Overcoming Anything

Overcoming Depression Naturally with Dr. Laurel Mellin

• Anne Vryonides • Season 1 • Episode 50

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Episode 050: Overcoming Depression Naturally with Dr. Laurel Mellin

Depression can feel heavy, flat, disconnected, and impossible to shift, especially when joy feels out of reach. In this episode of Overcoming Anything, host Anne Vryonides sits down with Dr. Laurel Mellin to talk about overcoming depression naturally through Emotional Brain Training, also known as EBT, and learning how to work with the emotional brain instead of fighting against it.

Dr. Laurel Mellin is a New York Times bestselling author, a three time Oprah guest, and a longtime professor at the UCSF School of Medicine. She has spent decades helping people understand stress, trauma, emotional wiring, and how the brain can be trained to move out of survival states and back toward joy, connection, and healing.

Key Takeaways
• Depression is not a personal failure. Dr. Mellin explains it as the brain being locked in stress and survival wiring
• You cannot always think your way out of depression because the emotional brain needs emotional processing
• EBT teaches people how to identify survival circuits, process emotions safely, and move the brain back toward joy, connection, and purpose

Timestamps
• 00:00: Introduction: overcoming depression naturally with Emotional Brain Training
• 02:10: Dr. Mellin’s mantra: “I am creating joy in my life”
• 04:00: Why depression is often misunderstood in the current mental health model
• 09:00: Why symptoms are not always the root cause
• 14:00: Stress circuits, survival circuits, and the emotional brain
• 19:00: Why medication may help some people, but may not address the emotional root
• 24:00: How early life stress and adverse childhood experiences shape emotional wiring
• 29:00: Joy circuits versus survival circuits
• 34:00: Why trauma can stay stored in the emotional brain
• 39:00: The six word reframe: “It is not me. It is a wire.”
• 44:00: How EBT helps move stuck emotions into flowing emotions
• 49:00: The five minute process for clearing stress and healing trauma
• 54:00: Why the emotional brain needs precision, not overthinking
• 59:00: Situational stress versus trauma circuits
• 01:05:00: How EBT uses emotional statements to access the unconscious mind
• 01:11:00: Dr. Mellin demonstrates the EBT process
• 01:18:00: Anger, sadness, fear, guilt, and spiraling back toward joy
• 01:24:00: Why some people are afraid to feel their emotions
• 01:29:00: How EBT makes emotional processing safer and more structured
• 01:34:00: Can rewiring help procrastination, functional freeze, depression, food patterns, and relationships?
• 01:40:00: EBT groups, connection, confidentiality, and raising the brain’s set point
• 01:46:00: How EBT can support relationships and emotional intimacy
• 01:51:00: Dr. Mellin’s new book and where to learn more
• 01:55:00: Final message: joy is possible when the emotional brain is supported

Connect with Dr. Laurel Mellin
• Dr. Mellin’s website: https://www.ebt.org | Instagram | Facebook
• Emotional Brain Training resources and app: https://www.ebt.org

Resources
• The Five Minute Solution: Clear Stress, Heal Trauma, and Create Joy by Dr. Laurel Mellin on Amazon
• Emotional Brain Training membership, app, forum boards, and group support available at https://www.ebt.org

If this episode helped you, share it with someone who feels stuck, disconnected, emotionally heavy, or like joy is no longer available. Depression is not who you are. It may be wiring in the emotional brain, and healing can begin one small emotional shift at a time. 

I’ll see you next time on Overcoming Anything.
 ❤️ Anne

Disclaimer
The content of this episode is for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy, diagnosis, legal, or medical care. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before starting, stopping, or changing any medication or treatment plan, especially for depression, trauma, or any mental health condition.

#overcominganything #midlifetransformations #energyhealing #resilience #depressionrecovery #naturalhealing #emotionalbraintraining #emotionalhealing #traumahealing #stressrelief #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #healingjourney #nervoussystemregulation #joy #selfhealing #stressmanagement #emotionalwellness #mindbodyhealing #overcomingdepression #personaldevelopment #selfimprovement #hopeandhealing #podcast #podcastlife #podcastcommunity #podcasthost

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Speaker 5

Welcome to Overcoming Anything, the podcast where we dive deep into stories of resilience, transformation, and growth. I'm your host, Anne Ese, and today we have an incredible guest who has overcome depression naturally. She has founded and created her. Own unique, way of overcoming this using emotional brain training. She's a New York Times bestselling author, a three time Oprah guest who helps people rewire the emotional brain to overcome depression naturally, and create lasting joy. We all need more joy. So welcome to the show, Dr. Laurel Mellon.

