The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband Doesn’t Understand Me

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A wife who feels misunderstood in her marriage - “Signs” of highly insecure people and John’s honest opinion of them - A man stunted by his fear of making mis...takes Lyrics of the Day: "Toxic"- Britney Spears 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 Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. A psychology expert shares the seven toxic signs of highly insecure people and how to deal with them. And this article is grade A dog crap. You asked me to tell you what I thought. That's what I think. Is that good? I think you've been fairly clear. I don't think there's a lot of ambiguity here. What is going on?
Starting point is 00:00:32 This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. A show about mental health, about relationships, about your marriage, about your kids. Whatever's going on in your life, we're here to walk alongside you. Here's the goal of the show. We want to help you have a better marriage. We want to help you have better relationships, do better work. I want you to help get some common sense, like some new insights into your mental health because the language around mental health in this country is insane. It's just madness.
Starting point is 00:00:58 And so my goal here is to give you some no-nonsense so everybody can understand it and give you some practical tools and tips on how to go make your life better. And so I'm so grateful that you've given us your most precious resource, which is your time. Thank you so much for being with us. If you want to be on this show, give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K, and you can fill out the form there. And, uh, we got a fun show today. We've got an article that I can't wait to get to it because it gave me hemorrhoids.
Starting point is 00:01:33 Just reading it like, like beyond preparation, H hemorrhoids, like maybe you need to go see somebody hemorrhoids. Um, and I, what I would imagine is one of the most uncomfortable, uh, doctor visits a person can go to Let's go to Donna in Lexington, let's just move on from here Donna, what's up? Hi, wow, I am talking to John Deloney No way, I'm talking to Donna, this is incredible
Starting point is 00:01:56 How's it going? Great, great Excellent, excellent, What's happening? Well, my question is, how do I have a fulfilling, passionate marriage when both me and my husband have different attachment styles? Oh, no. Are you an attachment style person? Unfortunately. Oh, geez. Attachment style people. Here's my picture in my head. There's attachment style people and Enneagram people. And they put on those medieval clothes and they fight like in the public park with wooden sticks.
Starting point is 00:02:38 That's what I imagine in my head. LARPing. Yes. I don't even know that there's a word for that. So, congratulations. So, you're an attachment style person. Yes. Wow. I don't even know that there's a word for that. So, congratulations. So, you're an attachment style person. Okay. So, tell me more about it.
Starting point is 00:02:51 Is one of you anxious and one avoidant or one of you secure and one of you anxious or you've got different attachment styles and it's all coming down? Well, we've been having symptoms of sort of communication mishaps for the years that we've been married. And one day I decided, hey, there's got to be something to it. And I took a quiz online to solve all my life's problems. Yes, the online quiz. Yes. And found that I was anxious attachment. So I sent it to my husband and he was avoidant.
Starting point is 00:03:25 And that explained a lot of things in our marriage and it really helped us to communicate better, but it hasn't really solved, I guess, my issues and his issues, which are, I guess I get this empty feeling when I'm not getting connection. And so I go and I chase for it. And then when I chase, he hides or runs and it's very difficult. Yes. Y'all end up in the dance, right? That so many couples end up in. It's just the dance. One's chasing, one's hiding, and it just so many couples end up in. It's just the dance. One's chasing, one's hiding. And it just works like on an infinity loop. And then you find each other and you connect and it's going to be this way forever and it's awesome.
Starting point is 00:04:15 So, hey, I was poking fun at you at the beginning. John Bowlby is a famous British psychologist. He came up with this idea of attachment theories, attachment ideas, and there is some great validity to them. I actually think that they've got, they're good to know, good to understand, and the great Mary Ainsworth took those and expanded on them. They're good stuff. What I don't like about them, the same as I don't care for the Enneagram, the same as I don't care for most, not what I would call mental health diagnostics. Like if you've got severe mental health disorders or personality disorders, they can be very helpful. But just run of the mill, I've got depression or I got anxiety.
Starting point is 00:04:54 The reason I don't like them, especially things like Myers-Briggs, they become, well, that's just who this guy is. I'm a this guy and she's a this gal. And so, you know, and so I think they can be good for reflective tools. An online quiz like, oh, I fall into this bucket. But none of that matters when it comes to looking at the person across from you and saying, what do you need? How can I love you better today? Regardless of quote unquote, how it makes me feel. Now, of course, this can be taken to an extreme. You know, if someone's like, I need sex four times every day, right? That's insane, right? Or I need
Starting point is 00:05:36 you to quit your job. It can get way out of bounds. And so I'm asking everybody listening to be reasonable here. But my wife and I have very similar dance that you and your husband have, okay? Which is I am anxiously avoidant. I have a terror, I'm fearful of rejection. And when I come on, like I've got a, I come in hot, I got a lot of energy and her body says, get out of here, hide. And then it sets all my alarms off, which then in turn sets her alarms off, and then we have one big anxious house, right? And then we try to solve it through our various addiction, ways we cover up things, right? So what I'd love to do is, actually, just to placate me, where does your anxious attachment come from? Do you have somebody leave you in childhood was, was, was connection weaponized as a child?
