#176 How Frustration, Guilt, & Discontent Guide You to Your Best Self -- Don't Assuage the Pain or 'Accept What Is'. This is Your Soul Calling!

Rachel Denning (00:11.086)
Welcome to today's episode. Have you ever had that inner feeling of discontent? I know I have. Feeling of frustration, guilt, or even dissatisfaction? Or have you ever thought, what's the point of setting goals? I'll just end up being disappointed. Or maybe you've tried to achieve something like losing weight, earning money, improving your marriage, only to finally give up and accept yourself and your circumstances.

In this episode, we're going to dive into why many people feel and think this way and how accepting things as they are can be a good short -term strategy. But it is a bad long -term plan. Why? Because you end up living in incongruence and you make yourself miserable in the long -term. There is an inner knowing in your soul, a blueprint of your potential. And as long as you live below that and below what you're capable of,

you'll always feel that something is missing. Then you'll also try to assuage it or excuse it away with eating, scrolling, or Netflix. But the only way to find lasting happiness is to accept the call in your soul and to your highest self and to reach upward. Listen to this episode as we discuss how to live more in congruence and to thereby live a happier, more fulfilling, and satisfying life. Please excuse the audio quality in this episode.

The original microphone audio had technical difficulties and so we had to strip the audio from the video recording. This episode is sponsored by our Best Self Bundle. This bundle, of courses, gives you all the tools, resources, and strategies that you need to reach upward and to live in congruence. In fact, they are the exact tools that we have used to create our own extraordinary, expanding, growing life. Visit ExtraordinaryFamilyLife .com,

and click the link at the top for the best self bundle and start today learning simple strategies you can use right away to create powerful positive transformations in your personal life.

Rachel Denning (02:18.734)
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Hope you had an awesome weekend with your family. I've just been feeling, that's what I've been feeling lately the last few days, is deep gratitude and hope. I love springtime, I love Easter. It's just a symbol of hope. And I'm reading from The Divine Comedy right now by Dante. And over the...

over the door, engraved over the door of hell, the gates of hell. It says, abandon all hope, ye who enter here. That's just been on my mind a lot the last few days of how hell is hopelessness and heaven is hope. And we can have.

We can have a heaven or hell moment to moment. Like at any time during our day or our life, it can be this living hell of hopelessness or this heaven of hope, which fits so well with what we're talking about today. Because you have to back it up. Otherwise, it's delusion, right? Back up your hope? You have to back up your hope with action. Otherwise, it's just the beginning of delusion, right? Well, because what I thought when you said that was...

Hope is great, but hope is not a strategy. Yes, exactly. Hope is not a strategy. Hope is wonderful, but it is not a strategy. And necessary, but yes, not a strategy for actually getting what you want. Exactly. So there are many of us, probably all of us have experienced, and some of us maybe even perpetually experienced this kind of inner...

conflict. This, what would you call it, babe? This annoying frustration or like a, it's almost like you have a thorn in your side or maybe it's just a subtle ache. You just, you have it all the time and what it is, it's this, it's this dissatisfaction you have because you're struggling to get what you want. You have an ideal, you hope for something I'm talking about.

Rachel Denning (04:36.014)
You want something, you desire it, but you're not getting it. And so if you're not careful and aware of this, you could literally go through your entire life feeling frustrated and that frustration would turn into resentment and bitterness. And you could have this lifetime of... Is irksome the right word?

I'm trying to look for more words here. It's this yucky feeling of like... Is irking a word? I don't know. Irking. I don't know. But it's this feeling like, ah, I'm just not satisfied with myself or my outcomes or my results. If you go through life and you don't get in alignment...

and into congruence. If you don't ultimately align your desired outcomes with your present actions, then you're destined to live in this state of...

irritation and resentment and bother and frustration and and ultimately some self -loathing Well, I think a lot of people describe those feelings as even perhaps depression or anxiety Panic sometimes I think you can even lead to panic attacks and things like that and

I think it's worth bringing up that a lot of the solutions that people have for this nowadays is to...

Rachel Denning (06:37.166)
stop caring or to give up on goals or ideals or pursuing something, you know, and when we heard it, people word it as well, what's the point of, what's the point of having goals? Like, why not just be mediocre? Why not just accept everything as the way it is? Why not just?

fill in the blank, like. Detach. Yeah, detach. Exactly. Why not just detach? Like why care so much? In fact, one person specifically said goals are just setting yourself up for discipline. Exactly. Yeah. I've heard people, a lot of people say that. And so I think that's people's solutions. They feel this sense that you're kind of describing of frustration, dissatisfaction, unfulfilled.

and their response is to give up on dreams, give up on pursuing, give up on having their high ideals of what they want to accomplish or achieve with their family, with their business, with their whatever, whatever their goal is, whatever their dream is. They tend to give up on that.

And they keep hearing that that's what they should be doing. Like that's a lot of the advice out there is, oh yeah. Yeah. Well, it's cause it's coming from people around them. Like, Hey, I just gave up on my goals. I feel so much better now. And they're like, wow, let's ditch, let's ditch the ideals. You're right. This feels great. Right. Because initially it does feel great for a time. And this is, this is what is so fascinating to me. Cause I see this a lot and I see it from a lot of.

even life coaches and you know, influencers, whatever you want to call them. They're giving this kind of advice of like, Oh, I even saw them the other day about, Oh, give up on your husband's potential pretty much. Like you're, you're not doing yourself a service by having high expectations of your spouse. And I get how that, I've heard it for kids too. And kids too, or just your family life in general, like expect less.

