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Summary of Parenting Seminar With Jonathan Doyle
Bonus Episode17th September 2022 • The Daily Podcast with Jonathan Doyle • Jonathan Doyle
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This is a summary I did in the studio of a live parenting seminar I recently gave for 500 parents in Sydney, Australia.

Grab a free copy of my book Bridging the Gap here:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf

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https://go.jonathandoyle.co/jd-speak-opt-in

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https://go.jonathandoyle.co/coaching

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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpCYnW4yVdd93N1OTbsxgyw

Karen's MasterClass for Women is here:

https://bit.ly/geniusmasterclasskaren

Transcripts

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Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you here.

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Thanks so much for taking a moment to come and listen to this content.

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It's a great privilege to, uh, to have the gift of your time.

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Time is such a commodity in our modern and busy world.

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So welcome aboard.

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If you're listening to me, you're here for one or two reasons.

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You are either in the room recently where I spoke to about 500 parents.

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And Dave you're listening.

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When you were in the room.

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Welcome back.

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It was a really great night and so good to meet many of you afterwards.

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If you weren't there, you'll have come across this in another way.

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So welcome aboard.

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We are all in one way or another on this parenting journey together,

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this challenging, complex, demanding journey of parenting.

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I was thinking recently that, uh, you know, a few years ago I saw

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this photograph of the space shuttle in, inside on the cockpit and.

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And you look at that photograph, you can probably Google And, uh, you see this vast

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array of buttons and switches and dials.

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And, you know, it's fascinating to look at that complexity, but believe

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it or not, the space shuttle actually had a manual, an actual manual.

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You could read on how to pilot and fly

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And I'm mentioning this because it's interesting to note that something so

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vastly complicated still had a manual, but guess what else is really complicated and

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challenging, but doesn't have a manual.

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And that's your child and my.

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And my children.

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Uh, we all, uh, desire to be really good parents, but it

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doesn't come with a manual.

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Does it?

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It's, it's a challenging and, um, and at times frustrating task,

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but, uh, it is a task with giving a very best if it's two, because the.

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The results, both for.

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You know, for, in terms of our own vocations and for the wider culture.

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I just crucial at this particular moment in history.

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So friends welcome aboard.

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I want to talk about a few things.

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I want to just give a brief summary of the evening.

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And then I'm going to offer you some, you know, some of the key takeaways, hopefully

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that are practical for you as well.

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Karen and I have three children.

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And as I mentioned to the audience, we weren't able to have

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children for six and a half years.

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We were desperate to start a family, but we weren't able to.

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And eventually Karen was diagnosed with celiac disease.

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Once that was resolved.

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I, uh, I like to say we couldn't stop having children.

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We had three.

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In three and a half years.

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And as I record this, they're still quite young.

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And, uh, but so all I'm saying is we're very much on this journey with you guys.

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As we try to do our very best and learn as much as we can and, um, hopefully

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share some of what we're learning and what we've learned over the years.

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My background, I guess, uh,

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You know, has been in the education sector.

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I've got a bunch of postgraduate degrees and, uh, have spent the last

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kind of, I guess what it must be now two decades, uh, speaking around the

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world to more than 400,000 people.

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On all these sorts of topics.

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And, uh, so that's kind of, what's brought us into this space

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and let's, uh, let's jump in

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Look, what I titled the presentation was I called it one big idea

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in three useful questions.

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So I want to give you one main idea that kind of permeates the

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presentation and they're going to frame three useful questions.

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And then in the end, I'm just going to give you a summary.

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Of some of the practical ideas that I think we can all put into place.

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So the one essential, big idea that I'm keen to share with all of us

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is simply the idea that no one can parent your child better than you.

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Now I know in the difficulties and challenges of daily life, it

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can feel that that's not the case.

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Right.

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You can sometimes feel that you're not getting it right.

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Or there's all sorts of challenges and problems.

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And, and, you know, I don't want to digress, but all of

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us are in a different place.

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Some of us, you

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Uh, parenting comes pretty easily to us.

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We've been blessed with relatively easy kids.

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Some of us Not in that situation, right.

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We're dealing with.

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Often complex, uh, behavioral problems or peer group problems.

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And, you know, there's a spectrum right?

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From, from no problems all the way up to extreme problems.

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But I do want to really encourage us all to remember that no matter how

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difficult or easy it may feel at times,

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We've got to hold onto this belief that we're meant to be the particular

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parent given to our particular children.

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And that no one can do this better than you because no one could

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ever be more invested than you.

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So I'd like to think that God has really chosen and ordained you to be the

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specific parent of your specific child.

