Healthy Ways to Control and Conquer Stress, with Dr. Isaac Deas.

Wellness is a practice, not just a word.

Welcome to the Synergy Podcast, where myself, Kelly Engelman and Lori Essery shed light on powerful tools and topics that nourish.

Your body and most importantly, feed your soul. Welcome, everybody. We are so excited to be here with one of our special guests. Welcome, Dr. Isaac Deese. Thank you so much for joining us today. We're so grateful to have you here.

Pleasure's all mine. Pleasure's all mine.

Awesome.

Well, you are here today with Kelly Engelman and myself, Lori Essery, the co founders of Senergy. And we're just excited to be able to dig in today into real life, real life topics. And our topic today is Stress Stress management and healthy ways to overcome it.

Absolutely. And I'm so excited to finally get to meet you. I've heard so much about you from Lori over the course of the years, and I had the advantage of listening to your interview that you did with her last year. So I feel like I already know you. I know I'm a stranger to you, but I feel like I know you through Lori. So I'm honored to be here, and I was just inspired by your story. So we probably will get into some questions about your story. I think that's important when we're talking to our listeners that they understand where this perspective is even coming from. Right.

I just want to thank Laurie and yourself for allowing me to be a part of this. I'm totally humbled, honored to be in the presence of such worthy women. So thank you for having me.

I understand that you have a passion for helping women. Right. And I share that passion. My career started in women's health, and I. I figured that if I could help a lady, then I'm helping the whole family.

Right, exactly right. Exactly right. And, you know, one of the things that I. I say unapologetically is I am a mama's boy. My mama, my mom was my best friend. She's. But she was my best friend. But, you know, I think it all started when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old, and my mom told me two things. She said, son, always treat a woman the way you want to see a man treat me. And the second thing she told me, don't depend on a woman to do something for you that you can do for yourself. So the cooking, the cleaning, all of that good stuff, that all came from mom. So kudos to my mom.

Those are words of wisdom for sure. Every. That's music to every woman's ears right now.

Great advice, Great advice, Great advice.

I'M glad you shared that to our male listeners that are raising young men now.

Right.

They need to hear that at a young age from their dads as well as their mom. So I love that. I absolutely love that.

So I want to dig in a little bit to that perspective piece that you brought up. Kelly is, you know, obviously there's a perspective. Getting a feel for where your perspective comes from in reference to how you really, number one, identify stress in your clients, but in how you relate to them as well. So a little bit more about your story that kind of would lead us into that conversation.

Okay, fine. Let me say my story starts sort of late. I had a very, very good, stable upbringing. Two parent families, no divorce, no separations, no domestic violence, nothing like that. But when I was in my late 20s, probably going into early 30s, for whatever reason, I was working on my doctorates at Columbia in New York City. And I just want to try a drug to see what it was like. And the drug I chose was crack. Back in the day, it was called Freeb. No stressors. At that time, no stressors. I was just curious. And we know the old saying, curiosity kills the cat. I was curious, but I am an extremist. So when I do something, I'm going to do it until I can't do it anymore. There's no gray area with me. So when I tried it, it was just an experiment, but I got carried away with it. And then slowly I got addicted. And that's when the stress came in. I wasn't paying bills. I had two children. I wasn't going home at night. I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't being a good husband. I wasn't being a good father. And distress just mounted. The reputation I accumulated through the years, I lost that which caused stress. It caused stress because I'm a family man. We all always went to my mom's house for Christmas. All the kids, all the grandkids. We always went to my mom's house for Christmas. It was stressful that I wouldn't go there because I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed about how I looked. I was embarrassed that I lost everything. I was just embarrassed. That caused stress. There was financial stress because I owed out my house. I owed bills, I owed credit cards, and I had no way of paying them because eventually I lost my job. Stress. And with stress comes making unhealthy choices. And I think a lot of people, a lot of the clients I see now that are in that vein that I was in, they make unhealthy choices. Be it drugs, be it alcohol, be it sex, be it whatever, but unhealthy choices, and a lot of it's predicated on stress, and that's their coping mechanism, is if I can feel good temporarily, not fix the problem, but just feel good temporarily, then I'm okay. Problem when you're using a substance, however, is when the substance wears off, you start to feel again. And we don't want to feel, so we have to get high again. Ergo, you become addicted to that drug. Because our mind tells us, the only way I'm going to feel good is if I take that drug or that alcohol or have sex or whatever it is. And that's when the unhealthy part comes.

