The Dr. John Delony Show - Family Sexual Abuse, Setting Healthy Routines, & Stepping Up

Episode Date: March 12, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode   My grandfather molested me when I was 7 and I need closure. He also still has access to kids and I'm not sure what to do. How do I set healthy routines? I have a disconnect between my brain and my body. I want to work out and eat better but I also do what feels good. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones - James Clear Discipline Equals Freedom - Jocko Willink My parents are currently raising my brother's kids. I know I should step up and help but I have a busy family of my own. What do I do? Lyrics of the Day: "Gentrify" - Propaganda   tags: sexuality/intimacy, abuse, parenting, trauma/PTSD, fitness/physical health, family, boundaries   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.

On today's show, we talk about heavy things, so watch out for the little ears in the room. We'll be talking about childhood sexual abuse. We'll be talking about changing your life, losing weight, and becoming more disciplined. And we're going to talk about cultural issues and dealing with your brother's kids and stepping up in your family. Stay tuned. Hey, what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I hope you're doing well.

Hope you're treating people around you nice. Hope people are treating you nice. Hope you're taking care of yourself, exercising, sleeping, getting outside. I don't know, man. It may still be cold where you are. It can't make up its mind here. We had a snow day. I almost said we literally had a snow day, but that would have been an annoying use of an adverb there.

No reason to add that because we did have a snow day last week, and then today it's 111 degrees out here, so I don't know what's going on. But anyway, on today's show, we've got a lot going on. I'm excited you're here. Just as a reminder, if you're new to, or if you're, just as a reminder, slash, or if you're new to this show, there is no slash there, we talk about mental health, we talk about relationships, we talk about everything on the show, right? We've gotten into education, policy, and politics, and health, and wellness. Everything that is going on in your life, in your heart, in your mind, in your relationships. Give me a call at 1-844-693-3291.

That's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash show. Fill out the form and we will get you in live and in person. And I'd like to take this moment as we start the show to let Kelly, Zach, James know I am dedicating my life to one thing. That's not being a better husband, being a better parent. It's being on time and prepared at work. So Zach just cheered. So listen, today, look, look, I've got notes, everything. I'm ready to go. That's great. It's episode 82, so I'm glad you figured it out.

Episode 82. Some of us, it takes a minute. Some of it takes, I don't know, an annual performance review, but some of us are working on it. Does this include meetings? Why do you have to be drinking the haterade, Kelly? That's next week. Today it's about the show. No, it doesn't include meetings. It just includes this.

That's unfortunate. You're unfortunate. All right, so give me a call. 1-844-693-3291. Let's go to the phones. Let's go to Elise in Vancouver, Washington. Elise, what's going on? How can I help? Hi, good morning. Or afternoon, sorry. Hey, it's good to Elise in Vancouver, Washington. Elise, what's going on? How can I help? Hi.

Good morning. Or afternoon, sorry. Hey, it's good to talk to you. Yeah, thank you for having me. You betcha. So what's up? Well, let's do a little background story first. Uh-oh.

My grandfather. Anytime somebody starts with a background story, usually it's a lot here. So go for it. Okay, so when I was seven, my grandfather sexually assaulted me. So he was my next-door neighbor growing up, my grandparents were, and they're actually still my parents' next-door neighbors. I'm 21 now. I'm married. I live about 30 minutes from them. I have a 17-month-old daughter who's my absolute world. Awesome.

And I just feel like I've never gotten healing, and I just, I don't know. Now I'm an adult, and I have a daughter, and I realize I need healing and something maybe should have been done a little differently. I'm just needing advice on kind of where to start, where to go. Yeah, well, first, thank you for trusting me with that. I appreciate that. And congratulations on your beautiful little baby girl. Your husband's a good guy?

Yes, he's my absolute rock. That's awesome. Good for you. All right, so take me back, not in detail, but take me back to when you were seven. So, was this a one-time incident, or it was over a season? Tell me about what you experienced back then. So, it was a one-time incident, and my mom could tell. I went up to my grandparents to drop off something and it happened while I was there.

My grandma was at work, so it was just my grandpa at home. And my mom could tell something was wrong, you know, as the day kind of went on. And so I eventually told her that day. My dad got home from work. I told him. And they called my grandparents and went up there and talked to them. And I never really heard how that conversation went. Um, I kind of

heard little snippets throughout the years, just of like, I heard, you know, my grandpa didn't know what I was talking about. My grandma didn't believe me. And, um, did your parents believe you? Yeah, they just, um, I, yeah, I don't know i i think that they just didn't know how to handle it so have you have you ever uh have you ever talked to your parents like sat down mom dad now that you're 21 i mean have you ever had a conversation and say hey what happened that day i went and told grandma grandpa what i told you it was a really really brave thing that you what you did as a seven-year-old really brave and it doesn't usually happen that way which tells me you may have been one of the rare kids that has a really remarkable relationship with their parents that you felt

safe enough to do that um and then there's something disorienting about somebody that's safe when you believe that they don't believe you, right? Or you don't know what happens after that. It just goes into, you know, this disclosure, this heavy thing goes into a mist, right? Have you ever sat down and talked to them about what happened? No, not really. I just, I kind of, I don't know. I'm sandwiched between two boys. My dad, you know, would say things like, Elise doesn't know. I'm sandwiched between two boys.

