Dr. Ethan Cross (5:37)

Well, it's an absolute honor to be here with you. I've been listening to you for quite some time and the compatibility between a lot of what you talk about and what I write about and do research on couldn't be better. So just an honor to be here.

Mel Robbins (5:52)

Awesome. Well, let's just jump right into it and here's how I wanna start. I would love to have you. Do you want me to call you Professor Cross? Ethan. What do you like?

Dr. Ethan Cross (6:00)

I love Ethan.

Mel Robbins (6:01)

Okay, Ethan. We're going with Ethan.

Dr. Ethan Cross (6:02)

Yeah.

Mel Robbins (6:03)

Ethan, I would love to have you speak directly to the person who's here spending time together with us right now and tell them exactly what they could expect to have be different about their life if they take everything that you are about to teach us about our self, talk about our emotions to heart and they put it to use in their life.

Dr. Ethan Cross (6:23)

Here's what I hope everyone takes away from this. Okay, Three things. Number one, you'll be able to take your inner critic and turn it into an inner coach. Number two, if you ever find yourself falling down the rabbit hole of rumination and worry, we're going to give you some lifelines to pull yourself out so you can actually use your mind to solve your problems rather than just get stuck in them. And then number three, more broadly, we're going to give you lots of really pragmatic tactical tools, simple to use, tools that you can use to really master your emotions. So if you want to turn the volume on them up or down, or shorten or lengthen how long they last or even switch from one emotional state to another, we're going to give you some guideposts that steer you in the right direction.

Mel Robbins (7:11)

Wow.

Dr. Ethan Cross (7:12)

So we got our work cut out for us.

Mel Robbins (7:13)

That's a Tall order.

Dr. Ethan Cross (7:14)

Yeah. We better get started.

Mel Robbins (7:15)

Well, I've read your book, so I know you can deliver on that. You know, you have been at the University of Michigan. You are the founding director and have been running this incredible lab, the Emotion and Self Control Lab. What has it taught to you? What do you want us to know?

Dr. Ethan Cross (7:29)

The first thing that I've learned over the past 25 or so years doing research in this space is if you ever find yourself going down that vortex of doom and despair or anxiety, or even overcome with other negative emotions that don't really feel good in the moment, welcome to the human condition. We all do at times. And I think that's a really important point for people to take home, because I can't tell you how many people I meet who really feel bad about themselves when they find themselves slipping into one of those emotional states. We evolve the capacity to experience negative emotions for a reason, and we'll talk more about that today. When they're experienced in the right proportions, they can be useful. So, number one, if you experience worry rumination, if you find your inner critic activating at times, there's nothing wrong with you. To the contrary, I would argue there's everything right with you. Number two, there are no one size fits all solutions for managing these states that we want to bring more under our control. We have evolved to possess lots and lots of different tools, and I think the key to managing our emotional lives more effectively involves learning about what all those tools are and then figuring out what are the unique combinations that we work for you based on who you are as a unique individual. It's a lot like in my mind's physical fitness. Lots of people have the goal to be physically fit, but the way they get there can be radically different compared to other people. And the same is true when it comes to, if we want to call it, emotional fitness. You got to learn about all the different machines in the gym, and then you got to figure out what are the exercises that work for me based on who I am and what my goals are.

Mel Robbins (9:16)

Well, let's start with going down the rabbit hole, because you know your first bestselling book, Chatter, the Voice in Our Head, why it Matters, and how to harness it. When is the last time you went down the rabbit hole?

Dr. Ethan Cross (9:26)

Oh, boy.

Mel Robbins (9:27)

Like, you seem like such a chill guy, like, super tortured yourself about worry or negative thoughts.

Dr. Ethan Cross (9:33)

Probably maybe a couple of months ago, and it was linked with one of my daughters.

Mel Robbins (9:39)

Are you gonna get in trouble for telling the story, Ethan?

Dr. Ethan Cross (9:41)

Well, I'm actively monitoring and now he's.

Mel Robbins (9:44)

Going down the rabbit hole. Yes. My wife is gonna kill me.

Dr. Ethan Cross (9:47)

Yes, yes. No, this is something I'm used to experiencing. No, this is fair to say. So my youngest daughter was applying to get into the same school as my oldest daughter. And when my oldest daughter was applying to get into a school, there was, okay, if it works out, great, and if not, no big deal. But now with the second daughter, there's a social comparison element here. And she has this older sister that she looks up to and admires. And so I'm thinking, well, what would happen if she doesn't get in? And she fortunately did get in. And it was a great relief. But I did, I did find myself going down the rabbit hole on occasion playing the what if this happens. And you know, I should say that when I do that, when I go down the rabbit hole of despair, which I can get stuck in every now and again like, like the best of us. It always amazes me how exceptionally adept we are at brainstorming endless worst case scenarios to our problems. I mean, have you experienced this yourself every day?

Mel Robbins (10:48)

Like, I mean you're like saying a couple months ago, I'm like, dude, like if you asked me that question, it'd be like about an hour ago. But it is true, because we are so good at thinking about the negative and imagining the worst case scenarios, but we're not so great at imagining that things would go right.

Dr. Ethan Cross (11:02)

That's right. Well, there's what we call this negativity bias. One of my favorite titles of a paper in psychology is Bad is Stronger than Good. One of our few Nobel Prize winners won a Nobel Prize for discovering that we're more sensitive to losses than we are gains in our lives. And that all makes sense if you think about it. The bad things in life have the potential to harm us or derail our lives a lot more than the good things. So we should be more sensitive to them. But sometimes that oversensitivity to the bad stuff can really lead us astray. Especially because no one ever teaches us about how to rewrite the ship when we find it going in the wrong path.

Mel Robbins (11:46)

Well, one of the things that you said that I am excited is you said, I'm going to teach you how to turn your inner critic into a coach. And I would love to start with this amazing book chatter and all your research about the voice in our head. And I want to read a part of your book to you because this was jaw dropping to me. So our verbal stream of thoughts, our self talk is so industrious that according to one study, we internally talk to ourselves at a rate equivalent to speaking 4,000 words a minute. And to put this into perspective, I crunch the numbers. 4,000 words a minute is the equivalent of reading the first book in the Harry Potter series in less than 20 minutes.

Dr. Ethan Cross (12:29)

So when we think, we are not always thinking in full sentences. We're thinking in these sound bites that have deep meaning. And when you spel out what those sound bites are equivalent to, you get essays in your mind. And I'm sure you've. You've felt this kind of bombardment of information. When you find yourself going down that rabbit hole, it's like our mind is pinballing all over the place verbally. And we're. We're just inundated. Which is in part why, when we find ourselves kind of racked with chatter, it can feel so. So oppressive. This is one of the reasons why writing about our experiences, doing something we call expressive writing, can be so helpful for folks because it helps us organize our thoughts so that we're not pinballing all around.

Mel Robbins (13:14)

You know, you write that the key to beating this negative self talk and this chatter in our head isn't to stop talking to yourself. The challenge is to figure out how to do so more effectively. But before we can get into how to control the voice in our head, we need to answer a more basic question. Why do we have one in the first place? So, Ethan, what is self talk, and what exactly is that voice that's in our head that's chattering 4,000 words a minute?

Dr. Ethan Cross (13:41)

So when scientists like myself use this phrase, self talk, or the inner voice, what we're talking about is our ability to silently use language to reflect on our lives. And it turns out that is a remarkable tool that we possess for navigating this crazy world. So let me flag for key functions that this ability to use language silently provides. Number one, we're the same vintage here, you know, age wise, more or less.

Mel Robbins (14:12)

M. Be careful.

Dr. Ethan Cross (14:16)

When we were growing up, what would you do when you wanted to remember a phone number or a name?

Mel Robbins (14:22)

Well, if I didn't have a pen and couldn't write it down, I would repeat it over and over and over again.

Dr. Ethan Cross (14:26)

In your head?

Mel Robbins (14:27)

Yes.

Dr. Ethan Cross (14:27)

Yeah.

Mel Robbins (14:28)

Or I'd come up with, like, rhymes or, like, to try to remember it.

Dr. Ethan Cross (14:31)

Right. So that's probably the most basic function that your inner voice serves for us. It's part of what we call our verbal working memory system.

Mel Robbins (14:40)

Wait, so that's what the basic of your inner voice is to help you Remember things.

Dr. Ethan Cross (14:47)

That's one function. So you could think of your inner voice as like a Swiss army knife multipurpose tool. It does many different things for you.

Mel Robbins (14:54)

And oftentimes, death by a thousand cuts.

Dr. Ethan Cross (14:56)

We're going to get there. We're going to get there. Don't you worry. So number one, memorizing a phone number, repeating a phone number, repeating a name, going to the grocery store and asking yourself, what was I supposed to buy? Milk, cheese, yogurt. I guess I'm in the dairy aisle. But the whole point here is you're doing that silently, typically not out loud. That's one thing your inner voice lets you do. Another thing your inner voice lets you do, simulate and plan. So before and while you do a lot of presentations as part of your job, you ever go over what you're going to say before you go on stage in your head?

