The Dr. John Delony Show - Do You Feel Like the World’s Gone Crazy?

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

In today’s show, we’re talking to a mom struggling to get control of her anxiety, a young woman unable to climb out of debt and depression, and a stepdad who needs to tell his stepson about his biological father’s arrest.   How do I stay grounded despite my fears about the state of the world? I’m drowning in debt, depression, and being a caretaker for my family How do we talk to our young stepson about his father’s recent arrest for abuse? Lyrics of the Day: "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" - R.E.M. 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 Churchill Mortgage 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.

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I have like 150 pounds to lose in addition to battling depression and anxiety. So I'm wondering how exactly to set kind of some healthy boundaries while taking care of myself, while paying off all this debt. Sounds to me like you're drowning. Hola! Me llamo Juan! This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. We're so glad you're here. So glad you're

here. We're talking about mental health, education, relationships, love, loss, and all those things they sing about in the 80s metal ballads. If you want to be on the show, go to johndeloney.com slash ask or give us a shout and leave a message at 1-844-693-3291. Super cool. Super cool.

So I get notes and cards and letters and owl telegrams or pigeon telegrams. I don't get any of those. I just, whatever. People let me know through the internets mostly that they love the show and they love telling people about it. And that there's always fun trying to describe this show because it's like a mental health show and it's a show about like how to live better lives. It's a show about marriage and relationships and dating and sex and whatever but also there's like a lot of diarrhea jokes and a lot of inside baseball and a lot of movie lyrics like how do we describe this thing so the team here a group of incredible ones and zeros kids like they're great at uh videoing and i know there's words for this stuff, and editing, and all those things. They created the greatest show trailer of all time.

It's so great. I watched it, and I cheered. Here's how good it was. I showed my wife, and I've never sent an episode ever to her, ever. Why? She doesn't super care for it. But,, I send her this and she watched it and she goes, hmm, that's, that's really good. That's like, she brought like a, like a high school marching band into our living room and just started banging things around. And like, that was a

celebration parade in my home. And she said, that looks pretty good. It passed my wife test. It's really great. If someone says, Hey, what's. It passed my wife test. It's really great. If someone says, hey, what's this show about? Or you want to send this to somebody? This is the key. So check it out. Here it is. The new show trailer to the Dr. John Deloney show.

So what's the show about? Oh man, that's hard, brother. What's up? Hey, what are you doing? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. What's happening? We say the show's about mental health and relationships, how to live a well life.

Listen, take yourself out to dinner. It is rare that I hear a new one, and that's a new one, so well done. So the show can go anywhere at any time. On today's show, we talk to a woman who's in love with a hypochondriac, and it's so hard, to a dad who's trying to teach body positivity to his young daughters, dealing with big T trauma and family history, to a sister whose brother-in-law has screwed up everything,

and we talked to a young mom whose husband keeps making sexual jokes around the kids. Whoa! Stay tuned. People ask me all the time, man, how'd you learn how to do this? To take those calls and get to it real fast and make some jokes and bring the room up.

Truth is, I've been doing that a long, long time. I got two PhDs. I've been doing this for a couple of decades, and I'm still learning every day. Still trying to figure it out as I walk alongside people. The guests are incredible. They're fantastic. So it's fun to have guests, man,

who have done a bunch of fancy stuff. I love it. The heart of the show is callers just like you. Yeah, I mean, my dad was angry growing up. He never... That's all you gotta say. That's all you gotta say. That's all you gotta say.

Your dad is intentionally disregarding your requests for how you can best be loved. Yeah. And that disregard is violence. I don't want to try to take the kids from her, but I also feel like I'm responsible for their safety as their dad. All right. So listen, listen to me carefully. Okay. Yeah. Your, your instinct is right. And I heard you say it at the end there, and I love your heart. I don't want

to take these kids from their mother. And what I would say to you is she is screaming for somebody to please take these kids from me before I hurt them. Have you ever heard me lie to anybody? No. Okay, I'm not starting today. It's not your fault. You cannot do life alone. You can't heal from hurt on your own. And that's what this show is for, man.

And if you will put in the work, you'll give me a call, you'll do the hard work, you will change your family tree. And it starts with you deciding you're worth being well. All right. So there it is. That's it. It's pretty rad. And thank you for checking it out. Please subscribe to the show. The show is continuing to grow so much. And I'm so grateful for you. Subscribe to the show, whether it's on podcast, whether it's on YouTube, you can go to youtube.com slash John Deloney, and you can send that show trailer out to everybody, put it on the internets and it will cycle out there and do what things on the internets do, whatever. So let's go to our first call. Let's go to Christina, right down the street, Christina in Nashville, Tennessee. What's up, Christina?

