The Dr. John Delony Show - Anxiety Medication, Will-Planning, Gossip vs. "Keeping Up with Family"

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 1:47: How do I wean off anxiety medication? 23:45: How do I even get my head in the right place to start planning my will? 29:53: Wife called in a while back. How do I help her through her periods of depression? 40:41: What’s the difference between gossiping and keeping up with others when it comes to families? 45:40: Lyrics of the Day: "Take It All Back 2.0" - Judah & The Lion tag: anxiety, family, relationships, sleep, fitness/physical health, goals/life planning, money, depression, anxiety, marriage, These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Hey good folks, we have a happier themed show today. Our first caller is from Los Angeles and wants to know how to safely get off her anxiety medication. We talked to the husband of a previous caller from another show. He wants to help his wife with her depression. I called him out and he called me back. And the young woman from Utah wants to know the difference between gossiping about family and just keeping everybody informed. We're smiling on this one. Stay tuned.

Hey, what up, what up? It's Deloney. Welcome to the Dr. John Deloney Show. Shows about you, your lives, your relationships, your families, your relational and your mental health. All of it, right? We're here in this shiny new fancy, fancy pants studio and we're walking alongside one another trying to figure out what do we do when things are going well? What do we do when things are falling off the map? What do we do when we just don't know

what to do next well give me a call give me a call here at 1-844-693-3291 that's 1-844-693-3291 if you are new to our band of ninjas here we talk about everything on the show mental health challenges family and relational and iq questions we talk about everything on this show. Mental health challenges, family and relational, and IQ questions. We talk about mental health issues. I think I already said that, right? We talk about school challenges. We talk about everything. Everything you can imagine.

Give me a call. 1-844-693-3291. Give me a call or go to johndeloney.com slash show. Fill out the form and we will check it out. So we're going to go straight to the phones today. We've got a packed show today. We're going to go straight to the phones. Let's go to Sarah in Los Angeles, California. Sarah, what is going on? How are we doing? How can I help? Hi, Dr. John Deloney. I was actually listening to your podcast while standing in my

kitchen cabinet and now I'm talking to you. So it's a pretty exciting day. It's an exciting day for me too. Thank you so much for calling. That calling that's awesome hey which show were you listening to was it a good one or a dud well they've all been good for me so i was it was a good one that means you and my my mom and one of my old college roommates are all in on this show so that's pretty rad it's very. Thank you, Sarah. Sure. I was hoping to ask for some of your guidance on weaning off of anxiety medications and also some encouragement. I read your book recently, which I really enjoyed and gave me lots of things to think about and did inspire me to be a lot more militant about taking care of myself physically. Very cool. But one of the things that caught my eye was when you were talking about anxiety

medication and your philosophy really is very similar to my own in that I never intended to be on anxiety medication long-term. The hope was always to get on some medication, help me to do my work, and then wean off of it. And I was reading your book and looked up and realized that I've been on anxiety medication for three years. This is not short term, I think. I don't think it qualifies anymore. And yet I have been, I feel like I've been doing the work. I feel like I've been on this really long journey trying to become healthy in every way possible. And yeah, so it was just really discouraging to look up and realize I've been on medication for three years. I still feel like there's so far to go. I'm not sure how to think and plan for what to do next because I didn't actually start out with something concrete about what I was going to get to, or maybe I just need like

an arbitrary deadline to work forward so that I have something to kind of go towards. I don't know, but I would love to have some of your advice. Well, number one, thank you for the kind words about the book. Number two, more importantly, thank you for investing in yourself and being excited and curious about taking new steps to continue on your wellness journey. That's so rad. And I'm just, I mean, you're making me smile right now, Sarah. This is awesome. So walk me back, you know, looking through the lens that I talk about in that book, that anxiety is an alarm, man. And it is letting you know that something in your ecosystem, something in your body is remembering things that happened a long time ago and something in your environment is reminding you of that, that you are out of control or that you are lonely and disconnected.

Where do your alarms stem from? Oh, man. So I know there's been so many. I mean, there's the one that I've been able to recognize is just a lot of shame or just like fear of what people think of me. Just I don't know. There's so many that I've worked on for over the years. But I but the funny thing is that I have like a really awesome life and I love my life so much. I have this amazing husband.

