Moore Style - Acknowledging Denial to Change Your Life with Dr. Jane Greer

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Denial can be a useful coping mechanism for difficult situations but what happens when it starts negatively impacting your life and relationships? In today’s episode, I sat down with marriage and family therapist Dr. Jane Greer to discuss how to work through denial to live a happier and more fulfilled life.  Dr. Greer shares with us how to recognize denial within ourselves and our relationships, how to gain the courage to make changes, and we even get into the interesting topic of communicating with departed loved ones. Dr. Greer is an amazing expert in so many different areas and this episode has something for everyone, so take a listen! In this week’s episode, we discuss: [01:42] About Dr. Jane Greer [02:27] Dr. Greer’s journey in the world of sex, love, and relationships [11:35] How do you know if denial is present in your life?  [15:00] Dealing with another person's denial and expectations [19:59] Components of denial & reaching a breaking point [25:05] Emotional pain manifesting as physical pain [27:22] Communicating with departed loved ones through signs [41:10] Speaking your truth and acknowledging denial [45:32] Dr. Greer's favorite date   Connect with Dr. Jane Greer: Website Am I Lying to Myself? How To Overcome Denial and See The Truth The Afterlife Connection: How To Communicate With Departed Loved Ones Intimacy: 101 Hottest Questions, 101 Honest Answers How Could You Do This To Me? Learning To Trust After Betrayal What About Me? Stop Selfishness From Ruining Your Relationship Adult Sibling Rivalry: Understanding The Legacy Of Childhood Gridlock: Finding The Courage To Change in Love, Work and Life Doctor on Call Hour

Hi, everyone. I'm your host, Celeste Moore, and you are listening to the Down and Dirty podcast, aka the Double D's of dating. This is a podcast for navigating the ins and outs of modern midlife dating. Here, we will discuss the challenges that men and women face in today's dating world. Like many industries, this one is forever changing, and I believe this platform will help those who need or want it. Today, it is the best time to take control of your desired outcome, whether it is a marriage, significant other, life partner, or just to gain the confidence in dating once again. Every other week, we will dive in and talk about different viewpoints that seem to be challenges in today's dating arena. So let's get into today's episode.

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Down and Dirty podcast. As always, I'm your host Celeste Moore. And I just want to thank everyone here for listening and continue to learn and educate yourself so that you can be a better human. Remember, please leave a five-star rating and great review is always appreciated. Also, don't forget to visit my website and sign up for my freebies. I will be releasing some every couple months and you'll also receive weekly blogs with a chock full of goodies and tidbits in there. Before we dive into today's episode, I would love to introduce you to my guest today. Her name is Dr. Jane Greer. She is a marriage and family therapist, a psychotherapist, an author, a radio host, and creator of Shrinkwrap, the popular

commentary on what we can learn from the trials and triumphs of not only celebrity but all relationships. Through her media collaborations and professional insights, she has been recognized as a leading national expert in sex, love, and relationships. Well, thank you, Dr. Greer, for being on today's show. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Great. Just to kind of give everybody a little bit of preface of where this all kind of started, I would love to start by hearing a little bit more about your journey in the field of sex, love, and relationships. How did that start? Well, that's an interesting question. You know, When I was getting my doctorate degree, my doctoral work was on marriage and twins.

And I was looking at the relationship that twins shared with each other and my hypotheses were based on whether having a bond and the intimacy of twinship would make for a better and easier marital adjustment since you've had a partner already, or if it would make for a more difficult one in terms of having to separate from your twin, having had enough of sharing. And so when I completed my doctorate, I started to do a lot of media with the twins, all different kinds of twin shows, twins married to twins, twins reared apart, twins separated at birth. And always my passion was for couples and relationships, but that sort cast me into the mainstream media and while i was doing all the shows trying to actually i forgot

