August 30, 2024 • 29 mins
Ever wondered how to harness your emotions to improve your life and relationships? Join us as Judge Lynn Toler, renowned for her years on Divorce Court, shares her unique insights and personal stories on the art of "Feeling on Purpose." Drawing from her experiences as a municipal judge, Judge Toler reveals how emotional mismanagement often leads to legal troubles and underscores the transformative power of empathy and understanding. Learn how her mother's wisdom and her own approach to starting where people are emotionally can guide anyone toward better decision-making and emotional intelligence.
Journey with us through Judge Toler's exploration of managing anxiety and its profound effects on both personal and professional relationships. She recounts the practical strategies she and her late husband employed, including their innovative "weather report" system to communicate moods and prevent misunderstandings. Hear about her bold transition from a secure judicial role to a television career, the challenges she faced, and the rewards she reaped. Additionally, Judge Toler opens up about her time spent at home, the creation of her book "My Mother's Rules," and the importance of staying engaged and productive during life's transitions.
In today's world, emotional intelligence is more crucial than ever. Judge Toler emphasizes the need for deliberately developing emotional management skills, akin to learning to read, to handle life's ups and downs. Through personal anecdotes, she illustrates the importance of self-awareness and continuous self-improvement. Judge Toler encourages us all to acknowledge our weaknesses and strive for personal growth with purpose and discipline. As we approach the challenges of everyday life, let's commit to acting thoughtfully and making meaningful progress, just as Judge Toler has done throughout her remarkable journey.
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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):
I want you to feel better.
I really do, but when I usethat term better, I'm using it
as an adverb and not anadjective.
Yes, I want you to feel happy.
I want to feel happy, but Ithink it's more important that
we all feel intelligently andpurposely.
You know, emotions aren't justsomething that you have to feel
or fight through.
They can be used as a force.
(00:41):
You can unfurl them so you canfly.
Be used as a force.
You can unfurl them so you canfly.
And even if you can't managethat, a well ordered emotional
house will keep you fromoutsourcing your mood to the
masses.
And you know that's the lastthing we need to do.
Remember, under your skin is asovereign country.
Don't go passing out passportsall willy-nilly to people who
(01:02):
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 JudgeLennon.
Welcome to the first episode ofFeeling On Purpose.
The whole purpose of thispodcast is to make you feel on
(01:22):
purpose, just like I need tofeel on purpose.
And to feel on purpose is to bein charge of your emotional
house, as opposed to youremotional house running you.
And the thing about youremotional house is we never
spend a lot of time training it.
We fall into our emotions, wefeel we do, we are all this kind
(01:44):
of stuff, but we don't practicedeciding how we want to feel,
and I think it's necessary.
I came to this conclusionbecause before I ever was on TV,
I was the judge on divorcecourt.
For a while I was a judge inmunicipal court in Cleveland
Heights, ohio.
I took the bench at 34, got upthere and was flabbergasted by
(02:11):
all that was going on.
And the first of all, let meexplain to you what kind of
judge I was, so you'llunderstand what it is I was
seeing and why I think itrelates to all of us, as opposed
to just just people who don'tknow how to act.
I was a municipal.
Why I think it relates to allof us, as opposed to just people
who don't know how to act.
I was a municipal judge In amunicipal court.
It's where you see first-timedomestic violence cases.
(02:32):
You see when John and Bob getmad at each other and Bob hits
John because John's dog poopedin his yard.
I was the person that you seeNegligent homicide, duis fights,
a lot of domestic violence, butthat's what I saw.
(02:52):
I got regular people who did thewrong thing on any given day,
regular people just like you andme, who were just hanging about
and couldn't get it right onany particular day.
And when I was paying attentionto it, I realized something my
mother had told me was reallycorrect, which is most people
(03:13):
know what the right and thewrong of it is and most people
want to do the right and wrongof it, do the right part of it.
Not all people, but most peoplegenerally want to get it right.
And I learned that on Thursdaysand I'll tell you about
Thursdays in a minute, because Ihated Thursdays but anyway,
they didn't get it right, notbecause they failed to assess
(03:34):
the situation correctly.
It's because they failed toaccommodate their feelings
correctly.
They let how they felt get infront of what they were doing
and they were not able toconduct business in a manner
commensurate with the law.
Just give you an example.
Well, let me do it this way Oneday I was sentencing a guy for
(04:01):
popping his wife and I gave himwhat a friend of mine calls the
good old acid acid rain danceabout how can you?
You can't do this, you get angry, you get angry, and it just so
happens that my mother was inthe courtroom watching me.
And so when I got done and Iwent to the back, she came to
the back with me.
She said you know, lynn, let metell you, tell you what you did
(04:21):
wrong talking to that defendant.
And I said well, what you mean,mama?
And she says well, listen, he'sgoing to go to jail, thinking
about that bee he hit and thatother bee who put him in jail
and yelled at him.
You did not convince him ofanything.
You didn't change his mind.
You didn't change his ideas.
You probably made him just alittle bit madder and I said
well, what should I do?
She says you got to start wherethey are and slowly walk them
(04:43):
home, lean over and tell them.
I said well, what did ask him,what did he do?
What'd she do?
What did he do?
What was going on?
And that upset you didn't it,didn't it?
I understand, I understand, andfor the seventh time, she
didn't.
She just now, and once you dothat because most of the time
the defendants were looking atyou like you don't understand.
(05:04):
You came into the circumstancelate, you don't know what you're
talking about because youweren't there and you don't know
how he or she is all the timeand it's an ongoing problem.
And who is this chick trying todecide what to do?
So they don't listen to you,they just kind of float through
whatever you say, and I alwaysbelieved that incarceration
without elucidation was a wasteof time.
(05:26):
Why put people in jail?
I mean, if we judges judged ourefficacy by the recidivism rate
, you know how often we keeprotating them around.
We don't do so good most of thetime because the recidivism
rate is high.
Now, in Muni court, it's anopportunity to catch them before
it gets ugly.
You know what I mean.
(05:46):
The first time foolishness withthe theft or the.
You know the shoplifting orwhatever.