I have this like awesome kid. I have a job that's stressful, but like really meaningful and I am with good people, but I just find living it hard. I like really love my life, but living it is so hard. So what makes it hard? What makes living it hard, Sarah? Ah, what makes it hard? What makes living it hard, Sarah? What you just said is a really, really profound statement. And I hear that a lot. And it seems like one plus one should have equaled two. The perfect husband and the perfect kids and the perfect job and the perfect body and the perfect fill in the blank should have equaled

happy right and it doesn't what do i do yeah i um yeah i i don't know yeah so like living yeah i i've always so i've always found existing always feels really hard like just like um like i never it's very very rare for me to feel peace um it's uh it's it's very yeah that's just always been very very hard it just like always feels like i'm tense um do you come from do you come from abuse as a kid? Your parents still together? So I actually come from a loving family that had challenges. So my mom loved us to bits, but she had her own problems. She grew up in a post-war society. And yeah, she wasn't very stable emotionally. Sure.

So I do know that that is something that I have, that does kind of, is the source of a lot of things. What about your dad? My dad, he, oh, he handled things by shutting down my poor dad. My mom became very, very ill when I was younger, and he just didn't handle it very well, and he handled it by shutting down. So can I tell you just in five minutes of talking to you? Okay. You handle it by peacekeeping you handle that that part that six-year-old girl that four-year-old girl that is so desperate to have her mom look at her and say

you are my one who is so desperate to have her dad say crawl up in my lap and we're going to read a book and we're going to do a puzzle and we're going to have a pillow fight and we're going to eat ice cream until our eyeballs fall off and I'm going to make you go to bed even though you don't want to. The way you handle that permanent alarms that's been going off since you were young is you make sure everybody else is okay. You have crafted a perfect life. You've crafted it. You went and got it. And you are finding out what millions and millions and millions of us in the Western world are finding out that this recipe for quote unquote happiness is failing us. The recipe of getting stuff to fill in this internal gap, these tethers that aren't connected and that aren't

rooted, it doesn't work, man. So, our frontal lobes, our thinking part of our brain does what you just did. It kicks off all the blessings in our life, all the things we've worked our butts off to get, all the games we've played to get what we needed to get. And in the back part of our brain, that little amygdala is still going, help, help, help, I'm not connected, I'm not connected. Is that fair? I've never thought about it that way, so it's going to take me a minute. But I am on to the journey.

The way you process is so like, wow, you might be the smartest person in the room and I'm going to need to think about this. Hey, here's a good idea, Sarah. You may be the smartest person in the room too. And my guess is you've never allowed yourself to have that thought. And it's probably true. And I feel embarrassed just listening to you say that. No, exactly. And the one thing you caught me on a second ago was when I said, you've got a great husband and great kids and great whatever job. I don't remember all the things I rattled off. And you've put together the perfect body. I've never seen you, but you stopped me on that one. Right? Don't look at me. Let me be in the background. Let me make sure everybody else is okay. Because mom needed to be okay. Dad needed to be okay dad needed to be okay and that repeats itself over and over and over and over okay so a couple of things before you got on medication have you seen a counselor have you worked with somebody who's a professional before yes um about the time i went on medication i jumped into searching for one so i found one that I really, I feel like a good relationship with.

Are you still seeing that person? I am. Okay. And so three years later, have you sat down with this person and said, I am ready to stop living a life of anxiety. I want this part of my life over. I mean, I think that's what I've been, that's been always the goal.

Okay. But I do think that you, I have through listening to you and you talking so much about rejecting anxiety as an identity, that's something I have been thinking about a lot. And it made me think a lot about, I think my counselor went on a little bit more of a roundabout way about that. She talked about the default mode network and rejecting the default mode network, and I was like, I think this is the same thing. Yes, I often say it becomes a default setting. It becomes an excuse for, right? So you look around your house, and you've got everything's perfect. You look in the mirror.

It's perfect, and then your body still doesn't feel whole. And so then you're able to go, oh yeah, I have a defect that a medicine will fix for the rest of my life. I'm good. And you know who that really, really benefits is pharmaceutical companies. Right. But you know, I'm sorry. The reason why I'm having a little bit of a disconnect in the conversation is because I so don't think that my life is perfect. I just feel like it's really meaningful. Like my body, like I have all these stomach issues that are almost certainly related to anxiety. There you go, that's right. I don't know how to use my body correctly, so exercise has been really challenging. I don't know. There's nothing about my life that is perfect.