My dad, you know, would say things like, Elise doesn't cry, Elise is tough. So I kind of just didn't know how to, I didn't want them to know how much it kind of bothered me. And I remember overhearing my mom talking on the phone one time to her sister. And I heard my grandpa's first name and my name. And then she said something to the effect of, well, she still brings it up every once in a while

so it's obviously still bothering her and it was like an internal switch just shut off. I was like, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want them to know it bothers me. I don't know. Oh, gosh. So, no, I kind of just quit talking about it. So the idea that your mom was talking to your sister, her sister, your aunt.

Yeah. And their debate is, I wonder if it's still bothering her. Right? Not, are we going to go visit dad in jail? Not, are we going to get to the bottom of this but i wonder if she's over it yet that's gotta hurt huh yeah yeah i did and i i don't know i just like i said i kind of felt a switch turn off i was like i'm not gonna open up i don't want to talk about it just i hate that and embarrassed well and and that yeah that grin and bear it, I guess. Well, and that, yeah, that grin and bear it, right, that becomes how you interact with trauma for the rest of your life.

So have you had things in the last 14 years between that seven and 21 years that that idea of grin and bear it has just become of your modus operandi, the way you operate? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. right oh yeah oh yeah i i kind of joke about this but it's really serious how um you know like i told you my dad said you know elise doesn't cry well i i did at night in my bed i was gonna say yeah she did yeah but uh meeting my husband i i joked to him about i've never cried so much in my life yeah you know i found somebody I could just, those floodgates opened. Yeah, I imagine. So you've got a 17-month-old now, and what you'll feel, I'm projecting onto you, right? So I'm lumping you into what a vast number of people

in your same situation will experience over time is as your daughter increasingly gets closer to in and around that age you will feel an anxiety you will feel an angst you'll feel a control need a paralysis and you'll feel all kinds of things um increasingly as your brain begins to recognize her and that trauma right and you are super wise to say whoa i need to i need to get on top of this now um so walk me through your family situation now you say you live half an hour there i'm assuming this was never dealt with right they had a one-time conversation and grandma and grandpa denied it potentially and your parents never talked to you about it and then we just all moved on right yeah um well i mean i was close to that particular

grandma growing up so i would go up there sometimes weekly to work on a sewing project or whatever and i even um went to hawaii with those grandparents for nine days. And nothing happened there? It was more, well, nothing like super serious. But I remember telling my husband now, my boyfriend then, I just remember telling him, like, I feel like he can't keep his hands off me. And there would be inappropriate comments left and right. And I was just so uncomfortable. And I was crying.

I was like, I just want to go home. And I actually got married later that year and have kind of used the excuse of living 30 minutes away that I don't have to see him. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to free you from this, Alicia. You don't need an excuse. Right. You don't need an excuse. Right? You don't need an excuse. That person hurt you in one of the most devastating and tragic ways somebody can hurt somebody else.

And so you don't need an excuse. Right? You can just feel fit. From this point forward, you need no more excuses. You are free you are free you don't do anything you don't want to when it comes to being in around that situation so is he still alive yeah yep has this ever come up with other people do you have cousins or aunts that have have whispered around so Often this has, you know, it kind of has a cloud that goes with guys like this. Well, okay, so when this actually happened,

I heard about this a couple years later, that my grandma didn't believe me, so she went around calling aunts and uncles and saying, why would she say this? And whatever. So my dad is the youngest of three boys, so it was the middle brother. He had two kids. And so my grandparents would babysit them, and my parents kind of felt like, okay, they're letting their little daughter be babysat, you know, so we should kind of let them know

and let them make that decision. So I know that my parents did sit down with an aunt of mine so she could know. But, I mean, I could tell you 14 kids' names right now that he's had access to since then. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So here's the thing. I think the right thing to do is you've got to say something at this point. Does he still have access to kids now? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. There's, you know, there's, when you know about something, here's the big deal. So, one of the things that's taken from you is, and I'm using this as a moment to teach people listening, okay? When you experience this type of sexual trauma, this type of sexual abuse, one of the things that's stolen from you is your autonomy, right? Your freedom, your right to make a decision about you, right? And so, when I'm meeting with somebody privately, when I'm talking to somebody behind closed doors who's experienced this and they're trying to figure out what to do next, I always want to make sure one important thing, that they

know that they control the narrative from this point forward. They control if what happens, they control who finds out, all those things, you have to own that control, right? Where it gets messy and where I'm going to tell you, I don't know that you can, you control your story. But if there's other people involved, then we have to get involved and say, Hey, this is somebody who has a history of doing this before, before they have access to hurt kids now. And as a community member, I've got to get involved, right? As a community member, your husband's got to get involved as a community member, fill in the blank. People have to cut off access to children to people who hurt children, which is what your granddad did, right?

And that's where you find yourself. So what do you want to do in terms of healing? When you have a picture in your mind of what healing looks like, what do you want that to be? um i would like to sit down with my parents um and uh my older brother he's got three young kids so they want to sit down with us at the same time because they have feelings on this too i want to sit down and talk to my parents and say you know it's happened 14 years ago yeah but i don't feel like it's kind of, I don't know, it's just sat there and festered like nothing. Yes, of course.

It's because it's this awful trauma. Yes. Hey, listen. Yeah. When you say things like it just sat there and festered, I don't want you to feel like something's wrong with you. Right? Yeah.

I don't want you to feel like you're broken or you're screwed up. This is not. Yes, yes this has somebody poisoned you right and then people are like wow when is she gonna yeah it is what does your brother say about it um

it's really it's bothered him especially since I kind of brought it up to him and there, they want to make it clear to my parents to know that their kids are not allowed around them. Good for your brother, man. Good for him. They're actually going to meet, meet with the pastor on Wednesday night and get some

insight on how to talk to our parents too. Good for your brother. Good for your brother. So here's, here's the way to move forward with your parents, okay? Of course, feel free to have that meeting on Wednesday, but here's the way you go forward with your parents. I want you to write down what you want to tell them, and it's probably going to be real, real hard, okay?