Starting point is 00:06:30 Oh, definitely. Definitely. Um, multiple stepdads, dad, not in my life. Uh, first love was pretty much, uh, my teenage first love was a serial cheater and physically abusive. So, yeah, I had a little rough go of it growing up, but I think as much as I like to say I'm over a lot of things, I can see the symptoms of what, and I don't like to be the victim in this situation. I don't like to think like that, but I do recognize the symptoms of ways that those things have affected me in my relationships as an adult. So I want to give you some peace. I want to give you some peace because you said thinking these type of anxious anxiety responses are at the nervous system level.
Starting point is 00:07:22 And so you can think through, no, no, I've got a good one now. Like this guy's the good guy. He's the one. He's not one of my stepdads. He's not going to leave. You can think that cognitively. And you probably did because you wouldn't have married him. But your body put a GPS pin in men who are supposed to keep you safe or men who say the words, I love you, or men who say the words, I care about you. And it put a GPS pin in them and said, watch out. They're going to leave. They're going to hit you. They're going to cheat on you. They're going to destroy you. And so we hear the fight or flight all the time, but there's fight, flight, or freeze. And then there's another one that's, I wouldn't say it's's rare but we just don't talk about very much it's fight fight or fawn i'm gonna get so nuzzled up and close to you
Starting point is 00:08:10 i'm gonna be overly intimate overly connected that'll keep me safe surely you won't heat or hit me or cheat on me if i'm if i'm really really close to you right and of course that that can be insane but it but it can work too right so you So what's happening to you is at the nervous system level. I want to honor that. And probably, where's your husband's, he's not here to speak for himself, but where does his root from? Have you all talked about that? Oh, yeah. Well, he's wonderful and his family is wonderful, but very controlling environment growing up, but very sweet people,
Starting point is 00:08:45 uh, other than the controlling aspect. So I think, uh, I love a good anxious avoidant person. Like they hit me, but they do it gently and it doesn't always hurt. Right.
Starting point is 00:08:58 Wait, you're trying to make sure all the relationships are fine. They're fine. Cause they don't want them to leave. Right. Um, so maybe they are sweet and they were hyper-controlling. And when people are hyper-controlling,
Starting point is 00:09:10 usually that means the performance of the people that are in a relationship is going to determine how much love there is to go around or not. And it's easier for him. Or they're just hyper, hyper critical, critical, critical. Why are you wearing that? Why are you doing? Oh my gosh. Why are you fixing your hair like that? Did you brush your teeth? And then
Starting point is 00:09:31 that body checks out. He's probably pretty talented at being completely alone in a crowded room, huh? Very much so. Yeah, you nailed it there. Yeah, he can go inside of himself is what I say So again, uh, let's throw let's throw attachment styles off. Okay, we got that figured out you you
Starting point is 00:09:51 Your body tells you when you get anxious we got to get really close And his body tells him when he's anxious. We got to get far away Okay, so the goal here is not to fight attachment attachment styles the goal here isn't to make each body feel unsafe all the time. It's actually the opposite. The goal here is to teach our body the thing that kept us safe when we were young
Starting point is 00:10:17 is what's destroying our relationships in the present. And so we have to teach our body that we weren't safe then, but we are safe now And that just it's a skill So he's not broken. You're not broken. Your bodies are doing exactly what they should they're trying to protect you They've seen this before when you come in and you're like, oh, honey, honey And you're all anxious and a super attached Probably you're asking him why he's wearing that belt and why are you wearing those socks with that shirt? That doesn't even, and he's like, and he just disappears. And you,
Starting point is 00:10:48 and here's, what's crazy people with anxious attachment. They know when the person leaves, even though they're in a middle of a conversation, you can feel them evaporate in front of you. They just, they just go away, but they're still talking. They're still engaged with you. And you know it, and it makes you bananas. And how I know that's me donna we're the same all right so here's what you have to um both of you have to know your anxiety that you are trying to solve by nuzzling by getting close to him by taking dominion over him is what i'll say trying Trying to control him. That anxiety is getting stronger every time you give into it. So this anxious attachment is going to get tighter and tighter and tighter over the course of your marriage until one of you just leaves. And I don't want to cast a shadow over you guys.