Rachel Denning (08:49.87)
and you'll be happier, right? Which in some ways is true, I understand that. That if you're constantly dissatisfied and thinking, oh my husband's not good enough, he's not doing everything the way he should, yeah, that's gonna cause a lot of angst in your relationship. But if you just throw out all the ideals and expectations too, like that's also a recipe for disaster. You can't just throw it all out and expect yourself to be totally happier.

because of it. Well, particularly years later to be fulfilled. Exactly. Yeah. Yes. If you're really seeking fulfillment, letting go of your ideals and what you're striving for is not the way to achieve that. You can't achieve fulfillment by having no ideals or no dreams or no goals or no vision. Right. And speaking of, um, we were talking about this book that I'm listening to, the psycho cybernetics.

I don't remember who the author is, Max something. I mean, it's an older book, but it's very fascinating. In fact, it's kind of the foundational literature that I think a lot of, Tony Robbins for one, I know for sure, because it mentions him in there, that he has based a lot of his work off of this idea of psycho -cyphernetics. And I've heard Jordan Peterson talk about not specifically this book, but this idea that when people started designing AI,

artificial intelligence, computers in general. They had this challenge of how do you get them to do what you want them to do, right? So whatever your idea is that you want this computer to do something, how do you get them to do that? How do you program them to fulfill whatever task you have, even if it's something as simple as picking up a pencil? And they figured out that the way it's done is you have to pick a target.

you have to set a goal for the computer and then you can program everything else around that desired outcome. Well, they figured out, this is what the book is talking about, psycho cybernetics, that's exactly the same way the human brain works. The human brain has to have a target or a goal that it is working on in order to even function in the world. In a very simple way like,

Rachel Denning (11:17.198)
My goal right now is to do this podcast. And so I have everything set up and I'm talking and like, I'm able to function and do what I'm doing because I have this outcome I'm producing, right? That's the same with getting up in the morning, brushing your teeth. Everything you do is essentially target or goal based. Like that's just how the human brain operates. So it's super fascinating tying it back to this idea that.

If because we have this sense of frustration or annoyance or irritation or unfulfillment because we're not living up to our ideals, the answer is not to let go of those ideals because you actually create more of this, those feelings really mean initially, like you're saying you might feel better because you're like, Oh, I don't have to strive for that anymore. But long term, your disappointment. Exactly. It gets worse because your brain is literally wired.

to have a target it's working on. And if it doesn't have one, you're just going to spiral into discontent. Right. And the brain will have discontent. It's wondering what it's aiming at. I love that you set that up. It's such a foundational piece then. The primary...

The primary step for action is to have a target. And this is why so many people live with a chronic or perpetual disappointment is because in between where they are and their ideal or their target, there's some core problems. There's a gap.

And they keep bumping up against these obstacles. And that's what I want to talk about today. It's like, what are those primary obstacles that are causing problems for most people? Right. So it is basically one of those two. One first is they may not have a target at all. So that's one thing that is causing discontent, of course. And then the other one is they had one, but there's a gap between where they are and where they're trying to get exactly. So I just wanted to. Love that. So let's, let's roll with the assumption.

Rachel Denning (13:30.894)
that you have some clarity on your target. I think you're right and it's worth maybe discussing it for a moment. You might have a very vague ideal. You want some kind of, just this. More money. Yeah, more money. It's very vague. Or I just, I want that, you know that family, is just that beautiful fan, happy family. Like, what is that? Right, yeah, get really clear about.

Well, you're right. No, you're right. This deserves a little bit of attention. I know we talked about it before, but you're like, I just want to be healthier. Well, give me some measurements. Like if I want to be able to run a 5k or a marathon, those are measurements. If I want to be able to do, you know, 75 consecutive pushups, those are measurements. If I want to weigh a certain amount, I want to look a certain way or fit in a certain thing, like have the ability to do something. Those are specific measurements. Right.

I want to add this right here because I think this is a relevant example because we have seen this in specifically the fitness space where people, because they feel frustration or annoyance or a lack of self -confidence or whatever around, let's say, fitness or health or weight, that very often, and I see it more and more nowadays especially, the answer is instead of,

losing weight, we'll use weight as an example because it plays out well, right? It works well with this. Instead of losing weight so you feel better, you're being taught now like, oh, don't worry about it. Don't feel bad. And I understand why that's being taught because yeah, you don't need to just feel bad about where you're at. But the answer is also to not just give up either and say, oh,

I'm just going to be whatever weight I am because the body, your body, every person's body has an ideal weight. Like there's just an ideal body makeup that's perfect for you. Right. And to be clear, this is not that that is a scientific thing, not a social thing. Exactly. That's where we get confused. You're thinking, well, no, it's because of the social idea that you're supposed to look and weigh a certain amount. Like, no, no, no, no, no. Your

Rachel Denning (15:53.87)
physical makeup your DNA code comes with this ideal dimension for health and survival and the body knows it. So that the body can function at its best so that the cells can operate at their best, right? So it's we're talking about the the dimensions of the body not like a certain weight, waist size, anything like that. It's just your body came with a blueprint essentially saying this is about what we're aiming for right here.

And if you go beyond that with body mass, you know, you are actually damaging your body. Your cells cannot operate at their full potential. So what and your body knows that your brain knows that and that's part of the feeling bad about being unhealthy is your body saying, hey, this isn't right. We have to we can't function. Yeah, we're we're ours. Every single cell is overstressed. We need to fix this.

so that we can do our job appropriately, effectively. So that's what's going on on a physiological level and a even mental, you know, psychological level. But if we just ignore that and think, oh, I'm just going to accept myself the way I am, despite the fact that your body is sending you signals that something needs to change and that people are now teaching this like it's okay, just...

you know, accept yourself, don't do anything about it. That is damaging to your psyche long -term and your health because it's well, yeah, not to mention your health, of course, because your body is trying to talk to you and give you, you know, send you signals here and you're ignoring it. So going back to this time in here, instead of thinking the answer to my discomfort,

or my guilt or my whatever the word is that you use.

