The Dr. John Delony Show - Building a Non-Anxious Life

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: Dr. John’s new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life A newly single mom wondering how to make a better life for her baby A woman who wants to overcome her paralyzing fear of emotions and finally connect To pre-order John's new book Building a Non-Anxious Life click here. Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance to win $3,000!  https://bit.ly/TDJDSgvwy Lyrics of the Day: "Valerie" - Amy Winehouse Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Hallow Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq 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. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. How do I forgive myself for allowing someone to mistreat me? Sometimes in a situation like the one you're in, sometimes it's easier to blame ourselves because we feel like we could actually fix that. What in the world is going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so grateful that you joined us.

The show we talk about everything, real people going through real challenges. Talk about your marriages, who you're dating, loss, grief, your mental and emotional health, your kids, whatever you got going on in your life. I spent the last two decades sitting with people and the wheels have fallen off and helping them figure out what to do next. And I'm so honored that you've joined us. If you want to be on this show, write into the show, johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. Go to johndeloney.com, D-E-L-O-N-Y slash ask and join us. And today is a huge, huge day.

It's an exciting day. It's maybe my most exciting day since I've been here. But I'm going to shut up first and we're going to go straight to it. Stop what you're doing unless you're driving. Don't stop. Don't stop. But tell everybody in the car to be quiet. If you're vacuuming or mowing, just take a second and stop for a second. I want you to listen to this. If you're on YouTube, I want you just to stop multitasking. Focus in for just a second. Check this out.

This is from a recent talk I gave, and I'll leave it at that. Check it out. I know about you. I know about you. And I know you're exhausted, and your kids are finally in bed. Maybe. Maybe they're playing video games and hopefully they're making good choices

with strangers online. Here's the deal. It's quiet. The lights are low in the house. The lights are low. And when it's finally time for bed, your body commits an act of mutiny because being an adult is trying desperately

to stay awake during the day and trying to fall asleep at night and you go to bed and you put on some headphones and you listen to your murder podcast because why do they keep coming back to the scene or some of you put uh like two talk show hosts that are like the end of the world is coming and you're like yeah and that's your world, right? And then, or you watch reruns of The Office or Ted Lasso because imaginary people in imaginary TV shows are the last decent human beings on the planet, right? And after a while, your eyes start crossing

from all these screens and your body's like, I guess we're up. And so you find yourself in your bathroom just crushing up Tylenol PM and just snorting it off the counter. And you're not asleep, but you're unconscious, right? Until about 3 a.m. And your body's like,

we got crap we gotta think about right now. And you wake up. And then you're like, what if my business fails what if it fails and then you're like maybe maybe my business would fail i don't even like my business and then over here you're like what if what if china invades taiwan i know i know it's gonna disrupt world trade in a way that we haven't seen it's probably gonna kick off world war three but i i can't do another three months of homeschooling like COVID. I can't do it, right? And then, hey, you know that mole on Jeffrey's back? It's for sure cancer. I know it's cancer. And so there's one place that we go. We're going to Google it. Let's Google it at 3 a.m. and try

to solve this. And then while you're scrolling, you happen by your bank account balance and your credit card balance, and your stomach drops into your feet, and you think, I'm going to have hypersonic diarrhea right now. And you're like, how did we, oh, what? And then you think, I could go kill my husband, and they would never find his body because

I listen to murder podcasts, right? And then you finally go to sleep and you sleep for about an hour and your eyes pop open because of your alarm and you drag yourself to the day because you're crushing it. You're going to snap into a slim gym. That's what I'm talking about. And you go work out and you turn the water on the shower so hot it's burning off your day. And you get in the shower at 7.58 for your eight o'clock meeting. And you have a 20 minute commute. And then you get out of the shower and it's 8.40 and you are pissed that time just kept going while you were in the shower. And then you get out of the shower and you walk by the mirror. There's a couple of people in this room and I've met you.