Speaker 6

What a pleasure. Thank you, Anne.

Speaker 5

Yes, absolutely. So today's conversation is for anyone who's feeling flat, heavy, disconnected, or they've somehow lost access to joy. So we're gonna talk about depression, not just what it looks like on the surface, but maybe what's happening underneath, especially for women in midlife. We'll explore the signs of depression. Why it can feel so hard to shift how trauma and the emotional brain play a role and what natural healing can actually look like. So before we dive in, I always love to ask, what's one quote or mantra that keeps you going in tough times?

Speaker 6

I am creating joy in my life. I'm creating it. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 5

How fun. I love that. so what are the signs of depression that we often miss or normalize, especially in midlife?

Speaker 6

I would like to just mention that I'm a professor of, in the school of medicine at UCSF. I have been for 42 years and recently retired. Wow. But my orientation toward health, including, depression, is different than most people. And the reason is that I am a scientist. I'm a clinician, I'm a human. I have all sorts of my own problems, issues, symptoms or whatever. But we have a real problem in the United States, in particular, in the mental health system because it is, not based on science. And so what happens is, the question you're asking is a good question. but the problem is that, that when we focus on what the symptoms are, because all mental health problems and all chronic diseases have the same underlying cause, and that is the brain is locked in stress. And so what we're doing now in mental health is we have all these about 300 diagnoses, and the diagnoses are based on a bunch of people getting together and deciding what symptoms to what extent, what cluster of symptoms, will cause this kind of depression or that kind of depression or that anxiety, or that PTSD. And there's no other real. Profession I know of that is as wealthy and as costly as mental health care, that gets away with that because. What's happened is in 2012, and I don't wanna bore you on this, but it's anyone who's been taking medications keep on taking your medications. But the problem is, in 2012 they realized that the current system, which is a DSM five T, what does that mean? It means that there's a whole, when you say depression, what you're talking about is, a diagnostic criteria.

Speaker 5

Okay.

Speaker 6

There are lists of them, there's about 300 of them. There's different kinds of depression, there's different kinds of anxiety. And if you match up according to a therapist, with those symptoms, you get that diagnosis and then this diagnosis is used to justify you having therapy.

Speaker 5

Got it.

Speaker 6

So it's a system based on diagnoses. And those diagnoses have nothing to do with the root cause. It would be like saying, I have a bandaid on my thumb. The bandaids not the problem. There must be an injury under that bandaid, why don't we get to the injury? And so this is frightening because right now people are so medicated and they can't come off the medications. They can actually die from coming off the medications. And we have a real cultural. Phenomenon and actually tragedy of so many people who can take medications. And maybe it's lifesaving for some people, but even if it's lifesaving, for some people, if you want to take the medication that they should be instead saying, okay, the root cause is this and we're gonna treat the root cause and we're gonna also help you feel better. And what the medications do is in the short term, you feel better. But because they're not natural, they don't deal with the root cause. They wear out. And they have side effects. And then people take more and more medication and they feel more powerless. And often the medication, what they do is it, it dulls your emotions. And that's a big statement on my part because it means what's going on here anyway. Because it turns out you can't think your way outta depression. And you can't behave your way out of depression. Depression is based on circuits in the emotional brain, stress circuits, and they don't change by medication. They don't change by talk therapy. They change by emotional experiences that, erase them. The most important thing is if you have any symptom, and you can also have PTSD and you can also have anxiety but depression is one of the most common problems worldwide. And I was just doing a review of the literature in preparation for being with you today and, look back on all the studies. And, what it shows is that the root cause of depression is early training. In an environment with adverse childhood experiences that encode what's called survival circuits. I'll tell you all about those. Okay. And the transmission between parents and children early in life of these, these survival circuits. In the parent's brain 'cause that repeated contact is transferred. And that's typically thought of as genetic. It's not genetic, it's actually been shown in studies to be primarily environmental. The repeated contact trains the brain for stress overload and survival states. Wow. So that's what's happening. And then you go about your life and if you're stressed out. You are going to have the circuits in your brain that cause stress, take you to a brain state or a way of living that's unhealthy, and then you can't help it because you're filled with stress, chemicals, and stress makes you go to extremes. Either way, high, way low. Overeating, undereating, oversleeping. All these symptoms that you could list are symptoms of survival circuits or stress circuits in the brain. That current treatment of depression is not addressing. This has been known for a long time. It's been ignored by the system. I will say that in 2012, I was about to tell you, Tom Insel, who used to be the head of NIMH, national Institute of Mental Health, tried for 15 years to say to people, this is not a chemical problem. This is a circuit problem in the brain. And he actually created this whole infrastructure within the government that we're gonna not, we're gonna stop all this malarkey of diagnosing people based on symptoms and go into what's really going on in the brain that you can actually treat. And so they put up this whole thing. He tried for 15 years. No one would listen to him. It's still there as a framework. No one's using it. And here we were at the University of California, San Francisco. And I was fortunate enough to work with Igor Mitrovich. He's our scientific director who's a neurophysiologist and neuroscientists on a method I had developed over about 20 years before I met him, and he brought it to the next level of scientific rigor. But this method is emotional brain training. It is for anyone because anytime you feel bad and what I mean by that is it's normal to feel bad. Like right now, I don't feel good. I didn't sleep a lot last night, so I'm like iffy, right? But I'm still able to use my thinking brain to connect with my emotional brain where these circuits are, so I can stay present to my emotions and know how I feel and what I need. So I'm, I'm functional. But I'm not my best. Thank you. But I'm functional. If I have trauma circuits in my emotional brain, it's in the amygdala. What happens is they're like bombs in there and they're there. It's like for all the stress that we've had. If we don't process it emotionally, it gets stored and it's chronically activated like this. Like you're always feeling like on edge or you always don't feel that connected. You don't feel that good, and you definitely don't feel joy, right? Which is what the brain wants you to feel. And then just, it's like going like this, like little creepy crawly things in your brain, and then you get one little thing that comes out of the blue that reminds your circuit of the past time of trauma. And that circuit goes boom, like this. And you have all whatever symptoms you want, but they're not pretty, they're extreme, they're damaging. And these circuits have no shutoff valves. So once you trigger them, you stay stuck. You might have to go to bed, you might have to do this, and then you take pills that, maybe you need to take those pills. But essentially when you're in stress, you actually can rewire the circuits. If you can process your emotions and what emotional brain training does is it's a five minute process. My new book is The Five Minute Solution. The five minute Process where you actually process your emotions in the most. Beautiful way that takes whatever horrible feeling you're feeling at the time, whether it's numb or depressed or anxious or ashamed or panicked or manic or whatever that kind of emotion is. It doesn't really tell you what you need. It doesn't really help you. You just know you feel bad and it like fans it out like that. It fans it out like this, and all of a sudden your emotions start flowing.