If you trust your husband enough, and this isn't an indictment of him or your marriage or anything, if you trust him enough, read him what you're going to say to your parents. So you can have gone through it one time. You've spoken these words out. Sometimes when you say the words out loud, especially in front of people who should have protected you, right, who should have kept you from going on a nine-day vacation and all that other awfulness after your granddad did what he did. Sometimes saying that becomes so overwhelming when you put it into the universe the first time. So, say something out loud if you can. If you can't, that's okay. That's okay. And then I want you to be extremely clear. Your parents have lost, they gave in, they cashed in their, I don't even know what to say, without just getting really, really angry with them. They chose not to protect you. That's a decision they made.

You need to be respectful and a person of dignity not for them but for you okay that you are not responsible for their feelings you are not responsible for their drama you're not responsible if they come back and say you know what you're going to do if you say this out loud if you call the police if you do you don't own any of that because they abdicated that right when they didn't take care of you when you were a young child. And now you are in the position to be the grown-up here, and you are. You're an adult. You've got your own kid. You're married. You're an adult now, and you're having to clean up the mess of at least three, if not

four other adults and more, right? Whoever else has been a part of not saying anything. Your aunts, I'll include them. So that number gets big. As a part of the healing process, you're going to get rage filled against your parents, against your aunts and uncles, against people who didn't come out and defend that seven-year-old little girl. Okay. That's natural. That's a part of this. My hope is that you can lean towards forgiveness at some point. But at this point, you are in control. Okay? There is no soft peddling this with mom and dad. There is no, well, let us, we're going to, nope. They

cashed that in 14 years ago. They had 14 years to protect their baby and they didn't. 14 years. So, when you imagine, do you have a picture in your head of your granddad in jail? Do you have a picture of him having to move away from the neighborhood? Like, what do you want to happen on the back end? What does healing look like to you? I think I'd at least like a no contact order. Awesome. So he can't contact me or my family.

And I mean, this should have happened when this whole incident happened in the first place. But I do plan to call the police department and file, give my testimony or whatever. And I don't know, at least register as a sex offender, something. Well, and what will happen is when you make that referral to the police, you'll get trained investigators that will then go talk to the kids he's had access to. Not moms and dads who know

how to squash their kids and how to make people uncomfortable and make them feel scared, but trained investigators who can go in and have a true investigation, right? Get real experts asking real hard questions in ways that kids can understand, and then they'll get to the bottom of it. And maybe, fingers crossed, this is a one-time incident, and he's going to have access to 17 kids, and 16 of them are going to say, it's all been great. It's all been great. Yeah. Right?

That's my hope. It feels like an anomaly, right? Yeah, let's all hope for that, of course. But at the end of the day, you're protecting those kids, but you've got to go through this process for you, right? Yep. And I want you to know right now, at least I am proud of you for choosing to take this on. I'm proud of you for having the courage.

I'm proud of you for having the courage to lean on somebody, lean on your husband in this process, and I'm proud of you for saying, I need to deal with this because my daughter's headed, right? She's going to be walking in my footsteps. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let her walk right into this same mess. Good for you. Good for you. So here's what I want you to do. Please, please call us back and let us know how the conversation with your parents goes.

Good for your brother for saying, I'm team Elise all the way. Good for him. Sometimes we get brothers and sisters who want to separate themselves from this, and he's all Team Elise, which tells me he may know something too, right? He may know something too. And good for you. Good for you. Call us back. Let us know how the conversation goes.

If you're interested, I'd love to have you back on the show to walk us through how the conversation went and what your next steps were, how you felt through that. Unfortunately, what you are experiencing is what millions and millions of people across this country experience, what millions and millions of people across the world experience every day. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it. And I'm so proud of you for saying, not my daughter, and I'm not carrying this around anymore. I'm putting this crap down. It's good for you. Good for you. Thank you so much for your

call, Elise. And by the way, if you know of somebody who's hurting kids, this is talking to the listener now, if you know of people who are hurting kids, you've got an obligation to get in the middle of it and say stop. You've got to. You've got to make that phone call. You've got to make that phone call. Let the investigators do their investigation.

Quit taking your kids around and stuff. And parents, if a 7-year-old comes to you, if a seven-year-old comes to you, if a nine-year-old comes to you in that moment of vulnerability and says, help. Oh my gosh. Help them. Help them. Help them. You're all they've got.

Help them. All right. Thank you so much for that call, Elise. All right, I'm going to take a left turn here, and I'm going to take a big, deep breath. I'm going to make no weird noises, and then we're going to go right to Megan in Owensboro, Kentucky. Megan, what's going on? How can I help?

Hey, Dr. John. I'm really excited to talk to you. I'm a big fan of your show. I am a big fan of yours, Megan. So what's going on? How can I help? Hey, Dr. John. I'm really excited to talk to you. I'm a big fan of your show. I am a big fan of yours, Megan. So what's up? Thanks for calling. Thanks. Yeah, no problem. So something I've struggled with for years is just kind of feeling like I have a disconnect between my mind and my body when it comes to specifically weight loss and fitness um okay mentally intellectually i know what i should do i know what has worked for me in the past but then just getting my body to do it is like a whole different battle that i just haven't been able like it's just one area of my life that i feel like I've never really been able to master.

