October 21, 2024 • 31 mins
Join us for an insightful conversation with Judge Lynn Toler, where she shares her profound journey through emotional healing after the sudden loss of her husband. Known for her wisdom on emotional intelligence, Judge Toler opens up about redefining her emotional responses to overcome trauma and fit the present rather than being anchored in past experiences. As she recounts her personal growth journey, you'll discover how this transformation has equipped her with the tools to be a beacon of support for friends facing their own emotional hurdles.
Life's pressures can often feel overwhelming, like a tangled web. Judge Toler shares her metaphorical journey of helping a friend unravel the challenges of family dynamics, societal stress, and external pressures that can heighten anxiety. She illustrates how by categorizing and prioritizing problems, we can convert overwhelming challenges into manageable tasks, providing a clearer path to relief and emotional control.
Additionally, the episode dives deep into the concept of "error hoarding" in relationships, where holding on to past grievances prevents emotional healing and healthier connections. Judge Toler emphasizes the importance of letting go of past errors for better emotional health and the power of informed civic engagement, advocating for a balance between political awareness and mental well-being.
We conclude with an inspiring message on embracing positive emotions, celebrating small victories, and understanding the ripple effect of kindness. This episode serves as a reminder of the importance of maintaining emotional boundaries and handling life's demands with resilience and grace.
This transformative discussion offers practical tools for overcoming emotional hurdles, cultivating emotional strength, and finding balance in the face of life's challenges.
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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.
How y'all doing this is JudgeLynn Toler welcoming you to
(00:42):
another edition of my podcast,feel it On Purpose, a podcast
dedicated to the proposition ofthinking your way through how
you feel.
We all feel, we all feelfuriously, we all feel very
quickly, but we don't often feelcorrectly, and correctly
doesn't mean how everybody elsewants you to feel.
Correctly means feeling in amanner that will allow you to do
(01:04):
the things that you need to getdone on any given day, despite
whatever the people around youand the things that are
happening to you try to push youinto.
You cannot beat the world, butyou can.
This is what my mother used totell me that I cannot fix the
world for you, but I can helpyou learn to live better in it,
(01:26):
and at some times, sometimes,that is all you can do.
I've been in a position wherefor a couple of years, because
of the sudden loss of my husband, I have been hysterical,
overwhelmed and living anongoing emergency.
(01:47):
When someone first dies,especially unexpectedly, it's
the spouse, and you have all ofyour chores divided and
everybody knows what they'redoing and what's going on, and
one of them just gets sucked outof the picture by his sudden
departure, the one that is leftbehind, that being me in this,
with the widow or the widower, Iwas in a panic.
(02:08):
I was in a state of emergencyfor the first six months, just
hysterical.
After that it got a littlebetter, but what I didn't do was
adjust my base emotionality inorder to continue to live in a
(02:29):
manner that was relevant totoday, as opposed to the horror
that had happened to me before.
Now I realized this a littlewhile ago, and so I went back,
checked my program and purposelytook out, you know, picked out,
plucked out those things thatwere problems and reassessed
(02:52):
them, because at that juncture Iwas dealing with all of my
problems as if they were asemergent and urgent as the
initial one that I had, becausemy body had gotten used to it, I
was in my mind, had been readyfor it and I was looking for it,
and so, even if it was a smallproblem, it would build into a
(03:13):
big problem and hence make me alittle bit crazy.
Now I've gotten better, and thereason I know I've gotten better
is because I got a call from agirlfriend of mine not too long
ago well, actually this week andshe's a girlfriend who knows me
well.
She supported me through theearly days of my widowhood and
we were in a conversation.
(03:34):
She asked me how I was and Isaid I'm doing great, and she
said good, because she wasn't.
And after she said she wasn'tdoing great, she wasn't.
And after she said she wasn'tdoing great, she devolved into a
conversation that dealt withher husband, her children, her
job, the guy next door I meaneverything and everybody in her
(03:55):
life was giving her problems andshe was wound up, worked up and
she was looking for a releaseand thank God, I had recovered
enough to be able to providethat for her.
So A I saw that as ademonstration of progress on my
(04:15):
part.
We've been trained, or you know,the world generally will get
excited about new money, getexcited about diviner clothes,
get excited about you know, thistrip, get excited about all
(04:36):
those exciting things.
But sometimes you got to getexcited about the fact that you
feel better, that you now feelbetter than you didn, better
than you did before.
You got to be excited about thefact that you are not currently
, if you are currently healthy,that you are currently healthy,
because when you're unhealthy,that becomes the only problem
(04:56):
that you have.
So when you are healthy, weshould appreciate it, spike the
ball on it a bit more.
Having said all that, I washappy now to be in a position.
This just shows growth on mypart.
So I had a little spike theball party after the
conversation, because itdemonstrated that I was at a new
(05:19):
level of emotional maturity andability that allowed me, now
that my friends were seeing meas someone they could talk to,
as opposed to someone they hadto coddle and they had been
coddling me for two years.
But she called and she wasfalling out.
I mean, she was just fallingout, it was, and it was one of
(05:40):
those conversations and I'vedone it myself.
You get started and it's likepulling a string on some thread
of a badly weaved fabric.
The first thing you got to dowhen you've got a friend that
has fallen off a cliff like thatis you got to let her fall all
the way down.
You got to let her and not Imean I'm talking metaphorically
(06:03):
you got to let her get it allout and not I mean I'm talking
metaphorically you got to lether get it all out.
And I realized that when I wasdoing grief counseling with my,
when I needed to yes, I see thedog back there.
I don't know what to tell youis well, let's deal with that
problem right now.
But I let her get it all outbecause she had to unburden
(06:32):
herself.
What had happened?
None of the problems that shehad were extraordinary.