Speaker 5

So you're releasing the trapped emotions inside. Your body and your brain too.

Speaker 6

Exactly. So what's happening, the circuits are in your brain and so you change your approach to health. And the approach to health is, there's nothing wrong with me. I have, an emotional brain that has a storehouse in it in my amygdala, and it has some of these circuits. That are healthy circuits. They're called homeostatic circuits. Like when you're able to connect with yourself and you can cope. And I call them joy circuits because when you're running those, like right now, I don't look like I'm in joy very much 'cause I'm not feeling good. But the issue is I do have a glow in my body that I'm doing something meaningful. That I don't have to do it perfectly. I'm doing the best I can, and when I finish, I'll take a nice deep breath and I'll feel kind of a glow in my body of higher purpose. It's the brain is spiritual, right?

Speaker 5

Right.

Speaker 6

It's physiologic and it's spiritual. So these are called joy circuits and if for those who are watching or listening, if you. Think you have something wrong with you or that you're not fixable. You have a lot of these joy circuits in there. They're just not activated at this moment. So you've got that storehouse, and then you have another storehouse where it's the times of trauma. And these circuits are very different than these circuits over here, right? These, you know how you feel. In fact, you know that you're sad or you, that you know that you're angry or whatever. But it's a balanced feeling that fades. But with these other circuits. They're called survival circuits. They are the kind of circuit that is not about feelings, it's about survival. And it means that in a time in the past, you maybe as a child, and it doesn't have to be real stress. It can be, you can name some of the big trauma matter experiences people have, right? We know about those, but it can be also, people's lives are absolutely ruined by even small differences where the brain perceives stress such as? Rejection or betrayal, and it's not observable, but the brain records it as if you've been annihilated.

Speaker 5

So does this tame the trigger once you get triggered or does this actually resolve the root issue?