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And if that's the case, and I've got a relatively diverse audience

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listening to this summary, but.

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You know, I like to think in the sense of vocation, if we've

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been called into a vocation.

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Such as the vocation of parenting.

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Then if God calls us into that, then it's his problem to sustain us in it.

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So by that, I mean that, I think there's a deep, spiritual,

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sacred aspect to parenting.

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And if we're caught into it,

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Part of our journey will be trusting that we are supposed to be there.

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I spoke in Boise, Idaho a few years ago and I never forget

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what the, the Bishop said.

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He was introducing me to a teaching convention.

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And, uh, I remember him famously saying, he said, everybody,

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you've got to stop trying to make Jesus unemployed, who has liked

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So for me, there's a deep, um, spiritual basis to what we're doing here and

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that God wants to support us in it.

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So.

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As I mentioned before, there's a lot of differences for us, uh, in

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difference in our life experiences.

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So some of us, you know, there may be some single parents There'll be some of

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us listening where everything's going well, as I said, some of us listening, we

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everything's a challenge and difficulty.

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But despite the differences that we have.

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And the other difference I mentioned on the night too, I should recall.

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Is our own experiences of being parented.

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So, you know, our own experience of our own childhoods.

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Some of us had a really straightforward, easy childhood.

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Some of us had extremely difficult childhoods.

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And therefore, you know, the, uh, The experiences that we've had

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really shaped our parenting and, and create either blessings or

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challenges for us on the journey.

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But despite the differences.

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I was really keen to say that what unites us all as parents, the one thing that

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we could say, despite our differences.

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What unites all of us as parents is that we desire the good of our children,

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that we love them, that we desire.

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Good for them.

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Uh, in my post-grad work in philosophical anthropology, we did a lot of work on.

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Understanding The deeper meaning of human love.

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And it's been highly sentimentalize in our culture into a purely emotive

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construct, but decide that you love your children really means that yes,

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there can be an affective component.

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Boredom really means that we desire good happens to them for their

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own sake, for their own good.

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So what unites every one of us is that if we could wave

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a magic wand, we would, will.

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That good happens to them, not just that.

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They have good experiences, but that they become good on this journey of life.

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And the last kind of opening point I made was to remind us all.

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There'll be nothing more significant.

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I think that we'll ever do in this life.

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Everything else can be taken from you, right?

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Every, every bit of success that you've had in your life, whether it's career

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success, financial, professional, whatever it is, you know, you can be.

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General secretary of the United nations, you know, whatever you could be president,

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but all of these things can be taken away.

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And all of these things are susceptible to the ravages of time, sooner or later,

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all of these things can be taken from us.

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So.

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What I like to say to people is.

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In the final moments of our lives, you know, it really, what will

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be most significant to us will be the people in the room with us in

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those final moments of our lives.

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You know, and, and I quoted Saint John of the cross who famously said

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at the sunset of our lives, we will be judged on how we have loved.

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You know, so in the daily battle of life and all the complexities that we're

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all living through, the busy-ness, the overwhelm, all of that, that defines so

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much modern life and modern parenting hold onto the fact that really.

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You know, in the day-to-day daily grind, everything's screaming at us, right?

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There's so many emergencies, there's so many contingencies and

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things you've got to deal with.

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But let's try and hold onto this truth that this parenting journey

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is just about the most significant thing that we're going to be doing.

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All right.

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So let's move on to these three useful questions.

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So we've got the one big idea, which is that you're meant to be doing this.

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You're uniquely positioned to be doing this.

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No one can do this better than you.

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Okay.

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So.

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The three useful questions that I framed these number one, what is your deepest

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desire as a parent for your child?

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Where's the deepest desire that you have for them.

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Second question was what stops you from achieving that desire?

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And finally, uh, what can we do to more closely realize our desire for

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our children's growth and flourishing?

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So what is it that we want?

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What stops us, getting what we want and what can we do to make it more frequent,

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having more frequent experience of.

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Of approximating what we truly desire in this parenting journey.

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So I'm going to step through those quickly and then I'll give you the, um,

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the, what I come up with in the end, I came up with eight practical things or.

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You know, a mix of theoretical and practical things we can do.

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Are you ready?

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We're almost, uh, we, we, we're almost there.

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It's a short summary.

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Uh, time is precious.

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So let's do it the first useful question.

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What's your deepest desire as a parent for your child I did an, this sort of

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experiment in the room where I said, if you ask most people, you ask the, the

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man or woman on the street, the average person, the average parent, most people

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tend to say something along the lines of.

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That they want their child to be happy.

