#165 Exposing Your Kids to the Dark Side -- WHY and HOW

Rachel Denning (00:10.926)
Welcome back to this episode where we will be discussing a sensitive and sometimes frightening topic to many parents. And that's why and how to appropriately expose your children to the darkness.

in order to help them be stronger and more prepared to face and fight evil and malice in the world. Now this might seem crazy or like I said terrifying but listen to this episode to understand what we mean by this and why this is so important because malice and evil do exist in the world just in case you're wondering or are like I used to be when I naively thought there were no quote bad people in the world or the bad things don't happen to me and my family. Greg and I will share some personal

experiences of how we've encountered malice and evil. We'll also touch on the law of attraction and expectation which we believe in and how that works into our encounters with evil in the world and why allowing your children to choose the music and movies they listen to or watch can be a helpful place to start discussions that should be taking place regularly if you want to help your kids to develop resilience in this important area.

This episode is sponsored by Mr. Denning's Habits for a Successful Life live online class for teenagers. Greg and I studied personal development for over 20 years and we looked for a class that would teach our teenagers something more important than academics. Namely, we wanted them to practice self leadership and to manage their mind and emotions and to develop habits in order to create a happy and fulfilled life. And when we could not find what we were looking for, we decided to create it ourselves.

absolutely love this class of Mr. Dannings and all of his stories from his travels to 48 countries. The most recent five -star review which was left this week by a teenager says, this class was amazing. It has helped me to get a new perspective and motivated me to shape my life into how I want it to turn out. I loved every minute of it and I wholeheartedly recommend others try it as well. So if you have teenagers or know someone who does, please share this class with them.

Rachel Denning (02:21.326)
go to worldschoolacademy .com or externaryfamilylife .com.

Rachel Denning (02:31.438)
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Rachel and I are in our recording studio, which also happens to be our van. Our adventure van. Our adventure van. That's what it is today because it's quieter out here with all the kids inside. And we have been sitting here now for 90 minutes talking about what to talk about, what to talk about and how to present it because I think...

And we love to do this actually, this is one of our favorite things. But ideas are complex and life is rarely black and white. It can be so challenging to wrap your head around a principle or a philosophy or a practice and then draw a line. Some things are pretty clear -cut and you're like, yeah, I can draw a line here.

And other times you draw the line, but then somebody or something pops up or offers a counter idea or there's a situation or circumstance and you're like, okay, yeah, that's an exception. And it gets, it gets challenging. Well, and I think it's especially challenging with this subject today because we're talking about something that is very complex and it's so complex.

that in many ways I think is avoided in general by parents. Agreed. Because we don't know how to address this. We don't know how to implement this into our family life. And some of us believe, and I know we used to believe this, at least I used to believe this, that we don't need to implement this. That ignoring this aspect of life is the best strategy to dealing with it.

which is kind of this subtle hope that you never have to actually deal with. Exactly. I think that's, I think that's a key component there. Sometimes we don't face and address things. We just hope the need never arises. Exactly. And that's, I hope, I hope it never rises. I hope it never rises for me. I hope it never rises for you. But the fact of the matter is if it does,

Rachel Denning (04:52.078)
and you're not prepared because you have you had this avoidance hope strategy which isn't a strategy hope is not a strategy then you can end up in a real dark problem in a dark situation that might

have irreparable damage and that's why I feel drawn to talk about it today. And I mean we decided kind of to talk about it because you went to a Krav Maga class this morning where your instructor who is... So this this happens all the time. He's a ninth degree black belt awesome guy. The two guys that you train with, there's four of us and they one's a retired SWAT and the other one's active SWAT and

They always have stories. Every time I go, they have stories about usually about victims. And it's interesting that it's the decision making process and usually it was poor decisions, not understanding, not knowing, not knowing what to do, lack of awareness. Some kind of poor decision led to a very big problem. And it came up today again.

where there was a real tragic story. This is a story that's in the news and we had heard about it before because I actually have a family member who's attending the college where this girl was attending.

It was and she was abducted and so your SWAT instructor not your sponsor your Krav instructor was discussing this today I haven't heard anything. I didn't you know I rarely check and we didn't even know it was the same yeah We had no idea the same connection till right now. We're sitting out here talking like wait a minute And we made the connection, but he was like yeah, it started with an online meetup

Rachel Denning (06:53.358)
And he was kind of just going off because again, he's in this world. He teaches defense classes to women specifically. He's constantly working with...

young adult women and training them, teaching them. He was just, you know, obviously feeling for this, for this young woman and the frustration there of like, Hey, this kind of stuff can be prevented. Right. If you're, if there's awareness and training. Well, and I guess I'm just going to give a quick recap of it was a college student. She had arranged to meet up with a guy that she didn't know, but had met online and some, I don't know, dating website or app.