Mel Robbins (15:32)

Always.

Dr. Ethan Cross (15:33)

Okay. That's your inner voice. You are silently rehearsing, preparing, simulating for what you need to do.

Mel Robbins (15:40)

You know what else I use that I just realized when I'm packing for a trip, I'm like thinking ahead to where I'm going and what I'm going to need.

Dr. Ethan Cross (15:47)

There you go. You're simulating and planning. People do this before interviews, before consequential conversations that they are going to have. I am not as good at giving a presentation if I don't do this simulation beforehand. My favorite function. So the name of my lab at University of Michigan is the Michigan Emotion and Self Control Lab. I love the topic of self control. We use our inner voice to control and motivate ourselves. So, all right, so Mel, tell me what, what do you do to exercise? Oh yeah, keep going.

Mel Robbins (16:21)

Okay, I, I, because of some of the experts we've had on the show, I now lift weights.

Dr. Ethan Cross (16:25)

Okay.

Mel Robbins (16:26)

I walk. I do yoga and Pilates. I have like a super active lifestyle outside. But if I'm quote, exercising, I have to drag myself to the gym and then I use an app to motivate myself.

Dr. Ethan Cross (16:41)

Okay.

Mel Robbins (16:43)

And that's what I do.

Dr. Ethan Cross (16:44)

Do you ever talk to yourself when you're exercising?

Mel Robbins (16:47)

All the time. Like I did this morning in a classroom.

Dr. Ethan Cross (16:50)

Tell us.

Mel Robbins (16:50)

Telling. Hate this. Why are we on our hands? I don't want to do a pike right now. I feel like I'm in a gym class with a woman who's talk and who's like screaming at me. Like screaming. And why is she playing ACD at 6:30 in the morning? I thought this was a fricking Pilates class. Like so it was Literally, like, I'm saying that to myself. As she would walk closer, I would think, get away from me. Go to the other side of the room. Or I'm thinking, this is too heavy. I'm tired, I want to quit. See, clearly I don't have a lot of willpower and discipline because my chatter is a constant barrage of why I should stop doing what I'm actually doing.

Dr. Ethan Cross (17:29)

We have room for intervention here, do we? We have tons of room. We are going to make. If you're already doing fine in the gym, we're going to make you do a lot better by the time this episode is over. So that's another thing. If you're listening, you're going to take home with you. So.

Mel Robbins (17:41)

So it's possible if you are constantly against yourself.

Dr. Ethan Cross (17:46)

Absolutely. You can, you can change your self talk. So. So, but if we just go back to a second. This is one of my favorite questions to ask people when I, when I'm giving talks on this stuff. I just kind of scan the room for, what do you say to yourself when you're exercising? Lots of people talk to themselves and what they say varies tremendously from what you just described. To, come on, you got this to I really want a bagel right now. And, and, and, and so on and so forth. And, and we know that people who are skilled at harnessing this voice to be motivating and encouraging, they actually perform better in those contexts. So, so I, I, knowing this stuff, am very strategic about how I harness my self talk when I'm exercising. I will be motivating. Come on, man, you've got this. That's right. I refer to myself in the second and third person. We'll talk more about how that works. I also can become somewhat, in my head, aggressive towards the instructor that is telling me to do painful things.

Mel Robbins (18:48)

Oh, like the woman that I was with.

Dr. Ethan Cross (18:50)

Yeah, like you were just describing. So for me, I find it, well, why don't you try doing that? You know, like, I don't like the way you're talking to me. I want to do it this way. I don't say that out loud. I smile out loud. But in my head, right. I'm having that kind of conversation. So the point here is another thing your inner voice helps you do is control and motivate yourself. The fourth and final thing I want to flag here, to me, I describe this as the most magical feature of our inner voice. Your inner voice helps us make sense of this messy world that we live in. We are bombarded by things all the Time that have the potential, potential to lead us astray. We get rejected, we get into arguments, we experience anxiety about what may come. And when those different kinds of curveballs get thrown at us, what we do is we often stop and we try to, okay, how do we make sense of this so we could get back on, on track of living our lives? And we make meaning. We use our inner voice to try to make sense of our, our circumstances. To essentially create a story that helps us understand what we're going through and who we are. So your inner voice is actually shaping your sense of self. So if we just pause here and zoom out. Your inner voice helps you do things as simple as reminding yourself what's on your grocery list and memorizing a phone number when you repeat in your head. To simulating and planning for the future, to controlling and motivating yourself, to making meaning. If I told someone I could give you a tool that does all those things, like these are the things that are really important to us in life. Your inner voice is central to all of those things. It's an invaluable tool that you do not want to live life without. The big question, of course that really got me into this business in the first place was on the one hand, we have this remarkable capability. We reach for it when we're struggling. But as you know, as I know, as you who are listening knows, oftentimes we don't activate this voice and get clear solutions to how to move on. We just start stumbling. We start looping over our problems in an attempt to work through them. Or we start berating ourselves incessantly for mistakes that are endemic to human life. And when that happens, I think that is one of the big problems we face as a species. And as I have said before, I say that not to scare or sensationalize. I say it based on what I know of the data. Because if you look at what chatter, which I define as the, the negative manifestation of your inner voice, when it turns into that negative thought looping, that self beratement that just tanks us, it makes it hard for us to think and perform. It creates friction in our relationships and it undermines our health and well being. These are the things we care about in our lives. And so that's why I think it's just critical to address it.

Mel Robbins (21:46)

I have never heard anybody explain self talk and that inner voice so elegantly and in a way that I actually get it.

Dr. Ethan Cross (21:58)

Well, thank you. I mean it is truly remarkable when you take a 30,000 foot view and think about what does our chatter look like? What does it sound like? I mean, we say things to ourselves that many people not only wouldn't say to a buddy, right? We often talk about that. You know, talk to yourself like you would talk to someone else. This is a great tool, by the way. We'll talk more about that later. We sometimes say things to ourselves that we are ashamed to even say out loud. Sometimes when I do exercises, workshops with groups or students, I'll sometimes invite people to just write down their chatter on a piece of paper. And it's really remarkable. People are often reluctant to even put in words writing what they're thinking, even when I assure them, like the shredders right here, there's another garbage bag with lighter fluid. Like not bag, garbage can. Right? You can, I'm joking here. But like, no one is going to.

Mel Robbins (22:56)

Look at this, right?

Dr. Ethan Cross (22:57)

Just admitting to what is happening up here can be so challenging for folks. And I think that speaks to the gravity of what we're talking about.

Mel Robbins (23:07)

What are some of the examples of negative self talk that just show up again and again? I think hearing it from you would really validate it for me and for the person who's with us right now. Because if we don't, if we're reluctant to even be honest with ourselves and put it on paper, what can you validate based on the fact that this is your area of expertise, it's what you research, that you see over and over and over again that are examples of negative self talk.

Dr. Ethan Cross (23:32)

There are three key forms. Number one, what I call rumination, which is going over the past, something you did in the past, you can't fix it, right? But you just keep turning it over and over in your mind, why did I do this? Why didn't I do it that way? What implications might this have moving forward? So rumination is getting lost in this thought. It's a legitimate issue from the past and you're trying to work through it, but you just keep turning it over and over. You're not making any progress. That's often a telltale sign of chatter. Legitimate issue. You want to work through it, but you don't make progress.

Mel Robbins (24:10)

So it could be like just to give it even a more fine point, it could be that you really screwed up in a relationship and now you're telling yourself the one got away, or you made dumb financial decisions. This was me. And now why did I do that? I should have started with my 401k, like my father told me when I graduated from college, like, da da, da, like just hammering yourself into the ground. How did I let myself go? I should have. Like, I've just, just now it's too late. I've been drinking, like all that kind of stuff that's in the past. And why is this such a predominant form of self talk for people?

Dr. Ethan Cross (24:46)

Well, it's a predominant form because I often think that we navigate life in an ideal sense on autopilot. We just kind of want to live the life knowing that the world is orderly, it's safe, it's predictable. And then when we encounter some challenge to that view that the world is safe, that everything's okay, it's like an alarm gets hit in our brains that says, stop, pay attention, Fix this. And so then we zoom in really narrowly on what the impediment is. And so maybe it's something from the past. And we keep focusing on it until we can resolve it. Oftentimes, though, we don't know how to resolve it. We just keep on playing it over and over in our minds. And then the alarm button stays pressed and we just get into this rut of turning it over and over and over. Some of us don't want to let go of that either, because at least if we're focusing on it, that's step one. But in the process of doing that, we're really harming ourselves. We're making it very challenging to think and perform. I mean, have you ever gotten stuck in rumination and then tried to have a conversation with someone or read a book only to find that you're physically there or you're reading the information on the page, but nothing is penetrating because your mind is somewhere else?

