Feeling On Purpose With Judge Lynn Toler
Welcome to Feeling On Purpose with Judge Lynn Toler, where we dive deep into the emotional landscape that shapes our lives, relationships, and personal growth. Judge Lynn, a Harvard graduate and the longest-presiding judge on TVs Divorce Court, brings her wisdom, experience, and candid insight to help you understand and manage your emotions with intention and clarity.
Each episode unpacks essential life topics, from understanding your own emotional triggers to navigating relationships, tackling anxiety, and pursuing joy. With segments like "Word of the Day," "Today’s Tolerism," and "You Asked, I’m Answering," Judge Lynn offers practical advice and heartfelt guidance, empowering you to master your emotions and live a life of purpose.
Join Judge Lynn as she explores how cultural, familial, and societal influences shape our feelings and decisions, and learn how to take control of your emotional narrative. Whether you're dealing with fear, seeking happiness, or striving to improve your communication skills, Feeling On Purpose is your go-to podcast for emotional wisdom and self-discovery.
Tune in to start your journey towards a more intentional and fulfilling life, where your emotions work for you, not against you.
Feeling On Purpose With Judge Lynn Toler
From Anxiety to Calm: Lessons from Aviation and Loss
In this episode of Feeling On Purpose, we tackle a vital question: Can unchecked emotions lead to life-changing consequences? Through the poignant stories of Jason Williams and Megan Kellerman, we delve into the impact of unmanaged emotions and explore why regular emotional check-ins are essential.
Reflecting on personal experiences with anxiety and loss, I emphasize the importance of maintaining emotional awareness, especially in our fast-paced world shaped by the lingering effects of COVID-19 and social media. Learn practical strategies, including the use of a mirror for self-reflection, to take control of your emotional well-being and navigate today’s challenges more effectively.
We also draw insightful parallels from the aviation world. Discover how the calm demeanor of airline pilots, exemplified by Captain Sully Sullenberger’s heroic Hudson River landing, can guide us in managing daily stress with composure. By adopting successful behaviors and committing to daily self-reflection, you can improve your emotional responses and avoid potential pitfalls.
Join us as we also address broader societal issues, such as rising violence and the role of individual responsibility in fostering a more compassionate society. This episode offers a thought-provoking exploration of how understanding and managing our emotions can lead to healthier, more balanced lives.
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You know her as the longest presiding judge on divorce court, for more than 14 years. Marriage boot camp and many other programs. A graduate of Harvard, judge Lynn Toler is the author of my Mother's Rules Making Marriage Work and Dear Sonali Letters to the Daughter I Never had, all of which are dedicated to the proper emotion, what it is and how to find it.
Speaker 2:Remember under your skin is a sovereign country. Don't go passing out passports all willy-nilly to people who don't belong there. Let me help you protect your emotional borders so we can all start feeling on purpose. Hey, how you doing. And welcome to another episode of Feeling On Purpose. Feeling On Purpose is the podcast dedicated to the proposition of allowing you to own your emotional landscape so the rest of the world can't mess with you. Remember, under your skin is a sovereign country. Don't go handing out passports all willy-nilly to people that don't belong there. Today.
Speaker 2:I'm going to start out with two questions why did Jason Williams kill Megan Kellerman and do you know where you are? Jason Williams and Megan Kellerman were in line at a Taco Bell in Stowe, ohio, in August, I think, august 14th of 2024. I think she may have dipped in line in front of him, kind of made a fast maneuver to get in front of him, so he honked his horn and then rear-ended her, and so she looked out into the drive-through window and said, hey, could you call the police? Because this man just rear-ended me. And as she did that, jason got out of his car, walked up to her car, shot her in the face and then shot himself and died. I'm going to get back to Jason and Megan a little later, but right now I'm going to ask you do you know where you are? I know you know where you are if you're in your car or in your house or in your backyard, but what I really want to know is do you know where you are emotionally? People get caught in bad situations because and I'm not talking about Jason Williams and Megan Kellerman now, so that's a whole nother story. It relates, but not in this way, and maybe I'll say it to you this way Whenever I saw people in municipal court, regular people who got caught doing irregular things, it was always an emotional error. In other words, somebody might have been having a day and then that one last thing happens to them and then they commit an offense because emotionally they can't handle what's happening to them.
