September 16, 2024 • 27 mins
In this episode of Feeling On Purpose, we tackle a vital question: Can unchecked emotions lead to life-changing consequences? Through the poignant stories of Jason Williams and Megan Kellerman, we delve into the impact of unmanaged emotions and explore why regular emotional check-ins are essential.
Reflecting on personal experiences with anxiety and loss, I emphasize the importance of maintaining emotional awareness, especially in our fast-paced world shaped by the lingering effects of COVID-19 and social media. Learn practical strategies, including the use of a mirror for self-reflection, to take control of your emotional well-being and navigate today’s challenges more effectively.
We also draw insightful parallels from the aviation world. Discover how the calm demeanor of airline pilots, exemplified by Captain Sully Sullenberger’s heroic Hudson River landing, can guide us in managing daily stress with composure. By adopting successful behaviors and committing to daily self-reflection, you can improve your emotional responses and avoid potential pitfalls.
Join us as we also address broader societal issues, such as rising violence and the role of individual responsibility in fostering a more compassionate society. This episode offers a thought-provoking exploration of how understanding and managing our emotions can lead to healthier, more balanced lives.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know her as the longest presiding judge on
divorce court, for more than 14years.
Marriage boot camp and manyother programs.
A graduate of Harvard, judgeLynn Toler is the author of my
Mother's Rules Making MarriageWork and Dear Sonali Letters to
the Daughter I Never had, all ofwhich are dedicated to the
proper emotion, what it is andhow to find it.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Remember under your skin is a sovereign country.
Don't go passing out passportsall willy-nilly to people who
don't belong there.
Let me help you protect youremotional borders so we can all
start feeling on purpose.
Hey, how you doing.
And welcome to another episodeof Feeling On Purpose.
(00:44):
Feeling On Purpose is thepodcast dedicated to the
proposition of allowing you toown your emotional landscape so
the rest of the world can't messwith you.
Remember, under your skin is asovereign country.
Don't go handing out passportsall willy-nilly to people that
don't belong there.
Today.
I'm going to start out with twoquestions why did Jason Williams
(01:08):
kill Megan Kellerman and do youknow where you are?
Jason Williams and MeganKellerman were in line at a Taco
Bell in Stowe, ohio, in August,I think, august 14th of 2024.
I think she may have dipped inline in front of him, kind of
(01:29):
made a fast maneuver to get infront of him, so he honked his
horn and then rear-ended her,and so she looked out into the
drive-through window and said,hey, could you call the police?
Because this man justrear-ended me.
And as she did that, jason gotout of his car, walked up to her
(01:50):
car, shot her in the face andthen shot himself and died.
I'm going to get back to Jasonand Megan a little later, but
right now I'm going to ask youdo you know where you are?
I know you know where you areif you're in your car or in your
house or in your backyard, butwhat I really want to know is do
(02:15):
you know where you areemotionally?
People get caught in badsituations because and I'm not
talking about Jason Williams andMegan Kellerman now, so that's
a whole nother story.
It relates, but not in this way, and maybe I'll say it to you
this way Whenever I saw peoplein municipal court, regular
(02:37):
people who got caught doingirregular things, it was always
an emotional error.
In other words, somebody mighthave been having a day and then
that one last thing happens tothem and then they commit an
offense because emotionally theycan't handle what's happening
(02:59):
to them.
Now, I've told you all beforeand I will tell you again I am a
stressed out, anxious, anxietyprone chick who loves to be
alone, and I live a very publiclife, and I have done that by
(03:26):
acting in opposition to how Iwith how I felt my brown behind
would be in a cave somewherewith a dog, with no human
contact, and I ain't gonna lie,my life looks a little bit like
that right now.
Since my husband dies, I'vegotten two dogs and it's really
hard for me to get out of thebedroom.
But anyway, that is my nature,and my nature has arisen again
in the absence of my husband toclamp me down, and I have had
(03:48):
several.
I mean just bizarre situationswhere I've panicked and panicked
and panicked, running aroundthe house doing all the wrong
things, because I have toreadjust who I am now, without
my support system, without mystrength, without those arms
(04:10):
around me that was so, so, sostrong and so fine.
Don't let me go down this road.
Might turn into an entirelydifferent podcast, but anyway, I
have to now go back to where Iused to be as a young person and
start asking myself where am Iemotionally all day long?
(04:35):
Because I have lost a certaincenter of my life.
And now I have to do that again.
And my thing is, we should alldo that.
If you know where you areemotionally, those things that
come at you, you have anopportunity to receive them in a
(04:58):
manner that doesn't, thatdoesn't allow your emotions to
let you do the wrong thing.
So you have enough of a pauseto get in there and figure out
hey, am I respondingappropriately to this
circumstance or am I having anemotional moment born of other
(05:19):
things?
Having had the opportunity toredirect my emotionality as a
function of knowing where I am,and having to do it again, I
figured out some things thathelp you do that kind of thing.
Now I contend that ouremotionality these days has
become an urgent concern.
(05:41):
It's just an urgent concern.
We are acting up, acting a fool.
An urgent concern, it's just anurgent concern.
We are acting up, acting a fool.
I think COVID throw us on theground, punched us, kicked us,
threw us around, choked us alittle bit, and I don't know if
we've recovered yet.
We're still bleeding, our eyesare still black and our noses
are still bloody, but ouremotionality has gotten so much
ahead of us.
