The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband Is Always in a Bad Mood

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A woman growing impatient with her miserable husband - Peace and minimalism with the Minimal Mom, Dawn Madsen - A woman ashamed of the state of her cluttered home Lyrics of the Day: The Cinematic Orchestra - "To Build a Home"  Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp Hallow Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Building a Non-Anxious Life Anxiety Test Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I live alone and my home is chronically cluttered. And I'm just afraid that it's a symbol of maybe a bigger issue that I'm not seeing. Tell me about your home growing up. It was perfectly picked up, but if you opened a drawer or a closet, you could see everything crammed in there. But it was all a facade. Yes, sir. What up, what up?

This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, the greatest mental health and emotional health and marriage podcast ever recorded. And by ever recorded, I'm pretending I am a news channel where I just make stuff up. And I hope you believe it. And then I'll try to sell you stuff later. On this show, we talk to real people who are going through real problems. And this is true. I actually do do that.

And I did say do do. And I've been walking alongside hurting people for two decades. And that's what we do here. I'm tired of the nonsense. I'm tired of all the drama. I'm tired of the 14 steps to a better dude There are hurting people in homes and schools and counseling offices and doctor's offices Across the world and i'm sick of it And so this show is about sitting right in the middle of it walking straight into the fire

And saying hey i'll sit with you. Let's figure out what we can do next. Let's cut through all the nonsense. Let's cut through all of it. I got two PhDs. I've been doing this a long, long time, and we're going to figure it out. And I got Kelly. By far your greatest asset. Just kind of like putting a governor on the engine.

She makes sure we just keep plodding along and don't go too fast, too furious. Is that fair? It is in a sense, yeah. You make sure we stay on the air. I make sure you don't take us off the air. Here we go. All right, so it's almost Christmas time.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, says I love you. And I'm glad I'm related to you. I like buying your significant other something, a book about their anxiety and their mental health. So go to johndeloney.com and pick up my number one bestselling, Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Building a Non-Anxious Life.

Go pick it up. And questions for humans. We don't know how to talk to each other anymore. And I got you. Questions for all different scenarios, taking away all the excuses, put your screens down, stop handing your kids digital babysitters,

and let's reconnect as people. So we got the Christmas deck. Let's do this. All right, we've got two questions today. So yesterday we talked about what movie was overrated. So it's only fair that today we're going to talk about what's the all-time greatest Christmas movie? Oh, Nightmare Before Christmas.

No question about it. Dude, Tim Burton. It's a great movie. Unlike some Playmare Before Christmas. No question about it. Dude, Tim Burton. It's a great movie. And some Play-Doh. Incredible. All-time greatest ever Christmas movie? Okay, fun fact.

Never said this on the show before. You ready for this? My dad, one of his childhood best friends, was Randy Quaid. They hung out, and if you can see where I come from, you can be like,

oh yeah, we see that. Way to go. We see the connection there. So they were close, close buddies. And so I also have to say. Christmas vacation.

That's what I was going to say. Thanks Eddie. Vacation. Yeah. Cousin Eddie is got a warm place in my heart. Yeah. I might, I mean,

there's part of me that wants to say Elf just because it's so family friendly. Yeah. And I mean, everybody loves Elf. You know, Christmas Vacation, we did let our kids watch until they were a little older. But it's just so great. I did. I did let, my kids watched Elf, I think, last year. And they didn't think it was that funny.

What? Oh, my kids love Elf. That's when we watch it every Thanksgiving night. That's like the start to the season. Just to get past gratitude and get right to the give me, give me, give me, give me, give me. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that in your house. But every night, my in-laws, every Thanksgiving night, we watch Elf.

You know, it's kind of everybody's eating and all the stuff's done. Everybody sits down and watches Elf. It's just such a great feel-good movie. How can you not love it? But Christmas Vacation still takes the cake for me. I haven't seen it in 20 years. Is that kid appropriate? Christmas Vacation?

Yeah. It's Hank appropriate, not Josephine appropriate. There's some language in it mainly. And a couple of like when he's flirting with the girl in the... I remember that. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Fair. Alright. So what's next? Is it ever okay

to re-gift? One million percent yes. You know why? Because it's mine. You can't give me something and then lay claim to it forever. Right. My only stipulation is I think you can't re-gift in the same group of people. Oh, yeah, that's gnarly. You know, if I get a gift from my sister-in-law,

I'm not going to give it to the other sister-in-law next Christmas. It has to go to a different, a whole different Christmas group. All right, let's unwind this real quick. Here's the re-gifting rules. You can't do that. You also can't give, re-gift something that you got from a previous lover to your current lover. Oh, gosh. No, no.

That's a horrible thing to do. Don't do that. I know, but it could, I mean, it could see it being effective. Did you do that? No. Okay. No, no, no, no. Because I never would have thought of that.

You came up with it real fast, so that's why I was asking. I'm just thinking. If I was like, my wife's like, here you go. And I'm like, oh my gosh, it's amazing. You're the same size as the guy i dated before and he you know he loved it so i thought you would too then like oh don't do that um and then the third one is i don't have a third one well you have to like you know take the tag off of it that says you know you don't scratch out from dan and yeah make sure there's no old wrapping paper still stuck to it with the tape. You know, act like you did it.

But my biggest one is, yeah, you just can't do it in the same group of people. Because like, hey, didn't I give you that last year? I do think, yeah, it'd be funny. Like, yeah, I didn't like it. So I'm going to see if this guy likes it. Exactly. I kind of, I appreciate that. All right.

Good call. Way to go. Questions for humans. Change your life. Talk to your family. All right. Let's go out to Montgomery, Alabama and talk to help me, Rhonda. Help, help me, Rhonda. What's up?

Hey, Dr. John, how are you? Good. I'm pretty much over-caffeinated this morning. I'm a little bit. I can tell a little bit. I was snorting it off my counter. So what's up? Nice.

Well, I'm totally fangirling right now, first of all, because I have so much respect for you. So when I thought I needed to talk to somebody about this topic, you are the first person that came to my mind. Well, that makes me feel that makes you feel good. Thank you. You're welcome. So my husband is in a job that the job is very fulfilling for him, but the management is horrible. And therefore, it makes him in a horrible mood. And it's literally starting to affect our marriage. And I don't know what to do to help. Ooh.

Okay. Can I blow up this whole paradigm? Sure. All right. Are you comfortable saying what his job is? He is a maintenance supervisor for a large religious organization. Ooh, he works for Jesus. That gets dicey.