You just look at yourself and you're like, that's what I'm talking about. But most of you walk by that mirror and you just stop and you're like, I don't think I believe in God anymore. And then you start mainlining coffee to take the edge off the Tylenol PM. You snort it all night. And then your family's running around and you're barking conversations like, hey, don't forget to pick this up. You have to put on deodorant every day, every day. And I told you to do that. What do you

mean that's due today? And then you're like, your mom is going to stay for how long? And then you make eye contact and you're like, and she looks at you across the room and she's like, God, no, we're not having sex. I'm going to have gas tonight, no. And then you go into the garage to get into your car and one of your kids just barfs everywhere. And instead of going, oh my gosh, baby, are you okay? Are you okay? Your first thought is, if I just keep walking, she will clean this up, right?

And then you go to work and you're standing next to this woman. And she's like, oh my gosh, I heard your keto. Keto is amazing, but you can't eat bacon because of the fat parts. Have you done Ancestry, 23andMe? It's amazing. You should totally wear barefoot shoes because sitting is the new smoking. But my friend Sparrow, she rolls her own organic cigarettes because smoking is the new standing. And let's do somersaults, right? And you just think to yourself, I don't want to be alive right now.

And then at 10.30, freaking Dan rolls up and I've got to fire Dan because Dan's always late. But Dan always brings donuts. And the only thing that takes that image burned into my soul of me shirtless in front of the mirror is carbs and sugar it just shoves that image down into my soul right and then I'm walking to the bathroom and I hear this from behind me oh no no I'm a cat dad. And I turn and he goes, it's way more challenging than being the parent of a child. And then I think I'm going to go in the parking lot and just set

myself on fire to see if I still feel pain. All right. And after a fast food lunch of indigestion and insulin and diarrhea, and for those of you keeping track, that's diarrhea reference number two, right? You have to go to this consulting meeting with this idiot 22-year-old with a master's degree in leadership. And the only thing he's ever led is a little rubber ducky around his bathtub, right? And then you're staring at spreadsheets and terrible homemade marketing materials. And you can't wait till the day and you go get in your car and you put on another murder podcast because how hard is it to murder? Stop talking about it after you do it. And then you go home and you sit on the couch and you and your wife or you and your husband on the couch.

And instead of talking about how much you're suffocating under all this debt and how your calendar is stuffed tighter than your marketing intern's jeans and the phone rings and your mother-in-law says, hey, here's the next 14 years of Thanksgiving plans, and you don't want to do any of it. But if you say something to her right there on the couch, to your wife or to your husband, they're going to kill you. And they listen to Murder Podcast too,

and they will never find your body. So you retreat to ESPN Fantasyland. Let me take a second. Fantasy sports, where grown men use other real grown men as action figures in imaginary games. Look, there's a husband and a wife on a couch. He is playing imaginary games with real other men. I'll give you dragons and trolls and stuff. No, this guy lives in your same city

and he's my guy, right? And she is sitting right here looking up line tattoos that say hashtag blessed on her iPad and cauliflower mashed potato recipes. And she's looking at 18 year old birthday parties. Your kid's nine, by the way. Y'all could be absolutely doing it right now. That makes no evolutionary sense.

And you're four inches apart from each other. And you're 4,000 miles away. And then you snort a bunch of Tylenol PM off the counter. This is our day. This is our day. This is what we call normal. This is my day. This is your day. This is our life. This is insane. And then we go to a doctor, we go to a doctor or a counselor on the internet or some therapist, and we say, I'm anxious. I'm so anxious. I've got anxiety. I'm chronically stressed. I'm burned out. And the doctor says, well, it sucks to be you because anxiety is a disease. It's a genetic disorder and it's in your brain. It can only be cured with medication. You're always going to

have it. You will always be burned out. You're always going to be chronically stressed. That's your new identity. That's who you are. You have anxiety, right? And so we go to another doctor. We open another bottle of bourbon. We start working more and more hours and more and more hours. Some of you weirdos just rub essential oils all over your body because whatever, because you guys believe in YouTube more than lunatics. So then you go see another counselor. You talk to a pastor. You talk to a friend. And it's madness. It's madness. And you finally get the courage to say, hey, I'm so anxious I can't breathe. I've got so much stress. I'm on the edge of burning out of everything.