Rachel Denning (17:58.414)
It's not to ignore it. It's not to just be okay with what is right now. It's a sign. Listen to it and pick that target that you're going to aim for your body. Your brain is saying, I need something to focus on. And sometimes like in this case, it's trying to tell you, this is what we need to focus on. We need to fix this problem. And you feel bad about it because you're not achieving it, which we're going to dive into some strategies to get past that.

Don't just keep lowering the bar and lowering the bar and lowering the bar thinking, oh, I feel better once it's way down here. Then you'll despise yourself because you're struggling to get over such a low bar. You lower your own standards and then you won't. It's a totally different reason. The same problem sticks around. You don't like your life or yourself, but now it's because you've lowered your bar to below mediocrity and it's frustrating. And so it actually just contributes more to the problem you're already having and it adds more of the feelings.

you're trying to get away from. I gotta share one example of this where it's even gone way beyond, hey, get rid of the standard. They went as far as to say of like, no, this new way lower standard is actually good. And it was this magazine of this very obese woman in scantily clad clothes, like modeling and just big bold letters with exclamation marks. This is healthy. Right.

And I understand, I understand the psychology behind why they're doing that because they're dealing with body shaming and things like that. That, Oh, you're supposed to look a certain way. You're supposed to look like these models. That is equally unhealthy because you're not supposed to look like those models, but you do have an ideal body dimension for you. And that's going to be bigger than some people and smaller than others. But the point is,

you should be aiming for your ideal healthiness. Exactly. And not avoiding that because you feel that it's okay to be overweight. Obese means you're over your ideal body weight. That's what that means. You're 30 % over, which is literally killing you. And it's the strain on your heart and you have a cellular level. There's so much science behind it, but.

Rachel Denning (20:18.19)
It's not healthy at all. There's nothing healthy about it. And your body's trying to tell you that. So I agree. And I think, both Rachel and I agree. Like there's some negative social stuff here, but setting that aside, we need to have healthy ideals and targets that we're aiming at the driver action. I think one of the, in years, decades of studying this, of human performance and research and working with thousands of people all around the world, core.

problem that we have observed and done ourselves right from personal experience as well is this this concept of being incongruent and I think this is where the problem lies ultimately we want something or say we want something but then our behaviors our attitudes our actions ultimately are just incongruent with what we say we want so

The simple example I thought of years ago is like you go out in your backyard and you really want to plant some tomatoes and squash and zucchini, but you just grab a bag of corn from the store and you just plant your whole garden of corn. And when it comes up as corn, you're just livid. You're just irate, ranting, screaming, yelling, right? Yes, I didn't want corn. And your neighbor's like, but dude, that's what you planted. Well, that's not what I wanted.

I wanted this garden with all these vegetables. Now all I have is corn. Like, well, that's what you planted. You planted corn. Yeah, but that's not what I, right? And you get in this, this psychological conundrum there and you're like, I didn't want this. And so we have to honestly stop, stop and look back at our lives and be like, am I planting corn? Because we're going along, we're planting corn all the while telling everyone around us and ourselves what we really want is something else. And so we have to look and stop and like,

If what I want is this quality of marriage, this quality of relationship with my children, this quality of health and life and business, lifestyle, if this is the kind of lifestyle I want, I've gone through the work to really identify it, I have the target, are my actions genuinely and truly aligned towards that target? Are your actions planting those seeds? Exactly. Yeah. Because...

Rachel Denning (22:44.11)
Essentially what we're emphasizing here is that a lot of the reason that you feel frustrated about not achieving your ideals So if you have the ideals, you know, we're going to talk about if you don't have them That's another thing. But if you have them and you're not achieving them, it's often because of this incongruence You're not planting the seeds of that thing Exactly, right?

I guess I'm thinking of the weight loss thing again, because it's a very easy example. Even in the idea of this idea of accepting you for who you are at the weight you are, what you're really trying to achieve with that is to feel better about yourself. That's why you're doing it. I'm going to accept myself at the weight I'm at because I want to feel better about myself.

and being in my own skin. Yes, that's truth. You want to do that. That is what you want. But it will never happen as long as you're incongruent and planting the seeds of corn when you don't want corn, okay? Because as much as you say to yourself, I'm just gonna love myself and accept myself as I am, your body knows, your mind knows that if you're making decisions that are bad for you, bad for your health, mentally, physically, emotionally,

you're going to feel bad about them. As much as you try to talk yourself out of it or just accept yourself as you are, quote unquote, your body knows and you can't lie to your body. So when you eat that donut trying to say, I'm expecting my, you know, I'm accepting myself as I am. It's incongruent. You're planting corn when you want to grow raspberries, right? It just doesn't work. So.