to mention i wrote a book after my talk late um i brought into my base from just from being twin relationships to all sibling relationships and i wrote a book called adult sibling rivalry which really looked at the power of our sibling relationships in adulthood that carry over for the rivalries that carry over, the ways they present themselves in our work, in our love, in our life, in all the different avenues. And so that put me into the mainstream of doing a lot of TV shows. And from that, I wound up every show I did, there was some variation of betrayal. Either a husband was betrayed by a wife, a sister betrayed by a brother, a mother betrayed by a daughter so that led to my next book how could you do this to me learning to trust after betrayal

and and that the work that i was doing there enabled me to continue my work with individuals and couples looking at what makes a relationship work what gets in the way why people think they are communicating when they are not communicating what they need to do to communicate and most importantly, how to enhance and increase love and intimacy so that their sexual bond and relationship remains a good one, as good as when they first got together. Wow, that's so fascinating. You've done a lot of research in your life. Yes, that is true. There's no question about it. But you know, it's research that's really drawn from my work. I've worked a lot with individuals and couples on all different aspects of their relationships dealing with people's you know

grappling to move on my next book was courage finding the courage to move on in love work and life and all the different arenas where our anxiety and our fears hold us back our anchor keeps us stuck and I tried to package the courage you know in love work and life all the tools that I use in my practice to enable people to move on, to not be stuck in a rut and to, you know, have the skills that they need to end a relationship, to leave a bad marriage, to change jobs if they're unhappy, to aspire and actualize their goals and dreams. Yeah, that's so important. I think so many people obviously need this. They need that guidance that you provide in these books. And I love that because a lot of people don't understand how to leave a relationship.

I think that's so huge. It's very huge. And, you know, it's interesting because the next book I wrote was completely off the beaten path. It came out of the loss of my mother. And I wrote a book about the afterlife and the afterlife connection. It's called A Therapist Reveals How to Communicate with Departed Lovers. So that was a complete departure from my psychoanalytic couples work, individual work. But I then gravitated back with my next book, which was What About Me? Stop Selfishness for Ruining a Relationship. and all of the different books that I've written have encompassed the element of my newest book,

which is Am I Lying to Myself? How to Overcome Denial and See the Truth. Because when you're stuck in a band marriage, like you said before, how do you leave it? If you're dealing with somebody and feeling that your needs aren't really being met because they're really selfish and they don't see you and they don't consider you, you have to deal with your own denial in order to see them for who they really are, muster up the strength and the resilience and courage to tackle taking a chance on a change. And so that's what led me to this most recent book.

Okay. So how is it, though, that you got into the study and exploration of denial? Well, as I said, every book that I've written has been tempered with hmm okay all the all the problems people have i've given basic hands-on skills but i've always had to deal with my patient's denial in order to get them enable them to use the skills because if i'm telling you you know read this one of my skills in the book if you're dating is read the small print in the denial the small print meaning if you're going out with somebody pay attention to the little details because the little details are seemingly insignificant and

everybody says you know it's not a big deal or they give the other person the benefit of the doubt and they say oh he was tired oh it was late oh you know it was just the first time and they give them a very wide margin and i say you know on the back cigarettes it says cigarette smoking can be hazardous to your health. And the small print, the stuff that's going to get you and kill you, the stuff that's really destructive and will be damaging is in very small print. So in order to use a skill like that, you have to be ready and willing to move through your own denial that everybody isn't the good, you know, the good fairy. Everybody is not like you. Everybody doesn't look to be nice just because that's how you would behave. Everybody doesn't look out for the other

person because that's what you would do. And people trust. They say, well, I'm a nice person. I'm trustworthy. So they assume the other person's coming from the same place as them, and they're not. So I've always had to work with denial and the people that I've worked with, the nature of their denial, which is what culminated in my saying, you know what, there really is a lot of information that people know about their own denial and the denial of other people and how it impacts their relationships. So would you say, when I hear this, this is what comes to my mind and my thought process right away, is it's almost as though if people aren't listening to their intuition? Is that part of it? You're exactly on point. That's definitely a part of it.

