The Dr. Judy Show

Happiness may be an inalienable right, but there are 565 MILLION web pages, and 175,000 products on Amazon helping people find it, giving a not-so-subtle impression that something is missing.  Our increasing problems with depression and substance abuse reinforce that impression. 

Gretchen Martens is a woman of many talents – anthropologist, coach, educator and even improve comedy performer, as well as entrepreneur and business developer -  who is taking a new approach to this whole problem – at least for America.   She has recently returned from a trip to Bhutan, Epicenter of the Global Happiness Movement, where she went to find some new skills and approaches that can help turn this tidal wave of unhappiness around.  Bhutan is a tiny country with huge ideas, but as the Dahli Lama has said, 'If you think you are too small to make a difference, try spending the night with a mosquito”. She spent 2 weeks traveling the country, observing and learning.  She looked to see if they truly did seem happier - and they did - and then started looking into how they did this.  Although she has spent a lot of time in her career teaching people to be happier, she did indeed come back with new skills and is eager to share them and hopefully spread more happiness in this country - something that seems sorely needed given all the recent episodes of blatant hostility we have seenin our own citizens.   It doesn't have to be that way!!! 

 In addition to her speaking and her forthcoming books, she has applied her diverse talents to some things she offers freely to the public – like her daily happiness messages and items on her facebook page, and you will learn how to access them while listening to this program, so keep a pen and paper handy for that and any other notes you may want to take about new approaches to a happier life.

Have your ever done something you feel guilty about – maybe something that eats at you long term or even causes serious problems in your life?  You are NOT alone, although you may often feel that you are. Today’s guest, Ronald Chapman, and I have both been down those paths, survived them and turned to careers that give us the privilege of helping others find their way past those slippery and sometimes even treacherous slopes.  Chapman is an author, speaker, former commentator on WUNM radio, and facilitator of approaches that increase well-being-ness and produce breakthroughs when practiced deeply and in a sustained fashion.  He does a masterful and very engaging job of showing the complex streams of fate that affect so many of us, even in very unexpected places – like among those people that seem to ‘have it all together’ as well as drunks and convicted killers. He is an engaging, humorous, totally delightful-to-interview teacher of wisdom.

             In his novel ‘A Killer’s Grace’ which was inspired by actual events, Chapman  tells the story of Kevin Pitcairn, a journalist who receives a letter from a serial killer awaiting execution that comes with implications he can’t ignore.    As he tries to determine and tell the killer’s true story, Pitcairn plunges deeper into the pit his own demons have created and trapped him in. His journalist’s curiosity becomes a compulsion as events bind him tighter and tighter, propelling him  to explore events in an even wider world. Murder, mystery, and redemption shape Pitcairn’s struggle to answer the moral questions left festering by the killer’s horrible crimes: What is the nature of evil? What choices do any of us truly have? How can we reconcile with our most painful wounds and the people who have inflicted them?

Shirley is a longtime business writer, travel writer, and newspaper columnist who traveled the world interviewing everyone from busboys to heads of international organizations before launching a career in public relations in Washington, D.C. With Banged-Up Heart, she now takes her writing in a new direction, delving deeply into her own personal story of finding love late, losing it early, and discovering the strength to choose to love again. It is a fascinating odyssey, a journey both creative and erotic as Shirley and John work lovingly together to blend their dreams—until a mysterious bump on his forehead starts them on a tragic struggle against the dark hand of fate.Banged-Up Heart is an intimate and clear-eyed account of finding love late and losing it early—and of the strength it takes to fall deeply in love a second time, be forced to relinquish that love too soon, and yet choose to love again.

When her husband of thirty years dies suddenly, Shirley is convinced she will never find another man like Joe. Then she meets John, a younger man who tells her during their first conversation that he has lived for many years with a rare but manageable cancer. She is swept off her feet in a whirlwind courtship, and within months, made brave by the early death of a friend’s husband, she asks him to marry her! What follows is a year-long odyssey of travel and a growing erotic and creative partnership— until a mysterious bump on John’s forehead proves to be one of several tumors in his brain and spine. Banged-Up Heart comes down solidly on the side of life. It takes you deep inside an ordinary woman, her deeply fel grief butting up against her desire for more than companionship: passion, sexual fulfillment, and self-realization. It bears eloquent witness to the wild trust it takes to fall madly in love and risk profound loss—again. Ultimately, it shows that it is possible to dance with a banged-up heart.