Mel Robbins (26:02)

Oh, completely, absolutely. Like, if I get into that loop where I am obsessing over something that I think I did wrong, I can't do anything else.

Dr. Ethan Cross (26:12)

Exactly. So that's thinking and performance. Right. Like, that is a major, major obstacle to being successful in life. If your ability to really hone your attention now is lost and the way that works, just. If you want to geek out with me, 30 seconds.

Mel Robbins (26:28)

Sure.

Dr. Ethan Cross (26:28)

Our ability to focus is limited. We have these limited attentional resources. They are subserved by our prefrontal cortex. The front part of our brains and chatter acts like a sponge that soaks up all of those attentional resources, and it leaves very little left over to do the things that we often want and need to do, whether that be just pay attention to the person we're talking to or read the chapter in the book and absorb the information. That's one of the way it really sinks us. So, so you ask though, like, how does chatter manifest rumination about the past? Is one another one that will be familiar to everyone in the world or most of us is, is worry. Right. We, we worry about the future. We think about the what ifs. We are, what if machines, we can easily, what if this happens? What if that happens? And before you know it, you know, life is over.

Mel Robbins (27:22)

Right?

Dr. Ethan Cross (27:22)

Right. And that goes really fast. So worrying is getting stuck in these negative thought loops, typically about the present and future.

Mel Robbins (27:31)

So rumination. The first is the past. The second form of self talk is getting stuck in a negative loop, talking to yourself about the future. And what's the third form?

Dr. Ethan Cross (27:40)

The third form that is very common to folks is this self beratement. This kind of like, you idiot, you know, you know, how could you do this? You're worthless. So this kind of inner critic is another manifestation of it. It can however, take different forms. So chatter really is this process of just looping, looping negative information over and over. If you're being super critical about yourself like that, that's very common. Sometimes it can be just anxiety. Right. You're looping over, what if this happens? What if this happens? And so it's really this looping of negative stuff. It's like you keep on getting hit it over and over and over. You said it before. I think you said death by a thousand cuts.

Mel Robbins (28:23)

Yeah, that's what it can feel like when you just start hammering yourself.

Dr. Ethan Cross (28:26)

Right. Like it's exhausting. People often who are experiencing chatter, they report just like being fatigued. Now I want to be clear also.

Mel Robbins (28:34)

Yep.

Dr. Ethan Cross (28:35)

We all have this capability of experiencing chatter at times. And, and just because you do doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. Again, this is normative. If it morphs into the extreme state that is like the volume is super high and it's on for long stretches of time, like more than two weeks. Then we get into the more clinical state. But what we're talking about here today is really, this is just true of human beings and how we operate. And again, a big, big part of what I hope to do in talking to you about this and sharing the science is to convey first and foremost that this is normal. This is just part of this messy world that we live in. We have these tendencies to slip into the states. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. The opportunity though, is to learn about what you can do to help yourself when you go down this path. If you don't want to stay on it.

Mel Robbins (29:31)

Ethan, what is the solution? I mean, now that you're exposing all the negative self talk, is there a simple way to shut it up or a magic wand you can wave in order to just silence all of this negative self talk? Or is this a much more complicated thing that we need to take on?

Dr. Ethan Cross (29:49)

Well, there's not one simple thing that everyone can do.

Mel Robbins (29:52)

I don't like that answer.

Dr. Ethan Cross (29:54)

Yes, I'm sure you don't. But I'm gonna. I'm gonna give you.

Mel Robbins (29:56)

There goes my negative chatter right out my mouth at you.

Dr. Ethan Cross (29:59)

But I'm gonna give you. There are lots of simple things you can do.

Mel Robbins (30:02)

Oh.

Dr. Ethan Cross (30:02)

Is the way to think about it.

Mel Robbins (30:03)

Oh, I like that.

Dr. Ethan Cross (30:04)

So, yeah, you should. There's a lot of hope. There's a lot.

Mel Robbins (30:07)

There's a lot. You can feel bummed.

Dr. Ethan Cross (30:09)

I think you should feel good when I tell you that there's not one thing you can do to manage. Because here's what often happens when you give people one solution. They try it. That one thing doesn't work for them. And now they think, what's wrong with me? Why is this working for everyone else but not me? We just published some research not too long ago that looked at how people dealt with their anxiety during the COVID pandemic. So we did these large studies. We tracked people over time, and every day we had them rate their Covid anxiety and we had them indicate which of something like 18 different tools they used. And all we wanted to know was, well, what are the tools that are moving the needle?

Mel Robbins (30:52)

Yeah.

Dr. Ethan Cross (30:52)

So what was really interesting about that study was there was no individual tool that moved the needle on people's anxiety. It was only like when you used a combination of tools, it's like curling biceps. Didn't do it on its own. You had to do bicep curls, push ups and sit ups.

Mel Robbins (31:09)

Right, Right.

Dr. Ethan Cross (31:10)

Except for journaling. Journaling was the one tool that alone moved the needle on people's anxiety. However, it was also the most infrequently used tool of all the tools we asked people about. How does that make sense?

Mel Robbins (31:27)

Yeah. Why?

Dr. Ethan Cross (31:28)

It's effortful to sit down for 15 to 20 minutes and actually write. There's also a vulnerability to putting it out there. And so I think teaching people about that is really useful too, because that could be a powerful tool for folks.

Mel Robbins (31:43)

So do you have a favorite journal prompt that's helpful for starting the process of identifying your negative chatter? What is it?

Dr. Ethan Cross (31:50)

Yeah, well, for me, it's like straight out of the pages of the literature. So I tell people to write about your deepest thoughts and feelings, about whatever it is that's bothering you, really let yourself go. Don't worry about punctuation or grammar. Write continuously for 15 or 20 minutes. Now, what do we learn from the time we're young about stories? They have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So what writing does is it gives these guideposts to help you take this, like, jumble of crap in our minds, which are making us nuts.

Mel Robbins (32:23)

Yes.

Dr. Ethan Cross (32:24)

And we're organizing it. And that's the beauty of what we call expressive writing. So the whole idea here is that we have this remarkable set of tools that we can leverage to help us work through our chatter. But we need to know what those tools are and what. What really mystifies me is we don't get a user's guide for where to find these tools and a user's guide that teaches us how to use it. When we are born into this world, we're born into the world with the ability to experience this chatter or this emotion dysregulation. But no one, no one teaches us how to use it or how to. How to manage it.

Mel Robbins (33:03)

Until now.

Dr. Ethan Cross (33:04)

Yeah. And there is hope. There's absolutely hope. What? I find it liberating to know that there are so many different tools that I can bring to bear to deal with the different circumstances that I might encounter. You know, my emotional life is utterly distinct. It's like a fingerprint. Right. It's very different from yours and every other human being on this planet. So what? Why would we expect the same single tool to work for every single one of us, given how unique we are? My grandfather was a master carpenter, and I remember distinctly, like, when he would show up to a job site, he would show up with this remarkable set of tools, this toolkit. No matter what problem he encountered on the job site, no matter what he needed to do, he had a tool, a general. You know, he knew how to use these tools, and he could wield them to solve the problem. If he showed up with just a hammer, he'd be out of business. And that's how I think about tools. You want to give people those basic tools that exist for pushing our emotions around, and once you have them, you've got a great resource.

Mel Robbins (34:14)

I just love how you teach. And, you know, what I want to do is just hit the pause button real quick so that we can all just think about what you're sharing so far. And I also want to give you, as you're listening to Ethan, a chance to share this with people that you care about because I think we all need to know how to stop the negative self talk. And don't go anywhere because Ethan is just getting started. There are so many tools that he's going to be sharing with you. Don't go anywhere. He and I will be waiting for you after a short break, so stay with us. The second the weather warms up, I'm outside. Morning coffee, Midday Emails Dinner with friends I live outdoors and thanks to Wayfair, our backyard is just as cozy and beautiful as our living room room. We've got this dreamy porch swing I love to curl up on with Chris, plus chaise lounges for watching the dogs chase squirrels. And when the friends come over, we fire up the grill, gather around a fire pit and that outdoor sectional. It looks like it came straight from inside, only it's sunproof and wine spill friendly. Wayfair makes it ridiculously easy to upgrade your outdoor space whatever your budget. From hot tubs to patio sets, they ship the big stuff free. Get your outdoor setup dialed in now and soak up every second of summer. Shop a huge selection of outdoor furniture online this summer. Get outside with wayfair. Head to wayfair.com right now. That's W A Y-F-A-I-R.com wayfair every style, every Home the Mel Robbins Podcast is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance, our exclusive insurance partner. As Amica says, empathy is our best policy. That's why they'll go above and beyond to tailor your insurance coverage to best fit your needs. Whether you're on the road, at home or traveling along life's journey, their friendly and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to ensure you have the right coverage in place. Amica will provide you with peace of mind. Go to amica.com and get a quote today. Oh my gosh. I love summer. The sunshine, the cookouts, the late sunsets. But you know, I was really getting tired of wearing the same three T shirts and sad shorts every single day. It's like my summer wardrobe was from 10 years ago. So I decided this summer, let's refresh with Quince. Quince has timeless, elevated pieces that instantly upgrade your mm. Oh my gosh. How many seasons ago with this too? Oh, I look pretty put together. I love their 100% European linen shorts and dresses. Breezy, easy, beautiful, affordable. And the Italian leather platform sandals. Perfect for any occasion. Here's the best part. Quince is 50 to 80% less than other brands because they cut out the middle person not the quality plus it's all ethically made with premium fabric so you feel good while you look amazing. Treat your closet to a little summer glow up with quince. Go to quince.commel for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com Mel to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Mel welcome back. It's your buddy, Mel Robbins. Today you and I have the honor of getting to spend time with and learn from Professor Ethan Cross from the University of Michigan. He is teaching us all about our self talk and simple ways that we can actually change it. You've got like, I mean, I'm looking at 12 tools that you can use personally. There are tools for getting other people to support you. There's tools for receiving support. Let me start with the first one. Use distanced self talk. One way to create distance when you're experiencing chatter involves language. So what is distance self talk and how do I use it when I'm going down the rabbit hole?