You come to municipal court andit's a unique opportunity,
(06:08):
leaning towards doing the wrongthing.
It's a unique opportunity tohave a whisper in their ear that
might make a difference.
Now, I am not a foe, so I knowfull well that a few words of a
judge will not change how youfeel about anything.
I do, however, believe in beingan obnoxious probationary
person.
Where I I put you on probation,I'll make you get a license,
(06:29):
I'll do this, I'll do that, I'lldo the other thing, but I'll
keep messing with you until youget it.
And I also want to talk to youin a manner that allows you,
because sometimes, if you simplyplant a seed, people that it
will grow, but you can't plant aseed if you have flooded their
field with angry, because nobodyopens up underwater and says,
(06:55):
okay, I will accept what you'resaying when they're actively
drowning in your anger.
So I learned what worked.
I learned how to talk todifferent people.
I learned to listen, and thatwas the most extraordinary thing
, because if you listen withsomebody else's emotionality in
mind, you are better able tounderstand why they're doing
(07:20):
what they're doing.
People got a reason for doingeverything, but behind that
reason if it's a fact or afeeling, it's usually the
feeling and not the facts thatare.
That's why we can all look atthe same thing and feel so
differently about it, becauseour feelings are so strong and
so fast and they come up on usso seriously that we can't.
(07:42):
We can't stop, wait a minuteand decide whether or not what
we're feeling is going to allowus to do what we need to do.
So that's why I'm doing thispodcast called Feeling on
Purpose.
I don't want your feelings tobe happenstance.
I certainly don't want myfeelings to be a matter of
happenstance.
As a matter of fact, feeling onpurpose is something I have had
(08:06):
to do my entire life because Iwas born an anxious chick.
My father was born in 1990.
My mother was born in 1930.
I was born in 1959.
My father was bipolar,unmedicated.
There was a lot going on in thehouse and I am his daughter.
So, both both by by biology andby nature and by nurture, I am
(08:29):
an anxious chick, just whoo.
I remember 14, I was 14 yearsold and my mom and my my mother
and my sister were sitting there.
Just call him man.
Just call him, it's okay.
He wants you to call.
No, I can't do it.
I don't know.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.
Do you know who they weretrying to get me to call?
They were trying to get me tocall the pizza man.
(08:50):
I was so shy, I was so retiring, I couldn't call the pizza man.
My mother says you know hewants you to call Lynn.
That's how he makes his money.
He's excited when you call.
Couldn't do it, couldn't figureit out.
I was a really scary, sketchychick all my life and when
you're anxious like that, youcan't go anywhere, you can't get
(09:13):
anything done, because youspent all of your time
overthinking and worrying andworrying.
And the reason that I'm notjust undone, sitting somewhere
rocking back and forth thinkingabout it's not safe, it's not
thinking about, it's not safe,it's not safe, it's not safe
which is generally how I thinkthings are is because my mother
saw her little daughter, herlittle girl, for who she was and
(09:33):
wasn't afraid to call it whatit was, which was overwrought
anxious anxiety, ridden a littlebit of little taste of whatever
daddy had has been delivered tome.
And this is what she had on herhands.
So she had a decision to makeeither she could get upset about
who I was or she could help menavigate the week in me so that
(09:55):
the rest of me can get whereit's going.
And she was successful at that.
And what it taught me to do wasis to be hyper aware of all my
emotional responses andreactions.
And I lost my husband not toolong ago and I'm not going to
(10:16):
talk about it now because I'llstart crying and then I'll just
have to stop.
But when we first got married Iwas a very, very moody chick and
I would get upset and angry andhe would think I was upset and
angry with him when I was justupset and angry because I was
anxious about things in general,and the things in general that
I was so anxious and angry aboutwere so terrifically ridiculous
(10:40):
that he could not get next tothe fact that that's why I was
upset.
He thought it was me.
So every morning I decidedafter a while, when we had a
couple of unproductive argumentswhere he just couldn't
understand why I was so justgoing around and around and
around about something he didthat really didn't make any
(11:03):
difference that if I am in astate of worry, if my fight or
flight, chemicals have beendispensed, they just out there.
They don't know where to go,they don't know what I'm upset
about, they just out there andthey meet every situation I run
(11:25):
into, which is veryinappropriate.
So what we decided to do, whenwe realized that I was simply a
moody chick, is to give him aweather report every morning,
and the weather report was a wayfor me to one require me to sit
down and think about how I feel.
How's it going today?
(11:46):
Am I excited?
Am I upset?
Am I anxious, am I afraid?
Am I bored, whatever it is, andthen I would communicate
whatever my mood was to him, notin order to tell him what to do
, but A1, give him a heads up ifthings ain't going well and if
I'm upset, and knowing that it'snot him.
And two, it requires me toacknowledge how I feel him.
(12:10):
And two, it requires me toacknowledge how I feel.
So I can't just go with thefeeling of the moment.
If I am anxious, upset orotherwise worried or whatever,
sometimes I'm just panicked,running around in a circle, I'll
know that.
And so don't nobody get hurt.
It lets him know I'm not mad athim.
And it lets me know that I'mmad and that I should make a
point of not directing it at himwhen you have all hands.
(12:34):
You got to have all hands ondeck because marriage is a
difficult thing and you both gotto be working hard for the
union as opposed to yourself.
But anyway, that's a wholenother podcast for another.
Well, for this podcast foranother day.
But I was telling you aboutwhat kind of judge I was,
(12:54):
because I got to see normal,regular people like you and me
on their worst day.
And when I left the bench in2001 to go on TV that first TV
show.
It was so funny.
I was minding my own business,minding my own business, and
somebody called from Fox I was,you know and I got off the bench
(13:15):
and I sat down and hey, hey hey, hey, stop it.
I'm a lone man here.
My dogs were fighting.
I had to do something about it.
I apologize profusely, butanyway, what was I talking about
?
So I was seeing regular folk allthe time doing the wrong thing
and I would be on the bench.
(13:37):
And one day I got off the benchand my clerk, of course Maria,
said hey, fox television called.
