The Dr. John Delony Show - My Parents Don’t Like My Husband!

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A woman navigating a complicated relationship between her parents and husband - Why tarot card use is on the rise - A man still struggling with shame over who he used to be Lyrics of the Day: "I Don't Want To Wait" - Paula Cole Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage 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

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. So she goes in, has a conversation with him. He tells her, I didn't appreciate what you did. And she just basically said it didn't mean anything. And he's like, well, I don't really believe that. My mom took that to mean that he was calling her a liar. And it has literally been two years since we've all been in the same room and talked. What is up?

This is John from the Dr. John Deloney Show. Why are you yelling? Why? This is the inner dialogue, folks. I know. It's too much. It's too much. I saw my wife gave me a look last night that was like, that's so much.

Like, I'm right here. And as I was speaking, I was like, ah, that's too much. I saw my wife gave me a look last night that was like, that's so much. Like, I'm right here. And as I was speaking, I was like, that's so much. So I'm going to start that over again. Hey, what's up? I hope you're doing well. I hope that you didn't just suddenly start driving 95 miles down the road, miles an hour down the road because I started yelling. I'm glad that you're with us on the show.

So grateful for you. We even have some international guests out in the lobby today, all the way from about Canada. It's good to see you guys. It makes my heart feel good. You travel all the way here just to see, yes, about, about me, right? Is that insulting? If I say about, oh, you didn't even catch it. Okay. That makes, I love y'all. Hey, um, if you want to be on the show, go to johndeloney.com slash ask A-S-K, um, or give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. And I'm starting to get calls from international calls again. Like we've had international calls throughout the show, but I'm starting to get more and more messages from people overseas. Yes. Email in, call in. And we have made that work in the past, figured out how to make that work.

And if we can, we will. Love it. All right, let's go to Simone. Let's go ahead and hop on the call. Let's go to Simone in San Diego. What's up, Simone? Hey, Dr. John. How are you?

Partying, dude. What are you doing? Not much. I haven't had coffee yet. So your enthusiasm is helping me. I appreciate it. I had, I had breakfast with my buddy. Who's a physician. And even he, after a while was like, you got to stop, man. I had a lot, a lot. So yeah, I'm pretty wired up, pretty wired up. So, um, I'm, I'm really thankful that you're taking my call. I love your show. And I feel like you have a way of simplifying things that feel complicated to people who are

in the issue. And so I'm, I'm ready to be dazzled by your insight. I hope I listen. It's simplified because I'm not that smart. And so it has to like, do you remember that, that on the office when that guy was trying to explain what a, um, what a profit was? And he was like, could you just write this in a crayon for me? Like I was a fifth grader. That's me. Okay. So yeah, we'll figure it out. That's the kind of help I need. I got my crayons out. All right, let's do it. Okay, great. So my question just to start it off, it's pretty much how do I best honor my husband and son as I continue to endure like an estrangement that's happening with my parents. They're pretty much not interacting with me, my husband, or my two-year-old little boy.

What happened? Yeah, I can give you the background on that. So essentially what happened is there was an incident where my mom was like pretty passive aggressive with my husband stop it you yeah it happened that has never happened before in the history of mother-in-law's yeah i know so i i kid you not it started with my husband was on the treadmill and he didn't come and greet my parents even though they didn't say when they were coming so it started out there with like somebody being missed about him not coming to greet them

because he was on the treadmill getting a workout. So believe it or not, that was the genesis of all this drama that's of more than two years duration. So basically at some point later, a couple of weeks later, my husband just calls my mom out on it. And during that two week time period, she had basically been coming to me with a lot of complaints about my husband. He's not doing this. He's not doing that. And it sort of got to a point

where I just said, you know what? I'm not having this. You're not going to talk crap about my husband in his own house. And I need you to just have this conversation directly with him. And I'm just tired of hearing about it. So she goes in, has a conversation with him. He tells her, I didn't appreciate what you did. And she just basically said it didn't mean anything. And he's like, well, I don't really believe that. I don't believe that it meant nothing. I'm just telling you, I don't want to be disciplined the way you're going to discipline your own children. And if you have a problem with me, I need you to just come out and say it directly. So essentially my mom took that to mean that he was calling her a liar. And it has

literally been almost two going on two years since we've all been in the same room and talked. Since then we've sent Christmas cards. I invited them to my son's birthday. My dad didn't come. And then my mom came, but she didn't talk to my husband at all. So he just was the bigger man, just went up, shook her hand, said, hi, how are you doing? Stuff like that. But even then she said to some of my sister-in-law, my mother-in-law that I was being a bad daughter because I hadn't come and, you know, healed the breach and stuff. And at this point, Dr. John, I'm just not really sure. I'm not doing a whole lot to fix this situation, but I feel like there's a lot of things that are pretty inexcusable about this. Some of it is, you know, my husband is of African descent. He's literally from Africa. So his first language is racial, cultural language. We're looking at a lot of ways where somebody could have just stepped back and said, listen, I'm coming from a different place, different culture, different language.