All right. Ooh, he works for Jesus. That gets dicey. All right. Okay, so. And you should know he's a preacher's kid, too. This might play into your opinion. It does. 1,000% it does. Yeah. Oh, that makes it even easier.

So here's what we're going to do. There are, I'm just going to say men, but I know there's men and women, okay? But for this case, I'm just going to use the word men, so everybody just take 30-40% off. Okay. Men go to war. Men clean sewers.

Men clean body parts off of walls. Men are proctologists. Men give colonoscopies. They do all sorts of things. And I know women do all those things too, okay? But in this case, we're talking about your husband.

The problem is not doing the job. It's not even the management of his job. I don't want to blame the job or his boss for how he chooses to treat his family. Okay. And how he chooses to treat himself. Now, here's where that gets really uncomfortable inside a home. I'm already uncomfortable. I know.

You know why? Because it's easier for you. You can sleep better at night blaming his boss. But it's real tough to sleep when you go, oh, wait a minute. You're making this choice. And so I think we have had this collective wacko, wacko idea over the last decade, last 15 years. Simply because we've had some wild economic like windfalls, right? Just we've created wealth over the last, well, we borrowed it actually, but

we've created wealth over the last 10, 15 years. It never existed in the world, right? And so because of that, we've started blaming all of our uncomfortable moments on the job, how hard it is, the boss is mean. Bosses have always been mean. What suddenly changed is people stopped doing the things that they needed to do to be well when they walked in that front door. Mm-hmm. See what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. So, if you go, the problem is not how hard his job is. The problem is not how much of a jerk his boss is.

I'll get to the jerk bosses in a minute, okay? Because that is a problem. I don't want to blow over that. But I want to put the way he treats his family and ultimately his bad mood. That's his to own. And that's terrifying for you. I do not want that to be true. But it is true.

His boss is not walking in the front door and slamming things and screaming at you and cracking open a beer and saying, hey, I don't even care. That's not his boss. That's your husband. In all fairness, he does not do that. He's just super grumpy. I'm just making it up. It'd probably be better if he did have a beer right he might be less grumpy all the time so my question is what is grumpy protecting him from and the sad hard part about this call is you can't answer that. Only he can. You're correct.

I don't know. I wouldn't know how to answer that. Right. And it probably goes back to he's seen how the sausage is made at a religious organization his whole life. And if you work back there for a long time and you don't do things to protect your soul, it can get real gnarly. Uh-huh. Right? It can wear you down.

Here's whose fault. That is not his wife. He does not get a pass on treating his wife with disrespect or being grumpy. Period. Period. He doesn't. And here's more important he doesn't get to create a home that his kids don't want to come home to

simply well they're not coming back are they no that's right oh that's right one of my chief transitions as an adult one of the things that I did a control alt delete on was I want to create a home full of warmth and laughter and memories so that my kids always want to come back. And that means, and by the way, I work in a really difficult job. I play it off and laugh a lot,

but my job's hard and it's got tons of travel and tons of midnight meet and greets and 6 a.m. meet and greets after. It's hard. It's a tough job. Plus, hey, write a book in the hood. That's tough. And that means it's my job to make sure I'm seeing a counselor, to make sure I'm exercising. I'm eating right. I sleep, which means I can't eat certain things because if I eat certain things, I don't sleep. Last night, I was exhausted and I went with my buddy, Michael, and George Campbell and a couple others. We went to a comedy show. I actually wanted to go to bed, but I knew my body needed to hang out with my friends and laugh really hard with some great guys, right? I got to do those things. So I walk in my front door and end up with a morning like I had this morning, I was very, very tired.

But me and my daughter played the funniest spin around the room. You see what I'm saying? I do those things so that I'm not grumpy. It's not my boss's fault. It's not my job's fault. It's mine. So may I ask a follow-up question? You got it. So this is my third marriage. Okay. We've been married eight years. We were both in long-term marriages. Like I had a practice one that lasted a short while, and then we both had long marriages. And now we're married to each other for eight years.

And I can't help but feel that his mood is directed toward me, even though rationally I know that it's not. So what can I do for myself? So I'm going to ask you hard questions. Is that okay? Yeah. What kind of environment have you created for him to come home to? Loving, I hope. Well, let's put Let's put loving aside I want to talk about feelings When he opens that door Does the house feel Hilarious

And fun And oh my gosh I'm so glad you're here Or is it a loving house And he opens the door And it's like Hey, don't put your shoes Inside this house

Do not bring that bag in here. Gross. Get that out. So I'm not, listen, I'm not saying that he needs, he should bring his shoes in. I see what you're saying. Probably a little bit of both. I am super happy to see him, but then it's, you know, I got to get dinner done. He needs to come in the house the right way, right?

Yeah. I need him to, I need him to behave so that I don't have to worry about that in addition to everything else. And nothing makes me more grumpy than when my mom starts lecturing me. I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to say that. He quit being his mom. Quit being his mom. What does that mean?

Hey, that doesn't mean that he just stomps mud through the house. What that means is you take him out for breakfast and you say, hey, we're eight years in. I want this to be my ride or die. You are my ride or die. And he is. I know. When you bring mud in the house, like when the house is unclean, I feel unsafe. I feel like I'm failing you. I feel like I'm failing our marriage. I feel like I got one job and I'm not doing it right. It honors me when. That's different than I told you, right? Or even if you don't say the words I told you, he can feel that tone all over your body language when you go pick up his shoes and throw them out on the front porch.

And again, I'm just making stuff up, right? It also is, if you tell him that, and this is a common thing that, again, I'm totally generalizing here. Please, people who listen to this, don't blow me up in the comments. I know it goes both ways. I know. But often,

a wife may go after her husband's job, which in a strange way goes after his identity. And he has to either shut the conversation down or defend himself. Which might be even more true with the preacher's kid. That's right. He might see himself working a job

under a tyrant because he works unto God. And part of his calling since he was zero years old is to have a miserable life on behalf of something bigger than himself so that everybody else can worship. Right?

Wow. And so there's a different thing if you sit down and go, your job is killing you, yada, yada. That's different then. I love you, and I can't tell you, yada, yada. That's different then. I love you. And I can't tell you, when I just think about your life,

how proud I am of you. That you've given up every Sunday for your entire life to serve other people so they can have an experience of meeting God. And I don't want you to die young. I don't want you to have a heart attack. I want you to walk in this house and be so happy and joyful to walk in here. Can we create that world?

