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THE DOCTOR AND THE DJ
Join Johnjay, the charismatic host of the top-rated Johnjay and Rich show on iHeartRadio, and his trusted doctor Dr. Carrie Bordinko as they delve into the fascinating world of alternative medicine.
In this podcast, Johnjay asks the questions we've all been curious about
Why do some people seem to have found the fountain of youth?
Is Big Medicine really trying to keep us sick?
What's the truth about stem cells, mushrooms, ketamine, and more?
Dr. Carrie provides science-backed insights, helping to separate fact from fiction.
Along the way, they talk to well-known celebrities who seem to know the secret to health and fitness, award-winning doctors, mental health experts, and more.
Tune in as the DJ and the doctor challenge conventional wisdom and explore the possibilities of alternative medicine.
THE DOCTOR AND THE DJ
From Courtroom to Camera: Judge Lynn Toler’s Journey of Mental Health and Personal Growth
What happens when traditional courtroom attire takes a backseat to personal comfort, and a respected judge becomes a beloved TV personality? Join us as we explore the fascinating journey of Judge Lynn Toler, renowned for her roles on Divorce Court and Marriage Boot Camp. Judge Lynn shares her unconventional path from being an elected judge in Ohio to embracing the vibrant lifestyle changes in Mesa, Arizona. Her story not only highlights how personal choices shape professional paths but also offers insights into marriage, mental health, and the societal pressures we all face.
In a world where mental health and the justice system often clash, Judge Lynn brings to light the critical challenges first responders and the legal community face in addressing mental health crises. Through personal narratives and real-life cases, we uncover the disparities between mental and physical health emergencies, illustrating the urgent need for systemic change. We delve into Judge Lynn's path from Ivy League dreams to her impactful career in law and television, showcasing the diverse avenues life can take. Judge Lynn also opens up about the effects of COVID-19 on societal interactions, emphasizing the role of isolation and social media in altering our communication landscapes.
Ever wonder how the dynamics of family life and relationships play out in the everyday grind? Experience the humor and resilience in Judge Lynn's anecdotes about juggling family chaos and the quirks of long-term relationships. With wit and wisdom, she introduces the concept of a "worry book" as an effective tool to navigate anxiety and obsessive thoughts. Plus, she offers a sneak peek into her new podcast, "Feeling on Purpose," which is designed to help listeners harness their emotions for personal growth and deeper connections. Join us for an episode rich with laughter, reflections, and valuable guidance from Judge Lynn's storied career and personal experiences.
to start this podcast. Um, we call it right now the doctor and the dj, and we've had a few guests, but we have a different guest today which doesn't necessarily fit the doctor and the dj. And we've had a few guests, but we have a different guest today which doesn't necessarily fit the doctor and the dj mold, or maybe it does. Um, and I I want to make sure I introduce you correctly, so because I I'm afraid don't be afraid so do we say honorable?
Speaker 1:do you say because I heard you know one of the guys who runs our podcast call you lynn and I was like whoa hey, whoa, lynn toller. Your honor, lynn toller. Honorable most people now you should call call you Lynn. And I was like whoa hey, whoa, lynn Toler. Your Honor, lynn Toler.
Speaker 2:Honorable. Now you should call me Lynn. Most people know me as Judge Lynn.
Speaker 1:Judge Lynn.
Speaker 2:But that's the known moniker, like Judge Judy, once Jay and Judge Judy got together, every judge is now known by their first names.
Speaker 1:Judge Lynn. So we call you Judge Lynn. Yeah, divorce court, divorce court, marriage boot camp. That's how you judge Lynn. Yeah, because you've been at divorce court. Divorce court, marriage boot camp, marriage boot camp.
Speaker 2:I mean, your resume is pretty ridiculous when it comes to it's long. Yeah, it's not. Whether it's good, I don't know, but it's long.
Speaker 1:You know I was on YouTube today. I wanted to check out some old episodes. So I go to YouTube and there's like I don't know, and the day before it's not.
Speaker 2:They repost them all the time. Now I was on for 14 years. Now somebody else is on it, but they repost them all because they're evergreen. It's always your relationship. Why are you and Bob not getting along? What are we fighting about? It's a divorce court. It's really just a relationship show with a robe, you know, because it's about healthy relationships and it got to the point where people would come, didn't want a divorce or didn't want to litigate anything. They came to get advice. So we started doing before your vows and save my marriages, because I was good at assessing the dysfunction and being able to craft some kind of solution, even if that solution is get a butt ticket and run, you know Wow.
Speaker 1:Well, when you're behind the bench, do you sit like that? Oh, I got no shoes on.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3:Everything under the robe.
Speaker 2:Just, oh man, yeah, I never wear shoes.
Speaker 1:For real when you're on court, even like in real court, not TV court.
Speaker 2:Real court. I stopped wearing shoes too. I stopped wearing the robe too after a while In the beginning, because I was elected judge in 1994, so I looked like I was about 12. And I was 30, 31, 32. No, I wasn't, I don't know. I was 33. 31, 32. No, I wasn't. I don't need it. I was 33, and I had to wear the robe and do all that kind of stuff because no one believed it. It just didn't make any sense. But after a while, and once I had a reputation, you know, the trappings weren't important to me anymore.
Speaker 1:So people come to court and you just be like wearing that.
Speaker 2:I had no shoes on. Now they couldn't see me because I could round that corner real quick. But they could see I didn't have a robe on, I didn't care.