Rebecca was is a highly successful woman in the business world, someone who worked in the civil rights movement, then in urban planning, followed by getting an MBA and working in healthcare. Yet something was tripping her up in her relationships and after her second divorce she got into therapy.  As she got further into therapy she uncovered the problem – her childhood sexual abuse, which she had totally blocked from her awareness . Her book, Wave Rider,  is an account through her prose and poetry of her journey  riding the waves of life and moving from abuse to wholeness.   She is very open in her interview, allowing us to see her journey through life with her struggles, her shutting out of her feelings, learning about the issue of sexual abuse and the many ways it can impact someone totally out of their awareness.  With the help of multiple types of therapy, she turned her turmoil  into triumphs  as she explored those hidden problems and then worked to overcome then and move into a much freer and happier place. In this process she found a voice to express herself through poetry that would suddenly come to her along her journey. She has always been a person who worked on issues related to bettering things for many people. She is now extending this to educating people about  abuse and how to overcome it and is engaged on the boards of many non- profit organizations.  

            I think you will find this interview very engaging and enlightening, and it might even give you the insight to help someone you know and love as they journey through their difficult paths. At the very least it will expand your understanding of struggles people can go through despite looking so perfect, and that there is help out there if you will allow your self to seek it.

As a woman who pushed to achieve what most women didn’t do -  going to medical school at a time when they took ‘token females’ -  it distresses me no end that in today’s world, even though over half the medical students are female, and increasing numbers of women crack the ‘glass ceiling’ in other areas, too many women still feel stressed, unappreciated and downtrodden in the professional arena and in the personal one as well.    It is a  world where women still don’t get equal pay, even though the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed in 2009 as a sequel to the Equal Pay Act of 1963.   Women are still seen as inferior, but having abundant responsibility at home and work

           As women we need to start looking to ourselves for the place to solve the problems. If we don’t feel we are good enough and deserving inside  ourselves, then we become our own set of obstacles.  Mindset really makes the difference.  Part of that mindset is to recognize that succeeding does NOT mean you are never criticized, it means you don't let that stop you.  No matter your gender, ethnic group or other ‘issue’, learning to set your goals and go for them while believing in yourself  and learning to tune out detractors is essential.  No one who has truly achieved has waited for all the praise and cheers before starting their journey.  They certainly didn’t wait for everyone to see them as perfect before they moved forward or they wouldn’t ever have started.  Criticism and resistance from other people is just one of those obstacles one has to push through in life, not something you let stop you.. You are entitled to your success, but until you  believe that, it won’t happen.

Medical and psychiatric diagnoses can sometimes be made difficult by the many  symptoms that can overlap for many diseases.  All the media publicity and advertising that occurs tends to worsen that problem because they get you focused on their area of interest and it may distract you from other issues that are going on with you that may be even more important.  Then there are things like Alzheimers, which has become the catch all term for almost anything that interferes with memory, focus, concentration and function.  That should be the LAST diagnosis that is made after everything else is ruled out – because it is still untreatable -  and yet too often it does not work that way.  Jumping right to that diagnosis can interfere with finding some of those things that can be improved or even totally resolved.  ADHD is another diagnosis people are quick to jump to, although those same behaviors may be brought on by a lot of different things, each of which may need to be addressed in a totally different way. To add to the confusion, the overlap between ‘mental’ and ‘medical’ is very high,  so that medical things can cause mental symptoms and vice versa.           

            In this program we will look at some of those more common areas where coming to the right diagnosis just isn’t as simple as it seems, and then tell you about some of the things you need to know and do to be a good partner  with your doctor toward the common goal of getting the right diagnosis and right treatment for you and your loved ones.

It has been known for a very long time that emotional issues can affect our physical health, and physical issues, can affect our emotions, and yet it seems to be an issue that is considered all too seldom by both the people who are suffering and the doctors who are evaluating them.  Doctors are often uncomfortable asking, and patients are often embarrassed, to discuss emotional issues.  While pain is a common physical issue, and stress is a common emotional issue, there are very many more issues in both areas that can wreak havoc in your life in both physical and emotional spheres.  Fortunately there are some doctors who are very good at picking up on it and cross referring, but not enough of them.  Unfortunately, there are way too many people who as patients haven’t learned to tie this together, or fear they will be called a hypochondriac.  They aren’t aware of the MANY different things that can impact their health in either direction.  This show is to teach you some of the more common things to suspect and look for, as well as some strategies to use for yourself to recognize them and implement some techniques to manage them, whether you do or do not need the further assistance of a doctor or therapist or coach.  Getting the whole of you – mind and body – is needed to optimize your life!

