Mel Robbins and producer Megan take you behind the scenes before taping an episode about anger. They break down what triggers it, from road rage to family expectations to the news cycle, and ask where anger shows up in your life.
Live.
Oh, fantastic. And we'll also have this on the monitor. Yeah. Okay, awesome. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Hey, how are you? Come with me, come with me, come. How are you? I'm Mel Robbins. Come on in. Mel Robbins Show. Welcome to— we call this the apartment. This is where, um, I hang out when we're not taping. This is inside of CBS Broadcast Center, and this is where we do all of our, um, —what do they call them—briefings for the Mel Robbins Show. And it's also where I chill for half an hour in between the two tapings. I'm Mel Robbins. This is Coffee Talk. This is my live behind-the-scenes broadcast. We do this weekdays sometime between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM. We're running a little late today. We start our taping. The audience is already loading in downstairs. As you can see, I look like a Labradoodle that rolled out of bed, so I got to get into an outfit that's appropriate for TV and get a little makeup on so I'm not so shiny and so that last night's mascara is off. What do I want to talk about today? I need my coffee for coffee talk.
Why Are You So Angry is what's airing today.
That's right. We're doing— it's interesting because we're doing a show that we're taping literally in 45 minutes about out-of-control anger caught on tape. And we're focusing on road rage and parents at sporting events, their kids sporting events. But today's show that's airing, The Mel Robbins Show, is about anger. And haven't you noticed that everybody seems more angry than ever before? That people are easily triggered. And I don't— I have a suspicion that it has to do with how negative the news cycle is. And how much vitriol there is in politics and how much stress people are under, that the stress and the emotions that you're feeling, that's what's triggering people to feel really angry. You feel very far away, Megan.
This one you're close. Oh, I am.
Gotcha. And so here's the thing about anger. That I want you to think about. First of all, do you struggle with anger? Do you get angry at your kids or at the people that you love? Do you get angry at work? Tell me in the comments where it is in your life that anger and frustration and even rage, which is something that is much more destructive. Rage is a four-letter word. Anger is an expression of emotion, negative expression of emotion that you feel in reaction to something. But here's what's interesting about anger. And before I tell you what's interesting about anger, Megan, tell me some of the things that people are getting angry about.
Someone said that they lost their shit last night when someone didn't, when their extended family didn't wish their son a happy birthday.
Okay, so they lost their shit when the The extended family didn't wish their son a happy birthday. What else? Others?
Road rage. Yeah, someone's saying, um, I get angry when I have too much on my mind and then I have to go to work.
Angry when you have too much on your mind, you have to go to work. Angry when you're disrespected.
Someone said, how do we watch in Canada? But how do you watch in Canada?
Um, for folks, work is a big thing. Work is a big thing. And I bet the reason why you feel angry is you're overworked. And you're not getting credit for the amount of stuff that you're doing, and you're feeling micromanaged, and you're feeling undervalued, and you're feeling like people only swoop in and point out the one thing that you did wrong instead of pointing out the 1,500 things that you did correct. Megan, I'm talking to you, given that that's what I do to Megan every day. So anger is a part of life, and here's what I've learned. Doing the Mel Robbins Show. And if you want to watch the show today, just go to melrobbins.com or go to melrobbinsshow.com and put in your zip code and you can find out where we're airing. If we, if you have to go to work and that makes you angry, DVR the show. And also you can also keep checking back on our YouTube channel and on social media because we will be putting segments up online. We do every single day and anger is a big topic for us. So here's what I've learned about anger. I don't have the visual with me, I wish I did, but I'm going to draw you something. So this is what we call on the Mel Robbins Show, I'm going to show you in just a minute, an anger iceberg. And because anger is what you see on the surface, right? Anger is what you express when people don't wish you a happy birthday. It's what you express when, oh, I was really angry at Chris. I was really angry at Chris. I'm gonna sound like a complete monster when I share this with you because he's not going to parents weekend to visit our daughter with me this weekend because he's staying back to go to a funeral. What a monster am I that I would be angry about that. He talked to our daughter Kendall. Kendall said, no problem, I'll see you at Thanksgiving. Chris has canceled his trip. He's going to go support a close friend of his who just lost somebody in his family. Um, and I was angry about it, but here's the thing that's interesting about anger. Anything that you get angry about, you are reacting negatively to something that's happening to you, but the real thing that is causing the anger is beneath the surface. Because think about an iceberg, you only see the tippy tip tip of it, but it's actually supported by all this stuff underneath the surface. And what's interesting about anger is that the things that are underneath the surface, I'm going to only write a few, are the more powerful invisible emotions. These are the things that you need to start to deal with. That you're frustrated, that you're sad, that you're abandoned, that you're rejected, that you feel invisible, that you feel unimportant. Getting control of your anger in your life requires you to go below the surface and identify the emotions that are getting triggered, that trigger you to express anger. You see, I wasn't actually angry that Chris was going to a funeral. I was feeling unimportant. I was feeling a little rejected. Our refrigerator— now I'm getting angry because our refrigerator It is constantly going off. And so I feel unimportant because we have put in a request to have it fixed for the last 2 months and it still isn't happening. And so the real emotion I'm feeling is that I'm not important enough to have the refrigerator fixed. But what I express on the surface is anger. So what I want you to do today is you've identified an area in your life where you get angry. Now I want you to go beneath the surface. Do your own anger iceberg and try to identify the core emotion that, that's the button that gets pushed that has you express anger. That has helped me a lot to get control of the areas of my life where I express anger or frustration because it's usually something kind of sad that's underneath or some kind of hurt or some kind of pain that's getting pushed. And when you can identify the triggers associated with anger, that gives you the power to not express the anger and to just recognize the trigger and not feel the hurt or the pain. It's super cool, and I think you're going to find it's really cool too. So let me know how you use the Anger Iceberg in your life. And in case nobody else tells you today, let me be the one to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and your ability to change your life for the better. And why can I say that? Because I know based on personal experience and based on helping millions of people literally every single day, that you can change what you think about, you can change the little things that you do, you can change your habits. And when you make those little changes, it adds up to massive transformation in your life. All right, you go have an amazing day. We'll see you tomorrow. All right, I gotta go get dressed for the show.
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