When you read you begin with A B C
When you sing you begin with DO RE MI
When you count you begin with 5 4 3 2 1! Here is an EMAIL THAT I SENT TO MEL Robbins after listening to The 5 Second Rule.
First, I’ll set the stage: March 2016 enter baby #3 (which was the unplanned undoing of my control freak life). Turns out psycho planning was my way of self medicating and ignoring a lot of anxiety. I kept up this lifestyle for months of denial through postpartum depression. I’m a teacher. I love kids. I was supposed to be able to handle this. Three beautiful, intelligent girls born April 2012, April 2014, March 2016. I actually DIDN’T plan the timing of my kids, but I loved how perfectly my life fit. But I didn’t love my life. But logically I had no complaints.
Summer 2016 I saw a video interview with you re: 5 second rule. Thoughts: neat concept. Maybe worth doing. Self help books are so stupid. I’ll suggest it to my husband.
February 2017 I finally admitted I was depressed. You know winters in the Midwest (Eau Claire, Wisconsin) don’t help. I was too busy to figure out how to see a counselor with my schedule and too embarrassed to admit I was almost a year past delivery. Besides, I KNEW what to do. Just keep moving.
The emotional battle inside my head was relentless. I hated 2017. I wasn’t in control of anything. I kept doing life on the outside fine enough for no one outside of my husband to notice. He’s great, but didn’t have a clue how to help. The CEO of my husband’s place of employment suggested he start reading books to improve his natural leadership skills. A year after viewing that interview clip, your book made the “let’s check it out” list.
**A quick background that Mel shares in her book – she was suffering from depression, her husband’s restaurant business was going bankrupt, her marriage was not surprisingly struggling, her kids were chronically late for school because SHE DIDN’T GET OUT OF BED. She hated it. Then she saw a commercial with the familiar rocket countdown 5-4-3-2-1 Blast off and had an idea.** Here’s the clip:
MORE EMAIL:
Black Friday: No snooze.
I heard my husband: “Stupid 5 Second Rule.” He was doing the dishes. I didn’t think it was that stupid. This could work for me, um him. His phrase was repeated a few times as other chores were accomplished.
It was oddly 50 degrees that day. I hadn’t raked up the fall leaves, and I was defeatedly frozen from doing it. “Stupid 5 Second Rule.” NO, I thought. I DESERVE this day off.
Then it happened. Your voice in my head: “Do you deserve to keep feeling shi–y about yourself? Because that’s what you’re going to get off you don’t get your a– outside and grab a rake. 5 4 3 2 1 !!” OK FINE. Truth. I stared admiring my little clear lawn and patting myself on the back for weeks. Wait… That’s not a depressed woe is me…hmmm.
So thanks. Thanks for having something I can DO better and not just THINK better in theory. Thanks for being raw and honest. Thanks for writing this book. Thanks for narrating it – I needed to hear YOU swear at me to rake the leaves because I’d stopped listening to my own crazy head voice. Thanks for launching me into 2018. I’ve already got some plans to 5 4 3 2 1.