Hey, good folks, we have a happier themed show today. Our first caller is from Los Angeles and wants to know how to safely get offerings of medication. We talked to the husband of a previous caller from another show. He wants to help his wife with her depression. I called him out and he called me back. And the young woman from Utah wants to know the difference between gossiping about family and just keeping everybody informed who was smiling on this one.

Stay tuned. Up Jillani. Welcome to the Dr. John Delonas show shows about you, your lives, your relationships, your families, your relationship and your mental health, all of it. Right. We're here in this shiny new fancy fancy pants studio and we're walking alongside one another trying to figure out what do we do when things are going well? What do we do when things are falling off the map? What do we do when we just don't know what to do next?

Well, give me a call, give me a call here at one eight four four six nine three thirty to ninety one, that's one eight four four six nine three thirty to ninety one.

If you are new to our band of ninjas here, we talk about everything on the show. Mental health challenges, family and relational and IQ questions. We talk about mental health issues. I think already said that right. We do a school challenge. We do everything, everything you can imagine. Give me a call. One eight four four six nine three thirty to ninety one. Give me a call or go to John Boloney dotcom slash show. Fill out the form and we will check it out.

So we're going to go straight to the phone, say we've got a packed show today. We're going to go straight to the phones. Let's go to Sarah in Los Angeles, California. Sarah, what is going on? How are we doing? How can I help?

Hi, Dr. Gentiloni. I was actually listening to your podcast while standing my kitchen cabinets, and now I'm talking to you. So it's a pretty exciting day.

It's exciting day for me, too. Thank you so much for calling. That's awesome. Right. Which show were you listening to? Was it a good one or a dud?

Well, they've all been good for me. Is that it was a good one. That means you and my mom and one of my old college roommates are all in on the show. So that's pretty rad. Very cool. Thank you, Sarah.

Sure. I was hoping to ask for some of your guidance on weaning us. I think dieting medications and also some encouragement. I read your book recently, which I really enjoyed and gave me lots of things to think about and did inspire me to be a lot more militant about taking care of myself. Physically, I'm very cool.

But one of the things that caught my eye was when you were talking about anxiety medication and your philosophy really is very similar to my own and that I never intended to be on anxiety medication long term. The hope was always to get on some medication, help me to do my work and then feed off of it. And I was reading your book and looked up and realized that I've been on medication for three years. This is not short term.

I think. I don't think it qualifies anymore. And yet I have and I feel like I've been doing the work. I feel like I've been on this really long journey trying to become healthy and like every way possible. And and yeah. So it was just really discouraging to the look up and realize I've been on medication for three years. I still feel like there's so far to go. I'm not sure how to think and plan for what to do next because I didn't actually start out with something concrete about what I was going to get to.

Or maybe I just need like an arbitrary deadline to work for it so that I have something to kind of go towards. I don't know. But I would love to have some of your advice.

Well, number one, thank you for the kind words about the book. Number two, more importantly, thank you for investing in yourself and being excited and curious about taking new steps to continue on your wellness journey. That's so rad. And I'm just I mean, you're making me smile right now, Sarah. This is awesome.

So walk me back, you know, looking through the lens that I talk about in that book that anxieties and alarm man.

And it is letting you know that something in your ecosystem, something in your environment is is making you not safe. Something is is the alarms are going off because your body is remembering things that happened a long time ago and something in your environment is reminding you of that, that you are out of control or that you are lonely and disconnected. Where are your alarm stem from? Oh, man, so I know there's been so many I mean, there's the one that I've been able to recognize is just a lot of shame or it's like fear of what people think of me just I don't know.

There's there's so many that I've worked on for over the years. But I think the funny thing is that I have a really awesome life and I love my life so much. I have this amazing husband. I have this awesome kid. I have a job that's stressful but like really meaningful and with good people. But I'm living it hard, like I really love my life. But living it is so hard.

So what makes it hard? What makes living it hard, Sarah?

And what you just said is a really, really profound statement. And I hear that a lot. And it seems like one plus one should have equal to the perfect husband and the perfect kids and the perfect job and the perfect body and the perfect fill in the blank should have perfect, equal, happy.

Right. And it doesn't. What do I do? Yeah, I yeah, I don't know. Yeah, so like living yeah, I've always so I've always found existing, always feels really hard like just like like I never it's very, very rare for me to feel peace. Yeah. It's, it's very. Yeah. That's just always been very, very hard. Just like always feels like I'm tense.

