The Dr. John Delony Show - Did My Legalistic Upbringing Cause My Social Anxiety?

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A grown-up preacher’s kid struggling with social anxiety - A woman whose husband is neglecting her feelings after a miscarriage - A wife afraid her husband will grow to resent her choices 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. When's the last time he mentioned wanting to be with somebody else? His birthday, so at the beginning of this month. Two weeks after your miscarriage? Yeah, and I think because I wasn't vocal to him about... No, no. It's because he's an ass. What is going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney show. A show about mental health and relationships and marriage,

whatever you got going on. I'm John, and I'm here to walk with you. We got a whole gang back there. They don't do a lot. I'm just kidding. They do everything. And I stare off into space. And what y'all don't know is that Kelly actually tells me all the answers to all of your questions in my earpiece because she's an oracle.

You are ruining the wizard behind the thing, you know, behind the curtain thing. Yes. But I think oracle is Latin for just mean and doesn't say a lot. I think that's what Oracle means. So, hey, if you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask ASK. Please, please, please, please send these episodes to everybody you know. Send them everywhere. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button. Let's go out to Kalamazoo, which sounds like a place in a Dr. Seuss book, and talk to Hannah.

What's up, Hannah? Hi, how are you today? I'm good. How's Kalamazoo? Kalamazoo, it is. It's beautiful today. We got good weather finally. That's outstanding. Outstanding. Winter's finally over. Hey, so what's up? Hey, yeah, so I'll just give you a little background before I jump into my question here. I'm 29 years old. I'm married. I have one child and I've kind of always struggled with making

friends. I can talk to anyone, but when it comes to connecting on a deeper level, it's very difficult for me. I kind of always thought it was my personality. But after talking with my sisters, it seems like we kind of all have this struggle in one way or another. So my question is, could my very religious, hypercritical Baptist preacher's kid upbringing play a role in why I struggle? No, not at all, Hannah. Listen, this is a hundred percent your fault and your personality. Just fix you and all this goes away. So yeah. Uh, wait, say that again. You said it perfectly. That's the best I've ever heard it. Okay. Hyper religious, hyper religious, uh uh or sorry religious hyper critical

baptist preacher's kid over here in kalamazoo yes all of that yes congratulations you are a therapist dream because you're going to be a long-term client right right And every stage along the way. Did your parents have friends? No. Yeah, probably not. Mm-mm. Were you a living figurine for them to show the world? Yes, I was. Yeah.

Were you put in a bunch of awkward situations with adults and told that your job was to make sure they, A, were comfortable and B, that they could see how great you were? Yes, like singing in prisons and yes, yep, lots of random things like that. Ta-da! You are now a dysfunctional adult. Congratulations. Yeah, it pops up in weird places. It does. Tell me about where it pops up.

So as I've gotten older, I've just kind of noticed things, which, you know, when you're younger, you think are normal. Just don't even feel the need to connect with people on a deeper level. It's just all very shallow and compartmentalized. Like I have one friend for this. I have one friend for this. I have one friend for something different. You know why you do that, right? I do not. Because you can't risk somebody actually fully knowing you yeah if they do there's this underlying it and i'll even go as far to say oh by the way i don't

know if i talked about this much on the show but halfway through my life my dad quit being a homicide detective and became a minister at a large church so this is same team discussion here, okay? If somebody truly knows you, the you doesn't have to be bad. It just has to be something they disagree with. And then your parents' porcelain facade gets a mark on it. And that is so wired into every bit of you. And by the way, the mark is not just somebody at your church not liking you. It is eternal damnation and burning in hell, right? I mean, the stakes are so insane. And so the risk is I can't be fully known because if I'm fully known and I'm not fully loved, I am ash. And so I'm going to

challenge you. You said, I don't feel the need to connect. I disagree. I think you absolutely do, but you parse it out. You outsource it to a bunch of different places to try to just get enough gulps of oxygen to get through your day. Yeah. And that wears out, right? Yeah. How long have you tried to use your husband as an oxygen tank? Man, probably our whole relationship. We've been together four years.

Yeah, he's my person. Yeah. He is more than your person. He's probably your heroin syringe too, right? Yeah. Not that I know anything about what I'm talking about personally. Yikes, man. So how can I help?