Everybody has their intuition. Everybody has their gut. However, with the help of good old denial, the Houdini of the heart, the Wizard of Oz, ignore that man behind the curtain. You know, one of the ingredients that I talk about in denial is believing what you're told. So your gut tells you he's lying, but he tells you, you have no right looking at my mail and you're the one with the problem and you don't know how to trust and does a whole Houdini on you, making it disappear all your fears and your doubts so that you think you can trust that person and you really can't. So you, your own intuition disappears because you believe what's old instead of believing

what you know. the old habits old coping skills that maybe aren't just serving you anymore and they're they're kind of like the things that happen to you in life are building this up and so that harder to trust or harder to feel that that other person is trusting yeah yeah that makes I mean it's amazing that you were able to write this because I don't I don't know of anybody yet that has spoken so deeply about this so how is it that you can spot this in a in a relationship or in your life for example I know you gave a couple examples but say in a relationship well if you keep forgetting bad behavior the hallmark of denial is you forget and that's how denial helps you along to live with

what's intolerable and uncomfortable and painful you forget so let's say you're living with somebody who has a drinking problem or is an alcoholic and there's a big fight or there's you know they really get drunk on a friday night and you say that's it i can't have to end this relationship i can't stay in it and they you know they make up and they say they'll change they'll stop they'll this they'll that and then you forget so that the next time it happens it's as if it's brand new it's like you never encountered it before and the whole arc of it again in the forgetting is you're always surprised that the person is saying or doing what they're doing it always catches you off guard you know if you have a critical parent and you try and do something

to please them or to gain their approval and they come back at you with you did it wrong you could have done this why did you do that you should have done this every time it's like i can't believe they said that you know you're dealing with denial when you can't believe what the other person is saying or doing when you're saying i can't believe it you're in denial okay now of course there are a number of other variables that I that I write about in the book okay that no that explains it too but do you feel that people this happens because it's an easy way to deal with like underlying feelings and beliefs like okay I'm not gonna really tackle that situation when it's happening so say I won't tolerate my partner because they're drunk anymore so

you know i'll just kind of forget about it i mean is it do you feel like that's just an easy way of of coping if you will i don't i don't think it's denial sometimes is conscience where we make a conscious choice to say i'm not going to deal with it i don't want let's say you eat too much one night and you say you know what i'm not going to weigh myself you know um or you spend too much money you avoid looking at your bill or paying your bill so that's you know just not dealing with it okay but a lot of the times denial is on an unconscious level and you're not even aware that you're doing you're just pushing it out of you're making it disappear you're you're doing the houdini of the head and making it disappear from your conscious awareness and it's a way that

people you know look denial is very functional and purposeful when people are dealing with trauma or tragic or excruciating pain it helps us cope it helps us survive okay but when it becomes dysfunctional is when you're unhappy when you're constantly what I call in the book wishing and hoping that the person's going to be different that they're going to change and yet you're dealing with the same person and the same disappointment repeatedly and chronically over and over and over. And so at some point you have to just pull the rug out from underneath you and deal with it. I mean, how, how, how is it that you coach your clients or talk about this in the book on the first steps of, you know, starting to deal with this versus just being

in denial of a situation that's not working? Well, first of all, I say, you do know you're in denial okay you know i mean i raise the red flag hello we're listening listen to what you're saying we're talking denial here and then i give them the skills for tackling for dealing with it at that point okay so you know there's something that that i call in the book so there's dealing with denial within ourselves and then there's dealing with other people's denial oh and the denial in ourselves leads us to have unrealistic expectations of ourselves and believe that if we try harder or do more or work harder or are better we'll change the other person we'll feel good about ourselves and we deny the reality of who they are and think that we can change things by

being who they want us to be. So that's the internal denial. Now, the denial in other people is what we've all encountered in the pandemic, dealing with somebody who just completely has an oppositional and different viewpoint than you do around vaccines, around masks, around health issues, political issues. There's dealing with what I call demander's denial, and that's the other person's expectations of you. Not your own, but their expectations. They expect you to be unconditionally available, go the distance, do whatever they ask, when they ask you to do it, never say no. And no matter how much you do for them, they'll always find fault. You'll always come up short. You'll never hit the bar. And I have quite a few examples there