I said very funny, maria, and Iwent in my.
She said no, they really did.
So I called, I looked at it andI called him and I can't
remember who I called.
And I told my husband and welaughed about it and stuff.
Well, I was laughing, he wasn'tlaughing.
He says, well, why don't you gotalk to him?
(13:58):
And I said, well, I'm not goingto go do that.
And I did go do it and I had ashow.
It was power of attorney.
I took over for JudgeNapolitano.
It lasted four months and I hadto step off the bench and I had
just won reelection.
So I had a six year, no cutcontract with the city of
Cleveland Heights to have a jobfor the next six years, and I
(14:20):
walked off for a job that lastsfour months, happily, though I
was concerned about that verything.
So I was concerned about thatvery thing.
So when I negotiated mycontract, I negotiated a section
that said if the show goes andI was slowly descending down the
counter because I had neverjust like lost a gig before and
(14:59):
it was just like I just felt sofoolish I stepped away from the
bench.
And then the checks kept comingand I was at home for five years
with my children getting paid ajudicial salary, and then,
because I would get a littlebored, I would do, I would sit
by assignment, like when otherjudges got sick or something.
I would sit by assignment.
(15:19):
So I would have something to do, but otherwise and I stayed
home.
And the last thing I did tokeep me from being bored was I
wrote a book called my Mother'sRules.
It.
I was a better salesman.
I would have had the picture inframe the whole time, but
apparently I'm not.
Being on the bench in ClevelandHeights gave me pause.
(15:39):
It made me worry about how wewere doing as a people and how
we were doing emotionally, and Ialways considered my mother an
emotional genius.
She had the ability to seeherself.
She called it her second set ofeyes, that she was allowed to
(16:00):
watch herself from outsideherself so she could understand
how she's feeling and, deeperstill still, take her own
emotionality out of anysituation and focus on how the
other person is feeling.
And that gives you power,because if you know what they're
feeling and why they're feelingthat way and they don't, maybe
(16:20):
they will and maybe they don't,but a lot of times they don't If
you meet the need they thinkthey have, you can get them to
meet your needs.
Otherwise not always, butsometimes.
But she had that ability and letme tell you, the best
compliment I ever got from thatwoman from anybody was she came
(16:40):
again like a couple years laterto court and when we went back
in the back and she says youhave them too, and I said,
what's that?
He goes, your second set ofeyes.
That meant I was listening tothe defendants in a matter in a
manner that allowed me tounderstand them and to convince
(17:02):
them of things.
Sometimes, if you get a cat tolaugh, you got him to listen.
But anyway and I know it worksa little bit, doesn't work
grandly, but it's it's betterthan nothing.
It's better than nothing.
But anyway, based on what I wasseeing back in 2001 through
(17:24):
2006, which is while I waswriting this book.
This is what I wrote.
I said given the way emotionalmeltdowns have become a regular
feature of our society fromparents killing each other at
hockey games to every known ragein the book air rage, road rage
, you know, work rage I contendthat people's lack of emotional
know-how has become an urgentconcern In a day and age when
(17:44):
cutting someone off on the roadcan get you killed.
I say teaching people, thedeliberate and purposeful
development of emotional skillsis as important as teaching them
to read, and I do believethat's true.
Ain't no way in the world Icould have predicted social
media.
Ain't no way in the world Iwould could have said oh,
(18:05):
there's going to be things outthere called rage bait and
people being paid to fight Justcraziness.
Out there, people are becomingundone at McDonald's because
their order was wrong Launching.
It wasn't that bad.
Then it has gotten worse, and Ithink that the purposeful
(18:28):
management of emotion is anurgent concern, and it is the
point.
The point of this podcast is toget you to.
I don't want you to believe me,I don't want you.
I ain't going to tell you whatto do.
I just want to give you somemore information about the
(18:50):
processes and procedures you canuse to develop your own second
set of eyes and be your own bestemotional manager.
You know I want to have what Icall a steep emotional angle of
repose, and I know I was goingto call this angle of repose,
but everybody got tired of this.
I just love this, though, angleof repose.
And I know I was gonna callthis angle of repose.
Everybody got tired of this.
I just love this, though.
Angle of repose is the steepleangles which loose material will
(19:14):
remain static on a slantedsurface.
So think sand on a slidingboard.
If at 45 degrees the sand willstay there, but at 46 degrees
the sand slides to the bottom 45degrees of its angle of repose.
It's the steepest angle it canbe on without slipping.
I want to have a steep emotionalangle of repose.
I want to be able to uh, boband weave through my emotional
(19:38):
day where everybody else isupset and wired and carried on
I'm.
I want to be able to manage howI feel and so that the
vicissitudes of this life, theups and downs of this world, the
slings and arrows of outrageousfortune aren't so demanding, so
I could live and be calm and becool.
(19:59):
This is a chick who was afraidto call the pizza man, who now
lives a very public life, whonow lives a very public life.
I've got you know.
I remember a girlfriend of minefrom high school when she saw me
on TV.
She just she found me.
She said, lynn, I can seelawyer, I can see judge, but
what in the world?
(20:20):
You were the shyest, mostuncomfortable person.
I said I know, but you shouldnever let the least of you stand
between the world and the restof you, which is the best of you
.
So in order to keep thattogether, I got to keep the
least of me together, and I knowpeople aren't excited about
looking at themselves in theharsh light of a mirror like the
(20:43):
bathroom mirror.
Man.
You got to look at yourself inthe mirror and all the nicks and
divots and nooks and cranniesand all the things that ain't
quite right with you.
You got to be able to look itright in the face in the bright
sunlight and say I see you.
And it's not something thatmost of us like to do.
We all like to put our bestfoot forward and everybody tells
(21:07):
you to do that, but I like tofocus on the one dragon behind
because that's the sucker that'sgoing to trip me up.
Should I have to break out intoa run?
And every once in a while yougot to break out into a run of
some sort or another.
So if you know where you'reweak, if you know what you don't
do, well, if you know wherepeople have you have.
Have a soft spot, a chink inyour armor, you can, you know,
(21:30):
cover it up, get some, you know,get some kind of something to
help get it together.