Very cool. Thanks for being vulnerable, man. That one's a hard one. That one's really tough to say out loud. So good for you. So how far back does this go? How far have you struggled or used the word battle? How long have you been at war with your body?

My whole life. I mean, I remember when I was like in kindergarten, you know, asking my mom, why do I have a big belly and the other kids don't? And, you know, when I look back at pictures, I was just a normal, like chunky little kid, but like like, normal, you know? Who taught you that you were chunky? I don't know. I mean, it probably came from somewhere, but I think just, you know, looking at other kids, like, I was just aware that I was bigger than them. And people would always say, my dad's a big man. He's just a large man. And when I was, I mean, as far back as I can remember, toddler, people would say, oh my gosh, she looks just like her

daddy, you know? And I would just be like, I don't want to have a big belly. I don't want to, you know, like I really internalized that. And then, you know, I am objectively, I am overweight. Okay. I am. Yeah. And, I mean, if you look, I know BMI is not the best measure, but according to BMI, like, I'm morbidly obese, you know? But I'm not lazy. I don't binge eat. I'm not, you know, it's, I don't know. I don't identify with the stereotypes of a person who's morbidly obese. But then I think, okay, but I am, you know, and I don't know why, like, I don't know why I can't.

Why you can't shake it. Yeah. Either, either mentally get over it and just say, okay, this is my body. And like, this is just who I am or physically actually do the work to fix, to change it, not fix it. It's not, you know. Yeah, so. Change it. Yeah, there you go. Ah, look at you.

Look at you using your not-a-machine language. That was awesome. So I love you're here, and so I just want to speak it out loud. I know that you're saying these words. I still feel like you're feeling them, so I just want to speak it out loud. I know that you're saying these words. I still feel like you're feeling them, and I want to just say it to you. There is a difference between looking at the health numbers, right? Like you can't deny those numbers, right? If you are obese, you're obese.

And then there's all of the morality, right? All of the characterological things we've attached to that, right? That must mean then that you are lazy and don't care about yourself and hate whatever, fill in the blank, right? And so I want you to have a separation there, right? We can deal with the reality that you want to be healthy. You want to be somebody who is a steward of their body. You only get one, right? And I want you to not walk around with the identity part that culture says you're all of these things because of this, right? You may be working your butt off, right? And we just have to channel that energy somewhere else.

You may be dealing with childhood traumas. You may have been told this your whole life and your way to make sure nobody could hurt you was to stay away. There's a thousand reasons why, right? At the end of the day, as you're asking, how do you do the thing that you know you should be doing, right? Yes. You said things have worked in the past. So have you yo-yoed before? Have you gone after this before? Yeah, I've been on some type of a diet or workout or whatever plan

since I was like, I think I joined White Watchers when I was 12. Oh, no. Yeah. But that tells me that your parents were involved in this. Well, I think... Did you have somebody telling me

you're a pudgy little girl or, hey, we need to, you need to eat some more vegetables? I mean, did you get that kind of talk growing up? No, it came from me. It was, I don't want to look like this anymore, and how can we fix it? And, of course, you know, my parents also were on diets, and so they were like, well, we can all do it together, you know, just supportive,

not you need to lose weight. It was just like, hey, let's all try to be healthier together. And, you know, my dad was going to Weight Watchers with me. So it was that kind of thing. Sure. It was just a thing that was present in our house. And nobody meant anything negative to me about it, You know, I'm a, I'm literally a very confident person. So like my parents, it's never been anything like that. It's just, um,

you know, so yeah, I've done every kind of diet. Uh, and, and in my adulthood I have realized like, okay, diets, quote unquote diets are not going to work for me. I just really need to find ways to incorporate healthy lifestyle. It's not a diet, bro. It's a lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah. Everything feels so extreme when it comes to a diet. I don't want to live a life where I can't eat a carb.

I don't want to live a life where I have to, you know, measure out everything that I eat in a measuring cup. Like I don't want to count some arbitrary points that somebody made up. So yeah, I've done all that. I used to be pretty into lifting weights and going to the gym and stuff, but that was kind of driven by other things. I was pretty lonely for a number of years, so the gym felt like a way to socialize kind of and just get out of the house. So that was almost unhealthy in the opposite direction of, yeah, now I'm just like lifting weights for two hours a day. And I was pretty fit at that point, but I can't,

I liked that body, but I can't go back to that lifestyle. So what do you, what do you want? I just want to feel better in my body and feel better about myself. And what do you think it's going to take to get there? Do you think it's a combination of psychological and physical? All right, let me ask it this way what weighs on you more what hurts you more your physical your physical or the fact that you've tried a bunch and you haven't been successful um I think it's partially the fact that I do the comparison game where I'm like, but I eat healthier than the average person and I'm pretty active and yet here I am.

Meanwhile, I know several other people who eat way less healthy than I do and are less active than me. Yeah, but here's the thing. You can't do anything about that. A different way. Right? You can't do anything about that. Have you ever been to a doctor? I think that's what bothers me the most.

Have you ever been to a doctor and got a full physical workout? Yes. Okay. And what is their recommendation? And I'm perfectly healthy on all that stuff. Okay. I've had my hormones tested and all that stuff too. Okay.

So here's my global recommendation, and I would also recommend that a couple – I've got a couple different things here, okay? So I'm going to roll into some things just one after the other here, and feel free to capture this when it comes out. You don't have to write anything down. If you want to write stuff down, cool, great. Here's a question I want you to ask yourself. You don't have to do it on the show, but here's a question I want you to really dig into in your soul, okay?

