If You Got Your Heart Broken, You Need To Hear This! | The Mel Robbins Podcast

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  The right decision and fear of the right decision feel different

  Mel calls this the episode's biggest truth. Listener Katrina, who was dumped by her boyfriend of five years days before her 25th birthday and during her last year of law school, asked whether to leave Indianapolis. Mel told her it would be a short session because "you know the decision." The decision that's true for you is often the one that scares you most.

• 02

  Life-changing decisions aren't made in your analytical brain

  Katrina thinks like a lawyer, but Mel says big decisions are felt in your heart and gut. Use your heart to know what's true, then use your analytical mind to plan when and how.

• 03

  Run toward something, not just away

  Asked why she wanted to move, setting her ex aside, Katrina said it was 60% feeling called somewhere else and 40% needing to get away from memories of him on every hiking trail. She had wanted to move even before the breakup. Mel says framing a change as moving toward something gives you control of the story, and adds that you can always come back.

• 04

  How someone makes you feel outweighs how you feel about them

  Mel's second truth is to give the most weight to how a person or place makes you feel. Katrina's ex made her feel rejected and disrespected. Indianapolis now makes her feel small, stuck and like she has stopped growing. That's the information to decide on.

• 05

  If someone doesn't want you, they aren't your person

  Katrina said her ex was everything she wanted "except the fact that he didn't want me." Mel calls that the single most important quality. She sees hoping he'll return as handing him your self-worth, as if winning him back would prove you're enough. The only person you need to be worthy of is yourself.

• 06

  There are always signs, and owning them strengthens your intuition

  Pressed by Mel, Katrina listed them: he cheated two years in. Weeks before the breakup, after a fight when some Mormon friends visited, he looked at her differently. He was distant over the Fourth of July weekend, after the guys in their friend group had all broken up with their girlfriends two weeks earlier. Mel says admitting the signs you ignored isn't weakness; it trains you to trust your instincts next time.

• 07

  Separate what ended from how it ended

  Mel argues Katrina couldn't let go because of the injustice of how it happened: no warning and no honest conversation. As a person of principle, she deserved better. Getting angry about the disrespect, instead of agonising over whether to move, gave her back her power.

• 08

  If you hold yourself back, own it

  Katrina felt guilty leaving her parents. Mel: they're adults who can fly or FaceTime, and they want you happy. You don't get to bet on yourself and then blame your parents. Most of the time you haven't even asked whether they'd be disappointed. People can be sad you live far away and still support you, as Mel's own parents do.

• 09

  You'll regret what you didn't do

  Mel lists her own regrets: cheating on past boyfriends, how she treated friends, wasted opportunities in college and law school before she understood her childhood trauma. Still, she says the bigger regrets are the moves, degrees, trips and fresh starts we were too afraid to try.