Feeling On Purpose With Judge Lynn Toler

Rediscovering Life's Path: Navigating Grief and Resilience

• Judge Lynn Toler • Season 1 • Episode 6

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What happens when life throws a curveball so intense that it uproots everything you knew? That’s the question I faced when I unexpectedly lost my husband. Join me, Judge Lynn Toler, as I walk through the emotional maze of grief, sharing my personal story of survival and self-discovery. I open up about the tumultuous journey of managing the practical aftermath while trying to be the rock for my children. Alongside my grief coach, Henrietta, I explore the essential role of support systems during such life-altering times, highlighting both the healthy coping mechanisms and the pitfalls like excessive drinking that I encountered along the way.

Amidst the chaos, I learned the importance of routine and structure as lifelines to sanity. While everyday tasks like cooking and cleaning became therapeutic, they also served as reminders of what once was. I share candidly about the challenges of facing daily responsibilities that I once tackled with a partner, and the new processes I had to develop to navigate this landscape of loss. Through anecdotes of unexpected mishaps, such as dealing with a pet in crisis or a car that just wouldn't start, I reflect on staying calm and finding humor in adversity as a way to rediscover direction and purpose in a life forever changed.

Have you ever wondered how your self-talk can shape your reality? In a world of snap judgments and digital noise, I discuss how being mindful of our narratives can protect our inner peace. Join me as I recount how reshaping my personal narrative, even in the face of grief, helped me guard my emotional boundaries and find a new path forward. From the impactful lessons of a favorite TV show during COVID to the importance of reassessing life’s plans, this journey is about more than just healing—it's about intentionally crafting a life that honors the past while embracing the future.

Speaker 1:

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 this is Judge Lynn Toler, and welcome to another episode of Feeling On Purpose, the podcast dedicated to the proposition of keeping the rest of the world out of your mind and you run your emotions and not letting your emotions run you. This episode has arisen as a function of errors I have been making over the last well, I'm just going to claim this last six months. There were other errors made earlier, but the ones made in the last six months, I believe, have a lesson in them for most folk about the narratives that you're living and the things that you tell yourself. We'll start out with a story.

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December 23rd 2022, two days before Christmas, my husband left the house and never returned. Got a call from a hospital A couple hours later. They said your husband is in critical condition. You need to come get him. No, they didn't say that. They said your husband is in critical condition, you need to come down here. And I got there and I go up to the front desk of the emergency room. My son drove me and I said I'm Lynn Toler. And she looked up and she said okay, and she dialed the phone. And that's when I knew he was dead. But I didn't know he was dead. But usually when you go in the ER they're not doing anything right away. Two seconds later a woman comes walking out, a nurse and I look at her and I say, just you know, because I like my pain up front, I said just tell me he's alive. And she said I'm sorry, I can't do that. And I said so he's dead. And she says I'm sorry, I can't tell you that either. So you know he's dead. I knew he was dead, but I didn't know he was dead. I had .005 worth of hope because I hadn't heard the words, waited for the longest five minutes of my life in that room. My son showed up. In that time A doctor comes in and my world just ended. There was chaos, there was lights and sirens and alarm bells and I'm like what happened to him? What happened to him and we don't know? We don't know. And we went into the. I saw him. I had to say goodbye. No, I didn't get to say goodbye, I missed that. Anyway introduction to Woodahood We'd been together 35 years and his death was very unexpected and when you're thrown into that kind of position or at least when I was and I got to say this all widows aren't the same, because all people aren't the

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same. The things that caused me pain and problem and angst and upset may or may not have caused other people pain and problem and angst and upset. I will say this, however, that it is such a blockbuster event that people who have gone through it have such valuable knowledge to share. I had what I called a grief coach. Her name was Henrietta and her husband had died and we were really good friends and she was good friends with my husband and I used to call her all the time Just like well, what is this about? Well, what is that about? And you, you, you, and what I was doing was I was putting out a lot of

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fires. My husband happened to be an accountant. It was towards the end of the year, as clients had started sending him stuff. I had to send all that stuff back to him. I happened to have new floors and new doors and windows being put in my house and they came in two weeks after he died. So I had to deal with