Speaker 2:Now, I've told you all before and I will tell you again I am a stressed out, anxious, anxiety prone chick who loves to be alone, and I live a very public life, and I have done that by acting in opposition to how I with how I felt my brown behind would be in a cave somewhere with a dog, with no human contact, and I ain't gonna lie, my life looks a little bit like that right now. Since my husband dies, I've gotten two dogs and it's really hard for me to get out of the bedroom. But anyway, that is my nature, and my nature has arisen again in the absence of my husband to clamp me down, and I have had several. I mean just bizarre situations where I've panicked and panicked and panicked, running around the house doing all the wrong things, because I have to readjust who I am now, without my support system, without my strength, without those arms around me that was so, so, so strong and so fine. Don't let me go down this road.
Speaker 2:Might turn into an entirely different podcast, but anyway, I have to now go back to where I used to be as a young person and start asking myself where am I emotionally all day long? Because I have lost a certain center of my life. And now I have to do that again. And my thing is, we should all do that. If you know where you are emotionally, those things that come at you, you have an opportunity to receive them in a manner that doesn't, that doesn't allow your emotions to let you do the wrong thing. So you have enough of a pause to get in there and figure out hey, am I responding appropriately to this circumstance or am I having an emotional moment born of other things? Having had the opportunity to redirect my emotionality as a function of knowing where I am, and having to do it again, I figured out some things that help you do that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Now I contend that our emotionality these days has become an urgent concern. It's just an urgent concern. We are acting up, acting a fool. An urgent concern, it's just an urgent concern. We are acting up, acting a fool. I think COVID throw us on the ground, punched us, kicked us, threw us around, choked us a little bit, and I don't know if we've recovered yet. We're still bleeding, our eyes are still black and our noses are still bloody, but our emotionality has gotten so much ahead of us.
Speaker 2:Not only that, but then you have social media. You know rage, bait. Everybody is amping you up. And when you get amped up and all of those chemicals come out the cortisol and the adrenaline and all of that kind of stuff they're not targeted. It's not like targeted gene therapy. They're just in your body and everywhere you go. If they're already released, they're out there. So you could have a response to A while you're talking to B, and B had nothing to do with why you feel that way about A, yet B ended up getting the business end of A's wrong in your direction, if you get what I mean.
Speaker 2:So what do you do? I mean, how do you find out who you, where you are all day long? When I was first embarking on my where am I? Journey, I used a mirror. Every time I saw a mirror, I had to go, look in it and say how are you feeling and why you feel that way. And I'm going to tell you deeper still. I said it out loud. I give things voice because when you say it out loud, it takes more solid form and you have it's more definitive, and it's something you have to do.
Speaker 2:You can look at a mirror and think you're thinking about it, but if you look at a mirror and say to you, to yourself, how am I feeling, what's happening and why do I feel that way, and then answer yourself Don't worry about what the rest of the world's thinking. I was in a parking lot one time I talked to you, know I, I, you know you think your way through your day, right, and when I think I talk, and I was walking in a parking lot I was sitting in Cleveland Heights at the time and some man stood right in front of me and I said what's up? And he said you talk to yourself like you have somebody with you. And I said I do have somebody with me, I'm here. But anyway, that's what I did. I looked in the mirror and I gave it voice. Now, I don't know you, I don't know how many mirrors in your house, I don't know if you like looking in a mirror, if you don't like looking in a mirror, and I want to make this very very clear.
Speaker 2:I'm selling process and procedure here and I'm passing out ideas. You can incorporate them or figure them out in any way that you choose, but I'm not going to get up here and speak definitively like everybody else. Men are this way and women are that. I'm not doing all of that because I don't know you and I don't know what your tendencies are, but I do know what I've seen in the thousands and thousands and thousands of people that I have seen on the bench, not only in Cleveland Heights but also on divorce court, and it's not easy In fact it's impossible to give blanket advice about most things, because something that would work for my sister wouldn't work for me. But that's what I did. I looked in the mirror. Now you can have any other triggers that you want to.
