The Dr. John Delony Show - My 13 Year-Old Daughter Snuck Out of the House

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

Today we talk with a woman needing boundaries with her homeless mother-in-law who continues to cause family chaos, a parent who can’t trust her teen daughter after she’s been repeatedly caught sneaking around, and (bonus!) I launch into why you absolutely must come to terms with being human. My mom is a mess and I’m struggling to set boundaries with her My 13yo daughter snuck out of the house. How can we rebuild trust? Spoiler alert: We’re all gonna die… Lyrics of the Day: "The Lakes" - Taylor Swift Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Greensbury Resources: 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.

On today's show, we talk to a woman whose mother is living in her car and she wants to know how to set boundaries. We also talk to a father who's lost faith in his teenage daughter. And spoiler alert, everybody, we're all going to die. Stay tuned. What up? What up? What up, what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad you're with us.

Talk about mental health, your relationships, being well, living in this chaotic, crazy mess of a world. Woke up to the sound of pouring rain. Hey, I had a Van Halen reference today earlier in a segment me and Jimmy Childs were doing. Missed it. Man, every time I think we're getting closer and closer together, James. So close. Sorry I wasn't born in the 70s or whenever you were born.

Sorry I didn't. Ooh, yeah. Kelly was born in the 40s, dude. Back it off. Dude, your hair, the person who dyes your hair does an incredible job. Like most people can't tell unless you're really close. All right. And let's go to Liz in Maui

Hey Liz, what's up? Hi Dr. John, thanks for taking my call Thank you for calling, what's happening? I just want to let you know This call could go south at any minute I've got a 2 year old, a 3 year old And a 4 year old home All home quarantining

Wow We can just stop the call right there minute. I've got a two-year-old, a three-year-old, and a four-year-old home, all home quarantining. Wow. We can just stop the call right there. And how about this? I have a great idea. You take the phone and just go to sleep and just put it by your head. And that way your kids may not bother you for a second. And I'll just sit here in silence and we'll just take 10 minutes for you. The whole country will just sit with you. Wow. It's a lot. Hey, no problem. Yes. So what's up? So my issue today, you know, I got a lot of them, but one for today. My mother-in-law was living with us for an amount of time. And then a old boyfriend came back into her life, and she decided to go and live with him in her car on the beach, which is what we call homeless in Hawaii.

Actually, I learned this in grad school. That's actually homeless everywhere. In all of Earth. All of Earth. Well, I guess when it's on the beach in Hawaii, it seems a little bit less of it. Oh, more romantic. Yes. Yeah, okay. So, which was fine.

Her choice, her life. She's, you know, a six-year-old adult. She can do what she wants. But the relationship has been abusive. And she has come back twice, like left him, came back, lived with us. And the second time, she brought bedbugs with her. Oh, those are the worst. Yeah, they're not fun.

Did you get them? Yes. Oh, gosh. For years, I was over residence halls at universities, and dude, kids would bring those. They're the worst, and they don't ever go away. You have to just burn your house down and rebuild a new one. Not really, but they're the worst. I'm sorry.

That's tough. Yep, it's just constant cleaning and spraying. Hey, at least you don't have three little kids that could get bed bugs too. Oh, man, what a mess. What a mess. So how can I help? So that was kind of like the last straw. We took that risk.

We knew that she had the bedbugs in her car, got her car treated, did everything precautionary as we could to keep the bedbugs out, got them anyways. But that was a risk that we took. And it was like, mom, for you to have a safe place, that's fine. We'll take that risk. We'll deal with it together. But then she went back to the exact same place where she was with the same guy. And, um, now she's been reaching out, like she misses the kids right now we're in quarantine anyways. So don't really need to respond to her yet. But, um, I don't know how to respectfully and with dignity tell her, like, hey, you know, we can't be your safe landing place, you know, when you're putting our family at risk every time. Yeah.