because you see the demander, their denial is that they don't see you. They don't see you and your life full of children and activities and things that you need to do. They only see their own needs and their hurt and anger if you don't meet them and so most people spend a lot of time effort and energy trying to get the demander to see them to see I have kids I'm busy I have a life whatever it is and the harder they try the more that that demander is blind to them and so it's not until you realize that you know what no matter what you do you are never going to please that person and see if that helps you see their denial you're going to stay locked into trying to gain their approval which you never will get

yeah being in that pleaser position is very exhausting that's for sure it's exhausting It was. Okay. Yeah. You know, you said something when you were talking about the internal when, I mean, just personally, and I know quite a people who have been in at least one relationship throughout their lives where, you know, oh, if he only would change this one thing, then he would be like, perfect. So let me work on that. And it's like, you just said it, you cannot change that person ever. Like that's never going to happen. So it's, that's almost like you just said with the demander, it's a lost cause. Exactly. You know, one of the examples in the book, I had patient and she had, she was involved with this man and you know, it's very hard when you love somebody and there are all, nobody's all good or all bad. And so when you love somebody and either you're physically attracted to them, or, you know, they're very generous in certain ways, or they, you know, they provide financial security, or they're a really good parent, whatever it is that is

endearing and, you know, contributes to your loving them. If there's that one piece of behavior, whether it's they drink too much, or they have a temper, or they're constantly belittling you or they're not supportive ever of your goals and dreams and you feel held back whatever that particular behavior is that is uh that clips your wings that is problematic it's very hard to go up against all the other stuff and so denial comes into play if people say well it's just this or it's not that often so one of the elements that i talked about in denial a component of it is turning a lot into a little so a lot of verbal abuse becomes occasionally he puts me down a lot of explosive behavior becomes well occasionally he gets mad

no it's not occasionally it's consistent and it's repetitive and it spoils many of the days you set out to do things together or the dinners you sit down to enjoy together and it's it's a chronic problem but then when you get it when you go up again but he's so this and he's so that we got this and we got that it's very very difficult and i mean that's why i wrote a whole book courage to change because even when you see it you still have to muster up the courage to trust your gut to trust that you can have more that you can be okay on your own that you don't have to to live unhappily for the rest of your life. Yeah. And I love that you write that, but I struggle with having friends in that situation or knowing a couple of people in that relationship

where they're constantly making excuses, right? They are putting the, always talking about the positive things and kind of excusing the things that continue to happen. Like you said, the denial of that situation, how is it that someone gets out of, let's say, just a very long-term relationship because they're just so conditioned to accepting this type of behavior? Yeah, that's a great question. And one of the things that I wrote in one of my books was, however long you tolerate the intolerable, that's how long you will continue to deal with it. There has to become a point. you know it's like anything else we all say oh i want to lose weight or i want to go to the gym you have to reach a point where your discomfort trumps your comfort have to be i have people

that are in physical pain and do not want to take the next step to get surgery for whatever it might be you have to reach a point where you say that's it i can't live with this anymore this is painful I know I did it myself. I had to have a hip replacement a few years back. And I didn't know it was my hip. I thought it was my back. And so I went to an acupuncturist. I went to a chiropractor.

I went for physical therapy. I went everywhere, everywhere. I did everything for two years. I couldn't get rid of the pain. And my husband kept saying, why don't you get an x-ray? And I kept saying, I couldn't bear the thought. maybe there's something really wrong with my back and I've been getting an x-ray find out and I don't want to do that you know so I finally went for an x-ray and the doctor said have you ever had an

x-ray of your hip I said no and he took an x-ray of my hip he said well you're bone on bone no one do you care for ow how is right I mean but understand by the time I went I could barely get to the bathroom at night out of bed. I was in such pain. I had a patient. He said to me, I got a bed of my chair. He said to me, are you okay? You don't look like you can walk. I'm not, and I can't. So the point is, is that that's on a concrete physical level, but that's what it takes on an emotional level too. You have to reach a point where, you know, there's a joke that goes, Bessie and Frank go to a marriage therapist. They're married 45 years. And Bessie said, that's it. I'm done. I want out. So the marriage therapist says to her, but Bessie, why now? 45 years you married your friend. Why now? And she says, because enough is enough. That's it. That is it. There is the breaking point that people reach where they say enough is enough. I can't do anymore.