Speaker 1:I thought you'd be wearing a robe today, oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:You came out and Now you know that was originally a male-dominated profession, because we would have known better than to make something that ugly.
Speaker 1:Or at least that gray wig that we see in the English shows. You're right.
Speaker 3:We have the same thing, that you see me at Benicera all the time. And, of course, as a doctor, you know everybody walks around in their white coats and I, for the last 15 years, have never worn a white coat.
Speaker 1:You did last week, you remember I go what's with the coat?
Speaker 3:And I said said.
Speaker 1:You said I'm a doctor. No, I said I'm cold, that's right. You said I'm cold and there was no other jacket in the building for me to wear, but I don't.
Speaker 3:I don't wear it either, because I don't think you need to. I mean people we carry our presence. We don't need a certain you know stigmata around us to let people know who we are, so I do the same thing so, judge Lynn, how do you go from divorce court?
Speaker 1:go to school at Harvard? How do you end up in Mesa, arizona?
Speaker 2:oh, what happened was I was. You know, I was a judge in Ohio when I first went, when I was doing the judge thing in the criminal court. I got the judge, I got the the job out in LA and I commuted for two years and then the commute got ugly but I wasn't gonna pay Los Angeles prices for nothing. And after leaving Cleveland I mean Phoenix almost gave me a heart attack with the prices, but so I came.
Speaker 2:I would was gonna live either here or Vegas, because I needed a one-hour flight to the gig, so I just flew out, picked a place in Mesa and we moved.
Speaker 1:Wow, so how long have you been in Arizona?
Speaker 2:Since 07. Oh wow, a long time. Oh, so you're a zoney Almost, because there are very few natives out here, very few natives.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things we want to talk about right was like because right now we've got that health vibe, we want to talk about marriages, mental health, stress, anxiety, how much it plays into the everyday medical community. Also, I like that off air here. We kind of popped up the election anxiety.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of that going on.
Speaker 2:It's the time of the year and the thing I want the thing is, that's my thing is mental health should always be a part of the health conversation. And you know we have a society where, you know, mr Williams killed Ms Kellerman at Taco Bell in Stowe Ohio because he was upset in Stowe Ohio because he was upset. We're in a position where our emotionality is so surface and it is so extreme. With all of the social media, it's becoming a real problem for us to manage our feelings. I think you know how you're supposed to go to the physical doctor every year. I think you should go to a psychiatrist every year or a counselor every year. Everybody just say, hey, what's happening in there?
Speaker 2:Is there a problem? Is something ticking a little slow? Is it ticking too fast? There's nothing wrong with having a gear wobbling, as long as you know which one it is and what to do when it starts to go.
Speaker 1:You know. Speaking of that, I'm just curious about in your career of being a judge and a lawyer, are there any cases like if you're going to bed, let's say it's nine o'clock at night and you're going to bed, you're by yourself and you're just thinking about stuff. Are there any terrible cases? Just pop in your head, you go, you remember this, this one. I can't believe that happened. I saw this person crying in court. Is there anything that just sticks with you from your past?
Speaker 2:I remember having this dude in court on a murder charge. He killed his girlfriend, no, he killed his mother. And his girlfriend talked him into it and the girlfriend was there and she was talking to me and I could tell that she's just very manipulative, just very, very manipulative. And she had said something about being pregnant at the time and I'm saying well, you know, you've got a lot of problems. You know, I don't want to hear about that right now. We're doing this, we're doing that Because she was charged with something minor he was charged with. And she came back before me and I can't remember why and she said I got the abortion, like you told me to whoa, just because I said you know said it to you first thing she said to me and that's six with you yeah, I mean not that she did it, but she was doing that to that dude and got him to kill his mother.
Speaker 2:This is how she runs her life is. She runs around, she gets into people's feelings and makes them do stuff To me. I was just. I was floored by that personality though I am not anymore and I just found it extraordinary extraordinary.
Speaker 1:But but he was on trial, she wasn't right he?
Speaker 2:yeah, he was. I was just doing a preliminary hearing to kick him up to the another court oh, so you had small charges.
Speaker 1:He had a big charge, but you when you hear all that, you can't do anything. When you see something like that and you can't go, you're in contempt or you're whatever. You can't, you can't throw any power to the person.
Speaker 2:That's not being no no, I mean if they act up in there.
Speaker 1:But how screwed up you gotta be to kill your mom and have your girlfriend talk you into it yeah, there's a lot of that. I know, man, was she a bad mom? This?
Speaker 3:kind of goes right back to what you were saying earlier about. You know you have your annual physical checkup. We need an annual mental checkup. But to do that we've got to change our system because we do not have enough providers. We do not have adequate access to mental health in our country. We had Dr Shulay on a little while ago, who's a board-certified psychiatrist who really speaks to these things as well. It's just, it's a near impossible task to meet the needs of the community and I think a lot of it does fall on the medical providers to be that somewhat in between mental health provider sometimes and they're stressed to find the amount of time to listen appropriately.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that insurance has something to do with it too, because of the lack of parity. You know you break your foot, but you're not feeling too well in the head whether or not you know what they're going to cover. It's always more difficult to get it covered, and when I was a judge in Cleveland, I saw so many people who were mentally ill were in there because they were mentally ill. You know, if you have a heart attack and fall down and a bus has to stop, they take you to a hospital. If you're having a psychotic episode and you sit down in the middle of the street and do that, they take you to jail, Right. And what I was trying to do was get a first responders mental health team for all the local courts, Because if you were in the major court, they had a whole floor just dedicated to the mentally ill, but we had no resources and I would have people come in. I'll never forget this guy because he came over to the house to thank me and I was gone.