And hear me say, Sarah, when I'm saying that your life is perfect, I'm speaking in hyperbole for the listener here, right? I'm speaking to those of us who are checking, just get in the habit of comparing all the things that we have with this internal system that's letting us know, hey, you're not okay. You're not okay. You're not okay. You're not okay, you're not okay, you're not okay, you're not okay. And normally, like we talk about in the book, we either moralize it and say, oh, you ungrateful idiot, or we say, oh, it's just because you're broken. You're broken and you need to take medication for the rest of your life and it will fix it. And here we are. I've done both. Right, there you go. And so, what I want to give you another option is, is it's not an identity, it's something to listen to. And so to get back to your original, original question, are you still meeting with a psychiatrist regularly? Or are you just now

on a, they just refill it by text or some simple, you don't even have to go in anymore? Yeah, just refill it. I did from your book, think that I do need to find somebody. I was going to kind of an institution that's well-known here, but what was happening was I was being followed by residents that were turning over. So I think I'm going to have to find somebody who is going to be consistent. There you go. And so I will walk you through what I did to get off of the medications. And I'll tell you, I worked closely with a doctor, and he's, again, I'm you to know that how gradually you're getting off this stuff has no physiological consequence. Meaning there was nothing biological about how I weaned off. He said, this is purely psychosomatic. This is purely a placebo in your head, but if this makes

you feel better, go for it. And I said, it does. So, a couple of things. Number one is getting with a doctor and letting them know, I've been on this medication for three years, and I want a definite exit strategy, and I want us to partner together as I exit this thing. And so let's say you're taking 25 milligrams of X, then he or she will say, great. What are the lifestyle changes you're going to make, right? And so for me, a couple of important, important focuses are, and these are just basic stuff.

Sleep, finding out how to sleep became cornerstone numero uno. Matthew Walker is the sleep guru. That meant eventually got to a place where I have to be almost obnoxious about not being on social media or screens before bedtime. I was obnoxious about supplements that helped me sleep. I was obnoxious about not exercising too late, too early. I tracked my sleep pathologically, almost like insane. But I dialed it in and now, man, I can sleep on a dime and it's really a gift. And except for the occasional night I don't. And what I used to do when I was really in the throes of this anxious season was a night when I knew, you could tell at 10 o'clock,

11 o'clock, you're not going to sleep. I would just flip out and I would get nervous about it and I would amp myself up and then I would overthink it. Now I just get up and read a book. No pun intended, I don't lose sleep over not sleeping because I know I'm going to catch up the next night, right? And so it's just giving myself some grace. The second one is an acute focus on movement, on exercise, on walking. You've got to get outside to move your body. There is all kinds of research from the movement part of it that helps your brain to the vitamin D part of it that we are all catastrophically suffering from, vitamin D deficiencies to all sorts of down. It literally changes your hippocampus in your head, exercise does.

And so you mentioned you had some body challenges. I would talk to my doctor about what are some exercise programs that I can do. And then a unrelenting emergency, every alarm should be flashing in your head. You've got to get with other people. I say this regularly to the point that the folks who work with me give me a hard time about it. The only true quote unquote cure for anxiety is other people, is relationships, is connection with other folks. And that ends up being the hardest thing, especially in someone in your situation. You had two people on planet earth who were tailored designed for you to connect with. and that was your mom and dad, and they didn't.

And that sucks, right? I did not think about it that way. That was their only job, obviously to feed and clothe you, but their job was to connect with you, and they didn't. And so you have been, your poor amyg to connect with you and they didn't. And so, you have been, your poor amygdala has been running your whole life. And if you listen in today's Geek Minute, we're going to talk about how the inflammatory effects of some of these, what we call mental health challenges, they just wreak havoc on our bodies for years and years and years and years. And they cost us all kinds of downstream challenges when we suffer these childhood traumas.

Like mom was not well. Like dad just shut down. Again, it doesn't mean they didn't love you. It doesn't mean they weren't trying the best they had with the tools they had. But that does mean that you've got some skills that you need to pick up on. And so with your counselor, I would be hyper direct about, I want to learn how to be in relationships and I want your counselor to help you set up some situations where you can be in relationships. I want you to get with that awesome husband of

yours and y'all be intentional about hosting people in your home or you going out to be with other people. I want you to be hyper intentional about connection. Does that make your heart race or does that make you excited? Oh, that makes me excited. I have a really great community around me. Awesome. I do think that with coronavirus, it's been a little more challenging, but I just have to. You are the greatest understater that I've talked to. It's a little more challenging?

No, it's been a diarrhea blizzard. It's been awful, right? Terrible. It's not been good at all. Or it's been not so good, right? In the words of Sarah from Los Angeles. But yeah, I want you to- I'm a nurse and my- Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I'm a nurse and my husband's a- I was going to laugh because I'm a nurse and my husband's a public health inspector, so our work lives have been intense. Oh, my.

