The Dr. John Delony Show - New Years Resolutions, Exhausted Parents, & Love Languages

Episode Date: December 30, 2020

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 2:05: I have 3 kids under 5 years old. I'm exhausted and angry. How do I fight this anger? 13:14: I've told my husband my love language but he says it's "not his thing". 20:17: Teaching Segment: New Years Resolutions Atomic Habits by James Clear 30:17: Lyrics of the Day: "Hangin' Tough" - New Kids on the Block tags: parenting, anger/resentment/bitterness, family, marriage, relationships, sexuality/intimacy, goals/life planning These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we're going to talk to a young mom with three kids under the age of five. Whoa. We're also going to talk to a woman who's having trouble speaking the same love language as her husband. And in a special show, we're going to talk about goals and a different way to look at New Year's resolutions this year. Stay tuned. Hey, what is up? This is John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. We're taking your calls about your life and your relationships, your dilemmas, your challenges. We want to help you rethink, re-examine, and reconsider your life,

how you talk to yourself, how you talk to your kids, how you talk to those you like, and how you talk to those you don't like, right? We're talking about love and loss and family issues. And in this special show, we're going to take a few calls and we're going to talk about goals. We're going to talk about the new year, how that works. And again, I'm into the business of redefining how we approach some of these things. And so I want to challenge everybody as you consider New Year's goals. We're going to do a special New Year's show in a couple of shows, but I want to prime the pump. I want people to start thinking about it and possibly a way to think about goals a little bit differently. So we're so glad you're here. If you are a parent, a teacher, a healthcare worker,

somebody who is taking care of our water supply, electricians out there in the middle of the night dealing with winter storms and power outages, whatever you're doing, thank you. I'm grateful for you. I'm glad you're plugging in. If you are stuck at some family member's house, and I'm talking to you, my little brother,

who's staying at my house right now, him and his wife. Y'all are stuck here. It's cool, man. Right? It's cool. Shake it off. If you're stuck at your family's house, if you didn't get to see your family,

I'm glad you're listening. I'm glad you're here with us. And so let's go straight to the calls. Let's go to Jenny in family, I'm glad you're listening. I'm glad you're here with us. So let's go straight to the calls. Let's go to Jenny in Dallas, Texas. Jenny, good morning. How are we doing? Good. How are you? I'm doing well.

I'm doing well. So you're there in Texas. How can I help this morning? So I am a mom of three little ones, and it gets pretty chaotic in my house, and I constantly find myself responding to my kids in anger. So I really need help figuring out how to change that because I know that my anger is damaging my relationships with my kids. How old are they? I have a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a one-year-old. So you're in the thick of it, huh?

Yes. Tell me about your five-year-old. Well, she's in kindergarten, and she's very quiet and barely says a word outside our home. And so she's always on her best behavior at school. So when she comes home, she just kind of lets it all out. There you go. So what about your middle child? So he actually is typically the happy one,

but lately he's just kind of been really fussy and just kind of cries about everything. And what about your one-year-old? I'm not really sure where that's coming from. What about your one-year-old? So he's probably the most challenging of all of them. He's extremely clingy. He's never really been a content baby, and he's only happy when I'm holding him or feeding him or playing with him.

And so I can't get anything done, and I can't get any quality time with my older kids. Gotcha. So what about Dad? Is he present? Yes. Good guy? Yes. When guy? Yes. When I say present, what does that mean to you?

Well, he is very supportive. I mean, he is always there. He helps me whenever I need help. So, I mean, he just, you know, has to work during the day. And so I'm just ready for him to be done with work by the end of the day. And yeah. So number one, I want you to hear me say loud and clear, you're not crazy and you're not nuts. Okay. Okay. Do you trust me? Yes. Okay. You have three humans under the age of five. I'm about to have a five-year-old too. And whoa. And you've got two underneath that.

