#062: The Best of 2021: Restored Podcast Highlights
In this episode, you'll hear 7 short clips from the podcast in 2021.
This episode, and the podcast as a whole, will help you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents’ divorce, separation, or broken marriage, so you can feel whole again and thrive.
If you’re new to the podcast, this is the perfect way to sample our content and learn how it will help you. If you’re a veteran listener, this is the perfect episode to share with someone you know who needs to hear it.
Thanks for listening! We do it for you.
Featured Episodes
#039: The Anatomy of a Wound & How to Heal | Dr. Bob Schuchts, PhD
#037: Trauma: What It Is and How It Damages You | Margaret Vasquez
#058: Forgiveness: The Secret to Healing and Freedom | Fr. John Burns
#056: How Virtue Results in Happiness & Freedom | Dr. Andrew Swafford
#048: Fear Became Reality: I Am Just Like My Father | Bart Schuchts
#054: How to Stop Damaging Yourself with Your Words | Chris Stefanick
#044: Practical Tips for Becoming a Great Parent | Mike & Alicia Hernon
Links & Resources
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
Welcome to the restored podcast, helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents' divorce separation. Our broken marriage. So can Phil ho again, I'm your host, Joey Pelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 62 and as a way to reflect on the gear, my team, and I wanted to share some of the best moments on the restored podcast.
So you're about to hear seven short clips from episodes published last year. If you're new to the podcast, this is the perfect way to sample our content, to see how we can help you. And if you're a veteran listener, I wanna just thank you. Thank you for listening for so long. I hope this has been so.
Helpful useful. And most importantly, practical for you. And I wanted to say to you, this is a perfect episode to share with someone that you know, who really needs to hear this content. The clips are not necessarily in a particular order when we were choosing which clips include. I honestly wanted to choose all of the episodes from last year because they're all really good, but we obviously had to narrow it down.
So we chose seven clips and basically we based it on popularity feedback from you guys and some episodes that just stood. To us, by the way, if after hearing the clip, you wanna listen to a particular episode in its entirety, but maybe you forgot the episode number. Just go to the show notes, to find it@restorministry.com slash 62.
I'll remind you of that link at the end. Our first episode is episode 39, the anatomy of a wound, and how to heal with Dr. Bob shoot. Now, Dr. Baba says psychologist, he's an author, and he spent really his professional life helping people to heal their wounds in this clip. He explains really the anatomy of a wound, how a.
Works.
I wanna switch gears. I wanna talk about the anatomy of a wound. You write about this, uh, in your book, be healed. You write that, you know, there's various pieces and parts to wound, and I think it's really helpful if we wanna heal to understand that. And so if you would please teach us about that, break that down for us.
Yeah. And, and let me put it in the relation to the, to the divorce, because it'll become much more alive in this way, but. And, and be healed and, and other material. I talk about three circles. There's like three levels of the heart or three layers of the heart. And on the inside is just the pain from the wound.
So it's, it's trauma. And as we're finding more and more about trauma, trauma stays in your body until it's released and it stays in your mind and it affects the way your brain's organized and it affects the way every cell of your body. And. You know, it, it affects our physical, emotional, spiritual health.
And typically trauma is too much for us to bear in the moment. That's why it takes us a while to work through trauma. But it's not that the trauma's in the past, it's, it's the trauma remains with us until it's released. And so it's released. Through the experience of, of releasing the pain or the anger or the rage or the powerlessness or the fear or whatever manifestation that has.
But, but our bodies and our minds and our souls pulled on to trauma. One of the ways we do that is through our beliefs. And that's the next band. If you will, the next circle in its the beliefs are of two, two types. It's the things that we believe about ourselves, which affect our identity. The way we see ourselves, that's the beliefs we have about other people and about God and about life, which are we call judgements.
You know, they, they're the ways that filter our perception of reality, both about ourselves and about other people. And so in, you know, in the case of, you know, my, my experience of a trauma of abandonment of my dad, And for you two, and there's a rejection in it. Those are different wounds. There's a powerlessness there's fear.
So what we call the seven deadly wounds, all have beliefs associated with them. And so, you know, one of the beliefs and these aren't just beliefs as at an intellectual level, there's deep, deeply held beliefs of the heart, which is I'm alone. I'm not loved. I can't trust anybody. And there's a hopelessness that things aren't gonna get any better.
