Mel Robbins on Laughing at Yourself: A Bodysuit Disaster and Why Humor Is a Superpower

High-Level Overview

This is what Mel Robbins calls a "jump on a mic" episode: she runs up to her Vermont studio bursting with a story from the day before and tells it to her colleagues Amy and Jesse, with a brief cameo from her husband Chris. The story involves a too-small shapewear bodysuit, a two-block shuffle through Boston, a wedgie of epic proportions and a photo that looks like it was staged by an art director. Beneath the laughs is a serious point: the ability to laugh at yourself is a skill worth building, and research suggests people with a good sense of humor are seen as more confident, intelligent and powerful.

The tone is silly, warm and unfiltered, full of laughter and bodily-function honesty. The conversation flows from a playful debate about the most liberating clothing moment, into Mel's blow-by-blow story, and then into a reflection on humor, research on its benefits and a closing invitation to lighten up.

The Discussion Explores:

• The best feeling at the end of the day: taking off your bra, and what the male equivalent might be
• How Mel's daughter introduced her to shapewear, and the mistake of never test-driving a new outfit
• The wardrobe failure at a women-in-art fundraiser at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art
• Choosing to laugh at the situation instead of beating herself up
• The difference between not caring what others think and being able to laugh at yourself
• Why letting people in on the joke builds bonds and changes the dynamic
• Research on how humor affects perceptions of status, confidence and work performance
• An invitation to notice embarrassing moments and turn them into laughs

Deep Dive into Main Ideas

The Great "Let Loose" Debate

Mel opens with a question: is there any better feeling than taking your bra off at the end of the day? Amy and Jesse agree there isn't, and the group wonders what the male equivalent is. They consider loosening a tie or a belt before calling in Chris, who suggests removing a jockstrap, and then agrees that peeling off padded bike shorts after a 70-mile ride feels pretty good. Mel invites listeners to write in with their own moments of end-of-day freedom.

The warm-up has a purpose. Mel says that the day before she experienced a moment of bodily freedom she estimates was about 25 times more liberating than taking off a bra, and it came from a major wardrobe failure.

Shapewear, Barbie Clothes and a Missed Test Drive

Mel explains she had long avoided shapewear, partly because an early pair of high-waisted compression shorts left her feeling gassy and crampy, likely from the wrong size or style. Then her daughter Kendall helped her clean out her closet and concluded that the reason Mel hated her clothes was a lack of shapewear and saggy bras. They ordered pieces from Skims, and when the box arrived the bodysuit looked so small Mel compared it to Barbie clothing. With her daughter coaching her, she stretched it and pulled it on "a lot like pulling sausage casing" over her body, and had to admit it looked great.

Her mistake, which everyone agrees on: she tried it on, took it off, and never walked or sat in it. Jesse sums up the lesson that you have to test-drive new underwear before wearing it for real.

An Art Outfit and an Escalating Wedgie

Invited to a fundraiser at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art celebrating women artists, Mel wanted a cool but not pretentious "I'm into art" outfit: tailored stretchy black pants she hadn't worn in about eight years, black heeled boots and a tight ribbed sweater in bold white, yellow, brown and black stripes. "I look like human caution tape," she jokes, or a bumblebee.

Everything was fine until she stood up from her car in the parking garage and the thong turned into a wedgie. She reached down the back of her pants to adjust it and then, as she hesitantly admits, smelled her hand, because she didn't want to hug friends or shake hands with a stranger if anything was off. Jesse calls it conscientious and says many people would never admit it. As she hurried the two city blocks, the bodysuit crept up front and back so badly that she couldn't take full strides and had to shuffle. She hugged her friend at the door, whispered that she had a giant wedgie, and headed straight for the bathroom.

The Bathroom Fix and the Parking Garage Finale

In the bathroom, she dropped her pants and pulled down on the sides to create a few inches of slack, flattening out the thong strip that had rolled up like a string. Unsnapping it wasn't an option, she explains, because a bodysuit rolls up like a window shade. Pulling it down fixed the bottom but pulled it off her chest. She then went to the luncheon, told people what happened and laughed about it.