That's a very different, that's an invitation. He doesn't have to defend himself. And when you say you're just being grumpy, that's really vague language. I want you to be very, very specific. When you yell, it scares me to death. When I get the sense from your body that you don't want me near you, I always want you near me. That's right there.

That's what I'm talking about. See what I'm saying? Exactly. The way my wife put it was, John, you have a nuclear reactor in your chest and I can, a whole house can feel it. Mm-hmm.

And we all want to come closer to you, but your body's telling us to get away. And I had to go deal with that. I had to go sit with a counselor and say some hard, hard, hard stuff. Mm-hmm. And like happened this morning, I'm starting to say a new that. I had to go sit with a counselor and say some hard, hard, hard stuff. And like happened this morning, I'm starting to say a new sentence that I haven't said ever.

And that was to my daughter, Josephine. Get off me. I got to go to work. Because she can't stop being around me now. Because that reactor's disassembled. I still get mad. I still get frustrated. Good grief.

I'm not a robot. But man, that sense of peace and calm radiates out of my body. Not that sense of get away from me. But if he's going to a boss that belittles him and he has parents

that he's still trying to live up to and he's been a preacher's kid his whole life, so every time he goes to the bathroom, he has to do it just right or somebody's going to comment on it. And then he comes home to more criticism. Man, that's a tough road.

Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. It is. It kind of turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy because exactly as well and when i told him that you and i had an appointment to talk his demeanor changed so i think he saw that it was serious enough to me that i needed help yeah and because he loves me He's making a greater effort this last few days. But let's not make him do an effort over and above

your criticism and your disdain and your patting him on the head as my gross little boy that just needs to do it right. I don't like to think that that's what I do. You might not. You might not, but ask him. Do you feel like I belittle you?

Do you feel like when you come home, you have yet another boss that you can't make happy? Because if so, I'm so sorry. That's a good question. I've talked about this more recently, publicly for the first time. Here's the question that changed my marriage. How do me and my wife want our home to feel like when we walk

in the front door? For her, here's a couple of things that she asked me to do through tears. We live way out in the country. She said, when you get home before me and it's dark, will you turn the porch lights on so I can see it? We have like a mile long driveway or a quarter mile long driveway. Can you turn the porch lights on? It makes me feel like the home is well, our house is welcoming me home. Will you clean up all these piles everywhere? Because I walk home and there's piles everywhere and I inhale real sharply versus exhaling and dropping my shoulders.

Now a clean house isn't a mom scolding a little boy. For me, a clean house is me telling my wife, I love you. And for her, I asked when I come home, I need 10 or 15 minutes before you start asking questions about, hey, what do we do? And what about this? And do you get this paid?

And I just need a minute to come in. And my preference would be if we could just hug right when I walk in the door. And dude, she is amazing. And I love hearing my kids run around yelling. See what I'm saying? We created the house that we wanted to feel and then we had to reverse engineer. What does that mean?

Right. And that might mean, honey, when you get home, I want the house to feel, I want you to walk in that door so bad. And if you're tense from your last meeting, you walk in it's my it scares my body My body goes into protection not into invitation And he can say all right i'll get off of work and i'll go to the gym for 30 minutes And just walk on a treadmill. I'll go walk around the park

I'll exhale i'll pray i'll listen to a. I'll pray. I'll listen to a podcast. I'll do whatever I need to do so that I walk in and my shoulders are dropped, right? That's a totally different world we're talking about. And by the way, I don't think either of you are bad. I don't. I know this. This is not the job's fault. Real quick before I get off the call here. Toxic, I hate the word toxic now. It's just so beat down. Bad bosses ruin people, destroy people, makes it very hard to stay above water. And so I'm calling on bosses all over the country to stop sucking. Stop. Start loving the people that you work with. And by the way, if you love the people who work for you

And who are trying to help people out of the marketplace? And you love them back and instead of saying I told but instead you say hey, man How can I serve you and get this done? We have deadlines. You got to show up and you got to go full tilt How can I support you? And how can I love you in this position? You will serve more customers and you'll make more customers happy. You will help them in their day-to-day lives, which is what business should be about. And you'll make more money. But bad leaders, man, if you use your arrogance and your strength and your position of power to beat up on people, shame on you, dude.

You're going to collapse your business because you create a business of people who don't want to make mistakes, not a business of people who want to love customers well. Bad bosses, choose. As for me and my house, we're going to choose to love people and take care of them and demand excellence. And we're going to go help people. Make that how you practice too. Thanks for the call, Rhonda. You're awesome. 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 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 Hallow helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app

on planet earth, Hallow, 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 now and change your life. All right, we are back.

I am super excited to bring you this conversation. Over the last few years, the great Dawn Madsen, she goes by the Minimal Mom. She's got an enormous YouTube show that's just jam-packed with helpful stuff. And you might be asking yourself, why does a guy who pretends he's a tough guy with a bunch of tattoos who goes hunting and loves mixed martial arts, why does he hang out and have a friendship with the minimal mom? A woman who helps women clean their homes and moms clean their homes and I guess down dads clean their homes. I'll tell you why. Because Dawn is a great human

being. Very, very wise. Not only at this idea of decluttering and creating space and freedom in your home, but as you'll see in this conversation, she's somebody that I call personally. Because while I was writing, building an unanxious life, I got stuck. I was surrounded by so much stuff And it was one of the first times in a long time. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who to call I didn't know where to go So I called my friend dawn In this conversation, we talk about mental health and clutter and stuff and identity She's so wise Full of so much wisdom and she's just a great person. Like I said

So check out this conversation between me and my great friend dawn mattson the minimal mom she's so wise, full of so much wisdom, and she's just a great person, like I said. So check out this conversation between me and my great friend, Dawn Mattson, the minimal mom, right here. Conversations I had with college students over two decades and landing on this word addiction. And so when I think of addiction, they've told us for years, it was a moral issue, right? If you're addicted to something, it's because you're terrible, you're bad. And then it shifted to, well, it's actually, we got a picture of somebody's brain. And so we found

it's an addiction. It's a disease, right? And now the conversation has shifted to, no, no, no. Addiction is your body trying to solve for the madness that it's in, right? Whether that's old trauma stuff or whether it is something hard or tragic or abusive that you're sitting in the middle of, addiction works, right? Until it doesn't, until it kills you, right? And so you and I have talked offline and I haven't talked about this very much publicly, but I can be so good about my diet and so good about exercise and so good about plugging in with my kids and so good about working hard to be a good husband. There is something protective about the chaos that is

all the clutter in my life. And I think I called you during writing the book when I stumbled on some literature about anxiety and clutter, being surrounded by stuff. And a brain that's designed for scarcity has found itself in the 21st century surrounded by just stuff all the time. And I don't know what to do. And I've taught, I've sit there in my house surrounded by this stuff and getting rid of it feels like I'm losing a part of me. Right. And the definition of addiction is repeated behavior despite increasing mounting negative consequences, right?