All those get, if you will lodged into the heart at a deep level, even if our mind knows a different truth or understanding knows a different truth, those, those things kind of hold. We hold onto them and they hold onto us and we actually hold onto them. As a way of protecting against the trauma, believe it or not, even though they keep the trauma in place and keep us in the trauma.
They're, they're in some ways a barrier to that trauma. Hm. And then the judgements we have to other people, you know, it's like the judgements that I made towards my dad or about marriage are about God or about the church or about women, you know, or about drinking, you know, all those things that, that form perceptions that then play themselves out.
When you get involved in relationships. You know, a lot of those judgements have unforgiveness related to them. Uh, and so we work through a process of forgiveness, but also of really recognizing and releasing the judgements because they filter everything. They're like putting on glasses that color, everything that you see.
And then the final outside circle is what we call inner vows or resolutions of the will of ways we're gonna protect ourselves. So one of mine was, I will never divorce. Like my parents, because I'll never want to hurt my children. Like I was hurt and we were hurt or I'll never want to hurt my wife. Like my dad hurt my mother.
And you say, well, that's a really good vow, right? Yeah. Yeah. But it isn't, it was good when I made it in marriage with the holy spirit. And that's really what I promise and I'm gonna love my wife for better or for worse and sickness and in health. And that vow actually kept us together. But this inner vow wasn't even C.
It was made out of fear and judgment. And in that it, it creates this self-protection that actually almost brought me into a place that was a very thing that I feared. And it's, it's hard to describe that, but it's, it's like I was so in fear of hurting my wife and hurting my children, that I didn't deal with the pain, or even with the conflicts that came up, you know, I was afraid of being afraid of rejecting or afraid.
Being alone or, and so those vows actually led me to insulate and protect and to control, uh, because that's what we do out of fear is we tend to control things rather than trust mm-hmm . And so it creates this whole vicious cycle of destruction that you're not even aware of until you're face to face with it.
And that that really began my deeper healing process. 10 years into my marriage, 10 to 12 years into my marriage.
The key to healing is truly understanding your wounds, truly understanding your brokenness. And you can think of a doctor who can only treat a disease once he diagnoses that disease, once he understands it. And the same is true for emotional. Wounds, you can't heal without first diagnosing without first understanding your brokenness.
And so if you want more check out that episode, that was our most popular episode of the year with Dr. Bob Schutz again, though was episode 39. Next is episode 37. Trauma what it is and how it damages you with Margaret Vasquez. Margaret is a trauma therapist she's been in practice for over 15 years, truly an expert on trauma.
And she's helped so many people heal from trauma, especially people who thought. Healing wasn't even possible, maybe that's to you right now. And so I especially invite you to listen to this clip and then hopefully listen to the full episode with Margaret in this clip we discussed what trauma is and how it affects you.
I wanna start with a, a really basic question. What is trauma? What's the definition of trauma. the simplest definition of trauma that I like to use is any event that overwhelms a person's normal ability to cope. And so kind of, you can kind of imagine, like, in that definition itself kind of contains the idea that that varies from person to person, right.
Because what overwhelms one person might not overwhelm another and that kind of thing. So it's a real, it's real particular to the person. So I kind of like that, that like, understanding that because. If we understand that, then we don't compare and go, oh, well, this didn't bother that person, but it really bothers me.
And so what's wrong with me, you know? So it, it really all has to do with our perspective in the situation and our perception of it, and really our personal experience of it as to if we're traumatized by. By an event or not. Okay. No, that makes so much sense. So if you would, what's an example, I guess, of a traumatic event that you typically see.
I know, based on what you said, it varies for people, but what's something that's kind of a typical traumatic event. And I know some people talk about trauma in terms of like a big tea trauma versus a little tea trauma. What would some examples be to help people listening right now who may not have a handle on that?
Yeah, sure. Um, so one of, so kinda some of the obvious ones would be, um, abusive, any kind. You know, physical, emotional, spiritual, sexual, verbal, natural disaster or accidents can be traumatic as well. It, it, it's so funny because so often people say, well, couldn't it have been worse? You know what? I went through, like, couldn't have been worse and I'll say, well, it could always have been worse or we wouldn't be having this meeting.
Right. Mm-hmm cause we're still alive. You know? So I think it's, I think it's more, it makes more sense to compare it to what we're made for. Instead of could have been worse because if something bothered us, that's enough reason. You know, if it was traumatizing to us, if it overwhelmed my, my whoever's personal ability to cope, then that, and of itself is reason enough for it to be trauma.