Speaker 6

There is no root issue. There's only a circuit. Okay. The issue is a symptom of a circuit. What this does is you notice when you feel bad. And here's this survival circuit. And remember, it has no shutoff valves. And then it gets you into a state where you feel. Chronically bad. And then other survival circuits get activated because they're hot or online and you just think that you must be mentally ill. And what you are is you are infected with a germ, and this germ is survival circuits. And all you need to do is stay right where you are and say. I have some of these joy circuits and some of these survival circuits. I'm going to learn how to turn a survival circuit, which is allostatic. That's a, it's an allostatic circuit that's a scientific name for it into a homeostatic joy circuits. And I'm gonna do it five minutes at a time, and I'm gonna get into a group where other people are doing it. And when something comes up that's upsetting me, or I'm chronically upset, IU use this. Essentially, I do one thing. First thing I do is remember, shame is your enemy, and confusion is also your enemy. And if you don't know what is going on inside of you, we tend to blame ourselves. So the first thing you do is you say six words. Six words. That's all you say. You say, first of all, be honest with yourself and say, I feel like garbage. Or I feel terrible, or I don't even wanna live, I don't like this. Remember, the stress chemicals make you really nasty. They make you really, delusional. They make you really extreme because your brain is not functioning properly when they're activated. Now, when they stop being activated, joy circuits are activated. You're fine. Okay? So here we go. And so you say these six words, these exact six words you say. It is not me. It's a wire.

Speaker 5

Okay?

Speaker 6

In my brain, I am not my wires. They are in my brain. They're taking up resonance in my brain. What that does is it stops the self-doubt. It stops the, rumination. It stops the trying to be mindfully aware. Forget that it's never gonna work against these, self-analysis, all of these cognitive approaches that are not accessing the emotional brain. You've gotta get into your emotional brain to do anything. There are waste of time and resources. So you say, it's not me, it's a wire. You can't blame yourself for a wire because who taught you how to rewire your emotional brain, no one, and also you can't think your way out of it.

Speaker 5

Right.

Speaker 6

And then you use EBT. You use this little emotional dance you do in your head. And what it does, it takes those terrible, painful emotions that are stuck like this. And literally it fans them out into angry, sad, afraid guilty. And all of a sudden you are on your way to a joy circuit and you are starting to, the feelings instead of being stuck are flowing. And once they're flowing. You're unlocked from the hell that's going on inside, and then your brain will want you to heal so badly. But it wants you to go into your unconscious mind and process your emotions in a very precise way. I've been doing this for 50 years, and I've really devoted my career fine tuning how to do this. Wow. And so it's very precise. There's 23 beginnings of statements. It's on an app. And you just say the statement in your head. You pause and then you wait for your unconscious mind to complete the sentence. And that gets your brain to connect and you essentially catch you on that resiliency pathways in your brain from down here where the reptilian brain is in charge and you're miserable up where the neocortex is in charge. And there's only three causes that are embedded in these circuits of what is making us feel tortured. And the number one is situational stress. And after you've unlocked the circuit, if it's situational stress. Your brain will tell you, 'cause we, you're trusting your body. You're not trusting the therapist, you're not trusting your best friend. You're learning how to trust your own body. And you use this tool one is situational stress, where just all of a sudden, like you just had a, lots of things going on with your family, right? So you got so much stuff happening that your brain's just overloaded. If that's the case, your brain will go to feeling grateful, happy secure. Proud and those feelings. So angry, sad, afraid guilty. Grateful. Happy. Secure. Proud. If it's trauma, which it typically is your brain won't go to grateful, happy, secure. Proud. Right? Because it has something more important to do. It wants to clear that trauma circuit, that survival circuit, and it will, it will actually lead you when you say, I feel guilty. Why did I just. Yell at my kid, or why did I just tell a lie? Or why did I just stay in bed for three days or whatever else you wanna judge yourself for? Once you say what you think you're contributing to the problem, the brain will open up like a flower. It will present to you the exact circuit that's amplifying your stress, which includes a message. And that message or expectation is either a basic belief. That was encoded during trauma. I am bad, I don't matter. I'm not good enough, I'm unworthy. Something like that. See how simple this is? It's really just two things at each juncture, or it'll be a drive, a triggered response where your basic need for safety or protection or existence is being threatened and the message comes up. Something like, I get my existence from going numb. I get my safety from hating myself. But the exact words will appear in your conscious mind from your unconscious mind. This is why cognitive behavioral therapy is ineffective with depression, and it doesn't rewire these circuits because you have to have the exact words from the emotional circuit in your emotional brain that you've unlocked. Because if you guess it, if you try to finesse it, oh, I think I don't feel worthy. Two things. Number one, the message that you think is in there is probably not the message there.

Speaker 5

Okay?