Yeah. And I can't stop. You know what I mean? And so I don't understand this connection between clutter and addiction. And we've tossed it off as mental health disorder. I don't think that's it. I think it's something deeper than that. Yeah. And I'm wrapped up in these things. Help me, please. Right, right. Well, and we like to call it identity clutter. And so you're absolutely not alone. I

think this is something many can resonate with. For some, it's books and guitars. Teachers, especially, they find a lot of identity in books. They're also in the academic world. Craft supplies, workout gear, hobby things. We're constantly trying to show the world, look, this is who I am, right? And you've said this before. Your books. Look how smart I am. My books say that, right?

And so what if you take all my books away and my guitars and my craft supplies, then what's the world going to think of me? And that's not wrong though, right? Like you talk about this. In a tribe, we need to look successful so we don't get left behind. So that's why I want brand name clothes and a nice vehicle. It's not wrong that we want to look successful or we want to look cool. We want to fit in. So my body's doing right by itself.

It's not wrong, right? The problem is for most of us, so I like to talk about this as inventory. So everything in our house is inventory that we have to manage. And for women, I think we have to manage more than men, honestly. And so everything is inventory. And so many of these things are useful. They're helpful. They're making our life easier, but it's all inventory that we have to manage. And so we can have a certain amount of books and guitars, and that's great. They're useful. They're helpful.

You can go down to your basement, hang out, and jam until it gets to the point where it's not. And so it's kind of like this scale tips, right? And you're like, no, I don't go down there and feel inspired and I just want to hang out. I feel stressed because there's way too much inventory down there. And that's where our friend Fumio Sasaki comes in because he's like, he calls it the silent to-do list. And those things are nagging at you. All the time.

What does that stuff say to you? But that's very similar to a drink. It's fun to have a drink with your buddies. Yeah. And then the second one. Yeah. And then it's when you can't stop. And it's fun to have a drink with your buddies and then the second one and then it's when you can't stop and it's fun to order books on Amazon it is

I got another one yesterday so I'm off book tour I like to go down a rabbit hole with one author and that's cool except I usually get two books in and then I quit and I've got seven other ones and I'm always going to get to them

another older book of this one author that I love showed up Except I usually get two books in and then I quit and I've got seven other ones and I'm always going to get to them, right? Yeah. Another older book of this one author that I love showed up and it was sitting on the thing. And my wife puts it out now as this like shining moment, like this beacon of shame. Just you did this, right? Yeah. And I can't tell you the feeling I got. It felt so good. Like I got it.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Because it was going to make you smarter. I don't even have to open it. I already have the reward I got. It felt so good. Like I got it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Cause it was going to make you smarter. I don't even have to open it. Cause I already have the reward. Totally. Right. Right. That's, that's an unhealthy addiction. That's not right. That's not whole. It's not good. It would be okay if you went down to your basement and got rid of four more books. That's it. That's it. Right. Yeah. But I need those to tell me I'm okay too. And that's just it. And I think this idea with the silent to-do list, so it's this idea that all of our stuff is sending us messages. Read me, play me, take care of me, organize me, don't let me get wrecked. And Fumio will even say the longer we've neglected something,

the louder the messages get, right? What a loser you are because you have not read me, you have not taken care of me. And it really represents these broken commitments with ourself, right? Lies to yourself. Totally. That's addiction. I said when I bought that book, I was going to read it or at least skim it, right?

And I have not even done that. And so it all represents these broken commitments to ourself. And what does that do? Makes us feel even worse about ourselves. Yeah, you keep secrets and you shame. Good in the moment. That's right. Right.

But what do we do? Because we're still here with all the books. Yeah, I think it's, I just, my tendency is to skip over this part, which is the discomfort with the only path I can see forward for me is submitting to like, I'm powerless here, right? It's that very old, that's that old 12-step thing like i i outsource my identity to books because they make me feel like i'm smart i outsource my identity to guitars because they are some magical link to when i was 18 and i played in punk clubs right and i Right? And I can't let that guy go. Yeah. I outsource myself to the fanciest hunting gear because I've convinced myself that if

it all goes down, I'm all right. I'm that guy. Right? Yeah. And I can just keep going. Yeah. But I have to deal with the fact that I continue, I can be proud of myself for not outsourcing how I feel to the internet.

Right? People can leave me in comments. That's fine. I don't outsource myself to my mom and dad or my in-laws, right? They don't get a vote, right? But dude, there's something so powerful about these things. And I have to sit in that discomfort and say, I do do that, right? I do let books, I do let guitars and to people listening, your dishes, your perfect sets, your furniture, your perfectly made bed, all that, like the throw pillows, right?

Right. How much we outsource stuff. And then that imaginary conversation. That's what, when you told me that privately, that melted me. Like the, are you just going to give up on us? Remember when you were cool? Yeah. Are you just not going to read us?

You're just going to be stupid forever? Right. Oh, you're not going to do the dishes? You're just going to be that kind of husband? That's just how you're going to give up on us? Remember when you were cool? Yeah. Oh, you're just not going to read us? You're just going to be stupid forever? Right. Oh, you're not going to do the dishes? You're just going to be that kind of husband? That's just how you're going to be? Right. And it never stops. Those voices never stop.

Never stops. And I think that's why then when you look at the research, and it literally says now, clutter releases stress hormones, right? Like you have told me in the past, if your house is very cluttered, you don't feel safe in it. Your body cannot fully relax. And I think it is, it's because these messages, we look at it, we're like, it's just stuff. It's a book. Like it

doesn't talk. It doesn't breathe. It does nothing. Right. But, but that's why it's these messages. So, you know, I know the minimalists, they have their rule, like the spontaneous combustion rule, right? And I, they even asked you this at one point, John, if all of your books spontaneously combusted, how would you feel? And you had said, I would kind of feel relieved, right? The decision's made for me. That's it. Yeah.

There would be this terror, but also this. Yeah. But once the dust settled, kind of like, oh, good. I don't have to make that decision. Right. Right. And so that's good though, right? Because you can recognize then, I don't need all of these books.