They weren't mind boggling,they weren't life altering, but
they were all a pain.
And what she was unable to doby the time she got to me was
see where one problem stoppedand another one started, become
(06:54):
emotionally undone.
And as each problem loses itsborders, they start to wind up
together.
And now it's not just the carain't working, or my kids are a
(07:15):
problem, or my husband's being afool or an idiot, or my wife's
being a pain and unkind, it'severything is wrong.
So when she got throughunburdening herself, the first
thing I said was let's shake outthe sheets of your problems.
(07:35):
Everyone should shake out thesheets of their problems.
Look at all the pressures thatwe have.
We got the family, we got thewife, the kids, the husband, the
girlfriend, the side chick, theside dude, whatever you doing,
baby mama drama.
I don't know what your lovelife looks like, but there's
always usually some drama.
I was married for 35 years andlisten, let me tell you, years 8
(07:59):
, 17, and 18 were a.
You know like it was like Iwant to call bumper cars.
We were just bumping into eachother the whole time, just being
upsetting each other and beingangry with each other.
So it happens, it happens.
Then there's then there arethose extraneous sources that
(08:23):
aren't particularly a problemfor you that day, but are a
pressure like an existentialthreat the election in November
of 2024, everybody, noteverybody people who are
interested.
I know a couple of people ain'tinterested at all and I can't
get them interested, but thosepeople who are interested are
(08:47):
pretty dramatic about it.
I mean, I'm interested.
I'm not dramatic about it, butI do read about it a lot, and
the information that comes in isso all the way left or all the
way right or all the way this orall the way, that I have begun
to feel as if I have anexistential crisis that's going
(09:12):
to be determined in November,and I think all of us feel like
we have some existential crisisthat's going to be dealt with in
November.
And then internet in and ofitself will start feeding you
your fears because you watchthose things more often.
It will start feeding you yourmore and more and more heavy
(09:34):
into that thing and that thingbecomes bigger than it is
because you sunk deeper intowhere it is.
Then you've got money, you'vegot your job, you've got
(09:55):
coworkers, you've got the peopleat Target and McDonald's and
McDonald's everyone seems to bejust on the edge of angry,
looking for a push.
And my girlfriend I'm going tocall her Susie because we all
know I don't know nobody namedSusie.
Well, actually, no, I don't,nobody named Susie.
(10:18):
Susie had a whole bunch ofissues, from worried about the
election, from worried aboutmoney, to worried about the
husband, to worried about thekids and this and that and the
other thing, and she was at apoint where she says I can't
take it no more.
And what I told her to do waslisten, shake out the sheets of
your problems and start solvingfrom the outside in, and what I
(10:44):
mean by that is don't talk aboutthem all in a pot.
If you are unable to exciseindividual urgencies and
problems from the other issuesthat you have, I would get a
piece of paper.
I love paper.
Now I use Remarkable.
It's a pad that you can writeand then you can convert it into
(11:07):
text and for some reason Ithink because I'm old and I've
been born in 1959, I've been atit for a while I says I still
like to write, but write themdown on a piece of paper.
Everything that you whatevershe listed I said I want you to
put that on a piece of paper.
Boom did it, boom did it.
Boom did it.
Boom did it, boom did it boom.
(11:27):
Now, once you've gotten excitedabout everything and you've
collected them into one part ofoh my God, my life ain't working
out.
Each problem becomes, can feel,has the ability to feel, as
problematic, as dramatic, asdifficult, as the most difficult
problem that you have.
I remember when Eric first died, my biggest problem well, I had
(11:51):
a million of them, but as Istarted to solve them, my small
problems started coming up fromthe bottom and I was addressing
them with the same angst andurgency that I dealt with.
You know what happened to him.
You know the coroner, all ofthat.
And I was like Susie, you're asupset about that D your kid got
(12:14):
as you are about potentiallylosing your job.
They are not of equal weight.
It's an additional problem thatyou have, but they're not of
equal weight.
So I want you to write out allyour problems, list them and
then actually weigh them.
I personally give them numbersWell, this is a one problem,
(12:36):
this is a two problem, this is a10 problem.
Then, once I have them allwritten out my one problem, two
problem and actually looked atthem and figured out how much of
a problem they really were, Istarted to solve small and I
worked my way in.
In other words, if I got alittle problem masquerading as a
(12:59):
big one, I will try to solvethat simple one.
Simple, find the simplest,solve and solve it.
That does a couple of things.
Number one it gives you a winand when you're overwhelmed by
your problems, all you tend tosee are the problems and
whatever you do well, whateverit doesn't get a hearing,
(13:20):
because you're seeing through alens of my life is a dramatic
mess.
Oh my God, now this ishappening to me.
So if you solve small, justfind something you can fix.
It gives you an emotional liftlike, ah, everything ain't out
of control.
It gives you a sense of controland it gives you a victory.
(13:42):
Then you solve the next one,the next small, easy solve, and
those things can change how youfeel about everything and you
can start to step back off ofthe sense of I am overwhelmed
and undone.
And let me tell you, I get a lotof letters from the women who
(14:04):
talk, who I mean longexpositions about all of the
difficulties they have in theirday and they don't quite know
how they're going to make it totomorrow.
And there seems there is asense of everything is wrong.
There is a sense of everythingis wrong.
(14:26):
So once everything is wrong,you can't see individual wrongs
and you just have one largeproblem.
So if you shake out the sheetsof those problems, see what they
are and assign them real values, Sometimes you can say problem
and say, look at a problem thatyou've written down.
It's like, well, actuallythat's not a problem, it would
have been earlier, it would havebeen, you know, but it's
(14:47):
actually not a problem.
So let me get it off my list.
And the beautiful thing aboutactually having a written list
is you can see your problemsdisappear.