Maybe I'm just construing this wrong. Let me settle down and just get my perspective on this and let me just go talk to the man. But it's literally been my dad doesn't talk to me anymore. My dad doesn't talk to my husband. They don't come and see my son. And it's been like this for two years. And I'm just like, what is my responsibility as a daughter who can always consider herself to be

dutiful. But I just feel like my, I have to honor my husband and my son first. Oh man. It's hard. Yeah. Like where do you start with this? Like, it's not sensible.

I don't like, and I do it occasionally on the show, and I always kick myself as I'm walking out of the studio. I hate doing it. I don't like talking about people when they're not here, okay? Yeah. And as you were talking, I was asking myself, and I was about to ask you, this thing that happened with the treadmill, that wasn't what started all of this.

There was something that you had done as daughter to blow up their pretty little picture of what their life was going to look like. And then at the very end, you said, and I married a black guy who speaks French, who whatever, whatever, whatever I'm in. Right. Tell me I'm wrong there. Um, I don't think you're wrong, but to be honest with you, the reality of this has really hit me since this whole thing went down. Like, you know, we had a beautiful big wedding. We, you know, I didn't get, and maybe this is just me being dense, but I didn't get it. Like, I didn't get the disapproval. Nobody had a direct conversation with me that said, I don't think this is right for you,

or these are my considerations. It was always just like- In retrospect, do you feel it though? Do you see it like, oh gosh, I missed it. In retrospect, I feel, yeah, I feel like, you know, there were some reservations or concerns or whatever, but I'm just like, at this point in time, the whole thing is just really disrespectful. And I told my mom when this whole thing kicked off, I said, you know, I just want you to talk to my husband and're acting like an adult and she's not. Your dad's not either. They're acting like children. Right. And this is a hard, simple reality.

Your parents made their choice. Yeah. And the choice you have to make is not how do you fix this because you can't. You're the kid. You're the kid. Right. The choice that you have to make here is, how long am I going to continue to torture myself and my family trying to prop up this fantasy that I wanted

of what this thing was going to look like and face reality, that my parents are acting like children. They have absolutely no interest in healing this relationship. They have an interest in winning. That's why they're waiting for you to come crawling back. Oh, that's how it feels.

It's not how it feels. It's how it is. Your feelings are correct. Yes. And yeah. And then you start to feel nuts. Like my mom seriously is not going to. Yep.

Yep. It's like, it's her firstborn grandbaby, you know, there you go. Acting like a rational adult. There you go. You and you and your common sense, Simone. There you go acting like a rational adult there you go you and you and your common sense simone there you right it like you got to stop running an algorithm trying to figure this

out because this math doesn't work so am i doing the right thing then i'm basically just keeping it classy i'm not really i'm not going to start up a dialogue of conversation because to me, what has to happen is a direct conversation with my husband first as a respecting, because basically treating only him like he doesn't exist is not an option. Right. So I'm just staying back. I'm like, I'm waiting for you to do what I asked. And I'm just going to, I'm waiting patiently over here.

I'm not, you know, but in the meantime, it's like your whole life starts to get affected by stuff like this. If there's family events, if there's- Only, only, only

when you allow it. Right. And I say that with all due respect. It does get, it does get affected and you do feel guilty. You do feel bad.

And then your brothers and sisters start to look at you like, dude, just call mom, just whatever. And just solve all this. Right. Yeah, I've had and just solve all this. Right. Yeah, I've had that conversation. Of course you have.

And so there becomes this pressure. Anytime you put up a boundary, you know people are going to challenge it. And here's what sucks. For someone like you, just by listening to you, you put up a boundary like at work or when relationships or what you put it up and then you're ready for someone to come try to bang their head against it. You're ready. Yeah. What you don't have a plan for is when someone walks up and sees a boundary

and just turns their nose up and walks the other way. Yeah. Because you don't get that fight that you were gearing up for. And you don't get that fight that you were gearing up for. And you don't have like, you don't have a, like a way to dispose of that energy when no one, when they're like, I'm not fighting, I'm coming over here. You hurt my feelings. And you're like, no, we got to fight. And you're, they're like, I think, I think you nailed it. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm an army veteran.

