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Coming up on The Dr. John Deloney Show. I am finally old enough to vote. How do I manage or pick between sacrificing my morals and performing my civic duty? It's just basically, I'm just unhappy with either decision.
What's going on, everybody? Yo, yo, this is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, talking about your mental and emotional health and your relationships and whatever's going on in your home, in your heart, in your head, and in your life. Join me on the show. Real people going through real stuff. 1-844-693-3291. That's the phone number. Call, leave a message.
A voicemail for you youngsters. For you older folks, we have an answering machine. We don't really. 1-844-693-3291. Leave a message or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. And write out what's going on in your world. And it's July 5th. Back up, Terry. Hope everybody survived July 4th. Think everybody has all their fingers and toes still? That's the rumor. Supposedly.
And here's the thing behind the thing behind the thing. We're recording this in June, so we're having to pretend it's actually the day after July 4th. Because chances are Ben will have gotten drunk and blown some fingers off with some fireworks. No, he doesn't. He's totally sober. Totally sober. And, yeah. And Nate Dog's going to be wandering out in the woods and...
Sarah's going to be doing something amazing and creative. Yeah, it's just. So I wish you all into the future who are working on the show right now. July. Happy July 4th. And for those of you listening, man, last night was awesome. It was fantastic. Back up, Terry. All right, let's go out to Cheyenne, Wyoming and talk to the wonderful Marley. Hey, Marley, what's up?
Hi, Dr. John. How are you? It's nice to be able to talk to you. It's even nicer talking to you. Thanks. What's going on? Okay, so I know that no one wants to talk about the election coming up. Oh, that's all I want to talk about. That's all I want to talk about. But yeah, so...
I wasn't quite old enough to vote the last go-round, but I am finally old enough this time. It's like being old enough to buy cigarettes. Congratulations. Yeah, I guess. But my question is basically, how do I manage...
Or pick between sacrificing my morals and performing my civic duty? Ooh, that's such a great question. All right, I want to dance on a really thin line here with you. Is that okay? Yeah. All right. So we're going to take the two, as of this recording, I'm still not certain this is going to play out. I've got my own theories, but they're my theories.
And so we don't know how it's going to play out. So let's take the two supposed candidates right now and move them off to the side. Okay. Okay. Walk me through what you're wrestling with and how you've been trying to wrestle with it. And I'm going to, I'm going to end up giving you, here's the framework that I've been using for a long, long time for making these types of decisions. And I'll even tell you where I got that framework. But I want to hear how you're thinking about it, how you're navigating it and where you're getting stuck.
Yeah. So, you know, I, I sit pretty in the middle of the road, you know? So you're, so you're a communist. I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. Yes. I think you're exactly right. Yeah. So, and I guess it's just a lot of voices talking at me, you know, I have, um,
Obviously here in Wyoming, it's very one-sided. Right. And one of my parents... Well, depending on where you are, right? That's the madness of it all. But yes, I get what you're saying. Yeah. But I'm also in college. So then there's other people talking to me there. And I don't know. It's just... I know there's not going to be a perfect match no matter who is elected. Right.
It's just basically, I'm just unhappy with either decision. Right. I don't know. That's actually the most... And again, I'm not tipping my hat. And one of my favorite things is that everyone thinks I'm on their side. In fact, I'll even go as far as to let inside baseball. Me and my wife will never say who we voted for to each other. And that way... And I've been that way for...
20 years because I'm pretty certain I know who she votes. Actually, I didn't know. Actually, she surprised me because she told me a few years later on one of the elections. But that's for me. That is for me. And so but so the most general consensus I'm hearing out there is what you just said is everybody's just like, really? Like, really? And that's the most common sentiment I'm hearing over and over personally, privately, publicly.
And so then just like this, I've got to pick a side, and it's really a gnarly moment, right? Yeah. So what are you thinking of doing? To be honest, I don't want to vote at all. Okay. Tell me about that. Yeah. Yeah, it's just maybe it's kind of part of being young. Like most of the voters are older adults.
Not necessarily true. Depends on the voices you're listening to. That's true too. I will tell you the sentiment of I don't matter, the sentiment between of you're making me choose from two different sides of a conversation that neither of which are presenting the whole truth and neither of which are do we feel like we're representing real people, right?
Um, day-to-day people, day-to-day Wyoming's who are Wyoming's ins. I don't even know how you, what do y'all call yourselves? I, I pretty sure it's Wyomingites. Wyomingites. There you go. Um, or Texans or Tennesseans or whoever, um, this sense that most people want to get up and their kids to be safe and them to have good neighbors and to go to work and work real hard and then go home.
