This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k I Am six forty,
The Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app Doctor Doctor Benny the
Lows, I gotta's loving you. K I Am six forty. You have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I
have a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology professor and I've written three
books on relationships. I'm obsessed with the science of love, but I'm also
obsessed with all kinds of human relationships. This week, I want this week
tonight, sit back. We've got two fun hours here. I want to
talk about Navalney's widow Julia, does she have the psychological strength as a woman
to take on Putin? And when it comes to your own relationship, I
really want to talk about boundaries tonight. I think we need to revisit what
a boundary is. And I have five favorite boundaries that I believe you should
never ever cross if you're in a relationship. And later in the show,
a divorce attorney tells us what red flags we should never ever ever ignore in
a new relationship. Hmm, I guess that divorce attorney would have seen it
all. All right, let's start with the weekend news. As you know,
probably if unless you've been living under a rock. For the first time
in history, a black woman has made it to the top of the country
music charts. You know her name, everybody knows her. We're all part
of the beehive. It is Beyonce, of course, and her song Texas
Hold Him is such an ear worm that it has been in my head the
entire week since it came out. I think she actually released two country songs
in advance of an entire country album coming out. So I have this theory
about the song Texas Hold Him that she's kind of bringing the country together.
If you don't know the history of cowboys, do you know why they were
called cowboys? It wasn't about their youth folks. Actually, it was very,
very common for African American men to take care of cattle, and there
are many black farmers out there, and they're underrepresented in country music and all
the things that go around with countries. So anyway, I am thrilled that
Beyonce has a song and that it's so famous, But I think she's politically
bringing the country together. She literally says, a step to the left,
something to the right. Come to the center with me, right, she
says, pour a little sugar whiskey on me. Come on, you got
to dance with me, Get out on the dance floor. I don't know.
I just think it's politically inspired. I think she really anyway, I'm
in love with Beyonce. We all know that I'm loving that song. I
was even in an Ace hardware The song wasn't out but three days, and
there it was the background music in a Ace hardware store. I'm like,
okay, it's going to be huge hit for it. It's an airworm.
It's an airworm, all right. In other news this week, I never
met the man, but I shed a tear over the death of Alexei Navalni.
He is the Russian opposition leader. If you didn't see the documentary,
it's everywhere online. It was a CNN documentary. I saw it when it
first came out. Then it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. I
rewatch it, Okay, I've seen it three times now. The documentary filmmaker
asked him at the end, what if somebody seeing this sees it? After
you die, what do you want to say to them? And he basically
says, if they kill me, it means we're powerful. It means don't
give up. Right, so he was. He died in a Russian prison
a week ago. And remember he had been poisoned before and on a plane,
and then they took him over to Germany and healed him and found out
that they had this terrible toxin that disappears by the way, this toksin disappears
in your body if you wait long enough. But they didn't get to wait
long enough because the plane diverted really quickly. So now they kept the body.
And of course the rumor is they wanted to wait until the poison got
out of his system, and finally after nine days, after nine days,
they handed the body to his mother. Now here's the gossip. Okay,
I do a deep dive on the internet so I can bring you all the
latest gossip. I don't know if any of this is true. I'm just
saying this is what I read on the internet that apparently they only gave his
mom the body. If they said, you have to bury it within three
hours and you can't hold a big public funeral. You have to quietly,
like get rid of the body. Otherwise we're not giving it to you.
Ever, that's what the internet says. I don't know the truth. Actually,
not just the Internet. The New York Times said that they're on the
internet too. I guess so, just as inspirationtional his wife Yulia nevill naya.
I hope I said that right, But I have a Russian in the
room. She's gonna correct me in a minute. She published a six minute
video on YouTube. By the way, she opened a Twitter account. Oh
now we don't call it Twitter anymore, an X account, and within four
hours, Elon Musk took her down, just took her account, blacked it
out. Wonder what side he's on, folks. Anyway, the Twitter universe
or the X universe got so upset and hammered Elon that he opened up the
account again after four hours. So please go and follow her. When I
checked last she only had three hundred thousand followers, but she should have millions
of millions. Yulia, that's with a y. It's like Julia, but
with a y. Naval nav al nahya n aya. And you can see
the video, the full video. And by the way, you know on
X like all your other social media's when they speak another language, all you
do is you hit the little translate button. There's a little translate and then
you get to see it in English or read the words subtitles. Anyway.
