#122 Attaching Pain to Our Problems

Rachel Denning (00:01.038)
Hey my friends, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast where we are dedicated and committed to a family focused, extraordinary life where we're real strategists. I always try to share things that really help, not kind of fluffy stuff, not kind of dreamy, hope this works out kind of stuff, not theories.

but like things that actually work that I'm trying and experimenting with and sharing with people all over the world and have gleaned from over 24 years of devouring, you know, personal development and from psychology and health and fitness to family relationships all across the board and around the world. So man, this stuff matters so, so much. All right, so today I want to start with a story that happened 10 years ago.

Ten years ago, my wife and I took our, we had four children at the time, and we had the opportunity to go to southern India and work with an organization who was helping people who had been affected by leprosy. It was an absolutely wonderful experience. And India, India is such an incredible place, so different from the United States in so many ways, and it was just so fun to see the contrast.

to meet the wonderful people who were working there and the volunteers and the wonderful people in the villages and then in the little areas, the people who had been affected by leprosy. And on a few occasions, I had the privilege to go with the doctor to visit the, I guess the little colonies, you could call them, where the people who had been affected by leprosy were living. And it was interesting.

to learn about the effects of leprosy and from the medical aspect and how it affects their lives. And one of the most fascinating things is that once the leprosy, it would start as dry leprosy and then move to wet leprosy. And once it got wet, once it got bad, then it would cause nerve damage, particularly in the hands and the feet. And I remember on one occasion going with the doctor to visit a man who had already lost one leg.

Rachel Denning (02:21.582)
And we went to visit him and he had an infection in his good leg. And the doctor examined it and realized that the infection had gotten so bad it had gotten into the bone. And I was standing there as the doctor had to tell this man and his wife that his good leg now needed to be amputated. And it was gut wrenching.

Oh, so sad. But what had happened is he had lost feeling in his feet. That's one of the side effects. And so you lose nerve damage, but think about that. You're like, okay, all right, you lose feeling, no big deal. The problem is that if you step on a nail or step on a thorn or get any kind of cut or scrape or a bug bite,

You can't feel it. And so then, you know, if you get a scrape on there and it gets, starts getting infected, you get some dirt in it and then a fly comes along and plants a larva in it or, you know, some other bug gets in there and cause an infection. You don't know cause you can't feel it. And so then it, it gets so bad, right? Things just get, they go from bad to worse because the infection spreads, the problem spread and the whole area just starts to die.

all because we can't feel the pain. Now I want to bring that back to us, to you and to me and to the power of pain. So think about a time that you were, and maybe multiple times where you're just like, okay, that's it. I'm changing. You were, you were just like, you're just set on, on changing something in your life, right? Whether it was.

uh, health or fitness or your finances or a relationship or your lifestyle or a bad habit or negative thinking pattern, just something you want to change. You're like, yes, I'm changing. And you went for it for a little while and then it wore off and ultimately you didn't make the change. Right. Think about that. And most of the people I talk to, like that's happened many times, right? That's, that's, that is a pretty common experience. It's happened to me as well where I'm just like, okay, I'm, I'm done. I'm changing this.

Rachel Denning (04:48.462)
Work on it for a little bit and then I don't change. Now contrast that with a time when you did change. You're like, okay, enough is enough. I am changing. And you did like for good, for good. And I have literally seen men and women go cold turkey and quit smoking or alcohol or porn or, you know, just devastating.

personal habits or relationship habits or even business habits, they just stop done never again. So what's the difference? What's the difference between these times where we say we're going to do something, but then we don't really. And the times we say we're going to do something and we actually do very often, the thing that creates real long lasting change is pain. It's feeling the pain.

at such a level that where we're just like, okay, enough is enough. This hurts so badly. Like I just have to stop. Never again am I going to allow this to happen in my life. Right. And that can be from having a temper or being dishonest or feeling trapped, uh, you know, bound by, by something in your life or someone in your life.