Speaker 1:He came to your house.
Speaker 2:No, the family member.
Speaker 2:What happened was there was a whole family there, one family member, and he was crazy I shouldn't say crazy, I call myself crazy all the time. He was disturbed, he was disturbed, he had mental health issues and he couldn't afford his meds. You know, this is back in the 1990s and they just didn't have any. And he goes can you put me in county jail? Don't put me in city jail, put me in county jail. Max me out so they will med me up, because in county jail they will pay for your meds. And his family member came and thanked me for it because I put him in jail longer than I should have. But he wanted to get right and I figured my job is to get things as right as I can be and if he needed six months to get right, that's what I was going to do.
Speaker 1:So are you still a lawyer? Like can you still practice?
Speaker 2:I kept my license up for years after I went on TV and then I just I let it go so I could go and start it back up by taking all the continuing legal education. If I did that, I could go and start it back up by taking all the continuing legal education. If I did that, I could do it. But right now my status is on hold. I'm frozen, so what?
Speaker 1:was it like. So you went to Harvard right. Right. Is that Harvard?
Speaker 2:Law, Harvard undergrad. Wow Whoa man.
Speaker 1:So you're like really smart.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what's that like? Do you get a letter in the mail?
Speaker 2:I'm talking to a doctor. Let me tell you what I did. My parents told my sister and I, since we were this big, that you're going to Ivy League schools and you're going to be physicians. Now you can pick any Ivy League school you want, you can pick any kind of physician you want, but that's what you two were doing. So my sister went off, toddled off to Dartmouth. She's a neurologist. I went to Harvard. I partied so hard, do you hear me? I had to drop all the hard courses, became an English major and it was like my senior year daddy called and said yo, what you doing? And I said, uh, I don't know. And he said if you don't go to graduate school because daddy paid for it Dartmouth and Harvard if you don't go to graduate school, you got to get a job. I ran and took the LSAT, got into law school, went to Penn Law. Didn't go to class there, but I didn't, wasn't a doctor. But my sister who did go to class, she is a board certified neurologist.
Speaker 1:So I'm the family failure, but are you and your sister close?
Speaker 2:Not really, oddly enough, no, she's only a year or so ahead of me, but we were very different people.
Speaker 1:I just knowing that your parents told you to go Ivy League like I just can't imagine Our son. We have an 18,. We have three boys. Our youngest is 18, and he got a letter, an email, that he got into U of A and my wife started crying U of A. And my wife started crying U of A and I said to him because he's got like a 4.0, I was like, just literally before knowing we were going to talk to you, I was like, hey, you should apply to Harvard and I can't imagine what that would be like to get an acceptance letter to Harvard.
Speaker 2:I was in the bathtub and the reason I know I was in the bathtub is because the the letter is wrinkled because I I in early decision, so it was right after. It was like the only school I had applied to and I got so excited I threw the letter up, I jumped out of the tub and just ran down the house and the letter was just bobbing in the water.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable. Hey, are there celebrities that you've had to? Any famous people you've had to be a judge or a lawyer for?
Speaker 2:No, I've met some famous people.
Speaker 1:You could say that, could you? It's not like a medical thing.
Speaker 2:Well, I wouldn't tell if I had represented them, but I wouldn't because I wasn't that kind of lawyer. You know what I mean. I did corporate law before I did criminal law as a judge, you know.
Speaker 1:What about famous cases? Criminal law as a judge, what about famous cases? I mean, what got the attention of divorce court people?
Speaker 2:Who knows. I was on the bench one day and I got off and it was back in the pink. You know, while you were, what fox called. They want to know if you want to be on tv and I never got a straight answer of who did it, why they did it. I know they had a. They did have an article on me in the paper and what the article was.
Speaker 2:Some some uh reporter was bored, so he came in the court see what was happening. It just so happened that there was a group of of black folk and a group of Arabs, one all Arabs, all on one side. The blacks were all on the other side. There was a man on trial for disorderly conduct because one of the black kids went into the Arab store and got a cookie bar, and the whole neighborhood turned out. So instead of just adjudicating that guy, I said I'm not interested in you.
Speaker 2:I went down there and I said listen, what are you doing? This lady gets up. She's pregnant. I said where are you going? She says I'm smoking a cigarette. I said not on my watch. Sit down and give that baby a break. And then I talked to everybody about what did you do? So with your 35-year-old self. You went over there and told that man now if an 11-year-old had said what your son said to him and by the time I was done, I had everybody laughing and I had everybody feeling stupid. And I said now the reason I did this because I know you people are going home and you live near each other and you go to that store. So this has got to end. Today he wrote a article about me nine months later when he didn't have anything to do, and I think they might've seen that.
Speaker 1:Okay, Cause you you're kind of known also for some of your weird or different punishments. Right, Weird is good, Weird yeah. Like what are some of the punishments you gave people?
Speaker 2:I had a friend Judge Chicanetti was way better than that than I do I used to make him listen to the Barney song if you had. Oh, that's torture. You know, remember too loud thump, thump, thump, thump In people who drive, and drive noises Six Hours of Barney.
