Speaker 1 0:05
I'll do your intro separately and we can jump in. Yes. Beautiful was so good to have Eddie Capparucci back on the podcast. We've done a bunch together, you know, between endorsing each other's books and some interviews here and there. And I always enjoy your time man. Welcome back.
Speaker 2 0:21
It's wonderful to be here with you, my friend. We enjoy the time we get to spend together. We don't get to spend enough time together.
Speaker 1 0:28
I know I know. That's got to be one of the hardest things about the virtual world, isn't it? You make all these friends around the world and can only spend so much time with so many people just too busy
Unknown Speaker 0:37
with dignity trying to save the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1 0:41
I know right? for better for worse. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Well, you are you're always up to interesting stuff. And I love the way you found what I would say are like the core elements of recovery, integrity and health in a way that's easy for guys to understand. That's something you just do incredibly well. So I'm excited to hear about some of the projects you're up to. I think we'll save some of those for our audience because we'll have you back once they're released and promoted, but you're doing some cool stuff. The one thing that we were talking about off air is the challenge that men run into when they're in recovery. And they have a significant other presumably a wife or you know, some kind of commitment, long term commitment in the relationship and how to navigate the relational dynamics that exist in recovery. They're just so complex, aren't they? And nuanced. And I liked that you've been venturing down there because I know a couple years ago, after really focusing on helping guys get free for a while you realized oh my gosh, I'm helping them get free. But then they're going back to these dysfunctional marriages. The lifestyle doesn't trust them. And so you wrote your second book. brought a lot of our sorry I think it was your third book, actually, that brought a lot of a lot of light and a lot of hope to guys in the area. And it sounds like you've gone even further in that direction. Can you maybe talk a little bit just as a starting point, what are some of the challenges that men run into relationally while they're recovering?
Speaker 2 2:02
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the biggest problems that we have is the idea that we are emotionally undeveloped. And so then you say, Well, wait a second how that happened. And you know what? It's not just men who are dealing with addiction who struggle with this, okay, there are other men who don't have any addiction. But the problem is at the early stages of childhood development, which again, you'll be facing very soon you you make it critical that parents provide their children with the skill set, they need to be emotional beings. So therefore, teaching them how to have empathy, how to trust, most importantly, how to sit with emotional distress, and be able to work out a process that anyone who have an addiction, they don't know how to sit with emotional distress. That's how this whole process of becoming compulsive began for us. You know, we're young, we're sitting within pain. There's no adult in there to help us. So what am I gonna do with this? I come up with a brilliant solution. I have a child. I won't think about it. All right. That's great. How do I how do I do that? I have to distract myself. Watch television, too much food. Too much sugar, too much. Fantasy. Okay, I'm not talking about sexual fantasy and fantasy in my head all the time. With that, that's how it's done. Then I moved that into my adolescent world, teen world, adult world. I'm using that same coping strategy. What I'm doing is I'm changing out the behaviors. I'm buying the different behaviors that are more stimulating, or more numbing, depending on what the addiction is, and in this case here with fact, more stimulating. So that's where we're going and then again, if the compulsiveness that drives it, for many of us so we need to and as you say, we teach men how not to be as impulsive, how to control that. Manage it, and they're like, Wow, this is great. I have no longer looking at porn. I'm no longer masturbating. I'm not doing any other problematic sexual behavior. But we haven't done a damn thing about them being emotionally undeveloped. We have to work on those skill sets, because the wives are looking for that. Because what happens is they'll see or, or they're told, Well, he's no longer doing that. He's not looking at porn or masturbating. And they say, Well, wait a second. How do I know that? Because I'm still seeing all these other things about him is he he's not curious about me and the good that he's inwardly focused. You know, I feel like he still you know, you're dealing with, you know, more about him than me. And so therefore, they're like, Why should I believe and so therefore, they never feel safe. When they don't feel safe. When you're gonna have more conflict in a relationship. And then the guy sitting here and saying, I don't get it. All right. I'm, I'm free of this. I'm not doing it anymore. You're still not happy. Not happy dude. Because you're still you know, you're still dealing with a lot of your own issues.
