#217 To Control Guns or Not to Control Guns? -- This is NOT the (Right) Question

Rachel Denning (00:10.67)
Hey everybody, welcome to the extraordinary family life podcast. We're your host, Greg and Rachel Denning. And actually, before we get started today, I just want to thank you. Thank you for listening and for being here and for being the caliber of people that would listen to a podcast like this, where you care and you want to do things differently. And I have a small favor to ask. Rachel and I, like part of our life's work, part of our mission.

is to help families. I was up early this morning writing and thinking and this, I love this, I live for this and the joy and the peace and the fulfillment, the meaning we have in our marriage and the wonderful relationship with our children and who they're becoming and the work we get to do. We want to share this with as many people as possible because...

It's so, so good when it's good. And it is so sad and tragic and miserable when it's not. And as we're out traveling the world, we're in a different part of Turkey now. We just get to see it everywhere we go. The families who have it together and then the families who don't.

the contrast of just the pure fulfillment and joy of life versus the suffering.

and the pain. Oh man. So if you hear anything good here, you like this, please leave a review, share it with friends, family, colleagues, just take a screenshot where you're listening and share something you like, a quote or thought or idea, how it's helped. Let's just get this out in front of people. And even if you don't share it, share what you learn. Share it with your spouse, share it with your family, share it with your friends and extended family. Like let people know we have to get these

Rachel Denning (02:14.384)
truths and these principles and these practices these ideas out well we have to speak up more because I think especially nowadays there's so much confusion there's so many things being taught that are not true and not in a religious sense because it's not it's not religious based it's in a psychological sense a biological sense the philosophical sense like there there's things being

shared, purported, taught that aren't true and it's actually causing pain and misery and suffering like you're talking about and so if more of us speak out...

and say, uh, and it needs to be in an appropriate way. It needs to be an attackful way. We're not, not attacked full, attacked full attack, full attacking way. No attacked full way. You know, we have to learn how to be diplomatic. We're not trying to be rude or offensive to other people, but we do need to say, uh, no, actually that's not true. That's not right. In fact, that's the opposite and that's going to cause problems. It's going to lead to this. So the more we

speak out and share those things and not everyone's going to accept it.

Graciously, but I think it helps you will and you give them a voice It lets us know that there's more than a few of us exactly where it seems it's ironic It seems like the the loudest most outspoken people are often sharing the most erroneous idea well, it's the whole Hierarchy of competence right that I don't I forget who it's by but it's essentially that when you're unconsciously incompetent

Rachel Denning (03:59.536)
you're often the one who believes you know the most. And I think that's often what's happening. And we like to call it having lemon on your face because there was a true story in the news once of this man who went into Rob a bank and he...

put lemon juice all over his face because he thought it would make him invisible because that you can write with lemon juice and it's invisible until you like heat it up. So we in our own family that's our inside joke of like dude you've got lemon on your face like you think that this is working for you or you think that this is accurate when you you don't know you're clueless. So there is a lot of unconscious incompetence going on and it's very often

It's people who know the least that think they know the most and are most outspoken about it. So more people who are competent and consciously competent and unconsciously competent, right? That's the highest level of competence. It's like driving or something. You can do it almost unconsciously when you get good at it. You're unconsciously competent at that. We have to be sharing. We have to be speaking out more. We have to be saying...

no that's not true or yes that is true like we need to be more vocal and yes i share this

someone who's not that way except in our podcast. And to your point there are so many good people who suffer in silence. Yes. They won't tell you about their problems and they won't ask and they won't speak up but man it is such a relief to so many people when you speak up and say hey look here's here's something that actually works. They're like oh thank you thank you I've been struggling with it didn't know what to do.

Rachel Denning (05:49.84)
or think and just yeah we've got to share this. That being said I personally believe that if you are going to speak up you do need to kind of know what you're talking about. I don't believe in being the person who shares their opinion just because they have an opinion. Like not all opinions are accurate or should be shared. Some opinions need to be kept to yourself so when... Because they're stupid. Or they're just uneducated or they're you know they're well yeah.

But you know for us we we share our quote -unquote opinions in our podcast That's why we have this podcast, but we only share the things that we've thought about For a very long time and tried to look at all angles. You know I've tried to look at it from all angles

Those are the types of opinions you should be sharing. Not going around just sharing your advice with everyone just because, the Dennings said we should speak up, so I'm gonna start sharing my advice. No, don't do that please. That's not what we're saying. And make sure, well again, it's a whole part of the journey. I have an educated opinion. Yep, and this is a whole part of our podcast today, what we're talking about. What brought it up was another public shooting.