And you just get to a point you say, okay, enough. It's when you've had enough and you're just like, I'm done with this. Never again. And it's interesting that pain is often the most powerful thing in our lives where there, and I love to say that you've heard me say this, where there's pain, there's power. But here's where we get ourselves into a bit of trouble and we almost kind of self -sabotage with this. And it seems so ironic that

avoiding pain can actually be a form of self -sabotage. So back to comparing and a comparison with the effects of leprosy, if we remove the pain or numb the pain, we can often do ourselves so much damage. And the same is true in our lives where if we're constantly avoiding the pain that comes from

Rachel Denning (07:13.294)
negative choices, negative experiences, it starts to soften. And this is what we're going to get into. It starts to soften the effect, right? This is where, man, this is where we get in big trouble with parenting. If, if as parents, we are enablers and we try to soften the consequences of our children's behaviors. You with me on this one? Like, and I see this all the time in parenting where

Oh, the parents, oh, I just feel so bad. Yeah, they made a bad choice. I'm just going to, you know, whether it's bailing them out of jail or taking the consequence yourself, or they break something and you just pay for it. They do something really stupid and you take care of it and you apologize for them. You do everything for them, right? You're softening the pain that is a natural consequence decision. And so what happens is we often see these youth just continue to repeat those things. And, and why not? Right? Why not?

blow their money. Why not make just ridiculous decisions? Why not break the law? Because my parents will just bail me out. Right. And so because we take away the pain of the consequences is a natural and actually really good thing. We lose it, but we do the same things to ourselves when we don't allow ourselves to feel the real pain of poor choices. Excuse me. Is this sinking in?

Like this, this is such a powerful principle because we become in a way like, like someone who's been affected by leprosy who can't feel what they're walking on. And so they can step on anything cause they don't feel it. And you know, but, but they don't, they don't realize what's happening. And often it turns into much, much worse consequences. And I want you to keep that imagery in your mind. As you think about, as we talk about this for a minute here, and as you go through your life saying, wait a minute,

Where have I been avoiding the pain of my own poor choices? How have I been softening that? And as we soften it, right? We, because I, like my invitation to you and to me is that we attach pain intentionally. Now this isn't, this isn't like to get depressed. So please, please don't misunderstand me. This is not to induce depression. It is not to.

Rachel Denning (09:38.637)
beat yourself up. That's a very different thing, right? It's not, you know, self loathing. It's not, you know, it's, it's not this really negative, ugly, I hate myself thing. It's not that. So I don't want this to be confused. And it's, it's, this is a fine line here, because I do want to invite you to feel the full weight and pain of poor choices.

and not try to soften the pain and not try to avoid it and not try to assuage it in yourself or others. The pork, you get what I'm saying? I want to be, make sure I'm totally understood here. The pain, like if you set your hand on a hot stove, what causes you to pull it away? What's the pain? You just touch something hot and you immediately just jerk back and wow, man, I'm never touching that again. But if.

If your hand is numb, so to speak, or you had some kind of way to just numb it, then you just set your hand there and be like, Oh, it's not that big of a deal. You know, whatever. Yeah, it'll be all right. But you literally are scarring yourself and burning yourself and, and open yourself up to infection and other problems. Are you with me? I'm trying to illustrate this so many ways possible that the pain is a good thing. Like the poor choice of, you know, setting your hand on the stove. It's like, don't do that.

and there should be a painful reaction and then neuro connection where we say, Whoa, I don't want to ever do that again. I'm done. But if we numb it, right, we numb it, then then we can just keep repeating. So here's what's interesting. We have slipped into this as, as individuals and as a society, we've slipped into this state right now. You know, it's the last.

I think it's particularly in the last couple of decades, it's getting worse and worse. We've slipped into this space of pushing softeners. It's like, I was like, we're drug pushers, man. We're pushing softeners. And there's these subtle messages going out to individuals and families and the social pressure to put it on each other as well so that we all feel like,

Rachel Denning (11:59.533)
We have to use softeners, right? And society has become really good at using softeners and making others feel like they have to use them as well. Right. They're really guilt trip people. Um, so the rest of us use them so that we don't ever make ourselves feel bad or other people feel bad. You with me? And, and again, this is a fine line. It's a subtle distinction here. I'm not talking about being

rude. I'm not talking about being mean, but I'm also saying don't go so far that we don't ever speak the truth and we don't see things as they are. You see, there's, there's a, there's an unbelievable key to success about being absolutely honest, the seeing things as they really are, not seeing them as worse than they are, but not seeing them as better than they are either. And I'll give you some examples here. I want to hit these. So this is a big problem.