In, you know, so we often talk about stress by definition, as any demand for change. Right. Any demand for change. And so I just think it's really interesting, you know, going back to your original curiosity, not stress that drove you to the drug. Right, right. And then in then being addicted, then that drove stress for you. So I think, again, perspective really is. Stress isn't always, if you will, the cause, the trigger. Right, the trigger. Right. It can feed into the triggers of further stress.

Exactly.

Yeah. I'd have to say I struggle with curiosity myself, almost to a fault. I think that's what makes me a good clinician, because I'm super curious, and I want to see things for myself, and I want to see change happen in the patient and in myself. But I think there is a point where curiosity can be pathological. Right. Where it makes us make decisions to experience things that may get us into trouble. So I think people resonate with that curiosity with. I see people trying things that I would never think they would try out of curiosity in and of itself. And that's oftentimes not talked about at all.

No, not at all.

Because the shame that comes with the experience that we've created for the sake of curiosity oftentimes is a very shameful experience. So I appreciate you bringing that to light as part of the discussion, too.

Definitely.

And there was one thing that Lori just mentioned was triggers.

Yeah.

And one of the things I think we all have to do is help our clients to realize, what are your triggers? What are those things in your life that cause stress? And, you know, just veering just for a moment. The pandemic brought on a lot of family stress. As I see it, a lot of my clients that came in were husbands and wives who could not stand each other. They'd been married 15 years. They've been married 20 years. But when they had to spend time together and not go to work, stress. It was just amazing how the pandemic brought couples together, which we would think, okay, well, now I can have time with my family. Now we can do some bonding time. But it did the exact opposite. In a lot of families, that caused a lot of stress.

So what you're saying is the patterns of behaviors that they had established with each other, they were ignoring, right?

Yes.

Prior to, they didn't have to deal with it because they were out and about and they had very little time together.

We call that comfortable distractions. Right, yeah, comfortable distractions.

Keeping yourself distracted so that you don't have to deal with the elephants and in the room.

Right, exactly.

And then once everyone's in the same room for prolonged periods of time and that stress builds, those things surface. So I think I'm seeing the same thing, you know, with my clients and those discussions that we've had in the last two years, you know, the structure of that discussion has changed quite a bit in that regard. Like, how do we deal with that in a healthy way?

Yeah, exactly. Right.

And speaking specifically to triggers, I love that you brought that up and went back to it, because I think that's really important to think about is I hear a lot. Oh, but that's work. Like, really trying to identify those triggers sometimes is stressful in and of itself. That creates self reflection, uncomfortableness, vulnerability, all of those things, and time to do.

It and time to do it. And a lot of times as people, we want to just blame the other person. You know, it's because they did this and they did that. And when we really have to take ownership of what is triggering us, oftentimes in an exaggerated way. So a slight annoyance may send us over the edge. And you really think about the situation. The situation wasn't that bad, but the response was really over the top. Then we know we've been triggered. That's what I would call a trigger. Right. And dissecting that trigger and being able to understand what created that trigger, and then what is underneath the trigger.

And one of the things, as a male that I've noticed with a lot of males, we have what's called that male pride. We are not going to admit when we're wrong. We are not going to admit that a substance life has the best of us. It's that male pride.

Yes.

Because the longer you stay in denial, the more stringent that problem is going to become. And you're exactly right. We have to face and take ownership of our shortcomings and when we don't, again, there's added stress.