Speaker 1:That was a punishment, uh-huh.
Speaker 3:I bet they never did it again.
Speaker 2:They didn't do it in Cleveland Heights. Mostly what I did, though, is I realized I was too little, too late, and I would start groups for young men and young women to kind of like redirect them, because they weren't emotionally healthy.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean well, let's shift gears, to say go fast forward to marriage boot camp, marriage boot camp yeah, I agree yeah, what?
Speaker 3:first off did you come up with the idea from divorce court and seeing what you were able to do and help people before they got to that point and said wait a minute, we need to back this up. We need to hit a minute earlier time you didn't understand something.
Speaker 2:I'm the world's biggest. I fail up ass backwards all the time. I just someone got bored on Marriage Boot Camp. There was a whole show. It was introduced by this couple in Dallas and they did one segment. Oh, let's do a divorce court segment. I went in there. I did so well. They said let's make her a regular. And then when they fell out with the, the originators of the show me and another guy took it over. So it was. It was I was in the right place at the right time and just fell in it then what's the hip-hop one?
Speaker 2:it's well. We had marriage boot camp and we used to have a couple people from these kind of reality shows in this one, and then we decided to have all hip hop. You know all from the hip hop industry.
Speaker 1:Like who.
Speaker 2:Oh, CeeLo Green and Soulja Boy and Waka.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, Soulja Boy, tell them.
Speaker 2:Waka Flocka.
Speaker 1:Are you serious Like wait? They're coming in for marriage boot camp. Soulja Boy had a how to turn out with Soulja Boy.
Speaker 2:He listen. He was so funny he used to always like that to me when we walked by. He was hilarious. He was just absolutely.
Speaker 1:They all were are these shows on YouTube right now?
Speaker 2:Hip Hop Boot Camp, that's what it's called Hip Hop Boot Camp.
Speaker 1:And what channel, what network, what app I don't know.
Speaker 2:I always watch it on youtube was it uh?
Speaker 1:is it a while ago? Yeah? No, it's still there but you do, you still do it oh, no, no, a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, when covid came, that was a huge production. You would have a hundred people on set at any given time.
Speaker 1:It was just too hard, we just couldn't do it I think when you bring up covid, that's another thing where a lot of the mental health right people started mental health.
Speaker 2:It did right. What do you think?
Speaker 1:what do you mean? How so?
Speaker 2:I think it broke us. I think we we lost the ability to calibrate and regulate ourselves out in the in the larger community. We got isolated. We got what we want. We got to drink it too much, we had too much to eat, and then we got isolated. We got what we want. We got to drinking too much, we had too much to eat, and then we got irritated. And now we're all out here and now that we're on social media that you know you got rage bait, everybody's looking at that, so everybody is amped up. We got cortisol, adrenaline everything is just rushing and rolling all the time and we were home. Everything is just rushing and rolling all the time. And we were home and we just we lost. I think we lost a bit of our ability to regulate in company.
Speaker 3:We're all siloed now.
Speaker 2:You don't think exactly what I think and if you don't think it at the same level that I think it, and if you don't think at it, think about it quick enough. I hate you. I can't talk to you, you can't tell me nothing and I won't deal with you.
Speaker 3:That's where we are, I believe it's something we've never seen before in society. So we do not know how to navigate this effectively and I think a lot in the medical community right now we're trying to deal with that because we're on the front lines right the.
Speaker 3:ER doctors are on the front lines, the first responders are on the front lines of a lot of this, and I don't think we've been given the tools to understand how to help people out of that. And you know we're talking about marriage bootcamp. I mean mean so much of this infighting that's happening within the family unit. You're talking about being siloed in your home, but then in the home you've got a new level of kind of dysregulation and dysfunction amongst the people there.
Speaker 2:um, we've got to, we've got to find a new way around this, a new norm, right, better norm, right, right, because the new norm is not working and one of the thing and the and the reason I got caught up with the tyler and all of this kind of stuff is we have to make practicing our emotionality a norm. You know what I mean. To practice. I have to practice being, uh, secure. I'm very nervous, I'm very shy, I'm I tense towards depression.
Speaker 2:My mother thinks I'm bipolar. My father was definitely bipolar. All of his brothers were bipolar, so much so that none of them did well, they just you know. So I didn't have the option of not managing myself emotionally at all periods of time. And my thing is, if I can take this shy, reclusive chick and turn her into somebody who does this for a living, everybody can take who they are and make it a calmer, less excitable. Everybody's that. You know what I mean. You can be better. So there's no more of this getting shot at Taco Bell. You know everybody talks mental health after a shooting for about a week.
Speaker 1:You're saying you're shy.
Speaker 2:Extraordinarily, you would never know it. Reclusive. That's why my sister and I didn't get along, because she was very outgoing.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean I see you as extremely outgoing. Not at all Because you're here with cameras and you're on, but when you go, if you're at the grocery store you're yeah.
Speaker 2:This is the first time I left the house this week.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:And my son had to drive me. I don't like to drive. I'm scared to drive. I'm scared to fly.
Speaker 3:Do it.
Speaker 1:Don't do it, don't like it, have to be driven to do it. I think it's very yes, I think it's very relatable what you're, what you're saying, I feel very similar to to what you're saying.
Speaker 2:So do normal things unnerve you?