School shooting in the United States of America, where we are not living. We are living in Turkey currently. And there's been hundreds of active shooters and victims. I haven't looked recently, but...

when I was looking a few months ago. With the Texas school shooting that was last year? Well, even after that, like there had been, and they don't always get the news and they always get a lot of publicity, but there had been more than one a day in the United States active shooting events. Yeah, it was crazy. And by definition, I think there had to be four.

Rachel Denning (07:52.622)
for victims involved and like, so it's crazy. Like it's really, really crazy. And when you go into any public place or any innocent people, I mean that's full on crazy terrorism right there. Now in our heads, for Americans especially, we've grown up with this idea of like, well a terrorist is somebody who goes into a public place and like,

explodes a bomb, right? That's terrorism. But if you go into a public place or a school or a theater and you start shooting people up, that's terrorism. Right. And we tend to think that terrorism occurs outside of our country, like it's coming from a foreign entity. It's foreigners, exactly. And it usually has to do with explosives or some kind of crazy religious belief or something. And of course, those things can be true.

But here's an interesting element, like it's just a different kind. And it's a different reason, a different motive.

And there's a lot more going on. So what we want to dive into. Well, I was just going to share my own personal perspective because it's fascinating. Obviously, I am American. I was born an American. I'm grateful for my American citizenship. But we've spent most, I would say most of our married life living outside of the United States. And in fact, there was a period of time when we lived outside of the US for seven years. Like we, our children had not some.

our children had never been there, right? And I remember, and we've traveled to lots of countries. I mean, we're in Turkey right now, which some people obviously think, oh, that's a dangerous place, lots of terrorism, which is not true. There's a section of Turkey that's dangerous near the Syrian border, not going there. But where we've been, and we've covered hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles, it is so peaceful. So peaceful. And everyone is so nice. Because in general, Muslim

Rachel Denning (09:58.512)
are nonviolent. It's only the extremist groups that are violent. But the, you know, overall they're very nonviolent people. You haven't even seen any crime. No, right. Well, and so getting to my point, like we've lived in lots of countries. We lived in Morocco and in Morocco we saw violence being stopped by people. Like there was this motorcycle crash that almost occurred. Both drivers got off and they picked up rocks to throw at each other and the rest of the people

in traffic, stopped their cars, got out, I'm thinking high school, American high school here, they're gonna form a crowd, they're gonna start chanting and fight, fight, you know, that's what I'm thinking in my mind, because that's my experience. And every single person that stopped went to the other drivers and said, no brother, no fighting, stop, put down the rock, and like dissipated the situation and then everyone went on their way. Like this is our experience in Muslim countries, right?

So but we've lived in a lot of different places around the world. And some that don't even have a military. Right. Costa Rica has no military. No military. Others where if they have police or just just kind of there to help out like we've been in such peaceful places where there's just no violence or places where there's there's no crime. Yeah.

which is just fascinating. Right. So anyway, so coming from that type of experience, you know, I'd lived in the United States, I left for a long time, we came back, I vividly remember being...

afraid to be in the United States. I was more afraid to be in the United States than I had been living in these other countries. Like I specifically remember once I went to, you know, it was a normal place. I was in southern Utah. I went to the mall.

Rachel Denning (11:57.134)
and I saw a guy drive up in this truck with like a Confederate flag and he had this big giant assault rifle on the back of his truck and I thought, is this guy gonna go do a shooting in the mall? This was my thinking process because that is the type of thing that happens only in the United States.

I am literally terrified. I would never, like I home school anyways, but I would never send my kids to a public school in the United States. Even for a day I would be afraid to do it because you never know when there's going to be another school shooting. That's how common it is. And that's insane. And it's only happening in the United States of America. This doesn't happen anywhere else. And the people that we talk to out of the countries, they think it's insane.

And it is, I think about it from another perspective, like that's crazy. Where your own... And terrifying. That's to me the definition of terrorism. That is terrifying. I am afraid, I would rather live in Turkey.

despite the view Americans have of it as being a terrorist country, I'd rather live here than in the US because of the terrorism that occurs in the United States from its own people. You don't know, and we're going to get into this, you don't know who around you is going to snap and start shooting people. Besides the fact that, yes, the United States of America is heavily armed.

Now we're gonna get into all of that. We'll get into all that goodness. And to give context to, last year we did almost a coast to coast trip across the country. We did a huge, long, three month road trip. The year before that we literally did a coast to coast. We went from California to Florida over several months. We love the United States. It's such a beautiful country. So many good people and so many beautiful things. And for the most part, feel safe in most places.