You know, when you just feelthings, when they're amorphous,
when they're not right in frontof you, it's hard to get a
handle on them and deal withthem.
You know it's hard to, it'shard to right, but if they're
(15:11):
laid out you can tick them offone by one, by one by one, I got
a problem with my algorithm.
On my internet I have beenlooking at too much stuff that
has made me upset and whathappens is they feed you more of
what you look at and after awhile it just gets dark.
(15:33):
It got so bad for me and Idon't know if I can tell you
that, but anyway I got to apoint where my algorithm was
showing me Nazi executions.
I had gone.
I had gone that dark.
So what I do every once in awhile, I walk away from my
algorithm and make it dosomething else.
(15:53):
You know elephants, Elephantsand whales Large intelligent
mammals, tickle me.
You know what I mean.
I'd come back to life as anelephant if there were no humans
on the earth, because thoseelephants are very, very cool.
But anyway, that is a sidetrack, but I actively engage my
(16:13):
algorithm and put new things inso that algorithm can push me
towards a mood that I'd ratherbe in as opposed to simply
continuing to address the moodthat I am in.
Then I turn to my largerproblems and I figure out which
(16:34):
one is giving me the biggestissue and I do something about
that one, and I do it firstthing in the morning.
If somebody I don't want tocall and their office opens at
nine, I'm calling at 901 becauseI want to get that off my plate
.
And I solve, not just to solvethe problem but to soothe my
(16:57):
soul.
If you solve early, you get ridof the angst of anticipation of
that problem.
You get to walk away from thatbecause you've already done it.
And then again you get anotherfeeling of triumph and control
because you solved something andyou did it.
And even if you haven't solvedit, if you've addressed it,
(17:19):
you've learned more about it andyou're less afraid to go in
there another time because yousurvived the first foray into
whatever nonsense that it is.
Additionally, when I look at myproblems, I try to figure out
which ones I can put a period on.
(17:39):
In other words, I can be upsetabout something, but it's
currently not important enoughto make the list.
So I make a decision to call itunimportant to make the list
and I take it off the list and Ireward myself every time I take
something off my list and myrewards are, like you know, I go
(18:00):
eat something I'm not supposedto eat or I go.
I reward myself and I beatmyself up and I reward myself.
I'm trying to stop doing theformer and do more of the latter
.
We all tend to beat ourselves upa little bit about the things
that we don't do correctly.
And what I would watch from thebench is people on divorce
(18:23):
court.
I would watch couples argue andoftentimes the women and I'm
not saying that women are likethis and men are like that, I'm
just saying what I saw.
The women were like I've doneeverything and I can't get him
to hear me.
And I usually ask the dudeswhat their wife just said and
(18:47):
they never really know.
And I don't think it's herfault and I don't think it's his
fault.
What I think it is is acollection of troubles.
I know in my marriage let meput it to you this way I would
collect sins and problems and Iwas an error hoarder a little
(19:09):
bit.
Uh-huh.
He did this, collect that, keepit.
He did this, collect that, keepit.
It's like this that uh-huh,uh-huh, uh-huh, and when you
order error hoarding is likeliving in a bucket with your
significant other and there'swater of.
There is a whole spout oferrors that pours in.
(19:32):
But the problem is nokindnesses, no love, nothing
else.
That he did would drain out thebottom, would drain out that
water.
Did would drain out the bottom,would drain out that water.
So you both drown in mistakesthat will necessarily get made,
because we're all mistake prone,we're all human.
And a lot of the women in theretook all of the commentary from
(19:56):
their husband to heart and itbecame just one big unpleasant
scene that she couldn't quite.
It was, everything was justawful.
So she was just hooping andhollering all of the time
because even the failure to pickup you know something at the
(20:16):
grocery store became one morehorrific act because the errors
happened to be hoarded.
And it's not a woman thing,solely men hoard errors too, but
they tend to hoard differentkinds.
My husband would hold my errors, but he would hold the
different types of errors.
(20:37):
We all tend to hoard differenttypes of errors, but if you are
an error hoarder, the thing is,even though it makes you feel
good because you can alwayspoint to the other person as the
person who is the problem.
But the problem with being anerror hoarder is when you never
let go of any of the sins thatthe other person commits.
(20:58):
You're both drowning inmistakes.
They become less of the strong,wonderful person that you met
when you pick at them and pickat them and pick at them.
Being an error hoarder is likeowning a Ferrari, and when it
doesn't work you go out thereand kick it.
It doesn't help it work and itjust destroys the thing that you
(21:18):
have.
So if you are living with anerror hoarder, if you are a
error hoarder again, you arecollecting problems and sins and
you're carrying them along withyou day after day, hour after
(21:40):
hour, and it makes every smallproblem elevate to the level of
a huge one, because every newsmall problem is so
interconnected to the other ones.
It implicates all of your upsetand you go a little crazy.
Another thing you got to dowhen you are overwhelmed and I
had to tell my girlfriend Susiethis because we got to talking
(22:01):
about the election, and not justthe presidential election but
local elections and judges Ispend a lot of time on my judges
list, I go in, I read aboutthem and all that kind of stuff,
because you know, we're waydown ballot and most people
don't know what we're doing.
And if you're not a good one,you can get away with it for a
while once you're there, becausemost people don't know unless
(22:23):
they've already been in front ofyou.
So the time to worry about whoyour judiciary is right now.
Go look it up Some of them aregood.
Some of them are good and thereare ways to find.
You know there's always a listof.
Anyway I got sidetracked.
But you know, vote down ballotand vote down ballot with
information and you can get thatinformation.
(22:44):
It takes time, but go ahead anddo it.
But anyway, I was talking aboutSusie and her troubles and she
had gotten tied up.