This is happening a lot in many different areas. Like you mentioned your marriage, your parenting, your business, you want to make a certain amount of money and yet you find yourself on Facebook, you know, several times a day or whatever. I love what you're saying there. And I want to take exactly what you said with the body, like knowing and kind of screaming out saying, Hey, that's not right. I think the spirit does the same thing. I really do. The spirit of the soul. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (25:08.494)
We have this... Your consciousness, if nothing else. We have this beacon that calls us upwards. And when we settle for shoddy, shady, lack of integrity... I thought you were going with another S there. That would have been a good fit right there. But you lack character, you lack integrity, you settle, an acquiesce, for...

for lower than what you're capable of, your spirit screams out too. And as much as you try to tell yourself, no, no, no, that's good, I'm good like this, I'm totally good, I like myself the way I am, I don't care what other people think, your soul says, oh, no you don't, this sucks because you're living below what you're capable of. And there's that torment, and so there's this inner conflict, there's this...

this war happening on the inside that's tearing you apart. So let's, let's get into some specifics here. So it's not just all philosophical and theoretical. Talking about planting seeds. Yeah. The, what specifically are you doing that is either leading to what you want or keeping you from what you want. One example I thought of is, uh, I talked to a lot of people,

Most people I talk to, they want to be well read. They want to have a good education. They want to read good books. They want to... Have intellectual discussions. Yeah. With their spouse. Right. They want to feel smart and knowledgeable. I think most people get that. Yeah. Oh, that's a big one, right? That was like, I just want to understand stuff. You get somebody talking and they're like, yeah, you glaze or like, I got nothing here.

People want to learn, right? And so most people are like, I wish I could read that more. I wish I, you know, they have all these, this wishy washy wishing about reading, but they don't read. So let's just pick this. Let's say, yeah, I want to be well read. I want to read more books. Again, it's vague, right? And I want to be more educated. I want to understand more things. Okay, stop right there. What does that mean?

Rachel Denning (27:30.606)
What does that look like? So let's assume you come up with a target and you want to read 25 books this year. So roughly two books a month, right? So.

Then you have to get the congruence. That is now a target. Taking the big thing of I want to be more well, more, more well educated and you put it into a specific action. Okay. In order to do that, reading books is a good thing. Like, you know, people think that, oh, if I want to know more, I should read books. That's seems pretty straightforward. So then I'm going to read more books. So then you pick the target 25 books.

And then that was even more specific about two per month. That's that's great. Now you have a very specific Target two books a month and by the way, so doable two books like this is so do some of you like there's nobody could do that Oh, yes, you could and we're gonna get into that. Here's part of me This is where most people get into trouble is the incongruence. They're like, yes, I want this I'm gonna read 25 books this year. Yeah, you're all excited you fired up but then it comes down to

What do you do on the day to day? And you talk to, you know, you guys can look over your own life and hopefully have enough awareness of how you're actually using your time. Many people don't, they're unaware of how they're wasting their time. They're actually sometimes unaware of their end -congeals. They don't realize, they're not measuring. Rachel did this. How long did you do the measure every 15 minutes?

You're tracking every 15 minutes for... Three months or more? Okay, she tracked everything. She wanted to know exactly what she's doing. Every 15 minutes of every day. Cool, you don't have to go that intense. That's hardcore. But it gives you a keen awareness. They're asked for that now, actually. I did it on the spreadsheet. You have to know how you're spending your time. What they realized in lots of studies... So for example, one study I read is that the average adult in the United States...

Rachel Denning (29:31.118)
States spends 90 minutes a day on Facebook. So that's, and maybe you're like 90 minutes, who could do that? But you're spending your 90 minutes on something else, whatever, chit chatting, texting, staring at the wall. I don't know. Does anyone stare at the wall anymore? Yeah. YouTube videos. You're just checking emails, right? And, and you think, you know, I just checked a couple of times. It's no big deal. But if you timed yourself, you checked your email like six times and spent easily 90 minutes in your email, right?

And when you realize that, whatever your thing is, that's my point. You want to spend time reading every day, but you don't because one of the reasons, one of the reasons is this in Congress, you just keep grabbing onto something else, whatever that thing is. Let's go to social media. So you're spending, you know, 69 minutes a day on Facebook and you're like, ah, I didn't do my reading. I didn't get reading. So the month's passed and you're like, Hey, did you do your 25 books? Like, no, I'm so busy. I didn't do it. What wasn't that you're so busy? It's that you.

inadvertently prioritized, in this case, social media over books. That's the end concurrence. That's where we're getting caught. And none of you would sit down at the beginning of the year and say, hey, what are you going to focus on this year? What are you going to give your time to? Nobody's going to be like, Facebook, Instagram, Netflix is getting my priority time. But it is, you know, and...

Okay, let's move now to kids. Like you want to have a better relationship with your kids. Most of you have your kids are sorry. Before you do that, I just want to point out one little thing because I think this is a good comparison because the real way you would read 25 books in a year is simply something like that. Instead of getting on Instagram for 30 minutes a day, you would pick up a book. It's not having these giant chunks of time where you spend.

that you spend reading, it's just a little bit day by day. It doesn't have to be a lot, but if it's done consistently, it adds up to something like 25 books a year. And, or I wanted to add for sure, you know, listening to audio books too, that counts, right? To be listening while you work out or drive or do the dishes, or I listen when I get ready in the morning, you know, when I'm doing my hair and makeup, I listen to audio books. And so over time that adds up. So.