Because there's a lot here, right? What, what made you pick up the phone and call? Just, I think I've never heard anyone talk about this cause I, I've been listening to your show for a while. Um,

I hadn't, I've been waiting for someone to call in with this question cause I can't be the only one. And obviously I'm not. Um, so I, I guess, I guess kind of where to, where to start. I don't be the only one, and obviously I'm not. So I guess kind of where to start, I don't know if that's finding someone that is truly safe,

like seeking out that one person or... Let's back out of there then, because we're not at relationship yet. Here's a couple things I want you to... that you're going to need to make peace with, okay? Okay. You did good things through your entire childhood and probably through your adult life so that other people would see you and think good about you and think good about the name of the family and think good about your parents. That does not mean that the good you did was of no value.

And that doesn't mean that you're a bad, evil person. Okay? The relationships you had served a purpose. They were currency for your family. They were currency for you. And you know better than most how to make other people feel good because that's been your job. And that can be by performing. That can be by getting straight A's. That can be by

looking pretty, but not too pretty, right? You know how to do all that stuff. And it is freaking exhausting. And that doesn't mean that the relationships that you had were somehow less than or false or fake. They were what you knew. And what killed me was how long I discounted all the good I did growing up because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. But I was a kid. I didn't know. And so I've been able to, over the last 15 or 20 years, turn that around with some help from a counselor, by the way, and begin to see I got a lot of practice in doing good. And that has been a great gift to me as I've been older because it's just wired in. And now I've learned to do it for the right reasons, not because I'm trying to perform,

because it really is kind of who I am now. And so I don't want you to discount who you are and the things you've done and where you've been and where you've come from because there's so much good there. There's a lot of gross too, but there's a lot of good there that is that is in you at the cellular level so you're not broken and not dysfunction and you're not crazy does that ring true yes yeah no yeah that's great to hear okay yeah because sometimes it can feel fake oh it feels disgusting and fake. Yes. But also, I've got buddies growing up that went and got super high and beat up everybody and trashed places.

And that was fake too. They were being posers too. The same as I was being a poser as Johnny Jesus Freak. It was around drugs all the time. I didn't do them. You see what I'm saying? Like it's all, all kids are trying to figure out who they are and what they are

and they're practicing things and they're practicing identities. That's a whole part of being a kid. And then I think there's a stunted adolescence for kids who grew up in the spotlight, whether it's a tiny spotlight, like a local church or it's a spotlight of you know

kids of famous people there's this weird thing where You know that there's like You know, you can listen really quietly in your home and know that so-and-so's cheating on so-and-so And this greeter at your church is really an awful person. So you have to grow up really fast but your ability to experience freedom and responsibility for your own decisions is so restricted for so long. So you see a lot, but you don't get to experience a lot. And that makes for a weird 25-year-old, right? Mm-hmm. I want to be sexual with my husband and I want to be reckless, but it also feels weird because there's all this background nonsense. And then also I kind of want to do this, but this feel

it, all of it's just this weird moving. And so the antidote for all of that is you to really begin mining M I N I N G, like going on an adventure to find out who Hannah is and what she loves, what she doesn't believe anymore, what she wants for her and her family. And that is best expressed in relationships. And that's hard. Mm-hmm. I just threw a lot at you. Speak back to me. Yeah, that is, that's a lot. Yeah. It just feels very overwhelming. I do think I've done quite a bit of work here in my late twenties to see exactly who I am. I've kind of left the church and kind of rebalanced everything to see, okay, what's mine and what was my parents.

Good for you. Yeah. And that's kind of where I'm at right now. I'm still not in a church or anything, but I do think I'm trying to rebalance exactly who I am. But the friend thing is not, is not falling into place for me. Okay. Tell me if this rings a bell.

Often, minister's kids grow up with this idea that every decision is the Super Bowl. And if I get this wrong date wrong, this one date wrong, or if I have this sip of this drink, or I'm with group of people and janet pulls out a cigarette right all like everything is do or die and kids cannot carry that weight and in the same way that my buddies who are college athletic trainers are telling me that kids 18 and 19 year olds are showing up to the university with overuse joint injuries similar to elderly people. So they've got 18 and 19-year-olds with 90-year-old shoulders and 85-year-old knees and hips because of the insanity of childhood sports. You turn into a 21, 25, 28, 29-year-old adult

who is so exhausted from carrying the weight of every decision is the end of time. And so the word I want you to tattoo on your soul is practice. You've never fully sat down with one friend and told them everything. You're just going to practice that. And you're going to practice feeling so exposed and so raw and so terrified on your way home when you're replaying. And I know you do this because I do too. You replay every sentence. Did I say that right? Are they going to think this? I should probably call them. Oh, I said that one thing

about that other person. You do that, right? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yes. Because saying the wrong thing would have ruined everything. And now I want you to own. I don't believe that at all anymore. I didn't do X for this long. I don't even believe that anymore. And here's why. That's ownership. And that's, you just got to practice it.

