car crashed. Okay, now what? Right? And yeah, I think assuming positive intent about ourselves actually leaves us on the hook for change because we can see we're a good person who did not a good thing, and then we actually have the energy to be curious. And I think that's where we change and we're curious. Okay, so I yelled at my kid, okay, something happened. My kid complained about the dinner I made. But I think a question we often have to ask ourselves about a trigger is not where did the pathway end in a trigger, but where did that pathway start? Do I have any time to myselves? Where do I practice meeting my own needs? Do I need more help at time that I can't wait until I get to the point
Mel Robbins (39:34):
Until any human? Well, let's just take this because we're getting close to you needing to blaze to go teach everybody about mom rage. So let's just take this specific example and break down the tools because I want everyone listening to be able to walk out of this not only empowered around what these emotional triggers are trying to teach you, but to also have a couple concrete steps to take today so that they can start to do the repair. Because I agree with you that if you start to repair yourself, if you start to become whole, that is going to be the best way to improve your marriage, to improve the way that you impact the team at work, to improve your relationship with your kids, to improve everything.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (40:25):
Everything.
Mel Robbins (40:27):
So you're at dinner, you're cooking dinner, and describe a situation and then tell us what we should do.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (40:35):
Great. So you're cooking dinner, you put it on the table, you've probably had a really stressful day managing a million different things, and then you put dinner on the table and your kid says, oh, a chicken again, I hate chicken.
(40:51):
And you just go off. You're so ungrateful. Why don't you cook dinner? Why don't you cook dinner? Your father should cook dinner. Yes, exactly. You just go off. Okay, so what can we do? Okay, so number one, I want everyone to actually form a sentence that starts like this. I am a good parent who, and here's why that sentence is so important. What we all do to ourselves and our kids is we collapse behavior into identity.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (41:24):
I did a bad thing becomes I'm a bad person. My kid did a bad thing, means I have a bad kid. And then we can't tolerate the thought that we have a bad kid. It makes us feel like a bad parent. We act everything out. When you say to yourself, I am a good parent, who? And then you insert, be easier.
Mel Robbins (41:38):
Let's do, I'm a good person since there's those of you that
Dr. Becky Kennedy (41:40):
I'm a good person who yelled at my kid. I'm a good person who hasn't worked out for a week, even though I told myself I'd work out daily as an example, okay, when you say I am a good person who you reclaim your good identity
(41:58):
And can separate that from a behavior that frankly is probably just not in line with your own values. If you want to work out, it's just not in line with your values that you didn't work out. If you don't want to yell at your kids, it's not in line with your own values that you did. And we miss that when we go into, I'm a horrible human being. If anyone saw me, they would think I'm a monster. So that is a really powerful sentence to practice every day, and you could practice it at night looking back on a moment you weren't proud of.
(42:28):
I'm a good person who got mad at my partner when I was really stressed about my day. It actually allows you to repair with your partner because you can only repair from a place of feeling like a good person if you're instead in bad person mode. As we know, all of our energy collapses into ourselves to be defensive, just too intolerable. So I am a good person who, and if you do have kids, it is game changing to say that I have a good kid who's saying, I hate you to me a lot. Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But they're still a good kid. Why would they say that? Why would I say that? That's interesting because I have a shitty kid. No, no, no. I have a good kid. I have a good kid who's saying I hate you. We activate curiosity with that sentence.
(43:13):
It's so powerful. So that's step one. Step two is what I call double repair. Repair is the single most important strategy to get good at as a human. I really, really would put my signature in that. And if you think about what that means is if you are supposed to practice getting good at repair, you have permission to keep doing the thing you need to repair for. Because the only way you could practice repair is if you do that thing. So sure I said it, Dr. Becky said, I had to yell at you, honey, because I have to practice repair. It's going to happen. So repair really allows us to add in all the elements to our own body and our kid's body that we're missing in the first place. Because when you go back first to yourself and let's say it's after that dinner incident and you say, whoa, whoa, I'm a good person who yelled at my kid?