Speaker 1:unnerve me or what does that unnerve me? Like they nerve me if normal things like like I don't want to do anything oh well, there, well, there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to stay home and not do it. I don't like to go on vacation, I'd rather just stay home, don't?
Speaker 3:want to go.
Speaker 1:But I do it because of my family, right? Or I do it because I do a radio show. Like I do a radio show, I sit in a little room and gets sick to my stomach me too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too. I never thought I just figured someone got to deal with yeah and yeah and it is and it's.
Speaker 1:You know it's like if I'm at a concert and they're like, hey, go on stage and bring on justin bieber. I'm like, oh my god, oh god, why do I have to do that? Can somebody else do that? You know what I mean. I have to do t. I'm on tv every day. I get sick to my stomach before I know I had to put myself in some zone, kind of right. You know what I mean like okay, I gotta go on tv.
Speaker 1:All right, hold on, let's go. All right, I'm ready. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean yeah, yeah, mine is a little different. It's like I if, if you ask me to, if there's 10,000 people in rooms hey, the speaker didn't show up could you give a speech? No problem, uh, but don't take me to a cocktail party oh yeah, no, I've tried, I'm, I try to fall into the wall. I'm ducking under the couch. I don't want to talk to nobody.
Speaker 1:I'm in the corner or I go in the bathroom and wait as long as I can. You don't?
Speaker 2:go around the corner and hide and sip my little drink forever Let me tell you how nervous I get.
Speaker 1:I was hoping you were going to cancel, but then, when it's over'm like that was awesome, I'm so, I'm so glad I win, you know. But up until then I'm hoping that, whatever, if I get invited somewhere, I'll say yes. And then when I'm like, why did I say yes to that? And I gotta go to this thing, I get sick to my stomach, but I get through it. So then, with all this, I think we should talk about election anxiety, because I think that's fascinating. It goes along the lines of what you were saying, like I did.
Speaker 1:Uh, somebody made a post on our, our radio shows, instagram, and they made a a cool little video. Someone on our show like the four people dancing and having a good time. This is the way we feel when we come to work in the morning. And someone made a comment they're trump supporters, they know this and someone goes how do you know that? And they go Trump. And then I was like I think we follow Biden too. I think we follow. There's a Mormon leader that I really like, that I follow. I'm not Mormon Just because I follow someone on Instagram and all hell broke loose, like what is with people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think we're just severely siloed. I mean they want you to declare a position, like remember when all of the universities had to state a position on I think it was Gaza? Maybe I think it was Gaza, yeah, and that sister lost her job at Harvard. You know it was a dumb thing she said, but it's just everybody. You got to state your position Well, it's decisive.
Speaker 3:It's decisive, it's divisive sorry, it is divisive, and we've never been in a position where we've been this divisive as a culture.
Speaker 2:And nuance is complicated. You know the fine print is where your humanity is and you can't read the fine print across the room. But nobody's getting close anymore to read the fine print.
Speaker 1:Which one?
Speaker 3:Where she said that you can't read the fine print across the room. I like that that speaks loudly.
Speaker 2:So you've got to be able to talk to people who don't agree with you, and you can't talk to them by saying he's an idiot, you're an idiot. I don't know why I keep pointing at you. I think it's because you have beautiful red hair.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, and I love a red hair, but anyway, not in that way.
Speaker 2:Oh Lord, where am I going? What was I talking about?
Speaker 3:We were just talking about how to connect and talk to people, and once again social media. You also can't have those conversations you can't talk at people.
Speaker 2:What you have to do is start where people are and then slowly walk them home. My mother told me this. I was on the bench, some guy was about he was getting ready to go for domestic violence. So I give him what another judge friend of mine calls the acid rain dance. I hollered at him, bam, put him in jail. And my mother happened to be in there just checking out seeing what all that money went that they paid for for college. And she says Lynn, let me tell you what you did wrong. And said well, what did I do wrong, I mean? And she said you didn't help that woman at all. Now he's in jail thinking about that. Be hit and the other be who put him in jail? What you should have done. And this is what I did. From then on, I'd start saying what did she do? And then he'd say tell me, did that upset you? Uh-huh, uh-huh, and I'd get them. They would know that I knew how upset they were, which is why they did what they did.
Speaker 2:And then I said now let me tell you why you're going to jail. I can get them to laugh, I can get them to. I've had a few of them write me afterwards. Not asking for shortening time, he said I just want to tell you I'm not a bad guy. I made it so it mattered to them what they thought. Not all of them, not most of them, but every once in a blue moon, if you can catch somebody, sit him down and stop him.
Speaker 3:You've rescued a family. Well, you got him to own what he did versus just accusatory.
Speaker 2:Accusatory and fight. People defend. When you attack, people defend. But if you show them that you understand their emotionality they were upset then you can help them change their behavior, because incarceration without elucidation is pointless. You know, if we would go by the recidivism rates, we'd all lose our jobs, because it's like a revolving door is there a movie or tv show that's exactly like court?
Speaker 1:there you go, that's real. Ooh, I stumped the judge. Yeah, you know, I object, you object Most of them aren't even. You're out of order. This whole courtroom is out of order.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, Wasn't that a few good men or something?
Speaker 1:No, that's Injustice for All Opportunity.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, yes.
Speaker 1:A few good men is you can't handle the truth. End the truth. Yeah, that's one of my favorite scenes of all time.