Speaker 1 5:42
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So let me rewind a little bit. I'm so intrigued as someone who's about to become a father myself. You talked about that importance of teaching boys or teaching, you know, teaching. Yeah, I guess boys, you know, when they're young, how to sit with emotional distress or discomfort. That is, that's actually pretty profound. And I would say that the the number of opportunities that are available to us now to distract are more than ever before just between technology and devices and, and all of that and let's not kid ourselves like we're all doing it you know, like we all fall into that trap. The phone is such an easy escape. What what does it look like? I wonder if you could just give an example of what it looks like when, when a parent can guide their child through this process effectively. And just for the listeners, if you're wondering why I'm asking this, I find it really helpful. To have an idea like a standard to pursue. This isn't about saying like, Oh, this is what your parents should have done. And here's where they fell short. But I think for us, you know, someone like me who wants to become a father, for those of you who are fathers right now, hoping that an example like this can maybe at least pass a bit of vision for what, what this could look like and how maybe a father could start doing this for their own kids. Yeah,
Speaker 2 6:54
absolutely. Absolutely. And you're right. We all have something that we are trying to get more addicted to, and we're very careful about that. But let's say you have like a child who's like two, two and a half and they have an older sibling, the older sibling going to a birthday party, and the older siblings all very excited about it. And so the little one very strong, no and crying, carry on and like having a tantrum because wants to go to the party. Alright, and now let's say you know we really can't Burton just going to learn the vocabulary you're going to learn how to to talk and not teaching them how to sit with the stress is Stop it. You don't want that carrying on like that. If you're gonna get a meal snack you on your bottom. I'm going to send you a room. I'm tired of hearing you, you know, get out of my face. Get away from me. That is not now he still goes away. He doesn't know what to do with that pain. Or him. I'm not invited. I don't belong. He doesn't have those thoughts. But the emotion that why can't I be included? Okay, government somebody I wanted to have part of that fun. I want to enjoy that. Alright, that's it. So you send them off. He's still feeling that and know what to do with it. So you don't continue with the gentleman though he probably cried himself to sleep. Or something like that. And you begin the process of that. What do you get to learn to do is figure out something to get away from the pain versus say, Look at me. Let's say I understand you're upset. I know you want to you want to go right? Yeah, I want to go want to go? Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, you know, this is for bigger kids. You will have lots of parties. Okay, you will go to many different things. And he's still carrying on because again, he wants to go now right? I get it. I know you want to go down but you know what? Can you what? You and I were going to go let go to the park. And we'll we'll get together and we'll have a good time. And we'll do something while he's doing his Yeah, now. Now you're teaching him alright, well now you need to go buy my own stuff that I can do. Because I can only be able to do what everybody else wants to do. Yeah. So and then what you also want to do at when you're together with him, we don't want to stop there. Okay, good. We don't want to give them a sense that oh, you know what we got to constantly be feeding you something good to deal with something bad. That's not the point. We then sit and talk and say give him the word for the emotions he was feeling of all he joins frustration and what you were feeling with disappointment. Gonna be like I it's a mild disappointment, but you keep saying that when you were disappointed, we're all disappointed. And you're gonna be disappointed and other times in your life too. Right? That's part of growing up being disappointed. So that's an example of how do you
Speaker 1 10:10
know sounds a little bit like you as a, as a parent, as a person or a father. Whatever level of comfort you have with distressing emotions is basically the level of comfort that you can impart to your kid. Because in that example, like the first example where the where the parent is saying, basically just trying to shut them up and push it aside. Usually it sounds like it's the it's the parent who's feeling their own discomfort with it. They can't handle it. So they're just trying to you know, shut it down, which obviously, we've all been there, right. We've all done that. Whether you have kids or not. That's
Speaker 2 10:42
exactly right. But he has also fought sometimes that happened because the parent may be feeling overwhelmed, right. Maybe the parent has the ability to do what I just outlined, but they're overwhelmed so they just shut the kid down. Yeah, yeah. In many cases, it is that emotionally undeveloped, depending on your well being can be emotionally undeveloped. You and you're going to see more and more of that as we move forward into the next generation. Because we're looking at people I've watched them the other day, I'm so amazed. There were these two girls, they probably in their early 20s. They're out for breakfast, and they're just sitting there on their phones like this. And it's like you sitting across from each other and so you're gonna see a lot more when it comes to women also dealing with being emotionally undeveloped. But if we have that, then therefore we don't know we're gonna get frustrated by a kid being frustrated. And then it's just going to be all about shutting somebody down that inwardly focused.