You know, not only is myhusband not acting right and the
money ain't right and the kidsain't right, the whole world's
gonna go to hell in a handbasketin November.
And I'm like, listen, girl, youcan't do nothing about that
(23:06):
other than vote or put up.
You do what you can.
You vote, you put up your sign,you give a donation to the
party of your choice and thenyou let that go because you
ain't got, there's nothing youcan do about it.
And she was talking aboutabortion rights and all of these
things.
And I was saying I understandthat and you need to do what you
(23:28):
can figure out how on a locallevel, if you're upset about it,
to do what you can, to say yourand then let it go.
Then let it go Because you'rebeing distraught about something
does not serve to fix it and Idon't care which side of either
issue you're on.
(23:49):
That's not the point.
The point is not to carry yourissues with you in a manner that
it affects your day-to-day life.
If you haven't done what youneed to do to affect it and then
once you've done as much as youcan to affect it, then you let
it go and don't let other peopletell you what you need to do to
(24:11):
affect it.
You have to do what you findappropriate and then you have to
decide which problems you'regoing to go ahead and solve.
I've done what I can on this.
Let me move on to that.
But not let the uncertainty ofthat huge thing, your inability
(24:31):
to control that huge thing, landon you like another emotional
issue that you have.
Don't borrow that trouble.
Don't put your head in the sand.
Do what you can and don'tpreservate.
Preservate I think that's theword I'm looking for.
It's like go around and aroundand around.
(24:53):
I do that and both of my kidsdo that, so I think it's genetic
, but anyway I don't know.
So another thing I asked her todo is get more aggressive on
her 3D 2D ratio.
She was spending a lot of timeon TikTok and all that kind of
stuff, and I think she was doingthat because the atmosphere in
(25:14):
her home was so jacked up, butwhat the problem was, what she
was doing on the internet wasupsetting her emotionally.
Now she didn't think it wasbecause it wasn't the problems
that she was currently vetting,but she was borrowing other
people's troubles.
People talk about their lossesand this, and that it can be a
very sad place.
(25:34):
I think it's a wonderful placefor people who have been
isolated, like I've watched Danand his mother and his father.
You can be isolated taking careof an older person who was
suffering from dementia.
But if you have the outlet todo it online, I just think
that's a wonderful part of whatwe can do with the internet.
That having been said, don'tborrow the pain from other
(25:58):
people on there trying to avoidyour own.
Yes, you're not dealing withwhat's happening and you're
entertaining and you'redistracting yourself, but are
you distracting yourself bytaking on more emotionality of
other people?
Because there's a lot ofnegativity on there.
There's rage bait, there's this, there's that and the other.
So when you think you arevacating your stress and being
(26:22):
and distracting yourself, youreally feel feeding the wrong
dog.
Let me tell you about the dogs.
There are always two dogs.
Discontent is dog.
A Discontent is a loud yappymutt.
He hoops and he hollers, hebarks and he carries on, he nips
(26:45):
at you, he bites and he demandsyour attention.
Contentment, however, is aquiet canine, all calm, curled
up in a corner somewhere.
Just yeah, I'm cool, I'm fine.
It's those two dogs and the waythey behave are the reasons why
we will write letters ofcomplaint before we will write
(27:07):
letters of complimentary letters, because things that agitate us
demand our immediate attention,or at least try to demand our
immediate attention, and thingsthat are going fine, we don't
tend to acknowledge as muchbecause they're not bothering us
.
So when that discontent barksand carries on it leads you to
(27:29):
believe that you got to dealwith it and you got to feed it
and you got to argue withwhoever it is, or you got to
this, this, this, this, this,this, this and this, and
contentment is over here.
Well, yeah, I'm here, I'm calm,I'm cool.
Why won't you feed me?
If you just deal with the dramaand don't work to feed the joy,
(27:49):
you can make decisions to dosomething different.
When I do elephant videos, I'mfeeding the right dog.
When you're taking a moment tocall somebody you ain't talked
to for in a while and you reallylove to hear from them.
You're feeding the right dog.
I remember one time somebodycalled me and I picked up the
(28:12):
phone and he said hello.
And I said Patrick because hesounded like my cousin Patrick
and I love my cousin Patrick.
He is the sweetest thing in theworld.
And the guy on the phone othername phone was Steven.
He was a work buddy and he saidbefore he got off the phone he
said by the way, when you getoff this phone call, you need to
(28:32):
call whoever Patrick is,because you seem so happy to
hear from him and if you haven'theard from him in a while, you
should make that call.
That is an example of feedingthe right dog.
As my dog comes into frame, Ihave two dogs and spike the ball
for your victories, no matterhow small they may be, your
(28:59):
victories, no matter how smallthey may be, because we
certainly, you know, smackourselves up and down about all
the stupid things that we do.
At least I do.
I remember once my husbandpulled me to the side and he
said could you stop callingyourself a simple B, because
every time I would make someparticular type of mistake I
would say you simple B, and Ididn't think it was a problem.
How you doing there, doctor?
I didn't think it was a problem.
How you doing there, decker, Ididn't think it was a problem.
(29:21):
But that was me feeding thewrong dog, that was me
highlighting my errors, that wasme not checking out the sheets
of my problem and listing myfailures and faults and fails in
a way that elevates them to aplace where that's all I can see
(29:42):
.
So all I'm saying is this wegot a lot of stuff going on.
The world is a crazy place.
Everybody you know everybody'spredicting the worst and the
horror and the happenings.
I need you to shake out thesheets of your problems.
Take a look, just step back,because you get up all on them.
(30:03):
They're harder to see and whenyou shake them out, you deal
with what you can deal with andyou work through what you can
work through.
We can go out in the world notwith an emotionality that is
filled with distress and angerand division and dismay.