Rachel Denning (13:59.312)
good people right but but the fact that this is like a growing thing and that that kind of violence is happening I guess one of the things I want to bring up is like hey that's that's really rare globally like that's that's a strange

Phenomena. Yeah, it's a weird thing and it's not okay Obviously, it's not okay. But sometimes you think well, yeah, you know crazy things happen everywhere like actually no, they don't

Not this kind of crazy. Yeah, not that kind of thing. And it's important to because sometimes we'll get thinking, you know, at least in my observation, we'll get thinking like, oh, yeah, that's that's pretty crazy. That's wild. But, you know, things bad things happen everywhere. Well, sorry, let me finish your thought first. But I think it's important for us to kind of zoom out, like, you know, like we've heard people talk about the 30 ,000 foot view to zoom way out and to look back at countries and cultures and societies and economies.

and say actually that's not common. That's not normal. It's not happening around the world. It's happening there. And obviously this is just one thing. There's those kind of anomalies or rare things happening all over the place, but this is a really interesting one. Right. I mean we're not trying to say that violence and...

killing and murdering and that type of stuff doesn't happen in other places. It does. And it happens in ways that are wrong or terroristic, if that's a word. You know, there's genocides that happen. There's warring tribes. I mean, there's all kinds of horrible things that are happening.

Rachel Denning (15:47.534)
all the time. You know, wars are happening right now around the world, slavery is happening right now around the world. So we're not saying that the rest of the world is obviously perfect and the United States is a mess. That's not the message either. We're saying that this whole thing with school shootings specifically and similar to shootings, active shooters, it's unique.

you know because when it happens in other places it's usually based off of some sort of cultural or religious differences you know what I mean like there's some sort of history there yeah there's a history there that makes more sense like it's not justified of course but it seems to make more sense with these shootings in the United States it's unique because

Everyone's wondering, why? Why are you doing this? Why are you going? It's not like you're this tribe and I'm this tribe and so I'm gonna kill your tribe because they've wronged me. It's people who are alone usually. They're not acting in a group most of the time. And they're just going to take innocent people out.

Now obviously there's a lot, you know, there's nihilism going on there, they have some sort of, they might have grudges sometimes, maybe against the people or the school or whatever. I think the last couple of major shootings there was some of that involved potentially. But it's still unique in the way of what's the motive. Now, of course, the conversation is saying, well, it's cause there's guns. It's cause guns are...

available, guns are legal, that's the problem. That's why it's a problem. And part of our argument is no, that's not the only reason. It's not just because guns are legal that people are getting shot up, innocent people are getting shot up. That is not an answer in and of itself. Because in other countries, you know...

Rachel Denning (17:47.438)
you can kill someone with machete or anything any tool you can use you can murder someone with if you have enough inclination to do it so it's not the weapon itself that is the cause of the problem there's something else going on here that's off and and the weapon in this case

you know a weapon does facilitate that kind of killing. Yes and that level. That level of killing but also an explosive anybody can make an explosive you could you could go to Walmart right now or to Home Depot and you could. They would flag you for buying. It's happened one of our sons they were buying something and they're like no you can't buy that you can't buy this combination of substances. This could make a bomb. Oh I didn't know that. So.

Obviously we're not just one sided. In fact, we're not crazy pro -gun. We've lived in countries and places where...

their guns weren't available. It was fascinating to be in those places where they had a deep aversion. Everybody, societally, had a deep aversion to guns, which I thought was interesting. So we realized that the weapon is being used for this kind of thing. And the thought is, again, it's an easy thought to go, well, if those weapons weren't allowed, then this wouldn't happen. It's easy to go there.

seemingly logical conclusion. If these guns weren't available, these things wouldn't be happening. And so you think, okay, that could be an answer. Get rid of the guns. Then we remove the guns and then the problem goes away. But what we're going to get into, and this whole podcast is about, is those kind of conclusions, those seemingly... Logical. Logical.

Rachel Denning (19:43.022)
are often erroneous conclusions. Or they're insufficient. Not necessarily that they're erroneous, but they're not... The problem is so complex that that is not the only answer. Nor is it the only cause. And that's, you know, one of the things we were discussing beforehand is this whole thing about cause and effect. If that was the only cause, the fact that the guns were available, then yes, obviously the solution would be easy. Remove the guns.

But we believe that that's not the only cause, it's not the only contributing factor, and so removing that will not, could not be the only solution. I just thought of the perfect example. The Mexican drug cartels are more, arguably, more heavily armed than the Mexican military.

and yet gun control is extremely, extremely strict in Mexico. We've driven Mexico, the entire length of Mexico, at least three or four times, three times. You cannot even have a bullet in your car. Like we've done it. If we're driving through as tourists and we get caught with some nine millimeter bullets, for example, whatever. You could get arrested. You're going to spend some time in a Mexican prison.

not gonna be good for you. You're gonna be in deep, deep trouble. It is highly, highly regulated, right? So people think, well, if you regulate guns and if you eliminate those guns, you make it extremely hard to get, or you just make them completely illegal, then people won't have them. Well, Mexico is a perfect example of that, where it's completely illegal, cannot get them, they cannot be had, and yet the cartels or criminals and the gangs, there's major gang problems in some of the cities, they are so heavily

the arm you're like what in the world where are they getting them from they're sneaking them in from foreign countries from overseas and and and so if you again I think it's a good example like criminals will do whatever it takes and so now instead of having guns you know available there's a massive secret underground importation of that market of the there's a black market of all those weapons and exposes causing a huge problem having said what I just did about

Rachel Denning (22:03.279)
driven, you know, having driven through Mexico three times. Right now we would not drive through Mexico because the Mexican cartel is essentially almost in a civil war with the Mexican government. Like it's out of control and they are heavily armed so they have an advantage and it's looking ugly and terrifying.