Right, so question for you in how do you get a person to like, what tools or what tips do you give them to find their triggers, to explore their triggers? Is there an exercise of sorts that you tell them, listen, this is how you do it? Because some people have never done that before.

Yeah, well, one of the things I'm a very direct person and I ask people, is what you're doing right now working, and if the answer is no, then what do I put it on them first? What do you think you need to do now if you don't come up with anything? I never tell people what to do. I give suggestions. Well, maybe we could try this, maybe we can try that. But I ask them first, what do you think works? If what you're doing isn't working, then what do you need to do differently? And I also have them do five likes and five dislikes. Tell me five things that you like about yourself and tell me five things that you think you need to do to make life better. And I take those dislikes and I try to turn them into likes. So you know what's wrong. You have these five things that you know that you want to improve on. Let's start working on those.

That's great advice.

Know what the good things are. We know what the good things are. I don't want, you know, I can give you the pats on the back behind the good things, but let's address those dislikes because I want them to tell me, because you know yourself better than I do. You tell me what you need to change and then let us come together and try to find some solution.

So you ask them basically to look in the mirror and tell me what you see. Tell me the five things you like about yourself, and tell me the five things that you're not so happy about that we can then develop a plan for creating some meaningful change. Because these are things they've identified themselves. This is not what you told them was wrong, but this is what they see that they want to change. And I think that's so powerful because people, if you give them an opportunity, they know intuitively, they know what needs to change. But having them say it out loud or having them write it down, that's something that they won't forget. Right?

Exactly right. Exactly right.

Do you think sometimes you almost have to thinking about default patterns, you know? Cause that's where my head went with that is sometimes people come in, in the pattern, in whatever pattern they're stuck in when stress or something triggers them, is there a time it's ever appropriate to get them to work backwards from that trigger? Like, you've landed here how many times? Right, yes. What's the common denominator here? Because sometimes. Do you ever have clients that go, I don't know, like, I've landed here three, four times in my life, but I don't know, like, how do you break that down with them?

Well, you know, again, I'm a big one. I'm not a Freudian per se, but I think there's a lot of merit to what Freud has to say. And when we take things back to childhood, early years, it's a pattern. I've seen my grandfather do this. I've seen my father do this. So I'm just pattering because I had no one else to pattern myself after. So I try to go back to the beginning. Let's go back to the genesis. When did this happen? Why does it happen? So I find when I go back there to childhood and then try to work forward. Did you like what your father was doing? Did you like seeing him like that? Okay, well, if you're doing the same thing, what are we going to do differently? And if you do have children, you're passing it on to them just like your father passed it on to you. When does a cage stop turning? When do we get off and say, let's go a different way? So Freud has a lot of good in what he says. So I try to go back to the genesis of where it started and why it started.

Yeah, that's good. I oftentimes ask clients, when they come into me, to think back to a time when they felt, well, when they felt physically well, spiritually well, you know, what did that look like? What did that feel like? And, you know, I'm always amazed at the people that they never have felt. Well, Right. It's been since childhood, to your point, things that happened, traumas that happened. But having them understand that so that they understand the road to recovery and to wellness ultimately may take time. You know, it may take time to unpack these things in a way that we really have understanding and that we can put the pieces back together. So being patient with that process and with the time that it takes to walk through that, because I don't know about you, but often hear, well, that happened a long time ago. I've dealt with that. Or I did therapy for that. And then I go and I do their labs and I measure, and so does Lori, key regulatory hormones for the stress response. And I see on paper that their body doesn't understand that that stressor was a long time ago. Their body is still living in the stress that they went through maybe decades ago.