Speaker 2:But, no, I think real court is really boring. I mean, I enjoy watching it, but you know, people don't, you know?
Speaker 1:Like do you ever put anyone in jail or prison for contempt? I'll hold you in contempt.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've had to put people in contempt. One guy kind of he was there on it isn't? I remember his whole name, his middle initial and everything he. He threatened to attack me because over a speeding ticket, you know, and I was like, oh no, you got to go to jail, but the best one, I will tell you, I was at a jury trial and this guy was stalking his counselor and so it was a jury trial. He was representing himself. So the prosecutor got up and voir dired the the people and I asked the questions. You said, hey, who do you know?
Speaker 2:you know, just ask so you can pick your jury. And then I said okay, mr Smith, you may voir dire the jury. And he stood up. He said do you believe in Jesus Christ? It happened to be. We had all Christians there that day, so everybody threw up their hands and he said as long as you believe in me, I'm good with all of you, and sat down.
Speaker 2:Wow. So this is the first time I've ever had jurors that were released come back. So I had to do an exam to see if he was competent to stand trial. The bizarre thing about that is competency is determined legally as follows you understand the nature of the proceedings, you understand what's involved, who's who, who's doing what, and you understand the nature of the offense and you can participate meaningfully in your defense. Now, unless I could prove to him he wasn't, I could prove he wasn't Jesus because I ain't seen Jesus. He got the right to believe anything he wants to. I asked him all the pertinent questions. He knew everything that was going on. He knew what the penalty was. He knew everything we had to go forward with the trial. He stood up, gave an opening statement talking about not only am I Jesus, I was Adam in the garden and that man, the guy who he was stalking, screwed Eve. It's a good story.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it had anything to do with what we were talking about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Jail or the psych unit. Well, yeah, he needed a mental health. I mean psych unit.
Speaker 2:I couldn't because I couldn't adjudicate First guy I ever had to go see I remember his name too and we were going to adjudicate him. He was trying to get him to plead no contest by reason of insanity and we sent him to a psychiatrist and I kept the note. It said Mr Smith refuses to plead not guilty by reason of insanity because he is under the delusional belief that he is not insane well, yeah, that's the answer that's a fact are there cases that are world famous that you look at?
Speaker 1:you would have ruled differently not that I know about like if you go at the oj trial which, by the way, uh judge ito. Whatever happened to that guy. He was, like, so famous what happens to you judges?
Speaker 2:yeah, I had cocktails with uh. I used to hang out with uh marcia clark and uh chris darden because we were doing a show together.
Speaker 1:I don't know what show we were doing together you know, chris chris darden, my friend kevin rowe, from learning rowe, chris darden was his professor, his law professor.
Speaker 2:oh yeah, he was an interested dude.
Speaker 1:He was an interested dude.
Speaker 2:He really really was. It was just fascinating. They gave me a lot of behind the scenes stuff which they swore me to secrecy so I had to leave it alone.
Speaker 1:It's probably on a Netflix special.
Speaker 2:I know, but like I was just watching the Lacey, Peterson documentary.
Speaker 1:You see that one.
Speaker 2:The Lacey Pearson, scott Pearson one. Yes, oh, but I watched all the trials. Jodi Arias had me by the throat and I was living in Mesa at the time. It was fantastic.
Speaker 1:The guy I worked with used to write her notes. He was one of those crazies oh man, he'd write her letters and stuff, yeah. And then there's another show right now I'm watching on Max. It's called Born Evil. Have you seen it? It's terrifying, it's it's about a serial killer. It's, it's true, documentary a serial killer that we don't know about. But they've got him and it's just awful and I can't.
Speaker 2:I have to watch it in increments in the afternoon because I can't sleep, can't do it at night, I can't sleep yeah yeah, what so when you're home alone chilling out, I know you're always active writing books and stuff.
Speaker 1:And what do you watch on tv?
Speaker 2:what do I watch? I watch a lot of true crime. I watch a lot of serial killer stuff.
Speaker 1:Well then, you've got to watch Born Evil. No, I am Mindhunter, I'm watching that right now you are. They stopped doing it, david Lynch is not going to do it anymore and there's a big protest and I think they're trying to do a season three.
Speaker 2:I hope so. So, because I was so mad when they stopped. Yeah, oh, my goodness. And I knew I read a lot about Kemper and all those guys and the ones that started out and it was so true to life.
Speaker 1:I would pause it and then Google everything and it's like the actors are identical. The Ed Kemper guy that plays him looks exactly like him, the B2K killer guy, all of it. You're probably not there yet.
Speaker 3:I am, I am there. I am there as a heck of a show.
Speaker 2:I really love that so you know me.
Speaker 3:I'm sitting next to somebody else on the couch right who has that background. I'm like isn't he this real? Is this how the FBI does it? And he's like, yeah, that's exactly how we do it he's a profiler, her husband. You gotta meet that, oh yeah so it's just funny, because I, you know it's like you always want to fact check that kind of stuff. You know, is it tv drama or is it real? And he says it's actually quite real. So her dude yeah wow, we were doing that with Linus too, with the CIA.
Speaker 1:Linus, I was. Could you watch that?
Speaker 3:no, I haven't seen that. Oh, you might want to check that one out.
