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And the place to get organized is not on the outside. It’s on the inside. I mean, all of us are the same, especially in our world today, where you can portray a filtered version of yourself to everyone around you and yet your real life you feel like a mess.

I mean, before you heard my conversation with Rosa, I had asked you to think about where in your life are you controlling something as a proxy for feeling like you’ve got control over your life.

I want you to really come back to that, because that’s exactly where we’re going to start as we begin diving into the takeaways from Rose’s session.

And the first takeaway, of course, is that in order to get control of your life, you must first understand what you do when you feel afraid.

There’s a pattern there and you may not even realize it.

Every time you are afraid, you do the exact same thing. And it’s become so automatic that it’s now a habit. Now, once you see this pattern, you will then have the power to change it.

And if you change your response to fear, you’re gonna get control of your life. It’s really that simple. And for Rosa. She’s afraid of facing the mess that her life has become.

Now, for me, the story that I was telling during this coaching session when Chris’s restaurants were going under and I was unemployed, I was afraid we were going to lose everything. So Rose’s fear was facing the mass and my fear was facing this mess as well. So once you know what you are afraid of next, you’re going to ask yourself, what do I do when I feel afraid? Because remember, the moment you feel afraid, you reach for momentary control in order to quiet the fear, but it backfires long term.

For me, I couldn’t face the mess that my life had become financially. And so I would wander the aisles at the designer shoe warehouse trying on shoes because it gave me a sense of control. It made me feel normal for just 30 minutes when for the rest of the day my life felt like it was spinning out of control. And for Rosa. She clings on to her stuff in order to give herself the sense that she’s in control of something. I mean, remember what she said to me?

I need to leave the country. What’s happening in your body is the dumpster or the pickup truck pulls up and John starts marching shit out of that car.

Oh, my God.

I just like it’s almost like I can’t watch. OK, it’s like I feel like, you know, I see I feel angry now. Great. I feel angry, like, you know, who are you to tell me that that goes in?

That stays. Like, why are you deciding for you? He has to decide where you’re holding onto this stuff out of control.

You’re holding on. I’m a control freak. She just sat right there. She’s a control freak. And there is so much power in admitting the places in your life where you’re being a control freak about the wrong stuff. And this brings us right to our second takeaway stuff. We’ll never give you what you seek. Focusing on the things in your life, it’s not going to give you the control that you want. And we live in a society that is obsessed with accumulating things.

We’re bombarded with marketing and advertising all day long. And it’s trying to convince you that you’ll be happier if you have a new pair of shoes and your butts going to look better if you buy this brand of jeans or these kind of leggings. So it’s no wonder that you believe that you might get control of your mindset or your happiness by buying more things or controlling more things or having different things or holding on to things. And the other thing is that stuff.

It’s easy to control because it doesn’t talk back to you. Just think about the things that are not in your control. You can’t control other people. And whether or not they’ll change. You can’t control how people react to you or whether or not they’ll judge you or gossip about you. He can’t control your past. You can’t control the mood your boss is going to be in today. He can’t control whether you might get fired in the future. You can’t control what’s going to happen with the stock market.

You can’t control the weather. You can’t control what might happen in the future.

The only thing you can control is your thoughts, your actions and your stuff. And it’s a lot easier to focus on controlling your stuff than it is to look in the mirror and deal with your actions and the way that you think. So any time you start getting distracted by stuff, you’re avoiding something. In Rose’s case, she’s clinging to her stuff because the second that she decides to start getting rid of it, she has to admit that her life truly is a mess that needs to be fixed.

And as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, she knows that she’s distracted by her stuff and that her life is a mess.

But as long as she holds on newage, I have to do anything about it. It’s a way to keep control.

She’s terrified to confront the mess that her life is. So she holds on all this stuff and we all do this in a million ways.

Have you ever been so stressed out at work that you start manipulating the things in your inbox instead of actually working or another classic one? I used to rearrange our living room almost every week. I was incredibly unhappy. Chris would come home.

The furniture would be rearranged yet again because I felt like, oh, well, if I just got the finished way of the living room just right, then everything will fall into place. So maybe if the couch went over here, maybe everything would feel a little bit better. The truth is, my living room was fine. It was my head that was off the chain. It was my mindset. And what I was worried about that left me feeling out of control.

But it gave me a false sense of control to move the couch around at a moment in time when I couldn’t pay our bills or another one of my fate control strategies, organizing my closet. And here’s another one.

How many of you were living with boxes in a new place that you’ve moved into and you have not unpacked them? Or I bet some of you listening have maybe lived in an apartment for more than a year and you haven’t hung anything on the walls because you’re not sure you want to be there and you don’t know what the future holds. Controlling your stuff will never, ever, ever give you real control.

You can drink all the kale smoothies, you can have the perfect leggings. You can buy the right car. You can manage your online profile. You can rearrange your living room. You can avoid paying your bills. But unless your mental health is in check, you’re not in control.

Doesn’t matter how in control of your stuff you are your mental health is what you need to focus on the stress that you’re thinking about. So what can you do about this? Number one, remember, if you change your response to fear, you’re going to get control of your life if you rearrange your living room. You won’t. OK, there is no correlation there. So what are you going to do if you change your response to fear, you get control of your life?

Well, first, you need to take an inventory of your habits. What physical things do you do as an attempt to control something as opposed to working on the things that are scaring you? What do you do to distract yourself from having to deal with your life?