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that. I had to go in his office and go through everything the first week because I had so many things to do and I was trying to grieve and my narrative for myself during that process was put out all the fires, make sure your kids are okay and go to sleep, get up at the crack of dawn. I would go into his office first thing, because it was the worst thing to do that day. I would get that done and then I would always check the what do you call that? The coroner's site, the medical, you know? Because I didn't know why he was. We don't, you know. Pending, pending, pending, pending. So I was in crisis mode and during the day I was in crisis mode handling everything that was happening at the house with the kids, with what was going on, because none of this was anticipated. And in the afternoon those were my dogs. I

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apologize. See, when my husband died, he told me to get a dog. You know he said no, he didn't. That's the dumbest thing I've just had in a long time. Before my husband died, one night he just sat up in bed, said you know, baby, if anything ever happens to me, you got to get a dog, you know, because he would be worried about my safety. And I went and bought a dog, went out, don't go doing a whole. You know, they always tell you don't do stuff for two years, make major decisions. Two years for at least one better, two major decisions after your spouse dies, because you make a lot of crazy decisions. And boy were they right about that. You make a lot of crazy decisions, and boy were they right about

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that. But I thought, since he told me to do it, it was a good move. And I went out and got the first cute dog I could find at a rescue and that dog was the worst dog used to. I used to have dead birds all in the house. It was awful. I kept him for a year but I couldn't take it anymore. All my people were telling me get rid of the dog. You're not doing well, you're not. But anyway I felt I had an obligation because that's what my husband was. He was, he would stick and stay. He was, he was solid, he was, you know, he always told me I gave up too soon. So now it's hard for me to give up at all because I wouldn't want to disappoint

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him. But anyhow, in the days, in the first days of that grief process not the first days, the first months, I swear up and down his ghost was coming to the crib and breaking stuff just to give me things to do. I'm going to tell you what broke Like in a week after I see this rust belt at the bottom of my water heater. Next thing, you know, it took out the water heater went and it took out the side, the corner of the garage. I had to fix that. One day I was sitting month later and the bed, just it broke for no reason. It wasn't a cheap bed and we hadn't had it that long, and it just broke. And so I got up out of the bed and I walk into the living room and, unbeknownst to me, tess that was my first dog had eaten the remote. Well, not eaten it, but chewed it up sufficiently, chewed up my Android too. But I mean, that was just the wrong dog. But and there were little hearts that were displaying all over my screen in this grid that I knew nothing about and I swore. But I said you know, I think my husband is haunting me, or, unless he's bringing me stuff to do, I had to within the first six months, entire air conditioning system went down, whole house air conditioning. Took him two days to replace it. Washer dryer went out, had to replace four toilets. The flush king was out here three times in the four months and I finally just said replace them all. I can't take it, no

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more. Other stuff broke too, and I can't remember what it was. The handle broke off my the door to my room. The handle broke off the sink, I mean everything just kind of like. And at first I was like, oh my God, what is this? What is this? What is this? It's just everything's awful, everything's just running off the rails. And I wasn't really rational at the

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time. So what I did was I came up with this narrative that I told myself and it seems stupid and I think it is stupid, but it helped me in the interim. I told myself a story that he was breaking stuff from heaven. So he could, so I could keep my mind occupied, because he knows, the devil of my idle mind is a bad somebody and he can jump up there and just whip me about, I can make up problems and this thing. And I even said to him one night I said, baby, if you're breaking stuff in order to keep me busy. You can stop now. I'll find something else to do. And it was funny when I said it, but I was living an emergency for a

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year. I was just living an emergency. And when you start living an emergency, everything that starts happening to you, whether or not it's an emergency. Now, see there, I generalize, and I shouldn't have. What happens to me is, when I'm living an emergency, all those things that I have to deal with that aren't an emergency but that are negative, read to me as an emergency, and I think it can read to a lot of people that way, because once your fear chemicals are dispensed, all of the adrenaline and the cortisol and everything, you know they don't have any designated place to go, they just out there. And if they're out there all day long, you know it can look at the problem with this as one thing and then look and look at some small problem that's irrelevant and your body still has the same reaction to it. At least mine did because everything was a crisis. Everything was a

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crisis. So what I had started to do was limit the. What I started to do consciously, you know, because emotionally this was all just happening to me. But and I knew it all of the five stages of anger, I knew about all of them. But knowing about them and doing them are two different things. But I knew that I had to address it because I wasn't doing well. You know, the good thing about seeing a psychiatrist all the time, which I do, is like a week and a half after he died I had a regular scheduled appointment with him and so what I started to do was to get up at 2.30 in the morning and start to problem solve, because I knew wouldn't nobody call me, email me or anything at 2.30 in the morning, email me or anything at 2.30 in the morning. So I had a whole lot of problems that I saved up from the day before, like anything that had to be written or done, you know, finding accountants finding, you know, just because my husband was my accountant and my taxes were kind of complicated and I didn't know what was going on. There were some things I just didn't deal with and he dealt with