I would love to be a fly on y'all's wall. That's right. Hey, and also know this. How long have you been a nurse? I probably should have asked you that before we even started this whole conversation. How long have you done that? Almost 10 years now. Okay.

Does that job bring you joy or does that job spin you up? It can do both, but usually over time I've learned how to do my job in a healthier way. And a big thing was I went part-time and that actually made a huge difference. I enjoy my job much more immensely now. And also just, yeah, just like I think learning physically how to take care of myself better because one thing is just unsurprisingly, I have a really, really tough time with sleep. And so that improving on that has made my ability to handle my work life much better. Very cool. Well, number one, as a nurse, thank you for your service.

You guys have, you men and women, have just gone above and beyond, above and beyond the last year. You always have, and you went unrecognized. But this past year, you've been the true, true heroes. Recognize working in trauma. Again, let your brain know, hey, we may not be safe. And what you deal with every day as a nurse is everybody else's. That's probably not going to happen. And you deal with it day after day after day. And it begins to reset your default setting to things are probably going to end up on tubes.

I'm going to end up in a hospital. I'm going to end up with someone having to help me go to the bathroom. I'm going to end up in all these places, right? And again, your amygdala, all its job is to sound the alarms and you're not safe when you're not connected. And so it makes my heart feel full that you've got a good community that you can lean in on. Okay. So quick review, how do you wean off anxiety medication? It's different from everybody, but it's really important. Do not, under any circumstances, if you're taking any kind of meds, just walk in and quit. That's a terror dome, dude.

Don't do that. There's some real, true, awful biological and physiological consequences that can happen when you do that. Don't do that. Work with a doctor to wean off and be intentional about saying, I want to make some strong lifestyle adjustments. I've been working on this and I want to begin to reduce my intake. I want to wean off of this medication. Work with your counselor specifically on skills. Specifically on skills. How do I breathe through this? How do I have enough courage to tell my boss I want to go part-time? How do I work really hard with my husband so that I can get out of debt, so that we don't have to work full-time, or that we can have some breath,

we can take a break? Understand when you're in a bonker season like you, married to a public health official, have been in Los Angeles, California, for God's sake. I can't even imagine what y'all been doing. And then real quick, you've got to focus, focus, focus on sleep. Make that such a priority that everything in your life revolves around figuring out what works for your sleep schedule, your sleep hygiene. You got to, got to move and exercise. You got to be connected with people and it may be even as much as something simple like diet and i say simple that's a whole other conversation i've got somebody close to me that was struggling with anxiety and so much of it was dialed back by

just putting uh decaf in the like cutting the coffee because we, you know, they were pumping themselves full of caffeine, caffeine, caffeine, caffeine so much. And then they were mistaking that for this anxious feeling. Really, they were just buzzed out of their minds. And having decaf turned the volume down a little bit and it made everything much more manageable. And then occasionally there's supplements that work for folks and they're all over the place from melatonin to CBD oil to all kinds of stuff that can help folks out, magnesium and stuff. And so get with your doctor and walk through those things particularly. But I am, man, Sarah, you're a light and I'm grateful for you. And I took a

little bit longer on this call, but I'm grateful for you. I I took a little bit longer on this call, but I'm grateful for you. I want you to let me know how this journey goes with you. I want you to have the courage to speak boldly to your counselor and your doctor and head into a season without medication. And here's my last little thing. If you try it and your alarms spin up and they spin out

and you end up having to go back and take your medication for another season, you're not a failure. You're not broken. You didn't screw something up. I want you to keep plugging it. Your identity is not an anxious person. Your identity is not that you're busted.

Your identity is not in your anxiety diagnosis. It's just an alarm system. That's it. That's all it will ever be. Don't give up on yourself. All right, so let's – I've got to go to this email. It came in and it reminded me of a conversation I had at my house over the holidays. And it also reminds me of conversations I have here at my work. So the email comes in from Connor. How do I even get my head in the right place to start planning my will?

The thought of dying scares me, but I know this is important. So this comes into the Dave Ramsey office and they were like, hey, we know a guy that can answer that question. The thought of dying scares me, but I know it's important. So over the holidays, I sat down and talked to my dad about the fact that he's going to die. And he talked to me about his will and my mom's will. I talked to my mom. We had a big family discussion about it. Hey, mom, you're going to die.