Starting point is 00:11:37 And when I say leaves, that could be literally they leave or they just disappear onto the couch behind a six-pack, right? The other side of it is he's got to understand that not being in true connection with somebody will kill him physiologically. His body will die because his body knows we are all we got, brother. It's just us and us. And you've heard me talk all the time about the data on loneliness. Okay. So here's what both of you have to decide to do. You have to decide we're going to enter
Starting point is 00:12:14 into a period of time and it could be a short period of time, a long period of time. Then there's going to be some crisis in your marriage. One of your parents is going to get sick. One of your kids is going to get sick. Something's going to happen and your body's going to want to drag you back to what it knows. And you're going to have to be really intentional there. But here's how we're going to move forward. The first thing is we are going to consciously, when our bodies start to feel anxious, we're going to stop, take a huge deep breath, as deep as we can. We're going to drop our shoulders, let it out, and ask ourselves,
Starting point is 00:12:43 what are you trying to protect me from here? What are you trying? Why don't I feel safe right now? Oh, because he just walked into the other room. Okay. He still loves me. He's still here. We've got to check ourselves every time. And this will be tedious and this will be a beating. And he's going to have to decide every time he starts to unplug. Nope. I'm staying present. I'm staying present What I found is I was Too much for my wife and what she found is she wasn't enough And we had to meet somewhere in the middle and now there's a safety mechanism
Starting point is 00:13:19 That she feels she now knows when i'm about to pull away She actually will lean in further and I know when I'm about to lean in more, I actually retreat. And that's from I'm trying to meet her needs. She's trying to meet my needs so that I can meet her needs so that she can meet my needs. And it just stays on this incredibly beautiful loop. Does that make sense? It does. It does.
Starting point is 00:13:37 It sounds like a long way to go to get there, but I'm really hopeful that we can do it. A hundred percent you can. And I think let's, let's stop the attachment language and let's start with my body tells me I'm not safe when you pull away and you're going to know what those pull away things are. Write them down, write them down and talk to them. Be open about them. When you do this, when you do this, when you do this, my wife has told me when you stomp, when I come into the house, I just walk really heavy. When I walk into the house, boom, and my living room is suspended over the garage. And so it, it just moves through the house. It just sends her body. It just, she's like, I got to get out of here. And when I see her,
Starting point is 00:14:20 like make eye contact with me and bolt, I don't know why my body's like she's gone forever she's not she's not and so we i we've had to sit down and say here's the things that make me feel unsafe and so when i come in not always but often she'll stop and come give me a hug when i wake up in the morning she'll stop and give me a hug not because that's what she wants to be doing she's got a whole list of things she'd rather be doing but but because now I can, I can drop my shoulders and vice versa. So all I have to say is I want you guys to stop using attachment language. Start being very clear about, Hey, this action you do makes me feel unsafe. Will you lean in this way? This action makes me feel unsafe. Will you lean in this way? And if there's a time when you start to feel,
Starting point is 00:15:06 your body starts to feel anxious, his body starts to feel anxious, give each other permission to say, my body is telling me that. I'm beginning to feel unsafe and. Make that a part of your conversation in your home. And what you're going to find at first is you're going to take it personally.
Starting point is 00:15:23 Like, I feel awful that I'm making you feel, nobody's making us feel anything. It's just our body's trying to protect us, but that's how we're going to have to talk about it. We have to bring it to the light. We have to say, I don't feel safe right now, or my body's telling me that you're walking away. Let's start that language about how can I feel more safe? And that's the path forward. You may need to get a book, like one of these little, I got to come up with a cool name for this, but a journal that you write these things down where you take care of yourself. Body's trying to keep you safe. That's it.
Starting point is 00:15:50 She's doing his job. Now it needs to learn a new way to keep you safe, which is in connection, direct connection. And neither of you are using the other one to meet your anxiety, to quell the anxiety. You're with each other, fully intertwined in the same field. Thank you so much for the call, Donna. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever.
Starting point is 00:16:29 Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work, we do this in social settings, we do this around our own families, we even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're
Starting point is 00:16:50 stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy.
Starting point is 00:17:20 You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. It's time for everybody's favorite segment, Facts Are Your Friends.