That one's hard. What's your husband, how is he handling this? Well, he just doesn't deal with it. Him and his mom have, this isn't new to him. Okay. Her choosing boyfriend or herself over family. So that's been his story his whole life. So a question I have for her.

Have you all sat down and given her very clear boundaries? And here's what I'm getting at. Here's what I'm getting at. I often find myself blaming somebody for the way that they interact with me without taking full ownership, that I am responsible for the way I allow people to treat me and my family. And if I haven't said, if this happens, this is the consequence. We think we don't have to do that with adults and it'd be a perfect world if we didn't, but we do.

It's just reality. So have y'all sat down and said, if you bring home a disease, if you bring home bugs, if you come here intoxicated, if you come here on drugs or high, you cannot be a part of this house. We'll love you and see you out on the beach for hot dogs, but you are not welcome here. Have y'all sat down and been that clear with her? No, we haven't. And I guess part of the thing is we've been helping out family a lot lately and we're just kind of done with it. You're tired.

We just want everybody to take care of themselves. Wouldn't that be so nice? Yeah. And you could just leave. And what's ironic about what you're saying is you just want to deal with

your five and four and three-year-old, right? And your husband, which is an unbelievable amount of work anyway. Back to the boundary conversation. Have you had this conversation with your husband? Or are you speaking in we in the plural because it helps prop you up? Because it sounds to me like you were all freaking alone. If it was up to my husband, he just would not talk to her, not deal with her at all unless she showed up to the house.

Okay, so he's done done with her. Yeah, he's just over it. Okay. But I know she's also, he's just over it. Okay. But I know she's also my kid's grandmother. Right. And she's been messaging me

that she wants to see them, that she misses us. Sure. And, yeah, and that's hard, especially if my husband's just like,

oh, I'm done. Yeah. I'm just not doing it. So here's what's got to happen. You and your husband have to have a hard conversation. I know you got three little kids and it's going to have to be after they go to bed or they're taking naps or something.

Somebody's going to come over and watch them, and y'all got to have a hard conversation. And here's the two parts to your conversation. Number one, it's what is our boundaries when it comes to mom? Are we serious? If she shows up here in the middle of the night, are we going to not let her in? Or yes, we'll let her in when she comes, but only when she knocks on the door. So what are our boundaries, however hard they are? The second part of this conversation has to be your or what moment.

If she comes banging on the door at 11 o'clock looking for a place to sleep, are y'all going to call the cops on her if she won't leave? What is your or what moment. If she comes banging on the door at 11 o'clock looking for a place to sleep, are y'all gonna call the cops on her if she won't leave? Like, what is your or what? How far does these, how willing are you to hold these boundaries? And then the right thing I believe, because we're not talking about, she's not abusive.

She's not, she's bringing chaos to you, but it's, it's secondhand chaos, right? I think the right thing to do is when you and your husband come to agreement, y'all shake on this, y'all kiss on this, y'all bump foreheads together. I don't know, whatever y'all do, right? Y'all say, this is in stone. We agree on this. And I think for the first time, you need to be open and honest with him about how you feel, about how he's responding, how your mother-in-law's responding. Y'all need to bring mother-in-law into this and have a conversation and hand it to her in writing too,

so that she knows we love you. And part of your boundary may be you are welcome to live with us, but you cannot see this man anymore. You're welcome to live with us, but you cannot see this man anymore. You're welcome to live with us, but if you live here, you're here. And if you're going to live under, talk about flipping the rules around. If you're going to live under our roof, it's our rules, right? And if you're not, we respect your right to sleep on the beach with some abusive wackadoo if you'd like to. We will not participate in that and we will not have our kids around that. And ultimately she will say, so you're telling me I got to choose between this and this?

Yes. Because we're making adult decisions now with our boundaries. And hear me say, Liz, this will be the hardest thing you ever do. It's hard. Hard, hard, not the hardest thing you ever do. It's hard. Hard, hard, not the hardest thing you ever do. I can tell. You've been through some stuff. This will be hard. And any other family members you have, same thing, same level of boundaries. So when I say that out loud, how does that sound?