Hi, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call. Of course. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. How are you? Remarkable. So what's up? How can I help you? Wonderful. Well, so before I dive into my question, let me just give a quick background. I'm a person who's dealt with major anxiety in the past, started nine years ago when I was pregnant with our third child. And so then I had to go on medication then. I've been through a lot of therapy and got to the point where really I feel like I was able to rewire my brain and just learn all the things. I got your book, Redefining Anxiety. And it was kind of after I'd gone through this process and it was just like, yes, yes, yes, this is totally the pathway to freedom from that.

Even went through COVID without spiraling from anxiety, which was amazing. So I was kind of surprised recently when the war with Ukraine started. It just kind of sucker punched me and took me back to some of those major places of anxiety. But I guess what my question is, is I feel like a lot of my anxiety used to be about things that weren't a real possibility. But with this war, I feel like they're more like rational fears, if that makes sense. And so my question is, um, how does a rational person prepare for potentially grim outcomes or a future without going off the deep end? Cause I feel like that can happen really quickly. Um, and because of my history,

you know, of let's move to the country, let's store guns, let's store food, let's just go way off the deep end, you know, where's the middle ground? And yeah, that's my question. So Christina, do you realize by articulating the question like you just did, how far you've grown. Yeah. No, I'm so grateful. The work you have done. I know you're grateful for it. The work you have done is incredible.

Because you just articulated perfectly a real world example of my body's feeling this. I know reality's here. How do I, how do I deal with the gap between the two? Yeah. Dude. And I don't want to fill it up with guns and meats full of freezer and bullets and, you know, underground bunkers. And so what do I do with that gap? Dude, you are so far down the road. It's incredible. What you've done is you've created a new life for yourself and for your family. So the Ukraine thing did this to me. But before we go down this road, I blamed Ukraine. And it is real. The war is real.

The potential for spillover is real. The connection, like the playbook, if you look back in history at some of the other major wars, it all tracks, right? Right. But if I'm honest with myself, that was simply the match that lit the kindling and gasoline that I'd set up over a period of time. So do you have major life stuff going on? Well, I'm pregnant with our fifth child, so I know I've got the hormones. Forget the hormones. Number one, I'm not a hormone doctor, so I can't speak to that. And two, I'm not going to talk about that because I'll get in trouble. But you're having another kid. Yeah. So you, what number? Five.

You have a thousand kids. Pretty much. Wow. Okay. So you've got four. What are the ages? 12, 10, 8, then jump down to two. And here's the buddy for the two-year-old.

Ayo. Coming. And here's the buddy. We had you because we had dreams. We had you because we had dreams. We had you because, just because. It was, it seemed smarter than some sort of doodle, right? Oh, man. So, okay, my guess is that your body has a narrative, and the narrative can speak to any number of things.

But with a baby comes a lot of stress. It comes stress on your marriage. It comes stress on your physical body. You have memories of when your body is for a year or more or two years is not your own. And if you had a 12 and 10 and an eight, your body wasn't yours for six or eight years, right? It's always, it's a utilitarian. And then you got some husband pawing at you.

Like it just, it's not yours, right? And how do I find myself? That is a recipe for an anxious alarm to go off. We're not safe. We're not okay. We're not safe. We're not okay. So then not safe. We're not okay. So then you fast forward, you get your life back.

You start healing. And a lot of the healing feels like I'm doing all this hard work, which you are, but also your life is flattening out a little bit. You and your husband get in some sort of rhythm. You got a house full of three kids and now you have a COVID baby, which gave you a great distraction. It did. Now you've got a potential World War III buddy baby, right? Yeah. And so here we are.

So the first thing I want you to do when you start feeling anxious now is I want you to ask your body, what are you trying to protect me from? What are you trying to tell me? And it could be any number of things. I blamed the last month or two a lot on Ukraine stuff. The reality is for the last couple of months, I've isolated myself. I've not hung out with other people. And I am a guy who teaches

about relationships for a living and I've all but I can't tell you a time I've hung out with just a group of guys months, I've been on the road all over the place the second thing is I just put a book out and, or I'm about to and I am feeling

a sense of pressure that I've never understood before, I've never understood before. I've never even come close to this, right? And it's like being, it's like a nude photo. I would much rather, that's not an impressive photo. But I think I would rather that than this book because it's so exposing, okay? So I blamed Ukraine, but the reality is I've created an ecosystem that has kept me from being safe.