and had arranged for him to pick her up. And he ended up abducting her and taking her for maybe a week, but kept her locked in his basement where he raped her repeatedly and she was found naked. In the basement covered in coal. Yeah. Anyways, just a terrible, traumatic thing. Very sad, very disturbing. And ironically, this beautiful quiet little

small town where we think those things don't happen right and and again we we all want to have

good, safe, comfortable, secure lives. And we want to live in places where it's predominantly safe. And it is for the most part for most of us. Those kind of things usually don't happen in our neighborhoods. What's interesting though is those kind of things, terrible things are happening all the time. And there are victims every single day. And we don't hear about them all the time. And honestly, we don't want to hear about them all the time. That's pretty depressing.

Rachel Denning (08:45.008)
I don't even watch the news because it's so negative, but we have to have this and this is why this this topic is difficult Really we and this way I feel strongly and this is why Rachel and I've been sitting here talking about like how do we present this? Ultimately, I think we have to we have a moral responsibility to prepare our children for

Possibilities well and by that you mean facing Evil evil. Yep, and malice and darkness knowing that it's there but when age -appropriate and how To introduce them to let them know that it does exist and to prepare them in case they themselves are ever confronted with it or if they're ever physically present when somebody else's which both situations have happened to me where I I

Somebody was attacking me or I was present and saw as a bystander when somebody else was being robbed or assaulted or whatever.

I hope it, again, I hope it never happens. I genuinely, I mean that. I hope it never happens. But if it does, I would much rather be prepared myself and have my children be prepared so we aren't helpless victims. And part of what we were discussing and the message that we want to share is that one of the first steps to preparing yourself and to preparing your children is...

to not ignore it, to not completely shut it out of your life, to not talk about it, to not see it, to not...

Rachel Denning (10:30.061)
just to pretend it's not there. When you do that, here's the irony, because we do it with the best intentions. And I speak from experience because I went through a period of time while we were raising our children where I, one, believed it, that there was no bad people in the world, just misguided people, or just lower energy people. But when we do that with these best intentions, the irony is that we're actually...

weakening ourselves and our children. Because as much as we want to believe, and I do believe, in the goodness of people and the goodness of humanity, the reality is there is evil out there. And this isn't just like a religious term, right? It's a way to describe, it's a psychological term, almost, a way to describe the...

really, really bad things that do happen every single day. And so we have to be aware of that. We have to acknowledge it. And we have to appropriately come face to face with it, I guess. And we wholeheartedly believe, we did before and we do...

even after now having traveled to dozens of countries, I wholeheartedly believe that the vast majority of people in the world are really, really good. I do. It is a tiny percentage of people. And even, even them, some of you might write might right now be thinking, well, it's not that they're just bad. It's just that they know better. They make bad decisions or it's a bad moment. And I can, I can understand all of that and those positions and points. But I think, and here's the danger. If we don't,

at least face it and somehow address it.

Rachel Denning (12:26.669)
We lead ourselves and our families into a form of naivete that is actually extremely dangerous. And that's where there's real trouble. And we've experienced that even in our own family. There's been situations where that kind of naivete has been just really dangerous and detrimental. We've seen it in so many others. I, I, I, we've,

to talk to so many people and it comes up in coaching or in our travels where we hear just tragic tragic stories of abuses or

crimes, whatever it is, a huge variety. Rape. Rape is just rampant. I think it's one in four girls now will be raped. This is in the United States. One in four will be raped before they're 18. Those numbers are just horrific. Again, we hope it doesn't happen to us. We think it won't happen to us. But one in four, those numbers are not in your favor. It's a massive

That's just one of the massive problems that needs to be addressed. Well, and this is also fascinating because we did a lot of research and study about Dr. Amon and the work he's doing with brain imaging and we had the opportunity to have one of our children have a brain scan done and it was very fascinating because when the doctor was talking to us about the brain scan she was actually telling us...

when many of us go into fight or flight mode, there's actually another element, which is freeze. So our survival brain kicks on when we feel we're in danger, and it's fight, flight, or freeze. And she was saying the vast majority of rape victims actually usually go into freeze mode. So that's just a very fascinating thing right there that...

Rachel Denning (14:38.541)
Simply understanding something like, how does my brain operate when I'm scared, can help protect you against the evil in the world. Right? Because if you know, hey, I go into freeze mode.

If something bad happens to me, I need to be aware of that. That can be a key piece to protecting yourself. So it's there's and I got to address the parenting side of that right now too. It's like, okay, now how do each of my children handle this? And if you if you go punch because you're like, I don't know, never been scared. Okay, you need to run some like simulations. You need to try something. Get in a safe environment. That's why simulations are so powerful is you get in a safe environment where the

there's not a real threat and you practice. You pretend like there's a real threat. You pretend there's a threat. What would you do? Right? That's helpful. That's helpful training.