Speaker 1 11:48
Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. So, you have these guys who are going through recovery journey, they're doing the inner child work, they're getting to the root of the issue, experiencing freedom, and then there's the relationship dysfunction and the language that you use off air was that men who are in this process need to be able to help their wives heal as well. What What exactly does this look like for you? And I'm wondering if you can give us maybe some of your principles or rules for how men should be engaging with their significant other while they're recovering as well.
Speaker 2 12:20
Right? Absolutely. This is becoming well it's been it's always been a big problem. You know, barber, Stephen came up with you know, the whole concept and idea with the betrayal trauma models, you know, the years ago and perfect it makes perfect sense. Yeah. Versus before where we used to look at the, you know, the betrayed partner as no codependent which is, you know, totally false. Although there are a few, there are a few there vample out there that they are codependent and we see them kind of rush back into the relationship without getting the security that they need, but they are a very small minority. Of here it is that idea. That comes the idea of came the idea that you know what we do everything that they need. They don't want to say we were talking about the betrayer everything they need to make them feel safe for as long as they need it. Well, what happens when we're going into year four, year seven, year 10. They're not healing at all. And now let me make this very clear. I am talking about the guys who have done the recovery work. Yeah, yeah, for a lot less in their recovery work. Right. They're not acting out any longer, and they're moving along. They're not setting deep women back. But we've seen that before too, right? Somebody they do it for six months. Boom act out book f1. The wife could back to zero ground zero. Right? She's not stay with you where you are back here. And I've seen re traumatize women over and over again because the guy can't get it right. We're not talking about them. We're talking about the guy who does it. He has a plan. He knows what he needs to do. He takes really good care of themselves from a self care perspective. And he's very focused on if recovery. He looked for those warning signs and he's doing wonderful, and she's not healing at all. Okay. What do you do in those circumstances? They're okay with that. So good. Now the guy is constantly, you know, happening well, for me, and I believe this is where we're starting. To move with other with other therapists too. We have to start looking at okay, what are other aspects here that we need to get the couple to look at? And I think one of the biggest ones is the attachment style. Because we all have different attachment styles and we bring them into the relationship. Most of us don't even know what they are. All we know is affected they because they're different, that we trigger each other. Often. We need to understand what those are. So therefore what we can be doing especially for the betrayed partner man to realize, okay, you know what? I set off her attachment style. Have her little girl hurt and upset. And now for him to be more empathetic with her in that circumstance, but that's one example of things of what we have to look for. As we move through this.
Speaker 1 16:01
Yeah, it makes it makes a lot of sense and the attachment style, something I've been really big on I would say the last probably 1218 months, because I think it's it's so clear that when people move towards secure attachment, a lot of things start to fall into place for them. What are other things that you know, like when when a guy is I guess what I'm wondering is in conjunction with a guy's own recovery, should he just be focused on recovery and and then after he's kind of gained some traction, then he starts to kind of invest more in the relationship. Is there a duality here or is it kind of one step at a time?
Speaker 2 16:39
Used to be that was that was the sort of the the treatment plan. It was like, are we gonna take him over a year? Let him work on himself. Take her over here let her work on herself. And there was nothing that was being done for the couple themselves now again, okay. Because you know, if you had this is a this is your nothing black and white here. Yeah, here's nothing, you know, that this is where this is. This is a grade you can get. And every single case is different. Even though they're very similar. They're all different because people bring their own baggage in from their past and stuff. So therefore, when we look at this, the one thing you have to be very cautious about is beginning that couples work too soon. Right? Because what is the point of B of A couple, but if you look at traditional couples therapy, it is about reconnection. It's about learning how can we look look at what the issues are? And how can we navigate them together and then reconcile. Alright, beginning of the relationship we are not looking to reconcile here, and that's been done that people have tried to do that. And it has caused even more harm harm to those who betrayed and they've even shamed the people like oh, you know what you're both to forgive you need to forgive and just the actual evil, okay, so therefore, what we want to be doing okay, is to make sure that before the couple of work begin, or whatever coupled work is being done. It's not being done to the woman need done we're not doing this to bring you guys together. What we're doing is we're bringing together bring you together one, help educate you about problematic sexual behaviors, to to give you a better understanding of what he doing, to make himself you know, to a place where he feels sober, and three, three, also, so we can talk about how you guys are handling some of the issues right now. And especially how are you dealing with your grieving and how is he managing that with you, if he being helpful in making it worse, and then giving them pointers on how do we do this? In a way that is as healthy as it can be? Understanding that you don't want you can sit there and you can tell somebody who has trauma, like all right, well, we have one we really need to turn it off at 10 o'clock at night. Try to turn it all. She may she may turn it off. Three out of four times. Yeah. Okay. But that four times she can't turn it off. And he has to then be again empathetic. Understand that okay, she's having a very, very bad day, night. So therefore let go, let's let's talk about it. Let's let's do this. Yeah, then afterward we debrief in the counselor's office. Why was it so much struggle to turn it off that day?