Speaker 6

And number two, the circuit is closed. So you're getting a superficial change in your thinking brain, but the circuit itself is in your emotional brain and it's closed tight as a drum. Because it only opens when you're in stress. So with EBT, you use this five minute process where you actually stress activate the circuit. Say, I'm really upset about this and this, and so you get it activated. You go right down to the circuit that is now unlocked. You shift, you find out what that expectation is. You shift it over. You've got two to four hours where it's open and can be rewired, and you spiral up to a state of joy and purpose. So this is the process instead of it being, a situation where you've gotta go for. Years and years, and maybe some people need decades in therapy, that's fine. And we're training therapists as quickly as possible as we can in this because there's so much trauma now, right? Essentially you want to be able to, have the skills yourself for day-to-day life. So when you get triggered, you don't have to run to your therapist, you run to yourself and you use this tool again and again. Five minute bursts is what changes the emotional brain. 15. Not an hour of talking about problems, but just getting in

Speaker 5

right.

Speaker 6

Changing the circuit and there you go.

Speaker 5

So does this process bring up emotions? Is it a high intensity process? Yes. Yeah. So you're crying but you're getting through it, you're bringing it all up to heal it. Move through it.

Speaker 6

It's not cathartic. I'm a person. I raised three children as a single parent, and my motto was, if you don't get up by five o'clock, don't bother getting up because there's so much you have to do. And I really believe in not wasting time. But the other part of that, it turns out that if you talk it through in a long way. For 50 minutes, you resolve the stress. This is important. You resolve the stress so you feel better, but you neglected to give your brain that jolt of emotion that is necessary to change the circuit so you feel better. But the circuit's still down there firing and wiring, getting stronger. And that's why people get so dependent on these medications is they're not dealing with it. But when I say that, time matters, what I mean by that is that, part of what I've done over these years, because people, we had early forms of EBT where it would be more cathartic where you would go angry forever and then you'd go sad, and then you'd go afraid. It turns out that's not affected.

Speaker 5

Right.

Speaker 6

And the brain doesn't even ask for it. And so the cycle tool that we use in EBT that spirals you up, you literally, I could do a demo for you. I could do a, a fake one right now to just show you what it looks like. It's or I could show you how to do it if you want me to show you how to do it.

Speaker 5

Sure. Let's do it.

Speaker 6

You wanna do it?

Speaker 5

Yeah, let's go.

Speaker 6

Okay. Okay. So I'm just, I'm a little bit worried because I just wanna show you the first part of it. 'cause it, it'll take when you're teaching it. 'cause you go to a therapist, you go to our website and there's people there that teach you how to do it, and you drop into sessions so you hear other people doing it and it's when you hear it and experience it that you learn it. So let's just give it a try. Okay?

Speaker 5

Okay.

Speaker 6

Okay. So the first thing is you want to complain about something that really bothers you. It doesn't matter whether it is as long as it bothers you. It could be that you have a toenail that's bothering you. It doesn't matter, but it has to bother you because that's gonna bring up a circuit. Okay? 'cause we're clearing circuits. We're in the circuit business here. Okay? So you're gonna say the situation is, I'm gonna give you what's called lead-ins.

Speaker 5

Okay?

Speaker 6

Beginnings of sentences. And the whole key is you say the lead in word for word. And then you pause and you turn control over to your spiritual brain, your stress brain, your emotional brain, your unconscious mind, and you wait for words to appear from that brain which you experience in your body. Okay? And then you pause and then we go on from there. We're just gonna do the first part of it. Okay?

Speaker 5

Okay.

Speaker 6

Okay. So first of all, think about something that's really bothering you enough to, to cause you a lot of heartache.

Speaker 5

Okay, I got it.

Speaker 6

Okay, so I'm gonna say the lead in, then I want you to say the lead in. Then I want you to pause and if it's okay, I'm gonna guide you along because if you learn this poorly, that's why we train people and it's hard to change 'cause you get used to using it that way and. You still, it is still safe and but it doesn't get to the bottom of the brain. We wanna get to the bottom of the brain. Okay? Okay. So the situation is, and you're gonna say the situation is the situation, and then you're just the facts. No feelings. Five sentences at the most. 'cause you're not gonna talk it through, you're just gonna activate the circuit just like it sounds like this, the situation is, I went here and this happened, and this happened and this happened and this happened. Boom. Just like that. Be like you're four years old and you're saying, you're fit to be tied, but you do not express any emotions with words because that dissipates the stress. We wanna ramp up the stress so we can get the most problematic circuit. The situation is just the facts. No feelings about five sentences.

Speaker 5

So you want me to share what I'm upset about?

Speaker 6

The situation is,

Speaker 5

Wait, let me think which one I'm actually willing to share. There's been a few things,

Speaker 6

I can do a quick demo and then you don't have to.