And one of the elements is we're teaching and spreading the idea of victimism. Like we don't, in order to not like make people feel bad or make ourselves feel bad, we're actually skirting off accountability and responsibility and ownership, right? We're often say things to ourselves or to others, you know, our immediate kind of social responses, you know, it's not your fault. Oh, it's this, it's that, it's the other.

We want to blame all these different things for whatever the circumstances and we want to just scoot accountability and responsibility ownership away to something or someone else. Right. Um, we also want to, um, say that, um, well, again, this is such an interesting, this element of it is a little bit complicated where that another person, you know, can make us feel something. Right. Um,

that that's being taught big time that, you know, other people can make you feel inferior. Other people can make you angry. Other people can make you sad. That message is being spread far and wide. It's just not true. Nobody else can control your feelings. Only you can control your feelings, right? You're 100 % in charge of your thoughts and feelings. Nobody else can take you away, take that away from you, right? Nobody else can take that away from you. And there's,

Rachel Denning (14:25.965)
amazing examples of that from man's search for meaning and and there was light and unbroken all these World War two ones where they're in concentration camps or prison camps where even in the worst conditions they're just like nope we're gonna choose right we're gonna choose and William James talked to the great psychologist so that's being taught in society and so we're all walking around like don't say anything don't do anything you know other people control your stuff so the message is

don't ever say or do anything that would make people feel bad. And we're like, okay, I get it. Like what you're trying to say is don't be mean, don't be rude, don't be racist or prejudice or, or small -minded or bigoted or, you know, don't, don't attack. But what we've swung the pendulum too far to where like now we're, we're not even, you know, addressing real issues and real problems.

something else that's going on is that we should live, here's another teaching, that we should live in a world where nothing and no one makes us feel uncomfortable or threatened, right? We keep having this message of we need to be safe, everything needs to be safe, we need to be in a safe space, in a safe environment, and everyone has to feel safe and comfortable. That's just not realistic either. There's times where, you know, when you're interacting in society, like, it's tough stuff, like, there's tough things going on.

And it's just not realistic to teach or promote or talk about having this space where everybody feels safe. You get what I'm saying? And that might come across right now. Some of you might be like, wait a minute, whoa, whoa, what's going on? What are you saying, Greg? And again, it's not that we're going to threaten. It's not going to be rude. It's not that we're going to be not accepting or we're going to be small -minded or narrow or big. You know what I'm saying? Like it's just the real world. And

you have to build up a little fortitude, a little bit of thick skin, a little bit of grit where somebody can speak truth to us. Because if you're in a business meeting or you're an organization and you're trying to move forward, trying to get things done, you can't be sitting there just hyper sensitive about everybody's feelings about what action needs to be taken. Right. And it's just not realistic. And so that kind of philosophy makes us weak and unprepared for life. And interestingly, this is one of the reasons.

Rachel Denning (16:50.669)
for so much failure to launch and why many adults are not behaving as adults. I mean, they haven't picked up their adult card yet because they are just so hypersensitive to anyone and anything that nobody can have an opinion about this, that, or that because I'm too sensitive for you to say those things and I don't feel safe when you have your opinion or something. You know what I'm saying?

I mean, this it's it's way overgrown. So something that's actually a positive thing is get has grown out of proportions. Another element is this false idea that we should never feel pain, or this conditioning we have that we should avoid pain at all costs. Right. And there's there's a lot of people like that, like they do not want any discomfort in their lives, no pain, nothing that their whole life should be just pain free.

And that's not realistic or even healthy either. That's going back to the where, how I started when we remove pain from our lives, we're actually setting ourselves up for major failures. So the big prints, I wanted to give those kinds of examples, how that's kind of spreading through society in a general way. And then we can get into some specifics here, but these softeners are tranquilizers jot that down. The softeners we use are tranquilizers.