Speaker 1 20:18
Okay. What can I do if, I mean, we've kind of presumed that the wife I guess, would be open, you know, or would at least be willing to, you know, sit down with a counselor or explore some couples work? What do you do in the event where that's not the case? You know, where the wife is basically saying, You're the one with the problem. So I'm gonna let you do your thing over there. Let me know when you got this sorted, or, you know, we've had some guys this is gonna be very extreme. But, you know, we've had a client where maybe actually he started he was talking about porn, but she's actually done a bunch of, you know, misbehavior, like whether it's affairs or something else, and he's going to do his thing and he's getting healed, but she's ultimately, you know, not repentant, not really feeling bad about what she's done. What What's the course of action in a situation like that?
Speaker 2 21:09
Well, one, you can't, can't lead a horse to water. Right? But you're saying and you can't, if she doesn't want to do the work? What do you what's your first scenario first, you know, or not? Yeah, I've seen it. You know, this isn't my problem. I don't want to be here. I shouldn't be here. That did me. I haven't done anything wrong. Yes, right. You haven't done anything wrong. What you're not here because you did anything wrong. You're here because somebody hurt you really bad. Is a major betrayal that you've had in your life, and you need to be able to process it. And this is going to help you because if you don't go through this and do it, then you are going to be stuck. Here we stopped here. So I mean, that's up to the cow for the heartbeat can deliver that message. I mean, you can deliver it but it's gonna go over like a lead balloon. However, again, I think at times, you know, again, I've I tell my guys you have boundaries also. I know I can do all the betrayal. You know, advocates out there right now. Ring Eddie Capparucci snack. No, they also have I'm sorry, your what is the bottom line here? The bottom line is ones die, get sober. They learn that technique, the tools that they need to be able to manage their addictive behaviors, and three that we reconcile. Okay, because at the end, we add in the fact that she heals, right and the way she heals it that he makes up your fate. Well, if he gets over, and he usually just cool, and he's remorseful for what he done. That should lead her ultimately to feel safe. Yeah, right. That's what it should be. If that doesn't happen, and what are we doing here then? Three 510 30 years later, I just mean it. What are we doing? This is both to be about now coming back. Together. Michelle? May have were amazing book deep betrayal bind. Right read it recently. And she actually outlined some of the reasons why the betrayed partner remained stuck. And I'm not going to go through those right now. I would just tell people to go and look at it and get it but they do. They do stay stuck. And the reason they do are all subconscious and they're based on fear. You're that if I let him get too close again, he can act out. Well guess what? The only way you get to do that is to process through that. This is where guys then after say hey look you know what? I've done what I need to do. I'm here for you. I want to be able to help you. But okay, we're not playing this. We're not going back and forth anymore here. I'm not you know, going to answer the question for the 1,000th time. Yeah, yes is not different. Yep. You need to be able to go and sit with someone to profit. You want me to go with you? I will go with you. I will do that with you. Okay, I will do whatever I can to bring you back to where you were. Because you've lost yourself. And I'm sorry, it is my fault. Yeah. For us to just continue this back and forth is ugly. KENNETH match. Can't do this any longer. Yeah, I'd get to put up those boundaries. The other thing you have it oh my god, you do not ask for a timeout. You take a Timeout. Timeout. I need a break. I cannot continue because if I do, I'm going to start butting heads with you. And I'm not going to do that with you anymore. I'm going to fight with you because you don't deserve for me to fight with you. I'm taking a break and then you say the most important words. I will be back. Sir. Hey, make sure you get your button back there within 1020 minutes. You go back and see and if she's still escalated, you're going to try to stay there for a little while. And then if not, if they go, Well, we're going to continue today could be helpful. Let's pick it up again tomorrow. And again you go back tomorrow.