Practice saying no. Practicing, I don't believe that anymore. Practicing, practice not answering a question because answering questions got you gold stars growing up. Practice just not, practice just not answering. Just, I don't know. What do you think? And everything in your body will be like, answer, answer, answer. Just practice not. I, it'll feel so awkward and weird. And then what you're going to find is you have value beyond being able to give the right verse in the right context.

You're going to find that you have value not performing these lessons that you learned, but you're going to suddenly find that those lessons are a part of you in a really deep and profound way. And ultimately, every single relationship is a risk. And so you're going to practice taking that risk.

I'm going to tell you one thing, one heavy thing before I let you go, okay? Okay. Your husband can't carry the weight of all of this too. And so you've been married four or five years, right? Two. Two years. Okay. Y'all been together four years. You've been married two. So I'm 18 years down the road, and I've almost wrecked our train several times by overloading the tracks. That means he can't be a trash compactor for all of it. I mean you're gonna have to find whether it's a counselor whether it's some friends at a local church and And slowly peek your head back in whether that's a group of women that you invite over and just say I've never had friends before so i'm going for it

And everyone's gonna be weird and there'll be two out of the six that stick around You have to just practice that Okay the six that stick around, you have to just practice that. Okay. I can do that. Do you promise you won't now hit the pendulum all the other way and just hold a bunch of secrets from him and then not tell anybody

and then implode the whole thing? All right. I didn't even think about that. Yep. Because that's what I do. That's what I do. I just toggle from everything or nothing

and neither of those things are helpful. They're not healthy. And I don't know if this helps or if this makes you feel bad. Over the last 30 years, I've had entire chunks of my life where I needed to walk away for a minute from corporate church stuff. And in a way, recalibrate. And sometimes that was with two or three people that I really, really trusted. Sometimes that was with me

and one person that had some wisdom. Sometimes that was me spending some time reading and reflecting and writing. But when you grow up in that spotlight, sometimes the heat lamp gets really hot. So I want you to know that you're not broken. You're not, there's nothing wrong with you.

In fact, taking some space I think can be incredibly healthy and everybody's going to have an opinion about why you're doing and what you're doing. Keep yourself grounded with people that you trust. Okay. Okay. Cool. Sounds good. Sounds like a good plan. Will you practice this and then holler back girl at me? You're supposed to say it and you holler back girl, but I'd love to find out what happens when you

reach out to a few women and just tell them everything. Okay. Yeah. I'm like trying to wrap my head around doing that, but yes. I know it feels insane. It feels insane. It does.

It does. Go be crazy. Go. Hey, go be crazy. Enjoy it. Have fun. And trust me, you're going to get burned.

Trust me. It's going to go awkward and weird. And then trust me, you're going to get burned. Trust me, it's going to go awkward and weird. And then trust me, you're going to find one or two people that say the magic words, I thought I was the only one. And that will be the soil of a new relationship, new friendship. A person that will walk with you, will hold your arms up in the desert. And that person will be a living embodiment of a different way to do relationships and grace and risk.

And man, it's incredible. It's incredible when you find it. Thank you so much for the call. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper

body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn

to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere, so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney.

All right, we're back. Let's go to the City of Angels and talk to Selena. Hola, Selena, how we doing? Hi, I'm doing good. How are you? So good. Things going okay? Yeah, I mean, so the roller coaster. Well, yeah, that's all.

Yes, I agree. So what's up? How can I help? Okay, so unfortunately, on April 24th, I went to the ER just to find out I had an ectopic pregnancy. Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So that was very traumatic in itself. But what made it worse for me really was, well, first off, I didn't have the surgery.

I don't know if you know too much about that. I do. In fact, my wife had an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured and it was a very, very near miss. So yeah, I've been down that road. Um, yeah. So, um, thankfully I, my tube wasn't ruptured, so I was able to get the shot. Um, and that was super painful in itself. Um, but can we stop right there?

Yeah. Can you take a huge deep breath for me and hold it? Yes. Hold it for one, two, three, exhale. How far along were you? So I was only three weeks. You're not allowed to say the word only on the show when it comes to pregnancy loss. Okay.

Can I ask you, can I ask you a deeply personal question? Yeah. What name did you have in your mind? Um, well, I have a few names, but if it's a boy, it's going to be Alexander after his dad. And then if it was a girl, Arabella. What was he or she? Because you know. I didn't know.