So I would challenge you to go back and look at where am, do I have my weekly meeting with my girlfriends? Do me and my husband have a time every day, every week that we are connecting together? Not sexually, just connecting. Right? So all, you hear what I'm saying? Like we're going to go back to these fundamentals and basics. Most of the time we've got, we get off those things. And so look back at your life. Tell me, tell me where we are on that track. Yeah. I mean, so I'm a homeschool mom.

I'm homeschooling my kids. So by nature that creates kind of a isolating environment of sorts. I mean, we're very well connected, but still. It's super isolating. Yes. Yes. Yes and no. I mean, by nature it is. We do have a great community of people, but I did go through, of course, the first trimester of being isolated because I was so sick and in bed. And I don't think I've reconnected like we were before that happened. Did the shame fairy show up and remind you how much of your kids' lives you were missing? And God, just get up and your husband's going to get annoyed. Yeah, I mean, that's a really hard season when you feel pretty useless.

You're just laying there like a blob. That's such a lovely image that you've concocted of yourself. Christina, you're not just laying there like a blob. God almighty. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to, and I'm going to address the second half of your question because it's really important. I want you to tell your husband, hey, I want to reconnect.

And I have felt out of my body, and here's some of the stories I've been telling myself. That's the language I use in my house. Story I'm telling myself is this. I got that from the great Brene Brown and it has saved my marriage. Okay. But tell them, here's the story that I'm just a blob laying around, that I'm this, that I'm only useful for educating these dumb kids while you're off. And, and here's a couple of things I need. I need you to hold my hand. We're not doing it.

I need you just, or maybe we are, like whatever you need, but I need physical touch again. I need you to do the bedtimes twice a week. I need to once a week go with my girlfriends and we're just gonna go be silly and I'm gonna watch them drink wine, whatever the thing is.

But plug back into the life-giving practices. And generally speaking, the alarms will begin to wind themselves down. And if they don't, then talk to your OB-GYN about, say, hey, when I go through pregnancy, I experienced some significant anxiety and they'll walk through just like last time. And it's not a, I mean, you're not failing anything. That's awesome. Now you have a name for it and you can go right to the source. That's all good.

The second thing is, and you asked a great question. How do you be rational during times of irrationality? Beautiful question. Remember that anxiety is not a rational response. it comes from the irrational part of our brain the part of our brain that just says you will stay alive at all costs and in fact when those alarms go off it unhooks or unplugs the rational part of our brain, which is why my wife went to visit some friends in Missouri that happens to be the place where I've bought meat in the past. Now I buy, I get my stuff, I get my meat shipped from Greensbury Farm. I love all that Greensbury crew. They're incredible.

They send stuff, but I told my wife, hey, go ahead and grab another 150 pounds at this boy's ranch of just beef. And she said, no, we're not doing that. We have incredible seafood and beef that's shipped to our home now, and we've got so much in our freezer. So I found myself, it sounded rational, it sounded smart, but I realized, oh, this is coming from another part of my brain, which leads me to this. In moments of irrational, you train yourself, you set up a foundation that you're okay, and you have other people.

So here's the quick path here. Okay. I'm going to train myself to only spend a certain amount of time on the internet so that when something for real happens, I've got capacity. I'm going to train myself to be intentional about looking around and saying, I've got a great, I have, Greensberry sends food to my home. I'm okay. We have a giant garden for our vegetable needs.

We are good. I've got a grocery store. We are fine. I'm going to practice that so that when my brain spins out, I've got thoughts I can lean back on. I'm not going to absorb all the news and the this and the YouTube channels where they're just not telling you the truth. I'm not doing that. Okay? And I'm going to have a foundation of exercise and taking care of myself and meeting with my

friends. And the final one is I'm going to have people in my life that I go, is this true? Is this real? Is that fair? That's huge. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the conversation I've had with my husband. I said, you know, I feel like these are, I have a million ideas of how we can prepare. And I said, but I just really want to see if there are any that resonate with you because you're not messed, you know, you don't get messed with with this whole anxiety thing. Like he's so level.