Now, my experience has been that the point at which people choose to end a relationship is when they have not only lost trust for the person where they feel it cannot be rebuilt, but where they've lost respect. Oh, yeah. I ask everybody who comes in and says, I'm done, I'm finished, I want out. when I say what what's changed for you they everybody will say to me I don't respect him anymore I don't respect her anymore and when you stop respecting that person it gives you the fire that you need to mobilize yeah enough is enough is the perfect perfect yeah and you're Right. It's such a building block. It's such an important one. Once that is gone, it no longer is a healthy relationship. I mean, not to say it was prior, but if you don't respect each other, wow, it gets ugly. You can't trust and respect somebody. Game over.

yeah well i i you know what when you were when you were speaking about the physical pain i have to imagine that the mental pain must also be so intense that it's physical well absolutely for some people the mental emotional pain manifests on a physical level there's no best about that yeah but the mental emotional pain is as it can be as excruciating as physical and and sometimes what i see with a lot of the people that i work with is if the emotional pain is just more than they can bear it transforms into physical pain you know it will become like like i had a patient who was completely completely overextended in so many parts of her life and really needed to freeze her activity to have a break. She wasn't ready to go forward

with some of the things planned in her life. And she wound up in this excruciating shoulder pain. Well, what do you think she had? She had a frozen shoulder because she was overextended. And in a deep freeze emotionally, she was not prepared to take the next step with emotion. ocean. And she sidelined herself. It's not done on a conscious level, but you know, the body does step in when the pain is too great. Wow. Yes. Cause I've experienced some of that as well through not to that extent, but something different where I've had some trauma that has resulted in body in the physical form, which is just fascinating because your body really is like, okay, well, I'm going to just shut your ass down unless you do something about it. So

Right. Well, that's what I say to people, you know, if you don't make the time to take care of yourself, your body will make sure you take the time to take care of yourself. Because it'll just, you know, it'll just shut down. Yeah. So I just think this is fascinating. And I love that you're such an avid writer. And I think every one of those books sounds phenomenal. And I can't wait to start reading them because they all relate to relationships, right? I know you said the one that was so off about your mother's passing and the afterlife. I think it's such a beautiful book, but I can imagine a parent, a child, a spouse, when you have something that you lose

in physical form and spirit, right? And how do you, that's also a huge topic. I don't know if you see patients on that as well. Oh, absolutely. Well, you know, it's so interesting. You talk about full circle. When I was doing my doctoral research with the twins, I was at the twin convention. I forget what it's called now, but every year there's a twin convention in Ohio where all the identical twins come. And at the time there were twins who had lost their twin. so i with with some other people we started a group called the twinless twins group and it was dealing with twins who had lost their twin and they had this extraordinary psychic spiritual connection and bond now my work with this came out of i am have a dear friend and colleague

who maria papa petros who was a celebrity psychic intuitive spiritual guider and she lost her son unexpectedly in a very he was a teenager but he started to give her all this information from the other side he became part of her psychic fountain of wisdom wow and so as a result of that when my mother was my mother was diagnosed with a glioblastoma and during the period as she was progressively dying I remember saying I couldn't even imagine life without her as many people can't be whoever that beloved person is in your life and so I said to her one night now mom you have to promise me knowing this for Maria you have to promise me that you will give me a sign and I I truly had no idea what i was asking it's not like i said you know show me a rainbow or show me a

bird i just said you have to give me a sign yeah and she told me like i was talking greek and i said no i'm kidding seriously you have to promise me that you're going to give me a sign and she looked me in the eye and she said i will so there was this one song called la vie en rose and for the license, I could never remember how to start it. I could just couldn't start it. And I would always say to her, mom, how does that song start? And she would go, and then I would remember the song. So after she passed, I was at the airport and I was standing there thinking about my mom and how much I missed her. And God, I wonder if I would get a sign. And as I was thinking this, the door hit me so I thought she's banging into me I thought yeah but maybe you were just standing