Do you come from. Do you come from abuse as a kid. Your parents still together. So I actually come from a loving family that had challenges. My mom was loved us to bits, but she had her own problems. She grew up in a in a post-war society. And, yeah, like she was she was very she wasn't very stable emotionally. Sure. So I do know that that is something that I have that some that does kind of is the source of a lot of things.

What about what about your dad?

Oh, my God, he oh, he handled things by shutting down my poor dad, my mom became very, very ill when I was younger and he just didn't handle it very well and handled it by shutting down.

So can I tell him can I tell you just in in five minutes of talking to you, OK, you handle it by peacekeeping. You handle that. That part, that six year old girl, that four year old girl that is so desperate to have her mom look at her and say, you are my one who is so desperate to have her dad say, crawl up in my lap and we're going to read a book. I'm going to do a puzzle and I'm going to we're going have a pillow fight and we're going to eat ice cream until our eyeballs fall off.

And I'm going to make you go to bed even though you don't want to.

The way you handle that permanent alarm that's been going on since you were young is you make sure everybody else is OK.

You have crafted a perfect life, you've crafted it, you went and got it, and you are finding out what millions and millions and millions of us in the Western world are finding out that this recipe for, quote unquote, happiness is failing us. The recipe of getting stuff to fill in this internal gap, this these tethers that aren't connected and that aren't rooted. It didn't work, man. So our our our our frontal lobes are thinking part of our brain does.

What do you just did? It ticks off all the blessings in our life, all the things we've worked our butts off to get, all the games we've played, to get what we needed to get in in the back part of our brain. That little amygdala still go and help, help, help. I'm not connected. I'm not connected. Is that fair?

I've never thought about it that way. So it's going to take me a minute, but I just am on a journey.

The the way you process is so like, wow, you might be the smartest person in the room and I'm going to need to think about this.

Hey, here's a good idea, Sarah. You may be the smartest person in the room to. And my guess is you've never allowed yourself to have that thought, and it's probably true, and I feel embarrassed just listening to you say that.

No, exactly. And the one thing you caught me on a second ago was when I said, you've got a great husband and great kids and great whatever, John Muir, all things that rattle off. And you've put together a perfect body. I've never seen you, but you stop me on that one, right?

Don't look at me. Let me be in the background. Let me make sure everybody else is OK, because mom needed to be OK. Dad needed to be OK. And that repeats itself over and over and over and over.

OK, so a couple of things before you get on medication. Have you seen a counselor? Have you worked with somebody who's a professional before?

Yes, about the time I went on medication. OK, I'm going to searching for a line. So I found was that I, I really I feel like a good relationship with you.

Are you still seeing that person? I am. OK, and so three years later, have you sat down with this person and said, I am ready to stop living a life of anxiety? I want this part of my life over. I mean, I think that's what I've been that's been always the goal. OK, I do think that you I have through listening to you and you talking so much about rejecting anxiety as an identity and something I have been thinking about a lot.

And it made me think a lot about I think my counselor went on a little bit more of a roundabout way. I thought that she talked about like the default mode network and like rejecting the default mode network. And I like I think this is the same thing.

Yes. I often I often say it's a it becomes a default setting and becomes an excuse for. Right. So you look around your house and you've got everything's perfect.

You look in the mirror, it's perfect. And then your your body still doesn't feel whole.

And so then you're able to go, oh yeah, I have a defect that a medicine will fix for the rest of my life. I'm good. And you know who that really, really benefits is pharmaceutical companies. Right.

But, you know, I'm sorry, the reason why I'm having a little bit of a disconnect in the conversation is because I still don't think that my life is perfect. I just sure, like, it's really meaningful, like my body, like I have all these stomach issues that are almost certainly related to anxiety.

There you go. That's right, Blake. I have like I don't know how to use my body correctly. So exercise has been really challenging.

Like, I don't know, like there's nothing about my life that is like and hear me say, Sarah, when I'm saying it, your life is perfect. I'm speaking I'm speaking in hyperbole for the listener here. Right. I'm speaking to those of us who are checking. Just get in the habit of comparing all the things that we have with this internal system.

It's letting us know, hey, you're not OK, you're not OK. You're not OK. You're not OK. You're not OK.

