How to Thrive in Your Divorce Recovery! - Daryl Tanner || DPTSP #082 || David

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Don't Pick The Scab Podcast, a podcast that explores tips and methods for men to heal from divorce. We provide some of the different guests with special superpowers. Today, we'll have Daryl Tanner on the mic. His superpower is showing people how to create a happier life with greater abundance while expanding their inner power and becoming the person they've always wanted to be.

[00:00:34] Welcome to the Don't Pick The Scab Podcast with the premise of connecting men over 40 with the tools and community to thrive in their divorce recovery either before, during, or after a divorce. Welcome, Don't, to the show. That was a great talk before this. Yeah, thank you. Tell us a little about yourself, and I've got some questions for you. I live in San Antonio, Texas, and married for almost 50 years.

[00:01:03] I have a daughter and a new son-in-law and a couple of grandkids. I went to University of Houston and been in business and Christian counseling for some time now. Our church is now the largest church in San Antonio, Community Bible Church. I've written a book called The Great Expectations Today on Amazon, under D Tanner, just the initial D. And so that's why I came on.

[00:01:32] What inspired you to write Great Expectations Today and share your personal journey of growth and transformation with divorce? Sure, sure. Yeah. What inspired me to write the book was I was counseling people at our church. I start also community groups at our church for the 30 to 40 co-ed singles. And so I had a lot of divorce, had a lot of abuse, anger, depression, anxiety.

[00:01:59] So one of the key things that I would talk to them about was, hey, quite frankly, I'm over 65 now. I would look at them and I would think of my daughter, who today is 44. And she went through a nasty divorce and the, but these, I would call them kids would say, oh gosh, I had such a bad week. I went to work and I did this, or I went on a blind date and I got this.

[00:02:25] And I said, TV and your podcast, your Instagram, your Facebook, they all inspire you to always like look to the moon. And I think in most cases of life, your expectations are set falsely way too high. And they would say, that's, that's not a bad idea.

[00:02:49] And I said, you really need to lower your expectations knowing that it could be much better and it could happen better, but just lower them. And people look at people like Tony Powers or all the hype guys and they say, oh, this would be great. And she should always look at things like this. Great. But when it comes down to the reality of things like just going to work or getting out of the church parking lot, our church has become the largest church in San Antonio.

[00:03:18] And leaving the parking lot or getting into the parking lot can be a big deal. We have people parking out on the seat or of the freeway. And so you just have to know and set your expectations that, okay, I'm going, I'm going on the other side of town or I'm going on a blind date. Could this person have filled out maybe a little false or stretched the information they put on a profile, mash.com or whatever. And maybe I'm not the person that fits this person and maybe I should look at it a different way.

[00:03:48] And after going through that with people several times, they were all like, man, I like this. This is, you ought to write a book about this. And another thing that living in San Antonio, we're a military city and PTSD is a big part of our city, whether we like it or not. So a lot of the people that I talk to are dealing with suicide, depression, anger.

[00:04:12] And so I also put several chapters in the back of the book about anger because I even went through a period in my life where I was anger and I took a great course. And it basically healed me of that kind of just exploding. But the divorce side, yeah, my daughter went through a pretty nasty divorce with two kids when she was in her mid-30s. And now she just got remarried last year. And through the grace of God, we have a lot of great courses at our church to help people heal.

[00:04:42] And that's been a real saving grace for a lot of people. We're known as a hospital for the spiritual. That's an awesome title. How did your upbringing in Lower Alabama and Texas shape your perspective on life, growth, and resilience? We grew up on a farm. When we weren't going to school, we worked. And my dad was a pretty tough character. He was World War II. He was a hero.

[00:05:10] He left the farm at 18, went to World War II, was at Utah Beach, Battle of the Bulge, just a lot of really tough stuff. Came back upset with the world. And we walked on eggshells. But it had me. I left home at 16, and I knew I was going to make it. And I didn't want to go back to the farm. I didn't want to go back home. And I did well in business. And I'm always like him.