(06:01):
Not only that, but then you havesocial media.
You know rage, bait.
Everybody is amping you up.
And when you get amped up andall of those chemicals come out
the cortisol and the adrenalineand all of that kind of stuff
they're not targeted.
It's not like targeted genetherapy.
(06:24):
They're just in your body andeverywhere you go.
If they're already released,they're out there.
So you could have a response toA while you're talking to B,
and B had nothing to do with whyyou feel that way about A, yet
B ended up getting the businessend of A's wrong in your
(06:46):
direction, if you get what Imean.
So what do you do?
I mean, how do you find out whoyou, where you are all day long
?
When I was first embarking onmy where am I?
Journey, I used a mirror.
Every time I saw a mirror, Ihad to go, look in it and say
how are you feeling and why youfeel that way.
And I'm going to tell youdeeper still.
(07:07):
I said it out loud.
I give things voice becausewhen you say it out loud, it
takes more solid form and youhave it's more definitive, and
it's something you have to do.
You can look at a mirror andthink you're thinking about it,
but if you look at a mirror andsay to you, to yourself, how am
I feeling, what's happening andwhy do I feel that way, and then
(07:30):
answer yourself Don't worryabout what the rest of the
world's thinking.
I was in a parking lot one timeI talked to you, know I, I, you
know you think your way throughyour day, right, and when I
think I talk, and I was walkingin a parking lot I was sitting
in Cleveland Heights at the timeand some man stood right in
(07:53):
front of me and I said what's up?
And he said you talk toyourself like you have somebody
with you.
And I said I do have somebodywith me, I'm here.
But anyway, that's what I did.
I looked in the mirror and Igave it voice.
Now, I don't know you, I don'tknow how many mirrors in your
house, I don't know if you likelooking in a mirror, if you
don't like looking in a mirror,and I want to make this very
(08:16):
very clear.
I'm selling process andprocedure here and I'm passing
out ideas.
You can incorporate them orfigure them out in any way that
you choose, but I'm not going toget up here and speak
definitively like everybody else.
Men are this way and women arethat.
I'm not doing all of thatbecause I don't know you and I
don't know what your tendenciesare, but I do know what I've
(08:41):
seen in the thousands andthousands and thousands of
people that I have seen on thebench, not only in Cleveland
Heights but also on divorcecourt, and it's not easy In fact
it's impossible to give blanketadvice about most things,
because something that wouldwork for my sister wouldn't work
(09:05):
for me.
But that's what I did.
I looked in the mirror.
Now you can have any othertriggers that you want to.
Every time you pick up a cup ofcoffee if you're a coffee
drinker all day long, every timeyou smoke a cigarette even
though you oughtn't be smokingcigarettes, you and I both know
do that.
Or pick up a vape pen Maybewell, you know, I heard people
vaping and smoking all day longthese days, but anyway, maybe.
Well, you know, I heard peoplevaping and smoking all day long
(09:26):
these days, but anyway, I was onmarriage bouquet.
Well, anyway, let me not gothere.
But anyhow, whatever you do ona regular basis that is somewhat
evenly distributed throughoutyour day, you ought to
incorporate in that a moment toask yourself where am I
(09:46):
emotionally, where do I need tobe?
Did my husband come home, saysome raggedy crap to me and I'm
upset about it?
Did my boss give me a whole lotof who shot John and I don't
need it?
And now I'm home and myhusband's asking me for
something entirely reasonable,but it irritated me.
(10:09):
That's what I'm asking you todo is to make sure you know
where the mad supposed to go,and you can do that by
deliberately walking yourselfthrough the day in a way that
you constantly check in withyourself.
I didn't have to check in withmyself over again because I
(10:44):
don't feel safe anymore and I'vehad a few emotional outbursts
that were inappropriate.
So I have to get out there andfix that.
It all takes practice andplanning.
You have to be, you have to doit before you know everybody.
You get into an emotionalsituation.
You get into a roadwaysituation.
(11:04):
Somebody at the grocery storedriving you crazy, got 99 items,
got to put 10 back.
You know that used to drive mecrazy, and what you have to do
is practice understanding whereyou are, knowing how you feel on
any given day.
So when you're out and aboutand something hits you and it
(11:27):
ain't got to be much I gotflipped the bird the other day
driving.
I didn't even know what I didwrong and I always apologize my
bad, because I don't know whatanybody's doing, I don't know
what anybody's got on, but it'sjust.
It's scary out there, it justis, but I'm scared all the time
(11:47):
anyway.
So I don't know if this is justme going off my widowhood, but
it is scary out there becausethere's a lot going on.
There is a lot going on.
Now, the next thing I normallyrun into when I'm telling people
to stop and take a look in themirror and figure out how you're
feeling.
Make sure you know where youare.
Everybody tells me I am who I am, I feel how I feel and I have a
(12:11):
right to my feelings.
And why do I need to tame them,contain them or otherwise
restrain them?
Because other people might notlike how I feel.
Because I have the right to myemotions and I, yeah, you got
the right to your emotions.
But let me tell you whatunexamined emotionality will
hurt you far more than it'llhurt anybody else.
(12:32):
All those Karen's that end upgoing to jail because because
they, they went in jail.
They could have had a ticket,but they had to go to jail
because their emotionality,their egos, their sense of I
should not have to do anythingthat I don't want to do ever at
all, which is not the.
You know, I was born in the 50s.