I deployed to two different theaters. I was in Iraq. I was in Afghanistan. And I just am like, number one, if you have a conflict, like, I'm an army veteran. I deployed to two different theaters. I was in Iraq. I was in Afghanistan. And I just am like, number one, if you have a conflict, we're not going to have fisticuffs, but let's rush it out. Solve this problem so we can move on. Yes. And here's the deal. And then also, life's too short. I've lost people who are way too young.

I made it. I'm in one piece. I came back from all that chaos. And I'm like, life is too short. It's too precious to be spending all this time and energy trying to be right. Or trying to make somebody else feel like they're crappy. Cause they said what they said.

It's just, it's so not the way I would handle it. And I feel like I'm being sucked into this, like, you know, you know, general hospital melodrama. And that's not my personality.

You keep walking in the front door. Right. Stop. Okay. Go to Dawson's Creek, dude. That's a way better soap opera. It's awesome. I don't want to wait.

Like, yeah, go to that one, dude. Don't go to general hospital. Just don't go in there anymore. And again, I know what I'm saying is hard. Like, I know this has a ripple effect on Christmases and Thanksgivings and gifts and 529 plans. And I get all of that. Yeah. Your parents have chosen to act like children.

Your parents have chosen this. They don't like your husband. Yeah. They don't like your husband in their life. And you brought him into their life. And so if they can find any reason for him to not be in their life, they will execute that plan. Period.

Wow. He looks like such a good dude, Dr. John. Of course he is. He was so honoring of them. Of course he is. In every respect. I know. He's a like such a good dude, Dr. John. Of course he is. He was so honoring of them. Of course he is. In every respect. I know. As a husband and father.

You keep trying to make this about rational sins. It's not. It's not. It's not. You can never, you will never find the thing he did. Do you know how many in-laws across the country would just weep with joy if they were to walk home to their daughter's house and their husband was on a treadmill? It would be like, it would be, it would be cost your celebration.

Confetti would fall from the sky. He cares about his fitness. Like, this is good. So you can't, you can't rationalize an irrational act. Yeah. And walking away from your grandson and your daughter and your son-in-law who clearly loves his daughter

over a greeting issue that, as you mentioned, has racial, language, cultural boundaries. Right. Barriers, if you will. And not immediately seeking to go first and be like oh man he probably doesn't know or or let me i need to just get over myself because fill in the blank whatever they chose to act like kids and i'm taking my ball and i'm going home

and they i hate that for you i hate that for you i hate that for you i hate that for you you don't deserve that you've because you laid that for you. You don't deserve that. Because you laid it on the line, they get to have that attitude problem. I hate that for you. The thing you and your husband have to do is to start asking that scary question, which is what are we going to do next? Like what's our life going to look like? And I love, that's the old Bible verse, man. The greatest way you can get somebody is to like kindness, heaps burning coals on their head, right?

I'll keep inviting you. And if they come to your house and start a fight or start whatever, I'm just going to kindly ask you to go. Because I'm just not going to have that here. I've seen enough conflict for my time. I'm going to choose to have joy as whenever I possibly can. Right. And I hate that for you. But hear me say this. You didn't do a thing wrong. Not one thing. I'm going to choose to have joy is whenever I possibly can. All right. And I hate that for you, but hear me say this.

You didn't do a thing wrong. Not one thing. Can I say that? I'm like, I'm embarrassed. Yep. Like, I think the biggest emotion that I feel like,

I think shame is a hard word. I don't know that I own it enough because it's not me who did it, but I do feel very embarrassed. Like as a, as a member of the family, I feel like it reflects on me. And also, you know, the way, the way America is today, you know, there's so many issues with race and so many issues with injustice. And I just feel like if we're supposed to be representative of the change that we're trying to see, we're an interracial couple. We're supposed to be trying to make things better. And then here I have this in my own family, this kind of toxic energy. And I'm not saying it's race motivated, but I'm just saying how can you divorce that from the conversation?

I don't know why you would try. I don't know why you would try, but that's you going back to the fantasy. Right. That you took this hard step. Think back to your military service. You guys took a hard step in the middle of a mess and people tried to kill you for it. Right.

And then back here, you fell in love. You didn't follow the little plan that mommy had laid out for you. You fell in love. You found a great, remarkable guy. Y'all got married. You have a kid. Y'all are making a life together. And the chaos ensues.

And so it's, again, I get your embarrassment. 1,000% I get your embarrassment. I mean, no ifs, ands, or buts. But you can't own that. You can't own that. And I want to make one thing, one note. I'm always about go first when it comes to apologizing. When it goes to asking for forgiveness, go first.

Go first. The only time I'm not in favor of that is when it will be weaponized and used against you. And that's in an abusive situation, that's in a gaslighting or narcissistic situation, or in a situation like this when you're dealing with adults who are actually children in adult costumes. You going and apologizing and saying, I'm sorry, it will invite an even bigger wave of this nonsense coming over you and your family and you and your husband and your child don't deserve that. So I think you continue to be kind.