[00:05:39] I'm always driven to succeed and do more. And the last, quite a few, the last few years, I've been giving back to the community. And I do mentoring and counseling. And I'm a lay minister in our church and counsel with men about different issues. Yeah. You mentioned being a daydreamer as a kid. How would that help you overcome challenges later in life, especially after personal setbacks? That's a good question.

[00:06:09] I think daydreaming is an escape. Man, I can sit there after a good beat and look out the window and think about, I can think about, I read a lot. I did read a lot as a kid. And we didn't have a library. It was called a bookmobile. And it was like a book bus where you go in and there was all these books. Gosh, I read just all the time. Oh, Yella. Oh, and just Red Badge of Courage. Swiss Family Robin.

[00:06:39] And I just love and I can read those books. And my mom was really the spiritual. My dad was a Christian and spiritual. But my mom was the catalyst. And she read. She's 99 and still alive today and driving and she's still reading. Reading. I can call her and she goes, I'm reading a good book.

[00:06:59] But in that, from reading, morphed into daydreaming because I would read something about the Swiss Family Robinsons or about hunting and fishing or anything. And then I'd just sit there and daydream about it. And that took me away from any pain, physical pain that I ever had. So I love that. Hey, maybe your daydreaming turned into your realistic expectation thing. Connected. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

[00:07:27] So divorce can often feel like a failure for men, which happens a lot. What advice can you give to someone struggling with feelings of shame or inadequacy? I talk to many men about divorce and what's happened. I mean, first thing, there are certain things you can control. And then there are certain things you can't control.

[00:07:53] I've got a very good friend I went to grade school with. And I still love the guy to death and see him fairly often. He's on his sixth wife. And he'll date and then he'll say, hey, he'll call me so excited. Hey, get married. I'm like, dude, what do you tell the third, fourth, fifth, sixth about your previous? He goes, I don't tell him much.

[00:08:21] And I said, I've also thought about writing a book called A Common Denominator, basically to help people look at themselves before they go. I teach a course at our church called Safe People. And Safe People is about spiritually learning how to judge someone's character. And I encourage your audience, whether men or women, I know it's mostly men, but I would encourage them to at least go out and find the books on that course, Safe People.

[00:08:51] Because first off, it helps you examine yourself. The first chapter is, am I a safe person? Am I a safe person? And you look in the mirror and say, what am I like? What have I done? And I mentioned in my book, it's such an enlightening course. And then it helps you to look at someone else to be able to judge their character spiritually. And because God doesn't want us walking with the turkeys, he wants us to soar with the eagles.

[00:09:21] And we're not going to soar with the eagles if you're walking with the turkeys. Okay. I don't know. But yeah, that's something I used to tell my grandson. And another thing that you learn, I talk about in my book, is it hurt people. So if you meet someone at a bar or you meet them on Match.com, don't get me wrong. I know people that have gotten married from Match.com and are very happy. But you need to, first off, the book tells you, you need to spend time with that person.

[00:09:50] And then while you're spending time with them, you need to see, okay, how do they treat other people? How do they feel in other circumstances? Because like San Antonio with PTSD, man, we see a lot of people get run off the road, shot at. It's just tempers are pretty short and a lot of fights. And it's just, it's wild. But that's what it is when you're dealing with anger and you've built up resentment because of a divorce.

[00:10:19] You might have had nothing to do with divorce, with the divorce. On the other hand, as Confucius said, pancake is very thin, but always has two sides. There's always another side of that story, whether it's from friends or from family. So you really need to look at yourself before you and what happened before you look at that other person. And then when you look at that other person, you can't control everything.

[00:10:48] You might have married an unsafe person. Or when you're married a long time, like my wife and I, we were married at 19 and 20. You change. You change over the years. And is it a medical issue? Like I had one friend that he went in after going through a lot of heartache and they stayed married. But he went in and got some chemical testing done and found out he was like zero on testosterone.