(12:52):
That was not at all it.
And I'm not saying one isbetter than the other, I just
don't, I'm not used to the otherone, and so so it here.
But people say I can't controlit.
How I feel is how I feel, andthat's what, and there's nothing
I can do about it.
But I want to.
I want to challenge that CaptainSullenberger.
(13:15):
He landed that plane in theHudson, remember, it was a
United Airlines flight.
It took off and I'm afraid tofly anyway.
So this story has really got me.
They took off, had a doublebird strike, lost both engines.
He was too low and too slow toturn around or to get to another
(13:36):
airport, so boyfriend had toput it down in the Hudson.
And I listen, you know I do thisas well.
I listen to airline pilotconversations with the tower.
They have them all over YouTube, the YouTube showing my age.
They have them all over YouTube.
And my man, sully, said we'regoing into the Hudson with less
(14:01):
angst and anxiousness than Italk about.
I've got to go to the grocerystore, I gotta go to the grocery
, I gotta get this.
We're going into the hudson.
He had no engines.
And deeper still, and I listento these all the time.
I listen to black boxes inwhich there's been a claim clash
I.
I listen to Black Boxes whenthere's, you know, the tower and
(14:23):
then the pilots are trying tofigure out what's going on and
things ain't quite right.
And the thing you notice aboutthese people is they cool and
they calm, they say please andthank you, they say sir and
ma'am, even when they only got acouple of minutes to keep
themselves from dying.
(14:44):
And in black boxes they recoverafter a crash.
You know you hear a few, butthey are working and thinking
and talking and figuring outthings all the way to the end
because they have been trainedto be cockpit cool.
It is a job requirement.
(15:07):
And the deeper still whathappens is when they're in one
of these emergent situations,the tower always asks them when
you get a moment, could you tellme how many souls on board and
how much fuel you have remainingNow?
That's, that's anotherindication of how messed up the
situation is they're asking for.
(15:28):
They're saying like look, Iwant we got to know if y'all
don't get it right.
We got to know how many bodieswe're looking for and how much
fire we're going to be dealingwith when you, when you punch
the, when you punch the groundwith that plane, and they still
work emotionally intact theentire time.
(15:48):
If they can do that, I mostcertainly believe that I can
deal with an idiot at the store,a fool on the corner and my
kids acting up without losing mymind.
That's how I look at it.
That's the comparison I make.
You have to decide what youwant, then you have to look at
(16:11):
people who have it, and then youcan figure out how to get it
for yourself.
I am one of the most.
I mean just, I'm a thief.
I steal everybody's behaviors.
Oh, he has something I want.
How do you go?
Oh, I'm going to start doingthat.
I remember when I was runningfor judge in Cleveland Heights
(16:31):
and I'm shy, so I don't like tocampaign.
But there was a woman I knew.
Her name was Stephanie TubbsJones.
In fact she introduced me to myhusband.
She's the reason I got married.
In fact she's defined a greatdeal of my life.
That's interesting, but anyway,we'll talk about that later.
No, we won't because you're notinterested.
But she was one of the mostconsummate politicians I had
ever seen and I watched her worka room it doesn't matter what
(16:54):
she said, court that I've seenin front of me.
Just you figure things out thatway if you learn from everybody
.
But anyway, I've left thestation.
(17:20):
Let me return.
Part of the thing of becomingcockpick, cool and always
knowing where you are is todebrief your day.
At the end of the day you gotto sit down and say what
happened, what went wrong, whatwent right, how was I feeling?
That guy really irritated me.
(17:41):
I wonder why and don't do itlike that guy really irritated
me.
Let me think about what he did.
Look at it as the only personyou can change, fix.
Well, the easiest person youcan change or fixes you.
And in any situation gone wrong,at least, there's at least
probably at least three, fourdifferent reasons why it went
(18:04):
wrong.
People tend to concentrate onthe reasons that do not
implicate them.
I never do.
If there are a hundred reasons,something went wrong and 99 of
them didn't have anything to dowith me, I ignore the 99 and
concentrate on the one.
It's like if somebody's pushingyou towards a cliff push, push,
push, and they push you 99times, but it's a hundred feet,
(18:26):
a hundred steps off that cliff.
I ain't taking that last step.
I'm not going to jump up anddown in angst and anxiety
because I got pushed to the edge, because I'm going to be the
one who falls over the edge.
I might grab you and take youwith me, but that doesn't do me
any good.
So I always concentrate on whatI did wrong.
So if you're debriefing your day, you're saying how did I
(18:48):
respond to that emotionally?
What did that prick in my head?
Why did my back go up when shesaid this?
Or why did I feel like I wantedto cry when he said that?
Or she did this other thing youhave to.
I'm dealing with a dog herethat just thinks that she owns
me.
Stop it.
They dug up my.
She dug up my.
(19:10):
She's dugging up my sprinklers,my in-ground sprinklers.
But anyway, I'm sorry I gotdistracted, but you debrief your
day and you debrief your daywith an eye towards improving
the one person that you are incontrol of, and that's you.
And, like I always say, don'tfocus on the best, putting your
best foot forward.
You want to focus on the onethat's dragging behind, because
(19:31):
that's the sucker that will tripyou up should you have to break
out into a run.
I say that all the time becauseit's true.
So I want to talk about labelsand I want to talk about Jason
Williams and Megan Kellerman.