Speaker 1 25:45
That's so good. And I learned that importance of coming back the hard way because I knew that it was okay to set a boundary at that point. I knew but yes, the coming back is so critical. Let me switch gears a little bit. You touched on something earlier you talked about the 220 year olds sitting at a table in a restaurant. They're on their phones and the ripples that's gonna have down the road. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I mean, someone like me, I kind of grew up one foot. You know, the first 10 years was basically pre technology. I guess it was early internet days and maybe we had a personal computer but to play Minesweeper and Solitaire, that was pretty much it. So I at least have like a bit of a recollection of that world pre internet but a lot of our listeners that are younger wouldn't and there's people granted Who are you know, older than me who would have a little bit more of a balance between these two pre tech and and you know, the emerging technology world that we're in right now. What do you think are the implications on firstly an emotional level like the kind of emotional development part? And then secondly, kind of a relational social level like what do you think are the implications if we will as we continue down this path of technological development and advancement
Speaker 2 26:56
from the from the emotional standpoint first, and we discussed, a lot of that needs to be done in the early stages of childhood development with our parents. But then again, how do we take what we've learned and fine tune it? How do we become more efficient in being able to identify our motion, share them and have people share their with us without becoming over anxious, right? Well, we practice to practice you go out and you talk to people. Talk to people, I mean, face to face, talking to your work. That's what we're trying to say although you could do it through this you can do to zoom. I'm still face to face with you in that aspect. The problem we're seeing right now, and again, it's been happening for the last 20 years. Is that you know, the youth today, they're not having a lot of face to face conversation. Okay, they're sitting around, I get sad on their phone. I remember I passed another one down on Main Street, or there were the parents. I get through a couple families that were visiting and vacationing and there had to be six, seven kids in there outside of ice cream door. And again, most of them are on their phones. You know, and it's like nobody's having. So imagine if they didn't have their phone with them, talking to each other, which is what we need. We need that practice we need and more so than even practice. We need to feel comfortable doing it. So what you're going to see and we're already seeing is now relationships. When people start to develop them that your younger people they're never going to go fully deep. Because you have the little barriers that are only going to be sitting there to prevent that. I grew up in an age when one we had you had a phone that didn't even have a voice you know machine Okay, an answering machine. When we first started and we got it but it wasn't there so therefore you call somebody if they didn't answer the phone. No, you just hung up and you have to We do that all right, don't email we had with US Mail, snail mail. So we we talk parents and then when we played outside during the summer, parents are sitting out on their front steps to their homes and they would go just shout over to somebody or they walk over there. And they're just conversation and we're constantly being had that is gone today. We don't even know our neighbors. I will confess myself. You know, I've been living here for three years now. I know John across the street. I don't know it well, it takes a while to get to somebody. I don't know these people. Yeah, it's sad that we're in that society but what when Alex let's go to next step. Yeah. What happens when we don't make real emotional connections? What happens if we have a void that happens is that we have a hunger, desire for that. What we're going to do, if we're going to replace that we're gonna fill that void with something else. Yeah. And you watch you, you, you young guys. I told you that before. Right? It is right now we're at an epidemic when it comes to deep addictions are heading for a tsunami. And you guys, you're gonna be overwhelmed. So therefore you make sure like I do right now. Anybody who's thinking of going into the field of, you know, counseling, coaching psychology, go to addiction, go through addiction, go to addiction, because you guys are gonna need it. I read a five calls a day for people who want to come in to work. And you know what? We think about it, a lot more people who are struggling, who aren't picking up the phone then there are the people who are picking up the phone right now. That's a small percentage of people who are asking for help, and it's just gonna keep getting worse. And that's why it's so important for parents to be able to eliminate screen time, and I'm not gonna budget phones but video games. I'm talking about television, coming about your laptop. What all of it limited. Greatly put a book in their hands. But more importantly, put your face in front of their face. Yeah, they board games. Yeah, I remember I get a retreat. I spoke at a men's retreat about I guess six years ago. And my son actually attended. It was like 19 and he was there and I was talking about it. I was talking about this subject. And I and I brought up the thing about board games. And I remember and I remember a few times, when you know, Dakota would come to me and say, Dad, what play board game. I'm like, son, you know what, just to give you a dance or if you can't, and I sat there and I said you know what, I do anything for that board game. It got me really really choked up. That Christmas. He bought three board games. We've been bought and we still play them we'll get together. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah, but you know you the time that you have with them is limited. Yeah, need to make the most and yes, I know life is busy. I know you have your own pressures. I know you may only have your own, you know issues. That you're dealing with. What you know what don't make them wind up. Don't let the generational curse continue. So when we were to break it, yeah, and I we came from you're really bad backgrounds. That we have almost identical stories. It's incredible. We decided when we got married, that we are not going to bring this into our relationship. And we're definitely not going to push this on our kids. We did a read perfect parents know but there are no perfect parents. But what we were very, very conscious to make sure that we were engaged with them, that we were communicating with them. You're teaching them how to be emotional beings,
Speaker 1 33:50
though, man. It's so good. It's so good and so necessary. I remember hearing some stats on Gen Z recently. One One survey showed that they are not getting married as much. They're they're less interested in getting married. They're not happening. And they're obviously they're a bit young, so there's not full data on that. Yet until they kind of enter their 30s. But the general overview of marriage from their perspective is not interested. And so you think oh, well, that must be because you know, maybe they're sleeping around a bit more. They don't want the long term committed relationships. Gen Z is actually less promiscuous than Millennials by a lot. And so you start to hear you start to hear the little pieces of data and you can kind of put two and two together that like between pornography, social media, like that's where they're going to get some of these needs met. And I think what you're alluding to like that epidemic that's on the rise here. It is so true. And I do agree that we've really only just seen the tip of the iceberg here. You've talked about from a parenting perspective, which obviously for me, unlike soaking in every word you say, man, it's so helpful for me as I get ready to become a father myself, and I really appreciate it. What about the adults so maybe somebody who's listening who is saying, You know what? Eddie, I am escaping with my phone and with social media and short pornography is in the mix. But I know that there's a whole slew of things that I'm doing right now that are stopping me from really building deep relationships and cultivating more emotional connection. What are some little practical things that guys can be doing to at least get the ball rolling? We all know they need to do the inner child work, they got to get to the root of the issue. You have to really like tackle the addictive elements here, but are there is there some low hanging fruit that people can do to get started?
Speaker 2 35:35
One really great practical thing to do? Be still no, no and no one sitting here on your phone doing that. That's not being still. Okay, that is not being when I'm talking about being still. I'm talking about you're gonna go back to the day of our grandparent, maybe a great grandpa used to sit out on the porch in a rocking chair and just sit and that frightens us why because it argues xiety increases. B because we feel we need to be engaged somehow. So therefore, for me, I believe meditation is one of the most valuable thing we can do if you want to let your listeners if you want to have them send me an email at [email protected] I will be happy to send them a link to a site that had meditation music and what they need to do every day. I'm playing the dishes every day and I'll tell you why. For start with five minutes, maybe go to 10 and usually eat about 10 minutes today, just to be able to sit, you're listening to the music and now you're probably saying wait a second, but I'm listening to the music or Am I distracting? No, because one if the music is bilateral music if we played in both and it alternates between the ears. It gives you a sense to focus on what's going on and then as you bought come into your head, you go back to the music and what you're focusing on no word. You're focusing on the movement of the music and just being still so why is that important? Because when you go and you grabbed your phone all the time you sit in front of your iPad you sit in front of the TV again, it because of anxiety. We want to do something if I practice that medication if I practice the art being still when I go to grab the phone again, compulsive compulsive, I found nobody called me. Yeah, I think I need to see right now. Right. Let it go and go back to where I can sit still. Gee, we're learning to train ourselves to not be as anxious. But again, go back to the idea now moving somewhere else. Sorry. They weren't me. I'm going from the idea that anxiety leads to complete more compulsiveness. Yeah, increased compulsiveness bad decision making. All right, that the problem got weird. So where do you start to correct that problem? You start by taking your anxiety and learning how to manage it. Just like we learning how to manage the addiction. We learn to manage your anxiety. And guess what? That's the bad decision making the addiction or anything grabbing my phone and then on my phone while they're all the people around me. That decision, anxiety people don't understand in this, you know, field. How critical we the the concept of anxiety is in the midst of everything going on. Yeah, yeah. To lower the anxiety. Yes, all of us do that. And we're gonna take care of a host of problems.