Speaker 1:It's not quite courtroom drama, but so with are you have new books coming out? Are you writing? Because you said you earlier? You said you sit like that when you write.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have three books that are already out my Mother's Rules genius, and how she taught me to be some, to act in opposition to how I feel so I could get out of the house, and how those lessons helped me on the bench. Then I did another book called making marriage work, because I was in the in the middle of a 30 some odd year marriage. And then I wrote a book, dear Sonali, for daughters, because I never had a daughter. I married a man with four sons and I had two more boys and I was like, well, this brother can't do girls, so I'm never going to get a daughter. I'm not trying Again. So I wrote a book for 20-year-old girls and now I'm writing my first novel. I ain't going to tell you about it because if it don't work out I'm throwing it right in the trash okay, so let's talk about marriage and 30-year marriage.
Speaker 1:And it was what was the marriage book?
Speaker 2:it was called wait making marriage work so how do you make marriage work?
Speaker 1:what's we're not gonna?
Speaker 2:talk about that because he died last year and I'm not I'm not, I'm not, I'm not good oh, I understand at all.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry, but you can't tell us how make it work before that.
Speaker 2:It's in the book communication yeah, I have a whole chapter on speaking man and teaching women how to speak man and how man to speak woman.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I was one day, he and I. I was home and I had one kid who's a wild man in one room doing homework with him. He was about 8. And I had one kid who's a wild man In one room doing homework with him. He was about eight and I had another one in another room doing homework because the little one would bother the big one. I was cooking and my husband was watching a ball game and I'm sitting there and I see lights and sirens and my husband looks at me and says the police are here, doesn't move. I get up, I go to the door, guy puts his foot in the door, police cop pushes me back. What's up? My son the one that messes around did a 911 hang-up call and they knew it was my house, so they rolled because they thought somebody was in there.
Speaker 3:Oh man.
Speaker 2:And I was hot, you know. Then my husband looks in the refrigerator and says there's no milk. My husband looks in the refrigerator and says there's no milk. And I was about to light that brother up and I said I'm going to give him enough room to hang himself. And I said, could you get some? And he said, sure, baby, what else you need? He didn't notice, he did not look around, he didn't. You got to make a solid, hard ass, baby. I need you to a and they will it's communication.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I said. Her and I have been married almost 30 years and I think it's. Here's an example. I'll never forget this. I had an iced tea in the refrigerator and she says to me are you not going to drink your iced tea? And I was like well, it's in the refrigerator, I'm going to. But I was like do you want it? Like, if you want it, you can have it. But that's not what she said. She't like can I have your iced tea? She was like are you gonna drink your iced tea? Well, the answer to that is I'm going to, yeah, but if you want it, you can have it. You see what I'm saying? There's these women. You women play, we do it all the time.
Speaker 2:It's like it's like we're driving in the car and I'm not gonna say I want, I want hungry. I said, baby, are you hungry? It's what we do, it's how we we try not to be pushy so we do, we come in, we come in on your light, so except they don't hear light. They don't hear light. So because if you say I'm hungry, it's like, oh, here she goes, get like, baby, are you hungry? You know what I mean. You kind of kind of come into it slow. But then again, like I was in the car and my husband was driving, we were in the parking lot going up and up. Yeah well, baby, here's a parking spot, here's a parking spot. He's going up and up, and my mother was in the back seat and she could see because I was getting crisp and she tapped me on the back and said men do that.
Speaker 3:She was a wise woman without judgment.
Speaker 2:They do it. That happened yesterday. We ask a question when we want something. That's what we do. You just, they're just we're.
Speaker 3:They're weird and we're odd, and that's what it is. Every woman listening to that has said I've been in the car when that happened happened to me yesterday.
Speaker 1:Her and I were going to go out get coffee and I'm pulling in the parking lot she was there's a space right there, like I know, and there's a space right here. I'm going into this space right here like why don't you, why are you bringing? I'm driving, I know um, your mother. Was she like a psychiatrist or something like she's?
Speaker 2:just extraordinarily emotionally intelligent. My father was, uh, bipolar, badly so, and uh, he was unmedicated his entire life and I know one time, like my mother, didn't put all of the shades down equidistantly around the house. This is back in the 60s, right. So the phone was still connected to the wall and I was sitting in the kitchen and the phone would ring Mom, pick it up. He'd yell, put the phone down. Five minutes later, phone would ring, pick it up. He'd yell put the phone down for hours. And I said mommy, why do you keep picking up the phone? He says, cause, as long as he's at work, as long as he's on the phone, I know he's not on his way home. It seems to be enough for him to yell at me from there, and I have things to do.
Speaker 1:Jeez, what did he do for a living?
Speaker 2:He was a lawyer. Oh wow, he went to Bluefield State. He used to go two weeks in the coal mine, then two weeks in undergrad, two weeks in the coal mine, two in undergrad and then he went to, uh, world war ii and he was born in 1919. My grandmother was born in 1886 and she went to college because she was the smart one.
Speaker 2:My grandfather had two wives. The first one was just regular, because all her kids are regular, and I remember the second one of them that was married to the second wife when I was pregnant and uh, she says what is it? And I says it's a boy and she says that's too bad because there's something wrong with all the boys and they are. They were extraordinarily brilliant and just crazy and and my mother was able to manage him and me and my sister, and we got done, wasn't, nobody mad, everybody got where they were going. She did, she died, she lived 20 years after he died off the interest of the income of the trust fund he left for my sister and I, wow, she was comfy, comfy, comfy but did he?