And normally, like we talk about in the book, we either moralize it and say, oh, you ungrateful idiot, or we say, oh, it's just because you're broken, you're broken and you need to take medication for the rest of your life and it will fix it.

And here we are there, right.

There you go. And so what I don't give you another option is, is it's not an identity.

It's something to listen to.

And so to get back to your original original question, are you still meeting with a psychiatrist regularly or are you just now on a they just refill it by text or some simple. You don't have to go in anymore. Yeah, just refill it.

I did from your book. Thanks. I do need to find somebody. I was going to have kind of an institution that's well known here. But what was happening was I was being followed by residents that were turning over. I think I would have to find somebody who is going to be consistent. There you go.

And so I will I will walk you through what I did to get off of the medications. And I'll tell you, I worked closely with the doctor and he's again, I'm privileged because he's a friend of mine.

And he made fun of me because I told my mom I was so obnoxiously gradual, even to the point that he said, I need you to know that how gradually you're getting off this stuff has no physiological consequence, meaning there was nothing biological about my how I weaned off. He said, you're this is purely psychosomatic. This is purely a placebo in your head. But if this makes you feel better, go for it. And I said it does.

So a couple of things. No one is getting with a doctor and letting them know I've been on this medication for three years and I want a a definite exit strategy and I want us to partner together as I exit this thing. And so let's say you're taking twenty five milligrams of X, then the the he or she will say, great, what are the lifestyle changes you're going to make.

Right. And so for me, a couple of important important focuses are in. These are just basic stuff.

Sleep finding out how to sleep became a cornerstone numero uno. Matthew Walker is the sleep guru.

That meant eventually got to a place where I have to be almost obnoxious about not being on social media or screens before bedtime. I was obnoxious about supplements that helped me sleep. I was obnoxious about not exercising too late to early. I tracked my sleep pathologically. I almost like insane and but I dialed it in and now, man, I can sleep on a dime and it's really a gift.

And except for the occasional night, I don't. And what I used to do when I was really in the throes of this of this anxious season was a night when I knew I could you could tell at 10:00, 11:00, you're not going to sleep.

I would just flip out and I would get nervous about it. And I looked at myself up and then I would be overthink it. Now I just get up and read a book I don't loose, no pun intended. Don't lose sleep over not sleeping because I know I'm going to catch up the next night. Right. And so it's just given myself some grace. The second one is a an acute focus. On movement, on exercise, on walking, you've got to get outside to move your body, there is all kinds of research from the movement part of it that helps your brain to the vitamin D, part of it that we are all catastrophically suffering from vitamin D deficiencies to all sorts of down.

It literally changes your hippocampus in your head.

Exercise does.

And so you mentioned you had some body challenges. I would talk to my doctor about what are some exercise programs that I can do and then a unrelenting emergency.

Every alarm should be flashing in your head.

You've got to get with other people. I say I say this regularly to the point that the folks who work with me give me a hard time about it. The only true, quote unquote, cure for anxiety is other people in relationships is connection with other folks.

And that ends up being the hardest thing, especially in someone your situation. You had two people on planet Earth who were you were Taylor designed for you to connect with, and that was your mom and dad. And they didn't. And that sucks, right? And so I think about that. That was their only job, is obviously the food to feed and clothe you, but their job is to connect with you. And they didn't.

And so you have been your poor amygdala has been running for your whole life, and if you if you listen in today's Geek Minute, we're going to talk about how the inflammatory affects of some of these what we call mental health challenges.

They just wreak havoc on our bodies for years and years and years and years. And they cost us all kinds of downstream challenges when we suffer these childhood traumas. Like Mom was not well, like dad just shut down again. It doesn't mean they didn't love you, doesn't mean they weren't trying the best they had with the tools ahead. But that does mean that you've got some skills that you need to pick up on.

And so with your counselor, I would be hyper direct about I want to learn how to be in relationships and I want your counselor to help you set up some situations where you can be in relationships. I want you to get with that awesome husband of yours and you'll be intentional about hosting people in your home or you going out to be with other people. I want you to be hyper intentional about connection. Does that make your heart race or does that make you excited?

Oh, that makes me excited, I have a really great community around me, and I think I do think that with coronaviruses it's been a little more challenging.

But I just have to you are the greatest understatement that I've talked to. It's a little more challenging.

No, it's been a diary of a blizzard. It's been awful, right?

Terrible. Oh, it's not been good at all.

Or it's it's been not so good. Right. In the words of Sarah from Los Angeles.