I mean, we're both veterans. We're used to confrontation. It's not something that we shy away from. I think it's just finding that middle ground of, you know, while she's making the choice to stay with this guy who is not good for her, you know. But then am I enabling her by telling her that she's always got a safe place? She's always got somewhere to fall. I mean, yeah. Y'all are the safety net when she goes walking on a tightrope.

And I don't know that that's a bad thing. It's going to get very confusing for your kids. Yes. And I couldn't let my mom just sit on the front porch. You know what I mean? But also, I'm thinking of my mom, and she's not an addict, and she makes good decisions, right? So it's different. Yeah.

But I also have known families that have said, you can't come into the house for addiction issues, for violence issues, whatever, and it was 1,000% the right thing. What's holding you back from pulling the trigger on this? What do you think is going to happen? I guess part of it, too, is that it's not my mom. Like, if it was my mom, I would go there and kick her butt and drag her by her hair. But my mom wouldn't be in that situation.

So that it's not my own mother, my mother-in-law, and then I'm just trying to show her respect. And just find the right words to do it. Or like, you know, hey, let's meet up at the park with the kids and you can see them then. But you're not coming to my house while you're dating this fool. Right.

And you're trying to respect her and she is not respecting her grandkids. She's not respecting her son. She's not respecting you.. She's not respecting you. And I'm not saying that's licensed to not be respectful. I don't think so. I think that's the problem in the world. It's like, oh, you're not respecting me,

then I'm not respecting you, and then we all act like three-year-olds. That's not the point, but you have a responsibility to respect yourself and respect your husband and respect the boundaries of your home and your kids. And allowing this mess in your home sounds like it's disrespectful. And I love the idea.

I love that you found an alternative. You found a middle ground, which is if you want to see the kids, you can see them. We'll meet you at the park. We go to the park every Thursday at 3 o'clock. You are welcome to join us there. We'd love to see you there. And that's the boundary we're drawing That's hard But it sounds to me like it's right

Does it sound right to you? It does I guess the issue is With her bouncing back and forth Yeah, I mean Again, you said it at the beginning of the call She's 60. She can do what she's going to do.

It's you and your husband saying, what are we going to tolerate in our home? We're not going to accept the toggling back and forth. Or you get one shot at our house, and then when you leave, we are assuming that you are choosing him over us. You're allowed to do that. Good for you. Here's our boundaries because we want our kids to have that stability. We want're allowed to do that. Good for you. Here's our boundaries because we want our kids to have that stability. We want our kids to have that openness. We want our kids

to have that firm foundation of relationships. It's hard. And maybe there's a part of you that looks at your husband and says, get down on the beach and get your mom and tell her to come home. And if you feel that way about him, if you feel like he's not stepping up to the plate in the same way you would, not in a mean way, not in an ugly way, not in a, tell him, go get your mom. Go get your mom. And she's 60, she can do what she wants.

But man, there's something about, something about that lost sheep. I'm going to go get you and bring you home. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show. For too long, we've avoided the hard conversations about mental health, relationships, and the food we eat. And I don't want it to be true either, but it is. The quality and quantity of the food that we put into our body, it matters. And I don't want it to be true either, but it is. The quality and quantity of the food that we put into our body, it matters. And oftentimes we're forced to decide between cheap food that's good for our budget or expensive food that's good for our family. But there's a company that solved the problem. Greensberry is a family-owned meat provider working with farmers and fishermen all over the country. They sell organic, grass-fed beef, free-range poultry, pork, lamb, bison, and sustainable seafood.