My guest today is Certified Master Coach Ana Lioi and we will be teaching you some of the things that can happen in this area, how significant they can be, and simple things you can do to improve these situations when they affect you or a loved one.  You will even learn some strategies for prevention and easy tricks to elevate your mood.

Sex as well as Sexual (Gender) identity throughout my lifetime has been a topic inadequately understood and inadequately explained in too many quarters.  Thus we hear totally uneducated and ignorant pronouncements about people’s sexual “choices”.  That was more understandable back in the 70’s when we had less factual information, but it is not as acceptable in an age when we have learned so much!   We also hear about things like a woman’s rights, or lack of them, related to her own body, with too many people also being permissive about things like rape -  at least when it happens to women.  Some of the statements made by some political figures are so dumb they make me wonder how they ever managed to have children – but of course HORMONES are the answer.   But there are many hormones and many tissues in the body that work together to create gender identity – it is not just a simple switch where if Chromosomes are XX you are a girl and if they are XY you are a boy and you are automatically attracted to the opposite sex.  This program is to give you some accurate knowledge about the many things that determine our sexual identity, and it is just as complex as all the things that determine everything else that makes us uniquely individual human beings. We will also look at some frequently unidentified positives that arise with these issues.  BTW, it is NOT an issue that is  unique to human beings, but happens in other animals too - at least in land mammals and Dolphins.  I haven’t researched further than that yet J

We all experience things that cause us grief, although that may be different things for different people or at different times in our lives. It often doesn’t get the attention it deserves because it involves emotions. The first thing that jumps into most people’s minds is grief over the loss of a loved one, but there are many other grief provoking issues each of which may need in it’s own way  to be honored and dealt with so we can grow and strengthen from it.   There are actually some books titled ‘Good Grief’ as well as many other books on various aspects of grief, that can be sources of help IF you recognize that is the issue you are dealing with.   However, grief can be hard to recognize.  We often don’t think about grief being the cause of an emotional storm that seems to hit from nowhere, until someone reminds you it is the anniversary of some significant loss in your life, or the birthday of a departed loved one.  We also don’t tend to recognize that we often grieve over many kinds of changes that can happen in our lives – moves, job changes or losses, changes in financial status,  health issues that limit us so we grieve our independence, the loss of our ‘youth’, the break up of a family, especially for a child, and many kinds of changes that take us from one life condition to another that we may not be as happy about – at least initially.  It is sometimes brought on by the loss of a beloved public figure – like Princess Diana – because it severs a connection to someone that symbolizes something of value to us. Her son Prince Harry actually addressed that recently on Mad World, a British Blog Talk show, and stressed the family’s desire to raise mental health awareness. Today’s program will help you learn to recognize and address grief issues in your life so you can deal with them and move forward.

Learn some secrets the psychopharmaceutical industry would prefer you didn't know about! Do you ever wonder why we are having more and more unhappiness, unrest, depression and drug abuse in the world when there are so many good things going on in life?  Are you or someone you know even one of those unhappy people?  Today Dr. Judy will discuss what some of the issues are that lead to our being unhappy with people and things in our lives, where some of this came from, and most important of all, some of the things you can do and skills you can develop to overcome some of these issues, using the same skills she has taught to many thousands of patients over her psychiatric career.  Pills may help, but the skills that psychotherapy teaches you are the gift that continues to give increasing emotional improvement even after you stop therapy, while the benefits of medicine usually stop when you stop the pills.   You will learn to look at things in new ways, detach yourself from the impossible task of trying to please everyone else and focus on being the best version of your unique persona that you can be.   You will see some examples of how changing the way you look at things can actually change how your life looks to you, as well as things you can do to take charge of shaping your life to be what you want without waiting for those 'other people who are causing your misery'  to change - especially since that isn't very likely to happen.  These are skills that will not only help diminish any emotional dis-ease you might currently have, but also help prevent  things that happen from interfering with your emotional health and happiness.  If psychiatric medicine would fix everything, those many billions of pills would have made a much bigger impact by now. Learn to take charge of you feelings and start changing your life.