The Dr. John Delony Show - How Do You Date Again After a Sexual Assault?

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

On today’s show, we hear about: - A traumatized woman wondering if lowering her standards will give her a better chance at relationships - An entrepreneur in crisis mode after his twins were stillborn - A man stressed to no end by the political state of the country Lyrics of the Day: "Ice Ice Baby" - Vanilla Ice 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 Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I currently work in a job that's pretty affected by the political environment. I wanted to know how you navigate political anxiety. What kind of job do you have? I work for the federal government. I'm a current member of the Army National Guard. Part of entering into that community is you sign away that conversation. Yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show,

the greatest mental health and marriage and parenting podcast ever recorded. Not an exaggeration, a little bit of an exaggeration. Hope you're doing so good. And I hope that we're in this gap, right? Between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I hope no one's playing little drummer boy, wherever you happen to be. Got my friends walking through the lobby there. It's good to see you. Man, I hope you are heading into the Christmas season and you're not. presents under a christmas

tree it's not a scorecard it doesn't prove to your kids what kind of year you had why am i telling you that because the black friday sales are out records records uh the cyber monday data isn't out it it may be is it records another wild cyber monday honestly i'm not sure i mean. I mean, by the time this comes out, it'll be out. I'm confident it did well, but also it was a record number of expenditures on credit cards. Stop.

Stop. Have a hard conversation with your spouse or your boyfriend or your kids. It doesn't even have to be hard. It can be a cool over breakfast. Like, hey, last year was a good year. This year was a tougher year. And so the Christmas tree is going to look different this year. It's not a scorecard. And I hope you're making plans. Like what kind of, what do we want the holidays to feel like? Like thanks, I mean, at Christmas and New Year's,

and let's reverse engineer that. If that means we're not going to travel, we're not going to travel. That means we're not going to go to in-laws. That means we're not going to travel, we're not going to travel. That means we're not going to go to in-laws. That means we're not going to in-laws house. That means we're going to go early. Great. What does that look like? And remember, choose guilt over resentment when it comes to making these plans. It's a good time to practice.

You can do it. All right, let's go to, oh, by the way, don't forget. Everybody listening to the show, you'll be crushing it. Thank you so much. Don't forget to like the show or to do your five-star reviews on the internets liking it where they liking it on youtube and subscribe subscribe do all those things i'm gonna get this man i'll figure out this technology works you're doing really good you're doing great very proud of you every once in a while uh kelly comes in

just pats me on the head and says you're're doing good. Good boy. And then she gives me a small biscuit and I'm happy for a couple of days. All right, let's go to Lynn in Dallas, Texas. Hey, Lynn, what's up? Hi, can you hear me all right? I can. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you? Having the time of my life. Literally the best day ever. That's probably a stretch. Yeah. But we're trying, right? What's up? Yes.

I'm a little nervous here. Okay. So. Have you heard this show, right? I know. I know. I know. Yeah.

We're all. It's different though. Clearly making this up as I go. So you're, you're good. Okay. It's kind of a lot. So I have like my little points that I kind of outlined. So I'm just going to go with it.

Very good. Read them all. Let's do it. Okay. Okay. So basically I grew up in like a Christian home, very spiritual background. Parents were pastors, things like that. And so they-

So you're clearly traumatized. Yeah. Okay. Go on. Yeah. Okay. And so, um, so basically, um, I wasn't like allowed to have a boyfriend, you know, things like that growing up, you know, kind of stay away from everything like that. So five years ago, um, I'm out on my own working all that fun stuff. And I was sexually assaulted by a coworker. Uh, that's really, yeah. Okay. Okay. So hold on, hold hold on let's just stop for a second you are a preacher's kid and you are masterful at having an experience and then quickly and dutifully brushing it off the table so it doesn't ruin anybody else's time and that ends ends right now. Cool? Yeah. Growing up with two parents that are pastors, even if they're wonderful people doing their best, is hard. The part of my life story

that I don't tell very often is that my dad was a homicide detective for half my life. And then he quit literally over a weekend and became a pastor. And my life changed. It's hard. And my dad was pretty good at being very transparent with me and being open with me. And it was still hard, right? your parents intentionally for whatever host of reasons didn't allow you to experience certain types of relationships and that's hard right

and then a co-worker somebody that should be safe safe safe takes everything from you yeah how many times have you said that out loud this would be the second takes everything from you. Yeah. How many times have you said that out loud?

