On today's show, we talk about heavy things, so watch out for the little ears in the room. We'll be talking about childhood sexual abuse. We'll be talking about changing your life, losing weight and becoming more disciplined. And we're going to talk about cultural issues and dealing with your brother's kids and stepping up in your family. Stay tuned.

They want to put up this is John with a Dr. John, his show. I hope you're doing well, but you're treating people around you, nice people treating you nice. Hope you're taking care of yourself, exercise and sleep and getting outside. I don't know, man. It may still be cold where you are.

It can't make up its mind here. We we had a snow day. I know. I almost said we literally had a snow day, but that would have been an annoying use of an adverb there. No reason to add that because we did have a snow day last week and then today it's one hundred eleven degrees out here. So I don't know what's going on. But anyway, on today's show, we got a lot going on. I'm excited you're here.

Just as a reminder, if you're new to or if you're just just as a reminder slash or if you're new to this show, there is no slash there. We talk about mental health, talk about relationships. We talk about everything on the show. Right. We've gotten to education policy and politics and health and, well, everything that is going on in your life, in your heart and your mind and your relationships, give me a call at one eight four four six nine three thirty to ninety one.

That's one eight four four six nine three thirty two ninety one. Or go to John Deloney dot com show, fill out the form and we will get you in live and in person. And I'd like to take this moment as we start the show to let Kelly Zach James know I am dedicating my life to one thing that's not being a better husband, being a better parent. It's being on time and prepared at work. So Zach just cheered. So listen today.

Look, look, I got notes, everything. I'm ready to go. It's great.

It's episode two, so I'm glad you figure it out. Episode eighty to some of us, it takes a minute. Some of it takes, I don't know, an annual performance review, but some of us are working on it.

Does this include meetings? Why do you have to do have to be drinking the hatred? Kelly, we're that's that's next week. Today it's about the show. No, doesn't include meetings. It just includes this meeting. Unfortunate. You're unfortunate. All right. So give me a call. One four four six nine three thirty to ninety one. Let's go to the phones. Let's go to Elise and Vancouver, Washington. Elise, what's going on? How can I help?

Hi.

Good morning or afternoon. Sorry. Hey, it's good to talk to you. Yeah. Thank you for having me. You bet you. So what's up.

Ah well let's do a little background story first. Oh my. Any time somebody start to the background story, usually it's a lot here so go for it.

Yeah. OK, so when I was seven my grandfather actually assaulted me so he was my next door neighbor growing up.

My grandparents were and they're actually still my parents next door neighbors. I'm twenty one now. I'm married about thirty minutes from them. I have a 17 month old daughter who's my absolute world.

Awesome.

And I just feel like I've never gotten huling and you know, I just I don't know. Now I'm an adult and I have a daughter and I realize. I need healing and something maybe should have been done a little differently. I'm just needing advice on kind of where to start, where to go.

Yeah, well, first, thank you for trusting me with that. I appreciate that. And congratulations on your beautiful little baby girl. Your husband's a good guy.

Yes, he's he's my absolute rock. That's awesome. Good for you.

All right. So take me back. Not in detail, but take me back when you were seven. So was this a one time incident or. It was over a season. What did you tell me about what you experienced back then?

So it was a one time incident. And I my mom, to tell you, I went up to my grandparents to drop off something and happened while I was there. My grandma was at work. So it's just my grandpa at home and my mom could tell something was wrong. You know, the day kind of went on. And so I eventually told her that day my dad got home from work. I told him and they called my grandparents and went up there and talked to them.

And I never really heard how that conversation went. I kind of heard little snippets throughout the years, just like I heard, you know, my grandpa didn't know what I was talking about. My grandma didn't believe me.

And did your parents believe you? Yeah, they just I don't know, I think that they just didn't know how to handle it.

So have you have you ever have you ever talk to your parents, like, sat down, mom, dad, now that you're twenty one, I mean, if you ever had a conversation with them, say, hey, what happened that day? I went and told Grandma. Grandpa what?

I told you it was a really, really brave thing that what you did as a seven year old, really brave and it doesn't usually happen that way, which tells me you may have been one of the rare kids that has a really remarkable relationship with your parents that you felt safe enough to do that. And then there's something disorienting about somebody that's safe when you believe that they don't believe you.

Right. Or you don't know what happens after that. It just goes, you know, this disclosure, this heavy thing goes into a mist. Right. Have you ever sat down and talked to him about what happened? No, not really, I just I kind of I don't know, I I'm sandwiched between two boys.

My dad would say things like Leaf doesn't cry, which is tough. So I kind of just didn't know how to I didn't want them to know how much it can bother me. And I remember overhearing my mom talking on the phone one time to her sister, and I heard my grandfather's first name and my name. And then she said something to the effect of, well, she still brings it up every once in a while. So it's obviously still bothering her.

And it was like an internal switch just shut off. Like I was like, I, I don't want to talk about I don't want them to know. It bothers me, like, I don't know. So no, I kind of just quit talking about it.

And so the idea that your mom was talking to your sisters or her sister. Your aunt. Yeah. And their debate is I wonder if it's still bothering her.

Right. Not are we are we going to go visit dad in jail? Not are we going to get to the bottom of this. But I wonder if she's over it yet. That's got to hurt, huh? Yes.