Speaker 1:did you ever go to him for legal advice, or when you were on a case or you were doing something?
Speaker 2:daddy, don't do things like that really no, he was either solving a problem, but you couldn't he no, he was an unusual dude. He really really was Very smart. Very, very, very friend of his came. He said I'm going to divorce my wife. He's got a lot of money. She said he goes. You can divorce her if you want to, but you can't use me. She's a good woman. You need to stay with her.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow. That kind of dude wow, are any of your kids following your profession?
Speaker 2:uh, no one. One of them is, um, he does something about coordinating systems in new homes, security, I don't know. He does something about housing. Anyway, new homes, and that one, I'm loving him, I'm loving him hard.
Speaker 1:That's funny. We have a son that we think is going to graduate next year from U of A our oldest son and I was telling my wife I was like I don't know what he's going to do when he graduates. But we're going to be about empty nesters for maybe six months and then I think he's probably going to move back into the house and I'm okay with it.
Speaker 1:We downsized just to get him out, and it didn't work. What do you do, for you know, one of the things with this, this podcast that we're doing is, you know, it's health and nutrition too. We get into it. What's your? Do you exercise? Do you eat right?
Speaker 2:What's your practice? I do exercise, I do. I walk uphill on the treadmill a lot and I run outside with the dogs a lot, and I don't know.
Speaker 1:But do you get into that stuff? Do you look at? Okay, this is how old I am, I should. They're saying that I should lift weights. I should do this, I should do that.
Speaker 2:You don't do you follow any trends no, but I always get caught up into things like for like. When I in my 30s to my 40s, I became a black belt in taekwondo, that took 10 years, and so you have to do that every three days. And then when I came here I played tennis for years and then, you know, I was a day, you know. So I usually get into stuff that is physical. Now I'm going to try to do dancing or something, so, because I used to be a dancer back in the day, but I do something that's physical.
Speaker 3:You move, I move yeah, right, that's the thing, the most important thing absolutely what about what? Do you do anything specifically for stress release, because we've talked about a lot about the stressors right now out there. So is there anything you practice? People talk about doing grounding. They talk about meditation. Is there anything you found that helps you there?
Speaker 2:oh, a million things. I have a worry book. You know I worry. If I'm worrying about something, I have to write it all down, that's your journal?
Speaker 2:not quite, because I know if I wrote it down I won't have to remember it, because I know whatever worry is down. And then I have to go back in a week and then I have to write down what actually happened. And then you feel stupid. So I have to go. I go around making myself feel stupid about my worries so that that lets me worry less and less and less and less. Uh, if I'm upset in the morning, I have a. Uh, I have a playlist for the type of upset I am to take me from. I'm gonna start with celeeLo Green's FU and then I moved to Anita Baker. You know. So you know. And by the time we get to Anita, you know I'm singing, you know I'm just laying out Whitney Houston. They can't do anything with me.
Speaker 2:I have sticky notes and stuff on my computer. Are you worrying or are you working? I started that when I was a judge. My husband used to call me the night stalker because I used to walk around the house all night wondering what if I did the right thing that day. But I have a lot of them. I do. I do have a lot of them. I do have to. Uh, I got two dogs. Sometimes I just have to go outside with the dogs and just run and gun and carry on, and then I always say this expression everything's a problem until you're sick, and then sick is the only problem you have.
Speaker 2:I'm not sick, let's keep it moving.
Speaker 1:That's good. I don't understand the worry book. Can you tell me that again? How does the worry book work?
Speaker 2:Worry book. You can keep it by my bed when I'm worrying Obsessive thoughts and you write down whatever I write it down and then have a little thing online on the page and then I write down what happened afterwards. Oh, it's hilarious.
Speaker 1:So you write, because if you write it down it's kind of out of your head.
Speaker 2:It kind of out of your head. It's out of my head, right? Sometimes I hang on to stuff because I think I don't want to forget all of the different ways I could possibly solve this problem. Because that's what I do I chase problems. So if I put down everything I thought I know I I have, I have the list and it's exhaustive by the morning sometimes by the morning, I already think it's stupid.
Speaker 1:But if, if, if this situation occurs and it's not a problem, which it usually isn't- so then you compare what really happened to the worry and you're like that was so stupid, I can't believe I was worried about that amazing that's awesome, she quantifies the problem, that's awesome because it's only a problem in the moment.
Speaker 1:I know there's so many I I read a lot of that stuff. You know, uh, the memes that tell you don't worry about stuff, everything you're worried about about now, a year from now, what you're worrying about right now is not going to matter.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But the sick thing is dead.
Speaker 2:on I'm terrified of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh man. Well, I mean thanks for jumping on our podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. Can I say something about my podcast?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely Go right ahead.
Speaker 2:I've got a new podcast. It's on. We already had two episodes. It's called Feeling on Purpose and the whole thing is I'm trying to teach others what my mother taught me, which was the ability to think your way through how you feel, so you can do what you need to do even if you don't feel like doing it. And, deeper still, it allows you to help reach behind and manage other people, because if you understand how other people feel, despite what they say, you're going to have an easier time understanding what they need and being able to you know, start where they are and welcome home to you.
Speaker 1:So is it available on all platforms?
Speaker 2:yes, it's available on all platforms and youtube oh so it's a video.
Speaker 1:It's a video podcast as well. Yes, audio podcast as well. All right, man, that's great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for having me, it was fun.