You continue to say, hey, you're welcome to come to the birthday party. Hope you're here. And they get to continue to choose their ego and their nonsensical, stupid pride over their daughter and their son-in-law and their little baby. And I can't imagine when they're 92 years old laying on their deathbed that they're going to think, God, I'm glad we won that argument and missed 14 years of our grandson's life. We showed them. Congratulations, everybody.

Golf clap. You won. It's ridiculous. Simone, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank clap. You won. It's ridiculous. Simone, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you for the call. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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

a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost take off the costumes and take off the masks with better help visit betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10 off your first month that's

better help h-e-l-p.com slash deloney all right uh we are are back. So we've started doing these Facts of Your Friends segments and some little inside baseball. How it works is we have a team meeting once a week or once a month and we go through, here's what all folks are writing in and asking questions about.

Here's what social media are asking questions about. And then here's some trending topics across the planet, especially in the US, of things going on. And so people want to know, Delaney, what your take is on these things. And I missed a meeting.

I was doing something. And so today we're talking about on everyone's favorite Facts Are Your Friends segment. Today we're talking about the rise, the global rise of tarot cards. Let's do this. Get your marble reds and your tight jeans and your mustaches. It's time for Facts of Your Friends. All right, so why in the world are we talking about tarot cards? Surprisingly and not surprisingly, tarot cards have seen a massive resurgence globally, but especially in the U.S. since the pandemic kicked off.

And now they're being incorporated into psychologist office and counseling offices, into anti-anxiety responses, into Christian faiths and all sorts of faiths, all over the place. They're all over social media, TikTok. You can now schedule Zoom tarot card readings across the planet

So before we get going, listen Listen No one, and I mean no one is going to like what I have to say about tarot cards Because I'm going to talk about all your little precious everythings All of you So listen, I don't know anything about tarot cards I don't know the history of them I don't know where they're from

I don't know if they're like from some occult I don't know anything about tarot cards. I don't know the history of them. I don't know where they're from. I don't know if they're like from some occult. I don't know. One time on social media, I recommended that people, like that yoga was a good practice. There's some great research about yoga and trauma recovery. And people wrote to me like, do you know yoga is from Satan himself? Listen, I just like wearing my stretchy pants

and standing on one leg. That's what I like. And so I don't Everybody just take it down 30 40 also I'm going to be talking about your precious enogram and your essential oils and all that so no Hogwarts spells cast on me and no tarot card spells, if that's even a thing. Okay, cool. All right, great. I entered this, I got this topic. They handed me a bunch of articles. I entered this with the way I enter all of these things, with curiosity, not judgment. I went in

going, huh, I'll have something to learn about, not I'll show them, right? One of those is very open-handed. One of them makes me an idiot all right so here we go tarot card readings all right uh 14 to 1500s about suits symbols like they're cards you're like giant playing cards if you will um cups swords batons and coins those will change your life and things like sun sun, moon, star, temperance, death, traitor, old man, wheel of fortune, fortitude, chariot, justice, love, Pope, emperor, empress, Mount, Mount to bonk the fool, all these different cards. Okay. Um, and then in the early 1900s, Arthur Waite, Pamela Coleman Smith, they got together and drew what is now the more modern version of these cards. Okay.

And they kind of, they fell into the occult world. They started out as just basically parlor games. Like we're playing these, like we're having some drinks and we're playing cards. In my head, it's like Texas Hold'em in the 1400s. And then over time, they had some mystical and divine properties attached to them. And then they turned into this more occult thing because they were like, I'm going to predict the future, like fortune telling. Right. And then different religious groups got all worked up about it. And then anyway, here we are. So during the pandemic, Sarah Pulliam Bailey in her Washington

Post article says sales tripled during the first year, similar to what happened during the 2008 financial crisis, sales of tarot cards. I read multiple articles and all of them made very clear that the modern use of tarot cards is not for fortune telling or for predicting the future. It's not for like, what should I do? Am I going to meet a lover in three weeks or am I going to get fired from my job? That's not what they're for. They're about stories and symbols, which psychologically is a very union concept, right? And quite honestly, symbols and stories is something we all do,

but that's a whole other conversation. Sarah Pullian Bailey says, it's part of a wider trend of younger Americans mixing and matching different forms of spiritual or religious practices with one another. Not for trying to seek or meet the divine or to have a relationship with God, however you would describe that,

but they're trying to find some method to the madness that is their life. She goes on to quote someone as saying, more people are now more interested in it for the self-reflection or space to get validation and clarity versus hearing, you're gonna meet some hot stud in three months. Get ready. That's not what they're for. So she says they're great for anxiety. Maybe. I've got some issue with that,

but they may not be predicting the future, but they do. You can slow down, shuffle, look at the pretty pictures and say, oh yeah, I'm overthinking this. So if I think of tarot cards, not as a fortune telling device, that's silly and it's nonsense. We all know that. But if I look at them, I say it's silly and it's nonsense. Somebody just cast a spell on me just now. They have, they pulled out their John Delaney voodoo doll and are just jabbing pins in it. Don't do that.