And the chaos and the madness and the cognitive dissonance and the one day we're yelling about a thing and then we go do that same thing the next day. Just the average person inside the bell curve, it's not just because you're young. It's because you're a human being with a beating heart. It's just like, I'm out. This sucks. I'm going on without it. Right. And I'll tell you...
i spent most of my career and this is where i get real convicted i spent most of my career working with students and a lot of those um every place i was there was groups of students who had just come home from some sort of service and it was older returning students it was real young students who just gotten out it was students who were in some sort of rotc or they were in some sort of um you know domestic um armed forces situation
The one thing that has been reiterated to me is I don't have the privilege of opting out because of the amount of bloodshed that's gone on my behalf to give me this opportunity. And so the one thing I would call, not caution you, the one thing I would encourage you on everybody listening is the easiest thing to do is to say, screw it, I'm out. The harder thing to do is to dig in and really ask yourself, what do I believe and why am
And who do I want representing me to the world? And who do I feel safe with? And if things get sideways, who has some sort of track record that says they're going to be a lighthouse in the storm, whether I agree with them or not, right? I've worked for bosses. I don't agree with the day-to-day things, but when things get sideways, is that person going to be a lighthouse in a storm? Because that's what leadership is, right? And then there's the day-to-day. And so,
I get your impulse. I feel it too. Like I'm just going to sit this one out. This is just, we're just running it back and it's just the same grownup sitting in a sandbox, throwing sand at each other, not giving any direction as to where we're going, just telling us how stupid the other person is. And then that person just tells us how stupid the other person, like there's no, we're not doing anything. I'm going to sit this one out and I'll tell you, there's just been, in my opinion, there's been too much, too many people have lost their life from my,
to give me the right to be heard in this moment. And so the last election, I actually took my son with me. He was young, I think he was 10. And I took him in because I wanted him to see his dad actually bubble in these things and vote. And then I talked through, here's why I did what I did with my son. He was the only person in the United States that knew who I voted for last time. So here's my framework. And this is like, you could take it or leave it. This is just how I've navigated over the past year
uh i don't know i've voted in a lot of elections now both local and um federal number one i don't vote to be on the winning team meaning i don't look at who i think is gonna win and i vote for that person because i think they're gonna win i also don't vote just because a whole bunch of people told me i have to vote for x y or z i reject that wholeheartedly i think that goes against the american spirit i think the american spirit is like being able to say
I have the freedom to look up and see which leader I think is going to best represent who I want my family and us collectively to be. The second thing is, is I do my best and it's hard. Who do I want to represent me in the world? Right? Similar to like, I go to a local church. I'm a Christian guy. My family's Christian. I, it's a big deal to me to be surrounded by people. We're all wearing the same label. We've opted into this label because,
There are people who wear the label Christian that I absolutely am repulsed by. And there are people who I'm happy to get up and do life with. We vote differently. We argue, we complain. We have different opinions on cell phones and video games and all that.
but I respect them as human beings. I love them and I love how they are spending most of their waking moments as trying to serve their local communities and their families. And so I'm happy to share that label and I'm happy to be represented by them and hopefully they're happy to be represented by me. And so that's the second leg to that stool, if you will.
So to reiterate, I don't vote to be on the winning team. I vote my conscience. Who do I think is going to best uphold the set of values that I think is important? The second one is I vote for the person who...
So either way, or all three, depending on if RFK gets on the ballot or not in your particular state, who would I want representing me out to the world, meeting with world leaders, dealing with international crisis, whatever. The third one is this, and I think everybody, everybody.
listening, and especially you Marley as a young conscientious adult. And by the way, you're giving me hope for the future. Can I just tell you that? I'm grateful because, because I want people thinking through this is hard. This isn't just run in and be like, woo and check whatever box that somebody told you or that you listened to a particular Instagram post.
um, echo chamber that has convinced you of one side or the other or the third party, whatever. And you just have got it programmed into you who you're supposed to hate. And then your whole life is not going forward. It's just looking backwards and reacting. Um,
It makes my heart full, Marley, that you're thinking through this and you're wrestling with it. And you got voices on one side. You got voices on the other side. You have your own conscience. I love that you're wrestling with it. That's the way the founding fathers intended this thing. Democracy is messy. It just is. And we don't have good models for messiness and tension. I'm glad you're asking these things. Here's the third thing I want to challenge everybody listening to do this.
Take one calendar week, Sunday to Sunday, and do not go to a website that involves news. Don't watch a news channel. If you have a bunch of Twitter feeds and Instagram feeds, cut them off for seven days. And then on the second Sunday, day seven, I want you to write out, here's what I believe. Not about people. I believe you should treat each other with dignity and respect. I believe you should tell the truth.
I believe that you go to war for these reasons. I believe that here is how a group of people should collectively handle their money. Here's how I believe we should take care of or support the least of these in our communities. Those are the margins. Go through and write that stuff out. And you said it when you called, Marley. I think 99% of people would, not 99, probably 95, would look at their list and they would find themselves a hodgepodge
of the various narratives that we're getting these days. Do you think that's right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I challenge everybody listening to do that. And then at the end of the day, do your research on all the candidates. Do your research on the third party and fourth party candidates. Because sometimes you vote so that because you think this would be the best person given this group we have. And I've got to look myself in the mirror.
I've got to look at myself in the mirror. And I think we've lost that. I think we just want to be on the winning team. So Marley, I'm not going to give you the answer of who to vote for. I am going to tell you you're wrestling with it is right. You're wrestling with it is hard. And hopefully that three-legged stool I gave you, that's how I do it. That's how I've always done it. And I like to revisit. Here's what I believe. And I also like to revisit. I'm not going to vote just...
because somebody told me to. And I'm not going to vote for somebody just because I was told, like, this is who we're voting for. Nah, it's a high roll. And yes, by the way, for those of you asking, my wife and I have voted for different people. I think probably in every election we have. And it's not who you think it is. And I can just say that because we vote for way different people. And turn off the news. Turn it off. Go talk to your neighbor. Oh, we're not going to. You know what the news is going to be. Turn it off. Go talk to your friends.