Starting point is 00:17:54 Let's do it. Ah, jeez. I'm not going to comment on how terrible this music is. I'm not going to say a word about it. I'm just going to plow through, Kelly. I got this. A psychology expert shares the seven toxic signs of highly insecure people and how to deal with them. And this article is grade A dog crap. All right. So here we go. A psychology expert. This
Starting point is 00:18:18 is going to be great. That word gives me hemorrhoids now. All right, so March 1st, 2023, it came out. Says, working with difficult personalities can dampen our ability to think clearly and make sound decisions. That's how this article starts. Working with difficult personalities can dampen our ability to think clearly and make sound decisions.
Starting point is 00:18:42 I reject this premise wholeheartedly. No one can control my ability to think or make sound judgments unless, number one, they break me. Like, I think it's the purpose of Hell Week with Navy SEALs. They want no sleep, constant physical exercise, constant people screaming and yelling at you. They want to like no sleep constant physical exercise constant people screaming yelling at you They want to push you past a point where you are have any ability to think they've taken that from you You sign up for it, but they take it from you and then they want to see who you are on the back side of that Right, so someone can break you or number two you give it to them You give it to them
Starting point is 00:19:22 That's it I work with i've worked with difficult people my whole career. And when I find myself unable to think clearly or make sound decisions, it's because I've got caught up in their drama. I have handed them keys to my life. I've become like Dawson's Creek character and like, ooh, what's happening now? It's all on me. It's on me. I reject this premise that other people can control my life that way. Now, let's keep going. Then person tells how great they are and how smart they are and blah, blah, blah. Through my research, I found that insecure people are often the most difficult to deal with. Agreed. Insecure people are very tough to be in relationship with. And I will also say
Starting point is 00:20:05 that most of the time that insecurity comes if I'm their boss, because I'm not being clear at all. Or if I work for them, I have created an anxious life so much so that I owe so much money in student loans. I am so desperate to meet my own insecure ego needs with a job title or a salary number. I've created a world. I have to live in this city. And if I don't live in this city, it's ridiculous. And all my dreams is. So I have, I'm in, I'm in servitude to this boss.
Starting point is 00:20:38 So either I'm a boss working with these folks and I'm not clear. And so they get this insecurity or I'm insecure because I'm working for, or I'm working for an insecure boss, but I don't have another option. I've boxed myself into a corner. And I live in this soap opera, but I'll agree. I'll agree. Working with insecure people is very tough, whether you're their boss or they're your boss, right? Insecure types are extremely risk averse and unproductive. Some can be downright nasty or display abusive behaviors. Then they should be fired. Ta-da! If somebody is abusive in the workplace or they are downright nasty, as this article says,
Starting point is 00:21:20 you shouldn't have a seven-step strategy for dealing with them. They should be fired. They shouldn't work there anymore because they strategy for dealing with them. They should be fired. They shouldn't work there anymore Because they're destructive psychologically emotionally you're going to make less money with your business because you have these kind of morons running around Um, and the whole culture is going to go to hell. It's just it's ridiculous or I'm, not going to work for you And I have left Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on the table and walked out
Starting point is 00:21:47 the door on a couple of different times throughout my career because I'm not going to work with an insecure boss who is always using me to fill in gaps in their soul. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. It's not worth it over the long haul. I'm not going to give you a stroke. I'm not going to give you my heart attack. I'm not going to give those things to you. I'll give those to my kids and my wife. I'm not going to give those away. All right. So they say the most common toxic behaviors, he says the most common toxic behaviors are overly concerned about what others think of them, never express a firm opinion, suffer from chronic inability to make decisions. Even when choices have little consequence, they frequently
Starting point is 00:22:28 try to change the direction of projects or meetings. They put other people down to make themselves look more important. They constantly talk about how busy they are when they actually aren't to show that they're in demand. They're paranoid meddlers who question your every move. Let's distill some of this down. We are so caught up in, and I'm talking to my own psychological community now, we're so caught up in our fancy little labels. Let's say what this is. This is somebody who's abusive, somebody who's a liar, and somebody who's displaying highly narcissistic traits. So let's don't say like it's somebody with insecure attachment. No, this is a jerk.
Starting point is 00:23:12 It's a jerk. It's a person who's not telling the truth, who is using other human beings as punching bags to make themselves feel tough. And when there's power differentials in a workplace, it's even worse because that person sometimes is trapped, right? So it goes on how to handle insecure people. As little as possible, I don't handle people. I just don't like that language. It acts like we are all Hannibal Lecter. Like we're all playing our own little marionette God game where it's like, I'm handling this person. I'm handling this person. I've found this person. I you've been like, I've found out that I was getting handled like, Hey, we're going to have a meeting to figure out
Starting point is 00:23:48 who's going to tell John this thing. Uh, dude, it made me insane. Just come tell me. And if I'm a person who can't hear that, I should be fired. I shouldn't work here. And if you're a person who can't tell me you shouldn't, I don't, you know, know you should so all i have to say is this how to handle take that out either you're with people or you aren't with people okay let that be a a way to operate now there's certain things i don't say around certain people there's certain like um i'm just not gonna have that conversation i'm not gonna talk theology with that person i'm not gonna talk psychology with this person it's just it's just not i not going to talk about COVID with this person. It's just, so if you want to call that handling, fine, but I just think that's being wise.