Basically, what you're saying is, I would be okay if some of these books go. You don't have to get rid of all of them. But unfortunately, they didn't spontaneously combust and you're still there with them. Right. Right. So do I do. Right. And you've been trying to do this on your own.

Oh, gosh. Yeah, for a long time. We do, right? We're like, I got myself into this mess. I need to get myself out. And often we're embarrassed by the clutter. Yours is kind of like sophisticated clutter, right? Books and guitars. But for a lot of us, if I have a full bedroom stacked with boxes of stuff, a basement, an attic, I can't even imagine inviting someone into that with me. And I feel like you would be

the first to tell other people, call a friend. You're going to give them purpose, right? They're going to feel so special when you pick up the phone and call them and invite them over to help you. And so what keeps you from inviting someone into this with you? Shame. I'm going to use your own words against you that it's not – I realized it wasn't a character flaw. I just don't have the skills. That's it. I'm not broken.

You're not. I'm not an idiot. I'm not a loser. No. I don't know how to do it. Right. So you've probably heard of body doubling. I hate that.

Right? No. Have you heard of body doubling? It's a great tactic for people with ADHD. All it is is having- Tell me more. Yeah, right? All it is is having someone come and help you.

So I have an appointment Saturday morning. I'm going to have someone who I trust with this. They're going to come over. And often what's very helpful is that you might need to tell the stories of some of these things. You might need to say, oh, I remember in grad school when I got this book. Or this person came to speak and I was so enthralled with them and I wanted to be like them. Or I love this thing they said that's always stuck with me. So I feel like I need to keep the book so I don't forget that or I don't lose it.

Or, you know, my goal for today is to clear off this one shelf. And so you're literally just here to hold me accountable. Is that okay to do one shelf today? Oh, yeah. Yes. We often glamorize like I need to set aside the whole weekend and I need to get this all done. And that is too overwhelming for most of us because this is – it's a lot of work. I mean you're literally going book by book

and saying, do I need this? Do I not? And you'll say, because we're trying to imagine the future, right? Am I going to need this book in the future? Am I going to want to reference it again? Am I going to, I mean, you're awesome at quoting other people in your books, right? And so I love it, like how you bring in just everything. And so you might, what if I need it in the future? But that's anxiety, right? Trying to predict what I am going to need in the future. So there's also a part where we need to accept that there is risk involved with this. There is some risk. And that's a great, if you can invite someone over to help you body double, again, body doubling is just literally having someone come over. They can do it virtually. I mean, it's scientifically proven. This works virtually.

This is why like clean with me videos are very popular because you're literally cleaning alongside someone else, even though it's virtually. I've never even heard of that. It's like doing aerobics online. It's awesome. It's not surprising though, because we're made for community and we need people. So not surprising. So that's body doubling. And you might need to tell the person, okay, here's my goal. Here's my fear. And you need to tell me it's okay. We don't want to invite someone over who's like very creative and like, oh, you might want to keep that for some day.

No, you're fired. Like you don't work for this. And so you might need to tell them like, hey, like there is some risk. We don't know for sure if I'm going to need this in the future. So just remind me if I hold something up and I'm kind of going back and forth, if I'm going back and forth, it's a sign I don't need it. Right. If it's not a clear yes, it's a no. And so that sounds like a good Instagram maximum, but that's that's real. It is real because we only use 20 percent of the stuff in our house. As Americans, we only use 20 percent of the stuff in our house. But we have to acknowledge and this

is where I think sometimes people oversimplify it, is that there is risk involved with this. So I grew up on a farm in Minnesota. My dad was phenomenal. So when you're on a farm, there are things going wrong every single day. Correct. All the time. And my dad, it was so fun because he would see each thing that went wrong as a problem that needed to be solved. He didn't get frustrated. He was like, hmm, how are we going to do this? And if his initial fix, what he tried to do didn't work, he was like, oh, I guess we got to try something else, right? And so I grew up in this environment where it was okay to make mistakes. It was okay to try. And not all of us grew up in that type of environment. And so eight years ago, when I have four kids, ages four and under, my house is a disaster. And I'm like, this sucks.

Like, I am not enjoying being a mom. This is not the picture that I thought this was going to look like. Nothing like it. And so I'm looking around and then I hear this podcast with Joshua Becker, who's a well-known minimalist. And he's like, did you know you don't have to have all this stuff? And I'm like, no, I didn't. I thought this is what you have when you have four kids and a house and everything. And because I'm okay with taking risks and it's okay if I make a mistake,

I could, over the course of the next year, get rid of 85% of our stuff and I could do an experiment and I could just see what was going to happen. And it turns out that it was one of the best decisions that I've ever made. I do not miss any of this stuff. And so sometimes we need to borrow that confidence from others, those who have gone before us. I mean, you look at the minimalists. My goodness, they're preaching it from the rooftops, right? Guys, this stuff doesn't fix anything.

We look at, you know, we're collecting data, right? Like I need data. You have not read any of those books in how many years, right? And so sometimes we need facts, and we need to remind ourselves like, okay, this feels unsettling because maybe for some of us, we're in an environment even now where it's not okay to make mistakes. And there's someone in my household, and I don't think you're in that situation, but for others,

that is going to, they are just ready to point it out if you got rid of something and now you need it again. It's very unlikely you need it again, but in the off chance, they are ready to say, see, this decluttering doesn't work. See, you're just going to go buy all this stuff again. Or you shouldn't have bought it in the first place. Exactly. You're right.

It's very complicated. So as you're talking, I keep landing on this one thing. And I'm always stunned. And it sounds like what you're telling me is I have to come to terms with the fact that I'm not 19. And what I have to do is grieve that gap, right? Like I'm not. I'm not 19 and there's not a chance that some band is going to call me. That ship has sailed.

That doesn't mean I can't play guitar and that doesn't mean that I can't jam with my son and my daughter and have fun. But I have to let that part go. Yeah. And that's hard. But again, I think that's where inviting someone else in it. We need to tell our story, right? We need a big part of grieving is someone else witnessing it. That's right.

That's it. You have to. You have to say it out loud. And so to invite someone over and to say, hey, I got this guitar when I was this old and when I had this dream. And so this is hard for me to let go. Let them know that. Here's the other problem.

I've only recently started not just trying to make enough money to have groceries. And so these things aren't old relics. This is me trying to recapture. This is new money. I'm using current money to buy 18-year-old dreams. The guitar that the kid never could afford when I was playing or the shoes I couldn't have. And I have to let go.