She says she's taken over, she's going to be the leader of the opposition
party. She's going to run stuff from Germany. And so I wanted to
have somebody who knows a little more about this than I do, somebody who's
actually Russian, who's been following this for a while. And now I'm gonna
mess up her name. She just walked into the studio and so I didn't
get a chance to practice her name. So Irina, let me start by
trying to say your last name Proscorina. She's laughing, she's just laughing.
It's a good okay, your name is i Rescrina, Irina Prescuna. I
do better. I just needed to repeat. So one of the things you
are, and I want to talk about it in the next segment is a
relationship coach who helps people with a lot of mental health issues. And we
had this interesting conversation when we met because we were talking about anxiety. We're
going to talk about anxiety man, But I want to talk about Julia because
she's my girl. Okay. Anyway, and one of the things you said
to me that really stuck out is you said, Russians don't ever want to
reduce anxiety, they feel they need it. It's Americans that are obsessed with
reducing anxiety. Did I remember that correctly? Yeah? Okay, in the
next segment, we're definitely going to talk about that. But first, can
we talk about my girl Julia. First of all, she has a degree
in economics. He was a lawyer, right, Alexi was a lawyer.
Her kids are nearly grown, right, I think her son is still a
teenager, but her daughter's at Stanford in the third year, so her motherhood
responsibilities are kind of behind her. Do you think she has what it takes
to lead this opposition party against Putin? Actually? Absolutely? And why do
you think that? You know, it's an interesting question because all these years,
Jula, she was the biggest support of Navali and everyone's saying. She
also admitted that she wrote his interview text and a lot of his programs,
so she was all this time his greater supporter and she took everything to make
it through. So right now, it's just her turn. You know,
do you worry about her safety while she's not in physically in Russia? I
don't worry about herself. I don't know. But didn't an important people try
to poison that family in London, the former oligarch who left and his daughter.
Yeah, but you know Julia, it's a little bit different because she's
very public right now and one of the most famous women I think these days
in all around the world. And the other thing is that I don't think
that put In take her seriously, you know, like I don't think that
she she really think she's going to be like his competitor. Well, how
is she actually going to lead the people in Russia who are followers of Navalny
If they're not even going to be able to hear her speak, right,
how's she going to get the message out there? I don't have any idea,
but probably she's going to find a way. Yes, and then she
can talk to all the other Russians in the rest of the world and they
can call all their family. Yes, this is what Julia says to do.
Okay, you're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six
forty I'm late coming back because I was having the most interesting, interesting conversation
with my guest. I'm going to have you say your name because I'm going
to mess it up. And your name is My name is Idina, but
it's the last name Edina. I can get through ye visit. So Erina
is a coach and therapist. I miss I miss introduced her before because it's
all such a blur, and I called it Russian because she does speak Russian.
But she told me on the break her passport is she's Ukrainian. So
you grew up actually in Crimea. Yeah, My situation very interesting because I
grown up. I was born and grew up in Crimea. Yeah, and
I left Cramea I think in age twenty five to Ukraine. Yeah, so
you're Ukrainian. I am Ukrainian, and Ukrainians are still in Crimea, all
of them. All my family live in Crimea. So in twenty fourteen,
when Russia took over Crimea, what happened? They didn't leave, They just
stayed and became Russian. Yeah, is they didn't live because I have a
very small family, just my grandmother, my mother, and my sister,
and they all belonged to that place. You know, their house, it's
their gardens, their animals. They live in a small village. So they
say, like, there is no way we are going to live. We
was born here and we're going to die here. And I respect their decision
as much as they respect my decision to live. So we just hit a
very interesting date in that it has been two years since this war Russia and
Ukraine has been happening. You've been in America for one year, only one
year, correct? And so did you leave at the beginning of the war.