Yes. And if you notice, I don't know if you y' all work with. If you folks work with teens or not, but I work with a lot of teens as well. This vaping that they're doing now as a way of coping, the dap pens, they're just putting all types of things in their body that, again, temporarily makes them feel good. And a lot of these young ladies I'm working with now, and I have to learn these new terms that they come out with. They're pansexual, they're bisexual, they're this, they're that. Because they're stress from boyfriend, girlfriend relationships. The boys use me, they take advantage of me. Well, I'll just go be with the girl, because the girls never hurt me. Well, what happens when that girl hurts you? So let's just deal with life. But they're changing their patterns. Girls don't want to be girls, boys don't want to be boys. And a lot of it's predicated on stress. They've been hurt by the opposite sex. They've been hurt because mom and dad aren't paying attention. Mom might be on her second or third relationship, so she put more in that relationship. Now they just separation anxiety. I don't feel needed. I don't feel wanted. That causes stress. So, of course, the first person that comes along and says, well, I love you. I'll take care of you. There's your heart. Now they're doing something unhealthy. You're gonna do something unhealthy because you want to belong. You want to be accepted. And so part of what the young people, I want them to feel good about who they are. And I'm a pastor as well. And one thing I've always said, you cannot please everybody. You have to be happy with who you are, and that's that. But getting them to that point is something. It's difficult.

It's difficult, absolutely. You brought up a really good point. I want to circle back to, you know, you. Kelly had mentioned we do a lot of biometric testing, and oftentimes their testing doesn't reflect necessarily. It doesn't. It's not congruent with what they're expressing to us. And so when, you know, Dr. Dees just mentioned chemicals, chemical exposure, you know, those chemical exposures and those body toxins do create, in essence Just a compounding effect of stress. Right, of stress.

So Lori mentioned stress, by definition is the demand for change. But I want to take that one step further and say that your body can't tell the difference necessarily in how it responds to stress. So, for instance, if we have a chemical stressor, like vaping would be a chemical stressor. We have a physical stressor, like anemia, poor blood control, maybe dysbiosis, that would be a physical stressor. And then emotional stressors. Right. So the body's gonna produce the same types of hormones to deal with all of those stressors. And we may go into default patterns because of that stress response. And so I think that's kind of what you're saying. They get chemically overloaded with the vaping. It doesn't necessarily solve their problem. It may temporarily calm them down, but then there's a rebound effect, and then they're just continuing to add to their toxic burden, which, by the way, does change hormone production and utilization. Which causes sexual confusion. Yes, it adds to that whole component of sexual confusion. Right. Because their hormones don't work the way that their hormones should be working. And as a result of that, they may have feelings that they can't really understand, and then they act out of.

Those feelings or they have a reduction in. I mean, you think about teenage boys, and testosterone levels are typically quite high. It suppresses a lot of those natural physiological hormone production. Right. And utilization in the body.

Well, it makes them estrogen dominant. Right, Right. So they may feel more feminine.

You're teaching me something.

Yes.

I never knew that.

Well, this is the beauty of conversation, right. Because it's. It really helps people be insightful to the way in which they're expressing or defaulting or behaving as a result of their stress isn't just because of these default patterns, if you will, but it's neurochemical changes and hormonal changes that happen as a result, too.

Absolutely. So I want to give a tip while we're talking about vaping and just smoking in general. You know, I've talked to many, many patients that have been successful in stopping to smoke. And I always ask them, what was your strategy? Because I think it's important as clinicians that we can tap into what really has worked for patients, real live point in time work. And every single one of them mentions deep breathing as a strategy. And when you're vaping and smoking, you're deep breathing. And that desire for deep breathing is a stress reliever. And they've associated that stress relief with the Vaping or with the smoking and it may perhaps just be the breathing itself. So you're tips that's helping them calm down. So the tip is to develop some deep breathing techniques to offset the stress response. When we deep breathe, we stimulate vagal tone, we stimulate a nerve that controls our brain and controls our gut and is very calming. And you know, that can be helpful for anyone going under stress is deep breathing. But especially for the ones that have developed habits of smoking or vaping, I think that's a really good tool to encourage them to go ahead and start doing even before they consider quitting.