We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. So my wife and I were meeting the other day about the back-to-school madness that is about to be on us. We've got my travel schedule, her work schedule, our daughter's new school and clothes and forms to fill out and all these online portals and my son's sports schedule. And he's got to have shoes every two weeks because his feet won't stop growing. And how are we going to pay for all this? And on and on and on.
And when we step back and look at our schedule, it's so packed and we haven't even put in the things like exercise, date nights, counseling appointments, church and holiday trips and big home projects. And these are the things that make life worth living. And I listened to y'all. This is your life too. And here's what I've learned. When it comes to taking care of me, my family and my work, I have to begin with the things that matter most and the things that keep me well and whole so I can wade into the chaos and be sturdy and present and strong.
you too. So as you're planning your upcoming end of summer and fall plans, make sure you don't skip date nights, don't skip regular exercise, and don't skip your regular therapy appointments. Yes, therapy can be hard work, but can also help make the rest of your life possible.
When it comes to therapy, I want you to consider calling the team at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, it's flexible, and it's suited to fit your schedule.
With a good therapist, you can learn things like positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, how to deal with all the chaos going on in your life, and how to be the best version of yourself. In this upcoming season, make sure you put on your oxygen mask first. Never skip therapy day. Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney.
All right, let's go out to Ontario, Canada and talk to Emma. Hey, Emma, what's up? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm pretty good. Good. So what's going on? How can I help? So the reason I called you was I lost my license about a year ago from medical reasons, and I'm just having a really hard time.
with the loss of independence and the change that that's brought me. So I'm just wondering if you've got any advice on how to move forward from that and feel independent as I can. Yeah. How old are you, Emma? 35. 35. So tell me about the medical challenges.
Um, so, um, I guess I had, um, Lyme disease when I was a teenager, but I never had it diagnosed or treated. So it caused some scarring in my brain. So now I have, um, little times that I blackout. So it's not safe for me to drive. Ah, man. Um, like, uh, do you have seizures? Um, little ones here and there. Not bad. Not often. Okay.
So what led to ultimately them taking your license away? Was it a test or did you black out while you were driving?
I blacked out while I was driving. Yikes. Before that, I had always had, I had always had, I always felt nauseous before I blacked out or anything like that. So up until then, I felt like it was okay for me. And then I just had one hit me out of nowhere while I was driving. So they didn't actually take, like I said, it wasn't safe for me to drive. Wow. Tell me about growing up. What was childhood like?
Very good. I've got two very good parents and a good, solid family. Brothers and sisters? Yeah, I've got a brother, special needs. Are you all close? I'm close to my family, yes. So what have you done for the last 15, 17 years since you moved out?
Well, I was working for a while and when I first got this diagnosis, I didn't know what was wrong with me at first. I just started having seizures. So I didn't handle that the right way and I got addicted to opiates eventually.
just because I pretty much felt like I was dying or something was really wrong with me. And so I just didn't care anymore. So I got addicted to opiates and I have been cleaning off those for two years. - Wow, I'm really proud of you. That's tough, tough stuff. - Thank you. - Was there something else? Was there some other trauma? - Yes, there was. - Was there some other trauma in your life besides the diagnosis? - Um,
Like when I was younger, like I did have some child sexual abuse. Okay. Yeah. So you've had, you've had a rough go of it, huh? Um, I guess you could say that. Okay. So Emma, I am pulling up like you and I, I want you to just imagine we're sitting at a table together hanging out. Okay.
Yes. And there's some loud chit-chatting going on at the restaurant that we're at, and it's enough chit-chatting that you and I can just talk and be real direct. Is that cool? Sure. Okay. You have been protecting inner Emma your whole life, and the only path forward is for you and me to be real, just raw and honest. Are you up for that?
Yes. Okay. Anytime I want you to tell me to stop. Okay. But the path forward for navigating this sideways place, the sideways world you found yourself in is we got to be radically honest. We have to choose reality, if you will. Yes. Your childhood was a gnarly mess. True or false? True. Okay.
And I know you want to defend people and I know you want to love people. And I know you need at some level for that to all be okay so that you can deal with the present. I get that. And I honor that. But your body is still fighting wars that were kicked off when you were a little girl, right? Yes. Yeah. And don't ever want you to say,
I screwed up by taking opiates. Was that the... Would I wish that on anybody? No. If you were about to start taking opiates, would I tell you, please don't do that? Of course I would. I've told a number of teenagers and young adults that. But you, looking back... Of course. ...were a little girl trying to survive. And the problem with opiates is they work. They're a great proxy for connection when you're lonely and scared and you're disconnected from yourself after...
pretty gnarly childhood abuse. Fair? Yeah. They do work well. They do. So I'm going to give you four or five things I want you to do. Do you have, actually don't even take notes on this. I'm just going to say them out loud and. Sure. But I want you to commit to doing them. Okay. Okay. The first one is I want you to write a letter to 10 year old Emma. I want you to tell 10 year old Emma, dear Emma, I don't want you to picture her.
in a little dress with cool shoes, however you had your hair. And I want you to tell her that you are so sorry that somebody hurt her. Okay? Okay. Nobody's ever told her that they're sorry, have they? No. No. And I want you to write a second letter to 18-year-old Emma and tell her that you're so sorry that she's hurting so bad and there's going to be hell to pay for taking opiates. But you're so sorry that there's no other adults, there's no other people in the world that are coming to help. Okay? Okay.