You didn't? Yeah. Okay. But all of our kids have A names, so it had to be with an A. Awesome. Awesome. So for whatever it's worth and um i've had the honor and the heartbreak of sitting with countless women who've sat with and just dealing with pregnancy loss

um i picked one and i've got the names of all of the miscarriages my wife and i have been through she obviously she carries a lion's share of it, I've got it tattooed on my body. Having some sort of marker or moment for the loss is really important, okay? And I don't think that's what the call's about, but I just want to put that out there for you. When people start using words like only and this, and I want you just to take a second and put a marker on the ground, okay?

Yeah. And I think that's why I'm calling it because I feel like everyone in my life has been kind of dismissive about this. So my mom, she's not very loving. So she was very like, okay, well, it happened. Let's get over it. And then my husband, he just constantly is working. So he was like, yes, it sucks, but let's move on with our lives. And I'm the kind of person who I'm like, okay, well, I just want to wallow in this for a minute. Yeah. So you get to wallow. And your mom was not loving before this, right?

Correct. Yeah. She was a pageant mom. Man. So you're a pageant gal, huh? Yeah. So it was pageants, then it turned into Girl Scouts. And then when I went through my goth phase, it was just a little bit. I love a good goth phase, man.

Oh, man. What a mess. Okay. So what's your question? How can I help? So my question really is how do I... i know it's easy to just talk to people and let them know but how do i mainly for my husband explained to him that this wasn't just a medical mishap that happened with me this is something that i'm mourning like a loss of a child

how is he responding is he pretending this didn't happen? Is he being an idiot? Like, like, was he saying dumb, like, tell me what's going on with him? Oh, well, first off, he's a tanker driver who works night shifts. So he needs to sleep during the day. And that's very important because it's dangerous. But his way of coping with things is I'm just going to work and provide for my family. And yes, it sucks, but it happens. Let's move on. Those were his exact words. Yeah.

So, I mean, he's perfect in every way, except for he's very like. He is not. To the grind. Selene, that's the dumbest thing you've said on this whole call. I know. He's not perfect in every way. So I'm heartbroken for a couple of reasons. One, because I said something very similar.

He's a tanker driver. I was a nerd. So I didn't say not a big deal, but I did try to explain it away as though it wasn't a big deal. And there's no excuse other than to say, I didn't know. I didn't understand. I didn't know the depths.

And very similar, like your husband, I knew one thing when there was chaos and I knew my wife was hurting, but I didn't understand why. I didn't understand how. I didn't know I could help out around the house by making more money. So I just went to work. And in a really backwards, strange way, um, it sounds like he's trying to tell you he loves you. Yeah. Oh, and I know that. I know he does. And, um, we, I'm, I'm that type of person where I will just like be so upset and let it scepter into the point where it explodes. Yeah.

And he can read that from a mile away. He knows the minute I'm upset and he tried to talk it out. And yeah, I know it's just, I need to work on that. Well, it's less that, and it's more

after our second miscarriage, when my wife said the the words i'm tired of my body killing babies that's when i finally got the extent of her pain i didn't understand and it's not an excuse other than to say i didn't know and I didn't even know to ask and yet that level of clarity and insight while hard for me to hear gave me a whole new entryway so if I could do it all over again I would have talked infinitely less I would have listened more and I would have asked questions that invited that level of honesty. And also I've forgiven myself and I've committed to doing better and I've moved on. So I tell you to tell, to tell, to do this. I wouldn't say it's a thing to work on, but you've never experienced this before. Fair?

Right. Yeah. This was our first first time and you had a mom that trained you to take your feelings and wad them up in a ball and flush them on a toilet so that you could be a porcelain human making your way through the world right yes you were a display item for her so you don't have a model of what sitting in grief looks like. And that's okay. Grief will drag you underwater, whether you have a model for it or not, right? And so there's something profound and powerful about telling your husband, hey, we need to have a hard conversation.

And maybe you write it down, but giving him the truth about how you feel and how hard this loss is and being very specific about how hard it is. How specific. I didn't understand that women, when they experienced miscarriage, they feel betrayed by their own bodies.

And they, even the most powerful high performing business women have questions about self-worth and i didn't know any of that stuff i worked i worked in trauma right and i didn't know i didn't know that it can be so unmooring that you begin to question everything about everything. I didn't know. I didn't know about names. Right? So all I have to say is invite him into that conversation. Now, can I ask you a hard question? Yeah. What is it about him that makes it you not feel safe to have that conversation?