Yeah, I did. And I. I don't know. I just like I said, I kind of felt a switch turn off. I was like, I'm not going to open up. I don't want to talk about it. Just I hate that.

And they're like, well and that yeah. That grin and bear it. Right. That that. Becomes how you interact with trauma for the rest of your life, so have you had things in the last 14 years between that seven and twenty one years that that idea of grin and bear it has just become of your modus operandi the way you operate? Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. I, I kind of joke about this, but it's really serious how like I told you, my dad said, you know, at least doesn't cry. Well I did at night in my bed. Yes she did. Yeah.

But meeting my husband I, I joked to him about I've never cried so much in my life. Yeah. You know, because I someone somebody I could just you know, those floodgates opened.

Yeah, I imagine so. You've got a 17 month old now and what you'll feel I'm projecting onto you. Right. So I'm lumping you into what a vast number of people in your same situation will experience over time is as your daughter increasingly gets closer to in and around that age, you will feel an anxiety, you will feel an angst, you'll feel a control, need a paralysis.

You'll feel all kinds of things increasingly as your brain begins to recognize her and that trauma. Right. And you are super wise to say, well, I need to get on top of this now.

So walk me through. Your family situation now, you say you live half an hour there, I'm assuming this was never dealt with, right? They had a one time conversation and grandma and grandpa all denied it, potentially. And your parents never talk to you about it. And then we just all moved on, right?

Yeah, well, I mean, I was close to that particular grandma growing up. So I would go up there sometimes weekly to work on a sewing project or whatever.

And I even went to Hawaii with those grandparents for nine days and nothing happened there. It was more well. Nothing like super serious, but I remember telling my husband now my boyfriend, then I remember telling him I feel like he can't keep his hands off me and there would be inappropriate comments left and right. And I was just so uncomfortable. And I just I was crying. I was like, I just want to go home, you know? And I actually got married later that year and have kind of used the excuse of living 30 minutes away that I don't have to see him.

Yeah, no, it's just, uh.

But so I want to free from this. At least you don't have you don't need an excuse. Right, you don't need an excuse. Yeah, that person hurt you and one of the most devastating and tragic ways somebody can hurt somebody else and so you don't need an excuse right now, you can just feel it from this point forward. You need no more excuses. You are free. You don't do anything you don't want to when it comes to being in or around that situation.

So is he still alive? Yeah. Has this ever come up with other people? Do you have cousins or aunts that have have whispered about this? Often this has, you know, it kind of the cloud that goes with guys like this.

Well, OK. So when this actually happened, I heard about this a couple of years later that my you know, my grandma didn't believe me. So she went around calling aunts and uncles and saying, why would she say this and whatever. So I to my dad is the youngest of three boys. So it was the middle brother. He had two kids. And so my grandparents babysit them and my parents kind of felt like, OK, they're letting their little daughter be babysat, you know, so we should kind of let them know and let them make that decision.

So I know that my parents did down with an aunt of mine that so she could know. But I mean, I could tell you 14 kids names right now that he's had access to since then. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

So here's the thing. I think the right thing to do is you've got to say something at this point because you still have access to kids now. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's you know, there's when when you know about something, here's a big deal. So one of the things that's taken from us and I'm using this as a moment to teach people listening, OK, when you experience this type of sexual trauma type sexual abuse, one of the one of the things that's stolen from you is your autonomy. Right. Your your freedom, your right to make a decision about you. Right. And so when I'm meeting with somebody privately, when I'm talking to somebody behind closed doors whose experiences and they're trying to figure out what to do next, I always want to make sure one important thing that they know they control the narrative from this point forward.

They control if what happens, they control who finds out all those things.

You have to own that control right where it gets messy and where I'm going to tell you, I don't know that you can you control your story. But if there's other people involved, then we have to get involved and say, hey, this is somebody who has a history of doing this before they have access to her kids now. And as a community member, I've got to get involved, right, as a community member. Your husband's got to get involved as a community member, fill in the blank.

People have to cut off access to children, to people who hurt children, which is what your granddad did. Right. And that's where you find yourself.

So what do you want to do in terms of healing? What kind of heat when you have a picture in your mind of what healing looks like, what do you want that to be?

I would like to sit down with my parents and my older brother. He's got three young kids, so they want to sit down with us at the same time because they have feelings on this to sit down and talk to my parents and say, you know what happened 14 years ago. Yes. But I don't feel like it's kind of I don't know, it just sat there and festered like nothing. Yes, of course.

It's because it's this awful trauma. Yes. Listen to it. When you say things like it just sat there and festered. I don't want you to feel like you're something's wrong with you. Right. Don't you feel like you're broken or you're screwed up? This is not yes, this is somebody poisoned you right now and then people are like, wow, when is she going to that?

Yeah. Yeah, well, it is.

Yeah, it is. What does your brother say about it. It's really it's bothered him, especially since that kind of brought it up to him and they're they want to make it clear to my parents to know that their kids are not allowed around them.

Good for your brother, man. Good for. They're actually going to meet with the pastor on Wednesday night and get some insight on how to talk to your parents, to your brother.

Good for your brother. So here's here's the way to move forward with your parents, OK? You feel, of course, feel free to have that meeting on Wednesday.

But here's here's the way you go for your parents. I want you to write down what you want to tell them.