So, in fact, some American citizens were recently killed there. They went down for some cosmetic surgeries. Yeah, near the border. Through a border where we have crossed before. And they were down lower south. They'd gone through, but were down further. And they just went down from some cosmetic surgery stuff, some medical tourism, and they ended up getting killed by cartel stuff. Right. So, criminals will get guns. Right. And they'll get weapons, they'll get explosives. They'll get whatever they want to do whatever they want. Again, this isn't like pro guns. We should have guns. I think this would be... Except...

for one principle. Go ahead.

Rachel Denning (23:23.663)
guns. They're a very peaceful country. And we had this moment once where we were sitting in this, we lived on this hippie farm with obviously a bunch of hippies and we were sitting there having these community dinners every week and it was great. We loved it. It was such a great experience. And one night we were sitting there and there was us who are American and some Australians there and some Germans and some like all these different nationalities and we were sitting there and talking and they, the whole topic of

craziness in America and guns came up and from their perspective like they couldn't even imagine or believe that I grew up with a gun in my house or that we at one point we well we own guns now but that we owned guns before our travel life and while we were sitting there thinking about it from their perspective I felt that I was like yeah that is just scary terrifying and crazy like wow oh my god.

Yes, yeah, you're right. And so I fully understood and embraced that way of thinking. Now part of one of the...

journeys of philosophy and education is that it takes, we call it the labyrinth, it takes you, and we did a whole podcast about it, it takes you on this journey where you go to all areas of thought, you explore all of it. And sometimes you come back around, and so in some ways we have come back around, we do currently own guns that are not with us, obviously, because you can't travel with guns, we have them in storage. And so we also see the value of why the amendments were created in the second amendment.

was created in the first place of the right to keep and bear arms and that that was created at a time when that was a necessity. They were a new country and they needed to protect their independence. There was a need for that. And I don't think that that's completely gone away. So we see the value of that, but we also see the craziness, quote unquote, of a society that's armed. It feels very dangerous and when these things happen,

Rachel Denning (25:26.061)
you see the vulnerability that we're all in. If people own guns, you better hope they're sane, because otherwise you are in danger, which I think ultimately brings us to the problem, and that's a lack of sanity. There is a mental instability that's occurring in society, particularly in Western cultures.

And it is a contributing factor to the instability of the right to keep and bear arms. And the threat that it's now becoming because people are suffering from mental illness. Now I don't think any of us would argue that the people who go out and shoot others are not mentally ill. Obviously they are. I don't think you could argue that they're sane.

they're mentally ill. And yet that's not coming up in the conversation. Why aren't we having that talk? Why aren't we having a talk about mental illness? Because every time it happens, it's all about gun control and instead of focusing on the real cause of the problem, we get lost in this stupid argument that's maybe one partial part of the solution, but not the full answer. And until we can actually talk about why it's really happening, people are mentally ill.

we're not going to find a real answer that's lasting. Absolutely. So I wholeheartedly think that we still need to have an armed populace so that tyrants and dictators...

and other people who'd want to change and control governments would step in and do that. We're seeing that. Which, unfortunately, I think a lot of Americans would still say, oh, that's not a problem. Oh, man, that's a huge reality. When if you see what's happening on the world stage, I'm like, are you kidding me? Give me my gun. I'm going to be armed here because Putin, have you seen what he's doing? And have you seen what's happening in China? There's some scary stuff. If you've studied history at all, if you have read the Gulag

Rachel Denning (27:38.287)
archipelago, which I have not, but you've told me all about it. If you have read... Just read that one book and you'll be like, where's my guns? Let's go shopping. If you have read anything about history, you will know that right now things are setting up for a very terrifying time. I just, there's no way around it.