Speaker 5

Okay, that's good. I

Speaker 6

so I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do one, about, let me see, what is it? Oh, my husband's really annoying me 'cause he yells a lot. This is just a little thing, but it gives you an idea 'cause you can use it for stress. Every day is stress. You can use it for. It's, it, one of its big uses is with obesity because it's the only method that turns off the drive to ov eat permanently. Okay. And also with marriages and relationships. 'cause they're very sensitive. So I'm gonna do it with my husband. The situation is, and it's just real basic, the situation is, my husband's been yelling a lot. He gets on the computer and then this, the robots come on and they, the robots tell him to do all this stuff that he's gotta do. And then he gets completely disgusted and he starts yelling and screaming. Okay.

Speaker 5

Okay.

Speaker 6

And then I'm gonna sit with my body for a moment and I'm gonna say what I'm most stressed about and you're trying, your brain will, all I'm doing here is universal and it's also, something that your brain does really well. You're just letting your brain do its thing. Okay. And what it does is it tries to find what bothers you the most, because whatever bothers you the most is the most dangerous for you. And it wants you to bring that to awareness so you can clear it. So you don't have to think, you just let the brain do its thing. So what I'm most stressed about is he could have a heart attack. That just came up from my body. Okay. I'm gonna take those words, even if they make no sense at all, because they came from my unconscious mind. Okay. And if I had done, if I had done it the other way with thinking, I would've said that he's annoying. That having a meal all the time is very annoying. But it wasn't, it was coming from me that I love this man and he could have a heart attack. He gets so upset. Okay. So he could have a heart attack. Okay. That, that I'm going to express anger. In a very safe and productive way. Anger is the only emotion that's negative, that's not associated with retreat. And retreat is, not a good thing. And the reason it's not a good thing is because that's what depression's all about, isn't it? Giving that right?

Speaker 5

Yes.

Speaker 6

So what I'm, excuse me. It turns out that it's angry, sad. Afraid guilty. It's very quick. It's not falling apart. It's actually targeting the circuit. It's done the same way for everyone, the world over, and it's because this is how it's safe and quick and effective. Okay, so my topic is he could have a heart attack, right?

Speaker 5

Okay.

Speaker 6

So I'm gonna say I feel angry. That he could have a heart attack. And by the way, this anger procedure keeps you from being depressed. Depression is caused by stress in the brain and collapse.

Speaker 5

Okay, first.

Speaker 6

First, people tend to be anxious, then depressed, and then numb if they let it go far enough. Okay. So what we're doing is this anger actually keeps, makes it safe to feel your feelings because it moves it to the joy circuits, not the stress circuits where the feelings are flowing. I feel angry that he could have a heart attack, and then I'm gonna go a little deeper in the brain. I can't stand it that he could have a heart attack, and then I'm going all the way down to the reptilian brown. I hate it that he could have a heart attack and then I let it rip. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I really frigging hate it. And you can use profanity here too, 'cause you're trying to be very fundamental, right? Because that's what the appealing brain, I hate it. I hate it. I frigging hate it. I hate it that he could have a heart attack. I really frigging hate it that he could have a heart attack. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Now, watch what happens. My brain, if I do that in just that way, will not go into depression. It will go into tender, loving, sweet sadness. And I only have to say one sadness, and then one fear, and then one, what? What my power is. Okay.

Speaker 5

Okay.

Speaker 6

My one deepest sadness is I could lose him. And notice I'm not gonna talk. Now talking is cognitive, it blocks the healing. And instead, what I'm gonna do is just feel it. I'm gonna feel the sadness in my body and it will fade. It will fade. Okay. And then, and then it'll turn to fear. And by this time, the fear is not panic or anxiety. It's actually just, Hey, there's something to be afraid about here. I mean, there's a real fear. It's not the imagined fear. It's not the ineffective fear. It's the real effective fear. We need to know what's scary. I feel afraid that he doesn't know that booming like that could hurt him. And then the last is, I do have some power here. I feel guilty. Why don't I do the reasonable thing and. Talk to him about it.

Speaker 5

Yeah, that's

Speaker 6

great. This is situational stress. I'm gonna, I feel grateful that I did this cycle. I feel happy that I'm in love with my husband. I feel secure that I'm not a bad person, and I feel proud that I'm doing this cycle and spiraling up. And then we go on to do something called the take Action tool, which has you go forward with purpose, but you can see that the emotions go from being very caustic. And at the heart of the, the agony to flowing into joy. And that's why we say it's about clearing the stress, healing the trauma and getting back to our natural state of joy.

Speaker 5

I love it. Spiraling up here. Yeah. So what about the people that are afraid to feel their emotions? Because a lot of people just suppress their emotions because they're afraid to feel it. So what advice.