But, yeah. I want you to understand. I'm sorry. Go ahead. My husband said I was going to laugh because my I'm a nurse and my husband, the public health inspectors, our work lives have gotten like. Oh, yeah. Have been intense.

Oh, my God. I can't even I would love to be a fly on your wall. That's right. Hey, and also know this. How long have you been a nurse? I should asked you that before you start this whole conversation. How long have you done that?

Since almost ten years now.

OK, does that job bring you joy or does that job spin you up? It can do both, but usually over time I've learned how to do my job and how far away, and a big thing was I worked part time and that actually made a huge difference. OK. I enjoy my job much more intensely now. And and also just. Yeah, just like I think learning physically how to take care of myself better. Because one thing is just unsurprisingly, I have a really, really tough time with sleep.

And so that improving on that has made my ability to handle my work life much better. Very cool.

Well, No. One as a nurse, thank you for your service. You guys have have you men and women have just gone above and beyond, above and beyond the last year. You always have. And you went unrecognized. But this past year you've been the true, true heroes recognized working in trauma again lets your brain know, hey, we may not be safe. And what you deal with everyday as a nurse is everybody else's.

It's probably not going to happen. And you deal that day after day after day and it begins to reset.

Your default setting to things are probably going to end up on tubes and end up in a hospital, going to end up with someone having to help me go to the bathroom. I'm going to end up in all these places. Right. And again, your amygdala, all its job is to sound the alarms and you're not safe when you're not connected.

And so it makes my heart feel for that. You've got a good community that you can lean in on. OK, so quick review.

How do you wean off anxiety medication is different from everybody else, but it's really important.

Do not under any circumstances, if you're taking any kind of meds, just walk in and quit. That's a terrorism. Dude, don't do that.

There's some real, true, awful biological and physiological consequences that can happen when you do that. Don't do that. Work with a doctor to wean off and be intentional about saying I want to make some strong lifestyle adjustments. I've been working on this and I want to begin to reduce my intake on a win off of this medication. Work with your counselor specifically on skills.

Specifically on skills, how do I breathe through this, how do I have the courage to tell my boss I want to go part time, how do I work really hard with my husband so that I can get out of debt so that we don't have to work full time or that we can have some breath?

We can take a break, understand when you're in a bunker season like you married to a public health official have been in Los Angeles, California, for God's sake. I can't even imagine what you have been doing.

And then real quick, you've got to focus, focus, focus on sleep, make that such a priority that everything in your life revolves around figuring out what works for your sleep schedule, your sleep hygiene.

You got to got to got to move and exercise. You got to be connected with people. And it may be even as much as something simple like diet.

And I say simple. That's a whole other conversation.

I've got somebody close to me that was struggling with anxiety and. So much of it was dialed back by just putting decaf in the cut in the coffee because, you know, they were pumping themselves full of caffeine, caffeine, caffeine, caffeine, so much.

And then they there they were mistaking that for this anxious feeling, really. They were just buzzed out of their minds and having decaf turn the turn the volume down a little bit and it made everything much more manageable.

And then occasionally there is supplements that work for folks and they're all over the place from, you know, melatonin to CBD oil to all kinds of stuff that can help folks out, magnesium and stuff. And so get with your doctor and walk through those things particularly.

But I am Mansehra. You're a light and I'm grateful for you and took a little bit longer on this call. But I I'm grateful for you. I want you to let me know how this journey goes with you. I want you to have the courage to speak boldly to your counselor and your doctor and head into a season without medication.

And here's my last little thing. If you try it and your alarm spin up and they spin out and you end up having to go back and take your medication for another season, you're not a failure. You're not broken. You didn't screw something up. I want you to keep plugging at your identity is not an anxious person, your identity is not that you're busted, your identity is not in your anxiety diagnosis. Right. It's just an alarm system.

That's it. That's all it will ever be. Don't give up on yourself. All right. So let's.

I've got to go to this email. It came in and it reminded me of a conversation I had at my house over the holidays.

And it also reminds me of conversations I have here at my work.

So the email comes in from Conor. How do I even get my head in the right place to start planning my will? The thought of dying scares me, but I know this is important. So this comes in to the Dave Ramsey office and they were like, hey, we know a guy that can answer that question. The thought of dying scares me, but I know it's important.

So over the holidays, I sat down and talked to my dad about the fact that he's going to die. And he talked to me about his will and my mom's will.