Cause you've avoided it for some reason. I can tell you, I was not a safe place for my wife. I wasn't. Yeah. Why isn't he safe? Um, well, first off we've been, we've been married. It's going to be our fifth year being married but we've been together going on 10 years so um in our early years we were ravers and you were we you were what ravers yeah so we used to go out partying every weekend yes yes and um we just doing bad decisions and oh my gosh alina just say it what do you like like him and him i know oh yeah so i there's just been situations where i feel like i'm walking on eggshells with him because i feel like the rug's going to get pulled out for me at any minute. So there's been times where either he's being a little too flirtatious with girls,

not so much anymore, but either that or we, when we were younger, I did let him have a threesome twice. So you let him have one or you participated with him you said that funny yeah i mean he he wanted it and i was 22 and i said sure okay so what does that have to do with right now i always feel this insecurity that i can't just be open because I feel like the rug's going to get pulled out for me. What does that mean? What does the rug get pulled out mean?

He's going to either leave or something's going to happen where we end up divorced, basically. Why do you think that's happening? I don't know. I think it's just our younger years when we were younger

and just the way that when alcohol gets in the way of feelings and then there was yelling matches and then the whole him asking to be with other women it's just made it made me very jaded of course that would make anybody jaded yes but you picked up the phone and called me recently. Why? It's just, I don't know. I could talk with my husband. It's, I want to be open with him all the time, but I find it very hard because I feel like if I say one thing wrong, that, um, Like if I say one thing wrong, that it could result in an ending.

Has he said that, Selena? No, he has not. So are you imagining this? I think so. Let me just tell you this. Secrets will kill you. And so if you hedge a relationship and you hold the stuff that is important to you, like grief and loss, and I don't want to have sex with you and another woman.

If you need other women, fine. I'm out of this relationship. But the more you cash in your own being, your own soul, your own authenticity as some sort of hedge against him leaving, he is married to somebody he knows. He feels it in his bones that is not being fully honest with him, which is the best driver to send somebody out.

And he's going to use you as the excuse, even though there's not one. You see how this just creates a self-perpetuating cycle? When's the last time he mentioned You see how this just creates a self-perpetuating cycle? Yeah. When's the last time he mentioned wanting to be with somebody else? His birthday, so at the beginning of this month. Two weeks after your miscarriage?

Yeah. Oh, Selena, lead with that. Good God. Yeah, and I think because I wasn't vocal to him about... No, no. It's because he's an ass. I'm trying not to swear with all my guts.

Yeah, that level of insensitivity is disgusting it's embarrassing yeah stop just sit in that for a second yeah he doesn't deserve to be with you Selena people do

goofy things when they're 22 people do unhealthy things when they're 22 people do unhealthy things when they're 22 people do whatever you're going to have to open hand some of those choices y'all made when y'all were going to raves and stuff you have to let that stuff just be a part of your past we all have them but you're also going to have to sit in the fact that after

a really traumatic experience that you didn't even have the words to discuss his response was you know it's birthday time yeah exactly your pain and your hurt are justified, okay? I'm disgusted with you. Do you need to take a break from him? From him? No. No, because he'll say things like that, and I know he's not

thinking of what I'm feeling in the moment. That's the problem. Yeah. He's your husband. The vast majority of his thoughts in his day should be focused on what his wife is thinking and feeling.

With the hope that the vast majority of your thoughts are about how you can help meet his needs, what he's thinking, what he's experiencing. Yeah. And that is me as a human. I'm very much the caregiver of everyone. So I'm always thinking of that. Here's what I want you to do okay

you've been protecting him for so long you and I can't unwind this in a phone call what I can tell you is you need to

talk to somebody very very quickly okay because you've got a you need to sit down with a professional counselor, A, to talk about how to grieve. Because you're going to have to grieve the distance between you mom used you as a, as a figurine for her own, um, her own self.

She propped herself up using you. Yes. And now in the moments when you need your husband the most, he's like, Hey, very similarly, I want to use you too for my birthday. Yeah.

And all that's a lot. And the only response you've got in your soul is to look in the mirror and blame yourself and try to fix it. And you didn't do anything wrong with your mom. That was on her. And I'll tell you this, even the most sexually adventurous people I know

would never, in a million years, 13 or 14 days removed from such tragedy. Be like, hey, you know what? It's madness. Yeah. So I want you to, will you commit to talking to somebody? I will.