As you recall, megan and Jasonwere in line at the Taco Bell
(19:53):
Let us assume that she wasreally tacky and wrong jumped in
front of him, he was hot aboutit, he got out and killed her
and then himself.
The articles that I read aboutthose about that incident kept
saying we may never know whathappened, they had no
relationship.
Of course, we always seek thereasons why.
What happens?
(20:13):
What's going on?
What's happening?
And then they say and thensomeone looked up his background
and this is what the recordsaid Jason Williams, summit
County Court Record Show.
Not Summit County, it was rightnext to my county, cuyahoga
County show.
He was arrested in Hudson inMarch for OVI operating a
(20:34):
vehicle under the influence,open container and improper
handling of a firearm in avehicle.
He was terminated from theAlcohol Monitoring Program
Oriana House for failing to showup and it said we may never
know why he did what he did.
And then they said he wassuffering from a crisis and
(20:56):
that's where we're going toleave it.
I hate it when we label andleave.
We should really wonder aboutJason Williams.
What happened and why?
We may never find out.
But I think we all have thecapacity to get it very, very
wrong with very small impetus Ifyou don't know where you are
(21:24):
and your life has becomesomething that, emotionally, you
are not in charge of.
Now.
He might have had mental healthissues which I think people
ought to look at.
He might have had justirritation issues which people
ought to look at.
But if nothing else, don'tlabel him as other.
(21:44):
Label him as potential, him asother.
Label him as potential.
More and more we're having allof these outrageous, unexpected,
you know killings and shootingsand you know road rage and all
of that kind of stuff.
You can't fix other folk.
(22:16):
We can work on it as acommunity, as a society, but if
we each work on how we feel asindividuals and own our
obligation to a community.
That has to why we feel the waywe do, and is that feeling a
feeling that's going to get mewhere I want to go?
(22:39):
I am quite sure Jason Williams.
I'm not quite sure of anythingabout Jason Williams.
Let me lay that out there rightnow.
We never know how little youknow about somebody else.
You know the devil is in thedetails.
It always is, and the detailsare in the fine print and you
can't make gross generalizationsabout people and read the fine
print.
(22:59):
So you really don't know thedetails.
And that's when the devil getsyou.
We should wonder about JasonWilliams not knowing where he is
and realizing that we could allnot know where we are at some
and we're not going to go outand shoot people and carry on
and do that.
But do we not know where we arewhen we're talking to our kids
(23:19):
and we're yelling aboutsomething that wasn't cool?
Do you know where you are whenyou're in the car and everything
is going wrong?
Do you know where you are whenyou're talking to a clerk and
you didn't get exactly what youwanted?
And is it an irritation that'ssimply born of not getting what
you wanted then, or do you notget what you want?
(23:40):
A lot, and this is just onemore thing that is causing
trouble.
So I was weird there for asecond because my streamers
acted weird.
But anyway, the thing is, whenyou're in a stressful situation,
it's too late to handle youremotionality.
You have to handle youremotionality before you get into
that stressful situation,because we feel far faster than
(24:03):
we think and then we respond.
You know, like when a lion runsin the room, you ain't got to
sit down and scratch your headand wonder what to do next and
how.
What should I do?
Oh, I don't know.
No, your emotions, youramygdala, your limbic system,
gets up and moves you beforeyour brain, even before the
higher functions of your braineven get the do's.
(24:24):
Do you know that when we areinsulted or we feel like we
didn't get what we want, ourbrain reads it as an assault to
self?
It's an unsafe feeling.
It makes us scared, just like alion makes up scares.
It's a threat to self.
Now I want to say this.
I'm always saying a platformand an opinion does not an
(24:46):
expert make, and I'm not anexpert on the brain.
Now my sister, who is aneurologist, is, and I pass a
lot of what I say by her and Ialso read a bit, so I know what
I'm talking about.
My base knowledge is there.
I would like you to read moreabout it.
Start with Daniel Goleman'sEmotional Intelligence.
(25:09):
Oh, so many good ones, butanyway.
But anyway, it's too late whenyou're already upset.
You can't redirect youremotionality in the moment if
you haven't practiced previously.
You also can't imagine youremotionality in the moment if
you haven't conquered the pause.
(25:30):
I'll tell you a story about mymother and me.
I had just graduated fromcollege, or was it law school?
I don't remember.
I just graduated for somethingand I was home and I don't know
what I was upset about, but Iwas anxious and upset and
horrified.
And my mother came in the roomand she says what's up with you?
(25:52):
And I reached out my arms tomama and she stepped back, put
her finger and said no.
And I'm like what fresh hell isthis?
What do you mean?
No, you're my mother, you'rethe comforter in chief.
How come you not comforting menow?
And she said Lynn.
(26:13):
And she said Lynn in a way thatI knew I had to listen.
My mother was emotionally very,very intelligent.
And she said Lynn.
I said yes, and she said well,I don't know what you're upset
about, but whatever it ispanicking will not help, won't?
(26:34):
let you do it.
Stay calm, tell me what it is.
Mom was making me pause.
It's something you have topractice.
So anytime you're out and aboutand something just jumps up
your back, take a pause for thecause and I don't know what
you're going to do.
(26:55):
It's easier to pause when youhave something to do.
If you have a if you have, I,you know.
Sometimes I pause and saythat's a fair move because I'm
fearful all the time and that'swhat the pause does for me.
Or I have to pause and dosomething.
I have to pause and make a call.
