Featured Image Credit: Taylor Hill/Getty
Topics: Podcast, Kristen Bell, Mental Health
Phoebe Tonks
Since launching his globally acclaimed podcast The Armchair Expert in 2018 with co-host Monica Padman, Dax Shepard has been at the top of his game.
From attracting big-name guests like Barack Obama, Jennifer Aniston, and Charlie Sheen in his professional life, through to enjoying a solid 12-year marriage to actress Kristen Bell, it’s safe to say Shepard is living a life many of us can only envy.
However, despite his success both on air and off, the actor couldn’t help but admit that he was still terrified of the day that this rosy life could potentially be snatched away.
Dishing the dirt on a recent episode of the show in which the Without a Paddle star was grilling author Mel Robbins about her book, The Let Them Theory, the star admitted that fear often grips him when he least expects it.
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“The moment I acknowledge things are nice and I'm grateful. Pretty immediately, there's a little swell of fear that somehow it's all going to get taken away,” he candidly explained. “We'd be up there recording when we recorded up there, and I'm like, someone's gonna knock on the door and go like, we're so sorry. Big mistake. This show isn't big. You're not making a living. This is not real. The shoe is gonna drop.
“It's one of the things I would love to say goodbye to - that I can't figure out how.”
Responding to Dax, Robbins went on to explain that the phenomenon was incredibly relatable; however, by her own admission, it definitely ‘sucked’ to have to go through it.
She said: “The thing that sucks about it is that if you really unpack that experience of the ‘what if’ or ‘the other shoe's going to drop’, or ‘I can't let things get too good’ or ‘I can't be too happy.’ You hold space over here for, ‘oh, but something might go wrong.’
“It's really sad.”
Shepard then admitted he wished his subconscious would stop eating at him and would have to show the logic and ‘math’ behind how it had come to the thoughts that haunted him.
“I was just thinking of how clever your subconscious is and how unaware of it you are, and how it is trying to protect you at all times, but the way it tries to protect you is obviously damaging in a lot of ways, “ he observed.
“And I was like, the most helpful thing that the subconscious could give us is it should have to show its math. Like my kid is right now in fifth grade, if she does an equation, she has to show how she got there.
“I just would love to know how the subconscious is creating all these bizarre motivations for us that it believes is going to soften some blow or help us.”
Shepard’s candid admission comes just one month after Bell missed a TV appearance following a controversial Instagram post to celebrate their 12th anniversary.