Rachel Denning (31:56.974)
Well, that's just a perfect example. If you spent 15 minutes, 20 minutes getting ready and you listen to an audio book, just, just enough. So about 20 minutes a day of an audio book. And I usually listen at double speed. Right. So now you're getting 40 minutes of a book per day. You are going to fly through lots of books in a year just by listening when you're doing your makeup and getting ready. What about driving? Right? Nobody's going to cry. Wait, I'm going to add this. I listen in the shower because I put a little...

thing up in my shower. There's a little apparatus you can buy it sticks little suction cup sticks to the shower wall and so you bring it on in and listen right there right? And I take long showers so it's. Mine are cold showers and so you know I would not have time to bring it on. I'm getting my shower done out of here. But think about that so okay jump in the car. If you listen to an audiobook in your car you literally turn your your car into an institution a university but

if you just decide to kick on the radio instead, then you're listening to some Yahoo! Blab on about whatever, or music. Which is fine if you're falling asleep. Yeah, okay, right. But if my priority, if my target is to get through information, I really want to be thoughtful, when I get in the car, I'm going to turn that on. And it's not 100%, but it's like there's so many opportunities for that. I had to go to the doctor's office this morning to see what I had done to my pinky.

destroyed it playing volleyball. But you know, you're sitting there before I left. Here's a perfect example. I left this morning. I'm like, Oh, I'm going to the doctor's office. I know I'm going to have downtime. I'm bringing my AirPods so I can listen to an audio book and bam, like, okay, it's 10 minutes, five minutes here. It's wherever you are. I grabbed that because reading and learning is a true priority and I'm planting those seeds specifically. And in our case, we love to read in the mornings. So,

Sometimes your training is at 30 minutes of sleep for 30 minutes of reading. Well, if reading truly is a priority and I want alignment and congruence, I'm going to go to bed on time so I can get up and read. It's subtle. It's so subtle, these small inconsistencies. Just like a seed. Yeah. It's small. And it's undoing us. And undoing the things you want most. Right. So let's go through some more. Like... Well, you were going to get into the parenting of your kids.

Rachel Denning (34:22.51)
Interrupted most of you your children are at school and so your time with them and those of you who work during the day or go away for work and come back home your time with them is this small window in the evening and so We say things like man. I want more time with my kids. I want more time with my family What is it? What exactly does that mean? Right and if you get clear about that like oh, no, I'm gonna spend a couple hours or four hours or you know

an absolutely dedicated, undistracted hour with my kids or each of my kids or something like that. So if you know you have this window, again, it's just being strategic about your life. Like, man, I got this window from, let's say from 5 .30 or 6 until bedtime. And if you have a decent bedtime, you have three or four hours.

What are you doing during those three or four hours? Is that consistent with this said desire to have more quality time with your family? That's easy. That's easy math. I have four hours max with my kids. What am I going to do with those four hours? Well, I got to run this area. I got to do this thing. I got to make this call. I got to do this. Oh, so and so this. Oh, I'm going to fix this thing. Oh, I got to check my Facebook now. And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I thought you said you wanted more quality time with your kids. Well I do, but no, no buts. This is where the incongruency and inconsistency kill us. Because it's not like you have to totally give up everything else you need or want to do, but if you are more strategic and you're thinking about it in that way, there's a way to make it so that it is bonding time with your kids and being a productive person.

per chance, whether that's making dinner with them, taking them with them, taking them with you on the errands, doing the work together. And there's so many ways you can get creative with this to make it intentional family time. And while you were talking about this, I just think that this is one of the things that we have done a lot of, I think, because we spend a lot of time as a family. But.

Rachel Denning (36:41.39)
Our time as a family together isn't always together because we all have to go our separate ways and work on our projects and our work in our school. But when we come back together, we're all in. Like we're there having conversations, discussing things, talking about what we thought about or experienced, and we're very much engaged in what's happening so that then we can go our separate ways again and do our thing and not feel like, oh, you know.

spend time together because we are, we're spending that time together when we are together. So in at the very least, if people were just like, okay, I come home from work. This is my role right now. This is my focus to spend quality time with my family. It doesn't have to be extra time, special time, some other time. You have that time. No matter what it is or how much you have of it, it's there. Just be more intentional about it.

And suddenly you don't fill this void in your life of not having family time because you are having it. And it's in the everyday things that you're doing. You're just living it more intentionally. Right. And the very nature of having a priority is that you put that first above other things. Right. So you're going to have to say no. And the things you're saying no to, if you stopped and look like, compare that to the relationship you want with your children.

Like yeah, that takes second place. I'm saying yes to this, to the relationship. So one example that you brought up is Rachel and I want to always have an amazing relationship with our children. We want to be able to talk about anything and everything. And so we're not going to wait until they're adults and hope this all works out. We talk. We talk every day. We have great discussions all the time. We're talking about all kinds of stuff. Like whatever comes up, we're talking about it because we want that relationship with our kids for the rest of our life and their life.

And so we make that happen. Another thing we prioritize is going, taking each of our kids on a date. It's just that one child with both of us and we go to their favorite restaurant of choice and we just sit and listen and talk and connect. And yet we're busy. We have seven kids and businesses and travel. We're busy, but we make that a priority and the kids know that they are our priority and they feel it and they reciprocate it. And it's awesome.

Rachel Denning (39:04.75)
Now we can make all kinds of excuses about why I don't want to spend the money every week, I'm not sure I have the time, I've got all these other things. But are you being congruent with what you really want? Right. Well, and I know as a mom...

there's this concern we have of, oh, but we have to do, we have to make dinner and we have to do the dishes. And we have, like, we don't have time to connect and talk and do all this because we have to get these things done. And one of the things we have done to help with that is one thing is simplify the process. It, sometimes our meals are literally us as a family standing around the kitchen island, snacking on stuff.

And we do that because we're hungry and we want to eat, but we're going to focus the time on discussion rather than on making some big meal and preparing it and sitting down and all that. Like that's our priority to us. Not that we never have meals like that, but simplifying that process of eating, there's fewer dishes. There's, you know, fewer mess, there's less mess because we're literally - The setup process alone would - Oh yeah.