You don't become a differentperson all at once, but you
evolve.
That's one of the bestcompliment I ever got from my
husband was we were in hisoffice one day and something had
(21:51):
happened and it wasn't cool.
And I said, yeah, this happened.
And he says, well, what are yougoing to do?
And I said this.
And he goes.
And I said, well, what do youthink?
And he said this is what Ithink.
And then he said and then Isaid we were sitting there and
we looked at each other.
He says you know, a few yearsago that would have sent you
into orbit.
And I said, I know I handledthat so calmly, didn't I?
(22:11):
He said, baby, you have evolved.
Then, with the brother 35 years.
He told me I evolved, I'vebecome a better version of me
and I want us all to become.
My big thing is, if you see metoday and then you meet me a
year from now, I'll be adifferent person I'll be.
(22:32):
I will have read more books, Iwill have gone more places, I
would have made more decisions,I would have figured out
different things that are wrongwith me and just bit by bit, day
by day, elevate a little bitand there's a whole lot wrong
(22:54):
with me, whole lot.
But I'm not going to let itstop me.
And A because I call it what itis, and I know what it is and
I'm not afraid of it, and I knowwhat situations implicate my
week.
I'll work on it and I'm goingto tell you what my week is.
And let me say this I wroteanother book, dear Sonali
(23:14):
Letters to a Daughter I Neverhad, which I don't know where it
is.
I'm terrible about that, but itwas a book designed to talk to
young women who are in their 20sand the first chapter I said is
about my lean and I tell youall the stuff that is odd about
me, and I never take advice fromanybody who doesn't know what's
(23:38):
wrong with them, becausethere's something wrong with all
of us.
You know, I'm anxious, I worry,I am impulsive, I'm not
impulsive, I am panicky, I'mpanicking.
I tend not to have.
I don't believe in like theseepiphanies and all these kind of
stuff.
(23:58):
I'm not.
I've never had like a lightbulb moment.
I just gorilla fight house tohouse.
I still don't know if I'm doinga job or I am in a profession
that I should be.
I just don't know because I'vedone so many things.
I wanted to be ananesthesiologist when I was a
little kid, but you know well, Ialways thought I wanted to be a
(24:22):
doctor.
Now I realize it was just ourparents whispering doctor,
doctor, doctor to me and mysister's ears my sister.
She in fact became a doctor.
I, however, went to schoolintending to become an
anesthesiologist, because thatwas the doctor that put people
to sleep and because I don'tlike I didn't like dealing with
people because I was so shy Ithought that would be the best
(24:42):
thing for me to do is just haveall my clients out and they
don't see me, and I got to talkto them.
And then I got to college,didn't go to get, didn't, didn't
, didn't, didn't go to class.
If you don't go to class, youcan't pass your math class.
So I changed my major, becamesomething else and I was growing
around and then senior yearrolled up and I said what's
happening here?
And daddy said, yeah, what ishappening here?
(25:03):
Because he paid for the wholeride and he says if you don't go
to a graduate school, you gotto get a job ran my little brown
behind over, took the LSAT,went to law school, never had
any desire to be a lawyer.
I don't like conflict, but hey,you know you do what you do.
But anyway, the whole thing isI was thought I was watching
(25:24):
from the bench a return torumple room.
I mean it was like theretitlerization of America.
I mean, smaller and smallerissues were bigger and bigger
problems, and what I saw asalarming then is really just the
tip of the iceberg, becausewhat technology has done is it
(25:47):
has amped up all of that.
Social media is where you'reinstigating emotion because it
gets us views.
You have a rage bait and allthis kind of stuff.
People are jacking you up toget views, to get money, and if
you're not emotionally aware ofwhere you are and what you're
(26:09):
doing your feel can get in frontof your do, and then you end up
doing something that'll get youin front of somebody like me,
which you don't want to do.
You don't want to do that atall.
We want to have a steepemotional angle of repulse.
We're going to let the fools,the clowns, the idiots just run
(26:29):
about us.
We're going to smile, but we'regoing to be okay with it.
And part of this podcast is, ona personal level, an opportunity
to find out who I am again.
I was married when I was 29years old to met him at 27.
Never been with another brothersince then, in 1987.
(26:51):
Married him in 89, lost him in22.
I got to figure out who I am.
You know, I got to figure itout and it's easier to do when
you're, I know, like I mournedall the way through on Instagram
.
You know, every day I would.
It was like a journal ofdistress and just like I don't
(27:14):
want to live no more.
I don't believe it, but anywayI didn't want to live no more, I
don't believe it, but anyway.
I didn't mean to get into allthat today.
I just want to tell you whatI'm trying to do.
What I'm trying to give you isnot tell you what to do.
If you ask me a question andI'd love to answer questions is
I'm not going to necessarily sayokay, this is what you want to
do, because men do this andwomen do that, and men should
(27:36):
and women should.
I ain't doing all of that.
First of all, I've read toomany books to be certain about
anything, and I know there's somany more books I haven't read
to be certain about anything.
But I probably ask you a lot ofquestions because I don't know
you.
You give me advice Any adviceyou give me.
My mother told me this once.
My sister give me advice, anyadvice you give me.
(27:57):
My mother you told me this once.
My sister was very outgoing.
She's a neurologist.
Now she's a doctor.
She went to school, she didwhat she was supposed to do.
I did not, however, and shewould, she would tell me say
anything.
I told your sister who, who wasmy sister, is one of the most
outgoing, engaging people I'veever met in my life.
She is just you know, she wasjust you know.
But anyway, everybody justloves Kathy because she's just
(28:20):
dynamic.
And I was so shy and reclusive.
My mother said I spenteverything, anything I told her.
I told you exactly the opposite.
I was spending my time pullingher back in the house and trying
to push you out.
So any advice that I gave onewas not applicable to the other.
And I found with my ownchildren the two that I made
(28:41):
from scratch with Big E samething.
I never tell them the samething.
Whatever I would tell one wouldput the other one in jail, and
what I would tell the other onewould put the other one in a
loony bin.