But you have to make the pausea habit and you can't do it when
(27:22):
you're first getting excited.
You got to learn how to pausefor the cause at any time in any
way.
Do you see my dogs gatheringbehind me?
I don't have much time left, solet me say this to you I hope
you're well.
Practice your pause, make sureyou know where you are, and I
(27:42):
wish you peace.
I wish you joy.
If you can't get there.
Wish you peace, and if youcan't get there, I'll ask that
you, I'll simply ask that youtry not to hurt anybody.
Get out there and act like youhave some sense, because we're
all trying to feel on purpose.
You know her as the longest presiding judge on
divorce court, for more than 14years.
Marriage boot camp and manyother programs.
A graduate of Harvard, judgeLynn Toler is the author of my
Mother's Rules Making MarriageWork and Dear Sonali Letters to
the Daughter I Never had, all ofwhich are dedicated to the
proper emotion, what it is andhow to find it.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Remember under your skin is a sovereign country.
Don't go passing out passportsall willy-nilly to people who
don't belong there.
Let me help you protect youremotional borders so we can all
start feeling on purpose.
Hey, how you doing.
And welcome to another episodeof Feeling On Purpose.
(00:44):
Feeling On Purpose is thepodcast dedicated to the
proposition of allowing you toown your emotional landscape so
the rest of the world can't messwith you.
Remember, under your skin is asovereign country.
Don't go handing out passportsall willy-nilly to people that
don't belong there.
Today.
I'm going to start out with twoquestions why did Jason Williams
(01:08):
kill Megan Kellerman and do youknow where you are?
Jason Williams and MeganKellerman were in line at a Taco
Bell in Stowe, ohio, in August,I think, august 14th of 2024.
I think she may have dipped inline in front of him, kind of
(01:29):
made a fast maneuver to get infront of him, so he honked his
horn and then rear-ended her,and so she looked out into the
drive-through window and said,hey, could you call the police?
Because this man justrear-ended me.
And as she did that, jason gotout of his car, walked up to her
(01:50):
car, shot her in the face andthen shot himself and died.
I'm going to get back to Jasonand Megan a little later, but
right now I'm going to ask youdo you know where you are?
I know you know where you areif you're in your car or in your
house or in your backyard, butwhat I really want to know is do
(02:15):
you know where you areemotionally?
People get caught in badsituations because and I'm not
talking about Jason Williams andMegan Kellerman now, so that's
a whole nother story.
It relates, but not in this way, and maybe I'll say it to you
this way Whenever I saw peoplein municipal court, regular
(02:37):
people who got caught doingirregular things, it was always
an emotional error.
In other words, somebody mighthave been having a day and then
that one last thing happens tothem and then they commit an
offense because emotionally theycan't handle what's happening
(02:59):
to them.
Now, I've told you all beforeand I will tell you again I am a
stressed out, anxious, anxietyprone chick who loves to be
alone, and I live a very publiclife, and I have done that by
(03:26):
acting in opposition to how Iwith how I felt my brown behind
would be in a cave somewherewith a dog, with no human
contact, and I ain't gonna lie,my life looks a little bit like
that right now.
Since my husband dies, I'vegotten two dogs and it's really
hard for me to get out of thebedroom.
But anyway, that is my nature,and my nature has arisen again
in the absence of my husband toclamp me down, and I have had
(03:48):
several.
I mean just bizarre situationswhere I've panicked and panicked
and panicked, running aroundthe house doing all the wrong
things, because I have toreadjust who I am now, without
my support system, without mystrength, without those arms
(04:10):
around me that was so, so, sostrong and so fine.
Don't let me go down this road.
Might turn into an entirelydifferent podcast, but anyway, I
have to now go back to where Iused to be as a young person and
start asking myself where am Iemotionally all day long?
(04:35):
Because I have lost a certaincenter of my life.
And now I have to do that again.
And my thing is, we should alldo that.
If you know where you areemotionally, those things that
come at you, you have anopportunity to receive them in a
(04:58):
manner that doesn't, thatdoesn't allow your emotions to
let you do the wrong thing.
So you have enough of a pauseto get in there and figure out
hey, am I respondingappropriately to this
circumstance or am I having anemotional moment born of other
(05:19):
things?
Having had the opportunity toredirect my emotionality as a
function of knowing where I am,and having to do it again, I
figured out some things thathelp you do that kind of thing.
Now I contend that ouremotionality these days has
become an urgent concern.
(05:41):
It's just an urgent concern.
We are acting up, acting a fool.
An urgent concern, it's just anurgent concern.
We are acting up, acting a fool.
I think COVID throw us on theground, punched us, kicked us,
threw us around, choked us alittle bit, and I don't know if
we've recovered yet.
We're still bleeding, our eyesare still black and our noses
are still bloody, but ouremotionality has gotten so much
ahead of us.
(06:01):
Not only that, but then you havesocial media.
You know rage, bait.
Everybody is amping you up.
And when you get amped up andall of those chemicals come out
the cortisol and the adrenalineand all of that kind of stuff
they're not targeted.
It's not like targeted genetherapy.
(06:24):
They're just in your body andeverywhere you go.
If they're already released,they're out there.
So you could have a response toA while you're talking to B,
and B had nothing to do with whyyou feel that way about A, yet
B ended up getting the businessend of A's wrong in your
(06:46):
direction, if you get what Imean.
So what do you do?