How did that work? You know, it's it's another interesting story.
I left Ukraine Kiev. I celebrated New Year in Kiev in Ukraine, and
I left Ukraine in January, right one month before everything started. And where
did you go? And I left to Emirates Arabeimeritz Dubai. And that's interesting
that I didn't suppose to live. But after New Year, I just felt
this all my body, like huge anxiety and I felt that I'm not safe
here, I'm in danger. And it was crazy for me because like it
was like after New Year holidays time, everyone was happy, everyone like shop
like it was it was beautiful time there. But these feelings that I'm in
danger and I must move, I must leave it. Just you know,
it just blocked my body. My body was shaking. You know, psychologists
call the gut our gut instinct is the term we use the second brain.
Yes, that or they'll say somebody might say, oh, I have this
feeling, should I make this decision? And they'll say, well, what
does your gut say? But what does your stomach say about this? Right?
So you were fortunate that you listen to your gut and set them out.
Yeah, Like, I'm very thanksful myself, first of all, that
I built this connection with myself and with my body, with my God.
You know that. I'm like, you call it sixth sense or intuition or
whatever, Yeah, but this is feeling. It's powerful. And I listened
it and I just follow it. Even it was not rational and like there
was no reason for me to move to Emirates, but I said, okay,
let me go, let me listen to it. So I moved to
to Dubai. I did myself at all, like two months, I'm gonna
stay here and decide what it's all about. And then months later everything happened.
And as much as I was shocked and panicked that much. I was
like grateful that I did the righteos. You certainly did. How are your
family doing? Are they safe? My family is safe. And also it's
creamy. It's not Ukraine like in Crimea where it was occupied in twenty fourteen.
They kind of made this place safe because it's important for them. Yes,
for Russians. Yeah, yeah, so they're safe, they're okay,
they live their very simple life. Yeah, and this is the most important
for me and a lot of your clients are around the world. You practice
on zoom, yes, yes, So let's talk about first of all,
why the psychology of people of Russian or Ukrainian descent is so different than ours.
You know, it's interesting because before I met you, I didn't understand
that there is a big difference because, like me personally, I didn't work
with Americans. But while I live here for one year, I can tell
that, like people more awareness about their feelings and like they go to the
therapists, to the coach when they feel anxiety, you know, and they're
not happy in their daily life. But in Ukraine and Russia, the things
like this not exist. You mean, they don't want to be happier,
They don't care that they can be happy. They're happy with anxiety. You
know, it's interesting, like there is no things like anxiety, you know,
it's it's like it's like Ukrainian Russian people lifestyle. It's how you feel
yourself daily. It's chronic anxiety. Yeah, so they're just used to it.
They just used to this. And in your case, it was actually
a kind of anxiety that told you to leave Ukraine. Yeah, so paying
attention to that was important. Oh, it's so interesting. It's so interesting.
And also in our countries, like in Ukraine, people don't go to
therapist once they feel unhappy, you know, people go to therapy. And
it's also it's kind of shame to say that I'm going to therapist. There's
still in a lot of places in the world a lot of stigma associated with
it. Just to let you know. Here in the US, it has
replaced religion for many people, or augments religion, right, But it is
very common for people to even have two or three therapists for different things,
Like they have a prescriber to go get their antidepressants, then they have a
talk therapist that they might go to, and then they and their husband go
to couples therapy. That's why we're all so healthy here, right, So
we're happy to well, I just want to say I am so grateful that
you came all the way into the studio and to meet you. And you
are doing good work. You do your work in Ukrainian and Russian online and
English obviously right. And how can people find you from my Instagram? Oh?
She books through Instagram? What's your Instagram? And interesting? You know,
we're so blessed? Is that right now? Social media? I think
it's the biggest marketing platform. You know. Nineteen nine percent of my client's
going from Instagram and my Instagram is Ira dot terramun so it's I a adult
tr mwom terra moon. Yes, I got that word out. Well.