But maybe, maybe you don't know or maybe you've had situations, but you didn't have the awareness of like, how does each child respond and how would they respond and walk through these scenarios. And I get it, man. I get this idea of like, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to scare my kids. I don't want to bring it up. But then I get thinking of all the people I work with and you know, those people never thought it would happen to them either. It wasn't like they were out looking for it. Sometimes I think we tell ourselves that like, Oh, they brought that on themselves. And I'll.

Obviously there are situations like that. But nobody thinks, oh yeah, you know, next month we'll have some horrible thing happen to our family. They don't think it's gonna happen. And I guess I want to be prepared. And I want our family to be prepared. Well, and I want to touch back on this because, yes, you and I believe in the law of attraction and we believe in like...

Rachel Denning (16:26.381)
Positive thinking and putting out good karma that type of stuff like we do believe in that and yet as Much as we practice that or practice that as much as well as we can We have had bad things happen to our family Traumatic things happen to our family one of which happened to the whole family While we were driving through Mexico and got attacked by a mob right things happen

that you may or may not have been attracted. I still am trying to figure out if we actually attracted that or it just happened, right? But.

It happened, nonetheless. You sound crazy when you say things like that. I know I do. But I'm just being honest. Because I've studied all that. I'm right with her on that. We agree on that. There's a lot more to it. Maybe we won't get into it right now. But there is an element of that at play in the world. Absolutely. It's an element at play in the world, like gravity's at play in the world type thing. And yet...

bad things still happen. Now sometimes they happen because you don't understand how you're using those laws or you're misusing them or you're just simply it's the nature of existence in this world. The fact that they're that that free will is a thing and some people are going to use their free will to hurt other people. And if you study history...

you begin to realize that having a decade or two or three or four or five of peace and safety is an anomaly. It is rare in the history of humanity.

Rachel Denning (18:11.309)
to go through decades without having some serious threat. If you look at the course of humanity and history, it's more rare to have a peaceful life than to have threats all around you. That's crazy, and it's still happening right now in other countries and other places around the world. So we live in this unbelievable time. And I want to emphasize, we're not free of trouble. If you think that's the case, just talk to any peace officer.

Like any of those things they can tell you stories all day long things that are happening You know a couple miles away from you. They're like what? You have no idea what's going on, but anyways What I'm feeling that I really want to express this the reason I wanted to even bring this up because We want our kids and ourselves to be sure of ourselves

You're in more danger when you are unsure of yourself. You are in more danger when you don't know how to think, especially how to think in a dangerous...

or difficult or scary situation. Or emergency. In an emergency. Even an emergency situation. Right. Yeah, so going back to this idea of that you're actually doing a disservice to your family, to yourself, to your children when you avoid talking about, thinking about, imagining... Running simulations. Running simulations. These types of scenarios.

And the reason we don't do it is because we are personally afraid. That's very often the reason. We're like, I don't want to talk about that because it's frightening. I don't want to think about what might happen that could be bad because that's terrifying. And obviously, then if you're like...

Rachel Denning (20:04.813)
into the law of attraction, you think, well, I just might attract that to myself if I think about it. But the truth is, when you think about it in an appropriate and effective way, meaning in a problem -solving way, in a how would I handle the situation way, you're actually preparing yourself and in some ways I would say preventing actually. I think that when you are mentally...

and physically and emotionally prepared as much as possible to deal with potential dangers in the world, well, like you were saying, you have a lot more confidence and you have the ability to think more clearly about what those situations look like and how you could respond to them. And it gives you a lot more power. Exactly. Because instead of operating from fear, you're operating from...

Well, in some ways it's a form of faith. Faith in your confidence.

And in your training, right? You've heard us repeat so many times this quote by Archilochus. He says, we don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. And as you were just describing what you said there, that in those situations, I know how to think, I know how to act, I can feel more confident, I can stay calm. All that came to mind is I've been going to these Krav Maga classes and training with my kids, and then I go even more often in higher level training.

I remember just a couple weeks ago walking out and like okay, I've repeated that so many times Like I I feel really confident I wouldn't somebody one of the things we train a lot is how to defend yourself against somebody with a knife

Rachel Denning (21:56.877)
And we've done that so many times at fast speeds and it's just drilled into your muscle memory. Yeah, muscle memory, neural network. I mean, it's in there. I remember like, I think I got this. So if somebody walks up with a knife, I'm not going to freak out going, Oh crap, what do I do? I know now I've done it so many times. I'm like, okay.