Do you clean the house all the time? Do you do laundry when you don’t need to? Do you cling to stuff like Rosa does to avoid opening bills in the mail? These are all strategies, by the way, that you use to distract yourself from dealing with the things that you’re scared to deal with. You go on shopping binges, Dubai, stuff you don’t need. Is there something you’ve convinced yourself that wall?

If I just had a bigger yard, if I could just renovate my kitchen, my life would be better and I’d be happier. Look, I don’t need to overcomplicate this. I know when I’m surfing online for things I don’t need to buy because I’m stressed out and you know it, too. I know when I need to clean my closet because it’s disgusting and my things are now spilling over to Chris’s side. And he’s angry at me versus when I’m cleaning my closet because I don’t want to have to open bills that I can’t afford to pay.

Rosen knows it’s a problem. She’s afraid to face it. And she admitted it to me.

I’m struggling with. I’m going to call it declaring my physical environment at home, which I think is a reflection of an internal issue that I haven’t been able to break through. I’m struggling with the you know, this isn’t me. Oh, my God. But this is what I see. You know. I don’t want to believe that that’s me. And yet I haven’t moved past or figured out how to move quicker through it. Why do I keep saying over and over, if you change your response to fear, you will get control of your life.

You see, we reach for shopping, we avoid the bills, we go on binges, we rearrange the furniture in the house because we’re afraid of dealing with something.

And when you identify the things that you do as an attempt to distract yourself or take control of some aspect of your life that feels manageable once you identify what those are.

Then the next thing’s gonna be to have to face it. Because the only thing that will stop you from this kind of fear spiralling your life out of control like it is for Rosa is for you to slow down.

Have self-control and the moment when you feel yourself starting to reach for a distraction or control all the stuff in your life make a different choice.

And the good news is you can get a hold of this if you’re willing to face it. I mean, if Rosa can start to de clutter and dehorned her house, you can certainly interrupt the behaviors and the responses that you have to fear and get real control as well.

So let’s start with how do you deal with physical things that you’re avoiding? We’re going to do it in baby steps. OK, here’s a great little strategy. If you have things that you’re avoiding dealing with, I want you to set a reoccurring alarm to go off on your phone every day. OK?

Just for five minutes. And when the alarm goes off, you’re going to face this thing you need to do for five minutes. That’s it. Whether it’s opening up one bill and paying it or whether it is answering an e-mail, just one every single day, you’re going to have an alarm that goes off.

And for five minutes, you’re going to face something that you’re avoiding.

This is what real control looks like. And here’s the thing. You don’t have to do it all once, you even have to do it alone. If you’ve got somebody like John in your life, ask for help.

What I would like you to do is to build the muscle of taking control.

So if you’re holding on to things and there’s a lot of clutter in your house when the alarm goes off throughout one thing, that’s it. And if you’re doing things like rearranging rooms in your house or online shopping, the next time you catch yourself starting to do it, stop tune in and ask yourself, what am I trying to avoid by doing this instead? And then I want you to take action and do one thing toward the thing you’re avoiding for just five minutes.

That’s it. Just work on the thing you’re avoiding for five minutes. Don’t rearrange the living room. Don’t buy anything online. Don’t manage your inbox. Go and face the thing you’re avoiding.

That’s what real control looks like. Now, the third takeaway and the next thing we’re going to talk about is a major theme from Rose’s session that rings true in my life and I know it does for you, too. And that is if you have a double life. It’s still your life because life is defined by what’s inside your head, not by what’s outside of you. And you take what’s inside your head. Everywhere you go, whether you’re in your house or you’re at work.

And here’s the deal on the outside. Very few of us live fully authentic lives.

We present a version of ourselves to the world that might not match what’s actually going on inside of us underneath the surface. We’re all a turtle in some area of our lives. And, you know, Rosa, she is somewhat extreme example of living like a turtle because her whole house is this gigantic mess.

And then when she sticks or at out and she goes into schools, she pretends to be somebody else, somebody who’s totally organized into the outside world. I bet if you asked anybody that knew her in SA binders, she’d be like, oh, Rosa, she’s got it all going on, man. She’s in control. She has it all together. I mean, remember what she said about this? We’re going to my bedroom. I describe it as a dorm room of some student who doesn’t have the time, even the care to take care of anything.

So my even my bed, which is interesting, is like I’ll sleep on one side of it and I’ll pile things onto the other. And then if I have to change the bed, I take it off your right. And I read pile the stuff back.

It’s just slop ville. And so I have a pile that I look at and I just go, wow, what? Like, where do I even start? And I have this perfectionism thing about what I do too, which is sort of funny because if you look at my binders for work, there are packable.

Well, that’s because that’s what you’re showing the outside world. Well, and my covered in my kitchen.

Yeah. The one that’s open. The one that’s open.

Oh, that’s a good point. The one that’s open. That’s so interesting. Now, her binder’s may be impeccable, but meanwhile, the second Rosa walks through the door of her home and sees the mess in her bedroom or the mess in the kitchen. Now she’s struggling emotionally.

We all do that because our homes are where we feel like we can let our guard down our homes or where we feel safe. And by the way, that’s why she won’t let her boyfriend into her home. It’s not because it’s a mess. It’s because emotionally, when she’s in her home, it’s safe enough for her to let our guard down and feel like a mess and admit it to herself.