And it's probably going to be real, real hard. OK? If you trust your husband enough and this isn't an indictment of him or your marriage or anything, if you trust him enough, read him what you're going to say to your parents so you can have gone through it one time.

You've spoken these words out sometimes when you say the words out loud, especially in front of people who should have protected you. Right. Who should have kept you from going on a nine day vacation and all that other awfulness after your granddad did what he did. Sometimes saying that becomes so overwhelming when you put out into the universe the first time. So say something out loud if you can. If you can't, that's OK. That's OK. And they don't want you to be extremely clear.

Your parents have lost. They gave in. They cashed in. There, I don't even know what do you mean, like without just getting really, really angry with them. They they chose not to protect you. That's a decision they made, you do not you need to be respectful and a person of dignity, not for them, but for you. OK.

That you are not responsible for their feelings, you're not responsible for their drama, you're not responsible if they come back and say, you know what you're going to do, if you say this out loud, if you call the police, if you do, you don't own any of that because they abdicated that. Right when they didn't take care of you when you were a young child.

Oh, and now you are in the position to be the grown up here, and you are you're an adult, you got your own kid, you're married, you know, you're an adult now, and you're having to clean up the mess of at least three, if not four other adults and more.

Right. Whoever else has been a part of not saying anything. Your aunts, I'll include them so that that number gets big as a part of the healing process. You're going to get rage filled against your parents, against your aunts and uncles, against people who didn't come out and defend that seven year old little girl. OK, that's natural. That's a part of this.

My hope is that you can you can lean towards forgiveness at some point, but at this point, you are in control.

OK, there is no soft pedaling this with mom and dad, there is no will let us. We're going to. Nope, they cash that in 14 years ago they had 14 years to protect their baby and they didn't. Fourteen years. Yes. So when you imagine, do you have a picture in your head of your granddad in jail?

Do you have a picture of him having to move away from the neighborhood? Like, what do you want to happen on the back end? What does healing look like to you?

I think I'd at least like a no contact order. Awesome. He can't contact me or my family. I mean, this should have happened when this whole incident happened in the first place. But, yeah, I do I do plan to call the police department and file, you know, give my testimony, whatever, and I don't know, at least register as a sex offender or something.

Well, and what will happen is when you make that that that referral to the police, you'll get trained investigators that will then go talk to the kids he's had access to, not moms and dads who know how to squash their kids and how to make people uncomfortable and make them feel scared. But trained investigators who can go in and have a true investigation. Right. Get real experts asking real hard questions in ways that kids can understand and they'll get to the bottom of it.

And maybe fingers crossed, this is a one time incident. And there is he's going to have access to 17 kids and 16 of them are going to say we don't.

It was it's all been great. It'll be great. Yeah, right. That would be it.

I hope it feels like an anomaly, right? Yeah. It's all hope for that, of course.

But at the end of the day, you're protecting those kids. But you've got to go through this process for you right now. Yeah. And I want you to know right now, at least I'm proud of you for. Choosing to take this on. I'm proud of you for having the courage. Proud of you for having the courage to lean on somebody, your husband in this process. And I'm proud of you for saying I need to deal with this because my daughter's headed right.

She's going to be walking in my footsteps and I'll be damned if I'm going to let her walk right into the same mess. Good for you. Good for you. So here's what I want you to do. Please, please call us back and let us know how the conversation with your parents goes. Good for your brother for saying I'm getting on Team Malisse all the way. I'm good for him. Sometimes we get brothers and sisters who want to separate themselves from this, and he's all too Malisse, which tells me he may know something too.

Right. He may know something to. And good for you.

Good for you. Call us back. Let us know the conversation goes if you're interested. I'd love to have you back on the show to walk us through how the conversation went and what your next steps were, how you felt through that. Unfortunately, what you are experiencing is what millions and millions of people across this country experience, millions and millions of people across the world experience every day.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it.

And I'm so proud of you for saying not my daughter. And I'm not carrying this around anymore. I'm putting this crap down. Good for you. Good for you. Thank you so much for your call.

And by the way, if you know of somebody who's hurting kids, this is talking to the listener. Now, if, you know, if people who are hurting kids, you've got an obligation to get involved and say, stop, you got you've got to make that phone call. You've got to make that phone call. Let the investigators do their investigation. Quit taking your kids around and stuff and parents, if a seven year old comes to you, if a nine year old comes to you in that moment of vulnerability and says, help.

Oh, my gosh, help them. Help them. Help them. You're all they've got help them. All right, thank you so much for that call this I'm going to take a left turn here and I'm going to take a deep breath. I'm going to make no weird noises. And they're going to go right to Meggan in Owensboro, Kentucky. Megan, what's going on? How can I help?

Hey, Dr. John, I'm really excited to talk to you. I'm a big fan of your show.

I am a big fan of yours, Megan. So what's up? Thanks for calling. Hey, yeah, no problem. So that's something I've struggled with for years. It's just kind of feeling like I have a disconnect between my mind and my body when it comes to specifically weight loss and fitness. OK, so intellectually, I know what I should do. I know what has worked for me in the past, but then just give my body to do it is like a whole different battle that I just haven't been like.

And it's just one area of my life that I feel like I've never really. They're able to master, hmm, very cool things. Thanks for being vulnerable and that one's a hard one. That was really tough to say out loud. So good for you.