I talk to my mom. We had a big family discussion about it. Hey, Mom, you're going to die. What would you want your funeral to look like? And she's like, whatever you all want.

And I said, no, you have to tell us, don't put this on us, please, because we're going to fight about it. I'm going to want to have poisoned songs of Pantera songs, and my sister is going to want to do it the right way and all that kind of stuff. Right.

And we talked about it and it was half smiling and a half very serious. But in our house and again, I'm blessed. My dad is a homicide detective. We just talked about death since I was a little kid, and that's why I had to see a counselor. But it's going to happen.

We did a big study a few years ago and we came up with a startling conclusion. A hundred percent of you listening to this are going to die someday.

It will simply happen. It's going to me to there's this awesome guy out there watching the show him, too. James Kelly, I don't know about Kelly. Kelly may be able to buck the system. One hundred percent, James and Zack, they're going to die, right? You're going to die. Going to die for sure. Going to die. It's part of it. Right. And I'll also say this. Not everybody can talk about death.

Oh, and then me and my wife, part of our annual retreat, we redid our wills. We got on a will thing here that we have here at the Ramsey office. We'll program on the very wills. And we redid our wills together and we talked about, you're going to die, I'm going to die.

Someone's going to have to take her kids. Someone's going to have to. And we filled in the blank. We want to have the guitars. Who do we want to have whatever. And we went through that whole thing.

So I know that I'm blessed when it comes to that conversation because I've talked about death with enough people over the years to know that for most of you, it's super awkward. This is not an a this the fact that you're going to die not having a will, that is not an optional thing. We have to stop talking about not having a will or I'll get to it. My friend John King, he's my best friends on planet Earth. He said it best.

The only reason to not have a will is if you hate your wife and kids.

The only reason to not have a will is if you hate your husband and you want to make things, you won't make life awful for your children if you are single.

The only reason to not have a will is you want to torture your parents and your friends.

It's just inexcusable and it's now it's so cheap you can do it online, it's just inexcusable.

You have to do it. So here's the thing. Most of us go through life avoiding hard conversations. We avoid him at work. We avoid him with our the person that we're in love with. We avoided with the person that we are crushing on. We avoid with ourselves. This is an easy one because we're all going to die. Right.

It's it's easy but not easy. Right. Like lose weight. Just diet and exercise. Cool. And that's a trillion dollar industry. Right. Most people deep down crave real hard conversations.

They just don't know how to start them. So here's a couple of quick tips. Number one, planet make a plan. If you are single, call a friend over if you need to get a glass of wine or two and some trashy food. I'm giving you permission to order pizza one night. You're going to have rocket gas the next day, but go for it, invite them over and say, OK, I got to do a will. I want you to do this with me.

We're going to put on some music. We're going to laugh our way through it. If you are married or you're about to get married, if you have kids, you've got a you've got an emotional, a psychological, a spiritual, whatever, all A-L obligation you want to say, you've got to do it. So plan the conversation. Tell your wife, tell your husband. Tell your fiancee next week. On Friday, we're going to have a date, but we're going to talk about we're going to do a will.

I'm not doing we're having a will does not make you die quicker. Having a will doesn't make death more imminent. It drives me crazy. You've got to get on the same page, right? You're going to have to have conversations like, hey, who's going to be the executor of our will? Who's going to take care of our kids? Who's going to be the power of attorney? How long do you want to be on a ventilator? How long do you want to fill in the blank?

You've got to have those questions right. So here's what I want you to do.

The Ramsey folks here that I work with, they came up with this awesome thing, text legacy LTG a seewhy to three three seven, eight, nine. I'm not trying to sell you nothing. This is just I'm tired of people dying without wheels.

I cannot tell you how many people I've sat with and I looked him in the eye or held them as they are shaking, they're crying so hard and their husband or their wife is dead in the next room or is being wheeled outside on a gurney.

And they look me in the eyes with a look is a very unique look. And they say the words, what am I supposed to do now? If you've never helped somebody try to get county funding because they don't have any money to bury their husband. Because the money is there was no will. And so it's going to be all tied up in a mess, you've got to do it. You've got to, got to, got to. And if you're young and you're listening to this, get a will.

Get it. I don't care how old you are, how not old your text legacy to three three, seven, eight, nine, you're going to get a free how to talk about your legacy. God they're going to push you to mama bear wills and please do that. Please do that. It is so cheap. It's so easy.