What would you want your funeral to look like? And she's like, whatever y'all want. And I said, no, you have to tell us. Don't put this on us, please, because then we're going to fight about it. I'm going to want to have Poison songs and Pantera songs. And my sister is going to want to do it the right way and all that kind of stuff, right? And we talked about it, and it was half smiling and half very serious. But in our house, and again, I'm blessed. My dad was a homicide detective. We've just talked about death since

I was a little kid, and that's probably why I've had to see a counselor, but it's going to happen. We did a big study a few years ago, and we came up with a startling conclusion. A hundred percent of you listening to this are going to die someday. It will simply happen. It's going to. Me too. There's this awesome guy out there watching the show. Him too.

James, Kelly, Zach. I don't know about Kelly. Kelly may be able to buck the system. A hundred percent, James and Zach, they're going to die, right? You're going to die, going to die. I'm for sure going to die. It's part of it, right? And I'll also say this.

Not everybody can talk about death. Oh, and then me and my wife, part of our annual retreat, we redid our wills. We got on a will thing here that we have here at the Ramsey office, a will program, Mama Bear Wills, and we redid our wills together. And we talked about, you're going to die, I'm going to die. Someone's going to have to take our kids. Someone's going to have to, and we filled in the blank. Who do we want to have the guitars? Who do we want to have whatever? And we went through that whole thing. So I know that I'm blessed when it comes to that conversation because I've talked about death with enough people over the years to know that for most of you, it's super

awkward. This is not an, the fact that you're going to die not having a will, that is not an optional thing. We have to stop talking about not having a will or I'll get to it. My friend, John King, he's one of my best friends on planet Earth, he said it best. The only reason to not have a will is if you hate your wife and kids. The only reason to not have a will is if you hate your husband and you want to make life awful for your children. If you are single, the only reason to not have a will is you want to torture your parents and your friends. It's just inexcusable. And now it's so cheap you can do it online.

It's just inexcusable. You have to do it. So here's the thing. Most of us go through life avoiding hard conversations. We avoid them at work. We avoid them with the person that we're in love with. We avoid them with the person that we are crushing on. We avoid them at work. We avoid them with the person that we're in love with. We avoid them with the person that we are crushing on. We avoid them with ourselves.

This is an easy one because we're all going to die, right? It's easy but not easy, right? Like, oh, lose weight, just diet and exercise, cool. And that's a trillion-dollar industry, right? Most people deep down crave real hard conversations. They just don't know how to start them. So here's a couple of quick tips. Number one, plan it.

Make a plan. If you are single, call a friend over. If you need to get a glass of wine or two and some trashy food, I'm giving you permission to order a pizza one night. You're going to have rocket gas the next day, but go for it. Invite them over and say,

okay, I got to do a will. I want you to do this with me. We're going to put on some music. We're going to laugh our way through it. If you are married or you're about to get married, if you have kids, you've got an emotional, a psychological, a spiritual, whatever all AL obligation you want to say, you've got to do it. So plan the conversation, tell your wife, tell your husband, tell your fiance, next week on Friday, we're going to have a date, but we're going to talk about, we're going to do a will.

I'm not doing a will. Having a will does not make you die quicker. Having a will doesn't make death more imminent. It drives me crazy. You got to get on the same page, right? You're going to have to have conversations like, hey, who's going to be the executor of our will? Who's going to take care of our kids? Who's going to be the power of attorney? How long do you want to be on a ventilator? How long do you want to fill in the blank? You got to have those questions, right? So here's what I want you to do. The Ramsey folks here that I work with, they came up with this awesome thing. Text legacy, L-E-G-A-C-Y, to 33789. I'm not trying to sell you nothing.

This is just, I'm tired of people dying without wills. I cannot tell you how many people I've sat with and I've looked them in the eye or held them as they are shaking, they're crying so hard. And their husband or their wife is dead in the next room. Or it's being wheeled outside on a gurney and they look me in the eyes with a look, it is a very unique look and they say the words, what am I supposed to do now? If you've never helped somebody try to get

county funding because they don't have any money to bury their husband because the money is, there was no will. And so it's going to be all tied up in a mess. You've got to do it. You've got to, got to, got to. And if you're young and you're listening to this, get a will. Get it. I don't care how old you are, how not old you are. Text LEGACY to 33789. You're going to get a free how to talk about your legacy guide. They're going to push you to Mama Bear Wills.

Please do that. Please do that. It is so cheap. It's so easy. You will check it off your heart and mind, and that's all I'm going to say about it. All right. Let's go to Adam in Waco, Texas. All right, Adam.