I often say like in trainings, I call it trauma. When I'm with my brothers, we call it childhood, you know, so, and I guess it's just kind of make that distinction because people can tend to, to minimize and kind of beat themselves up for, for things bothering. Right. And kind of say, I should have been worth thick skinned or tougher, or I'm being wimpy or self pity or, you know, or whatever that these things are getting to me.
And it's really not a matter of that. So some of the things that people typically think of as trauma are like combat or violent crimes, but it, it can really run the gamut. One of the. Biggest ones that I work with with people is biggest. Meaning one of the ones that that's the most effect most affects people is bullying.
And, and that's really sad cuz that's something that's kind of rampant today. Definitely. Wow. And it's um, I, I think you were a spot on in saying that a lot of people think of trauma as just this huge event in my life. Like you said, a big natural disaster, something very dramatic that happened like going to war, you know, something like that, but it.
A great point that it can be something that maybe is less dramatic. It can be something. Uh, a lot of people may write off as not being very important or being something that they should be able to have a handle on. Yeah. Well, you know, I kind of, I kind of got scolded in this back in the early days of practice and I was working with a young veteran and he had been through a lot of verbal abuse from.
His father. And he said to me, worse for him than hand to hand combat was verbal abuse from, from his dad when he was a little boy and kind of intuitively like just in my gut, that made sense to me. But I just, you know, I just asked him to say more about that. And he said, well, when I, when I went in the army, they gave me a gun and said, people are gonna be shooting at you.
Go defend yourself. That wasn't how it was when I was seven years old, little boy sitting at the breakfast table, eating my breakfast, you know, and my person who was supposed to be protecting me was just verbally decimating me, you know, mm-hmm. And while that kind of really put it in perspective, you know,
that episode is so eye-opening, there's so much more in it about trauma, about how to heal from it. I highly highly recommend it again. That's episode 30. Episode 58 is next forgiveness. The secret to healing and freedom with father John Burns. And we all know that forgiveness is not easy, but is it worth it?
Father John Burns. Who's an expert on healing through forgiveness shares. Why forgiveness is good for you and why unforgiveness is bad for you. And this is not strictly a religious. Conversation, but rather a human one. And so listen with an open mind, especially if you don't believe in God,
unforgiveness is classically defined as a form of hatred. It, it falls under the category of hatred and, and hatred never leads to anything. Good. Hatred is a vice and it's destructive. It's consumptive. So. Even though we may not immediately think of the places where we have unforgiveness as places of hate.
Unforgiveness is a type of hatred. It's where we're, we're throttling our enemy and demanding repayment. And again, especially sometimes an exorbitant repayment or a type of repayment that can't be had. So it's a kind of a futile posture in which we're very often stuck. I think it was Corey 10. Boom, who said to forgive is to, to let a prisoner free and to discover that the prisoner's.
So, so it's liberating because we discover we're clenched up toward our enemies and self-defense posture, survival mechanism, mode, and forgiveness is like a letting go of that, that posture of, of tension and, and a bound up heart putting down the weapons, you know, like not being just like on guard for the next encounter so we can go to battle.
And that all leads us to a certain. Lightness of heart at ease of breathing. I mean like a, a lot of the people I've walked with in, in forgiveness will talk about being able to breathe again after they've forgiven and this living under a constriction prior to that, that they didn't even know about. So it's just liberating aside from increasing our excellence and making our, our lives more like Christ's life, because he's perfectly merciful.
It also frees us up from all kinds of bondage, emotional bondage that has, as you named even a neurological impact. The best way to think about healing is always integration or communion or union and wounding sin, uh, as division separation, fragmentation, our minds even are stories they're fragmented by these painful places is where we shut down or black things out or tried to skip over.
Healing reintegrates or reifies, reifies the, the, the narrative, our own story. Reifies our life into God's life. Reintegrates us into God. Reintegrates our own hearts ends the, the, the war within us thinking, you know, like St. Paul says, like, I. I do the things I do not want to do. And I do not do the things I want to do.
Healing just makes it easier to do the good things and avoid the evil things. And when we notice the other going on it's cuz there's some sin, not only our own, but that which has been inflicted upon us. So forgiveness is just this. I would argue essential and central pathway out of the, the death trap of our wounds.