And I miss my husband. And I sit at my kitchen table once a week when I've got all my family and I'm surrounded by people I love and I am deeply alone. We haven't slept together. We haven't been intimate in what feels like forever. And my marriage is crumbling and my kids don't want to be in the same room with me. And I'm exhausted and I can't sleep.

You look around and the world is freaking falling apart. All right, we're back. Listen, is that you? Are you sick and tired of being so chronically stressed and anxious? Everything's electric. And listen, you've gone to all the experts. You read all the blogs. And the way we're doing mental health in this country is simply not working. It's not working.

If this is you, I got you. If this is you, you're just like me. Today is the first day you can pre-order my brand new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life. Here it is. I'm super excited about it because halfway through this book, so I wrote this book about anxiety and about chronic stress, all the stuff that we got going on. And then halfway through, I stopped. And I went and checked myself into a hotel. I got away from my family for a while.

And I realized I'm not living this way either. I'm not doing some of these things that I was writing about. And I had to control all, delete everything. And so this book is not me talking at you. So I'm like, I've to control all delete everything. And so this book is not me talking at you as some like, I've got it all figured out. This book is me walking with you saying, we've created a world that our bodies cannot exist in and we've got to do something different. So look, this book provides the six daily choices that we all got to make to overcome anxiety. Some of these are every day. Some of these are every day. Some of these are every month.

Some of these are on an annual basis, but we've got choices to make about how we live our lives. They are practical strategies. I did not write a pop psychology book, and I also did not write some super highly technical jargon filled book for clinicians and and researchers how they talk to each other this book is written for regular people like you and me just trying to figure out how to be a little bit better parents how to stop the cycle of hurt how to be less anxious how to come home and create a home that is warm and full of laughter and full of joy.

And this crazy word that we don't even know what it means anymore, peace. This is the, as they say, highly anticipated follow-up to my number one bestseller, Own Your Past, Change Your Future. I don't know how many people are highly anticipating this, except for maybe my mom. Listen, no matter where you start,

you're gonna gain a deep understanding of what anxiety is, what it's not. I did integrate some of the stuff from Redefining Anxiety. So if you picked up that tiny quick read, this is going to be that book exploded and so much more, so much more. Listen, anxiety doesn't have to rule your life. Burnout, chronic stress, all the things that we're dealing with, there's an end point. You can choose something different. All right. The book releases on October 3rd. Pre-sale starts now. So if you go pre-order the book right now, it's 20 bucks. I'm going to give you some of the raddest bonus items. So listen, I want you to get help today. So if you pre-order the book today, that talk that you just saw, a piece of it,

I'm going to send you the whole talk right away. Instantly, you're going to have access to the whole thing and so much more. Pre-order today at johndeloney.com. Go to johndeloney.com. Building a non-anxious life. I'm super excited. I want to get this into the hands of everybody,

my neighbors, my friends, but honestly myself. So we got to do something different. And this is the map. Thank you so much for being in our gang. Thanks so much for pre-ordering this book. Hang on and we'll be right back. Hey, good folks. Let's talk about hallow. All right. I say this all the time. It's important to get away for times of prayer and meditation by yourself with no one else around. But one thing you might not think about though, is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate. And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious, if you question things, or if you've been burned by a

church experience in the past, it's hard to want to get together with other people. And that's another reason why I love hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow, and they give you three free months to do it. You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose. And this way you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others. And with Hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour. And you can listen where it works for your schedule.