They are anesthetics that keep us from improving our own lives. Pain can equal progress. Think about that. The pain that it takes to put in the hard work, whether it's an actual workout where your muscles are burning or you're staying up late or getting up early to get a project done and you're pushing through and you don't feel like it, you're tired, you're exhausted, you're stressed and you push, pain can equal progress. In the moment,

Pain will you progress when you fail think about this you're you're trying to do something you're trying to learn an instrument You're trying to learn a new language. You're trying to learn a new skill set. I'm trying to level up at work You're trying to help your children trying to be a better parent. Oh my goodness. Are you kidding me? Like there is pain in parenting There's pain and parent whether it's toddlers waking you up in the middle of the night

Rachel Denning (19:08.269)
or making demands or being completely unreasonable, which toddlers can do, to teenagers who make poor decisions. And it's painful. But pain can be progress in those situations where you're learning to be more effective. You're learning to be more efficient. The pain of running out of time, of not using your time well, of wasting time. The pain of wasting life.

of moments that pass you by because you procrastinated or you just were distracted or whatever, that pain can be progress as you're moving forward. In fact, pain I think is the greatest motivator toward progress. Most people make significant positive changes in their life because the pain got so bad. But if we are consistently numbing ourselves, we won't change the things that need.

to change. So for example, an easy example, of course, is like the condition of our body, right? And what condition is your body in? And we all get to choose now, like I want to draw a clear distinction here. This is not body shaming. In fact, it's the opposite. It's body love. It's body love. Right, this whole life that we live,

is all about maximizing our potential and living an extraordinary life. And our body is our vehicle for life. And if we don't take care of it, then we're literally limiting our own lives. We're treating our vehicle like it's some trash rental car that we can just destroy and neglect and abuse instead of like the luxury vehicle that it actually is. So it is not.

body shaming to call it out and say it how it is and say, look, you've neglected your body and it's out of shape and overweight. And if you're fat, call it fat.

Rachel Denning (21:21.293)
That's that honest pain point where you just say, you look at yourself and say, you know what? I've let myself get fat. And I'm better than that. I respect myself more than that. And I'm limiting my own life by being fat. Fat is fat. Let's call it fat, right? And if you're fat, you're there. Now, here's what's interesting. Obese is at 30 % body fat.

percentage, right? And if you're above that, which is about 30 pounds, if you're 30 pounds or more overweight, then you're actually by by technical definition, you're actually obese. And, and it, that should hurt. If you look at yourself and say, Dad gum, I'm obese, I'm so fat, that I'm obese, and let the pain of that settle in.

and hit home with force so that the pain drives you to make new decisions. Right? So like I mentioned before, we don't want to wait for tragedy to strike before we change our lifestyle. We don't want to have to wait till we barely survive a heart attack to realize I should start controlling what's going in my mouth. I should start moving my body. We don't have to wait till the pain of some horrible experience or

I don't know. I mean, the thing of all experiences, you can't go on a hike with your family. You can't fit comfortably in a chair on an airplane or a bus. You can't, you know, go to a wedding or an event because you can't fit in your clothes anymore. Like don't wait until it's that before you change. Like let the pain of it just settle in. And so we, we, we assuage it, right? We use these softeners and it's okay. And oh, it's not this and not everyone has to have that body. And

And we make all these excuses and these softeners, right? These tranquilizers, these anesthetics, like we do all these things, but it's just preventing us from making the progress we could. And again, the main reason that any of us gets fat is because we don't control what's going in our mouths. Right? What are some other examples? It's your marriage. Like how's, how's your marriage? Honest, honest. How's your marriage? And if you've been negligent,

Rachel Denning (23:50.669)
If you've been a jerk, if you've been selfless, if you've been mean, egotistical, if you have just almost been forgetful where you're just distracted and you're just focused on something else, like own that stuff and let the pain of it see, not, no, again, I'm going to have to repeat this. See it as it really is, not worse than it is. Don't see it worse than it is.

But don't see it better either. See it as it is. You're like, if my marriage is flat right now, own what you've done and don't blame it on your spouse. Because blaming on other people and other things is a softener. Well, I would accept, you know, he does that or well, she if she would do this, then I would don't don't do that. That's a softener. Own this stuff. Feel it. What kind of parent are you being? What kind of spouse are you being? What is the actual real condition?

of your life. If you have been negligent as a parent or you're calling your kids names, like I saw a lot of that recently, just being mean even to little kids. Oh, it's gut wrenching. And the parents were kind of unaware of it, just would say terrible things to their kids and give them this identity and make them feel wretched.

about themselves for little kid things. Super interesting. That's where this idea can get warped, where we think, oh, I want my kid to feel the pain. And so we start then shaming or verbally abusing or physically abusing because we'll want my kid to feel the pain. Now, let the pain of the natural consequence take its course, right? We don't have to go inflicting pain, right?