You will check it off your heart, mind, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

All right. Let's go to Adam in Waco, Texas. All right, Adam, what's up, brother? How are we doing? Are doing pretty good today, John. That's Alex Cohen in. If they had spoken with my wife, Katie, exactly what it was, but we had the four kids and she's been dealing with frustrate or depression issues, and I'm perceived as being frustrated, which isn't going to be far off with it. I was just kind of want to get your opinion on how can I make myself more emotionally available for her when she goes through these spells.

All right. So before before we go any further, Adam. Easily the coolest guy I've talked to in a long time. OK, I don't know what kind of husband you are behind closed doors, but but here's the thing. I called you out on this show, which goes out to a lot of people. I thought I was just going out to my mom. That gave me some numbers the other day. It's a lot. And I your wife called in.

She said she was struggling with depression. And her she was frustrated that her husband was frustrated about her depression. Right. And I called you out.

I said, why don't you have him call me dude? Here you are. You called me. This is like high school. When I'm like, don't you have your boyfriend? Call me and then you knock on my door. You're like, Hey, what's up, bro? I heard you talking about me. So this is it, Adam. And the fact that you're from Waco, Texas, and the fact that you can't shoot me from there makes this conversation way easier.

Right. But I want to just straight up acknowledge that there are there are just not a lot of guys of character like you who want to support and love their wives, who are willing to put it out there and who are willing to be vulnerable and say, hey, man, help me out if you put your money where your mouth is, big guy. And dude, I'm grateful for you. It's a very you're very impressive young man. Cool.

Cool deal.

All right. So how can you help your wife give me an example of something that is frustrating when your wife is having a depressive episode and it's just frustrating. Give me an example of that. Well.

With an example, the six year old should get some real big emotions with the Depression stuff. And for me is I'm not a person of big emotions. So to me, I'm just I guess where my frustration comes from is I have a hard time comprehending what I was going through. I'm one of those people, like, I see a problem. There's a solution execute done. And I guess I'm that a I just don't understand what she's going through with her big emotions.

An example would be yesterday morning, I ended up waking up freezing cold. I go to get up before everyone else turned the heaters on in the house to warm it up. I can't find the lighter for it. I end up asking her if she knows what a liar is and she kind of goes into a little spiral first thing in the morning about not knowing where the lighter is. And then she's apologizing to me about I don't know where I moved it.

I don't know where the kid did with it. And I'm just mom, I was just asking if you knew what the lighter is. I wasn't accusing you of anything like that, but then it kind of started her off on a bad day. And I just out of. Sure, it is that kind of example you're talking about a love.

So, hey, let's let's let's just dig in on that example, man and man.

I just love your heart.

OK, so here's the deal. This is a common, common thing we've talked about a lot on this show, we will continue to talk along about it. I'm going to speak in big, broad generalities. And so if you don't like generalities, send me mean emails or YouTube comments, if that makes you feel good.

Most or a lot of men are trained. They are socialized just like you. OK, just like me. And that is there is a problem. Let's just solve this problem using a chisel and a hammer and a saw and data in a fact and then an achievement test. Let's move on.

Right. And so when somebody that we love and that says loves us comes to us and says. I'm so sorry, I am feeling this way and feelings and emotions and feelings and emotions, your first thought was probably Oh God Almighty dude, I'm just asking where the freaking lighter is.

Go back to bed. What are you doing?

And then it's I'm so sorry. And then you're like, what are you sorry about stopping. Sorry. I just asked if you have a lighter, you know the lighter is man.

And then it turns into this whole thing, that conversation with OK. Right. So particularly somebody who has a history of trauma, which if I remember correctly, she she had some some some some demons that have followed her through most of her life. Is that fair? Yeah.

Yeah. She had some early childhood. There you go. Anxiety.

She's got yeah. She's got some stuff. She's got some stuff back there. It may be that a man early in the morning saying, hey, where's this boom that sets off that alarm and it ain't coming back, and you and I will probably never know where that alarm originated from, where it started from. But I can tell you this sometimes that that alarm is chemical. Sometimes that alarm is hyper emotional, sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's all of it.

And so what I want you to do in these moments is to not default to advice data or facts. OK, I want you to think of your wife not as a problem to solve. But as a person to be with and this is going to go away against anything you've ever been trained or taught. OK, Adam. So here's what I want you to do the next time something spins out, because here's what I remember from the last call.