So, not knowing you, I won'tgive definitive answers.
I will ask you to walk througha process of thought with me.
I'll tell you some storiesabout what I've done and some
(29:03):
assessments based upon whatyou've said to me.
But it's about process andprocedure.
It's not about this is what youought to do.
It's like figuring out whatworks for you, but that's what I
want to do.
It's like figuring out whatworks for you, but that's what I
want to do.
But, above all, I wanteverybody to start feeling on
purpose.
(29:23):
November's coming.
We can't just cut up.
Oh, we can, but let's not.
We have to practice, and that'swhat I want to do here.
So listen y'all, get out thereand act like you have some sense
.
I'm going to try to do thatmyself and hopefully we can all
start feeling on purpose.
Take care, see you next time.
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):
I want you to feel better.
I really do, but when I usethat term better, I'm using it
as an adverb and not anadjective.
Yes, I want you to feel happy.
I want to feel happy, but Ithink it's more important that
we all feel intelligently andpurposely.
You know, emotions aren't justsomething that you have to feel
or fight through.
They can be used as a force.
(00:41):
You can unfurl them so you canfly.
Be used as a force.
You can unfurl them so you canfly.
And even if you can't managethat, a well ordered emotional
house will keep you fromoutsourcing your mood to the
masses.
And you know that's the lastthing we need to do.
Remember, under your skin is asovereign country.
Don't go passing out passportsall willy-nilly to people who
(01:02):
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 JudgeLennon.
Welcome to the first episode ofFeeling On Purpose.
The whole purpose of thispodcast is to make you feel on
(01:22):
purpose, just like I need tofeel on purpose.
And to feel on purpose is to bein charge of your emotional
house, as opposed to youremotional house running you.
And the thing about youremotional house is we never
spend a lot of time training it.
We fall into our emotions, wefeel we do, we are all this kind
(01:44):
of stuff, but we don't practicedeciding how we want to feel,
and I think it's necessary.
I came to this conclusionbecause before I ever was on TV,
I was the judge on divorcecourt.
For a while I was a judge inmunicipal court in Cleveland
Heights, ohio.
I took the bench at 34, got upthere and was flabbergasted by
(02:11):
all that was going on.
And the first of all, let meexplain to you what kind of
judge I was, so you'llunderstand what it is I was
seeing and why I think itrelates to all of us, as opposed
to just just people who don'tknow how to act.
I was a municipal.
Why I think it relates to allof us, as opposed to just people
who don't know how to act.
I was a municipal judge In amunicipal court.
It's where you see first-timedomestic violence cases.
(02:32):
You see when John and Bob getmad at each other and Bob hits
John because John's dog poopedin his yard.
I was the person that you seeNegligent homicide, duis fights,
a lot of domestic violence, butthat's what I saw.
(02:52):
I got regular people who did thewrong thing on any given day,
regular people just like you andme, who were just hanging about
and couldn't get it right onany particular day.
And when I was paying attentionto it, I realized something my
mother had told me was reallycorrect, which is most people
(03:13):
know what the right and thewrong of it is and most people
want to do the right and wrongof it, do the right part of it.
Not all people, but most peoplegenerally want to get it right.
And I learned that on Thursdaysand I'll tell you about
Thursdays in a minute, because Ihated Thursdays but anyway,
they didn't get it right, notbecause they failed to assess
(03:34):
the situation correctly.
It's because they failed toaccommodate their feelings
correctly.
They let how they felt get infront of what they were doing
and they were not able toconduct business in a manner
commensurate with the law.
Just give you an example.
Well, let me do it this way Oneday I was sentencing a guy for
(04:01):
popping his wife and I gave himwhat a friend of mine calls the
good old acid acid rain danceabout how can you?
You can't do this, you get angry, you get angry, and it just so
happens that my mother was inthe courtroom watching me.
And so when I got done and Iwent to the back, she came to
the back with me.
She said you know, lynn, let metell you, tell you what you did
(04:21):
wrong talking to that defendant.
And I said well, what you mean,mama?
And she says well, listen, he'sgoing to go to jail, thinking
about that bee he hit and thatother bee who put him in jail
and yelled at him.
You did not convince him ofanything.
You didn't change his mind.
You didn't change his ideas.
You probably made him just alittle bit madder and I said
well, what should I do?
She says you got to start wherethey are and slowly walk them
(04:43):
home, lean over and tell them.
I said well, what did ask him,what did he do?
What'd she do?
What did he do?
What was going on?
And that upset you didn't it,didn't it?
I understand, I understand, andfor the seventh time, she
didn't.
She just now, and once you dothat because most of the time
the defendants were looking atyou like you don't understand.
(05:04):
You came into the circumstancelate, you don't know what you're
talking about because youweren't there and you don't know
how he or she is all the timeand it's an ongoing problem.
And who is this chick trying todecide what to do?
So they don't listen to you,they just kind of float through
whatever you say, and I alwaysbelieved that incarceration
without elucidation was a wasteof time.
(05:26):
Why put people in jail?
I mean, if we judges judged ourefficacy by the recidivism rate
, you know how often we keeprotating them around.
We don't do so good most of thetime because the recidivism
rate is high.
Now, in Muni court, it's anopportunity to catch them before
it gets ugly.
You know what I mean.
(05:46):
The first time foolishness withthe theft or the.
You know the shoplifting orwhatever.
You come to municipal court andit's a unique opportunity,
(06:08):
leaning towards doing the wrongthing.
It's a unique opportunity tohave a whisper in their ear that
might make a difference.
Now, I am not a foe, so I knowfull well that a few words of a
judge will not change how youfeel about anything.
I do, however, believe in beingan obnoxious probationary
person.
Where I I put you on probation,I'll make you get a license,
(06:29):
I'll do this, I'll do that, I'lldo the other thing, but I'll
keep messing with you until youget it.
And I also want to talk to youin a manner that allows you,
because sometimes, if you simplyplant a seed, people that it
will grow, but you can't plant aseed if you have flooded their
field with angry, because nobodyopens up underwater and says,
(06:55):
okay, I will accept what you'resaying when they're actively
drowning in your anger.