What's up, brother? How are we doing? Doing pretty good today, John. That's outstanding. I was calling in. You had spoken with my wife, Katie, exactly when it was. But we had the four kids, and she's been dealing with depression issues. And I'm perceived as being frustrated, which isn't necessarily going to be far off with it.

But I also kind of want to get your opinion on how can I make myself more emotionally available for her when she goes through these spells? All right. So before we go any further, Adam, easily the coolest guy I've talked to in a long time okay i don't know what kind of husband you are behind closed doors but the but here's the thing i called you out on this show which goes out to a lot of people i thought i was just going out to my mom they gave me some numbers the other day it's a lot and i your called in, she said she was struggling with depression and her, she was frustrated that her husband was frustrated about her depression. Right. And I called you out. I said, why don't you have him call me? And then dude, here you are. You called

me. This is like high school when I'm like, once you have your boyfriend call me and then you knock on my door, you're like, Hey, what's up, bro? I heard you talking about me. So this is it, Adam. And the fact that you're from Waco, Texas, and the fact that you can't shoot me from there, it makes this conversation way easier. Right. But I want to just straight up acknowledge that there are, there are just not a lot of guys of character like you who want to support and love their wives, who are willing to put it out there, and who are willing to be vulnerable and say, man, help me out. If you put your money where your mouth is, big guy. And dude, I'm grateful for you, Adam. You're a very impressive young man. Cool deal.

All right. So how can you help your wife? Give me an example of something that is frustrating. When your wife is having a depressive episode and it's just frustrating, give me an example of that. Well, with that, an example would be like, she gets real big emotions with the depression and stuff. And for me, I'm not a person of big emotions with the depression and stuff and for me is I'm not a person of big emotions so to me I'm just I guess where my frustration comes from is I have a hard time comprehending what all's going through

I'm one of those people like I't understand what she's going through with her big emotions. An example would be yesterday morning, ended up waking up freezing cold. I go to get up before everyone else to turn the heaters on in the house to warm it up. I can't find the lighter for it. I end up asking her if she knows where the lighter is. And she kind of goes into a little spiral first thing in the morning, um, about not knowing where the lighter is. And then she's apologizing to me about, I don't know where I moved it. I don't know where the kids

did with it and i'm just and my mind was like i was just asking if you knew what the lighter is i wasn't accusing you of anything like that but then it kind of started her off on a bad day and i just i don't know sure that's kind of an example you're talking about i love it i love it so hey let's so let's let's just dig in on that example man and um man i just love your heart okay so here's the deal this is a common common thing we've talked about a lot on this show we will continue to talk along about it i'm gonna speak in big broad generalities and so if you don't like generalities, send me mean emails or YouTube comments if that makes you feel good. Most or a lot of men are trained, they are socialized just like you, okay? Just like me. And that is, there is a problem. Let's just solve this problem using a chisel and a hammer and a saw and data and a fact and then an achievement.

Ta-da! Let's move on, right? Yep. And so when somebody that we love and that says loves us comes to us and says, I'm so sorry. I am feeling this way. And feelings and emotions and feelings and emotions. Your first thought was probably, oh, God almighty, dude, I'm just asking where the freaking lighter is. Go back to bed. What are you doing?

And then it's I'm so sorry. And then you're like, what are you sorry about? Stop being sorry. I just asked if you know where the lighter is. You know where the lighter is, man. And then it turns into this whole thing. That's not how that conversation went. Okay, right. lighter is you know the lighter is man and then it turns into this whole thing that conversation okay right so um particularly somebody who has a history of trauma which if i remember correctly

she she had some some some some demons that have followed her through most of her life is that fair yeah yeah she had some early childhood anxiety. Yeah, she's got some stuff. She's got some stuff back there. It may be that a man early in the morning saying, hey, where's this? Boom. That sets off that alarm, and, man, it ain't coming back. And you and I will probably never know where that alarm originated from, where it started from. But I can tell you this, sometimes that alarm is chemical.

Sometimes that alarm is hyper-emotional. Sometimes it's physical. Sometimes it's all of it. And so what I want you to do in these moments is to not default to advice, data, or facts. Okay? I want you to think of your wife not as a problem to solve, but as a person to be with. And this is going to go way against anything you've ever been trained or taught. Okay, Adam? So here's what I want you to do.

The next time something spins out, because here's what I remember from the last call. You love this lady, don't you? Absolutely. You married her. You have a kid, I think, with your own, and you adopted her other three kids. Is that right?