Dr. Ethan Cross (37:57)

And you know, I've actually heard you use this on prior podcasts and you weren't even aware of it.

Mel Robbins (38:02)

No, I'm not.

Dr. Ethan Cross (38:03)

So can you think about times when you might have coached yourself through a problem using your own name and you.

Mel Robbins (38:09)

Oh, you mean like talking? Like saying to myself, oh, come on.

Dr. Ethan Cross (38:13)

Well, yeah, there you go.

Mel Robbins (38:14)

That's distant self talk.

Dr. Ethan Cross (38:16)

You just did distance self talk. So distance self talk involves using your name and you to typically silently coach yourself through a problem. You could do it out loud, but if you do it out loud, you want to be aware of who's listening because it violates social norms not only to talk to ourselves out loud, but use our own name to do it. We talked before and you've talked before about how much better we are at giving advice to other people than we are taking that advice ourselves. Little factoid there. There's a name for that phenomenon that we've, we've studied this in my lab. It's called Solomon's Paradox.

Mel Robbins (38:51)

Solomon's paradox.

Dr. Ethan Cross (38:52)

Named after the Bible's King Solomon. Here, I'm going to give you another pop quiz. Don't get nervous if you get it wrong. If you get it. No, I think you will. I. I think you will. So what was King Solomon famous for?

Mel Robbins (39:05)

I have no idea.

Dr. Ethan Cross (39:06)

Being a king, Being wise.

Mel Robbins (39:09)

Oh, being wise. Being wise.

Dr. Ethan Cross (39:10)

He was a wise guy. So King Salman, like, like super wise individual people would travel from all over the world to receive his, his counsel but when you look at his own life, he made a slew of terrible decisions. This is true of, of humanity. Like when I ask audiences, hey, you're much better at, at giving advice to others and taking that advice yourself. Every hand in the, in the room goes up. We. When you use distance selft talk, what it's doing is you're using language to automatically shift your perspective to put you into this. I'm talking to someone else advice giving mode. Think about the word you. The word you is the verbal equivalent of pointing a finger at someone else. Most of the time we use the word you. It's when we're thinking about or referring to another person.

Mel Robbins (39:57)

So when you use the example of being in the gym and one purpose of your self talk is motivation and you say, come on Ethan, you got this.

Dr. Ethan Cross (40:06)

That's right.

Mel Robbins (40:07)

That's an example of using positive motivating self talk using this distanced language.

Dr. Ethan Cross (40:13)

That's exactly right. You're putting yourself into this coach advice giving mode. Right. And what did we say earlier? We don't say to our friends the things that we say to ourselves when we get stuck in that chatter. So when you use your own name and you to coach yourself through a problem, it's like it's putting guardrails up on your self talk that prevents you from going down that, that more negative route.

Mel Robbins (40:37)

Can you give me a couple examples of just generic positive distance language for somebody that hyper focuses on the mistakes they make or like saying that I'm never gonna be good enough. What are some examples of just things people could start to say to themselves?

Dr. Ethan Cross (40:55)

Ethan, all people make mistakes. You've made mistakes before, you've learned from them and you'll be fine.

Mel Robbins (41:01)

Oh, that's nice. Yeah, that's a nice thing to say.

Dr. Ethan Cross (41:03)

To yourself rather than I'm such an idiot, I'm such a. I mean you have to. You know, I mentioned before we started filming that I grew up in Brooklyn, New York and although you may not hear the accent right now, in my mind when I go into the chatter zone, it's a filthy sometimes inner beratement. And so I'm not doing that when, when I'm in distant self talk mode.

Mel Robbins (41:25)

So give me another positive one.

Dr. Ethan Cross (41:26)

So, so really what we see happening is you get into this more challenge orientation. I can manage this. I can do it. As opposed to being in what we call threat mode. I can't manage this. I'm going to screw up. So another example would be one of my favorites from a study was someone was thinking about having to plan a huge event for someone and it was really, really stressful. You can do this, you can manage this retirement party for this person and get a great turnout. People are going to come and they're going to love it. You've got this. You know, in my book, I actually, I share an artifact from Mr. Rogers. Remember Mr. Rogers? Of course, he was the.

Mel Robbins (42:09)

You're sitting in 143 Studios, which was his favorite number.

Dr. Ethan Cross (42:12)

Really.

Mel Robbins (42:13)

Wow.

Dr. Ethan Cross (42:14)

There is some cosmic connection that led me to bring this up. So Mr. Rogers in my mind is the human equivalent of a warm cup of tea on a rainy afternoon. Right. Just kind of soothing. And there was this moment where he had taken some time off from filming his show and then he was about to, to come back and he was racked with chatter, racked with self doubt and he, he journaled a little bit about it and he's, you know, it's. How can I possibly live up to expectations? I've been gone and I'll never be good enough. And then at a particular moment in that essay, he switches, he starts using distant self talk. Essentially, you've got this, the hour of come, you're going to do a great job and so forth and so on. It's in the book. And it's just remarkable because you see the entire tenor of the conversation shift when he goes into this distant self talk mode.

Mel Robbins (43:08)

You know, one of the other tools that you talk about that's very effective at helping you get a handle on the inner critic. And this negative chatter that we have is rituals. Can you explain that?

Dr. Ethan Cross (43:18)

Yeah. So, you know, rituals in popular culture get a bad rap because we often equate them with certain forms of anxiety. And there are those links that do exist where you have people who are suffering from anxiety conditions become really over reliant on a ritual to a point where it can be harmful. But a ritual in the right proportions can be quite helpful. I often call them ancient chatter fighting tools. So if you think about it, are you religious in any way or very spiritual person? Okay, very spiritual person. So I'm sure that there are certain spiritual rituals that you've been exposed to. Grieving rituals. Right. Religions around the world have been like, well, let's just stop for a second, let's pause for a second. Take the loss of someone. This is like a real chatter challenge for a lot of people. Like their worldview is shattered now. How are they going to go on without this person that they love, that they care about? Religions have identified, hey, that might be a really Hard time that people are dealing with. Let's give them a tool to manage that situation. It's a grieving ritual. So here's what we know about rituals. Rituals are relatively rigid sequences of behaviors that you perform them the same way each time, more or less. They don't necessarily. It's not clear why you do the things that comprise a ritual. Like, if you've ever watched an athlete before a game do a ritual, they do some funky things like, you know, tug on their earlobe a few times, pick a wedgie, put their hand through their hair. The key is you're doing the same thing in a sequenced order, in a rigid sequence order the same way. Here's how this can help us. Chatter is often triggered when we don't feel like we have order and control. Things are just not under our control. You've written extensively about this, right? A ritual's under your control. You can perform that ritual the same way each time. And when you do, it leads to what we call. This is a mouthful. Compensatory control. You're compensating for the lack of control you feel inside when your chatter is taking over by exerting control around you. This is also why people do this. I'm guessing, pretty common thing. I'm gonna guess you do this. Here's another.

Mel Robbins (45:43)

I don't know.

Dr. Ethan Cross (45:43)

Yeah, I feel like I'm putting you on edge throughout our conversation.

Mel Robbins (45:46)

Not at all.

Dr. Ethan Cross (45:47)

Do you ever organize and clean when you're experiencing chatter?

Mel Robbins (45:51)

Okay, so let's have a conversation about this. Because not only did I see on page 170 Tools that involve your environment to really get your negative self talk in control, but the first one is create order in your environment. When we experience chatter, we often feel as if we're losing control. You write our thought spirals control us rather than the other way around. When this happens, you can boost your sense of control by imposing order on your surroundings. Organizing your environment can take many forms. Tidying up your work or home, making a list, arranging different objects. This is, I think, my number one way to combat negative self talk. And I never knew that's what I was doing.