Starting point is 00:24:30 But here we go. How to handle insecure people. And again, this article is called, a psychology expert shares the seven toxic signs of highly insecure people and how to deal with them And this so far this article is worth um If you fold it in half, it will be worth two ply All right. So the first step is how to activate your detective mindset You know what you shouldn't ever do activate your detective mindset Sherlock holmes
Starting point is 00:25:04 Turning turn interacting with insecure people into a learning opportunity Activate your detective mindset. Sherlock Holmes, turn interacting with insecure people into a learning opportunity. Oh gosh. All right, some of these I agree with. Actually, I agree with them. I'm gonna be honest where I can be honest. And some of them, I think they're insane. Number one, assess the size of the problem.
Starting point is 00:25:17 Yes. Are all these interactions bad? Or is this person just kind of annoying over here? Fine, just move on with your day. Is this person one of those people that always has to claim credit no matter what? Fine, I'm not gonna lose a second of sleep over that. If they're dishonest and they're stealing my ideas
Starting point is 00:25:31 and they're putting them forward and they're getting paid for that, whatever, that's a different conversation. But again, I'm just gonna go handle that directly. I'm just gonna go talk to them directly. So assess the size of the problem. Is this a huge deal or a little deal? That's good.
Starting point is 00:25:44 Number two, identify the root causes of the problem. Is this a huge deal or a little deal? That's good. Number two, identify the root causes of the problem. No, the world does not need any more pseudo psychologists. We got too many people using Google to diagnose each other and to try to solve clinical issues in the workplace. Stop, stop, stop. I don't even try to do this. I don't have any interest in like, ooh, I wonder if this person's got anxiety. This person's really rude. And I'm going to close the door and say, hey, you can't, it's not okay for you to talk to me that way. And if this is how we're going to communicate, then let me know because I need to make some decisions then. Not like, oh, well, I wonder what's the root cause. I'm not going to do that. Number three, cultivate genuine compassion. Yes. All of us. Always. That person who's insecure is somebody's kid. At one time, they were a little kid. And whatever series of things happened to them over the course of their life has led them here. Is there an excuse? No. Is it a context? Absolutely. Be compassionate. Be compassionate. Over-invest in one-on-ones. No. It's reinforcing. Now, every single leader and supervisor should have a one-on-one
Starting point is 00:26:56 meeting every week with their staff, maybe every two weeks at the most with their direct reports. There's got to be that human connection there. And unfortunately, it can't be done over email, I don't think. I have not seen it successful. You got to get in a room and meet. You got to go grab coffee together. Those things are all good. But the idea that this person is a little more insecure, so I've got to overinvest there, number one, time's finite. Number two, your team will quickly know that you're favoring this person. Number three, that person's behavior becomes rewarded psychologically. It becomes a reinforcing context for, oh, if I act like this, I get more time with supervisor. I get more relational needs, right? Number five, have an exciting outcome in mind. I'm not even going to dignify that
Starting point is 00:27:40 with a response. That gives me diarrhea on top of the hemorrhoids. Number six, be transparent in how you communicate. Yes. It goes on to say, and this is true, insecure people have a tendency to see gaps in arguments. Yes, absolutely. Punch holes in everything. Yes. Because it gives them an opportunity to not make a decision. Cool. Clear, clear, clear. I am certain about, this is what I believe. I'm very clear. There is no, there is no ambiguity here. This is the way. And most of us don't like that. Most of us don't like to speak like that. We don't like to lead like that. We just say things like, Hey man, be cool. I don't even know what that means. Hey man, uh, like we started 10 30. If you are late again, you will be fired.
Starting point is 00:28:26 That's clear. And I see Kelly pointing at me right now. That hurts my feelings, Kelly. That makes me insecure. Number seven, fill in the gaps together. Yeah, that's, I mean, this shouldn't just be for insecure people. It should be for everybody.