So you are not nuts. Everything in your house is crazy. Everything feels out of place and everything feels like you are just reactive. Is that right? Yes. And so then you respond in anger. I want you to think of anger as a gift. Okay? Anger just points you towards something that you care about. It just points you towards something that matters to you, that's important to you. And so when you say you respond in anger, what does that mean? Well, you know, I get really impatient and irritated and annoyed. And so I'm just, I'm really short with them. So I guess it's just

my harsh tone of voice towards them. So when you find yourself impatient, what do you want the other situation to be? And what I mean by that is you must have a picture in your head of a clean kitchen or a perfectly ordered children standing in a row waiting to ask you what they can do to help you with your day. Or you want to finally take a shower or you want your body to finally be yours and not having people clamoring. You don't want to feel like a garage anymore, right, where people are just using you as a space that they're claiming as their own, right? All those – and you get short and frustrated. What is the picture in your head? What do you want on the other side of that?

I guess I just expect them to not do the things they know they shouldn't do, you know, the same things that happen every day. I just feel like it just repeats itself over and over again. So I guess that's just frustrating to me. For sure. And I want you to feel totally at peace with the frustration. It's normal. Here's a couple of things you can do and begin to work through.

So you can't control the fact that a five-year-old is a five-year-old, that they think things are funny or scary or loud. You can give them firm boundaries. This morning, my daughter was screaming, and I don't mean screaming. I mean like heavy metal singer screaming at my son for something. I thought he had pulled a hatchet out and this was it. And I went up to see what was going on and it was something that was so minor and benign. And I just sat down and said, you cannot talk to my son like that. You can't talk to your brother like that. And so there's certain boundaries.

There's certain things you can't do. And there's certain things that are just developmental, that are just three year olds and one year olds. And so the only thing in that equation you can control is you, right? And if you wait until you're frustrated or exhausted, or somebody's been hanging on you all day, if you wait until your three o'clock plan doesn't work out because one kid took a nap too long or one was too short or your husband had to stay at work late. If you wait until those moments, then that's like the fire's already out of the barn, right? It's already burning down your pasture. It's too late. And so what I want to challenge you to do is this. Number one, be really graceful with yourself. Often I find moms

of one kid, much less three, the person you stop taking care of is you. The person you stop asking, what do I need right now is you. And I know that sounds like a privileged statement because some moms would love to do things for themselves. I don't freaking have time. I've got to go work two jobs. I've got to fill in the blank. But I want you to start being kind to yourself and start asking yourself, what do you need? How is putting on your oxygen mask today going to help? And occasionally that means asking your husband, I need you to help me in this way because I've got to go work out. I've got to go for a walk. I've got to shower alone for the first time in however long. And I need you to adjust your work schedule. Or I need to call a friend over a few days a week just to sit with my kids for an hour while I just act like a human for a minute. Or fill in the blank, fill in the

blank. And of course, all this is messier because of Corona, I get all that. But I want you to start thinking through number one, what are the things that you need? Not what are the things that I have to do, have to do, have to do. In my house, this is, we've had some hard conversations because my wife has a picture of a kitchen that's always clean, always 24 seven. Like I will not do anything after this until that's done. And she realized, but I need to do this too. I need some quiet time. I need some writing time. I need some exercise time. I need some fill in the blank time. So I want you to take the, put the pictures of the way you're trying to keep things together right now. That's making you frustrated because you can't make those pictures a reality because you got three miniature humans running around. I want you to

put those down and say, what do I need? Number two, I want you to get with your husband and actually come up with a tried and true plan. What is a plan for a week going to look like as opposed to reaction? You can't control reactive five, three, and one-year-olds. They just have shorter naps sometimes. They just don't take a nap at all sometimes. They just have rocket explosive diarrhea sometimes. They just fill in the blank. You can come up with a schedule and a plan, and that means you and your husband are going to sit down and you're going to plan the week. You're going to put it on a note card. You're going to put it in a calendar. You're going to put it in some sort of semblance of,

and that might mean meal planning. That might mean saying on Monday, hey, husband, I need you to pick up dinner these two nights, or you're going to come home and cook. But plan these things ahead of time, and it makes so much less reaction. And then hold those plans really loosely. Let him know, hey, at 4 o'clock I may call you and say, hey, you're doing dinner tonight. And he's going to have to roll with it because you've got three miniature humans. You may call and say, we are going out tonight because I've got three miniature humans and I can't take another second of this. You may have to call a neighbor and say,

hey, so-and-so is still sleeping and I don't want to wake him up, but I've got to go pick up such-and-such and you've got to come up with a team. But all that starts with the plan. Then the third thing is promise yourself. We could get into this deeper. We're not going to on this show.