(44:04):
Okay, wait, I'm a good person who yelled at my kid, I didn't mess up my kid forever. I can do this. Right? You kind of reclaim that goodness. And then you can go to your kid and essentially say, or maybe it's your partner, Hey, name the incident, right? I yelled at you earlier. Number two, explicitly say, and this is important, it's never your fault when I yell at you, kids especially have to hear that if we don't tell them something's not their fault, they wire self blame just to gain control and safety in the situation. And we don't want one more generation of people who's wired with self-blame when they struggle.
(44:39):
It's never your fault. When I yell, and I know there's a part of everyone who's like, but it kind of was their fault, and they said, it's not. Again, we respond to our own body. Now, if you want to say to them tomorrow, 24 hours at least later, Hey, I wonder what we could do about dinner if you could tell me the foods you like or I wonder what you could say to me if you don't like what I serve. Because of course you're allowed to not like something. There's just a lot of ways of saying it. That's a separate conversation. Totally separate. So name what happened, say it's not their fault. And then say something like this, I'm sure that felt scary. You were right to feel that way. And just like you have feelings, we're trying to help you manage. I do too, and I promise to work on them more.
(45:19):
It's not only important in my parenting, it's just important for myself. Repair. Repair changes the direction of your own and your kids or your partner circuitry. It is so powerful. And then I think number three, I think if we think about, I call it the...
Dr. Becky Kennedy (45:35):
Road to reactivity. If the last part of the road is yelling at my kids about dinner, that's the end of the road. As long as I'm on the road, I'm going to go there. And actually the key is to wonder what signs do I have that I'm starting that road? Because we often say, people say to me, they're like, okay, so what am I supposed to do when no one helped me with this and then I did this and then my three kids did this and then this happened? How do I not yell? I'm like, I have no idea. I just think we have to upgrade your question. I think we have to have to upgrade
Mel Robbins (46:07):
Question. What would the upgraded question be? I
Dr. Becky Kennedy (46:09):
Think the upgraded question is, when did I start down a pathway that ended in me feeling depleted and unworthy? Once I get to depleted and unworthy, then of course my kids bets are off about my food triggers every feeling I have. And maybe it starts, oh, you know what? I did tell myself I wasn't going to commit to any more PTA meetings and I did sign up and I spent my whole day in this meeting. I didn't want to be in, or I did tell myself I'm going to sleep in one of the days this
Mel Robbins (46:36):
Weekend, and I didn't do it
Dr. Becky Kennedy (46:38):
And I didn't do it.
Mel Robbins (46:39):
So let me ask you this as a final question. I know so many of my listeners and your listeners struggle with this. So that is beautiful, doable, actionable, three-step advice when you do it to someone else, let's say the issue that somebody starts to uncover is the fact that you're giving up on yourself. And so let's say that you are going to make a commitment that you're just going to promise to get up in the morning and you're going to meditate, or you're going to promise to get up in the morning and you're going to go for a walk, and you continually don't keep the promise to yourself. What are the steps to not only repair that abandonment of self, but to also empower you to start keeping a promise to
Dr. Becky Kennedy (47:35):
Yourself? So I think what I'd say there is we want to get curious about a part of ourself that clearly is kind of taking over the driver's seat. So right now, if you're saying, I really do want to get up and take a walk in the morning, and I think this is an important step to say is that really put from a place of shame and guilt or from a place of living in alignment with my values. If it's from shame and guilt, I'm a horrible, lazy person. Yeah. No one ever motivates from that place. So I think we have to ask ourselves that question if it's like, no, I just know it makes me feel better. It really does, and yet I don't do it. Okay, that's a good start. Then I think the next step is there's some part of me that activates in the morning and sends me some message that stops me from getting out of bed.
(48:19):
And it's okay if I don't know what that voice is, but I'm just going to start listening for it and being curious. And right now, if everyone even imagines this part, a key to behavior change is realizing that we have feelings or thoughts that are a part of us and not all of us, and they only become a problem when they take over all of us. So maybe it's even as simple as like, yeah, I wake up and there's a part of me that's like, oh, I'm so tired. I can't do this. Were you in bed with me this morning? I was many, so many. So there's this part,
(48:55):
And then what's really key is we often think we have to shut down that part or shoot it away. Going back to aloneness is always the problem. That part's just looking for a magnet. Once a part of us or a feeling has a magnet and a partner, it actually is no longer as powerful. It gets cushioned. So it's the difference between saying, I know I'm tired, but other people do this and you're so lazy. No. Versus hi tired part, literally saying hi to it. Hi tired part. You always activate first in the morning. Here's the thing, I know you're real and you're tired and you're a part of me, not all of me. And I know there's also another part somewhere in there, she's just quieter right now saying, I can do hard things. I can do hard things. And even if I don't kind of activate her now, maybe tomorrow morning she'll get a little bit louder just because she hears me saying, even though I can't hear you, I know you're there.