I'm just going to watch him and see whatever move he makes and I know exactly what to do and I've done it so many times. Well it's very interesting too that you're talking about this with training because as I think through to our mob attack, one thing that comes to mind...

is this idea of being able to think through the scenario. And I guess just a quick recap for anyone who may not know about our mom attack. We were driving through Mexico, which we've done many, many, many times over the past 15 years. And we drove through a small town and our adventure van that we're in right now was surrounded by about 30 guys. Some of them had clubs, some of them have rocks. They pulled out tire shredders so we couldn't get out. Most of them had masks.

on they started slamming the side of the van with their clothes. They didn't have the masks on because of COVID, they had the masks on because I was trying to film them and they didn't want to be filmed and they hit our van, they dented our van, they ripped my phone out of my, well barely almost ripped my phone out of my hand, they opened up our vehicle, tried to get us out. So it was a traumatic, potentially traumatic experience. Don't let this taint your view of Mexico, it's still awesome. Mexico's still awesome.

We love it. It's stories like this, people are like, see, I'm never going. I know. I would go back. We would still go back and drive through Mexico, just not that part. But one of the things that we learned very powerfully was, well, one was that we had never...

Rachel Denning (24:06.061)
considered that situation before. You guys had been training in Krav Maga for the previous year. And I remember you, all of you, I mean I'm saying you guys because I haven't been training in Krav Maga. So I have my own security detail. You all just felt so confident and in fact are...

was like, yeah, I hope someone mugs us, because this is going to be great. We're going to be like, whose turn is it? Let's take turns practicing our crab moves, you know? You were so confident with your ability to deal with small skirmishes. Yep.

This took it to a whole new level suddenly. We're like wait a second. We had never thought about that We'd never considered what to do in that situation, and then sorry I know you keep wanting to talk then you spent time thinking through it and so instead of us now feeling More afraid and not less likely to travel and we actually feel more confident because we're like okay now we thought through it we experienced that and now We have a better understanding of what it's like and what we could have done to

protect ourselves in that situation. Exactly. Now I still think your training helped a ton because what actually got us out of the situation was your ability to remain calm under pressure and to negotiate which all of our kids and you took that listen to the art of negotiation by Chris Voss using that got us out. I was able to stay calm and confident they could tell I wasn't afraid of them. That was important. That was huge. Massive because they were they were trying to bully us.

like mobs do like bullies do they're trying to push around bullies make us afraid and I stood I sat in here I didn't I didn't do what they said I didn't buckle their commands and and I just kept talking calmly to them and and took about 30 minutes we talked our way out of a really bad situation but I think it's important what Rachel's saying is because we had talked through every kind of scenario with one or two or five or ten people and with with we didn't have our oldest daughter she was in Texas but the three

Rachel Denning (26:13.519)
Older teens and myself we're ready. They were ready They were going and we still talk like hey if there had only been maybe ten of them I think it would have been a different story We would have we would have gotten out and practice your skills practice Some skills, but at 30 it was something we hadn't considered and so there's a there's a metaphor here There's a lesson here for all of us when you think through scenarios ahead of time when you realize what?

could happen. Again, it's not fearful.

It's for training, it's for confidence, it's learning how to think, how to act, how to make good decisions. And because of that situation, you guys should have seen me, I'm not an angry person. I was livid for like three days. And it was because I didn't know how to level the playing field when you're outnumbered that big, like what do you do? And now we have a solution. We worked through that scenario, right? Because some of you are like, what do you have a gut for?

because you're not allowed to have any guns or bullets in Mexico. You're a detroler. And plus, besides the fact, the whole philosophy behind Krav Maga, in fact the motto is, so that one may walk in peace. And the reason that is, is that the other amazing metaphor or...

The other idea I love is that behind the true definition of meekness, which is someone who has a sword and knows how to use it and is dangerous but keeps it sheathed. That's true peace. True peace is not cowering from someone because you don't have the power to hurt them, if necessary, to defend yourself.

Rachel Denning (28:08.525)
That's not true peace. True peace is when you can hurt them and they can hurt you, but you both decide not to in order to maintain the peace. That's real peace there. And so it's the ability, well back to the idea of your CRAW training. CRAW training is about avoiding violence whenever possible, but when it becomes violent, getting violent quickly and...

being more violent than the other person. Exactly. That's the idea because that's what keeps you safe. You're going to avoid violence at every cost. But if it goes violent, you're going to be the most violent person. Exactly. I'm going to be the most violent. I'm going to be the most dangerous man in that scenario. Yes. But you're also going to be the most peaceful man until it's necessary. And afterwards. And afterwards. Exactly. Right. So it's this idea that that's that's where true confidence comes from.