This dichotomy between how you hold it together for the world outside and how you can fall apart once you get home. It reminds me of several conversations my husband and I had with teachers and with a therapist that our kids went to our son Oakley, when he was nine years old. He started coming home from school and acting out like crazy, emotional, rude, defiant, anxious. Homework was a disaster now at the time. We had no idea that he had undiagnosed dyslexia.

And so school was so difficult for him. And so we went to see a therapist to try to get some tools because we were starting to get so frustrated because everybody at school loved him.

And all the reports that we got back from people that were interacting with him in the outside world was that he was charming and he was happy and he was so lovable in the classroom and engaged. And I couldn’t believe it because that was the exact opposite of the beast that he was when he walked through the front door, just like Rosa, just like I’m sure people who interact with her outside.

Oh, she’s impeccable. She’s organized. She’s this. She’s together. Exact opposite of who she is when she walks in the front door. During this time, a therapist told us something that I will never forget. They said, you know, it’s actually a good sign when your kids come home and they can let it all hang out emotionally because it means that they feel safe to do so with you. You got to be worried about when they bottle up and they don’t talk to you at all about anything that’s going on.

And then they went on to explain something that had never occurred to me before, and I want you to really listen to this. When you’re in the outside world, there is pressure to hold it together. There’s pressure to fit in. There’s pressure not to embarrass yourself. There’s pressure to perform, to be liked, to get ahead, to get it right. And that for kids in particular, especially kids like Oakley that have dyslexia. It’s exhausting to hold it together through a school day.

I mean, it takes every ounce of emotional energy to sit in that classroom, just like I bet it takes every ounce of emotional energy for Rosa to be outside and holding it together when she feels on the inside like things are falling apart. And I think the same is true on some level for all of us. I bet that there are days where you feel like you can barely hold it together, the pressure to fit in, to not embarrass yourself, to perform, to get it right.

You know, it’s why every once in a while you’ll hear about, you know, a couple that, you know, that separating and wonder, God, why are they getting a divorce? They seem like such a great couple. It’s because on the outside, they were presenting something different than what was really going on on the inside. Rose is doing what we all do. She’s holding it together for the outside world. But the second she gets home, it all falls apart because she feels safe enough to let it.

She’s comfortable being vulnerable at home. And here’s the good news in all of this.

The fact that she’s capable of creating impeccable binders and holding it together at school means she’s capable of doing it in her personal life if she finds the courage to face her fears and take real control. And the fact that she has so much fear and distress mentally in her home tells me she’s also carrying this in the outside world because your double life is still your life.

So the main takeaway for you is to recognize this, and if you relate to this on some level, that you’re just holding it together for the outside world, the best thing to do is to start right now exercising some self compassion. Because here’s the thing. You’re not going to want to change if it’s going to feel like a chore and it’s way more motivating to change your life for the better. If you care for and love yourself first rather than making yourself wrong.

I know personally that when I think about staying in shape because I want to care for my body and I do it from a place of self compassion and love, it makes it a heck of a lot easier to get to the gym than those times that I’m like, oh, I’m so bored in my man’s his own time zone.

Hey, new to the gym. I’m compared to my crew. The make wrong just makes you feel like shit.

It’s demoralizing.

And when you start from a place of saying, hey, all right, you know, so it’s been a stressful couple weeks. Haven’t been to the gym for a while, but I totally get it. I don’t blame myself, but it sure would be nice to start taking care of myself a little bit. Shawn myself, a little kindness and love.

You’re going to find it motivating. And there’s research that backs us up. Actually, research from Baylor University that when you focus on the positive aspects of a healthy lifestyle in particular, you’re actually much more likely to stick to it rather than being like Gony.

Fat, gowning, Jenya. Don’t eat floured. Danny, dance.

Focus on the side of it. That’s about being kind to you by gluten, because I noticed that I feel like crap when I do versus all who drool about very you know, you shouldn’t do it.

So in exercising self compassion for yourself, I want you to take this trick from Dr. Kristin Neff, the world’s leading researcher and self compassion.

She’s a huge fan of using mantras. When you’re the kind of person that gets really down on yourself because the secret is forgiving yourself. When you start to get down on yourself. So here’s a couple mantras you can try.

No one is perfect. I’m just going to try my best. Or here’s another one I love. I’m doing this for me. When you say things that are kind rather than a go to get to the gym now say, you know, I’m going to go to the gym. I’m going to do it for me or not, I’m really out of shape both. All right. Nobody’s perfect.

I’m just gonna try my best to take the pressure off for crying out loud, because if you develop self compassion, you’re gonna find it’s so much easier to face your fears and take control.

Now, let’s get to the fourth takeaway. Excuses, excuses are your fear talking? So whenever you have to face something and you start to come up with all kinds of excuses and reasons to bump up up a bar for why you can’t do it, you now know that is fear.

Now, you’re always gonna have a million reasons why you can’t change. And Rosa had every excuse in the book.

All the stuff may be valuable. I should sell it. All I’m too busy. I’ll get to a letter. I can’t have John over. It’s too messy. I mean, there’s a even a feel to the way she would say the excuses.

Why? Because she’s afraid. It’s that simple. That’s why we come up with excuses. I’m too tired to go to the gym actually means I’m afraid to get on the treadmill and realize how out of shape I am. I’m afraid to walk into the gym in this outfit because I don’t like how I look. That’s why you come up with excuses, because you’re afraid. I mean, here’s what she said. Hear it straight from her. You know, John said once about the garage because he’s been in the garage.