But again, how are you doing as a parent? Are you constantly distracted? Are you more interested in yourself? Or you're into your own thing and you don't want to have to deal with it? Be honest. Let it hit. How's your financial condition? Where are you at financially? Feel the pain of that if you need to. No softeners, no tranquilizers, no anesthetics. Let it hit home.

Rachel Denning (26:16.941)
and look at all your relationships, look at your skill set, your knowledge. How's your education? Let the pain of ignorance strike you with incredible force. Let it become a driving catalyst for change and improvement and growth in your life. How about your skill set leveling up? How are you doing at work? How are you doing at mastering your skills? How are you doing at self -improvement? I mean, do you have a clear...

action plan for self improvement and growth? Are like, are you moving? Or have you been just stagnant? How are you doing spiritually? A lot of you are just spiritual cripples or spiritually dead, right? How like let let the pain of that drive you say, yeah, I have not been doing anything for weeks, months or years or decades with my spiritual life. That's unacceptable.

Rachel Denning (27:15.757)
And so then just go through and emotionally, have you been allowing yourself to just emotionally do whatever, just super reactive, right? You scream and yell or you're just all over that you're an emotional roller coaster or you're emotionally just down most of the time, irritated most of the time, angry most of the time, frustrated most of the time, instead of just choosing to be happy and pleasant. Are you hard to be around? I own this stuff and I know...

Some of you, in fact, because I work with you and I know some of you are really struggling with owning the pain of your own behavior, your own responses, your own actions and reactions. And I see and observe or hear from family or friends or colleagues, like the way you treat people and the way you act and the way you explode in your temper, like own that stuff. I had to fully accept all the pain of my temper.

and what that would do to me and to the people around me. And when it got so bad, that's when I made that decision, like, this is horrible, this hurts so bad, I'm never going to have a temper again, no more. I won't. And I did, I changed. I changed. And I don't explode. Right, I had to accept the pain of that and change. What is it, what's your pain point? And more importantly, what are the softeners you've been using?

I want you to own this. And again, it is not for self loathing. It is not for beating yourself up. It is for feeling the hurt of the reality of your situations. For some of you, your marriage is dying and you've been using softeners to avoid that truth. For some of you, you are financially dying and you've been using softeners to avoid it. For some of you, your health is, you are dying fast and you've been using softeners.

And so with, with all the love I have in the encouragement, I want you to feel the pain like Jean Valjean felt after the priest forgave him or the pain that Scrooge felt when the night that the ghost came to visit him and just, they intensified the pain past, present and future. They had to get it so painful that he would change. They had to.

Rachel Denning (29:40.877)
And so it's actually a good thing and a healthy way to attach enough pain to your crap so you change. You with me? Does this make sense? I hope this is making sense and I've been able to express this in an adequate way where it's not misunderstood, right? Where again, we're not loathing, we're not creating the negative energy of I hate myself, I'm a loser, I'm terrible, I'm this. Don't, that's not that, it's not.

I'm a loser. I'm horrible. I can never change. I've always been this way. I'll always be a that's not at all what I'm talking about. It's like this honest like I am fat and I am fat because I don't control what goes in my mouth and I don't move enough. I'm done. That's it. I'm done. I will only put healthy foods in my mouth and I will move five times a week. Right. That's what I'm talking about where it's a

It's a positive pain, so to speak, but that's the nature of pain is it's painful. Nobody likes it. And if you're going to feel pain, like this isn't going to be pleasant. And maybe for some of you, this podcast hasn't been pleasant this episode, right? You're just like, Oh geez. Right. It's not pleasant. That's the point. So let us, let us sink in. Let it hit you hard.

change and please remove the softeners. Remove them for yourself, remove them in our interactions with others. Don't perpetuate this idea that we should sugarcoat everything and we can't just speak truth. Again, I'm repeating myself because I want to drive this home. I'm not endorsing being mean or rude or prejudice or bigoted or anything like that. I'm just saying let's speak the honest truth because the truth will set us free.

The truth will set us free, but many times that truth leads to real pain first. And then our freedom and our progress is on the other side of that pain. Oh yeah. Love you guys. Let's feel the pain, the full weight of the pain for our poor decisions. And let's use that as power to totally transform our lives because awesome is always an option. Reach upward.