We, we default to living there, but, but when we discover there's a way out, not only is it hopeful, but it's also totally liberating. And so it's gonna end the hatred. It's gonna end the binding force on our hearts. It's also gonna end all kinds of neurological complexity and physiological complexity.
That episode is. Notch. And if there's someone in your life that you need to forgive, give that a listen for most of us who come from broken families, there's so much hurt. There's so much need for forgiveness. And so if you want grab a pen and paper, open up your notes app and take some notes. There's so much to learn from father John, as he walks through the steps to forgive someone in that episode.
Again, that's episode 58. On deck is episode 56, how virtue results and happiness and freedom with Dr. Andrew Swafford virtue is a habitual disposition to do the good that's the definition that the Greeks use. And it looks like good habits typically, but there's much more than just that it truly does lead to happiness and to freedom, which Dr.
SWER touches on so much more. In this clip,
what exactly are do we mean when we say virtue? What is virtue ? Well, I I'll tell you what, where it really struck me as, as an athlete. And when I had my, my conversion kind of really came to a head in a Christian moral life class with DRS. And I walked in thinking it's about a bunch of rules and the Bible says this church is this can't do that.
And I walked in, I couldn't have been more wrong. It was about freedom, friendship, happys. Virtue. All of a sudden I could see, gosh, this is why you're not happy because you, my friend are made for more. So one of the things that's really deep in the, in the, the classical tradition, uh, in likeso Plato, but, but is just absorbed and enhanced by the Christian tradition is really to see it as an athletic metaphor.
Right? I mean, like any player can hit a lucky shot, but the good player is consistent. Is reliable, can do it on command and, and takes joy in doing it with greater and greater excellence. That's what virtue really is all about. It's not just like on the outside. What do I do? It's what kind of a person, a man role am I becoming?
And the great beauty of this when you really step in is. In each and every action, the choice really is not simply what do I do right here right now? It's who do I want to be? Because I'm actually modifying my very self, just like a picture. Like I joke with my students. I'm like, look so often we wanna say, Hey, I'm a good guy, deep down.
I mean, deep down. I'm a good guy. Despite what I did last weekend, I'm a good guy. It's like, Hey bro. It's like saying I'm a good pitcher. Deep down. I just never throw strikes. it's like, it doesn't work like that because each pitch you throw with poor mechanics makes it more likely you'll throw with poor mechanic.
The next time. And so it's so easy for so many of us to say, Hey, I'm gonna live it up now. And I will get real about life in five years. And in light of virtue, it's like, no, no, no, who, what you're doing now is directly related to you'll be in five years because you are on a journey of becoming you're becoming a certain kind of person.
And so at virtue, does it becomes a, you know, it's, there's different etymology. I mean, veer and Latin means a Manliness or a power, like virtue gives you the ability. To do the good to do it promptly, to do it even effortlessly and to do it with joy. In other words, the moral life is not just, let's always do the hard thing.
It's no become the kind of people who can do the right thing. With ease with joy promptly on demand and thereby attained the freedom to be who you really wanna be. We all wanna be the hero when it counts, but the only way you get there is by being a champion in the little things. And you think about movies like gladiator, right?
So remember when he, you know, he's captured and think about the difference to him as a seasoned soldier. Versus others who have never seen combat. And does that one scene with a guy's like tinkling nose lake. And that probably would be me in all honesty, but, but that's what virtue does. Me too. It makes you a seasoned, moral and spiritual athlete.
So you've been there. You've been tested, you have a pattern of overcoming these things. And so when the big test comes like. You're ready. Whereas you're not just a lucky player who, oops. He hits a lucky shot. Like, no, no, you're you you're Michael Jordan. You you're the one who's who wants the ball in that clutch moment because you've honed in on the skills to play the game of life with excellence.
It's about the art of living and living well. I love that. And I was just watching gladiator last night. That's hilarious. As soon as you, as soon as you were saying that I was like gladiator. Cause yeah, Maximus had spent years and years developing his skills as a warrior. And uh, it's not something that happens overnight.
And I think that's a good reminder. One of my teachers at Franciscan, I went to Franciscan university. One of my teachers, Dr. Um, Ashe. He would always talk about ease, promptness and join. I love that framework cuz you basically to everyone listening. You know, that you've acquired a virtue integrated into your character when you can do it with ease, prominence, and joy.
