The Dr. John Delony Show - I Told My Ex’s New Girl That He Was Abusive

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A woman communicating with her ex-husband’s new girlfriend - A mother anxious about dying young like her father did - Why a non-anxious life means choosing mindfulness Lyrics of the Day: "Somebody Told Me" - The Killers Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Hallow Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Building a Non-Anxious Life Anxiety Test Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 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. He is abusive. Emotional and verbal abuse. He accused me of molesting our son. I think if we had stayed together, it probably would have turned physical because he was punching walls and kicking dogs and that type of thing. I don't want anybody to ever suffer the way that I have suffered. What up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

So glad that you've joined us. Talking about your mental and emotional health, the things that you're struggling with and the things that are going right. Good stuff. Talking about your marriage, talking about kids, we're talking about whatever you got going on in your life that you have decided, I just, I can't keep doing this.

I want to do something different. If you want to be on this show, talk about your marriage, talk about your mental health, talk about your emotional health, parenting, physical health even, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291

or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. And we're a couple weeks out for Thanksgiving. If you haven't already, and if there's still any left, go to johndeloney.com and pick up the new Questions for Humans decks. We made one for Thanksgiving this year. We made one for Christmas this year, and we're going to save your holidays. I'm going to save your holidays. Don't go into Thanksgiving talking about politics or you'll burn your house down. Go in with a deck of cards and some boundaries, and you're going to all leave liking each other. JohnDeloney.com, check them out. I'm here for you. All right, let's go out to Georgia and talk to Kristen. What's up, Kristen? Hey, how are you, Dr. John? Good. What are you up to?

I'm just sitting here at my house folding laundry. Living the dream. That's right. The dream. Laundry just keeps happening, right? It does. Yes. Oh, gosh. Man, folding laundry. It just seemed like the most futile thing. All right, so what's up? How can I help? So I've written in previously to ask if you thought it would be a good idea if I spoke with my ex-husband's new girlfriend about his abuse. No!

Well, there's an update because i actually did meet with her why did you do that well i just i listen something the the great the great frozen she sang it bad well who was it elsa elsa sang it best yes Who was it? Was it Elsa? Elsa sang it best. Yes. Yeah. Just let it go. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe you did that. Okay. All right.

So, oh, man. So, you have an ex-husband. He's dating again. You love that. And you felt the need. Were you trying to warn her about something? I was trying to warn her that he is abusive. Oh, gosh. Okay. And I had spoken to

like a mutual contact between her and me and just to like get some advice. And the mutual contact was like, you know, if it was me, I would want to know. And I kind of felt the same way. If it was me, I'd want to know. Um, and what kind of, what kind of abuse is physical abuse, like, um, emotional abuse. He's just annoying. He lies a lot. Um, emotional and verbal abuse. Um, I think if we had stayed together, it probably would have turned physical cause he was punching walls and kicking dogs and that type of thing.

Um, so. All right. So you did something I would have told you don't do call in next time. Don't ask him mutual, whatever. All right. So you did it. You have told you don't do. Call in next time. Don't ask a mutual whatever. All right, so you did it. You've done it. How did it go? It went really well.

I really like her. She's great. She's very kind and gracious, and we sat and had coffee for about an hour and talked about it, and she thanked me for letting her know, and she said she hadn't seen any and she definitely, she said she hadn't seen any signs of that. Of course she hasn't.

Right, exactly. Because I mean, we just got divorced, like the divorce he filed in February of this year, it was finalized in May and they started dating in, I guess, June or July of this year. Oh, they were together before that. That's what I'm thinking. They were together before that, yes. Okay, so I have to ask this question. Did it feel better?