He's just like this level anchor. You married so well. So here's the statement I would pass along in your house. I would come up with two different statements. From this point forward, I'm going to start saying the story I'm telling myself is,

and when you're seven months pregnant and you wake up and you can't move, and I want you to start saying the story I'm telling myself is, and when you're seven months pregnant and you wake up and you can't move, and I want you to tell him, the story I'm telling myself is, is that I'm not pretty and you're not going to love me. Say it out loud. Keep the secret and let it, I mean, don't keep the secret, let it out. Say it and let him respond to that. The second one is, I'm going to start asking you, is this real? I'm just going to ask you, is this real? And you can go, he can go, no, it's not. And you will commit to learning to trust him. And that sounds hard. Is it real?

Is World War III happening? Is this real? Maybe. But there's not a lot we can do about it in Nashville, Tennessee right now. We can A, B, and C. And just so we're clear, if there's nuclear bombs falling from the sky, your backyard garden's not gonna be huge, right? So we'll solve that problem for another time.

But is it real? And this is the story I'm telling myself. Those two things can really reconnect you when things around you are irrational and you're trying to stay anchored in reality. Good for you. I'm so proud of you, Christina. You're amazing. We'll be right back.

All right, we are back. Box of Cracker Jack. Let's go to Ashley in Omaha. What's up, Ashley? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. Awesome. What's up? So my question is, is I am on baby step two. I'm paying off debt. All right. So let me pause right here for our listeners who don't know what that is. She's following the Ramsey solutions, get out of debt plan, which is a seven step, the baby steps. We call it, um, step one to save up a thousand bucks. And step two is pay off all of your debts, smallest to largest, except for your mortgage. And so you are in, baby, step two. Are you grinding it?

I'm grinding it. How much debt do you got? Except I have about $30,000 in debt. What is it? Student loans. Student loans. Oh, gosh. Selling me, right? Oh, man oh man all right so you're grinding it

so i'm grinding it and i'm killing it um my question and my concern though is that i'm starting to run into some health issues physical mental health and uh i have like 150 pounds to lose in addition to battling depression and anxiety so I'm wondering how exactly to set kind of some healthy boundaries while taking care of myself while paying off all this debt

hmm how did we get from 7 yearyear-old Ashley to here? You've got a lot going on in your heart. Oh goodness. Yes, I do. It was, it was hard for you to say, I've got 150 pounds to lose and mental health challenges. That was hard to say out loud.

Yeah. That was really a brave thing. I could hear it in your voice. Walk me from seven-year-old Ashley till now. Seven-year-old Ashley. Let's see. Seven-year-old Ashley was just a child. Always kind of struggled with her weight.

Always being made fun of. I've struggled with my weight since i was little but i guess the big like weight challenges started when i was in high school okay when you get you get a childhood of you're not beautiful and we're making fun and i can't believe you're wearing that and all the noises and mean awful awful things that elementary and middle school kids say to each other. Yeah, not only that, but I'm also on the autism spectrum, so it kind of makes things a lot worse. Absolutely, right? So then you've got connection challenges, connecting with other people, and that makes it even worse.

God, grief, man, you've got a lot. Do you have a supportive network? I do. Mom and dad still in the picture? Mom and dad are very much still in the picture. You said that though. It's not, I very much still have a tumor. Are you glad they're in your life or no? Oh, I'm glad that they're in my life. It's just kind of. Yeah, that was a bad question. I didn't ask that question.

If you sat down with them tonight and said, I'm going to embark on four big things at once. I'm going to lose 150 pounds. I'm going to pay off everything I own. I am going to ultimately land a new job. And I'm going to take control of my mental health. Would they say, would they get tears in their eyes and say, you will have two cheerleaders, one running ahead of you and one running behind you, and we've got your back on this deal? Oh, absolutely.

They would? Yeah. Okay, so why are they making your life hard right now? Well, it's hard for me right now just because I live with them, but I've also had to step up as a role of a caregiver for my mom. Oh, gosh. You're also a caregiver for your mom. What does that mean? So she has some health issues right now, too, where she can hardly walk.

And they're looking at potential surgery in the future. So I've been having to kind of take more care of her and do stuff around the house for her and my dad. How old are you? I'm 30. Why has this become your job to be their caretaker? I figure I'm not married.

I don't have kids. I figure that, you know, I'm their daughter and they want what's best for me and I just want to take care of them and just certain things that I've seen with my

experiences in my life, I've come to that decision that I'm okay with being their caretaker. Sounds to me like you're drowning. Sounds to me like you're slowly suffocating. I do feel like I'm suffocating. Yeah.

You may have convinced yourself or forced yourself, but as the great Vendor Coke says, your body's keeping the score. And there's something codependent, there's something unhealthy about the relationship and interaction here. And wanting to take care of your mom is a beautiful, wonderful thing. But if you do it and you die in the process, you've not helped. Yeah.