Right. And so really helpful to remember. Totally. I aerosols got a great line at the beginning of his ethics, where he says, um, the it's really fascinating. The pleasure or pain accompany in an action is an index of my. It's not that the pleasure pain is an index of the action being good or evil. It's not that, but like if I'm especially pained by doing a virtuous action, if it really hurts, that's a sign that I have not yet mastered that virtue.
It's sort of like, I mean, you know, for me, this is pretty smoking fast. I've done it a couple times around a six minute mile, but yeah. And let's say I do that. I throw up everywhere. Right. And it's been a long time since I've done that, but let's say I train for a series of months and then around the same mile, same pace.
It won't be as painful. When I'm in better shape, that's what the virtuous, life's all about.
Dr. Swafford is the man such good episode. I learned so much from him. And if you wanna know more, listen to episode 56 onto the next episode, which is episode 48, fear became reality. I'm just like my father. Bart shoots and Bart shoots is the brother of Dr. Bob shoots, who you heard at the beginning of the episode.
And his story is just amazing. He was at rock bottom. So. So alone and then his life radically changed. And you'll hear a little bit about that in this clip.
After, after a few relationships ended, I, I came to the point of going love doesn't exist. You know, love doesn't exist. And so I just lived for temple pleasure. Now I just walked away from everything I believed and valued and, and just gave up. I was so depressed and so discouraged. So disillusioned, I just gave up on love and it was in that season and I would just feel guilty and I was alone in my room and full of shame and, and self hatred.
All this stuff. And I was like, I gotta change. And you know, I just didn't know how, honestly, I didn't know how until my senior year is like everything caught up to me and then it was like, oh gosh, okay. How do I change? You know, that, that, that, that was that work for me, you know? And I, I think for every one of us to answer your question, I just think.
We each, we each have our own journeys, you know, and the biggest thing I would say is never give up, never give up because, because there's gonna be answers, there are answers and, and you just have to keep persevering. And I knew that. And so I just kept going, you know, I, I, I, I entertained taking my life so many times and I was like, no, I'm not a quitter.
I'm not gonna do that. I'm never gonna quit. I'm gonna persevere. And, you know, little did I know, you know, that I would, I would make my way through it, but I, but I. Amazing. It's hard to, to know that in the moment. Right. Cause everything can just feel hopeless, but you're in a much better spot now. So yeah. I am curious what, what changed?
Like what happened? How did you eventually find healing? It sounds like it was a long journey, but, but what changed? Yeah. Yeah, it was, you know, and you know, through my four, actually five years of college, I, uh, I tried everything, honestly. I tried. I mean, I got into positive mental attitude stuff and you know, and I'd put on this good, positive mental attitude.
And it worked, you know, I, I was able to succeed. I would, uh, go to, you know, psychology. I tried, I tried everything I could think of, you know, all relatively good things. I, I went to church a few times, you know, I, I, I would go and give it a shot and go to church. And that would last me about a week or a month, you know, and then I would go right back.
To my vomit, you know, by my vomit is, you know, after my freshman year, when I just gave up on love, it was just, it was just partying, womanizing, you know, just, just living, just totally lost from who I really was. And just, just totally just, I mean, a good guy externally, but just, just totally lost. So it was.
Senior year, you know, and I remember my dream was to play in the NFL. And so in the football field, I had some successes, ups and downs. Now it's my senior year and I'm starting on that team that I said eventually finished 11 and one number two in the country. And I'm on track for my dream. And I'm like, this is great.
And, uh, got a bunch of friends and success and you know, the team's great, everything looks wonderful. First play of our second game. I got injured and I missed four games. And in that season, I was confronted with my life and it had happened several times over the five years of my college journey, but this one just feels like the last straw.
And, um, I actually, I met this girl. And, uh, we're just talking at a, at a bar and, um, she we're hanging out for about 45 minutes, you know, or drinking and hanging out. And I had intentions, you know, and here we were, and, and she, uh, looks at me and she says, I hate you. I'm like, what, whoa, what are you talking about?
I mean, we just met, you know, and she says, not only do I hate you, my whole sorority hates. I was like, whoa, what do you mean? I mean, your sorority knows me. Yes. And then she mentions three girls. It is painful even to recall. I mean, this is probably 37 years ago, you know, and I it's still painful. And she says, you know, she mentions three girls.