Because I know there's a part of you, yes, that wanted to warn a fellow sister out there, this might come. But I also know a big part of this was, I can't freaking believe he's already dating again. He ruined my life. He's not getting away with this a second time. It wasn't, I mean, I, and I, and I told her that I'm very happy for the

both of them. Like I wish them the best and I pray for him every day. I pray for them together every day. Uh, so it's not a jealousy thing. I kind of wish it was. I felt like it would be easier to get over if I was just jealous of her. But she has four kids and she's also a foster mom. And I was like, you know, I just felt that. And I kept praying about it and it just would not leave the back of my mind that, you know, if it was me, I would want to know. And I told her, I said, I don't want anybody to ever suffer the way that I have suffered from all of it. Yeah. So that was just kind of. You did it.

So what's your question now? Maybe you don't even have one. You just wanted to share. I just wanted to know your opinion, but you let that go real fast. Yeah, yeah. The only time I've ever seen this fruitful is when it comes the other way. When a new girlfriend or a new fiance or a new, you know, a guy's about to get married and there's kids involved. So you've got, you know,

I don't know if y'all, y'all have kids together. Yes. Okay. So there's kids involved. And the abuse happened in front of the kids. And that was part of my thing is that, you know, she has kids and foster kids and he had no problem doing all of this in front of the kids. Sure. Um, man, there's so many layers here. Um, if, if you don't have a shred of jealousy and maybe jealousy is the wrong word, but if you don't have a shred of vengeance in you, um, you're better than like, you're better off than 99.9998% of humanity. Yeah, I don't at all. I really, she, she is so good. And good and I told her I was like I really hope that like maybe you are what makes him change and makes him better like for the kids sake and everything

I mean she and for her she's like I know this is awkward but it really it wasn't awkward for me sure I just wanted to warn her but I mean she's great I mean I really like her and I hope that what's like what's the custody arrangement with your kids and him? He gets them every first, third, and fifth weekends, and he gets them every Thursday night on his off weekends as well. So Thursday to Sunday, first, third, and fifth, and every Thursday night. Okay. The only way I've ever seen it work really well is if two people sit down to talk about the kids. Like, my husband's

dating you. My kids are going to be in your life. Here's my expectations about my kids. I want to get to know the person who's going to be in the life of my children. I've seen that go well when people, and when everybody's acting like adults, I've seen it be a nightmare when people are acting like children, people act like adults. Then I've seen it go well. People are respectful. I've seen it be a nightmare when people are acting like children, people act like adults, then I've seen it go well. People are respectful. I've heard of men sitting down and saying, you're about to be in the life of my daughter because you're not dating my ex-wife. And here's my expectations for the men in the life of my daughter.

And then I've heard a couple of times the other man, the new boyfriend and the new fiance be very respectful. Like I'm appreciative that her dad loves her this much and you've got my word and I'll call you like all that kind of stuff. And then I've heard in a couple of rare cases when somebody calls and says, Hey, this is a very personal private conversation. This guy's screaming at me and swearing in front of my kids. Is this new or did you experience this too right i've never seen it go well the other way the way you the way you did it so maybe this is the first time ever um i would be stunned

if she doesn't reach out and be like so your ex-wife called and said you're abusive and that that just end real well right so has he reached out to you and like, dude, what's your problem? No, he hasn't at all. I don't know if she's talked to him about it or not. I told her that I went into this with the assumption that whatever I say would make it back to him. Yeah, she would be a terrible girlfriend if she didn't.

So I haven't, if she has told him, he has not said anything to me. Oh man. Why didn't the courts side with you? We did mediation. Why did you, let me say it this this way if he was so abusive that you felt the need to go to his new girlfriend and say watch out for your own safety and at this time not physical safety but own psychological safety and the sheetrock in your house safety why did you settle in a mediation for anything less than this this monster can't be around my kids. I was being told by my lawyer that that would not happen. Um, and I have, uh, hours of evidence of it towards the end. I mean, it got, it got, uh, pretty bad to the point where he accused me of molesting our son. Um, and apparently it just

didn't matter. Uh, cause that was one of the things that I was upset about after mediation with what he got. And they said, well, that's the best you would have gotten if you had gone to court. I totally disagree with that. If the abuse was as real as – if the abuse was so egregious, if it was a guy yelling in his house and swearing in his house, some judges might not say that's abusive enough to take away a kid from his parent. But if it's as volatile as you said it was so much that you need to be proactive with his new girlfriend, I think you may have got bad legal advice. Or your attorneys looked at what you're experiencing and they were like, it's not as bad as you think it is. Yeah.