It sounds like you've lived a life of, I'm trying to disappear. I'm going to hide in plain sight. I'll hide behind my weight. I'll hide behind my fill in the blank. And this is a way you can help even though helping is killing you. What I'd love to see you do, I'd love, love to see you look in the mirror and say, what do I actually want out of this one crazy life?

That's exactly how I feel. So can I ask you, what do you want? Like snap your fingers and you're down 150 pounds. And you owe nobody anything. Nothing. And you've got a new car that you paid for with cash. It's not new. It's like a 2019 or whatever.

What would you do? Oh, gosh. What would I do if I was deaf-free and if I had all the things in the world? Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Can I challenge you real quick? Sure, sure. The way you just said all the things in the world makes this sound like it's Cinderella.

And it's not. This is just getting your life back. This isn't a fantasy. It's not a myth. This is right in front of you. Yes. And you, my sister Ashley, are worth laughing and being loved and feeling good when you wake up and your knee's not hurting and your neck not hurting and every time you get that email from Sally Mae

your heart drops again when your boss treats you like crap and you think I'm worth more than you're worth all of that and this is not a Pixar movie this is your life what would you do? what would you do? What would you do?

Um I don't know I mean I never really thought that far in advance Okay I bet if you and I spent an hour or two together,

you could walk me back through some things that you think are pretty normal about how you grew up and how you were treated, and that I would probably be looking at you with my mouth wide open. You've seen and experienced a lot, haven't you? I have.

You have. And people have hurt you haven't they yeah so the hard the hard path here is saying this stuff happened and yet I'm worth more. So, so much more. So here's how you prioritize your health. You look in the mirror today and you say, I'm worth feeling good. I'm worth my dad getting up and he can help his wife because he's a grown man. My mom has struggles and we can negotiate. I might be able to help, but I'm gonna make a plan to at least consider moving out.

I'm going to continue to pay off my debts in the baby steps way, the same way I'm gonna be about changing the way I treat my body. because I'm worth being loved. And right now you hate yourself and you treat your body in a similar way. Is that fair? It's very fair. Okay. No more today. I'm not going to let anybody hate Ashley because Ashley's awesome. Because you got a great, great heart. And nobody's given you any tools to show the world how that thing works.

Okay? Okay. I think after 30 years, I think it's going to be very, very difficult to and possible to do this on your own. You've been in counseling, you said? Yes. Has that been effective or no? I'm guessing not. Not really. And I'm trying to find another counselor. Okay. So I'm going to do a couple of things for you today. Okay. Today is just the start. Today is when we turn the lights on. Okay. And your homework assignment

is this. I'm going to trade you a lot of cool stuff for your homework assignment. Fair? That's fair. Your homework assignment is I'm going to write Ashley a letter, and it's going to have three parts to it. Part number one, here's what happened. Part number two, owning where we are right now. I owe $30,000 in student loans, probably for a degree I'm not even using.

I'm 30 and I live with my parents. We didn't even talk about your romantic situation or anything like that. I am dealing with a highly codependent set of parents who are expecting this and that. And I've just talked myself into X, Y, or Z. And my body's falling apart on me. And my mental health is really struggling. I'm isolated and alone. And the third part of this letter is going to be you saying, here's what this could look like. Because if you don't have a place that you're going, you're not going to get anywhere.

If you don't have a picture of, I want you to dream as clear as possible. The house will look like this. The job will look like this. The person I'm dating will look like this. The car will look like this. My bank account will look like this. And I'm not doing this in some like manifest, and that's nonsense.

I'm saying you've got to have a picture that you are going to walk towards. And you saying, I've never even thought about that. You're worth a beautiful picture. And if you will do that, I want you to write this down, and I want you to either mail it to me or email it to me. Okay? That's your accountability. Cool?

Okay. That sounds good. For that, I'm going to do a couple of things. I'm going to give you a year subscription to Ramsey Plus. Okay? That comes with the Ramsey Solutions app for tracking every dollar app that tracks all of your expenses. Everybody around here uses it. It's incredible.

It's the best one on the market. It also has all of the financial piece videos that walks you through all the baby steps if you actually want to get out of debt. And it's got all kinds of other stuff in there. Tons of encouraging things, questions, all that kind of stuff. You got to use it though,

but I'm going to send it to you. I'm going to give you a year subscription, okay? And I'm going to send you a copy of my new book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future. It's what we're talking about. You got to own what happened, own reality, and then make a plan for what comes next. And that book will walk you step by step by step through it.