In some ways it's like grazing, like what do we have in the fridge? Let's get it out, let's eat and let's talk and we're talking. Yes, oh man, okay, that's a perfect example, right? That's a perfect example of a potential incongruence with what you really want. So what you really want is this real connecting loving relationships and this great beautiful family. What you're trying to do to get it is we have a big elaborate setup, everyone's sitting at a table, formal, we're all sitting there properly, it's like those...

old what leave it to be whatever Norman Rockwell the old yeah the old image of like the perfect family sitting down to this dinner for family bonding but what happens is there's so much work so much time so much effort so much stress so much fighting and contention and mayhem and chaos to try to get it to that that you spend let's say it takes you an hour to prepare a meal and get everything set up and where and then well then clean up afterwards all this stuff instead of like

Rachel Denning (41:14.734)
You might come in and see the Denning Grays around the... We have guests a lot. We have people come stay with us a lot. They're like, you know this, that caught us off guard. This looks like a bunch of piranhas standing around the kitchen island. But we're all right there. Close. Close. Face to face. We're surrounding the island. We're within a few feet of each other. And we're talking. Talking. Well, sometimes we all talk at the same time. We're all talking.

and we're dancing and we're connecting and we're actually getting what we want in relationships standing there like heathens around the island. Now like Rachel says, we have a big formal dining room with a big... And Friday night, on Good Friday we sat down and had a formal dinner. Set it all up, all the glasses and the plates and the decorations.

and we have this beautiful dinner and it's amazing. But that was a different experience we were trying to create. It wasn't necessarily family bonding discussion time. It was, we're going to have this formal dinner experience. That was what we were aiming for in that case. But on a day -to -day basis, it's just not realistic to have a big, not even formal, just a regular dinner time sometimes. And so we think, oh, if we don't have the dinner time, we can't do the bonding when...

we somehow organically, we've just come up with this of like, well, it doesn't matter. Let's get some food. Let's just stand here and talk. And that has been a main source of bonding in our family. Prioritizing the bonding in this distance over the hard rule of being at the table every time. And this goes just across the board with so many things. In this instance with your children.

Maybe you're a little bit distanced or it hasn't been going so well, or maybe you got some kids, you feel like they're strained there. I wanna just invite you.

Rachel Denning (43:20.334)
just take the next, I don't know, six months and go all in.

Make it a priority. Be completely congruent, absolutely congruent with your targets and ideals as a parent. If you want patience and you're tired of yelling at your kids in the evening, that's the other thing. You end up spending your evenings fighting with your kids, yelling at your kids, just making major withdrawals instead of deposits. And so you're like, I have this tiny window every evening with my kids and we end up fighting.

Like not only are you not prioritizing it, you're actually causing more problems. There's even a greater incongruence there. Yes, absolutely. And so, go all in? Yeah, you are sabotaging the said ideal you have. You have this ideal and instead of doing the things that will get you there, you're doing the things that are actually moving you further away. And I know that this has actually come up a lot with your coaching and in our group coaching it's come up.

Maybe we should talk about that for a minute. Just specifically like bedtime. How do you make bedtime more peaceful? How do you actually, just real quick, you know, how do you actually make it more of a positive experience instead of a negative experience, which it is for a lot of people. I know. And for us years ago, I realized like, because I went through the young dad, new kids go to bed and I have to yell at you and spank you.

ground you keep putting you back in bed because you don't want to go to bed. And it only took a couple of times where they cry themselves to sleep and I practically cry myself to sleep because I feel so horrible. And then like in just deep sorrow, I go in to say sorry and already sleep and I'm like, you know, crying over their sleeping little body. I'm so sorry I had to get you in trouble. I'm sorry. You know, and I feel terrible. The next day I go in and I remember I set alarms to go in the next morning.

Rachel Denning (45:20.59)
really sincerely apologize. But the damage had been done. The damage, oh man, that one got me. So it hurt enough that I changed. And I'm like, no, I want to prioritize, this is a perfect example. I want to prioritize bedtimes that going to bed is awesome. And my kids look forward to it. And it's a chance for me to really bond and connect with them. I wanted my kids, and I was strategic and thoughtful about this. First thing in the morning,

for their whole lives, I wanted them to wake up to me smiling and saying like, good morning sunshine or singing, oh what a beautiful morning or like, yeah, it's a new day of life, whoa. Like I wanted them to see me awake and alive and energized first thing every morning and then realize, well I want them to see me loving on them and praising them and reading to them, learning with them right before bed. So I'm booking every single day with a positive interaction with me. They're gonna go their whole life, their whole.

life under my roof. They're gonna wake up to me being positive and they're gonna go to bed to me being positive. And I wanted that. I want that to be the this stability standard in their life. And so I got into that, right? And I was tired. I would fall asleep mid -sentence reading to the kids and they'd elbow me and they'd be so frustrated. Dad! Wake up! Keep your head up like, sorry.

I was exhausted, right? I was doing all this stuff, but I read to them. And I read and read and read and read. And we went through so many series of books, and I will forever cherish my memories reading to the kids. And I know they do. And it was awesome. Right. So.

along with that, this idea of creating, you know, creating it and turning it into a positive experience so that it is something that they look forward to doing. I think that's one big key. If your kids hate going to bed and you hate doing bedtime, that's part of the problem right there is nobody looks forward to it. So why is it going to go well if everybody hates it? So you have to switch that energy around it and make it into something desirable. And that comes from...