Speaker 6

I think if you've had trauma, you should, suppress your emotions. And the reason is most of the emotions are from the survival circuits. They're not feelings, they're survival emotions that are dangerous. And if you start to feel, the reason we don't feel is it's not safe. Okay. This process makes it safe.

Speaker 5

Okay.

Speaker 6

Okay. So there's two things. Number one, people when they come into EBT, it's a community. It's online. And what they, and if they have a therapist that's trained in EBT, that's fine, but the issue is they're gonna need to be doing it throughout the day. Whenever they feel bad, you're gonna be doing it. But the idea is that we start with joy points.

Speaker 5

Okay,

Speaker 6

and you just start with a few moments of joy here and there. There's seven different ways that are scientific to create moments of joy. Sometimes it's a happy memory. Or bring having a nurturing in our voice for a moment, or there's a spiritual tool that we use. There's about seven different tools, sensory pleasure, different ways to just have a moment of joy and that kind of warms the brain up. And then people get bored with that and they're ready to learn how to do this. The tool for situational stress, and then they learn how to do so they learn it. You learn it in small steps and it gets, the more you do it, the more effective it is.

Speaker 5

So once you go into your, reptilian brain, if I'm saying this correctly, and you're going into your subconscious mind and you're actually healing those wires will those wires always be healed or could you, is it like a one time, once you go in there and heal 'em, are those healed? Like you won't be triggered off of those wires again? Is it permanent?

Speaker 6

So this is, there's two ways of thinking about this. One is that this cycle tool that's been studied scientifically for now, decades, is always the same. It doesn't change the actual healing, the resilience healing pathway is the same for all people, for all problems, and that's why anyone can use it because it's biological, it's the resiliency pathways in the brain. The symptoms of the survival circuits, the strength and dominance of the survival circuits, the ability you have to actually use this cycle tool properly. cause if you use it and you're numb at first, it's not gonna work as well as later. Is variable uhhuh. But you don't, you have a lot of security because you know that you've gotten the circuit when the symptom stops. So in EBT, we say, whatever these stress symptoms are, that's, let's accept them apart from those that are really harming you. Or you need medications so that you don't harm others, of course. But the fact is you're gonna be using the same process over and over again no matter who you are. And when you've used it effectively enough and often enough, the symptom will go away. The symptom is just a sign of. Un rewired survival circuits, pre erased survival circuits, and that's the same for all humans, the world over, which really simplifies mental healthcare.

Speaker 5

Right. Absolutely. So does this rewiring fix procrastination, functional freeze, or is this just for depression?

Speaker 6

No, for everything.

Speaker 5

Everything.

Speaker 6

Okay. 'cause when we first started today, I said, I'm gonna be talking to you about the. The diagnostic manual for therapists because it's just descriptive of something biological that's not being treated in mental health care today. So essentially, you just, you can choose anything. I could sit here and do the same process for what worries me about my daughter or for that my arms are getting saggy now that I'm older, or, a trauma that happened. Where I almost died, when my child died. It doesn't matter what you do, the resiliency process is the same. So you learn, only learn one major skill. There's variations of it, right? And that is what your go-to becomes. You say, it's not me, it's a wire. You do that little emotional dance, you spiral up to joy. And then you do it again and again, and you only do it on topics that bother you. What, I'll tell you something really scary is it, we'd give tele groups. We give tele groups where everybody comes once a week and you, there's a certified DBT provider. They all work together on their own brains, but they, we listen to one person and they're guided through the session. And these groups get very close. People tend to stay about a year in them because they know each other and it's safe and everything. So I'm in the group and I'm not seeing people Right. Because it's a telephone group. And this particular group was all about, binge eating disorder. And obesity and I just kept on wondering. Why they weren't doing cycles on food and weight and they never made any comments about the fact they just lost 50 pounds.

Speaker 5

Wow.

Speaker 6

It would, I'd say, I noticed you guys, this was a binge eating group, and no one's doing cycles about binge eating or food or weight. And someone would say, yeah, I've lost 25 pounds. I, I didn't even bring it up.

Speaker 5

Wow. And

Speaker 6

why?

It's

Speaker 5

profound.

Speaker 6

Why? Because it's no longer an issue. When you race a circuit, you're not thinking about food anymore. You're not thinking about the weight anymore. 'cause your brain goes on to the next level of development,

Speaker 5

right?

Speaker 6

Where now maybe it's relationships that you're focusing on, or maybe it's a spirituality or your purpose in life. So it's interesting that the, the brain just loses interest in it, but, so it doesn't really matter what the symptom is, it matters that you have a process. So no matter what comes up, you're able to clear it.