Yeah. I'll look into finding a counselor. Yeah. That's different than actually making the call. You promise you'll make a call? I'll make a call today. Do you. That's different than actually making the call. You promise you'll make a call. I'll make a call today. Do you promise you'll go to the appointment? Yes,

I promise. You just promised in front of all of America. Actually, we only have like 18 listeners, but you just promised in front of all of them. Are you in? I'll do it. I am.

I'm in. Yeah. You are worth so much more than being the relational janitor for everybody in your life, cleaning up everybody else's messes. Okay. I agree. Yeah. I'm sorry, sweetheart.

Yeah, I know it's a lot but um no no buts it's just a lot yeah no buts just and it's a lot and it hurts right now and I'm sorry but thankfully just listening to you

has helped me out um I'm a big Harry Potter person and you're like a Dumbledore to my Harry Potter. Is that an old joke? Is that an old joke? No. I am pretty old. I understand. No. You're not too far off from me. I'll take Dumbledore all day long.

So I'm grateful. You are worth so much more. You're worth being well. Please call somebody today. This is going to take some time to unravel this because it's wired into you. And let's say this. I don't know him.

I haven't talked to him. I'd be talked to him. I'd be happy to talk to your husband if he wants to call in. And maybe he's just hurting too and he doesn't know how to do it. And he just said stupid things and put stupid things on the table to try to make himself feel better. So I don't want to beat him up. Too bad. As frustrating as that is.

Maybe he's hurting too. All I have to say is you can't do anything about his nonsense other than to say no and go be the champion of your healing. Let me know how it goes. I'll walk with you every step of the way, Selina. 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.

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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 tollow.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 the 512 in Austin and talk to Lindsay. Hey, Lindsay, what's up?

Hey, Dr. John, how are you? Partying. What are you up to? Not much. I listen to your show like every single day and I always, seriously, I always hear you, um, say to choose guilt over resentment every time. And my question is what if I choose guilt over resentment and then my spouse resents me later for it. You can't control that. Mm-hmm. And I hate that for you. What is your spouse resenting you over? Not yet, but I'm like

worried that it will happen. You're pre- worrying about future potential resentment. Yes. I love it. That's not anxious at all. Okay, so why are you pre-worrying about potential future resentment?

Okay, I'll give you an example that we have. So my husband and I come from like really different backgrounds culturally. And we just, we have a different family dynamics. So he would ideally like to see his family a lot more than I would. And, you know, I've offered like, why don't you go by yourself? That type of thing. But it always turns out like he wants me to come with, we have a one-year-old daughter. And so he also thinks it's like important for her to be around his family and

stuff like that. Um, and so I've been really honest with him. Like I'm not comfortable, you know, taking as many trips down to see your family as you would like to, but you know, we can compromise type of thing. And we've been working with a therapist and I will say like, he has been really good. The last time we went down there about, um, changing the way the trip looks and kind of catering to my needs more and stuff like that. But, um, I guess I'm just worried that down the line, like obviously the inevitable will happen and like family members will pass away

and like things like that. And I just don't want him to come back and say like, we should have spent more time with them. And it's your fault that we didn't. Does he have a really overbearing mom? I would say they had, he was definitely raised by like an emotionally immature mother. Yes. Okay.

So when y'all go down to visit, do you get backseated? Okay. Is that why you don't like to go? Or is there other reasons? Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to build a relationship with them before like marriage and a baby. So I do feel like his family is like really tight niched and I'm kind of like the outsider. That's just like the black sheep, if you will. Is that a real thing? Are you imagining that too?

I would say it's pretty real. Like, you know, there's conversations that are being had and I'm kind of just like in the background, nobody really like talks to me or kind of asked me like things about myself or makes me feel included in the family. It's really hard to get a word in cause they're all like really close. And, um, so it just, it just, I'm really uncomfortable there. I'm just trying to get to the level of discomfort. Are you uncomfortable because people aren't making overt, um, efforts to include you? Are you uncomfortable because they're talking about awful things or they're disgusting and rude

or they're grabby? See what I'm saying? Because here's the thing. If you are unsafe, absolutely don't go. Never go. I don't think I'm unsafe. I think it's more like,

I've tried to even say like, can your family come up here? Cause obviously it's really hard to travel with. We have like an almost one year old, so it's not convenient to do like a three hour road trip with a baby. Um, and so like, we've had instances where like his mom will come here and she just like, I feel like she just makes comments that are just like unnecessary. Of course she does. She's emotionally immature. We've already established that.