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All right, we are back. It is Own Your Past, Change Your Future week, month, year. I don't know. I feel like I can declare a day now, right? Own your past, change your future day. It's in pre-sale. Please go pick this book up. You can click a link, I bet, around here somewhere. I bet there's a link on this show on the internets. Or you can go to johndeloney.com. Check it out. It's 20 bucks. You get tons of free stuff with this thing, including a free month of counseling. Some of you, after you read this book, you might think, yeah, I should probably go talk to somebody. I took care of that for you.

BetterHelp stepped up and we've got you. Go check it out. Own your past, change your future. I'm proud of this thing. I'm proud of this thing and think we're going to help some folks. Let's go to Aaron in St. Louis, Missouri. What's up, Aaron?

Hey, not much. How are you doing today? Good, brother. How are you? I'm doing okay. Doing all right. Uh-oh. What's going on, man? Hey, not much. How are you doing today? Good, brother. How are you? I'm doing okay. Doing all right. Uh-oh. What's going on, man? Yeah, could be doing better. I'm trying to figure out how to move forward and trust my very young teenage daughter again after some really poor choices on her part. What happened? Well, she has done some vaping, and then we woke up in the middle of the night and realized

she had snuck out of the house. Oh, no. Where'd she go? Well, you know, she had a boy come pick her and some friends up. They went to IHOP, and then they ended up at that boy's house. And there's a large age. I mean, she's 13 and he's 17. Whoa. Yeah.

No bueno on that one. No. And she had a secret burner phone. Some big trust violations. What was on the phone? Snapchat. All the stuff she didn't want us knowing about. We have Bark on her real phone. The app Bark so that you can be safe.

But when you say Snapchat, is she sending photos of herself out and about? Not really photos, just texting with lots of people, people she doesn't even know. Okay. But we couldn't find any evidence of photos. Okay. Is it sexualized texting or is it just people? A little bit, yeah. Okay.

All right. Okay. So how can I help, man? I'm sorry. Well, we're trying to figure out how to move forward. Like, I want her to have a good life and fun and be safe. And I just, I need to know how I can learn to trust her again and what we can do. Whew, man.

So, let me address the first thing you said first. I snuck out a lot as a kid. Now, not from my house, because my dad was a SWAT hostage negotiator and a homicide detective. There was no sneaking out of that home. It was a fortress, right? I remember one time I went to the bathroom,

like I had socks on or something. And I went to the bathroom, I came out and my dad's just standing there in the hallway. And I was like, whoa, you know what I mean? So there was, but Buddy's houses, I mean, we ran the streets and we weren't bad. We were always wrapping people's houses with toilet paper causing just, we're just being idiots. Um, and so here's what I want you to tell you. Experimenting, trying things out. It's easy to go. I just want my daughter to have a good life. And so I want you to know, like, man, I got a good life. I don't, I make good choices now, right?

So I don't want you to think all is lost because you have a 13-year-old that's trying to experience the world. The loss of trust, though, is devastating. So walk me backwards. How long has she been pressing on things? The way you're talking, this sounds like a total shock to you. Is this a true total shock or have you seen some stuff coming and it just kept building and building? Like what's your daughter trying to say to you guys? Um, so I think it's more of a, more of a shock. Um, we, We did have an incident maybe a year ago where she met someone online, and that's what prompted us to install Bark on her phone.

And since then, I thought things were kind of on the right path. And then middle of the night, she's not in her room, and we're calling the police, and we're panicked. What's her response been in all this? So like every single thing that's come out, we've had to dig

it out. She's owned up to nothing. And she'll always say, this is the last thing i promise i promise i've done nothing else wrong and then like you know the her group of friends that were in on this with her like all the moms are like detective level smart they're going through every single piece of the their lives to figure this out. And so every time, you know, we figure something out, and then a couple days later another big thing comes out, and then another big thing comes out.

And so it feels like it's worse and worse, and it just doesn't end. Are you still waiting for another shoe to drop? Yes. What do you think is out there? I don't end. Are you still waiting for another shoe to drop? Yes. What do you think is out there? I don't know. I hope nothing. Yes. I don't know because there just seems to be more out there.