This would be the second. Yeah, that's what I thought. I wrote it down a lot, and so I didn't think I was going to get a little choked up at that part when I actually said it. Grief demands a witness. And I'll sit here with you. Yeah. I'm so sorry.

So that was five years ago. Okay. It makes it a little more rough because the person that did that was actually aware that I was saving myself for marriage and that I hadn't had a boyfriend and all of that. He actually knew that. And at the time, I was also interning at a church. And so when it happened— Hold on. So you take sexual assault, and on top of it, you're taking some very clear moral boundaries that you'd drawn for yourself, some boundaries you'd placed on yourself in a context, and he knowingly smashed those.

And then you throw on top of that how notoriously awful churches are at responding to these sorts of things and that's where you work and so you had to you were probably the problem if you said anything so you probably said nothing yeah and i don't blame you for that because you didn't have a context for that you didn't have parents you could go to you didn't have friends you could go to you didn't have co-workers you could go to now you can't go to your church right so you've been your body has frozen in time that's why five years later you can say this out loud for the second time and it it's like oh is that the light is that it starts coming out right away right and you're so good you're so good you can stamp that stuff out real quick fair yeah yes yeah okay i apologize i keep interrupting you and that's a rude thing for me to be doing right now.

The last thing you need is for some idiot to take away your autonomy yet again. So go ahead and continue. I'll do my best to quit interrupting you. Yeah. I didn't even tell my church for a year after it actually happened. But since I was there, I didn't tell them. So I was still interning at the church. And then I kind of felt like I was playing a role where people are coming to me and like help asking for advice for things. And then I got all this going on on the side. So when I did tell them about it, like a year later, they overstepped quite a bit and just

like shoved all sorts of therapy down my throat and here's resources. And this is what you need to do. And they were telling everyone. So people I didn't even know were approaching me and telling me their stories. And so I ultimately left that church. Good. They don't deserve you. They don't deserve you. Yeah, that was a lot. So I did go to some of the therapies after that happened.

And I felt like I was making progress. Now I'm starting to question that now that I'm telling the story. Um, but I, I feel like I've, I've made some good progress over the last four years. Um, as a result of that, which is kind of good information to know, um, the way that I kind of hoped with that situation was by starting to drink. I started drinking pretty heavily. Um, I did start sleeping around a little bit. Um, and so I did that for about a year. Okay. So can I, can I pause you? Can I, can I have your permission to cut you off for a second? Yes. Okay. Um, super, super super common response you're not crazy a very common response

to having somebody steal your sexuality from you is an attempt to reclaim ownership of it yeah does that make sense by entering into a whole bunch of other sexual relationships so that i i am in control and I will exert it. And it's often followed by feeling really bad about yourself and shameful. And so the way we're going to overcome feeling bad about ourselves is we're going to reclaim it even more. And sometimes those experiences escalate or they accelerate and they get riskier, right? But I'm in control, right? So that's super common. And alcohol, literally,

the problem with alcohol is it works until it kills you, right? Yeah, yeah. It does shut the, it shuts everything off. It does. And so I want you to hear me say, you're not crazy.

You're not a terrible human being, okay? Yeah. Okay. All right, back in. Play. Yeah. Okay. All right. Back in play. Yeah. So, um, I, I stopped that. Stop, stop sleeping around. Um, cut back a lot of the drinking, got a new therapist, new psychiatrist. So I've really been working on myself, really trying to kind of heal and recover from that. So, um, now I'm getting to the point where I want to start dating, want to start finding someone. And I've kind of set my own new kind of boundaries and standards

and what I would like to happen Alright, hold on, I gotta cut you off again Lynn You're not gonna kind of maybe set my No, you're freaking Lynn from Dallas Here's my boundaries, this is the way I'm gonna

roll, cause I'm Lynn from Dallas, and I my boundaries. This is the way I'm going to roll because I'm Lynn from Dallas. And I don't give a crap what you think or what you say. None. Zero. Until we have enough of a relationship that I give you access to my heart, which, by the way, is mine to give out. Not my parents. Not my crappy church that failed me, not the people who have been asking for my advice and wisdom for all these years.