Okay? The third thing I'm going to send you is my friend Ken's book, Paycheck to Purpose. I want you to start dreaming about what kind of work you can contribute to in this world. And maybe it's taking care of your mom, but if it's taking care of your mom, then your dad's going to pay you a salary. Okay? Okay.

You're not going to be a free stay-at-home nurse for your family. Okay. Cool? That sounds good. And my hope the next time i talk to you are six inches taller not in reality but in the way you talk to and look at and love ashley will you say that out loud i'm worth being loved i am worth being loved and i can't wait to call you back after I've done all this and give you an update. Yes, Ashley.

I love it. I love it. 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 therapist 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, hey, we are back. I want to touch back real quick on that last call.

She called and said, hey, I'm out of debt and how do I deal with my health? And obviously, the conversation got much, much deeper. My debt is, again, for those of you, if you don't know, my boss is Dave Ramsey. I co-host the show with him. He's been on a crusade to get people to live lives not in debt for years and years, decades and decades. In the new book I talk about, I've been interested in the psychology of debt and this idea that a cornerstone of mental health, a cornerstone of being well is autonomy, freedom. And I've come to believe,

in fact, I'm partnering with the Research One University, I think I've talked about on the show, to do this study because I'm gonna get some data behind it. But I've come to believe that you cannot have mental health, physical health, if you owe people money. And here's why.

If you owe people money, your body knows that you are not safe because you do not have autonomy. You don't have freedom. The bank owns you. The car lease, you can't stop working. You can't deal with a death in the family. You can't deal with any sort of margin because next month that payment shows up and next month that payment shows up and the month after that and the month after that. And so there's this widening gap in our mental and physical health. And I've never seen anybody connected to debt. And I think it is intimately linked. And so I talked about this in the new book, by the way,

it's the last week for pre-order. Last week, the book is selling like great. I'm so grateful, so grateful, so blessed. Last week for pre-order, own your past, change your future. In that book, I talk about debt. And it's this story that we've told ourselves. And this is a new story, a brand new story, just a few decades old, that debt will save us. Personal debt used to be a curse, the end of time, the idea of spending more than you earned, not to mention significantly more, was insane. It was irresponsible. Everybody knew it. Debt was slavery. It was a strategy for trapping entire segments of a population and everybody knew it. And by the way, it still is. It is a planned way to trap a population of people. Why do you think your phone companies want you on a payment plan on

your phone? Because you never ask how much it costs and they can charge you more for it. And they will keep you going and keep you going and keep you going until the phone's about dead because they have their screw you button that they hit every two years. I don't know how it works, but it just ends the phone. And then you got to get another one. When I went in and bought mine with cash, every time, every time the person says, I've never had anyone try to buy it with cash. And I said, I just don't want to owe y'all money. I want this to be my phone, not a phone that I'm just kind of getting from y'all. And that's just one tiny, tiny segment. Sometime after World War II, the story began to change. Debt became seen as a tool or

an opportunity. Store credit, credit cards, personal loans, they all popped up and the general sentiment turned into, why wait until tomorrow when I can have it today? We're talking 50 to 100 years, 50 to 70 years. This is not a long time in the world history. And you fast forward today and working now to pay for something you ate last month is normal. Modern households with at least one credit card carry over $8,000 of credit card debt from year to year. That's turned into budgetless living, self-disciplineless living. Owing people money is crippling. It causes anxiety and depression, which are about a lack of control and autonomy as we talked about.

In the book, I unpack this story and many other ones, but listen, if you're struggling with anxiety or mental health, if you're struggling with, I'm out of control, a great place to start is who owns me? Who owns me? And that can be my mother-in-law. That can be Toyota Financial Services. That can be an abusive spouse, a toxic work environment, or my mortgage. Where am I not free? That usually is the pulsing alarm for your anxiety.

So own your past, change your future. Go to johndeloney.com, check it out. Let's get one more call in. I didn't know it was in Oklahoma. Fine. What's up, Kyle in Oklahoma? more call in. Oh, I didn't know it was in Oklahoma. Fine. What's up, Kyle in Oklahoma? Hey, John, how are you? I was great until I had to call an Oklahoman, but such a, I'm just kidding.

How's it going, man? At least it's not in a Houstonian, right? Boo. Dude, if H-Town would have been awesome. No, yeah, when you're in Texas, when you grew up in Texas, Oklahoma is basically southern Canada, and it's where most of Al-Qaeda lives. So it's all good. So what's up, dude?