Okay. This is a hard question that I ask every parent in this situation. Where is she picking up some of this stuff? And when I say some of this stuff, I'm talking about the idea of keeping secrets, the idea of somebody else needs to help me feel valued and seen. I need that burning in my chest. I need that sensation that I'm walking in danger. Where has she learned that? I think, I mean, it's not all her friends, but, you know,

her closest friend is probably two years older than her almost, maybe a year and a half older than her. And I, you know, she's just, she's kind of in a different phase, maybe, at this age. So I think some of it's that. And maybe, I don't know, some of the shows she watches on Netflix or whatever. I'm just not sure. How's your relationship with her? How's your wife's relationship with her?

How's your marriage? I would say our marriage is really good. Um, and I try to have a close relationship with her. Um, but it's really hard right now because she, everything that we used to do that was fun is now stupid and don't want to do that. I try hard to do things with her, and the only two things that she will really do with me anymore is she likes to make banana bread, so we make banana bread together, and we go grocery shopping together. But it's super hard.

We used to play card games and board games and do all types of things, and now that's not what she wants to do. She wants to talk on the phone to her friends or stuff like that, and that's part of growing up. Sure. So how's her relationship with your wife, with her mom? I think it's pretty, I think it's okay.

So, like, Maybe some head-butting there? Well, yeah, some of that's natural, but there's a disconnect here. Okay? There's a disconnect. If it's good, it's okay.

There is a conversation about, like, there's an openness. I can talk to you about things. There's something that she's picked up in the environment that says, we don't talk about this in this house. This isn't a safe place to discuss these things, whatever these things happen to be. I need to go get that sort of interaction from other people. Now, like, experimenting with vaping, like, that doesn't make me lose one second of sleep. That's being a kid And is it safe? No, is it smart? No, is it dumb? Yes

Is it the end of no, I mean like kids are going to try stuff out. That's why parents are there for boundaries um But there's something about there's a wedge in the relationship and I don't want to blame you and your wife That's not what i'm doing. But I want you to be honest with your the ecosystem in your house It sounds like the way you described it again It there's I know it's nervous calling the show and i'm trying to pick up on little cues from your voice here and some of it's just me shooting in the dark, but It sounds like you're hurt

That she doesn't want to hang out with you anymore or doesn't want to do the old things y'all used to do. Like that gets in your heart a little bit. And what I would challenge you to do is not give permission for a 13 year old to hurt you because she's 13. She's a kid. She's a child. She's experimenting right now. It sounds things you told me she likes to do with you, sounds like she's practicing being an adult, which if I think of it in those ways, that's awesome. So I'm going to start thinking, I'm going to mourn,

I'm going to grieve the fact that she don't want to play cards with me or don't want to play video games, whatever I used to do. And now I'm going to think of ways, what are things we can practice doing as adults together? Like what are some of those kind of, right? And there's just that natural distance that a 13-year-old, year old, a 16 year old, an 18 year old is just going to feel from their parents. And that hurts. But if a kid feels like they are responsible for the emotional wellbeing of their parents, for the emotional stability of a house, they'll crumble under that weight. And so what I would love to see, man, I'd love

to see you and your wife get really clear on what boundaries you're going to be. I'll tell you in my house, and this is going to sound draconian, and I'm going to get mean internet letters about it, and I don't care. In my house, if this same thing happens, I am, there is no, there will be no phones zero none There will not be an internet connection. There won't be social media that stuff's gone Gone The access to 17 year olds and 18 year olds and 28 year olds and 30 year olds is too great and your daughter's shown that holding this tool that she's not capable of, you wouldn't hand her a chainsaw and just say, you just be careful with this thing, honey.

