Whine About It: Changing the Way You Feel

habit to limit your progress. I just think that is so true that when I was kind of reading things looking at the guy I work out, I do that, I do this, but really all that's great and all, but if you've got one bad thing, that's gonna limit your progress. And I was just like wow. So now I'm like thinking here, I'm like, okay, what's the one bad thing? So I'm like, I don't want to because sometimes I feel stuck. So I'm like, what's the thing that's like sticking? Yeah, I'm glad that you like that.

I just ordered the work going to find my one thing? Oh awesome, thank you, I appreciate it. Okay, So what do you think are some of the unhealthy habits that you know people are getting stuck. I think one of

the biggest ones is feeling sorry for yourself. And I encounter so many people that will say, you know, it's not my fault, I can't do anything about it, or see how many problems happen to me, and then they just feel like they are almost looking for permission to not change their life because they just want to prove to everybody else like I shouldn't have to because I've had all these bad things happen to me, or I keep running into these roadblocks and there's nothing I can

do about it. So I think self pity is probably one of the biggest ones, and another one is giving away our power. Right along the same lines, when we blame other people like my sister makes me feel bad about myself or my boss makes me work late. When we use that kind of language and imply that somebody else is in charge of our lives, it kind of gives us an excuse to not take charge and be proactive about making our lives better. Okay, so I don't want to. I'm trying to say how I can delicately

say this without outing my own husband. But I feel like in the first two things you said, you've pretty much stubbed up our household. So the giving power away, peace, the feeling sorry for yourself, my husbands in music, and I feel like entertainment in this industry is so I think I have just watched over years, when people are in it for so long, like you just start to I think any profession honestly, but like I only know

from this experience. But it's like I think, after first, I think, for so long you start to hear the like the limiting beliefs, or you start to like things don't go your way or things aren't working out, or you're watching other people get it that it's the feeling sorry for yourself piece starts to be underlying. Whether you

recognize it or not, it definitely does. Yeah, So say say hypothetically, you might have just nailed it and your two examples, okay, or for you listen, I don't want I'm just gonna at all very vague as vaga as I can make it. Okay. So, now what is my thing? Because you've had a lot of experience in your career, and you deal with a lot of people, and you've written books, and you have this workbook and until Amazon

can deliver it successfully to my house. I just want to cheat sheet, So tell me what to do now. So the two things, like if you want to change how you feel, you can change how you think and how you behave. So if we're feeling sorry for ourselves, we tend to do things that reinforce that, Like you sit on the couch and you don't look for new opportunities, and it just builds and builds into this unhealthy cycle.

So to break out of that, you'd want to go do something that makes it hard to feel sorry for yourself. Go out there and say I'm gonna push myself to do something I don't feel like doing, but do it anyway. And then just change how you think. So when you're thinking my problems are bigger than everybody else is, nobody can possibly understand, Like, get a hold of yourself and say, well, what would I say to my friend right now? If my friend came to me with this problem, you probably

have like some kind words to say to them. So practice that self compassion by saying it to yourself. And when it comes to giving away our power, the biggest thing is just changing our language. Like I still do this. I wrote the book a long time ago, but I still talk a lot about like, oh, I have to go do this, and I'll catch myself and be like, no, I don't have to, even if it's something simple like oh, I have to go to the grocery store, but I

don't have to. It's a choice, And just reminding myself with that, like I'm in charge of how I think, how I feel, how I behave, who I spend my time with, what I do in my day. Just reminding myself of that, and yeah, there's consequences for what I choose to do, but it's up to me. And so if we can change our language, that really helps us take back our power. And if we can do things

that make it hard to feel sorry for ourselves. It's really hard to feel sorry for yourself when you're out there doing something, especially if you're doing something nice for somebody else. I like that. It's interesting because I change. I did one little change probably like ten years ago. I have this chiropractor who is actually married to my old therapist. So it's just a really awesome couple to

be to know and be in love with. But she used to say her schedule was full, like her life was full, instead of busy, so I will always say it's a full day, not a busy day. And just even that small reframing takes it from like an anxious feeling of like, uh, you know, and and now I'd just say, oh, we have a full day or we

have a full week, and it just does. I mean, it is tiny, but even just the things you're saying right now, I'm like, gosh, I really like I could just reframe even a few more things and make myself feel probably a little bit different, you know. I think those tiny changes make a huge difference. Anything that's negative. I try to reframe in my head, and my whole day is instantly better. I just it should. That's been

kind of my thing lately. It's to try to just be more positive, like in the smallest things, and it just makes everything, which makes you happier. It's a choice, like you have a choice to be happy, you have a choice to be positive. You have a choice to make those changes. So the start of this whole thirteen thing for you kind of came person if I'm wrong, totally fine if I am, because I often happen lately,