Correct, yeah. Yeah, and I remember her telling me that you loved her. And if I remember correctly, she really loves you. Is that right? Oh, absolutely. Shows it to me every day. Okay. So the next time you are just buzzing through the day,

hey, where's the lighter? And then she flies up in bed, and you know her enough to know now, oh, here we go. I want you to walk over and say, give me both your hands, and I want you all to watch this when it comes out on YouTube. Y'all can watch it together. That way you know that she's going to do it with you. I want you to sit down by her and grab both of her hands if that's safe for her.

And if you can get away with putting your hand on the back of her neck and holding one hand or putting your hand on her face. And I want you to look her in the eye. And I want you just to look at her for five to ten seconds. That's it. Okay? And I want you to breathe as calmly as you can. And then I want you to tell her, I love you. It is all good.

And I appreciate you trying to think through if you knew where the lighter was. But I got it from here. I love you. And I want you just to step out. Okay? lighter was, but I got it from here. I love you. And I want you just to step out. Okay. And the more you hover and look, and she's going to interpret those as judgments because her brain at that point is scanning for any possibility of disaster, any possibility of discomfort, any possibility of not safe, even to the point that her brain will skip data for close enough.

He just raised an eyebrow. That probably means he hates me. He's pissed off, right? And you're like, what are you talking about? I was just sneezing. There's some wiring issues, right? And I hate machine metaphors, but that's the truth. Her brain's just, it's set off there.

And then I want you to encourage her to ask her, hey, would you be willing to save up some money and see if we can go to one of these family counseling services here? Because I want to know ways that I can love you better, and I'd love to get a professional here in town. And hopefully she's working with a doctor on her depression. She's working with a counselor. I don't remember exactly if she did, but I encourage her to go get one. I want you to say, I want to learn some skills.

Meet Adam. I want to learn some skills on how I can love you and be the best, best, best husband. We are here now. We love each other so good. I just don't have any skills in my toolkit. I don't have enough wrenches and hammers in here. In fact, all I have is a wrench and a hammer and this knucklehead on the radio said, I need to learn some more stuff. And so I want to take you and I want to do it. And I know we can't afford it, but we're going to scratch and claw and figure it out how to do it. And then we're going to go learn some new skills together. And what you're going to do, because she needs to learn these skills, how to connect to, she needs to learn that you are safe,

safe, safe, safe. And that's going to take trust. That's going to take practice. And then what you're going to do is you're going to double down on connection, not facts, not, oh my gosh, you're going to lean in to that discomfort that, oh, here we go. You're going to, you are going to go first, Adam. You're going to grab both of her hands, tell that you're safe, you're safe, you're safe. And then I also want you to do this. I want you to start taking care of some, what I would call the ons and the offs. I want you to ask her, what are the things that just bring you the most joy in the home? And I want you to, when you get up to light the furnace, which again, you're such a great guy, Adam. When you get up to light the furnace in the house to make sure everybody's got a warm

morning when they wake up, if there's still cups in the kitchen, get those. If there's some clothes that your kids left out, grab those real quick. I know you work your butt off, brother. I know you do. But do those little things. Start looking around for ways that you can make her home feel safer and safer and safer. And man, that's such a gift. So here's what I want you to do. After y'all have gone to a few family counseling sessions, after you try a couple of times to lean in, hold her hands, hold her face, look at her eyes and say, hey, hey, hey, I love you. I love, love, love you. And we're just going to sit here for a second. And then once you get up and then you go find that stupid lighter, wherever it is, I want you to call me.

Let me know how that goes. Okay? You guys are awesome. I love you all. I love walking alongside you and Katie. This is so cool. And again, I appreciate you being a man of character, but I want you to call me back and let me know how that's going. All right.

Let's go to one more call. Let's go to Crystal in Provo, Utah. Crystal, what's up? Hi, thanks for taking my call. Thanks for calling in. How are we doing? What can I do to help? I'm good, thanks.

So my question is, we obviously are coming down off of our holiday high, if you will, from being around all of our family and our friends, for those of us that were, you know, fortunate to be around them. But my question is, when does it become necessary for us to have like healthy boundaries around what, you know, most families would consider small talk, whether that's, you know, talking smack about each other, you know, behind each other's backs and, you know, the general criticism that often comes with families. And so that's my question is when does it become too much? When does it become something that we need to have healthy boundaries around?