But to say that things are coming that are terrifying. And it's the reason that these things happen is because the generation before it happens think that couldn't happen again. I know that happened in the past. Right. That happened. We were progressed. We're way better than that. Like there's no crazy people like nobody would attempt what they attempted. And if you look back through history like OK never mind that happened just about every 80 to 100 years. Exactly. So it's a cycle. Do we think we've moved beyond humanity. No way. So I think wholeheartedly.

we have to be armed and prepared and educated. Man, we have to be educated because even if we're armed and you're ignorant, it won't serve you to make it worse. So we have to be educated and armed. So I think that's wholeheartedly true. But like Rachel was saying, and we need it, we're going to dive into this, that's not the problem. It's not the cause of the problem. Guns are a neutral thing.

and they're not causing active shootings. Well, it's like, you said this before we started the podcast that we very often as humans want to blame some sort of inanimate object. There's a shooting, let's blame the guns. I have money problems, let's blame the money. You know, we want to put blame on something that's not responsible, really. I mean, it's kind of interesting. It has no...

will to act. It has no free choice. We're the ones that have the free choice. We are the ones that hold the responsibility. And so ultimately, putting the blame on guns and making the issue and the conversation about the guns takes away the true responsibility from the individuals and society as a whole.

Rachel Denning (29:45.261)
which are causing the problem. In reality, we are all responsible because we are all living in a society...

that is contributing to the mental illness of the people who are acting this out. It's a giant problem. And taking away guns or controlling guns isn't going to fix that. That's not going away just because you now have some laws in place. Those problems are still there. They're just going to manifest now in a different way. Imagine if you take away all guns. There's no guns. All the guns are gone. First of all, that would cause a huge problem, but imagine it happened, right? And you now have no more guns.

and you still have the same underlying problems, it's now gonna come out in another way. Who knows? Maybe people are gonna use machetes, maybe they're gonna use bombs. They're gonna use something because the real problem is the mental illness and the dis -ease in their minds, and it's going to come out. The violence isn't going to go away just because they no longer have a gun. Now yes, you could argue that the number of victims might be reduced or whatever, all the statistics, that's a thing.

And yet the problem is still there. The underlying cause of the underlying cause is still there. And until you resolve that, you're not actually solving the problem.

And so again, you've heard us talk multiple times about levels and layers of thinking. And the first level is like, well, okay, if they didn't have access to guns, they couldn't do it. All right, okay, I can go with that. But it's still like Rachel's pointing out, it doesn't solve the major problem. And I really want to emphasize here that we are responsible. We have a part in this, and it is not a global thing.

Rachel Denning (31:34.285)
This is one of those things I really want to point out. It is a societal thing. It's a cultural thing. And you have to go and immerse yourself in lots of different cultures and traditions and countries and do it for a while to really start observing it. And obviously each country and each culture will have their weaknesses. Right, their own challenges. They'll have their own problems. But just kind of in the...

In this topic today, we just want to bring to everybody's attention this severe mental illness problem is a cultural problem. Which some of the argument says, well yeah, it's a problem in America because we have guns. Which, yes, that contributes to it. It certainly contributes to it. But it's not the underlying factor. If this mental illness was not there,

this would also not be a problem.

Does that make sense? And we can't say, well, this is just happening everywhere. It's just the time and period in the world. Everyone's struggling with this stuff. And you have to stop and say, well, no. No, you're not. And I think that's one of the things we're trying to emphasize here is that from our own perspective of, like, I've now been to 50 countries. And many of these countries, we immerse ourselves in. We'll be in Turkey for three months. We like to be in places longer times. And we're not doing the touristy stuff.

We're travelers. Right. We're literally in this little teeny town here where nobody speaks English. We got our eggs delivered this morning. I mean, but nobody, nobody knows. It's all charades and Google Translate because no one speaks English and we don't speak Turkish, of course. So it's a very immersive experience. But we're not seeing these same types of...

Rachel Denning (33:32.397)
mental illness issues is what we're trying to say. Because most of the time when violence is occurring, it's because of something extreme, right? It's a more extreme situation because of religion or certain fanatical beliefs. But in the United States, what we're observing from being from that country and being out of it, is that there's some sort of underlying,

Rachel Denning (34:07.757)
looking for the word and you're looking for the word too. It's like something's fermenting. It's like going rotten. There's something at the core that's gone bad and it's boiling out manifesting in...

Right now it's these psychotic ways. Yeah. Yeah, right in small pockets Well, what I would say the small pockets are the extremes like when it like burst in an absolute extreme, right? But when you start looking into it, it's like bubbling bubbling boiling boiling popping. It's not small pockets. The suicide rates are yes, which is yes people on on medication for anxiety and depression

Again, relationships, married, all across the board, those are not small. Right, okay, so I love that you brought that up because I think that that's very true and I think that that's something we're not looking at in this bigger picture. In reality, that is all connected. Like many of us are aware that suicide rates are through the roof, they're climbing, they keep climbing, especially for youth.