So maybe the relief that they're getting through the vaping isn't necessarily the vaping is what you're saying. It could just be the physiological deep breathing exercises that we typically recommend for any anxiety producing event.

Yes, right.

Yeah, that's really interesting. And what I find also is before they can get to this point of deep breathing and self reflection, the smoking and or drugs, now the school grades are going down, that's going to become stressful. Now their parents are going to be yelling because the grades are going down, that's going to be stressful. So some of the side effects of stressing is not just only the health, but it's affecting grades, it's affecting your relationship with your parents, it sometimes even affects your peer group because you want to be around people who are doing what you're doing.

So it's that perfect storm, it sounds like. Right, so it's a perfect storm.

Exactly.

Right, yeah. So how do you break the cycle? So let's talk about some strategies that you recommend for people to impart to do, to start taking advantage of. Like what are some things that you would say? What are some next steps?

Well, again, one of the things is the five likes and five dislikes which we've already discussed. That's one of them. And two I try to bring in if it's a couple, if it's a couple, one is stressful and one is not, I try to bring in the other couple. And if you love this person, telling you what you're doing is stressing me out, how much do you really love this person? So sometimes when someone you love who's going to be in your corner no matter what, but they're telling you that your behavior is affecting them, can you look inside yourself and say, you know, I really would want to make you happy, not so much make you happy, but make if I do the right thing, it will make you happy. So I'm big on confrontation so how is your family related to this? How are you hurting your family? I want them to look inside themselves and say, you know, my behavior is not only affecting me but it's affecting those around me. I don't want to put them on a guilt trip. But I'm a realistic person, I'm a bottom line person, your behavior. So another tactic is listen to the people that you're hurting and what are you willing to do about that? Do you need to go into a rehab program? Do you need to come in for counseling more than once a week? What do you need to do? So really I try to turn their life inside out and have them look at it and then point out to me what you need to change and then allow me to try to help you to change it. So a lot of self reflection, a lot of looking in the mirror as your co host said, looking in the mirror at yourself and saying, I either like this person or I don't. If I don't, what am I going to do to change this?

So you're saying identification and awareness is first step in anything, right?

Admittance, admittance, Admit that there's a problem.

So identify, admit and then take action and being willing to. And I'm sure it's an assessment of what a person's willing to do. Very similar to our experience with people wanting or needing to change their lifestyle to more of an optimal way of living. If a person's not ready to do that, they're not ready to do the work, they're not ready, no one can do it for them.

Right.

And so sometimes people just have to crash. And I don't mean that in a negative way, but sometimes they have to hit bottom. Lose some of your loved ones before you start to think, okay, yes, maybe I really do need to or serious about what I'm doing.

So I want to circle back to your story if that's okay. Because you broke a pattern, you broke a cycle and I just think it's so important to. I would like to hear a little bit more about that because you opened up with what you started to do and what you started to lo. But we haven't talked yet about how you recovered from that and now where you're at as a result of that.

Well, as I say, I'm a New Yorker and one of the things I had to do is come away from that environment. I knew New York well, I knew New York well. I knew where to go. I knew where to go and do things. And what helped me? Well, two things, two Things my family believed in, tough love. They said, son, we loved you. And when I lost my house, I was gonna go back and live with them. They said, son, I love you, but that's not gonna happen. You're not coming back here. And I bottomed out. And my bottom was living on the streets. I never in my life thought I would live on the street. I never in my life thought I would be an addict.

And you had multiple degrees. I just wanna say that again. Right. So not uneducated.

I had a bachelor's, I have three masters, I have a doctorate, I have a law degree. And I went to seminary, but I was halfway through my doctorates at the time. But coming out of that environment, well, actually I had to hit bottom first. If I never hit bottom, I never would have made the change. If people would have enabled me, if my mother and father would have took me back home, said, oh, we love you, son. Come on back home. I'd probably still be doing. But that tough love, I had to hit bottom. And then secondly, I had to get out of that environment to a safe environment. And I went inpatient down here to Wildwood. Wildwood, Florida. I went inpatient counseling and that's what brought me to Florida. And I was in there 22 months.