in front of the door and you weren't paying attention it's not really a sign well the next night I'm in a restaurant or a couple of days later I'm in a restaurant and as I go walking out the piano player starts to play La Vie en Rose as I walk past him and I say oh my god what mean to do that. I come back. He said, I don't know. I felt I had to play it when you walked past. Now, from that point, the times that I would hear La Vie en Rose just became extraordinary. And so I started to write down all these. I was getting so many different signs from my mother. One of the signs was this yellow and black butterfly that started to visit my hole in the front. And when I looked up the name of it, it was the tiger swallowtail butterfly. But when my

mother played bridge, her nickname was tiger. So I started writing all these signs down, you know, and at the time I was writing, let's talk about sex, a column for Red Book Magazine. And I had just sold a book on sex and I was going to write a book on sex. And I'm talking to my editor and I'm telling her about all these remarkable signs that I'm writing down. And she said to me, you know, Jane, you can always write a book about sex, but people really need to know about the other side, the afterlife, connecting to a loved one, because truly my signs with my mother is really what helped me survive her loss and losing her. And it became such an ongoing conversation I mean I wrote down every sign and then now it's 25 years she's gone I have six

notebooks oh my goodness filled with this ongoing conversation and communication that I have with her and we have a couple of very specific signs the tiger swallowtail butterfly rabbits lovey and rose certain numbers I mean they're very specific message which she when she comes through I know because it's indisputable. But when my editor told me this, I said, no way, Jose, because now being psychoanalytically trained, I never spoke personally about my own personal material. And even though I was doing a lot of media, even that was a little uncomfortable being, you know, out of the office where my patients could see me because I was used to, you know, keeping a blank screen, so to speak. So this really was a departure for me telling my own personal story.

But she said to me, you'll help so many people. And I really, I became so dedicated and captured by the power of the afterlife that I wanted to share it. And that's how I wound up writing that book. Wow, that's a really beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that because it's so it really that's like it's so beautiful and and you know I I lost my grandmother a few years ago and she raised me most of my life I mean my mother's here and she's has raised me as well but you know I've been to two women just through friends who can maybe communicate with your angels or your loved ones or or somehow in some way and and they just came through and my grandmother oh she has come through so many times but it's interesting because she told me to listen when

I'm she sends me signs which I didn't know prior to this that she says there's the birds when they sing and I don't know what type of bird I don't know you know when or what but there's certain little things that she says that she's here she's watching me and and whatever but she's with me and it's like oh god chills when you're telling me this about your experience because I one thousand believe that oh absolutely and you know it's so heartening to hear that you recognized your grandmother being with you I want to say three things quickly one is that every email I would get the the subtitle in terms of the heading would be I know this sounds crazy but or else I had chills those were the defining statements that people use to describe their experience with

spirit. I know this sounds crazy, but because it does, and it gave me chills because it does. You know, so that always goes on. The other thing I want to say is that a lot of time, you know, we all think a rainbow, bird, a flower, that these are the ways we look for signs from our loved one. With that being said, signs are energy. Our loved ones transform into pure loving energy. So sometimes energy comes through with things breaking. The TV stops working, the computer goes down, the car stops, the air conditioner goes off. When my mother first passed away, we were staying down in my dad's house and the air conditioner in the room where we would always sleep broke.

So we were out in the couch in the living room sleeping. and in the middle of the night the light where her ashes we were taking her ashes because she wanted us in the book it described how she wanted to be sprinkled in Venice Italy the light over her ashes went on I thought we were getting rocked so I ran I don't know I ran to the kitchen and looked at the clock and it was 2 26 and then it occurred to me this is a message so I went I looked at her death certificate and that was the time she passed 26 oh my god oh it's like wow you know the signs that people have or take your breath away signs the you know when people will complain to me oh my computer stopped working or my radio's on the blitz i i shaded them your