It's connected. They're not isolated incidents. It's not like, oh, they committed suicide and that's not at all connected to someone doing a school shooting. On a societal level, they're all connected. It's just manifesting in different ways. Some people are nihilistic and they want to take out someone, right? It's an act of suicide in a way. I mean, they know they're going to be killed, likely. They just want to take someone out because they're nihilistic. The other people are more internal and they want, you know, they, they,

just want to end their own life. But it's still the same manifestation of the underlying problems. And the problems are people are suffering from mental illness because of a lot of different reasons, but in one way it's a lack of stability. There's a lack of stability in their own life that gives them some sort of foundation of truth and goodness and wholeness and how you can actually live a meaningful life, right?

Rachel Denning (36:16.079)
And so as a result, they're suffering mentally and then at the extreme edges of this, because it's again, it's layers, it's levels. And it's manifesting in lots of different ways, like you mentioned, poor relationships, poor marriages, divorces, polyamorous relationship, like we can go on and on. And at the extreme edges, it's school shootings and suicides.

But it's all connected. It's all related.

I just thought of another example that we've observed and I think if you if you've done any traveling, shoot you don't have travel, if you've visited any major cities maybe on a somewhat regular basis over the last 10 years you've noticed the homeless population and the drugs. We've been in a lot of big cities across the US.

And there has been a massive transformation over the last 10 years of the homeless population and the drugs. And now it's just blatant and open. They're actively doing hard drugs in broad daylight. We saw it multiple times last year even. And it's just everywhere. And even in the big cities where I've not personally been to, people are like, oh yeah, it's gone through the roof. It's just one more manifestation. But it's all over the place, right? And the extremes.

pop up but you can also see this in our schools in in churches and families.

Rachel Denning (37:52.045)
Because of the work we get to do people reach out to us regularly and and the numbers are just climbing and climbing I talked to family and marriage experts and and counselors and psychologists you got I regularly get to talk to to psychologists and therapists they can't handle the demands and the lack of qualified therapists and psychologists like they can't even help solve the problems and

And so this is at university level. It's in the military. It's in the workplace. It is everywhere. It's in churches. It's in service work and missionary work. It's all over. It's huge. And it's predominantly, and this is interesting, because we're not trying to be negative here or blinded. Sounds depressing Craig. Well, and it also sounds like we're just...

Oh, everywhere else is wonderful and the US is terrible. It's not that at all. But it is an outside observation of like, this is predominantly happening under these specific societal conditions.

right near causing it and i do want to say that from my observation observation it is spreading to because while you were talking about increased homelessness and one of the things you mentioned to me because we have a home in guatemala and you were there six months ago and one of the things you said was

We've been going to Guatemala for the past 10 years and there's always been drunk guys or, you know, in the street. But you said this time it was worse. It seemed like it was a lot worse. And so it is spreading. Like this, and for lack of a better word, this Western influence is spreading, including the negative side of it.

Rachel Denning (39:53.645)
it is spreading to other countries it hasn't fully infiltrated all of them yet of course but it is spreading and so yes well we're not just saying you know this is just an America problem or a Western world problem it is a problem that is growing and what's interesting is you see it growing

because of quote the the western kind of influence and that's spreading through the internet and travelers and things. Again we're just we're just sharing our observations here we're just sharing our experiences hopefully to get this is like big level thinking about serious problems that are big problems but also that are very personal real problems that are affecting I I would be shocked.

if every single person listening to this podcast didn't have some kind of personal connection to this problem. Like you are related to someone, know someone, it's in your community, you have somehow been affected by these problems. Right. Which comes back to the...

reason people talk about something like gun control because that seems like a much more manageable solution like we have a problem with school shootings or even children committing suicide with guns let's get rid of the guns and at one level that might be part of the solution.

because if we look at it from what we just laid out, you're like, wow, I don't know how to fix that or where to even begin. So let's just give up hope now. So it seems very overwhelming. And yet I truly believe that it's the grassroots begin at the beginning at the bottom level.

Rachel Denning (41:46.573)
that that is the solution to the problem. That's the real solution. And that is why we do what we do. That's why we preach what we preach because we really believe that if we want to fix things we have to start with our own... Well, we have to start with ourselves, first of all. We have to get our own crap together because if we are bordering with mental illness, well, how can we help anyone else? We can't. We really can't. So we have to find the strategies. And now the research and science is clear. We've done podcasts about this. We've done coaching about this. The research...

research is clear. If you want to maintain mental health, it's just like maintaining physical health. There are certain exercises and practices that you do that maintain your mental health. It's simple. It's easy.

And so if we want to change the world, we have to start there. We have to start by getting mentally healthy and then teaching our children to be mentally healthy and helping our spouse be mentally healthy. That's where we begin. And you could just stay in that little circle and that could be a lifetime worth of work and that's going to have a positive impact for generations. Huge, huge positive impact. Because I like they brought that up. It is very, very generational. I've had the privilege because I get to work with youth and adults. I have had the privilege of seeing

three and sometimes four generations in the same room of mental specific mental illness problems passed down and you get to see it right there like wow.