Wow.

It was an 18 month program, but I stayed in another four months after staff. So I just had to get me. I had to get me back. I lost me. I know who me was, the addict. I knew who me was. The street hustler. I knew who that person was, but I forgot who Isaac was. And so when I was in Wildwood, in rehab, I learned to find Isaac again. And I said, he's not a bad guy. He's not a bad.

We think you're an amazing guy. But yes, well, praise the Lord to.

God be the glory. But the thing that worked for me, and I know everyone's not there, I had to give my life back to the Lord. And that's what really worked for me. I know everyone's not into the religious, spiritual part of it, but that worked for me. And I just said, God, whatever it's going to take, whatever it's going to take, then I'm willing to do it. It was hitting bottom. It was hitting bottom and coming out of that environment into a stress free environment because New York is stressful. Wildwood back in 1988 was stress less. There was nothing there.

Yeah, right. I think that's a beautiful thing, what you said. And you know, coming back to your identity and your identity in Christ, Right, yes. You know, if we can see ourselves in that mirror, what do we see? Right. It's very different than what you saw on the street. Right. And being able to bring yourself back to the truth, really, that's the truth, is a beautiful thing. I just. That's amazing. I love it.

And then embracing your story in such a way that has powerfully impacted the lives of others for years to come. So this story wouldn't be complete without hearing what you're able to accomplish now and what you're doing in your career.

Yeah, well, God is good. Right now I have my own counseling practice and it's going very, very well. I have a church here in Summerfield. We have probably about 120 members. Very integrated, multicultural church, non denominational. Absolutely love it. I do a lot of workshops, a lot of team building exercises. I have a youth group, a women's group, you know, my women's conferences. So just enjoying life now. God has God be the glory. He has given me back everything I lost except for a wife. And I'm okay with being a bachelor. I don't know if I'm gonna do this marriage thing again, but. Speaks to me audibly. I do. But now it's just enjoying life. And. And my burden now is our next generation. Because when I see children going down where I've been, good children come from good homes, but they're taking the path that I took. That breaks my heart because I've been there. I know where you're headed, and that's what makes me get up. I've been retired for the last four years, but evidently I don't know what retirement is. I'm still working, but I want to see that next generation get healthy. And I want to see women get healthy because I think women forgot that there are gifts. Women forgot their gifts. They forgot that they're queens. They've allowed themselves to be treated unkindly, unhealthily, and they just accept it. And no, no, no, no, it's not going to happen on my. Not on my shift. So that's my fight for the women.

So women are so powerful in the home. You know, we oftentimes set the tone for what we will and will not allow in the home. And oftentimes, to your point, women have been treated in a way that they don't always walk in that power.

Yes.

And so I want to speak to that a little bit today to our listeners, because we do have, you know, we do have a lot of responsibility in our home as the wife and the mom and the caretaker oftentimes to set that tone for peace and love and understanding and having things discussed in a healthy way. You know, we need to open up the conversation about stress in the home and what it looks like and how you see those default patterns. I want to go into some of those default patterns that we see and that do get established, you know, relatively early in life through modeling what we see our parents do and then ultimately what we see our peers do. You know, we're going to become the five people that we spend the most time with. So choose wisely. Right. I always want to be around people that are smarter than me and, you know, have things a little bit more advanced than I do. I don't want to be the smartest person in the room, for sure. I need those people around me. So let's talk a little bit about how to model for our women, how women can model healthy behaviors and healthy defaults and how we can speak about it to our family and our friends.