She says, because of you, each one of them tried to take their own lives and went, oh my God, you're kidding me. And I thought to myself, whoa, this isn't a game, man. And then what hit me? What hit me in that? was, oh my gosh. I'm just like my father, you know, I made that vow. I will never be like my father. I will never hurt a woman the way my father hurt my mother.
And I'm worse. And my self hatred man was just like, whew, I just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I just hated myself. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm a real jerk. And uh, and then this girl says to me, beautiful girl. She says to me, besides I'm a Virgin, I was like, what?
Tell me about this. I was intrigued. I was like, whoa. And I remembered back to when I was 18 years old. When I was in high school, I said to my buddies, when I get married, I wanna be a Virgin. And they, of course, you know, said that's a wonderful idea. No, they laughed at me. They called me names. Uh, I mean, gosh, I will never say that again.
Within a month of that, I had lost my virginity and then it, it, my story of the next six years, you know, uh, it caught up to me now and this girl says, I'm a Virgin. I'm like, oh my gosh. Wow. Is it possible? Like, is that even possible? This girl obviously chose this, you know, like, is this even possible? And it just, it opened my eyes to like, hope.
Like maybe my life could be different. Like maybe I can change. Maybe I really can change. Maybe I can marry someone. Maybe I can have a good marriage. Maybe I don't have to be like my father. Maybe, maybe things can be different. And, and that began a process.
One of the things I learned from Bart. No matter how bad things get, no matter how hopeless life feels, never give up, never give up. You're never out of the fight. And his story really proves that there is always hope, especially when things feel hopeless. If you wanna hear the rest of his story, listen to episode 40.
Episode 54 is next. How to stop damaging yourself with your words with Chris. And Chris is a very popular speaker and author. And in this clip, he talks about how the words we say to ourselves have a much bigger impact than you might think.
I think this is such a relevant topic for people, especially who come from broken families. And in the book you say that there's a war of words happening in your mind. The outcome of that war. Determines your destiny. That's a bold statement. What do you mean by that? Uh, the, uh, the devil's real victory in our life.
We, we think it's maybe a sin we committed or some, uh, wound we're suffering from, or, or, or something hard we've been through. No, I, I, the real victory is when we experience a, a, a difficulty or commit a sin and then label our. Based on that, because then we continue to live out of that identity for the rest of our lives.
You know, the, the way we speak to ourselves and the way we talk to ourselves and label ourselves shapes how we feel, which shapes how we act, which shapes how our entire life pans out. So really the, so many of the, the spiritual battles we face. So many of the personal battles with getting to the next level.
In relationships in career in happiness. So many of it comes back to when you dig deep enough, how you see. How you talk to yourself, it's that war, a fundamental war of words that determines really the outcome of your life. Mm-hmm uh, and, and a brother. We, we, we really, we really can't get it wrong. We can't keep getting it wrong, you know, and I'm so tired of seeing people get it wrong.
And you could tell there's times where I'm getting it. When people are walking through life, looking like they got the crap beat out of them when they look tired and heavy it's so often because we're beating ourselves up on the inside. I, I think this seems simple on the surface, Chris, but once you start talking about it and think about it, I think it's a little trickier than it seems because.
So often I think the lies that we tell ourselves become so second nature, they're just subconscious they're there. And so unless you really take time to go through your, I am book or the course or something similar where you're doing some deep reflection on this, it can just pass over your head. I know for myself, one of the things that I catch myself doing often just on a subconscious level again, It's calling myself an idiot.
Like, are you idiot? You know, I do. I make a mistake. I do something wrong. You're you idiot, you idiot. So I think there's a real need to dive into this. It can't just be something that oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I get what you're saying. I shouldn't be mean to myself. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's simple, but simple is not easy.
Right. In fact, it's very difficult to boil things down to the simple again and much of our lives. We're trying to get back to the simple within marriage. We're crying out loud. Oh, Nothing could look simpler. I love this person. She loves me. I wanna give my life to her. She wants to give her life to me.
the amazing thing. Is it actually, is that simple? But it's not easy to keep it, that, that simple and to work through all the crap that comes in the way of keeping it, that simple, that wants to destroy that, that, that beauty, that pure crystal line beauty , but that's, that's the, uh, the same journey as the, I am.