(30:31):
You can fill your mind and yourfeelings with the best that you
can be and you can go out andripple that into the community.
You know what I mean.
Just ripple it out and itdoesn't matter if anybody else
is doing the same thing, becauseit affects your emotionality
and some people will really comealong.
I love nice people.
If you're nice to me, I'll doanything, not that one.
What is the stupidest thingI've just said today?
(30:51):
But then maybe that means it'stime for me to get up and go.
How about that?
Listen, under your skin is asovereign country.
Don't go handing out passportsall willy-nilly to people who
don't belong there.
No matter what's going on, howyou feel about it makes a
difference, and you can decidehow you want to feel about it If
(31:12):
you work your emotions like thejob you are, work your emotions
like the job they are, so wecan all start feeling 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.
How y'all doing this is JudgeLynn Toler welcoming you to
(00:42):
another edition of my podcast,feel it On Purpose, a podcast
dedicated to the proposition ofthinking your way through how
you feel.
We all feel, we all feelfuriously, we all feel very
quickly, but we don't often feelcorrectly, and correctly
doesn't mean how everybody elsewants you to feel.
Correctly means feeling in amanner that will allow you to do
(01:04):
the things that you need to getdone on any given day, despite
whatever the people around youand the things that are
happening to you try to push youinto.
You cannot beat the world, butyou can.
This is what my mother used totell me that I cannot fix the
world for you, but I can helpyou learn to live better in it,
(01:26):
and at some times, sometimes,that is all you can do.
I've been in a position wherefor a couple of years, because
of the sudden loss of my husband, I have been hysterical,
overwhelmed and living anongoing emergency.
(01:47):
When someone first dies,especially unexpectedly, it's
the spouse, and you have all ofyour chores divided and
everybody knows what they'redoing and what's going on, and
one of them just gets sucked outof the picture by his sudden
departure, the one that is leftbehind, that being me in this,
with the widow or the widower, Iwas in a panic.
(02:08):
I was in a state of emergencyfor the first six months, just
hysterical.
After that it got a littlebetter, but what I didn't do was
adjust my base emotionality inorder to continue to live in a
(02:29):
manner that was relevant totoday, as opposed to the horror
that had happened to me before.
Now I realized this a littlewhile ago, and so I went back,
checked my program and purposelytook out, you know, picked out,
plucked out those things thatwere problems and reassessed
(02:52):
them, because at that juncture Iwas dealing with all of my
problems as if they were asemergent and urgent as the
initial one that I had, becausemy body had gotten used to it, I
was in my mind, had been readyfor it and I was looking for it,
and so, even if it was a smallproblem, it would build into a
(03:13):
big problem and hence make me alittle bit crazy.
Now I've gotten better, and thereason I know I've gotten better
is because I got a call from agirlfriend of mine not too long
ago well, actually this week andshe's a girlfriend who knows me
well.
She supported me through theearly days of my widowhood and
we were in a conversation.
(03:34):
She asked me how I was and Isaid I'm doing great, and she
said good, because she wasn't.
And after she said she wasn'tdoing great, she wasn't.
And after she said she wasn'tdoing great, she devolved into a
conversation that dealt withher husband, her children, her
job, the guy next door I meaneverything and everybody in her
(03:55):
life was giving her problems andshe was wound up, worked up and
she was looking for a releaseand thank God, I had recovered
enough to be able to providethat for her.
So A I saw that as ademonstration of progress on my
(04:15):
part.
We've been trained, or you know,the world generally will get
excited about new money, getexcited about diviner clothes,
get excited about you know, thistrip, get excited about all
(04:36):
those exciting things.
But sometimes you got to getexcited about the fact that you
feel better, that you now feelbetter than you didn, better
than you did before.
You got to be excited about thefact that you are not currently
, if you are currently healthy,that you are currently healthy,
because when you're unhealthy,that becomes the only problem
(04:56):
that you have.
So when you are healthy, weshould appreciate it, spike the
ball on it a bit more.
Having said all that, I washappy now to be in a position.
This just shows growth on mypart.
So I had a little spike theball party after the
conversation, because itdemonstrated that I was at a new
(05:19):
level of emotional maturity andability that allowed me, now
that my friends were seeing meas someone they could talk to,
as opposed to someone they hadto coddle and they had been
coddling me for two years.
But she called and she wasfalling out.
I mean, she was just fallingout, it was, and it was one of
(05:40):
those conversations and I'vedone it myself.
You get started and it's likepulling a string on some thread
of a badly weaved fabric.
The first thing you got to dowhen you've got a friend that
has fallen off a cliff like thatis you got to let her fall all
the way down.
You got to let her and not Imean I'm talking metaphorically
(06:03):
you got to let her get it allout and not I mean I'm talking
metaphorically you got to lether get it all out.
And I realized that when I wasdoing grief counseling with my,
when I needed to yes, I see thedog back there.
I don't know what to tell youis well, let's deal with that
problem right now.
But I let her get it all outbecause she had to unburden
(06:32):
herself.
What had happened?
None of the problems that shehad were extraordinary.
They weren't mind boggling,they weren't life altering, but
they were all a pain.
And what she was unable to doby the time she got to me was
see where one problem stoppedand another one started, become
(06:54):
emotionally undone.
And as each problem loses itsborders, they start to wind up
together.
And now it's not just the carain't working, or my kids are a
(07:15):
problem, or my husband's being afool or an idiot, or my wife's
being a pain and unkind, it'severything is wrong.
So when she got throughunburdening herself, the first
thing I said was let's shake outthe sheets of your problems.
(07:35):
Everyone should shake out thesheets of their problems.
Look at all the pressures thatwe have.
We got the family, we got thewife, the kids, the husband, the
girlfriend, the side chick, theside dude, whatever you doing,
baby mama drama.