(49:52):
And there's something about telling ourselves when we're struggling, that part is real. That's why we say hi to it. So we're validating its existence, but then reminding it, it's a part of us and not all of us. This is something, this is going to sound so cheesy. My five-year-old does this at night when he's worried. We've taught him, I don't think it sounds cheesy at all. He talk to his, he calls it his worry boy about the things he's worried. Hi, worry boy, you always get loud at night and you tell me the things I'm worried about and you're a part of me. I'm going to cry. And he goes, not all of me. And I also have, I'm safe boy, and I have happy memories boy, and I'm just going to listen to him a little bit right now. And I always think for my son, I feel like that's going to make him succeed in the real ways in life more than anything he learns in school. Of course. It's incredible. I'm like, wow. He's wired that at age five. I'm working on that now. So that language, and we can walk through it a little bit, start by greeting it, say hi to it, and there's a humor I like to have like, oh,
Dr. Becky Kennedy (50:51):
I could have predicted you would pop up. There you are again. It's always the first thing, okay, you're kind of a broken, because those voices, they are kind of broken records. They're boring,
Mel Robbins (50:59):
And then they're heavy and
Dr. Becky Kennedy (51:01):
Yeah, there's the heaviness. Okay, you know what you're going to do now? Now you're going to convince me I can just start tomorrow. Oh, yep. That's what happened. Yep, yep, yep. I got it. I got it. Okay. Hi, I hear you. And this is if FS language part of this too. There's something to say to those parts. I hear you, and I'm just going to ask you to step back and ask you to step back and just to make a little space for a part of me that can activate even when I'm tired. And it's so respectful and it's so empowering, and it puts you back in the driver's seat with these different parts instead of having a part that takes over.
Mel Robbins (51:37):
It's so loving.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (51:38):
It's so loving.
Mel Robbins (51:40):
Dr. Becky, you are so good. So good inside and out.
Dr. Becky Kennedy (51:46):
Well, this is a good disclaimer. Whenever my husband hears my podcast or anything, he's like, please let people know that you love talking about these things because working on them, not because you're that good at them. So this has been helpful for me too, for all my parts, and this is why I love these conversations. So thank you. Thank you.
Mel Robbins (52:04):
Wow. Okay. I learned so much from that. I hope you got as much as I got out of that. I know you're going to have a bazillion questions, so make sure you go to mel robbins.com. We also have all kinds of resources there for you, including Dr. Becky's book. We also have links to her website. I've got a bunch of other resources linked there, studies that you may want to check out. And finally, in case nobody else tells you this today, I want to tell you that I love you. I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to repair the crap that went down in your childhood. Find the good inside of you, and go create a better life. I'll see you soon. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, bye. God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.
Key takeaways
Your triggers are stories from your past, acting themselves out in the present, until you learn to understand and rewire those old protective patterns.
You’re not reacting to your kids or coworkers—you’re reacting to the circuit in your body that was wired long before you even remember.
When someone’s behavior triggers you, ask what part of yourself you had to shut down harshly that you now see in them.
Start repair by saying, “I’m a good person who…” so you separate your identity from the behavior and open space for change.
Greet the part of you that resists change, remind it it’s only part of you, and make space for the one that says, “I can do hard things.”
Guests Appearing in this Episode
Dr. Becky Kennedy, PhD
Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist and parenting expert known for her compassionate approach to helping families thrive.
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Book: Good Inside
Over the past several years, Dr. Becky Kennedy—known to her followers as “Dr. Becky”—has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn’t work or simply doesn’t feel good, have embraced Dr. Becky’s empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritizes connecting with our kids over correcting them.
Resources
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- For Closed Captions: Watch on YouTube and turn on “CC.” For instructions to turn on closed captions, click here.
- Internal Family Systems Model
- 5 Reasons Self-Talk is Good for You article
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