[00:11:18] And that was making all these changes. He's crying a lot more and he was more emotional and he couldn't figure it out. And we teach a course at our church called Re-Engage where couples come in and they sit down and they, and it's taught by several different couples. But they talk about what's going on and how to renew their relationship. Because over time, you're both working. You're going out. My wife and I did that.

[00:11:46] And you're separating and you're wondering what happened one day. Especially a lot of divorce rates getting pretty high for people that are empty nesters because the kids leave home. You got nothing to come. Yeah, nothing to come. They turn around and go, who are you? I wrote some of that in the book about looking within yourself and then also about how to deal with the anger from that.

[00:12:11] But some of the things, one of the things you just reminded me of is that when I started dating, which was too soon, by the way, the one thing, the one, it was a test. And you always figure out the deep feelings of a person on how they treat waitstaff. Yes. Backway was changed with me and was so simple. Just go out to dinner and check out how they treat waitstaff.

[00:12:39] And that says a lot about a person. Yeah. Yeah, a lot about a person. Yeah. Plus, when you go out to eat, you can test where someone stands with alcohol. Because alcohol can be a stimulant and it's really a depressant. And somebody might say, no, I don't drink. Because they might have had a parent or grandparent that was an alcoholic. They might have been an alcoholic. And then you can say, hey, oh, that's great. You don't drink.

[00:13:08] Was it from a past experience or you just never drank? And then they share with you another. Because that's important in getting that seed back. Yeah. Or they have a drink and then they have another drink, another drink. And then they're either happy or they're mad. You need to flip the seeds. You better get to Bill pretty quick or it's going to run up pretty high. What are some of the most common mental blocks you believe men over 40 face after divorce?

[00:13:37] And how can they overcome those mental blocks? I have had a lot of men with the anger issue because they just felt it wasn't their fault. And that's what we talk about control. You can't control everything. And I will say that there's a great verse in James 1, 2 and 3. It says, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

[00:14:06] If you're spiritual, if you're not, I will beg you to consider it. There's, and again, it does go back to expectations. Victor Frankl said, when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. So you may be upset, angry, depressed, whatever. I would first challenge you to look at yourself to see where you are. And then I would say you get some help.

[00:14:36] You can see a Christian counselor. You can talk to a mentor. Or I would say if you've got safe friends, then, but whatever, you don't just sit in a room or a bar and get more angry. You need to go. You need to pray. You need to ask God why. Ask for forgiveness because that's just not something that you can control. And it's going to be, it's going to be to your detriment until you get it right.

[00:15:05] And you definitely don't want to go out and start dating again until you've got yourself right. Because you're carrying, you're carrying a big piano behind you. And it's a load. And that load is not going to, you know, if you don't cut that load loose, you can't successfully date and really shake them out. I've known so many guys that have jumped, guys are bad about jumping right back on the horse. And it's not going to help. It's going to be, it's going to be worse. And we teach a class.

[00:15:35] My daughter married a guy that also had a runaround spouse. And we teach a class at our church called Merge, where two couples coming from, let's just say, different yokes or different families, different environments. But they've been through divorces. They can come in and talk about, okay, what differences to expect, what you've gone through, what's happened. And my daughter and her husband, they still socially go out with their merge group.

[00:16:04] There were six couples in there, including men. And so when you start, when you start, I think you found someone through this kind of through their safe people rules of knowing what their character might be. Then you get them to go to some class like Merge, where you're both divorced or you're divorced and she's not or vice versa or whatever. And you go through that class and you discover your differences and how you're going to react to those differences.

[00:16:33] Wow. In your book, you talk about accepting life challenges. How can divorced men learn to embrace their struggles instead of letting them triple their progress? The big thing for divorced men is that typically they're pretty down on themselves. We as guys really beat ourselves up pretty badly. And you've got to remember that we're all made in God's image. And there's nothing that we cannot tackle. We cannot if God's put it in front of us.