Speaker 2:Every time you pick up a cup of coffee if you're a coffee drinker all day long, every time you smoke a cigarette even though you oughtn't be smoking cigarettes, you and I both know do that. Or pick up a vape pen Maybe well, you know, I heard people vaping and smoking all day long these days, but anyway, maybe. Well, you know, I heard people vaping and smoking all day long these days, but anyway, I was on marriage bouquet. Well, anyway, let me not go there. But anyhow, whatever you do on a regular basis that is somewhat evenly distributed throughout your day, you ought to incorporate in that a moment to ask yourself where am I emotionally, where do I need to be? Did my husband come home, say some raggedy crap to me and I'm upset about it? Did my boss give me a whole lot of who shot John and I don't need it? And now I'm home and my husband's asking me for something entirely reasonable, but it irritated me. That's what I'm asking you to do is to make sure you know where the mad supposed to go, and you can do that by deliberately walking yourself through the day in a way that you constantly check in with yourself. I didn't have to check in with myself over again because I don't feel safe anymore and I've had a few emotional outbursts that were inappropriate. So I have to get out there and fix that.
Speaker 2:It all takes practice and planning. You have to be, you have to do it before you know everybody. You get into an emotional situation. You get into a roadway situation. Somebody at the grocery store driving you crazy, got 99 items, got to put 10 back. You know that used to drive me crazy, and what you have to do is practice understanding where you are, knowing how you feel on any given day. So when you're out and about and something hits you and it ain't got to be much I got flipped the bird the other day driving. I didn't even know what I did wrong and I always apologize my bad, because I don't know what anybody's doing, I don't know what anybody's got on, but it's just. It's scary out there, it just is, but I'm scared all the time anyway. So I don't know if this is just me going off my widowhood, but it is scary out there because there's a lot going on. There is a lot going on. Now, the next thing I normally run into when I'm telling people to stop and take a look in the mirror and figure out how you're feeling. Make sure you know where you are.
Speaker 2:Everybody tells me I am who I am, I feel how I feel and I have a right to my feelings. And why do I need to tame them, contain them or otherwise restrain them? Because other people might not like how I feel. Because I have the right to my emotions and I, yeah, you got the right to your emotions. But let me tell you what unexamined emotionality will hurt you far more than it'll hurt anybody else. All those Karen's that end up going to jail because because they, they went in jail. They could have had a ticket, but they had to go to jail because their emotionality, their egos, their sense of I should not have to do anything that I don't want to do ever at all, which is not the. You know, I was born in the 50s. That was not at all it. And I'm not saying one is better than the other, I just don't, I'm not used to the other one, and so so it here. But people say I can't control it. How I feel is how I feel, and that's what, and there's nothing I can do about it. But I want to.
Speaker 2:I want to challenge that Captain Sullenberger. He landed that plane in the Hudson, remember, it was a United Airlines flight. It took off and I'm afraid to fly anyway. So this story has really got me. They took off, had a double bird strike, lost both engines. He was too low and too slow to turn around or to get to another airport, so boyfriend had to put it down in the Hudson.
Speaker 2:And I listen, you know I do this as well. I listen to airline pilot conversations with the tower. They have them all over YouTube, the YouTube showing my age. They have them all over YouTube. And my man, sully, said we're going into the Hudson with less angst and anxiousness than I talk about. I've got to go to the grocery store, I gotta go to the grocery, I gotta get this. We're going into the hudson. He had no engines.
Speaker 2:And deeper still, and I listen to these all the time. I listen to black boxes in which there's been a claim clash I. I listen to Black Boxes when there's, you know, the tower and then the pilots are trying to figure out what's going on and things ain't quite right. And the thing you notice about these people is they cool and they calm, they say please and thank you, they say sir and ma'am, even when they only got a couple of minutes to keep themselves from dying. And in black boxes they recover after a crash. You know you hear a few, but they are working and thinking and talking and figuring out things all the way to the end because they have been trained to be cockpit cool. It is a job requirement.