Your anger reaction is probably something you watched and experienced. Promise yourself that you will not pass that on to your kids. Promise yourself. Promise yourself, Jenny. You're not going to yell at your kids. You're going to come up with different alternative ways to help them learn. Different alternative ways. You're not going to pass that on to them so that when they're around their kids and friends and family, that's going to be their only response mechanism too.

And that means you're going to have to learn whether it's with a counselor, whether it's in an agreement with your husband, whether it's reading the right book. You're going to have to learn and practice non-reactive ways of responding to your kids. And that is hard and it's lifelong. It's lifelong. And then one final thought, your one-year-old is going to live. Your one-year-old is going to live. They need to learn some boundaries and that's hard. Your other kids need your full attention, contact connection and so there may be times when you have to alternate nap times you have to alternate play times you've got to do some creative scheduling there that's going to make you exhausted but that each kid is going to get their connected time with you and it's going to feel awkward but you're investing time in the middle

of the day that's going to pay off at the end of the day because you're not going to have fried, disconnected kids there. So that's a few thoughts, a few ideas. I hope people will respond in the YouTube comments with things that have worked for them. Feel free to send me some emails, and I will circle back. Folks, if you've got things that work for you, the one glaring thing here is I'm not a mom of three tiny little kids. I've just sat and talked to them and met with them over the years. And it starts with grace. It starts with planning, and it starts with a commitment to not be reactive.

But thank you so much for that call, Jenny. Let's go to Nicole in Seattle, Washington. Nicole, what's happening? Hi, John. How are you? Thank you for taking my call. Hey, thank you for calling. I'm good.

I'm good. So what's up? So I have told my husband many times about my love languages. He's told me it's very hard for him to do. And from time to time, it makes me feel unloved. How do I navigate this? Yeah. So what's your love language? Words of affirmation and physical touch. Okay. And why does he say he can't do that? He says it's hard for him because he didn't grow up with that sort of love language. Um, and my family was always really into those two specifically. Yeah. So man, I, Nicole, I really wish I was talking to him right now.

There's no other word for it other than it's just being selfish. It sucks. Okay. I wish there was something else I could tell you. I hope you'll tell him to call me someday. Okay. It's real annoying for me. It's real annoying for you too.

You're living with it. But it's frustrating when any wife has the courage and vulnerability to tell their husband, hey, here's what I need. When any husband has the courage and vulnerability to tell their spouse, here's what I need. And the other one just goes, nah, I'm not going to do that. Oh my gosh, Nicole, it drives me crazy. It really does. But here's the thing. He's not on the phone with me, so I can't talk to him directly, and so I can tell you what you can do. Okay? Okay. The first thing is do your best to have a conversation that he can understand, that he can hear. Okay.

And sometimes these love language conversations come about when people are exhausted or frustrated or at the end of their rope. Like you needed him to hold you on Monday. You wanted to be sexually intimate on Tuesday and he was playing video games. You wanted to – him just to tell you to look nice on Wednesday, fill in the blank, and then Friday it just becomes an explosion, right? Yeah. Instead of that conversation, set a time, and this is a great season to do this. My wife and I take a retreat every year. We will go to multiple coffee shops. We'll go to multiple places, and it's almost like a progressive day, and we will just talk

about different topics. Here's what worked well this year. Here's where I want to lean into being a better husband, better partner, better parent this year. Here's what I want to do professionally this year. And we just talk about those things. This would be a great opportunity for y'all to do that. Yeah. If you will say, hey, I want to have a little miniature retreat this year, and we can talk about things that we love and don't love. And it sets the table for, I know you don't know how to do these things. I know you didn't grow up in a word affirmation house.