So I learned what worked.
I learned how to talk todifferent people.
I learned to listen, and thatwas the most extraordinary thing
, because if you listen withsomebody else's emotionality in
mind, you are better able tounderstand why they're doing
(07:20):
what they're doing.
People got a reason for doingeverything, but behind that
reason if it's a fact or afeeling, it's usually the
feeling and not the facts thatare.
That's why we can all look atthe same thing and feel so
differently about it, becauseour feelings are so strong and
so fast and they come up on usso seriously that we can't.
(07:42):
We can't stop, wait a minuteand decide whether or not what
we're feeling is going to allowus to do what we need to do.
So that's why I'm doing thispodcast called Feeling on
Purpose.
I don't want your feelings tobe happenstance.
I certainly don't want myfeelings to be a matter of
happenstance.
As a matter of fact, feeling onpurpose is something I have had
(08:06):
to do my entire life because Iwas born an anxious chick.
My father was born in 1990.
My mother was born in 1930.
I was born in 1959.
My father was bipolar,unmedicated.
There was a lot going on in thehouse and I am his daughter.
So, both both by by biology andby nature and by nurture, I am
(08:29):
an anxious chick, just whoo.
I remember 14, I was 14 yearsold and my mom and my my mother
and my sister were sitting there.
Just call him man.
Just call him, it's okay.
He wants you to call.
No, I can't do it.
I don't know.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.
Do you know who they weretrying to get me to call?
They were trying to get me tocall the pizza man.
(08:50):
I was so shy, I was so retiring, I couldn't call the pizza man.
My mother says you know hewants you to call Lynn.
That's how he makes his money.
He's excited when you call.
Couldn't do it, couldn't figureit out.
I was a really scary, sketchychick all my life and when
you're anxious like that, youcan't go anywhere, you can't get
(09:13):
anything done, because youspent all of your time
overthinking and worrying andworrying.
And the reason that I'm notjust undone, sitting somewhere
rocking back and forth thinkingabout it's not safe, it's not
thinking about, it's not safe,it's not safe, it's not safe
which is generally how I thinkthings are is because my mother
saw her little daughter, herlittle girl, for who she was and
(09:33):
wasn't afraid to call it whatit was, which was overwrought
anxious anxiety, ridden a littlebit of little taste of whatever
daddy had has been delivered tome.
And this is what she had on herhands.
So she had a decision to makeeither she could get upset about
who I was or she could help menavigate the week in me so that
(09:55):
the rest of me can get whereit's going.
And she was successful at that.
And what it taught me to do wasis to be hyper aware of all my
emotional responses andreactions.
And I lost my husband not toolong ago and I'm not going to
(10:16):
talk about it now because I'llstart crying and then I'll just
have to stop.
But when we first got married Iwas a very, very moody chick and
I would get upset and angry andhe would think I was upset and
angry with him when I was justupset and angry because I was
anxious about things in general,and the things in general that
I was so anxious and angry aboutwere so terrifically ridiculous
(10:40):
that he could not get next tothe fact that that's why I was
upset.
He thought it was me.
So every morning I decidedafter a while, when we had a
couple of unproductive argumentswhere he just couldn't
understand why I was so justgoing around and around and
around about something he didthat really didn't make any
(11:03):
difference that if I am in astate of worry, if my fight or
flight, chemicals have beendispensed, they just out there.
They don't know where to go,they don't know what I'm upset
about, they just out there andthey meet every situation I run
(11:25):
into, which is veryinappropriate.
So what we decided to do, whenwe realized that I was simply a
moody chick, is to give him aweather report every morning,
and the weather report was a wayfor me to one require me to sit
down and think about how I feel.
How's it going today?
(11:46):
Am I excited?
Am I upset?
Am I anxious, am I afraid?
Am I bored, whatever it is, andthen I would communicate
whatever my mood was to him, notin order to tell him what to do
, but A1, give him a heads up ifthings ain't going well and if
I'm upset, and knowing that it'snot him.
And two, it requires me toacknowledge how I feel him.
(12:10):
And two, it requires me toacknowledge how I feel.
So I can't just go with thefeeling of the moment.
If I am anxious, upset orotherwise worried or whatever,
sometimes I'm just panicked,running around in a circle, I'll
know that.
And so don't nobody get hurt.
It lets him know I'm not mad athim.
And it lets me know that I'mmad and that I should make a
point of not directing it at himwhen you have all hands.
(12:34):
You got to have all hands ondeck because marriage is a
difficult thing and you both gotto be working hard for the
union as opposed to yourself.
But anyway, that's a wholenother podcast for another.
Well, for this podcast foranother day.
But I was telling you aboutwhat kind of judge I was,
(12:54):
because I got to see normal,regular people like you and me
on their worst day.
And when I left the bench in2001 to go on TV that first TV
show.
It was so funny.
I was minding my own business,minding my own business, and
somebody called from Fox I was,you know and I got off the bench
(13:15):
and I sat down and hey, hey hey, hey, stop it.
I'm a lone man here.
My dogs were fighting.
I had to do something about it.
I apologize profusely, butanyway, what was I talking about
?
So I was seeing regular folk allthe time doing the wrong thing
and I would be on the bench.
(13:37):
And one day I got off the benchand my clerk, of course Maria,
said hey, fox television called.
I said very funny, maria, and Iwent in my.
She said no, they really did.
So I called, I looked at it andI called him and I can't
remember who I called.
And I told my husband and welaughed about it and stuff.
Well, I was laughing, he wasn'tlaughing.
He says, well, why don't you gotalk to him?
(13:58):
And I said, well, I'm not goingto go do that.
And I did go do it and I had ashow.
It was power of attorney.
I took over for JudgeNapolitano.
It lasted four months and I hadto step off the bench and I had
just won reelection.
So I had a six year, no cutcontract with the city of
Cleveland Heights to have a jobfor the next six years, and I
(14:20):
walked off for a job that lastsfour months, happily, though I
was concerned about that verything.
So I was concerned about thatvery thing.