Speaker 2:And the deeper still what happens is when they're in one of these emergent situations, the tower always asks them when you get a moment, could you tell me how many souls on board and how much fuel you have remaining Now? That's, that's another indication of how messed up the situation is they're asking for. They're saying like look, I want we got to know if y'all don't get it right. We got to know how many bodies we're looking for and how much fire we're going to be dealing with when you, when you punch the, when you punch the ground with that plane, and they still work emotionally intact the entire time. If they can do that, I most certainly believe that I can deal with an idiot at the store, a fool on the corner and my kids acting up without losing my mind. That's how I look at it. That's the comparison I make. You have to decide what you want, then you have to look at people who have it, and then you can figure out how to get it for yourself.
Speaker 2:I am one of the most. I mean just, I'm a thief. I steal everybody's behaviors. Oh, he has something I want. How do you go? Oh, I'm going to start doing that.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was running for judge in Cleveland Heights and I'm shy, so I don't like to campaign. But there was a woman I knew. Her name was Stephanie Tubbs Jones. In fact she introduced me to my husband. She's the reason I got married. In fact she's defined a great deal of my life. That's interesting, but anyway, we'll talk about that later. No, we won't because you're not interested. But she was one of the most consummate politicians I had ever seen and I watched her work a room it doesn't matter what she said, court that I've seen in front of me. Just you figure things out that way if you learn from everybody. But anyway, I've left the station. Let me return.
Speaker 2:Part of the thing of becoming cockpick, cool and always knowing where you are is to debrief your day. At the end of the day you got to sit down and say what happened, what went wrong, what went right, how was I feeling? That guy really irritated me. I wonder why and don't do it like that guy really irritated me. Let me think about what he did. Look at it as the only person you can change, fix. Well, the easiest person you can change or fixes you.
Speaker 2:And in any situation gone wrong, at least, there's at least probably at least three, four different reasons why it went wrong. People tend to concentrate on the reasons that do not implicate them. I never do. If there are a hundred reasons, something went wrong and 99 of them didn't have anything to do with me, I ignore the 99 and concentrate on the one. It's like if somebody's pushing you towards a cliff push, push, push, and they push you 99 times, but it's a hundred feet, a hundred steps off that cliff. I ain't taking that last step. I'm not going to jump up and down in angst and anxiety because I got pushed to the edge, because I'm going to be the one who falls over the edge. I might grab you and take you with me, but that doesn't do me any good. So I always concentrate on what I did wrong.
Speaker 2:So if you're debriefing your day, you're saying how did I respond to that emotionally? What did that prick in my head? Why did my back go up when she said this? Or why did I feel like I wanted to cry when he said that? Or she did this other thing you have to. I'm dealing with a dog here that just thinks that she owns me. Stop it. They dug up my. She dug up my. She's dugging up my sprinklers, my in-ground sprinklers. But anyway, I'm sorry I got distracted, but you debrief your day and you debrief your day with an eye towards improving the one person that you are in control of, and that's you. And, like I always say, don't focus on the best, putting your best foot forward. You want to focus on the one that's dragging behind, because that's the sucker that will trip you up should you have to break out into a run. I say that all the time because it's true. So I want to talk about labels and I want to talk about Jason Williams and Megan Kellerman. As you recall, megan and Jason were in line at the Taco Bell Let us assume that she was really tacky and wrong jumped in front of him, he was hot about it, he got out and killed her and then himself.
Speaker 2:The articles that I read about those about that incident kept saying we may never know what happened, they had no relationship. Of course, we always seek the reasons why. What happens? What's going on? What's happening? And then they say and then someone looked up his background and this is what the record said Jason Williams, summit County Court Record Show. Not Summit County, it was right next to my county, cuyahoga County show. He was arrested in Hudson in March for OVI operating a vehicle under the influence, open container and improper handling of a firearm in a vehicle. He was terminated from the Alcohol Monitoring Program Oriana House for failing to show up and it said we may never know why he did what he did. And then they said he was suffering from a crisis and that's where we're going to leave it. I hate it when we label and leave. We should really wonder about Jason Williams. What happened and why? We may never find out.