So how far back does this go? How far have you struggled or used the word battle? How long have you been at war with your body? My whole life. I mean, I remember. When I was like in kindergarten, you know, asking my mom, why do I have a big belly and the other kids? And, you know, when I look back at pictures, I was just a normal. Yeah. Like chunky little kid, but like normal, you know.

And who taught you that you were chunky? I don't I don't know. I mean, it probably came from somewhere, but I think just, you know, looking at other kids, like I was just aware that I was bigger than them. And people would always say, my dad's a big man. He's just a large man. And when I was I mean, as long as far back as I can remember, toddler people would say, oh, my God, she looks just like her daddy, you know?

And I would just be like, I don't want to have, you know, like, I really internalize that. And and then, you know, I am objectively I am overweight, like. I am, yeah, I mean, if you look, I know BMI is not the best measure, but according to me and I like morbidly obese, so but I'm not not lazy. I don't think I'm not you know, it's I don't know. I don't I don't identify with the stereotypes of a person who's morbidly obese, but I think.

OK, but I am, you know, and. I don't know why, Rick, I don't know why I can't. Well, you can't shake it. Yeah, either either mentally get over it and just say, OK, this is my body and like, this is just who I am or physically actually do the work to. Fix the change is not fix it. Yeah, so, yeah, there you go. I look at you, look at you using an ATM machine language.

That was awesome.

So I love your here. And so I just want to speak it out loud. I know that you're saying these words. I still feel like you're feeling them. And I want to just say it to you. There is a difference between. Looking at the health numbers right now, you can't deny those those numbers, right, if they if you are obese or obese.

And then there's the all of the more morality. Right. All of the characterological things we've attached to that. Right. That must mean, then, that you are lazy and don't care about yourself and hate what. Fill in the blank. Right. And so I want there I want you to have a separation there. Right. I want we can deal with the reality that you want to be healthy. You want to be somebody who is a steward of their body.

You only get one. Right. And I want you to not walk around with the with the identity part. That culture says you're all of these things because of this.

Right. You may be working your butt off.

Right. And we just have to channel that energy somewhere else. You may be dealing with childhood traumas. You may have been told this your whole life in your way to make sure nobody can hurt you was to stay away. There's a thousand reasons why right at the end of the day.

As you're asking, how do you do the thing that you know you should be doing, right? Yes, you said things have worked in the past, so have you yellowed before, have you have you gone after this before?

Yeah, I've been on some type of a diet or workout or whatever plan since I was like I think I started doing my orders of 12. Oh, no.

But that tells me that your parents were involved in this. Well, I think. Did you have somebody telling me you're a pudgy little girl or, hey, we need to eat some more vegetables?

I mean, did you get that kind of talk growing up? No, it came from me. It was I don't want to look like this anymore.

And. How can we fix it? And of course, you know, my parents also were on diets and so what we can we can all do together, you know, just support.

If not, you need to lose weight.

It was just like, hey, look, I'll try to be healthier together. And, you know, my dad was going to Weight Watchers with me. So it was that kind of thing. It was just a. A saying that was present in our house, and I don't nobody meant anything negative to me about it. I'm a I'm generally a very confident person. So like my parents, it's never been anything like that. It's just cool, you know?

So, yeah, I've done every kind of diet. And in my adulthood, I have realized, like, OK, diets, quote unquote, diets are not going to work for me. I just really need to find ways to incorporate healthy lifestyle.

So Broda lifestyle. Yeah, yeah.

Everything feels so extreme when it comes to a diet. You want to live a life where I can't eat a carb. I don't want to live a life where I have to, you know, measure out everything that I eat in a measuring cup. Like I want to count some arbitrary points that somebody made up. So you I've done all that I used to be pretty into, like lifting weights and going to the gym and stuff. But that was kind of driven by other things, like I was pretty lonely for a number of years.

So the gym felt like a way to socialize kind of and just get out of the house. Yeah. So that was. All those unhealthy in the opposite direction of yeah, no, I'm just like lifting weights for two hours a day and I was pretty fit at that point, but I, I like that body, but I can't go back to that lifestyle, you know.

So what do you what do you want. I just want to feel better in my body. And feel better about myself and and what do you think it's going to take to get there? Do you think it's a combination of psychological and physical? And. All right, let me ask you let me ask it this way. What weighs on you more, what hurts you more? Your physical, your physical, or the fact that you've tried a bunch and you haven't been successful.

I think it's partially the fact that I. I do the comparison game where I'm like, but I eat healthier than the average person and I'm pretty active. And yet here I am. Yeah. Meanwhile, you know, I know this. I know several other people who eat way less healthy than I do and are less active than me.

Yeah, but you know, the biggest thing, you can't do anything about that a different way. Right. You can't do anything though. Have you ever been to a doctor? I think that's what bothers me the most.

Have you ever been to a doctor and got a full physical workup? Yes. OK, and what is the recommendation? Healthy. All that stuff. OK, so my hormones tested and all that stuff too.

OK, so here's here's my global recommendation. And I would also recommend that I've got a couple different things here.

OK, so I'm going to roll into some things, just one after the other here and feel free to capture this when it comes out. And I'll have to write anything down if you wanna write stuff down. Cool, great. Here's a question I want you to ask yourself if you don't have to do it on the show. But here's a question I want you to really dig into in your soul, OK? I want you to ask yourself. Do you really want to change your behavior?