I decide. And then when you give access to somebody, then you care, right? Then they have permission. My wife has permission to hurt me, which means she also has permission to love me deeply. Okay. And those things work in tandem, but right now, no, I'm kind of thinking about some boundaries. No, Lynn, you're all in. You're a gangster, dude. Nobody's messing with Lynn. Right? Right. Yes. Yes. Good. Okay. Play. Okay. So the boundaries that I have set are that when I find the right person, I don't want to have sex until we're married. Great. I think that that's very honoring to God. And I want our relationship to start out in that way.

Can I ask you this? Does it honor you? It does. Okay. You have to be a part of the honoring equation. You can't leave yourself out. Okay. You've left yourself out your whole life.

Or let me put it this way. Everyone left you out. Okay. You've left yourself out your whole life, or let me put it this way. Everyone left you out and nobody bothered to tell you that you were worth honoring too. And so if your relationship and your, to God and your faith and your psychology work, and all of this has led you to a place where this is what I want for me, then you owe nobody any explanation for that. None. Zero. Whatever it may be. Okay? Yeah. You're that nobody's ever told you that. Yeah. You should have got that, that your parents aren't here to defend themselves. So I'm going to not talk about them. No. All right, go ahead. Yeah. So the issue that I've been running into when it comes to starting to date and having clear expectations of who I'm interested in, someone like-minded shares the same belief, things like that. The issue that I'm having is either I'll find someone that is also saving themselves. And once I tell them about my past history, they'll usually say, sorry, I'm looking for someone that's, you know, weighted and all of that, which is fair.

Or I run into the people that say they have the same values and it's so cool, but then they'll also say, well, I think we should move in together and we should definitely have sex anyway, and we're going to get married. So it's fine. And not what I want. And so the question, which I think you sort of answered a little bit already was if I should adjust my boundaries to kind of be more aligned with my options. Yes, you should absolutely compromise your values. I think you're set your boundaries too high. You're expecting too much of people and you should water down what you feel and what you think is right so that somebody will like you. That sounds insane, right?

It does. Don't do that. Don't do that. Hey, here's the deal. It's real, real frustrating right now because you've put in a ton of work to heal and you're lonely is all bloody hell, right? Yeah. And this is the part that gets left out of the conversation.

Sex is connecting. It does make you feel less alone for a season. It has a back end to it, right? That makes it, it has a downstream effect that makes you lonelier over time, right? If you're just, if you're being used, you're using other people for sex, right? And that's not religious woo-woo. That's out of the scientific literature. But it is connecting.

And when you cut that off cold turkey and you quit drinking, suddenly you're faced with this stark real pain from a sexual assault. You're having to deal with and stare down and walk through parents who didn't show up for you because they were too busy doing things not of this earth right yeah and it's lonely and so you could get in line with millions and millions and millions of other people who have just settled. And I'm not saying like, no, bro, she's got to be a perfect 10. And if she doesn't have abs and butt. Well, those idiots.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about settling on the things that, as we talked about earlier, honor you. And you get to choose those things. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Right? Yeah. What I would recommend is backing out of the romance

part of all of this. Do you have a group of friends you just go hang with? I don't. You don't. Because you're probably not religious enough for the Jesus freaks

and you're probably too faith oriented for people that you think are just regular people. Is that fair? You nailed it. And some of my best friends on the planet are atheists. And I'm a Christian guy. Some of my best friends in the world have different political ideas than me, have lives that look very different than mine. And that changed when I quit being an arrogant idiot, assuming that other people were going to be certain ways.

Okay? And so what you need is a healthy dose of just good old fashioned friendship, which means you are going to have to just go be weird and hospitable and say, I'm having a holiday get together. Everybody come over and bring whatever you got left in your house. And I'm going to, Lynn, I'm going to give you all the questions for humans. I'm going to give you every one of them, except for the parents and kids ones. And you're just like, we're just going to ask, we're going to hang out and play this stupid questions thing that this podcaster gave me. And we're just going to go down rabbit holes. And if you invite seven or eight people, three or four might come.