A pleasure to meet you. I hope everyone stays safe in Ukraine. Thank
you so much, Thank you so much for having me here. You're listening
to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty. You know,
you hear a lot about this epidemic of loneliness that is striking many many Americans.
We're not meant to live in apartments by ourselves, and I think developers
are building more studio in one bedroom apartments than they are three bedroom apartments or
single family homes anymore. And we learned during COVID how bad isolation was for
our mental health. Now I want to tell you how we got here.
First of all, for let's go back to our anthropological history. First,
we lived in roaming hunter gatherer groups for thousands and thousands of years, longer
than we've been farming or in the information age. And during that time,
we were in roving groups of multigenerational people who were mostly all related to us,
and so we came to depend on a whole social network. In fact,
if we did meet somebody who we had sex with or coupled up with,
it was virtually never a stranger. It was somebody in our group in
some way, not necessarily biologically related, but somebody in our group, somebody
familiar. Then we settled into farming, and we started to see multi generational
families on farms, working the land. In fact, farmers had many,
many kids because they needed the labor right, and people stayed. They had
the support of cousins and aunties and neighbors. But then industrialization happened and we
needed a mobile workforce because of the need for mobility. We started tearing away
young adults from their face families. They started to have to travel to go
find jobs families. The nuclear family is sort of a new invention in the
history of the human species. And now the nuclear family seems to be divorcing
at a high clip. And all this is leading to more and more isolation.
And at the same time we're getting these mixed messages. The messages are,
you know, individual rights and freedoms, and you've got to individualize,
and you've got to figure out who you are, and you need more autonomy,
and you shouldn't depend on anybody else. You should be independent. No,
we're not meant to be independent. We're meant to lean on each other's
shoulders. We're meant to help each other. We're supposed to be a clan,
we're supposed to be connected. In fact, you know, here are
these new moms suffering from the latest diagnosis of this generation, postpartum depression.
Half the time because they don't have grandmothers around. Grandmothers are in developments in
Florida. They're having margharitas at Houston's and Florida instead of taking care of their
grandkids. Remember, we had a guest on the show k I can't remember
how many months ago now, and she was the evolutionary biologists or the anthropologists
who figured out why we have menopause were only species except for killer whales.
She taught us about the grandmother Geene or something. She started tracking these hunter
gatherer people and she was trying to figure out how often dads invested in their
kids. And we're talking about people who are living off the land, not
even farming, gathering right and you know, digging roots and digging for stuff.
And she was like, I was watching these people and like the dudes
were totally ignoring their kids, and here are these hard working grandmothers making sure
that they had so much more calories, et cetera. And indeed, if
there's a grandmother around, they're more likely even today for children to have higher
birth weight, gain weight, better have more health along the way. Right
now, we're seeing a new epidemic, which is gray loneliness. It's like,
how often can you remodel your kitchen, Ladies, Seriously, what are
you going to do with this time? If you're not giving it back now,
you might not give it back necessarily to your own grandkids, but you
might be giving it to other people. A paper came out last year published
in Perspectives on Psychological Science, and it found that there is a way to
create happiness and prevent loneliness during the graying years, and in order to do
that, you have to meet certain social and relationship expectations. So this goes
through some of the things that this study found. They found that one of
the biggest roots to happiness and to avoid gray loneliness is to live in close
proximity to people you love. So, yeah, it all sounds great to
move to a better client or across the country or whatever where the real estate's
more affordable. But the end of the day, it's not about money.
It's about the people. The people around you, and while you are with
those people. The other important thing that the happy graying people in this study
found is that they felt truly supported, that they had also emotional intimacy with
the people in their life. But the big one was that they were making
meaningful contributions to the lives of others, whether it's volunteer work, whether you're
teaching, whether you're mentoring. Eric Erickson, the famous developmental psychologist, called
it at the age of generativity right where you're going to help other people.
I'll tell you that's one of the reasons I've been teaching so long, because
every day, you know, my own kids are too busy to talk to
me. And every day I walk into classroom and there are these students who
just can't wait to learn things. And I feel respected and I feel cared
for. And that's one of the reasons why I'll never have gray loneliness.