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So, what I said on the night again, was that's problematic for a few reasons.

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One is, you know, at least without going deep down this rabbit hole.

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The meaning of the word, happiness has undergone a rather seismic.

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Uh, transformation since around the time of the French revolution.

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Before that.

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If you asked somebody about happiness or what it meant to be happy.

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They would not have conceptualized it as necessarily a feeling state.

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As in an emotive feeling state.

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So what I say to people to help them understand initially is the problem

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with saying that your desire is happiness, or you want your child,

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or you want someone to be happy.

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You have to remember that.

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Ax murderers and psychopaths.

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Uh, capable of experiencing the emotive reaction of happiness.

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Regardless of how abberant their behaviors are.

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So if our greatest desire for our children is nothing other than a

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feeling state that's problematic, right?

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Because.

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You know, It means they're the goal state of their being is very much at

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risk of the vicissitudes of life, right?

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Like they hacked.

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Well, I have this feeling state if they experienced loss or suffering.

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So.

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What does happiness really mean?

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So I took the audience back to the deepest roots of it, which probably go back to.

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You'd say probably maybe 500 BC.

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You know, classical Athens kind of thing.

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Where.

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The idea of happiness was based on the Greek philosophical idea

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of what they called a Damon.

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Not a demon, a Damon, which was this idea that the Greeks had, that we all

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carry within us a, like an imprint upon our soul, which you can understand as

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like software code or computer code.

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And the goal of life is to take that source code.

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And actualize it into the world, right?

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To bring out all your potentiality, all the courage.

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You could have all the compassion.

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You could have all the creativity you could

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And take that code and bring it out into the world.

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And if you did that, the Greeks would refer to you as a, you de Mon or you would

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experience what they call the eudaimonia.

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And for the Greeks, that was kind of the goal of the good life.

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Was to take the natural potential for good within you

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and bring it out into the world.

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So, and the vehicle for it, the modality, the way that they did it

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was through what they call virtue.

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That the way that you brought this thing out into the world was living virtuously.

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All right.

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So that's the end of the philosophy philosophy lesson.

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But my point is if our desire for our children is happiness, what it really

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means is that our desire should be for what the Greeks would say is true.

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Human flourishing.

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All of the potentiality in your child coming out into the world over the

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life course over their life journey.

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So it's the development of character then becoming all that they could

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be not in the kind of Oprah new age sense where it's all about.

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You know, self-actualization often say that I, I think, uh, Maslow was wrong.

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You'd all be familiar with the idea of, you know, that the Maslow's.

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Hierarchy of needs and self actualization was the pinnacle.

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I think he was fundamentally wrong.

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And if you read biographies of his life, he was pretty strange cat.

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I mean, to be honest, go have a look.

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Uh, I don't discount everything he said, but the idea that self actualization

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was a pinnacle is I think incorrect.

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Uh, the.

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Pinnacle of the human experience is something that,

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um, you know, if you look at.

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For example, Thomas Merton's book, the seven story mountain.

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He makes the point that that the ultimate point is not self,

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you know, Self actualization.

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Self-transcendence it's to go beyond the self to take all that you are

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and offer it up into the world in, in the gift of yourself, to the

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world and to relationships and to creativity, into building the common

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good, all those sorts of ideas.

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So.

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Well, I guess what I'm getting at here, and I apologize if I've just,

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Fall and tripped over and falling down the philosophy rabbit hole.

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But I think we need to get some of this back.

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I think we need to think deeply about what is a fundamental desire for parenting.

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I find it sometimes when we have to deal with consequences

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in our own parenting, right.

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We have to set boundaries for our kids.

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And I don't know if you do this, but I can second guess myself, am I being too hard?

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Am I being too easy?

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What's the, you know, what's the right mix here.

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And then I remind myself, you know what I'm trying to do here.

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Is form character.

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What I'm trying to do here is what the Greeks were saying

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is to take this imprint.

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And use the vehicle of virtue and character development.

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So that child flourishes in life.

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Okay.

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So.

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I hope that's useful that what we want is their happiness, but that hair happiness

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conceptualized as human flourishing.

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Potentiality through the vehicle of virtue and character development.

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That's what we're after.

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And the last thing is

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As an answer to question one, what should deepest desire as a parent for your child?

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Is I shared a story of my oldest child, Olivia, who is a.

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You know, we've we, we took her out of formal schooling and she's been home

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educated and just doing a phenomenal job.

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Like she's, she's just achieving.

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You know, amazing

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Doing a kind of great books, classical education program out of the U S.

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And a few weeks ago, my oldest brother was over with his family.