Yeah. Right. And the other three or four, you were raised in a house where it's your job to make sure everybody else was okay. You got to quit doing that because it's an exhausting task that's not your job. Those three or four people are not going to come. You know why? Because of things they're going through, not because of you. Or it might be because of you because you're weird.

Who cares? Yeah. Because of them, they don't want to go. Cool. I'm not going to hang on to that. I'm going to invite people to my house. And if only two show up, cool. We'll eat whatever half casserole we got left

and whatever weird box of cereal you had left. And, oh, you got like a quarter bottle of wine. Let's just mix them all together and create, ugh. And we'll have that. And we're just going to play games. Or if you're trying not to drink, cool. We're going to have a Diet Coke Fest. Whatever we're doing.

And we're going to get to know each other. And out of that group, one or two people will emerge as we connected. I like that dude. I like her. She's pretty cool. What you really need practice at is relationship. Because you're running into these things looking for romance without the skill set of how to be a friend. How to be in somebody else's space.

Does that make sense? Yes. And so let's practice being in other people's space. And what's going to emerge out of that is some romance. Gross. And somebody is going to show up with some guy is going to bring him over and you're going to be like, hmm. And he's going to be like, hmm. And it's just going to get gross and weird. Right? Yeah. And then you'll have had time to practice relationship

and you'll have had time to practice telling the truth and practice being vulnerable and practice being intimate and open without sex. And those are all skills. They're not moral issues or character flaws. They're just skills, man. And most of us don't have those skills. We those are all skills. They're not moral issues or character flaws. They're just skills, man. And most of us don't have those skills. We have to learn them. Is that cool?

Yeah. Do you trust me? I do. Okay. Here's what we're looking for. Fun. Laughter. Like from your guts.

Being able to say, yeah, I was sexually assaulted sucked. Took five years of my life. It took a big part of my identity. It just stole it. And I've had a lot of healing. What about you? Can you imagine being able to do that?

Not in a flippant way, not in a lack of compassion way, but in a way that my body doesn't react anymore on me because I've been through the trauma healing part of this thing. And now I can talk about it as a cautionary tale. Now I can talk about it as a, I am really convicted about women having the opportunity and the right to speak on behalf of their own bodies. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah. There's a power and strength that comes from the other side of grieving and healing. And you're worth all of that. Yeah. Fair? Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Do not compromise the things that honor you.

And since you're a person that shares my same faith trajectory, don't compromise on things that you believe dishonor God. Okay? Make choices in the present that future Lynn is going to be really grateful that you made even when they're hard yeah is that fair that's fair okay so before um you got 72 hours three days is that three days yes I don't know how math works You get three days to set up an event at your apartment or your house, wherever you live. Cool. Okay. And I'll get all these things out in the mail to you. And I'm, uh, I want you to use them. I want you to have fun. And if you don't use the cards, that's cool, man. Watch die hard. The greatest Christmas movie of all time. Um, like watch old

movies, whatever it is, but let's get weird and let's be hospitable let's go first let's invite people over and we're gonna just start making friends and if they want to opt out cool and if they just want to talk about politics and covid well then that's probably not this prize in the house for you or we're gonna have hard conversations whatever it is whatever it is you're worth being in relationship with. You're worth being friends with. And yes, you're worth romantic love and it will come. It will, it will happen. It will happen. It will happen. So I'm blessed to have gotten to speak with you and talk to you. Thank you for being brave and being open. Please apologize. The last thing

you needed was some idiot interrupting you 45 times, and I apologize. You're so worth being loved, and it's on the way. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Hey, before we move on, Ben, it's your birthday, dude. It is, yes. 22? 31, but thank you.

31? Dude, I didn't know you'd cross the big 30 i was just thinking everybody like has challenges with their first job or their first big like whatever in 20 years you're so good at this you're gonna be like oh you're gonna just be sitting around a bunch of dudes and be like remember this one show i had to start on oh you think your first job was bad i had to be on this one guy's show? Man. So I'm glad that we got you at the beginning here. This is the highlight of my career. I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, but you're 31. Fair. Yeah. It's the highlight. It's the only light. The low light, maybe. It will be the low light in very short order, man. Well, happy birthday, man.