Rachel Denning (47:33.486)
Offering to do something with them or for them that makes it pleasant Maybe that is reading stories or cuddling or rubbing their back or like you're gonna know what your kids like and what they would want they need that from you during this time and that's one of the keys to switching it is to Making it this special bonding time Because then they are gonna they're gonna go through the requirements to get to that thing. So, you know, hey, I

For example, right now, our girls, dad's gonna read to them. But in order for dad to read to them, they need to brush their teeth, go to the bathroom, put on their PJs, and they're willing to do those things instead of fighting me, fighting doing those things, because they want the outcome. They want to read with dad. So if you have something like that, a desirable end goal, then it makes bedtime smoother because you're working together to get to that goal. And now it becomes a more positive experience.

instead of a fighting negative, trying to push them into bed so you can have some peace, right? You'll get that, you know, once they get used to this. Then it's easy. And then, yeah, it's so much easier. Yeah, putting your, putting the toddlers down and the kids, it's easy now because they love it and I love it. So, but this right here, that moment is where we get into difficulty. That's where congruence becomes challenging because you might be like, well, I don't want to read this.

Well, it's sad to me. I don't want it to just be a book. Absolutely. But they want it. And so I read it. Now I try to guide to some good books that are worth reading, right? And we do. Or I'm tired, right? And so you dads or moms, you've been working all day, you're exhausted and you're like, I do not feel like it. Go to bed. Right? You know, I'm just going to tell you to go to bed instead of help you go to bed. That's where the incongruence happens. You're like, yeah, but I'm tired. I don't feel like it. And this is where I step in and say, I don't...

give a crap if you feel like it or not. You do it because that's your priority. That's your target. In that moment, you're choosing the seed you want and the seed you don't want. That's it. That's it right there. And you're like, I'm tired. I don't feel like doing it. They just need to go to bed. I'm frustrated with them anyways because they drew all over the walls and punched holes in the couch. All right. And you're like, no, what do I want? In this moment, when I don't feel like doing it, what is it I really want? I want to be very nice to my kids.

Rachel Denning (49:59.438)
I go do it whether I feel like it or not. Because one of the things I've been thinking lately is you're the adult. Act like it. Act like it. No, really. Exactly. A lot of parenting problems, I honestly believe this, a lot of parenting problems come because the parents haven't learned how to be adult enough. They're dealing with trying to figure out their own stuff, which I get it. That's hard. We are learning how to figure out our own issues.

and trying to deal with them. But parenting gets better and easier when you actually grow up and act like the adult. And even though you're tired too, they're tired, and you're tired, but you're the grownup. So you need to be the grownup and you need to have enough willpower, nothing else, to make going to bed a pleasant experience so your kids...

want to be parented by. Yep. And the amazing thing about parents growing up is that kids do too. Yeah. You're mothering maturity and adult behavior for them. Exactly. And you're doing with a good attitude, mind you, you're doing the things you don't feel like doing. Right. Just because they need to be done and they need to be done in a way that's actually effective instead of damaging two relationships. And so then your children go up saying, well, that's what we do in our family.

The good things that are good, we just do them, we do them cheerfully. Instead of a lot of kids who are growing up like, well, it makes me uncomfortable and it's inconvenient, so we don't do it. I don't feel like it. If you go around through life doing what you happen to feel like doing in the moment, yeah, that's gonna suck. And it's gonna be massive amounts of incongruence. So take the same process and walk through each aspect of your life. You say you want - Especially the ones where you're feeling unfulfilled.

Right. Especially you say, for example, you want this extraordinary marriage.

Rachel Denning (52:04.046)
Are your actions really truly aligned with that? Are you planting those seeds? I mean, a simple basic one, are you going on a date every week? And not just the canned date. Like, you're going to restaurants you like and having conversations that are great beyond the transactional, like, hey, did you feed the kids today, babe?

I went to work, right? Like, are you investing? Are you listening? Are you talking? Are you planning trips to go?

You're showing up. You're doing your part. And again, go through your health. When you go to the grocery store, is your cart full of things that are aligned with your desired outcome? Yeah. That's another big one for us. I mean, in fact, I would say my uncle the other day, he was so funny. He's like, you're so lucky that you're so thin still. And I was like, yeah.

somewhat, but that's not really the cost. Back to this idea of health. Like I have been extremely, extremely, I said picky, but strict with what I, and it starts there. What I buy, what I put in my grocery cart. My kids know, they know most of everything in the grocery store does not go in our grocery cart. I read the label on every single thing I buy and I'm very strict about.

what I'll allow. So you are so lucky. I am so lucky because I've been doing that for at least 15 years. Exactly. But I mean that turns out that luck is closely tied to congruence. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? So that's how I have the results that I have. Right. I mean, I'm not a totally active but not totally inactive person. Right. I mean, moderately active, but I would say the biggest contributing factor.

Rachel Denning (54:13.23)
for my body health is that thing, what I put in my grocery cart. And that is congruent with where I just read, we study, we think. We like, well, this is how I want to feel. So I want to look, this is what I'm going to do. Feel like it or not. You walk down the wrong aisle and you're like, oh, I want to buy some of that. The pastries at the bakery. Sometimes I want some of those things, but I don't.

And one of my hard rules is I don't buy it for my own house. You know, I go to my aunt's house, I'll eat something she buys, but I don't buy it and bring it to my own house. Yep. And there, so you set up your guidelines and you live by them. Again, I just can't emphasize this enough, whether you feel like it or not. I can't tell you how many times I've come down to work out and I'm like, man, I don't feel like working out. That's just not an option. Like I don't care.