Hey, so my wife and I have been married for about five years. We each have a child from a previous life relationship, and we've got a foster daughter as well. Calling about our middle son, he's my stepson, my wife's biological son, but I guess it was about four months ago, he was in his last week before Christmas break and his father was arrested

for child abuse. We got a phone call from DHS while he was at school and probably spent, it was probably a week before we even had a chance to talk to his father again. Uh, he just kind of said, you know, the lawyers advising that, you know, cut off contact with his son for right now, uh, while they're doing their investigation and whatnot. And I guess our question is two-part, really. It's do we kind of bring this up to our eight-year-old son and let him kind of know what's going on? Or do we wait for him to start asking questions?

And then just what kind of words do we use when we're trying to explain what happened here to him? The little boy's lucky to have you. That's awesome. Well, thank you. And thanks for being proactive, man. What a mess. So is it physical or sexual abuse?

Physical abuse. Our son's two stepsisters weren't involved. Our son wasn't involved. But, I mean, obviously he's been going over there in that kind of environment. Yeah. So broad recommendation. Every kid needs the bathing suit talk,

the talk about adult touch and kid touch and private parts and what's good touch and what's not good touch and the only people on all of the earth that will ever touch your body or that can ever see parts of your body are a doctor and mom and dad. Every kid needs that. So that's sexual abuse. And a safe place to mom and dad need to not say things like,

and again, I'm teaching to the audience here, not to you, but every mom and dad don't need to say, now, if anything happens, you just come tell us, okay? That's not how that works. Parents have to engage that conversation because the shame is so overwhelming for a child, right?

So that's sexual abuse. 99% chance your son has seen this, if not experienced it. Is that fair? Yeah, that's more than fair, yeah. Okay. So I think it's a very honest, direct, not graphic conversation that lets him know.

Because what he's gonna do is he's gonna slowly start to put together that he's not seeing dad and y'all are gonna be the bad guys. Right. And all kids understand that they are both mom and both dad, that that's part of them.

And so this conversation is gonna be not that your dad did this awful evil thing because to an eight-year-old, then that means part of me is awful and evil. It's going to be – I'm sorry. It is that he did an evil thing, not that he's awful and evil. Right. Got it? So because we're not going to connect identity to this eight-year-old little boy because he's going to say, well, then I'm capable of this type of evil. It's going to, have you all had conversations about abuse your son has suffered in the past?

No, and up till, I mean, this, we didn't really have reason to suspect it. I mean, we knew dad was, you know, kind of short-tempered and things like that. This was pretty out of character for him. So did he put into context, did he shake kids? Did he punch a kid? Like what happened? Throw a kid up against the wall? Yeah, I don't know.

I know mom, our son's stepmom, so dad's wife, works night shift. And kind of all the story we got was basically she came home, the girls had bruises on them. She sent them to school like that and then the school got involved. And we really hadn't had a chance to talk to his dad and stepmom about, you know, we don't really have their side of the story. Okay. Stepmom should also not to be permitted to be around those kids either. Ever again. Well,

yeah, they're actually going through a divorce, so that's not going to be a problem. That's great, but she doesn't need to be around those kids. The fact that she didn't ring the bell, that she pawned that off on the school is nonsense. Those girls looked to her for help, and she didn't provide it., that she pawned that off on the school is nonsense. Those girls looked to her for help, and she didn't provide it.

The school had to bail those kids out. She may or may not be in contact with the kids right now. I don't know. Well, I hope she's not. I hope she has no access to those kids at all because she failed them. She let them down. Right. She got charged too, so I mean I'm sure there's something in place there. So my conversation with my eight-year-old would be this.

We need to have a serious conversation with you, and I would do it in a place that's safe, and I would do it as much as possible with physical touch involved. Okay? Mm-hmm. Okay. The conversation would be very short and very direct and very honest, which is your dad got in trouble. He may have, we're not sure, but he may have hurt some people when he got angry and we're not going to be able to see him for a little while. And I would let my son ask any questions, say, I don't have a lot of answers. We don't know everything for sure.

What we do know is he's in trouble right now and your sisters are safe and the police are involved. And when we know more, we will let you know. If it comes out that this is true and this happened, and dad beat them up etc then the conversation will be an age appropriate um not using words like abuse and violent it will be your dad hit your little sisters with the closed fist on their legs and that's never okay for a grown-up to hit them and so they're not allowed to be around him anymore. And right now, we're not going to allow you.