That's where true safety comes from because when you have the ability to protect yourself, you actually reduce the need to protect yourself, right? That's where real strength is born. Exactly. In that scenario, I think sometimes... Well, I don't know. I don't know how to articulate this, but if you're not exposed to it ever...

That doesn't make you strong. It's... Help me with this. It's like... You think you have strength when you've never even come in contact with it, right? You feel like you'll make good choices, but the choice has never been offered to you. Yes. Exactly. I mean, the way Jordan Pearson puts it is that the only way to truly have virtue...

which is ultimate goodness, is not by avoiding evil, but by recognizing you could choose either. You could choose good or you could choose evil, but you choose the good because you've seen both, not because you don't know about the other option. If you don't know about evil, if you don't know about your own dark side, you're not really good, you're just naive.

Rachel Denning (30:22.573)
And that concept, if it's new to you, it's a challenging idea. It seems wrong or off or very uncomfortable for sure. You're like, what? But who do we admire most? Who are we inspired by the most? It's those who have the opportunity.

to do wrong and chose right. Those who faced the darkness and triumphed. None of us are looking for the hero who never went anywhere or did anything. Right. They just avoided everything bad and hard in the world.

Can you imagine like two heroes journeys kind of side by side one drawing like he goes through the darkness and conquers all the enemies and goes through all these horrible things his transformation is terrible and the other one's like I just stayed at home and watched Netflix and it was only the good shows too I only watched good shows I never did anything I never saw some all that terrible stuff in the world I don't want to see any of that right and you're like that's that's not a hero's journey that's just naivety right that's all it is and so

So yes, it is very challenging and it does seem, and I know for ourselves when we came face to face with these ideas at first, they seemed wrong. There seemed something was bad about the ideas themselves because we wanted the goodness, we wanted the peace, we wanted the love. But you can really only have that when you also have the power to face the darkness. So...

What we're maybe trying to say here is that true goodness, through and through, real strength, comes from going out into the world with all that's out there and staying strong and being virtuous and choosing good.

Rachel Denning (32:27.949)
and being prepared and handling situations and circumstances and emergencies and all the craziness. That's powerful. That's inspiring. That's true. Competence. And wholeness. I can tell you guys how amazing I am at...

I'm trying to come up with something right or I'm this awesome dancer or Okay, here's a good one You just think man. I can sing like nobody's business You know in your own mind It's this it's this delusion that many of us get into right you think you sing in the shower and so you feel like you sing like Andrea Bocelli, right and then you get invited to a recital and you sound like

drowning duck. Or the the bird and the little mermaid right? The seagull. It's exposure. Does that make sense that you're rolling there like I can I can sing in my shower and think I'm the best singer but when I get out and I really sing and it's it there's a performance so to speak.

Well, in some ways it's a comparison in that you're being compared to other capabilities out there. And to standards. And to standards. And I'm being tested. You're being tested. And so this idea applies in that you want to test yourself with...

I don't even know how to word this or articulate it the right way because it sounds weird. Test yourself with evil or darkness and that's not what I'm saying. That could go really bad. I know. But test yourself with your ability to stand up to those things and to combat those things before you're really tested because that's the wrong time to be tested. In fact, that's the worst time. That's the most dangerous time to be tested. Yeah, to find out that then when it's too late,

Rachel Denning (34:40.527)
that you're ill -prepared. Now to not be misunderstood here, we're not saying you go out and you seek out evil and darkness. Or that you commit it. We're not saying that either. We're not condoning any of that. What we're saying is don't just ignore it. Exist in your little bubble, pretending it's not there, trying as hard as you can to ignore it, crossing your fingers, hoping you're never exposed, your kids will spend their entire lives never being exposed to it. Like that's

It's just not strength. And I'm going to point out a few ways that we see this in really great families. And this can be just families in general, definitely in homeschooling families.

we see this with this whole bubble mentality of just protecting them, so to say, from everything in the world. That includes bad music, bad movies, bad friends, whatever, fill in the blanks, when the reality is your children need exposure to those things in order for them to develop strength of character. Now that can be misconstrued and misinterpreted and it can also be applied

at the wrong time. So I'm not saying that should happen to your kindergartner. We believe in this greenhouse principle where when they're younger, it is great to have that little bubble that protects them. That builds some strength there. I do believe in that. But when it's appropriate, and especially when it's natural, we shouldn't be sheltering our kids from those types of things. And this has to be done.

It has to be done in the right way. And each child is different. Each child's cognitive ability and maturity to even well. Rachel, this is one of the things we were talking about.

Rachel Denning (36:40.269)
is each child has to be not only be able to understand it, but be able to implement, implement, adequately apply it. And that again, takes training and practice. But we don't. So, so at the right time, when it's appropriate, we want to take our kids and let them know what.

does happen. And this is, we love doing this like as our family devotionals or just family discussions. We talk about several times and we'll share things that have happened to people we know or happened in the news or we hear stories and we don't hide this from our kids. I see parents do this. They don't tell their kids any of it.