Do you want to change your quote unquote, change your body, or do you like the idea of change? And those are two radically different things, because one is, do I really want to change, I'm going to start today and I'm not going to wait till tomorrow.

I'm going to start with today. Right.

And then others is I really, really like the idea of being a medical doctor. I'm just not I'm not that smart. I didn't go to med school. I didn't fill in the blank. Right. I like the idea of that, but I don't like it enough that I'm going to actually change it. And those are two radically different things. So if if you really want to change, then you go to the next thing. Right. And that is this.

No matter what you said, I don't like counting. I don't like eating specific ways. I just want to eat healthier than the average person. I just want to be more active than the average person. And then I also want to look like the average person.

And looking back over the arc of your life, that hasn't been how it's played out. What I know about me and I know about my family and I know about my physiology and my genetics is I have to do things differently than the average person when it comes to sleep, when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to what I eat, because the way my body is put together, the way my physiology is put together, I can't be like the average person.

And that's just been something I had to accept. I have people in my family across my lineage who have chosen. I don't really care about that.

So I'm not going to accept that I've had to do that, which means I've got to be really uncomfortable when it comes to saying no to things, to counting things. Right. I know this going in. If you really want to make a radical life change and you're talking about change that you remember when you were a kindergartener, can it be done?

One million percent. And I've got full I got 100 percent confidence in you, Meghan, if you want to do this.

But you just got to know that's going to be super uncomfortable for a season simply because you are changing the way your brain works. And our brains change every day in response to all different sorts of things. But you're going to have to change the way you talk to yourself. You can have to change the way you look to other people.

You're going to have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable when it comes to counting things, doing things differently, being annoyed that you are experiencing discomfort or pain in a certain season. But it's all towards something.

Right, which is this why this change of I'm somebody who can stick to goals and make them happen. I'm somebody who is not going to be have a doctor tell me, hey, you're unhealthy to the point that we're worried about what your future is going to be like. Right.

And so here's another big one.

People in your life are going to lean on you. To go back to the way you are, the more change you enact, the taller you begin to walk in your case, the more weight you shed, the more people are going to say, hey, just this dude, this is one time.

Are we really thought you were beautiful before? Why are you doing. I don't know. Just come on over. We're going to eat this. I'm going to order this for us. Don't worry about it. People want their homeostasis. They want things to be the same. They don't like it when people around them change, even when it's for good, even when they know it's the best thing for them because it changes their life, too. And so when you enter into this like a radical life change, you've got to know it's going to be uncomfortable.

And you've got to know that people in your life are going to push back on you. If you were someone who's lonely in this, I've experienced it myself, then it gets really hard because you feel like your options are limited.

And what I want to tell you is when you begin to work on yourself and you stand a little bit taller, the people who are ride or die, Megan, are going to be there. And those who are not those who use you for other purposes in their life will just fall by the wayside. And you have to do the work of get people around you.

OK, so here's a couple of things I want you to do. Number one, I want you to write down what you actually want, not just I want to be I want to not look like this.

I want to be.

You got to be real, real specific. OK, and before you get into the goals, I want to weigh this much.

I want to be like I want to be able to wear this size.

Before you get into that stuff, I want you to be very specific about the kind of person you're going to be, right? I'm the kind of person I'm the kind of person who really takes care of my body. I'm the kind of person who is super kind. I'm the kind of person who talks well about everyone, us especially and including myself. I don't let anybody talk negative about me and I don't talk negative about me. And I'm telling you, Megan, last night.

My wife said, hey, I'm putting a stop to somebody talking so bad about my husband, John, and it's you and I've seen you doing it the last two weeks and enough's enough. Stop. Right. So I'm the pro at negative self talk. The pro right. Nobody talks to Deloney worse than I do. Even commenters on YouTube don't talk about me as bad as I do. Right. And to the point that my wife had to step in and say, I'm not letting somebody talk about my husband.

So you're gonna have to change all those things around the way you talk to yourself, then you're going to write it down. Right. And then I want you to start making things easy so you don't have to plan it. What does that mean? You're going have to do the hard, annoying work of if exercise is a part of your plan, everyone should be moving. You've got to put those things up by your bed that night, right.

So that in the morning you don't think you just go into automated mode and you just go make it happen, right? You just go make it happen.

If you've got a meal prep, you got a meal prep. Right.

If you can't have certain foods in your house, that's the way my house is, by the way. Then you can have certain foods in your house when people drop cookies off, you have to say thank you. You're so wonderful and you got to throw in the trash. Right? You've got to put it in the garbage. Right. You've got to be extreme.

Here's the next thing. You've got to have at least one person, but preferably a group of people that will hold you accountable.

Right now, if I pull up my phone, I would be able to show you I've got a day counter app on how many days I haven't had sugar. And I have to text it every day to my buddy, who is a active Navy SEAL. And if I skip a day between now and my goal date, the workout I have to do, Megan is unpleasant. All right. I've put I've put a barrier in my life. I've also told my wife, I've told my family, I've told my friends.

A couple of days ago, I got a I did a speech for somebody and they gave me like a I don't know, it's probably a gallon size jar. And it was in that jar. Megan, can I tell you what was in it? It was filled with layers of marshmallows, gummy candy, marshmallows, gummy worms, marshmallow lucky charms, marshmallows, dude, like big ones on top. It was just it was I don't know what being addicted to heroin is like, but it's got to be like that.