You know, there's, there is a simplicity that I, I want to introduce people to, because most people, they, they don't win this battle cuz they don't even know that they're in it. They don't show up for it. We're we're passive recipients of the things that go on in our heads.
On the surface. It might seem like the way that you see yourself, the way that you talk to yourself really isn't that big of a deal. But like Chris said, it literally dictates how your life. We'll turn out. If you wanna hear more from that episode, just listen to episode 50. Our final episode is episode 44 practical tips for becoming a great parent with Mike and Alicia.
Heran. If you wanna become a mom or a dad, one day, you need to know about Mike and Alicia Heran they're parents and parenting experts, and they give really great guidance on how to become a great mom. Or dad. And you're gonna hear a sample of that in this clip.
Uh, yeah, I guess the first thing is like, as a new parent, if you could go back in time to yourself as a new parent, uh, and give some advice, uh, yeah. What are a couple of things that you'd say the main points and I'm sure this might echo some of the things you said before before the first, the first thing that comes to mind is chill.
Uh, yeah, we're we're, as, as parents, we, we have to recognize we're playing a long game. It's it's not a sprint. It really is a long race and that there are gonna be cycles and seasons, uh, you know, early on you may get no sleep with a newborn, you know, and, and, and infant, uh, child, uh, or there's gonna be times when you have maybe one or two little kids that are just draining you and you're in the survival.
Mm-hmm they're seasons of life. And, um, and we need to have a longer perspective this isn't. You're not gonna stay in that zone forever. Um, Which is, is good and bad, right? Meaning sometimes you'll get through it quickly, but also, um, there are good moments which, you know, just to really appreciate and, and soak up those moments because, you know, we have two, uh, married children now and, um, you know, three others who are essentially out, uh, out of the house.
They do kids do grow up so fast. So, so one don't get stressed. I know it doesn't feel like it, but they do but, and, and I never believed anybody, uh, who told me that. No, um, but I would, I would say that, that, that don't sweat, the small stuff have a bigger, longer term perspective. Um, and really kind of embrace, uh, each of those moments cuz they, you, for that child, you only have, you know, you have a limited amount of time and it's, and it's a gift.
Right. Uh, and to really embrace that, I, I felt like I kind of felt like I was looking for the right answer to everything. Yeah. Like I wanted to just do it. Right. I wanted to find to be the perfect area. Yeah, exactly. I wanted to find like that perfect method. And I think a lot of people do that today.
Studies showed this. So this is what I should do. But the problem is that you can find studies that absolutely contradict each other about the way that you should raise an infant, as far as like sleep schedules and feeding, and you know, how you respond to them. And you can find studies that are all over the place.
But what you really need to do is just work with unity, with your spouse on what is the best for you as a couple, what is the best thing for your family? And don't worry, don't worry. doing it perfectly. It's okay. Like you were saying before, it's okay to make mistakes. You're going to make mistakes. You're gonna try something to get them to go to sleep and it's not gonna work.
And that's okay. That's totally fine. You can try something else or maybe you just need to try what you were doing a little bit longer. And so I feel like for me, like what I would tell myself, you know, if I was talking to myself as a new. so don't worry about getting it all right. And also just enjoy your children more.
That's part of the great thing about being a grandparent now is that you just enjoy our grandchildren and I have to say that even our younger children, um, like numbers eight, nine, and 10 . I feel like we still. Take more time to just enjoy them and them just play games, games, hang out and just like laugh at them and just realize that, you know what I mean?
Like just kind of relax a little bit and not worry about, well, I have to hurry up and teach them all these things, because this is the important point to teach this blah, blah. You know, it's okay. It's okay. Like it is it, your childhood does go fast, but it's also, you have time to teach them things little by little and a lot of things, times you are modeling.
You're modeling for them, the way that you live your life is more important than anything you say, or any discipline plan that you have or anything like that, loving them and modeling God's love for them. Honestly, I really do think is the most important thing. I think that's more important. Then being really strict and firm on certain rules or having the perfect rules of the perfect system.
Sorry, one, one thing that, that I, as long as you don't contradict me, yes. You, everything you said was perfect. There you go. Um, so if you learn this after 27 years, it's about priorities man battles wisely. Uh, no. So, so, but I, I think I, I Don. I think now I appreciate it more than I did back then. The importance of our marriage.
Yeah. Um, a as much as I loved my wife and we got, well, I think I took things for granted, meaning we, we were good. We were both good people. We were trying to deal with our own stuff. And we were collaborating in this great work of raising these kids. And I would probably look back and say, get a better habit of date nights.