I know you didn't grow up in a high-touch house. I'm going to teach you how to do these things. I'm going to teach you what these – and it may be, Nicole, a humbling process for you. It may be you getting a note card or a text message that you send him and say, here are things I like to hear. Okay. And so if you, um, here are ways I like you to touch me. And this can be like really vulnerable. This can be almost erotic. You can talk about here's things y'all may have never had the conversations like, Hey, when we're being intimate, I really don't like it when you do this. I really love it when you do that. We've never tried these three things. What are things you'd like to try, right? If y'all have never had those type of conversations, this can be a revealing opening time. And what I would call

like one of those deep roots conversations that suddenly you get done from the table and the roots of your collective tree that y'all are managing have grown way deeper and you didn't even realize it, right? But it starts with an invitation, not an attack. It starts with I need you to say these six things and just practice. And it may be, oh, Nicole, this is not romantic and they don't write this up in the movies this way. But it may be that you have a note card that you give him and when you are hurting you say this is when i want you to say this and he'll say it and then i want you to say nope i want you to mean it i want you to hug me tightly and you are literally walking him through love language 101 yeah and is that super frustrating and annoying yes is that the way it was in Titanic or whatever movies?

No. But that's you investing in teaching a guy that you love him the best way he can love you. Okay. When I tell you that, does that sound gross and like, ugh, or kind of awesome or just the way it's got to be? No, I like that idea. I've never thought of teaching someone a love language before, so I like that kind of idea. Sometimes, and again, I don't want to gender this because men and women do this too, but often men, when they don't know how to do something, it translates to I won't because I feel less than. It suggests I'm not a man. It suggests I'm emasculated because you're asking me to do something I don't have the skills to do, so I'm just going to shut it down.

Right? Okay. And so coming to him as a teacher, as a – and like I say, if you make it sexy, if you make it inviting and not shameful, man, you're talking about a whole new avenue of your relationship you may not even have experienced before together. And make sure you invite him to do those things for you. What are the things that really deepen your heart and make you feel connected, husband? What are the things that really get you fired up when I walk into a room and fill in the blank? What are the things that make you feel distant and disconnected when you've had a hard week at work, you've had a frustrating conversation with your dad.

And I say these things and you feel like I blew you off. Invite him into those conversations. He's probably never even thought about those things or had those conversations, especially not with you. What an awesome gift you could give him. So Nicole, this is your new year, 2021. You and your husband are going to learn how to communicate. You're going to be a teacher for him.

Again, I'm going to say this over and over. Everybody listening, the world is not a rom-com. It's not a romantic comedy. It's not. Sometimes when we really love people, we have to teach them what that looks like for us. And sometimes it shifts. Sometimes my love language is touch. Sometimes it is something else. And sometimes my wife knows, oh, right now is when I should hug him. And she comes to hug and I'll say, hey, not right now. And she's got to know, okay, I'm not taking that personal. He is being vulnerable and telling me what he needs right now. And it's not this great. And if we don't take it personal and we lean into our partners as though we're teachers, I mean, you're talking about a whole paradigm shift in relationships, which is awesome.

Thank you so much for that call, Nicole. I'm proud of you. And then I want you to call back after your retreat. I want you to have a retreat. Call me back and let me know how that goes. I'm excited to hear how that works, man, because I think your husband's going to come around. I'm optimistic he's going to come around. All right. So I want to take this last segment here. This is a shorter show than normal. I'm not going to just run my mouth a lot, but I want to talk about New Year's coming up. New Year's is my favorite time of year. It's like we all get this collective mulligan. It's like, no matter how we started, we all get to the end of the year and you can

walk around on January 1st wearing all polka dots. You can walk around with a wheelbarrow full of rocks. And someone's like, what are you doing? Be like, hey, it's New Year's resolution, bro. And they're like, oh, cool, man. No matter what it is you're doing, I'm on the all chocolate and marshmallow diet. I'm only eating raw vegetables and ponies. Whatever the thing is, you can say whatever you want. Everyone's like, oh, that's cool, man, whatever.