Dr. Ethan Cross (46:40)

So that was true of me as well before I got into this space. And this was a super aha as a technical term for me. So growing up, I've always been, I would describe myself as positively dispositioned, very happy, clean. I've always believed in hygiene. I shower daily, sometimes twice.

Mel Robbins (47:01)

Twice.

Dr. Ethan Cross (47:02)

Sometimes if I go to the gym, you know, I like to stay fresh, but not terribly organized. In the sense of putting my things away, probably like my wife's biggest pet peeve are the trail of clothing that exists from the shower to the closet around the room. And if you go into my office, I assure you it does not look like this facility that we're taping in right now. Piles of books, that's when times are good.

Mel Robbins (47:31)

Okay.

Dr. Ethan Cross (47:32)

Yet going back to when I was a kid, whenever I would experience chatter, I would do this. Something deep inside me would beckon myself to. It was like, remember Field of dreams. Like build it and they will come.

Mel Robbins (47:45)

Yes, yes.

Dr. Ethan Cross (47:45)

For me it was like clean it, clean it and you will experience relief. And so I would like go and put things away and I do this, you know, I go into the kitchen, do all the dishes, maybe even scrub the counter.

Mel Robbins (48:01)

Same even.

Dr. Ethan Cross (48:01)

And then even masochistically and tell me if you do this, Sometimes I even go in my kids rooms and put.

Mel Robbins (48:06)

Their stuff away, of course.

Dr. Ethan Cross (48:08)

And like all of a sudden things feel a little bit better.

Mel Robbins (48:12)

I absolutely had no idea. This is a technique that we reach for when our overwhelm and our minds get to be too much.

Dr. Ethan Cross (48:20)

You're compensating for the lack of control you feel inside by trying to exert order and control around you. And now that you know how this works, you can weaponize this.

Mel Robbins (48:32)

Okay, let's talk about that. Because I can see lots of areas moments in my life like when my husband and I were really, really struggling. The kids would joke that they would come home from school and every other day I would have moved the furniture around, dragging it and scraping the floor in the room where the TV was. Just like, I gotta change this around. And even thinking about packing Sunday night to come down, I have this thing about packing where I start to feel very overwhelmed. And then I'm mad at myself that I didn't pack before. And now I'm be beating myself up relentlessly. Why is this so hard for you? Like just make a damn list. And why didn't you do this on Saturday morning? And Jesus, you meant to leave like two hours ago. And I'm like hammering myself. And that of course makes it impossible to leverage what you've already taught us, which is the planning and forecasting aspect of your self talk. Because I'm so busy berating myself. So literally I come down in the kitchen on Sunday night, I'm two and a half hours late leaving. Yeah, I'm not even packed yet. Ethan and I have clothes still spinning in the dryer upstairs. And you know what I did? I literally Pulled out the junk drawer in the kitchen.

Dr. Ethan Cross (49:39)

And you started organizing.

Mel Robbins (49:40)

Yes. And my husband comes over and he puts his hand on my shoulder. He's like, you don't need to be doing this right now. And what I wanted to do is scream around, be like. And I took a deep breath and I was like, right. But what I'm realizing is that was me trying to create order and what felt like a tornado of negativity in my brain.

Dr. Ethan Cross (50:02)

That's exactly right.

Mel Robbins (50:03)

Is that why we do to do lists too?

Dr. Ethan Cross (50:04)

Like, when we go around, It's a way of organizing. And so these can be useful tools for helping people to constrain their chatter, as long as we don't become over reliant on them. And I'm giving you that caveat that is true, by the way, of all the tools that we're talking about and that I write about.

Mel Robbins (50:20)

You know what I find interesting too, about what you just said.

Dr. Ethan Cross (50:23)

Tell me.

Mel Robbins (50:23)

The chaos doesn't bother me when I'm happy. Yeah, my desk can look like we tipped over an aisle at Staples and just crap everywhere. But if I start to feel overwhelmed or stressed at work, I don't do work. I clean my desk.

Dr. Ethan Cross (50:39)

You described yourself so interesting. Like, you get caught up in this kind of tizzy, so to speak of. Ah, that's kind of how it feels, right? Like, let me out, let me. Give me freedom. And you're reflexively going to clean. And if that's working, great. But we can also get even more sophisticated about beforehand, thinking about, what are the two or three things that we want to do when we find ourselves in that state? And then basically ahead of time, coming up with a plan.

Mel Robbins (51:13)

What do we do?

Dr. Ethan Cross (51:14)

So here's what we whoop it up.

Mel Robbins (51:15)

You need to whoop it up.

Dr. Ethan Cross (51:16)

Whoop it up. Just like. All right, another question here. What comes to mind when I say whoops?

Mel Robbins (51:22)

Like, isn't there that song? There it is.

Dr. Ethan Cross (51:25)

You just redeemed yourself. Now we're back. We're at like 75%. We're getting back. Yeah. Whoop, there it is. Right? So people have struggled endlessly. You go from listening to a podcast, reading a book, you learn about information, and then the bleep hits the fan. And the question is, you don't do it, right. It's the New Year's resolution dilemma. I'm going to lose the weight. I'm going to go to the gym every day. Three days later, you stop doing it. And so scientists have spent a ton of time trying to figure out, why are we so bad at following through with our intentions and how do we make people better? And you could boil down the decades of research into a simple framework called whoop. Here's what it stands for. The W. That's step one. That's your wish. So what is your goal? So your goal might be to calm the chatter down, like reduce the noise when you find yourself slipping into that state. That's the goal I want to achieve.

Mel Robbins (52:26)

Okay. That's the wish.

Dr. Ethan Cross (52:27)

That's the wish. Okay. The first O, that's the outcome. So what's gonna happen to you if you achieve that goal?

Mel Robbins (52:35)

I'm gonna have less stress. I am going to cause less drama for myself and other people. I am going to feel more at peace and more in control because all of this negative chatter and overwhelm that becomes very paralyzing makes me feel out of control and incapable. So the outcome would be very positive.

Dr. Ethan Cross (53:01)

So great job.

Mel Robbins (53:02)

And the reason we focus, I love the affirmations. Just hang around all day.

Dr. Ethan Cross (53:07)

I'm happy to give him. But it's true. And the reason why we do the the outcome next. Now, like, you've articulated your goal. We want to energize you. Like, this is a goal worth pursuing. This is worth my time. So now you're in this energized state for pursuing this goal. Now we get to the second O, which are the obstacles.

Mel Robbins (53:27)

Okay.

Dr. Ethan Cross (53:27)

The personal obstacles that are going to stand in the way of. Of you achieving this goal. So what might be an obstacle that might prevent you from turning the volume on your chatter down?

Mel Robbins (53:40)

I am fluent in negative self talk. I am fantastic at criticizing myself. I can whip myself into a human tornado in a nanosecond and it can be very effective when I get into a tizzy because other people try to help.

Dr. Ethan Cross (54:00)

Okay.

Mel Robbins (54:01)

So I think those are all lots of obstacles. Like just being honest about, like I don't even know if I can do it would be an obstacle.

Dr. Ethan Cross (54:07)

Yeah. So you mean turn the volume down?

Mel Robbins (54:10)

Yeah.

Dr. Ethan Cross (54:10)

Yeah. So you've just gone through your obstacles. So what we would then do, we would focus on one of those obstacles to start and we'd get to a P, which is our plan. But it's not any kind of plan. It's what we call an implementation intention. It's easier to call it a plan. Yes, it's basically an if then plan. So if I find myself doom casting and becoming, you know, this savant in negative self talk, then. And you plug in what you are going to do. You plug in the tools that you are going to use in that situation. So if I find myself berating myself incessantly, then I'm going to coach myself using distant self talk.

Mel Robbins (54:55)

Mel, you can handle this. It's not that big of a deal.

Dr. Ethan Cross (54:58)

Go for a walk in nature.

Mel Robbins (54:59)

That's another tool in your book. Go for a walk in nature.

Dr. Ethan Cross (55:01)

Jump into the mental time travel machine. Go forward and back. We'll talk about that in a little bit. Okay, Right.

Mel Robbins (55:07)

So what I talk about it right now. What do I do?

Dr. Ethan Cross (55:09)

Okay, Sorry to go.

Mel Robbins (55:10)

What is it? I'm not gonna remember it.

Dr. Ethan Cross (55:11)

Mental time travel are. These are two of the most useful tools that I possess along with distant self talk. Super simple.

Mel Robbins (55:18)

Okay?

Dr. Ethan Cross (55:18)

We talk a lot about the importance of being in the moment, Grounding ourselves in our breath. That is useful. But what we forget when we talk about being in the moment is, number one, our minds evolved to travel in time. And you can actually use that to your benefit. So, number one, how am I going to feel about this issue next week, next month, next year? Most of our emotions follow a time course. They get triggered. And as time goes on, they eventually subside. Most of our emotional experiences follow that trajectory. But when we are stuck in chatter, we just zoom in on the awfulness. Feels like it's never going to end. When you jump into the time travel machine, how am I going to feel about this 10 years from now, 20 years from now? It highlights the fact that what you're going through, as bad as it is, it's not permanent. Things will eventually get better. It gives you hope. And that turns the volume on our chatter down. That's one thing. That's mental time travel to the future.