If I have like one superpower when it comes to like writing and stuff, it's a freakish ability to remember there's one line in this one book that I read nine years ago and I'll find it and I have to let that superpower go because there's this one recipe that one time there's this one dish that everyone laughs at

when they come over and I think we all hold on to that thing and suddenly that it's not a superpower it feels like it is but it's not you know what I mean it's not, it's pretend yeah and so that it's not a superpower. It feels like it is, but it's not. You know what I mean?

It's not as pretend. Yeah. And so that's, again, where we can have someone to witness it. We go a little bit at a time. So, again, we're not going to try and declutter all your books in one weekend because what happens if you will do, even if you say, I'm going to do 10 books today, is you start to gain confidence in yourself, and you start to say, hey,

I got rid of those 10 books and I didn't actually miss them. The world didn't. No. And then I got rid of 10 more and now there's 100 gone and it actually feels better down here. Right. I feel like I can, whew, I can start to relax a little bit. I don't walk in this room and think, oh, I need to do this and I need to organize these and I need to dust these and I should really should read that one. Right. And then we realize like, you know, the silent to do list is quieting down. I can start to enjoy this space how I'd hoped, but that's where I think doing it gradually, we gain that confidence in ourselves so that we do trust the decisions that we're making. One other thing, don't start with identity clutter, sentimental stuff, the hardest stuff,

start in your kitchen. See, I think the rest of your house is probably pretty simplified. Don't start, I mean, on the spectrum, like this is the hardest stuff. Like you are working through the hardest stuff right now. So it can be helpful to start in other areas of your home, your kitchen, your clothes, stuff that's more easily replaced. Well, clothes might be. She said this morning, there's a stack of t-shirts and she said, hey, we've exceeded the number of hangers. She said, it's time to she said, hey, we've exceeded the number of hangers.

She said it's time to. And she goes, or you can go buy more hangers. And that's like always her like, you can go buy more hangers or you can. I'm hoping you'll make the right decision. These shirts, it's like, I love that one. I can wear that one. And it's insane. It's not rational, right?

Right. Oh, man. All right. So I'm going to take from this two things and tell me if I'm crazy. The clutter, the stuff, is almost like it's the gas light on the – I mean, it's the engine light on the car. It's not the problem. It's this sense that I'm using other stuff to try to feel good about myself that's number one and number two you weaponized my own words against me like

i can't do this i gotta i gotta say i can't do this by myself and i need to get somebody else to help me yeah who will be honest with me which for me is probably gonna be my wife and if i i can't think of a greater aphrodisiac in my home if I was to be like, hey, would you sit with me for like four hours and help me get some of this stuff out? I can't even tell you what that would be in our house. You know what I mean? Gosh, I just have to do it.

But again, small piece. That's right. You know, 10 bucks. I'm just going to start with- But tell me if this fails. It feels like it fails and I feel like I try it, but I feel like it's also like a little blankie that keeps me warm. I'll put stuff in a box, and then I put it in the attic

and say, I'm going to practice. I think it's got to go. Yeah, I think you need to just fully get it out of your house. You need to complete it, get it out. That's the only way you're actually going to build trust with yourself. That's it. Yeah, because I know it's kind of still up. Yeah.

No safety nets with it. You're right on that, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for coming by and helping. Yeah. No safety nets. You're right on that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for coming by and helping. Yeah. All right. We're back.

Let's go out to Little Rock, Arkansas and talk to Tracy. What's up, Tracy? Hi, Dr. John. Thank you for taking my call today. Of course. Thanks for calling. Thank you. Yes, Dr. John. Thank you for taking my call today. Of course. Thanks for calling. Thank you. Yes, sir. And I love your show. And I just got your new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life. I haven't read it yet, but I have it.

Very cool. in my home. And this bothers me really bad about myself, about my home. And I'm just afraid that it's a symbol of maybe a bigger issue that I'm not seeing or else I'm just a floss. I don't know. Oh, I don't think so. When you say it's surrounded by clutter, is that a truthful statement or is that a very nice way of saying you're afraid you're a hoarder and you've got trash and garbage and scary stuff everywhere okay I'm not a hoarder

that yeah there's not trash like that it's more like every so it's not a hoarder situation there's not too much stuff it's just there's a lot of

paper sitting out a lot of mail that hadn't been dealt dealt with or filing, maybe dishes on the counters in the sink, multiple items on the coffee table, in the bathroom counter, just stuff that I use. And I think, oh, well, I put it up. I'm just going to use it again. Or I don't want to file. Who wants to file on your day off, you know, things like that. I have a friend that when he comes over, he says, your house is too cute for it to be this messy. Okay.

So that sounds more messy than gross. Yes. Yes. Okay. Do you collect things? No. No. Okay.

So at my house, I've got collections of books and collections of music equipment and guitars and collections of hunting stuff. So I've got things that I've wrapped my identity around, but it's just tons of stuff. And a lot of it's really nice stuff, but it's just everywhere. You're talking about you have piles and junk and stuff and i just don't want to put it away yeah it's okay it seems like another job if i'm off work uh to have to go to and i keep thinking i'll just knock it out i'll knock it out i can get it clean i'll have somebody come over and kind of monitor me and make me stay task oriented and I can keep it cleaned up for a while and then it'll pile up again. Okay. Um, what does, what does the clutter

get you? What does it get me? It makes me feel anxious and stressed out and I don't. Yeah, there's something else on the other side. What does it get you? You mentioned it gets you some time off from what you feel is like work. Yes. What does it get you? Just dropping the stuff where it is, not putting the dishes back, not cleaning up your stuff off the kitchen, off the bathroom counter.

What does that get you? Oh, nothing. It digs me deeper in a hole. No, it'll get you something or your body wouldn't keep doing it. Okay. Maybe like an unsupervised child. How long have people been telling you what to do and what to think and what to

feel? Gosh, I feel so independent. It's just this, this is like my Achilles heel. But you're not independent. You're not free. No, I'm not. I'm my own hostage in this house. Oh, that's a good word. How long have you been a hostage in your own home? Well, I've been in this home 15 years and I asked a friend of mine recently, how long has it been like this? Because I thought before it was because of the job I previously had where I was a traveling sales rep and I had a lot of work-related brochures sitting out.

But now I work from home now, and I thought, well, maybe it'll all get cleaned up because I'm home. I have had a health issue that's limited my energy level, but I don't think that's – I can't even use that as an excuse. Well, and you see how that becomes kind of recursive, right? You don't feel super great. So you don't pick up after yourself and you open your eyes and you feel stressed and immediately like, and then that's overcome with shame.

