Take Control of Your Life: How to Silence Fear and Win the Mental Game
Written and Narrated By: Mel Robbins
Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
You either like Mel Robbins’s style… or you haaaate it…!
I say this as someone who both likes and hates her style.
What I like: It’s very Now! This Instant! without getting into the BS of “issues” and staying there.
What I hate: It’s verrrry repetitive, and I often wonder if she gets paid by the word. I tolerated this more in this audiobook, Take Control of Your Life, than in The 5 Second Rule or in the profanity-overloaded (And that’s coming from meeeee? I, who swears like a sailor? Nope, it was too much): Kick Ass with Mel Robbins. In this book, it seemed more necessary to have the same thing said over and over so that it might have a chance to sink in and take root.
The whole thing is a series of “coaching” sessions with individuals who are dealing with different debilitating issues in their lives. It could be flawed relationship choices/practices, maybe the sense that they’ll never find their passion, perhaps hoarding, or even pathological lying. What it all boils down to is Fear, as our bodies live it, as it then goes on to hijack our entire selves and lives.
As somebody who’s a big ol’ Puddle O’ Anxiety, I could definitely relate and listened to this with great interest. I found it immensely helpful, enlightening, and trotted it over to my therapist to get her take on it.
And perhaps I should mention here that the Most Helpful Negative review out there, to me, a) Is a case of splitting hairs, and b) is that person’s very personal belief system about what coaching is supposed to be. As for a)? Robbins continually states that fear is felt in the body and the reviewer is peeved in that it’s the amygdala that feels it first and THEN it goes to the body. For me? Who cares? All I know is that it feels like my lungs are being stretched out, my arms are being pinned, and there’s a huuuuge lump in my throat from a scream that’s perpetually trapped in there. I s’pose I thank my amygdala for setting me up for that, but honestly? I don’t care where it originated, I just want it to stop. And as for b)? The reviewer haaaates that Robbins only touches on the core issue, doesn’t dig deeper into the why’s or wherefores of the traumatizing experience but immediately launches into what the client SHOULD do.
As someone who’s spent yeeeears experiencing different kinds of therapies, I can only say that it’s enlightening to discover how the sensations originated, but it doesn’t really do anything for my quality of life if I’m still stuck after my session. Gimme Change! Gimme Tools! And gimme it NOW! So see? It’s all just personal preferences, and it just so happens that I buy into Mel’s style in that regard.
Her basic premise is that as children, we perceive threats in certain ways, and the fear settles in as a body memory. In later life, any time we start sensing a loss of control, that fear shows up in our bodies and it’s at this point that we have to catch it, before it hijacks the rest of our systems and starts inspiring poor choice skills. Cortisol is actively released for only 90 seconds, so if we’re spazzing for over 90 seconds that’s a personal choice, whether we realize it or not.
And Mel’s all about in-your-face, gonna-make-you-see-it tactics. I was rather in awe at how quickly she assessed a situation and gave her take on it, especially when it differed from what the client believed was going on. This didn’t strike me as hubris; rather, it seemed incisive and insightful. And yes, she does indeed talk a LOT, but I didn’t see this as disrespecting the client so much as educating them.
What I appreciated most about it was that the trauma suffered in childhood didn’t have to be based on some HUGELY egregious thing happening; it was just that we’re wired to perceive threats and, as children, we’re pretty vulnerable and are seeing and experiencing threats from everywhere. To me, that validates the client’s experiences. If it happens to you and you feel fear that makes you fight, flee, or freeze, that’s pretty important. It doesn’t matter if it was because you got a 93 on an exam instead of 100 rather than getting physically abused. If you sensed that your status as the perfect child was in jeopardy, that’s pretty bad.
Mel then goes on to teach grounding exercises, reframe core beliefs, create mantras. And mostly she promotes that change can start NOW, whether it’s broad, sweeping change (Pick three items of value, and throw away everything else that’s stuffing your garage), or slowing things down and building brick by brick (Listen to a podcast or watch a YouTube video on something you miiiiiight find enlightening). Give me that any day of the week rather than $125 per session for eons of My Dad Taught Me I Couldn’t Do ANYthing Right. Been there, done that; paid that as well.
So really. You wanna see change in just over 10 hours? Heck, just listen to a couple of the sessions, view the PDF worksheets. Whatever. If Mel’s style doesn’t irritate you or piss you off, you likely could be making changes almost immediately.
Me? I’ll always be a big ol’ Puddle O’ Anxiety, but I’ll be one with movement, rather than frozen. That’s worth a credit right there. And really, TOTALLY cheaper than a session with a therapist…
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