So when I negotiated mycontract, I negotiated a section
that said if the show goes andI was slowly descending down the
counter because I had neverjust like lost a gig before and
(14:59):
it was just like I just felt sofoolish I stepped away from the
bench.
And then the checks kept comingand I was at home for five years
with my children getting paid ajudicial salary, and then,
because I would get a littlebored, I would do, I would sit
by assignment, like when otherjudges got sick or something.
I would sit by assignment.
(15:19):
So I would have something to do, but otherwise and I stayed
home.
And the last thing I did tokeep me from being bored was I
wrote a book called my Mother'sRules.
It.
I was a better salesman.
I would have had the picture inframe the whole time, but
apparently I'm not.
Being on the bench in ClevelandHeights gave me pause.
(15:39):
It made me worry about how wewere doing as a people and how
we were doing emotionally, and Ialways considered my mother an
emotional genius.
She had the ability to seeherself.
She called it her second set ofeyes, that she was allowed to
(16:00):
watch herself from outsideherself so she could understand
how she's feeling and, deeperstill still, take her own
emotionality out of anysituation and focus on how the
other person is feeling.
And that gives you power,because if you know what they're
feeling and why they're feelingthat way and they don't, maybe
(16:20):
they will and maybe they don't,but a lot of times they don't If
you meet the need they thinkthey have, you can get them to
meet your needs.
Otherwise not always, butsometimes.
But she had that ability and letme tell you, the best
compliment I ever got from thatwoman from anybody was she came
(16:40):
again like a couple years laterto court and when we went back
in the back and she says youhave them too, and I said,
what's that?
He goes, your second set ofeyes.
That meant I was listening tothe defendants in a matter in a
manner that allowed me tounderstand them and to convince
(17:02):
them of things.
Sometimes, if you get a cat tolaugh, you got him to listen.
But anyway and I know it worksa little bit, doesn't work
grandly, but it's it's betterthan nothing.
It's better than nothing.
But anyway, based on what I wasseeing back in 2001 through
(17:24):
2006, which is while I waswriting this book.
This is what I wrote.
I said given the way emotionalmeltdowns have become a regular
feature of our society fromparents killing each other at
hockey games to every known ragein the book air rage, road rage
, you know, work rage I contendthat people's lack of emotional
know-how has become an urgentconcern In a day and age when
(17:44):
cutting someone off on the roadcan get you killed.
I say teaching people, thedeliberate and purposeful
development of emotional skillsis as important as teaching them
to read, and I do believethat's true.
Ain't no way in the world Icould have predicted social
media.
Ain't no way in the world Iwould could have said oh,
(18:05):
there's going to be things outthere called rage bait and
people being paid to fight Justcraziness.
Out there, people are becomingundone at McDonald's because
their order was wrong Launching.
It wasn't that bad.
Then it has gotten worse, and Ithink that the purposeful
(18:28):
management of emotion is anurgent concern, and it is the
point.
The point of this podcast is toget you to.
I don't want you to believe me,I don't want you.
I ain't going to tell you whatto do.
I just want to give you somemore information about the
(18:50):
processes and procedures you canuse to develop your own second
set of eyes and be your own bestemotional manager.
You know I want to have what Icall a steep emotional angle of
repose, and I know I was goingto call this angle of repose,
but everybody got tired of this.
I just love this, though, angleof repose.
And I know I was gonna callthis angle of repose.
Everybody got tired of this.
I just love this, though.
Angle of repose is the steepleangles which loose material will
(19:14):
remain static on a slantedsurface.
So think sand on a slidingboard.
If at 45 degrees the sand willstay there, but at 46 degrees
the sand slides to the bottom 45degrees of its angle of repose.
It's the steepest angle it canbe on without slipping.
I want to have a steep emotionalangle of repose.
I want to be able to uh, boband weave through my emotional
(19:38):
day where everybody else isupset and wired and carried on
I'm.
I want to be able to manage howI feel and so that the
vicissitudes of this life, theups and downs of this world, the
slings and arrows of outrageousfortune aren't so demanding, so
I could live and be calm and becool.
(19:59):
This is a chick who was afraidto call the pizza man, who now
lives a very public life, whonow lives a very public life.
I've got you know.
I remember a girlfriend of minefrom high school when she saw me
on TV.
She just she found me.
She said, lynn, I can seelawyer, I can see judge, but
what in the world?
(20:20):
You were the shyest, mostuncomfortable person.
I said I know, but you shouldnever let the least of you stand
between the world and the restof you, which is the best of you
.
So in order to keep thattogether, I got to keep the
least of me together, and I knowpeople aren't excited about
looking at themselves in theharsh light of a mirror like the
(20:43):
bathroom mirror.
Man.
You got to look at yourself inthe mirror and all the nicks and
divots and nooks and cranniesand all the things that ain't
quite right with you.
You got to be able to look itright in the face in the bright
sunlight and say I see you.
And it's not something thatmost of us like to do.
We all like to put our bestfoot forward and everybody tells
(21:07):
you to do that, but I like tofocus on the one dragon behind
because that's the sucker that'sgoing to trip me up.
Should I have to break out intoa run?
And every once in a while yougot to break out into a run of
some sort or another.
So if you know where you'reweak, if you know what you don't
do, well, if you know wherepeople have you have.
Have a soft spot, a chink inyour armor, you can, you know,
(21:30):
cover it up, get some, you know,get some kind of something to
help get it together.
You don't become a differentperson all at once, but you
evolve.
That's one of the bestcompliment I ever got from my
husband was we were in hisoffice one day and something had
(21:51):
happened and it wasn't cool.
And I said, yeah, this happened.
And he says, well, what are yougoing to do?
And I said this.
And he goes.
And I said, well, what do youthink?
And he said this is what Ithink.
And then he said and then Isaid we were sitting there and
we looked at each other.
He says you know, a few yearsago that would have sent you
into orbit.
And I said, I know I handledthat so calmly, didn't I?
(22:11):
He said, baby, you have evolved.
Then, with the brother 35 years.
He told me I evolved, I'vebecome a better version of me
and I want us all to become.