Okay. Because right now, those two girls, that very, very young woman and that little girl are still defending you at 35 today. And you got to let them go. They're exhausted, right? Yeah. Yeah. Take a real deep breath for me. Hold it. Hold it. Three, three, two, exhale. It's been real, real hard, hasn't it? Yes.
Have you told anybody the extent of the hell you've seen? No. No. Secrets will kill you. I'd like to. Well, I don't, I'm not doing that to keep a secret. It's more to protect people that I know or not to spread that negativity, I guess. But listen, Emma, that's not your job. Your job is to be whole for the first time.
And if people hurt you, they can defend themselves. But the days of you walking around and making sure everybody else's lives are duct taped together, even the ones that took everything from you when you were young, those days are over. Okay? Okay. You can't keep, it's going to kill you. It's going to kill you. And I'm going to ask you as your new friend, I don't want you dying on the altar of somebody else's secret sins. It's not your job. Yes. Your job now moving forward is,
You got 40 or 50 more years left to go. Hopefully. Yeah. And your job is now is to sit with hurting people because nobody has a better ringside seat than you do. You're going to be such a gift moving forward. Okay. Now I've given you all of that sidewalk work. That is to build just the foundation of this house we're about to put together. Okay. Can we do something real awkward? Okay. Sure.
You're like, I thought we were just already being pretty awkward. All right. Story of my life. Well, I want you to meet with somebody. And I know it's screwy and messy in Ontario with all this just chaos right now, especially in their mental health providers. I get it. If possible, I want you to meet with somebody who can do direct trauma work with you and especially body work.
And usually what that means is somebody sits with you or a little bit behind you and they have their hand on your shoulder or on your foot or on the back of your head and you go back to hell. You recall it, but it teaches your body in the present that you're okay now. And it's as unpleasant as it sounds and it is as liberating as it is uncomfortable. Okay? I want you to find that. Okay. So I want you to imagine...
Imagine 40 in a perfect world. What was it going to look like for you? Lay it out for me. Where were you going to live? What was your house going to look like? What were you going to be driving? What was your job going to be laid out for me? What was it going to be like or what is it going now? What was it going to be like? What was this picture you had? I still live and working in the healthcare industry. I wouldn't have been addicted to opiates. Nope. We're not going backwards. I'd be living in the country. Okay. Oh, you live in the country? What would that look like? Okay.
Um, uh, the land and, uh, uh, living in my family's homestead area. Are family members, um, a part of who hurt you growing up? No. Were they a part of ignoring the problem and telling you to be quiet about it? No. Okay. They were just, um, ignorant through, um,
Really no fault of their own. Just didn't know? Didn't know better. Okay. Just didn't know better yet. If they were to find out the full extent, would they go to war for you? Oh, they'd be very, very upset. Okay. And I'm trying to get, is the homestead a safe place? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So of the things you just told me, you're not going to be able to drive to and from a homestead to working in the medical profession, right?
That's right. And you would have to disclose previous addictions, I'm guessing, to certain medical licensure, right? Yes. Can we just go, ugh? Make that noise. Ugh. Okay. So let's exhale. It's not going to happen. We're going to grieve that. We're going to be sad about it because that's right to be sad about it. You had a plan and you had a picture. You had this thing that was going to happen and now it's not going to. Yeah.
Right. Underneath those things, I'm guessing were the words autonomy. I'm guessing the words were helping others. I'm guessing the words were something to do with the medical profession service. And I've just, I,
I was going to say, I feel like I've been such a burden on the people I love for, you know, several years now. And I just wanted this to be, you know, my time of getting back to them. That's right. So I actually wrote down regret, not grief. I think more so than losing the loss of independence is you are blaming yourself for the last 30 years of your life and you have to stop. Yeah.
You can't carry that. It's too heavy. And it's not real. Okay. Okay? The people who love you are blessed to have you in their life. Is it a bloody miserable experience to live and love somebody who's addicted to opiates? Yes. It's one of the hardest, worst things in the world. It's terrible. Yes. They chose to love you. Yes. You're not a burden. Don't say that ever again. Got it? Thank you.
10-year-olds don't ask to be sexually abused. That little girl's not a bird. 18-year-olds aren't asked to carry entire family secrets or entire community secrets. It's not their job. Not a bird, okay? Thank you. So now the question is, where am I going to find, where am I going to be able to help people? Well, lucky for you, you live in the age of the internets. You can meet with people all over planet Earth and give them love and care and support.
That's true. Is there an opportunity to still live out at the homestead? Yes, that is where I'm living now. All right. So here's what I want you to begin to do. I want you to both grieve because that's important, but I also want you to begin looking forward. How can I love and support and serve people given the scars I have? How can I take these scars and turn them into breadcrumbs on a trail for other people to not have to go through
through the path of hell that I had to go through. That can be an addictions counselor. Yeah. That can be a mental health practitioner. That can be a coach. That can be any number of different things. And you can do most of that these days from home. You can even get licensed from home. You see what I'm saying? Like, I'm trying to give you your autonomy back, and it's going to look different than hopping in your car and driving through the Ontario countryside. It is, and I get that, and it's heartbreaking. Yeah.