You love this lady, don't you? Absolutely. You married her, you have a kid, I think, with her, with your own, and you adopted her other three kids, is that right? Correct, yes. Yeah, and I remember her telling me that you loved her, and if I remember correctly, she really loves you, is that right? Oh, absolutely shows it to me every day. OK, so the next time you are just buzzing through the day, hey, where's the lighter?

And then she flies up in bed and you know you know her enough to know now. Oh, here we go. I want you to walk over and say, give me both your hands and I want you all to watch this. When it comes out on YouTube, you can watch it together. That way, you know that she's going to do it with you. I want you to sit down by her and grab both of her hands, if that's safe for her.

And if it's even if you can get away with putting your hand on the back of her neck and hold on one hand or put your hand on her face, I don't want you to look her in the eye. And I want you just to look at her for five to 10 seconds. That's it. OK. And I want you to breathe as calmly as you can, and then I want you to tell her I love you is all good and I appreciate you trying to think through if you know where the letter was.

But I got it from here. I love you and I want you just to step out, OK? And the more you hover and look and she's going to interpret those as judgments because her brain at that point is scanning for any possibility of disaster, any possibility of discomfort, any possibility of not safe, even to the point that her brain will skip data for close enough. He has raised an eyebrow. That means she hates me. She's pissed off.

Right. You're like, what are you talking about? Just sneezing that there's some wiring issues. Right. And I hate machine metaphors, but that's the truth. Her brain's just set off there. And then I want you to encourage her to ask her, hey, would you be willing to save up some money and see if we can go to one of these family counseling services here? Because I want to know ways that I can love you better and I'd love to get a professional here in town.

And hopefully she's working with the doctor on her depression. She's working with a counselor. I don't remember exactly if she did, but I encourage her to go get one. I want you to say I want to learn some skills.

Meet Adam. I want to learn some skills and how I can love you and be the best, best, best husband.

We are here now. We love each other so good. I just don't have any skills in my toolkit. I don't have enough wrenches and hammers in here. In fact, all I have is a wrench and a hammer. And this knucklehead on the radio said I need to learn some more stuff. And so I want to take you and I want to do it. And I know we can't afford it, but we're going to scratch and claw and figure it out how to do it.

And then we're going to go learn some new skills together and what you're going to do, because she needs to learn these skills, how to connect to she needs to learn that you are safe, safe, safe, safe. And that's going to take trust. It's going to take practice. And then what you're going to do is you're going to double down on connection, not facts, not, oh, my gosh, you're going to lean in to that discomfort that.

Oh, here we go. You're going you are going to go first, Adam.

You're going to grab both of your hands, tell that you're safe, you're safe, you're safe. And then I also wants you to do this. I want you to start taking care of some what I would call the Onse in the office. I want you to ask her, what are the things that just bring you the most joy in the home? And I want you to when you get up to light the furnace, which again, you're such a great guy, Adam, when you get up to light the furnace in the house to make sure he's got a warm morning when they wake up, if they're still cups in the in the kitchen, get those.

If there's some clothes that your kids left out, grab those real quick. I know you work your butt off, brother. I know you do. But do those little things start looking around for ways that you can make her home feel safer and safer and safer?

And, man, that's such a gift. So I want you to do after you have gone to a few family counseling sessions, after you try a couple of times to lean in, hold her hands, hold her face, look at her eyes and say, hey, hey, I love you.

I love, love, love you. And we're just going to sit here for a second. And then once you get up and then you go find that stupid light of whatever it is, I want you to call me, let me know how that goes. OK, you guys are awesome. I love you. I love walking alongside you.

And Katis are so cool. And again, I appreciate you being a man of character, but I want you to call me back to let me know how that's going. All right.

Let's go to one more call. Let's go to Crystal in Provo, Utah. Crystal, what's up?

Hi, thanks for taking my call. Thanks for calling in. How are we doing? What can I do to help? I'm good, thanks. So my question is, we obviously are coming down off of our holiday high, if you will, from being around our family and our friends for those of us that were fortunate to be around them. But my question is, when does it become necessary for us to have healthy boundaries around? But, you know, most families would consider small talk, whether that's, you know, talking smack about each other and, you know, the general criticism that often comes with families.

And so that's my question is when when does it become too much? When does it become something that we need to have healthy boundaries around?