I don't know what your lovelife looks like, but there's
always usually some drama.
I was married for 35 years andlisten, let me tell you, years 8
(07:59):
, 17, and 18 were a.
You know like it was like Iwant to call bumper cars.
We were just bumping into eachother the whole time, just being
upsetting each other and beingangry with each other.
So it happens, it happens.
Then there's then there arethose extraneous sources that
(08:23):
aren't particularly a problemfor you that day, but are a
pressure like an existentialthreat the election in November
of 2024, everybody, noteverybody people who are
interested.
I know a couple of people ain'tinterested at all and I can't
get them interested, but thosepeople who are interested are
(08:47):
pretty dramatic about it.
I mean, I'm interested.
I'm not dramatic about it, butI do read about it a lot, and
the information that comes in isso all the way left or all the
way right or all the way this orall the way, that I have begun
to feel as if I have anexistential crisis that's going
(09:12):
to be determined in November,and I think all of us feel like
we have some existential crisisthat's going to be dealt with in
November.
And then internet in and ofitself will start feeding you
your fears because you watchthose things more often.
It will start feeding you yourmore and more and more heavy
(09:34):
into that thing and that thingbecomes bigger than it is
because you sunk deeper intowhere it is.
Then you've got money, you'vegot your job, you've got
(09:55):
coworkers, you've got the peopleat Target and McDonald's and
McDonald's everyone seems to bejust on the edge of angry,
looking for a push.
And my girlfriend I'm going tocall her Susie because we all
know I don't know nobody namedSusie.
Well, actually, no, I don't,nobody named Susie.
(10:18):
Susie had a whole bunch ofissues, from worried about the
election, from worried aboutmoney, to worried about the
husband, to worried about thekids and this and that and the
other thing, and she was at apoint where she says I can't
take it no more.
And what I told her to do waslisten, shake out the sheets of
your problems and start solvingfrom the outside in, and what I
(10:44):
mean by that is don't talk aboutthem all in a pot.
If you are unable to exciseindividual urgencies and
problems from the other issuesthat you have, I would get a
piece of paper.
I love paper.
Now I use Remarkable.
It's a pad that you can writeand then you can convert it into
(11:07):
text and for some reason Ithink because I'm old and I've
been born in 1959, I've been atit for a while I says I still
like to write, but write themdown on a piece of paper.
Everything that you whatevershe listed I said I want you to
put that on a piece of paper.
Boom did it, boom did it.
Boom did it.
Boom did it, boom did it boom.
(11:27):
Now, once you've gotten excitedabout everything and you've
collected them into one part ofoh my God, my life ain't working
out.
Each problem becomes, can feel,has the ability to feel, as
problematic, as dramatic, asdifficult, as the most difficult
problem that you have.
I remember when Eric first died, my biggest problem well, I had
(11:51):
a million of them, but as Istarted to solve them, my small
problems started coming up fromthe bottom and I was addressing
them with the same angst andurgency that I dealt with.
You know what happened to him.
You know the coroner, all ofthat.
And I was like Susie, you're asupset about that D your kid got
(12:14):
as you are about potentiallylosing your job.
They are not of equal weight.
It's an additional problem thatyou have, but they're not of
equal weight.
So I want you to write out allyour problems, list them and
then actually weigh them.
I personally give them numbersWell, this is a one problem,
(12:36):
this is a two problem, this is a10 problem.
Then, once I have them allwritten out my one problem, two
problem and actually looked atthem and figured out how much of
a problem they really were, Istarted to solve small and I
worked my way in.
In other words, if I got alittle problem masquerading as a
(12:59):
big one, I will try to solvethat simple one.
Simple, find the simplest,solve and solve it.
That does a couple of things.
Number one it gives you a winand when you're overwhelmed by
your problems, all you tend tosee are the problems and
whatever you do well, whateverit doesn't get a hearing,
(13:20):
because you're seeing through alens of my life is a dramatic
mess.
Oh my God, now this ishappening to me.
So if you solve small, justfind something you can fix.
It gives you an emotional liftlike, ah, everything ain't out
of control.
It gives you a sense of controland it gives you a victory.
(13:42):
Then you solve the next one,the next small, easy solve, and
those things can change how youfeel about everything and you
can start to step back off ofthe sense of I am overwhelmed
and undone.
And let me tell you, I get a lotof letters from the women who
(14:04):
talk, who I mean longexpositions about all of the
difficulties they have in theirday and they don't quite know
how they're going to make it totomorrow.
And there seems there is asense of everything is wrong.
There is a sense of everythingis wrong.
(14:26):
So once everything is wrong,you can't see individual wrongs
and you just have one largeproblem.
So if you shake out the sheetsof those problems, see what they
are and assign them real values, Sometimes you can say problem
and say, look at a problem thatyou've written down.
It's like, well, actuallythat's not a problem, it would
have been earlier, it would havebeen, you know, but it's
(14:47):
actually not a problem.
So let me get it off my list.
And the beautiful thing aboutactually having a written list
is you can see your problemsdisappear.
You know, when you just feelthings, when they're amorphous,
when they're not right in frontof you, it's hard to get a
handle on them and deal withthem.
You know it's hard to, it'shard to right, but if they're
(15:11):
laid out you can tick them offone by one, by one by one, I got
a problem with my algorithm.
On my internet I have beenlooking at too much stuff that
has made me upset and whathappens is they feed you more of
what you look at and after awhile it just gets dark.
(15:33):
It got so bad for me and Idon't know if I can tell you
that, but anyway I got to apoint where my algorithm was
showing me Nazi executions.
I had gone.
I had gone that dark.
So what I do every once in awhile, I walk away from my
algorithm and make it dosomething else.
(15:53):
You know elephants, Elephantsand whales Large intelligent
mammals, tickle me.