And I think it's important for him to know that you are setting boundaries, even though he's going to hate you for him for right now. Okay? Okay, yeah. We are protecting you because that's our job. And the police officers or the courts or whatever one he's going to understand

have said that daddy can't be around kids anymore. And I know this is so, so sad. Your daddy does love you very, very much. And he's getting the help that he needs, et cetera. And we'll go down that road. But I think it's important for him not just to dad suddenly start ghosting him. It's that daddy got in trouble and he did some things when he was angry that he shouldn't have.

And for right now, we're not going to be able to see him. And let that be that. That makes sense. We're going to keep it very facts are your friends, very surface level. What we're not going to do is go into 18 hours of explanations.

And we love you. We're going to demonstrate that love through touch, through, hey, let's go get some dinner. We're going to demonstrate that love through touch, through, hey, let's go get some dinner. We're going to go out. Where do you want to eat? Give him some, this is really important. Give him a moment of choice

because you know what you're going to give him? When everything, he just lost control, you're going to give him a tiny, tiny piece of control back. Ah, okay. So where do you want to go eat? And more importantly, where do you want to get ice cream after we eat? All right. And whose hand do you want to go eat and more importantly where do you want to get ice cream after we eat

and whose hand do you want to hold mine or dad's dad's hands are huge but they're scratchy and mom's are soft you get to pick which one what music do you want to listen to in the car and he may say nothing he may go silent

he may have experienced this before maybe you ask him that question have you ever experienced dad when he got very very angry was it scary And he may say nothing. He may go silent. He may go, he may have experienced this before. Maybe you ask him that question. Have you ever experienced dad when he got very, very angry? Was it scary? And if he says no, never, then great, cool. That may or may not be true, but we're giving him tiny pieces of control

back in little pockets. And it's gonna settle his sweet little eight-year-old soul down a tiny bit. I don't think that I would mention right now, without the presence of a counselor, that it was his sisters that got beat up. Oh, okay. Because he is going to then be about trying to,

I've got to be with my sisters. And now you've got a whole other thing going on. Okay. My guess is he's had to protect them before. Okay. And he may need to see sisters, by the way. And if y'all can make that happen in any shape, form, or fashion, make it happen. Okay.

Take them all to the movies, whatever. But he may need to put eyes on them. And I wouldn't take that from him, if at all possible, if the courts allow that. But great, great question. So I rambled a lot at you here's the ultimate underlying things in a summary facts are your friends state it clearly age appropriately in a way that he can understand but do it in a context of touch somebody's holding one hand mom's you've got your hand on the back of his neck that he feels safe because his body's going to take off on him. Ask him, has this ever happened

to you before? Have you ever seen daddy get angry? And if he doesn't want to answer that, great, cool. The third thing is, here's what we're going to do now. You're safe here with us. And then we're going to, sisters are going to stay with some folks right now and they're going to keep them safe and they're going to be loving. And where do you want to go eat? Okay. And then we're going to go from there. Okay. All right. Kyle, I take back all the mean things I said about Oklahomans. You've, you've done your, you've done your, your, I was going to say you've done your country well, you've done your state well. Man, this, we're this, your kids are lucky to have you brother and the community's lucky to have you in it.

To everybody listening, if there are kids in your world, whether they're your kids or others, and they show up with bruises, you stop everything, cancel everything, and make the calls. 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, as we wrap up today's show, this song is for the great and lovely and kind and incredibly good-looking senior associate executive czar, Blake Thompson, his favorite band of all time, R.E.M., shout out, it's the end of the world as we know it,

and I feel fine, and it goes like this. That's great. Starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an airplane, and Lenny Bruce, he's not afraid. I have a hurricane, listen to yourself churn. World serves its own needs. Don't misserve your own needs. Speed it up a notch. Speed, grunt, no strength. The ladder

starts to clatter with fear of height. Down height. Wire in a fire representing seven games. I don't even know what that means. And a government for hire in a combat site left of west. Coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck and a bunch of other words spoken really fast,

it's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. And I hope you do too. We'll see you soon. Coming up on the next episode. Students are, you know, zoning out really fast. The phones are coming out.

They're watching videos, texting friends, listening to music. After two years, three years of absolute, fast. The phones are coming out. They're watching videos, texting friends, listening to music. After two years, three years of absolute, complete, and total isolation, that phone has become their heartbeat. Now, are you nervous about being a military wife? Yes. So have you sat down and had an honest conversation with a military wife about that world, that life? No, actually. You should probably do that.