I mean, how do you find out whoyou, where you are all day long
?
When I was first embarking onmy where am I?
Journey, I used a mirror.
Every time I saw a mirror, Ihad to go, look in it and say
how are you feeling and why youfeel that way.
And I'm going to tell youdeeper still.
(07:07):
I said it out loud.
I give things voice becausewhen you say it out loud, it
takes more solid form and youhave it's more definitive, and
it's something you have to do.
You can look at a mirror andthink you're thinking about it,
but if you look at a mirror andsay to you, to yourself, how am
I feeling, what's happening andwhy do I feel that way, and then
(07:30):
answer yourself Don't worryabout what the rest of the
world's thinking.
I was in a parking lot one timeI talked to you, know I, I, you
know you think your way throughyour day, right, and when I
think I talk, and I was walkingin a parking lot I was sitting
in Cleveland Heights at the timeand some man stood right in
(07:53):
front of me and I said what's up?
And he said you talk toyourself like you have somebody
with you.
And I said I do have somebodywith me, I'm here.
But anyway, that's what I did.
I looked in the mirror and Igave it voice.
Now, I don't know you, I don'tknow how many mirrors in your
house, I don't know if you likelooking in a mirror, if you
don't like looking in a mirror,and I want to make this very
(08:16):
very clear.
I'm selling process andprocedure here and I'm passing
out ideas.
You can incorporate them orfigure them out in any way that
you choose, but I'm not going toget up here and speak
definitively like everybody else.
Men are this way and women arethat.
I'm not doing all of thatbecause I don't know you and I
don't know what your tendenciesare, but I do know what I've
(08:41):
seen in the thousands andthousands and thousands of
people that I have seen on thebench, not only in Cleveland
Heights but also on divorcecourt, and it's not easy In fact
it's impossible to give blanketadvice about most things,
because something that wouldwork for my sister wouldn't work
(09:05):
for me.
But that's what I did.
I looked in the mirror.
Now you can have any othertriggers that you want to.
Every time you pick up a cup ofcoffee if you're a coffee
drinker all day long, every timeyou smoke a cigarette even
though you oughtn't be smokingcigarettes, you and I both know
do that.
Or pick up a vape pen Maybewell, you know, I heard people
vaping and smoking all day longthese days, but anyway, maybe.
Well, you know, I heard peoplevaping and smoking all day long
(09:26):
these days, but anyway, I was onmarriage bouquet.
Well, anyway, let me not gothere.
But anyhow, whatever you do ona regular basis that is somewhat
evenly distributed throughoutyour day, you ought to
incorporate in that a moment toask yourself where am I
(09:46):
emotionally, where do I need tobe?
Did my husband come home, saysome raggedy crap to me and I'm
upset about it?
Did my boss give me a whole lotof who shot John and I don't
need it?
And now I'm home and myhusband's asking me for
something entirely reasonable,but it irritated me.
(10:09):
That's what I'm asking you todo is to make sure you know
where the mad supposed to go,and you can do that by
deliberately walking yourselfthrough the day in a way that
you constantly check in withyourself.
I didn't have to check in withmyself over again because I
(10:44):
don't feel safe anymore and I'vehad a few emotional outbursts
that were inappropriate.
So I have to get out there andfix that.
It all takes practice andplanning.
You have to be, you have to doit before you know everybody.
You get into an emotionalsituation.
You get into a roadwaysituation.
(11:04):
Somebody at the grocery storedriving you crazy, got 99 items,
got to put 10 back.
You know that used to drive mecrazy, and what you have to do
is practice understanding whereyou are, knowing how you feel on
any given day.
So when you're out and aboutand something hits you and it
(11:27):
ain't got to be much I gotflipped the bird the other day
driving.
I didn't even know what I didwrong and I always apologize my
bad, because I don't know whatanybody's doing, I don't know
what anybody's got on, but it'sjust.
It's scary out there, it justis, but I'm scared all the time
(11:47):
anyway.
So I don't know if this is justme going off my widowhood, but
it is scary out there becausethere's a lot going on.
There is a lot going on.
Now, the next thing I normallyrun into when I'm telling people
to stop and take a look in themirror and figure out how you're
feeling.
Make sure you know where youare.
Everybody tells me I am who I am, I feel how I feel and I have a
(12:11):
right to my feelings.
And why do I need to tame them,contain them or otherwise
restrain them?
Because other people might notlike how I feel.
Because I have the right to myemotions and I, yeah, you got
the right to your emotions.
But let me tell you whatunexamined emotionality will
hurt you far more than it'llhurt anybody else.
(12:32):
All those Karen's that end upgoing to jail because because
they, they went in jail.
They could have had a ticket,but they had to go to jail
because their emotionality,their egos, their sense of I
should not have to do anythingthat I don't want to do ever at
all, which is not the.
You know, I was born in the 50s.
(12:52):
That was not at all it.
And I'm not saying one isbetter than the other, I just
don't, I'm not used to the otherone, and so so it here.
But people say I can't controlit.
How I feel is how I feel, andthat's what, and there's nothing
I can do about it.
But I want to.
I want to challenge that CaptainSullenberger.
(13:15):
He landed that plane in theHudson, remember, it was a
United Airlines flight.
It took off and I'm afraid tofly anyway.
So this story has really got me.
They took off, had a doublebird strike, lost both engines.
He was too low and too slow toturn around or to get to another
(13:36):
airport, so boyfriend had toput it down in the Hudson.