OK. And he said, Rosa, why don’t you pick one day? And right away, I got that fear, I’ll believe a mine. Yeah. But as he said one day. Why? Because I thought this isn’t a typical day.

I need to organize everything and get a little. Exactly. And he said, pick one day. And I said, John. I said, you know how much money sitting in his garage like this. Is this Rosa really? He’s Alison.

No one wants your shit pack three big things. Yes. This was his idea. Pick three big things. And the rest, he goes, I’ll come over with my truck. I love it. Take it away or donate it. You decide. Love it. Only pick three things. I love it. I love him.

And I’m like, oh, my God. The bubbling up. I couldn’t do it. I said, No, no, I can’t do it like that.

Every time you bring up an excuse for why you can do something like all the excuses, you just heard Rosa use fears winning. It’s really that simple. Excuses mean fear is winning.

And, you know, there are two kinds of people in the world. There are people that see the opportunity. And there are people that see the excuse. So Rosa can either see a house, it’s clean. That’s the opportunity. Or she can see all the reasons why. Can’t be. And if you see the opportunity that you want, you can lock on to that. Oh, my God. Imagine how amazing it would be at this house were cleared of all this clutter and how they would free up my brain and how it make me feel so proud of myself.

Once you see it now, your brain can start to help you get into Problem-Solving mode. Well, if I want that, I guess I better throw some stuff out. If instead all you see are the obstacles your mind is going to spot. Nothing but more obstacles and more reasons and more excuses.

I think in life we talk a lot about half empty and half full. Chris, my husband says he’s a half empty type of guy. I say I’m a half full type of person. I think this analogy has been used way too much and it’s become somewhat of a throw away.

I don’t think it means anything anymore. Oh, I’m positive. I’m negative. I’m trying to make a different point.

You see the world one way or the other.

You either see what you want or you see all the obstacles in between you and what you want. I love this simple story that I heard Simon Sinek tell. He and a friend were at a race and there was a table that was full of free bagels at the end of the race. And I mean, come on, who doesn’t love a bunch of carbohydrates? After running a road race and Simon says to his pal, hey, let’s go get a bagel.

And his friend said, Villines doing. This simple story illustrates an important point. You’re either the kind of person who sees the free bagels or you’re the one who focuses on the line. You either see the opportunity or you see the obstacle and you get to decide. You can either figure out how to go get what you want or you can just see the excuse. You’re in one or two camps. And guess which Camp Firuzan? Sure as hell isn’t in the camp with the opportunity.

It’s in the line. It’s seeing the obstacles.

That’s what fear does. Here’s like, oh, no, no, no, don’t look at wow how amazing it would be if the house were clean. I’m afraid to do that.

I want you to look at all the things that are gonna be difficult about food and long line food, how hard this is going to be.

You see, if Rosa and I walked up to get bagels, she would spot the line and I would see the bagels. So if you’re someone who sees the line, how can you become somebody like me who sees the bagels? Well, number one, start by thinking about what you really want. Forget all the fears for just a second. What do you really want? I want to clean house. I want to be in better health. I want to run a marathon.

I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to quit my job. I want a better relationship with my mother. I want to stop doubting myself. That’s all you do. Start by listing what you want. Write out what the bagel is for your life.

Then list out all of your favorite excuses, because I guarantee you, they sound like a broken record. I’m too. I had a long day, I feel like eating this, I deserve this donut. Why do I always have to diet? It’s just not fair. Why can’t I have a metabolism like my skinny friend? Why can’t I be?

I don’t have time. I don’t want to. I don’t feel like it. On and on and on.

Now now that you’ve got your list of broken record excuses, now you’ve got to do the harbert. Let’s get honest. Do you actually want to change? I’m dead serious about this. Do you actually want to have the thing you say you do? Because Rosa can say all she wants, that she wants a clean house. But unless she’s truly honest with herself, am I willing to do what it takes? Am I ready to change?

Nothing’s gonna happen because I can give you all these tools and you can listen all these coaching sessions.

But at some point, you have to decide if this thing you want actually matters to you. You know, for years I used to beat myself up like Rosa does about the mess in our house. But what I was complaining about to myself is my flabby stomach. I’d look in the mirror and, you know, I’d see the cellulite there and the wrinkles that I have after having three kids below my belly button that I’d and I’d make myself run.

I’d look at exercise plans. I’d follow these fits fo people on Instagram. I’d read articles about getting six pack abs, but I’d never do the exercise.

But I’d make myself wrong. And I’d look at people with ABS and I’d make myself wrong and I’d look at the diapers and I’d make myself wrong.

And then it dawned on me that if I really wanted this, if I really wanted six pack abs, I could get them. I could find the time, I could do the exercises, I could change my diet. And then I realized something very liberating. It’s not a priority for me. And it didn’t matter what I read or what I looked at or the plans that I made. The truth is, having six pack abs isn’t a goal of mine at all because I’m not willing to do the work to make it happen.

I want to bitch about the line. I don’t see the Bangles here. The truth is, when I zoomed out and I looked at what it would take to get there, I realized I didn’t want to do the work. The truth is, having six pack abs not a goal of mine. I wasn’t afraid of doing the work. I didn’t have any intention of doing the work.