My life's sketchy enough as it is. Be nice. But as a tool of reflection, so this is where I'm going to make everybody uncomfortable. I've always said any tool for reflection at any time is good. I include in that Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinder's things, Enogram, your essential oil, anything that you use to codify and explain your automatic default settings to things, the stories you tell yourself, the roles you've taken on in your life, any of those things that you look at and go, huh, I usually respond like this. And that gives you pause and you think

through, why do I respond? And huh, why do I do that? None of these things have good science behind them. Zero as reasons to, I'm not going to hire that person because they're an Engram four and we need a six in this role. If you treat it like that, bad news bears, dude. Or if you're like, I'm not hiring that INFJ, they're going to fail at this job. That's discrimination. That's silly, right? That's silly. But they are great tools for reflection, for asking yourself, huh, I do respond like this more often than not. And I do have a tendency to fill in the blank, right?

Those are good. Our culture needs more reflective practices, okay? So number two, I got online and did a free tarot reading. I kept waiting for like the pit of hell to open up and get me. It didn't. I just got tired because it was after nine o'clock. But listen, I did it. And it was fascinating. Here's what it told me. One of the card, the first card was, I'm going to find a new love soon. And a new relationship is headed my way. And so naturally I thought, well, I'm married, so that's not great. And then

I thought this, my wife and I have so that's not great. And then I thought this. My wife and I have been going through what I would call a very significant transition over the last six months. I have a new teenager. I've got a first grader. So we are out of this half-day stuff. We're out of the kindergarten world. And my career has gone sideways. My wife is getting recognized at stores now apart from me.

She's got people at doctor's offices and haircut places asking her about the show, which she doesn't listen to, right? I am getting stopped in airport bathrooms. So we're having family dinners and people stop. So our life, none of this is bad. Well, getting stopped in an airport bathroom, that's just super weird. But our life has changed of this is bad. Well, getting stopped in an airport bathroom, that's just

super weird. But our life has changed. It's shifted. And so we are, it made me think back to Estelle Perel when she said, all great, great, I mean, all adults have three or four or five great loves in your lifetime. And if you work really hard, it's with the same person. And so then I thought back, oh yeah, we're entering into a totally new season. My wife is a different person now. She's the mother of a teenager, the mother of a first grader, the mother of a guy who is on the internet talking about sex all the time. I am the husband to not a professor, a research professor who's traveling all over the country presenting research. I am the mother of a stay-at-home mom who lives in the woods and who makes sure we have eggs everywhere because the chickens aren't dying. And our life is completely

different. And she's got new ways of seeing the world and I've got new experiences. And so then it made me think, huh, I am going to get a new love. I have a new life. My wife and I have entered a new stage. And this reflective idea at my kitchen table, looking at an Instagram or whatever it was, tarot card was actually really healthy. It was good for me.

That actually gave me pause. It's a conversation I'm going to have with my wife later. Number three, in my new book, I have a chapter called Choose Belief. I make the case both through ancient wisdom and through science. I believe that one of the cornerstones of having a non-anxious life is you cannot, self-actualization cannot be the cornerstone because the self can't hold the universe. It can't hold it. It's not strong enough. And the more we try to shove the self into the center of the planet

The more anxious it gets because it's saying I can't hold I can't hold And so you got to choose some sort of belief and belief I think often starts with reflection number four I was having I mentioned this to a caller earlier um Connection I was having breakfast this morning with my buddy who's a physician and we were talking about How i've noticed over the last five to 10 years, the more I go to the doctor, when I go to the doctor, they're touching me more, not inappropriately, but they always have their hand on my arm or my shoulder. And they look me in the eyes better than 15 or 20 years ago.