During lunch it crept up again. Walking back, her close friend Lisa kept telling her to stop picking at it. At Mel's car she finally stepped behind the open door, dropped her pants and unsnapped it, and describes standing there with her legs apart as the true definition of letting loose. With the bodysuit hanging out of her pants front and back like a tail, she asked Lisa to take a photo. Lisa backed up for a better angle and hit a parking pylon, sending both of them into hysterics. The resulting photo shows Mel in her yellow, black and white striped sweater under a matching yellow and black sign that reads "Caution dead end", which Amy says looks like something an art director would curate.

Two Ways to Tell the Same Story

Mel says the old version of herself would have felt embarrassed and berated herself for buying the wrong size, always getting it wrong and running late. This time she laughed. "You have to be able to laugh at yourself," she says, and she believes she'll remember this day for the rest of her life because of the humor. Turning something embarrassing and somewhat painful into something funny and relatable changed everything about the experience.

The group draws a distinction between two related skills. Not caring what others think is what lets you whisper to a friend that you have a wedgie. Being able to laugh at yourself is a further step: loosening your grip and letting everyone in on the joke. Jesse admires that Mel doesn't do things in a whisper, and notes that when you share a relatable moment, the people around you stop thinking about their own insecurities and laugh with you. Mel adds that this is why she posts unflattering real-life photos of herself online.

Humor Can Be Learned

Amy, who performs amateur stand-up and improv, says a funny way of looking at the world is not something you are simply born with. You can get funnier and develop a sense of humor beyond what you think you have. Making fun of yourself, she says, lets people bond with you over the relatable parts of life, and the key is to laugh at yourself warmly rather than in a condescending way.

Mel offers a metaphor from the story: refusing to laugh and share these moments means "your whole life becomes like you're wearing a bodysuit that's too small," constricting you and cutting off your life force. Unsnapping the judgment and seriousness frees you up.

What the Research Says

Mel shares research the team gathered, which she promises to link in the show notes. People respect leaders who are funny more than those who aren't. Someone with an appropriate sense of humor is seen as more confident, more powerful and more intelligent, their status rises, and they tend to be better liked because humor creates a bond. She cites a study in which 98% of executives said they would prefer an employee with a sense of humor, and 84% believed people with a sense of humor do better work. She cautions that she would not tell her boss about the wedgie, but says the principle applies at work.

Jesse calls humor "a superpower" that changes the dynamic between people. Amy adds that even if you don't think you're funny, you can still laugh at someone else's joke and help them through their day.

An Invitation to Lighten Up

Mel closes with a challenge: as you go through your days, notice embarrassing or funny moments and whether you laugh at yourself or at other people. She admits she spills on herself constantly and simply jokes about it rather than changing clothes, and recounts deliberately pushing out a second fart at work because she knew it would send Jesse into helpless laughter. Laughing at yourself, she says, takes pressure off, makes you more relatable, lets more love in and actually signals confidence, because it takes confidence to turn a dumb situation into a joke instead of something to ruminate on. They add that teaching kids to laugh at themselves is a great gift.

Conclusion

Wrapped in a genuinely funny story about an undersized bodysuit, this short episode makes a simple case: embarrassing moments will happen, and the way you frame them decides whether they become shame or a shared laugh you'll remember for years. Mel Robbins and her colleagues argue that laughing at yourself is different from simply not caring what people think, that it can be learned, and that research links a good sense of humor with being seen as more confident, capable and likeable. The takeaway is to loosen up, let people in on the joke and, as a bonus, always test-drive new shapewear before a big event.

This is a summary of "Stop Taking Things So Seriously: A Hilarious Story About Wedgies, Wardrobe Failures, Art Museums, & Having More Fun" from The Mel Robbins Podcast, giving you the GIST so you can decide if you want the REST. Listen to the full episode.