You wouldn't do that. The phones are gone. Gone. And I'm going to set up some ways after some appropriate punishment, yada, yada, whatever. I'm going to set up some ways that she can be in connection with the friends just gonna be on our terms I'm gonna be there with you. We're all going to the concert, but i'm driving and i'm sitting there with y'all Or you are choosing to not do anything with your friends And she's gonna make it all about my gosh, you're ruining everything

She has to understand and she doesn't yet because she's still not coming clean. She's still not telling the truth. She still doesn't feel safe to speak out loud for some reason, whatever reason. She has to understand the weight of that consequence. And talking a lot to 13-year-olds doesn't usually work because they're 13. They have to live it and experience it. And it's hard and it's painful on everybody. And it'd be easier if you just give her a phone and send her back to school. So my house, it would be off. I would be spend the next two weeks, four weeks, six weeks. You will spend time with us. You'll be out of your room. You're going to be doing your homework in the family room. We're all going to be here together.

And I'm going to have to alter my life. My wife's going to have to alter her life. The other kids are going to have to alter their lives because we're going to get in this thing together. And at the same time, if you disconnect her from her community, her friends, her 13-year-old friends at school, to a 13-year-old brain,

that will feel like she's drowning. That will be a trauma. That will be a terror, right? And so it's a weird balance you're going to have to find here. One thing I might recommend, man, is she may not want to talk to you. She may feel scared to talk for whatever reason. I would recommend getting a journal that y'all share together that you write in and then it stays on her bed. She writes in it and puts it back on your bed. And if it's not there in the next morning or the next evening, then she is choosing some sort of consequence that y'all agree on. Have you sat down with her or your wife sat down with her and talked about some dumb things y'all did when you were kids? Some things y'all wish y'all could take back?

Yes. Okay. How does that land with her? She kind of, I mean, I thought it landed well, actually. Like, you know, I told her, I did some of the things she did, right? And I told her about it with some of the consequences or how that worked out for us. I thought that landed better than some of the other conversations we've had. There's something about humanizing a parent, not just as a power dynamic and as a rule maker and a rule follower. Like, oh, you were 13

too. That doesn't always work, but there's something that is connective about that, right? There's some connectivity. I wish I had a nicer way to say this. Okay, Aaron, there's going to have to be a moment where you don't take this personally. This violation of trust wasn't an attack on Aaron. This feels like that right now, and your feelings are running hot. But I want you to step away from she's doing this to us and look at it as she is practicing to be an adult she's trying to make adult decisions she's leaning into things She was given access by you and your wife To the whole wide world and the whole wide world said well welcome 13 year old. We'd love to have you

And everybody went I I would be highly concerned about photos floating around out there. And if there's even a remote hint of that, you got to hop on that one quick, man. And if people got to go to jail, they got to go to jail. If there's people who are not minors, you know where I'm going there. And I know that's unbelievable to think about your 13-year-old, but that's where we're at. I want to see you open up some sort of communication.

Usually writing works if talking won't. And some back-and-forth communication that begins to slowly thaw that space, that frozen ice between the two of you, between you and her and your wife. And I want you and your wife to take an honest look at the household ecosystem. Have we created a space that we have all the answers? This is just the way this, right? Is there a dialogue in this house? Have we made it unsafe for people to talk? And it may be that you sit down with your daughter and say, I think I've made it unsafe for you to speak to me, to talk to me, to tell me the truth. Have I done that? What does it feel like when I ask you if you've done something and you don't tell it? Tell me what you're feeling. Why you feel unsafe to tell me the truth, even when you've done something dumb.

Go that route with it instead of, I can't believe you lied. We'll get to the dishonesty. We all know that's wrong. But I want you to connect with your daughter the best you can at a human level. And let her know that you're on her team. You're on her side. This isn't you versus her. There is going to be some really hard consequences. Some uncomfortable consequences. But that you're with her and for her.