Starting point is 00:28:44 Everybody in your organization should have a sense of ownership from the person sweeping the floors to the person purchasing things, to the person selling things, to the CEO. Everybody's got ownership in this, how this thing works. And everybody plays a part in the person who's getting served on the back end of this thing. Number eight, work in increments, that's scaffolding. I can see that being positive, especially at the beginning of projects. Absolutely. Number nine, show that you are not a threat. No, because I might be. If you continue to not show insecure issues, if you're not insecure now, but if you lie, if you bully other people, if you constantly distract a meeting and make us where we can't get our work done, you're not going to work here very long.
Starting point is 00:29:32 Or I'm not going to work for you very long. I'm going to seek to create a world where I can exit this as soon as possible because this rubs off on my family life. This rubs off on my personal life. This rubs off on my psychology and my physiology. It r on my personal life. This rubs off on my psychology and my physiology. It rubs off on everything. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to subject myself to that just so I can have some fancy job title or I can have some dollar amount. I'm just not going to do it. I'm not.
Starting point is 00:29:55 And I implore you out there listening, don't. Don't put up with this. So show that you're not a threat. No, I'm not. I might be a threat. I might ask you to not work threat. No, I'm not. I might be a threat. I might ask you to not work here anymore if you work for me. Or I guess it's not threatening. I might just leave, right?
Starting point is 00:30:13 This says, pay compliments and express gratitude. I admire what you do and I'm excited to continue learning from you. No, don't do that. It just reinforces the behavior. It just makes this insecure monster stronger. Not doing it. Here's how. Don't participate.
Starting point is 00:30:30 Walk away. Walk away. Walk away. Kelly, you asked me to tell you what I thought. That's what I think. Is that good? I think you've been fairly clear. I don't think there's a lot of ambiguity here.
Starting point is 00:30:51 We'll be right back. All right, I'm back, and my blood pressure is coming back down. Let's go to... Hey, here's the deal. You know what? Not even going to say it. Let's go to Brock in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Starting point is 00:31:05 What's up, Brock? Hey, Dr. John. How are you today? Not even going to say it. Let's go to Brock in Raleigh, North Carolina. What's up, Brock? Hey, Dr. John. How are you today? Partying, dude. What are you up to? Oh, nothing much. Just living the dream. When you figure out how to teach that, let me know because you're going to make a billion dollars.
Starting point is 00:31:19 Will do. Actually, I'm running a scam here at this podcast thing, so it's pretty awesome. It's awesome. So what's up, dude? Hey, well, first of all, thank you so much for taking my call. It means a lot. Thank you for calling, man. Well, I have some things written down so I don't ramble too much.
Starting point is 00:31:37 So I'm just going to read it to you if that's all right. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. I've always had a tendency to take things very personally. I've always been a very sensitive person. For as long as I can remember, I have been afraid of people being angry with me, disliking me, yelling at me, not wanting me around, stuff like that. To put it simply, I've always had a very intense fear of getting in trouble. This causes me to have very low self-esteem, low self-confidence.
Starting point is 00:32:10 I feel like I'm often annoying to people or unreasonably weird. And I tend to get very defensive easily. This has been having an increasingly negative impact in my personal and professional life how can i overcome this fear oh man um that's i i know this i know that was hard for you to write down and it was especially hard for you to say it out loud and um i want to tell you i'm grateful for you thank you for doing that okay Okay. That was brave. Okay. Um, trying to think where to start. Um, do you have any, I mean, you pull that drawstring all the way to when you're a little one. Um, who was, did you have people watching over you like a Hawk? Uh, I did. Yeah. Um, my, my dad was kind of, well, he was emotionally abusive, uh, towards my mom
Starting point is 00:33:09 and my, my sister. And I've been told to me as well, though, I don't remember anything. And so my mom was, was very, um, I think sometimes she, she may have overcompensated to make up for that. So your fear of stepping out of line one millimeter, your body's right. It's not lying to you. It's seen the consequence of getting out of line, right? Yeah. And it's seen the consequence of getting out of line from somebody who was supposed to look you in the eyes and put their hands on both sides of your face and tell you every single day of your life, God, I'm the luckiest person in the world that I get to be your mom or dad. Right? Yeah. So at the outset of this, I want to applaud your body for working properly. It knows what happens. It's seen it happen to a
Starting point is 00:34:00 little kid and it will be damned if it's going to happen to an adult. And so you are on high, high alert, tripwire alert for any sort of way that either a, you have, you're out of line, right? You're a little bit off the center or even more difficult. And I would say more maddening is your body's highly tuned to other people thinking you might be off. Yeah. Because when you're a kid, if you're, I'm just going to make up something, you're pouring cereal and you're five
Starting point is 00:34:32 and you're learning how cereal works, right? It all comes flying out of the box, you know? And you get two Cheerios on the counter. Big whoop. But if you grow up in certain households, somebody will get down close to your face and say, what kind of stupid, disgusting moron can't even pour cereal? And so you're not actually off center, but somebody else perceives you to be. Is that
Starting point is 00:34:55 ring true a little bit? Yeah, definitely. It does. Okay. So I want you to, at the beginning here, make peace with your body. It's doing its job. You got hit before, it's not getting hit again. Okay? The second thing is, if this continues much longer, it's going to drive you mad. It's going to kill you. And I don't say that metaphorically. I mean, it's going to have issues with your blood pressure.