And that's a lot. It's a lot because you're calling me out because it's a sport in my family to to make sure we comment on who wore what and who said what and how who so is doing.

And I know they do it about me. And that's just kind of the sport. And I'll tell you, it's not right. It's not good. And so the reality is when families get together, especially, I don't know, I don't know, families get together and they like to talk about each other because it makes them feel better about what they're doing.

We've got the same set of genes. Didn't look how good we're doing. Right.

And it's not G.A., but gossip makes you feel better. Right. And it comes with judgments. If I would be or you should have. Oh, my gosh. Did you see what she could you believe she would not just shut or he would not. And we do that for one reason because it makes us feel better. Right. And so I think information is direct without commentary. And it usually comes with planning and support, like, hey, man, do you see Tommy didn't look like he's doing well.

I'm going to reach out and call him not because. Oh, my gosh, it's because he's been drinking so much and because he doesn't his bathe and his you don't need any of that kind of stuff.

Right. And so, man, that's so tempting. Families talking about families is a sport. It's been going on for millennia. Right.

And it doesn't solve anything other than to make us feel better for a second. But that doesn't even work that well either. Is that fair? Yes, absolutely. So in your house. What part of that can you control? Do you have brothers and sisters, moms and dad, who's talking crap about who is everybody talking about? Everybody pretty much, yeah. Yeah. So you could be the rock star. And I'm going to follow your lead here, Crystal, by when a brother calls and says, could you believe, Mom, you can just go.

Well, I might talk about mom anymore. Mom's mom and we love her and we're just going to do that.

And you're like, oh, because you're so great. And be like, yeah, I'm just I'm talking about mom anymore. And then one sister calls and be like, Dad. Brother just called me and says, You're totally freaking out, Kristin. Like, I'm not talking about him either. I'm not talking about brother. I love him. He doesn't bathe. We all know that. But let's just move on. Right.

And you can choose to set the tone for I'm not going to be the person in that family that talks about it, but other people in that family, I'm not going to use them to artificially inflate my ego for that tiny little snapshot until I've got to talk about them again so I can get another hit.

Is that fair? Yeah, that that's fantastic. Crystal, if you do this, it's going to be hard, and if you do this, it will change America. Literally, because what we need people to do is to start looking in the mirror. And start making changes there and then to start making tiny little changes in their home like, hey, we're not going to talk about each other anymore, let's just stop that. We don't need to.

We love each other. And if we're going to get on to each other, make fun of, just do it in front of each other, which is a sport of my family as well.

And we are awesome at it. It is hard to believe I'm the quiet guy at the table. By the way, our house is awesome. It's one of my favorite places. The sporting is so good.

But then when families start to stop to stop and they take care of each other and then what happens? The street changes, your neighborhood changes, your cities change. And then the dumpster fire, that is the news these days may look a little bit different.

It may look different, but it starts with you saying, I'm not going to talk about family anymore. I'm going stop. I love them. They're goofy. All families are. I'm goofy. And now it's going to be I'm not going to fill my day with that nonsense in that trash.

So good for you, Crystal. You make everybody called in today. Makes me feel good, man. This is the good the feel good episode. We finally got to sixty two, Kelly, Zach and James before we got the feel good episode. This makes my heart feel awesome. All right. So we're going to wrap up today's show. I asked somebody in the office that works back there with me and our team, and I said, hey, you're younger than me by like half.

Give me a cool best song ever.

And she was like, oh, my gosh, it's super this. And I listen to it.

We're going to go with it, we're going to go with Juda and the line from the folks hop and roll album out in twenty seventeen. It's called Take It All Back 2.0. Sounds a lot like Mumford and Sons with a twist, so I'll give it to him. Way to go, dude, in the line. I think these guys are awesome, actually. Take it back. Take it all back to point out. It goes like this. Hey, my life is real great.

I feel I'm well on my way to my dreams coming true and I'm getting to do it with you. And it feels so nice when the people sing along. They're singing along with a banjo. I don't know that line, but it's awesome. And the chorus goes, but I take it all back. Take it all back. Take it all back just to have you. You know, I take it all back. Take it all back just to have you.

And I'm waking up and I'm waking up. But I'd take it all back just to have you. That's a love song, dude. In the line. Good for you guys. I like it. I would take it all back, too. And this is an hour you've just spent with me that you can't take back. This has been the doctor John Deloney show.