Man, that's a lot. It's a lot because you're calling me out because it's a sport in my family too, to make sure we comment on who wore what and who said what and how who so is doing. And I know they do it about me and that's just kind of the sport. And I'll tell you, it's not right. It's not good. And so the reality is when families get together especially i don't know i don't know i families get together and they like to talk about each other because it makes them feel better about what they're doing we got the same set of genes dude look how good we're doing right g-e-n-e-s not j-e-a-n-S. But gossip makes you feel better, right? And it comes with judgments. If I would be, or you should have, oh my gosh, did you see what she, could you believe she

would not just shut, or he would not? And we do that for one reason, because it makes us feel better, right? And so I think information is direct without commentary, and it usually comes with planning and support, right? Like, hey, man, did you see Tom? He doesn't look like he's doing well. I'm going to reach out and call him. Not because, oh, my gosh, it's because he's been drinking so much and because he doesn't bathe and he's weird. We don't need any of that kind of stuff, right?

And so, man, that's so tempting. Families, talking about families is a sport. It's been going on for millennia, right? And it doesn't solve anything other than to make us feel better for a second, but that doesn't even work that well either. Is that fair? Yes, absolutely. So in your house, what part of that can you control? Do you have brothers and sisters, moms and dads? Who's talking crap about who?

Is everybody talking about everybody? Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. So you could be the rock star, and I'm going to follow your lead here, Crystal, by when brother calls and says, could you believe mom? You can just go, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I'm not talking about mom anymore. Mom's mom, and we love her, and we're just not going to do that. And your brother will be like, oh, because you're so great. And you'll be like, yeah, I'm just not going to talking about mom anymore. Mom's mom and we love her and we're just not gonna do that. And your brother be like, oh, cause you're so great. And be like, yeah, I'm just not talking about mom anymore. And then when sister calls and be like, dude, brother just called me and says, you're totally freaking out. Kristen be like, ah, I'm not talking about him either. I'm not talking about brother. I love him. He doesn't bathe. We all know that, but let's just move on. Right. And you can choose to set the tone for, I'm not going to be the person in that family

that talks bad about other people in that family. I'm not going to be the person in that family that talks bad about other people in that family. I'm not going to use them to artificially inflate my ego for that tiny little snapshot until I've got to talk about them again so I can get another hit. Is that fair? Yeah, that sounds fantastic. Crystal, if you do this, it's going to be hard. And if you do this, it's going to be hard. And if you do this, it will change America. Literally.

Because what we need people to do is to start looking in the mirror and start making changes there. And then to start making tiny little changes in their home. Like, hey, we're not going to talk about each other anymore. Let's just stop that. We don't need to. We love each other. And if we're going to get onto each other, make fun of each other, let's do it in front of each other, which is a sport of my family as well. And we are

awesome at it. It's hard to believe I'm the quiet guy at the table, by the way. Our house is awesome. It's one of my favorite places. The sporting is so good. But then when families start, just stop, just stop. And they take care of each other. And then you know what happens? The street changes. Your neighborhood changes. Your cities change. And then the dumpster fire that is the news these days may look a little bit different. It may look different.

But it starts with you saying, I'm not going to talk about my family anymore. I'm just going to stop. I love them. They're goofy. All families are. I'm goofy. And now we're just going to move on. I'm not going to fill my day with that nonsense and that trash. So good for you, Crystal.

Everybody called in today. It makes my heart feel good, man. This is the feel-good episode. We finally got to 62, Kelly, Zach, and James, before we got the feel-good episode. This makes my heart feel awesome. All right, so we're going to wrap up today's show. I asked somebody in the office that works back there with me and our team, and I said, hey, you're younger than me by like half. Give me a cool best song ever. And she was like, oh my gosh, it's super this. And I listened to it. We're going to go with it. We're going to go with it. Judah and the Lion from the Folks Hop and Roll album out in 2017.

It's called Take It All Back 2.0. Sounds a lot like Mumford & Sons with a twist, so I'll give it to him. Way to go, Judah and the Lion. I think these guys are awesome, actually. Take It Back, Take It All Back 2.0. It goes like this. Hey, my life is real great. I feel I'm well on my way to my dreams coming true, and I'm getting to do it with you, and it feels so nice when the people sing along.

They're singing along with a banjo. I don't know that line, but it's awesome. And the chorus goes, but I take it all back. Take it all back. Take it all back just to have you. You know I take it all back. Take it all back just to have have you. You'd know I'd take it all back. Take it all back, just to have you. And I'm waking up, and I'm waking up, but I'd take it all back, just to have you. That's a love song, Jude and the Lion. Good for you guys. I like it.

I would take it all back, too. And this is an hour you've just spent with me that you can't take back. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.