loved one is giving you a sign and very often the sign can be i translate the signs all the time because you know they they they come through whether it's hot air blowing or they're telling you to cool off or they're telling you to rev your engine up or they're telling you you know relax take it easy the signs that you get are really messages from them as well okay so I felt it was really important to teach people how to communicate how to reach out how to get signs and then there's the a lot of people have what i call the dream visit and the dream visit is when you dream about your deported loved one and it's not a dream it is a dream visit because you are with them and they're with you and everybody says to me they say it's the oh my god you're not dead

or oh my god you're still alive okay quality of the dream is it it's not you're with that person is so vivid it is so real people will describe it as the hair on their arms raising the light bright but it is so intensely real that they say you know oh my god you're not dead oh my god you're still alive that's how it feels so when I would have those dream visits I would write them down oh my god there's still you're you're still alive you know and so as you have experienced with your grandmother to know that you are being enveloped and protected and watched and also guided by that person is is fortified yeah I'm so glad that you know because I've always been like oh, she's here. She's, you know, watching over me or protecting me. But you say there's actual

signs and that's very interesting. So the next time I have that experience, I'll have to look at like maybe the numbers or maybe something or like a quote, like you said, it's a hot air blowing and you need to cool off. I love that. If you read my book, The Afterlife Connection, I definitely will write a few because a lot of times people get so annoyed by the negative things that happen, the things that break the things that don't work and they don't even know to look at that it could be their loved one I remember one time I literally I was blowing my hair and I was saying out loud you know mom it's a good thing that I know when these signs happen if something you know if something goes wrong that it's you otherwise it would really be annoying right did you not

My hair blower went only to cold. It stopped blowing hot air. And I just started laughing. I found it so amusing. That is amusing. So when you think of things, it's not that you then make them happen. I believe that you're thinking them because spirit's putting them into, the thought into your mind.

That's the spiritual. It's like, here, catch. Yeah. catch the spiritual thought and then it manifests on a physical level wow okay I'm gonna I have to tell you one more quick thing so my grandmother is obviously a strong presence in my mother's lives and all of our lives so my mother was just here visiting me a couple days ago and I was went away on a work trip she was watching her granddaughter bless her heart and she she says to me Celeste the TV came on twice blaring yeah that's it and said I couldn't shut it off and

then she goes it happened again I go mom I'm in Turks and Caicos right now I love you but I'm trying to you know I'm trying to do what I have to do and and like I'm on an island and she says oh and then so I told my daughter I said Maddie when you get home can you please go check you know something's wrong with the TV she goes mom it's fine nothing's wrong and I had yeah it's just my grandmother's there I'm here I'm here listen to me I'm here I showed up yeah yeah they have to blast things to grab your attention and if you don't recognize it you just get annoyed you think oh what's going on I don't know what's going on yeah wow that's so crazy even even with this book in hindsight I was dealing with denial because a lot of people

are frightened by the thought of afterlife a lot of people are in such pain after they lose a loved one that they're not open to a sign they don't they don't want to connect it's too much and denial gets in the way of being able to really experience coping and healing on a very powerful level. Yeah. That's really beautiful. And like I said, again, thank you so much for, I cannot wait to, I'm going to purchase it for my mother as well, because I just, I think she, she's such a spiritual person and probably more, she's taught me so much. And, and I think she will really love to read that. Yeah. And I love that you just kind of finished, you know, tied it together because you're right if you're not in the space of openness and willing to to receive as you will

then you know denial will keep you from that from that experience that you can possibly have with a loved one yeah the thing about denial am i lying to myself is that denial keeps you stuck yeah when you're denial you're stuck you you make yourself as safe as possible we use it to feel as safe and as secure as we can. But because you're stuck, you are close to options, possibilities, choices to make that could change your situation for the better. So until you acknowledge your denial and start to see through it, you know, and see the truth, you're not going to be able to speak your truth and you're not able to be true to yourself that's so powerful that's so powerful those just be able to speak your truth is this that's just those words right there that sentence