And I always leave the doctor's office so calm. Even during hard conversations, you're going to have to have surgery. I leave so calm. And then I got to thinking about the research for counselors and therapists and psychologists. People are so desperate for someone just to listen to them, not waiting for their turn to speak, but just to listen and say, how are you? Tell me about your life. That I'm wondering if the rise of tarot cards is giving people an excuse, very similar to the questions for humans. It's a conduit towards human connection. I want to look you in the eye and you listen to my stories and you listen to my life and you tell me about things that I'm not seeing in my own self, the rise of coaching, the rise of therapy, all those things. And I'm wondering if tarot cards, the rise of them is just a way for finally someone's

listening to me. The last, here's my final thoughts. These can be super dangerous and stupid, quite frankly, if they use them in the wrong way. There's reams of data on priming. I call it nudged learning or expectations in learning. Luna Koloka has done a lot of work on here. We're always absorbing cues in the environment, how we should respond to something. What that means, and a lot of this is unconscious. So if I think I'm gonna get a response, I may be leaning that way.

If I think this card is gonna tell me if I should break up with my girlfriend or my wife, and it says you're gonna be finding a new love, my body can run down that lane before I've thought it through. So if you're going to use tarot cards or anything similar for secret messages from the universe, you're putting yourself at risk for making rash, unwise, unsafe decisions. And I personally don't put a lot of stock on these things because I am rash and I make rash decisions and I'm a mess. And so I don't mess with them for that very reason. Um, if you're going to use them for fun or to jumpstart conversations or questions or about

important topics or just something fun for friend, like dungeon dragons or online gaming, whatever other things you're into, knock your lights out. Don't use them as a tool for big life decisions. You're gonna get yourself in a lot of trouble doing that. Okay. Um, priming is a real and unconscious thing. So, Kelly, that's my thoughts on tarot cards. You know, you had me a little nervous earlier because you wouldn't tell me the angle you were taking. I thought that was fantastic.

Tarot cards it is, America. Let's do this. I am a queen of wands. I think that's a thing. No? We'll be right back. All right, we are back. Let's go to Glenn in Fresno.

What's up, Glenn? Hey, how's it going, Dr. John? Partying, dude. What are you doing? Ah, talking to you. Sweet. That's such a great answer. Well played.

All right, so what's up, dude? Hey, you know, I guess I just kind of came up with this thought. But, you know, email your show. And I guess, you know, how do you let go of who you thought you were and this image you had of yourself and this image that other people implanted in you when, you know, your, your life has done an absolute one 80 and your,

your objective mind knows you're not that stuff anymore, but you know, something inside of you just can't let it go, man. Give me an example. Well, you know, I used to be an overweight kid and I was the one that was always picked last for sports and the whole nine yards. I was shy and quiet. And you know, now I'm fit. Um, actually I guess you could say jacked. I mean, I have a hard time, have a hard time saying something positive about myself. You know, uh, you know,

I've become a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach from your buddy, Dr. Norton. And it's, you know, and know, and I'm like, yeah, no, no, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to be fat again. Who, who's going to want to listen to me? Who's going to want to believe me? You know, that type thing. It's just, that's one example. I went through a pretty, pretty rough marriage. Pick somebody who probably wasn't a good partner, but I learned a lot out of it. That ended, you know, just recently this wonderful woman walked into my life and I'm like, yeah, she, she's going to figure me out.

This can't be real. And then, you know, I'm sitting here awake at night thinking, what am I going to do to screw this up? What am I going to do to sabotage it? Why in the world can't I believe I'm worth all this stuff? So there's a man and her name escapes me. She's from London. She's a researcher on imposter syndrome.

And that's such a cheesy line. Like at this point in my life, I'm like, dude, just get over imposter syndrome. But she gave a definition that stuck with me. She said, imposter syndrome is when you believe others are judging you as harshly as you judge yourself. And the reason that was important for me was imposter syndrome has nothing to do with the outside world. It has to do with me. Right? Right. And that's both terrifying and relieving because I, this is a, this is something I have to enter into. And I want you to be really grateful for your mind and body because they're

working exactly as they should. Here's why your bot, you've been through hell. You've been the little fat kid that everybody made fun of. You've been that little kid that had to hide in his shell. You've been the guy that girls walk past over and over and over and over again. And your body put a GPS pin in that and said, that was terrifying and lonely and scary. We were all alone. We can never let that happen again. And so what your sweet brain and mind and body are doing to you are just trying to remind you that there are sharks out there that can get us at any moment. And now you've got a whole new world, but the GPS system is still beeping at you, right? It's still trying to get your attention. Hey, we could die.

We could die. We could die. And so at some point, you've got to make peace peace with my body's just trying to keep me alive and that's differently going to war trying to shut up the voices you see what i'm saying right and this is hard especially for somebody who has been out of shape and is now in shape because you often have to you often attack that right it's you know, pain is weakness leaving the body. Like I'm going to crush my way through this thing and it's discipline over and over.