You can choose your guide, your background music. You can create your own personal prayer plan and more. I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the hallow meditation on the scripture of the day. It's a discipline and it's a practice. And here's what I'm learning. As with anything of importance and meaning, prayer takes intentionality, practice, and showing up even when I don't feel like it, and even I don't want to. This is discipline. Sometimes you do this by yourself and sometimes you do this with a group and Halo helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app

on planet earth, Halo, right now. And listen, viewers and listeners of this show get three free months when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, we're back. Let's go out to Reno,

Nevada and talk to the great Valerie. What's up, Valerie? Hi, can you hear me okay, Dr. Tom? Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. How are you? Oh, I'm good. Thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Of course, of course. So what in the world's up? Well, I guess my question is, how do I forgive myself for allowing someone to mistreat me? How do I move forward? Wow, that's heavy.

Tell me more about it. I was in a relationship with this person for almost two years and um towards i guess the last uh maybe eight months um things got really bad he never physically touched me but it was more of like the verbal views. And financially, I was dependent on him for the last six months. And he was always like, we would get into an argument and he would be like, well, I'm going to take the money out of the account and I wouldn't have access to it. Or he one time got, we got into an argument and my family was in town and he was drinking and he knew I was going to need my car. And he ended up taking my car and driving to a bar and I'm like trying to reach him why did you take my car and his answer was to make you feel uncomfortable do you all have kids together I we I got pregnant after okay so to give a little

bit more background I cheated on him in the beginning of the relationship and I got pregnant. And we both knew that we weren't sure whether it was going to be his or not. And he decided that we were going to continue and work on the relationship. But then when we took the test and it wasn't his, his reaction towards me and the baby completely changed. Sure. Sure. All right. towards me and the baby completely changed. Sure, sure. All right. I want to change directions a bit. Is that cool?

That's fine. Sometimes in a situation like the one you're in or a situation where we fall in love with somebody, we trust somebody, we take a job with somebody, and then they don't just not treat us well, but they hurt us. Sometimes it's easier to blame ourselves because we feel like we could actually fix that it's harder to live in a world where somebody says i love you and then strands you in the middle of nowhere while you're pregnant or somebody takes all the money out of your account and says, you have to go through me. That world is terrifying because those are supposed to be the people that ride or die with you, right? Those are supposed to be the people that love you.

And so self-blame is often the easiest place to go, but it's not right and so what i would tell you is i don't know that valerie needs to beat up valerie valerie doesn't need to forgive valerie because valerie didn't do anything wrong valerie learned some new information some new lessons right what valerie has to do is learn to live in a world where you can be completely vulnerable and somebody that you love is going to hurt you and then the question is who is Valerie going to be

on the back end of that right it's a scary world right it is it's a scary world. I'm sorry that he treated you that way. You didn't deserve that. Since I emailed you guys, things obviously changed and I

moved out and my family has my back and it's just I feel like I failed. Yeah. What did you fail, Valerie?

I don't know. I guess I wanted that perfect family. Yeah. What you feel is grief. Because you had a picture in your head of how things were going to turn out and then it didn't happen that way. And you have that double-edged sword, right? You would probably do anything to take back cheating on this guy

and getting pregnant. And you get the greatest gift in the whole world, which is a new baby, right? I do. It's both and. That's right.'s both in and you probably would um look back and think well if i hadn't done this and hadn't said this and hadn't exploded on him in this one night and i i contributed to that's fine but i'm gonna tell you nobody with an ounce of i'll just be very specific to, nobody with an ounce of masculinity in their body, nobody with an ounce of dignity or respect in their body, strands their girlfriend or their wife, ever.

That's cowardly, childish behavior. No man with any sort of masculinity, any sort of strength or dignity or responsibility takes all the money out of the account and says, you got to go through me. As though you're some kind of overlord or her dad. It's cowardly, childish behavior. So, you are trying to look, you're trying to lean up against a nine-year-old in an adult body and wonder what you did wrong. Nothing. Just a nine-year-old in an adult body. His answer was always like, well, you did this to me, and it would always come back. That's because he's a childish coward. He's a childish coward. He's a childish coward.