Starting point is 00:35:22 It's going to have issues with cognitive function. It's going to have issues with sleep. It's going to have issues with making relationships. Fair enough? Yeah, definitely. Okay. So you hear me say this a lot on this show. This especially applies to you. The things that kept you safe as a kid are going to destroy your adult life. And so we just got to get a handle on them. Okay? And the thing we have to know about anxiety is the more we avoid something, the stronger that anxiety response becomes.
Starting point is 00:35:52 Because it means it's winning. It's doing its job. It's like, oh, and I do this. He hides. Awesome. I'm going to do this louder. Right? And so you've been doing it for so long. Now your boss sends you that email at 3 30 on a friday it's like hey can you swing by my office boom you're in full flight or flight because you're getting fired and that freaking boss can't believe am i right yeah that yep 100 and that boss could have just y'all could have just gone to lunch and he told you how awesome you are and giving you a raise and he's like hey swing by at 3 30 Can you come by real quick? Doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:36:26 It's off to the races. Because every time it restarts, it restarts, it restarts, it restarts. Yeah. So here's what we have to do. Oh, man. Let's see here. I'm going to use a word that I hate using because it makes you, it's going to make you feel like I'm being dismissive of you and it's
Starting point is 00:36:46 going to instantly make you think of some fat guy with a beard sitting crisscross applesauce on a cloud. The path forward here for you is mindful. And I don't mean meditation, although that may help. What I mean about mindful is is consciously catching your body when it spins up on you and asking yourself the question out loud, what am I afraid of right now? Okay. What is my body trying to keep me safe from?
Starting point is 00:37:18 From him? Oh, I'm good. I'm good. What is my body trying to keep? From her? Yeah, she is abusive. I'm going to stop being in a relationship with her. See what I'm saying? And what we're going to try to do is create a gap between, we're going to spend the rest of our lives trying to build a gap between that stimulus, our body gearing up for war and what we actually do about it. I'm going to take
Starting point is 00:37:43 a deep breath, drop my shoulders, and I'm going to consciously slow walk to my boss's office. I'm going to consciously do it. Even though my body's like, Ron, get down there right now. I'm going to consciously slow walk till I get there. I'm going to sit down and say, how's it going, man? I'm going to feel my body the whole time trying to get anxious on me and keep telling myself, this guy's safe, this guy's safe, this guy's safe. Now, can I ask you a hard question? Yeah. Often people who grew up in a pressure cooker create secret lives.
Starting point is 00:38:20 And they become extraordinary performers. Are there things in your life that if they came to light, would be highly embarrassing or get you fired or be something that you would not want to explain? Yeah, I would say so. Okay. I would sit down with a counselor and go right into those. Okay. Because the other thing your body knows is if you're carrying, I call it an anxious life,
Starting point is 00:38:55 but if you're carrying secrets that if they got out, it would be over, your body has a hyper-invested interest in nobody finding out about those secrets. If you owe $100,000 in student loans and you have a boss that's calling you into office on Thursday, it knows if you do get fired, it's all she wrote. It's over. You're not going to eat. You're going to lose your house. You're going to lose your car. The government's going to garnish your wages and your social security. All these things are going to happen, right? So if you don't owe anybody any money, that Friday phone call or that Friday email that you get, you swing by like, okay, if he fires me, that'll suck and I'll be mad
Starting point is 00:39:31 and I'll have my feelings hurt. And I sure like this job, but I'm not destitute. You see the difference there? Yeah, definitely. And so it's about creating a non-anxious life and those things that if they came to light, you got to deal directly with those. Cause I'm going to say that they were initially, they were an outgrow, an outgrowth of that childhood, but now they're choices that you're making. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:01 How hard are they going to be to deal with? I think some of them are going to be easier than others. Give me an example. Oh, boy. Let me think. No, you just had two pop right into your head, and then you tried to slough them off. Pick one of those. Well, I work from home two days a week.