Thank you. You got any fun plans? Going out to dinner. Taqueria del Sol. Queso. Margs. Queso. Dude, we are changing America one bowl of queso at a time.

Amen, brother. That's fantastic. Well, congratulations on making it to the big 3-1. That's awesome. All right. Let's go to Aaron in Eugene, Oregon. What's up, Aaron? How's it going? Good,, Oregon What's up, Aaron? How's it going?

Good, brother What's up? It's good to talk to you You too, man I'll go with my question I constantly, right now, kind of feel like I'm in crisis mode I'm getting pretty burnt out And I feel like I'm having trouble leading my family uh leading myself like

spiritually and mentally why are you in crisis mode man well um so my wife and i have been married for three years we have two daughters ages two and one um We own a business that we started about two years ago. So we're pretty busy right now. I generally work about 14 hours a day, six days a week. In July, we found out that my wife was pregnant. And a month later, we found out that she was pregnant with two babies. We were having twins. Um, and then, uh, fast forward to October, uh, my wife went in for like a regular ultrasound. Um, I wasn't able to be there, had to work. And they told her that the twins were in high, high risk, very, very dangerous situation that we needed to operate. Um, and so we, we went in for surgery that, that day. Um, and they, the twins survived about three, four days after the

surgery, we lost them. Um, so yeah, kind of in the aftermath of that and just yeah I just don't have time to deal with that right now because we're so busy our business is our peak season so it's just been

24-7 non-stop kind of thing. Yeah, man. Dude, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, man. I can't I can't think of a more radical

trauma than losing two twins with a two and a one-year-old on top of that, on top of a very young marriage, on top of a young business trying to make it. Y'all got a lot, man. So you say you're overwhelmed. You should be. Okay? You're not crazy. And you're burning out and you are melting down. You should be. Okay. You're not crazy and you're burning out and you are melting down. You should be. Okay. And I'll walk with you on what some things you can do, but man,

how's your wife doing? Um, she's doing, she's doing well. Umically, she's recovering very well. But I'm not around to help as much as I would like with the kids. What's your business, man? It's hard on her. We have a mobile tire shop, so we go out to people's homes and deliver and install their tires. Okay, excellent. Do you have people that work with you or for you? Uh, we have one employee currently.

Okay. Um, are you just scratching, are you just scratching a claw to make a living? Are y'all doing pretty well? Um, like I would hire you to come to my house right now and change my tires. Like that sounds like an incredible business. Yeah. We're, we're doing, I wouldn't say we're just scratching and clawing, but it's owning your own business. You know,

everything kind of gets reinvested for the first few years. So it's not like we're rich by any means. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, personally, our finances are really tight because we reinvest everything into the business. Okay. If that makes sense. I can't think of a better investment right now than to get some help and get you some space. If you don't deal with the chaos in your home and in your life and in your soul right now, it will deal with you and it will take no mercy on you. And so when you're talking about

an investment in the business, sometimes if you are Usain Bolt and you are training for yet another Olympics, a huge part of your training is rest. You're not just running sprints every single minute of every single day. You run really hard for a short burst, and then you rest. And right now, your world just exploded. It already was chaotic with a two and a one-year-old and a three-year-old marriage. Y'all barely said hello as a married couple before you started cranking out kids.

And then you had a big time traumatic loss because that's long enough. You made plans, right? Yeah. you started thinking about life with twins and two knucklehead little boys running around what were their names lawrence and andrew yeah they had names man they had a place in your house they had a place in your heart you can't outrun that you going to have to sit and own that loss and own that grief. And there's not a roadmap for that per se, but that's something that you

and your wife are going to have to do. I just know too many couples that don't grieve or they grieve differently. Everybody grieves differently, but they grieve so differently that it splits their marriage up. It splits their relationship up. The younger kids feel like they're crazy because mom's crying and they're wondering what they did, why mom's upset. Dad's never, like, see what I'm saying? And I'm all about, man, I just, I'm coming off a season. I'm about to enter into another season of intense 14, 16 hour days, day after day, after day, after day. I get it. There's seasons when you do that, but you can't run that way forever, particularly on the back of a trauma. Is that fair? Your business may not need to grow,