And then you have less energy and you do less. You see how it works one way, but it also works the other way, but how it works that one way. Tell me about your home growing up. What'd your home look like? It was perfectly picked up. There was nothing sitting out. You couldn't leave anything sitting out at all. But if you opened a drawer or a closet, you could see everything crammed in there. And I will say it was an alcoholic home. So there

was some chaos, emotional chaos going on. There you go. But everything was picked up and the yard looked great. But it was all a facade. Yes, sir. Just like your smile was as a little girl going to school. Yeah. Yes, sir. Just like you're probably a damn good salesman, saleswoman. I did okay.

Yeah, you did. And nobody knew. Right. What do you do now? I'm inside sales. What does that mean? Well, I work out of my home now, but I'm still got a sales position. So I pretty much work over the phone or the computer instead of traveling. Pretty good at it? Yeah. Oh, I'm okay. I'm all right. I ended up with a couple of health issues that kept me from, I don't have the energy level to travel like I did. Okay.

And I used to kind of think maybe it was I'm older and maybe the health, you know, health trouble, so to speak, although it's not completely debilitating. I thought maybe that's it, but I've had a chronic history of this. Of course. You said something really important at the beginning of this call that I want to circle back to, and I want you to never forget this as long as you live, okay? Okay. You said, I feel like if I clean up on my day off, I'm just doing work again. Yes. What that means in reverse, if I take that as like a coin and I flip it to the other side,

what you just told me is my boss gets my first fruit. Yes. My boss and my job and my customers are more important than me. Oh, wow. It's my job to make sure everybody else is taken care of, and I'm not even worth picking up the garbage. That's it. And you know what?

You grew up in the home of an alcoholic. You've been doing this your whole freaking life. Yes, sir. You got it. That's it. Wow. Listen, you have to flip that around and say, I can only serve my boss and my customers and my family and my kids and my friend if and only if I'm whole and okay. And so the investment proposition isn't that everybody gets stuff in their account and you'll just spend whatever's left.

The investment proposition is I have to make sure my account is full so that I can go take care of everybody else. Okay. Are you a Christian? Yes, sir. There's a reason Jesus pulled away and went and sat in the desert and prayed so that he was anchored in and he could rappel off the edge and go be what everybody else needed.

Uh-huh. And you're doing it the opposite. You're right. Wow. I knew I couldn't see it, but you've put it into perspective for me. Here's the hard part. It's hard to reverse this. And the cool part is it's super doable. Okay. All right. I'm going to walk you through a couple of things that I think will help immensely. Is that cool? I'm ready. Yes, sir. I'm going to give you, I'm going to walk you through a couple of things that I think will help immensely. Is that cool? I'm ready.

Yes, sir. I'm ready. I want you to, are you creative? Crafty? Not really, but. Do you have a friend who is? I could, yes. Yep.

All right. I want you to get a friend and I want you to pay him 25 bucks or 50 bucks or something to make you a sign. Get one of your buddies who's like one of those woodworker nerds who knows how to woodwork everything. And they're great at it. Get one of those friends, okay? And I want them to make you a sign that says, don't forget to remember. Okay.

And I want you to hang that sign up in your living room right when you walk in the door. Okay. I also want you to get that and write it on a piece of paper or something or have a small sign that you hang from your rearview mirror or you walk in the door. Okay. I also want you to get that and write it on a piece of paper or something or have a small sign that you hang from your rearview mirror or put it in your car. Okay. This was step one for me changing my life. Okay. Here's why. In the moment when I'm starting to walk in with a handful of like a wrapper from some food I just ate and a whole bunch of books and the mail and my backpack full of junk. I drop it down and then I go to the sink

and I grab something to eat and I just drop the dish in there. And I literally don't see it right then. Yes. Okay, I'm just going from thing to thing to thing and I'm tired, I just want to sit down. It's when I get back up from sitting down or get back up from watching that show or get back, even if I'm trying to do something good, I get back in the house from that workout

and I see all the piles of stuff. And my first thought is you're disgusting. What a loser. Yeah, I did. Same team. Uh-huh. Okay. The phrase don't forget remember, has been transformative for me. Here's why. I see it in my car. I don't have it there anymore, but I used to have it in my car,

and I used to put it up in my house. And as I was getting out of my car, I would see it right as I'm getting out, and it would say, don't forget to remember. Here was what I was reminding myself. Don't forget to remember how good it feels to get into a clean car. Okay. And then I would stop and I would look and there's two cups in my coffee and a wrapper of some piece of candy I grabbed on the way out and a book. And I just grabbed all that stuff.

And over time it became automated. Okay. Just don't forget to remember how good it feels to walk in the door. Okay? That's number one. Number two, I want you to create a new identity

for your home. Okay. Here's what I mean by that. Very similar to the call, the first call in today's show. I want you to be very specific

and preferably talk to a friend. What do you want your home to feel like when you walk in every morning, when you open your eyes? what do you want your home to feel like when you walk in every morning, when you open your eyes? What do you want to feel like? Not what do you want to look like, feel like. Airy, light, calm, joyful, fun, whatever it is. But I want you to start there with an identity for your home. This is my safe, warm, fun, laughter-filled place.

Okay. And so what has to be true so that this can be warm and laughter-filled? I got to throw that crap away. Yeah. But if you start with, all right, every day I'm going to throw all the trash away, that will last for about four days. Yes. In my house, my wife told me years ago, ago when there's piles when there's stuff everywhere i can't breathe like the way she described it is

she inhales real sharply instead of exhaling yes so i know that when i pick up my stuff i'm telling my wife i love you see how much different that is? One is an identity. One is a bunch of chores. And so if your home is a warm, joyful workspace slash retreat center, then crap doesn't come in the door. I'm not bringing McDonald's wrappers into this warm, safe, lovely space. This is my retreat center.

The same as, you know, like, you don't put motor oil on your toothbrush. I'm not putting that in my mouth. Okay. I'm not bringing this in my house. That's not who this house is. That's not who we are here. And that means I might sort mail in the front yard

and just throw it all away. I'm never going to get on AARP's elite program. I'm never going to do that. So I'm not even bringing it in the house. Yes. I'm never going to buy another couch on a credit card. Like, I'm not. So that doesn't come in the house.