Not against her. I know that's hard, man. I know that's hard. Thanks for the call, brother. It's not personal. She's 13. It's not personal. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, October is the season for wearing costumes and masks. And if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going as Brad Pitt in Fight Club era because, I mean, we pretty much have the same upper body, but whatever.

All right, look, it's costume season. And let's be honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind costumes and masks more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social setting. We do this around our 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, 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 learn to be honest with yourself, and you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic, direct 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 your schedule. You just fill out a short online survey and you get matched with a licensed therapist. Plus you can switch therapists at any time

for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney. All right, we are back. So somebody sent me this article, and I just wanted to stop the presses for a minute. I talk about this directly in my new book, and this is something that has been on my soul for a long time. And as you all know, I've spent a lot of years walking alongside people who have lost others.

And we have not done a good job as a society, as a culture, as a group of just people, this group of humans trying to make do on this planet, dealing with what I think is one of the more important existential clouds that hang over us. And that is this uncomfortable truth that you and me and all of us are going to pass away. And we live in a culture now that we sanitize over it. We wallpaper over death. And even, get this, I think we've talked about on the show some, a hundred years ago, everybody had a parlor in their home or in their church. And a parlor was where when somebody passed away, they would let the body rest for several days. You'd go to bed knowing that your loved one

was in the front part of your home in the parlor. Or you'd go to church and you'd walk past somebody who'd passed away and you'd walk past, you'd walk past. And then a magazine, it's like Ladies Home Journal or Southern Living or a magazine like that, declared that we're no longer gonna to have parlors in the house. We're going to have the living room. And now we all have living rooms in our house.

Because we want, death was not becoming, it wasn't something we wanted to talk about. We wanted to move past this kind of, you know, it's not fun to talk about or think about. And in the last hundred years, we've had this acceleration of everything from plastic surgeries to the Botoxes to the fancy pants stuff to the – I wrote some things down here. This – we outsource dealings with the dead, right? We don't have local butchers anymore.

We go to the store and all the meat's already prepackaged. We don't even get to see – not only we don't see the animal die, but we don't see the butcher actually cutting it off what still has a bone on it. We just buy it in a cute little package and somebody else does all of the hard, dirty work for us. We don't deal with death anymore. We call somebody when somebody dies. Somebody we don't know comes and takes the body, puts a sheet over it and puts it in a van and takes it down to the coroner's office. And then it gets taken over by van, nobody knows it's there, over to the funeral home. And somebody who works in the quote-unquote funeral arts deals with it all. And all this keeps us from seeing and feeling bad for a while.

But it also robs our bodies of a much needed grieving process. We weren't designed to live death-free lives. We weren't designed to live grief-free lives. We're designed to go up and down and to have these seasons of deep mourning. That's how we heal. That's how we begin to open our eyes

to what's tomorrow gonna look like. And so this article that came out was talking about how, I'll just read it. This woman, her name was Jess Ma, and her boyfriend died by suicide in April. And she immediately emailed her team and said, hey, I'm going to be taking the next two days off. Think about that. I'm going to take couple of days off. And she's now a chief CEO of an accounting firm and of a software firm. And she said she couldn't sleep. She was so enveloped in grief. Her brain felt like it had shut down. She was so disenchanted with life. She said,

I was only operating at 10% capacity. Until it hit her directly, we need to have a bigger conversation about grief. And I talk about this in the book. On most companies, if a direct family member passes away, you get three days, right? You get four days. If an extended family member, you can use sick leave to go, right? And if you're an hourly worker, which millions and millions and millions of people are, your grief costs you something directly. You have to decide how much hurt you can stomach because every day you're not at work, you're not getting paid. The article goes on to say, millions around the world have gotten a crash course in grief during the past two years