[00:17:03] First of all, God wants to bless us. But the only thing, the only way that he can bless us is if we're living a sinless life. In other words, there's no sin to block that. So if we still hate someone, if we still harbor grudges, if we still want to do vengeance to someone, normally that's an X, then you're not going to receive God's blessing. So you have to, again, you have to cut that piano loose.

[00:17:30] Whatever it takes, because I can promise you there's something on your side that was a woman or man that started this. Whether it was porn or drugs or alcohol or just your anger in general. A lot of guys blame it on their jobs. And that's never an acceptable excuse. Because there's a verse in the Bible that talks about, hey, work at your job like you're working for the Lord.

[00:18:00] So you've got to cut that loss out of the equation. And you've got to say, I'm working for the Lord. I don't care what. He says, yeah, if you want me to do this, I'll get it done. And you get it done. And that way you have no one putting pressure on you. And I'd say some of the happiest guys that you would have thought they'd be miserable because of their job, because they were working for the Lord. Mindset. Yes, the mindset.

[00:18:26] And it's setting, it's no way, it's setting that expectation in advance that I'm doing the Lord's work. I'm going to have a great day today. Yeah, I'm going to have some challenges, but I'm the Lord's blessing. And my state of mind, I can handle it. And you handle it. What are some of the ways that men can reestablish or rebuild their self-confidence and their self-esteem? Because it takes a big hit when you go through a divorce. It really does. You work on that.

[00:18:56] First off, I'll tell you to clean your act up. And what I mean by that is if you're doping or drinking or smoking, stop. You need to get out and get some physical exercise. That doesn't mean you have to go run a marathon. It means, hey, start thinking about going to the gym. Also, think about what you're eating. I'll tell you this. My wife and I went to the doctor not too long ago for like our yearly checkup. And this was a holistic doctor because we were trying to lose some weight.

[00:19:26] And my wife said, wanting an easy answer, she said, what kind of exercise do you think I should do to lose some weight? And he said, ma'am, it's 95% of what you put in your mouth and 5% of exercise. So think about what you're eating first. It wasn't really what she wanted to hear or me neither because I love ice cream. I love donuts.

[00:19:55] But basically, that was it. And so we need to clean up our act and physically start feeling better. If you're really depressed, I'd go to your doctor and get a chemical blood test and urine analysis. I would look at your testosterone. My buddy that had the low testosterone, he had to get implants for about two years. Wow. To get his testosterone back up. But he was feeling very suicidal.

[00:20:24] And that can do that to you. So when you get those, kind of start aligning those things, virtually, it takes 90 days to form a habit. I would start trying to read your Bible every day, normally in the morning before you start anything else. Or when you get home, whatever you do the best in and when you're thinking the best. And I would start praying to God. And don't go do anything other than those things until you get them right.

[00:20:53] And then when you start feeling better, things will work themselves out. Because it's a tough road to hoe when you've got baggage back there. You've got an ex-wife. And then you've got kids you love that you're trying to see. And you're fighting with a court to get more time. The wife's fighting for more time. It's just one of those things. You've got to clean your act up before you can start feeling better about yourself.

[00:21:20] And you can say, I need to show better before I clean my act up. What are you doing to do that? But one of my podcasters told me, probably about a year ago, he said, you have to love your kids more than you hate your ex. That is so true. That is so true. And that was hard for me to fathom. But it took me a while to get through that years ago. Because, yes, the kids, the most important thing, they didn't ask for this. And that's the situation. But you had to make the best of it.

[00:21:50] How does living a happier life mean to you? What does living a happier life mean to you? And how can divorced men define happiness for themselves moving forward? I will say that I've answered that question a lot, for guys especially. And I would say that living the happier life is knowing that you're blessed and being, most of all, being grateful that you ever got married and had kids or you got married

[00:22:18] and you've learned something from this ex-marriage. In Texas, it's 50-50. If you get divorced, it's 50-50. Boom. If you've got no kids. And I tell guys, try to gleam a top five things that you learn from that relationship and what you'll do better next time and improve and go out and try to improve. Another thing is be grateful that, hey, you had kids.