So when I zoomed out and I looked at what it would take to get six pack abs at 50 years old, for me, I realized I don’t want to do any of those things.

I’m not afraid of going to the gym. I’m not afraid of being on a diet. I don’t want to be on one. And I don’t intend to be on one. And I’m not doing it.

Six pack abs. They’re not a priority of mine. So I can stop beating myself up and bitching about it right now.

You see, there is a difference between wanting to change and just being afraid and saying you want to change. And in reality, having no desire to do it. Rosa wants to change. She’s just afraid. I was saying I wanted to change and had no desire to do it. Big difference. So if you actually want something like Rosa wants a declared house, she wants order in her life. She wants to feel real control.

What you want to do is go back to the brick by brick approach I talked about with Dan. Break things down into the smallest components in order to get past your excuses.

Build momentum and make the change a daily habit. And if in listening to this, you realized, you know what, I kind of relate to Mel. I’ve been bitchin about this thing for a long time and I keep saying I want it. I don’t do anything about it.

Truth is, it’s not a priority. Good. Start owning that. Stop making excuses and move on with your life. Now, let’s go on to the final takeaway. Just a couple of minutes ago, we talked about how it’s more motivating to change when you have compassion for yourself first.

And if you’ve listened to my other audible original title, Kick Ass with Mel Robbins or you follow me on social media, you’re going to be familiar with this next tool. But it’s such a game changer that it’s worth hearing over and over and over again.

So here it is. If you ever find yourself stuck, frustrated or afraid, it’s because there’s a pattern you can’t change. And the best place to start to unearth this pattern is with a powerful question. And here it is. I want you to ask yourself what happened to me instead of what’s wrong with me?

What’s wrong with me that my house is a mess? What’s wrong with me? That I’m a liar? What’s wrong with me? That I have such bad self-doubt? What’s wrong? Instead of doing that? I want you to ask what happened to me. Remember in Heather’s session, how I talked about how small moments, no matter how small, can leave a lasting impact on you? Well, now I want to take that a step further, and I want to talk about how trauma can lead to lasting patterns.

Now, this is a major realization for you that I want you to take away from Rose’s session. And it’s this. Emotionally abusive relationships can leave you with trauma in many cases.

We think about trauma as coming about as the result of physical abuse or witnessing a tragic event or going overseas and serving in an active combat zone.

But it’s so important to note that being in an emotionally abusive relationship, whether it’s with a partner, a friend, a parent, a teacher, a relative, a boss, over time it causes trauma.

No matter what age it’s happening at. Now, Rose’s husband criticized her over and over and over again, and he was unpredictable and the conflict in that house and the verbal abuse in that house made her feel like she was going crazy and a complete mess. I mean, just listen to the impact that it had on her.

Just a lot of hurt. I don’t think there is any nervousness, more like angry. But angry, angry and upset when I remember crying and thinking, this is total B.S., like, why do you say that to me? Yeah. That is someone that cares about someone. Say that to me.

And how does someone do that with his daughter in the bedroom downstairs and his son’s in the kitchen, you know, meters away. And and so I remember saying really loudly to him, that’s not OK. I said, this is not a construction site and that’s not OK. You don’t say that to anyone. And and then in that moment, it was instant. I thought, there’s nothing I can do about what he’s doing. I was more concerned at that moment, what my kids were witnessing, listening to and all of that.

And my my boys were sitting at the counter in the kitchen and they were literally maybe three yards away. So I turned around quickly and I went to them and and I said, boys, I said, what you just heard come out of your father’s mouth should never be repeated to any woman. I don’t care how angry you are at them. How is that? And I just gave them a little pep talk about how that should never, never be anything that comes out of your mouth towards any woman.

And as I said that to them, my ex walked behind me and said to the boys, you do if she is. There were lots of those kinds of moments. You know, she said to her ex-husband, it’s not OK, it’s way more than not OK. This is what emotional abuse looks and sounds like. And I want to be very clear about something. It causes trauma. So if you’ve been in an emotionally abusive relationship, you need to realize something that’s trauma and so many women in particular dismiss the emotional abuse as something that’s not as serious as physical abuse.

Emotional abuse can leave long lasting impacts that nobody can see. And oftentimes because there’s no physical wound. A lot of victims of emotional abuse play down just how serious it is. The fact that Rosa was married to somebody for 18 years and lived on edge every day, that he might call her the C word or say something terrible or hurtful.

This is emotional trauma. And it became hardwired in Rose’s nervous system because she was always on edge waiting for one of these confrontations to happen.

One of the places that it was clearly affecting, Rosa was in the hiding for two freaking years, she hadn’t even let John visit. And that’s an important piece of data because trauma one to one is hiding. Veterans hide when they come back from war. They don’t tell people what their nightmares are. They don’t tell them how they’re struggling emotionally and mentally. Because for a lot of people that experience trauma or have been emotionally abused or have PTSD, it’s embarrassing.

And shame filled situation is your mental health starts to spiral. And although I don’t think Rosa is experiencing that magnitude of trauma, she’s also hiding and filled with shame. And being in an emotionally abusive relationship leaves you feeling out of control because you’re with an unpredictable person.

You can’t control the other person’s behavior. So you do whatever you can to avoid it.