And I had told my attorney that I wished that he had hit me because people would take it more seriously. No, you don't. No. I mean, because I felt like nobody was taking me seriously. Nobody was listening when it happened. Yeah. And, but it was, I mean, I was letting everything roll off my back

as it happened because they made us live together during the divorce part. And, he just attacked me every single day just about.

They can't make you live together. Yeah, they told us that we couldn't leave. I kept begging my lawyer. I was like,

I sent email after email with, you know, the evidence. I was like, you know, after email with, you know, the evidence. I was like, you know, it's getting, nobody, nobody, they can't, you're not under house arrest. They can't make you stay in an apartment or in a home. They said it would not go well if I left because I kept asking if we could move out and they said no. And they told him the same thing that it would look bad if we, if we moved out. Um, so we, What would look bad, hon? That's insane.

I have no idea. I guess when it came, because we had to sell the house, so I guess when it came to taking a stake of the equity, I would be giving up my equity. No, you wouldn't. I'm not sure what it was. What if you moved into an apartment to keep from getting your brains beat in? That's nonsense. i mean he he would uh call me every name under the sun and like disgusting everything that's just the most i've never heard that in my life ever there has to be something else here that i don't know about i've never heard that in my life ever ever ever in fact i again i don't know the ins and outs of this case and I'm not a legal

professional but I can see a great case for in the middle of mediation you move out because it's so not safe and that becomes part of the mediation that he's created such a hostile living environment for you but again I'm not in there it doesn't sound right at all I've never ever heard that in this particular situation there's a couple of things that have happened that I've never, ever, ever heard, ever. And I've seen some, been around some wild situations. And that doesn't mean anything. That maybe means this happens all the time and it just goes swept under the rug and swept under the rug and swept under the rug. If I'm you, I can't recommend it enough that you've said your

piece, you've talked to his new girlfriend, and this is the end of the road for that conversation. If you feel the need to have a conversation about your kid's safety or working with some of your kids, I'd recommend you do it with your husband or your ex-husband and let that be that. And if you get signs of abuse or if your kids come home and say, dad's punching holes in the sheet rock again, I want you to call another attorney and walk them through every single thing you experienced and everything you went through and say, I can't have my kids around this anymore. I want to file suit for a new custody arrangement because my children aren't safe. But my hope is that you create another life and you don't know his dating status unless he invites you in or unless he's bringing somebody else home around your kids and then you need to know that. But I want you to separate your life from his. You need time to heal and you need time to...

This whole thing just sounds like a mess and I would pull myself out of it and I would focus my time on my kids and on my kids' safety. And he's going to go do what he's going to go do. I hate that you're in this, man. It's just such a messy, messy mess. And it just sounds like you got some gross advice or there's just other parts of the story.

But I wish you the best and I wish that you begin, let there be a period at the end of this sentence and go on about healing and creating your new life because you're worth peace. And right now you don't have that. Thanks for the call, Kristen. We'll be right back.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel

like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey

and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. Let's roll out to Louisville, Kentucky and talk to Emily. What's up,

Emily? Hey, Dr. John, how are you? I'm good. And you? I am awesome. This is a surreal moment for me. I'm an original 17 listener. That's so cool. So did you just like wait and wait until like, you're like, Oh, I've got something. And then you call, you know, you've listened to the shows over the years and you're like, I can relate to that one. Or maybe I'd ask this. And then, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, I just kept thinking about this question. And I thought, you know who would have some good insight for me? Dr. John.

And let's just see what happens. And I was so excited when Jenna called. That's the best. I'm excited when Jenna calls. She doesn't even ever call me. So that's awesome. Good for you. It was great.

It was great. Thank you, Jenna. What's up? All right. So I's awesome. Good for you. It was great. It was great. Thank you, Jenna. What's up? All right. So I wrote it down so I wouldn't get too nervous. But as a longtime listener, I'm surprised I haven't heard this question yet since I believe it applies to others and could help many. For the backstory, I was 19 when my dad developed Pick's disease, which is similar to an early onset Alzheimer's with a sudden personality change preceding the memory loss. Sounds like maybe you've heard of it.

That's a nightmare, man. Yeah, yeah. So after a lengthy, difficult journey, he passed away after about eight years. He was only 59. Yes. Yes. So fast forward, I'm 36. I'm married. I have a four-year-old daughter and I can't help but ask myself every day, am I going to develop this disease? Do I have 14

years left to raise my daughter? Yeah. And so you can see like, it just gets very overwhelming. And so I know, I thought maybe I'd get a little upset, but I know there are other people in the same boat as me who think like, okay, I'm approaching the age that my parent passed away too young. And what can I do, you know, to ease that anxiety and that fear? Yeah. Especially when you have your own kids, just a bummer. It's way more than just a bummer. I mean, you're talking, I mean, you're, you're nervous system still developing when you're 19. Yeah. And the, the demon of pics is, I mean, you're looking at somebody who's your dad and he's looking right through you. Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's, and he's right there, right? It's like trying to hug a ghost. You see him, right?

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think, I, you know, we know at some point, I think that we're going to take care of our parents when we get older, you know,

because. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, get older, you know, because... No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hold on, hold on. But not like this. Hold on. You... Man, you're good. You're really fast.

You... How old are you now? 30? 36. 36. Mm-hmm. You haven't circled back and hugged that 19-year-old Emily. Because no kid's supposed to go through that.

I like to think that I have. I've done therapy over the years. I know, I know. You've done therapy. You've talked about it. You've expressed it. You've had the grief conversations. I get that.

So many conversations. But one of my biggest frustrations with talk therapy often is it's all cerebral. It's all thoughts and thoughts and more thoughts. And if I just get all my thoughts in the right order, then everything's fine. And it's still this many years later, you talk about your dad and you talk about, he's probably a pretty good guy huh yeah he was pretty great yeah he's pretty great and then all of a sudden he would fumble around for the name of his baby girl yeah and now you have a four-year-old and that thought becomes even more harrowing right because you can see both sides of the equation now. When you're 19, you just experience it one way.

Like, this is happening to me. When you have your own kid, you realize what hell that was. Yeah. And I don't, I mean, I don't have control over that, but I don't want to do that to her, you know, or my husband, or it just... Well, nobody does.

And he didn't want to do that either, right? No. No. If you haven't, and I know the last thing you want to hear is, I don't want to see anybody else. I don't want to talk about this anymore. I get that. If you haven't gone to sit with a trauma counselor, which is different than grief, I would recommend you doing that, even if it's two or three sessions. And probably what it will be is you laying down like on a massage table or you sitting down in a chair and the counselor sitting just behind you or right next to you, and you go back to being 19, about three months after you heard about the diagnosis, and then your dad goes to take you somewhere, and he forgets where he's going to take you.

Yeah. And he looks at you with that fear that dads aren't supposed to look at their daughters with because dads are supposed to have it all together. And what the counselor will do is just simply put her hand on your shoulder or hold your hand because your body's got to cycle it out because it's still holding on to it.

That's number one. Number two, in the present, I want you to not be upset with the anxiety. It's exactly right. At 19, you experience something that nobody should experience. A hope is, right? This is a gnarly hope. The hope is we all bury our parents, not the other way around, right? That's the way it should be. And they should all be 98 and die in the middle of the night in their sleep. Yes. With a smile on their face and maybe like a middle finger to the,

like to the Texas Rangers, right? Like something like that. Yeah. But not slowly dissolve in front of their baby girl. Right. And, and so, um, your body put a GPS pin in that man. And what you have to decide to do is to feel it and to go, oh, there it is, trying to protect me again.

I'm good now. And that's got to be a refrain, a common, always happening refrain. And you're going to have to make sweet, sweet peace with a journal and get that crap out of your body onto the paper. Because what your daughter's going to feel as she gets older and older is your chest tightening up every time you think of that moment and then you look at her. And she's going to think that's her fault.

Whatever that thing that's happening to mom right now, she has to try to solve that. And that's not her job. Fair? No. Yeah. Oh, 100%. It's not her job. And I try to do things like leave a journal for her.

And, you know, because there's so many things that I think my dad would have said to us if he could have or knew it was coming. So sometimes I think, well, maybe I can quiet my alarm bells by writing down advice that I want her to know. Like almost like... Have you written your dad a letter? Just in case. You're trying to seance him. Don't do that. He's gone, but he left you, right? He left you. He left his amazing, beautiful, brilliant daughter. What you need to do on a regular basis for a season is write him a letter, a couple of them. And you've heard me on the show

say it. And I always say me on the show say it, and I always say three different ones, but you might need more because he needs to know what he's missed. Yeah, a lot. Dear dad, I would have loved if you were here to have punched this guy out

that I was dating when I was 26. You would have hated him. How did you know that? You were like so spot on. And hopefully while you're writing, you're laugh crying. And imagine the best you can do. Imagine yourself at a table, at a Denny's, talking to your old man. Yeah.

And don't run from that. No. That would be the dream, to sit there with him again. Do it, but do it with a pen. And if you're a true gangster, read it to your husband out loud. Oh. Okay. Okay.

Or, you want to do something even crazier? This year? Let's see what you got. This year for Christmas, do you have brothers and sisters? I do have an older sister, yeah. Okay. This year, you're all going to write each other a letter from dad. Okay. Dear sister. Sure. I'm so proud of you. That's a good idea. You've got four amazing kids. You bathe properly now, whatever the story is, right? And with

whatever weird humor your dad probably had, whatever his seriousness. He always called us by our initials, even though we're married now. I don't know if he would have changed that. If he had, I would have gotten mad at him, of course. You can take whatever name you want, but for him, he'll know, right? Yeah.

And here's what we're doing. We're teaching our body, A, number one, we're honoring a great man. Yeah. Right? Who hung on the best he could for as long as he could. That's number one. Number two, we're teaching our body that we're okay now.

Yeah. And we're going to do it in the presence of other people, which I don't know how that works. I don't know the physiology about how that works. I just know that grief has to be expressed in front of other people. Yeah. And most of us run from it. And that's what the anxiety is.

It's running away from that alarm system. And so this year for Christmas or Thanksgiving, as a moment of celebration, what if you ran into it? Yeah. Walk or walk into it. And you'll have one or two of your siblings that might be like, this is insane. I'm not doing this.

That's fine. That's fine. It's just my sister and I, so I will not give her a choice. Yeah, she didn't get a choice. Is your mom remarried? She is. Okay. What if the three, y'all three women went out and y'all did it together?

And you wrote her a letter from your dad saying how proud you are of him and you approve of this knuckleheaded other guy. And you're so glad that she had, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It would probably be very cathartic for all of us. I know it would be. It would. It's very scary because it would be, like you said, unleashing a lot of trauma over those years he was sick. Yeah, it's sick. But here's the thing. All of y'all are feeling it.

Yeah. And all of y'all have tried to take care of one another by shoving it all the way down. Yeah. And that's anxiety. Yeah, absolutely. And I want you to be really gracious with Emily in the present. Yeah. Now there's another part of, another part of anxiety that's about choosing reality, okay? Yeah. Is there any sort, and I don't know enough about this without getting over my skis, is there any sort of MRI you can go get done to find out if you're a candidate? You can. You can have genetic testing done, which my husband's in the military, so we talk about

maybe going down that road when we're retired and settled. I think you should go down that road right now. Oh, I don't, I know, but that gap, that gap, the choosing to live in the deliberate,

I don't want to know that your body trying to get your attention. Yeah. Right. And so what we're going to do is we're going to face reality. Is there a teeny, teeny tiny possibility? If there is, I don't know the genetic component to it. It's about 50%. So it's larger. I mean, essentially, yeah, it's scary because I'm like, is it going to be me? Is it going to be my sister? Do you want to know? Do you want to know going into those years that you may or may not have less? You can, to not want to know, but you cannot get mad at your body for trying to

get your attention because it's just doing its job. True. So either I'm going to choose 15 years of anxiety and then we're going to spin the roulette wheel or I'm going to learn right now. I'm going to become one of those crazy people that goes down every rabbit hole trying to come up with any sort of thing I can do on the front end to extend it a year, six months, five years, whatever. I'm going to go to every clinical trial I can, and I am going to soak up every second with my daughter. Yeah.

Right? And I'm going to make sure there are video logs and journals and whatever. Yeah. So that when she's sitting down, imagining herself having a conversation with mom over a day over Denny's, right. Um, she can just push play on the video.

Exactly. You know what I'm saying? Yep. That's something that I think helps to quiet my alarm bells. What's that? Just knowing that there'll be more for her, like, because there's more awareness.

It was very, but you have been like, all right, in 50 years, I'm gonna pull my head out of the sand. I think you need to know. Yeah, I think I do need to know. Yeah. I think you need to know.

Or just make peace like, dude, I'm just anxious. That's just how I'm gonna roll. I'm just gonna be super... It's the same thing as like, hey, how much money do you have in your checking account? Like, I don't even want to know. I'm just going to keep going. And, uh, there's 50% chance there's money in there and 50% not your body would be failing you. If it wasn't like, Hey, what's in the account, what's in the account, what's in the account. Um, you got to find out what's in the account I think I think

I think it's always best to deal with reality and then if you find out no you're a carrier this is a really significant chance that you've got this we're going to grieve that and we're going to start making some truthful decisions out of that that's just me if you were my sister or my wife

that would be my strongest recommendation and I know it's scary scary scary scary and so is not knowing too But anytime you feel that storm head into it And man how amazing of a legacy your dad left you This many years later you still miss him so much and you still smile when you think about him. I hope my daughter thinks of me that way when it's my time. Hang on the line, Emily. I'm going to send you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life. I want you to read through it and use the map. When your body's alarm starts setting off, I want you to

pinpoint it on the map. We can go from there. We'll be right back. All right, we are back. Before we go on to what's next, Kelly, as of this recording, your boys beat my boys. Yeah, they did. My answers are at home. It was 11-4. It was to four. Yeah. It was not a great game.

Yeah, it was. It was an amazing game. It was still four. Yeah. It was not a great game. Yeah, it was. It was an amazing game. It was not a great game. It hurt. All of it hurt. And now the Phillies have been beaten, which I'm so, so happy about. Oh, dude, you have a, you've got a, if y'all don't win this one, it was not meant to be for the Texas Rangers.

I know. This is set up as humanly possible. I know. Only problem is we have home field advantage, and that's where we lose our games is at home. All of them. Yeah. We don't do well at home. This is the second either World Series or Championship

postseason where the Astros have lost every home game and won every away game. Yeah. We're the same way. We just don't do well at home. And so home field advantage this time I'm like, no thank you. We don't want it. Jeez, man. Well, I would say congratulations, but boo. And it starts on Friday and come on, Rangers. Go Diamondbacks. Let's't want it. Jeez, man. Well, I would say congratulations, but boo. And it starts on Friday.

Come on, Rangers. Let's go Diamondbacks. Go take it. Go Diamondbacks. All right. So we're continuing the series on the six daily choices. And we shot this incredible video about each one of the six daily choices. If you're watching this on YouTube,

you're going to see it's just beautifully shot. And Wes Freitas and his team have done just an amazing job with this. If you're listening to it, the audio is incredible. But also I recommend when you get done with the podcast, if you know of somebody that would benefit from this, send it to them or go check it out. Today's daily choice is choosing mindfulness.

And if you're like me, when you hear the word mindfulness, I just roll my eyes. It's so dumb. Shut up. We're going to do Pilates and yoga and do some stretches in my stretchy pants. And by the way, I like Pilates and I like yoga too. But whenever I think of mindfulness, Pilates, what is it? Socrates, Socrates? Pilates. Pilates. Pilates. What did I say? Pilates. Pilates. That's like Italian. It's Pilates from Bill and Ted's when they used to be like, Socrates.

I always think Pilates. Pilates. And I'm not bagging on that. I'm just saying, when someone says mindfulness, I just imagine this old guy with a beard on a cloud just going, and I'm like, dude, I ain't got time for that. I got a kid, a middle schooler, who's like, dad, I have a seven-year-old who's like, can I have a snack?

Can I have a snack? Can I have a snack? And I've got like a job and I got Kelly in my life for God's sakes and all the stuff. And I don't have time for mindfulness. It's not what I'm talking about. And dude, I really, right in the book, I really wrestled with, is there another way to say this? And it just was not honest if I didn't

Just call it what it was. So If you've ever heard the word mindfulness and you're like, all right, that's enough of that stay with me Stay with me on this. I want you to listen to the whole segment here Um, and if you're watching it stop what you're doing for a second Give me seven or eight minutes of your time and plug directly in. Nothing else in the six daily choices has rattled my cage more than this idea of mindfulness. Check it out. Here we go. Six daily choices. Choose mindfulness. Most of us live completely unfree, completely outsourced, completely automated lives. And everyone is spending all of their energy responding to the past,

running out and trying to anticipate the future. And we don't have the skills to be present where we are. Mindfulness is simply the gap between stimulus and response, between my body feels this thing, and what do I do next? How do you lengthen that gap? So choosing mindfulness as a part of building a non-anxious life is cultivating two important ways of doing life. Being aware and being curious.

Think of awareness as ownership of your life at 360 degrees. Can you feel the good stuff and the bad stuff? Can you feel this might happen? And can you also feel, but it probably won't? Awareness is looking around your life and taking inventory and ownership of it. When somebody cuts you off in traffic and your body instantly responds with a story

that you've made up about the driver of that car, that's not being aware, that's being automated and dumping it on that guy in that car because you can also choose another story. You can sharply intake your breath until you know you're safe and you can exhale. You get to decide the narrative and you get to ask yourself this question. Why is my body responding like that? What is my body trying to protect me from? When you get an email at 4 o'clock on a Friday from your boss that says I need to see you immediately. Why does your body instantly go to war?

Why does your body instantly want to sprint? Why does your body instantly want to sprint to the parking lot and drive away? Is it because you have an untrustworthy boss? Is it because you know you're about to get fired? Or is it because since you were a little kid, anytime an adult called you on the carpet, you knew you were going to get scolded and shamed and hit. And this boss is just another adult in a long line of people who treated you less than. Awareness is about looking at your entire life, taking ownership of how you feel. And that leads me to curiosity. Curiosity is the choice to not instantly judge, throw rocks at, take swings at people, at actions, at ideas.

Curiosity is sitting back and asking, why did she say that? I wonder why that politician keeps doing that. I wonder why the teacher at my kid's school said that. Instead of instantly jumping to fight or flight or freeze, instead of instantly jumping towards I have to react I have to go do being aware of how your body is responding to certain things and being curious about why that's happening gives you a moment to breathe and it gives you a moment to decide what happens next so when you first start being mindful and you first start being mindful, and you first start being aware of things

and being curious about things, you're gonna be overwhelmed with feelings. And it's important to understand feelings are not designed to tell you the truth. Feelings are designed to keep you safe. Feelings are designed to keep you connected, even if that connection's unsafe. Feelings are not designed to tell you the truth.

They are data, but they're corrupted data. They're important, but they don't tell the truth. And so an important part of being curious, being aware, is asking the question, is that true? Is that for real? Is your husband really the worst person ever? Is your boss really the worst person ever?

Most people are just like you, doing the best they can to get through the day. And they want friends, and they want laughter, and they want connection, and they want, huh, never thought of it that way. Or they want, that's stupid. That's mindfulness, That's awareness. Somebody would call into my show. They call in and say,

hey, John, I've heard you. Screaming and yelling at your kids, especially when they're little, hurts them. It's not good. But my five-year-old keeps banging everything. And my three-year-old keeps pulling everything off the counters. And every time I clean up this mess, they're over here making up a new mess.

And my newborn won't stop screaming. And so finally, when my five-year-old comes down and says, can I have a snack? Can I have a snack? Can I have a snack? I snap and I yell and scream. How do I not do that? This is where mindfulness comes into play. This is where awareness and curiosity save the day. Because let's back up for one second, right before you yell, let's be aware. This is your feelings, not theirs. This is your rage and anger and frustration,

and it shouldn't be this way, not theirs. And awareness gives us one tiny little millisecond before we respond. And in that millisecond, we can remember they're five. Of course they bang on things. They're three. Of course they don't have motor control and they just want to see what happens

when they pull a thing off the wall. And that leads us to curiosity. Why am I so enraged? Oh, because I thought motherhood would feel different. I thought my kids would behave if I was a good mom. I didn't realize kids sometimes misbehave just because they're kids. It was my expectations and it was my bricks

and my backpack that I brought to this scenario, not theirs. And then you can smile and you can go, this isn't the season for a clean house. This isn't the season for perfection. This isn't the season for doing everything perfectly. This is the season when I have a infant and a three-year-old and a five-year-old and you can make peace.

So I left work the other day and I was raged out. I was super angry and in the car, I was driving home and I started day and I was raged out. I was super angry. And in the car, I was driving home and I started laughing and I was like, how is this solving this? Right? Like there was nothing I could do about what I was mad about in my car on my way to my house. Being angry, driving too fast, grabbing the wheel that tight solved none of my issues. And so then I texted my wife and said something I don't like to say.

I had a hard one today. I'm coming in kind of hot. And she said, I'll have dinner and a hug and a show ready. Because those are things that aren't gonna solve my problem at work, but it is gonna make me more whole, right? Whenever I get spun up on something, what can I control about this thing? Mindfulness. It's about being aware.

It's about being curious. Is this actually working for me? Is this actually providing me relief from the thing I'm so upset or frustrated about? Mindfulness will save you. It'll save us all. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point.

In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com.

All right, we are back. As we wrap up today's show, song of the day is from the great and powerful Killers. The Killers! The greatest name for a band ever. It's kind of excessive. It's the great song, Somebody Told Me, and it goes like this.

Breaking my back just to know your name. 17 tracks and I've had it with this game. I'm breaking my back just to know your name, but heaven ain't close in a place like this. Anything goes, but don't blink. You might miss. Because heaven ain't close in a place like this. I said, heaven ain't close in a place like this.

Bring it back down. Never thought I'd let a rumor ruin my moonlight. Somebody told me you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend that I had in February of last year. It's not confidential. I've got potential. Let's roll into something new.

Taking its toll, then I'm leaving without you. How true this is, man. Gosh, they're good. Hey, I love you all. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Bye.