So it's like being around a rattlesnake and you're like, I just feel like the rattlesnake just makes noise. It's like, yeah, that's what they do. That's what they do. So I'm like, I don't really want to spend time with these people. Understood. Understood. And you married him. Yeah. And you married him. Yeah.

So you married them. Now, you get to decide whether they hurt your feelings or not, which sounds nutty. Meaning his mom is going to be part of his life unless she's abusive or she is criminal or she is insane, right? Like, whatever. She's going to be part of his life. You married into that. And so you get to decide what that boundary looks like,

whether you're going to visit or not visit, whether you're going to be around or whatever. But you're going to be in each other's life. And so when she pops off and makes all these comments about, I would never do it like that. And I don't do it like that. And I can't believe you keep your house like this. And I would be doing this. And oh my gosh, that baby's going to be so cold. And just comments all the time. You get to decide whether you are confident in what you're doing, which if you have a nine or 10 month old, you probably are not. I didn't even know what day it was. And you get to decide

whether she speaks into your soul or not, or whether she's just this meandering, piping old lady that is in the house. It's going to be over a couple of times a year. You see what I'm saying? Like there's a, it's just a, the best way I can describe it,

it's like if you've ever been skiing, like water skiing. So when you first get the boat takes off and you're sitting in the water It just is a jet blast of water to your face And then you crest on top of it and you get on top of the water and really um, if you're really good like my friend rachel cruz we go skiing out She gets in the water and we'll go skiing and then get out of the water and her hair is perfectly dry. I don't even know how she does that. She's good at it. And so you can be around those people and they aren't going to affect you.

Like, okay, you can make all your comments. I don't care. Now, if you say something offensive around my kid, I'm going to speak my mind. If you say something ugly about my spouse or my husband or my wife, whatever, I'm going to speak up. But if you're just going to pick at my cooking and how clean my house is and how you can't believe it, whatever. So that's number one. Number two, at some level, your husband is choosing to shoot himself in the foot and blame you for it Right, right if he doesn't want to go see his family or I only want to go if it's like this perfect picture I have in my head Well, then that's on him

I don't want you to spend to waste valuable emotional and relational energy worrying about things that might happen 5, 10, or 15 years from now. I mean, you're worrying about funerals. Right? Now, let me diffuse. Here's the fastest way I've learned to diffuse that in my own life. Just say it out loud. I'm uncomfortable around your family. And when you don't go, I'm worried that in 10 years, if somebody passes away, you're going to blame me for the lack of time you didn't spend with them.

Just say it out loud. Yeah. It's funny you say that because I actually told him I was going to be on the call. And I told him my question. I said, is there anything you want to add to this or like, you know, put your two cents in? And he's like, that's just a really good question. I'm like, okay. Oh, because he is going to be mad at you someday?

I don't know. I just, he tends to be kind of a people pleaser. So sometimes I'm like, are you compromising? He grew up with an emotionally abusive mom. Of course he's a people pleaser he had to be yeah but I'm like are you compromising because like you understand and this is like what you also want to do or are you just doing it to like get me to shut up does it matter for you yeah because that that's asking a lot I want you to do what I say, and I want you to want to do it the way I said it because that's... You see what I'm saying? Yeah.

If you say, I don't want you to go, or I don't want us to go, and he says, all right, I won't go. You can't be mad at him for grieving that. He gets that. Right. Because he had a picture in his head that he was going to have one big happy family. And he doesn't. He has a fractured family.

And that's not your fault. It just is. But you can't get mad at him for not feeling the same way you feel about a thing. That's true. Is that fair? So if he says no, I'm going to support my wife even when it hurts.

That's pretty awesome. Now, if he turns around and blames you for it later, that's pretty lame because he's making grown-up choices. Here's the thing. A catchphrase like choose guilt over resentment feels so good every time. It feels so good and it feels so neatly wrapped up in a package and it's so instructive. I'm just going to do this instead of this. When the world gets chaotic, I'm going to do this instead of this.