You know, I also never have gray hair. I just want to say
that I've I started to get gray hair in my twenties, so I've been
coloring my hair forever and ever and ever. They're going to put me in
the coffin with a box of claial right beside me, tucked under my arm
in case I need it. But gray loneliness will not look gray on me.
Neither will loneliness because I'm not going to have it. All right,
let's do a quick giveaway before we go to calls and social media. Remember
last week we had a neuroscientist on, doctor Dave Rabin, and he developed
something called the Apollo neurro. I've been wearing it for a week and I
cannot believe how It's changed my life. It gives a little vibration that calms
your anxiety and your nervous system gets to your central nervous system. You can
use it, turn it on one different setting if you want to get energy
or connect with other people. There's even a love vibe if you want to
have better you know want, but most I've been using the Calm one and
the Deep Sleep one, and I slept the first night i used it ten
hours. I haven't slept ten hours since I was a teenager, and I
felt really rested when I woke up. So Kayla's gonna go ma on the
phones, woman of the phones, uh, and she's gonna take the tenth
caller because I slept ten hours. The numbers one eight hundred five to zero
one KFI. That's one eight hundred five two zero one five three fours.
Soon as she does that giveaway, then I'm also taking your calls and social
media questions. Have you got relationship questions? The number also same number,
one eight hundred five to zero, one five three four. You're listening to
doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty Shoot, I Stay Ill,
Shout dot Com, shod stay trouble, will don saf I am six
forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show. This is the time in my show where I am taking your
calls and antwer bring your social media questions. A reminder, I have a
PhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology professor. I'm not a therapist,
but I am obsessed with the science of love. I have written three books
on relationships, I did my dissertation on attachment theory, and I have a
heck of a lot of life experience. So please allow me to weigh in.
If you'd like to give me a call, the number is one eight
hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred five two zero one
five three four one of the questions that just came on. Oh by the
way, I'm also live on Instagram right now if you want to come on,
it's at doctor Wendy Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh. But there's a question
that's popped up a few times. The question is when is it ever too
early to talk about STDs? And I assume the question might be to a
potential new mate. You know, have you had any STDs and which ones
or I have had, And here's what it is. I think that as
you're building in intimacy in the early dating stages before you're having sex, is
the time to have all these conversations and it can be really helpful to building
intimacy. If it scares the person off, then you should do the touchdown
cheer that you got rid of them before because they were not a good partner
for you. If they can't have intimacy and can't even have that conversation,
Okay, Producer Kayla, do we have somebody on the line or she's still
doing the giveaway? I think she's busy with the giveaway. They're also we're
also giving away an apollo neural today. So let me go to social media
first. Hey, doctor Wendy, I'm matched with someone. Yes, they
mean on a dating app and I'm considering meeting. But he's wearing a baseball
hat in every single picture on his profile. Would it be rude of me
to ask him for a picture without his hat? Yes, I'll tell you
why he has a hat on in every picture, because he's very self conscious
about the fact that he has male balding. You don't need to ask for
evidence of this. You know this by the fact there's a baseball hat on
in every single picture. So if you just want to play into his insecurities
even more, you go ask him for a picture without the hat. It
also says that you're superficial and you're only looking for somebody who's physically attractive to
your eyes, and you don't care about their heart, or their soul or
their brain anyway. If you have a problem with male pattern balding, don't
meet him, but don't ask them for a picture. That's humiliating. Would
you like it if a guy asked you for a picture of you in a
bathing suit because you didn't put it on your profile. We would all get
upset about that. Right there? You go? Okay, Producer, Kayla,
do we have someone on the line. Ooh, she's running to this.
She doesn't have a mic. Look at her running. She's running.
Anthony. Hi Anthony, it's doctor Wendy. Hello, Anthony, are you
there? And there he is? Hi Anthony, it's doctor Wendy. Yes,
I what's your question? Oh? How do I approach women that I
find attracted without looking like a chart? I have so many different wonderful qualities,
and women do comment on that, you know, once they get to
know me a bit. But how do I get beyond that barrier? Like
because so many people, especially here in LA are so fearful. You know.