This is a totally, this is making peace. This is opening your hands up, not tightening them up, okay? I will tell you, and Lane and I have had this conversation personally. I've had this conversation. I've been blessed in my career to have in this new second chapter of my life is

like I co-host a radio show with Dave Ramsey and we talk about often off air just as friends he still has he's got hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of net worth he still has that poor East Tennessee kid in there. Yeah. Right? And as my life has changed, I can't even scratch and sniff his net worth, but as my life has changed from being the poor kid, money was a curse in my home, right? It was terrifying.

I've gone back to him and said, hey man, how do you balance this, man? Because I got this little kid in me screaming, it's all coming down, it's all coming down. And he's given me two um important important things number one In his words the ratios in my words the charts and graphs I've got to look at the data

Okay, so what I mean by that is um if You have ten thousand dollars and you buy a $1,000 car and you have a million dollars and you buy a $100,000 car, the ratios are the same. Right. Right. In my little brain, I'm like a $100,000 car. Right. And so it doesn't ever work. And so for you, that girl would never talk to me because I'm not worthy of her time or attention or love. And now she does. And I have to say, no, no, no, no. And by the way, forget the jacked part. You're a guy who walks around

with his head held high, who loves other people, who takes care of it. You dedicated your life to helping other people through hard moments. That's who you are. Yeah, no, it's important to me. That's right. You've got to learn to look at the ratios and say, okay, the data says this, I'm not going back. And I've got to learn to love myself as much as I ask other people to love themselves. I've got to honor myself. And so that leads me to the second thing. And this has been the key for me is, um, this is not going to sit well with the bro culture. Okay. With the, with the, uh, crush it and kill it. It's not going to sit well with that crew. Okay. But I don't care because I'm right and they're wrong. You have to outsource some of this to a group of friends and community that will consistently call you out,

hold you accountable and remind you on a regular basis that you're loved. Yeah. Okay. And, uh, my Andy Peterson here in town, uh, Andy Peterson here in town,

he's a, he's a musician here in town. He says, your community defines your calling. Your community is going to be the group that rallies around you says, Hey man, you're really doing a great job taking care of people. You inspire me.

I love you. And I've got to learn to listen to that voice as data more than the voice in my head saying, Hey, it's all coming down. It's all coming down. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. The other thing, the other thing that's hard is, you know, when you, you, you do these, these big changes, you get yourself on the right track. And even in the work world, I'm pretty high up in a pretty major company, you know, dealing with tens of millions of dollars. And it's like they're trusting some little redneck kid from Fresno to do this. And, but you, you, you're, you're, you're support group, you're, you're,

you're friends, you're, you're, you're close people. They, they drift away because you just can't connect anymore. So yeah, you do find yourself kind of alone out there. You in the, so people often look at, all right, what's the external work to do? What can I go crush and kill the challenge here? And there is a place for that and make no mistake. There's a place for getting up and grinding and working really hard. There's a place for getting up and working out really hard and, and getting in shape,

all that stuff, taking care of your diet, taking control of your diet, stuff that Lane has personally helped me with tremendously. But the other side of it is, this sucks. I got to go make new friends at 30. Yeah.

Which is the worst, the worst, the worst. Right. And then God forsake,ake like you gotta go make friends at 40 and the practice of our life is you only have a certain number of opportunities to make 25 year friends because you only have so long to live right and so the practice is less about i need to get my brain to stop doing X, Y, and Z. I need to go make a couple of really close friends that I can trust.

And that means I'm going to have to call guys and be weird and they may totally hose me. Or I might find out six months in, oh, they're just using me for my business contacts. That's cool, man. They're not in a good place to be good friends. That's cool. I'm not even going to sweat it.

I'm just going to roll off and go do my thing. And I'm going to grieve it. I'm going to be bummed out because I like that dude or I like them. Cool. I'm not even going to sweat it. I'm just going to roll off and go do my thing. And I'm going to grieve it. I'm going to be bummed out because I like that dude or I like them. Cool. I'm going to go make friends another way.

I'm going to have people over at my house to watch the fights and two or three of those dudes and I are going to be hanging out after. Does that make sense? Like it's going to be a,

and by the way, these aren't guys at the gym. Like I'm just not going to surround myself with meatheads. I'm going to find a bricklayer and my two closest friends on the planet. Let's say four. My four closest friends right now, if I was just to tick them off,

one of them is a bank examiner. One of them is a COO of a HVAC company, like a plumbing HVAC company. One sells lube. I wish I was lying. You know how many cut down wars he wins? Zero. Because he's a lube salesman, like for diesel mechanic or whatever. And then the fourth one is the CEO of a lawn care company. And I'm a YouTuber, dude. None of us do the same stuff. But these are guys that I regularly call, that we talk to. I tell them I love them. They tell me they love me. They ask about my kids. If I've got a hard life decision, I reach out to them. So I've got to have those guys. They're not in my industry. They don't know the things I'm going through every day. And I don't know what crap they're dealing with every day. And that's the beauty of it. And we all, all of us are different politically. We all have different financial situations. It's just a group. It's just a gang. And man, these guys all came later

on in my life and it's been kind of weird and kind of awkward and kind of hard. And there's 40 other dudes that I love and care about, but these ones are certain. You see what I'm saying? It's part of it. I do. So I got another close friend that's in Colorado Springs as a trader. Got another close friend in Dallas who sells insurance.