I love New Year's. But one thing I've noticed over the last few years is this obsession, not last few years, forever, right? I've been obsessed with this forever, but I've noticed it rising to the top, this idea of these goals. We are obsessed with goals. One of my mentors, Dr. Stephen Bonner, was called recently and was talking about a book he was reading that suggested data is our new addiction. Our new cultural addiction is data. If you can't measure it, it's not real. If I can't touch it, it's not there. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist.

And what happens is we get paralyzed without data. Companies are just with a magnifying glass looking at all of the data. So where you used to step back and look at trends, hey, we're all headed this direction. People are screaming and yelling by every little nook and cranny of every little lightning bolt, every little this and that and this and that and that and this. And it's making us nuts. And it's a numbing device. I'm not going to move until I look at the data. I'm not going to do anything until I see the data. We can't do anything unless we got goals and you can't have goals without metrics and you can't have metrics without measurement tools, et cetera, et cetera. And what happens is we all become a series of achievements. I wanted to do these things. I wanted to achieve

these things. I want to look at my data and decide, am I successful or am I a failure? And I've decided that's a terrible, terrible way to go through life. Instead, this year, I want you to reimagine goals. I want you to back out of your life as a life of only achievement and successes and accomplishments. And I want you to begin to think of who are you. Now, I have not read James Clear's book called Atomic Habits. I've heard it's excellent. And I was talking through this with somebody the other day, and they're like, man that's not just like that book. So I'm going to pick up that book.

I've actually met James. I know he's a brilliant guy and that this book has remained on the best seller list. I think it's pretty good. And so it may be a worthy read for everybody. I'll go ahead and recommend it here. But I think what I'm going to talk about similar, and that's this. Instead of imagining the goals and achievements and successes, I want going to talk about similar, and that's this. Instead of imagining the goals and achievements and successes, I want you to begin to think of who you are. And this sounds like semantics, but it's a much deeper picture. Instead of asking, what am I going to do this year? I want you to start asking, who am I, or what kind of person am I going to be? So here's the way that plays out in real life. Instead of looking at

your New Year's resolutions, I'm going to lose 35 pounds. I'm going to run a marathon. I'm going to bench press 250 pounds, fill in the blank. Instead, I want you to make your resolution, I'm going to commit to being a person who's a good steward of my body. I'm going to be a person who commits to being a good steward of my body. I'm going to be the kind of person that can play with my grandkids on the ground when I'm 85. I'm that kind of person. And what you're going to find is when you are that kind of person, that kind of person exercises. That kind of person mostly eats right. And that kind of person, that kind of person exercises. That kind of person mostly eats right.

And that kind of person dances and plays. And that kind of person laughs. And that kind of person sleeps. So it's a much bigger picture. Then underneath that, once you've identified who you want to be, what kind of person are you? What are your values? What are your character? Then you can set a goal.

I'm going to run a marathon with some friends. I want to do something hard. But instead of I want to run two marathons, maybe I want to be the kind of person who does hard things, who challenges myself. And then training for a marathon is a hard challenge, right? And, again, it sounds like semantics, but the goal is I'm a person who does hard things. So I was talking to my good friend, George Camel here. We were on another podcast. He works here at Ramsey Solutions.

And he was showing me his list from last year, his resolutions. And they were, I'm going to learn this many songs this week. I'm going to write this much stuff. I'm going to this and this and this. And he's like, man, I look at this and I failed 2020. And I was like, dude, no, you didn't. So we stepped back and I said, I want to take this. I'm going to write this many songs. I'm going to record an album. I'm going to learn how to play this guitar solos, whatever. And instead of identifying a success or a failure as I achieved these things, Step back and say, I want to be a person who creates. I want to be a person who is a creative person who puts new things out into the world.