And I can see why they're doing it, but there's a time and a place. Again, we don't want to be fearful though. I want to go to both sides here. I'm like, no, you don't want to be fearful. You don't want to be negative. You don't want to paint this picture. The world's terrible and rotten. That's the other podcast though, which we've covered. I mean, we've covered that side of it. We're trying to cover this side of it. This side is important. This side then you say, OK, kids, this is what happened. Let's go.

the term Rachel I like to use is go upstream. Let's go upstream a little bit. What could have prevented this? I guess as a husband, as a father, as a mentor, a coach, a leader, as a man, I look at any scenario and think could this have been prevented? Man, and that fires me up.

when there are so many situations that easily could have been prevented.

Rachel Denning (38:27.021)
And then that drives me to want to help and teach and train people. This is really the driving force behind this episode. Like if it's preventable, man, let's prevent it. But the only way it's actually preventable is by talking about it and thinking through it and saying, what could prevent this from happening, from getting raped or from being mugged or from getting attacked or fill in the blank? Like what could prevent this from happening? But if it never comes up, if you never talk,

about it, if you always avoid it, if you never see a movie that that happens in or even so I'm gonna bring up the music thing even things with music because we with the best intentions we want to make sure our kids are listening to good music quote -unquote whatever that means to you. Well I

believe that children, not children, I'm going to say teenagers specifically, teenagers should be able to pick their music because for one music is this very important representation of life. Like it's, it has a lot of meaning to it and there's a lot of levels and it's an expression of the time they're in and the, the, the mood, not time they're in, meaning like the, the time, like what, what time period are we living in?

Society. Society.

Rachel Denning (40:15.693)
The reason why I'm saying they should be able to choose it is because when they choose it, they get to make the choices about how music affects them and whether or not they continue to listen to it. If they are told by their parents what they get to listen to, they're not involved in that decision -making process.

Besides the fact that when you hear a song and you connect to it, there's something on a psychological level that's happening.

that causes you to connect to that song. And that right there can be super powerful. If you're able to have, here's the key piece is you're having conversations with your kids about their music. Why do you like this song? Let's talk about it. This cannot be a passive. Yeah, it's not just a passive thing. Okay, oh man, let me jump in. None of what we are saying will work if you are a passive parent. Right. If you're like, hey, you know. This isn't permissive parenting. You just watch whatever you want, listen to whatever you want. You guys need to see what the world's like. Go ahead and go out. Like, that will not work. This

is this will only work in very proactive parenting. So if you're, if you have a passive parenting style, I'm going to say stop doing that, be proactive. But if you're just like, no, I'm going to stay passive, then you can just disregard a lot of what we're saying because it will backfire and implode and explode in your family. If you're not very proactive, just allowing your kids to watch or listen and do whatever they want without real hands on discussion, helping them learn how to think through, make the decisions.

what's actually being said, why it even matters. If you're not really engaged, this won't work. It'll backfire. So our kids will listen to songs or even watch movies that we're kind of like, ugh. But then we talk about them. We're like, why do you like that song? What does it mean to you?

Rachel Denning (42:03.725)
And it's amazing that the meaning they give it is often very different than the meaning we give it or the interpretation we have about it. And so essentially what we're doing is helping them to process it on their own so that they can understand themselves and better understand the world and make appropriate decisions about that. Besides the fact that because... This only works you guys. Can I jump in right here? This only works because they play their music in our home. There's no like...

secret playlist that they're listening to.

Away from us right we know and they're allowed to play whatever they're playing music all the time and we hear it and What happens so often is open like hmm. That's an interesting phrase guys You like this song and they're like what and like he just said this like what does that mean and then we get into it and Rachel does Well, that's what I was about to say that that's the other piece of it is that because it does represent What's happening in the world? You know, it's pop culture. It's what's going on in the world?

And so it will have words or phrases or innuendos or different things. And we then, that provides an opportunity to talk about what that actually means, right? What does it mean when they say this? What is this word? Which might be referring to drugs. Then my kids are talking to us about drugs instead of to their friends or just looking it up or you know what I mean? Anything like that. They're actually having the conversation with us about it instead of somebody else.

So it actually provides this talking point.