Speaker 5

Wow, my mind is blown. This is so powerful. I love it. So is there any other questions like I should ask you that or any other information you would like to share or people should know

Speaker 6

about

Speaker 5

this process?

Speaker 6

Couple things. Number one is we have a program that last one year. But you start wherever you are with the app. The forum boards, and if you can afford to get into a group, our basic membership is something like $9. We give it away at a loss. We want everyone to have these, these methods. But if you, but we know from our research there's 13 studies on EBT now that you need to get into a group. And when you're in a group where you meet once a week for an hour and then in between times you have complete confidentiality, it's through the app so that you know these people, but you don't know their last name, you don't know where they live. So you can basically say things that you wanna say when you're really stressed. And when you're really stressed, you're gonna say things like, you hate your kids, or You can't stand yourself. And this is because these thoughts and these emotions come out of the reptilian brain, they're perfectly normal because the, chemicals are fight or flight chemicals and they're really nasty. So you have an environment where you don't have to worry about anyone bringing up. Step to you five years later. I remember when you said that about your child or whatever. So it was very safe. And between sessions, they take five minutes here and there and listen to each other. No comments, just listen. And then a kind word, it's called connections. And that combination of once a week with the group and then the connections where you, someone's listening to you and you're completely safe. You can say anything you want. What happens is the set point of the brain. Instead of being in the habit of being in depression

Speaker 5

and

Speaker 6

overwhelm and anxiety the set point of the brain starts rising up the habit and the goal of EBT in a year, and sometimes it takes longer, is for the habit of the BA brain. Not to be in stress overload, but to be in joy and connection and wellbeing and higher purpose. And that's the journey that we're on with EBT. That's the joy of it is watching other people raise their set point. You're inspiring them, they're inspiring you. One other thing, if you're in a bad marriage or bad relationship right now and you're not safe, definitely go to a therapist. Look at what you need to do to take care of yourself. If you're in a relationship that's lost, it's, liveliness, it's love, it's sense of being intimate. Whether that's loving connection or having a great time together or sensual pleasure. Try EBT. Current family Couples care counseling is all in the head. And the circuits that cause these problems are in the emotional brain. They're survival circuits. And typically, like I have a private practice and typically in six weeks I can change a couple's relationship even if only one person does EBT. cause once you begin to understand what's really going on in relationships and use these skills. You no longer interact with that individual in the same way. I just wanna say, because love is so important, because we know we're big love bugs here. Yes. If your relationship is a little bit, you just think, I'm just gonna let it go, or I'm gonna leave, or I'm not even gonna care anymore. Or I, I'm, my heart is not warm toward this person. Use EBT on your relationships. It works very rapidly and what you learn is that stress is what's blocking it. And as you clear these survival circuits, the love oftentimes starts flowing, or you have a better close to the relationship, so you won't go on to another re relationship that's not satisfying. So I would say it's about love, it's about the food, of course, and it's mainly about. We have an emotional brain that we've been ignoring. Medical care doesn't use EBT psychotherapists, don't use EBT. We're trying to create a revolution here and say, look at, stop treating the symptoms. What we want you to do is treat the circuits in the root cause. People can change, people can use this skill and it will change not only their lives, but the lives of the people they love and really our nation.

Speaker 5

I love it. It's so inspiring. So where can people connect with you, follow your work, learn more about what you do? And you mentioned a book. When is your book coming out?

Speaker 6

It will be out, the middle of July on Amazon. It's the five minute solution, at its clear stress. Heal trauma and create joy is because joy is the ultimate conclusion to all of this. Yeah, and the main thing is go to EBT. It's just like food stamps, like ebt.org. Get a membership, get the app, get the forum boards if you can get into a group. That's the standard of care where people really transform because it's safe and it's warm, and it is very small and it can change your life. But just get the skills and please share these ideas that our emotional brains where it's at, and we can use our emotional brain to create a lot of joy and stop the suffering really rapidly.

Speaker 5

Dr. Mellon, this was a very compassionate, helpful, conversation to give people hope to know that they don't have to depend on drugs. They may need 'em, but for those who could get off of 'em or they're not the right fit, that there's other alternatives. So thank you for helping us better understand depression, the emotional brain, and what natural healing. Can look like for people who are ready for a different path forward. So thank you so much.

Speaker 6

My pleasure.

Speaker 5

If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might be facing a similar challenge or who is suffering with depression and needs to hear this message of hope. I'll see you next time on overcoming Anything.