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We were having lunch on a Sunday and afterwards everyone was sitting around.

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He asked me how Olivia was going.

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And I just raved.

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I said, mate, I said, she's You know, in this beautiful space she's doing so well.

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She's reading.

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You know, to talk feels, uh, Democracy in America, she's

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reading the Federalist papers.

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She's reading Plato's Republic.

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She's 15.

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And, you know, I said, she's just amazing, you know, she's, she's got,

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she's working, she's done all this stuff.

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And.

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He said something.

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It really stuck with me.

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And trust me, there's no, triumphalism in this.

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You know, it's like, we've, we've been, we, we prayed a lot.

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We've worked hard.

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We've tried to do what we can.

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But he said to me, he said, oh, it's because she's taken on your values.

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She's taken on your values.

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And it really struck me.

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I suddenly realized I went he's right.

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Like she's actually.

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Looked at Karen and I and our view of the world and what we value

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and believe is worth valuing.

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What is worth.

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You know, what's true.

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Good and beautiful.

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And she has.

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I guess witnessed Considered And taken it on as, as appropriate for her.

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So at this point, I guess some people can push back and say, well, have you

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just created an automate on if you just created a robot carbon copy of

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yourself in Canada, it's not true at all.

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I don't think that's remotely what's happened.

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I think that she has.

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Just observed and thought and read and experienced and it has and taken it on.

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And if people still resist that I say to them, well, it as a parent, I guess,

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because you could say, well, you know, you children should encounter the world

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and meet all these different people and make their own value judgements over time.

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I go.

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I don't know, friends.

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Think about it this way.

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If you do not want your child to take on your values.

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Exactly whose values do you want them to take That's a pretty

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confronting question, right?

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Because if you do not want your child to take on your values, we've got a

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problem here because for that to be true, you would have to believe that

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either your values aren't that good and there's better one somewhere else.

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And that's a pretty.

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Depressing thought to be honest.

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You know, I think we should, as parents have some, you know, some courage in

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the, the significance of what we believe to be true and what we've experienced.

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I think just try not to go down the rabbit hole, but I think one of the In

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post-modernity is the idea that, that, that young people are inherently wise

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and they are the equal of their elders.

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That can't be, you got to live long enough, like, um,

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You know, I remember my forties now and I'm like, you I still figuring it out.

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Like you have to live long enough.

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You have to have a lot of experience.

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You have to suffer and file and have some wins and live life to kind of

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frame what you know, to be true.

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And what is worth valuing.

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So.

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I think we can be, it is okay for, to want your child to take on your values.

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I really do.

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You know, and the last thing I'll say about that For a long time, Olivia and

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I would get up every Saturday morning.

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We drive two hours to the coast.

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Uh, cause she loves surfing and we got into surfing.

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And unless two hours there, we would just talk and listen to interesting

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podcasts about the world and history and geopolitics, and talk about

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Then we drive back for two hours and I look back at that time and it was tiring.

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It was exhausting.

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It was a lot of driving, but I really see that time as formative in shaping.

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So I just want to say to you, what's your deepest desire for your child?

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Flourishing character development virtue, and that they.

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Take on the best of your values, maybe they didn't take on absolutely everything,

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but the best of what you value.

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All right.

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Number two.

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What stops us from getting what we desire for our child and.

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You know what I said?

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There's, there's three factors.

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The first two, I mentioned a briefly, the third, I talked about a bit more.

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The first factor that stops us.

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Like our hearts are full of hope for our kids.

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Right.

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So what stops it from working?

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Number one is the surrounding culture itself.

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Uh, I refer to this as.

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Uh, you know, I just, I sort of said to the audience, I don't want to spend the

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next half an hour on a whiteboard listing.

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All the things that you know are really wrong with our culture.

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I think that happens a lot.

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Right.

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We list.

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Body image and social media and pornography and all these

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things that affect our kids.

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And they're all real.

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And then we need to talk about them in, In the right context.

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But I just said, look, the culture around us in general is inimical to the values

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that most of us hold for parenting.

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Right?

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It's just, it just is.

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So my synopsis of the culture, what I think is happening is what we've

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got is essentially late stage hyper consumerist, technocratic capitalism.

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Infused with a kind of Nietzschean, nihilism and endemic cultural Marxism.

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I think that's basically a.

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A good synopsis.

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We've got a huge regulatory capture.

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We've kind of got the fusing of huge corporations, the political

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Millia and, uh, legacy media, those three things reinforce and

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feed off each other financially.

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And.

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And, and we've got You know, this Nietzschean nihilism still floating

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around that nothing can be truly known that there's no, you know,

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the good and evil are purely, um, relative and the will to power.