I get to see it across the board. Grandma did this, great grandma did this, and grandma and then mom and then daughter, they're all doing the same thing. Oh my gosh, what the heck is going on? Because they're passing on their... It's not always the women. That example was the women. Yes, you're right. It's not always the women. But you're right, it's real. And the place to start is with your own well -being.

Rachel Denning (43:42.797)
There is a formula. It's so simple. It really comes down to your habits and your patterns. Sadly, most of which are some form of perpetual self -sabotage. Even for the best people. Their habits and their patterns are wrecking their lives. Well, and then on the extreme level, of course...

There is no doubt whatsoever that their lives are filled with sabotaging habits. Their entire life is a series of habits that is sabotaging themselves to the point that they literally go out and kill other people.

That's what's happening. And it seems so simplistic. Why isn't anybody looking at the pattern? That's what's killing me. And that's really the driving force here is like, why aren't we looking at the patterns? Why aren't we looking at the cause, the deep, deep cause of the problem, instead of hacking away at the symptoms or the branches? When you're like, look at the cause. And again, you might look and say, well, the cause is guns.

and we could put all of our effort and energy and focus and resources to eliminating guns and then at the end of that the problem would still remain it would just manifest differently. Yeah you still have mental illness. And be something else and so we have to get down to that. I think it's important to really emphasize that none of us are... what's the word? None of us are...

invincible like all of us are susceptible to snapping to breaking to dis -ease and to mental illness every single one of us is susceptible to that. In fact one story from the Gulag Archipelago is they said the vast majority of innocent people admitted to treason.

Rachel Denning (45:41.005)
treasonous activity. Treasonous activities within the first 24 to 48 hours, usually 24 hours. And you know what they did to him? You think, oh man, it must have been some horrible, horrible torture to make an innocent person admit to treason within 24 hours. It must have been bad. They just had them kneel, just kneel on concrete.

and they weren't allowed to sleep, they weren't allowed to close their eyes, and they weren't allowed to sit back and rest. They just had to stay in a kneeling position on concrete for up to 24 hours, and most of them admitted. And you think, like, I know, I would. Like, okay, I did whatever you said. I can have baby while I'm exercising. Like, and some of you think, oh, I'm so, and I remember reading that, like, I could, I would make it. And I'm like, just try it.

If you want to, if you're that kind of crazy person, just find a piece of concrete and just kneel down and see if you can stay for one hour. And watch what starts happening. Like we could snap. And so if your food is crap.

If your input through media or music or whatever is crap, if you don't sleep, just try that. And most of you know that. You have little kids, you're like, yeah, I go crazy. I'm an insane person. Would I go a few days without sleeping? Well, just try that. Bad food, bad sleep, bad input. And you're not far from snapping. And yet we don't look at this is what's happening. These school shooters are this is their life. I guarantee you they're staying up late.

They're playing video games or watching something like they're not good in good sleep They're living on Doritos and Mountain Dew and who knows what else surrounded by surrounded by negative constant negative toxic input Yes, they're going to snap all of this is contributing to that a hundred percent and yet we're not saying let's ban Doritos or video games or let's make sure everyone gets enough sleep because we don't think that it's related and yet it is it is

Rachel Denning (47:50.639)
so directly connected. Yeah, no you're right there on that on the note about food if we were to ban...

food that was proven toxic substances. There'd be an uproar. People would be, I will have my Oreos. And yet that, I think from my observations and research, that would have a more positive effect on our society than almost anything else. Absolutely. I agree with you. It sounds insane, but I agree. If you made toxic food illegal. Seed oils. Let's get rid of seed oils. The mental health improvement in the country would be

off the charts. People feel so much better and they think better. And I know if you haven't read this stuff or listen, you might hear us and think we're the crazy ones talking like this. But it is it's playing a huge part. And so as a society, and again, I get to work with lots of youth, young adults, people from all over the place and different demographics and just all over and across the board.

the as a society, especially in the US, you know, staying up till one, two, three, four o 'clock in the morning is just normal. It's common. Most universities, the students are tapped in and talking to them. They're like, oh, yeah, you know, usually three AMs the norm for bedtime.

and they're living on soda and caffeine drinks. Not to mention the drugs, the drug culture, because that's also playing a role. And the research now that's coming out with what marijuana is doing to the brain cell, it massively decreases blood flow to the brain. Now, just so you know, the brain functions...