Rachel Denning (43:44.429)
for you to have conversations with your kids when done in an appropriate way. So, I mean, that's one extensive, yet simple example of how to not completely shelter your kids from the world is by allowing them to pick their own music. It's a very simple thing because they're gonna be drawn to certain things and that's a great way to understand where they are, what they're feeling, what they're understanding, what they're thinking, and a great way to start conversations with them about

some of the ugly stuff in the world that's going on drugs and sex and drinking and even violence and all other types of things when when they're exposed in that simple way and same thing with movies It's a way for you to while they're in your home while they're under your roof Be able to have conversations about what the world is actually like that's that's the power of mentoring and coaching and teaching right there I do want to emphasize that there is a

lot of preparation I would say years of preparation that lead up to then the healthy and appropriate exposure to things there's a lot of mindset training and and just habit training really cognizant of the mental state of your kids if you haven't helped them get into a really good mental state in a place of security and confidence and self -worth like introducing some of these things

It can be dangerous. It can be really bad. But I want to add too is like the books we read, the movies we watch, some songs, some movies, some books are just trash. There's no real value, there's no real lessons. Some of them are just garbage.

darkness, malice, evil, they're just trashy. Others have elements of darkness and malice and evil as part of a narrative for archetypal lessons. And so the movie might have a tough rating or tough content or the book might be, man, that's hard to get through.

Rachel Denning (45:58.765)
But the point is they're taking you through the darkness to the light on the other side. They're walking through either fictional or real stories. I mean, I've read some true books, biographies, autobiographies or stories that are so hard to get through. And the darkness and the malice. Wow. I mean, it's, it's tough to get through those books.

But I think at a certain point in life, it's important.

to go through those books or movies or stories to understand the reality of things that have happened, are happening, and will happen. It takes a lot of wisdom, a lot of understanding. I guess our overall message is don't ignore it, don't pretend it's not there, don't think that avoiding it completely will somehow make it go away or keep you exempt from ever experiencing it. It's just not...

It's not realistic. And I want to bring up one other thing because I know that this has been an issue for me and I know it's an issue for a lot of moms and that's this fear and dread that mothers have about bad things happening to their children. And this can be, you know, worrying about them getting hurt, worrying about them dying, worrying about...

whatever, I mean there's all levels of this worry that mothers can experience. And a lot of what we have been talking about today I think applies to this as well. Because the normal response...

Rachel Denning (47:47.149)
for moms and I know for me for a while was to just avoid thinking about this. Because you would start thinking about it and then you would just, I would get overcome with this horrible dread and like sadness and terrifying overwhelming fear. Which is crippling. Crippling fear. Okay? And then...

it seemed like the only thing I could do was to just push it away and try to ignore it. That was my strategy. But the reality is, just like what we've been talking about today, it doesn't work in the long run. It doesn't help you, and it doesn't make the fear go away. Interestingly, what I have found that does work is when I actually go there mentally.

and walk through the process like we have been talking about of how I would prepare, first how I could prepare to prevent such things from happening and if they happened anyways, what I would actually do. I've literally thought through the process of what I would do if one of my children died and mentally realized that I would cry my eyes out, I would be absolutely devastated, but over time,

and it might be a year, two years, 10 years, life would go back to normal. And because I've walked through that process...

the fears have pretty much gone away. Like, obviously I think fear doesn't go away 100%. I still will get nervous if my kids are doing something that I'm like, oh, they're gonna get hurt. But the crippling fear that I used to experience, I no longer have. And I think it comes by realizing, you know what? Ultimately, I could survive. It's walking over to...

Rachel Denning (49:51.629)
the darkness to the abyss right facing the abyss to the shadow turning and looking it in the eye so to speak and processing that there's so much power there it seems interesting it seems crazy it seems like running seems kind of intuitive that like the the way to

overcome it or transcend it or rise above it is to face it. But that's been true with every sort of preparation. The more prepared you are, whether it's to speak in public, which terrifies people, or to perform a recital, or to go to a championship in sports, or to prepare for a fight.

Whatever it is, the more you have trained, the more you have prepared, the more you've thought through it and practiced again and again and again, the more you can confidently step up and say,

I'm ready. You might still be nervous, might get butterflies, might be scared, but you can stand up and say, let's go. Exactly. That is power. Right. That is strength versus the naivete of hiding and hoping. Right. Because the fear then just makes you cower or run away.

And then what's your strategy? You stay home. You stay home. You don't go anywhere. Kids don't go anywhere. We're just living in a little bubble here and I'll be well. To avoid all potential danger. Yes. And so you end up not living life. Because you're afraid of anything that could happen. Exactly. Where if instead you walk through mentally what could happen and then prepare yourself as much as possible, you've just grown in confidence and you're able to at least go out there with courage to face the world. And I have to...