but my brain is like not with me anymore. The start of the thirteen things came from a series of losses. Is that correct? It is? So I was a therapist and I thought, oh, I'm going to teach everybody everything I learned in college, thinking I was going to like build on their strengths because that's what they teach you in college. And somebody comes into your therapy office and says, hey, this is what I have going on. You're like, yeah,

keep doing the good things. But I realized, you know, if I don't point out that one or two bad habits, then I'd keep people stuck. But I was glad that I started to do that because I really did go through the long My twenties were just like a bad country song over and over again. So I lost my mom when I was twenty three, I was widowed when I was twenty six. I lost a foster child, I lost my father in law. It was this entire decade

of just incredible grief. And it was really through my grief that I learned so much more about our habits and sometimes when life throws you horrible things like how you're going to get through it. And we talked so much about resilience, but resilience is really about just bouncing back, and I thought, I don't want to go through life just feeling like I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop, and I'm going to bounce back from tragedy like I

want to do well. Even when life is going well or when things are okay in life, I still want to work on being as mentally a strong as I can. And that's where the thirteen things mentally strong people don't do. It was actually just a letter to myself on one

of my worst days. I had no intentions of ever writing a book, but I found it helpful because I thought, when I'm overwhelmed with all of these emotions and all these things I have to do, I don't want a long list of extra things I should be doing to make me feel worse. But if I could just think about, okay, Amy, just don't do this thing today, like feel sorry for yourself, that I might be able to get through it. And then I thought, well, if this list is helpful to me,

maybe it would help somebody else. So I published it online and really only expected like a handful of people would read it, but fifty million people read it. And from there I had a literary agent call and say hey, you need to write a book. But like, nobody knew the backstory, and I was a therapist and I don't usually tell my story. I'm really good at listening to other people share there, so I was like, I don't really know if I want to share, but I decided to.

So I came forward and said, you know, actually I didn't write these things because I've become an expert in all of them. I wrote it because I do all of these things. And here's the story of what I went through. And now here I am nine years later, and I still get to talk about mental strength. So I'm glad that I shared the backstory of how I got to be able to write that. Well, that makes it more relatable for us, Like I mean, I know for me, like with my therapist, I'm like, I want

to hear stories about you. I want to hear about what you've gone through, you know, And I know that that y'all's job, but it just I think that's why it's so relatable AND's done so well. You know. That's the thing is, we're all humans. We all go through hard things. Like life is tough. I don't care who you are or what you do for work like life

is really hard sometimes, and I agree. I think we do people a disservice if we don't share that, because so many people just look perfect on Instagram and we walk around when somebody says, how are you doing and you say I'm fine, even though you aren't, because we get uncomfortable sharing about the hard stuff. But when we don't,

people feel alone. And as a therapist, I knew that I'd have so many people come into my office and they'd share very similar stories and very similar heartaches, but yet they would say like, nobody knows I'm dealing with this, And then the next person would come in and say something very similar, and I would always think, well, if only you knew that all of these other people are struggling too. They just look like they're much more put together on the outside than they feel on the inside.

The Ted talk that you did, you had over twenty two million views. I'm sure it's even surpast that obviously now. But why do you think it resonated so much. I think a lot of people didn't talk about mental strength. That was in twenty fifteen. Then I gave that talk, So I think if people were just curious to know, like what does it mean to be mentally strong? And that's the title of it, is the Secret of becoming

mentally Strong. I think people just really wanted to know, like, what is it that will make you mentally strong in life and in it? I quickly go through the thirteen things and talk about how to avoid the bad habits that hold you back, and I think people were a bit relieved to find out, like, there's no, there's not a list of one hundred and ten things you have

to do. Sometimes it is just about finding your worst habit and eliminating that from your life so that all the good habits you already have just become that much more effective. The thirteen things that mentioned strong people don't do it. What are a few of them that you

could you could give us. Yeah, So in addition to the don't feel sorry for yourself, don't give away your power, that's the unhealthy habits, right so, right, So the whole list is just those things that we all do sometimes, yet oh when we do, guarantee, it's just to counterproductive that it outweighs your good habits. So also on the list is not giving up after your first failure, not repeating their same mistakes over and over again, not resenting

other people's success, and not shying away from change. Things that we've all done before, we all are tempted to do sometimes in certain times in our lives, like yeah, life is going well, it's easier to not feel sorry for myself. But then you hit that curveball and life throws something at you, and suddenly it's like, no, I deserve to feel sorry for myself. So different seasons of our lives, some of them are easier than others, but if we're honest, I think we all do them sometimes. Right.