Starting point is 00:40:29 And I would say that it can be kind of hard to focus when I'm at home working. So you log in and you don't do anything? I get what I need to done, but I don't do much past that. Okay. Are you one of those quiet quitters? Uh, well, I'm not sure. Don't. Um, okay.
Starting point is 00:40:53 So what else? That's, that's a light one. There's more. Um, I would say that. Okay. Well, there, there is a big one. Uh, I don't know how comfortable I'd be sharing it
Starting point is 00:41:08 okay that's fine I had a I just turned a manuscript in for a new book and I had a chapter in it called the biology of secrets so I ended up pulling out I ended up cutting that chapter but I need you to know what you're carrying now will destroy you.
Starting point is 00:41:29 Okay. So I want you to call somebody today that you can sit down, whether that's a friend, whether that's a mentor, or whether that's a professional counselor, that you can sit down and say, hey, I'm in over my head. Will you commit to that? Yeah, definitely. Think of your body's response in these moments as just alarm systems trying to keep you safe. I want you to keep a notes app open on your phone or get yourself a journal,
Starting point is 00:41:58 something that you carry with you, something small, something big. I don't care what it is. But I want you to begin to write these thoughts down when you get that email at three o'clock and it's like oh crap what did i do i want you to write that down or the first thought is you think you thought you think they found out write that down and then say what did they find out what did they find out and if there's a couple of things that would get you sent to jail or get you fired, you need to deal with that directly.
Starting point is 00:42:27 Quit it. Knock it off. Or at least have the integrity to quit, to resign, and go do something else. Yeah. Because that – I'll just leave that there. But I want you to begin to challenge these things. And what you're going to find is most of them are not true. Your feelings are strong and loud and powerful signals, but they're not always true. In fact, they can be rarely true.
Starting point is 00:42:56 And so I want you to acknowledge them and feel them, write them down, look at it, demand evidence from these things you're writing down, and then move on. Consciously walk into the middle of that anxiety um so let's think of an easy one um let's say you used to have a pornography addiction let's just something that's common you used to have a pornography addiction and you don't you don't anymore not even a thing like don't look at it all and you're married now and your wife says hey i need to use your computer real quick and you're instantly your heart goes starts beating really fast because you spent 10 years hiding your computer or you spent 10 years always clearing your search history and then go in and
Starting point is 00:43:38 clearing the cache all that stuff right i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna just and then so you're gonna write it down what is my body scared of oh that's not me anymore or hey did you get the cereal out this morning your wife asks you and your body sets off into fight or flight because when you were a kid that question could get you uh a smack across the side of your head and now you're older and you're gonna write it down this question sent me into fire flight is, did I get the cereal out? The answer is yes. And it's our house.
Starting point is 00:44:09 It's my house. I did. I got the cereal out and she'll probably go, put it away, ding dong. Or, okay, see if there's enough for me to have something, like something simple, right? So let's begin to write these things down. All we're doing is we're teaching our body.
Starting point is 00:44:23 We used to not be safe. Now we are. And like all things, especially with anxiety, it's easy to always be pointing your finger out there, out there, out there. Sometimes we're doing things that our body's trying to protect the world from. Don't keep secrets. Don't keep secrets. Don't keep secrets. They'll kill you.
Starting point is 00:44:51 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
Starting point is 00:45:12 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. Hey, last night, Ben and I and some guys went to the Under Oath show. Like some early 2000s screamo music. It was rad. Yeah, it was dope.
Starting point is 00:45:37 But what I didn't know until Ben was getting tossed around the pit and he ripped his shirt off. He has a huge Britney Spears tattoo on his chest, which is amazing, dude. Congratulations. I didn't know you were so tatted up, especially with Britney Spears. And so today's song of the day in honor of Ben's tattoo. I mean, it had the hearts and everything. It was well done.
Starting point is 00:45:58 Whoever did it was excellent. Surprising, but excellent. Song's called Toxic and it goes like this. Baby, can't you see I'm calling? A guy like you should wear a warning. It's dangerous. I'm surprising but excellent songs called toxic and it goes like this baby Can't you see I'm calling a guy like you should wear a warning. It's dangerous. I'm falling. There's no escape I can't wait who wrote this Good god. I need a hit baby. Give me it Give me it Awesome, you're dangerous. I'm loving it
Starting point is 00:46:23 Too high can't come down. Losing my head. Spinning round and round. Do you feel me now? No, because I don't know what you're saying. With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride. You're toxic. I'm slipping under. All right. Ben, you're toxic. Is that? Hey, I love you guys. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Bye.

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