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them. So I would do that from 2.30 until around 5 or 6. And then I would get up and deal with the dog, because the dog would bark all morning, he would pee and poop in the house. It was a she, her name was Tess. She would pee and poop in the house. I usually find a dead bird head somewhere. So I know I'd have to look through the rest of the house to find a dead bird

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body. But I was putting all that together and then I would clean. And I would clean one room till it was pristine, because I knew chaos about me assists in the chaos in my head. It reflects that. So I have, if, if I have things more pristine around me, the chaos in my head, it doesn't feed it. You know what I'm saying. So that was what I did in order to assist me with the chaos in my head. And until

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about. And then, once nine o'clock hit, if I had somebody I had to deal with. The first thing, you know I would do it at nine Funeral home, just anything, putting his affairs together, making fun. You know I would do it at nine funeral home, just anything, putting his affairs together, making fun. You know all of that. And I would get done with all of the horror stuff by 10 o'clock. And then I would get up and I would make dinner because I had to keep busy and I wasn't eating. I never ate the dinner that I made, but I did it just to have something to do. And then I found myself checking the clock for three, because that's the time I thought I could crack open a bottle of vodka, and that's what, exactly what I did. So by 530, I was asleep because my thing was I have to avoid the horror of it. I can't be horrified all day

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long. I also found that when I cry, I cry. You know about that. I kind of howled a bit and just, and it was really hard on my son who had to move home to babysit me. He couldn't take it really hard on him and every time. So I took the howling in the closet and one day he said Mom, you know, I can still hear you in the closet. I was like, well, you got to leave the house and do something, brother, because the howls have got to happen. But anyway, and I was running that program for a while and things got solved. I mean, you know how much happens when somebody dies, especially when somebody does suddenly and he was do you see what I'm doing in my hair? This is scary, let me take my hands down. But anyway, that was the program that I'm

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running. Even in the midst of hysteria, I'm always looking to feel on purpose. I'm always looking to manage my emotions, in part because I'm afraid if I don't stay on top of them completely they will destroy me entirely. I've always believed that the world was an arbitrary incendiary place that picked people out at random and burned them up alive. Because I was an anxious, worrisome little girl and marrying Eric put that fire out for decades and now the conflagration was back, you know, and I'm out here trying to hose it down with a sprinkler. But I never stopped trying, I never stopped working on it and I got a little bit less and a little bit less ludicrous as time goes

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on. And I also started to shift my drinking because, you know, you have to be careful how you soothe, because if you soothe inappropriately, the manner in which you soothe can become the biggest problem that you have. You know, and I knew that in the beginning I didn't care. A couple of first months if I, you know, I wanted to have. I had one and I'm not, I'm small, so I don't, it don't take much to put me to bed and but I was like, look, lynn, you got two months where you can not care. And then in the third month you got to care. So in the third month you got to care. So I started saying, okay, three's too early, let's go for four. Did it work? I don't know. A couple months finally did it. Then I went from vodka to wine at four. No, that's a lie. I went from vodka to wine at three and then I pushed it back to four.

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But anyway, and I would wrap my phone after a while when I realized what I was doing while I was drinking I was calling people, I wrapped as soon as I opened it. I would wrap my phone in a piece of paper and tape it on. It said you've been drinking. So I wouldn't do that. I always have a process procedure for everything and I really thought, as horrified as I still am by the entire thing he still lives here with me and it's hard, and people were telling me to move, but I can't move, I can't do anything. So the other day, you know, I was sitting down. Before I tell you that story, let me tell you these two and then it'll demonstrate why my process and procedure, though helpful, was not sufficient when you're in a state of hysteria like that and I was hysterical for a long time because every time I had a problem in life I brought it to him and that my biggest problem I had and he wasn't here to help me deal with it. And then all the other things I would get in my car. I remember the first time I went into the gas station and put gas in my car, I was bawling so much. Some man came and did it for me because my husband used to do that and I didn't have to. Or when a light comes on in my car, I'm just, you know, I'm like my God because it used to be hey, eric, go look at the car, because I don't know what the light's on about. But I don't do that, I can't do that anymore. And I went on these long streaks of stupid had. This one stupid has to do with the car. You know wasn't feeling the car wasn't going anywhere. But one day I back out and I'm backing out of the car and that sucker just died and I'm like well, what is this? What's going on? So I called AAA. Everybody got AAA, come to find out, even though I pay all the bills in the house and, you know, not pay all this because I make all the money but I'm the person who actually physically writes the bills, you know, and I'm the one that actually gets them open up and write them, except for the AAA bill, for some reason. That was the only bill that he kept handle on physically since we got married, and so I called you and got it because he wasn't here so he didn't renew it. So then you have to go through a whole lot of who shot John to get the AAA and this and that.