When I step back and looked at it that way with George, he's created a ton of new content. He's spun out a new podcast that he is leading. He has recorded a number of videos and cool ways that Ramsey Solutions is approaching money. He has come up with new stand-up comedy routines. He's been come up with new things for a number of live events that he emcees. He's had an incredibly creative year, just didn't write an album. And that doesn't mean he failed this year. That means this year happened to him and fill in the blank. So instead of saying, I'm going to learn two songs each week on a guitar, I'm going to paint a picture every week, commit to being a person who creates or who's creative. Because a person will go garden, design a school curriculum, come up with extraordinary

work presentations, write grad school papers, figure out how to cook new and inventive healthy meals Learn what her husband loves or doesn't love Lean into learning a totally new love language And that is creative And it may not be learning a song or two on the guitar If you want to be a person who does hard things I'm going to force myself I'm going to force myself I'm going to force myself

To learn a song every week Alright Now you're doing it for a different reason Because you're doing it for an identity I commit to being a disciplined person I commit to being a person who learns That means I'm going to read I'm going to listen to podcasts

I'm going to talk to smart people I'm going to talk to experienced people Once you've decided who you're going to listen to podcasts. I'm going to talk to smart people. I'm going to talk to experienced people. Once you've decided who you're going to be, then you get to add some discipline beneath it. That doesn't mean we don't have goals. That doesn't mean we don't want to achieve things. But that means those come second. Those come next to deciding who do we want to be this year. And so in the next show or two, we're going to have a new year special show

because I love new years. I'm going to talk about who I'm going to commit to be this year. I want you to be thinking through who are you going to commit to being? If you're driving in a car back from the holidays with your girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse, I want you all to talk about who do you want to be this year? What is the type of person you're going to commit to being? And then what are the things that you're going to do underneath that type of commitment? And if you are about the process, I'll end this with the process. So those of you know, I attended and worked at Texas Tech University. They have a basketball coach there named Chris Beard.

And you can look it up on YouTube. It's a great interview. They talked about somebody's there named Chris Beard. And you can look it up on YouTube. It's a great interview. They talked about, somebody's asking, how many wins are you going to have? And he said, I don't care. And they were like, excuse me, you're a division one power five conference basketball coach. You've won championships everywhere you went. What do you mean you don't care about wins? He said, I care about the process. And he rattled off real quick the process every day of his players. We will wake up at 6 a.m. We will eat a healthy breakfast. We will meditate and pray or look at our affirmations. And then we will go exercise. We will exercise as a team. And then we will go to class. We will sit in the front row and we will wear a tie and, and, and. And he went about the process. Here's the process of being a person of character.

Here's the process of person who stewards their body. Here's the process of being a teammate who's not only in this for themselves, but for other people. And if you take care of the process every day, then by and large, the winds will take care of themselves. And as he said, sometimes the ball just bounces out. Sometimes the ball just hits somebody's elbow and bonks off somebody's head and it goes out of bounds and the game's over and you lose. But if you take care of the process, wins start to take care of themselves. If you get obsessed with winning, that's when you cut corners. That's when you start taking diet pills to lose weight.

That's when you starve yourself. That's when you start looking in the mirror and thinking, I'm not beautiful. I'm not stewarding my body. I'm trying just to get ripped. And you start eating things that aren't good for you. You start doing things. I just want to be a better husband. Well, man, then your wife becomes a project, not a partner, right? So focus on the process. Focus on character. Focus on who you want to be. Focus on what you want to be this year. Get somebody you can talk to about it, and we will put it in concrete.

We'll write it down at the next show. So as I wrap up today's show, I'm going to leave you, man, no question, one of the greatest songs of all time, and it's out in 1988. Not a lot of great music came out in 1988, but we got this one off the legendary album of the same name. Five Kids came from up north.-K-O-T-B With their classic Hangin' Tough Goes like this

O-O-O-O-O O-O-O-O O-O-O-O-O Listen up everybody If you want to take a chance Just get on the floor With the New Kids Dance Don't worry about nothing

Cause it won't take long. We're going to put you in a trance with what? A funky song because you got to be hanging tough. Hanging tough. Are you tough enough? Everybody's talking about who's on top. Don't cross our path. You're going to get stomped. Whoa, Donnie. We ain't going to give anybody any slack. If you try to keep us down, we're going to come right back. And you know, we're hanging tough. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, hanging tough. Are you tough enough? This is the Dr. John Deloney Show.