Control issues? These two simple words could help

“The single best thing” Mel Robbins has ever done began with a stressful moment on her son’s prom night.

The bestselling author, former attorney and host of one of the world’s most popular podcasts is talking about her latest book, “The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About ” (Hay House).

The book — which demystifies ancient concepts from Stoicism, Buddhism and Greek philosophy for modern, plugged-in, multitasking audiences — arose that evening, when Robbins says she was “being a complete control freak” and “micromanaging every detail.”

Shelf Help is a wellness column where we interview researchers, thinkers and writers about their latest books — all with the aim of learning how to live a more complete life.

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She was agonizing over the teens’ lack of dinner plans and the fact that it was raining and they might show up to the dance soaked. She was on her phone and shouting to other parents and trying to take control of the situation when her daughter repeatedly insisted that she let the kids do it their way.

Let them grab tacos instead of going to a restaurant. Let them ruin their shoes in the rain. “It’s their prom, not yours,” she said to Robbins.

After “like the 11th time,” it finally sunk in, Robbins said, and she felt herself relax.

After sharing the experience with her 8.3 million Instagram followers, and then to her legions of loyal podcast subscribers, the enthusiastic response made it clear: She needed to write a book. In December 2024, so came “The Let Them Theory.” In an interview with Robbins, Oprah Winfrey called it “one of the best self-help books I’ve ever read.”

The Times spoke with Robbins about how the simple phrases “let them” and “let me” can help us feel less stressed and more empowered, and help us better navigate the challenges of dating, family relationships and social media.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

(Mel Robbins author of “The Let Them Theory” (Jenny Sherman))

How did you realize that “let them” could work beyond the prom?

I’m the kind of person that’s always wanted to know how to be more stoic and let go, yet I’ve never really been able to apply philosophy when I’m already emotionally triggered. The way it hit me was at the prom.

From that point forward, any time either life was frustrating me or my husband did something that was annoying, or my mother — I just started saying, “Let them,” and I noticed that it was immediate peace in a way that I had never experienced in my life.

All that I’m doing is reminding people of what they know to be true. The issue of trying to control things that aren’t yours to control, and how it just creates stress for you, this is the fundamental law of human beings that has been around since the beginning of time.

There are two parts to the theory: let them and let me. Why is it important to use both?

The second part is the more important part, because the second part is where you actually cue yourself and remind yourself that your life is your responsibility. When you say, “Let me,” you remind yourself that in any situation — and this is literally the teaching in “Man’s Search for Meaning,” [Holocaust survivor] Viktor Frankl’s work — the only thing that’s in your control is your response to what’s happening. You can control what you think about what’s happening. You get to choose what you do or don’t do in response. And you get to choose how you process your emotions. That’s what you get to control and that’s where your power is.

You say the hardest part of “let them” is learning to feel raw emotions without immediately reacting. A lot of times, we’re already reacting before even thinking “let them.” How do we do this?

I’m still working on it. I think you deserve a gold medal if you have the presence of mind to even say, “I would like to be less reactive moving forward.” Just being aware that it’s a skill and it would benefit you and bring more peace to your life, that is the first step. Part of the reason we’re so reactive is because we feel this sense that we’re trapped because we’ve given so much power to other people. Every time you say, “Let them,” even if it’s after the outburst, you’re still diffusing the emotion. What I have found in my own life, because [I’m] a very emotional person, is that the more I said it, the more you close the distance between the impulse to flip somebody off and actually saying, “Let them.” And you’ll get to a point where every time you say it, you’re literally using it as a tool to catch that nervous system or emotional response.

How can we use “The Let Them Theory” to prevent that compare-and-despair feeling we often get from social media?

It took me a long time to flip from this really insecure, scarcity mind-set, where I truly believed that if somebody else got something that I wanted, it meant they were winning and I lost. I didn’t understand the beauty of the world we live in, which is the things that you want in life — whether it’s success or it’s money or it’s happiness or it’s friendship — these things are in limitless supply.

It took me too long to understand that I’m not actually competing against somebody else in the game of life. I’m playing with them. If my friend is able to do [something], then it is evidence that I — with work and with time and with patience — can do that for myself too.

You start to realize that other people are not standing in your way; you’re doing that to yourself. You’re the one using comparison to stop yourself. You’re the one telling yourself it’s never going to happen. You’re the one telling yourself that you’re not good enough or that you can’t figure it out. When you stand in your own way, you miss out on the fact that literally every single person that has something that you’re interested in or that you want in life, they can actually show you how to get it. They show you what’s possible.

Let’s talk about “let them” as it relates to dating. You say let them show us who they are, how responsive they are. But given today’s digital landscape, how do we use “let them” and still be present enough to allow for flirtation and mystery in relationships?

It’s understanding what part of the dating cycle you’re personally in instead of constantly trying to guess what part of the cycle the other person is in. If you’re in that phase where you’re just meeting a ton of people, really staying focused on, “I’m cool with playing the field right now.” But there’s going to come a point in time where you’re no longer interested in that, or where you say to yourself, “I actually like this person and I don’t want them to see other people.”

When you recognize that you’re no longer in that space of wanting to be casual, the mistake that everybody makes is we now give power to the other person we’re interested in. We now become detectives trying to figure out when they feel the same way we do. That’s when you start chasing the potential. That’s when you start overanalyzing everything you do. That’s when you start to cling, and you start to get weird, and you start to pretend that things are still casual, but you’re secretly looking to see if their Hinge profile is still up.

That’s where you lose power. Because the better thing to do when you no longer just want to be in the casual space is to have a conversation. They could say no, but this is how you respect yourself.

It seems like saying “let them” and “let me” requires self-confidence and self-compassion. How do we get there?

You don’t get there by hoping it comes. You have to use the tools. One of the reasons why we don’t have these conversations — or even something more subtle, like you have a roommate or sister or a parent who’s just negative or passive-aggressive and you’ve put up with it for years — is it takes courage to say to yourself, “I don’t want to have to deal with this, so I’m going say, ‘Let them,’ because I’m going to stop trying to manage their mood.”

It takes a lot of compassion and grace for yourself. And then you do the “let me” part, which is: Let me remind myself that I get to choose how much time and energy I spend with this person.

You say this is especially hard with loved ones. Why is that?

These people have known you since you were born, and they have expectations about who you are and who you should be and what should happen in this family.

Think about family like a spiderweb. Any tap on the web reverberates through everybody. Anytime you start to let your family have their opinions, or let them have their fears, or let them have their expectations and let them have their concerns — which they have, because they’ve always had them about you — when you start saying “let them” and create space, you’re widening out the space between the webs. People don’t like that.

Then you say: Let me live my life in a way that makes me happy; let me pursue a career I really want to pursue; let me love the person that I love. Those decisions actually force other people to have to deal with their own expectations and opinions. But that doesn’t mean you have to change what you’re doing in order to appease them or meet their opinions.

How do we apply the theory without becoming passive or aloof or waiting for a big blowup?

One of the things I see from people is like, “I’m supposed to let people abuse me? I’m supposed to let them disrespect me?” I’m like, no, that’s probably happening right now. Because we, especially in families and with loved ones, explain away bad, disrespectful and abusive behavior.

(Maggie Chiang / For The Times)

If we are in a family system or a relationship where there has been a cycle of emotional abuse or a cycle of narcissism, the psychology of it is very, very challenging, because you keep holding on to the hope that someone’s going to change. We keep a fantasy alive in our heads versus learning how to live with the reality in front of us. You start to realize, every time you say, “Let them” and “Let me,” that the power isn’t in what other people are doing. The power is in your values and how you respond.