Are you hearing me? Yes. Okay. I've thrown a lot at you. I want you to speak back. It's heartbreaking. Tell me where you are. It is. It's heartbreaking. Yes. So paint me a new picture. You at 40. That's the thing is I don't, I guess I don't have one yet. Um, I just feel like I've lost all my, any, you know, anything I knew about myself. I don't know anymore. Here's what I know about you.
You've been carrying such heavy weights since you were such a little girl. You are stronger than 99% of the people you're going to come into contact with. You have been wrestling with a autoimmune disease, which means you have been smiling and standing up straight and in horrific pain your whole life. You are stronger than most.
You've also sat down at a dinner table with family members who you love and you have kept dark secrets because you didn't want them to go to jail because they would kill on your behalf. Yes. Yes. You are stronger than almost anyone. And what that means is you can do just about anything you want to do. You just can't drive. You just can't go to med school probably. Fair? Yeah.
Yes. What kind of pain are you in now? I probably wasn't going to do that anyway. I know, I know. What kind of comfort or pain are you in now? Like daily, you mean? Uh-huh. I mean, where do you stay? Where do you sleep? You have a bedroom? You have an apartment? Where are you staying? Yeah, I have my bedroom. Tell me about it. Is it comfortable? You like it? Yeah. No? No.
Yeah, no, I do like it. I guess it's not quite as clean or organized as I'd like it to be, but I do like the stuff that I have. We're going to start there. Will you commit to me and everybody listening that by the end of tomorrow, because you're worth it, you're going to clean up your room. You're going to make some organization. You're going to make it a safe place to live.
Not a place of chaos, but it's going to be a place where you can drop your shoulders and exhale. It's going to be a place of peace. Will you commit to that? Which means you're going to have to throw away a bunch of junk. You're going to have to get rid of some stuff. You're going to have to organize some stuff. Would you commit to that? Yeah. Oh, you really, yeah, you really nailed me there. Yes. Yeah. And yeah, I will. Okay. If you do that, I'm going to do this. I want you to hang on the line. I have a partnership with Helix Mattresses. I'm going to send you a brand new one.
To Ontario. Oh, thank you. To your bedroom. And it's going to be the start. Hey, listen. When you do it, you get this mattress, you're going to lay down and you're going to be asleep before you. It's so amazing. But here's what I'm going to do. It's going to be the start of your bedroom is going to be a place of order and peace. And from there, we're going to begin to create order and peace and autonomy in other parts of our life. Is that fair? That sounds good. Yes.
I'm all in and my buddies at Helix are going to hook you up. It's the best mattress on planet earth, but you have to be willing to do your part too. Are you in? I will. Okay. I will. So ultimately the last homework. Oh, you got it, man. Well, it's, it's easy for me to give away somebody else's stuff, especially when it's this amazing, but I'm just imagining a place of peace for you. Okay. And here's the last thing. Here's your last homework assignment. Okay.
You're going to write that letter to the 10-year-old you. You're going to write that letter to 18-year-old you. You're going to grieve. You're going to write down what could have been. You're going to just be sad about it. I'm sad that I'm not going to be driving back and forth through the Ontario countryside, that I'm going to have to ask for help, all that. I want you to spend some time totally imagining, dreaming about life as a 40-year-old.
Okay. And I want you to get excited about it. Get excited about the autonomy. Get excited about helping other people. Getting excited about walking with hurting people. Whatever it is you decide you want to do. I don't want to put that, like writing fiction. I don't know. Whatever it is that you want to be a part of at 40. And now you're on a four or five year journey to land there. And who knows what that's going to look like.
But when you get there, here's what you're not going to be carrying. You're not going to be carrying the burdens that 10-year-old Emma is still carrying. You're not going to be carrying the secrets that 18-year-old Emma has been carrying around for half or more of her life. You're not going to be protecting family members who love you and would do anything for you. You're going to invite them in. And you're not going to carry around what may be the biggest, heaviest brick of all, which is the brick of I'm a burden. We're setting that crap down.
Because Emma's strong and Emma's a gift. Does Emma have some regrets in her life? No question about it. Does she have some shame about things she did when she was struggling with addiction? 100%. No question about that. And you and a counselor are going to work through that. But at 40, we're going to be 50 pounds lighter and we're not going to have lost a single pound of like muscle or body fat. We're not going to be carrying the weight of the world. We're going to be free. And Emma, all of that. Emma and everybody listening, that starts, clean your room. Make your bedroom a place of peace.
Make your living room and your home a place of drop my shoulders, peace. Make your relationships a place of peace. I'm with you, Emma. And by the way, hang on the line. We're going to hook you up with this Helix mattress, the greatest one on planet so good. And I'm going to hook you up with Building a Non-Anxious Life and Own Your Past, Change Your Future, the two number one best-selling books I've written. And I'm going to hook you up with them as my gift.
We're going to walk with you every step of the way. And if you need any other support, you call in Emma and we'll get you through because I want to walk with you as you begin to reimagine life. It's going to be hard. It's going to be grief filled. There's going to be days of deep sadness. There's going to be days of regaining trust with your body. And there's going to be days of sunshine and peace and joy. We'll be right back.
Let's talk about Organifi. I just got home from a week in the woods with family and friends and a few hundred high school kids at a summer camp. And as you can imagine, I ate camp food for a week, I didn't sleep great, and high schoolers aren't the most hygienic creatures in the world. And now that I'm home...