Nearly one million Americans have died One million more Americans have died since the start of the pandemic Than would have otherwise been expected Obviously mostly from COVID Other tragedies have marched on too With lives lost to illness and accidents Some organizations are allowing workers to take more time following a loss And expanding grief policies to include those who experience a miscarriage or failed infertility treatment. Employees are speaking

up to questioning policies that limit benefits based on family relationships. So what if your mom and dad passed away, if your parents left you and your grandparents raised you? Might that not be considered, right? So the whole thing is this. This is a mess. I love the way she says this. Grief is this weird nebulous blob that will take you over when you least expect it. Yes, absolutely. This is incredible. Shout out. And who thought I'd ever say shout out to Goldman Sachs, but here I am. Goldman Sachs group last month implemented a new 20-day leave policy for those who suffer miscarriage or stillbirth. It also increased time off from five to 20 days

for those who lose an immediate family member classified as a partner or child. That's three weeks. Here's the thing. We can't escape being human. And I know there's all this cool stuff like aging is a disease and we're gonna solve it. We're gonna live to be a million, whatever.

You and me and those that we love are going to pass away. The number of people who pass away without a will is staggering and mind-blowing. Why? Because we're all going to pass away. The number of people who haven't talked to each other about, hey, what's life look like if one of us isn't here? Who's going to take our kids? The number of people who don't have that conversation

is staggering, it's avoidant. And if you've picked up one thing from the show, you've picked up this. Our body, as Vander Kolk says, is keeping the score. We may not wanna think about it in our front of our brain, but our body knows. Our body knows that our loved one is no longer here and we can not look, we can avoid.

Our body knows that this food cost is no longer here and we can not look, we can avoid. Our body knows that this food costs an animal its life. Our body knows that we're getting older and we can wallpaper and duct tape and get fancy filters on our Instagram cameras and do what all kind of Botox and teeth and we can do all the stuff. but this makes you just, it changes you to this anxious, striving and stress and chronic disconnection. So here's my challenge to you. Write your obituary. Write your obituary. What do you want it to say? Spend a few minutes, memento mori. Understand you are going to die.

And so are those that you love. And this sounds morbid and sad. This is one of the cornerstones to healthy living, to well living. Understand this is coming for all of us. And when you can make peace with this, is how this wraps up for all of us, then you are free to live. You're free to live. We live in a culture that has sanitized all negative feelings,

all sadness, all hurt, all arrows pointing towards all of our inevitable end. Lean into that discomfort. Lean into that discomfort because when you lean into it, that's where wellness is. Bam. That sounds like a great book pitch, right? Great book pitch. Hey, Deloney, let's talk about that we're all going to die.

That too is in the book. Own your past, change your future. 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, we are back. All right, so this is my confession.

In my car right now, I have three CDs. I've got the All of the Songs Ever by Minor Threat on a CD. I've got a NoFX CD, which is just an old punk band. And I've got Folklore by Taylor Swift. That's the truth. That is the actual truth. That's in my car right now. And I'm driving my wife's Prius, if that helps. Just putting that out there. And Jenna's back in the studio. So I just looked at the studio and said, y'all come up with a song, lyrics of the day today. Shocker.

Jenna came up with another Taylor Swift song, and it happens to be off the Folklore record. So, America, I might weep today, but here we go. The song is The Lakes by Taylor Swift. Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me? I'm not cut out for all these cynical clones, these hunters with cell phones. Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die. I don't belong in my beloved, neither do you. Those windmere peaks look like a perfect place to cry. I'm setting off, but not without my muse. What should be

overburrowed under my skin in heart-stopping waves of hurt? I've come too far to watch some name-dropping sleaze tell Tell me what my words worth. Tell me what are my words worth. Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die. I don't belong in my beloved, neither do you. Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry. I'm setting off, but not without my muse. I want auroras and sad prose.

I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet because I haven't moved in years. And I want you right here. A red rose grew out of ice-frozen ground with no one around to tweet it while I bathe in cliffside pools with my calamitous love and insurmountable grief. Taylor Swift, bring in the heat!

Way to go, Jenna. Way to go, you, everybody. We'll see you soon.