I want you to ask yourself, do you really want to change your behavior? Do you want to change your, quote unquote, change your behavior? Do you want to change your quote unquote, change your body? Or do you like the idea of change? And those are two radically different things. Because one is, do I really want to change? I'm going to start today. Now, I'm not going to wait till tomorrow. I'm going to start with today, right? And then others is I really, really like the idea of being a medical doctor. I'm just not. I'm not that smart.

I didn't go to med school. I didn't fill in the blank, right? I like the idea of that, but I don't like it enough that I'm going to actually change it. And those are two radically different things. So if you really want to change, then you go to the next thing, right? And that is this. No matter what you said, I don't like counting. I don't like eating specific ways.

I just want to eat healthier than the average person. I just want to be more active than the average person. And then I also want to look like the average person. And looking back over the arc of your life, that hasn't been how it's played out. What I know about me and I know about my family and I know about my physiology and my genetics is I have to do things differently than the average person when it comes to sleep, when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to what I eat, because the way my body is put together, the way my physiology is put together, I can't be like the average person. And that's just been something I had to accept.

I have people in my family across my lineage who have chosen, I don't really care about that. So I'm not going to accept that. I've had to do that, which means I've got to be really uncomfortable when it comes to saying no to things, to counting things, right? Know this going in. If you really want to make a radical life change, and you're talking about change that you remember when you were a kindergartner, can it be done? One million percent. And I've got full, I got a hundred percent confidence in you, Megan, if you want to do this. But you just got to know that's going to be super uncomfortable

for a season simply because you are changing the way your brain works. And our brains change every day in response to all different sorts of things. But you're going to have to change the way you talk to yourself. You're going to have to change the way you look to other people. You're going to have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable when it comes to counting things, doing things differently, being annoyed that you are experiencing discomfort or pain in a certain season. But it's all towards something, right? Which is this why, this change of, I'm somebody who can stick to goals and make them happen. I'm somebody who is not going to have a doctor tell me, hey, you're unhealthy to the point that we're worried about what your future is going to be like, right? And so here's another big one. People in your life are going to lean on you to go back to the way you are.

The more change you enact, the taller you begin to walk. In your case, the more weight you shed, the more people are going to say, hey, just let's do this just one time. We really thought you were beautiful before. Why are you doing? Oh, no, no, just come on over. We're going to eat this. I'm going to order this for us.

Don't worry about it. People want their homeostasis. They want things to be the same. They don't like it when people around them change, even when it's for good, even when they know it's the best thing for them because it changes their life too. And so when you enter into this, like a radical life change, you got to know it's going to be uncomfortable and you got to know that people in your life are going to push back on you. If you are someone who's lonely, and this I've experienced as myself, then it gets really hard because you feel like your options are limited. And what I want to tell you is when you begin to work on yourself and you stand a little bit taller, the people who are ride or die, Megan, are going to be there. And those who are not, those who use you for other purposes in their life will just

fall by the wayside. And you're gonna have to do the work of get people around you. Okay. So here's a couple of things I want you to do. Number one, I want you to write down what you actually want. Not just, I want to be, I want to not look like this. I want to be, you got to be real, real specific. Okay. And before you get into the goals, I want to weigh this much. I want to be like, I want to be able to wear this size before you get into that stuff. I want you to be very specific about the kind of person you're going to be, right? I'm the kind of person. I'm the kind of person who really takes care of my body. I'm the kind of person who is super kind. I'm the kind of person who talks well about everyone, especially and including myself.

I don't let anybody talk negative about me, and I don't talk negative about me. And I'm telling you, Megan, last night, my wife said, hey, I'm putting a stop to somebody talking so bad about my husband, John, and it's you, and I've seen you doing it the last two weeks, and enough's enough. Stop, right? So I'm the pro at negative self-talk. The pro, right? Nobody talks

to Deloney worse than I do. Even commenters on YouTube don't talk about me as bad as I do, right? And to the point that my wife had to step in and say, I'm not letting somebody talk about my husband. So you're going to have to change all those things around the way you talk to yourself. Then you're going to have to write it down, right? And then I want you to start making things easy so you don't have to plan it. What does that mean? You're going to have to do the hard, annoying work of if exercise is a part of your plan, everyone should be moving.

You got to put those things out by your bed that night, right? So that in the morning, you don't think. You just go into automated mode and you just go make it happen. Right? You just go make it happen. If you got a meal prep, you got a meal prep. Right? If you can't have certain foods in your house, that's the way my house is, by the way, then you can't have certain foods in your house.

When people drop cookies off, you have to say, thank you. You're so wonderful. And you got to go throw them in the trash. Right? You got to put them in the garbage. Right? You got to be extreme. Here's the next thing.

You got to have at least one person, but preferably a group of people that will hold you accountable. Right now, if I pull up my phone, I would be able to show you I've got a day counter app on how many days I haven't had sugar. And I have to text it every day to my buddy who is a active Navy SEAL. And if I skip a day between now and my goal date, the workout I have to do, Megan, is unpleasant, all right? I've put a barrier in my life. I've also told my wife, I've told my family, I've told my friends.