It just goes right in the trash. See what I'm saying? Yes, sir, I do. All right, number two. I wish this wasn't the case. This is what I had to do. You got to get a friend. Okay. As my friend Dawn Madsen, the minimal mom goes by and I would strongly

recommend checking her stuff out. Minimal mom. I'm not telling you you need to be minimalist at all, but she does a great step by step. Most of us, when we try to declutter, we go after everything all at the same time. You just said, I just want to knock it out. Yes. Your body gets overwhelmed and it shuts it down. Yes, exactly. And then when it starts to shut down, Netflix is like, I got you. And you just sit down there and turn on, right? Exactly. Oh my gosh. How do you know me?

Because I'm you, right? So here's what we do. We get a friend and we pick one room and we might only pick one wall of one room. Okay. I'm just going to clean this wall off and get all stuff off these shelves. I'm going to get all these books out of here. I'm going to get rid of all this stuff because my identity is warmth and laughter and joy, not look how smart I am because I read these books. And yours might be fill in the blank, right? Whatever it is. Okay. Okay. But get a friend and say, hey, we're going to do one room and then I'm buying coffee.

Okay. Cool. We're going to do one half of one room. Then we're getting coffee and they're going to want to push you. I'm here. Let's just go to the next room. Nope. It's what we got.

Okay. Okay. We'll make it a process. We'll have some fun with it. Here is the third thing. This is from Fumio, is it Fumio Sasaki, I think it is, a Japanese minimalist. It's amazing what he said.

He said, all of our inanimate objects in our home are having a conversation with us 24-7, 365. And so when you walk in the door and you see the pile of mail, it's quietly whispering, hey, Tracy, are you going to open us? You're just going to leave us here in this pile? Think of all the good deals we got.

You're going to pay full price for that? I bet we have a coupon in here. What if your old, old boyfriend from high school finally wrote you back and said he loved you? Right? All that. And we don't realize that the dishes are like, are you seriously not going to clean us up? You slob, you freaking lazy slob. Are you serious? Yes. Right. And so what I want you to start doing is talking back. Okay. I am going to put you away dishes. Ha ha. Or I'm watching a show. I'm not lazy. I worked my butt off today

and I'm struggling with some health issues. I'm going to watch this show. And then at 632, I'm getting up and I'm cleaning you up. I'm putting you away. I can do that. Okay. That sounds better than what I've been saying to myself. Well, here's what you've been doing. You've been talking to Tracy, not to the stuff. Right. And you got stuff in your closet that one day you're going to lose the weight or one day it'll come back in fashion.

It's not, Tracy. It's not. It just is not. Time for it to go. And you're going to have a friend that's going to go through your closet with you and you're going to buy him coffee. It'll be hilarious and sad. You might cry. It's going to be all of that.

Okay. Okay. Here's the last thing. All right. Stop. Stop talking to yourself like that. Yeah, that is the last area where I really haven't handled the negative self-talk. I didn't even realize I was doing it until we had this conversation.

It never stops. You are so mean to my friend Tracy. self-talk. I didn't even realize I was doing it until we had this conversation. It never stops. You are so mean to my friend Tracy. Mm-hmm. And if you walked outside in your front yard and heard a neighborhood guy talking to his daughter like that, you would. Oh, I'd come unglued.

I know you would. So treat Tracy. It's the reverse golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Okay. You take care of others. You don't take care of you on the inside. So at least treat yourself as good as you would treat a stranger.

Okay. Fair? I can do that. Yes, sir. Oh my goodness. Okay. And I can follow the six daily choices. Ta-da.

My promise is if you'll go through those six daily choices and begin to address those, you're going to have less and less room for trash in your house, for garbage, just nonsense. Because your whole system will lighten up. I've been trying to go minimalist for a long time because of that No, that's like that's like somebody just got a knee surgery getting rid of your crutches. Don't do that Okay, you're right. You might get there eventually But people who just go scorched earth and get rid of everything in their house And that stuff has become an important part of of their body trying to keep them safe and well

Okay, you just go to the next vice. Okay. That's why you go slow. And that's why you go with somebody and you process it and you feel it. Okay. I can do that. You'll see your buddy's face. You'll see your buddy's face and they'll be like, oh my gosh, what is all this crap?

And you'll feel embarrassed. I want you to put your hand on your chest. Feel the embarrassment. Feel it. Okay. And go, yeah, I'm getting better. Yeah. I wasn't okay, but I'm on the embarrassment. Feel it. Okay. And go, yeah, I'm getting better. Yeah. I wasn't okay, but I'm on the way.

After you get this whole thing cleaned up, I want you to take before and afters. Okay. Will you send them to me? Yes. I'd be so happy. It's going to have to be in sections. Piece by piece by piece by piece by piece. We're going to do it in sections. It's going to be amazing. Tracy, I'm super, super proud of you.

And by the way, this will be two steps forward, four steps back, five steps forward, three steps back. We're going to slowly make our way to this. Okay, this is a lifetime of you putting everybody in front of you.

You're going to have to practice over a period of time. Finally loving Tracy enough to say, no, I'm not working on my day off. This is my first day of the week and I work for me first. So I take care of me first and I make sure my home is the safe, wonderful, warm retreat I want it to be. Then my boss gets what's next. We're going to flip this whole thing around. So proud of you. Ah, you're awesome, Tracy.

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, to wrap up today's show, Nate Dogg, behind the screens, picked this band.

And I said, who is this band? And he said, they make pretty music. We need more pretty music in the world. Especially from a guy that mostly listens to Pennywise and I Prevail. So good for you. Not true. No, that's me.

Oh, you, okay. The Cinematic Orchestra. Song's called To Build a Home. It goes like this. There's a house built out of stone, wooden floors, walls, and windowsills, tables and chairs. Sounds like he's just going through

all the parts of a home. That's kind of cool. It's like Architectural Digest. Wooden floors, walls, and windowsills, tables and chairs worn by all the dust. There's a place where I don't feel alone. There's a place where I feel at home. I built a home for you, for me, until it disappeared from me, from you. And now it's time to leave and turn to dust.

Man, way to bring down a room, Nate. I built you a home. Then we all died. Pretty music. Is that it? By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top I climbed to the tree To see the world When the gusts came around To blow me down

I held on tightly As you held on me Held on as tightly As you held on me Actually I'm gonna go Listen to this song right now It sounds beautiful It's kinda sad

Cool man Hey I love you guys Stay in school me. Actually, I'm gonna go listen to the song right now. It sounds beautiful. It's kind of sad. Cool, man. Hey, I love you guys. Stay in school. Be nice to each other, unlike Kelly. Love y'all.