You know what I mean.
I'd come back to life as anelephant if there were no humans
on the earth, because thoseelephants are very, very cool.
But anyway, that is a sidetrack, but I actively engage my
(16:13):
algorithm and put new things inso that algorithm can push me
towards a mood that I'd ratherbe in as opposed to simply
continuing to address the moodthat I am in.
Then I turn to my largerproblems and I figure out which
(16:34):
one is giving me the biggestissue and I do something about
that one, and I do it firstthing in the morning.
If somebody I don't want tocall and their office opens at
nine, I'm calling at 901 becauseI want to get that off my plate
.
And I solve, not just to solvethe problem but to soothe my
(16:57):
soul.
If you solve early, you get ridof the angst of anticipation of
that problem.
You get to walk away from thatbecause you've already done it.
And then again you get anotherfeeling of triumph and control
because you solved something andyou did it.
And even if you haven't solvedit, if you've addressed it,
(17:19):
you've learned more about it andyou're less afraid to go in
there another time because yousurvived the first foray into
whatever nonsense that it is.
Additionally, when I look at myproblems, I try to figure out
which ones I can put a period on.
(17:39):
In other words, I can be upsetabout something, but it's
currently not important enoughto make the list.
So I make a decision to call itunimportant to make the list
and I take it off the list and Ireward myself every time I take
something off my list and myrewards are, like you know, I go
(18:00):
eat something I'm not supposedto eat or I go.
I reward myself and I beatmyself up and I reward myself.
I'm trying to stop doing theformer and do more of the latter
.
We all tend to beat ourselves upa little bit about the things
that we don't do correctly.
And what I would watch from thebench is people on divorce
(18:23):
court.
I would watch couples argue andoftentimes the women and I'm
not saying that women are likethis and men are like that, I'm
just saying what I saw.
The women were like I've doneeverything and I can't get him
to hear me.
And I usually ask the dudeswhat their wife just said and
(18:47):
they never really know.
And I don't think it's herfault and I don't think it's his
fault.
What I think it is is acollection of troubles.
I know in my marriage let meput it to you this way I would
collect sins and problems and Iwas an error hoarder a little
(19:09):
bit.
Uh-huh.
He did this, collect that, keepit.
He did this, collect that, keepit.
It's like this that uh-huh,uh-huh, uh-huh, and when you
order error hoarding is likeliving in a bucket with your
significant other and there'swater of.
There is a whole spout oferrors that pours in.
(19:32):
But the problem is nokindnesses, no love, nothing
else.
That he did would drain out thebottom, would drain out that
water.
Did would drain out the bottom,would drain out that water.
So you both drown in mistakesthat will necessarily get made,
because we're all mistake prone,we're all human.
And a lot of the women in theretook all of the commentary from
(19:56):
their husband to heart and itbecame just one big unpleasant
scene that she couldn't quite.
It was, everything was justawful.
So she was just hooping andhollering all of the time
because even the failure to pickup you know something at the
(20:16):
grocery store became one morehorrific act because the errors
happened to be hoarded.
And it's not a woman thing,solely men hoard errors too, but
they tend to hoard differentkinds.
My husband would hold my errors, but he would hold the
different types of errors.
(20:37):
We all tend to hoard differenttypes of errors, but if you are
an error hoarder, the thing is,even though it makes you feel
good because you can alwayspoint to the other person as the
person who is the problem.
But the problem with being anerror hoarder is when you never
let go of any of the sins thatthe other person commits.
(20:58):
You're both drowning inmistakes.
They become less of the strong,wonderful person that you met
when you pick at them and pickat them and pick at them.
Being an error hoarder is likeowning a Ferrari, and when it
doesn't work you go out thereand kick it.
It doesn't help it work and itjust destroys the thing that you
(21:18):
have.
So if you are living with anerror hoarder, if you are a
error hoarder again, you arecollecting problems and sins and
you're carrying them along withyou day after day, hour after
(21:40):
hour, and it makes every smallproblem elevate to the level of
a huge one, because every newsmall problem is so
interconnected to the other ones.
It implicates all of your upsetand you go a little crazy.
Another thing you got to dowhen you are overwhelmed and I
had to tell my girlfriend Susiethis because we got to talking
(22:01):
about the election, and not justthe presidential election but
local elections and judges Ispend a lot of time on my judges
list, I go in, I read aboutthem and all that kind of stuff,
because you know, we're waydown ballot and most people
don't know what we're doing.
And if you're not a good one,you can get away with it for a
while once you're there, becausemost people don't know unless
(22:23):
they've already been in front ofyou.
So the time to worry about whoyour judiciary is right now.
Go look it up Some of them aregood.
Some of them are good and thereare ways to find.
You know there's always a listof.
Anyway I got sidetracked.
But you know, vote down ballotand vote down ballot with
information and you can get thatinformation.
(22:44):
It takes time, but go ahead anddo it.
But anyway, I was talking aboutSusie and her troubles and she
had gotten tied up.
You know, not only is myhusband not acting right and the
money ain't right and the kidsain't right, the whole world's
gonna go to hell in a handbasketin November.
And I'm like, listen, girl, youcan't do nothing about that
(23:06):
other than vote or put up.
You do what you can.
You vote, you put up your sign,you give a donation to the
party of your choice and thenyou let that go because you
ain't got, there's nothing youcan do about it.
And she was talking aboutabortion rights and all of these
things.
And I was saying I understandthat and you need to do what you
(23:28):
can figure out how on a locallevel, if you're upset about it,
to do what you can, to say yourand then let it go.
Then let it go Because you'rebeing distraught about something
does not serve to fix it and Idon't care which side of either
issue you're on.
(23:49):
That's not the point.