A couple of days ago, I went and did a speech for somebody and they gave me like a, I don't know, it's probably a gallon size jar. You know what was in that jar, Megan? Can I tell you what was in it? It was filled with layers of marshmallows, gummy candy, marshmallows, gummy worms, marshmallows, Lucky Charms marshmallows, dude, like big ones. On top, it was just, it was, I don't know what being addicted to heroin is like, but it's got to be like that, right? And they asked me to partake with them and I had to look at them in front of a group of people and say, I can't today. And they all cheered and it was all blah, blah. I wanted it so bad, right? So, you're going

to have to get accountability people. And then you're not going to like this. You're going to have to track yourself. You're going to have to keep some sort of progress, whether it's a photograph, whether it is, I think a scale is generally on the whole completely useless. It's stupid. But having some way to say, I got half of 1% better today. I'm not comparing myself to anybody on Instagram, any of my friends, any of my family members. I'm just comparing myself to me. And today I got a little bit better. Today it went flat, but I slept all night. And so tomorrow I'm gonna write so some way you can keep track of it and then let me ask you this what is your big temptation in the world

like if you had a thing that makes you feel okay that helps you numb helps you hide what would it be it could be anything I'm just asking what is it um I mean probably food if I'm honest with myself yeah yeah yeah walk me through a scenario your boss calls and she calls you and she says hey you had this thing done

you got it turned in and it's not what I was hoping for I expect more of you and she says on Monday you and me are going to talk. This isn't what I was expecting. And of course she waits until 4.30 on a Friday afternoon to call you. And she hangs up. What do you do?

What's your next thing? It depends on the day, of course. But probably my first reaction would be to go for a long walk outside. Awesome. But if it's, you know, not nice weather or something like that, or there's some obstacle to me going for a walk, it would probably be, like, the largest Diet Coke I could get my hands on

and, like, some cheese fries or something. Yeah, yeah. Something fried and cheesy and a huge Diet Coke. Because the Diet Coke washes it all away, right? Did you know I literally asked? I just genuinely love Diet Coke. I do too. Don't take that away from me, Dr. John.

No, you can't have it. But I'm not going to be the person to tell you that a real doctor will. But yeah, you got to get rid of that too. But here's the thing. Here's what I want you to do. And this was an eye-opening experiment for me. When I wrote down, here's the kind of person I am. I'm a I want you to do. And this was a eye-opening experiment for me. When I wrote down, here's the kind of person I am. I'm a person that honors my body. I'm a person who's going to be around for my grandkids, and I'm going to be able to roll around on the floor. So I tried to paint

my picture 50 years out and work myself back. Here was a big deal, is to catch myself right before I go do something that I know is not good for me, right? Whether it's call somebody or look at something or eat something, whatever the thing is in our lives, right? That I'm just going to go, I'm going to look at a couple of more YouTube clips before I head home to see my kids, right? I'm going to, whatever the thing is, is to stop really quick and say, what is my brain protecting me from right now? So in that scenario, if you say, I got to go for a walk, that's actually one of the most healthiest behaviors you can possibly have to deal with stress and distraction.

I mean, stress and somebody dropping something on you, so good for you. But if you're like me, I reach for junk food, for candy. I wish I could reach for the cheese fries, man. They sound so good. But once I start to stick my hand in a candy jar, I've got to stop and say, what is my brain protecting me from? And it's that discomfort. And once I call that discomfort out, I put out in the universe like, hey, my boss just clowned on me for doing less than my best. Then I'm busted, right? It is what it is, right? And then I can move on from it. And then here's the last thing I want to leave you with, okay, is I want

you to remember this phrase and never forget it. Don't forget to remember. Don't forget to remember, right? When we have patterns of behavior, especially ones that have been ingrained in our minds since we were kindergarteners, right? And then we get into, those things get reinforced with emotion and shame and frustration and anger and all those things in a big loop-de-loop-de-loop-de-loop-de-loop, right? Loneliness, all those things pile on themselves. When those get ingrained, we often just forget our default response, right? I'm just going to reach for that bathtub of Diet Coke. I'm going to reach for candy.

I'm going to reach for another drink, another drink, another drink. I'm going to go call an old girlfriend, fill in the blank. When we do that, that default setting, man, that dopamine just shower, hits it, our midbrain, and we're off to the races. That's when you've got to pause and say, don't forget to remember. Not that I can stop it here. Don't forget to remember how good it feels when I wake up without a hangover. Don't forget to remember how bad I feel after I hang up with somebody I know I shouldn't

have been on the phone with. Don't forget to remember when I close my computer, don't go to any more YouTube clips, and I just go play with my kids. Don't forget to remember how good it feels when I don't eat a bunch of trash at night and then I can't sleep and then I start that whole cycle over again, right? Don't forget to remember over time that you'll move up your decision-making tree from the future to right now to the present. But man, that phrase gets me through so much. I got a car full of crap, just junk, papers, trash. Don't forget to remember how good it feels

to get inside of a clean truck, man. And I'll stop, get all my junk out, right? I'm not going to see that wrapper there. I'll just get a Diet Coke, put it in the thing and then head inside, put it in the cup holder. Don't forget to remember, right? Don't forget to remember.

So here's what I want you to do. I want you to get this YouTube clip and I want you to start with writing down who you're going to be. I want you to get some accountability, people. If you're start with writing down who you're going to be. I want you to get some accountability, people. If you're going to make some major transitions in your life that have been there since you were in kindergarten, you've got to get a professional to walk by you, especially initially. Start with a counselor.

Start there. Let them know, hey, I'm not looking to get to a certain weight. I'm not looking to get to a certain size. I'm looking to become a person who loves themselves inside and out. I'm looking to become a person who is disciplined and ready to rock and roll. I am looking to become somebody who I can count on. And then the body stuff is just ancillary. It will come, right?

And you will unwind some of those default settings. Your heart is good. You've got great people around you who love you. You've got good instincts, right? And now it's just a matter of shifting those things. Here's two books I want you to get. Get Atomic Habits by James Clear, which is one of the best books on that topic I've ever read.