Mel Robbins (56:18)

I think that could work.

Dr. Ethan Cross (56:19)

That's powerful for me.

Mel Robbins (56:20)

And then that helps me also access the positive distance talk that you've taught us.

Dr. Ethan Cross (56:26)

Exactly.

Mel Robbins (56:26)

Which is if I time travel even two weeks, like a week from now, you've already packed and been on the trip and now you're home. It's not that big of a deal. And then I can start to go, mel, take a deep breath. You're capable of packing.

Dr. Ethan Cross (56:39)

You got it. So you're blending these tools, which is also how these things actually operate in daily life. Right? So we go back to the one thing. It's not one. Now we're doing two.

Mel Robbins (56:49)

And you know what else I wanna point out? Because I think it's important to keep highlighting this. You've given us other tools of creating a ritual and playing music and going outside and taking a walk in that moment, playing a song and Taking a walk would just stress me out more.

Dr. Ethan Cross (57:04)

Don't do it.

Mel Robbins (57:04)

Right. But I can see how now you are starting to build this toolkit. That's right where I'm not going for a walk right now. But I can time travel to calm myself down. And then I can use positive distance talk to say, Mel, you can pack a bag.

Dr. Ethan Cross (57:20)

That's right. So you can customize the tools based again on who you are and the circumstances you're in. So let's close the loop though, on mental time travel because we just talked about going into the future. You could also go into the past. Works a little bit differently for me. This is my. Is ace in the hole the right term? I think it is.

Mel Robbins (57:39)

I don't know. What does it mean?

Dr. Ethan Cross (57:40)

It's like my secret superpower.

Mel Robbins (57:42)

Oh, gotcha. Okay.

Dr. Ethan Cross (57:42)

Yeah, I think I might have gotten wrong, but that's okay. So we'll give it to you. Yeah. Okay, now you're giving me the aphorisms. This is reciprocal. It goes very well. So the story I open up my second book with shift is a story of my grandmother in World War II, surviving the Nazis, basically slaughtering her whole family. My grandmother's my ace in the hole. When things feel so big and just kind of, how am I possibly going to get through this? I jump into the mental time travel machine. I go back to 1940, whatever. I spend just a little bit of time with my grandmother in my mind. And what that does for me is it zooms me out. It makes it super clear to me that what I'm going through, as difficult as it is, it pales in comparison to what she went through and survived. And I think we all have those personal experiences or experiences in our family or in our culture that you can anchor on to put what we're going through in perspective.

Mel Robbins (58:49)

Is there something you would add to that though? Because if you're a world class self critic and berater, I could see that strategy being something that only becomes more evidence where you go, and you're such a piece of crap that you're sitting here working yourself up about this thing. You know what I'm saying? Like you actually. So how do you take that to give yourself perspective, but then keep yourself lifted in your capacity to coach yourself through it.

Dr. Ethan Cross (59:20)

You want to keep the spotlight on the challenge that they endured compared to what you're dealing with right now.

Mel Robbins (59:27)

Right.

Dr. Ethan Cross (59:27)

And really use it as a source of motivation as. Exactly. Not to. Not to. You don't want to slip back into the. Well, you know, anything sets you off, that would defeat the purpose of that exercise. And if you find that doing that leads you into that territory, don't use that tool. Use a different one.

Mel Robbins (59:49)

That's great.

Dr. Ethan Cross (59:49)

And that's, that's, that's a really important take home for these tools. Different tools work for different people in different situations.

Mel Robbins (59:57)

This is so fascinating and I could just talk to you all day. I have so many more questions, but I want to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. And I also want to give you a chance to share this amazing conversation with people that you care about. Because there is zero doubt in my mind that these tools are going to help me stop the negative self talk. And I want that for you and I want that for the people in your life too. So share this with people you care about and don't go anywhere because as you are learning, Ethan has a lot of tools. That's right, plural. And he's got a lot more to share with you. When we return, we'll be waiting for you after a short break. Stay with us. Have you ever gotten sick on a very expensive, very non refundable family trip? Amazon One Medical has 247 virtual care so you can get help no matter where you are. And with Amazon Pharmacy, your meds can get delivered right to your hotel fast. It's kind of like the room service of medical care. Thanks to Amazon Healthcare just got less painful. Research says you make 35,000 decisions a day. Most of them I already forgot. But the decision to protect your home, that one matters. SimpliSafe is a wireless do it yourself home security protection system that is simple and effective. Most security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. But Simplisafe's Active Guard outdoor protection can help prevent break ins before they happen. If someone's lurking around and acting suspiciously, Simplisafe's agents see and talk to them in real time. They activate spotlights and even contact the police. All before they have the chance to get inside your home. That's not just security, that's prevention. Simplisafe gives you that peace of mind. Visit simplisafe.com Mel to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com Mel there's no safe like Simplisafe. Do you know what the heck is in your laundry detergent? I didn't either until I actually took the time to read the label. Turns out most detergents have some Pretty toxic dyes and perfumes. Skincare isn't just what you put on your face. It's what you wash your clothes in. Allfreeclear is the number one laundry detergent brand recommended by dermatologists, allergists and pediatricians for sensitive skin. It provides an effective clean that's gentle on skin while removing impurities like dirt and body oil without leaving irritable residues. For a clean you can feel good about, all you need is all free clear. Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. And today you and I are learning from Professor Ethan Cross from the University of Michigan. So, you know, over the break, Ethan, I was thinking about something else I wanted to ask you. And so where I want to go next is how important of a role does environment play in self talk? Being positive or negative, it can play.

Dr. Ethan Cross (63:02)

A big role in a few different ways. So we already talked about your local environment, how the way you structure your environment, how organized it is, can affect what's happening between your ears. There's also ways of putting things in your environment to trigger positive experiences, like pictures of loved ones, which, you know, sounds so, so silly on the one hand, but we did this research years ago where we had people think about really painful experiences, and we had them then look at a picture of a loved one or a picture of someone else's loved one to see what are the implications of looking at your, what we call attachment figure, someone you're really connected to. And what we found is that looking at that person that you care about, this activates a sense that there are people in this world that support you, which sped up how quickly people recovered from. From a distressing experience. So after that research, I, like, went on a shopping spree for picture frames. And all of my offices have pictures of my family and friends all around it for that reason.

Mel Robbins (64:11)

Yeah, I think that if you think about walking through an office, oftentimes that's the thing that tethers you through the day is the reminder of what's meaningful in your life. Especially when you're having a stressful day.

Dr. Ethan Cross (64:22)

Exactly.

Mel Robbins (64:23)

Sort of like the way that you time traveled backwards to your grandmother.

Dr. Ethan Cross (64:26)

Helps put things in perspective.

Mel Robbins (64:28)

Correct.

Dr. Ethan Cross (64:28)

So that's one thing you can do.

Mel Robbins (64:30)

Okay.

Dr. Ethan Cross (64:31)

Green space exposure. I was a little hesitant to really buy into this when I first started researching this space. I come from a place we talked about before, Brooklyn, New York. I like to remind people that one of the most famous books to come out of this borough or about this borough was titled A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Singular Right. So like there's not a lot of, of. There was not a lot of green space growing up. And I'm a city guy. I find green space exposure to be quite profound in terms of how it impacts my emotional life. And there's been a lot of research on this. And what happens is when you're stuck in chatter, it consumes your attention. It's the only thing you can think about.

Mel Robbins (65:17)

So true.

Dr. Ethan Cross (65:18)

When you go for a walk in a safe, natural setting, what happens is your attention is captured by your surroundings, but in a very gentle way. The sights, the sounds, smells, like your attention just drifts on them. And what that does is it gives you this opportunity to rest and restore over the course of that walk. So you finish it, you're feeling more rejuvenated and you actually have more attentional capacity to work through your problems. So that's one way that your environment, in particular green space exposure, can help you.

Mel Robbins (65:50)

You know, I just had an experience where last week I got some very, very difficult news. And so I had a horrible night's sleep, could not fall asleep. Woke up, it was like 5:15 in the morning, which is ungodly early for me. And it was pitch dark outside. My husband Chris was gone and I laid there and I could just feel the negative what if this and what if that, where you're just kind of trying to problem solve through something that's scaring you to death in your life or your work or whatever. And I thought, I need to get the hell out of this bed. So I got up, I got the dogs outside, and then I thought I should go for a walk, even though the moon is still out and it is pitch dark, because my mind is a horrendous place right now. And the last thing I wanna do is look at social media or try to solve it that way, or log on to email. And so I put on my coat and I still have my pajamas on, and I started walking down the driveway. And as I was walking in the pitch dark and I'm seeing the moon start to lower, and I started thinking to myself, sort of, you thought about your grandmother, about the fact that in the scale of humanity and the fact that I am but a speck on this planet hurtling through space, the crap that's keeping me up and like, I'm sorry again, still negative. Shaming myself if you take notice. But as I rounded the corner and the moon is set, it probably took about 13 to 15 minutes of walking, but there was an owl. It was like. And I'm like, oh, the owl doesn't care. And as I kept walking and my senses were activated, it pulled me into the experience of the walking. And then the sun started to come up, and slowly but surely, I noticed that the beat down was gone. Why does that work? Because I think we've all experienced feeling better and clearing our mind.