Right. And they asked me to partake with them and I had to look at them in front of a group of people. So I can't today. And they all cheered and it was all I wanted it so bad. Right. So you're going to have to get accountability people and then you're not going to like this. You're going to have to track yourself. You're going to have to keep some sort of progress, whether it's a photograph, whether it is.

I think a scale is generally, on the whole, completely useless. It's stupid. But having some way to say I got half of one percent better today. I'm not comparing myself to anyone on Instagram, any my friends and my family members. I'm just comparing myself to me.

And today I got a little bit better. Today it went flat, but I slept all night. And so tomorrow I'm going to write so somewhere you can keep track of it.

And then let me ask you this. What is your big temptation in the world? Like if you had a thing that makes you feel OK? That helps you numb, helps you hide, what would it be? It could be anything. I'm just asking, what is it? I mean, probably said, OK, if I'm honest with myself, yeah, yeah, like so walk me through scenarios.

Your boss calls and she calls you and she says, hey, you had this thing done, you got it turned in.

And it's not what I was hoping for. I expect more of you. And she says on Monday, we're going to you are going to talk. This isn't what I was expecting.

And of course, she waits for 30 on a Friday afternoon to call you and she hangs up. What do you do?

What's your next thing? It depends on the day, of course, but I mean, probably my first reaction would be to go for a long walk outside. Awesome. But if it's, you know, not nice weather or something like that or there's some obstacle to me going for a walk, it would probably be like those are just like, OK, I could get my hands on some cheese fries or some say something pretty cheesy and a huge Diet Coke because the Diet Coke washes it all the way.

Right. Did you know I literally asked. I just love Diet Coke. I do. To take that away from me, Doctor. No, you can't have it.

But I'm not going to be the person that made that a real doctor will. But, yeah, you got to get rid of that, too. But here's the thing. Here's what I want you to do. And this was a eye opening experiment for me when I wrote down. Here's the kind of person I am. I'm a person that honors my body. I'm a person who's going to be around for my grandkids and I'm going to be able to roll around on the floor that.

So I tried to paint my picture 50 years out and put myself back. Here was a big deal is to catch myself right before I go do something that I know is not good for me.

Right, whether it's call somebody or look at something or eat whatever the thing is in our lives, right, I'm going it's going to go I'm going to look at a couple of more YouTube clips before I head home and see my kids. Right.

I'm going to whatever the thing is, is to stop really quick and say what is my brain protecting me from right now? So in that scenario, if you say I've got to go for a walk, that's actually one of those healthiest behaviors you can possibly have to deal with stress and distraction and means to stress and somebody dropping that money. So good for you.

But if you're like me, I reach for junk food, for candy. I wish I could reach for the cheese fries, man. They sound so good.

But once I start to stick my hand in a candy jar, I've got to stop and say, what is my brain protecting me from? And it's that discomfort. And once I call that discomfort out, I put out in the universe like, hey, my boss just clowned on me for doing less than my best, then I'm busted. Right? It is what it is. Right. And then I can move on from it. And then here's the last thing I want to leave you with, OK?

Is I want you to remember this phrase and never forget it. Don't forget to remember, don't forget to remember, right, when we have patterns of behavior, especially ones that have been ingrained in our minds since we were kindergartners. Right. And then we get those things get reinforced with emotion and shame and frustration and anger and all those things in a big loop de loop utility loop.

Right. Loneliness, all those things pile on themselves. When those get ingrained, we often just forget our default response, right, I'm just going to reach for that bathtub of Diet Coke, I'm going to reach for candy, I'm going to reach for another drink, another drink, another drink. I'm going to go call an old girlfriend, fill in the blank. When we do that, we offer that default setting and that dopamine just shower hits it, our brain midbrain and we're off to the races, that's when you got to pause and say, don't forget to remember.

Not that I can stop it here. Don't forget to remember how good it feels when I wake up without a hangover. Don't forget to remember how bad I feel after I hang up with somebody I know I shouldn't have been on the phone with.

Don't forget to remember when I. Close my computer, don't go to any more YouTube clips, and I just go play with my kids, don't forget to remember how good it feels when I don't eat a bunch of trash at night and then I can't sleep and then I start that whole cycle over again. Right. Don't forget to remember over time that that you'll move up your decisionmaking tree from the future to right now to the present. But man, that phrase gets me through so much.

I got a I got a car full of crap, just junk papers, trash.

Don't forget to remember how good it feels to get inside of a clean truck, man. And I'll stop get all my junk out. Right. I'm not going to see that rapper there.

I'll just get a Diet Coke, put it in the thing and then head inside, put it in the couple.

Or don't forget to remember. Right. Don't forget. Remember. So here's here's what I want to do. I want you to get this YouTube clip, and I want you to start with writing down who you're going to be once you get some accountability people.

If you're going to make some major transitions in your life that have been there since you were in kindergarten, you got to get a professional to walk by you especially initially.

Start with a counselor. Start there, let them know, hey, I'm not looking to get to a certain weight. I'm not looking to get to a certain size. I'm looking to become a person who loves themself inside and out. I'm looking to become a person who is disciplined and ready to rock and roll.