grow, grow for the next six months. It may need to just stay neutral. Just keep just keep going keep doing great work And hire two guys to come help so that you can go home And sit with your wife There will be seasons when you go back to the 14 hour days you go back to the grind you go back and doing those Things it's going to be important and it's going to be good stuff. It's going to be right Um important and that's going to be good stuff. It's going to be right. Right now, you're the UFC fighter who got knocked out and whose body is so programmed to keep going that he hops back up and just starts swinging again, ends up swinging at the ref or tries to tackle the ref.

And then it takes his coaches and the doctor to sit him down and say you got to stop That's where you are, man Now when I say that it's easier for me to say that here in nashville I'm, not i'm not in the middle of a busy season there and eugene or whatever Could you create a world where you work nine hours a day and then go home? Is that possible? I don't know. It seems like it's probably worth trying, though.

I think you're worth that. I think your sweet wife is worth that. I think those little baby girls are worth that. And I think honoring the memory of your two boys, Lawrence and Andrew, I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it. But I can guarantee you as the pace you're moving with the weight of the bricks you're carrying is not sustainable.

And I love you too much to tell you it's all good, man. Just, just keep crushing. Is that fair? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And how you choose to heal and how y'all choose to, um, grief is like a fingerprint, dude. Um, every it's different for everybody sitting down with your wife and asking how you're going to grieve this. What does she need? Grief is like a fingerprint, dude. It's different for everybody. Sitting down with your wife and asking how you're going to grieve this. What does she need? What does that look like? And let's say this.

Maybe you can't take time off of work. So hire a high school kid or a college student to come home for four hours a night and help your wife out. And you're going to get behind financially and, or not get behind, but you're going to have to, you're going to stay afloat or you're going to take some of your business expenses and you're going to have to roll them back in and charge. You're going to have to pay yourself more for the hours you're putting in. And you take that money and you roll it back and you help out with, so get your wife some help so she can get some breathing room

so you can have some space to feel. My wife and I lost three pregnancies and I tattooed the names of those babies on my body. And it has provided great conversations for me and my kids as they've asked questions, daddy, who's that? And why do you have that name right below our names? And what is it? So that's how, that's a conversation we had in our house. And my wife and I have had to grieve it differently in different cycles throughout our marriage. Don't let that split y'all up. Go into it direct and be clear about it, man. When you talk about leading your family, unable to lead yourself, sometimes the greatest thing a leader can do is to take a knee and say,

I need to tap somebody else. I need to tap out. I need to tap somebody else in. I need to stop for a second. I need to call some men who I trust and I need them to hold my arms up in the desert because I can't hold them up on my own right now. I need to call a friend. I need to get some help. I need to to hold my arms up in the desert because I can't hold them up on my own right now. I need to call a friend. I need to get some help.

I need to get some support. I need to hire a couple more people even though it's going to really make it tough financially for us. Whatever we got to do to put your marriage first, to put those two little babies second, and then put the rest of your life after that. Man, I'm heartbroken with you. I'm heartbroken with you I'm sorry I want you and your wife to write those two little boys a letter about how much you miss them about all the cool things that you had planned for them and I want y'all to read your letters to each other

and that'll be step one on a new healing path for you and her and those two little baby girls I'll be thinking about you my brother we'll be right back on a new healing path for you and her and those two little baby girl. I'll be thinking about you, my brother. 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, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere, so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist.

And you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney. All right, we're going to go out to Cheyenne, Wyoming and talk to Devin.

What's up, Devin? Hey, how you doing, Dr. John Wyoming and talk to Devin. What's up, Devin? Hey, how you doing, Dr. John? I'm good, man. What's happening in your world? Well, we got five inches of snow. I'm leaving the gym right now. Great job going to the gym in the snow. That was a dope flex.