[00:22:48] If you had kids. I even tell some guys sometime, hey, be grateful that that relationship ended when it did because it was so sour. But look at where you could do better moving on. I've had some guys that had some terrible relationships and I would say it wasn't them. But whether it is or it isn't, it's still you've got to move on. You will not be a better person carrying a load of anger.

[00:23:15] I think in the Bible, it's got a great verse about basically saying that the, how do you expect the Lord to forgive you when you haven't forgiven others? And that's so true. You have to forgive and move on. So they say that forgiveness is for yourself. Yep. And things like that. But I equate it to there's, so you have a brain and your brain has parking spaces and

[00:23:42] you want to fill those parking spaces with positivity, not negativity. And the unforgiveness is like that old jalopy, the old rusted car that's leaking oil and it's the top of the Carvana rainbow and it's leaking, but you got to get rid of that car. So yeah, you have to move on with your life and it's so tough for some men. And then one of the, one of the big things is men have a hard time not being able to control what happens at the ex's house to the kids. Yes.

[00:24:10] That is way bigger than I would think it is, but that's one of the biggest, that's one of the most, one of the most common problems that men have. And so how do you approach that and tell them to let it go? Cause they can't do anything. You can't control what you can't control. And it's just like forgiving someone. That's a weight. And you're carrying that weight around about what happens at the spouse's house. And you have to monitor the situation.

[00:24:36] You have to, sometimes you have to get law enforcement or an attorney involved, which is, gosh, I hate family law attorneys are the worst, but praying about that. And then talking to the kids, not bad about the other spouse, but just saying that that person is different and you have to learn to handle them different. And just giving some of the kids, some of that knowledge. My daughter went through a terrible divorce when the kids were like three and four and,

[00:25:06] and we helped raise them. It was a blessing to my wife and I, because it was like raising two more kids. And when we loved it and they were grandkids, you could always send them back to their mom. You can give them. Yeah. But, but what I'm saying is the, I think there's, you love them and there's reason to have sorrow in your heart, even anger, but you've got to give it over to the Lord. You've got to learn to give those things to the Lord.

[00:25:34] And in time, those prayers will be answered. My grandkids, I believe, became better human beings through the divorce. I hate to say it, but I can't see them being better human beings than they are today. And sometimes you have to spend that to say, this is terrible, but it happened. And the Lord and I will deal with it.

[00:25:59] And you have to include the Holy Spirit in your soul, counter the negativity of what's happened with the spouse, the ex, or at the house or whatever. And you have to strengthen the kids. You have to help the kids give wisdom. And that's when they're with you, showing them your spiritual side, praying with them, taking them to church, doing the things that, that they need to do to strengthen themselves to deal with this.

[00:26:26] My grandson went off to college and called his mom the first Sunday and said, I just went and joined a great church and even went over to the pastor's house and had dinner. What more could you ask for? And then my granddaughter is in her senior year of high school. She did church when I'm at church at the East things, at the high school things. And you've got to keep the kids busy when they're with you, no matter, you don't want to, you don't want to be working when you've got the kids.

[00:26:54] She want to be enjoying the kids and let them know that you're enjoying them. And sooner or later, they'll appreciate that. And they'll look back. And if you say bad things about the ex, my daughter never said anything bad about her ex. I know a lot of guys out there go online, everyone say, we'll say something bad. Yeah. Some people are different. But you can't control that. You can only control what you can control when you've got them. Tell them you love them.