I am looking to become somebody who I can count on. And then the body stuff is just ancillary. It will come right and you will unwind some of those default settings.

Your heart is good. You've got great people around you who love you. You've got good instincts.

Right. And now it's just a matter of shifting those things. Here's two books I want you to get. Get Atomic Habits by James Clear, which is one of the best books on that topic I've ever read. It's it's an excellent read. And then you're going to laugh. But I want you to pick up discipline equals freedom by JoCo. Discipline equals freedom. It's written in like eighty eight point font. It's direct into the point and you cannot mince.

He doesn't mince words. Right. I want you to get those two books in those books will walk you through step by step. Here's how to change your life from the inside out. Right. Here's how to change your life from inside.

And by the way, if you were listening to this and you're like, oh man, she just needs to fill in the blank, shut up. Nobody leave. Negative comments on here about about my new friend here, Megan. About her weight, about her lack. Shut up, everybody. Shut up.

Nobody knows that other people are walking through, right? Nobody. Leave encouraging comments about her or leave nothing at all. Keep your drivel and idiotic, moronic and self superiority thumbs down, whatever, keeping to yourself she don't need them. I don't want them. She is somebody who said, I'm going to make a change in my life, I'm to start today, I'm must start tonight. I'm going to read I'm going to get connected with people and connect with a professional, I'm going to start this journey of creating new identities.

Good for you, Meg, and good for you. Good for everybody. Whether it's weight, whether it is. I want to write a book, whether it is, I want to get stronger. What I want to be a better dad. I want to be a husband. Whatever it is, you start with writing it down. It's going to be uncomfortable. Who am I going to be? Thank you so much for your call, Megan.

Once you get on this journey, I want you to give us a call back, keep us updated and we'll keep our listeners updated. You are brave. You are vulnerable and your hero. Good for you. All right.

Let's take one more call. Let's go to Bobby in Oshkosh. Bobby, what's going on, man?

What's happening, Dr. John? I do not know my brother. What about you? What's going on?

Oh, man. It's it's hectic.

Hey, man, it's better than being bored, right? So, hey, tell me, how can I help?

All right. So it's been a little over a year now since my brother and sister in law have lost their kids. My parents currently have them. And it's kind of put a strain on, I guess you could say, the balance of the family, because everybody's got to kind of juggle his kids that are now living with my parents.

So you're do they get taken away by court, order their addiction or abuse or something? It was it was drugs and abuse in a program right now to try to get them back, taking them back.

And so do your parents have full custody or they just got temporary custody? They just gave them to the nearest relative.

They were well, they were trying to go to full custody, but they were told that they should, I guess, take along. So they have, I guess, temporary custody right now.

Are you is your brother and your sister in law? Are they are they working the plan? Are they being are they not? They will currently just it's just got enrolled into the parenting class and they're still doing their alcohol classes or drug classes.

OK, so there at the very beginning of work in any sort of plan, right? Yes. OK. All right. So what's your question, ma'am?

So, I mean, because I'm the oldest the next oldest brother, you know, and my culture, it tends to fall down that, you know, everybody else in the family goes, well, you know, you're the oldest brother, next oldest brother still, you know, technically like your dad. So if anything comes down, you know, like I get, you know, the kids, I not so bad, but, like, turned off on me, OK?

Or I get like some. A bad enough remarks were the like, you know, you should be watching them, like from my sisters were younger brothers, you got more time to watch them more so the rest of your family members, your brothers and sisters are on you because your parents have taken these kids and you're not taking them.

So you're saying, well, that I'm not helping, OK, I'm not helping enough. OK, so what's your question? Is it selfish for me? Because, I mean, I got a high school kid, middle school kid, and I had to have a one year old and a half year old now.

Brother. Yeah, they're all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. Good for you. And my brother's kids are range from three to 11, OK. And my kids, my oldest, she's in dance after school, so she's got now covid calming down a little bit. You know, they have practiced a couple times a week competition on weekends. So and we like to go out and travel, go hiking and stuff. Sure. Last summer we kind of felt the strain on that because, you know, the kids over I don't have a big enough vehicle transport.

Everybody would be driving to cars.

So. So. Y y. I understand the cultural pressure, I don't understand it, but I I can sympathize with the idea that you've got extraneous cultural pressures. Why do you care what other people are saying? If you can't do it, you can't do it? Or is there a party that knows I can? I'm just going to have to change my life.

I can, but yeah, I would have to change my life.

OK, so do you live next to your your parents do you live within proximity of these kids?

Oh, we're about like 15 minute drive apart. OK, so pretty close, right.

Have your parents come to you and asked you for help. They've asked everybody, OK, but obviously they have said a little more to me, saying, you know, because I am your brother and I get it, you know, my nieces and nephews coming over here, too, but.

Sure. How many brothers sisters you have? Three sisters and four brothers. OK, so you've got three other brothers who are in the picture, right? Yes.

OK, so again, without fully knowing the the cultural ins and outs. Right. And I and I, that is not something to be discounted that's going to be highly respected and to not just sluff off. Right. And roll your eyes at me. If I'm you, what I would do is call a meeting of all brothers and sisters, because one of the things that divides families up is that one sister calls the other sister who calls another brother who calls mom and makes little comments like, well, I don't know why he's not helping as much as so-and-so.