It's interesting because it seems so elementary, the things right, It's like right, obviously right, But then those are the hardest things to undo. They are, and people would say that, like, well, you know, I could have written a list like this, but yet nobody had done it until I came out with a list. But it is very like straightforward things that on the surface we all know don't do that.

And occasionally somebody will argue with me. They'll say, well, can't you feel sorry for yourself for a little well, when you're going through tough things, But like, no, it's okay to be sad, but self pity is different, and that's what keeps us stuck. But all of these things, when you engage in them, even for a little bit of time, like it just develops those unhealthy patterns, keeps

you stuck. And the only way I could really think to describe it in a way that made more tangible sense because mental strength is kind of abstract and it's hard to talk about in a way that we can

really visualize. But it's like if you wanted to become in better shape physically and you went to the gym, like, yeah, you need to run on the treadmill or do all of these exercises, But like, what if your trainer didn't mention, hey, you shouldn't eat all this junk food, Like I'd be really mad, Like I'd rather give up two hours of running on the treadmill, and so I'll just skip the jelly donut. But I feel like when it comes to

mental health habits, we don't really talk about that. We just talk about make sure you practice gratitude and make sure that you take care of yourself. Then we don't really talk about those few bad habits that we might

have that are definitely counterproductive. I think that's the thing that I actually enjoyed about it the most because at first, I it's interesting, like just even where your mind goes when you say don't do you know see that in the title, Like I almost felt myself like bow up a little bit, you know, And then I but what I really like if exactly what you're saying is it's like, Okay, we have a million things or Instagram is flooded with

if you're following the right people, your Instagram is flooded with like Evlo psychology quotes and things coming at me, and it's like do this, do this, do this. And then sometimes you're like, hey, what I'm doing all of that and like to have a list of things that are like, but don't do this. It's like, thanks for just making it easy. That seems yeah, that seems easier. Yeah, Like I'm like, thank y'all do these I'm like, all right, great,

let's rock. Most the same thing because the process of elimination and are like we we also have this like kind of toxic positivity portion of the world that goes into like you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, and you're like, yeah, but if I feel stuck, like I even said to Janna this morning, I was like, I know I have a limit name belief about myself. There's I have. If I look back on my life, I'm really proud of how far I've come,

and it's great, but there's this one. There's something little, and I've just been like trying to really dig and find what it is that keeps me from going for or doing or believing the next level that I see super far in my future. But I'm like, it could happen now, but probably I just have to get rid of a roadblock. So I'm going to get the workbook and I'm just gonna go through one by one, through

thirteen things, and I'm gonna stop doing. I'm glad to hear that, because sometimes people will say, well, I don't shy away from change, and maybe they don't in certain areas of their life. Maybe they do change up a lots of stuff at work, or or maybe they do it in their personal life. But then you look at like their romantic life, and oh maybe maybe you struggle with it in just this one area. It's not necessarily universal. And we tend to think like, oh, if you have

self discipline, you have it in all areas. Of your life. But then we saw like an athlete who's really good at sports, but then maybe they have an addiction behind the scenes, or they're struggling with money. Like oh okay, so you can struggle with something in one area of your life but not another. And so that's why I was glad I got to write the workbook to then really help people break down into like what areas of

your life might you struggle with this one thing? I need someone to just tell me what to do, like I need like so for example, like I know my trainers workouts and like I could I could do it with like sleeping, Like I would do the same workouts. It's like, but I need her to physically come over and like you do it with me and like talk

me through it. And it's like so I'm like and also like I just and I say, like to her, I'm like, okay, tell me what not to eat and what to eat because I'm like I just need to be told like literally, and I will follow whatever or you tell me to do, like I just I don't know. For me, That's how I've always it. So it's like even with therapy, I'm like, tell me how to have a good conversation to communicate with my acts or whatever. Okay, got it. So it's like I need those roadmaps, and

so that's so I can gets cool. And I saw that you're coming out with the Companion workbooks. I'm curious what that is. Yeah, So the Thirteen Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do workbook does just what you said, So it kind of breaks it down into like a conversation, you know, what to say, how to say things differently, thoughts that you might have, how to change the thoughts, how to respond to unhealthy thoughts or as the first

book kind of goes through that. But this one's really about more detail because I've it's been nine years since I wrote Thirteen Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, and in that time, I just get so many people emailing me and saying, you know, can you be my therapist? And I don't have time to be everybody's therapist. So I thought I'm gonna put something out there that would really help people figure it out. So it's exercises straight