And these patterns that you develop to seek control, like hiding, manipulating, lying, beating yourself up, mentally, avoiding people, they’re not useful now and they’re keeping you stuck. So if you’ve had abuse in your past, it’s important to deal with it because it’s at the root of most of the problems that you’re struggling with. First, what do you do? Step by step. This is what you’re going to do. Number one, you’re gonna ask what happened to me?

Because oftentimes you look at certain behaviors like roses hoarding, and you say to yourself, why am I doing this?

However, when you ask yourself, why am I doing this, why totally ignores what happened in the past. I want you instead to ask yourself what happened to me. I want you to answer this question right now. What happened to you in your past that has impacted you and changed you? Once you see what has happened and you realized how it’s affected you, it’s easier to have compassion for yourself and realize that you need to deal with the trauma before you can create a change.

You realize that you created strategies to deal with the trauma that’s no longer serving you.

Rosa, over those 18 years, came up with ways to survive it. And in order to gain control of your life, you’re going to need to change your response to fear.

And for somebody that has experienced emotional abuse, you lived on edge all the time.

So that means any small fear could trigger you to go back on edge. It’s why it’s so important to get control of this. Second, please acknowledge that you were a victim of emotional abuse, just because you can’t see the bruises doesn’t mean you didn’t experience trauma. And downplaying it is going to keep you feeling like your life is out of control. Finally get professional help. Once you’ve uncovered that you have unresolved trauma, it’s so important to get professional help.

Go to therapy and unpack it and deal with it, because you’re going to carry this with you. This response to fear everywhere you go. And because traumatic experiences get remembered in the body at a deeper and more stubborn level, it’s so important to be intentional and deliberate about healing yourself.

You see, there’s day to day memories and then there’s the super memory of being in an abusive situation because your body is trying to hard wire into your body. All of the signals because you’ve got to be on alert to protect yourself. And therapy’s a godsend, especially treatments like MDR, diabetes and CBT. That was a lot. You may be wondering. All right. After all that, how is Rosa actually doing? Well, she’s been filling us in on her progress.

And Rosa left the session thinking the garage would be what she tackled first, but her home became the top priority. Rosa has hauled clutter from her kitchen, her bedroom and her garage. She’s had some incredible insights along the way, too. She was surprised to find out, for example, that as she released stuff, she was actually more OK with it than she thought she would be. How many times have you found this to be true? I think I find it to be true all the time, everything that I resist doing.

It’s all like a gigantic excuse in my head.

And the second I start taking action, it’s like, why the heck did I think this was going to be so hard?

And then with every small action, it gets easier and easier. And next thing you know, I’m thinking, why did I torture myself for so long? Well, because we make up stories in our head that are triggered by fear. It’s absolutely liberating and amazing when you take action because you find that the story that you made up in your head is way worse than the reality. Rosa also realized that a lot of the purchases she made were because they were a great deal.

Are you one of those folks that you buy things just because they’re on sale? Who? I don’t need that. But it’s only ten dollars. I’ll take it. And that was a liberating thing for her to see.

And by the way, that’s a trick that marketers use. They know that when you see a, quote, sale sign or 50 percent off or a markdown, that looks like a bargain. The areas of your brain that are associated with earning an award, they light up and you’re more likely to make a purchase whether you like the item or not guilty as charged right here. I’m sometimes fooled, but I’m getting better and better at not just buying things because.

Oh, it’s a good deal. Well, I don’t need a boot scraper right now. I just don’t. I know it’s on sale. I know it’s got a great ad with it. I know the Internet says it’s the best boot scraper in the world, but I don’t need it.

Five, four, three, two, one. Move on. Now, Rosa has worn off impulse buying, and in the future, she plans to ask her style savvy daughter’s opinion before making any purchases. Rose is also finding the D cluttering doesn’t have to take a lot of time.

And that was one of her biggest excuses, by the way. Remember, why don’t have time? It’s going to take forever. I’ve got to go through all this stuff.

I get it, Rosa. She has a busy schedule just like you. So she can’t attack it hours at a time.

But even just taking 15 minutes to clear off a section of a countertop changes the energy in her home and it changes the thinking patterns in her brain. If you have a D cluttering project that’s overwhelming, you just focus on that one Lego block at a time approach, brick by brick to make it stick.

You don’t need five hours attack at five minutes at a time. And Rose is also doing something that she’s never been comfortable with and that’s asking for help.

Now, you met John during the coaching session, but whether you’re a man or a woman, there’s something about asking for help that makes you feel like you’re weak.

But if you could please just get over that, because it’s actually the greatest life hack on the planet, because everybody wants to help everybody else and asking for help. It’s the fastest way to get things done.

But the best part of all this is Rose’s birthday. She turned 50 in November and for the first time in years. Guess what? Rosa invited people over to her home.

Rosa is truly writing and owning the next chapter of her life. And I just couldn’t be more proud of her. And when you start applying the advice to take real control of your life, I couldn’t be more proud of you either. So let’s sum up Rose Session. I want to quickly remind you of the five key takeaways that you learned from listening to this coaching session. Number one, you start by following your fear.

You got to understand what you do when you feel afraid, because in order to get control of your life, you must first understand what you do when you’re afraid. Rosa is afraid of facing the mess her life has become. And so as a result, she controls her stuff. Second things stuff, it’s not going to give you what you want because there’s so much we cannot control. We tend to try to control the things we can, the physical things.

But this is never, ever, ever going to bring you any sense of real control in your life. So please get real with yourself about where you’re using your stuff as a way to distract yourself from dealing with the things that scare you. Third, your double life is still your life. We often display a persona to the world which is incontrol and large and in charge.