Yeah, I think that whole modeling as you were talking about that, I think about where that comes from, as you said, and it's such a product of what we've seen in our past. And, you know, Dr. Dees, you mentioned that already. Oftentimes we are just copying and mirroring that which we've seen. Right. In our responses and breaking that, you know, to your point of women feeling and being the queens. Right. I can tell you, in my home, I mean, my mom was amazingly treated by my father, there's no doubt, and that was modeled for me. But I still feel like sometimes there's a guilt or a shame, and maybe I'm wrong in that I just feel like that sometimes we feel guilty for expecting that or feel guilty. Guilty for the time we take in self care or feel guilty for. And I don't, you know, I don't understand exactly where that comes from, but I know that that leads to a decompens, a decomposing, or a decrease in our ability to respond in a favorable way. Right.

Yeah, I see that, too. I see that oftentimes in myself, and I see that in the clients that I treat as well, where they do feel like self care is a luxury. And I think we need to talk about that, because self care is like putting your oxygen mask on first before you're helping other people. And if you're constantly running on empty, what's gonna come out oftentimes is not pretty. And it's not your best response. It's not what you need to be modeling to your Family or especially to your children. Right.

And if we perceive it that way, then in fact, we're not gonna make it. It's not gonna be a priority for us. Right, right.

So what does self care look like?

Yeah, so what does self care look like?

Self care look like. Because I think this is really important to map out when we're helping people make change, you know, what does it need to look like? You know, where does it cross the line into overindulgence versus really healthy self.

Care from a male point of view? My family is much like yours, Lori. My dad absolutely adored my mother. And that's what I knew. And that was passed on to my sister. My sister is spoiled to this day. She won't admit it, but she is. She has three brothers and a dad. But anyway, I've always told women, you can't give what you don't have. You cannot give your daughter self respect and feeling like a gift if you don't feel like it, if you don't have it, you can't pass that on. But men, I think, have to see a woman as their equal partner and treat her as that. So if she needs to go and get a massage or hair done and just sit in the sun by the beach, let her do that because then she's gonna be better for you. But if you keep her bound up and tied up and stressed out, then you wonder why she's snapping at you. Wake up, men.

Wake up.

I've always told you, you know, we always say we're the head of the house. Well, we may be the head, but the wife is the neck. And the head is not going anywhere without the neck. Take care of your neck, fellas, and.

Your head will do what it has.

To do, but take care of the neck. I used to date my daughter. I used to take her out on dates. Open the door and this and that. And I told her and my ex wife used to date my son. So we taught them the finance, the finer parts of life. And I told her this man, when you start dating, if this man is not treating you like I'm treating you right now, you have the wrong guy.

Right.

So you mirrored that. I mean, that's a really, really good piece of advice is you mirrored what that date was to look like probably from start to finish, right? Opening up doors, getting her in there, driving her. Right. Letting her pick, maybe her restaurant. We could go through all of the details, but I think that was a really good piece of advice.

Absolutely. Modeling that what a healthy relationship does look like. What Boundaries look like.

Exactly right.

And I think, you know, something else I heard you say is that, you know, just as you, you know, I grew up in a home in which it was. It was modeled. But at some point, life threw a curveball. Life, a stressor, Life a victimization. Something occurred that created a change. So regardless of what I had seen, I shifted. Right. So I think it's important to understand it's not always a product of how you were raised. It can be a product of what you have been exposed to.

Absolutely right. Absolutely. A trauma.

Look at some of these television programs and movies that are coming out now. They're so misleading for women and for men. And some of the music that our young people listen to is so unbecoming. How you would allow a man to call you. These words and you're dancing to this. It's like, hello, something wrong with this picture. Yes, you're right. It's what we expose. Our media, our media, our televisions, it's just. It's going crazy.

A degradation of normalcy, you know?

Yes, very good.

I would say that, too.

Yeah.

I would clearly say that.

Yeah.

So the things that we grew up seeing and hearing are very different than the youth.

Totally different.

And I do think we need to be sensitive to that, especially as parents and grandparents, as we help them walk it out and help them stay anchored in who they are. Right. I think that's super powerful. Yeah. Yeah.

