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Listen to all my episodes of Dr. Laura's deep dive in your favorite podcast app. Search for Dr. Laura's deep dive podcast and follow my Deep Dive today.
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This is the city live at Sirius.
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XM Los Angeles Studios, Los Angeles, California.
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Dr. Laura live this is the Dr. Laura program on SiriusXM. Makes him triumph.
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Thank you all for coming. I'm very appreciative that you all made the trip from wherever. You ready? Oh, I don't want to hit my doggy. Doggy, doggy, doggy. Lily bug. What you doing? Lily here. When people say you live alone and you're alone alone. Not if you have a dog. You're never alone. Trust me, you're never alone if you have a dog. Try to go to the bathroom by yourself. Ain't happening. Take a shower. She's right there going, uh huh. I love you but I gotta work now. Have you ever considered quitting? Some days with difficult people and rambling questions, I would not blame you. Absolutely not. None of that. You know, I was asked to do a talk in a synagogue one time. So I show up early and I'm there and this woman comes up to me. She's part of people who work at this particular synagogue. And she comes up to me and she says hi, hi. And she says, I called you three years ago. She wasn't smiling and I said oh. And I'm looking for doors just in case I have to make a quick exit. And she goes after our conversation, I was angry at you for three years. Okay, this is starting out good tonight. And she said, so. It made me stop and think, why am I still angry after three years? And I realized it was because you were right and I didn't want to own it, look at it, deal with it. So you plant seeds, and if you've heard the show, you hear me go, well, they didn't want to hear that. That doesn't mean that they're not going to think about it for umpteen years. I hope it's the less amount of time, because that's suffering that they're going through. Because fighting off things that you really need to face means they're holding on to you like they have tentacles. So if you face the darn thing, it releases. It's sort of like the movie Alien. It releases. All right. So, no, I haven't considered quitting because some calls are difficult. I don't assume that it's a failure, even when somebody is being particularly obnoxious about it. Like, you're an idiot. Yeah. Okay. Why do people like to talk about themselves so much in a conversation? Why do people like to talk about themselves so much in a conversation? They're wanting approval and attention and they don't care about you or anybody else. So don't take it personally. Okay. You want to feel really good about yourself when you're talking to somebody. Listen. Active listening. Active listening means you ask questions. That's interesting. And then what did you do? And then what happened they. That ever happened before? And then, wow. The worst thing to do in a conversation which makes you feel bad is this. Oh, yeah, that happened to me. Oh, yeah. But it happened to me better. I had one person in my life briefly. Every time I would say, and I have 10 toenails, she would say, I have 12. You want to hear the story about my other two toenails? It was like she had to one up the conversation. This wasn't about our relationship. This was who she was. She had to keep building herself up and the way if you really want people to like you, show interest in them. So this doesn't work. This doesn't make people yearning to be with you. How do you handle all the outside noise of negativity? This is a heavy group. You ask deep questions. Okay. How do you handle all the outside noise of negativity? I turn it off, tune it out. I assess what's going on. I see if there's anything relevant that I ought to know about. And when it's just ugly, hateful negativity for the sake of self empowerment. As you know, I'm strong. I can hate. What you see going on out there a lot is, I am strong because I can hate. And that has become a major flow in our country, maybe even the world. It's alarming, it's worrisome, and I try not to add to it. So there's an alternative. You can be angry, you can be forceful, you can be strong. You just. There's no point in hatred. Except for the people whose hatred is their definition of strong. How to get a spark for life back after kids are grown. I must admit I can respond to that as a psychotherapist, but as a human person, I've just always had so many interests, so many things to do, people who focus in on only one thing. Even if it's just the kids, that's not good for the kids. For them to be your total focus in the first place, that's a bad idea. I can't go a year and a half without coming up with a new thing. I have to learn. I'm now into leather bags. Yesterday, when I got off the air, I said to my friend who was driving me about, do you have any plans for this afternoon? And he said, no. And I said, good, we're going to a leather shop. And I don't mean a sex shop, I mean where you have tools so you know how to cut leather and sew leather. And we found it. It's called Tandy. It was in North Hollyw. Even with the traffic, we went over there and the lady was very helpful. I said, I think I need a tool to do this, this, this, this. And I had such a good time. And then she had pieces of leather on sale because they were leftover. So I'm looking through all of them. They weren't cheap because this was good leather. And I opened this one piece, and it's sort of. I'm looking for somebody wearing the color. They're not. It's sort of. I don't see it, but it's sort of a pale. It's not an orange, it's not a peach, but it's just sort of a pale leather color. But it's embossed, all with little skulls. Okay, here we go. So immediately I went, I have to buy that piece. So as long as you are always looking to invest yourself in learning new things. I don't like to travel that much. It's kind of chaotic. I hate going on airplanes and hotels. And now they tell you all the hotels have bedbugs. I mean, it's like Forget about it. So. But I like learning new things. So there's no spark. Unless you're trying to extend yourself into something new. That is the spark. And a lot of things you might extend yourself