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And then you've got cultural Marxism with its inherent focus on victim groups and

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creating sorts of cultural evolution.

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I think that's all over the place.

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It's everywhere.

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It's just.

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You know, I think for myself having written study very deeply, I just kind

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of say to people, I feel like it's the last scene of wizard of Oz and I

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pulled back the curtain and I've seen what's going on behind the curtain

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Um, like, oh, that's what's going on.

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Okay.

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Well, um, I'm going to click my heels together and head off somewhere Uh,

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by that, I just mean that, you know, this is a culture that is not going to

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be doing you any favors in parenting.

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So I don't mean that we, that we run to the Hills.

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We're here.

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We got to make the best of it.

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We've got to try and transform what we can reasonably transform.

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But let's just be alert to the fact that.

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And I would say vast swathes of the education system.

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Uh, immersed in forms of cultural Marxism, whether they know it or not.

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Uh, so you gotta be highly selective and attuned to where your kids are at school.

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And that's why it was great to, to be row was a 10

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I was real pleasure to be there.

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Uh, because I think they get it and they know they get it.

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So those are the, the first thing is the surrounding culture.

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The second thing is the reality of evil itself.

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Um, and then most of my audience are people of faith.

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So I think the reality of evil of Satan and his desire, I sort of said to the

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audience, we always gotta remind ourselves that the devil is not the equal of God.

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They are not rivals.

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For a whole bunch of reasons.

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If you look at the, you know, If you look in scripture, God didn't

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throw the devil out of heaven.

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Right.

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It was just wasn't even, you Michael did it.

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It's like, you know, Satan was an angel that just, you know, I sort of said,

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got it handed to him by Michael and thrown out and took a third with him.

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So.

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You know, Satan doesn't get to win any kind of ultimate battle.

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So there's no great big, final.

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Well, there is.

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Final showdown, but it's not as if God's there.

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Some of the Trinity is going, what are we going to do?

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Do you think we can pull this off?

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It's like, no, it's all done.

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It's done and dusted this.

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There's no final victory for evil.

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It just isn't.

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So, um, the only thing that the devil can do is to deprive God of individual souls.

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That's that that's the game, right?

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It isn't about is Satan running some incredible strategy where he's

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going to sneak up on the Trinity and somehow, you know, risk, cosmic power.

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That's not going to happen.

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What is going to happen is genuine.

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Evil is going to target marriage and family.

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It's going to target people of faith.

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It's going to target parenting.

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It's going to target kids, all of it in the simple attempt

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to separate souls from God.

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That's it.

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So I really want us all to be switched on to that truth.

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I think in the last, whatever period of time.

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You know, we've sort of.

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I think we've stopped remembering that, and we need to remember it

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again and begin to pray into that.

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Begin to be spiritually very aware of it.

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Be very much praying for our kids.

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Uh, trying to grow spiritually ourselves.

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And, uh, so that's the second part.

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And look finally, the third thing that stops us from getting what we want.

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Is what I talked about in lot more detail, which was our own

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woundedness pain and past failures.

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And in some ways that was the focus of the evening because.

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We forget that.

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No matter, even if we were parented almost perfectly, every

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single one of us carries wounds.

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So again, we've got a spectrum from people who are experienced profound abuse and

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trauma and violence and abandonment.

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All the way to people who felt they were parented really well, but still carry.

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You know, the little scrapes and bumps of human family life and still,

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you know, carry some things around.

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We all do.

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Right.

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So.

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One of the things we need to be vigilant about as parents is

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simply that we carry woundedness.

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We carry brokenness.

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And what I said next was.

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I asked the audience, the question.

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What do you think is God's ultimate purpose in cosmic history?

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Like, if you look at the great sweep of spiritual history,

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What do you think God's doing?

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Like what, what what's, what's the macro view?

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What's the, the meta-narrative of all spirituality and faith.

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And what I believe it to be.

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And what a lot of theologians would say is it's all about redemption.

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At the whole thing.

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Is got offered.

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Relationship, relationship was broken and then go, just went to

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work, to restore relationship.

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So the entire.

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Sweep of cosmic history is about healing.

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It's about redemption and it's about restoration, That's what

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the incarnation is, right?

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Like CS Lewis said that the incarnation is a daring raid on enemy held territory.

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That's what it's about.

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So.

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We need to remember that.

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All the wounds and the brokenness that we carry.

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God is very much interested in healing.

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All right.

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What we need to do is be aware of our need for healing.

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And pursue it.

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So there's a whole bunch of ways you might do that.