Dr. Ethan Cross (67:49)

Yeah.

Mel Robbins (67:50)

When we either take a walk or if it's available to you, you can get outside in green space.

Dr. Ethan Cross (67:57)

Yeah. So a couple things I want to point out. So, number one, you said 13 minutes. You said it took about 13 minutes. And the way I interpreted you saying that, I was like, it took a while. But if you think 13 minutes is a while, how much time have you spent in that negative self talk?

Mel Robbins (68:14)

56 years.

Dr. Ethan Cross (68:15)

56 years. I think 13 minutes is pretty damn good. Like, 13 minutes is probably quick than the amount of time it takes for Tylenol to have its effect when you've got a bad headache. Right. Like, that is pretty magical. So we talked a little bit about how nature can help us restore. That's one way it can help us. Another thing that it does is it gives us the opportunity to experience the emotion of awe, which is an emotion we experience when we're in the presence of something vast and indescribable, something that just feels bigger than ourselves. And nature is replete with those awe triggers. Like the moon. It's so beautiful. And these. You know, you're in. You're in southern Vermont. I've been up there at times. It's. It's gorgeous up there. When we experience this emotion of awe, what it does, it leads to what we call a shrinking of the self. You feel smaller when you're contemplating something vast and indescribable. Here you are, Mel. You're worried about this thing. I'm sure it's a legit. It feels only almost feel legitimate. I'm sure it feels existential in the moment that you're having it. Like, it's over. I'm over. The world is over. Right. Like, yeah, we've all been there. We know what it's like. Well, when you're in nature and you have this opportunity to experience awe, it's just. It makes you and your concerns feel a whole lot smaller when you're contemplating the vastness of maybe like the site you're in. I mean, you're probably walking somewhere. Trees are alive for hundreds of years. Right. Like, that makes what you're dealing with just feel a little bit more insignificant. And when we shrink ourselves in that way, our Problems shrink too. So I will often weaponize this by going for walks in the local arboretum when I'm really struggling with something and it inevitably helps. It's like, what am I worried about this? Like, when there are so many more things happening in the universe, like, come on, come on, let's get back into gear.

Mel Robbins (70:13)

Yeah. And more importantly, I think it helps you access the other tools. Because, you know, the thing is that the walk didn't disappear the problem. It actually lowered the chatter. And so when I got back and into my workday, and inevitably other things happen that then bring it back up. Whether I started organizing my desk or I'm using the other tools, I can see what you're teaching us, which is you have the ability to catch it.

Dr. Ethan Cross (70:38)

That's right.

Mel Robbins (70:38)

When it's taking you down.

Dr. Ethan Cross (70:40)

That's right.

Mel Robbins (70:40)

And then use these tools to create distance from it. So there are so many tools in the book, and we've covered a bunch of them so far. But what are some other quick and simple tactics and tools that the person listening can use to make their inner voice more positive?

Dr. Ethan Cross (70:57)

Okay, so let's enter into the rapid fire part of the conversation. Sensory experiences, tremendously underutilized tool. I was blind to this up until relatively recently in my life when my daughter was in a terrible mood, was bumming me out, and one of the great songs of all time came on the radio in the car, or iPad, whatever you call it nowadays. Journeys don't stop believing. And everyone got excited and happy in the car. Music effortlessly shifts our emotions. You can use this yourself. You can use it to shift other people's emotions. All of the senses are useful tools to shift our emotions. Scents. I'm staying at a hotel not far from here. The moment I walked into the hotel, I was awash with this pleasant scent that the hotel has been piping through the ventilation system to make the patrons feel comfortable. We spritz ourselves with chemicals to make ourselves feel good and make other people feel good. Our senses are powerful tools. Let's talk about other people, though, because other people, I think, are really important. And it touches back to this problem where sometimes you go to other people and we push them away. So how do you find other people in your life to actually help you when it comes to your chatter or the big emotions you're experiencing? I call these our chatter advisors. How do you find your chatter advisors? You want to look for people who do two things. There are two key steps to providing good chatter support. Step one, you want to listen, empathize. Validate connect with the person. Right, Lots of big terms there. But what I mean is like you want to be there emotionally for that person. I want to learn about what you're going through. Like I really would like to know what set you off at 5am the other day. Tell me about it. Terrible. Like I've been there too. Genuinely connecting. What that does is it helps satisfy the person who's suffering these needs. They have to feel connected. Once I do that, then I want to shift into this kind of advice or cognitive mode. So all right, now we're connected. You can rely on me, but the problem's still there. Let's try to look at it. And as someone who is not going through the problem myself, I'm in a great position to help put it in perspective for you. Those are the two steps to providing good chatter support. And you would be amazed at how frequently people who are exceptionally well intentioned don't follow those two steps. There are two ways it breaks down. Number one, some people think that their job is just give you a sounding board to let it out, just keep going. Right. There's value in that, in connecting and learning. But if that's all we do in a conversation, it can lead to what we call co rumination. Now we're just kind of bathing ourselves in the problem together. Other and as a function that we often leave the conversation feeling connected but the problem's still there. That doesn't work. The other thing that doesn't work, you come to me with a problem and within five seconds, Mel, this is simple, you know, like I wrote a paper on this. Here's what you need to do. Just do A, B, C, D, you'll be fine. Call me in the morning. We call those people jerks, right?

Mel Robbins (74:19)

Or Mel Robbins.

Dr. Ethan Cross (74:22)

I doubt that. And so. So you really want to follow both of those steps in that order. Listen and then advise. There's an art to doing that. Well, I'll use my wife here as an example.

Mel Robbins (74:33)

Is she going to kill you?

Dr. Ethan Cross (74:34)

She might kill me, but it's okay. We love each other. So if my wife came to me with a problem that she was experiencing some chatter about, I would immediately start listening, empathizing, connecting. And when I sense that she had gotten it out and I really understood the problem, I would ask her for permission. I'd be like, hey, I totally get it. I have a thought. Do you want to keep going or can I share it with you? Sometimes the way that she'll answer that question is, no, I'm not done. Just let Me keep going, and then I let her keep going, and then I come back to it.

Mel Robbins (75:12)

Okay.

Dr. Ethan Cross (75:13)

At other moments it'll be, yes, please, what do you think? Let's. That's, you know, help me. And so what I love about this framework that I essentially just described, that we just talked about is it gives me guideposts for how to steer this conversation when someone comes to me. So my wife, my friend, my students, whoever. There are these two steps that I follow in the same sequence each time. Step one is I'm there to empathize and connect, listen and learn. Step two, now I'm going to try to help work with the person to broaden their perspective. So this has happened to you before. How'd you deal with it last time? Or, you know, something like this happened to me. And here's what I did. Simple ways for broadening perspective. Like a couple of questions like that you ask. It often helps the person find the answer. I will often ask people to do a chatter advisor audit. So I'll have people, like, divide their world into personal and professional. And then I ask them to listen all the names of the people they go to to talk about the chatter when it erupts. Then I'll explain to them how this art of chatter advising that we've just gone over that. The key to being a good advisor is to empathize, listen, and then shift into that advising. And I'll have them circle the names of the people on their list who do both of those things. And I have them cross out the names of the people who don't. The people whose names you circle, that's your advisory board. And it's not always the people that you're closest to.

Mel Robbins (76:40)

Oftentimes it's actually not.

Dr. Ethan Cross (76:41)

It's not. And that's okay. You know, there are people who I love who I'm super close to. I don't talk to them about my chatter. It doesn't help me. It actually pushes me in the wrong direction. But my board is an amazing asset that I possess, and I lean on it frequently to deal with my chatter.

Mel Robbins (76:58)

Ethan, what does a person do if they're, you know, listening to you and they've got someone in their life who's really struggling because of the way they talk to themselves? I mean, just down on themselves, down emotionally. What is the best thing that you can do to help somebody that you care about when you see them really beaten down?