The point is not to carry yourissues with you in a manner that
it affects your day-to-day life.
If you haven't done what youneed to do to affect it and then
once you've done as much as youcan to affect it, then you let
it go and don't let other peopletell you what you need to do to
(24:11):
affect it.
You have to do what you findappropriate and then you have to
decide which problems you'regoing to go ahead and solve.
I've done what I can on this.
Let me move on to that.
But not let the uncertainty ofthat huge thing, your inability
(24:31):
to control that huge thing, landon you like another emotional
issue that you have.
Don't borrow that trouble.
Don't put your head in the sand.
Do what you can and don'tpreservate.
Preservate I think that's theword I'm looking for.
It's like go around and aroundand around.
(24:53):
I do that and both of my kidsdo that, so I think it's genetic
, but anyway I don't know.
So another thing I asked her todo is get more aggressive on
her 3D 2D ratio.
She was spending a lot of timeon TikTok and all that kind of
stuff, and I think she was doingthat because the atmosphere in
(25:14):
her home was so jacked up, butwhat the problem was, what she
was doing on the internet wasupsetting her emotionally.
Now she didn't think it wasbecause it wasn't the problems
that she was currently vetting,but she was borrowing other
people's troubles.
People talk about their lossesand this, and that it can be a
very sad place.
(25:34):
I think it's a wonderful placefor people who have been
isolated, like I've watched Danand his mother and his father.
You can be isolated taking careof an older person who was
suffering from dementia.
But if you have the outlet todo it online, I just think
that's a wonderful part of whatwe can do with the internet.
That having been said, don'tborrow the pain from other
(25:58):
people on there trying to avoidyour own.
Yes, you're not dealing withwhat's happening and you're
entertaining and you'redistracting yourself, but are
you distracting yourself bytaking on more emotionality of
other people?
Because there's a lot ofnegativity on there.
There's rage bait, there's this, there's that and the other.
So when you think you arevacating your stress and being
(26:22):
and distracting yourself, youreally feel feeding the wrong
dog.
Let me tell you about the dogs.
There are always two dogs.
Discontent is dog.
A Discontent is a loud yappymutt.
He hoops and he hollers, hebarks and he carries on, he nips
(26:45):
at you, he bites and he demandsyour attention.
Contentment, however, is aquiet canine, all calm, curled
up in a corner somewhere.
Just yeah, I'm cool, I'm fine.
It's those two dogs and the waythey behave are the reasons why
we will write letters ofcomplaint before we will write
(27:07):
letters of complimentary letters, because things that agitate us
demand our immediate attention,or at least try to demand our
immediate attention, and thingsthat are going fine, we don't
tend to acknowledge as muchbecause they're not bothering us
.
So when that discontent barksand carries on it leads you to
(27:29):
believe that you got to dealwith it and you got to feed it
and you got to argue withwhoever it is, or you got to
this, this, this, this, this,this, this and this, and
contentment is over here.
Well, yeah, I'm here, I'm calm,I'm cool.
Why won't you feed me?
If you just deal with the dramaand don't work to feed the joy,
(27:49):
you can make decisions to dosomething different.
When I do elephant videos, I'mfeeding the right dog.
When you're taking a moment tocall somebody you ain't talked
to for in a while and you reallylove to hear from them.
You're feeding the right dog.
I remember one time somebodycalled me and I picked up the
(28:12):
phone and he said hello.
And I said Patrick because hesounded like my cousin Patrick
and I love my cousin Patrick.
He is the sweetest thing in theworld.
And the guy on the phone othername phone was Steven.
He was a work buddy and he saidbefore he got off the phone he
said by the way, when you getoff this phone call, you need to
(28:32):
call whoever Patrick is,because you seem so happy to
hear from him and if you haven'theard from him in a while, you
should make that call.
That is an example of feedingthe right dog.
As my dog comes into frame, Ihave two dogs and spike the ball
for your victories, no matterhow small they may be, your
(28:59):
victories, no matter how smallthey may be, because we
certainly, you know, smackourselves up and down about all
the stupid things that we do.
At least I do.
I remember once my husbandpulled me to the side and he
said could you stop callingyourself a simple B, because
every time I would make someparticular type of mistake I
would say you simple B, and Ididn't think it was a problem.
How you doing there, doctor?
I didn't think it was a problem.
How you doing there, decker, Ididn't think it was a problem.
(29:21):
But that was me feeding thewrong dog, that was me
highlighting my errors, that wasme not checking out the sheets
of my problem and listing myfailures and faults and fails in
a way that elevates them to aplace where that's all I can see
(29:42):
.
So all I'm saying is this wegot a lot of stuff going on.
The world is a crazy place.
Everybody you know everybody'spredicting the worst and the
horror and the happenings.
I need you to shake out thesheets of your problems.
Take a look, just step back,because you get up all on them.
(30:03):
They're harder to see and whenyou shake them out, you deal
with what you can deal with andyou work through what you can
work through.
We can go out in the world notwith an emotionality that is
filled with distress and angerand division and dismay.
(30:31):
You can fill your mind and yourfeelings with the best that you
can be and you can go out andripple that into the community.
You know what I mean.
Just ripple it out and itdoesn't matter if anybody else
is doing the same thing, becauseit affects your emotionality
and some people will really comealong.
I love nice people.
If you're nice to me, I'll doanything, not that one.
What is the stupidest thingI've just said today?
(30:51):
But then maybe that means it'stime for me to get up and go.
How about that?
Listen, under your skin is asovereign country.
Don't go handing out passportsall willy-nilly to people who
don't belong there.
No matter what's going on, howyou feel about it makes a
difference, and you can decidehow you want to feel about it If
(31:12):
you work your emotions like thejob you are, work your emotions
like the job they are, so wecan all start feeling on purpose
.
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