Speaker 2:But I think we all have the capacity to get it very, very wrong with very small impetus If you don't know where you are and your life has become something that, emotionally, you are not in charge of. Now. He might have had mental health issues which I think people ought to look at. He might have had just irritation issues which people ought to look at. But if nothing else, don't label him as other. Label him as potential, him as other. Label him as potential.
Speaker 2:More and more we're having all of these outrageous, unexpected, you know killings and shootings and you know road rage and all of that kind of stuff. You can't fix other folk. We can work on it as a community, as a society, but if we each work on how we feel as individuals and own our obligation to a community. That has to why we feel the way we do, and is that feeling a feeling that's going to get me where I want to go? I am quite sure Jason Williams. I'm not quite sure of anything about Jason Williams. Let me lay that out there right now. We never know how little you know about somebody else. You know the devil is in the details. It always is, and the details are in the fine print and you can't make gross generalizations about people and read the fine print. So you really don't know the details. And that's when the devil gets you. We should wonder about Jason Williams not knowing where he is and realizing that we could all not know where we are at some and we're not going to go out and shoot people and carry on and do that. But do we not know where we are when we're talking to our kids and we're yelling about something that wasn't cool? Do you know where you are when you're in the car and everything is going wrong? Do you know where you are when you're talking to a clerk and you didn't get exactly what you wanted? And is it an irritation that's simply born of not getting what you wanted then, or do you not get what you want? A lot, and this is just one more thing that is causing trouble. So I was weird there for a second because my streamers acted weird. But anyway, the thing is, when you're in a stressful situation, it's too late to handle your emotionality. You have to handle your emotionality before you get into that stressful situation, because we feel far faster than we think and then we respond. You know, like when a lion runs in the room, you ain't got to sit down and scratch your head and wonder what to do next and how. What should I do? Oh, I don't know. No, your emotions, your amygdala, your limbic system, gets up and moves you before your brain, even before the higher functions of your brain even get the do's. Do you know that when we are insulted or we feel like we didn't get what we want, our brain reads it as an assault to self? It's an unsafe feeling. It makes us scared, just like a lion makes up scares. It's a threat to self. Now I want to say this. I'm always saying a platform and an opinion does not an expert make, and I'm not an expert on the brain. Now my sister, who is a neurologist, is, and I pass a lot of what I say by her and I also read a bit, so I know what I'm talking about. My base knowledge is there. I would like you to read more about it. Start with Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence. Oh, so many good ones, but anyway. But anyway, it's too late when you're already upset. You can't redirect your emotionality in the moment if you haven't practiced previously. You also can't imagine your emotionality in the moment if you haven't conquered the pause. I'll tell you a story about my mother and me. I had just graduated from college, or was it law school? I don't remember. I just graduated for something and I was home and I don't know what I was upset about, but I was anxious and upset and horrified. And my mother came in the room and she says what's up with you? And I reached out my arms to mama and she stepped back, put her finger and said no. And I'm like what fresh hell is this? What do you mean? No, you're my mother, you're the comforter in chief. How come you not comforting me now? And she said Lynn. And she said Lynn in a way that I knew I had to listen. My mother was emotionally very, very intelligent. And she said Lynn. I said yes, and she said well, I don't know what you're upset about, but whatever it is panicking will not help, won't?
Speaker 2:let you do it. Stay calm, tell me what it is. Mom was making me pause. It's something you have to practice. So anytime you're out and about and something just jumps up your back, take a pause for the cause and I don't know what you're going to do.
Speaker 2:It's easier to pause when you have something to do. If you have a if you have, I, you know. Sometimes I pause and say that's a fair move because I'm fearful all the time and that's what the pause does for me. Or I have to pause and do something. I have to pause and make a call. But you have to make the pause a habit and you can't do it when you're first getting excited. You got to learn how to pause for the cause at any time in any way. Do you see my dogs gathering behind me? I don't have much time left, so let me say this to you I hope you're well. Practice your pause, make sure you know where you are, and I wish you peace. I wish you joy. If you can't get there. Wish you peace, and if you can't get there, I'll ask that you, I'll simply ask that you try not to hurt anybody. Get out there and act like you have some sense, because we're all trying to feel on purpose.