My big thing is, if you see metoday and then you meet me a
year from now, I'll be adifferent person I'll be.
(22:32):
I will have read more books, Iwill have gone more places, I
would have made more decisions,I would have figured out
different things that are wrongwith me and just bit by bit, day
by day, elevate a little bitand there's a whole lot wrong
(22:54):
with me, whole lot.
But I'm not going to let itstop me.
And A because I call it what itis, and I know what it is and
I'm not afraid of it, and I knowwhat situations implicate my
week.
I'll work on it and I'm goingto tell you what my week is.
And let me say this I wroteanother book, dear Sonali
(23:14):
Letters to a Daughter I Neverhad, which I don't know where it
is.
I'm terrible about that, but itwas a book designed to talk to
young women who are in their 20sand the first chapter I said is
about my lean and I tell youall the stuff that is odd about
me, and I never take advice fromanybody who doesn't know what's
(23:38):
wrong with them, becausethere's something wrong with all
of us.
You know, I'm anxious, I worry,I am impulsive, I'm not
impulsive, I am panicky, I'mpanicking.
I tend not to have.
I don't believe in like theseepiphanies and all these kind of
stuff.
(23:58):
I'm not.
I've never had like a lightbulb moment.
I just gorilla fight house tohouse.
I still don't know if I'm doinga job or I am in a profession
that I should be.
I just don't know because I'vedone so many things.
I wanted to be ananesthesiologist when I was a
little kid, but you know well, Ialways thought I wanted to be a
(24:22):
doctor.
Now I realize it was just ourparents whispering doctor,
doctor, doctor to me and mysister's ears my sister.
She in fact became a doctor.
I, however, went to schoolintending to become an
anesthesiologist, because thatwas the doctor that put people
to sleep and because I don'tlike I didn't like dealing with
people because I was so shy Ithought that would be the best
(24:42):
thing for me to do is just haveall my clients out and they
don't see me, and I got to talkto them.
And then I got to college,didn't go to get, didn't, didn't
, didn't, didn't go to class.
If you don't go to class, youcan't pass your math class.
So I changed my major, becamesomething else and I was growing
around and then senior yearrolled up and I said what's
happening here?
And daddy said, yeah, what ishappening here?
(25:03):
Because he paid for the wholeride and he says if you don't go
to a graduate school, you gotto get a job ran my little brown
behind over, took the LSAT,went to law school, never had
any desire to be a lawyer.
I don't like conflict, but hey,you know you do what you do.
But anyway, the whole thing isI was thought I was watching
(25:24):
from the bench a return torumple room.
I mean it was like theretitlerization of America.
I mean, smaller and smallerissues were bigger and bigger
problems, and what I saw asalarming then is really just the
tip of the iceberg, becausewhat technology has done is it
(25:47):
has amped up all of that.
Social media is where you'reinstigating emotion because it
gets us views.
You have a rage bait and allthis kind of stuff.
People are jacking you up toget views, to get money, and if
you're not emotionally aware ofwhere you are and what you're
(26:09):
doing your feel can get in frontof your do, and then you end up
doing something that'll get youin front of somebody like me,
which you don't want to do.
You don't want to do that atall.
We want to have a steepemotional angle of repulse.
We're going to let the fools,the clowns, the idiots just run
(26:29):
about us.
We're going to smile, but we'regoing to be okay with it.
And part of this podcast is, ona personal level, an opportunity
to find out who I am again.
I was married when I was 29years old to met him at 27.
Never been with another brothersince then, in 1987.
(26:51):
Married him in 89, lost him in22.
I got to figure out who I am.
You know, I got to figure itout and it's easier to do when
you're, I know, like I mournedall the way through on Instagram
.
You know, every day I would.
It was like a journal ofdistress and just like I don't
(27:14):
want to live no more.
I don't believe it, but anywayI didn't want to live no more, I
don't believe it, but anyway.
I didn't mean to get into allthat today.
I just want to tell you whatI'm trying to do.
What I'm trying to give you isnot tell you what to do.
If you ask me a question andI'd love to answer questions is
I'm not going to necessarily sayokay, this is what you want to
do, because men do this andwomen do that, and men should
(27:36):
and women should.
I ain't doing all of that.
First of all, I've read toomany books to be certain about
anything, and I know there's somany more books I haven't read
to be certain about anything.
But I probably ask you a lot ofquestions because I don't know
you.
You give me advice Any adviceyou give me.
My mother told me this once.
My sister give me advice, anyadvice you give me.
(27:57):
My mother you told me this once.
My sister was very outgoing.
She's a neurologist.
Now she's a doctor.
She went to school, she didwhat she was supposed to do.
I did not, however, and shewould, she would tell me say
anything.
I told your sister who, who wasmy sister, is one of the most
outgoing, engaging people I'veever met in my life.
She is just you know, she wasjust you know.
But anyway, everybody justloves Kathy because she's just
(28:20):
dynamic.
And I was so shy and reclusive.
My mother said I spenteverything, anything I told her.
I told you exactly the opposite.
I was spending my time pullingher back in the house and trying
to push you out.
So any advice that I gave onewas not applicable to the other.
And I found with my ownchildren the two that I made
(28:41):
from scratch with Big E samething.
I never tell them the samething.
Whatever I would tell one wouldput the other one in jail, and
what I would tell the other onewould put the other one in a
loony bin.
So, not knowing you, I won'tgive definitive answers.
I will ask you to walk througha process of thought with me.
I'll tell you some storiesabout what I've done and some
(29:03):
assessments based upon whatyou've said to me.
But it's about process andprocedure.
It's not about this is what youought to do.
It's like figuring out whatworks for you, but that's what I
want to do.
It's like figuring out whatworks for you, but that's what I
want to do.
But, above all, I wanteverybody to start feeling on
purpose.
(29:23):
November's coming.
We can't just cut up.
Oh, we can, but let's not.
We have to practice, and that'swhat I want to do here.
So listen y'all, get out thereand act like you have some sense
.
I'm going to try to do thatmyself and hopefully we can all
start feeling on purpose.
Take care, see you next time.
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