[00:27:22] You talk about expanding inner power in your book. What does that mean? And how can divorced men tap into their inner strength? I think we've all got, we're all made in Christ's image. We've all got a certain talent. If you read your Bible, you'll find out that God has blessed us all with certain talents. We don't all have all talents. We have certain talents. So the church, some people will be cleaning the restroom and some people will be welcoming others. Some people will be teaching classes.

[00:27:51] Some people will be mentoring. Some people will be praying. So when I say that we've all got an inner power, that's that inner power. You have to ask God to help you figure out the Holy Spirit, figure out what that inner power is. There's a great book called The Five Voices, and it helps you figure out what your voice is in a very easy way.

[00:28:18] Instead of one of those long personality tests and all that, it helps you know who you are and how you can add to others and make a tight group. So I would say that everybody has an inner power. It's how you call it out. And you don't call it out through anger. You call it out through love. You call it out by being grateful, grateful for whatever he has.

[00:28:43] I've got a brother-in-law that had a stroke about four years ago, a terrible stroke. He was in a bike race, and he had run about 15 marathons. Great guy. And I'm going to lunch with him today, but he can hardly talk, but he's worked at it, and he's continued to work. He's continued to work out, and he is grateful that this has showed him how to minister to other people that have had strokes.

[00:29:08] So he goes around seeing people at the hospital and meeting with friends that have had strokes and talking to them and building them up. And believe me, no matter how down you are, you've got to know that God has placed an inner power within you and that the Holy Spirit can help bring that out. But you have to ask for it. You can't just walk around and be mad all the time.

[00:29:34] You've got to live that sinless life of saying, I truly forgive you. We're flesh. We're weak. Like, I've known guys that have gone out and had been married and gone out and had an affair and or had a wild night, and the wife found out about it, and they've lived the rest of their life regretting him. And eventually, she forgave him because he asked for it. And you've just got to decide what you're going to do with your life.

[00:30:01] There's a great book out there called, it's on Ecclesiastes, but it calls Living Life Backwards. Living Life Backwards. And it's a great book about what are you living for? The end of your life will come, and who will be at your casket? Who will be at your ceremony? Who will stand there and look at you? It's not going to be your employees from your job.

[00:30:27] It's not going to be most of your poker buddies might have died by then or whatever, your runaround crowd. It's not going to be those guys because they're going to rather be at the bar. It's going to be your family. And by the way, you're not going to be taking anything with you. They're not going to dump your gold bullion or your money and cast it with you. You can't take it with you. You have to examine your life. Once something like this happens, it makes it easier to examine your life.

[00:30:53] But Living Life Backwards is a great book to read along with, I finished a book the other day, and I've read it two or three times, called The True Measure of a Man. It's an old book, but you can still get it. And it talks about some of these things that we're talking about today. Darrell, my men have about a 29.5-minute attention span. Let's go. We'll have eclipsed that, but thank you very much for your...

[00:31:23] Yeah, it was interesting. This is going to be fun to edit. Give my men your top three things that we've talked about, your top three important things you want to convey to them. I would say, get right with the Holy Spirit. Read your Bible, pray, and really focus on forgiveness.

[00:31:45] I think that will go a long way in lengthening your life and making it more of a happier life. To be grateful for where you're at today in some way, somehow, some form. And then go out and help others feel grateful. I like to say, instead of me asking for blessings, I ask to help the Lord make me a blessing to others. And in doing that, you'll feel more grateful. You'll feel better. You'll feel more satisfied.

[00:32:15] You'll feel full. Darrell, you sound like the conduit to me, buddy. Thank you so much for having me today, David. Appreciate it. This was fun. Let the people know where to find your book. Yeah. And I'll have it on the show notes. Thank you. Thank you. It's called Great Expectations Today by D, initial D Tanner. And it's on Amazon. And I also own a skincare company.

[00:32:43] And there's a code for discount in the book for if you've got acne or athlete's feet or warts or anything like that. I've got a few great products out there. So give them a look. Darrell Tanner, thank you very much for your time. We're going to sign off. Everybody have a good night.