But it’s not who we really are on the inside. Try breaking out of that and being honest about how you’re really feeling. And start by showing some self compassion. Fourth, any time you got an excuse, that’s fear talking and you’re always gonna have a million excuses. They make you feel like you’re in control.

But no change is gonna happen until you break through them.

And finally, if you’re really struggling, if you’re really stuck. Stop asking yourself, why am I doing this? What’s wrong with me? Ask what happened to me and recognize, please, that abuse. And yes, I’m talking about emotional abuse can cause lasting trauma. It is important to recognize what happened to you. It is important to name what happened to you.

And if it involves emotional or physical abuse, it is critical that you seek out professional help.

And finally, if you can take just one thing away from Rose’s session, which is hard to do, I want you to take this away. You can let go of the things that you think bring you control. You can stop impulse shopping. You can stop buying crap. You don’t need. You can stop obsessing about your inbox. You can stop rearranging your living room. You can stop convincing yourself that if you renovate your mudroom, your life will be better.

You can stop wandering the aisles of Target and Wal-Mart and DSW and you can take control of your life by going to work on the patterns that hold you back in order to take real control. And for just about all of us.

That means going back and asking the most important question of all.

What happened to me? The answer may not be pretty, but I guarantee you it’s exactly what you need to hear. In the first three coaching sessions, we covered internal fears. And we also talked about how fear can trigger you to distract yourself with stuff. In this next coaching session, we’re going to take a look at how social situations and how being singled out and separated from your friend group can make you feel out of control if you struggle with imposter syndrome.

Feeling insecure, thinking you don’t belong. Or worrying about what everybody else is thinking.

This coaching session is going to be a game changer for you because we’re gonna talk about the internal sense that you can feel when you get separated from the pack. I mean, there’s a ton of science behind this. It’s part of our survival mechanism to be part of a group to belong at a fundamental sense. If you get separated from the pack when you’re little from your parents, you’re not able to survive on your own. So the desire to belong, the desire to have a friend group, the desire not to be judged, not to be rejected, not to be kicked out of the group that you belong to, the desire to stay a part of it because it gives you control.

It’s hard wired to our survival system and it’s in our DNA. It’s been passed down since the beginning of time.

The need to be part of a tribe is so primal that we associate groups with safety and survival. So any moment where you’re going to have to stand alone as an individual, it’s an intense moment of vulnerability and it can be terrifying. So much so that, you know, you develop coping mechanisms to fit in with people and you’re not even yourself. So everybody, every one of us, you, me, everybody, you know, we want to be part of a group.

We want to belong because we equate it with being safe. And we equate it with being loved. And so if you’ve ever been separated from the pack, you’ve been cut from a team, you’ve been ostracized by a friend group or like the guy you’re about to meet was called out in school.

It is a loss of control that will hit you at your core and it can spin you out of control. And the reason why it hurts when you’re the one who isn’t invited to a party is because when you’ve been separated from a pack that you thought you belong to, it makes you feel unsafe. It makes you feel singled out. It makes you feel rejected.

Same reason why it bothers you on some level when your colleagues go out to lunch without you, it’s because you’ve been separated from a pack that you’d like to belong to. Now, I’m sure you understand and can relate to the fact that we all want to fit in. We all want to belong. We all struggle with the fear of rejection and the fear of disappointing other people. What I want you to get out of this coaching session at those normal fears of being rejected, of being singled out.

They hit you at a fundamental level, which is why it’s so debilitating when something happens to you that publicly separates you from everyone else. And that’s exactly what happened to the person you’re about to meet.

Can Casey. And I’m 28 years old. I’m from Detroit, Michigan. Just recently engaged a real estate agent in Detroit.

Let’s start by talking about your biggest fear and how it’s impacting you.

My biggest fear is surrounded by success. So growing up my whole life. People don’t expect much from me. They didn’t think I would succeed at a high level. I’ve been able to do a lot of things that people didn’t expect from me. So one of my biggest fears is keeping that momentum and not allowing people’s thoughts and expectations of me to come true. When I was young. Expectations of what I would accomplish were never very high. So my mom immigrated from Thailand.

In terms of education, doesn’t have much. And my dad was always working and we were really poor growing up. We didn’t have much you know, they both worked a ton when it came to setting the tone for education. I didn’t have a whole lot to go off of. I didn’t have people to model after anything like that. But then going back in school, as soon as I got into school, yeah, I was labeled by the Education Department and our school system as having a learning disability.

I mean, so growing up, I mean, I was very, very far behind in terms of reading, writing, math. All of those things. So because of that, I was put into special programs that would try and bring me up to speed.

So what was it like for you? For me, it’s tough because you so bad want to be just normal like all the other kids. Right. So any time that you’re pulled aside and put into this special anything, it’s really challenging because I knew, you know, I’d say, well, how come I’m not like all the other kids? Right. That was one of the biggest challenges, is just being put in these special classes and not walking into those classes.

Right. So seeing all my friends in the hallways and then they’re like, oh, we’re going to English. Well, I’m going to English here. I’m just going to a different one. So how did you cope with it? What was the thing you did? Yeah. In order to cope. So back in the day, which is so strange, was I’m private, complete opposite now. I was definitely the class clown, like trying to get attention.