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Some people don't want to do that through counseling and, and possibly

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therapy and working through trauma.

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Um,

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You know, I recommended stuff like the Catholic.

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Uh, the Christian prayer ministry of people like Neil

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Lazano, who runs the Unbound.

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Uh, prey ministry.

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Some people, some of us need to get prayed with.

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We need to just receive prayer for healing.

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And, you know, the Unbound ministry is a very gentle non-invasive.

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Beautiful form of prayer.

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So I just want to say to everybody listening.

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Maybe you haven't explored this, but my point is that if we don't get healing

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for the wounds and the trauma and the things that we've lived through in our

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own experiences, It is hard, harder.

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To parent as effectively as we could, you know, if we're carrying around.

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All this sort of stuff.

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So whether it's, you know, Rage or addictions or dismissiveness

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or sarcasm and these things that come out in our parenting or can.

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Then what are the roots of those?

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And, you know, you look at the work of people like Dr.

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Gabor Martay, like on addiction and trauma.

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And we see how many of the pathologies that come out in life.

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Uh, coming from pretty deep places within.

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So healing comes from the sacraments, from prayer, from prayer ministry, from,

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you know, these days I just go and sit in a church for an hour a day and I

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Sit there and stare at the tabernacle.

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And so what I And just, you know, after all these years I'm still

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seeking healing and restoration.

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To become a more integrated person to become a healthier wholly, a

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person that's that's I'm trying to do, like you have to ask the people

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closest to me, see how I'm doing it.

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Check the report guard, but.

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At least I'm aware that, that I need that, that that's a really important thing.

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All right.

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We're at the 24 minute mark.

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Give or take.

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So let's wrap this up.

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What have we done?

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We've talked about the one big statement, the one big idea, which is that no

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one can do your job better than you as a parent and the three questions.

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What do you want for your child?

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What stops you?

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And what can we do to experience it more often?

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So let's finish up with, with number three, which is I listed kind of

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eight things that we can go through.

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So let me spin you through these and wherever you're listening to this.

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There should be a link to get the PDF.

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So Karen has done a beautiful PDF if you're a more visual person and you can

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get all these notes on a PDF, it'll, there'll be a link to click to it.

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So make sure you get the hard Alright, number one.

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Reframe the trials and difficulties of parenting and family life

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as invitations to growth.

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Holiness and wholeness.

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The things you see as most difficult.

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Are often hidden invitations to unexpected growth.

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I wonder if in parenting, like we often have some of the same

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battles over and over again.

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And some of them we need to have and really worth having, but.

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Sometimes, you know, having coached a lot of people over the years,

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the power of reframing questions can be quite profound, which is.

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Instead of just having the same fight over and over again, ask

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yourself a better question, which is.

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What's going on here.

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W what, what, where, where do I, why am I need to change?

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Maybe it is your child that needs to change.

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Sure.

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But maybe we need to be more gentle.

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Maybe we need to communicate better.

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Maybe we need to learn to listen more fully.

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So when the battles are happening and the trials and difficulties are happening.

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That can be very debilitating and exhausting over time.

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Right.

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But begin to think.

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Okay.

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I remember a nun once famously said, God comes to you disguised as your life.

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Like I spent years wanting God to speak to me.

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Right.

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I'm going, wasn't gonna speak to me.

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I want an email from guide.

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Just go, Jonathan, do this.

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Here it is.

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Step 1, 2, 3.

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Didn't get it.

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And you begin to realize that he's often talking to us through the

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circumstances of our lives, through the difficulties and the challenges because

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they lead us towards reliance upon God and that they lead us towards change.

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So.

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If you're facing some difficulties, ask yourself some better questions about them.

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Where is the invitation to growth?

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Number two.

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Reorient your life to this parenting season and live it well.

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Your time with your children in these formative years is short.

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So commit to it because you'll not be given this time again, it's a

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small window and it closes fast.

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Audit your life and commitments and ask if you are doing all

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that can be reasonably done.

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Okay.

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Just by that.

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I mean, The incredible business and overwhelm of modern life in the big

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cities particularly means that we can live kind of like I'll get to it.

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I'll get to it.

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I'll get to it.

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I'll I'll get this time with much heart I'll I'll take them on this camping trip.

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I'll get to this, I'll have this conversation.

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I'm going to listen to them next

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But by reorient our lives, I don't mean in a sort of sycophantic.

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We're going to completely rebuild reality and make everything about our kids.

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I just mean.

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The window.

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Is pretty small.

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When I, when my kids were really little, they never slept.

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And I just thought, man, I can never be harder than this.

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Right.

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We just didn't sleep for years.