And now that you're home for whatever you've been doing this summer, and we're both beginning to settle back into the rhythms of the end of summer, start of school, it's critical that both you and me get back into our wellness routines. And for me, Organifi is a cornerstone of my wellness routine.
I blend the red and green powders together almost every morning, and I keep talking about them. I love my happy drops, and I've revolutionized my sleep with Harmony and Gold Juice Medley. I blend them together and drink them down right before bed, and I sleep like a baby. Organifi helps me with energy and gut health with my sleep and with my mood.
Here's the deal. I take Organifi every single day. And my friends and my family are always stealing my stuff because it's the best of the best. And if it's good enough for me and my friends and my family, it's worth you trying it out. Go to Organifi.com slash Deloney or use promo code Deloney at checkout. That's Organifi.com, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash Deloney. And they're going to hook you up with 20% off everything.
All of it. Invest in yourself with Organifi. All right, let's stay right here in Nashville, Tennessee and talk to the mighty Kirsten. Hey, Kirsten, what's up? Hey, Dr. John, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm nervous, but excited to be talking to you. Well, it's pretty cool. We're talking on the phone, but we're in the same town. That's kind of rad. Yeah, I know. It is. All right, so what's up?
So I wrote down my question. I'll just go ahead with it. It's a little bit hard for me to explain, but I'll let you help me guide me through that. Go for it. So I did not grow up with religion in my life.
And so I've never been to church. I was never what you would consider to be a believer of God. It just wasn't a part of my life. But now I have three kids, and I'm wondering if that's the right path for them as well, or if I should introduce them.
What an amazing question. What's making you consider...
You know, I actually don't know. I just feel like the older that I'm getting, the more I'm just trying to do right by my kids. And I'm wondering if it was something that I missed out on in my childhood. I don't feel comfortable with church. I don't feel comfortable with God. I had some experiences in my childhood that maybe deterred me from that. But I don't want my experiences to...
impact my kids. All right. I wish you were sitting right here with me and we were just like an honest coffee down the road. Here's why. Can I tell you what I wrote down when you were talking? Sure. Just inside baseball, when people start talking, I try to write down the first thing that comes to me. It's not always right, but it just gives me some guidance. The first thing I wrote down is don't use your kids to answer questions you're asking. Okay. I can be way out to lunch here
Where I ran into, I grew up in a very religious household and I was done with all of it. The problem with my, in my world is nothing ran out of answers over several years. My lack of belief in my atheism, if you will. I don't think I was ever fully, but it just didn't have the answers I was looking for. And so if I was going to be intellectually honest,
The first path that I got, I had a lot of holes in it, right? And I had some childhood baggage I had to deal with. My second path didn't have any either. So here's all I'm telling you. We'll get to the kid part. If you're asking, if you as a questioning, wondering, intelligent, smart, clearly an amazing mom, by the way, high five to you. Thank you. Because for people who are just natural believers, they don't struggle with faith. They get up and go to church every Sunday.
They don't understand what you just said. Yeah. Which is I have not found anybody that seems to relate to what I'm going through. No, what you're going through is very, very hard because you're saying this is the path I've had to use to navigate. This is the road I've had to go on because of crap that happened to me when I was a kid because I have no models for this. I didn't get any of this when I was a kid. Plus X, Y, and Z. Is dad in the picture here?
My dad is not, but my kid's dad is. Yeah. So he's probably got his own take on all of this stuff. And for you as a parent to say, this is the path I've taken thus far, and that doesn't mean it's the right path for y'all. Yeah. That's one of the most humbling, scary, yet integrous things a parent can say.
And it can be done on a micro scale. Baseball was my life. And it was the only way I could relate to my parents, blah, blah, blah. But you don't have to play baseball, young man or young, young, right? Those kinds of things are hard for parents, especially talking about faith and religion and eternal salvation, all that stuff, right? So big. So I'll tell you, if you're asking your questions, I want to encourage you to be tenacious about asking hard questions. Okay. Okay. And, and,
If you end up changing your mind, I want to tell you, I changed my mind. I think those are the four most important words in the English language. I'll just put that out there. Okay. And by the way, I live here in Nashville. If you want to come up to the, to the studios and have coffee one day, I'm happy to, I'm happy to meet you up here. The second thing is, um, when it comes to your kids, um,
But ultimately, when I was like, all this stuff is stupid. I'm out on all this stuff, all these stories. There's not a fish didn't eat a guy. Like, I was out, right? Yeah. It was my wife who said, fair. I'm going to love you till the end of time. But you and I both know the data about people who get up and go to church on Sundays over a period of time.
And a lot of these are causal studies and it's hard to draw conclusive. I'm sorry. They're correlative studies. They're observational studies, if you will. And what I mean by that, I don't be too nerdy. Basically, if you look at enough data, people who go to church generally have better X, Y, and Z, better marriages, longer health, like whatever you want to, we could go through all that, but that's for another phone call. So I think ultimately I kept going to church.
because I couldn't argue with the data that you're right. I don't have to believe any of this stuff. And I spent several years just every time the pastor, the preacher would say something, I'd be like, oh yeah, okay, what about this? What about this? And these 14 things. And I spent it picking it apart, but I honored the process.
And getting up once a week to go have a collective moment with a group of people and to say, hey, I see you. How are you doing? Hey, how's your mom doing? Hey, how's that thing at work? And the particular Sunday school I went to was strangely a group of recovering theological expats. They were all professors and we were all nerds. And it ended up being pretty healing. But I kept going because the data said...