And I'll talk to myself, I don't care whether you feel like it or not, dude. Like we work out because we, and it's like multiple personalities here. Like, look, all of us, I guess it's my cells. All of my cells were a we. We work out because that brings us the results we want. And so we work out. Now, okay, that's the first level. So I just jump on the bike or the treadmill or grab the weights and just start going.

And you can help yourself. Maybe there's a song you have or a playlist, something gets you going or a good book or something or something you say to yourself to get going. So you can help yourself. So it's not so hard. So you get going. But then there's this next one, right? So you can go to the gym and you can go through the motions and not get any results. There's another incongruence. Like I go to the gym all the time. Man, I'm still out of shape and overweight. I get no results. And what's interesting is because the problem there is like you don't want to push harder because man, it's uncomfortable. It's hard to work out vigorously.

But vigorously is the seed you need to plant to get the results you want. Right? Because you want, you want, maybe let's say you want a six pack. You want to be ripped, you want some big muscles, you want to look fantastic, you're training for a long distance race or something. Then you have to work out vigorously. There's no other option. Otherwise you're planting something you don't want. So in that moment, you're like, okay, I just have to do it. And it's funny, people will say, I don't have time.

Rachel Denning (56:34.926)
I'm like, dude, it actually takes less time to work out vigorously. So you can't use that excuse. Or people tell me like, I don't have time to lose weight. I'm like, whoa, it's actually takes less time to eat less. Sorry, your math is a little fuzzy. Or to eat something healthier. Yeah, it doesn't take more time. So isn't there some research on like these seven minute or 10 minute workouts that they are actually pretty effective because they're intense. Because they're intense, yeah. In a shorter amount of time. Yeah, the HIIT training.

So if vigor is the thing you need at work or in your workout or with your woman, I'm trying to go with all the W's I can find here. Okay, do it. Feel like it or not. And it takes less time to do it. And so if you'll actually follow through with congruence and alignment, you're right. It's less time.

and with practice it becomes easier, then all of a sudden you're, like we were saying a moment ago, you're getting luckier all the time. Your life's just lucky. Yeah, it's true. And it's amazing, and so then it's easy to keep falling out, because you're like, dude, this just results. It feels good to win. Well, and you feel better about yourself. I mean, I've noticed that for my own self. When I feel off and I'm like, oh, I just feel...

dissatisfied or frustrated or you know going back to what we were talking about in the beginning if I just go do one of the things that I had committed to do even if something simple like taking my vitamins like I have these things I want to do and if I go do one of those things I suddenly just feel better like oh I'm no longer fighting or resisting I'm actually just doing it and it makes my life better. Exactly especially when...

when that resistance, that battle you're going through, that inner battle, it takes up more energy than it would to just go do the thing. You're like, I was gonna do it, I should just go do it. Right? And so it starts to take care of the battle, the conflict, the war, the disappointment for yourself turns into this.

Rachel Denning (58:55.278)
Yeah, the satisfaction. You're like, this feels good. So in everything you're doing, just take a good solid look at your life.

and identify where you're acquiescing to maybe comfort or convenience. Like, I want to live this great life. Man, that's really uncomfortable. Or, man, I want to be this great person, but you're hiding behind your fears. And be honest with yourself. If you're like, I really want to do this, but you don't do it chronically because you're afraid of public opinion or whatever, family looking like a failure, whatever your fear is.

You're hiding behind your fears. So it's incongruent again. And you're the cause of your own problems. You're your own worst enemy because you're hiding behind comfort or convenience or fear or your insecurities or inadequacies or bad habits. Or just the hard work. The hard work. So, and sometimes, yeah, it's avoiding hard work. Sometimes it's just inherent laziness. Right? You're just like, well, I really would like to do that, but I'm just going to see. Netflix is so much more enjoyable. So much easier. And so you're planting the wrong seed.

you're dealing with the incongruence and the pain and the remorse. So it's this one simple principle can take us from this place of disappointment and remorse and frustration to a place of fulfillment and satisfaction and a sense of a healthy sense of pride. I'm like, man, I like myself because I'm doing likable things. And what are the likable things? It's the things that are the actions.

that are congruent with our desired outcomes. Well, it reminds me again of the Buddha's path. Because I'm reading the Dhammapada and he's talking there about there's two different paths you can take. You can take the one path, which is easier to take, it's more comfortable, it's more convenient, it's more pleasurable, and you know, it's fun.

Rachel Denning (01:01:06.606)
for a while, but the long -term outcome of taking that path is suffering. Now the other path, it's the harder path. It's the uncomfortable path. It's, you know, doing the workout. It's reading all the labels on all the food. It's focusing on your kids when you want to be decompressing after work, right? Instead of bonding with them. It's chasing your life mission and the song you were born to sing versus just...

going through the motions of social condition. Yeah, exactly. And so it is the more challenging path because you have to make the extra effort to do those things on a daily basis consistently. But the long term outcome of that path is as well, Buddha says nirvana, but essentially long term happiness. That is the outcome of taking the Harvard path. And I just love that imagery there.

that it really is that simple. We think, oh, I want to be comfortable and happy. And so I'm going to take this easier, happier path, but it doesn't lead to what we want. We have to choose the harder path and the harder road to get the long -term satisfaction and happiness that we're seeking. And that, I think, requires some just simple wisdom and discipline to say, I'm going to do what brings me what I want, not what I feel like doing. Yeah. I'm going to plant the seeds.

that produce the harvest I want. Even though it might be easier, convenient, or comfortable right now to grab this seed right here, I guess I could just really emphasize that fact. There is unbelievable power in doing the things that you know you need and want to do, whether you feel like doing them or not. That will bring in the results you want.

So, be careful.