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And I'm arguing with my son because he don't know nothing about cars. I got two sons don't know nothing about cars. I got to two sons don't know nothing about cars and we were fussing and carrying on and he finally took the car away and the guy said you know, we found the guy and we got it to the place and come to find out that sucker was just out of gas. I spent a whole lot of money and a whole lot of time. Sucker was just out of gas. I spent a whole lot of money and a whole lot of time. Hysterical, didn't check the gas gauge, took it in, just yeah. I think one of my sons would have said something, but they weren't paying attention either.

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And anyhow, another day I was out playing with Zora and the ball. Zora gets a ball lodged in her throat. I go running down. First I called 911, which was stupid. I said I don't think I should have called you people. You don't deal with dogs choking to death, do you? He said no, we do not, lady. I said thank you. So I put the phone down.

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I ran down the street to go to Troy's house. Troy and Marjorie are a couple that live next door to me. He wasn't home. She was home. I told her what the problem was. She dropped everything. She comes careening out. She comes in the house.

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The dog had been walking around the house trying to pull up the balls. Now the balls were too small. It was a stupid thing I did and she manhandled him. I couldn't get him in the car because he was 100 pounds. She's 100 pounds. So she manhandled that dog, put it in the car I drive out, go to the vet.

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The vet is closed, didn't check. I called my sons to pick me up in the car. My hair's standing on top of the head, I'm crying. I said find me. I'm looking, trying to find a vet in the phone and my sons come out there and the dog finally looked at me and I'm sure the dog thought these people are going to let me die, let me handle myself. So she went and finally projectile, vomited it up and saved herself because I was incompetent, incapable and unable to do a thing for her. So that's the chaos that a staticky mind creates. That's the chaos that a mind not at peace produces.

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And I saw, even though I had process and procedure hysteria, I was still telling myself the wrong narrative. You cannot just process and progress, you have to reassess. And I never did. Now I probably could have reassessed. I wasn't in a place to do that until about six months ago when I could have one glass of wine at six and call it a day and no wine at all, doing fine, I can get up at a reasonable. I never got up at a reasonable hour, but I can get up and I can get things done and I can do that and knock on wood, got to find all the wood I can find and nothing else broke in a while. So I don't know if he got tired of it. He found something else to do.

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I know that's not true, but I tell myself stories so I can live with myself. But I don't never. That implicates one of my mother's rules never believe the lies. You tell other people. You know what I mean. Tell lies to yourself a little bit to make things work out, but you always have to keep a place where the truth is somewhere so you don't get confused by it. So I didn't re. I was, I had got into the habit of surviving. I just realized this and I never stepped back and reassessed. You have to step off this rule 11 of my mother's rules. You have to check your program every once in a while.

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Where was I headed? For a while I was just maintaining. After a while I was headed to solving problems, solving problems, solving problems. But once I got to a place where the problems weren't particularly striking, I never decided what's next. You know, my husband and I had plans. We were going to ride trains, because we have kids all over the country, and we were going to go up north forth, because he hates the north. But I wanted a little, you know, and they were going to do that. So we would sit in his office and watch Amtrak videos on YouTube. I don't like that kind of car honey, yeah, but you're not YouTube. Yeah, but you know that kind of thing. That's what we were going to do. We were just planning trips, we were going to do stuff and I realized I had no. I had no projects, I wasn't working, I had no plans.

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I was getting through every day and calling every day a success, when it was simply nothing bad happened, and then I began to feel a little aimless, a little as if I was wandering about in the you know, in a desert of desires that I had lost. Do you know what I mean? It used to be a verdant feel of lots. I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to do the other thing. I used to build doll houses and crochet and paint, and now I was in the process of problem solving and sleeping, doing nothing in a manner that kept my peace, and I realized I have to do something else.