Speaker 1 39:39
Man, I think you're right i Last year, I only read one book pretty much exclusively and it was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey. And he had this great statement somewhere somewhere in the middle of the book. He basically said, emotional regulation is essentially increasing the gap between stimulus and response. And I think what's happened with technology is we have basically minimized in some cases, eliminated that gap, right? You have a thought and boom, you can Google it, or you can access it from your phone. And what you're talking about is so significant. I haven't actually really shared this much with the audience yet but meditation is something that I really felt God pushing on my heart in the last couple of months to get into because deep clean has grown a lot. The podcast has grown a ton and just trying to keep up with it has been a lot for me. It's been a lot of stress. And I am I am just early stages of seeing the value of meditating. For me, I think it's I think I do two five minutes sessions a day right now something like that. It's very small. But it really does make a huge difference because actually, if I don't if I don't consciously set those times aside, to be still to be more parasympathetic, and to really relax. It just won't happen. Like life is just it's busy enough, right? Like there's enough demand. So I really want to echo what you just said. I think that's so significant. I had no idea that's where you're going to kind of land with all that. So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 41:07
We are stasis balance that we need in our life and very few of us have it. Yeah, way out of whack. Yeah, you bring it so therefore again, that little bit like you said, you do five minutes twice a day. That's okay, that's enough. That's all you need. Because when you start to feel the anxiety where I at any given time, you know, you can go back to this place where I can settle myself and I can lower that anxiety level. I am convinced I am beyond convinced that the anxiety is the biggest problem we're facing when it comes to any addiction. Yeah, we need to tackle that and we need to address it right away. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1 42:00
really good. So I promised I was going to ask you really, really quick here. top piece of advice for fatherhood entering this new stage of life what what do you got for me?
Speaker 2 42:12
Well, I'm gonna share with you. Now well, I'll share with you the one that you know I did like to to, to am feeding was you know, a precious, I made it a precious time for me, the time where I would sing to my child. Like I'm sure he will have a wonderful voice so I don't know how he got that. He actually does perform. And I would I would talk to him. Now talking about the dream that I had for him and what I was hoping to see all of that it was just it was a precious time. You the thing that I would really focus on when it comes to you know being a dad is look for teaching moments. So therefore, he or she does something that you know, again wrong or annoying to you or whatever it is instead of again, getting in their face, scolding, sending them off. instead. Let's sit Let's talk. Let me share with you what's going on here and why I see this as a problem. Again, look for those teaching moments that are very, very valuable. And we missed those. And you know, and we call in the week and we miss them because our anxiety is too high. And we just can't deal with it at the moment where we think you can't deal with let the moment we can deal with it. Right but that anxiety wants to get out of whack. You know and it doesn't take a whole lot. Balance gets lost very quickly. So anyway, that's what I will be
Speaker 1 44:04
telling you super helpful. Edie always appreciate you man. I learned so much. took lots of notes here today. We will put links to all your resources, you have a bunch and we'll put your email in there if you don't mind if you're still okay with that for people who do want to access the meditation music. That is fantastic. Thank you. Thanks for all the work you're doing and like I said, you have some really cool resources coming out. So we'll have you back again in a few months.
Speaker 2 44:30
A lot of stuff is coming up. There's no doubt about it. And also like to give a chapter away of the book. How men why men struggle to love. Oh, sure. Yeah, send me their email. I will send him a free chapter of that book too.
Speaker 1 44:44
Okay, fantastic. Yep. So we'll we'll make sure that email is definitely in the show notes. In the meantime, God bless you, man, and we're cheering you on. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