I pathological liar. I would lie about everything just. Yeah.

Sorry. I’m laughing. I was too you know. But it was because. Yeah. Because I didn’t want. Yeah. I do want to. I want people to focus on that. Right. I wanted to create something else that became the focus. So this is an aside. But I want to tell you something. We have a son who has dyslexia and we did not know that he had dyslexia until he was in the fourth grade.

Like he could not read. Yeah. In middle of fourth grade. And by that point, he he should have been reading kind of late second, early third grade at least, being able to read something, he could barely write his name. He couldn’t tie issues. He couldn’t cut food. And when the teachers came to us, they said, this kid can read.

And he thought, what the hell you’ve done?

He’s a talker and a storyteller and a charmer. And what we’ve come to learn and I think part of what I’m going to tell you that I want you to do is I want you to see if you can get tested, because I think it would be very liberating to know what you have yet as a learning difference. And what I know about dyslexia and particularly language based learning issues. Is that in order to survive. Because what you are dealing with is the fear that you’re going to get separated from the pack.

And you were. Yeah, you were physically pulled away from the pack of friends. You were put in a different group. You were labeled. And that triggers a fundamental fear that every single human being has every one of us. And one of the things that dyslexic kids and kids with language based learning disabilities do is they develop a character. And the character is this person that they become in a classroom or in a group setting in order to hide the fact that you’ve got this disability.

Does that sound right? Like nail on the head? Yes. Yeah, for sure. And and one of the things that research shows is that kids that develop a character. And they use that character trait as a way to kind of get ahead, even if it’s lying, even if it’s like being the class clown like our son was. Mr. Charmer, he’s like, you know, the clown, the leader, the ABI.

I got this I got that first one to raise his hand because it could mean that he could volunteer to go get something versus volunteer to speak. And so nobody knew he couldn’t read because he was always active in the classroom, you know, deflecting. And so the one thing that may help you and we’re gonna talk about this as we get into your story is maybe there’s a way to take all the things that you were doing except the pathological lying and use it in business now as a positive.

Yeah, because I know Richard Branson was dyslexic, right? Yeah. And you know that Einstein was dyslexic, right? Yeah. So we’re going to by the end of this conversation, I’m going to share with you some tremendously empowering things that I’ve learned. Having a kid with dyslexia and later in life, even being told that I have mild dyslexia and it’s gonna be wildly liberating. But before I can give you some of these solutions about how I want you to think now and how proud I want you to feel, we’ve got to get to the heart of how that experience triggered you.

Mm hmm. So what was it like either walking down the hall or being in class and being pulled out? What was that moment like in your body when you knew I’m separating from the pack? It’s tough because, right, like I said, you just want so bad to not be picked out. Yeah. Not to point it out, if I was gonna be pointed out in any way, I’d wanted to be on my own terms and not by the terms that I was.

I didn’t have any problem being different. That wasn’t a problem, but it was when I didn’t have any control. That’s like it was really tough. Gotcha. So when did this start? How old were you? Right when I got in so early elementary school. Gotcha.

So you said that your coping mechanism was to be a pathological liar. Mm hmm. Why did you lie about everything? Anything should. Yeah. Just get people. Oh, wow. He’s like, that’s really interesting. Yeah. Know, I got a really interesting story. And, you know, it’s the biggest lie ever. Tell Vegas. It was never like huge when there’s like the small ones, it’s add up or add up and add up over time.

So were you on edge all the time that people would find out? Or had you become so fluent lying?

No, I was good. I well, I think everyone thinks they’re good, but internet start. Right. But it’s when there’s so many little lies out there, that’s when it becomes really hard to manage. It would just they came naturally. I was just full shit, like desperate to fit in and desperate not to be judged. I want to connect with everybody. Did you ever falling out with friends over it? Yes. And now the challenge now is sometimes you’re like.

Is he full of shit? Like, is he still full shit?

Do you think that that’s what they’re thinking? Or do you actually know that that’s what they’re thinking? Half and half. Then what’s your biggest fear? So what is it that you’re still afraid of?

My fear is now that I’ve been able to find some success, that I feel like the more success I’ve gotten, the more pressure that I’ve gained. That if you lose it, it’s going to come down hard and it’s gonna be really embarrassing for you. You know, because once I was able to find some success. All those relationships changed. All the what? Yeah. With my friends, family, they all viewed me very differently.

How so? They were surprised. They were surprised. Did that piss you off? Yeah. Pressure. Because when you’re when I was young, I just I always remember just saying, like, just instead of being so judgmental, could you please just like, believe in me? Who would you say that to? My two older sisters. Okay. And that was always very much like just how could you just, like, believe in me and encourage me rather than, you know.

Because there was a long time where we. Our relationship has really gotten a lot better over more recent years. But it’s only been since I’ve found some success because there was a time where we kind of went through the cycle where they were trying to mentor and influence. And, yeah, I encouraged me to do better. And then they kind of gave up on that. Once I got success, some that some that started to change. And that also.

And it was. Hey, how are you? Yeah. How’s everything going? Which is great. I really love the fact that these relationships are getting back to you. Yeah. A really good state.

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe they’re not the ones that changed who you are? Yeah. That it’s not about your success at all. It’s about how success has changed you. You’re more open. You are happier. You are more open and receiving. To people coming in. I want you to consider that your coping mechanism. Making a joke about things, being a pathological liar. It trained the people in your life