And I would be. And then Dad makes a passive aggressive comment to you and then it blows up in your mind and then does that make sense? It just gets this whole toxic Britney Spears toxic mess. Right. So here's an yeah.

I call a meeting of all brothers and sisters. Do they live close enough to you where you could all get in a room together or at least get on the same day? I mean, everybody's within the proximity of like an hour and a half. I love it.

So here's what I'm doing. If I'm you, I'm calling a meeting all brothers and sisters, mom and dad, all of them, except for my brother who's working his program. He stays out of this mess. Right. He cast his vote in for the time being and say, mom and dad need help. I know that I'm the oldest here and a lot of this technically falls on me. So I'm telling you, here's what I can do.

All of us have to step up here and help. Mom and dad can't do all this on their own. Everybody's pitching in. And here's what that's going to look like from me.

I want everyone else to be open and ready to help. And then you're going to take all the drama out of the room. You're going to take all the gossip nonsense out of the room. You're going to take all the. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

You take all that crap out and put every call everyone out on the table and say, and you go first, say, here is what I can do. I cannot take full custody of these kids or I can I cannot drive them around everywhere they can or I can whatever you can or can't do. The second thing is, I want you to begin to think in terms for your kids, not how many dance recitals are they going to miss, right?

Not how many soccer things or what not in that way, but start to look at what kind of dad and my modeling for them, what kind of grown up in my modeling for them. Into who they are going to become as grown ups. Right, and I can't answer that question for you, but I'll put it to you in an unfair way, is that cool? And to put it real direct. Do you want them in 10 years when they begin to have kids and figure out who they're going to be?

Do you want them to be the parents who say, I will never miss a dance recital or I want to be I want to be parents who never missed a dance recital or I want to be parents who if there's a child in need, I've got it not to be expensive, but to the inclusion of. Right. Not at the expense of. But everyone gets it right.

I mean and so I think there's probably a middle ground here. I think you've backed yourself into a corner because you're pissed off at your brother, you're annoyed at him.

You're mad that suddenly you've got to step up and take care of somebody else's mess. And that's frustrating and annoying, especially dude with a one year old in the house.

I don't even know what day it was when I had a one year old in my house. Right. And it's annoying. And the only way to cut through that annoying frustrating is just to say I'm Big Brother, I'm calling a meeting. Here's what I can do. I'm not going to apologize for what I can't do. Here's what I can do. The rest of us need we all need to step up. We're going to come up with an orderly fashion here.

We're going to have people on call, people who can babysit. We're going to we're going to map this out. So it's not just this ongoing Gucci Gucci thing. And kids are going to be a few things we don't do because we're the kind of people who help our family out. And family, I'm going to take care of my kids. We're going to have a family only thing this weekend because I'm the kind of dad that really doubles down on my children.

And you have to find that that that really messy middle here. It's not either or.

It is super frustrating and it's also the right thing. And the your family is lacking leadership, and that's when you get a chance to step up, Abby, that you get a chance to step up. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to call that meeting. But before you do sit with your wife, come up with a plan. Here's what we can do. And it may be, do we get a one year old?

We could do nothing except survive. And then in about six months, we'll be able to step up or no, we've got some capacity we can help.

Our 14 year old can babysit our 13 year old, can fill in the blank, call the meeting, and then I want you to call me back and let me know how that meeting goes.

My guess is everyone's going to exhale because somebody finally took the reins and said, here's the way this is going to be. We're all going to move forward there. And hopefully your brother is going to watch your leadership. Your brother is going to start working his programs with your sister in law. They're going to get their crap together. They're going to start getting connected. They're going to get well, they're going to get on a new road to sobriety and then they're going to go and get the kids back.

And that's what we all want. Right.

Thank you so much for your call, brother. We're rooting for you, man. And I'm I'm just so proud of you for being the guy is going to step up and do what's right here. All right.

So as we wrap up today's show, let's see here. Let's go to man.

I almost I made a horse noise. I almost got through the whole show.

What an idiot.

I almost got through the whole show without making a horse noise. At least you realize that you're growing. Is that I'm proud of you. Yes. I told you as soon as I called it out, you would start noticing you're doing it and you are.

And I'm embarrassed, man. I never wanted to be a horse. All right. So as we wrap up, I just that's a strange life goal to not be a horse. But alas, there we go. All right.

So as we wrap up today's show, we're going to take you back to twenty seventeen with one of my favorite rappers on planet Earth. It's Office Twenty Seventeen album entitled Crooked. The song is by propaganda and it's called Gentrifier. It's so great. And he goes like this. And when you see them billboards yelling cash for homes, gentrifier, they're fixing to double your rent in a construction zone, gentrify. They slick, but be slicker. Help me welcome the hipsters microbrew coffee shop, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods Gentrifier Baby Mendham gastro pubs and clean streets ain't good enough.

They want yours despite your crime rate. Y'all got prime real estate continuing Columbus and they coming for your porch and they planted the flag like that's my land. I liked it, brother. It's just business. Your economy could use a boost, a boost. And you know the truth. Your unemployment through the roof. Why aren't you cheerleading? Why you feel a kind of way. Boy, you fix it, not fit in the old in the hood you was made in who we locals we loyal we hopeful we home.

And when you see them billboards yelling cash for homes gentrify propaganda. What a record that crooked record is. This has been the Dr. John Allen Show.