is you know just to have that power back and and to get rid of the denial to acknowledge it to work on okay this is that's not my truth let me be able to speak my truth let me able to live my truth right right yeah when you're in denial and believe what you're told that somebody else tells you or you miss the signs or you turn a lot of bad stuff into a little bit or you wish and hope that somebody's going to change but they don't when you're in denial you're you can't speak the truth because you're just going to get dismissed you're going to get negated you're going to counter it's going to get turned around you're going to get blamed and if you believe all that you're going to believe that you're the one who has the problem as opposed to the other person

seeing them for who they really are yeah and that happens probably way more than than it should or people realize that oh my god that happened in this part of my life or this it could be not even just in a love partnership it could be your boss or a parent or a sister yeah like you said it happens it happens with everybody you know in my in my first book adult sibling rivalry i talk about the invisible sibling that's the person either who you marry or you're working with that reminds you of a sister or brother that you try to have the relationship either that you had which was a good one but more often than not that you wished you had and didn't have with a sister or brother. And then you get locked into another miserable

experience. Wow. You know, trying to get that person to be the sister or brother you always wish they were. And that's never going to happen, you know, but the same unhealthy patterns, right? Break that. Exactly right. Well, it's been such a pleasure having you on and I've learned so much I have so many exciting books to read, and I think everyone here, there's something for everyone if you don't want to read them all. And I appreciate you saying the titles because we'll put that in the show notes. But there's one question I have, and that's a little off topic, but I love to kind of give my listeners ideas, if you will, or reasons why.

But what was one of your favorite dates and what was it? huh I have to think back now because I'm married a long time and I won't say how long because who wants to date themselves oh you've got to date your husband still no I mean who wants to date how old they are no I love oh I just how old how old am I one of my favorite dates I would have to say it was like it was either the first or second date with my husband and we went to Carnegie Hall we went to a concert and then we went out you know for drinks afterwards and we just wound up you know when you click with somebody and there's endless conversation and talking and we just were talking all the way through not through the concert obviously but

all the way through and then I remember we were walking the streets of New York and it was like late and this was back in the day where you could walk to New York at two in the morning and we bought these blueberry muffins. It was, it was a sort of a rendezvous date where you kind of knew I really liked this guy and this guy likes me. So that, that would be my favorite date. I love that. Thank you for sharing. That's awesome. I love New York. I used to live there for 10 years and I miss it a lot. Where did you live in the city? Well, I say New York area. I was in Hoboken actually so it's a little across the river but was always in the city always at least three four times a week so yeah well Hoboken is like the little New York it's like the six

borough is what they said yeah and where are you living now I'm in Austin which is very new a couple years so very different but taking all the the wonderful things that are here so yeah Yeah. Well, where can people find you, learn more about you, purchase your books? I know you do a lot of things. Yeah. If you go to my website, Dr. Jane Greer, D-R-J-A-N-E-G-R-E-E-R.com, everything is on my website. I have a book, 101 Hottest Questions, 101 Honest Answers on Sex that came out of my writing, the Red Book Sex Magazine. so you know if you're if you're dealing with denial are you lying to yourself if you're

dealing with betrayal how could you do this to me if you're dealing with somebody selfish what about me if you're dealing with some rivalry with a sibling adult sibling rivalry if you've lost a loved one you know the afterlife connection if you're stuck in what work or love or life courage to change and love work of life all of those can be purchased on my website Also, I do the Dr. On Call Hour with Shrinkwrap Shackman every month, the first Wednesday of the month, 11 a.m. Eastern, 8 a.m. Pacific. And my Shrinkwrap is where I talk about the celebrities and what we learned from them and how their relationships are similar to ours. And here are some tips. I have a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of blogs on all different topics of celebrities on psychology today. dot com. I love it. Thank you so much. I can't wait to delve into more of all your tidbits. And

again, thank you for being on today's show. It was wonderful, wonderful to have you. Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure and I really enjoyed it. Take care. Great. Thank you. We'll talk soon. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. Come and hang out with me on Instagram at Celeste Moore image. Let me know your thoughts on today's episode because I always love hearing from you all. You can find all the links and resources in the show notes of the episode on my website, CelesteMoore.com. Okay, that's all for now. I'll see you in the next episode. See you next time, friends.