It's an excellent read. And then you're going to laugh, but I want you to pick up Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko. Discipline Equals Freedom. It's written in like 88-point font. It's direct and to the point, and you cannot mince. He doesn't mince words, right? I want you to get those two books, and those books will walk you through step by step.

Here's how to change your life from the inside out, right? Here's how to change your life from the inside out. And by the way, if you are listening to this and you're like, oh, man, she just needs to fill in the blank, shut up. Nobody leave negative comments on here about my new friend here, Megan, about her weight, about her lack. Shut up. Everybody shut up. Nobody knows what other people are walking through, right? Nobody.

Leave encouraging comments about her or leave nothing at all. Keep your drivel and idiotic, moronic, self-superiority, thumbs down, whatever. Keep them to yourself. She doesn't need them. I don't want them. She is somebody who's saying, I'm going to make a change in my life. I'm going to start today. I'm going to start tonight.

I'm going to read. I'm going to get connected with people. I'm going to get connected with a professional. I'm going to start this journey of creating new identities. Good for you, Megan. Good for you. Good for everybody, whether it's weight, whether it is I want to write a book, whether it is I want to get stronger, whether it is I want to be a better dad, I want to be a better

husband, whatever it is, you start with writing it down. It's going to be uncomfortable. Who am I going to be? Thank you so much for your call, Megan. Once you get on this journey, I want you to give us a call back, keep us updated, and we'll keep our listeners updated. You are brave. You are vulnerable, and you're a hero. Good for you. All right, let's take one more call. Let's go to Bobby in Oshkosh. Bobby, what's going on, man? What's happening, Dr. John? I do not know, my brother. What about you? What's going on?

Oh, man, it's hectic. Hey, man, it's better than being bored, right? So, hey, tell me, how can I help? All right, so it's been a little over a year now since my brother and sister-in-law have lost their kids. My parents currently have them. And it's kind of put a strain on, I guess you could say, the balance of the family because everybody's got to, you know, kind of juggle his kids that are now living with my parents. So did they get taken away of court order? Was there addiction or abuse or something?

It was drugs and abuse. Okay. But they're in a program right now to try to get them back. Try to get them back. And so do your parents have full custody or they just got temporary custody? They just gave them to the nearest relative? They were, well, they were trying to go for full custody, but they were told that this shouldn't, I guess, take long. So they have, I guess, temporary custody right now.

Is your brother and your sister-in-law, are they working the plan? Are they being, are they working the plan? Are they not? They currently just got enrolled into the parenting class. They're still doing their alcohol classes or drug classes. Okay. So they're at the very beginning of working any sort of plan, right? Yes. Okay. All right. So what's your question, man? So, I mean, because I'm the next oldest brother in my culture,

it tends to fall down that everybody else in the family goes, well, you're the oldest brother, next oldest brother, so you're technically like their dad. So if anything comes down, I get the like I get, you know, the kids, I wouldn't, not to say it sound bad, but like pawned off on me. Okay. Or, you know, I get like some bad enough remarks where they're like, you know, you should be watching them, you know, like from my sisters or younger brothers. It's like, you know, you got more time to watch them. So the rest of your family members, your brothers and sisters, are on you because your parents have taken these kids

and you're not taking them. Is that what you're saying? Well, that I'm not helping. Okay. I'm not helping enough. Okay. And so what's your question? Is it selfish for me? Because I mean, I got, you know, a high school kid, a middle school kid, and I have a one-year-old, a one-and-a-half-year-old. Woo, you're in it now, brother. Yeah, they're all over the place. Yeah, man, good for you.

And my brother's kids range from three to 11. Okay. And, you know, my kids, my oldest, she's in dance after school. So she's got, like, now that COVID's calming down a little bit, you know, they have, you know, practice a couple times a week, competition on weekends. So, you know, and we like to, you know, go out and, you know, travel, go hiking and stuff. Sure. Last summer, we kind of felt a strain on that because, you know, the kids are over, I don't have a big enough vehicle to transport everybody. We'd be driving two cars so so why why i i understand the cultural pressure i don't

understand it but i i i can sympathize with the you've got extraneous cultural pressures why do you care what other people are saying if you can't do it you can't do it or is there a part of you that knows i can, I'm just going to have to change my life? I can, but yeah, I would have to change my life. Okay. So do you live next to your parents? Do you live within proximity to these kids? We're about like 15 minute drive apart.

Okay. So pretty close, right? Have your parents come to you and asked you for help? They've asked, uh, everybody. Okay. Um,

but obviously they have said a little more to me saying, you know, cause I am your brother and I get it. You know, my nieces and nephews, they like coming over here too, but. Sure.

How many brothers and sisters do you have? Uh, three sisters and four brothers. Okay. So you've got three other brothers who are in the picture, right? Yes. Okay. So, again, without fully knowing the cultural ins and outs, right?

And that is not something to be discounted. That's something to be highly respected and to not just slough off, right? And roll your eyes at. If I'm you, what I would do is call a meeting of all brothers and sisters. Because one of the things that divides families up is that one sister calls the other sister who calls another brother who calls mom

and makes little comments like, well, I don't know why he's not helping as much as so and so and i would be and then dad makes a passive aggressive comment to you and then it blows up in your mind and then you does that make sense it just gets this whole toxic you know britney spears toxic mess right yeah here's what i would do yeah i call a meeting of all brothers and sisters do they they live close enough to you where y'all could all get in a room together? Or at least get on the same Zoom call? I mean, everybody's within at least a proximity of like an hour and a half. I love it.