There's something important, something wired into us about getting up collectively with a group of people and submitting to this idea that there's something bigger than me out in the universe and I can't carry it all. Does that ring true? It does. The one word that keeps popping into my mind as you're talking is community. That's right. Me and my family live in Nashville without any extended family here. So it's,
I look at it as an opportunity for my kids to be able to build community with other kids. But yeah, I struggled with the same things of the stories and what's true, what's not true. But at the end of the day, I just don't want my hesitancy in it to affect giving my kids that opportunity. That's right.
And so, yeah. Here's a moment I came to. So I'm fully back. I believe in Jesus and I believe in God. So I consider myself a Christian. I'll also tell you, I often find myself odd man out, very different than most of the Christians I run around with. And that's fine. It's not a contest. We have lunch. We have good discussions. But I'm pretty unique.
What I would tell you is when my daughter was born, my son was born and we had multiple miscarriages in a row, some health scares and all this. And then my daughter was born and the guys I picked up and called or I picked up or I wrote emails, I wrote letters were 60 and 70 year old men from the church I grew up in who served as male role models for me when me and my dad were struggling relationally.
And these are guys who every Sunday, they taught my Sunday school class. They took me fishing. They took me out on a ski and they, they were guys that, um, I would ask hard questions to what about this? What about that? One of them was a lawyer. One of them was a salesman. One of them was my boss. When I was a maintenance guy at a local community church, um,
I called those guys. And I remember reaching out and getting their letters back. I'm in my 30s, right? I'm a grown man. I'm a full-time professional. And I'm still so excited to get these notes back from these guys that are way down the road from me. And I remember dropping my shoulders. And my son, I think he was seven or eight at the time. I remember thinking, oh, no.
My arrogance and my always poking holes in everything and my whining and complaining and, well, he got that story wrong and that's not what that author really meant. I had robbed him of those relationships. Yeah. And so when we moved to Nashville, I hate the church search process. I told my wife, you pick a box, like you pick a building, and I'm going to go get involved with the people there and we are going to love this community well.
Yeah. And she went, she found an amazing group of people and that's still where we are now. And we disagree. We argue. There's people who don't like my job that I go to church with. They can't stand my job. And there's people that we disagree on phone usage, on credit card use. We disagree on everything. It's awesome. There's people who go to punk rock shows with me that go to church with like it's, it's tattoo people and physicians. It's all over the place. And it's a tiny little group of people who are generally concerned with serving the least of these in our community.
And I'll tell you, I've stopped fighting everything. And now my son right now is with one of these guys. He's fishing with the guy right this second. As I call, as you and I are talking on the phone, he's with one of these guys at the local church. And they're out fishing and doing some things with a group of them. And that doesn't mean I didn't get hurt as a kid. That doesn't mean I don't still have lots of doubt. That doesn't mean I still have tons of questions. But my son's learning what Jesus looks like, what faith looks like, because this guy is showing up in his life. See what I'm saying?
Yeah, I know. He's got community. He's got a gang. And it's a gang that supersedes school and it supersedes neighborhood. It's just a gang that's going to be long-lasting. So I think your impulse is right. And I think your idea of seeking community is right. And I also think if you're like me, you're getting to a place where my lack of questions isn't helping either. Yeah. Or maybe I didn't say that right. My lack of...
My over certainty in this area as a counter to everybody else's certainty over there. That's not really helping me either. Right. Right. That makes a lot of sense. And you're Nashvilleian. If you want to come to be my guest at my church, I'll you're happy. I'd love to have you and your family come. That would, that would be amazing. We're a weird bunch, Kirsten. We're a weird bunch. Um, but I think your questions are right for everybody listening. Um,
spiritually speaking yes i think it's important to get up and go i don't like that the church has moved largely online and people stream it in their um while they're scrolling instagram and within their pajamas from their from their bedrooms i know some people have to do that and that that technology is cool but i think there's something profound about getting up and going into a place in the physical presence of other people
There's an anxiousness. I'm here on Sunday. Do you see me? I'm here on Wednesday. I'm here at the service project. I'm here feeding the homeless in this food line. I'm here at Room at the Inn, which is an amazing thing that churches do here in Nashville, providing housing for homeless people in the winter. There's something about showing up in that awkwardness and being there that is life-giving. But I also think for people who don't believe,
Yeah, I think getting up and going and saying, hi, me too. How are you guys? Yeah. All those community service and all those kinds of things is really what I would like for my family to be more involved with. But it's just the, well, you have to believe in order to do these things is the hard part for me, but I don't want my kids to see that part. Yeah. I'll leave you with this. My favorite...
I got lots of favorites, but one of my favorite moments in all of the Bible is the two times there's a woman who's caught cheating on her husband and she's about to get murdered, about to put her to death, about to throw rocks at her until she dies. And I love how Jesus gets involved in that situation, not by first yelling at her and saying, I can't believe you did this. You're in trouble. But he, in his own way, defended her first. And then he said, I love you. And then he said, hey, man, there's another way to do life.