My wife can't make me do anything. And I love her to the moon and back. I choose my responses. I choose my actions. I choose my thoughts. I choose my behaviors. I choose, I make choices. And she can frustrate me. She can make me sad. She can break

my heart. She can make me mad. And then I choose what happens next. And how dare any grown man look at his friends, his boss, his wife, his kids, and say, you made me do bullc crap. He chose that. What you have to do is in a weird way, it's not even a weird way. Can I tell you what I would recommend if you were my sister or just a buddy of mine? I would recommend you hold some sort of miniature vigil, some sort of miniature funeral for the picture you had in your head of the perfect family.

Because you knew this baby was not his. And yet he said, I'm in. I'm in. Correct. And he gave you an opportunity to exhale and to dream a little bit. And if you're like most parents, you already have pictures of what your kid coming home from college with some knuckleheaded boy or some knuckleheaded girl is going to look like

and trying to have Thanksgiving. You already have those pictures in your head and boom, now they're going to be different. You have to grieve that. I wanted this to happen and it's not going to happen like this. It doesn't mean you're not going to have joy. It doesn't mean you're not going to have great relationships.

You're going to fall in love again. All those things are still on the table and I would even go as far as to say I think're not going to have great relationships. You're going to fall in love again. All those things are still on the table. And I would even go as far as to say, I think they're going to happen. But you have to grieve. I thought this one was going to happen and it's not. Right. Do you have lessons to learn from this on how you responded to things?

I definitely, I mean, for once, you know, the cheating and the disrespect that I did towards him. Cool. That's over. For that same reason, I allowed myself for him to do all those things, you know, like I felt like I was looking for that forgiveness. And he ran right over you. I knew I deserved better. I just stay there. And he ran right over you. So, yeah, but again, I mean, I can read the data. And it's terrifying for a mom with a young child to consider the possibility that I'm going to be a single mom, unable to provide for us, or it's going to be a drastic shift in how me and my baby live. And I can shield my baby from the hell that I live in, in exchange for a roof. Women have been making that choice for centuries.

You're not crazy and you're not broken. You're trying to stay safe. And the courage you showed leaving this madness is incredible. And did you do dumb stuff? Yes. Are we going to do it again? No. Because from this point forward, Valerie is a woman who never, ever cheats again. Valerie is a woman who never disrespects herself, somebody else's husband, or her own person that she's in a relationship with.

That's it. Period. Done. So let's set that brick down and quit carrying it around everywhere. And by the way, this is for everybody listening and you. If somebody cheats on you somebody hurts you somebody breaks your heart and you go through a period of being upset and angry and grief all the normal things and then you have a moment where you sit with them and you say hey i'm all in

we're gonna get through this we're gonna work to work through this. I'm all in. From that point forward, you have to – you can't hold this crap over each other anymore. You got to move on. You can't grovel for the rest of your life. You'll have to regain, rebuild something new, and then you have to commit to being vulnerable again, both of you. And that didn't happen here. No. So let didn't happen here. No. So let's do two things. First thing is, I want you to

get a couple of your family members who are ride or die, a couple of friends, and I want y'all to hold a small little ceremony for what was going to be. It's not. Let's call it just a small little funeral of the dream of the perfect little family. I think you're going to have a perfect little family moving forward.

It's just going to look different than the one you had in mind. Let's have a small funeral for it. And then I want you to write Valerie a letter. You. I want you to write what you learned in this situation. The things that you wish you could do over. I want you to let Valerie know that you love her. And here's who we're going to be moving forward.

Then the goal is going to be to create a life where you can live into that. Where you're going to exercise, where you're going to work, who you're going to surround yourself with. What you will and will not tolerate in a romantic relationship. You get to pick all those things. You get to choose that path forward. I'm proud of you for making the move. Stay on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of On Your Past Change Your Future it's my last book and

just gives you a path from everything's in ash and where I go from here thank you so much for the call Valerie we'll be right back I'm so proud that Thorne Supplements my favorite supplements on the planet have continued to partner with me

and our show listeners for health, longevity, and just feeling good. Thorne is one of our longest standing partners on this show, and it's because I trust them, I use them, I read their research papers, and I know their products are great and that my fans will love them too. Here's the deal with supplements. There's so, so much garbage out in the marketplace. And other than my admitted gummy candy problem, I'm pretty freakish about what I put in my body. And that's why I trust my health and the health of my family with Thorne. Personally, I've been taking Thorne supplements for years and years, way before I was on the internets with these shows. And my wife and kids have been taking them as well. And here's what I take every single day.