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The narratives that we give ourselves can be very, very compelling, because we're a storytelling kind of people. I remember one time I know this story is kind of a little off the mark, but I'm going to tell it anyway I was talking to these choreographers that made up the stance for the thing that we're doing on Marriage Boot Camp, and it was kind of long. And I said you just put that together. How do these choreographers that made up this dance for the thing that we're doing on marriage boot camp? And it was kind of long. And I said you just put that together. How do you remember it? And they said we tell ourselves a story. Okay, first we're fighting, then we love you.

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So if you tell yourself a story. I mean, that's easy, that makes sense to us and our brains tell ourselves stories about everything, even if those those, those stories are true or not true. That's how our brain because our brain gets a lot of information it's got to make sense of it, it's got to sift it, it's got to sort it and it tells you a story. And that's why, when politicians talk, they tell stories about because they want to get up under your skin as opposed to get up in your brain, because if they get up in your brain, you find out that they're not that bright. But anyway, I shouldn't say that about politicians in general, because I ran for judge, I was a politician. I remember I walked up to a door one day as knocking on the door oh, what are you doing?

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I said well, I'm running for judge and he said a politician, get off my doorstep. So you, you shouldn't generalize like that, but I'm just a little cranky because it's well anyway, don't let me get started. What brought me to this conclusion that I had not, that I was now telling myself an errant narrative, is because I got up and I was going to Target and a couple of things went wrong. Some idiot didn't know how to make a left turn and something else happened and I designated it a bad day what you know what I mean and I decided it was a bad day and I went in there thinking it was a bad day, and I went in there thinking that I was going to find what I want. Several bad things happened I can't remember once, but they were all stupid. Something went on the house. Yeah, the dogs, they did do that. They, they, they pulled up the sprinklers in my backyard, you know. So I had like a water park back there and then they ran in the house. I had mud everywhere. Bad day. But I realized something as I was walking into that Target. Why is it that the fact I got a water park, it took mean that I'm not going to find what I'm looking for in here.

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How did you get there, toller? You told yourself a story. You told yourself you were having a bad day and now your emotionality is anticipating that kind of negativity. You got to ask yourself what kind of narratives are you telling yourself? Are you telling? You know, when you tell yourself the narrative of I'm having a bad day, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because A you keep. Anything that goes wrong gets put on the list. You know, usually when things go wrong, you kind of let it go. If it's just one thing here there, you let it go. But if you're having a bad day, you having a you're, you've got a I'm having a bad day box where you will collect all those negative things that you would otherwise let go. That's number one. Number two when you decide that you're having a bad day, you become negative and so you're anticipating problems. So when you talk to other people, you're anticipating they're not going to give you what you want, to do what you want, and then you come at them a little crooked. Are you coming at them? Nice, you know? Are you having a bad? You know you.

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You talk to people and say what kind of day are you having? Or who hurt you, it's because you're anticipating a problem that doesn't exist and in so doing, you're creating that problem. If you've decided that you had bad day, you infer attitude from somebody else. I may give you an answer. That was just short, and then you're going to think it's terse and snappy because you've decided you've had a bad day.

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So you infer negativity when you deal with other people little quick and you get a little impatient and you start making mistakes and then it makes things worse and so you in fact created a bad day because you decided that it was a bad day far too soon. You know, don't jump, don't come to the conclusion too soon. It's what we all do these days, especially because you know technology and social media. It makes it easier to do snap decisions. I've got this information. I got that information. Let me go make this decision, let me go do that and let me do the other thing.

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But you know, the devil is in the details and the devil will whoop your behind if you don't make sure you know you keep it. What is it down in the hole from the wire? God, I love that show. That was good. You know. That was one of the neat things about not being up to date on anything. It doesn't have anything to do with anything, but I found the Wire during COVID, so that gave me days and days and days of wonderful. I found a lot of good shows during COVID, so, but anyway, that ain't got nothing to do with nothing. I was telling you about your narrative, so just watch your narrative.

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Ask yourself how are you saying things to yourself? Are you making your day better or worse by what you're saying to yourself? You can feel on purpose, because under your skin is a sovereign country, so you ought not go around willy-nilly passing out passports to people who don't belong there and most of the world does not belong under your skin. Just doesn't Protect your peace, protect your borders. Try to feel on purpose. I am Y'all. Have a good day.