And anybody listening to this, you're going to sound awesome, by the way. Like, oh, it's just snowing, so I want to get ripped. What workout did you do today? We were doing back today we're doing that ah are you a bro are like you like got a jacked up truck and you're just crushing it i really wish i had a jacked up truck i have a small little nissan frontier that i can't even fit my two babies good for you man you're my hero uh all right so what's uh i don't know understand this five inches of snow business. That would be an apocalypse here in Nashville.

But what's up, man? How can I help? So I submitted a question. I currently work in a job that's pretty affected by the political environment. And I wanted to know, especially with all the uncertainty going on around elections and the current political environment, how you navigate like political anxiety. Oh man, that's a great question. Um, what kind of job do you have that's contingent on politics?

I currently, I actually kind of have two. I work for the federal government, both of them. I'm a current member of the army national guard. Okay. And I also work for the uh veterans affairs medical center here okay um so what are what are your bigger concerns are you worried about policies are you worried about mandates what do you what are you worried about no uh mostly policies um especially fiscal policy that could affect, you know, my job. Okay. So if some,

if somebody came in and cut a bunch of like defense spending or if somebody came in and like if you work in the medical establishment when they mandated like in the original desert storm, those guys were going over and they got like 500 shots. And then the guys who went over for operation Iraqi freedom got 5,000 shots. And then the guys who went over for operation, um, Iraqi freedom got 5,000 shots. And then like the, the COVID vaccine mandates. So I'm not a veteran. I spent a lot of my career with him,

but I'm not one. My understanding is part of entering into that community is you sign away that conversation. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, that's true. And so I guess backing out of it, I don't give politics a second of my life. None, zero.

And so if you're in a job that is contingent on, I guess any job at any time could be subject to there being challenges in the marketplace, challenges in your boss decides, hey, we don't want to, I think Amazon just decided, hey, we're not going to do Alexa anymore. And so they're laying off thousands of people like that just happens. And that's why having a building, a non-anxious life, having an emergency fund, not owe anybody any money choosing to drive a nissan frontier instead of being a goofball and taking a hundred thousand dollar truck loan out right um it sounds like you're doing the things that allow you to if they came in and cut a bunch

of defense spending and you suddenly found yourself laid off from the federal government and from the veterans administration which i highly doubt, then you're going to be super qualified to go figure out something else. Is that fair? Oh, yeah, that's true. What's bigger? Is there something underneath this? What is it?

A lot of it stems from, you know, we, man, we have a hard time just getting through baby step three. We've backtracked into baby step two. We've backtracked into baby step one, got our way back to baby step three. And now we're back in baby step two. For people listening, um, I work at Ramsey solutions and we have a program for teaching people how to get

out of debt and help millions and millions of people get out of debt and take control, get, just get freedom in their life. Um, and so, uh, when Devin's here here talking about baby steps one and two and three, that's just a series of steps that people follow to get themselves out of debt forever. The debit card is not going to magically save you. Why do you keep borrowing money? Let me ask you that way. The only reason we actually went back into debt now was because of the, right now, five inches of snow. My wife is a stay-at-home mom, and she didn't have a car that could get through it to get our son to school. And so that was the only reason I was like, you know what?

You need a car. And we went back into debt, and it stresses me out. It should. Luckily, we got it in June. It'll be paid off right at the beginning of the year. Okay, so be done with it. Yeah. And then put yourself and your family in a position

that that doesn't ever happen again. Yeah, that's my goal. We cancel all our credit cards, close the accounts. Good, good for you. I told her, next time we get a car, it's going to be because we saved up our money. Good for you. We traded this in and we're going to do it in cash. Yes. Good for you, man. Good for you. So here's what I found in my life. When I start getting anxious about things, one of the things our bodies do is it starts looking

for threats that are things that identifies threats. One of the ways we do, we, that manifests in our current world, because we don't have bears chasing us anymore, is we turn the world into us's and them's. We try to find somebody to blame for our internal state. And what I would suggest is build a life the best you can so that not if, but when your division gets laid off, when some knucklehead politician makes some sweeping change just so they can get some more votes when your boss gets caught you know with uh cocaine and gets fired and then everybody gets when all that

