The Mel Robbins Podcast
If You’re Feeling Uncertain & Anxious, You Need to Hear This
Thu, 13 Mar 2025
Life is hard. Struggles are inevitable for you and for the people you love. But even when things feel overwhelming, there’s always something you can do. And in today’s episode, you’re getting a toolkit – a companion guide to all of life’s twists and turns. When life feels chaotic, you deserve clarity. When emotions feel overwhelming, you deserve tools that work. And when you feel stuck, you deserve a way forward. That’s all in today’s conversation with world-renowned clinical psychologist Dr. Julie Smith. Dr. Julie is here to share the essential strategies that will help you navigate stress, anxiety, and life’s toughest moments with confidence. This episode will change the way you approach your emotions and mental strength forever. You’ll learn: -How to handle difficult emotions in the moment -The biggest mistakes you make when dealing with stress & anxiety -How to stop overthinking and regain control of your mind -Practical tools to build resilience and mental strength -Why you are so much stronger than you realize—and how to tap into your strength This is one of those conversations you’re not only going to love, you’re going to want to share it with everyone you care about. For more resources, click here for the podcast episode page. If you enjoyed this eye-opening episode, listen to this one next: How to Control Your Mind & Redirect Your Energy to Self TransformationConnect with Mel: Get Mel’s #1 bestselling book, The Let Them TheoryWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s personal letter Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes ad-freeDisclaimer
Chapter 1: Who is Dr. Julie Smith and why is she on the podcast?
Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Since I started this podcast over two years ago, I have been on a mission to introduce you to interesting, smart and inspiring people that have something that you and I can learn from.
And there's one person in particular, and I am not exaggerating when I tell you this, that I, since the very start of this show two years ago, I have been wanting to get her to come to our studios in Boston. Now, the problem is simple. Well, she lives 3,235 miles from here. Plus, she has three young kids. She is extremely in demand because she has a private practice as a psychologist.
She's also sharing life-changing information online to millions of followers and is in the middle of launching her mega bestselling books. So she hasn't been able to make the trip from Europe to be in our Boston studios. And you know what? I respect that. But today is the day. She hopped on a plane with her husband and their three kids and came all the way to Boston to be here for one reason.
She's here for you, to help you and the people that you love through the ups and downs of life. So we're going to send her husband, Matt, and their three kids to the amazing Children's Museum here in downtown Boston while Dr. Julie Smith and I unpack her extraordinary toolkit for life. Because life is hard. You are gonna struggle and so will the people that you love. And that's normal.
But even when things feel overwhelming, there's always something you can do. You're stronger than you think. All you need is a little toolkit and today you're gonna get it. And this is one of those conversations that you're not only gonna love, you're gonna wanna share it with everyone you love. So let's get into it. Hey, it's your friend Mel. Welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
I am so thrilled to be here with you today, and it's always an honor, always, to spend time with you, to be together. If you're a new listener, I also want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. And because you made the time and you decided to hit play on this particular episode, here's what I know about you.
You're the kind of person who values your time and you're also someone who is committed to learning how to become the best version of yourself and getting better at navigating life's ups and downs. And we could all get better at that, myself included. And if you chose to listen to this because someone shared this with you,
I think it's an important thing that I want to acknowledge and point out to you. It's really cool that you have people in your life that care enough about you to send this to you. And they sent this to you because they want you to have the experience of learning from the amazing Dr. Julie Smith and they want you to have the toolkit that she's going to share with you.
And I personally could not be more excited to have Dr. Julie in person today. She is a world-renowned clinical psychologist, a best-selling author of the mega blockbuster bestseller, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, which has spent 109 weeks on the UK Sunday Times bestseller list. She has impacted millions of lives with the content she shares online.
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Chapter 2: What can you do when life feels overwhelming?
And it kind of makes me emotional just even saying it there because it takes me back to that moment of I had it on a post-it note that was on my desk. And every time I read it, I felt that drive, that kind of fire in my belly to do something that was active in my own rescue. So...
And I feel like it reflects everything, this whole journey and all those people I was with in therapy who felt that they were at the mercy of their emotional experience. It doesn't have to be those kind of extreme experiences, but normal emotional ups and downs, relationship ups and downs, they can feel so just chaotic, can't they?
And often that chaos is, I don't trust myself to be able to cope with whatever comes up. And that's what fundamentally changes when you change the language and you choose to focus that spotlight of your attention where it is going to be most helpful to you.
So that you can have this vision of, as I move through this and as I get out the other side, I want to look back and be so proud of how I dealt with it. And have that as your vision for how you're going to move forward rather than the darting of the, you know, the rabbit in the headlights, ah, which way is left, which is right.
You know, I wanted to have that absolute focus and it really worked for me.
Well, Dr. Julie, I think it's a unbelievably relatable story. And, you know, I'm thinking right now of friends of mine who are sitting in a hospital and they have a loved one who is waiting heart surgery. And, you know, it's just like every day holding on to hope and even thinking of friends who just lost their job. And.
That whole flip from feeling like the prey where something's coming after you and you have nothing that you can do versus that flip to, no, I'm going to be the predator.
Yeah.
I'm going after it. That is an example of the kind of tools you are so brilliant at giving to people in your private practice, to giving to all of us online. And I can see how that's already growing. going to help somebody, whether they're dealing with a breakup or they're dealing with just that sense of helplessness. No, that's what a prey feels like. We're going to think like a predator.
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Chapter 3: How can tools from therapy help in everyday life?
What are the big struggles in relationships?
I think it's a mix of dealing with my emotion in the relationship and dealing with someone else's emotion in the relationship. And I think we're lied to, especially on social media now, about this idea that, you know, you hear all this stuff about, you've got to be healed before you get into a relationship. Oh my God. Like, when are you healed?
I mean, if I had followed that rule, I would never have married Matt. We've been together for 20 years, you know? And, and It's this idea that you've got to become this sort of perfect idea of human being. And the other person's got to have done the same work so that when you get together, you have this perfect fairytale relationship and it's never hard. And it's just utter rubbish.
It's just not true whatsoever. And so when people then struggle in relationships because you're both dealing with emotion and stress and all the ups and downs of life, people then think that it's not the right relationship or you're getting it wrong.
And actually, that is the process of a relationship is building that together and going through those things and learning about each other in the process and forgiving each other for when you bring your worst to each other. And you just build so much strength through that. So I think there's this combination of what on earth is emotional about and how do I deal with it?
But also then what do I do with that in a relationship? When the relationship shows me up to not be my perfect self and I'm not being my best self, What does that mean? So yeah, some sort of combination between those two, I think.
And what's the most important thing that you think we need to know to make our relationships better?
No relationship is perfect, but that doesn't mean you have to give up on it. I think the strongest relationships have often been through the most together, right? Because you feel safety when you've been through stuff together and it's pulled you together and not apart.
I think in this whole misconception that everything's got to be perfect, otherwise it's not the right person or it's not the right relationship.
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