Episode Summary
In this episode I share my thoughts on a Video I saw of Tony Robbins working with a woman who suffered from depression. The title for the video said he cured her of it. I share my thoughts on what he actually did and how the lessons from the video can help deal with depression.
Episode Notes
This episode refers to a video showing Tony Robbins working with a woman suffering from depression
Hi and welcome to today’s episode of Hope, Help and Happiness.
Today, I want to talk about something I saw on YouTube recently. I’m not sure why it came up in my feed, but there was a video about a Tony Robbins’ experience at one of his live events. It wasn’t a formal one from the Tony Robbins Organisation. It was a video taken by a member of the audience watching him work with someone about an issue she was dealing with.
Title of this video was “Tony Robbins Cures A Woman’s Depression On Stage In One session”.
Now I have been to a number of Tony Robbins events. I’m a big fan of the work he’s done. I’ve watched him over the last 25 years and read some of his books. I’ve even spoken to him personally. I’ve always been impressed with the skill level this guy has in being able to deal live with someone and talk them through any issue they’re having.
He’s very astute and very in tune with the people he works with and is able to cut through the mental fog people often have about the issues they’re experiencing. He gets through to the root cause and deals with them straight away.
The difference he can make is often transformational.
So having seen and experienced that first hand and seen other videos of him doing similar work, I thought I’d have a look at this. The video starts at a point when they’ve already begun their interaction. And essentially it appears this woman is really depressed because of concerns and worries about how she’s going to help her daughter.
The conversation goes on for a while. Tony Robbins is quite tough when he deals with people because often he needs to break their pattern in order for them to be able to see a more constructive or healthier way forward.
There is some back and forth between them and it is clear she is hanging on to her state and defending how she feels.
Eventually he says, “Look, I’m here to try and help you. Look into my eyes”. [He actually said “look into my eyes”].
He went on:
“I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to try and help you. Let me do my work”.
He told her she was free to choose the reaction she has. It’s her choice. And he said beating herself up was not going to help her daughter.
He then nailed her challenge completely and said, “The challenge you’ve got is you’re married to the identity of being depressed”.
That’s quite a powerful statement.
When I reflect back on my own experiences, I can relate to that completely. Because there’ve been times when I’ve hung on to the feelings of being low, the dark feelings and the behaviours that arise. This is because they have been consistent with the view I have of myself. The identity of being depressed means I have to act a certain way when I feel depressed. And so I related to that.
I think part of me helping myself recover is being truly honest with myself and recognising sometimes I’m addicted to these feelings of being depressed. I’m used to them. And having something else different is alien to me. I don’t like the change, therefore I will resist the change.
It’s quite a powerful thing to think about.
Back to the woman in the video.
Tony Robbins asks her if there’s ever a moment when she doesn’t feel depressed? Her response was yes and it was whenever she got a commission cheque from work.
He got her to talk about what it was like when she received her commission cheque. He even got her to behave like she did when she received one and you could see her change her state.
And I think this is what Tony Robbins actually did in this video. In this interaction, he didn’t cure her depression. What he did is he changed her state by getting her to think about something else. He interrupted her pattern in the moment.
He pointed out to her she had the ability not to be depressed because she demonstrated that when she played out the role of receiving a commission cheque.
He said is there’s a formula for feeling good and there’s a formula for feeling bad. They have the same components.
He said, how you use your body, what you focus on, and the story that you tell yourself all contributes to how you’re feeling. When she pretended to receive a commission cheque, she used the body differently. She said different things to herself and she was focused on something different.
Tony Robbins pointed that out we all can make the choice how to use our body, what to focus on and what stories we tell ourselves.
He asked the question: “Who is doing the depression?”
Of course, we do depression. We follow that formula that gives us the state we call depression. It is a choice we make.
The formula for depression might have your body with your shoulders hunched. You might be looking down and you might not be smiling.
Your focus might be on the dark thoughts you’re having.
And the story you might be telling yourself is how bad you feel about yourself or how things are really, really bad in your life. All that adds together to give you the formula for depression.
The formula for feeling better about yourself is using your body differently. For example standing up and smiling, even though you may not feel like smiling. Perhaps even looking up.
Those factors contribute to you feeling more positive physiologically. You can’t feel down and smile at the same time.
What do you focus on when you are feeling good. It’s sunny outside as I’m recording this so if I focus on that I feel better. If I focus on my friends or the things I have managed to achieve or just the good things in my life, I am less likely to feel down.
What about the story I tell myself? In the past, I’ve told myself the story about how I’ve got low self esteem, how I was a trophy child as a kid blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
And when that is set up, the framework for being depressed is easier. So I know I’ve got to change that story.
It was really interesting watching him work with this woman and. It is quite a simple thing but it’s not necessarily an easy thing to change,.
The three components are: how you use your body, what you focus on and the story you’re telling yourself. That creates the formula for how you’re feeling right now.
For me, the strategies I used to get out of feeling low when I was still struggling to get out of bed ( only a few weeks ago now), centred on shifting my focus.
The story didn’t change because I kept telling myself bad stories all the time. That only started to shift once I got working on the other two areas. I’ve talked about how I have affected my body by starting to exercise again. That has made a big difference.
When I go dancing, that makes a big difference. When I’ve been really, really low, I’ve still gone dancing because I know I’ve had to. I have to use my body in a different way. I’m dancing to music. I’m around people who are energised and happy. I’m engaging with other people. I have to focus on something different.
All that interrupts my pattern and changes the nature of the formula I am using.
To distract my focus when I was at my lowest I would go on Amazon Prime and watch movies. I don’t own a TV so I had to go online. They were not always happy movies. Sometimes they were dark movies.
Nevertheless, by being sucked into the performance of the movie, it got me out of my head and distracted me from the feelings I had.
Occasionally if I had to be around friends because I couldn’t escape because of other commitments or if I’ve been downtown, I pretend that I was happy. That would took my focus away from myself and distract me from feeling low.
In fact any activity that fully engaged me also did this. A couple of times I went and did a yoga class. When you’re doing yoga, you can’t not focus on the postures, otherwise you will fall over.
That also took my focus away from the things making me depressed and onto other stuff.
So I know that if I can shift my focus, that will allow me then to be more likely to use my body better and start to change my story because I start to feel better.
So the formula, once again is your body, how you use it, what you focus on and the story.
I thought it was important to share that because it’s one of the things I realised gets me into depression, but also it’s what I can use to get out now.
Because sometimes, though its embarrassing to admit, I’m often married to the identity of being depressed. I’m addicted to it. Sometimes I know what I should do to get out of it, but I just hang onto it and I cling onto it. I almost enjoy wallowing in the feelings of being low.
But that’s part of my growth in order to be able to deal with that and have the emotional intelligence to work through it. Slowly but surely I’m starting to feel that happen.
So that’s Today’s episode.
A slight tangent from the path I’ve been taking in terms of developing myself, but it was one that developed when I happened to catch this video. I saw it and it raised some issues for me I wanted to talk about and share,.
This might be of help to you, but it certainly helps me being able to talk about it and describe it and express it. It’s a form of therapy. If you like, you’re being my therapist, even though we’ve never met!
Until tomorrow.