And then there's the woman at the well, and he wasn't supposed to talk to her. He defied all social convention, and he walked up and said, hey, can you give me a cup of water out of this well? He gave her a purpose. He gave her, he saw her. He gave her purpose. He gave her connection. And then he said, I know you. And then he said, hey, there's another way to do life. And I love that path because right now it's often flipped. We're going to hand you a checklist, and if you can pass this checklist, then you can come through these doors.
You see what I'm saying? And I think that's just reverse. I think it's a place, everybody come in, we're all struggling. Come have a seat. Yeah. And it's not the way it plays out often. Yeah. Yeah. But I'll tell you, it's out there and I like your impulse. And I think your questions are right. And I think your questions are good. And I've just given you my playbook. That's as open as I've ever been on the show about faith and my struggles and my challenges, but also how I'm handling it on a daily basis and where I've landed right now with my belief. Yeah.
But you're welcome to be a guest with us, man. That'd be awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. And hey, thanks for being a good mom. Thanks. I doubt myself sometimes. I know. We all do. We all do. But you've been a parent who said, this is what I felt like I've needed to do to survive. And that might not be the best path for me moving forward. And that might not be the best path for my kids. So I'm going to continue asking big, big questions. Good on you.
Good golly, man. That's amazing. That's inspiring to me as a dad to always go back and be like, all right, what are the things that I'm like, you have to do this. And my son and my daughter are looking to say, Hey dad, I've got my own path. How can I support and love them and not make their childhood just a retread of my childhood. Good for you, Kirsten. Hang on the line and I'll, I'll talk to you off air and I'll let you know where, where we meet every Sunday. And I'm grateful for you. We'll be right back.
I cannot shut up about my Helix mattresses. My sister is staying with me this week, and she came down looking this morning like she just woke up from a coma. And her first question was, what in the world is that mattress? And I sang it to her. Hey.
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Go to helixsleep.com slash Delaunay. That's helixsleep, H-E-L-I-X-S-L-E-E-P dot com slash Delaunay. This offer won't last long, so go right now. Because with Helix Sleep, better sleep starts now. All right, so on this show, we've talked about politics and religion. And so let's go ahead and cap it off. Kelly, what do you got? All right, so we have an Am I the Problem? And this is from Hannah. Okay.
I'm expecting my first baby in July, and my husband and I are trying to think through the best way to handle my mother-in-law's chosen grandparent name. This is her third grandchild. The others are six and two, and they call her MeMom. So let me spell that. M-I-M-O-M. MeMom. Okay? You read that correctly. She even made t-shirts and other gear that spells MeMom. So it's capital M, little i, capital M-O-M.
After watching my sister-in-law become frustrated with her own kids being confused and calling their grandmother mom, I'm feeling like this is something that I am not comfortable with. I want to honor her desire for closeness, and I know it's difficult because she already has two other grandchildren that call her me mom. But I feel it will cause confusion with my own child. Is it disrespectful to ask her to choose a new name for my child to use?
I understand being a first-time mom, but not the first grandchild. This comes with some give and take and that the grandparents' names are already chosen. But my husband and I aren't sure if this is an issue that we should give in on or have a conversation about. Am I the problem? Hot take. Yes, you're the problem. Maybe I'm wrong. I...
I dude, I just live by like, whatever you want me to call you, I'll call you. And I remember at graduation, I used to read the names at graduation and the international students, I would work really hard to pronounce them as they would have heard it at home. And they would come and hug me and be like, that was the first time they'd heard their name said the way they, it was, it's to be pronounced their actual name. And so I just have learned in my own heart and mind that,
If somebody says, please call me by this, I'm going to call you by that. And is it going to be, I guess a meme all? I mean, I think it's going to be fine. I think you're being dramatic. Yes. So call your mother-in-law what she wants to be called for crying out loud. Unless you want, I thought she was going to say like blankety blankers. I thought it was gonna be some bad, like offensive name. Um,
So no, yes, I think you're the problem. She says, call me me mom. Call her me mom. And if you're like, mom, like, no, I'm mom. She's me mom. And focus on the me linguistically. Your kid will be fine. That's my take on it. What do you think? I agree. I don't think it's that big of a deal. And like it or not, when you're not the first grandchild, you don't get to choose. But I don't think it's that big of a deal. Can we just say this?
The problems between you and your in-laws will be infinitely bigger deals than this. Let's go into this new relationship slow and be careful about the hills we die on. Because if you start saying, well, it's going to make little Timmy uncomfortable to say the wrong name. And so we need you to change your name because it's just going to be... We start that now, BroTown and Motown, it's just going to get tough as snuff down the road, I think.
And I just picture the cousin saying, we call her Me Mom. Why do you call her something different? I mean, it's just, why bring that divisiveness and awkwardness into the relationship? It's not like she said, call me Mommy or Mom. Yeah, call me Pretty Mom. Like, yes, okay, well, that's insane. But Me Mom, Me Ma, Grandma, I mean, they're all derivatives. It's going to be great. Me Mom, never heard of it, but that doesn't mean anything. We call my, my kids call my dad Grumps.
And it's perfect. It's perfect. And I think we found him a shirt that said that too. But yes, me mom it is. Yes, you're the problem, sweetheart. I'm sorry. You're awesome. I'm sure you're going to be a great mom, but just dial it back about 30 to 40%. Love you guys. Hey, everybody, thanks for listening. If you don't agree with things you heard today, that's fine. We're still friends. I still love you. I'll leave a seat for you next time the show releases. Take care and be kind to each other. Bye-bye.