Dr. Ethan Cross (77:19)

So I like to divide the way of helping others into two buckets. One thing you can do if they come to you for help. As often happens to us. People want to talk to us, people want our support. Then you. You follow that, that guide that we just talked about. You listen and learn, and then you advise. And part of the advice is giving them the tools. The way we help others is. Is teaching others about these tools. I do this to my kids all the time, right? Like, I'm constantly complaining that we're born into the world with the. The ability to experience chatter and big emotions. We're not born into the world with the user's guide that teaches us these tools. So if my kids come to me, I listen and then I offer them tools. But then there's another situation where you see people you care about, your colleagues, your loved ones, and they don't ask you for help. And then the question is, well, what do you do? Do you let them just figure it out on their own? Suffer in silence? Do you volunteer the support without them asking? There's been research on this, and it's tricky. The research shows that if you volunteer the support without the person asking, it has the potential to blow up in your face. As a parent, I'm sure you've experienced this, as I know I have. So sometimes if I've seen my kids, I know they're struggling with something. This is something I can help them with, and I volunteer the advice. You know, it's basically a mild version of how they respond when you offer support and it's not asked for. What that does is it communicates to the person that they're not capable of handling their own circumstances. And that can elicit defensiveness. So here's the really cool thing. We have learned how you can still help people when they don't ask for help. And what it involves doing is providing support invisibly.

Mel Robbins (79:09)

Okay, is this another one of these secret weapons?

Dr. Ethan Cross (79:11)

This is a secret weapon that everyone that you are listening, if you're listening, you now have. Have a secret weapon.

Mel Robbins (79:17)

Lay it on us, Ethan. How do we do invisible support?

Dr. Ethan Cross (79:19)

Invisible support is providing people with support, but without shining a spotlight on the fact that you're doing. You kind of asked me about this earlier when you asked me about how do you tactfully help another person when they're struggling? This is how you do it. And there are many forms this can take. I'll give you a couple of examples. Let's say someone on my team or my lab is working under a really tense deadline, and they don't have time to take care of themselves and do simple things. I can just order in food for them. If my wife is struggling with lots of stress at work, lots of chatter, it's her turn to get the groceries. I just do the groceries, pick up the dry cleaning. I don't do it, come home and ask for a pat on my back. I just do things to make the other person's life just a little bit easier, a little bit more manageable. That's one way of supporting someone invisibly. Let's say someone else is struggling with a skill. Let's say it's public speaking. So someone on my team is struggling with communicating their science in a way that people can understand with impact. Before I take them aside and say, hey, I've noticed that you could do a little bit better here. Here are three things I want you to try. I'll first have a team meeting, and we'll all share out best practice. What are the two or three things that we've all benefited from for speaking more effectively? What I'm doing there is I am getting the person information they can benefit from, but I'm not shining a spotlight on the fact that I'm targeting it to them. So even sharing sources that you've benefited from, podcasts, episodes, books, Share that with someone else. You don't have to target it to them and say, hey, this is going to help you. But if you found the material meaningful, just share it in that context. And what it does is it gives them the opportunity to benefit as well, but without them thinking this was specifically targeted to them.

Mel Robbins (81:18)

Oh, you can always do it in a group chat. That's my favorite thing to do is just hit the family group chat. Hit the friend chat. Hey, everybody. Great episode.

Dr. Ethan Cross (81:25)

This episode was awesome. I learned so much. Or this book was great. Yeah. Those are simple things you can do. And I do that all the time. Let me close the loop on invisible support, because I told you about two ways you can do it. There's a third, and it's my favorite.

Mel Robbins (81:39)

What is that?

Dr. Ethan Cross (81:40)

It's affectionate but not creepy Touch. Are you familiar with this one?

Mel Robbins (81:46)

Yeah. That's what aunts do. Not uncles.

Dr. Ethan Cross (81:49)

Definitely not uncles. But it's what moms and dads do.

Mel Robbins (81:52)

That's true. Affectionate but not creepy.

Dr. Ethan Cross (81:54)

Yeah. Like, what do you do with your kids when they're born into this world? First thing we do.

Mel Robbins (81:57)

Oh, I just pulled them against you. You hug them.

Dr. Ethan Cross (82:00)

That's right. And we have receptors on our skin that encode for an affectionate embrace. And when it's registered, there's this automatic release of stress fighting Chemicals that flood our system. And so if my daughters are experiencing something challenging, or my wife, I'll just kind of give them a hug, caress their back. Again, not creepy, but even at work, like a fist bump.

Mel Robbins (82:27)

Right, Right.

Dr. Ethan Cross (82:28)

Is a simple way. We are a social pat on the back to say pat on the back. Right. Tactile species. That's a way of supporting someone invisibly as well.

Mel Robbins (82:37)

I totally get it.

Dr. Ethan Cross (82:38)

Yeah. You do want to make sure to convey the not creepy part of it though.

Mel Robbins (82:41)

For sure.

Dr. Ethan Cross (82:42)

Yeah.

Mel Robbins (82:43)

I would love to have you speak directly to the person listening because you have shared so much with us about your research and ways that we can find flip that negative chatter into a positive coach. And just so many tools to reach for that will help you do that. If the person takes just one action based on everything that you've poured into us from your two books, Chatter and Shift, what is the most important thing to do?

Dr. Ethan Cross (83:15)

The most important thing to do is learn about the tools. Just familiarize yourself with them. What I love about these tools is decades of research have gone into their identification. Complex backbreaking effort. But the take homes are super simple. Mental time travel. How am I going to feel about this next year into the past? How does this compare with what Bubby went through my grandmother? Ethan, you've got this. I mean, these are simple things that don't take a whole lot of time and energy to practice. Just familiarize yourself with them and then start self experimenting. That is the. The launch pad for gaining control of your chatter. And so. So my invitation to you is to familiarize yourself with the tools that are out there. Start self experimenting. Find the tools that work best for you and share them with other people. People. That is the way I think we help really combat this, this universal affliction.

Mel Robbins (84:19)

Ethan, you are so awesome.

Dr. Ethan Cross (84:21)

Now you're giving me all the.

Mel Robbins (84:23)

Well, no, I actually mean it like I'm stunned because this topic can be so heady and you made it so accessible and tactical, just like you said that you would. Congratulations on the bestselling book, the manual that now exists for all of us to turn our inner critic into positive coaching Chatter. Congratulations on your mega bestseller Shift. I am so happy you came. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Dr. Ethan Cross (84:47)

Well, the feeling is totally, totally, totally mutual.

Mel Robbins (84:51)

And I also want to thank you. Thank you for choosing to spend time listening to something that can help you create a better life. And there's no doubt in my mind that everything that Ethan taught us today is going to help you change your self talk from something that is beating you down to something that's lifting you up, up. And that will change your life and the life of people that you care about. Thank you for sharing this with people that you care about. And in case no one else tells you, I want to tell you, in the words of Ethan, you got this. You can do this. And I also want to tell you, in case no one else does, I love you. I admire the fact that you're taking time to listen to something like this, and I know it was worth your time. And I also know it's going to help you create a better life. All righty. I'll talk to you in a few days, and I will be waiting to welcome you in to the very next episode. The moment you hit play. I'll see you then. My brain is like, take a bunch of mice, put them in a cardboard box and tip em over in a restaurant.

Dr. Ethan Cross (85:47)

I see.

Mel Robbins (85:48)

That is how my brain works.

Dr. Ethan Cross (85:49)

Sounds liberating.

Mel Robbins (85:52)

Why are you like a spreadsheet on legs?

Dr. Ethan Cross (85:54)

No, I'm a little bit of both. Positively shifting people's emotions at how big the shift you get from going to the bathroom when you really need to go.

Mel Robbins (86:04)

Oh, it's true. Because you're managing it. You're probably raising intense.

Dr. Ethan Cross (86:07)

I just went up like on a 10 point scale, 4 points. I'm so much happier.

Mel Robbins (86:10)

Is that one of your tools? Negative self talk? Take a leap?

Dr. Ethan Cross (86:13)

Yes.

Mel Robbins (86:14)

Professor Cross is going to tell you that there are four reasons why you actually talk to yourself. Oh, I always said that, actually. Is it sounding all right? And what I want to know is after having a way. Sir, your work has been cited. Sorry.

Dr. Ethan Cross (86:27)

That was great. Thanks so much. So good.

Mel Robbins (86:29)

Oh, my God. So, my God. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.

Dr. Ethan Cross (87:08)

Stitcher. Your new beginning starts now. Dr. Horton has new construction homes available.

Mel Robbins (87:17)

In Ellensburg and throughout the greater Seattle area. With spacious floor plans, flexible living spaces.

Dr. Ethan Cross (87:22)

And home technology packages, you can enjoy more cozy moments and sweet memories in your your beautiful new home.

Mel Robbins (87:29)

With new home communities opening in Ellensburg.

Dr. Ethan Cross (87:31)

And throughout the Seattle area, Dr. Horton has the ideal home for you.

Mel Robbins (87:35)

Learn more at Dr. Horton.com Dr. Horton, America's builder and equal Housing Opportunity Builder.

Dr. Ethan Cross (87:44)

At Strayer University, we help students like you Go from Will I To why not? For over 130 years, we've been innovating higher education to make it more affordable. Affordable, accessible and attainable so you can reach your goals. Go from thinking Can I? To Yes, I Can and keep striving. Visit strayer. Edu to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chev and its many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia.