The Dr. John Delony Show - Is a Sleep Divorce the Right Answer?

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A wife struggling with the consequences of sleeping next to her noisy husband - A mother who has given her agoraphobic husband an ultimatum - A former pilot unsure how to move forward after giving up his career To pre-order John's new book Building a Non-Anxious Life click here. Lyrics of the Day: "Asleep" - The Smiths 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: Anxiety Test 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. We no longer really can sleep in the same bed together at night because he makes so much noise. And I'm a very light sleeper. I feel so guilty that we're not sharing the same bed every night, but I don't really know what the right answer is. Yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. And I had way too much caffeine this morning. And I've been trying to tone it down for the last few months, but I'm running on all cylinders.

And I bought a few other cylinders, chemical cylinders, and they are firing all at the same time. I'm so glad you're here on the greatest mental health and marriage and parenting podcast ever, ever, ever conceived. That's not true. None of what I just said is true, but I'm so glad that you're here. On this show, we talk to real people who, man, life has just came for them, right? I get us for all of us. Marriage issues, dealing with kids,

dealing with physical stuff, dealing with mental and emotional health, diagnostics, whatever you got going on. And here's my promise on this show. I'll sit with you and we will figure out what to do next. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz. 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291.

Let's run out to Kimberly in Atlanta, Georgia. What's up, Kimberly? Hey, I'm glad to hear that you're well caffeinated this morning because I'm very sleepy. I am borderline methed. So, I mean, I'm real close. What's up? So, my husband and I have been married for about 25 years and I'm just trying to determine how we can maintain our, I guess, marital health

in the fact that we no longer really can sleep in the same bed together at night because he makes so much noise and I'm a very light sleeper. And so I feel so guilty that we're not sharing the same bed every night, but I don't really know what the right answer is. Ah, so this is, this is like a contentious conversation in the nerd world. Um, so talk to me about the conversations y'all had to get to this point. Well, so, you know, he obviously feels horrible that, you know,

he keeps me awake because of, you know, whatever sounds, you know, snoring or even just like breathing heavily or whatever that he makes. Okay, I want to lean in right there. I want to lean in right there. He feels awful. And I literally had a conversation with somebody a few days ago, a buddy of mine.

And I said, and I quote, and again, this is that if you cut out grains and sugars for 60 to 90 days, your, your snoring and apnea would, would curb dramatically. And he looked at me and he goes, I know you're exactly right. And so when you tell me, um, he feels terrible about it. My next question is always how terrible, terrible enough to, to go to a sleep doctor, terrible enough to start changing things and start trying things or just terrible. Terrible enough to go to a sleep doctor, terrible enough to start changing things and start trying things, or just terrible like, oh, I feel bad.

Right, and goes right back to it. I mean, you know, I think he'd be willing to go and have a sleep study done. We actually did talk about that just like a month or so ago, and he said he'd be open to it. And it's not even so much snoring.

It's just he's a very loud breather at night. Like he's a mouth breather at night. So he's a breather at night. And I'm such a light sleeper that the slightest sounds wake me up. So then I feel like it's my fault because I don't, you know, I'm just too sensitive. So it's just been a funny thing

that's been going on for with us for like the last couple of years. Okay, so here's all I get. There's nothing, nothing hotter, like erotically than looking over at an open mouth to mouth breather. Right.

Who's like cash to the world and is just Oh man. Yeah. And okay, so that's probably a picture none of us needed in our heads. So it is funny, and also I'm going to make it a little more serious. Is that cool? Yes.

All right. So serious number one, I would be willing to bet, again, I don't have a lot, but I'd be willing to bet that he is not sleeping continuously for more than four hours a night and maybe tosses and turns and gets a five or six or seven. I would love, love, love for him to go get a Garmin watch and just begin tracking his sleep. Because almost, I'll say almost always, a significant amount of the time, there's underlying pathologies. Underlined, and it could be as simple as it is in my case, which is for some reason, I got some weird food allergies that my body just does weird things. So in my house, my wife, we have a very similar

dynamic, except I have a wife who was a researcher. And so she began to just quietly track. Because some nights I would snore. And some nights I would sleep. Like she would have to reach over and touch my chest because she thought I died in my sleep. I was just so out. And she began to track it. And she landed on three things. Beer, pizza, and candy.

Period. And if I have those three things, beer, pizza, and candy, period. And if I have those three things, I will snore. For some reason, my body swells, does something on the inside. And I used to try to dig out the physiology. I don't care anymore. What I know is those three things are true. And when I went and started tracking my sleep, first with a whoop strap, and then with this garment I wear now, by the way, i've got no affiliation with either of those companies. They just garments just a tremendous product. Um I noticed that my sleep was Was deleterious on those nights like it was it was half of what it normally is And so now I know

One thing to be true. If I have a beer with some buddies, if I have some pizza, or if I eat some candy, I am making a conscious choice to snore. I'm also making a conscious choice to sleep in another bedroom. I'm also making a conscious decision to not sleep very well. And I occasionally do that

because my time with my friends or my wife or my family, whatever's going on, it's worth that trade, but it is very much in my life, very much an either or. And that's simply because I got so curious, number one. Number two, my wife got curious. Number three, I took very seriously the fact that I was disrupting her life in that way. Yeah. And so I think your husband sounds like he likes the idea of you having a good night's sleep, but not enough to just go all in. Because I got insane about it.

Yeah, I think he just thinks that it's something he can't control. Yes, that's not true. And I think if I were to share with him that there is maybe something that can be done about it. A whole bunch. He actually does eat pretty healthy, but at the same time, I'm sure that I could start looking at it and tracking it just to see if there is,

because like you said, it's not every night. Some nights he sleeps great and I can stay put. And then other nights, you know, he's just ripping and roaring and I'm like, I'm going to the other bedroom. Again, I'm not a sleep study guy. I'm a sleep study expert. I would be willing to bet there's some sort of allergic reaction inside of him.

And I say allergies. I'm speaking very loosely there, not in a clinical sense in any way. But all I have to say is this. Here's where there's a big discussion back and forth in the nerd world. There are some studies that say over the long haul that sleeping in separate beds does disrupt your sex life. It does disrupt your intimacy life, and it might even have some downstream health consequences. And there's some other studies that say above all else, get a good night's sleep. Nothing in your life matters.

Nothing you can do in your life matters if it's built on a foundation of less than good sleep And so in my house and I again this is one of those like there's no consensus in the literature So i'm just gonna tell you what I do. Um, probably one night a week, maybe two i'll sleep in another room Because i've made some dumb choice. Um, maybe nah, that's not true. Maybe once every two weeks I will i'll go sleep in another room because I've made some dumb choice. Maybe, nah, that's not true. Maybe once every two weeks, I'll go sleep in the guest room. And it's a gift for her. It's a gift for me. I also know about once a month, maybe twice a month, I'll know about eight o'clock like, oh man, I'm going to be up till four. I don't know why my body does that. It just does. And I used to fight it and fight it and fight it and medicate. I just don't fight it at all anymore. I just get a lot of work done. It's

great. And I make sure I do my workouts early that next morning and then my body just adjusts itself. And so I don't fight it anymore. But what is important is I want to make sure at least one of us is sleeping good. So I make sure she gets some sleep and she'll tell you, right. Um, she does not sleep when I'm snoring and she sleeps at a different level when I'm in, in, in the same bed. And my guess is you experienced that too. That's right. Because, you know, we used to have that and, you know, and I love that closeness and, you know, just that security feeling. So it's just been hard because then, like I said, I feel guilty when I'm not sleeping in there that I'm like,

oh, I'm shunning you or whatever. So that's good. Right now, the greatest gift you could give your husband is a well-rested you. Yeah. The greatest gift he could give you is to really dig in and figure out why his body has begun acting the way that it has been over the last few months, years. I think a formal sleep study is great. I think before you would pay the money to go do a formal sleep study, I think it would be fun just to track. I think it'd be fun

just to track. And so here's how this would look in your house. You go ahead and set up the guest room as though you're going to sleep in there and then you get ready and go to bed. And if he wakes you up in the middle of the night, y'all have written down what y'all ate the night before. And it might be as simple as that. It might also be as simple as a meeting coming up that he had or didn't have. I would look at the simplest things first.

And I would do anything Anything to not have pizza and A dark beer and candy slash chips and queso I would do anything for those four things not to affect my body in that way, but they do They do And they don't affect my friends in that same way, which is super annoying, but they do And that's me choosing reality. I got to live in that. So you are not a bad person. Your marriage isn't falling apart. None of that stuff is true. Those are all stories that we got from Leave it to Beaver, right? I don't even know why I said

Leave it to Beaver, but if you are new to the world, that show is about a thousand years old. But what's important is y'all decide, I want to sleep in the same bed as you. You want to sleep in the same bed as me. That means we have to get to the bottom of this. We have to figure it out. And let's get very curious and very aware of what's going on. And then if we can't figure that out over the next two weeks, this doesn't take a long time. This is a couple of weeks. Then let's go get a formal sleep study. Let's go figure that out. Let's go see if there's something with jaw alignment or with the way my pillow works.

I mean, there's any number of things, but almost always underneath like a sudden, and I say the last couple of years, a sudden snoring, sudden deep breathing, you start heading into sleep apnea, that waking up and going to sleep, waking up, going to sleep, you're getting into some underlying pathology that your body's just trying to get your attention about. And it's just good to go get checked out.

It's good to go get it checked out. But this all starts with you sitting down with your husband saying, I've been getting some sleep, but I miss you. Would you be willing to not just talk about it, but let's get very, very serious about figuring out what's happening to your body at night? And let's see if we can figure that out. And it might cost you your nightly bowl of ice cream, and it might cost you that glass of wine. It might cost you whatever, but am I worth it? Don't do that. That'd be mean, but I mean, also do that. All right. Thanks for the call. You're awesome. We'll be right back. All right. Let's go out to Charlotte and talk to Pam, which is map backwards. What's up, Pam? How are we doing? Not much. Just hanging in there. Very cool. Aren't we all right? What's up?

Oh, I've been having some difficulty sticking with, for lack of a better word, ultimatums that I've been trying with my husband who has a mental illness. Ultimatums are never great. They're never good. What ultimatums did you put down? Well, so he has agoraphobia. He's not left our house at all for three years.

And it wouldn't be so bad except for like, he, he also wants to keep me and our kids at home. Yeah. That's yeah. Yikes. Um, yeah, that's not good. We've had several showdowns about it and I'm always the one who backs down. You've been in prison for three years. Yes. Yeah. You can't do that anymore. No, no. Your kids can't do that anymore. No. No, your kids can't do that either. No. Yeah, you need to make a call on this ASAP.

There is, so for those listening, agoraphobia, it's technically classified as an anxiety disorder. But agoraphobia is initially a fear of large crowds, right? When I don't know how I'm going to get out of this situation, and it increasingly tightens your circle, and you may experience or imagine panic attacks, and then over time, if untreated and undealt with. And by the way, especially up front, it's not a hard mental health challenge to overcome. I mean, it's pretty systematic.

But over time, untreated agoraphobics, they won't leave their house. They'll shut the door, lock the door. They will draw the curtains. And then where it gets really dire is when they trap loved ones in the house too. And that sounds like where y'all are at, right? Yeah, well, we're living this kind of half-life where I'll go to my parents' house with the kids for a few weeks, and then we'll go back home.

And then he set up, we have a two-story home, so he set up basically an apartment with a makeshift kitchen. And he hides for us for two weeks. Y'all aren't even married. We are for two weeks every month and a half. When he's done hiding from us. Yeah. I mean, that's not marriage.

Is he unwilling to go get help? He's tried. So he's on a six. And then if they want him to leave the house or Say that one more time. I missed it. Oh, I'm sorry. He's, he's on attempt six of getting help or he's, he's reached out to mental health professional, but for whatever reason, he's always backed out before. So he's not getting help. Yeah. Um,

and he's unwilling. What is, what is the, what is his narrative? Uh, so, so he has OCD, uh,

contamination. And so his, his narrative is that if he gets sick, he's going to, he's going to die and that he's protecting us and that whenever we do anything normal, you know, go to the park, we're risking illness ourselves

in his life and death I want people to hear that with an agoraphobic, especially somebody who's, man, you throw an OCD on top of that, which by the way I'm still in the camp that those are similar. I know there's some neurological differences there, but I think the trajectory from anxiety to OCD and back are pretty tightly wound or braided together there.

But it is life or death. So if you see, like you're about to step and a rattlesnake is about to strike you, and I'm talking to people who are listening here, not to you, Pam, but if you are about to step on a rattlesnake or a car is coming at you and it's 10 feet away, that's the feeling that he gets when he's about to go outside. Or when y'all have been at the park or been at a grocery store and you come just bebopping back in the house. How old are your kids? Four and a half and two.

Oh, geez. Yeah. You have to make some hard calls here quick, Pam. And I know that you know that, but I just want to reaffirm you're not crazy. And your husband's worthy of being loved and all that. But you can't do this much longer. And those kids cannot be penned up.

And they cannot have their nervous system wired, and it already is down the road, especially for your oldest one, that they are somehow a contamination to their dad. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And that they, I mean, it's for a child's nervous system to be in the same room or the same vicinity. It's why COVID was so awful for folks who had to go upstairs for two weeks in quarantine and their little kids are downstairs and they just couldn't wrap their head around it. And that this isn't just for two weeks. This is for ever in your home. And my guess is this, this tends to escalate. So it just slowly moves. Is that how this has been going for the last several years? Uh, kind of a bit on a bell curve or it escalated, escalated. And then, you know, he, he, he got a little better. He got a little looser on things. Um, mostly I have to kind of just say no and stand up to him. And so,

you know, he, he's loosened up quite a bit, you know, but that, that's, um, anybody outside looking in wouldn't even notice that he's, he's loosened up and he's gotten better. Um, what's your relationship with your parents meaning? Could you move in on a permanent basis wouldn't even notice that he's loosened up and he's gotten better. What's your relationship with your parents meaning? Could you move in on a permanent basis for a season? Yeah, yeah. Here's the way I want you to think of this. At the end of the day,

not that your husband has chosen agoraphobia, not that your husband has chosen anxiety or OCD. He has chosen up until now, and I know it can also be a function of the illness, so I'm not cold-hearted and evil or all that. But he has chosen to not pursue care. And he hasn't had to. and so at the end of the day you have to choose what's best for you and your children and you know as well as I do this scenario is not sustainable and it's not good

for your kids and it's not good for you and so there will be a lot of grief there will be a lot of guilt there will be a lot of trying to figure out what comes next. And who knows what comes next? But this isn't about ultimatums.

This is about the health of you and your kids. Yeah. I guess because he always phrases it as an ultimatum when I talk to him about it. That's how he keeps his hooks in you. Yeah. You're not giving him an ultimatum. What you're going to do from this point forward is do the things that you need to do to stay well and whole. And that is, I'm not going to be held a prisoner in my own home.

I just won't be. Our children are going to go out and play with other kids because they have to have that for neurological development. Our kids are going to go outside and get sunshine and have different adventures, and they're going to have different tactile experiences, lateral, horizontal. They're going to do all of these things for their neural development, not stay locked inside this house watching TV, period. Your dream and hope, and I hope you communicate this to him. My dream and hope is that, and I will go every step of the way with you. If you'll have me, my dream and hope is that you will begin ASAP to get the mental health care that you need. Because for agoraphobia,

for OCD, for hyper anxiety disorders, there's significant help available. Yeah. There is. And for agoraphobia specifically, now he sounds like he's really far down the road. Has he started

the panic attack process yet? Not that I've seen. It's mostly just like not sleeping is where I see it. Like ability not sleeping is where I see it. Like not ability, ability not to sleep where I see it kind of. And I have, I have a working hypothesis that I may be crazy on,

but I have a hypothesis that my anxiety did not get super, super, super bad, like, like irrationally bad. I've always been just, just hypersensitive, like,

uh, able to read a room, able to know like, Oh, there's about to be a fight. Like I've always been just just hypersensitive like uh able to read a room able to know like oh There's about to be a fight like i've it's always i've been that way since a little kid But my anxiety didn't get out of control Until I spent several years taking hypnotic sleep medications Because I was training. Um Mixed martial arts and from 8 to 10 p.m

I'd get home really late and then I could just take this thing and it would knock me out what i didn't realize over time was i was not sleeping my body was not getting restorative sleep i was just unconscious through this medication and i thought i had hacked the system right and so it was several years of not sleeping well that i spun out and so it may be and again we're talking chicken or the egg here, but I'm wondering what six or seven weeks of deep black hole sleep, not hypnosis and not unconsciousness, but of sleep would do to his ability to think rationally about what comes next. And He has to choose that. And let me be super clear. I quit my job. We took a $70,000 household income pay cut. We moved. I did all kinds of things that were radical and insane at the time. I turned down a vice presidency. I did a lot of stuff

because I loved my wife and I love my kids and I didn't want this. I didn't want this anymore. And so I tell you that to tell you it might take huge sacrifices and I'm here more than a decade later and every single inch of my life, every single corner of my life is different. Yeah. I mean,

I'm dude, I'm no superhero, but my wife laid down some really firm boundaries and she was right to do so. What's your, what is your hangup? I guess just lots of guilt for, for leaving him, leaving him in it. Is you staying in it, doing anything positively to help him? At this point, I don't think so. I don't either.

What about the guilt you should have towards yourself? Or the guilt you should have towards your kids that are seeing all this? Yeah. So it's just a lot of not feeling great. Exactly. So here's, I'm trying to get you. Um, I wrote about this in this new book. There's only a hard path. It's hard to, to sit down with your parents and say, we're going to move in for six months. We're going to try a six month separation here. And you could tell your husband, I'm not interested in divorcing you.

I'm not, but I can no longer sit in this home while you drown in isolation and loneliness. Yeah. I can't, I can't watch you do that. And I especially, I'm not going to let our four year old and two year old watch you do this.

And so I'm going to get them community. I'm gonna get them sunshine. I'm going to you do that. And I especially, I'm not going to let our four-year-old and two-year-old watch you do this. And so I'm going to get them community. I'm going to get them sunshine. I'm going to get them activity. I'm going to go see a counselor because this has been really hard on me the last three years, watching my husband slowly suffocate inside his own house,

our own house. But I'm going to live here for 90 days, for three months, for six months. The moment you need a ride to go see a mental health professional, I will be there. Yeah. Right? So this isn't abandonment.

This is, at this point, you're continuing down this path. I'm going to choose to make sure that me and our two little kids are okay. Because that's my job. Yeah. That's my job. Yeah. That's my job. And I want you to make sure your picture of what a marriage is... Oh, let me go back. You've got two hard paths.

Leaving will be hard. Being a single mom for a season with your parents will be hard. There'll probably be some I told you so's and all that. Some where's daddy, all that stuff. And staying in this current psychosis, like sitting in this dark house upstairs where you're, I mean, it's just madness, right? When you say it out loud, you're like, is this my life?

That's hard. That's hard too. So you have a hard path either way. Take the one that's going to lead you towards healing. Take the one that's going to be safest for your kids. Does that make sense? Yes. You hear what I'm saying?

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing you've done up till now is working. Let's try something completely different. And be prepared for the guilt. Be prepared for his gaslighting and, oh my gosh, you abandoned me. You left me. You're the worst when I needed you most. All that stuff. You know that's coming, right? Yeah, that's the

stuff that gets me. Of course. So you know that it is a person that's him saying, I don't want to actually make the call to the professional. I don't want to call the fire department to put this fire out. I just want you to sit with me and get burned too. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. And I'm not going to get burned anymore. I would go in that fire and get you if it was to get you out and get you to

the professionals that can help. But you don't want that right now. And that's okay. You're an adult. You get to do that. I'm going to be heartbroken and sick over watching the man I love go through this and not accept anybody's help. But also, I'm not going to set in the fire with you anymore. Right. And hear me say this, agoraphobia, there's desensitization where they have you imagine things, they have you draw a picture of things, and they sit with you and they teach you some skills. And then you draw a picture of things and they sit with you and they teach you some skills and then there's usually panic attacks involved and they teach you to work through those, but we're not talking and then you roll

off into cognitive behavioral therapy at some point. We're not talking a complex process out of this. Okay? Yeah. This is him choosing like, I don't want this life anymore And I don't know what to do it feels insane I feel like i'm gonna die all those things are true I'm not saying this is easy or trivial by any means Yeah, yeah I I I believe he doesn't want to get help because he's he's afraid that getting helpful Expose him to what he thinks is going to kill him and here's the deal deal. In his mind, he's exactly right. How does he make money?

Oh, that's the crazy thing. He runs three successful businesses from the house with employees and everything. None of his friends know how sick he is. He's like super high functioning business guy. Wow. So, yeah. Good for him. Good for him. Yeah. Good for him. Can't check the mail, but, you know.

That was kind of a dig, but I appreciate it. I like a good dig. Yeah. I make six figures and can't go check the mail. I mean, that's a function, right, of, jeez Louise. Yeah. I hate that for him. I hate that for everybody involved.

I hate it for everybody involved. I hate it for everybody involved. But let's go back and he doesn't want to call 911. His house is on fire and he doesn't want to call 911. He just wants you to sit with him and hold his hand. And if you get up and say, I'm tired of getting burned, you're the bad guy. You're not. You're not the bad guy. You're not the bad guy.

I don't think he's a bad guy And he has enough working in his life that he has not been Forced with faced with an either or so he's been able to keep His money coming in his work from home his imaginary leadership with employees virtual And his marriage and some weirdly constructed Two weeks here you do this, I'm going over here, you go over there. Weirdness.

He's been able to keep all the plates spinning. And this is when you come in and say, I'm getting off. I'm not on your plates anymore. I'm going over here until you choose to get well. And he's going to feel like he's walking through hell. And for his body, he will be. And you're worth it, and so are those little kids.

Hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life. This is y'all's world, and this is what comes next, and these are the aspects. When he sits down, and after going through the exposure therapy,

he is going to have to create a new world. Y'all are going to have to create a new world together. And this is your roadmap, building a non-anxious life. All of y'all are worth more than this. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks. Let's talk about hallow. All right. I say this all the time. It's important to get away for times of prayer and meditation by yourself with no one else around. But one thing you might not think about, though, is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate. And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious, if you question things, or if you've been burned by a church experience in the past, it's hard to want to get together with other people. And that's

another reason why I love hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with the past, it's hard to want to get together with other people. And that's another reason why I love Hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow and they give you three free months to do it. You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose. And this way, you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others. And with Hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour. And you can listen where it works for your schedule. You can choose your guide, your background music.

You can create your own personal prayer plan and more. I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the hallow meditation on the scripture of the day. It's a discipline and it's a practice. And here's what I'm learning. As with anything of importance and meaning, prayer takes intentionality, practice, and showing up even when I don't feel like it, and even I don't want to. This is discipline. Sometimes you do this by yourself, and sometimes you do this with a group, and Halo helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app on planet Earth,

Halo, right now. And listen, viewers and listeners of this show, get three free months when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. Go right amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, let's go out to Los Angeles, the city of angels, and talk to Justin. What's up,

Justin? How we doing? Hey, Dr. Deloney. How's it going? It's an honor to be talking with you. We're partying, man. It's an honor to talk to you, dude. What's up? Yeah. So my situation, basically, so ever since I was a kid, ever since I was little, my dream was to become an airline pilot. And so I kind of pursued that dream, went to college. After college, I became a commercial pilot and flight instructor. But then due to some medical and mental health stuff, I actually wasn't able to continue past that. And since really flying was my identity,

it kind of put me in a rough spot for a while. It really felt like I had kind of lost my purpose. And it's gotten better since then. I've been going to... I had gone to some counseling and I'm enjoying what I'm doing now, but it still pops up here and there. And I've, I've kind of found myself, um, like whenever I drive by an airport, I, I start feeling pretty low and it feels like kind of, I'm going back to square around the square one. So I guess my question overall is how I can kind of begin to fully let it go and move on and embrace what's ahead. Yeah, man. Thanks for the call. So, um So what put this picture in your head as a kid? Just curious.

Yeah, I've thought about that. I mean, nobody in my family were pilots or anything like that. It was just something that I've always kind of been into everything that moves, trains, planes, boats. Planes just caught my eye, and that's kind of what drew me toward it from a young age. I was recently sitting down with somebody and we were kind of doing some mining of my past.

And it occurred to me that my dad used to really talk positive. So my dad was a hostage negotiator for the SWAT team. And there was a psychologist on staff, like a staff psychologist with the police department that was kind of over everything. And my dad used to talk about that guy with reverence. Like we would be, he'd say, like we were dealing with issue, issue, issue, issue. We'd call him and wake him up in the middle of the night and tell him, he'd go, just ask him this. And we'd always ask him. And then he would

just, the guy was, that was about to jump would just come down or the guy who had a bomb would just walk out the front door. And so I had to wonder, man, I always hear my dad talk about this one guy with such reverence. Is that the tiny mustard seed of you should be in mental health and then your dad will think your dad will be proud of you too. And I just wondered, and so I always love to ask that question, where is that seed, especially from a young age, um, who in your life or what in your life planted that seed, but who knows what it is. Right. I just wondered if you were like, no, my dad used to be a pilot or he used to talk how amazing pilots were or my mom. Anyway, my mom, a pilot saved my mom's life or anything. Yeah, no, I haven't, I haven't found anything like that,

that I can think of. It was just more of the fact that I loved airplanes and everything like that. So that's very cool. All right. So what's the medical issue, man? What happened? Yeah. So it started with, well, it started, I was flying one time just by myself. I was building some hours for one of my certificates and just out of nowhere, really out of nowhere, my toes, my fingers all started going tingly and numb. My vision started to go away and I really thought I was going to black out and that was going to be it right there. I remember

that was the first instance of it. I thought it was carbon monoxide poisoning from the airplane but it turns out that was not the case. I went to see some doctors. It was a panic attack. That's what they had told me that it most likely was. Yeah.

And so those started coming back and I had a whole bunch of those and I ended up finishing the program successfully. But after that, I was kind of left at this crossroads as a flight instructor, my primary responsibility is going to be to ensure the safety of whoever's in my airplane. And if I can't do that right now, it's just not really going to be the suitable option. So did you take yourself out? Yeah, I did. Okay. Yeah.

Can I give you an alternative hypothesis? Yeah, absolutely. There's the obvious loss, man. You put your whole life into this, and you trained for it. You got certified in it. You had this vision of this life. You became an instructor, right? I mean, this was your world. Mm-hmm. into this and you trained for it you got certified in it you had this vision of this life you became

an instructor right i mean this was your world but there's also another component when your body betrays you yeah and that's the part underneath the job that's the part underneath the identity part where suddenly just walking on two feet becomes unstable because the one thing that you rely on every day failed you in your eyes it failed you yeah yeah that to me is the core angst because i don't trust me anymore if i don't trust me i can't trust anybody anything at all yeah is that fair yeah that's definitely fair so my question for you would be, what's the core anxiety underneath this? Because panic attack is your body trying to get you. Basically, a panic attack is your body saying, hey, you haven't listened to us. We're out.

I quit. Yeah. What's the core anxiety underneath that? Yeah, that's, I don't know. I mean, yeah, that's, I think that's the question I'm kind of seeking answers for as well. Uh, cause yeah, it tends to, it's been a while since I've had one, but they would always tend to happen when not in places where I didn't feel in control, but in times where I felt that if it happened, then it would be in worst case scenario. So flying obviously is when they would start to happen the most.

And then driving, they would happen pretty often too. Other than that, it never seemed to affect my life in ways other than that, I guess. But my guess is there's an underlying... So think of it this way. You have a cup, like a glass, and it can take a lot. It can take, you've got to be at work on time. You've got a wife that's hassling you about something. You've got a kid that's got the flu.

You've got mom and dad who are telling you what you're doing for Christmas. It's got all these things, and each one of them is putting drops of water in this glass. And it fills up and up and up. And you've got that car payment you got to make and you got that soccer coach telling you that your kid's going to be the one but he's going to have to pay for private lessons and you get this exam tomorrow for your licensure all this stuff just keeps going up and up and up and then your glass is completely full and then you get in a plane and you know more so than the people in the, that you're super jittery and you didn't sleep and you had 19 cups of coffee to get the day going.

And then the thought machine kicks up. And so what I want you to look at it is not about the thought machine. That thought machine is trying to keep you safe. That panic attack is trying to keep you safe. That panic attack is trying to keep you safe. I want to go underneath it and say, what in your life is filling up your glass so tall that when stress comes, which I hope, honestly, I hope my pilots, I have a lot of flights coming up here. I'll be traveling a lot. I hope all my pilots are a little bit angsty. I don't want them to have anxiety disorders, but I want them all to be like,

hey, we need to do this right. I don't want them just cruising, man. So I want you to be like, all right, we got focused, we're lasered in, not like, oh, man, did you see the game last night? Because in my head, that just means we're all going to wreck. And so my question for you is,

how's your underlying health? How's your underlying relationships? How is your underlying autonomy? Who runs your life? How's your marriage? These are questions I want to get to the bottom of, because if you have an empty glass or a glass that's very, very small, here's the story I love to tell from the stage. When my cousin died suddenly, man, it was awful. And my wife and I booked plane tickets and we got a hotel in Houston. We flew home. We were never anxious. Man, I was sad. but because my glass is empty most of the time i don't owe anybody any money i don't i work i see a counselor regularly i work on my marriage really

hard i always try to be a better dad like because i'm not anxious when bad stuff happens there's enough space in that glass for me to accept whatever water gets dumped into it. And my body doesn't shut us down because it's prepared. You see what you see the analogy I'm getting at? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe it's none of those things.

I think more the thought that I come back to the most, I really think is the, is the idea that I'm like not where I, I really think is the, is the idea that I'm like, not where I thought I would be. Like, I guess when it pops up, I guess when I, when I see pictures of friends that I was in flight school with who are now making it to the airlines. And I, I feel that sense of, um, I don't even really know how to describe it, but that's, that's kind of, I mean, that's where I see it the most. It's just jealousy, and that's totally normal. I'd be jealous, right?

Yeah. Totally. Yeah. But I also think in the short term, you did a really noble thing opting out. Because you could have got through flight school and got up in a plane, and no one would have known what you were feeling in your shoes. Fair? Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. No one would have known until you blacked out and left that other pilot all by himself. So for me, the figuring out what is that underlying anxiety about? Because the trainers,

the certifiers, the instructors, they believe in you. Those who have ridden with you before, they believe in you. Your students have believed in you. The one thing that doesn't believe in you is your body for some reason. Yeah. And I'd want to get to the core of that.

The second piece on the alternative, what are you doing now? I work for a nonprofit and I'm also going back to school. What are you doing there? Um, at the nonprofit? No, no, no, no. Going back to school for what? I'm getting a master's in counseling. Ah, there you go.

Okay. So have you gone to your own therapy? Yeah. Yeah, I have. Yeah. You haven't got to the bottom of the anxiety? Yeah, I, it doesn't, yeah, I guess it doesn't seem like we have. haven't got to the bottom of the anxiety? Yeah. It doesn't.

Yeah. I guess it doesn't seem like we have. Yeah. Come on counselors. Yeah. Come on counselors. I guess I thought I was, yeah. I guess I thought I was farther past this than I'm realizing now,

just I guess with things that keep popping up. So when people get cancer, when people end up with a brain tumor, when people who are star athletes blow their knee out, it's different than a Formula One driver whose car wrecks on them. Because there's a gap between that car and them. When your body fails you, it's devastating. Because if I can't, again, because if I can't rely on my body good god man and there's always a coming back around that after the next five years we are going to go to the doctor and see if we're cancer if cancer is still undetectable is it undetectable is it undetectable and there's

that apprehension there's that that um anxiousness and that's good that's right because your body let you down. In this analogy, right? I don't think globally it lets you down, but the picture you had was we're going to do this thing and your body's like, we're not going to do that. Yeah. And so I think there is a, there will be some, it'll take time to make peace with,

that's not for me. Or in this season, that wasn't for me. Are you done flying forever? Can you never do it again? Yeah, I think probably. It's hard to answer at this point, but yeah,

I think so. Why? I mean, I mean, unless I can get to a point where I know for certain I can do it safely, I mean, unless I can get to a point where I know for certain I can do it safely, I wouldn't want to, I would only do that in the air. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And is the thought of getting back up in the air, just terrify you? Does it get that warm feeling in your guts? Yeah. And it really did ever since.

Cause when that, when it first happened, that was still months away from when I was finished. And so really ever since that, ever since that day, getting back in there, um, was pretty tough. And, and that, even that, that was when I had somebody else with me. Um, and so going back by my, by myself, I just, I don't know how, I just don't know how my body would react to that. All right, here's what I want you to do. And if your therapist can't do this, I want you to find somebody in your local community who can do this. And out there in California, I promise you can find this.