So here's what I'm doing if I'm you. I'm calling a meeting, all brothers and sisters, mom and dad, all of them, except for my brother who's working his program. He stays out of this mess, right? He cashes his vote voting for the time being and say, mom and dad need help. I know that I'm the oldest here and a lot of this technically falls on me. So I'm telling you, here's what I can do. All of us have to step up here and help. Mom and dad can't do all this on their own. Everybody's pitching in and here's what that's going to look like from me. I want everyone else to be open and ready to help. And then you're going to take all the drama out of the room. You're going to take all the gossip

nonsense out of the room. You're going to take all the, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. You can take all that crap out and put every, call everyone out on the table and say and you go first say here is what i can do i cannot take full custody of these kids or i can i cannot drive them around everywhere they can or i can whatever you can or can't do the second thing is i want you to begin to think in terms for your kids, not how many dance recitals are they going to miss, right? Not how many soccer things or how, not in that way, but start to look at what kind of dad am I modeling for them? What kind of grownup am I modeling for them into who they are going to become as grownups. Right? And I can't answer that question for you,

but I'll put it to you in an unfair way. Is that cool? I'm going to put it real direct. Do you want them in 10 years, when they begin to have kids and figure out who they're going to be, do you want them to be the parents who say, I will never miss a dance recital?

Or I want to be parents who never miss a dance recital. Or I want to be parents who never miss a dance recital. Or I want to be parents who if there's a child in need, I've got it. Not to the expense of, but to the inclusion of. Not at the expense of, but everyone gets a ride. You know what I mean? And so I think there's probably a middle ground here. I think you've backed yourself into a corner because you're pissed off at your brother. You're annoyed at him.

You're mad that suddenly you've got to step up and take care of somebody else's mess. And that's frustrating and annoying, especially, dude, with a one-year-old in the house. I don't even know what day it was when I had a one-year-old in my house, right? And it's annoying. And the only way to cut through that annoying, frustrating, is just to say, I'm big brother. I'm calling a meeting. Here's what I can do. I'm not going to apologize for what I can't do. Here's what I can do. The rest of us need to all, y'all need to step up. We're going to come up with an orderly fashion here. We're going to have people on call, people who can babysit. We're going to map this out so it's not just this ongoing gushy, ushy thing.

And kids, there's going to be a few things we don't do because we're the kind of people who help our family out. And family, I'm going to take care of my kids. We're going to have a family-only thing this weekend because I'm the kind of dad that really doubles down on my children. And you're going to have to find that really messy middle here. It's not either or. It is super frustrating, and it's also the right thing. And your family is lacking leadership, and that's when you get a chance to step up, Bobby. That's when you get a chance to step up. Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to call that meeting. But before you do, sit with your wife. Come up with a plan. Here's what we can do. And it may be you to call that meeting. But before you do, sit with your wife, come up with a plan. Here's what we can do. And it may be, do we got a one-year-old? We can do nothing except survive. And then in about six months, we'll be able to step up. Or no, we've got some capacity.

We can help. Our 14-year-old can babysit. Our 13-year-old can fill in the blank. Call the meeting. And I want you to call me back and let me know how that meeting goes. My guess is everyone's going to exhale because somebody finally took the reins and said, here's the way this is going to be. We're all going to move forward there. And hopefully your brother is going to watch your leadership. Your brother is going to start working his programs

with your sister-in-law. They're going to get their crap together. They're going to start getting connected. They're going to get well. They're going to get on crap together. They're going to start getting connected. They're going to get well. They're going to get on a new road to sobriety, and then they're going to be able to get their kids back. And that's what we all want, right? Thank you so much for your call, brother. We're rooting for you, man. And I'm just so proud of you for being the guy that's going to step up and do what's right here.

All right, so as we wrap up today's show, let's see here. Let's go to, man. Almost. I made a horse noise. I almost got through the whole show. What an idiot. I almost got through the whole show without making a horse noise.

At least you realize that you're growing. Is that what you're proud of? Yes, I told you as soon as I called it out, you would start noticing you're doing it, and you are. Now I'm embarrassed, man. I never wanted to be a horse. All right, so as we wrap up today, I told you as soon as I called it out, you would start noticing you're doing it, and you are. Now I'm embarrassed, man. I never wanted to be a horse. All right, so as we wrap up today, I just, that's a strange life goal to not be a horse, but alas, here we go. All right, so as we wrap up today's show, we're going to take you back to 2017 with one of my favorite rappers on planet Earth. It's off his 2017 album entitled Crooked.

The song is by Propaganda, and it's called Gentrify. It's so great. And it goes like this. And when you see them billboards yelling cash for homes, gentrify. They're fixing to double your rent in a construction zone, gentrify. They slick but be slicker. Help me welcome the hipsters. Microboo Coffee Shop Trader Joe's Whole Shop. Trader Joe's Whole Foods.

Trader Joe's Whole Foods. Gentrify baby. Man them gastropubs and clean streets ain't good enough. They want yours despite your crime rate. Y'all got prime real estate. Continuing Columbus and they coming for your porch and they planting the flag like that's my land. I licked it brother. It's just

business. Your economy could use a boost. a boost. And you know the truth. You're on unemployment through the roof. Why ain't you cheerleading? Why you feel a kind of way? Boy, you fix it not fit in the hood you was made in. We locals, we loyal, we hopeful, we home. And when you see them billboards yelling cash for homes,

gentrify, propaganda. What a record that crooked record is. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.