into. You decide. Yeah, I don't like this. So what, you tried it. Now you know something more. And that usually leads you to something else. So don't wait for the kids to be grown to spark your brain. Don't. Okay. Is it okay to be friends with someone you know absolutely wants to be with you? Well, they're not a friend. You are. They're not. It's an unequal situation. So let's not say is it okay? Let's say, is it fair? Let's see what the rest of it is. But you have no interest in them. And you do things like go on cruises together and several dates, but you know you will never be with them. I don't think you're. I hope this was not written by anybody who showed up today. You wrote this? No, that's not nice. That's using somebody. So you have somebody to travel with. So you have somebody to take you to dinner or go to dinner with. You know, they want something permanent and deeper, so you're taking advantage of their need. So the answer is, that's not nice. It's using somebody that. No nice. I'm 67, never married, no kids. What is the best? I hate when you ask me what is the best. Can't you just ask me one of the many, I don't always know how to come up with the best? What is the best answer when I'm asked why I never married or had kids? The truth. I didn't marry, had kids because I never met anybody I didn't really want to. I don't really like compromising or sharing or doing anything like that. I like having total control of my. Whatever it is, the truth or I'm sorry, it's kind of personal. I'm not willing to discuss that. You don't always have to answer. You're not obligated to share your personal information just because somebody asked you. I have said many times when somebody has asked me something personally that's kind of personal, not something I wish to discuss. Why you're not comfortable with it. Oh, you're messing with the wrong bitch. How do you keep your enthusiasm in a world that's going off the deep end? Because it needs balance. I don't give up. Also, I had a professor when I was. I was teaching full time at usc and I was also training for the psychotherapy program. So I had a professor, and he was pretty high up in the Mormon Church. He also went on the Tonight Show a bunch of times because he was kind of funny in a quirky sort of way. And he said the way he deals with life is he has a sort of a sense of a bubble, which I'll discuss what I think about this, but let me just tell you what he said. Sort of have a bubble. And in that bubble, he permits the friends, relatives, caring people, good doggies, whatever it is. And he keeps that a very positive place. And that's how he deals with the fact that there has been, is, and always will be negative, ugly stuff in the world. I mean, you don't get through too many pages in the Bible when somebody gets axed, okay? So to some extent, I think that's important when I turn on the news just to see if something new has happened. News is supposed to be about something new that's happened. Not everybody's personal opinion. But okay. I take about five, six minutes, get the headlines and turn it off. Because the news these days, no matter where you go look for it, is angry, hateful people mostly. I'm not interested in letting that in. So if you've got friends or relatives who tend to be argumentative and hostile and angry at this group, this person, this person in the family, this person in the state or the country, shut that door down. You don't need it. It's not going to change the world that they have that opinion. Think about that. That they have that opinion will not change the world. When the COVID thing hit, I immediately called up my physician and I said, okay, here's the deal. I race a sailboat. We're out in the wind. And most of the time, sometimes it's just. But we're out in the wind. What do you think I ought to do? And she said, if air is moving and you're outdoors, probably not an issue. However, if you go downstairs and you're doing stuff with the sails and this, that and the other thing, and you're real close. Just have everybody wear a mask. It'll do minimally something, but it'll be something. Nobody on my boat got sick, by the way. Nobody. But I had one person on the boat who took this as a political statement. I just took it as I don't want my people to get sick. I'm responsible. I'm kind of the mother on the boat. They're all guys, and I just wanted everybody to be okay. Not everybody wanted to wear A mask. But I said, if you want to sail on my boat, wear a mask. Because I just trying to be nice to the next person. You know, when you have a cold, you don't sneeze in people's faces. Consider this the same thing. Make believe Covid is just a cold. You don't want that on everybody's face or hands or whatever. So this one guy who we got along so swell, he was a chef in addition, and he had me do a local TV thing where I was just the silly sidekick. He was cooking and I would make snarky comments about the ingredients and what he was doing. It was kind of funny. It was just for fun. But the point is we were very close to each other in that way. He said I clearly was showing early signs of some kind of dementia. And I went, really? Because I just want you to wear a mask so if you cough or sneeze, you don't get the person next to you with your droplets. Come on. And he just went bonkers on me. And I said, you are off my boat. And then a year later, he apologized and asked to come back on the boat. And the answer was, how many of you think the answer was yes? How many think the answer was no? Well, the nos have it. You can call me a dumb, demented bitch, but you can't really apologize for it. There are some things which when said, cannot be erased. Now when I see him, I go, hi. And we hug hello and we get on with our lives. I'm not being. He's basically a nice guy that was. He got caught up in all his political crap and I didn't care about that. I was just caring about my crew. And so. No, you can call me really bad names once. No. Sort of interesting. So many of you thought I would go, yeah, it's okay. No, he was disruptive to the crew. He was vicious to me. No, you do that once you're gone. I don't have a three strike rule. I don't let somebody do it three, four, five times and go, you know, I don't do that. That's part of. I want to keep my life as pleasant and positive as possible. So I make these decisions. For that end.