happens it's annoying it's not catastrophic. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so that, I mean, I just don't give politicians the access into my life like that. Yes, I pay a ton of taxes. Okay. Like, no amount of worrying is going to make my tax bill lower. No amount of me, like, banging on things and hitting things and getting mad is gonna solve that right true so i i just tend to go to the things i can control and move on um i don't know they can't make your wife like you more they can't pay off your house they clearly can't forgive your student loans even though they're trying to like they just can't i mean i'm just not gonna

give that to them so let me ask you. Why have you given it to them? That's probably just how I've been raised. Ever since I was a little boy, I always had somebody who had politics on the TV. Oh, man. Dude, break the cycle. Break the cycle. Put Andy Griffith on the TV. Funny enough, that's actually what we play on our TV at the VA. Yeah, play Andy Griffith.

That'll cheer everybody up. That's a good upstanding guy. Break that cycle, man. Let your kids believe that their neighborhood and their community and their local church and their integrity and hard work and discipline, daily practices, that that has much more to do, has much more influence on their future than some suit in some capital building somewhere.

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. Is that fair? I just, you sound like a young dad who's really busting his butt and kicking butt and working hard and you found yourself with your pants down again, it snowed five inches, not literally your pants down, but it snowed five inches and all of a sudden you like went and bought a car and like, God, I feel sick doing this just on a borrowing money on depreciating asset at 14% interest or whatever they're charging now. Man, choose freedom every time. Freedom from the television telling you what to do and how to live

your life. Choose freedom from, I'm not going to owe anybody any money because I don't want them speaking into my life. I want to decide what I do tomorrow, not Toyota Motor Company. I want to decide what I do tomorrow, not some toxic boss that abuses me. I want to decide what me and my family, where we're going to live and what we're going to do, not some politician. Man, I'm just not going to give that person, those people access into my soul. Do I vote? Yeah. Do I participate? Yes. Absolutely, I do. And I go to the carnival and I throw my one ping pong ball into the little bowl hoping I get a goldfish. And sometimes my man or woman wins and sometimes they don't.

Then I'm done worrying about it. Because no amount of rage or anger doesn't make gas prices any cheaper. It doesn't make us go to war or not go to war. It just doesn't. So I'm going to get to know my neighbors. I'm going to get to know my community. I'm going to get invested in local politics if that's for me, not some national politician, but hey, we need a road over here. Hey, we need a group of people to help with the bridge over here. We need a new restaurant in our community. Like whatever that looks like for you. But I'm not, I'm just not giving them that time. And hopefully, go to ramsaysolutions.com

if you found yourself owning a whole, whole bunch of money. If you find yourself in debt, because I tell you, there's very few things that will set you and your marriage and your parenting freer than not owning anybody anything. And there's a step-by-step program, Financial Peace University, to get you out of debt. It's extraordinary.

They changed my family's trajectory, man. Changed our whole family tree. Check that out. But beyond all, don't get into political stress. They just don't get that. They don't get rent-free space in my head anymore. The space up here is expensive now. And if I know one thing, they like to spend other people's money, not theirs.

So they're not going to be renting my head space anytime soon. 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, so as we wrap up today's show in honor of five inches of snow in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Kelly went bold with this one. Y'all wouldn't know this. She doesn't wear shorts a lot, but she has like starting at her hip all the way down to her ankle,

a huge old English tattoo of her favorite rapper ever, Vanilla Ice. Strange. I wouldn't have got that tattoo, but it does look rad. It's weird when she wears shorts around the office,

but Vanilla Ice, her favorite, favorite song. Ice Ice Baby. And occasionally you'll hear her just singing the lyrics as she goes about the things she's doing. Just be walking down the hallway. Yo, VIP, let's kick it. She just whispers it to herself.

All right, stop. Collaborate and listen. And she's like, yeah, go Kelly, go Kelly, go. Ice is back with a brand new invention. I'm trying not to laugh. Something grabs a hold of me tightly, and then Kelly flows like a harpoon daily and nightly. Will it ever stop? Yo, I don't know.

But Kelly turns out the lights, and she glows to the extreme. She rocks a mic like a candle. Nope. She rocks a mic like, whatever, dude. This is America. We'll see you soon. I love y'all.