Rachel Denning (49:39.661)
Blood flow so you smoke weed and it's being legalized in more and more places more people doing it You're just massively decreasing blood flow there Obviously impacting your cognitive abilities and your mental health in case we need to make that connection here Vaping they're finding the chemicals in vaping the flavors of things. Oh, yeah, actually much more damaging Than nicotine even yes, and it's it's growing like crazy. So on and on and on

and sugar is an inflammatory. So there's all these factors. And yet nobody is looking at that. No one is saying was this shooter vaping? Were they smoking pot? Were they sleeping? What were they eating? Nobody's looking at that. They just want to say take away the guns. They used a gun. It just doesn't make sense to me. It's also very very common. Netflix is doing all kinds of research as is Amazon Prime and all of them. They're finding just

Unbelievable amounts of hours are being spent binging. Yeah, non -stop bingeing on entire seasons and series and I don't know if you guys have noticed have you noticed the massive increase in horror films and just disturbing dark input.

It's a huge... And we want to blame the media industry and say, well they shouldn't create that stuff. Well they're creating it because people watch it. It's not their fault per se. They're only giving people what they want. So if we change what we want, they'll change what they create.

If everyone just... Ultimately it comes down to individual responsibility. We are individually responsible for contributing to this problem. Which was, this was one of the things I love that you shared with me from, you read the Gulag and told me about it. I want to read it one day. But what you said was the major takeaway from this book was that...

Rachel Denning (51:43.917)
He was individually responsible for contributing to the events that led up to him being imprisoned in a gulag on the societal level. He came away from that saying, I contributed to this. I participated in creating the gulag. I participated in this whole societal craziness that led to the torture, the imprisonment, all of these horrible things that happened.

It was my fault. I am responsible. And that's what we're trying to say here. We have to all look at ourselves individually and say, am I mentally healthy? Am I doing the things that create mental wellness? Am I teaching that to my family and passing that on? Because if we're not, we're contributing to the problem. We are causing it. Because we're not fighting against it by actively...

positively creating lives of meaning and significance. And so by default you are contributing to it. Exactly. Yes. And then some inadvertently are directly contributing to it. You're adding to the problem. And so our invitation today is for each of us to take and accept more responsibility and more ownership.

and look at the deeper causes, not just first level or second level, but what are the deeper causes and what things need to be happening to make a significant impact to put an end to this foul disease.

This pestilence is spreading through a good society and ruining so many lives. And we can't just dismiss it. And we can't just go on with our head in the sand and crossing our fingers and hoping things will just get better and praying that God will just put a stop to it all. We have to actively participate.

Rachel Denning (54:02.509)
We have to be his hands and his feet and his mouthpiece. And we have to do something, of course, starting with ourselves and then with our families and then increasing our circle of influence. We've got to address the real cause. And of course, this principle applies at every aspect of life.

not just this one element of our society, but every aspect of seeing truly what is the real cause and focusing on that. Because if I come to, again, an erroneous conclusion, I love that term, because I make an error in judgment. I think, oh, this is my problem. And so I put all my effort and focused attention on solving the problem all the while. The problem persists because I haven't identified the real cause. And so I'm putting all this.

these resources into solving a cause that's not the cause. And so the problem persists. The problem remains and even gets accentuated because it might get even more neglected. So what are the real problems in your life?

in your mindset, in your health, in your finances, what are the real problems in your marriage? What are the real problems in parenting with each of your children? What are the real problems in your finances?

I just really dig into that and say, what is the actual cause? What's the, like you said earlier, the underlying cause of the underlying cause. Because you might identify the cause and say, well, man, why is that the issue? And then you might find that it's some deeper need that's not being met. Some underlying problem, and we have to address those things.

Rachel Denning (55:53.581)
systematically and thoroughly and reach through those layers so that we can live these happy, joyful, peaceful, meaningful, extraordinary lives. We live on purpose with so much joy. And it makes such a positive difference in the world, but that will never happen if we're just rolling along kind of clueless, checked out, naive.

Disregarding it hoping it just goes away on its own because hope is not a strategy or if we're Keep we keep we get so adamant and so passionate so fired up about the wrong cause or about the symptom, right? We just raging angry and passion with all these activists, right and They're they're so fired up about the symptom

When unfortunately they put their effort into that instead of into...

Improving themselves because they are also contributing until until each of us get ourselves in a healthy solid place as individuals as families and as communities We're all contributing to the problem. Yep. And so all the activism in the world isn't going to fix it if we don't fix ourselves Yes, so it all goes back to you and to me

as individuals taking ownership and responsibility for this. And that's literally why we do what we do. That's why we have the extraordinary family life formula coaching. It's why I have the be the man master class and tribe. It's why all of this exists. It's why we have these conversations. Exactly. It's why we do this. Why we share this so we can all be the very best version of ourselves. So.

Rachel Denning (57:55.437)
Love you guys, thanks for listening this. Go set your life up, the systems and strategies, everything in place so that you are trending upward and in an effort to become your very best self. Love you guys, reach upward.