So we talked today about stress and the definition of stress and default patterns, where it comes from, exposure, history. We talked about that, and we talked a bit about some advice in respect to how to not only identify, but how to make some changes. And it's been great. It's been awesome. So are there any, like, closing words of advice that you would share to our listeners about how to roll with, expect it and cause stress isn't expected? Right. The only, we say the only consistent thing in life is change. And I think change is probably one.

Of our biggest stressors. Absolutely. So don't be surprised.

That's right. Exactly. Not to be surprised, but what kind of key advice would you give to our listeners to really deal with and manage stress in today's economy in this time period that we're in right now?

Well, if I may, I would probably say very quickly, don't take on more than you need to take on. Learn to say no. Don't put a lot on your plate. Rome wasn't built in a day. Just take on as much as you can do. And secondly, take time for yourself. That's Primary, take time for yourself. Know when to take a break. Know when to go on a vacation. Know when to say, no, not now. Take care of you. And thirdly, don't live up to other people's expectations. Do what you need to do. What's next? You, because no one's walking in your shoes. You know what makes you feel good, you know, when you run out of energy, no one needs to tell you, follow your own heart.

That first piece of advice, I feel like you were looking or speaking straight to me through that microphone there, Dr. Hees. Because you know, that's not easy to do over scheduling.

I have been guilty of that for so long, and I tried to solve that problem by getting a calendar. So if I put everything on there, maybe I would make better decisions. And it worked for a while. We're in April and January, February, March looked pretty reasonable. And April just. It blew up on me. So I've gotta get back to those words of wisdom, Dr. Deeds, that you just gave us and say, do not over commit, pace yourself. I'm hearing you loud and clear, and I plan to implement that right away.

And I think I heard you also say is setting your eyes on who you are, where your aim is. Right. You know, again, the world's expectations. I think looking around sometimes is we feel like we've gotta keep up with the Joneses, if you will, you know, and even if we would say, no, no, no, that is not me. Like, I don't care what so and so does. The bottom line is, if we're constantly looking at social media and Facebook and Instagram, at what everyone else is doing, inherently, there becomes this natural chasing for those things subconsciously. So I heard that loud and clear through the advice that you just gave as well. To be careful, to know your aim, and to not allow for those things to change or distract you from who you are and what you are trying to accomplish in your life.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Dr. Deas. It has been a pleasure to meet you and get to know you a little bit better. I cannot wait for our viewers to be able to listen to your wisdom today. So thank you so much for being here.

And if I may very quickly, Laurie, several of the women from my church were at my conference, and they are waiting for you to come to my church.

I can't wait. Yes. So we are gonna get right on that because we really enjoy. One of the things that Kelli and I have long had a passion for is to help people reach, you know, reach things in their life that they never thought were possible for themselves. So getting this message out to an audience to really have. Have an impact, have an impact on their lives in a positive way. So I just want to say thank you to you as well. I just, you know, too often we don't have time to connect like this and get the message out. So we just really appreciate you taking the time to do that as well.

Yeah. And I'm sitting here thinking it would be really helpful for our listeners to understand how they possibly could read more about you or get in touch with you. Perhaps they're needing some counseling and really want to reach out. What is the best way? Do you have a website address that you could share with us or do you have a number that you want to share with our viewers?

I have both. 352-406-1264. Again, 352-406-1264. My website is de--s.consulting.com deez.consulting.com either way, phone call is best.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. And haven't you. Do you have some things that you've published as well, or some recommendations?

Yes, I have a couple. I have two books out. If you just go on my website, the books will be there.

Excellent. See, I knew that.

Awesome.

Well, it was so great to connect with you today. Thank you so much. And we look forward to talking to you again in the near future.

All righty. Thank you.

We'll see you.

Goodbye.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. You can find more information about synergy at Synergy for Life. That's S Y N E R G E E the number four life.com and.

Then synergy Connect is our Facebook. And then please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app so that you make sure you get future notifications of episodes.

Sat.