I want somebody to do either EMDR or somebody to do some sort of body work with you. And body work is sometimes they hold your hand, they put their hand on your shoulder, they put your hand on the back of your head while you are laying down, while you're sitting down, while you tell what happened. And you process those feelings as though they have, as they happened again,

but you do it in the safety of somebody else's space. Okay. Okay. And what it does is it eventually discharges that that trauma that's held in your body and it might be an overuse of the word but feeling like your body failed you is a core trauma trauma means i'm separate from myself and feeling like i can't take this step because my knee's gonna blow out on me again feeling like i can't take this step because my knee is going to blow out on me again. Feeling like I can't do something hard because last time I did, my body almost shut me down in the 30,000 feet in the air. Is that's, that's, that's a trauma, right? And every time you think about it, your body remembers the past and it drags it into the present.

And so we have to unhook our response from that. You weren't safe then. You're great now. Now let's figure out what that is. And dude, it's okay to be jealous. It's okay to be like, ah, they did it. I didn't. That's okay. You're not broken or crazy.

You need to grieve that. I would love to see you take some autonomy, I mean some ownership, some autonomy. Not autonomy, that's the wrong word. I want you to take some ownership. Here's what wrong word. I want you to take some ownership. Here's what this is. I want you to write Justin the pilot a letter. And I want you to say, dear Justin the pilot,

we were supposed to be flying today. And be very specific. And I chose to not fly. I chose a different life path. I chose health and healing. I chose a different life path. I chose health and healing. I chose fill in the blank. And I want you to begin to not be subjected to a body that you don't trust.

I want you to take ownership of that body again. And in a weird way, anxiety tends to follow the leader. And if the leader is firm and committed and taking ownership, anxiety says, we don't have to ring the alarms because that guy's driving. It's when your body thinks, dude, he's not paying attention. He's not paying attention. Then it will start shutting you down. See what I'm saying?

Yeah, absolutely. Because I think there's a lot of grieving you haven't done yet. I think you may have talked with a counselor for a while and y'all just talked and how does that make you feel? And how does that make you feel? But let's get in and do the hard work, which is we're going to grieve this thing I'm going to take ownership of it because you weren't kicked out Your body said we're out and then you did a noble thing and you walked away And so you made a choice and now you're making a choice to go be a mental health counselor, which is awesome

We need some more great counselors out there. And you're going to make a choice to get to the core anxiety. And you're going to make a choice to release your body from responding to this nonsense every time. You think about a pilot or every time you see a plane fly over, every time you're about to get on a plane and your body goes whoosh and drops and that slow motion feeling. We're going to be done with that now. I'm going to go process. I'm going to go back to that feeling, back to that moment, and I'm going to be done with that now. I'm going to go process. I'm going to

go back to that feeling, back to that moment, and I'm going to free my body from it. And by the way, we're going to get to when the world was my body so scared of. I landed the plane. The teacher said I did great. My schooling said I did great. They certified me and everything. Why is my body so scared of? And my guess is you're going to find something in your environment that's much, much bigger. Somebody who didn't believe in you for a long period of time and cast a narrative into you that became part of your nervous system or you're lonely or you don't take care of your body

or any number of things. Hang on the line, I'm gonna send you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life as well. I want you to read that book and see if any of that rings true. But my guess is there's a deeper well here, there's a deeper picture. And I don't want to put hope where you have put something to bed,

but when you get to this core anxiety, maybe you're back up there flying again. Or maybe you deal with that core anxiety, and a couple years from now when you're a licensed counselor, you're sitting across the room from somebody, and you're able to look into their eyes and say, I've been there too. I've been there too. I'm proud of you, man. You did a hard, hard thing, and you have a hard road to go into the future, and you can do it. You can do it. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet

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

All right, as we wrap up today's show, finally, Kelly's out today, and there's good music. Well done, Jenna. The great and powerful Smiths. I love the Smiths, man. I love the Smiths. man. I love the Smiths. Song's called Asleep. I'm assuming this is a shout-out to the first caller?

Of course, yes. Of course. Are you a Smiths fan? Actually, Andrew over here picked it. I knew it. Andrew rules. Andrew rules. Where are you on that one, Jenna?

You should get an associate producer credit on this show today. Way to go, Andrew. Song is called Asleep, and it goes like this. Sing me to sleep. I'm tired and I want to go to bed. Sing me to sleep and then leave me alone. Don't try to wake me in the morning, because I'll be gone.

Don't feel bad for me. I want you to know deep in the cell of my heart, I feel so glad to go. I don't want to wake up on my own anymore. Sing to me. I don't even know what they're talking about at this point. I want to go to sleep. Leave me alone. I want to come back. Let's be friends. Actually, this sounds more like Jenna than I care to admit. It's all good. Love you guys. See you soon. Bye.