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Because they were so close in age and now they're kind of 15, 14, 12,

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and it's a whole different set of challenges and experiences and taxi,

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driving, and counseling and all these, you know, doing all this stuff.

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But I'm still reminding myself that Jonathan really is about kind of

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10 years left and that's it like?

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Yeah.

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You'll still be friends with them.

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Yes.

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You'll still have relationship.

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Yes.

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They'll still be things But this really formative window is short.

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So let's make sure that we are clear on that.

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And then we are giving ourselves.

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The best that we can reasonably give to our kids in the windows that we have.

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Okay.

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Number three.

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Invest in your own wellbeing, health, holiness, and growth.

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You cannot give what you don't possess.

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And you cannot give from an empty well, So by this, I mean, The exercise, the

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sleep, the diet, the hobbies, and a know something you just passed out.

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I just went, Really?

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What does he think?

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This is like, you know,

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It's just like the sound of music.

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This is like we, the Von Trapp family We know the kids are going

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to turn up and peanut falls.

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And when he's going to lead, I go for picnics.

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No.

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I just mean that it's okay to take care of yourself because if you are.

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Well physiologically as well as you can be.

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Then you're much more likely to.

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Parent more effectively.

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So I do a daily podcast and yesterday I was responding to a listener

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question about time management and I talk about the non-negotiables.

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So I have, I probably have three non-negotiables every

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day, which is exercise.

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Um, an hour for prayer and then time with Karen, the kids, you know,

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And shout out to Andy Mullins.

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He kind of helped me remember too.

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Give each of my kids, some one-on-one time per day.

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Even if it's 10 minutes, hopefully a bit longer, but I'm making sure that

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I'm hitting those non-negotiables so.

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The exercise things huge for me.

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So I just wanna encourage you.

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Like we tell ourselves stories like.

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Oh, I could never do that.

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I'm too busy.

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I can't, I can't, I can't, we don't critique our stories sometimes.

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The fact is you probably can get better sleep.

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You can probably eat a little better.

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You can drink a bit more water.

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You can do a little bit more exercise.

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You can reconnect to hobbies and things that give you life

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because they're not selfish.

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They're not indulgent.

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They're ways of balanced living than, than allay to love the people

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that you care about the most.

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All right.

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So get back onto that part.

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Number four.

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Um, if you're married, invest relentlessly in your marriage, it can be really hard.

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In the struggle and busy-ness of modern life, but it's incredibly important.

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So both on the marriage part and on the, on the wellbeing part.

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I remember speaking to people afterwards in this recent live

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You may have to be creative.

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I was speaking to one great couple.

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Who've got five kids under like eight.

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And they're just trying to find time, you know, for their own wellbeing,

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exercise and stuff, and then each other, and then everything else.

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So, what I kept saying to them is you might have to be creative.

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You'd be surprised what you can come up with if you think it through, um,

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intelligently and sort of carefully.

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So I really wanna encourage everybody with that.

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That, um, It's just in the busy-ness of parenting and modern life.

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The marriage part can just sort of.

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I think we can leave as like, oh, well we're married is all good.

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We're solid.

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We're just going to put that on the shelf and just get through.

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It's a bit like being at the beach when you kind of dive and under a big wave

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and you're just coming up for the next one and the next one, the next one,

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you're like, we'll just get through it.

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We'll just get through.

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And I encourage you that you we've got to step off the conveyor

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belt and put some time into each other and time into the marriage.

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So Karen and I like we'll kind of walk.

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As often as we can, we can just get some time walking, uh, on a daily

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basis and just read is a talk.

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It's just talk, talk, talk, talk.

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We just.

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You know, some admin to go through, but often it's just checking

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in what's happening in life.

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How are we tracking?

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And, uh, and then, then when we can, we, uh, we locked the children

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in the house and leave them unsupervised and go away for two days.

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No, we don't do that.

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So we don't do that.

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Nobody called family services and we don't do that.

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Uh, but occasionally we'll have like grandparents, someone stay over and

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we'll get away and it's just the best it's like you actually got.

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Wow.

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Who are you again?

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It's like, hello.

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And, uh, you actually get to reconnect.

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So those things are really crucial, right?

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So invest in your marriage.

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Number five model in life, what you say matters most model in your life.

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What you say to your children matters most, the way that

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they take on your values.

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Is by seeing that, whatever you say, you value, you demonstrate that you value.

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So I think for me, I've sort of shown, you know, the kids have grown

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up with me doing ultra-marathons and all sorts of craziness that I do.

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So they, they see that health and wellbeing is important.