I take the super EPA fish oil, the methylated B vitamins, creatine, phosphatidylserine, and more. I take Thorne for specific physiologic needs for me to keep my body and mind optimized and for overall longevity and health. And here's the cool thing. We've set up an amazing opportunity for all of the listeners of the Dr. John Deloney Show. 25% off everything in the Thorne store and not just on your first visit, but every time you make a purchase through our page and our account.

This isn't a sale that's gonna change from week to week. All you do is go online, create an account through my page and you'll get 25% off from here on out forever. It's that easy. Go to thorn.com slash you slash Deloney. That's thorn, T-H-O-R-N-E dot com slash the letter U slash Deloney for 25% off everything in the store. I trust Thorne. My family trusts Thorne.

And you can trust Thorne too. All right, we're back. Let's go out to Caitlin in Pittsburgh. What's up, Caitlin? Hey, John. Hey, what's up? Hey, I told him to your show back in October. Yeah?

My question then was along the lines of, I felt like I was placing trauma onto my kids because of depression and disassociation. Okay. My question today is, I have lived all my life numbing my emotions due to trauma. I don't know how to connect to myself or emotions, and emotions terrify me.

I also feel paralyzed with fear Wow. What happened? Man, I'm so sorry. How long did that go on, Caitlin? Quite a few years. Yeah. Who ultimately took care of you? My parents. I don't know.

Who came and rescued you, Caitlin? Nobody. When did you finally escape that madness? who came and rescued you, Kayla? nobody when did you finally escape that madness? oh, it's I mean, it stopped in my teens so, yeah, it just all of a sudden stopped did your mom know?

no does she know now? yes where Did your mom know? No. Does she know now? Yes. Where's your dad now? Still around. Is he in jail? No.

Why not? It's currently in the process. Okay. Oh, man. I'm so sorry, Caitlin. I wish you'd had a better dad. Little Caitlin deserved that and teenage Caitlin deserved that and grown-up Caitlin deserved that.

Do you have kids of your own now? Yes. How old are your kids? Eight, seven, or no, nine, eight, six, and two. Okay. We may have talked about this in the last call. Have you found your own trauma responses escalating as you've added more kids to the fold and they've gotten to the age you were when this madness started? Yes. Okay. Have you gone to talk to anybody? Yes. I've been seeing a therapist for the past year and a half.

And it's not doing any good? I don't know. She says I've made a big change, but a lot of the days I don't see it myself. Okay. I can tell you from my personal experience and from sitting with a bajillion people, at the end of the day, trauma disconnects somebody from themself. The way you described it, that I have trouble feeling, I have trouble connecting with my emotions,

is a perfect way to explain that. And if somebody hasn't been abused, they haven't experienced childhood trauma, they haven't experienced childhood trauma, they haven't experienced big trauma, they don't really understand what it feels like to literally be walking down the street and feel disconnected from your own feet. Or to feel like your body's on fire just because you have a two-year-old crawling all over you. Or you just want to scream and run out of the house just because your kids are laughing too loud.

It's this disconnection from yourself. So the goal of any sort of therapeutic intervention is to reconnect with yourself. The hard part is your body's put a pin in that as we cannot do that again because the one person who was supposed to keep us safe, our dad, violated that at its core. if you haven't already, you have to enter into some sort of, and this is from the great Peter Levine's work, you have to enter into some sort of body work. That can look as simple as you having a guided therapist that you trust who just simply puts their hands on you,

like on your shoulders and on your head and on your chest and on your arms, as you go back and re-experience some of these things and teach your body what good touch and safe touch feels like. Or let me say it in another way, you can't talk and think your way through healing on this. You might be a great candidate for some of the newer procedures that are out, like the psychedelics and ketamine and some of these other therapies that are showing some great clinical promise. But you have to have the right practitioner. You can't just go crank that stuff out on your own.