from my therapy office that do just that. Like, Okay, if you are feeling sorry for yourself, here is what here's what helps. Or if you find that you're starting to resent somebody's success. Here's the strategies, and let's draw out where do you put the out? Where are you giving away your power in your life? And ask reflection questions. There's quizzes. But then there's things to do, like right there in the book, so you can pinpoint, okay, in

my life, here's what's keeping me stuck. And then there's strategies of what can you do differently? And then the companion workbook those at is that what's different about that one? So that's the workbook. So it's a it's a companion guide to my first book, thirteen things mentally strngue people don't do. And then the workbook is the new one the relationship like you know, oh yeah, yet companion get are always willing to do the work when it comes

to relationships. Yeah, wind now, yeah, yeah, I'm excited for that workbook and I'm excited to dig in and be real honest with myself because I'm just in a really

big season even in marriage. I feel like maybe I need two copies actually know that we're thinking about it in it it would be good to just dig in together even and you know, because it is hard to share a space with someone who also then is doing things that mentally strong people don't do, you know, or opposite you know what I'm saying, but we both need to kind of, I feel like, genuinely work on those things together. Yeah, and the exercises in the book, doud like,

some of them are really simple. People we like really but like name your feelings. If you name an emotion, like it takes a sting out of it. So if you can say I'm embarrassed, I'm anxious struggling with sadness today, like you feel a little bit better just by putting

a name to it. So exercises like that, certainly couples could benefit from if everybody knows, all right, here's what we're going to do, or when we have a conversation, rather than me attempting to read your mind as you say something like, let's just figure out how do we have an assertive conversation? And if I hurt your feelings, what can you do differently? And how can I respond to that so I know next time to communicate with

you differently too. Yeah. I almost had to take my own pride away from it when I started reading about the book because it was like mentally strong, and I'm like, well, I'm mentally strong, but all the things I've done, you know, like I'm tough, blah blah blah. And then I was like, well, this is probably in the thirteen things, so I should just add the cart quickly. Well, you know, one of the things I'll hear from people is they're like, oh,

I don't need a book. I'm mentally strong enough. But it would be kind of like if we never went to the gym because we said, oh, I'm physically strong, I don't need to go. I don't need to go to the gym, Like we need to keep working out our muscles. And for people who know what the exercises are and they keep working on their mental strength at home,

like that is amazing. But I find a lot of people are like, you know, I really don't know what to do or what habits to give up, and so they're asking for that guide of much more specific things. How do I identify my emotions? How do I stay calmer when I am in a disagreement with somebody? How can I change those unhelpful thoughts? Or when is self helpful and when isn't it? So I really want to help people pinpoint those exact things. Yeah, I love that

I have a feeling change. The change piece is going to be something that really resonates with me out of the thing that you've said so far, because I am not resistant to change. Like I married into music, so our schedule changes a lot. I've had to learn how to, like you, really go with the flow, which is opposite of my a typeness. My little I basically was born with a clipboard. So I know that. Like, even as you were saying that, I was like, well, I feel

like I go a change. You know, it's almost it's almost like I know we're getting really close to something even just talking to you, because I could get a little defense to come all a little bit. But I was like, there's probably other areas, other different areas of your life. Yeah, yeah, where the change piece I'm probably not as good at. So this is gonna be fun.

So I am. Yeah. When they looked at studies on change, and like they found some people who were kind of being different, Like half the people were like, no, I'm not going to make the change. The other half we're like, oh whatever. So they kind of flipped a coin and then they followed up with people three months later. The people that made the change, whether it was a new job or they moved to a new city, they were

much happier. And then they followed up with them at the six month mark and the people were like, they're happy as skyrocketed compared to the people who stayed the same. But often in life will be like, I don't want to make things worse, so I don't dare do anything differently. But for the most part, when you do do things differently, you can become a lot happier. And so in the workbook we talk about exercises like one is just called

play to win. Like if you were to step out there and do something and your goal is to like not embarrass yourself, you'll perform way worse than if your goal is to get out there and crush it and so but so often we do that in our own lives, like oh, I just don't want to be the worst salesperson this month, or I don't want to get up on stage and completely embarrass myself, and then we really cut ourselves short. Whereas if we got out there and said, you know, I'm gonna do the very best I can

and here goes nothing. You tend to do a lot better, and that makes change a lot less scary. When you say, Okay, I'm gonna move to this new city, I'm gonna take this new job, and I don't want to just not make my life worse, but I'm gonna get out there and I'm gonna do the best I can and make this the best, most amazing experience ever. There's a better chance it will be sure, all right, Amiel, thank you for coming on the show. Appreciate you. I appreciate shape being here. Thank you. Bye bye. M