Awesome. It also is really hard. And you can only choose your guilt and if somebody chooses to resent you you can't do anything about that Unless you want to go run be a people pleaser at which point you're going to end up in a cycle of resentment So if somebody chooses to not be in relationship with you it hurts grieve it And you can get on about your day And go figure out what happens next. I do want you to spend some time personally

asking yourself, is the things that are happening when you visit the family, are they cultural differences? Are they outsider differences? Or are they purposely excluding you? Because if it's cultural differences and they're trying to honor you and the best way they know to honor you is to not offend you or not be weird around you. So they're just going to try to love you by circling the wagons. Then maybe you go learn some stuff about this culture. Maybe you go take some classes or learn some language, whatever the thing is. I don't know what the culture is. I don't even know a thing. But maybe you make an effort to lean in. Or if they're ugly people, they just don't want you around. They're pissed off at your husband for marrying you and creating

a family with you, then y'all have got to create an alt universe. You have to create another world because they are opting out of relationship with you and their grandkid and their child. And that hurts, man. It's hard. But I'll tell you as a guy who spent a big chunk of my adult life in anxious mess, worrying and spinning up today about things that may happen 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now is a complete and utter waste of your life. Don't do it. I lost years of beautiful moments in the present, freaking out about things that may never happen. And if they do, okay,

I'll deal with them when they happen. Live your life now. Continue to be honest with your husband. And remember, your mother-in-law doesn't get a vote. She didn't get a vote. And you get to decide what happens next. Oh, marriage is hard. 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, we are back as we wrap up today's show. As we wrap up today's show, I am taking over. I'm hijacking the lyrics today. It's up.

Oh, great. Actually, we're not going to do lyrics today because I wanted to give people some information. So I follow on. It's her birthday, everybody. It's not. It was two weeks ago. All right.

All right. So I follow Sesame Street on Instagram because we all need a little Sesame Street. As you're scrolling social media, come on, you need that. But they've done something that I thought was super cool and a great resource for parents of young kids. So I wanted to make sure everybody knew about it. They've been doing, kicking off this past month, an initiative for mental health and emotional well-being of little kids. And it's multi-year, multi-tiered, multi-platform. So it's a big thing and it's got a ton of resources on it.

So if you go to sesame.org slash mental health, there are videos, there are worksheets, there are color sheets. There's activity guides. There's all sorts of things that you can go in, and it talks about kids and their feelings, how to own their big feelings. I saw you coloring a picture at your desk yesterday. I know. It was, and I felt better. Elmo, help me. I'm pissed off.

I'm going to color a picture of Grover. I'm going to feel so much better. I love Grover. I know. One of my favorite books, The Monster at the End of the Book. It's a great Groverver. Yes. I'm going to feel so much better. Oh, I love Grover. I know. One of my favorite books, The Monster at the End of the Book. It's a great, great Grover book. Excellent.

Anywho. But yeah, so it's bilingual. All the resources are bilingual. And you have, there's videos, an Elmo video called, I Notice, I Feel, I Can. I Notice My Emotions, How I Feel, and I Can Control It.

I think adults should participate in this. I think adults should participate in this. I think adults should probably watch this as well. You're right. This would be fantastic for some of you. There's actually a PSA campaign and there's a new podcast episode with Dr. Lori Santos and the Happiness Lab, who's fantastic. Yeah, she's awesome. She's awesome. She's doing a whole podcast with Sesame Street. And just the whole gist of it is to help kids with their big emotions because they just throw temper tantrums. They don't know what to do with all of their emotions. And there's a ton of resources on the site. I've put it in the show notes already.

And I went through it and I looked at it and man, it would have been great to have that stuff. And we're coming up with summer. Your kids are going to be home. And this isn't just for three and four-year-olds. This is for 30 and 40-year-olds. Yeah. I'm a parent of teenagers. There's some stuff in here we can be using. But it's just such a great resource to teaching them about their emotions now when they are three, four, five, six. And then later you have teenagers and adults that can actually regulate their emotions. Turn the news off.

Yeah. And learn what their emotions mean, that it's okay to be angry. Like what got me was I was flipping in social and it was Abby Cadabby and that little thing that said, I feel grumpy today. And I was like, preach sister. I do too. Me too. I know.

I tried to get on the Sesame Street as part of the thing. And they said, well, you've already got an Oscar the Grouch on your show. So we're going to pass. I don't think they were talking about Jenna. See, and this is where, because I know my emotions, I can just let that pass. And not say all the words that I want to say.

Hey, when this season is over, we're all going to get Sesame Street character tattoos. I'm buying. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be hard for you to find space. You're going to make me get an Oscar the Grouch, aren't you? A hundred percent, yes yes I'll get Big Bird alright so that's Kelly

Kelly's insights of the day is that what we should call them? the kid Kelly's insights of the day Ben you can get some absurd music to go with it Kelly's but hey take care of your kids this

summer as we approach maybe a little of emotional and emotional well-being. Some teaching about feelings and emotions would be good for maybe all of our country. I think that would be fantastic. All right, that's it for the day.

Y'all stay in school. Don't do drugs. Love y'all. Bye.