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You know, they see that books and music and, um, you know, academic,

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intellectual pursuits are important.

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And very much faith, you know, they've seen that's, I'm somebody

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who takes my faith really seriously.

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And, you know, we've raised them to really S to be part of that.

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So, You know, I can't say to my kids, Hey, get up and go to church.

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If I never do it, if I don't show them that it's just central to my life.

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And then, and then they, and they've just taken that on.

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So we've got a model, what we say matters.

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Right?

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We've got to model it.

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Number six.

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Um, frequently apologize when you make mistakes, right.

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I've it's just something that I've always done.

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It's like a grace.

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I've always, I've really gone off the reservation and got it wrong.

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I go and apologize and say, Hey.

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You know, I'm sorry.

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I do apologize.

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And I'm really asked them for forgiveness and, and we move on.

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So, you know, we're going to get it wrong, friends, like, yeah.

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We're parents and we're trying, and we're the adults, but

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we're going to make mistakes.

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We're going to be tired.

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We're going to be snappy.

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We're going to get it wrong.

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Just apologize.

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Say, Hey, last night when I said that that was out of line, I shouldn't have said it.

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I'm sorry.

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I'm just tired.

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Would you forgive me?

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So I think that's just a, another useful thing to do.

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And finally I asked Karen, I said, you know, What are the kind of three

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things that you think are essential to your role as a mother, as a parent.

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And then I shared mine for what it's worth, uh,

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You know, for me, my big three were to serve, protect, and teach.

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So practically I'm somebody that, and I don't mean this with a shred of arrogance.

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I just do a lot for the family.

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I just do a lot, whether it's cooking dishes.

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You know, working around the house, driving people, I just

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serve, I just serve and serve.

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And you know, Karen's dad was like that somebody I really admired.

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Uh, you know, You know, coming into relationship with Karen,

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he just, she just served people.

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So.

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Um, so whether that's, I just think that's really important.

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I think, uh, you know, especially if I could say this to all the men,

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like, you know, Yes, we're out there slaying dragons in the workplace, but

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to serve in the home, just to serve, just to keep giving of your energy,

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into making the lives of your spouse and children a little bit better.

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Obviously to protect and that protection can mean, you know, Kaz

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and I have been, you know, really involved in the kids' peer groups,

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like just helping them to perceive what a good friend looks like and what.

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You know, friends who are not so great might be thinking and doing and, and just,

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you know, to protect them from some of the stuff until they're fully formed and able

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to make the right choices on their own.

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And finally for me, it's teaching, like I just talk about everything.

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Politics, music, history.

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Uh, you know, all these different things.

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I just love.

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I mean, you know, I think by Def by vocation, I'm a natural, I love

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to teach and say, oh, that's been a big thing with the kids for me.

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Uh, Karen talked about her three were to provide presence just to be a

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constant presence to provide nurture.

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Which means to make home a safe place.

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And to help guide the kids growing discernment in life.

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So she said presence, nurture and guide.

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So I offer you those, those things and you'll have your own.

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I just want to offer you those as kind of practical things.

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Uh, that we can be doing, you know, in the daily grind of life.

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All right.

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That's kind of it.

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Uh, what else?

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So there's still no manual.

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I've offered you a few things, uh, from here.

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Please check in with this.

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There'll be links here too.

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So I do this daily podcast across YouTube and podcasting.

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And there's a lot of stuff that we'll be doing ongoing for parents, or

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hopefully somewhere here, I've got a, a link you can check out to, um,

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you know, to follow up with this.

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So you can just stay in the loop at least get on my daily podcast list.

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So you're getting that content.

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Uh, for all the women, Karen does a remarkable masterclass.

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She runs an online masterclass women around the world.

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I think she takes like six women at a time in the masterclass.

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So there'll be a link here somewhere for that.

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Go check that out It's um, she's amazing.

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And she does coaching and obviously, and I take some coaching clients.

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So if you Um if anybody wants personal coaching with me or they're around

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business or personal excellence that sort of stuff there should be a link here to

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my coaching author as well So what else that's kind of it so i just want to bless

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you i just want to say i hope some of this is useful to you you're never going

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to do anything more important in You're uniquely to be doing this Karen, and i

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are going to just press on ahead in the years ahead just trying to put out content

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like this to bless you and support Because what you're doing is touching the future

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you are shaping generations In literally what you're doing so May god bless you

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may god bless your relationships your marriages, your parenting your homes

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May you flourish in every area of your life thank you for what you're doing

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day in day Go and check out all these links my name's jonathan doyle god bless

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you and hopefully i'll see a lot of you on the daily podcast speak soon God

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