So it's, again, it continues to ripple and spread. That's my life's work. And let me challenge you on one more thing. You probably tell your folks, you got to have a baseline. You got to write's work. And let me challenge you on one more thing. You probably tell your folks, you got to have a baseline. You got to write stuff down. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. You got to be accurate, meticulous. And, and, you know, if it's not on paper, you don't know what's happening. There you go. So, um, I want you to look at this on YouTube. I'm holding it up right now. I've got carry it with me. It's on my desk. It's my little, uh, it's a diary is what it is. It's, I wish I, I, again, I'm trying to come up

with like some rad, like Jocko way of saying it. Like, this is my, this is my thought execution, or I don't, it's just a diary. It's just a journal. Um, but I do, I've got rad. I got like my GORUCK sticker, Christensen, B Wilder, Montana knife coat. Like I tried to make it as tough as But I do i've got rad. I got like my goruck sticker christiansen be wilder Montana knife coat like I tried to make it as tough as possible, dude. It's a diary and You've got to begin to take captive these thoughts that tell you that you suck Okay Okay, and when you have that thought they're like what are they doing? like I am a redneck kid from write that thought down as though it's a box

of Girl Scout cookies you just annihilated and you're trying to get a handle on your nutrition. Write it down and take captive of it. That's not true. I was a redneck little kid and I worked my butt off to get here. And they wouldn't be trusting me with this if they didn't think they were going to make a whole bunch more money because I'm running the show. Awesome.

That woman is blessed beyond measure not to marry some super sexy Glenn, which good for you. Um, people often mistake me as a personal trainer too, by the way. And that's, that's never happened. Not one time, not one time in my life has someone been like, are you a personal trainer? That's never happened. But she's really, really lucky to meet a guy

and fall in love with a guy who's dedicated his life to helping other people achieve their goals, achieve their visions of health and longevity and being able to wrestle with their grandkids

when they're 80. That's work you're doing. And she's, she's won the lottery falling in love with a guy like that. Yeah. That's what she says. It's hard for me to grasp, but yeah. Okay. She might be lying to you just because you're a smoke show. I don't, I don't even know you. So I'm not gonna lie to you. Nah, she, she, she's pretty awesome. It's's like I woke up and it's like, this is different. Yes.

So write them down. And I'll even give you one more thing. This is something me and my wife use, like a tool we use all the time. I did it last night. I asked her the question. I say, hey, the story I'm making up is you're mad. The story I'm making up is you were frustrated by something I said or did. The story I'm making up is you don't want to go to this party that we got invited to.

And by saying it that way, I'm not saying, why are you mad? Why don't you want to go to this party? I am taking ownership of this. I have created a story in my head that you don't want to do this. And it invites her in to say, you're right. I don't want to go. And I had a story that I didn't, that you would be mad or of course I want to go. I just have had diarrhea all day. And I don't, no, that's not my wife, but, but you know what I mean? So that's a tool you can ask when you find yourself, I don't think she really likes me.

I can't believe. Then I think you can reach out and say, hey, the story I'm choosing to tell myself is that a beautiful woman like you is going to leave a loser like me. Call her out. She might look at you and say, I never want to hear that story again because it's not true.

It's not true. It's awesome to know you, Glenn. Thank you for loving people in your community and for dedicating your life to other people's lives. That's amazing. I want you to treat you as good as you treat them. Take captive of those thoughts, my brother. Take captive of them. And over time, your default setting will change from I'm just a dumb idiot redneck kid to I'm freaking Glenn from Fresno. And I'm doing some pretty amazing things for the people in my world. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically

stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, as we wrap up today's show, listen, you can argue and complain

about the greatest soap operas of all time, the greatest shows of all time, but there's only one. Dawson's Creek, Pacey,

Joey, my daughter's name is Josephine, hashtag just saying, and the greatest song ever for a show, the great Paula Cole's I Don't Want to Wait, and it goes like this.

It's not a great song. So open up your morning light and say a little prayer for right. I don't know what that means. You know that if we are to stay alive, then see the peace in every eye. Do-doot, do-doot, do do do do do do do I don't know what that means but I don't want to wait

for my love see you later love you guys