Yeah. On a regular for sure. Uh, going out together. Um, I think that we early on, we were very good about that and then kids just make it more difficult, but I think they make everything more difficult, but I think we, I, I gave up or settled too quickly and then I accepted jobs. Um, that had me traveling a lot for work and I didn't compensate, you know, by saying, okay, now that I'm physically not home, how am I gonna maintain my emotional intimacy, uh, with my wife when we're physically not present?
Um, I, I think that looking back I've, you know, that would be, you know, some of the things that I, I think is strong, We're also seeing the fruit, you know, again, I think we have a great marriage, but it's like not taking any of that for granted and, and really developing early on good habits of yeah. Date nights and communication and so forth because we're seeing some, um, couples now come to us, struggling with even their own kids who now have left.
The faith are not following in their values. And one of the things that, that I, it looked a common theme, a common theme. Was, they had some major challenges in their marriages. And I look at that and I think that has a bigger influence than we may realize. Yeah. Uh, on our kids on like sleeping in separate bedrooms, you know, for years and years, that's, that's gonna affect your children, you know, and that's gonna affect the way that they see marriage and that they.
God and the faith and, and all of that. So, and, and anyway, it's important to work on your marriage and I'm sorry, I know you, I'm gonna just throw this out, just cuz I've seen a couple of people for adult children of divorce who, because they don't wanna repeat. What happened to them as a child, they often pour themselves out into their kids and they pour themselves into forming and loving their children that they actually unintentionally neglect their neglect, their marriage.
Yeah. And, um, and, and by doing that, you're actually. Undercutting the way that you're loving your kids and forming your kids, cuz the, the, um, the number one thing is if you wanna be a great parent, you need to be an even more amazing spouse. And I, I think we sometimes get things disordered. Um, in our parenting,
one of the struggles for those of us who come from broken families is that we believe that we maybe can't become a great mom or a great dad, and I get it. I've been there, but I'm here to tell you that you can't, you are capable of becoming a mom or a dad, a great mom or a great dad. And even if you didn't see that growing up, even if you didn't experience that, even if you didn't.
Receive that you can give to your kids, whether you have kids now, or sometime in the future, you can give to them what you didn't receive growing up and to do. So check out that episode, you can learn some tips and tactics on how to become the parent that maybe you wish you had, or that you want to be.
Again, that's episode 44. That's a wrap. And before we close out the show, if you're someone who recognizes the pain and the problems faced by teenagers and young adults who come from broken families and you want to help them, we wanna team up with you. A speaking engagement at your school at your church or conference could be exactly what those young people.
Need to hear. And our talks are geared toward helping young people from broken families to do a few things first, to navigate their pain and problems in healthy ways. Instead of unhealthy ways, they're also gonna learn simple tactics to heal their brokenness so they can feel whole again, they'll also learn tips on how to build healthy relationships, which can really be a struggle for people like us and so much more.
And some of our speaking engagements have been done. Organizations like Franciscan university of Steubenville Ave, Maria university focus the fellowship of Catholic university students, the archdiocese of Denver, the archdiocese of San Francisco and the diocese of San Diego. And as you can tell so far, our speaking engagements have been for Catholic audiences, but we don't just serve Catholics.
And so if you're interested in scheduling a live virtual talk, we'd love to talk with you. Just go to restored ministry.com/speaking again, restored ministry. singular.com/speaking. You can view the talks that we offer, and then you can request pricing and more info. And, uh, perhaps if you're ready, we could even get an event booked.
I'd love to serve you. We'd love to serve you again, go to ReSTOR ministry. Dot com slash speaking. The resources mentioned during the show notes@restoredministry.com slash 62. Again, all the episode numbers from the clips that you heard are on that page. If you wanna listen to those whole episodes, thank you so much for listening.
If this has been useful for you, feel free to subscribe. And if you know someone who's really struggling from their parents' divorce or broken marriage, Share this podcast with them guys. We really appreciate your support for the podcast in our ministry this year. So many of you have shared the podcast with others or told people about restoring me just can't.
Thank you enough. Thank you so much for everything you've done to support us and to spread this work far and wide from our team at ReSTOR, we're just honored to serve you, and we wish you the best in this new year. Always remember you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person that you were born to be.