It's very, very, very unsafe and unstable if you do it by yourself. But it may be that what happened to you and for the duration of how it happened to you was so profound. And now you're surrounded by four kids. And so you're trying to change the oil on this car while it's driving. It may be that you need to have some more radical interventions with folks that know what they're doing. Some of my close, close friends in the military community have just told me wonderful, incredible stories, extraordinary stuff. But you have to enter into a new phase of, okay, I'm ready to reconnect. And just know that that's not fun and it's scary.

Is that something you're interested in, Caitlin? Yes. I mean, it's definitely something I want to do is to reconnect because i don't want to continue living the way i am right so and the reason like the reason for this call was my therapist is working on emotions right now and it seems like every single time I try and do that, I go into this phase of suicidal thoughts and everything. Yeah, again, your therapist has been working with you for 18 months, and so there's a lot more that your therapist can glean from you than I can in a few minutes of a phone call. I personally wouldn't be doing emotion work right now. What you're describing is deeply seated inside of you and your body.

Now, if he or she is trying to get you to feel a certain thing in therapy, where it's safe in there to feel an emotion and sit with it for a bit, that might be what's happening. And you get flooded with all kinds of wild thoughts. Because your body's been working really hard to not feel anything. Because last time we feel something, it was filled with pain and innocence being stolen and all those things. But at the end of the day, I think having a direct conversation with your therapist that I've been doing this for 18 months and I'm ready to enter into a more directive focused healing. Preferably around some sort of body work. If we have to do emotion work, great, but it's got to be done in a safe therapeutic context, which hopefully is what your therapist is providing you.

But at some point, you can't keep talking about the same stuff. The healing doesn't happen that way. You have to reconnect with your body. That's the disconnection. That's the trauma. Your body's going to remain overwhelmed by all these memories and all these feelings and all these emotions and all these feelings and all these emotions and all these sensations

until your body learns, hey, we weren't safe then and we are safe now. And please know, everybody listening, I know what I am saying sounds like woo-woo. I get it. I get it. But I can tell you personally, I have tracked my sleep score and my HRV as I've entered through

this type of therapeutic intervention and my whole life is changing. Everything is changing for the better as my nervous system finally begins to slow down. So all I have to say is, Caitlin, we're with you. We're with you. It's time to have a direct conversation with your therapist about, okay, 18 months in, cool. It's time to make some changes.

We need to do some body work. We need to do some more directive trauma work, maybe some EMDR. And if not, maybe it's time to get a new trauma work, maybe some EMDR. And if not, maybe it's time to get a new trauma therapist or it's time to look at some of these more experimental solutions with guided practitioners and researchers who know exactly what they're doing. I'm grateful for you, Caitlin. I wish I could provide you more instantaneous, like magic wand help here. This is just gonna be a slog.

My promise is there is healing on the other side if you'll make the journey. Please don't go alone. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out

or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right. Well, that wraps it up for today's show. Don't forget, stop what you're doing. Go

pre-order my brand new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life. Go to johndeloney.com. Check it out. It's going to be everywhere and we'll give you all sorts of cool bonus items. JohnDeloney.com. Check it out. And today's song, shout out to Valerie. Shout out to Valerie. From the great Amy Winehouse. One of the most incredible voices of my entire life.

She left way too soon. Song's called Valerie, and it goes like this. Well, sometimes I go out by myself, and I look across the water, and I think of all the things, what you're doing, and in my head I paint a picture, because since I've come home, well, my body's been a mess, and I've missed your ginger hair and the way you like to dress. Won't you come on over? Stop making a fool out of me.

Why don't you come on over, stop making a fool out of me. Why don't you come on over, Valerie? This song's kind of weird because that's not my wife's name, but it's cool. Maybe it's about a puppy named Valerie, no? All right, well, I love you guys. Stay in school, don't do drugs. Go pre-order my new book. We'll see you soon.