Rachel Denning (51:54.605)
I have to blow up a little bit of a bubble here that some people will live in. They think that their place, that bad things don't happen. You might live in a small town or you might live in a really good neighborhood or a gated community or this special spot where nothing bad happens. And yet the reality is if you knew what was happening,

like it would change your reality. There's someone, they have these conversations every morning. Another one this morning, they just, these guys are so full of information. It's hilarious. We walk in there. At your crop? Yeah, crop. So we're in training and crop and they're just constantly telling stories. We're just training and they're like, oh yeah, the nicest house in the nicest gated community on the golf course, like the best place just got totally robbed and ransacked. They went in just took it all. And this happened over the weekend, right? And I'm like, okay, so, you know, these are people living in those areas.

And again, I'm not trying to like scare you but a kind of them. So sorry not sorry I remember one time sitting down with somebody and I don't know how it came up. We were talking about, you know sex offenders you guys I've I've had people come to me and privately tell me the most Tragic

horrendous stories about it's either they it happened to them or to their children of they thought you know so and so down the road was totally trustworthy guy and just these horrible child you know sexual child abuse and sex offender

just the most tragic stories. But I remember having this conversation with, I can't even remember where we were, who we were talking to. And they're like, no, no, no, like there's nobody like that around here. We live in one of the best areas. And I'm like, don't count on it. Like, no, we totally do. I'm like, let's pull up the child sex offender registry and look in your neighborhood. And like, I remember looking at the map and their whole neighborhood was checkered with the registered sex offenders.

Rachel Denning (54:12.525)
I was like, there you go. You think you live in this protected little spot. I sound like I'm the guy like, the world is evil. Watch out! It's everywhere. You'll never escape. Like I believe the world is good, but we have to acknowledge the malice. And a lot of people may not know this about us. I mean, we have traveled to 38.

to 48 countries on five continents.

But part of what gave us the confidence and ability to do that had to do a lot with your training. You had EMT training. You had all of this, I don't even know what to call it, it's like this preparedness type training where you're constantly on the lookout for potential dangers, pickpocketers, theft, this, that, or the other. You've always been, even before I was aware of it, that you were doing this, you've always been doing this. Partly because of your growing up back.

and you're spending time in really, really tough neighborhoods and having been robbed and all these other things that had happened to you, you've always thought that way through all of our travels. Now originally, I know you had this thinking where you didn't tell me that because you didn't want me to, you didn't want us to be attracting those types of things. Or to be afraid of it. By talking about it or by being afraid of it. And yet, as we've grown and learned more and understood more about psychology in the world, we realize that

done in the right way, it's not attracting and it's not being afraid, it's just simple preparedness. It's empowering. It's empowering. And it's giving you the capability to handle what might happen.

Rachel Denning (56:06.317)
So this is... This has been a thought. It's heavy, it's complex. It needs to be done with wisdom and skill.

And it comes on the opposite side of the coin. You guys hopefully understand my coin metaphor now that everything in life is a two -sided coin. It's a dichotomy and it includes opposing, seemingly opposing viewpoints that are actually both true. This comes on the other side of the coin of our travel to many countries. I mean, we were living in a Muslim country when Paris was attacked by ISIS or whatever and the United States government

made a travel advisory that Americans should not travel to any countries in the world. And we were living in Morocco. And we remember thinking, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Like, why would you just say don't travel anywhere in the world? That's fear -based.

thinking and that's not our approach that's not what we're saying here this is not a cover your butt don't go anywhere do anything approach it's understand the potential risks understand how to prepare yourself to meet them don't avoid the darkness if it comes look it in the face don't shelter your children from the darkness let them decide for themselves let them listen to the music they want to listen to and and watch the movies they want to listen to so that you can

and use it as a talking point, a discussion starter to dive deeper into these tougher issues because they have to be addressed. They have to be covered if you want yourself and your children to be strong and confidently prepared to actually face the world.

Rachel Denning (58:02.605)
The imagery I have in my mind right now is with my arm around my kids and together we walk up to the abyss.

Which sometimes for you has been a movie. You will intentionally watch movies with them that are disturbing. And I'll tell them, I'll explain why and what's the point of it. It's not just exposure to stupidities like some, but like, hey, I'm gonna figuratively put my arm around your shoulder here and then together we're gonna walk up to the darkness. But it was true.

with my little brother taking his life this year, earlier this year. We told them everything. We didn't hold back on the details. Put my arm around him, they put their arm around me because it was so hard for me. And we walked right up to the darkness of the horrible reality of drug, drug addiction and suicide and the tragedy of it all. I wasn't going to shelter them from that. I wanted to learn from it.

That was a perfect teaching moment of facing the darkness together and the reality of what that ugliness looks like, what's out there. So, anyways, let's face the darkness. Let's do it! And be prepared and be tough. Be dangerous in the best way possible.

Which means being capable. Strong, competent, ready. Alright, love you guys. Reach out for it.

Rachel Denning (59:50.221)
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