Yes, Oh it's not easy. I've got great advice for you,
Anthony. Anthony's question is how do I approach a woman without looking like a
jerk? Right, you're attracted to them, you don't know if they're attracted
to you. You want to start a conversation. I can't believe I have
to tell the basics to everybody. But it's so simple. You look for
commonality. So if you're in Starbucks together, you comment on what their order.
You might say something like, oh, I've never tried a machiato before,
how does that taste. If they don't respond, or they give you
a one word thing and then just move away, then you've been given your
answer. They're probably not single, or they're they're not interested in you,
which is fine, so you need to just I can take that fine.
Things that are in common, even if it's the rain, you're walking inside
its raining and you're like, oh my god, I'm like a drowned rat.
You make a little comment and see who picks it up. Yeah,
yeah, I get all that. Okay. I'm one of the few people
actually who have no fear of initiating a conversation with total strangers. Okay,
I got Okay, that's good. I have no problem. It's an extrovert.
I like that. Okay. Well, I'm actually a very introvert.
But I developed this this trade of mind over many years by you know,
making certain efforts by practice. I'm more conscious. Yeah, okay, I've
done that. I've done my studies. Here's another twist to this, doctor
Wendy Mom. Okay, twist. I mean, although I do know quite
a bit about how to have success relationships with opposite gender, I have no
experience of such. And I think you may have something to do with my
certain preferences in what I'm looking for, and also having a mom who is
ultra religious and has certain views and attitudes about sex. Oh yeah, okay,
So let me say this, Anthony. It is very common for some
people who have grown up in a highly religious family to have internalized a sense
of oh my gosh, this is bad, this is dangerous. I shouldn't
be doing this right. So, at the same time, there's a part
of your brain who wants to, you know, have a great, healthy
relationship that includes a sexual relationship. And then there are the critical voices from
your family of origin. And the only way to work through this is to
go see a licensed therapist, go find a way to work through the dual
feelings. Because here's that's the thing. We unconsciously go out into the world
and send messages about what we think we need. So in other words,
you're saying that you approach women but you're not having much luck. But maybe
you have ambivalence and you're approaching women that will reject you because that way it
keeps you protected and safe and obeying your mother. Right. You never know,
so I would definitely see a good licensed therapist who can help you work
out with your stuff. But those are excellent questions. Thanks so much for
calling. Okay, I want to quickly go onto this one on social because
it's very interesting. Hi, doctor Wendy, a guy I've been talking to
for weeks, for weeks on bumble. When you're not talking, if you're
on bumble, okay, that means you're texting, all right, wants to
face time before we hang out. I guess I kind of get it.
But what do you do if you FaceTime and the conversation is lame, well,
then you know not to go out with him. How do you let
the person down? Okay, everybody, Okay, here we go back to
dating one on one. First of all, you should never meet anybody in
person who you've only texted with. That's just weird. You either FaceTime or
get on the phone and do some pre interviews. You have to do some
pre interviews, okay, because you can save a whole lot of time.
So here's the steps on the dating apps, folks. Again, you match
with someone, you don't message for too long. Don't let it go on
for weeks. A few messages, exchange phone numbers, get on the phone,
see if they give good phone If they don't, you have a lovely,
polite, canned text. You do not ghost them. That says,
hey, you know, I was great chatting with you, and good luck
at whatever thing's coming up that you mentioned whatever. I don't think romance is
in the cards for us, but I'll keep you in mind for a friend
sometime. That's all you do. Okay, You just tell them, hey,
I don't think romances in the cards, but Hey, great guy,
lovely conversation. Thank you very much, and you move along. But don't
be meeting people you've just been texting with. It's always to let down one
hundred percent of the time. Okay. I'm going to continue to take your
calls and answer your social media questions when we come back. The number is
one eight hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred five two
zero one five three four. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show.
You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live
on KFI Am six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.