And I listen, you know I do thisas well.
I listen to airline pilotconversations with the tower.
They have them all over YouTube, the YouTube showing my age.
They have them all over YouTube.
And my man, sully, said we'regoing into the Hudson with less
(14:01):
angst and anxiousness than Italk about.
I've got to go to the grocerystore, I gotta go to the grocery
, I gotta get this.
We're going into the hudson.
He had no engines.
And deeper still, and I listento these all the time.
I listen to black boxes inwhich there's been a claim clash
I.
I listen to Black Boxes whenthere's, you know, the tower and
(14:23):
then the pilots are trying tofigure out what's going on and
things ain't quite right.
And the thing you notice aboutthese people is they cool and
they calm, they say please andthank you, they say sir and
ma'am, even when they only got acouple of minutes to keep
themselves from dying.
(14:44):
And in black boxes they recoverafter a crash.
You know you hear a few, butthey are working and thinking
and talking and figuring outthings all the way to the end
because they have been trainedto be cockpit cool.
It is a job requirement.
(15:07):
And the deeper still whathappens is when they're in one
of these emergent situations,the tower always asks them when
you get a moment, could you tellme how many souls on board and
how much fuel you have remainingNow?
That's, that's anotherindication of how messed up the
situation is they're asking for.
(15:28):
They're saying like look, Iwant we got to know if y'all
don't get it right.
We got to know how many bodieswe're looking for and how much
fire we're going to be dealingwith when you, when you punch
the, when you punch the groundwith that plane, and they still
work emotionally intact theentire time.
(15:48):
If they can do that, I mostcertainly believe that I can
deal with an idiot at the store,a fool on the corner and my
kids acting up without losing mymind.
That's how I look at it.
That's the comparison I make.
You have to decide what youwant, then you have to look at
(16:11):
people who have it, and then youcan figure out how to get it
for yourself.
I am one of the most.
I mean just, I'm a thief.
I steal everybody's behaviors.
Oh, he has something I want.
How do you go?
Oh, I'm going to start doingthat.
I remember when I was runningfor judge in Cleveland Heights
(16:31):
and I'm shy, so I don't like tocampaign.
But there was a woman I knew.
Her name was Stephanie TubbsJones.
In fact she introduced me to myhusband.
She's the reason I got married.
In fact she's defined a greatdeal of my life.
That's interesting, but anyway,we'll talk about that later.
No, we won't because you're notinterested.
But she was one of the mostconsummate politicians I had
ever seen and I watched her worka room it doesn't matter what
(16:54):
she said, court that I've seenin front of me.
Just you figure things out thatway if you learn from everybody
.
But anyway, I've left thestation.
(17:20):
Let me return.
Part of the thing of becomingcockpick, cool and always
knowing where you are is todebrief your day.
At the end of the day you gotto sit down and say what
happened, what went wrong, whatwent right, how was I feeling?
That guy really irritated me.
(17:41):
I wonder why and don't do itlike that guy really irritated
me.
Let me think about what he did.
Look at it as the only personyou can change, fix.
Well, the easiest person youcan change or fixes you.
And in any situation gone wrong,at least, there's at least
probably at least three, fourdifferent reasons why it went
(18:04):
wrong.
People tend to concentrate onthe reasons that do not
implicate them.
I never do.
If there are a hundred reasons,something went wrong and 99 of
them didn't have anything to dowith me, I ignore the 99 and
concentrate on the one.
It's like if somebody's pushingyou towards a cliff push, push,
push, and they push you 99times, but it's a hundred feet,
(18:26):
a hundred steps off that cliff.
I ain't taking that last step.
I'm not going to jump up anddown in angst and anxiety
because I got pushed to the edge, because I'm going to be the
one who falls over the edge.
I might grab you and take youwith me, but that doesn't do me
any good.
So I always concentrate on whatI did wrong.
So if you're debriefing your day, you're saying how did I
(18:48):
respond to that emotionally?
What did that prick in my head?
Why did my back go up when shesaid this?
Or why did I feel like I wantedto cry when he said that?
Or she did this other thing youhave to.
I'm dealing with a dog herethat just thinks that she owns
me.
Stop it.
They dug up my.
She dug up my.
(19:10):
She's dugging up my sprinklers,my in-ground sprinklers.
But anyway, I'm sorry I gotdistracted, but you debrief your
day and you debrief your daywith an eye towards improving
the one person that you are incontrol of, and that's you.
And, like I always say, don'tfocus on the best, putting your
best foot forward.
You want to focus on the onethat's dragging behind, because
(19:31):
that's the sucker that will tripyou up should you have to break
out into a run.
I say that all the time becauseit's true.
So I want to talk about labelsand I want to talk about Jason
Williams and Megan Kellerman.
As you recall, megan and Jasonwere in line at the Taco Bell
(19:53):
Let us assume that she wasreally tacky and wrong jumped in
front of him, he was hot aboutit, he got out and killed her
and then himself.
The articles that I read aboutthose about that incident kept
saying we may never know whathappened, they had no
relationship.
Of course, we always seek thereasons why.
What happens?
(20:13):
What's going on?
What's happening?
And then they say and thensomeone looked up his background
and this is what the recordsaid Jason Williams, summit
County Court Record Show.
Not Summit County, it was rightnext to my county, cuyahoga
County show.
He was arrested in Hudson inMarch for OVI operating a
(20:34):
vehicle under the influence,open container and improper
handling of a firearm in avehicle.
He was terminated from theAlcohol Monitoring Program
Oriana House for failing to showup and it said we may never
know why he did what he did.
And then they said he wassuffering from a crisis and
(20:56):
that's where we're going toleave it.
I hate it when we label andleave.
We should really wonder aboutJason Williams.
What happened and why?
We may never find out.
But I think we all have thecapacity to get it very, very
wrong with very small impetus Ifyou don't know where you are
(21:24):
and your life has becomesomething that, emotionally, you
are not in charge of.
Now.
He might have had mental healthissues which I think people
ought to look at.
He might have had justirritation issues which people
ought to look at.
But if nothing else, don'tlabel him as other.
(21:44):
Label him as potential, him asother.
Label him as potential.
More and more we're having allof these outrageous, unexpected,
you know killings and shootingsand you know road rage and all
of that kind of stuff.
You can't fix other folk.
(22:16):
We can work on it as acommunity, as a society, but if
we each work on how we feel asindividuals and own our
obligation to a community.
That has to why we feel the waywe do, and is that feeling a
feeling that's going to get mewhere I want to go?
(22:39):
I am quite sure Jason Williams.
I'm not quite sure of anythingabout Jason Williams.
Let me lay that out there rightnow.
We never know how little youknow about somebody else.
You know the devil is in thedetails.
It always is, and the detailsare in the fine print and you
can't make gross generalizationsabout people and read the fine
print.
(22:59):
So you really don't know thedetails.
And that's when the devil getsyou.
We should wonder about JasonWilliams not knowing where he is
and realizing that we could allnot know where we are at some
and we're not going to go outand shoot people and carry on
and do that.
But do we not know where we arewhen we're talking to our kids
(23:19):
and we're yelling aboutsomething that wasn't cool?
Do you know where you are whenyou're in the car and everything
is going wrong?
Do you know where you are whenyou're talking to a clerk and
you didn't get exactly what youwanted?
And is it an irritation that'ssimply born of not getting what
you wanted then, or do you notget what you want?
(23:40):
A lot, and this is just onemore thing that is causing
trouble.
So I was weird there for asecond because my streamers
acted weird.
But anyway, the thing is, whenyou're in a stressful situation,
it's too late to handle youremotionality.
You have to handle youremotionality before you get into
that stressful situation,because we feel far faster than
(24:03):
we think and then we respond.
You know, like when a lion runsin the room, you ain't got to
sit down and scratch your headand wonder what to do next and
how.
What should I do?
Oh, I don't know.
No, your emotions, youramygdala, your limbic system,
gets up and moves you beforeyour brain, even before the
higher functions of your braineven get the do's.
(24:24):
Do you know that when we areinsulted or we feel like we
didn't get what we want, ourbrain reads it as an assault to
self?
It's an unsafe feeling.
It makes us scared, just like alion makes up scares.
It's a threat to self.
Now I want to say this.
I'm always saying a platformand an opinion does not an
(24:46):
expert make, and I'm not anexpert on the brain.
Now my sister, who is aneurologist, is, and I pass a
lot of what I say by her and Ialso read a bit, so I know what
I'm talking about.
My base knowledge is there.
I would like you to read moreabout it.
Start with Daniel Goleman'sEmotional Intelligence.
(25:09):
Oh, so many good ones, butanyway.
But anyway, it's too late whenyou're already upset.
You can't redirect youremotionality in the moment if
you haven't practiced previously.
You also can't imagine youremotionality in the moment if
you haven't conquered the pause.
(25:30):
I'll tell you a story about mymother and me.
I had just graduated fromcollege, or was it law school?
I don't remember.
I just graduated for somethingand I was home and I don't know
what I was upset about, but Iwas anxious and upset and
horrified.
And my mother came in the roomand she says what's up with you?
(25:52):
And I reached out my arms tomama and she stepped back, put
her finger and said no.
And I'm like what fresh hell isthis?
What do you mean?
No, you're my mother, you'rethe comforter in chief.
How come you not comforting menow?
And she said Lynn.
(26:13):
And she said Lynn in a way thatI knew I had to listen.
My mother was emotionally very,very intelligent.
And she said Lynn.
I said yes, and she said well,I don't know what you're upset
about, but whatever it ispanicking will not help, won't?
(26:34):
let you do it.
Stay calm, tell me what it is.
Mom was making me pause.
It's something you have topractice.
So anytime you're out and aboutand something just jumps up
your back, take a pause for thecause and I don't know what
you're going to do.
(26:55):
It's easier to pause when youhave something to do.
If you have a if you have, I,you know.
Sometimes I pause and saythat's a fair move because I'm
fearful all the time and that'swhat the pause does for me.
Or I have to pause and dosomething.
I have to pause and make a call.
But you have to make the pausea habit and you can't do it when
(27:22):
you're first getting excited.
You got to learn how to pausefor the cause at any time in any
way.
Do you see my dogs gatheringbehind me?
I don't have much time left, solet me say this to you I hope
you're well.
Practice your pause, make sureyou know where you are, and I
(27:42):
wish you peace.
I wish you joy.
If you can't get there.
Wish you peace, and if youcan't get there, I'll ask that
you, I'll simply ask that youtry not to hurt anybody.
Get out there and act like youhave some sense, because we're
all trying to feel on purpose.
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